Review: The Lightless Beacon (Call of Cthulhu)
This free short one-shot by Leigh Carr and Lynne Hardy was my first time running Call of Cthulhu and also the first time for my players playing the game. We used the provided characters which hooked brilliantly into the adventure and they really opened our eyes towards what is possible in a TTRPG. Here is the thing, I love my group, but they are mostly DnD beer and pretzels kind of players, always going for a cheap laugh and character backgrounds rarely go beyond "I just want treasure and fame". Presented with these characters, they role-played as I have never seen them before: nervous chain-smoking, shaky voices, old friends and distant memories they recall in moments of peril and so on. It was fantastic. Playing this scenario has fundamentally changed how we played every other game since, it has opened the door for our group to explore characters more in depths and take session zeros seriously. For this alone this scenario takes a very special place in my heart. The premise of the sinking ship is a really strong start and anyone familiar with Lovecraft's "Shadow over Innsmouth" will immediately feel drawn into the story. Exploring the Island is tense and fun and the material provided supports the GM perfectly in running this adventure. We didn't even use a VTT, just Discord with pure theatre of the mind and the occasional image posted to a text channel. The scenario culminated in a fire-fight on the stairs of the lighthouse while the storm was raging outside, perfect! And all of this evolved naturally from the setup of the adventure and the evocative writing alone! I highly recommended this as a first Call of Cthulhu adventure, even more so than other classics such as "Edge of Darkness", as the shorter length makes it really manageable for a new Cthulhu GM. 10/10