Call of Cthulhu: The Dare - RPG Review

A group of children are dared to spend Halloween night in a haunted house, unfortunately something plans to keep them. Here are my thoughts and criticisms for this 1980's-style horror adventure, as well as the Call of Kid-Thulhu rules (which I enjoyed far more than Kids on Bikes).

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Guest starring Jack the NPC

[morganrobinson]

I feel bad for that kid dressed like Charlie Brown on the cover. You do not want to be the kid with that kind of inherited bad karma in a Cthulhu game. What happened to him could not have been pretty.

[josephtodaro]

We do an 80s themed one shot every year in honor of a fallen player. He wouldve loved this

[mattieguilliams]

This seems like it'd make for a great prequel one shot for origin stories of later Call Of Cthulhu Modern / Delta Green characters. Like, "this is what happened to me as a kid. And now this is why I combat The Mythos as an adult."

[CominUpMillhouse]

For any Keepers looking to run this scenario, here is what the moldy page from Evelyn's grimoire says. It's essentially a copy of the contract with Nyarlathotep that gave her her powers. I've also subsituted 'th' for 'y' in certain places, as that Y letter you see in place names like Ye Olde Public House is actually a Middle English letter called thorn that produces a 'th' sound:

----

"have made the pact with the Black Man who hast manny faces & forms, that wisdom & lyfe shall beest thine beyond imaginings

The flesh of the imature is yond which is most pure, f’r it enwheels few’r of the taints yond age, exp’rience, carnality, & sineth impart upon it. Sayd flesh can beest consum'd raw or did cook, though heateth tends to removeth some of the sweetest flav’rs of innosence & inc’rruption. Such repasts impart upon the feast’r the vitality did contain in potentiall within the child’s flesh.

Tribute wilt beest given to yond Black Man bef’re each such feast, yond that gent might eke gain benefyt from it

his children shalt thee beareth as the did cost f’r his most wondrous gi"

There is more text on the page, but it's been made completely unreadable (deliberately, this time) by the water damage on the grimoire page.

[calibur]

I ran The Dare for my friends as a Halloween one-shot last year. Within the first 20-minutes they were lured into the basement by Roger and were never seen again. It was one of the shortest one-shots I ever ran.

[ThatMusicWriter]

The "Dweebles is a psychopath" plotline thickens... I love it

[renatosouza]

A year ago I adapted Mister Corbitt from Mansions of Madness into an adventure with kids. All players were children between 12 and 14 years old. It was very interesting. I made some modifications, giving mr. Corbitt scarier look, based a little on the movie Fright Night (the whole idea of the teenager knowing the vampire next door, but no one believing him). It was very interesting.

[antirevomag]

fun fact: the razor blades thing actually wasn't an urban legend, in a sense. While, yes, it was spurred on by the satanic panic, there was a kid who died from it. The thing is, the entire story came from his dad, who was also the one who killed him. He made the claim, as a way to attempt to get away with the murder of his son.

[chunktopus]

Love the Venture Bros reference - a series taken from us too soon.

[secretscarlet]

The birthing of killed characters as monsters was diabolical 😂

[decaffeinateddrumsticks]

Running my players through this next week as their first attempt in call of cthulu! Very excited. They rolled up their characters today. I was worried as they'd never strayed from DnD before, but they all seem super excited about their pre-teen characters

[oPezinatoro]

I love the side bars and silly goofs. They make me smile but "Im just referring to Dweebles" actually made me spit take. Bravo!

[danielrowan]

I really like the Dreams in the Witch House vibe here. The semi-human rat/bat creatures are very reminiscent of the critter Brown Jenkins.

[bluedragonninja]

Damn I love the idea for this one. you could do a squeal to this if the kids lose. where the there parents/investigator come looking for for the kids, learning the location one of the other kids that didn't make it to the dare due not get away from their parents that night, finding the remains/rat creatures of the kids. btw you didn't say if your group survived or died at the end, what happen man!

[bastrdlyreaper]

1:05 I thought of this today... I think it's weird that out of all of Seth's personas, Jack Malone is the one that goes trick or treating, and his three other personas give him "treats".

This implies that Jack is a grown child (that is still an alcoholic) and the other personas are adults handing out "candy".

[billpecoraro]

Love the Venture Bros reference, you're a man of culture, Seth!

[Tysto]

LOL I’m a historian used to reading old handwriting, & that grimoire is a mess. Not only does it use the long S, but it uses “ye” for “the” which is a mistake that comes from the genuine use of the Old English letter thorn, which kind of looks like a Y. Also, there are some very silly nonstandard archaisms like “did cook” for “cooked” & “sineth” for “sin” & “heateth” for heat. It basically says she made a pact with the Black Man who has many forms & that eating the flesh of the young can impart the vitality of the child.

[originaluddite]

The name of the module, combined with the cover image, instantly told me what sort of scenario this was. It's amazing what a shared zeitgeist can do.

[AnimiHFR]

I just made a transcript of the grimoire's page. Bear in mind I'm a native Spanish speaker, so sorry in advance if something is not perfectly correct. Hope you find it useful.

*Original:*
Have made Ye pact with the Blak Man who hast manny fases & forms, that wisdom & lyfe shall beest thine beyond imaginings...

...Ye flesh of Ye imature is yond which is most pure, f'r it enwheels few'r of Ye taints yond age, exp'rience, carnality, & sineth impart upon it. Sayd flefh can beest consum'd raw or did cook, though heateth tends to removeth some of Ye sweeteft flav'rs of innosence & inc'rruption. Such repafts impart upon Ye feaft'r Ye vitality did contain in potentiall within Ye child’s flefh.

Tribute wilt beest given to yond Blak Man bef're each such feaft, yond that gent might eke gain benefyt from it...

...his children shalt thee beareth as Ye did cost f'r his most wondruss gift

-

*Simplified/modern English:*
Have made the pact with the Black Man who has many faces and forms, so wisdom and life will be yours beyond imagination...

...The flesh of the immature is beyond that which is purest, for it involves fewer corruptions beyond age, experience, carnality and the sins imparted upon it. Said flesh can be consumed raw or cooked, although the heat tends to remove some of the sweet flavors of innocence and incorruption. Such repayments impart upon you the vitality contained in the potential within children's flesh.

Tribute will be given to the Black Man before each of such feasts, even if the lord can't benefit from it...

...his children you will bear as you did for his most wonderful gift

[scottplumer]

My group doesn't really like CoC, but they humor me by letting me run a one-shot every Halloween, and last Halloween (2021) I ran the Dare. I gathered a bunch of props (including a tibia (a fake one from the med school where I work)) and hid them around my house, and had the players go get them when their investigators would find them in the game. The day after, I sent an email to my players with an epilogue that described what happened after, and included the Who's "Dangerous" as the "closing credits" music. My players really loved it, but now I have to figure out what to do this Halloween!
I considered having one of my players play Roger, but I ended up doing it the way the adventure says.
I agree, though, it needed a lot of help in the editing department. I ended up kind of re-writing it so that the descriptions matched up with the map.I just copied and pasted from the PDF.