This will be the thread for my upcoming Cthulhubusters campaign, Cthulhubusters: Crescent City.

As before, the game will be a mix of TSR's Gangbusters and Chaosium's Call of Cthulhu.

Crescent City refers to the new location - my game world version of New Orleans (much in the way the last campaign took place in Lakefront City, the stand-in for Chicago).

It will take place about 9 months or so after that campaign ended (the last campaign took place in Oct-Nov of 1924, this one starts in July 1925).

*** Planning the New Campaign - Rules ***

So, whenever I'm planning a new campaign the first thing I look at is the rules.

It's been many years now since I've ran any campaign using rules straight out of the book. The last one was my 4th edition D&D campaign - which was several campaigns ago (since then I've done D&D Bronze Age, Cthlhubusters, Traveller 2300, and AD&D Al-Qadim along with some one shots with my D&D Classic rules).

I started by taking my Cthulhubusters rules out and reviewing them along with knowing what worked well and what didn't last time. From the beginning, I had two main goals - simplify character creation and change the flavor from Lakefront City-themed to Crescent City-themed.

I started with the latter goal. The big difference between the two is with ethnicity - Crescent City has different ethnic groups. For example, the Assimilated ethnicity isn't the default in the area, French Creole is. I also split out Cajun and Spanish Creole as distinct identities. German and Irish immigrants are bigger than Italians here, and Jews are in very small numbers (and the ones that are tend to be Russian Jews). Haitians are also a large immigrant group. And unlike the Lakefront City region, this area actually has Native Americans (I focused on the Choctaw and the Chitimacha).

The other main impact of the new location is with languages - French is on par with English at this time, with 75% of the city speaking at least some French and 25% speaking only French.

My second goal took a couple of iterations for me to get comfortable. I started with overhauling skills.

One problem we had last time was the skills were spread too thin and people didn't allocate them very well during character creation.

I began by combining skills together to get a smaller skill list. That way one guy could have "Science" and still do other things instead of needing 6 or more different skills related to various sciences. I got the list down to 30 skills: Academics, Accounting, Animal Handling, Artistic Expression, Athletics, Brawl, Concealment, Credit Rating, Cthulhu Mythos, Drive, Firearms, Investigation, Language, Larceny, Library Use, Medicine, Military, Notice, Occult, Outdoorsman, Persuade, Pilot, Politics, Psychology, Psychoanalysis, Science, Streetwise, Subterfuge, Trade Crafts, and Weapons.

To make character creation smoother, I set the defaults to each at 1%, 5%, or 15% instead of the wider variety in the original game (mythos is still 0% though and credit rating varies by occupation).

I then adjusted the rules for purchasing skills. Instead of having to do a lot of math to figure out a pool of percentages and divide them out, I gave "points" and allowed each point to move the skill up the "starting percentage track".

The track has a general description of how skilled the person was along with a starting percentage: Unskilled 1%, Some Exposure 5%, Familiarity 15%, Basic Skills 30%, Skilled Amateur 50%, Trained Professional 65%, Expert Professional 75%, Professional Mastery 85%, One of Best in Country 90%, One of Best in World 95%. The idea here was to make it easier for people to purchase the appropriate skill levels based on their character concept.

The next thing I did was to pare down the list of occupations and adjust the occupation skills to the new list. I had too many last time and many were similar (and after I adjusted the skill list, many were identical). There are still 21 to choose from so I feel the variety is still there.

When I looked everything over, it still felt like the game could be simplified a little more. I decided to trim the list of characteristics and not be so tied to the BRP standards. My goal was that every characteristic actually had a point to exist.

First, I removed APP (I've never used it in game) and SIZ (simplifying down damage bonus and hit points to just use STR and CON, respectively). I also got rid of SAN as a characteristic, but kept starting Sanity Points based on POW. Probably my most controversial removal is INT - it just feels redundant with EDU for me so I have EDU pulling double duty now. I almost got rid of DEX as well since it has a single use (determining initiative), but since it is a rather important use, I ultimately decided to keep it. So, my final list of characteristics is down to STR, EDU, POW, CON, and DEX.


I reviewed my non-character creation rules after that. Most of them were already pretty slim, though I removed some of the combat modifiers that never really come up.

*** Planning the New Campaign - Setting Info for Players ***

The next thing I do when I start a campaign is get the setting down. I start with putting together the document I give to players to describe the setting.

