Post-Mortem
Cinq Supplices
conclusion
ludique · Post-Mortem · samedi, 21 juillet 2018 à 15:30:07 · 13 min
Half a year has passed since the end of our Cinq Supplices campaign, over which six analysis posts were spaced out on this blog. This post partly summarizes the content of the previously published articles and also offers a player's point of view. The time has come to offer my (our) conclusion on this Chinese-inflected work for Call of Cthulhu.
The content of this article will reveal part of the plot of an official campaign. If you want to discover Cinq Supplices as a player rather than as the GM, do not read the paragraphs that follow.
To undertake a synthesis of our adventures with the Cinq Supplices, I propose splitting the review between my feelings as the GM, then those of the players.
The GM's side
On the whole, I liked this campaign.
Boom!
After everything I have spouted about it, we could stop there, but let's try to sum it all up in five "postulates" necessary to its appreciation.
For any tabletop RPG campaign involves a series of postulates the group must buy into before setting off on the adventure. Once accepted, these postulates form the identity and the strengths of the adventure. Badly digested, they generate frustration. The way the text and the game aids support these postulates constitutes a second prism through which an RPG campaign can be assessed. I suspect that a good part of the negative criticism of Cinq Supplices stems from postulates that were not fully assimilated — not because the players failed to understand them, but because some of them are perhaps not explicit enough. What are they?
A short campaign
Our game statistics demonstrated it: Cinq Supplices is meant to be a fairly short campaign, despite its substantial game aids and its roughly 400-600 pages of content. Obviously, every group plays at its own tempo, but I doubt the adventure can be stretched out, given the fairly tight schedule of the events it presents. If you fear embarking on a long-haul campaign during which half of your players will vanish (work life, private life, loss of interest, etc.), fear not. Conversely, if you are after a "lifetime campaign" in which your PCs will soak for years, move along. Cinq Supplices could serve as a stopover within a "meta-campaign", but the unusual bestiary and entities it offers are disconnected from the conventional Mythos. It is up to you, motivated GMs, to introduce them into your subsequent scenarios.
Non-Lovecraftian references
As mentioned in my first look, this campaign gives a miss to a good part of the Call of Cthulhu bestiary. Out with the unkillable Shoggoths, the demon-sultan Azathoth, and Cthulhu-who-sleeps-but-is-not-dead. At most, you will find here some Deep Ones (rebranded "Shen De", the "walking fish"), a few remarkably affable nightgaunts, a handful of Tcho-Tchos lost in a cave, and vague textual references to the Outer Gods and the Great Old Ones. The entities the campaign revolves around are the Rançonneurs de Droit Divin, the Messager des Tourmentes, the Écorcheur Céleste, or the intriguing Marchand Ambulant. So many figures that one struggles to place within the traditional cosmogony of the Mythos, just like the Empire des Ombres, which could loosely be compared to a parallel dimension of the "Dreamlands" type. Beyond the creatures and the locations, the campaign's themes run against Lovecraftian canon. Humans have motivations that are not dictated by higher entities, and the big bad hopes — and might well — use the occult world to fulfill utterly down-to-earth goals. Here and there, the story speaks of destiny, and in many respects it indulges in very pulp action scenes, closer to Indiana Jones adventures than to The Shadow over Innsmouth.
If you are looking for something traditional to introduce your table to the Lovecraftian ropes, you will have to look elsewhere. On the other hand, if you crave exoticism and have already been through "At the Mountains of Madness", you will be delighted by this breath of fresh air.
A difficult and rewarding setting
The question of History in tabletop RPGs is a vast topic that some authors have already handled with talent. Everyone will have their own opinion on this, but it seems clear that the closer the events you play with are to us (in time and in space), the thornier they become to put on the table. Japan's invasion of Manchuria turns out to be more sensitive than one might think: less than a hundred years old, this aggression left marks that are still visible on every level, but above all the diplomatic one. What should be done with this historical reality? How do you "playfully" stage the horrors of Unit 731? Mention them seriously? Tastefully sweep them under the rug?
