In the first part of this three-part series, I talked about Kolchak: The Night Stalker and why a tabletop roleplaying game set in that world would be a welcome addition to the gaming table. As well, I talked about Moonstone Book’s anniversary graphic novel anthology, and why we’re still celebrating this cult hit 50 years after its debut. In this part, I’ll discuss a hypothetical Kolchak: The RPG including what system it might use as well as some key facets of the game including original rules that this setting would benefit from.
Why would a hypothetical Kolchak: The RPG be fun? To answer that, let’s discuss a comic from Moonstone Book’s Kickstarter, the one-shot, Satanic Panic ’88. Based on the title, I asked the author and KOLCHAK: THE NIGHT STALKER 50TH ANNIVERSARY Graphic Novel editor, James Aquilone, if this issue is based on the Dungeons & Dragons/RPG satanic panic of the 1980s or another hysteria?
“It’s not based on an RPG. It’s mostly based on the real-life West Memphis Three, who were three young men convicted of murder basically because they listened to heavy metal music and wore black clothing. My story is set in 1988 and sees Kolchak investigating the story of a teen girl who has disappeared and the arrest of her goth boyfriend.”
With story options like Satanic Panic ’88, as well as pure supernatural horror and covert alien invasions, Carl Kolchak’s world offers a range of adventures to keep games fresh session-to-session. When thinking of the variety of story options, the engine must support the fiction yet maintain a fun atmosphere.
What System Should Kolchak: The RPG Use?
Embracing its supernatural setting, this RPG would focus on detective work over combat (though, combat is still important) while firmly embracing its anti-establishment vibe and deep library of story possibilities. For this hypothetical RPG, the right system is critical. The RPG engine has to service key story elements from the fiction of The Night Stalker’s enemies to the emotional crusade for truth and justice. That requires rules for supernatural beings, robots, aliens, science fiction, reporting, NPC victims, NPC authorities, and the active conflict between the PC’s desire to lift the veil to reveal the truth and the establishment’s imperative to maintain the ignorance of normality for the public no matter its costs in blood. But what system should power this RPG?
GUMSHOE. You could argue Call of Cthulhu, Hunter: The Reckoning, the mortal options from Chronicles of Darkness, Powered by the Apocalypse, Vaesen, and dozens more, but for Kolchak: The RPG, Robin Law’s GUMSHOE provides the detective-style baseline which this game will rely upon.
With its deconstruction and reconstruction of detective RPGs, GUMSHOE revealed how misguided so many mystery games were. Robin Law’s engine changed how players approached roleplaying as detectives by de-emphasizing the finding of clues (your character will automatically find all of the important clues that they search for) in order to emphasize deduction and interpretation of those clues. The goal of a good game of GUMSHOE is understanding the facts, not just identifying them. With Kolchak’s sleuthing and reporting, GUMSHOE is the perfect set of mechanics to support Kolchak: The RPG. The game would focus on obtaining information about the monster’s weaknesses as well as learning their patterns in preparation for an encounter. In this game, your research and clues aquisition will each have their place, contributing to the final defeat of these supernatural elements. Going deeper into the setting of The Night Stalker, there will be some emphasis on getting the scoop and reporting the story.
If GUMSHOE sounds right to you, let me do one better and offer an existing blueprint for this project: Kenneth Hite’s NIGHT’S BLACK AGENTS from Pelgrane Press. This vampires espionage RPG makes the most of the GUMSHOE engine combining vampires and the supernatural with an uncommon element: spying. NIGHT’S BLACK AGENTS shows where you can take the GUMSHOE system and, with its story elements that parallel the world of Kolchak, it’ll offer the right guidance on what to include and exclude from GUMSHOE.
Additional Rules
In the world of The Night Stalker, everyone in power is a born skeptic. None of the movers and shakers of the world believe in Kolchak’s stories despite the body counts. In addition, those victims of supernatural events or alien interference are without resources, easily pushed aside by the local and federal government, allowing the halls of power to keep control of the narrative and maintain the masquerade. Often, Kolchak has to fly in the face of the government in order to save lives, let alone tell his tale. Then, in response to his outside-of-the-lines direction, he’s been run out of town. Multiple times. To that end, the Kolchak: The RPG would need a mechanic to help bring the fight against the establishment to life. Something to simulate the push pull of Kolchak working with a hostile government. Something that would allow them to cooperate at certain points, but fight against each other when Kolchak tries to publicize the truth or when the government covers it up instead of saving lives.
In this assumed RPG, there are two important types of NPCs, the victim and the authority. NPC victims are the characters that the supernatural forces or aliens are targeting. They tend to be fringe members of city with limited status and resources, often living on the margins. They matter to Kolchak and the players, but matter less to the NPC authorities. The authorities have all of the resources and power and they could prevent these horrors, but they refuse to believe the solution involves a stake through the heart or casting a spell. Those acts would have political and financial repercussions that they don’t want to endure. It’s only when they’re bullied by the likes of the PCs that they put any resources into saving the other 99% of the city.
The push pull battle of moral high ground versus not wanting to rock the boat needs to be gamed if this RPG is going to feel like Kolchak. Every time players encounter an NPC authority while pursuing the truth or fighting for the resources that they need to save the city, there has to be a roll to see if city hall goes along or holds a grudge. The players would roll to find out if they moved the needle on a new mechanic: Reveal The Truth OR Get Run Out Of Town.
At the end of each adventure, your table rolls for Reveal The Truth OR Get Run Out Of Town. This roll determines if one, and only one, of your news stories gets printed, or if it gets squashed and the NPC victims that survived the encounters get run out of town by the authorities. The prior encounters with the NPC authorities would influence the results. Who knows, they might be allowed to print their article. However, if the roll includes a critical failure, then the NPC victims are run out of town, the story is destroyed, your characters risk being fired from the newspaper, and possibly forced to leave town or be placed in jail via a rigged trial.
Rules around the constant oppression of the news, rules for how NPCs react to your characters, and how your character pursues the truth despite its cost to their lives and livelihoods will make this RPG feel more like Kolchak than any number of supernatural monsters.
Your GUMSHOE Characters
Within the framework of GUMSHOE, how would this world be setup? In the Moonstone comics, Kolchak has an “extraordinary team of investigators,” the Night Stalkers, that assist his investigations sometimes. In the comics, the team is composed of Mr. Keen, Domino Lady, Pat Novak, Flint, T.H.E Cat, Blackshirt, and other literary and Moonstone characters. For the purposes of this RPG, the team would be made up of the characters that the players build, not these pre-existing properties. The players would play as their version of The Night Stalkers, always striving to do what’s right in a world of darkness and corruption. Their day jobs would need to be something important to the fabric of society such as news, public service, teaching, or any job that anchors the character to needing to do right. With some solid motivations to stand up for the truth, these characters would be able to face off against both the supernatural and the powers that be.
Next Article
In the conclusion to this series, I’ll look at why 2022/2023 makes sense to pursue a Kolchak: The RPG project. It may be a hypothetical game, but it makes sense to figure out when, where, why, and how much this project might generate. In the next piece, we’ll do just that as we figure out the when, the costs to the publisher, and the potential upside for the freelance writers. In the meantime, check out Moonstone Books’ Kolchak 50th anniversary project on Kickstarter.
KOLCHAK: THE NIGHT STALKER 50TH ANNIVERSARY Graphic Novel from Moonstone Books
End Date: Fri, February 11 2022 12:00 AM EST.
“Comic book anthology with stories by Rodney Barnes, R.C. Matheson, Kim Newman, Nancy Collins, Jonathan Maberry, David Avallone + More”
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