Last time, I had the info spread over a couple of documents so this time I knew I wanted to take my time and do it in one comprehensive document.

I start with a "Welcome to Crescent City" section that gives a brief overview of the city population, climate, and history as of 1925. I like history, so I do a lot of research when I'm planning these campaigns. I know I won't get everything right (it is a fictional city after all), but I want to get things as close to accurate as I can (with my known twists in).

I cover the basics - initial founding, the history of being owned by France and Spain, being part of early America, the Civil War, and it's current period of lawlessness and economic stagnation (unlike much of the rest of the country at this time, business is actually shrinking here because of railroads and highways replacing shipping traffic). I then hit the highlights of the demographic info, industries, media, recreation, etc. Transportation has a unique note about traveling in the bayou.

I have rather large sections on law enforcement and criminal organizations due to the Gangbusters element of the campaign. I go over the various local, parish, state, and federal agencies in the city along with the major Irish, Italian, Cajun, Greek, Black, Haitian, and independent gangs.

Politics gets a pretty big section too. This is very different from Lakefront City, as Louisiana is something like 95% Democrat at the time. The major factions are the RDO conservatives. against the more progressive Democrats. And then there's the KKK, which in this state was actually more focused on moral crimes than immigration at the time (at least, from my research).

Religion is also pretty different this time around, as Roman Catholics are by far the dominant majority. I also add in some information about Voodoo, given the location.

*** Planning the Campaign - Setting Info part 2 ***

The next thing I do is get some maps of the city. My ideal is to get actual maps from the time, as the city changed so much in size between the 1920s and today (with all of the land reclamation projects).

I start with a map of the downtown area I found and start plotting out points of interest. I come up with about 40 of them. One of the bigger challenges is when an old map has something cool on it that I can't find information about, or when things change names over time.

I use the actual Call of Cthulhu New Orleans Guidebook to help, but I find several apparent inaccuracies so I rely on other research as well (one example is their description of Madame Marie Delphine La Laurie as a socialite with popular parties, leaving out that whole "serial killer who murdered slaves and was driven out of the city by an angry mob" thing).

My various descriptions start dropping lots of names for potential NPCs. When I can find the actual historical names (like who was the archbishop at the time), I use them. When I can't I make a name up (often by using pieces of names from current people in the position or people in the position from other time periods).

After that, I also create a neighborhood map of the whole city. I used a ward-based map for Lakefront City, but that doesn't make sense here. New Orleans has wards (which don't mean anything), voting precincts, and neighborhoods. The neighborhoods have the most interesting names / information, so I go with those. The only real problem I have is not all of the neighborhoods have a 1925-era name and while many have a detailed history, not all do, so I have to make some things up. When it comes to the neighborhood descriptions, I'm primarily saying what socio-economic and ethnic groups live there along with any unique feature.

Finally, I found a couple of cool scans of actual Times-Picayune pages from 1925, so I include those as well to ad some flavor (fun fact - apparently an oscillating electric fan was worth its weight in gold then - ads put the costs at between $20-30).

*** Planning the Campaign - Setting up the Website ***

Now that I have some content, my next step is to set up a website for the campaign.

As I've done with the past several, I create a Google site. I use a pretty standard layout every campaign:

* A home page for the landing page.

* A campaign files page to hold the pdfs for the rule book and city guide (along with the character sheet I revised for the new rules).

* A campaign index page to hold a list of all people, places, and things encountered in the campaign (sometimes the players remember to use it to look up details, sometimes not, but I like to provide it regardless).

* A campaign log page to hold the session logs (basically, exactly what I post in these AP threads, just without being broken into scenes and without my session notes). Each session has its own page linked off of the main log page (where I put the session title and a brief synopsis similar to what you'd see for a TV episode on Netflix or whatever).

* A page with the investigator character sheet files and text explaining each character in the campaign (similar to my session-specific cast of characters in these threads).

The two hardest parts about creating the site are picking the color / background layout I want and finding some art for each page. I started with some placeholder art at first then found better stuff later.

For the most part, I use Cthulhu-specific art I find online. For the home page, I took a historical black and white photo of downtown New Orleans then photoshopped in a tentacle reaching out from the side of the photo to grab someone as well as a flying creature standing on one of the building roofs.

*** Planning the Campaign - Fleshing Out the City ***

You may notice I've done a fair amount of work so far yet have nothing close to resembling a plot for any adventuring. That's by design - I like the plots to develop organically as part of my process.

