2013 - What Games Did I Run?

Yet another great year of games is about to end, this one went by quicker than the last! My last post talked about the games that I was a player in, this time I'm looking back at the games I ran.

Call of Cthulhu - This was classic 1920's Cthulhu set in New York City. It featured elements of the scenario "Lurker in the Crypt", and I finished the story of the Bishop family,a legacy started way back in the scenario called "The Condemned". I also put in some weird travels through time and space to Mars, which finished off the sanity of one character in particular. A wild way to wrap up the story.

Delta Green - A five part campaign which had some of my very best sessions. The group was fantastic and really embraced the paranoia, chaos and overall downward spiral of the setting. I used one published scenario, "Convergence", to kick things off. The rest was my own material. Most of it was single room mysteries, the focus was firmly on plot twists. At the end of it most of the group casualties were inflicted by the players on each other.

My Life With Master - Still one of my favorite games, I ran this twice. The first was a one-shot, the second time I did a two-parter. I actually prefer the one-shot format for this game. Although it does rush things, the game flows and the threads all come together. This game has themes that everyone understands at a very deep level. The buzz for me is seeing what the players come up with in the darkest of situations. They never fail to surprise me.

Paranoia - Yes, the old classic. I ran this recently and it was great fun.The group composition is really important in this game and we had a good one. Some of them also played "Master", and these games certainly have things in common. It also stirred up nostalgia on the day, with people coming over to see what we were playing. I'm surprised this doesn't get run more often, it's definitely a much loved game.

Trail of Cthulhu - This was a short campaign in the "Bookhounds of London" setting. I enjoyed the system in many ways, though felt it was too easy for the players, especially compared to "Delta Green". It was also fun to have some new players at the table. Overall this one had some good moments though we burned through all of the story threads very quickly indeed. I don't think I had as good a storyline in this one compared to "Delta".

The ones that got away:
Unknown Armies - I do love this system and I had a big group. Too big. We just about finished character creation and I just wasn't "feeling it". We had no concept for the campaign and I could tell that none of us really understood it. I just knew at that point that this one was going to die quickly, so I pulled the plug.

Fiasco - I missed this because of stuff at home on the day...the game went ahead though and was a real blast.

2013 - What Did I Play?

With the end of another year rapidly approaching, I thought I'd take time to look back on the games that I played, as I line up new games for next year. Next time I'll be posting a summary of the games that I ran.

Games that I took part in as a player :

Dungeon World - This was run by +Michael Bay and through the course of various games I played several characters. It was interesting to visit the "Apocalypse World" engine from a different angle, which will help when I run "Monster of the Week" next year.

Apocalypse World - This time out +Tony Reyes was at the helm in a weird, violent (to be expected) mini-campaign. I played a cult leader who steered the group down entirely the wrong path. This game is always interesting but challenging to play, and I never envy the person who has to run it. They seem to be caught between improvised responses and not being allowed to have much influence in the setting.

Shadowrun 5th Edition - A one-shot demo of a game I'd never got round to trying before. Great setting, but far too crunchy for my tastes. I was definitely the only one at the table who wasn't having a blast, so it can't be denied that Shadowrun has a certain "something".

Mage:The Awakening - I finally got to try a "New World of Darkness" game! I thought it was great, much easier than I'd anticipated. The LARP adaptation of the rules and the tendency to stay immersed in character threw me a little, and sadly my schedule got in the way of staying with the game. I'd feel confident running this myself, but there doesn't seem to be an audience.

Savage Worlds - This was a zombie survival game, absolutely not my ideal setting, but I really enjoyed the system. It had enough crunch to make the combat satisfying, something which I feel is missing in the games that I run. Fun, and great for one-shots.

Fate Accelerated Edition - +Scott Acker ran a demo of this and aside from being a fun session, I came away feeling that I actually understood how the game works...always a good sign in a demo! I'm interested in seeing where Fate goes in future settings.

Old School D&D - +john yorio has ran two sessions of this recently and I played in both. It took me back to my childhood and was good old-fashioned fun. Simple rules, deadly opponents and a really great sense of camaraderie at the table.

So there you have it, a decent selection for the year and I didn't realize how much I'd played until I planned this post! I salute all the people who ran these games. All were excellent gamesmasters and I learned something from each of them to take forward into the games that I run.

Old School Gaming

Last weekend I took part in an old school meetup ran by +john yorio . I know John through some of my own games.He'd played in an "Unknown Armies" one-shot and one of my more unusual "Call of Cthulhu" sessions.

