This is the second year I have attended Fan Expo in Toronto. Since I was late to hearing about the rpg's that were running in 2024, I made it a point to find out how I could participate this year. I’ll share my review of how I experienced this one shot adventure at Fan Expo this year, from registration to gameplay.
The Who and the How #
A group called Unite the Factions organizes and sources game master (GM) volunteers to run games for avid adventurers. I learned later that the fees they charge for games go directly to their charity of choice (The Hospital for Sick Children), so this was an added bonus. I signed up via Warhorn a few weeks before Fan Expo.
Unfortunately, pre-registration information for games is not found on Fan Expo’s website. Since I am a member of several Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) groups in Toronto and follow Unite the Factions across several social media platforms, I became aware of the pre-registration sign-ups. Hopefully for future events Fan Expo will add links to their site ahead of the convention to allow for more guests to sign-up ahead of time. The games schedule posted on the Fan Expo website was a welcome change this year.
You pay a $10 pre-registration fee via Warhorn. The cost for regular 3-4 hour games was $10. Unite the Factions also scheduled EPIC campaigns to occur the Saturday evening of the expo.
An epic campaign involves 6-8 D&D groups being run simultaneously. These different groups then have the possibility of interacting with each other within the campaign setting. You could have a potential of up to 40 adventurers playing together. Think of this as a local LAN game D&D multiplayer event.
The cost for the epic games was $20. I did not sign-up for the epic game this year but I will definitely be signing up next year (spoiler alert: I had an amazing time with all the one-shot games I played and will be going back for more next year). All proceeds from the event are donated to Sick Kids Hospital in Toronto.
Unite the Factions - Source: www.unitethefactions.com
I have started getting back into TTRPG’s this year and have had the opportunity to explore systems other than D&D for the first time. This is also the first time I had the opportunity to play TTRPG’s at Fan Expo.
I was able to attend 2 days of Fan Expo this year and signed up to play three different games and systems.
Call of Cthulhu: Into the Void - Game 1 #
My first game at Fan Expo 2025 was Call of Cthulhu: Into the Void.
For this adventure:
- 1 x Game Master
- 5 x Investigators
“You awaken to find yourselves aboard a strange alien spaceship. You have no memory of how you got here and who you are? The ship is not a safe environment, and you will face numerous challenges together. As you explore the ship, you will uncover more about the ship's sinister agenda and more about your own memories.”
not so quick start rules? - source: drivethrurpg.com
Call of Cthulhu (CoC) character sheet shares some similar attributes to D&D but offers some different ones as well.
The attributes in common are strength, constitution, dexterity and intelligence. The new ones I was exposed to were:
- Size: a combination of a character’s height + weight. This determines if the character can fit within a sized jumpsuit or tight spaces etc.
- Appearance: Is the character attractive?
- Education: What accumulated knowledge does a character have from schooling or life experiences up to this point?
- Power: What is a character’s force of will?
Along with these new attributes, the GM shared a new skill number system called the Regular, Half and Fifth system. Each attribute and skill has these three values.
For example, there is a skill called “drive auto” (drive automobiles etc.):
- Regular value = 40: You must roll 40% or under to meet the regular threshold of driving a vehicle
- Half value = 20: You must roll 20% or under to meet the half threshold of driving a vehicle
- Fifth value = 8: You must roll 8% or under to meet the fifth threshold of driving a vehicle
In this system you must (as specified above) roll under the regular, half or fifth value to succeed. All rolls use the percentage dies. Rolling higher than the difficulty number is a failure for that task (this is opposite to the D&D system).
But now you are asking, what is the point of these numbers?
Can you math? source: giphy.com
These numbers represent the difficulty to perform the task. For regular tasks you need to roll under your Regular number. For difficult tasks you should roll under the Half number and for almost impossible tasks you need to roll under the Fifth number.
we're getting lucky with it! - source: giphy.com
Along with the unique attribute system for difficulty, CoC also has the concepts of luck and insanity. A character can use their luck to affect any rolls they made, but that would also decrease their luck over time.
During certain scenarios as a character encounters items or enemies that can be “incomprehensible” or “horrific” it could cause a character to go “insane”. You would be asked to perform a sanity roll to determine how many sanity points you would lose and whether there are further consequences to your lost sanity.
Since this was a one-shot adventure and introduction to the system, the GM kept these high level rules in place but did mention that CoC does have a lot more rules to be aware of.
rules, what rules!? - source: giphy.com
The actual game #
CoC is more investigation and mystery heavy as opposed to D&D which leans more toward adventure and combat. I was warned by the GM that it is probably a good idea to avoid a majority of battles/encounters since most of the characters have low hit points and encounters can be quite lethal. He ran a game previously where unfortunately all the players lost 😓
This particular game ended up being approximately 3.5 hours long. The GM introduced a game mechanic where at certain points of the adventure we would take out a piece of paper from an envelope that had a missing memory that we would experience. The GM also used cards with illustrations of items on them for us to take and use in our inventory.
99! worst die roll of the day! source: knightsociety.net
I found this approach to be creative as it allowed us to contribute to the ongoing narrative. One of the memories my character received was of another character having hacked a system to help the aliens. At the time I had a taser, so I chose to attempt to tase them - hilarity ensued!
to the face! Source: giphy.com
The provided character sheets had all skill attributes blocked by post-it notes. As characters progressed through the adventure and attempted to use skills, we would be instructed to remove these post-it notes as a narrative device of recalling our skills and abilities along with our memories.
Serge, Psychologist experienced in the way of tasing! source: knightsociety.net
Overall I thoroughly enjoyed this introduction to CoC and the one shot. It gave enough intrigue and fun into the world and system where I could see myself buying the rulebook and some additional adventures. Most importantly I could see myself engrossed in the world and wanting to create adventures as well! The GM also told us that he provided a false name for the one shot adventure to avoid us looking up spoilers and details of it. If you are interested, the adventure is called “My Little Sister Wants You to Suffer.”
"To live is to suffer, to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering.” - Nietzsche - source: drivethrurpg.com
I want to shout out and say thank you to all the Fan Expo volunteers and Unite the Factions for all their tireless work organizing, setting up the games, and donating all proceeds to an amazing charity.
Check back here later for my next post detailing my introductory adventure into Daggerheart at Fan Expo 2025 Toronto!
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