Call of Cthulhu: Fear of Flying - RPG Review
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- Опубликовано: 10 сен 2024
- The Investigators need to get somewhere fast, and take an airplane. Little do they realize there's something on board with them. Written by Marcus Rowland, the scenario first appeared in 1992's Fearful Passages.
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Guest starring Jack the NPC.
I love the idea of a private investigator following the party, only to wind up getting tangled up in mythos related events every time it happens. After about the third outing of that he comes clean to the party "Look... everywhere you guys go some crazy shit goes down. The second time it happened I thought maybe a coincidence... but you attract this shit. I don't want anything to do with you guys anymore, I quit!" and then on a later adventure the party just runs into the guy again getting on a bus/flight/ship. "You guys go ahead, I'll wait for the next one."
Could work quite well as some running gag to lift the mood if needs be. It seems to ma a good way to introduce a new character to the party. Best make one or two privat sessions with the player of said charakte investigating the remnents of the last channanigens the other characters happend to be in. Could be fun.
@@Fate2071 Absolutely, that little heart to heart would be best after two or three investigations of him kinda looming in the background menacing the party before throwing pot-shots and running when the mythos gets involved. The silly stuff would be *after* the day is saved (or at least the investigators *think* that) or before things get serious.
It's more they find it than they attract it
Bonus points if they stick around him on that final time and NOTHING HAPPENS.
Even MORE bonus points: The detective becomes an expert on occult happening strictly through contact high with the party.
“Birds don’t need a supernatural reason to collide with a plane. Just ask Captain Sully.”
Captain Sully: “W-what?! Oh-oh yes, t-totally natural…” he said as he tried desperately not to remember the shapeless, unnamed and unnameable horror which he caught but a glimpse of by the light of the pale gibbous moon that accursed night.
Sully definitely has ties to Delta Green
@@thebolas000 Yeah, rumor was he flew fighters against flying monster in Vietnam before DG went underground.
I think we need to see Tom Hanks in a Cthulhu mythos movie
Patrolling the Mojave almost makes you wish Seth would hit 100k already.
When I took this assignment, I was hoping there would be more tentacles.
Actually, I should have gone with: Looks like Primm wimped out and accepted the Scott Brown Agency. Luckily, they had a showing at the Bison Steve.
I had to double check he wasn't there already... I understand how my dad feels about me now
Well, he has!
Hey, it's done. Mission accomplished
Glad to see Jack didn't throw up on the plane. Whiskey and turbulence don't always mix
"Whiskey and turbulence" sounds like a great title for an album.
He needs that whiskey to take the edge off a bit... He's afraid of flying! Have you heard about the Hindenburg?
@@evilscientistrecords Oh, the humanity!
A Serpent Person getting their reality-bending magic dispelled by a cup of hot coffee is funny enough, but throw in the fact that he has no idea its happened and is cursing out the poor stewardess while trying to pat down his scaly lap with a napkin and it's easily the funniest scripted CoC event I've ever heard of. What a mental image.
EDIT: I'm sorry, but if I ever run this module, it's going to be dark slapstick comedy with all the bungling poor Alfred's getting up to. Complete with him giving easily misinterpreted, heat-of-the-moment commands to a PC in their thrall when everything goes pear-shaped on the airplane.
Monty Python's Flying Circus, but actually on an airplane? I'd play that.
@@oz_jones lol I see what you did there
He could wear a hat and think he fits in if he escapes into the general public
“What is good in life?”
“Crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and Seth Skorkowsky videos!”
[Cheering]
you get the quote wrong
it is:
"I have had it with these monkey fighting snake people on this monday to friday plane"
You beat me to it! :) The PG-13 version. That way Seth doesn't even have to bloop anything out. You know, for the kiddies. Who are the audience of this RUclips channel. Obviously.
TV PG-13 dubs are sometimes hilarious. This made me smile.
Mother Funsters
So glad there’s a Seth CoC review this week. My group just finished our DnD campaign and now I’m about to run a Pulp Cthulhu adventure to give our DM a break.
Hope you all have fun with it.
