Review of the Call of Cthulhu scenario The Hoodlums, written by Alex Guillotte and Ian Christiansen, the seventh and final scenario in the Grindhouse Ultimate Collection.
In Short: A short and spooky dungeon crawl-esque scenario with a fun cast of characters, both the pregenerated investigators and the NPCs, human or otherwise.
Spoiler-lite for Players and Keepers:
The Hoodlums is the seventh and final scenario in the Grindhouse Collection, added as a bonus and not available in a two-pack like the other Grindhouse volumes. It wears its Steven King’s IT and The Goonies inspirations on its sleeves, with the investigators taking the roles of young teens that head into a sewer to save their friend. Of course, nothing untowards happens, absolutely nothing gross and weird, as per Grindhouse norms.
As the largest scenario in the collection, The Hoodlums takes up 24 VHS-sized pages, with 18 for the main text and stats, a full page map, a title page, and four pages for investigator sheets. The visual layout of the Grindhouse scenarios has always been very well done, and Alex Guillotte’s design skills shine all the brighter the longer the scenario is, most obvious in his longer works (and how prodigious he and his partners are, see: Viral, Inversion, The Pipeline, The Highway of Blood, Carnival of Madness, Los Hobos and the Wolves of Carcosa, The Tartarus Intercept. My absolute goodness the man works). The structure of the Grindhouse scenarios sometimes makes running them a bit more difficult than they otherwise would be, as each is structured more as a sandbox than a fixed guide for the Keeper to follow. I find this owes more to their page length, as the shorter the page count, the more work for the Keeper. With the extra word count, The Hoodlums is one of the smoothest Grindhouse scenarios, having plenty of guidance, events, and descriptions of the various places and things the investigators can explore.
The investigators themselves are among the best in the collection, with each taking the role of a 80s coming-of-age movie archetype, as well as an associated D&D class that gives a special ability. The character descriptions are short and sweet, giving the players just enough hooks to sink their roleplaying into. There are plenty of Kids in Cthulhu type rules and mini-systems out there, and while The Hoodlum’s doesn’t push any boundaries or break new ground, it’s special abilities and ‘Peer Pressure’ mechanic still help the younger investigators stand out from their adult counterparts.
Most of the abilities provide for extra roleplaying fodder – The Leader can give pep talks to restore SAN, the Metalhead gets a bonus die when protecting friends, and the Goth takes half SAN loss when seeing dead things – one of them is a bit iffy. The Fighter is able to grapple opponents to stop them moving, which is already a base mechanic in CoC with Combat Maneuvers. A simple, if boring, band aid is to instead give them a bonus die when grappling. A more interesting and roleplay-focused idea could be to give them a bonus die to any combat related roll as long as they are the only Hoodlum fighting, encouraging heroic last stands like rushing into the fight alone or holding off opponents while their friends accomplish some other task.
The Hoodlums continues the Grindhouse tradition of being confined to a single location. Said location comes with a detailed map and descriptions of each sublocation, making it easy for the Keeper to guide the investigators in their exploration. The various events and changes the Keeper can throw at the investigators are not as wide ranging as in some of the other sister scenarios, but combined with the detailed environment, is more of a help than a hindrance. The Keeper can easily hold onto them and activate them when needed with little preplanning. As The Hoodlums doesn’t advertise its premise beyond heading into the sewer, I won’t give any more away here.
The Hoodlums is a solid entry into the Grindhouse series, shouldering aside others to wrestle with Isle of the Damned and The Dark Brood as my favourite to run. If this sounds like something you would want to run, or force your Keeper to run, it can be found in the Grindhouse Ultimate Collection on DriveThruRPG.
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
The Hoodlums is a locked room scenario like most of its Grindhouse siblings, except it has a playable lead up. This offers the opportunity for players to go completely ‘off script’ and avoid the actual scenario, but as long as your players are not dead set on running away from anything interesting, it should be easy enough to guide them towards the spooky fun.
The investigators start in an abandoned train station having a little party when an NPC friend is kidnapped and disappears down a sewer entrance. This is the first chance for players to wander out of the scenario, if instead of pursuing the friend they decide to call the police. The scenario text gives some advice, such as saying it would take too long for the police to arrive (it’s the 1980s, so no cell phones) and the teens would get in trouble with the cops (they have booze and weed). Also, they’re reckless 80s teens. This should be enough to get most players to go along with it, and if they still seem on the fence, this might not be the right scenario for them (or game in general – can’t be a Call of Cthulhu investigator if you don’t want to investigate).
They then track their friend through the sewers – this is an entirely linear affair that can be as short or long as the Keeper wants, as its only purpose is to deliver the investigators to an underground mansion. And once at the mansion, a lovely trigger of mutant rats can be used to force the investigators inside or prevent them from fleeing. If they don’t want to enter the mansion, rats chase them in. If they do willingly go in but try to leave, rats! If you just feel like it, rats!
The rest of the scenario is classic spooky house exploration, moving room to room looking for the friend. Most rooms have a description, though only about half have anything of interest in them. In particular, almost the whole left side of the mansion has nothing notable in it. The Keeper could throw some notebooks or what-have-you around to dispense background information, or just leave it as rooms to escape to if need be.
There are two primary threats, along with a secondary threat. One is a lobotomised servant with a tragic backstory that can be as aggressive or persuadable as the Keeper desires (I like having him be open to persuasion, especially using his favourite doll), while the other is an insane scientist-immortal-cultist-wizard. He’s not particularly physically dangerous, especially if ganged up on, but he regenerates HP unless decapitated or destroyed (more on that in a bit!) and has a repertoire of spells that could mess up the investigators. Once directly confronted the two opponents aren’t particularly frightening, so it’s best to keep them in the background, occasionally making noises or even taunting the investigators, keeping them guessing at what is going on.
The third potential danger is a zombie child locked in a hidden room. She is especially creepy, and I would highly suggest finding some way of guiding the investigators to her, maybe by having her knock on the door of her room, misleading the investigators there thinking she’s their missing friend.
Among the various things to find in the mansion is a green liquid in a syringe labeled WEST. One of my players had the idea of taking it, and later stabbed it into the big bad wizard-scientist. I loved this move too much not to have it do something neat, so I referenced back to Isle of the Damned, which also had a Herbert West-derived serum. I just straight ported it over, meaning that injecting the whole thing into the scientist made him inflate and explode. That’s one way to ‘destroy’ him!
The Hoodlums is a classic poke around the spooky place scenario, and while it doesn’t do anything completely out of the ordinary, its unique investigators and tone help set it apart, and make it one of my favourites of the Grindhouse Ultimate Collection.
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