This game was Basic D&D with some Labyrinth Lord modifications. It was a one-shot, also one of the original modules. I couldn't resist the nostalgia and I love one-shot games in general.They're such a great way to get a taste for a game without investing too much in terms of characters and campaigns. Basic D&D was the first game I ever played back in the early 1980's. My next experience was with Advanced D&D 2nd Edition when I ran a Ravenloft campaign in the 1990's, and the only fantasy games I've played since returning to the hobby in recent years have been Dungeon World and Pathfinder.

There was a good turnout for the game. It took a few minutes to put some characters together (though pre-gens were readily available) and it was fun to see how basic and direct the game really was. You could be a Fighter,Magic User, Thief, Cleric, Dwarf, Elf or Halfling. I opted for the Dwarf, as I do enjoy head first characters.

It was a classic dungeon arrangement, with skeletons, goblins,an evil Cleric, hidden doors and traps. The action was fast and quickly resolved...but what was truly special was the headcount. My Dwarf was the first to die, my Halfling somehow made it. Some other players actually went through three...yes,three characters in what was probably a three hour session. The pre-gens came in handy!

All in all it was just simple fun. Everyone was into the game and the spirit of it. Thinking back to how I started running "Call of Cthulhu", I was really tapping into the same thing...giving players the chance to reconnect with an old classic that they hadn't played in years or missed out on first time around.This inspires me to dig out some of the others, like "Paranoia" and "Judge Dredd" (Games Workshop version). It also reminded me how much I love the one-shot/demo format, and I'm seriously thinking about making 2014 a year where I run a one-shot of a different game each month, alongside just one campaign. That would also be good preparation for my stint in "Games on Demand" at Dragoncon 2014...but that's another post :-)

+john yorio has another session lined up for next month and I'm looking forward to that one too. It's good to see the level of excitement around this and he runs the sessions well.

Reflecting On Running Horror RPGs

With very few exceptions,such as FASA's Star Trek RPG, every game I have run has been of the horror genre. Even Star Trek took a horrific turn when I ran it. I have always loved horror stories and movies.

My biggest runs have been "Call of Cthulhu" and "Ravenloft". I've ran "My Life With Master", "Unknown Armies","Kult" and "Wraith". Next year sees "Monster of the Week" added to the list. I was thinking over all of these games in a discussion with a friend a few days back, and it was the first time I'd really reflected on how I'd ran them.

On the surface I enjoy weirdness rather than lots of gore, probably why I favor Lovecraftian scenarios over zombie ones. I especially like games that focus on odd, disturbed NPCs. I also tend to play with time and dimensions in my sessions too, one of the reasons why I love Tindalosian Hounds so much.

Thinking back to "Ravenloft" and how well some of those sessions went, I realized that they weren't focused on those areas at all. Granted,it was a different setting and I was a lot less experienced then. It struck me however, that there was something that worked in those games that still works now.

One of the "Ravenloft" sessions was set in a small village in Kartakass, home to wolfweres. They are "inverse" werewolves, wolves that assume the form of humans. The locals are friendly, musical and jovial. The players were at their most paranoid in this session, and it was because they were out of their comfort zone...this was AD&D, a game in which they'd got used to fighting their way through things. Now,they were in a social situation, forced to mix with friendly locals, not knowing who or what the threat was. The paladin, representative of all things lawful and good, simply couldn't start swinging the sword.

That's really the thread I've seen as a GM.Make the players uncertain about reality, their characters capabilities and the world around them. Put the characters in situations where their usual modus operandi simply doesn't work or isn't an option any more. In "Ravenloft", it was fighting characters in a friendly,social situation. In "Call of Cthulhu", it's when the academia are forced to blow up buildings, or cops when realize their bullets don't work.

Playbooks - Making Life Easier

Over the last few years I've been lucky enough to have to played in or ran games from a variety of systems. A personal goal of mine is to have ran a session in every different "Cthulhu" RPG to get a feel for how the rules compare and contrast in a familiar setting.

Now in terms of rules,I'm a lazy GM. I don't want to to wade through hundreds of pages to understand how to run something or have to refer to lots of charts during gameplay. Combat usually frustrates me in this regard. I do,however, like to have some structure..enough to support and add to the game. "Call of Cthulhu" and "My Life With Master" have been great for this.

