Mansions of Madness Volume. 1: Behind Closed Doors
Mansions of Madness Volume. 1: Behind Closed Doors is a collection of five scenarios for the Call of Cthulhu RPG that revolve around dark doings in darker houses. Originally put out as Mansions of Madness in 1990, the collection contains two updates of the original scenarios and three brand new ones.
The first scenario, “Mister Corbitt”, is one of the two mainstays from the original edition of Mansions of Madness. It is also arguably a classic scenario in the game. The scenario centers around the comings, goings, and doings of one of the investigator’s neighbors, surprisingly named Mister Corbitt.
What goes on in the neighbor’s house is genuinely disturbing in both backstory and imagery. It can be run as the first scenario for beginning players but it can also set very high, very messed up standards for what they can expect from future games.
“The Crack’d and Crook’d Manse” is the second of the original collection. One of my favorite things about this scenario is the narrative-style Keepers information at the beginning that gives you an excellent build-up to the thing within the walls, allowing you to get into its “mind” to a degree.
Unlike “Mister Corbitt”, the horror of the scenario doesn’t have much of a human element to it, allowing you to build up an unexplainable sense of dread over time. This scenario is a big cat and mouse game, and which one the investigators are is up for constant change and debate.
Mostly revolving around temporal shenanigans and bizarre love triangles, “The Code” is not overly difficult in its story but probably the most pregnant with potential for a creative Keeper.
The investigators go to the home of their good friend from Miskatonic University, Dr. Connoly. He sent the investigators a letter stating that he had been working a mysterious project that had started bearing fruit but undescribed perils started arising, forcing Dr. Connoly to send the investigators a code with no real explanation as to what it’s for. It’s up to the investigators to learn the reason and to survive the experience.
If played straight, this scenario is good for a couple nights of play. If the Keeper wants to riff off the core concept of the scenario, however, they can have it go deeper and weirder probably as long as they wanted without going off the narrative rails. I’d honestly say playing it straight is a missed opportunity.
“The House of Memphis” follows that time-honored trope of the investigators getting hired by a lawyer. If they’ve been playing the game for a while, they should know by now that working for a lawyer inevitably leads to death if they’re lucky but no. Here they are, working for a lawyer again.
The investigators are sent to check on the house of Memphis the Great, a stage magician of great renown. He’s disappeared and strange murders have since occurred at his abandoned home. Someone or someones is lying about what’s happening. The investigators will have to find out where Memphis has disappeared to, how his house is involved, and try not to die in the process.
This scenario has an inordinate amount of NPCs for a medium length run, so a keeper should be ready to wear a lot of hats. Also, bone up on the Magic rules for Call of Cthulhu. They’re probably gonna come into play.
The scenario also includes a new occupation: Stage Magician! I’ve had players create similar character types under thief occupations and had great times with them, so seeing an actual occupation dedicated to it is rather exciting. It also includes the info for the skill of Stage Magic, which makes form some fun roleplaying opportunities
The last scenario, “The Nineteenth Hole”, which sends the investigators to Scotland to deal with the nascent horrors of...a golf course. This is scenario is a fairly deep mystery/“haunted” house story with enough of a mixture of science and sorcery happening to give players a challenging yet thoroughly entertaining path of bread crumbs to follow.
I don’t want to go into too much detail to spoil it for people, but if you read and liked Lovecraft’s “From Beyond” and Dennis Wheatley’s “The Ka of Gifford Hillary”, you’re probably going to enjoy this.
Mansions of Madness Volume 1: Behind Closed Doors is an excellent revitalization of a classic collection and definitely has enough new content to be a worthwhile purchase even if you have earlier editions of the collection. With “Volume 1” being part of the title, I’m hoping there’s a second collection with the same theme in the works.
Mansions of Madness Volume 1: Behind Closed Doors can be purchased in pdf format directly through Chaosium. Buyers of the pdf can get the full price of the pdf discounted off the hardback version due later in the year.