This an overview of my Call of Cthulhu scenario, Café au Morte.

In Short: An interpersonal skill-heavy, ultra short, one location scenario.

No spoilers for Players and Keepers:

Café au Morte is the first scenario in a planned series I’m calling Flash Cthulhu, with the aim to release one of these a month. They are mini-scenarios meant to be run in one hour, and after only a quick read through by the Keeper without any additional preparation, but also allowing for easy customization to fit whatever needs the group may have.

I’m a big fan of Chaosium’s Gateways to Terror scenarios, which are very detailed but also meant to be very short (with guidance on keeping the sessions under an hour), as well as the Seeds of Terror scenarios for being written very concisely and easy to run. I’m hoping Café au Morte, and Flash Cthulhu overall, will be a combination of the two, with Gateways to Terror’s detailed text giving Keepers a very easy guideline to follow if they want it, along with Seeds of Terror’s simplicity and low page count that allow for a quick turn around between reading and playing (as well as Seeds of Terror’s great variety between scenarios).

And of course, the main goal is for these to be ultra short. My playtests of Café au Morte all ran in under an hour, and that’s a goal I aim to strictly follow for all the Flash Cthulhu scenarios. I want these to be scenarios that can be plugged into a narrow strip of time for busy groups, with as little preparation as possible needed from the Keeper. I like to envision some friends meeting up at a convention between games or events and grabbing a table to jump into Café au Morte a forty minute session before splitting up again.

As the scenario is ultra short, it gets right into the action, meaning I can’t get much more into it without spoilers. The title and blurb should clue most players into what might be going on though – it’s set in a café and involves an unexpected patron. If that sounds vaguely interesting, or if you want your group to have a backup scenario ready to plug a one-hour time slot, this might be what you’re looking for.

Café au Morte is available on DriveThruRPG, and as a thank you for reading or listening to this, have a cool quarter off the one-dollar price tag.

Before you go, maybe you would be interested in some of the below reviews or replays?
MJRRPG scenarios, Chaosium-released scenarios, Miskatonic Repository scenarios, Japanese scenarios

Café au Morte is meant to put immediate stress on your players and force them to make use of their investigators’ Interpersonal skills. There is of course an option for violence, and if they do resort to bloodshed, it should be quick and brutal, but there are many options for them to avoid direct combat.

The scenario is of course set in a little café, and the problem to solve is clearly unhinged gunman entering the shop and searching for some people he means to shoot. The twist on the problem is that there is another group of patrons in the café that look the exact same as the investigators. A classic ‘don’t shoot the real me!’ scene, with the investigators as the ones being copied, and the guy with the gun not knowing who either group really are. Those other patrons are, of course, cultists in magical disguise, though the investigators won’t know that at first. And so, the main thrust of the scenario will be the investigators trying to convince the gunman not to shoot them, or to shoot their doubles, or potentially even working with their doubles to subdue the gunman.

The most difficult part of the scenario when running is dealing with two parties of NPCs. Going along with the general rule of thumb for running NPCs, the Keeper should avoid having the cultists and the gunman conversing with each other instead of the player characters. Try to have the NPCs be largely reactive to the players once the initial situation is established, If the players fall silent, the NPCs should first directly address them.
If the Keeper still requires the NPCs to interact with each other, they can still have everything they say prompt the players to act, even if the cultists address the gunman, or the gunman address the cultists.

While the scenario can be ‘solved’ by the players through argument or violence, the ‘best’ solution is through empathy. First calming down the gunman, then talking with him to gain a semblance of trust, and then learning his backstory, gives the players the full picture of what is happening, as well as the most mechanical bonuses to convince the gunman to trust them over their doubles.

Or, as one of my playtests went, the investigators could trust the doubles over the gunman, subdue the gunman, and then shoot him after a cultist used a Dominate spell on the investigator with the gun.

If that sounds at all interesting, and as a thank you for reading or listening all the way to the end, have two quarters off the dollar price tag.

Before you go, maybe you would be interested in some of the below reviews or replays?
MJRRPG scenarios, Chaosium-released scenarios, Miskatonic Repository scenarios, Japanese scenarios