I also don't like situations where the players need a copy of the rulebook or a long explanation of the rules to be able to play the game. I ran into this when I did a kickoff session for "Unknown Armies" recently. I love UA and the base system. However, for players who didn't have the books it was remarkably difficult to explain the various magical schools, the setting and some parts of character generation. I brought a lot of handouts and cheat sheets to try and make this easier, but I still feel it's an uphill task. Hopefully things will click during actual gameplay. I also had to do a lot of handouts and preparation like this when I was starting up "Trail of Cthulhu" and "Delta Green".

It was then that it struck me, the thing that I really missed. It was the "playbook" approach used in "Apocalypse World" and all of the games based on it. I'd got used to using them in "Apocalypse World" and "Dungeon World", and I'll be seeing them again when I run "Monster of the Week" and "tremulus".

Playbooks are essentially a customized character sheet. For example, in "Dungeon World", there is a "Cleric" playbook. This contains all the instructions that the player needs to create the Cleric, details of the all the things that character can do that are specific to that class, and how to level up. This means no need to look for the rulebook,and each playbook captures the distinct feel of that particular class/role/occupation. The only other thing that's needed is a copy of the general "moves", things that every character can do.

I've used them enough that I miss them in other games. For the "Unknown Armies" session, I realized that I was trying to compensate by making my own cheat sheets...the process would have been so much easier for everyone involved if I could have handed over to each player a single document that had everything they needed to create,start and play.Has anyone else experienced this,and how did you adjust?

Mage - The Awakening RPG

I finally got round to playing a game of "Mage - The Awakening", which is the New World of Darkness version of my old favorite, "Mage - The Ascension".

The game was run by the Mind's Eye Society, a World of Darkness LARP group, and it was the LARP rules that were used in the game. The rules and certain elements of the setting reminded me of two other games in particular...more on that later.

First of all it was time for character creation. I'd done some research in advance and came with ideas of which magical path and order I wanted to belong to. As is often the case with me, when it came to actual creation and discussing concepts with the GM ("Storyteller"in WoD terms), I went with one that had initially appealed to me the least! The path is all about what kinds of magic you do, and how you interpret the world magically. The order is more about your philosophy and view on how magic should be handled.

The paths are Acanthus (Enchanters who are all about luck,chance and time), Mastigos (Warlocks who work their inner demons,and other peoples), Moros (Necromancers who focus on death and material things), Obrimos (Theurgists who use raw,prime divine magic) and Thyrsus (Shamans who deal with the natural world). I strongly leaned to Mastigos and Moros before I attended the session, and ended up going with Acanthus. I liked Time magic, and playing with chance. I wanted a character who would get into trouble through gambling.

The orders are the Adamantine Arrow (fighters),Guardians of the Veil (spies), Mysterium (Lorekeepers), The Silver Ladder (Rulers) and the Free Council (Modernists). I went with the Mysterium, as I also wanted a research and investigation emphasis in the character.

The game reminded me in some ways of "Nephilim". Specifically, the five paths are aligned to Watchtowers. You have your Watchtower, the others are neutral but one is opposed..it's your weakest point. When visualized as a pentagram, this strongly resembles how the elements in Nephilim work, and how you assign Ka.

The system had a few different ways to be played, with hands, cards or dice. I went with dice, and rather than using the tabletop rules of a dice pool, instead you add the number of dots in an attribute to the dots in a skill plus a D10. Anything over 10 is a success. This is pretty much how Unisystem works, and I recognized it from running "All Flesh Must Be Eaten". It's a fast,easy way to resolve things and has me wondering about giving the "Angel" RPG a shot...

All in all a fun game and not nearly as complex as I thought it would be. I look forward to more sessions and exploring the system more.

Fate Accelerated Edition

+Scott Acker ran a demo of FAE (Fate Accelerated Edition) on sunday at my usual gaming haunt. We've played in several different games together and he knows the various incarnations of FATE inside out, so I asked him if he could set up a demo as I'd yet to play any FATE games. Like all too many people in this hobby,I have shelves of games that I've never played or run.

The demo was called "The Gothelrealm University of Esoteric and Arcane Arts‏".The setting was a Harry Potter Hogwarts-style university where the students are all supernatural beings. The classics were all well represented, vampires,ghosts,werewolves, fae,wizards and dragons all on the roll call.

I chose to play a werewolf. Scott gave us blank character sheets and some previously prepared "Aspects" (descriptions of the character that can be directly applied to the setting) and "Stunts" (special things we can do) to choose from. We also prioritized our "Approaches" (how we do things), such as "Quick","Careful" etc.

