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Alone Against the Tide

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Average Rating:3.9 / 5
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Alone Against the Tide
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Alone Against the Tide
Publisher: Chaosium
by Raymond C. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 05/17/2020 14:30:48

A wonderful next-step after playing Alone Against the Flames.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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Alone Against the Tide
Publisher: Chaosium
by Daniel P. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 12/06/2019 15:46:40

Very fun, I died 4 times!

My only wish is that there was a way for you to quickly get to the next entry, as opposed to scrolling through the PDF, trying to glaze your bloodshot eyes over so as not to read forbidden text...

Worth more than I paid:) 10/10

Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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Alone Against the Tide
Publisher: Chaosium
by Chance H. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 08/06/2019 13:47:22

A lot of fun. It reads like a choose your own adventure game with roleplaying elements involved. It takes you step by step through building your character which was great as this was my introduction to the Cthulhu system.

The choices are more limited than most TTRPGs, but considering it's an individual adventure with no GM, that's to be expected. I had a lot of fun, and it's repeatable so I'll be going through it again.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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Alone Against the Tide
Publisher: Chaosium
by Rowena T. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 08/05/2019 19:49:52

I love horror games and the feel of the Cthulhu mythos, and this game delivered both! The choose your own adventure feel created a sufficiently fast pace to feel like you are being pushed towards almost inevitable doom - and whether you work out the mystery or survive is never guaranteed. A depth of history and the characters encountered give an atmospheric setting which is perfectly fitting with CoC. Very enjoyable to play and a great way to get a ttrpg fix without having to align everyone's schedules!! Def worth the guide price



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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Alone Against the Tide
Publisher: Chaosium
by Laurelin S. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 08/05/2019 04:25:51

Love the characters! The setting is a lovely sort of spooky, and it keeps you guessing.

I feel like the main character was intended to be male, so it felt a little awkward for my female character at parts.

My first run through was practically all failures. Which is fine, but I do wish that the failures were a bit more fleshed out 'cause it left me feeling like I hadn't done anything. I look forward to going through it again and find out more of the story!



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
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Creator Reply:
Thanks for trying it! I didn't intend for the main character to be specifically male, and tried not to code anything too masculine or feminine. Admittedly, there were some semi-romantic hints from female characters in the story, but I don't feel that necessitates a male character (I actually did give this some thought when writing it, and figured that it was okay to keep the romantic undertones in for female characters by way of supporting various sexualities.) That said, i'll keep that in mind in the future and see where I can improve. The story can be a bit difficult, as is often the nature of Call of Cthulhu and this particular brand of horror, but I'm sure you'll get some better or more interesting endings next time. The endings that occur later in the story tend to be a bit more fleshed out than those that occur earlier (since I figured those who end early will just give it another go to get farther.) I hope you reach them and enjoy them.
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Alone Against the Tide
Publisher: Chaosium
by Daniel S G. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 08/01/2019 16:32:11

Note: This review may contain some mild spoilers, but I've attempted to avoid any specific spoilers...

I've run through this adventure about 3 times now with two completely different characters and while it has an interesting premise (a strange green mist threatens a 1920s lakeside resort town), this solo outing for Call of Cthulhu could have benefited from more rigorous playtesting and some additional elbow grease and thought by the author.

On the plus side, there is some nice writing in spots, and the descriptions of the great old one and the ancient city are appropriately terrifying and dreamlike, respectively. Some of the characters are quite interesting, and there is fun to be had in certain spots and tense moments rolling percentile dice.

My first go-through was with a down-on-his-heels gumshoe with a great right hook and skill with a gun, and he didn't fare too well. Since he didn't have a high Locksmith skill, he was unable to access the adventure path that leads to success, and was only able to barely escape town after making three or four successive skill rolls.

My second go-through, I created a character calibrated to win the adventure, with beefy anthropology, archaeology, credit rating, charm, fast talk, and locksmith skills. This character came close to the best outcome, but only through spending a lot of luck points to make bad rolls good ones, due to the way the module railroads you if you succeed or fail a roll.

Right off the bat, two observations: if you don't have a really high Locksmith skill, you're not going to be able to win this adventure. At least I don't think you can. And be prepared to spend a LOT of your luck points, because there are very few options to push rolls (with good or bad results), and the adventure tends to railroad you to where if you fail a particular roll or two, you have almost no chance of succeeding.

To add to the arbitrary nature of the adventure, combat (unlike Chaosium's Alone Against the Flames) isn't actually resolved using the combat rules. Rather, if you fail a dodge or brawl or pistol roll, or make one, the combat is pretty much done. In this manner, it reads more like a Choose Your Own Adventure book rather than a true solo adventure. In fact, as long as you have dice and a character sheet, you don't need the CoC rules at all. This might be a plus for some players, but to me it was disappointing. There are also no opportunities to make sanity checks, and thus no consequences from failed sanity rolls.

