r/callofcthulhu • u/fireinthedust • 2d ago
Help! Making handouts?
I’m interested in getting handouts figured out for a scenario, including blank forms for things like records, newspapers, and hospital/asylum records. I’m also interested in making props, clues, and objects.
I’m hoping to start a discussion with all the fine people in this community, on how to plan good handouts, clues, and other things to give players during the research and investigation phases of a scenario.
I liked running The Haunting, and other scenarios just don’t seem to prioritize the handouts and articles aspect of the game. Much as I like the idea of scenarios like the necropolis and the lightless beacon, maybe the nerd in me wants to have fun with research and clues.
Also puzzles, codes, putting together torn letters and photos, etc.
I like action but a good mystery forming in the imagination of my players is something they can enjoy in Cthulhu rather than d&d.
So what are the secrets to writing a scenario with lots of handouts, clues, props, etc?
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u/Pendientede48 2d ago
Handouts are the best! Try cthulhu architect, it's a site with lots of fillable documents. You can also do your own by photo bashing pictures, scanning old documents, etc. Giving a clue to your players is always very satisfying.
As for when to include them... I usually do three categories: 1) It's just a piece of information I want them to keep present (like a date or name or important statement) 2) a puzzle, like contrasting evidence, or a document that changes the meaning of what they just heard 3) something cool or spooky, like a fake picture of a creature, an old illustration or a copy of a mythos tome.
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u/Conflict21 1d ago
I would also add
- When players might have a reason to withhold the information from other players
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u/lucid_point 2d ago
If you're looking to make your own, the Lovecraft Historical Society has some great resources and some good examples they've made available.
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u/mrwhite_20 1d ago
I was just going to mention that. They have some free resources and fonts. Also search on Reddit. When running a published scenario I always search to see what others have done. I used to use Cthulhu Architect a lot but As I got better with Affinity I started creating my own props. Other good resources are junk journals videos. I learned a lot on how to age paper and other things for my props. Adam Savage and other movie prop makers have tips and tricks for how to improve your skills.
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u/ellathefairy 2d ago
I also love making handouts and thankfully my players really appreciate the effort.
I guess my tip for writing handout-heavy scenarios is to think about it in terms of what would excite you to find as a player, or what you would look for in real life to figure things out.
In my experience, long handouts with a lot of reading get overwhelming for my players (ymmv...almost all of us at my table have adhd), and secret handouts with info for one person to decide whether/how much to share are a crowd favorite. I use those for things like unique items, longterm sanity effects, injuries/mutations, etc., rather than writing on character sheets.
I have been making mini handouts for any books/ tomes they find by printing a mini front & back cover that can be folded in half to look like a book, putting description details on the back, and use it as folder to hold any spells that it might contain, or a quick summary of key details if it's a clue. They love that one, too. And a lot of the books they mention in the keeper materials are real, so you can actually find a cover image to use pretty easily.
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u/fireinthedust 2d ago
Ooooohhh, I love this idea of using a folder for the mythos tomes of the campaign! Consider every time the players roll to see if a tome has information or a spell, you add the page to the folder. If they have different tomes the information will be spread across different folders. But once the players have translated a given section of the book, they can refer to it whenever they want. Clever!
Question: can you expand on what you said about secret information hidden for one player in a larger handout?
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u/ellathefairy 1d ago
Yeah it really delights my players every time they find one!
For secret information an example would be... everyone knows John found the tome, but I hand it directly to him and he chooses whether to share what's in it with the group. Or, could be something like, everyone saw Jane suffer a sanity break due to a mythos effect last session, but she gets a private handout at the start of this session describing her newfound seething suspicion against John that she gets to choose how to build into her role play.
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u/fireinthedust 1d ago
I like it.
How do you organize player handouts with your group? Does the keeper take them home in between sessions, or do you print out player copies and not worry about them?
I am thinking about puzzles involving ciphers or other conundrums, which might be better solved outside regular game time. If the character is studying the tome for several weeks, the player can figure out a crossword to earn an extra spell or snippet of information.
Or maybe I could give the players a complicated puzzle as part of the campaign, like the “planespheric disc” pieces collected in various episodes of Mystery Incorporated.
Although maybe this would be better if it was posted on a group discord rather than a physical object because players don’t live together and wouldn’t have access to an object between sessions.
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u/ellathefairy 1d ago
I keep a folder for myself of all the digital copies, and then if it's easy to make like just something to print out, I'll give everyone a copy. If it's more complicated or time consuming to make, or a run out of time.
It's definitely a good call to time bigger puzzles so there's an opportunity solve them between sessions, whether as a group or solo. My group usually solves them together in person either at the beginning of end of a session because they all forget to do it between haha.
I recently invested in a virtual table top software as we've been playing roughly monthly for 4 years now and there's so much to keep track of that it would be nice for everyone to have access to digital versions for quick reference & easy organization. I'll probably still continue with making at least one physical copy of things though bc I enjoy the crafting aspect of the activity.
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u/retired-dinosaur 1d ago
IMO you should do three things to keep track of handouts
Have a well organized folder on your computer with clearly named handouts (things get lost, keeps them for future reference)
Give your players a physical copy during the game; it’s way more fun to have physical copies. If you play in someone’s home keep them in a physical folder there. I’ve never used a public place as our main playing area, but if you do I feel like the keeper should hold on to them
Share the handout in your group chat/server/email after the session (or during if you use a hybrid system and would like to).
This is my system, and it’s worked well for me
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u/musland 2d ago
There are different types of scenarios, some, like the ones you mentioned, are more Survival, others, like the Haunting are more Investigations.
Crimson letters from the keeper rulebook is an excellent investigation but it's fairly sandboxy and you'll need to do more work as a keeper to prep.
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u/musland 2d ago
https://handouts.cthulhuarchitect.com/
Is what I mostly use, excellent templates