I haven't used Aspects before and it made a lot of sense to me in play. In some ways I found it reminiscent of "Unknown Armies" with its list of Passions. I liked having a "High Concept", a nice one-liner summing up who and what the character is in the game. Most of all, I liked have a "Trouble" Aspect. By choosing to use this Aspect in the game, you can be rewarded with a "FATE point", which you can then use later in the game to reroll dice, add +2 to a result or to add a detail to the game. I think this is probably the part that I enjoyed the most in that it encourages the players to make the story more interesting by making dangerous or difficult choices rather than focusing purely on winning.

The game flowed really well. I won't give details of the session itself as I know Scott runs this at conventions too. It had a strong gothic feel and I could see how a "Sleepy Hollow" game would work well with this. The characters were also very distinct archetypes, something else that I personally enjoy in games,especially as a player.

So having played this demo, I feel I've had a good taste of FAE. It's remarkably easy to play.I'd like to try it's more complex brother, "Fate Core", and some of the established settings too. If you haven't tried this and fancy a light, fast-paced game I strongly recommend giving it a look.

Cthulhu - From "Call of" to "Trail of"

I'm two sessions into my "Bookhounds of London" campaign using the "Trail of Cthulhu" system. Prior to that I'd been running games for almost two years using "Call of Cthulhu",so I've been reflecting on the differences between the two games and ideas for the future.

First of all, I never stayed close to the actual game system when I ran "Call of Cthulhu" or "Delta Green". There were very few rolls of the dice, typically only for combat moves or sanity checks. If the college professor in the group had a solid background in history (40% or more) I wouldn't ask for a roll. "Trail of Cthulhu",as a system, is a perfect fit in that regard. No skill rolls are required if you have a particular knowledge, the rolls are for general abilities like fleeing or scuffling.

Secondly,I am more forgiving than most Cthulhu GMs in terms of survival rates. You don't see "Total Party Kills" in my games, and while a good portion of the group won't survive the whole campaign, they will typically make it to the last session. "Trail of Cthulhu" again is a better fit, the group don't feel the burn of injuries and sanity loss until much deeper into the game.

Speaking of sanity, the slow burn rate also means that I've yet to see the in-game effects of mental instability in "Trail" unlike "Call", so I can't really compare the two at this stage. I do think that this makes "Trail" a good choice for an epic campaign like "Masks of Nyarlathotep", where party casualties are commonplace and can make it harder to keep ongoing threads.

"Masks" is on my list of things to run next year, adapted to "Trail of Cthulhu". I'm also thinking of running adaptations of some of the "Call of Cthulhu" scenarios that I've ran over the years. Some have already been done and can be found on the Pelgrane Press website. I haven't seen one for "The Condemned" or "The Sanatorium", both strong contenders for reruns, but I do have adaptations of "Tell Me,Have You Seen The Yellow Sign?", "The Cracked and Crooked Manse","Malice Everlasting" and "Edge of Darkness". All of those games have stayed in my mind and in different ways influenced the games I ran afterwards. I may weave them into "Masks" or have them stitched together as their own mini-campaign. It very much depends on who plays..I don't want the same players to have played these before, so "Malice" and "Yellow Sign" would be the best ones to do.

Has anyone else tried both systems or conversions from one to the other? Let me know!

Preparing an "Unknown Armies" RPG Campaign

Next month will see the start of my first campaign for the "Unknown Armies" RPG. I've run one-shots of this game several times and I love the system and setting. A proper campaign is something that I keep putting on a backburner, so now it's time to go for it.

I've decided to set the game in Las Vegas. I think it's a great fit, with the combination of hope,desparation and despair that inevitably prevails in a gambling scene, the seedy side of town, and the over the top glitzy facades.

Most importantly, everything that catches the eye about Vegas,everything that defines it, has been constructed by humans, for humans. Games of chance, luxurious hotels, all you can eat buffets, magic shows, nightclubs, fake cities,fake daylight (Caesars Forum), fake lovers....it's all there. "Unknown Armies" is ultimately a very human focused game, all about the consequences of what we do with power and obsession. What better place to play this out than Vegas?

The campaign will have a chaotic nature, so I'm keeping the story threads loose in this one. As the GM I'll be shaping the game around the actions of the players, so hopefully they'll land themselves in a lot of trouble. They will all be "Adepts", the magicians in this game world. They can make magical things happen because of their obsessions, so I'm excited to see which schools of magick the players choose.

I'm also following the guidelines in the rulebook in terms of choosing major characters and factions to give a little framework to the world, things for the players to react to. I like how the book describes the factions, but encourages you to define their relationships. This maintains a degree of unpredictability, especially for players who have played in this setting before.

