RPGnet : The Inside Scoop on Gaming

Day of the Beast is a campaign adventure for the Call of Cthulhu roleplaying game. Its plot is that old CoC standby: a world-spanning conspiracy of nefarious cultists are trying to open a Portal into our world, whereby their Dread God can come through and wreak the usual sorts of tentacly havoc. It's not the most daringly original of ideas, but there's nothing inherently wrong with it. There are plenty of ways to get lots of enjoyment out of a campaign like this, not the least of which are the numerous exotic locales the investigators get to travel to. The back cover mentions London, Cairo, San Francisco, Romania, and Peru ("Peru?" I thought, skimming through this book at the Game Parlor. "Cool!"), among others. Unfortunately, the whole amounts to significantly less than the sum of its parts, and the end product is not so great.

The campaign is divided into about a dozen distinct "episodes," which are short enough that each could probably be completed in a single gaming session. The episodes are linked and meant to be played in order, but for the most part one does not lead directly into the other; in fact, the campaign timeline specifically calls for periods of "downtime," usually a period of a few weeks or even a few months, between episodes. This is nice, because it gives the investigators opportunities to improve their skills or bring in replacement investigators when someone goes bonkers or gets eaten. There is a notable lack of background material, especially for the more exotic locations (including, sadly, Peru), although as with any historical game, it's not hard to fill it in yourself if you're willing to do a little research.

However, this point brings to the forefront one of this campaign's more significant flaws: it does not have a very good sense of its own time period. Although the campaign is superficially set in the 1920s, the historical background is never an integral part of the story. It just doesn't feel very "twenties." At times, in fact, the atmosphere is even distinctly anachronistic (multinational corporations? remote transistors? giant robots?). In the introduction, the author remarks that the adventure has a "peculiarly modern" feel, and suggests that with only a few minor tweaks it could easily be converted to a modern-day setting. Since so much of the adventure seems ill-suited for a historical setting anyway, it begs the question of why the campaign wasn't written in a modern-day setting to begin with.

The episodes, taken individually, vary in quality. A handful are pretty weak, but some (such as the North Dakota and, yes, the Peru episodes) are quite good. There is enough good material here that it would have made a decent collection of one-offs, if only it had been marketed as such. It's only when you try to put the whole thing together as a single campaign that it falls apart.

Simply put, the campaign suffers greatly from a dreadful lack of coherence. As mentioned previously, the individual episodes are linked; however, they are linked only in the most tenuous ways. Although the aforementioned world-spanning conspiracy is ostensibly the "whole point" of the campaign, only the last two or three episodes are actually about the conspiracy at all. The rest are about various unrelated or very tangentially related mysteries, during the course of which the investigators might happen to pick up a minor clue that might (or might not) suggest that there is some larger game afoot. The clues do not lead the investigators from one episode to the next; they are merely isolated bits of information, with nothing about them to indicate that they should be put together in any particular way, or indeed at all.

Compounding this problem is an odd variant of the Mythos Hoedown Syndrome: every episode must feature a different Mythos monster, race, or god, and preferably more than one. The particular monsters are not connected in any way to the main plot, naturally; each just happens to be involved in whatever individual episode the investigators are currently in.

From the player's perspective, this all amounts to a great deal of confusion and not much payoff. While many long campaigns contain side-quests, red herrings of minimal importance or relevance to the overall plot, Day of the Beast plays like a disjointed string of only side-quests, with an overall plot of minimal importance or relevance flimsily attached. There is no point at which everything starts coming together. There is no sense of direction, no sense of urgency, and no way of knowing -- or even making an educated guess at -- what the campaign is supposed to be about. Is it about the Shan? the Great Race of Yith? the Mi-Go? Serpent Men? Deep Ones? Dholes? Nyogtha? Hydra? Shub-Niggurath? Secret cloning experiments? There's no way to tell. All of them are given equal screen time, but none of them are really important. The author suggests that the semi-independent episodes can be integrated into an existing campaign rather than played straight through, but this seems ill-advised; the last thing this campaign needs is more unrelated events mixed in.

There are no big revelations at the end; in fact, the grand finale is perhaps the shortest and least developed episode in the whole campaign. The principles gather at the appointed place and start the ritual; if you stop them in time, you win; if not, you lose. Ultimately, success or failure depends on the investigators having had the foresight to research one specific spell, and whether or not they can stumble upon a rather creative application of it during the final ritual. What little impact is left is deflated by the fact that the entire final encounter has been done better (though not earlier) by Masks of Nyarlathotep, and investigators who have played that campaign will probably be left feeling like they have been over this ground before.

(Incidentally, Day of the Beast was actually published before Masks of Nyarlathotep; in fact, it is a reprint of The Fungi From Yuggoth, which was first published in 1984. Why Chaosium felt the need to ressurect this particular product, while a masterpiece like Horror on the Orient Express continues to languish out of print, this reviewer cannot say.)

To summarize: Day of the Beast is a collection of interesting details in desperate need of a big picture. If you're looking for ideas for one-shot gaming sessions or short encounters, you might find this book useful. If you're looking to run a campaign, pass it by.