This is probably the happiest we've ever seen Jack over an adventure of any genre!
I'll admit, I was kinda hoping for a twilight zone shatner bit in the scenario
It would probably be easy to add. Maybe that's what disabled the plane instead of birds. Sounds a lot more fun to be honest.
McDonald's hot coffee! The serpent person's only weakness!
"I'll ssssue for this!"
@John Coleman - Is that Brandon Tenold reference?!
@@mandodelorian4668 I certainly thought so.
@@mandodelorian4668 it was not but now I have a whole new world of content to explore thank you.
"Gee whiz, it looks like somebody killed our buddy and fled out that window over there."
That's about the right amount of reaction.
I got it. The photograph doesn't show Clark as a serpent person, it shows his eyes as serpentlike in the flash. So in the photo his eyes are serpentine. That might be an interesting detail if we're dealing with future serpent people.
Banker? I think I trust him more as a serpent person ;)
Just discovered your channel last week Seth and you made me fall in love with CoC so hard, planning on buying it and playing with me friends, thank you!
His whole channel is absolute gold!
actually it first appeared in "White Dwarf" magazine (back when it was a general gaming mag before the magazine became totally Warhammer :p )
I remembered the name at the start of the video too! It's in White Dwarf #72 (Dec 1985)
Although it shares the title, same plane & some of the same npcs, the plot is different. It's a short 3 page deal. The greatest thing about this is the cover of WD #72
@@tomb-rider i remembered it (but guessed it was in the No.80s) the issue is out in my garage somewhere
@@gleggett3817 Keep hold of them! Such a wealth of RPG scenarios & articles (before issue 100)
Unfortunately mine ended up in the rubbish tip when we moved house, I'm still mourning that 30 years later.(1D6 San loss)
With 2 Headed Serpent, it could also work as a simple transit story there, the serpent being either affiliated or rogue there, and perhaps having Caduceus be responsible for Mallo to keep an eye on their new employees...
You could have a subtle hint that the serpent person is unusual by having his weigh-in be different after he eats the dog. Like the seating arrangement is slightly different to account for his big meal.
I don't actually play CoC, but these adventure reviews are great to go back to anyway since they spark so many cool ideas for the games I do run.
Well, I *was* just having a rough day but a new Seth video is always a delight. :)
My gaming group and I usually play board games. However, dogs and a baby have made that complicated lately since people have struggled staying at the table looking at the board, position of pieces, setting up card combinations, etc. So, I pitched the idea of a tabletop RPG and ran a poll of different ones. "Call of Cthulhu" won by a landslide which I'm pretty happy about because I feel confident running it because of this channel. We will be running "The Haunting" from the free Quick Start Guide on Sept 5th.
Though, I do admit that I was kinda excited about the "Alien" one. Maybe in the future...
Btw, the others were Forbidden Lands and Traveller.
Hope you have fun with Call of Cthulhu
Let us know how it went
Probably going to run this when I run two headed serpent.
When I ran this, they were returning from Australia and the scenarios in the original Terror Australis, having taken a ship to India. The aircraft was to take them back to Europe and eventually to London. I think the climax took place somewhere over Turkey.
What if, when the serpent person enters the room, if the investigator awakens and resists the spell, combat still occurs. If the serpent person wins, he REPLACES the character. The Keeper tells them they awaken from a dream but the character is now the serpent person in disguise. If the serpent person loses, once again the character awakens. It was just a dream! Or was it?
I like your idea of what to do too.
That was my favorite part of the scenario too: the serpent person not realizing his consume likeness spell was dispelled.
Aviation Radio Navigation: If the plane flies into bad weather or the eccentric plane owner commands a night flight, Airports and Radio Stations give off signals the navigator/co-pilot can use to guide the plane in poor visibility.
I'm so happy Jack got to say the line back from the Disassociation review! I had hoped one day he'd actually get the chance.
I'm thinking on putting this scenario into Masks of Nyarlathotep. Mainly when the Investigators are traveling to England for foreshadowing. There's also Don and Mallow will be really fun during the campaign.
