'When I applied to be a counselor for the Game Design merit badge, I simply listed 'Chaosium' in the qualifications section!' – Rick Meints' foreword for Call of Cthulhu: Campfire Tales
Posted by Michael O'Brien on 30th Apr 2026
Chaosium President Rick Meints' foreword for the newly-released Call of Cthulhu: Campfire Tales:
I never camped outdoors with my family, nor did I ever camp when I was a cub scout. The only things of note from that time in my life are that my den mother was a former Miss Michigan and my father and I enjoyed designing and crafting pinewood derby cars. When I did start camping a few years later, I quickly took to it with great zeal. I enjoyed getting out in the woods with just my gear in my backpack to rely on. Evenings in a tent meant playing games, including a fair number of RPG sessions. RPGs involve storytelling, adventure, mystery, and suspense—all core features of my time in scouting, which continues to this day. When I applied to be a counselor for the Game Design merit badge, I simply listed “Chaosium” in the qualifications section!
Nowadays, I continue to enjoy camping, especially when there’s an opportunity to build a campfire each evening. Building a fire provides a timeless, comforting, and social experience regardless of the weather. Many of my fondest memories as a scout feature a campfire under the stars, the songs we sang, the ghost stories we told, and the skits we laughed at. My favorite scouting skills involve teaching how to gather tinder, kindling, and wood to construct and ultimately light a campfire. When I became my troop’s scoutmaster a little over a decade ago, I swore an oath that I would only light a campfire using flint and steel, and so far, I have honored my promise, even when deterred by rain and snow! If nothing else, it’s a core survival skill that I hope I never really need to use.
As a scout, I learned how to cook, canoe, hike, navigate with a map and compass, forage for food, sail a boat, tie knots, make shelters, identify poisonous plants and dangerous animals, and many other skills that could certainly come in handy as a Call of Cthulhu investigator. You find a different and deeper appreciation for the world when you are out in the wilderness. The night sky is darker and full of more stars, while the sounds are more primitive and sometimes startling. You develop a stronger connection to nature as you ponder its mysteries, its power, and its eternal indifference to our wants and needs. It’s somewhat spooky to hear things like thunder in the distance or the snap of a twig down the trail, or just what creature is staring at you with those glinting eyes from out of the darkness.
I wish I could have experienced the early days of scouting back in the 1920s and 1930s. As a collector of scouting memorabilia, I ponder what stories the items I obtain might tell if they could speak. Being rather nostalgic, the simpler technology, the slower pace of life, and a more rural society all these items harken back to appeals to me. Until time travel becomes possible, I’ll happily settle for playing the scenarios in this book, and enjoying the stories that unfold from them at the gaming table— or possibly at a picnic table on a campout with my troop. And yes, I always have a set of dice in my pack!
—Yours in Scouting, Rick Meints
Scoutmaster, Troop 4, and President of Chaosium.
Get your copy of Campfire Tales today!
New System: rules for creating young investigators, including new skills and special systems for using scout Merit Badges and Adversity. Also included are rules for taking your scout-investigators to adulthood, ready to progress on to other Call of Cthulhu campaigns as fully fledged investigators!
New Setting: Westhaven is all-new 1920s era campaign setting.
New Scenarios: the Westhaven Campaign's four brand new scenarios can be run as stand-alone one shots, or strung together to form a complete scout-investigator campaign.
