Call of Cthulhu and MLP · 12:07am Jun 25th, 2018
So, I have a gaming group that meets regularly for Call of Cthulhu. After some regular CoC investigations, some irregular ones, some dimension hopping, some other generic insanity, and a standard death to session ratio of at least 1, my investigators thought they’d been everywhere, seen everything...
So, I had my investigators pass through a portal into Equestria. Now, I know that this happenstance is one of two things:
A: Prime material for making into a story.
OR
B: The worst idea ever for making a story.
So the pros: I have a decent storyline put together. It’s a little bit derivative, but most things nowadays are. The group is diverse, the characters have a wide range of abilities and specialties, but no one is even close to a jack of all trades. The players all think differently and almost none of them are “just get the mission done” types, so there is a lot of room for character development, even if it’s nutty.
Cons: Converting game sessions to usable writing material is difficult. Spoken interactive narrative is far different from written narrative. My gaming group is, if anything, irrational and very bad at investigating. This makes for hilarious sessions where doomsday preppers who don’t believe in seatbelt laws go through windshields, over guardrails, and onto rocky Maine coastlines. It also means that short investigations meant to span one session can end up spanning quite a bit of time. (I refuse to railroad a party, mostly because I hate being railroaded. The group is free to do whatever they want and they either figure it out or don’t. I’m generous with my time limits and evidence, so we’re not talking Heavy Rain here, but if they make bad choices, they lose stuff, which is how they ended up in their current situation.)
So, the story so far: Note that this is the doubly abridged version. The investigators have gone to retrieve a member of the team that separated from the group during a previous investigation and ended up getting sucked through a portal. Important notes from that investigation:
1: Piles of human-like corpses are appearing seemingly at random in an abandoned amusement park.
2: The corpses are completely monochrome except for the clothing, which is colorful, well fitted, and thematic.
3: The corpses have incisions in their chest cavities.
4: They’ve tracked the origin of the corpses (via crystal resonance from corpse jewelry) back to the other dimension, and used possessions of and organic material (hair) from the missing agent to refine the search to the agent’s location in that dimension.
It should be noted that the investigators are part of a shadow organization called The Agency. The Agency has a lot of support, such as libraries, research staff, engineers, a small militia. (Think Xcom, or MiB) Note that being members of The Agency has not increased their survivability since they were recruited. (I think only two members of the original party of 6 have survived.) The Agency has asked that they not declare war on the other dimension, as they already have enough enemies.
So, back to the story: So, they decide to Stargate (movie, not series) this thing, they bring an atv with gear, two veteran combat agents, the works. This includes a crystal to attune to when they find whatever is opening portals to earth so they can return, and a metal sphere with a built-in timer. The sphere contains a half milligrams of antimatter contained inside a penning trap, and has a kinetic potential equal to the Hiroshima bomb. You know, just in case. They open the stargate fargate portal madoob, and walk through.
The players were surprised by the whole figuring out they were colorful horses thing, but were not upset... at least not as upset as the characters. One galloped around for a while screaming “where are my hands?????” One laughed maniacally for a bit, another was just like “well, this is par for the course.” And the other just started going “I am Bat pony” *whoosh*
So, after collecting their minds, more or less, they took their bearings, and went to the closest area of interest, the reformed changeling hive. They managed to not declare war on them, which is a plus. They did join in on the drum circle and basket weaving though.
They found the missing agent there, he was a changeling, and had completely lost it. He knew he could change shape, and was trying to change into a human, but every time he tried, he just turned into a pony, or back into his base changeling form. They eventually convinced him that he knew them and they all left together.
So, (after getting directions) they figured that they needed to hit Ponyville to figure out how to get home, as well as figuring out what was going on. They started working their way up from the badlands and hit a fork in the path, the short path is through the Everfree Forest, and takes them straight to Ponyville. The long path is to Dodge City, where they might be able to catch a train, but if they can’t make any bits, then it’s an ultra long walk around the forest, with a stop by Appleoosa, to Ponyville.
They chose the Everfree Forest. (Mostly because of time dilation between dimensions. Each day in Equestria is 7 days on earth.) But yeah, that’ll go well.
Anyhow, I was thinking of writing it up as it happens. I haven’t done HiE, mostly because I didn’t want to write a self fulmilment fic, but this... is different. I think. Anyways, thoughts, ideas anypony?
Fucking perfect for CoC. XD
Translating RPG to story is, as you said, difficult. I think the thing to keep in mind is A) record if at all possible, and B) don't sweat embellishments. Try and remember the broad strokes if you can, write down the funniest lines if you can, and otherwise, just make shit up, we won't know the difference. :V
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It has made for some memorable moments.
Case in point: So, at the amusement park, they didn’t know there were bodies, they only had a portal reading from The Agency wooj scanners. After breaking into the park and finding the bodies, they decided to track down the property caretakers.
The caretakers were on the grounds, and the investigators decided to just immediately approach them... and decided to flash their fake FBI credentials... to the guys who had been hiding piles of bodies for months, if not years... So, of course, the caretakers ran for it. The investigators were not in between the caretakers and the parking lot... cue Benny Hill chase scene.
By far the most hilarious thing (to me, at any rate) is that the vast majority of injuries and deaths in this game (from non-monsters) have been due to a lack of basic vehicle safety; Every player now specifies that their character buckles their safety belts upon entering any vehicle. This is due to several car crash fatalities in the game. One was the aforementioned through-the-windshield onto the Maine coastline. Another involved a car rolling sideways, after which someone was ejected through a side window into a shutter door... shortly before the car impacted it. I take car safety seriously...
Can't make any bits? Scream Worldstar and punch someone in the face until the bits come out! But, I digress.
Translating an RPG to a story isn't actually that hard if you treat it correctly. Think of it as an extended prewriting/first draft type thing. You're going to have to record the session(s) or take copious amounts of notes and get quotes etc. From your notes and recordings you'll have to determine who your main character or characters out of the group are. Then it's just a matter of describing the action, settings and all that stuff and filling in the details where they need to be filled in. This may also mean that you have to add stuff from previous games that happened and may explain why a character acts or reacts a certain way. All of this is obvious to you I'm sure.
Anyway, is it doable? Of course. Richard Garriott and Chris Paolini basically did that a few different ways in their stuff. I don't see why you couldn't do it too.
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I think it’s doable, or I wouldn’t have posted it as an option. I’ve novelized a mouseguard game I ran quite a few years ago, so I think it’s quite possible. And I know I have to do background info, otherwise readers will have absolutely no idea about what’s going on.
I’m thinking of starting the prologue at the amusement park, where Agent Hall foolishly separates himself from the rest of the group and gets sucked through the portal. It’ll need one of those “2 months ago” headers.
Then it’ll be a fast forward to them returning from the mission they completed just prior (where a party member died, welcome to CoC) to the mission to Equestria.
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Everything in here sounds hilarious.
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Yeah, it’s why I want to chronicle it. Some of what they do is a little out there, but that’s why I’m going to need to take some creative liberties.