Beyond the Mountains of Madness: Review
I am determined to run this superb campaign, as soon as I've now recovered from my cold and
found 5 appropriate players. The campaign notes call for any characters, beginning characters
fine, but EXPERIENCED ROLEPLAYERS. I could not concur more.
I would argue there are two basic styles of RPG story - the HIGH FANTASY and the LOW FANTASY.
Our Changeling is a HIGH FANTASY chronicle. The characters are heroes, the pace is fast, danger threatens everywhere,
monsters, death and glory are round every corner. The game is played fast and loose, with only extensive in character
conversation and courtly intrigue to slow the pace. It is deadly serious, but a lot of fun, and the game revolves around the characters
and the imaginary realms, not the mundane world.
Beyond the Mountains of Madness is nothing like this. It is a classic LOW FANTASY game. Don't get me wrong, the characters are heroes,
and pursued by the Press from day one - but they are Antartic Explorers (or rather will be), not chivalric dragon slayers.
The cargo manifests for the expedition go on for pages of handouts. I can tell you the fuel burnt by any plane on any trip across the ice.
The supplement has rules for hypoxia, frostbite, sleds, aircraft, etc, etc. It is 438 pages of very small print, and
packed with detail. It is quite simply an astonishingly detailed and (as far as I can tell) accurate simulation of what it would
have been like to be on an expedition of this sort.
Real world problems - accountancy anyone? cargo handling? law on visa's? make up a huge part of the adventure, and if the party rushes it is unlikely they will
survive their first week on the ice. There is plenty of adventure, but be aware that the party is going to spend hours of game time and real time poring over cargo manifests
and checking details. This is SIMULATION roleplaying, closest in spirit to the
Traveller Adventure published by GDW back in '82. It does not suit people who like fast and hectic action; if this was a TV programme it would be
more like a very very very long documentary than a thriller or cop show.
Having said all this, I am the referee whose pedantic research and knowledge of history is well known; this is exactly my kind of campaign, and as it happens I have a large library of books on Artic/Antartic exploration
from my attempt at running Pagan Publishing's 'Walker in the Wastes' campaign. Players should be willing to commit to some basic research and to the fact that two entire novels
form player handouts. Players should NOT read or re-read 'At the Mountains of Madness' by H.P.Lovecraft until instructed to at the appropriate point in the story; it forms the backdrop for the entire campaign, and ideally none of the players will have ever read it.
The second novel is Edgar Allen Poe's 'The Tale of Arthur Gordon Pym'; again don't read it till instructed to by the Keeper.
If you are thinking of running this check out the playtest review from one of the original playtesters.
I will NOT be publishing details of the plot which could spoil the campaign for other on this page, so you can refer
people to it safely.
Beyond the Mountains of Madness: Background for Players
From the author's Foreword...
Lovecraft's The Mountains of Madness... "tells the story of the Miskatonic University Antartic Expedition of 1930-31..."
This campaign... "continues the story begun in Lovecraft's novel of the Antartic. It is the tale of the Starweather-Moore Expedition of 1933,
mentioned by Lovecraft, which bravely (and foolishly) seeks to finish what the Miskatonic party began three years ago"
"The investigators are members of the Starweather-Moore Expedition... competing against time and weather to return to the Mountains of Madness, deep
in the Antartic wilderness..."
"Beyond... is an adventure for experienced roleplayers; however the investigators themselves need no experience with the Cthulhu Mythos. Any number
of investigators can participate; groups of four to six are recommended."
"Beyond... is not a series of interlinked scenarios. It is a single long adventure" (16 chapters, over 280 pages!, plus appendices to 348pp!-CJ)
"Keepers should expect to complete roughly one chapter per full day of play, for a total of 15-20 sessions."
Hopefully these notes will give potential players an idea of what they have let themselves in for...
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CJ '99
Last Updated 27th August 1999; 14.20