Politics as Usual by John Hall 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.
The supplement is available as a 20 page Pay What You Want PDF from DriveThruRPG. One page is the front cover (designed something like a newspaper page), one the front matter and one the Table of Contents. There are four supplementary, two page, PDFs, each of which is a sheet for a pre-generated investigator.
The news on the front page is done in a similar manner to Alpaca in a Sheep Field, which scenario is referenced in one of the pieces. Most are to do with accusations against a minister and the ownership of old buildings, both relevant to the adventure.
The Introduction explains that a group of people have gathered to ensure that accusations against the minister in question disappear, though the investigators will discover more than they expected.
Keeper Information starts with Background on the Minister in the Scottish Government, and the leader of the opposition, who rapidly rose from being a nobody after joining a group interested in the occult. The other politician was spying on the Minister using occult abilities, but the group he is part of made a mistake.
Involving the Investigators has ways of getting them involved, assuming the pre-gens are not used.
Dramatis Personae has the Minister and members of the group. This is followed by details on the creature they summoned. The group also has different methods of gaining Power.
Setting the Scene has the investigators summoned to the Minister or his fixer in order to deal with the problem of the accusations.
The Lodge is the headquarters of the cult on Canongate in Edinburgh and is the major site in the adventure. It is then described.
What happens to the investigators depends on their actions. The creature can give gifts to them, but these may well be fatal. Stats are provided, but it isn’t intended to be fought. Epilogue wraps things up.
Two pages have maps of the Lodge for the Keeper and the players, one page has a handout and the remainder have the stats parts of the character sheets for the pre-gens.
Politics as Usual in Review
The PDF lacks bookmarks and is long enough with enough different sections that these would have been useful. The Table of Contents covers the major and minor sections and is hyperlinked. Navigation could be better. The text maintains a two-column format and appeared to be free of errors. The only illustrations are the cover, investigator images, map and handout. Presentation is okay.
The scenario has an unexpected creature, which resulted in the group that met in the Lodge making a mistake. Investigators are at risk of doing similar; this isn’t bad, but it does show an open mind is still essential. The investigators are definitely at risk in this adventure, but the Keeper might want to tweak the gifts a bit. It’s said they don’t have to be fatal, and those that are would come across as being a bit arbitrary. Politics as Usual is a decent little adventure and it can be found by clicking here.
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