The answer Cinq Supplices provides is only half convincing. On the one hand, the author does not wish to insist too much on the horror of the events. He would simply like to sketch an enriching backdrop for the players' culture, without getting lost in it. Most of the time, he manages, but a few missteps — like the "B-movie" staging of Shirō Ishii — undermine the story's credibility. What is more, if you have little taste for the "playful" diversion of historical reality, you might take offense at the depiction of the Japanese invasion as a conspiracy hatched by fish-men seeking to enslave Humanity. Delicate.
Beyond that, everyone seems to agree in praising the author's very fine work of synthesis and documentation on China of the period. Accessible enough for newcomers, the material nevertheless offers plenty to whisk you away intelligently. Just plan on reading a bit more about Zhang Xueliang, because your players might take an interest in Manchurian geopolitics and ask you for additional information the campaign does not provide.
A chase
This postulate sums up the previous points. The end of the first chapter should settle the matter for everyone: the campaign's concept is a chase to prevent Sayk Fong Lee from becoming a Rançonneur de Droit Divin. Of course, surprises can occur along the way, but the general idea remains until the adventure's conclusion. The investigators will stick to the villain's trail and will only get a breather once he is no longer able to do harm.
I lay some of my regrets at the feet of this "chase" concept. As some veteran players pointed out, this postulate is not original for Call of Cthulhu — even Masks of Nyarlathotep comes close with its "race against the clock" side. Cinq Supplices is nonetheless more restrictive, not only because the players know they are on their Nemesis's trail from the start of the campaign, but also because the whole story plays out over a handful of weeks. As a consequence, the PCs cannot stop to linger, develop their own projects, or build lasting relationships. At most, their character can be forged in the constant adversity they face from the moment they arrive in Dairen, but if your players are not naturally inclined toward in-character introspection, you will have to carve out such moments for them yourself. And honestly, I do not see where or when such moments could fit. The result is characters who end up rather undistinctive, "vessels" the players use to solve the plot. If you want to play a campaign that gives pride of place to PC initiatives, or that leaves plenty of room for their motivations, you might be disappointed.
The passage through the Empire des Ombres, in the "Le Sacre de Sayk Fong Lee" scenario, can constitute one of the rare moments when the PCs rest, because time flows differently there. My group did not wish to linger there, however, since the players had no way of knowing when they would finally return to the real world. Too bad for the beautiful Cité des Ombres!
Linearity and relativity
Many reviews mention the campaign's linearity among Cinq Supplices' weak points. In one sentence as in a hundred (aka "TL;DR" in English): this campaign does not strike me as linear in any way. There is inevitably a chronology to follow, as in any campaign, but it adapts well to the vagaries provoked by the players and their PCs. I invite you to go back over the summaries of our adventure and my comments on each chapter to resolve any problems you fear facing. As a general rule, few are the actions to which the framework proposed by the book could not adapt. Just make sure to reset the various fronts (in the PbtA sense of the term) at the start of each session, and you should be able to improvise coherent, rich, and constructive reactions for everyone involved. The text helps you there, by generously summarizing the state and motivations of each faction at the start of each scenario.
I suspect the writing style of being responsible for this impression of linearity: more often than is reasonable, the author offers a "default" version of how his scenario unfolds, whose tone and presuppositions can sometimes raise eyebrows. Fortunately, he very frequently explains — if only through a single marginal paragraph — what the consequences of an alternative course would be and, sometimes, what other options are open to the players. Mandatory passages and default hypotheses are an integral part of writing a scenario (and a fortiori a campaign), whose throughline must be able to rest on a base everyone will agree on. The tentacular succession of improbable branchings cannot be efficiently represented in text, and it is very likely to lose the GM, in addition to diluting the strong moments among less inspired ones. Perhaps one day, decision trees will become the common way to visualize the possibilities offered by a truly open scenario. In the meantime, it seems unfair to fault Cinq Supplices for having a strong throughline.
