Call of Cthulhu: Two Fisted Tales of One-Eyed Mulligan

GM: CthulhuBob Lovely

???: Rick Star, the star. Vain, but a nice guy.

Jennifer ???: Tom Johnson, an actor. A very nice guy, unlike the character he plays.

Tony Wilhelmson: Jimmy Chen, the cook. Unlike the martial artist he plays, Ping Pong, has two left feet.

Michael Prennan: Betty Book, Rick's girlfriend and leading lady. Plays a damsel in distress, but is quite competent in a fight, with or without guns.

Me: Halby Walley, the director. Thinks of cast and crew as his family.

Rick Thomas: Roto Skop, the best camera operator in the business.

In a convention where I played a lot of over the top, deliberately tasteless games, this was the one that made me the most uncomfortable.

The premise: It was the Great Depression, so movies were necessary to cheer Americans up! It was the patriotic duty of movie directors, cast, and crew! And, Hallby Walley had a mysterious benefactor offering a lot of money for him to direct a movie in South America!

The action opened with everyone on a small plane.

Rick: I would like to see the script.

Hallby: So would I!

Suddenly, people noticed that the plane was flying rather low. They checked on the pilot -- dead! The plane crashed, and everyone staggered out through the growing flames. The GM called for a Dex x5 roll to avoid these flames.

GM: Who failed?

Someone: Rick! In front of the plane

Rick took some damage, but not to his ego or to his indomitable spirit!

Roto (filming): Rick! Anything you want to say to your fans?

Rick: We made it, baby!

Betty decided to climb a tree and take a look around.

Roto: Even with those big bugs up there? I saw one with, like, a thousand legs.

Everyone seemed to have trouble climbing that tree. Well, everyone except Hallby, who managed to get up it when they were attacked, though I forget if it were by an animal or by --

GM: Orientals! Talking in some kind of Oriental Language.

Jimmy: I try to tell them, in really bad Chinese, that I'm their prisoner and I'm a big fan of Tojo.

Alas, this had no effect. The Orientals, who turned out to be Japanese, captured the PCs and locked them in a cave. I think there was a bamboo latticework keeping them inside.

Running joke: Bamboo? In South America??

Roto: And we're behind schedule on shooting!

Jimmy: We don't even have --

Hallby: -- the script!

Roto: -- our equipment!

Jimmy was taken out at one point and forced to cook for their captors.

Hallby: Did you by any chance put anything in it to make them fall asleep?

Jimmy: And ruin my cooking??

Hallby: Jimmy!

They decided to try to escape.

Someone (about Betty): She's sick! She's got the vapors!

Betty: Do you think that'll work?

Everyone was herded out of the cave and taken to an arena surrounded by Orientals. In the center, they saw an Oriental mastermind stroking his pet tiger. This Fu Manchu clone (whose name I forget) was a big fan of Rick Star. He was the Mysterious Patron. He had also hired the pilot and instructed him to take a pill at a certain point in the trip. The pill turned out to be a cyanide capsule.

Betty: Was there a contract for this, Hallby? I want to see your name on a contract.

The Oriental produced a contract, which Hallby refused to sign. I think it was in Oriental, but if it wasn't, that didn't much help, as the mastermind clearly intended to film the group meeting awful fates. The next scene was to be Escape from Bamboo Hell.

Mastermind: But, how you escape from Bamboo Hell when you not in Bamboo Hell yet?

His men herded the PCs back into the cave, which apparently doubled as Bamboo Hell. They did escape, and they discussed their chances for a frontal assault.

Jimmy: They have guns! Not to mention a tiger!

This was the line that convinced the GM he was worthy of a best roleplaying award. He tied with the man playing Betty, who was really good.

The rest of the scenario? Right. Our Heroes escaped, and tried to reach civilization. They camped at one point, and woke to discover that someone wearing boots had walked through the camp at night. They'd intended to keep watch, but everyone had fallen asleep.

At one point, I think the PCs defeated a small group of men:

GM: Back behind you, you hear someone shouting in Oriental.

Someone: Well, gee whiz, that was a stroke of luck.

Jimmy: I'm gonna use my fast talk to make them think I'm a martial artist!

GM: Roll that!

He succeeded. The men were left cowed or dead, I think.

The dead pilot was strapped into a vehicle which almost ran them down. I think they then claimed the vehicle. Alas, they either got lost or the road they were on looped around, for they soon found themselves heading back into the arena, where waited the Orientals, their mastermind, his tiger, and his other pet, a three-lobbed monstrosity of a nameless horror.

Jimmy and Hallby lost a lot of SAN. They realized that the only thing to do was to attack. In Hallby's case, this was quite obvious. His family was being threatened! The two men looked at each other and went into action.

They actually made their rolls to hit the creature with the guns they'd taken from the Orientals they'd overcome in the jungle.

I forget the context of this pair of lines:

Aiee! he screams, because we always scream Aiee!

As it dramatically crashes into the hard-to-climb trees.

Then, someone or something attacked Roto, damaging his arm.

Someone: Yeah, but it is his roto arm?

GM: It's his roto arm!

Someone: Oh no!

Roto looked across the clearing and saw -- an Oriental cameraman filming the action. This was the man who had walked through the campsite the night before.

Jimmy was overpowered by a number of Orientals. Roto was out of the vehicle and wounded. Hallby was out of the vehicle.

Betty, who was driving the vehicle, put it into reverse, backed out at top speed, and drove for civilization with friend and co-star Rick, leaving the others to their fate. After all, Hallby -- who watched as his remaining family abandoned him -- had gotten them into this mess!

The two stars survived. Jimmy was probably killed. We weren't sure if Hallby would be killed or forced to make films for the mastermind.

As I said, this was the game that made me the most uncomfortable of the convention. I think part of this was that the mixture of straight and over-the-top deliberately sterotyped elements did not quite blend well. The PCs were not camp stereotypes, but they were caught in a campy scenario. The Japanese "Orientals" who spoke "Oriental" sat very uneasily on top of all of this. I doubt the GM meant any offense, of course, and I did enjoy the game while playing.

In contrast, the next game's blend of dark humor and horror did work for me.