Your videos have been such a massive help in growing as a Keeper and developing the skills to put on a fun campaign!
This module made me think of the Canadian sci-fi show Sanctuary, specifically the episode Kush, which had a "Who goes there?!" scenario with a creature that can alter people's perceptions. I've always wanted to run a game like that, the isolated locale, the ever dwindling pool of suspects as people get picked off by the monster or murdered by their friends. Explicitly talking to players in isolation or smaller sub groups to ramp up the paranoia. This and the False Hydra are to monsters of the week I've put a lot of thought into how I could insidiously and surreptitiously screw with my players fro the most memorable effect.
Seeing a call of cthulhu upload from Seth never fails to make my day
Scribbles from a Nosey Reporter;
I personally love these types of Adventures, as not only do i get to jaw with some Eggs i don't normally get a chance to, but i get to deal with those Four-Flusher's The Serpent People(well, one at the least buti ain't Complaining!). I got a quick question for my ol' pal Jack.:
So Jack, how'd you & that Hotsy-Totsy Dawn Pembrook work out? Inquiring minds wanna know.....
Don't Take any Wooden Nickles!
Nate Trevelyan, Investigative Reporter Arkham Gazette
My day is always better when Seth drops a video. 😄
My first rpg was CoC on 91 so here comes my suscription, thanks for the nostalgia
I am excited for a new review, especialy since I started to finally GMing Call.Of Cthulhu!
Tarrant did actually want to use the Tabor as a passenger plane after the war, but the economics of that idea just didn't cooperate with the dream.
That, and its habit of pitching itself straight into the ground sounds like a bit of a PR hurdle at the best of times.
How do you know a flying polyp didn't frighten the birds that crashed captain sully's plane?
and don't give me that "because I live in reality" bullcrap!
@@marcclement6597 Geese are notoriously bad at making SAN checks
If you did a review of Dead Man Stomp that would really make my day.
The new version for a 7th edition its soooo good.
@@patrykkulpok6908 The set pieces look great (Haven't run it), but it feels like the thread between the first and second occurrences looks super thin. Am i missing something? A dropped business card seems like a weak reed to lean on, and i could see players not wanting to bother the man when he is busy.
Any help for a new keeper would be appreciated.
@@dutch6857 It depends on what the charcters do. If among them is: a decective, a federal agent or a policeman, then they can help agent Daniels.
My players blamed Leroy Turner from the get go (for the wrong reason, but still), so they were tracking him down when they went to the funeral.
JackDaw!! I love it, and I demand to be filled in on every detail of their relationship in the forthcoming videos as it slowly degenerates into a weird Sunset Boulevard type deal. Cos that'd be funny.
My players just finished The Westchester House and wants to fly back to Boston, good idea to use this scenario, because they're a little frustrated by the lack of mythos in this previous adventure. Thanks for your review that remind me this.
Sounds like a chain of 1 offs as a campaign
Made my day getting this notification
Same
This is why being GM / DM / Keeper is an art. You need to bring so much to the adventure.
Yeah awesome. Epic end lol. I love the ones with serpent people.
Fun Fact: a mini-adventure version of Fear of Flying was published in issue 72 of White Dwarf magazine Dec 1985. As I was watching the review I was all like, hey that sounds like that other adventure with the Tabor airliner; so I dragged out my old copy (yes I keep a box of them) and sure enough Marcus Rowland published a 3-page version. I think the only common element is Arthur Mallow, the private investigator sent to tail the investigators. Otherwise there's a whole plot of a wealthy industrialist unknowingly in possession of a mythos artifact and another passenger is a cultist sent to retrieve it. Add a subplot about someone trying to get revenge on the industrialist with a canister of poison gas and its not a bad recipe for mayhem. There are also some randoms as passengers including a pair of honeymooners, , flapper, musicologist, accountant and Nigel Winstanley-Browne whose description is simply 'upper-class twit'.
This review was beyond hilarious with the snakes on planes reference and him wanting to say it so badly.
A new Seth Skorkowsky CofC video? Praise the Great Old Ones! Always a treat!