Some of the campaign's presuppositions amount to tall orders. For instance, the legitimacy of one NPC within the group rests on the idea that the PCs do not speak Chinese (and that they need an interpreter). Yet in our group, (almost) all the players had created characters with at least a basic knowledge of Chinese.
From the other side of the table
At my table, six people stood shoulder to shoulder on the PC side. Olivier of Carnets de Guerre, who played Fernand Legoffe, shared his point of view on our forum.
One main black spot emerges from it: the punitive system of Call of Cthulhu and the unsuitable situations that ensue from it. The remark holds for every Call of Cthulhu scenario, but the massive armed opposition the PCs face here exacerbates the problem. The Japanese show of force in Bayuquan acts as a catalyst: facing the tanks and the tide of over-equipped soldiers, the players felt powerless. For my team, a failed Stealth roll meant at the very least a bullet whistling in their direction, hence a serious risk of death. The pushed-roll system offered in the 7th edition of Call of Cthulhu softens the observation somewhat (you can fail once without it causing any dramatic effect), but not enough for the fear of an arbitrary death to disappear completely. As a result, I better understand my group's "explosive" tendency whenever the PCs got their hands on grenades: since influencing events seemed impossible, grenades and their divine blast amounted to practical solutions for making the antagonists fail. Blow things up, since taking control was out of reach.
How do you handle this tension, desirable as it is in a Call of Cthulhu campaign, but not to the point of freezing your group stiff? I certainly did not insist enough on the magic tattoos the PCs could have obtained, relegating these mystical powers to the rank of a small side quest on the Île de la Souffrance, which the group showed no interest in. Yet a damage reduction, a Dodge increase, the possibility of summoning a protector at the cost of a few hit points and magic points... all these powers could have given our team more cards to play. If you notice the same problem in your campaign, don't be stingy with the means. Allow yourself a touch of power-gaming and cook them up a little mystical quest in Bayuquan. Among the population held prisoner by the Japanese, there could be a disciple of Agai Chen able to inform the investigators about the master tattooist, and to perform a few miracles in exchange for a service (such as an extraction far from the conflict, perhaps in connection with the Serpent Jaune fleet). Also make sure to insist on the support of the PCs' allies, or even to openly offer them a potential alliance with part of the Japanese army. The campaign suggests Tsatoba can do it, but one could also imagine the group preferring the Dragon Noir to fight the Shen De. Sayk Fong Lee's presumptuous allies could employ Gaijin for their dirty work, never suspecting that these constitute a genuine threat to their master.
Despite this negative point, the campaign nevertheless seems to have been enjoyed. The exoticism hit the mark with the novices as much as with the veterans (the veteran, in fact) of Call of Cthulhu, and the variety of situations keeps the campaign interesting from start to finish. To sum up, allow me this direct lift from Olivier's comment:
"[…]Some passages were fun and pleasant, light enough to let us catch our breath. Some were “pulp”, with a race against Sayk Fong Lee to see who would arrive first. And some were creepy and oppressive (in the good sense of the term), like the Japanese invasion or the return to Manchuria after Mongolia. The GM managed quite well to establish the atmospheres despite the wonderful volleys of critical failures or the lifesaving critical successes. It’s a campaign where I always wanted to come to the sessions to know what came next, and so I am putting it among the positive campaigns." - Olivier
Two years, 23 sessions, eight articles, some 16,000 words, more than an hour of reading: I think I have covered the whole of our adventures with the Cinq Supplices. I hope you will enjoy these posts, that my (our) opinion will feel relevant to you, and that these tips will prove useful should you take your turn at running this campaign. The omens seem negative, however, as Éditions Sans-Détour have just lost their Call of Cthulhu license. Short of a miracle, within a few years the Cinq Supplices campaign will be nothing more than an urban legend in the teeming jungle of Call of Cthulhu publications. A great shame!
For the most talkative among you, you can discuss our campaign on our forum.