Miskatonic University Campus

So you asked for brutally honest feedback...so here it is. As a note, I'll say I have not played it yet just read through it.

The good:

I really liked the plot behind this and the way it is laid out. It takes the PCs on a journey that leads to an inevitable confrontation between the two groups. It is definitely more pulpy, which isn't necessarily a bad thing IMO.

I like the sleep deprivation rule. Its not just something the players can role-play. Its something they are forced into being penalised for and I imagine it helps to the overall play.

The not so good:

My biggest problem with the book isn't the scenario - its the mistakes in the layout. These are the ones I found:

- Page 7 states "see the section on Indian Weapons, page 28". The section on Indian Weapons is actually on page 20.
- The room numbers for some areas in the maps are mis-labeled. For example, the rooms in Uncle's hideout should be 5-X, and are instead 4-X.

These are small mistakes, but contribute to the overall quality of the book.

Beyond that, it does feel a bit rail-roadish at times, even in some of the open-sandbox areas (like Calcutta). However, I suspect that is due more to a limit on how many pages/space you had. Nothing a good keeper can't ad-lib and get around.

There is also a lack of investigation that I could see, but more combat. Again, I think the scenario is meant to be more pulp (if I am wrong let me know), but even having a side-investigation to research the location of a final component for the cannon would have been cool.

Overall

Overall, I really liked it. My favorite thing is you've created a campaign-long hook for the players. Surely the Black Scimitar aren't all gone. At some point they'll pop their heads up again or the PCs will be contacted by Uncle once more. I can even see, with minor modifications, this fitting into something like Masks.

Great job! I can't wait to see more things come from you or Goodman Games!

Thanks Trevlix. I appreciate your opinion. You were dead-on in your assumption about the feel of the adventure being pulpy by design and on the space/word count limitations. As for the errors in page references and map labeling... oh well, even the best proof reading let a few slip through.

Let me know if you ever get a chance to run it.

No problem.

Honestly, I'd love to see a Secrets of India book. There's too many cool things in the gaslight and classic time period to not warrant it. Perhaps your next project?

trevlix wrote:No problem.

Honestly, I'd love to see a Secrets of India book. There's too many cool things in the gaslight and classic time period to not warrant it. Perhaps your next project?

Mysteries of the Raj is a monograph that truly is a Secrets of India. The book is officially set for the Gaslight era, but nearly everything is also applicable in the Classic 1920s. This was the book I used as a resource in my writing, (a gift from my editor, Pookie). I highly recomend it.

Keeper Jon wrote:Mysteries of the Raj is a monograph that truly is a Secrets of India. The book is officially set for the Gaslight era, but nearly everything is also applicable in the Classic 1920s. This was the book I used as a resource in my writing, (a gift from my editor, Pookie). I highly recomend it.

I somehow missed that. I'm gonna be picking it up now!

Quick question as I've been stocking up on Age of Cthulhu game scenarios, I really enjoy the size & general layout of these and as I've been working out on writing a scenario. So what were the submission guidelines for Timeless Sands of India for things like the word count? This would at least help to make sure to be good at killing the verbose tendencies I get with writing to not make this scenario something rivaling War & Peace in word count.

fox01313 wrote:Quick question as I've been stocking up on Age of Cthulhu game scenarios, I really enjoy the size & general layout of these and as I've been working out on writing a scenario. So what were the submission guidelines for Timeless Sands of India for things like the word count? This would at least help to make sure to be good at killing the verbose tendencies I get with writing to not make this scenario something rivaling War & Peace in word count.

Hi Fox,

Sorry I missed this question before. Most of the Age of Cthulhu adventures are approximately 20,000 words. But, because I'm a rebel without a clue, Timeless Sands of India was 25.000 words, and the up-coming Starfall Over the Plateau of Leng is a bloated 30,000 words.

When I first started writing scenarios, I built my skills by writing 5.000 word scenarios. I have a some scenarios published in a couple of Chaosium's CoC Halloween monographs and a couple of their BRP contest monographs. Each of those is approximately 5.000 words. Once I felt like I had a good grasp at that level, I was more comfortable in expanding out to more words. It became a simple thing to then add-in new scenes in the scenario, with each new scene built with 3,000 to 5,000 words. Voila! You now have a 20,000 word manuscript.

I hope that helps. Good luck, man.

Yep that helps alot, thanks & congrats on the 2nd book with Goodman Games. With things like formatting standards different between other published scenarios, it helps to get some kind of idea at least with these to figure out the writing end.