Another great review, Seth! Even though I will probably never play CoC (I don't like skill-based games), I always find your reviews of them to be super entertaining
My favorite character pilots a felixstowe seaplane. This book seems like its got some really great investigations (my term for adventures in COC.)
The Serpent Person wanting to kill the photographer could be because he's currently impersonating a dead man. Awfully suspicious if a dead man is photgraphed a few thousand miles from where they died.
Thanks for the video today. Week's been stress, this is just what I needed now. :)
Peachtree? This plane operates on the same rules as the rest of Call of Cthulhu.
Snake men are not the law.
I AM THE LAW!
Its plane to see - even if you're just winging it - you're really taking these videos to new heights... sky is the limit...
It's good to see someone giving Seth the props he deserves...
Nice - Call of Cthulhu again. Bought the Slipcase Set last year at the SPIEL in Essen, Germany. It's now my main system, I love it, and I love your reviews. Ever considered to run Masks of Nyarlathotep? Maybe doing a campaign log like for Two Headed Serpent? I'm currently running MoN and it is lots of fun. There is also a wonderful and helpful keeper's support Facebook group and a discord channel.
So basically there is no adventure, but some violent coincidence.
If the serpent is in the form if a dead person, he probably doesn't want pictures circulating, especially if it was a famous person
*Protect Me!*
I have to say, I would love it if the lizard man gives his command... and then awkward silence, finally broken by *This coffee sucks*. You did say to have fun with it. I mean, people would be astonished but not manic.
Seth, have you ever though about how to write or run a "Traveller Mythos" style game? I've been thinking the systems would make a perfect crossover.
That would be dope!
i'm sort of doing that, but not really, basically i'm just introducing some horror and D&D monsters into the setting, namely Illithid and their ilk.
(so intellect devourers, and monstrous henchmen such as trolls and the like are also on the list of added creatures, though they will be vat grown monstrosities)
there is also some added tension with psionics being a little more prevalent as well as the addition of psionic weaponry, last session they stumbled upon a psionic missile that nearly killed them when it "detonated".
I just saw this review... I have decided it is now a fact that the birds that hit Sully's plane... were scared by a flying polyp.
Ia! Ia!
Can I suggest something? You get Clark out of the plane, right..and you think "oh, it's over" and then you hear a noise..and someone says "There's...someone on the wing...some...thing!" and it's Clark ripping out stuff on the wing!
Nice Review remember this scenario way back in White Dwarf 72 !
This might be a great scenario to use for when the Heroes are traveling to Oklahoma and also give that part of the campaign more of a purpose as well.
Has anyone actually stopped watching because of the spoiler warning?
A thought, how long does it take a Serpent Person to consume someone? Cause if a character dies in the night to Clarke, could he eat them to assume their identity, especially if they broke his disguise? That way the player could maybe be taken aside and explain that they’re now running the bad guy, basically in league with the GM.
For the photo you can always say the way light reflects off the eyes shows something wrong with them. Just enough that it can be rejected as a maybe a camera issue.
Fantastic ideas for making the best of the scenario.
I think this is amazing. I would run it with The Auction first, where the NPC Dawn bought something and the investigators are trying to find out what she bought because she bought it before the auction, then this one, then the Serpent's Hand!
Question not related to the review, is there by chance a module or adventure that gives examples for airplane or ship to ship combat for Call of Cthulhu?
I'm looking to make an adventure with the players being not just passengers but also part of a crew.
Looking particularly dapper today, Dan
I wonder if the photograph would reflect light off the serpent person's eyes in a weird way as a clue
I am here already! Let's see what we got for today!
edit: damn, the night attack sounds soo fun but my players sleep with at least 2 guns under their pillow
My latest pc cuddles with his shotgun
@@skirk248 in the mythos world it is perfectly understandable
@@gergokerekes4550 everyone thought he was crazy till he shot the town mayor trying to kill him. Fun times
Great video as always
Have you ever thought about waiting to run all the adventures out of one of these books and doing a single long review? Or maybe grouping adventure reviews in the same collection into a single playlist? I love your style and it would be cool to have a single review for a book if I'm thinking about buying it.