I do think up some initial ideas by this point, but purposely leave them half-baked in my head. Instead of trying to flesh them out first, I instead focus on fleshing out the city.

I like my cities to feel real. And that means a cast of thousands (or at least dozens).

I start by creating my GM Guide document with a chapter on "Personalities of Crescent City". I start by opening my City Guide document and putting down every NPC I mention by name.

Names alone aren't enough, obviously, so I put in ethnicity and age (the way Gangbusters does in its NPC write-ups). I then write a paragraph or two about each - who they are and what they are like.

It's impossible to keep dozens of NPCs separate by names alone, so this time I decide every single NPC needs a photo. If the person is historical, I find one of their real photos. If I'm basing it on a character from another work of fiction, I find a photo of the actor. If I just made up the character, I find a generic photo that seems to be from the 20's.

To keep the tone consistent, I resize them all to be approximately the same size headshots and make them all grayscale. I have to cut and re-paste them all to save as jpeg images to avoid making the document too gargantuan. Yes, this is a ton of work for a bunch of photos only I will ever see, but it will help me keep the NPCs more distinct in play.

As I'm coming up with the already named NPCs, I notice obvious gaps so I start filling those in. I don't just create a NPC for the gang boss, but also his head lieutenant and any important soldiers. I write out some various cops, judges, attorneys, etc. Even long-dead historical figures (e.g., John James Audubon or Gen. Lee) get a paragraph so I can note important details (no photo though since I don't need it).

Then starts wave 2 - I look at pretty much every movie, TV show, comic, animation, or book set in New Orleans or the South in general and start adding in colorful characters to fill things up. I could start listing them all, but it would spoil the surprises later.

Finally, I start outlining my plots a little more. As I do so, I find where I need to add more NPCs.

I currently have over 230 NPCs noted (30 pages of NPC notes) and I know I'll need to add more. One big note - I never create stats for any of these NPCs; I don't see the need. I rarely roll for NPCs in this game, and even when I do I just use my relative skill level charts to estimate their skills based on their background info.

*** Planning the Campaign - Outlining the Plots ***

Now that I have a city to play in, I need some interesting things going on. I want to tailor the adventures to fit in with the characters so I don't get too detailed - I just want some generic ideas and start outlining them.

The first thing I do is start making notes of "secrets" about some of the locations in the city. Some are in the city guide, some are secret locations to be discovered later. These are places where things may happen.

Then I need some plot ideas. The tone of the game requires both crime-related plots and mythos-related plots going on at the same time. I want at least 4-5 of each for the start of the campaign.

Last time, I made the mistake of trying to tie every last plot together into one giant plot web. This time, I want several smaller webs along with a hint here and there about the larger mythos activities (as I've mentioned in my other thread, I want to try to be more X-Files-ish this time around to keep the plot manageable for the players).

As I start outlining, I think of locations that might need to be detailed with maps. I like to get inspired for my locations by visual media. As I've done in the past, a lot of my maps come from board games. I've been using things like Mansions of Madness and Betrayal at the House on the Hill for inspiration, along with the Halls of Horror tiles made specifically for CoC.

Unlike my D&D maps, I try to make my buildings make complete sense for this style of game. And the locations should be places to explore for clues - they should rarely have a "trap" or "monster" inside (though I do use them sparingly).

When it comes to clues, I love to use handouts. I like to use images of old photos (sometimes altered), fake newspaper articles (formatted to look like actual articles), fake letters (which I always use a script-style font for that will invariably drive the players nuts), etc. This time around I've created some fake museum artifact cards as well. For one letter, I even used an online translator to create a version of the letter in a foreign language and then will only give them the English version if they make the language roll (that took a while, so I think that will be a one-time joke).

Note that I'm still working on all these things - my outlines, maps, and clues still need a lot of work to have everything ready to go.

*** Planning the Campaign - Other Stuff ***

Outside of all that, I found a calendar for every month of 1925 so I can be accurate with dates.

I also had to come up with some "gang members" should the PCs want to have their own gang again. That was harder than I thought this time around.

Last time, I started with a joke at Oasis and kept using names of guys in the band. I didn't realize it at the time, but Oasis just happened to have a lot of guys with nicknames in it.

This time, I was crestfallen to realize the gang members were going to be a bit more generic sounding because I just wasn't finding anything inspiring. I did end up picking another band (to be revealed later), but nicknames were few and far between.

