A Review of the Role Playing Game Supplement At One With Nature

At One With Nature by Graham James is a role playing game supplement published by Chaosium Inc. through the Miskatonic Repository Community Content Programme for use with Call of Cthulhu, the horror role playing game based on the works of H.P. Lovecraft. This is a 1920s scenario.

The supplement is available as a 26 page Pay What You Want PDF from DriveThruRPG. One page is the front cover, one the front matter and one the Table of Contents. There is a second, 33-page accessible PDF with primarily a single column layout and missing the images.

The Introduction, Background and Overview explain that the investigators travel to Scotland to visit a sister who married and moved there. In addition, after the Battle of Culloden, a family made a deal with Shub-Niggurath to avoid the aftermath of the defeat. The three PCs are assumed to have recently graduated from Oxford; two are either newly-wed or close friends. It also states that the adventure’s theme is tragic, inescapable horror.

NPC Character Briefs gives overviews of the NPCs that the characters will come into contact with. This is followed by details on atmosphere (there’s either a missing heading or some have been given the wrong heading) and game flow, as well as determining who is the missing sister’s sibling.

Two Scenes then follow, as well as the clues that characters can get from talking to the NPCs. Player Options are followed by another ten Scenes, which largely involving speaking to the NPCs.

The End has the final four Scenes, followed by various different options for ending the adventure, depending on the characters’ choices.

Finally, there are two pages of handouts, followed by three pre-generated characters and then, oddly, another page of handouts.

At One With Nature in Review

The primary PDF lacks bookmarks and, given the number of different sections, they would have been useful. However, the accessible PDF does have bookmarks and they are thorough. The Table of Contents is to a similar level of depth and is hyperlinked in the accessible PDF, but not in the other. Navigation is good for the accessible version; poor for the other. The text maintains a single column with sidebar layout, with the sidebar providing role play tips, and appeared to be mostly free of errors. Bar some page decorations and the cover, there are no illustrations. Presentation is adequate.

As the adventure explains at the beginning, the theme is tragic, inescapable horror. Unfortunately, that’s a theme that works better for a horror story than it does an adventure. No matter what the characters do, things will end badly; they only determine what the bad end is. This makes it a bit depressing to play. The style does fit Lovecraftian fiction, but is a bit unsuited to making adventures fun; the lack of any Sanity rewards for the adventure makes it pretty clear this has no good endings. A Keeper might be advised to tinker with the ending a bit to make it better. Even so, this is only really suited as a one-shot without more tweaking. The adventure is either combat-light, or completely free of combat, making it pure investigative. At One With Nature is a very downbeat, essentially unwinnable, adventure and it can be found by clicking here.