Call of Cthulhu: Dissociation - RPG Review 

The idea of Yuggothian couch potatoes watching the party as a reality TV show is one of the grimmest bits of horror I've ever heard of. Imagine, an alien civilization capable of crossing the stars, doomed by addiction to an "innocent" Terran entertainment medium. Utterly terrifying. I almost feel sorry for the poor mind-swapping fungi.

This was a properly creepy Halloween episode. Thanks, Jack and Seth.

Don't worry Seth, one of my best friends also loves "Ghost Ship."

Sounds like the Japanese manga gantz. love it.

I read this a week or two back and it jumped to the top of my "I have to run this" list (alongside Forget Me Not). I've run Walter's Final Wish a couple of times from that book and would love to know how you got on with that. For me its always been brilliant but they've never even got close to working out what is going on.

QUESTION - How much homebrew do you do in your CoC campaigns and would you be willing to do episodes on some of the adventures you have created yourself?

I wanna see Jack in a space-Cthulhu adventure so bad for some reason. Maybe just to watch him dodge face-suckers

Love your dune shirt

AvP and Ghost Ship are both great movies Seth.

That ending tho...kek. Should've took the body of a rich guy and got a private jet.

I laughed aloud at Jack and the second worst flight thing. Great review. Did you play this as vanilla CoC or as Pulp?

Don't let Jack heckle you I love Ghost Ship as well.

Hold on, where's Jack's flask?

7:00 into it, I get a case of the NOPEs.

Ghost ship is a great movie, I don’t understand why it gets such hate. To me, it’s a dark and entertaining horror film like Jeeper Creepers was (the first one, part two sucked).

Hm... I'll admit something. Looking back at this vid, I think my players would be too frustrated with the switching of character bodies. We seem to be, for the most part, a group that prefers to make our characters no matter what. I learned that last weekend when I hit creation burnout (so. many. character sheets.) to give players options and they decided to make their own characters. That was Starfinder. I like it, but not for everybody. Ran the first half of the first section of Incident at Absalom Station. Because of that burnout, this... probably would not be a scenario for me to run. I think it sounds awesome, though.

Jack wearing a Trump wig?!

I know this is dumb, but every time I hear "Mi-go" I think "U-stay".

The “serpent people on an airplane” got me good.

I was actually lucky enough to have played this scenario with Matt Sanderson as the game master. We played it in a 4 hour time slot and it was brilliant as a one off.

*The experiment is still going on.* I need to steal that for my games, although I don’t know how I’d implement it in D&D.

I feel kind of weird that I watch these, or to be a bit more specific I listen to these being someone who does not and pretty much has never done any tabletop RPGing, I just like listening to the stories and Seth's anecdotes and stuff

As someone who lives in a smaller town in Alaska, I need to run this.

04:27. Shatner Voice: Stewardess...there'sa...man...on the...wing!

Great review once again! As an aspiring GM, I love how insightful and wise you are when it comes to RPGs. Thanks so much for making these :)

As a potential new Keeper living in Alaska, I'm holding on to this one.

I've been a GM and player of various systems since -87, and I have to say that your reviews are awesome 😊

Seth... I am so proud of you for the success this show has quickly become. 26K and climbing, that's incredible.

Should I be worried that all of these movie references are completely familiar to me? It's probably fine.....

From the summary at least this sounds very linear, and like the players can't really influence the outcome in any way- beyond whether they survive or not. It feels more like an inciting event than a game- like the real game begins once the PCs get their (spoilers) back and have to figure out who set them up and track those people down. I think I'd take Seth's theory about the culprits and have that be the answer to that investigation, and then the PCs could go all sorts of directions with what to do once they figure it out- track down the humans involved and use them to work against the (redacted) such as wiping out any cults or closing gateways? Could be very cool. I guess it's strictly a survival horror module, very little investigation- though there is at least a little puzzle solving near the end. It sounds like a serious mind-$&#@ roller coaster though.

3 dots.... THERE ARE FOUR LIGHTS!

Seth, Once again a stellar review. Thanks for all your videos they are fantastic. Keep up the great work

For the plane tickets, I'd suggest switching out the Delta Air Lines logo and trademark for Oceanic Airlines. That's a fictional airline that's used in movies and TV whever a plane is going to crash or get hijacked. It's been in media from Flipper to Dead Island.

That's a cool one. Could you go into further depth about how you would expand this one-shot into a short or long campaign? I think that would be a good video topic for you-building a one-shot into something bigger.

Still not a fan of the Chaosium roach-like interpretation of a Mi-Go. For one MIGO'S ARE PINK. This isn't up for discussion they describe the corpses as "pink-ish" in Whisperer in Darkness, plus the head antennae which look almost like a separate organism itself. Maybe it's Derleth/later author's descriptions, but Mi-Go's are one of the few Lovecraft monsters to get a solid description (v.s. The Flying Polyps/Cthulhu) so I find it absolutely bizarre that they changed it and consistently get this.. bizarre cockroach like interpretation that feels less Alien.

