The End

With the St. James Files closing its casebooks for the final time, Emma and Steve joined forces to write a suitable blog post about it.

Emma

Well. This is it. A post I never thought about writing until now.

After a year or so, and 75 episodes (about a year and a half of work), the St. James Files has decided to close its books.

It wasn't an easy decision - both of us enjoyed playing, even though Call of Cthulhu was never Steve's favourite game. For me, it was getting to a point where I *needed* to have other people to work with and bounce off. My brain does not do "analytical" very well, so finding relevant questions to ask in game was always a challenge! On the plus side, it helped me to realise that a real-life side hustle as a spy would be a disastrous career move for me.

Call of Cthulhu is such a good game, and I will always prefer it over D&D because I like the real-life elements of it. Less walking into a tavern, more "certain death walks into your office". I got to punch stuff, vault off walls, pretend I knew stuff about digging up dinosaurs ... I realised too late how much better I could have made my characters, so maybe it's a lesson for me for future role-playing adventures? I did, however, get to make up my own adventures ('The Bourbon Street Gentlemen's Club', and 'The Parliament Puzzle') and test them out, for which Steve was always a willing participant. Goodbye to Minerva, Tilly, Felicity, Fiona, Lizzie, Maggie and Emily. It's been a blast! And never say never regarding the St. James Files; we might be back one day in some guise or other. Until then, roll for sanity! Emma xx

Steve

Like Emma, this is something I didn’t expect to be writing so soon. Though as it’s been a week or so since the last episode, I’ve had enough warning.

This has been a fun experiment. I remember sitting down with Emma one night and she’d got into her head that she’d like to do a Dungeons and Dragons show but where it was a one player game of Tomb of Annihilation. A few recordings in, for whatever reason, it ended. Then we had a chat about RPGs and fortunately enough I’d just been watching a Call of Cthulhu stream which caused the experiment of playing the Starter Kit. The story style was much more up Emma’s alley, and I am always one for a new challenge, so St James Files began.

We played one or two games that had been written and then Emma mentioned that she liked the much more “human” side of things, so I tried to make it much more, well, human. The first Case File, The Dawlish Disasters, was an attempt to make a human bad guy. It was based off of actual human villains of our time, and then slowly ramped into creepy horror story meets the cosmic horror that Cthulhu fans know and love. (Obviously, I’m not saying it was as good or people liked it, but you’ve been following the show long enough. I can assume!)

Five Case Files later, and a lot of creative arguments and chats later, we’ve come to the end. And it’s as shell shocking as it is expected. All things must come to an end, otherwise what’s the point in them?

I don’t know what the future will hold for St James Files, as Emma has also alluded to, but I shan’t promise a return. It was a fun ride, but the cart is headed back into the loading bay, and there’s only so many times you can ride a rollercoaster for the first time. I stand by my guns with my thoughts on the game. I’m not a fan of the GM side of the games, but I appreciate the writing and system. I am a fantasy kid at heart, with a love for sci-fi distractions.

Until we bump into one another in the filing room once more; stay safe, keep your wits about you, and never trust someone who is green around the gills. Innsmouth will be the end of us all…

Steve