The most frustrating aspect, however, was that conducting a successful investigation, that is, gathering information and objects, charming or fast talking characters, and poking around the town, doesn't lead to success. You are almost always railroaded towards a violent confrontation with the villain, and then the countdown to doom begins. If you've earlier failed a particular roll, you won't win, although you might be able to barely escape, if you make a couple of successive rolls, as I mentioned before. I would really like to see three things which would make this a much more satisfying game experience: 1) If you are able to buy and decipher certain items early on, it provides a benefit or a solution to a problem later, e.g. if you have these two objects, you can now perform a ritual to get a positive result. It was disappointing that most of the important objects you might be able to purchase early in the adventure don't really have much use later on. 2) If you succeed in a social interaction, it will later change the outcome as you progress through the adventure, e.g. if you charm this particular female, or befriend a certain character, you'll have a different result when you encounter them later. Finally, 3) It doesn't seem like there is an investigative way to stop the apocalyptic outcome from starting. There really should be a way to gather clues and perform certain actions to where the main villain(s) can end up in handcuffs and you prevent the doom of the town using your brains. Maybe if I played a few more times, I'd be able to find such an outcome, but it doesn't seem probable. Gathering clues and talking to the characters does teach you what's going on and the backstory, but it doesn't seem to have any effect on the outcome. Overall, it was pretty frustrating that the one way to truly win the investigation and prevent the doom was incredibly specific, requiring the character to possess two specific objects, make an idea roll, and also to have succeeded in one specific roll earlier in the evening.

Finally, I'd like to see the motives of the monsters in this adventure thought out a bit more. Especially towards the end, the adventure introduces Deep Ones without really explaining why or how they are there.

In spite of all this, I did enjoy some late nights playing the adventure. Obviously, I played it several times, because I was eager to see if there was a way to win the damn thing. All of the suggestions above are intended as constructive ones, because I think the writer does have the makings of a good solo adventure-writer, and I'd love to see more good solo options for Call of Cthulhu.



Rating:
[2 of 5 Stars!]
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Creator Reply:
Thank you for taking the time to play this scenario and to leave a review. Allow me to address your concerns as best as I can. I had multiple playtesters run through the scenario a couple times each. You can find credits for them at the beginning of the scenario. Feedback was mostly positive, but tweaks were made. Success in this scenario is relative, as I feel befits the genre of cosmic horror. You are thrust into things unknowable, and have to do your best to deal with that. While it is true that a high Locksmith will help you reach what most would consider the "best" outcome, there are a few where you walk away with your life and/or sanity intact. That's a win. For someone finding themselves unprepared against unspeakable forces, sometimes survival is the best you can do. In regards to railroading, I feel that the scenario presents a fair number of options, and playtesters agreed. I've since gotten feedback from a few people to say they want more, and I've noted it as an area of improvement. Still, I didn't want to bloat the scenario with needlessly dragging out several rounds of a conflict, or avenues that would surely be dead-ends. This is also the reasoning for combat being handled swiftly rather than across multiple entries. The game is intended to run pretty lightweight, requiring only the Quickstart rules, not the full Call of Cthulhu rules. This is specified at the start of the text, prior to the scenario. There are opportunities to make sanity checks. There are 4 mid-scenario, and a handful more as part of the scenario's resolution. Admittedly this might be fewer than you hoped, and I'm sorry if you feel there should have been more. The scenario is described by you as a "countdown to doom." This is intentional, and I appreciate that you recognized it as being apparent, because it is in fact the point of the scenario. In the setup for the scenario, the investigator has no inkling of anything being amiss. They then find themselves face to face with strange and dangerous circumstances that they must react to. These are going to happen, and there isn't much the investigator can do until they are already set in motion. Again, I feel this is very on-genre to cosmic horror. Though the investigator can of make meaningful change occur (it is a game, after all) it is not within their power to prevent it from starting. In regards to the items providing a benefit, some do, and some do not. There are a couple of items that are essential to achieving the best outcome. And another one or two that can be helpful in that if deciphered, they will provide you -the player- with some clues that might prepare you for what is to come. A Mythos savvy investigator might treat the legends and rumors they see and hear as fact rather than myth. These will likely fair a little better, as they'll make better informed choices. A few of the items are simply present to round out the collection. They won't be helpful to completing the scenario, but they do provide a compensation to the investigator if the investigator has them during the resolution. So even these serve at least some purpose, though admittedly these "filler" items are much less important. Social interactions are important, but for the sake of ease, carryover between scenes [which in this case means a string of events until you part ways with them] is a bit difficult to track. Each NPC featured in the scenario will realistically only be featured in about 3 such scenes at most, and there are some instances where the choices you make might close off or make certain interactions possible later down the line. And such interactions do matter. The ritual incantation used to achieve one of the better outcomes is gained via social interaction. As previously mentioned, the events of the scenario cannot be stopped until they've been set in motion. This is by design, and I'm sorry if you aren't satisfied with that. The investigator won't be able to confirm any mythos presence until events are already in motion, making it too late to prevent altogether. Your investigation can and does help to stop it though. Getting one of the scenario's villains arrested isn't an option, because the police in the scenario are corrupt, and complicit in the criminal nature of the villain. This connection is established in some of the dialogue, and evidence of the police corruption will be clear from some of the scenario's events. As mentioned previously, there are multiple ways to win the scenario. If your definition of win includes only the one possible ending you're referring to, then I do agree there are a cascading series of events that lead up to that possibility. The goal is to have the consequences of events stack up in this fashion, so as to make them matter. It also goes back to the point of cosmic horror. Sometimes there are things that the investigator can do to make things better, but if they can't or don't do those things, they'll have to make due with what is within their power. Sometimes, what is within their power is very little. But I tried to make sure there were at least a few possibilities. Finally, there are no Deep Ones present in this scenario. While it could be easy to confuse them, and the creatures in question do bear some similarity to Deep Ones in that they are both fishlike, they are in fact different entities. These are the beings of Ib, sometimes also known as the Thuum'ha. The scenario does refer to them by name at a few points, and never refers to them as Deep Ones. The description of the creatures in this scenario is designed to be evocative of the entities portrayed in H.P Lovecraft's "The Doom That Came to Sarnath," which served as an inspiration for the scenario's premise. You can find more information on these creatures in the Field Guide to Lovecraftian Horrors, if you wish to know more. Though the scenario does in fact mention how these creatures are present in some paths, not all investigators will get this information in every playthrough. Most will likely not. As for why these beings are here, there are some hints to that in the scenario, though less explicit. Reading the aforementioned short story might help you to understand their motivations though. All this said, I'm sorry if you feel the scenario did not live up to your expectations. I welcome the feedback, and hope to find something to improve from among the suggestions. This was my first scenario of this sort, and I am conscious that I do have room for improvement. Even then, I fully realize that no scenario is going to appeal to everyone. And that's okay. I welcome you to try some of the other great scenarios on the Miskatonic Repository to find one that suits you, and perhaps at a later time I might release something else that will connect with you better.
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Alone Against the Tide
Publisher: Chaosium
by Alexander B. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 12/28/2018 01:52:24

