Going Viral - in More Ways Than One
A Review of Viral: A Modern Call of Cthulhu Scenario
From Alex Guillotte, Bud
I was lucky enough to play this with Bud as Keeper during one of the pre-release playtests.
I played Corrina, who was a lot of fun to play and it's nice to see that my feedback from the session was taken on board, in the form of an additional handout in the released version.
The scenario is presented as a live streamed episode from "Spektral Krew" an established team of ghost-hunters with a reasonable following on You-Tube and comes with the pre-gens for the Krew.
There is suggested back ground watching for Keepers/Krews new to Ghost Hunting shows to get an idea of the feel of the "show", tips for how to use other investigators if pre-gens aren't your thing and some pointers for how to come at the scenario from a completely different angle if a You-Tube show doesn't do it for you.
We'll stick with the Spektral Krew who are:
Marco Proudfoot, the founder, boss and lead investigator
Corrina, the psychic
Enoch, the muscle
Peter, the camera guy
Hyun, the sound guy
and Maya (an NPC) the editor and producer who corrales the team from her home in London
Each of the Krew has a secret that works as a roleplaying hook and leads to some very interesting game play at the table.
For this episode Marco is taking the team to a pair of islands off the coast of Italy which have never been investigated by ghost-hunters before in a bid to increase subscribers to the channel and 'Go Viral' by hitting the magic million followers.
The islands are shown as completely bare on most maps, but Maya has discovered that there are several buildings on the islands and that the larger of the two was previously home to an order of monks who cared for the sick in the days of the plague.
With that kind of history there's bound to be residual energy left over from all the suffering and death caused by such a disease, where better to look for ghosts right?
The main island has several locations to explore with a couple on the smaller island, where the Krew land for their investigation. Each location is richly detailed from the outside giving an atmospheric view of the place with further descriptions for internal exploration where appropriate. It is not necessary for your Krew to investigate all of the locations to reach the finale of the scenario. In fact it can be played over 1 to 3 sessions, with suggested show itineraries and locations to investigate depending on the amount of time your Krew want to commit to play.
There is plenty of guidance for Keepers and two unique ways to keep the scenario moving, the first being Maya, who encourages the Krew to keep to the show's agreed itinerary as she has VTs queued up to mix in when they need to break to set up the next scene etc and is also keeping an eye on the time, the second being the comments from the viewers who let the Krew know what they're finding interesting, point out things the Krew may have missed and maybe draw on their own knowledge to explain things they're seeing to the Krew, they can also donate money via the "Super-Chat" to urge the Krew into interacting with the scenery.
Some new rules, the Sight, the Taint, Paranormal Phenomena and a adapted "Insanity and Bouts of Madness" results, are included. These are well explained and suit the scenario beautifully. Three sets of encounter tables are presented with advice on working them into the scenario depending on the "show" time. The player handouts are well thought out and will work well for both printing and VTT use.
One of the best bits of Keeper advice comes in the form of a hints from Bud section.
A nice addition that makes it feel very personal (in a good way).
All in all a great little scenario, which I intend to run for my home group next time they agree to take a break from fantasy RPGs.
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