*** Planning the Campaign - What's Next ***

So, by this point you are probably wondering when the hell the campaign starts.

Tonight is the character creation session. I insist on doing a separate session as a group to create characters because the nature of the game makes it very challenging to play well if concepts are all over the place. One of the guys can't make it but is pretty flexible so we can have his concept fit what the others come up with.

I've heard suggestions here and there about characters with connections back to Lakefront City. I've already decided there can be a maximum of one character with any relation back to the previous campaign (either by being a PC or NPC in that campaign or a relative of one); I want this to feel like a separate campaign in the same vein, not a sequel trying to rehash past glory.

Once character creation is done, I need a few weeks to finish prepping the campaign plots. I want to make hooks that relate directly to the PCs. I also just need more time in general to flesh things out and have enough to get started with.

So, we'll also begin tonight with one of the other players running a very-loose D&D adventure for a couple of sessions then the Cthulhubusters campaign will start in earnest; probably sometime around late Oct.

This looks like loads of fun.  I mis-spent a great deal of my mis-spent youth on the streets of New Orleans, so I'd be a sucker for this campaign.  Who-dat?!

I'm curious, what are you using from TSR's Gangbusters, other than Lakefront City and (I presume) a campaign centered on the criminal underworld?  Any rules you're adapting?

Look forward to reading your new campaign log. I really enjoyed the first Cthulhubusters.

Quote from: King Truffle IV;855353This looks like loads of fun.  I mis-spent a great deal of my mis-spent youth on the streets of New Orleans, so I'd be a sucker for this campaign.  Who-dat?!

I'm curious, what are you using from TSR's Gangbusters, other than Lakefront City and (I presume) a campaign centered on the criminal underworld?  Any rules you're adapting?

Yeah, the Gangbusters influence is really more thematic rather than rules-based.

First and foremost, the idea is the characters start as Gangbuster style characters and then discover there are Mythos-style plots afoot. While not using the Gangbusters rules, per se, I heavily push the "classes" from Gangbusters as the suggested occupations. Cthlhubuster characters aren't rich dilettantes, antiquarians, and archeologists investigating strange things for a hobby - they are pulp detectives, criminals, or reporters who find themselves thrust into an alien world they don't understand.

One big concept (not really a "rule" per se) I use is how ethnicity is so important in the Gangbusters game. In traditional CoC, ethnicity isn't really germane to your character. In Cthulhusters, as in Gangbusters, the setting is nearly tribal about ethnicity - it's not just a minor detail but a defining characteristic about who you are and who your allies are.

Some of the vehicle-related rules from Gangbusters get included as well since they are non-existent in CoC and somewhat light even in Deluxe BRP.

In my original Cthulhubusters campaign, I did use the Lakefront City setting and some of the firearm modifier rules. This time around, I have the different setting and scaled back combat modifier rules so that isn't as connected.

I do still incorporate some of the criminal enterprise-related material from Gangbusters (for either the PC or NPC criminals). I go a bit further of course - family-friendly TSR really only wanted you to be involved in bootlegging but narcotics and prostitution are big business.

I think that pretty much covers it.

*** The Characters So Far ***

So, our character creation session on Friday had the first three characters created (still waiting to hear back from the guy who was out of town). It looks like this time will be more of a law enforcement-ish angle, though I must stress it will be far more The Shield than Law & Order as I'm positive everyone will be corrupt.

Here's what we have so far:

Boudreaux "Boo" Le Doux: A Cajun and former swamp guide turned private eye who styles himself after hardboiled pulp detective novels.

Benjamin "Hawk" Brooks: A Black street kid turned enforcer. He works as muscle and provides information for Le Doux, for a price.

Officer Bruno Eberhardt: A 2nd generation German immigrant and seasoned police officer. He does some work on the side for Le Doux and others to supplement his income.


At first glance, the characters are a bit focused on the physical but that worked out well enough last time. My only other concern is that Hawk (based on the Spenser for Hire character) is a bit too much of an anachronism and I wonder if the player is truly prepared for handling his character properly for the 1920's South (I could see him dead or in jail real quick if he starts being aggressive towards the wrong people).

Our ideas for the other player were to be the partner of either Le Doux or Eberhardt to keep him tied to the action going on (we also jokingly suggested he could play Le Doux's secretary) but there is plenty of room for other concepts if that player has ideas of his own.