New keeper here and this sounds like a lot of fun.

I’m thinking about running this, but I’m concerned that the players don’t actually seem to do much. They just get ushered from scene to scene... thoughts on this?

I love how you play with your PCs minds 😈. Misdirecting the player’s attention is key to maintaining suspense in a horror game

It also sounds like a fantastic FIRST game in a campaign to me...!

Prepping to run this again tomorrow night and decided that if the characters are detained in Aniak I'm going to have one of the hosts spouses fight past the state troopers to see them and demand to find out what the hell happened to them since they went missing.

While I liked the early twists, I'm not really seeing the appeal here. Spoilers After the second black room, the adventure seems to be on rails with the players not really doing anything, and the cool premise seems to be wasted. Especially the ending. Red Dwarf did more horrifying things with the body swap scenario than this adventure seems to do. Especially since this is meant to be a horror game for "mature audiences" and Red Dwarf is light comedy. I don't want to backseat DM, but I'd have changed the ending. Have the players find the people who have their bodies, but they have no interest in swapping back. Maybe they are wanted criminals, physically disabled, old or in general poor health, or maybe the players damaged these bodies during the formless spawn fight and thus they don't want a body that's missing bits. This is a more interesting scenario imo, and it fits right in with the current plot.

Thanks for the review, Seth. I've been watching your videos for years but I don't think I've ever posted. I actually ran this module with my gaming group and the results were mixed. Unfortunately, I have some curmudgeons and intractable gamers in my group and fell flat with them. For one player, he seemed to hate it cause I wasn't using the GURPS system and it wasn't set in the 1920's. For the other, I think he was just being contrary. That said, this module may seem a little rail-roady for the players that like complete freedom. I think the biggest problem with this module, as you pointed out, Seth, is getting the investigators to realize that they need to travel to the center of the triangle created by the three sites on the map. I encouraged this by having them see the triangle when leaving the cylinder interlude and even making the vertex they were visiting blink. I put maps in every location so they knew that maps were important. Even after all that, they didn't connect the dots. In fact, in the third experiment, several of the investigators either shot themselves or allowed the formless spawn to kill them as a form of protest to the alien studying them. Yep, they went there. Eventually, I just used insane insight and basically had them visualize the triangle superimposed over a map of Alaska. Finally, they got the connection and then made a bee line to Eagle Island. They ended up finding their brain canisters and activating the bomb. I highly recommend you make your players hear one final "Fascinating" in their heads if they choose this death for themselves. Thanks again for the review, Seth. To those who are thinking about playing this adventure, I recommend warning your gaming group up front that this is a very atypical adventure. Incidentally, I used the tickets you posted on your Google share and one of my players scanned the bar code. I didn't expect that. He said, "Hey this ticket is for Barbara ____. Is this part of the mystery?" Ha! One more thing for Seth - Not sure you've had this issue before, but I often feel that I've drifted away from my group. Many of them are intolerant of change, believe there is only one correct way to game, or just can't handle it when things don't go their way. Or they just don't want to game anymore.. A couple topic ideas for your upcoming videos: How to pick a gaming group or how to know when it's time to move on.

"Holy crap, I'm a freaking college girl! This is now officially the second worse flight that I have ever been on!" Yeah, at that point, you know you're in for a helluva ride.

Thanks for the great review, the handouts, and the pre-gens! The experiment is still going on.

I have been searching for a similar review like this for months, even when I don't have time to run games anymore, still great to listen to this episodes and know about the adventures and what they are about. Keep the good work, seriously, you are funny and your content is awesome!

Ghost ship is a great movie. Yeah be quiet jack.

Ooh every time the survivors walk past a mobile phone, they hear that deet-deet-deet....deet-deet-deet like they're broadcasting and the signals are getting crossed

kinda tempted to play this but start in the 1920 and every body jump is like 30 year in the future. Oh what if it was the other way round? hmmm

I fucking love the mi-go.

Skorkowskyyyy!!!! Always great. Love ya, man ❤️

Give one player an insane insight that alerts them that they're still being experimented on. But if this player conveys what he thinks, the aliens will pull the plug. So he has to somehow guide the party to saving themselves.

This adventure seems like a great way to turn the clock back on a group of elderly pc's; if they can mitigate the mental damage that comes from growing older (the Mi-Go patch their brains up?) and keep their sanity.

Are these scenarios playable with only one investigator?

this sounds like a really neat way to start a campaign. though I've only played a few CoC one shots so maybe I'm wrong.

LOL Oh my God, that wig! It makes you look like a parody of a televangelist!

