Alone Against the Flames

YOU become the star of the movie The Wicker Man, more or less.

You catch the bus to Ossipee, on your way to Arkham for a new job. It’s not exactly wide eyes full of hope, but it’s a change.

As is the way of horror stories, the bus breaks down and leaves you at a creepy little town with creepy people who talk only about their creepy little customs regarding bonfires. Are you here for the Festival? Nope! But you’re stuck here anyway. Of course, not a single person in town knows of another car or even a horse, and the broken bus wasn’t too broken down to drive away and leave you stranded.

Nope. You’ve seen movies.You know how this works. Peter Cushing or Nick Cage, either way – nope! Get the heck out of there!

But it won’t be easy, because COC is never easy. This annual “Festival” has been going on for about forty years, and the village won’t evade their fiery fate by their prey (that’s you!) succeeding skill tests and escaping.

Review and Opinion

Alone Against the Flames is the single-player tutorial adventure provided with the Call of Cthulhu 7th Edition starter kit. It walks you through creating a character one step at a time, using the simplified quick start rule set. So that’s a cool way to introduce people to the basics. Alone Against the Flames is freely available from Chaosium’s website or from a link below.

You’re going to fail a lot and end up as this year’s human sacrifice, a lot, because COC’s percentage-based character stats are just poor. With stats of 40 and 60, those mean a 49% or 60% chance of passing the test. So the chances of finding the secret room, making the language roll, making the will check – well, you know what happens when you multiply percentages: they dwindle close to zero very quickly. You’ll never make the strength roll AND make the hard dodge roll AND have passed that track roll earlier AND make the spot hidden AND survive 2d6 damage from the fire as well. Call of Cthulhu is all about celebrating the tragic deaths and grisly dooms, so try to roll with it.

That said, for a 270-paragraph intro adventure, it’s not half-bad as a game book. There are about five endings where you get away, several where you burn, several where you bring down fire from the heavens and really wreck up the place, and even one where you’re mauled to death by a bear. Tragic deaths and grisly dooms, indeed.

Hints and Tips

In COC, I think the single most valuable skill is Spot Hidden. If you go out on the first night and pass a Track roll, then the next morning pass a Spot Hidden, you find a secret exit from the town and then come festival day you can just walk out. (again with the percentages: knowing this and giving yourself a 80 in one and 70 in the other = 56% chance)

During the day times, the village hall is really the only useful place – you may find a secret door and then hidden books – aside from meeting Arbogast if you want that awesome ending.