The big thing that gets in the way of that is committing ourselves to every adventure in a collection. I normally just choose the ones that fit our game or our mood because we play them first. I don't want to try to run an adventure that I don't think will be a good fit for us when I could instead run one that I think we'll have more fun with.
@@SSkorkowsky That is what I suspected based on how you only review adventures you've run (which I'm thankful for because it means there is a better insight into how it actually comes together in practice rather than theory) and you have the book title in the description so it should pop up in searches for the book on youtube. I just wish there were more people doing what you do as reviews of RPG products are harder to track down and most are barely a fraction as detailed.
Always entertaining.
I wonder how JackDaw is doing? They probably broke up.
Thanks! That was a great review. Overall I have to say it sounds like a cool location/idea for a potentially better encounter. As written it sounds a little rail-roady and binary to me.
DM NEEDING ADVICE, ALL ANSWERS APPRECIATED.
I’m starting a new campaign for my longtime group, and we have been playing the D&D in the forgotten realms setting since we started. I want to run a new setting but I need help giving out information in terms of world building. I don’t want to give them an encyclopedia and tell to dig in before character creation, but I don’t want them to make assumptions of how the setting works. Can anyone help me to find out what the perfect amount of info is?
havnt done gaming in years, or COC much, but great channel!
There is an alternative version of the scenario published in the 72nd issue of the original version of White Dwarf.
I know i am late to this video, but i have a question. Do you have plans to go over Free Lance Alien Rollplay?
I have been subbed for a 3 (I do believe) years but lately haven't had time for rollplaying. As luck has it i am getting more and more into roleplaying again and found this system. If you have covered it I am sorry that i missed it.
"Would a photgraph reveal a Disguised Serpent Person?"-- Seth Skorkowsky
That's actually an intresting question. If i'm not mistaken, early Camera's were reported to be able to catch "Ghost photos"(really it was just a photo-negative from a previous shot, but that wasn't discoverd untill the mid-late 40's due to Military usage). Going by this logic, it's a good bet that a photgraph COULD reveal a disguised Serpent Person(maybe use a mid-to-hard POW check from the Serpent being photoed). I guess it really just depends on what you want to do in your game....
Someone suggested their eyes should show as serpentine in a photograph.
Since you'd need to get it produced either way it's not an on the spot way of telling and it's subtle enough to be cool.
@@Y00bi not to mention an even creepier way of introducing them into your games. That'd also explain why he tried to kill the photographer in the adventure(didn't want 'em finding out after producing it & putting the math together)...
Sounds interesting! I don't have the CoC books but so far no one I know here plays the game. But I've ready everything by Lovecraft so the game is appealing.🐙🦑👻☠️😱
Ah, the "Serpent people on a plane" scenario.
Edit: This scenario was many of similar adventures about Serpent people being basically reptilians - not even really impressive threat in the game's arsenal. Unlike Ghouls or Mi-Go they lack this Lovecraftian "otherworldliness" and seem more likely to bump into Shadow than Randolph Carter. You did some awesome job in your Two-headed serpent campaign diary to revert that notion I owed, in big regard, to this very scenario. Only thing I took from it back in the day was the Australian movie starlet, a great NPC.
Great video really informative
Wasn’t this first published in an old White Dwarf
Sort of. They had the plane and it was still called Fear of Flying (inspired by the old Jong novel, I suspect) but the scenario is pretty much completely different and much shorter. If you've got a copy of the old CoC WD Omnibus (or care to look up the pdf online) you can see it for yourself.
*Dose a photo reveal a serpent person's true identity*
This would depend on who the spell works. Dose it actually morph their body, or is it more like a magical hologram that just superimposes the image of a person over peoples vision. If it's a magic hologram, then a photo would reveal it. Though, since you talked about how the guy could easily win in a fight with the PC then that would seem to indicate that the spell is of the hologram type. Though again, the character might not know this.
7:00 Does a disguised serpent person weigh significantly more than a human? If so, how does he keep the other passengers from noticing? Mesmerize the crew member doing the seating?
