Roleplaying Game Recaps
Whenever I run roleplaying games these days, I always try to provide a recap for the players. This serves a number of purposes. For one thing gaming while adult often means that the games occur more irregularly. Things come up, we don’t play, and people can forget what happened in the session before. This way people have a reference to look at. It also serves as a means of agreeing upon what happened. The players may well have their own memory that differs from mine, but in reading the recaps they see what I thought was the important part, and it helps them focus. In both things I think it’s kind of like a “previously on” bit at the start of a tv show. The viewers might not remember a character or plot line, but when they see them in the recap, they know that character will be important in the episode they’re about to watch.
After typing up the recap for my most recent Call of Cthulhu/Delta Green session, I thought it was interesting enough that I’d share it on my blog. This should give a good idea of how crazy these stories can get.
This session occurred after the party, members of a punk band in 1985 (the players even came up with a great band name, set list, and even cover art) have been sent back in time to the 1920s and to England following a series of investigations involving the cult of Nyarlethotep and the cult of Hastur. Once in England they saved a country estate from the cult in an adventure that was part Downton Abbey, part Jeeves and Wooster, and all sorts of Call of Cthulhu RPG weirdness.
Recap:
Still in 1926 England, the party are taken to “meet the boffins” by cousin Pip. They travel by train to the Cavendish Laboratories where they meet Earnest Rutherford, Niels Bohr, and Erik Walding.
The scientists embrace the challenge of reverse engineering a time machine and eventually come up with a portable device the party can carry. The boffins believe this will take the party forward in time in increments on each charge, but will require time to recharge. That recharge time can be reduced with heavy water. The boffins add that they think they have compensated for location, to keep them at least close to the location they left.
The party use the machine and find out that the boffins haven’t quite worked out that last problem, as they find themselves on another planet entirely. They are on a shore of a planet where the civilization has perished. While they’re noticing the decaying buildings, a lone surfer comes ashore. His name is Dean Bolek and he surfed away from his world as it died in 2017 as the elder gods were summoned and has been surfing across time and space ever since.
The machine activated and the party see a number of visions/partial visits to times and locations not their own. They are handed the parts of an early computer by Konrad Zuse in East Prussia in 1944. They go to the library in the Dreamlands where they meet an elderly Richard Feynman who remarks that he’s met them but they haven’t met him. Apparently he last saw them in 1973 just before he went into a sensory deprivation tank. In 1944 Los Alamos they inform a young Richard Feynman of what the old Feynman told them, that Oppenheimer is not himself after his disappearance. Finally they travel to a dystopian future US where the Christian Right force the worship of “Christ” but as a clear avatar of Nyarlethotep.
The next jump takes the party to a train in 1927 Belgium where they are in a car with Marie Curie on the way to the 1927 Salvoy Conference on Quantum Mechanics. At the Salvoy Conference, Bohr recognizes them and thinks he can help fix the problem with the machine. Along with the help of Heisenberg and Pauli they adjust the machine to reduce “random fluctuations.” Eric Walding is also at the conference. When he sees the party, he pulls a pistol and shoots at them, firing wildly and then runs. Dee tackles him, sending some of his belongings sprawling. He breaks free and uses a device of his own to jump times. The items he left behind include a copy of Der Vermiis Mysteris, a copy of Mein Kampf, and Nationalist Socialist pamphlets.
With the machine repaired, the party resume their jumps forward in time. In the winter of 1932 they see Eric again at the University of Gottingen. Eric and a cadre of SS are shouting at an old man. Once they leave the party see if they can help the old man. He is David Hilbert and he is trying to help Emmy Noether leave Germany for the US, but Eric has confiscated her papers of transit. The party agree to help retrieve them, and possibly get the chance to take care of Eric. After fighting an SS MiGo hybrid, they break into Eric’s hotel where they find the papers, Eric’s diary and a sacrificial dagger. Eric’s diary includes sections such as: “NAZI Germany presents the greatest opportunity to bend humanity to the Many Faced God. The souls we will harvest will feed the gaping maw of the Bloody Tongue.” It also has a lot of math, which Hilbert explains are mostly matrix transforms. The diary talks about the elder gods (Hastur, Nyarlethotep, Yog Sothoth). Walding says he is a time traveler, that he traveled here through a portal created by a machine. He says that he thinks there are other time travelers here.“Dunwich. Miskatonic Library.” “Time travelers may be tethered to one another.”
From 1932 Germany, the party jumps to 1944 Switzerland where they meet Moe Berg who has been tasked by his OSS/Delta Green superiors to learn if Heisenberg has the secrets to build an atomic weapon, and if so, to eliminate him. The party to agree to help. At the conference they see two different Eric Waldings, one of whom they intercept on the way to Heisenberg. After taking the Eric Walding into the elevator and dispatching him, they find that he was attempting to supply Heisenberg with schematics on how to build an atomic weapon. Berg is satisfied that Heisenberg isn’t working on it, or is deliberately slow walking the process.
The party members next find themselves in Roswell, New Mexico in 1947. They arrive in the midst of the UFO scare which proves to be MiGo technology. There they meet Captain Cavitt from the Air Force who proves to be working with Delta Green. Agent Perez has contacted him via a messaging device and instructed him to provide the party with funds. She also warns that in Hollywood that Delta Green will be compromised. She says they can trust agent Gibson, but not to trust Agent Morgan.
Their next jump takes them to Pasadena in 1952, where they arrive in the midst of an orgy/occult rite in the home of Jack Parsons. Parsons is thrilled that his ritual has summoned these other worldly beings. The house is raided, and the party confirm that the House of Unamerican Activities is working with the Nyarlethotep cult and has infiltrated some of Delta Green. The party dispatch agent Morgan, and help Gibson to start forming cells of a secret society within the secret society of Delta Green to ensure that humanity survive.
The penultimate leap takes them to 1973 Pasadena where they meet up with Richard Feynman just before he goes into his sensory deprivation tank (on route to see their former selves in the Dreamlands.)
With the last jump they arrive back home in the 1980s, but things are different. MiGo and American Gestapo goose step through the streets, carrying an American flag but instead of stars there is a white cross.
End recap.
This will hopefully keep the players informed for when we play next. It will also serve to make sure that I don’t forget what has happened so far when I start planning the next bit of craziness for them.
