The Inside Scoop on Gaming

Grace Under Pressure is the first of The Resurrected, Pagan's series of reprints from their magazine, The Unspeakable Oath. It's a single scenario, with pregenerated characters, which centers around the crew of an experimental research submersible and the unearthly horrors they find on the ocean floor.

Grace Under Pressure draws heavily on movies like Aliens and The Abyss, pitting the characters not just against monsters (it's hardly giving anything away to say that they're Deep Ones - they're on the ocean floor, for pete's sake) but against the natural hazards of the deep. The scenario is very linear: the crew begin to notice small things going wrong with their ship, they investigate some anomalous sonar readings, the sonar readings turn out to be R'lyeh, they run away, some of them don't make it. There's not an awful lot the PCs can do to change the outcome except in terms of who gets away. I would have a problem with this if the scenario were designed for a campaign, but it's a one-shot, almost like a very sophisticated Blood Brothers scenario. In that format, players probably won't mind liberties being taken with the usual CofC narrative structure.

The booklet includes maps and cardstock figurines for the characters and monsters. The art on these is by the talented Blair Reynolds, and they're rather nice. I lost mine, unfortunately. The purpose of these maps and figures is to run the battle which occurs when the Deep Ones invade the ship, keeping track of every crew member's position. I normally don't like tactical fights, but enough suggestions are given for drama in this one that I'm sure it won't turn into a tactics exercise.

What makes this more than just an average horror-movie type scenario are the many suggestions for staging and presentation found throughout the booklet. I understand Pagan used to run this scenario at conventions as a "semi-live" event, and lots of information is presented in order to help you do the same. Grace Under Pressure was one of the things which really got me thinking about how to use staging and props in my own games.

All in all, Grace Under Pressure is a solid, well-written one-shot adventure at a reasonable price. It would have scored a strong 3/3, if it weren't for the maps and figures as well as the staging tips and hints. These push up the score by one in each category.

Style: 4 (Classy and well done)
Substance: 4 (Meaty)

Grace Under Pressure
Author: Jeff Barber, John Tynes. Art by Jeff Barber and Blair Reynolds. Category: game Company/Publisher: Pagan Publishing Line: Call of Cthulhu Cost: $5.95 Page count: 20 plus removeable maps and counters SKU: PAG2100 Capsule Review by James Holloway on 05/10/00. Genre tags: Science_fiction Modern_day Horror Live-action	Grace Under Pressure is the first of The Resurrected, Pagan's series of reprints from their magazine, The Unspeakable Oath. It's a single scenario, with pregenerated characters, which centers around the crew of an experimental research submersible and the unearthly horrors they find on the ocean floor. Grace Under Pressure draws heavily on movies like Aliens and The Abyss, pitting the characters not just against monsters (it's hardly giving anything away to say that they're Deep Ones - they're on the ocean floor, for pete's sake) but against the natural hazards of the deep. The scenario is very linear: the crew begin to notice small things going wrong with their ship, they investigate some anomalous sonar readings, the sonar readings turn out to be R'lyeh, they run away, some of them don't make it. There's not an awful lot the PCs can do to change the outcome except in terms of who gets away. I would have a problem with this if the scenario were designed for a campaign, but it's a one-shot, almost like a very sophisticated Blood Brothers scenario. In that format, players probably won't mind liberties being taken with the usual CofC narrative structure. The booklet includes maps and cardstock figurines for the characters and monsters. The art on these is by the talented Blair Reynolds, and they're rather nice. I lost mine, unfortunately. The purpose of these maps and figures is to run the battle which occurs when the Deep Ones invade the ship, keeping track of every crew member's position. I normally don't like tactical fights, but enough suggestions are given for drama in this one that I'm sure it won't turn into a tactics exercise. What makes this more than just an average horror-movie type scenario are the many suggestions for staging and presentation found throughout the booklet. I understand Pagan used to run this scenario at conventions as a "semi-live" event, and lots of information is presented in order to help you do the same. Grace Under Pressure was one of the things which really got me thinking about how to use staging and props in my own games. All in all, Grace Under Pressure is a solid, well-written one-shot adventure at a reasonable price. It would have scored a strong 3/3, if it weren't for the maps and figures as well as the staging tips and hints. These push up the score by one in each category. Style: 4 (Classy and well done) Substance: 4 (Meaty)