Style: 3 (Average)
Substance: 2 (Sparse)

Day of the Beast
Author: Keith Herber Category: game Company/Publisher: Chaosium Line: Call of Cthulhu Cost: $19.95 Page count: 128 ISBN: 1568821255 SKU: CH2374 Capsule Review by Michael S. Gentry on 12/15/99. Genre tags: Historical Horror Conspiracy	Day of the Beast is a campaign adventure for the Call of Cthulhu roleplaying game. Its plot is that old CoC standby: a world-spanning conspiracy of nefarious cultists are trying to open a Portal into our world, whereby their Dread God can come through and wreak the usual sorts of tentacly havoc. It's not the most daringly original of ideas, but there's nothing inherently wrong with it. There are plenty of ways to get lots of enjoyment out of a campaign like this, not the least of which are the numerous exotic locales the investigators get to travel to. The back cover mentions London, Cairo, San Francisco, Romania, and Peru ("Peru?" I thought, skimming through this book at the Game Parlor. "Cool!"), among others. Unfortunately, the whole amounts to significantly less than the sum of its parts, and the end product is not so great. The campaign is divided into about a dozen distinct "episodes," which are short enough that each could probably be completed in a single gaming session. The episodes are linked and meant to be played in order, but for the most part one does not lead directly into the other; in fact, the campaign timeline specifically calls for periods of "downtime," usually a period of a few weeks or even a few months, between episodes. This is nice, because it gives the investigators opportunities to improve their skills or bring in replacement investigators when someone goes bonkers or gets eaten. There is a notable lack of background material, especially for the more exotic locations (including, sadly, Peru), although as with any historical game, it's not hard to fill it in yourself if you're willing to do a little research. However, this point brings to the forefront one of this campaign's more significant flaws: it does not have a very good sense of its own time period. Although the campaign is superficially set in the 1920s, the historical background is never an integral part of the story. It just doesn't feel very "twenties." At times, in fact, the atmosphere is even distinctly anachronistic (multinational corporations? remote transistors? giant robots?). In the introduction, the author remarks that the adventure has a "peculiarly modern" feel, and suggests that with only a few minor tweaks it could easily be converted to a modern-day setting. Since so much of the adventure seems ill-suited for a historical setting anyway, it begs the question of why the campaign wasn't written in a modern-day setting to begin with. The episodes, taken individually, vary in quality. A handful are pretty weak, but some (such as the North Dakota and, yes, the Peru episodes) are quite good. There is enough good material here that it would have made a decent collection of one-offs, if only it had been marketed as such. It's only when you try to put the whole thing together as a single campaign that it falls apart. Simply put, the campaign suffers greatly from a dreadful lack of coherence. As mentioned previously, the individual episodes are linked; however, they are linked only in the most tenuous ways. Although the aforementioned world-spanning conspiracy is ostensibly the "whole point" of the campaign, only the last two or three episodes are actually about the conspiracy at all. The rest are about various unrelated or very tangentially related mysteries, during the course of which the investigators might happen to pick up a minor clue that might (or might not) suggest that there is some larger game afoot. The clues do not lead the investigators from one episode to the next; they are merely isolated bits of information, with nothing about them to indicate that they should be put together in any particular way, or indeed at all. Compounding this problem is an odd variant of the Mythos Hoedown Syndrome: every episode must feature a different Mythos monster, race, or god, and preferably more than one. The particular monsters are not connected in any way to the main plot, naturally; each just happens to be involved in whatever individual episode the investigators are currently in. From the player's perspective, this all amounts to a great deal of confusion and not much payoff. While many long campaigns contain side-quests, red herrings of minimal importance or relevance to the overall plot, Day of the Beast plays like a disjointed string of only side-quests, with an overall plot of minimal importance or relevance flimsily attached. There is no point at which everything starts coming together. There is no sense of direction, no sense of urgency, and no way of knowing -- or even making an educated guess at -- what the campaign is supposed to be about. Is it about the Shan? the Great Race of Yith? the Mi-Go? Serpent Men? Deep Ones? Dholes? Nyogtha? Hydra? Shub-Niggurath? Secret cloning experiments? There's no way to tell. All of them are given equal screen time, but none of them are really important. The author suggests that the semi-independent episodes can be integrated into an existing campaign rather than played straight through, but this seems ill-advised; the last thing this campaign needs is more unrelated events mixed in. There are no big revelations at the end; in fact, the grand finale is perhaps the shortest and least developed episode in the whole campaign. The principles gather at the appointed place and start the ritual; if you stop them in time, you win; if not, you lose. Ultimately, success or failure depends on the investigators having had the foresight to research one specific spell, and whether or not they can stumble upon a rather creative application of it during the final ritual. What little impact is left is deflated by the fact that the entire final encounter has been done better (though not earlier) by Masks of Nyarlathotep, and investigators who have played that campaign will probably be left feeling like they have been over this ground before. (Incidentally, Day of the Beast was actually published before Masks of Nyarlathotep; in fact, it is a reprint of The Fungi From Yuggoth, which was first published in 1984. Why Chaosium felt the need to ressurect this particular product, while a masterpiece like Horror on the Orient Express continues to languish out of print, this reviewer cannot say.) To summarize: Day of the Beast is a collection of interesting details in desperate need of a big picture. If you're looking for ideas for one-shot gaming sessions or short encounters, you might find this book useful. If you're looking to run a campaign, pass it by. Style: 3 (Average) Substance: 2 (Sparse)