SD and I Plays: Death May Die

Before I complain too much, I should say I did have fun playing through this episode. I especially enjoyed the ending. It’s spot on for Call of Cthulhu…except…

…and this is where I start my complaining. There’s quite a few little things that annoys me, but they can be overlooked. My biggest issues are:

1. I’m not really sure why we’re here. Fighting the cultists and the monsters. I do realise there’s not much room on the ‘cards’ for text. But I would have liked a lot more ‘story’ to this. Maybe in a booklet or something. Then you could have the quick flavour text on the cards for those who’d just like to get started with the game.  And something more immersive in a small booklet for Lovecraft fans like me. It doesn’t even have to be that much. Maybe with future games there’ll be some kind of thread through these stories, binding them all together and making sense. We shall see.

2. For each episode you also choose an elder god. And the core box comes with two. Hastur and Cthulhu. Now Hastur…hrmmmf…aaargh…Hastur I could almost excuse going hand to hand with my investigators. Almost. The King in Yellow does have a reputation for messin’ with hoomans. But Cthulhu. No way he would ramble around in a random estate, punching investigators on the nose. Just no. He’d rise from the ocean. Yawn. Stretch. Yawn again. And then eat up a continent in one snacky snack motion.  So it just feels really off that I’m chasing him around the rooms, trying to take him down.

In the end I decided that it wasn’t Cthulhu I was chasing, but some weird avatar of his. Something small and insignificant on the grand cosmos scale of things. And for story…well, I just came up with one in my head before starting, cause my imagination never seems to sleep. Unlike some Elder Gods.

So here goes. Ahmed and Ian are about to enter the Wallace Estate to stop the cultists from calling forth Cthulhu.