Reminds me in spirit of "The Burning Stars" scenario, you should review that one day.

Is Jack the NPC your super ego?

what up unc

I want that shirt! Where do I get it??????!!!

Thank you for the handouts!

The original AvP was an awesome movie.

You want Eclipse Phase? Cuz this is how you get Eclipse Phase.

I'm torn between getting this book or the cold warning book you did a review on. Which one would you recommend getting first?

Record a session already!

THAT WIG

Can someone post a link to Seth's handouts? The drive link is broken.

Plot twist they where all serpent people

I need that t-shirt! But did not see it on your teespring page. where might I find that?

This sounds like such a fantastic adventure!

Very interesting review and a good video, thank you Seth! :)

Thanks for the handouts and such. Good stuff there.

Thanks, Seth! Please, keep up the good work!

Nice shirt my guy

Have you happened to have run any of the other scenarios in FSLN yet? I'd love to hear about how they went.

Having seen season 4 of Glass Cannon Network's Get in the Trunk and your review of the Last Things Last scenario, I'd love to see you do a review of Delta Green as a whole. Especially the differences between it and Call of Cthulhu.

Nice. Very cool review and lots of fun, as usual. Thanks for the PCs and props too!

I'm running this one over July 4; I need to figure out how to add that stinger you came up with, about continuining the paranoia... as it should. :D

Lovely Adventure, will definitely runn this one as soon as my Players and I got used to more “Normal“ adventures, to fully use the weird factor here :D And thanks for the Handouts you Provided, they seem like they could be quite usefull ^^

"Hey, you want to see something really scary?"

Second worst flight? Jack the NPC has been on Spirit Airlines - confirmed.

Thanks so much for the handouts/pre-gens - I'm looking at running this for my London RPG Community meetup/discord group as something a little different, but was quailing at the thought of the admin involved in the multiple character sheets! Plus, very helpful video as always - thanks.

Ran this module today just a bit ago for a one-shot to change things up from the normal WFRP campaign I'm running. They TPK'd, but seemed to enjoy it.

Well, this just sounds wonderfully bat-shit crazy-go-nuts! I like the thought of using it as a jumping off point for a modern game. I used 'King' from Cthulhu Britannica similarly for a home game recently.

I liked AvP wish Cameron would go whole hog and do an alien vs predator vs terminator. Could do something about skynet learning about the queen and thinking a terminator alien would be a good thing and the predators could think the terminator is a worthy opponent and trophy

When Cthulhu stumbles into transhuman horror. Eclipse Phase anyone?

This would be a great set up for the villains in the next campaign: high POW characters who can swap bodies? Great excuse for an illuminati group!

Not gonna lie, I played Dissociation when I was 14 and I literally puked once irl.

I had another story planned for my players, but after your review, I haven't really been able to think on much else, except how to incorporate this into our weekly Fantasy Grounds Sessions - I do wish this book was in FG, but I guess I'll have to reevaluate my initial thoughts... and as someone pointed out, "the experiment" is most certainly still going on.

0:21 this is geared towards a mature audience Like the rest of call of cthulhu isn't? On this show we've had incectoid babies crawling out of a mutilated mother killing her, abomination dinosaurs that ate people with horrifying tentacles, run ins with loads of secret government programs, combats against every horror under the sun and scariest thing of all research But no this one adventure is for a mature audience

Speaking of locked room scenarios @sethskorkowsky do you have any recommendation

San roll during play, san roll on completion of play, san roll two weeks later,...... repeat.

I just watched this vid, and it's one of the few that legit made me go out and buy this book. I'd love if you could do more vids about Delta Green or modern CoC, or anything within that genre

1:02 how much of an armor class bonus does that helmet hair grant Jack the NPC? It's at least +5, right?

I havent seen you cover anything like video games before, but is there a way we could get a review for the new Call of Cthulhu video game. Id love hear your opinion on it

I don't get to play CoC, but I love these videos. it does make me sad I don't have a group that would be willing to play with me though.

If someone figured out how to swap bodies again, a lot of interesting scenarios and continuing gameplay could come about.

"Look, mommy! Fairy lights outside!" Haha.

Hi, Seth, I’ve been enjoying your channel and am working my way through your videos. Thank you for all this great work! I am looking forward to the Valducan books, which I just got for my Kindle. A quick question: Could you recommend your favorite short one-shot scenarios for CoC? I’m running Saturday, we have 3-1/2 to 4 hours, and we have a couple of newbies so I want to make it a one-shot since we don’t know if they’re going to come back. Dissociation does sound great for this. Any other suggestions? Thank you again.

Bwahahahhaa mdoern Jack's hair! Great review as always, fun to watch.

the idea of printing out the plane tickets and geting a diagram of a real plane is so fucking good.