22:05 It sounds like some splendiferous zeppelin escapades are in order.
Whether a serpentman would be revealed by a camera would likely depend on how the spell works. Does the spell physically shape them into human form, or does it merely make everyone around see them as a human? If the former, then the camera would just show a human. If the latter, it would show a serpentman.
I liked the presentation when it was in white dwarf better but that book is one of the best
id split up the events over a few trips (too many monsters syndrome)
Mauretania scenario id do the same
Good video, but I can't say this scenario has much appeal to me as a Keeper. It's very "monster of the week" and the players just happening to be on that flight with that monster seems like a coincidence rather than a plotline. As you point out, without there being a set-up or any reason to expect a serpent person on the plane in the first place, there's almost no real scenario to it, just a glorified random encounter.
Also, "Intelligence 23 and Power 19 character goes into wrong hotel room" is a really weak justification for that scene.
Between this and some other scenarios, I can't the serpent people as all that interesting an option for mythos games in general. For the most part they lack any real unearthly quality unless you lean really hard into the prehistory stuff, and that requires a lot of set up in a campaign for it to pay off, I think.
Imagine a banker pretending to be a serpent person :)
What I'd do, is if they make that POW check, just have the serpent notice, and run away. (Everyone that failed doesn't believe you)
For the record, shoot guns in planes likely would do anything (maybe if it was a rifle, or possibly if it hit a window, or the fuel tank, etc, it could do something more, but those are all super unlikely to happen or even more unlikely to break), so minus the airplane getting very chilly till the pilot lowers the plane to 6,000 feet or whatever, it'll do very little then scare the shit out of people. That being said it'd really hurt the planes fuel efficiency. (You'll need to land a bit sooner, or run out of fuel, drag, etc being the reason)
Oh nice little bonus thing you can do, if it seems like your players all about to get party wiped, you could have the sudden drop in temp start to weaken or even slowly kill the serpent.
shouldn't the celebrity couple name be something like jawn or dack? since those names generally combine both first names.
I love 💘 Seth's reviews.
But i hate 😠 the fact once he does a review for a adventure from a old book.
The price skyrockets.
I don’t think the serpent people’s venom breaks down their body doesn’t makes any sense, rattlesnakes have venom that does more damage so do plenty of other snakes yet that’s not a common thing among snakes; so in my game, that’s not the case.
Didn't you already do a review of this scenario? This seems so familiar.
I forget it's name, but you might be thinking of the one on the steam ship with the serpent people.
@@ArawnNox no, Seth definitely did this review back in January. That's when I have this book's download date. I usually pick up new CoC scenarios after I watch his videos.
It doesn't bother me. I enjoy listening to his videos while working. I don't mind repeats.
Not a repost. From this book I've done Rigid Air, Armored Car, Crash Dive, and now this one. Ridgid Air (the blimp one) I did earlier this year, so you might be thinking of that one.
@@SSkorkowsky well now I'm just going to go listen to those other ones. I think Armored Car is my favorite.
Maybe it's familiar because Fear of Flying is the first scenario in the book and I read it months ago. 🤷🏼♂️
Good review as usual Seth, Unrelated question : have you played "City of Mist"?
I haven't played it, but several people have said that I should. Trailer looked cool.
If your going to split up this adventure onto a larger adventure you could also split up the passengers. Like if a character doesn't become super relevant right away, then maybe they get on after on of the pit stops.
Sounds interesting
Lol this character is available
Good video
Back to Call of Cthulhu woohoo!
as an evil german i can confirm - it is law for us germans to have a luger!
i have 2, coz i'm double evil
Hey! I was running this scenario 2 times. Always like a event during the campaign. I have one big problem with that story. This is where and why it turns out that Clark is a serpent person. I know this scenario is from the 90s and you can feel it. I don't like a situation where a NPC has to do something to another NPC for scrypt to turn on. Fortunately, both teams realized that something was wrong and the fight took place before the last part of the flight. However, it's still an original script idea. But it is a pity that this is one of the 3 good adventures in this book in my opinion.
Tentacles on a plane.
Stewardess! There’s a man on the wing!