There were way too many arbitrary decisions that if you failed them you would immediately die. Furthermore, many situations have easily conceivable alternative methods of solving the problem but are not presented to you which in my opinion shows a lack of forethought concerning some of the decision points in the game .



Rating:
[2 of 5 Stars!]
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Alone Against the Tide
Publisher: Chaosium
by Michael F. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 06/18/2018 09:49:17

Alone Against The Tide is my personal favorite outing for solo investigations for Call of Cthulhu. I have played all three of the current products available for 7th: Alone Against The Flames, Alone Against The Dark, and this one.

This investigation represents a nice mid-range experience that feels meatier than Flames, yet not as daunting as Dark. It includes classic Call of Cthulhu investigative aspects, use of a broad range of skills, and some harrowing decisions. I played through my first time as a private investigator, and that seemed like the ideal profession for the nature of the story and the skill requirements. Yet, I felt like other archetypes could be successful and I will select new professions on subsequent playthroughs. There is a nice mix of professional and social skills used in the investigation.

Choose Your Own Adventure-style games like this one benefit from branching pathways and this investigation does it in three ways. First, there are entries that you will go to that will give you multiple different choices that you can investigate as thoroughly as you would like and the order doesn't matter. Then, there are “limited-time” choices in which the available time that your Investigator has prevents you from investigating all choices. Finally, there are entries that truly take the story in different directions and may not allow you to return. Tide has a good combination of all of these staples of Choose Your Own Adventure CoC.

The top positive for me is that the author strikes a nice balance of challenge and player agency. Hardcore classic Call of Cthulhu investigations tend to be “one mistake and you die with no chance of saving yourself, ha ha, you fool!” Gygaxian roleplaying. I felt this way about Dark, which is disconcerting because the cost of failure for Dark is extreme, in my opinion. Many players like this and that is fine for them. However, the other side of this coin, from a Keeper perspective, is that choice should drive roleplaying to some extent. This author employs an entry style whereby the player does not automatically reach an end with no choice or chance to deviate/escape. This was my big criticism of Alone Against The Dark and it is thankfully more judiciously attenuated to here. Granted, it is always a challenge to write to a broad audience of gamer styles, but I think this author has successfully accomplished that!

My only suggestion for improvement would be consideration of the extent to which the beginning of an investigation such as this should have some “useful recommended skills.” I can see both sides of the argument. On one hand, suggesting skills might suppress creativity of character creation. On the other hand, Call of Cthulhu investigators normally have a party of multiple people that allows for skills to complement each other. Building characters for solo investigations can be slightly different than building characters for a party. Veteran players will automatically go to the Holy Trifecta of Call of Cthulhu skills (Library Use, Spot Hidden/Listen, and a social skill). One of those is not used at all. Newer players may benefit from some suggestions. I think it is worth noting that there is a segment of the role-playing hobby that does not have access to groups to play with and so I think it is useful for solo investigations such as this to work to help those players get started.

All in all, the Miskatonic Repository is allowing fans to produce great content for each other and this is no exception. I found the suggested price to be well worth it.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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