Fish in a Barrel Review – Call of Cthulhu (Seeds of Terror)

Review of the Call of Cthulhu scenario, Fish in a Barrel, written by Phil Anderson and Nick Holland of Type40, and the sixth title in the Seeds of Terror series.

Fish in a Barrel Review – Call of Cthulhu (Seeds of Terror)
Review of the Call of Cthulhu scenario, Fish in a Barrel, written by Phil Anderson and Nick Holland of Type40, and the sixth title in the Seeds of Terror series. You can find the written review on mjrrpg.com You can find Fish in a Barrel on DriveThruRPG individually, or in the Airship, Lighthouse, Speakeasy bundle with the above-praised Endless Light and the high-altitude Tickets Please.

In-short:

One of my favourites of the Seeds of Terror series, a fantastic vertical slice of everything good about classic 1920s Call of Cthulhu in a tight package, well recommended for any player group, whether experienced Call of Cthulhu investigators, TTRPG players coming from other systems, or entirely fresh-faced non-gamers.

Spoilers-lite for Players and Keepers:

Fish in a Barrel is the sixth Seeds of Terror scenario, and the first written by Phil Anderson (and the second with Nic Holland). In a lot of ways, the scenario feels like a greatest-hits compilation of a classic 1920s CoC scenario. Prohibition and speakeasies, gangsters and tommyguns, cults and curses, all condensed into a tight 3-hour scenario. It’s a lot of material for only 7 pages of text and stats, but it largely makes good use of its space, hinting at enough details to let Keepers elaborate further.

Like other Seeds of Terror, the scenario ramps up quickly, setting a ticking-clock for the players to defuse. Unlike its peers up until now, though, Fish in a Barrel is not technically location restricted (though by necessity of the ticking-clock it largely is restricted to few locations), giving it a uniquely open feeling compared to its predecessors, and indeed most of its successors. Story beats are still hit hard and fast, with little time or space for players to doddle about unless a Keeper really wants them to.

As always, though few, the handouts are well done and fit the scenario well, with a map and three appropriately grimy documents. The five pregen investigators are also my favourite across the series with fleshed out background details and varied occupations and skills. A linguist, scientist, artist, composer, and radical accountant walk into a bar… There is one extra handout or Keeper resource that would have been useful, but I’ll get into that more in the spoilers.

The climax requires some extra effort from the Keeper, but not necessarily in a negative sense. Beyond that, the scenario can largely be run as written, though I’ve found myself wanting to expand it more, as there are plenty of plot threads that could be tugged on a bit more.

Next to Endless Light, Fish in a Barrel is my favourite of the series, and another scenario I keep in my pocket in case a sudden gaming opportunity pops up. Very highly recommended if you feel in need of a 1920s one-shot.

If you’re already convinced, you can find Fish in a Barrel on DriveThruRPG individually, or in the Airship, Lighthouse, Speakeasy bundle with the above-praised Endless Light and the high-altitude Tickets Please (and you can read reviews for those below as well).

If you’re a player, you should stop here. Otherwise, continue on for spoilers and Keeper suggestions.

Before you go, though, maybe you would be interested in reading some other scenario reviews?

MJRRG: Branches of Bone – Cthulhu Dark Ages, A Chill in Abashiri – A 1920s Taisho-Era Japan

Seeds of Terror: Series Overview, The Mummy of Pemberley Grange, Endless Light, One Less Grave, Hand of Glory, Tickets Please , Fish in a Barrel

Miskatonic Repository: Dossier 1 – The Maw

Chaosium: Amidst the Ancient Trees, Gateways to Terror Overview, The Necropolis, What’s in the Cellar?, The Dead Boarder

Japonism: Do Gods Dream of Digital Drugs?

Bibliothek 13: A Cup of Horror, Erich!

With the exception of the final scene, Fish in a Barrel is fairly straightforward to run.

The investigators start in a seedy speakeasy full of smoke, jazz, and booze. Each investigator is at the top of their respective fields, having started excelling in their various talents since starting to patronise this particular bar. While enjoying the bar’s signature drink, the ‘Juice,’ they suffer a brief vision, and then find odd welts and marks on their bodies.

Investigation in the speakeasy follows, meeting with some gangster NPCs and the bar owner, poking through some documents, and fighting a crab demon. The investigators discover where the ‘Juice’ comes from, and get the feeling they don’t have much time to waste. Ideally with the gangsters on their side, they head to warehouse that distributes the ‘Juice.’

The warehouse is of course crawling with cultists, who soon begin a ritual that threatens to turn the investigators themselves into a portal. With the gangsters getting into a massive gunfight with the cultists, the party has to rush through the hail of bullets to stop the cult leader before horrors from beyond escape into Chicago, doing god-knows-what to the investigators-turned-portal.

There are plenty of places a Keeper could buff up the scenario, but the only are that I found to have any issues was the final scene at the warehouse. Unfortunately, no map is provided, leaving players that like to plan out their assaults hanging. For example, one of my groups immediately thought to go in a back door. Is there a back door? Maybe!

There also isn’t much in the way of mechanical advise on how to run the final scene beyond that it takes ‘six turns of movement’ to reach the cultist leader at the back of the warehouse. Given that different investigators have different MOV rates, and that an investigator can move MOV x 5 yards if running full tilt, this seems a bit off unless it’s a massive 200+ yard warehouse. I would have preferred a measurement in yards, then let the Keeper decide how long it would take, or how difficult it would be to shoot the lead cultist if that’s what an investigator decided to do (possibly having obtained a gun from one of the gangsters).

In my runs, I had the warehouse be about 100 yards long, but packed with crates and barrels, so the investigators couldn’t get sight off the lead cultist until at about 30 yards, and an unobstructed shot until only 10 yards. And with all the obstacles, running full tilt through the warehouse would require not only a Dodge, Jump, Climb, or Hard DEX roll to navigate the crates, but also a Luck roll to avoid being hit by crossfire. Otherwise, investigators could move at normal MOV yards without making any rolls, or a Stealth roll to avoid being seen.

Once at about 30 yards (or more if I wanted the scenario to come to ahead sooner), the investigators would get a glimpse of the lead cultist, allowing anyone with a gun to take a shot with an extra penalty die.

Or, if your group is like one of mine, they’ll steal the truck parked in the warehouse and plow through the cultists. In which case I asked for a Hard Drive roll to get all the way through, otherwise the truck smashed halfway through then tips over on a barrel. My player got an Extreme and just obliterated the cultist. Good fun.

I also added a bit more detail to the gangsters, making one tall and skinny and with a ear-splittingly high voice, one short and fat and with a rumbly-deep baritone, and the last so plain no one could remember what he looked or sounded like. The players also wanted the gangsters guns, so I let them borrow or purchase pistols with an Interpersonal, Credit Rating, or APP roll, or shotguns with Hard successes.

In the end fight the cultists don’t try to kill the investigators, as their bodies are forming portals anyways, so it doesn’t matter too much how well armed the players are. If anything, letting them get distracted with gunning down cultists just makes things harder for them.

Overall, Fish in a Barrel is one of the first Seeds of Terror I turn to if the opportunity arises. Great pregen investigators, nice handouts, gritty setting, and a classic 1920s prohibition-era story all tied up in a compact package. Highly recommended.