*** Prologue - Cast of Characters ***

Bruno Eberhardt: A 1st generation German immigrant and seasoned police officer. He does some work on the side for Le Doux and others to supplement his income.

Special Agent Millard Fox: A White agent of the Bureau of Investigation. He was sent to Crescent City to investigate a stolen car ring but spends most of his time looking into occult incidents.

Boudreaux "Boo" Le Doux: A Cajun and former swamp guide turned private eye who styles himself after hardboiled pulp detective novels.

Chester Lee Nibbons: A younger, bookish White guy who works as Le Doux's "partner" in order to pay off a gambling debt to him.

*** Prologue - Scene 1 (of 17) ***

It was a quiet night on patrol in the central business district of Crescent City for Officer Bruno Eberhardt. As a senior officer, he had the luxury of having one of the new automobiles instead of having to walk a beat. Eberhardt's mind drifts back to his time in the Freikorps of the Weimar Republic before he emigrated and how much easier this job is.

His reverie is broken when the dispatch radio sounds off in the car. The dispatcher, Officer Kissel, sends out a message that Eberhardt is wanted back at the station by Lt. Sawley. He wonders what the section lieutenant might want as he turns the car to head back to the precinct.

Once he arrives, the desk sergeant points him to a back room where he finds Lieutenant Paul Sawley, along with Captain Steven Ramsey (the head of patrol), Major Otha Sandifer (the precinct commander), and a man in a suit he doesn't recognize. Bruno realizes something is up; Capt. Ramsey sometimes acts as shift commander for the night shift but Sandifer is usually never around after hours.

Lt. Sawley acknowledges Eberhardt's arrival. Bruno asks what the problem is. Not quite answering the question, Maj. Sandifer introduces the man in the suit as "Mr. Feldman from the mayor's office".

Sandifer has Eberhardt close the door while Capt. Ramsey explains a sensitive situation has come up and they need an experienced man like him to handle it. Bruno says they can count on him.

The major then turns to Feldman, asking if he is satisfied. Feldman says he is, but wants to be kept up on new developments. Feldman then hands an envelope over to Ramsey then leaves, escorted by Sandifer.

After they leave, Ramsey looks at the envelope contents briefly, then hands it over to Sawley. He tells Eberhardt that he trusts Paul will give him all the info he needs then leaves the room as well.

Once they are all gone, Eberhardt asks his lieutenant what all that was about. Lt. Sawley is a blunt man, saying they've "stepped into a real shit pile this time." Eberhardt muses on the idom as Sawley continues to say it will be his job to wipe the shoe clean, making sure Eberhardt gets the drift of what he's saying.

The lieutenant then asks if Bruno knows of Congressman O'Conner. Eberhardt recognizes the name as James O'Conner, one of the representatives from the Crescent City area; he had to memorize such things for his citizenship test a while back.

Sawley continues on to say the congressman's son, Taylor, was found dead in an alley in the Treme neighborhood a short time ago. The mayor wants to keep the number of people involved in the investigation to a minimum as he doesn't want a scandal.

Eberhardt acknowledges he understands. Sawley goes on to explain that he doesn't know how Eberhardt managed things back in Germany, but here they want things very quiet. According to the lieutenant, Maj. Sandifer doesn't trust the homicide detectives from central not to leak anything to the press so he wants to handle the investigation internally.

Bruno still isn't sure why he was selected until Sawley asks him a question to confirm he's friends with a private eye in town. Eberhardt didn't realize the department knew about his moonlighting for Le Doux but confirms it to the lieutenant.

Sawley explains they want Eberhardt and his friend Le Doux to investigate the case quietly. He hands Eberhardt the envelope, saying it should get the case moving. Bruno sees it contains a couple hundred dollars, in twenties.

The lieutenant goes on to explain that in order to keep the situation quiet, they didn't send the body to the morgue. Instead, they moved it to a nearby motel room safe house where Sandifer's "idiot cousin O'Neill" has it on ice. He advises Eberhardt to check out the body quickly before it rots, as he doesn't trust O'Neill to remember to refresh the ice after it melts.

Sawley says O'Neill should also be able to tell him where the body was found. Eberhardt asks about witnesses, but the lieutenant says only that a bum found it and that O'Neill should be able to give him the whole story. He tells Eberhardt he can offer support if needed, but reminds him again to keep the investigation quiet and not tell anyone else what is going on.