Unnamed CoC RPG Adventure

November 21 2025

I am spinning up this web page to document my process as I develop an adventure scenario for the Call of Cthlhu RPG (7e). I began working on this untitled scenario on October 20 2025. My intent is to produce an investigative horror scenario to run for three of my players (my partner, Grace, and Luke) either over a play-by-post discord I have set up, or synchronously via voice chat on occasion. Besides making something quality, which is informed by the history of the early 20th century American setting, the noir detective genre, and the spirit of Lovecraft's weird horror, my secondary goal with this project is produce enough of a document to self-publish this scenario as a free PDF for other players.

My desire to design, produce, and publish a scenario goes back to the last time I was running Call of Cthulhu for friends when I was in grad school. I was running them through a vaguely sketched out scenario of my own creation that provoked some genuinely fun, or eerie, or intriguing moments of play. I always thought I could return to my notes from then and turn them into a functional and thoughout and complete scenario. I feel starting on a new project is the move to make now. Compared to who I was in grad school, my understanding of RPGs and genre has changed. I have had a bit more experience running games, too, and know a little bit about what makes for fragile scenario plotting. This new adventure should be scarier and more intriguing on its merit as a horror investigation story, with a strong premise and a well thoughout mystery. But it should also invite my players to play an active role within it.

Basically, my goal here is to do good work. And from my time creating stories and games I know doing good work is very very hard. I'll be leaning into my instincts on this project, trusting my gut (which isn't and hasn't always been easy) to discern when my ideas are actually worth keeping because they are good or if I think they are worth keeping only because they make it easy to just keep working. This isn't work for the sake of it, but work in service of doing something well. And that feels liberating. It excites me.