So new turf for me next month,to run alongside my "Trail of Cthulhu" campaign. I'm excited about this and have no idea how it will all play out. Expect some interesting and bizarre posts on this in the coming months!

Nephilim RPG

"Nephilim" is a French roleplaying game that was adapted by Chaosium back in the early 1990s. Since then there have been more versions in French, with the Chaosium version ending after a few supplements were published.

For me, it's one of the ones "that got away". It's billed as an "occult roleplaying game", the players take on the roles of the Nephilim, magical beings who incarnate periodically through human bodies. There is a deep backstory and complex system, based on BRP. It's a field day for anyone interested in the occult, conspiracy theories or secret societies, with the enemies represented by the Knights Templar, Rosicrucians, the Thule Society and the dark Nephilim, the Selenim.

I think this game came along at the wrong time, and also suffered from a clear lack of focus. It has so many fantastic ideas and yet there isn't a clear sense of what should be done with the game. The Nephilim themselves are described vaguely, and the magic system is complex, though true to real-world occult concepts.

One of my favorite parts of the game is the past-life incarnations that are done in character generation. A Nephilim could have been a god in ancient Egypt, or a monk in medieval France. Your occupation, life and even how you died are all chosen or calculated. You accumulate skills and magical knowledge across each of these lives with the personal goal of reaching Agartha, transcendence. Add to that the symbolism of classic elements and the Tarot, and you have something unique.

Some of the supplements had great material though also made the system more confusing in some ways, and it's sad this wasn't revised and integrated into a new edition. I believe that some of the newer French editions are a lot more playable.

I'm now thinking of trying a hack of this game using Vincent Bakers "Apocalypse World" system, which would be a very personal project. I've never designed a game and this is the one that I always wanted to improve because I think it has so much potential. Look for that to surface next year!

Geist : The Sin Eaters RPG

"Geist : The Sin Eaters" is a role-playing by White Wolf for the World of Darkness setting, one of several games in the new series of games they launched with "Vampire : The Requiem".

"Geist" is the ghost game, following in the same vein as "Wraith" and "Orpheus". As in those games, the player characters experience death. Unlike "Wraith", the characters get a second chance at life, granted by an incredibly strong restless spirit, the Geist.

This makes it potentially one of the most positive World of Darkness games. The characters have a chance to live their lives in a very different way, perhaps finishing business on behalf of the dead, judging those who have wronged others, or maybe pursuing a hedonistic path.

The characters are also some of the most powerful in the World of Darkness, more along the lines of Mage in that regard, with an incredible array of powers at their disposal, granted by the Geist. Of course,this comes with a price. The Geist has its own needs and agenda which must be respected.

I think this game resonates with me because of the dark,gothic nature, but also as it lends itself very much to mystery and investigative games, very much my preference as a gamesmaster. It's easier for me to pull together a campaign for this in terms of inspiration than most of the other games in the series, closely followed by "Promethean","Werewolf" and perhaps "Mummy".

It's definitely an option I'll offer to my current gaming groups as a first step into the new "World of Darkness" series..look for a gameplay review in the next few months!

Ravenloft - Nostalgia Time

Twenty-something years ago I ran my first genuine campaign in a tabletop RPG. The game was Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd Edition, the campaign itself took place in the official "Ravenloft" setting.

"Ravenloft" was a Gothic Horror setting in a different plane of existence. It was composed of Domains, very much like states or countries, each of which was ruled by a Darklord. The Darklords were also prisoners of the Domains that they ruled, and the lands reflected the central myth behind the villain. There was a purgatorial quality to it, the Darklords being unable to leave their Domains. Each was based on a classic horror character, or drawn from other AD&D settings, the main one being Strahd Von Zarovich, the equivalent of Count Dracula. Frankenstein, Vlad Tepes, Werewolves and Mummies were all represented in their own Domains.

The idea was that players would pass through a mist from their own worlds into one of the Domains, so "Ravenloft" sessions could be added on here and there to other games or campaigns. I took a different approach and based my campaign entirely in the setting itself, with each chapter taking place in a different Domain. I used published scenarios as the basis. The beauty of this approach was the variety it presented. We had encounters with zombies in marshlands, Egyptian deserts and adventures on ships. On the other hand, the radical shifts in geography and storylines made it hard to maintain a consistent tone through the campaign.

"Ravenloft" also has it's own tweaks to the established rules. The polarity between good and evil is more pronounced and extreme with game mechanics added to reflect that. Acts of evil could manifest in a physical change in a character. The party Thief, for example, grew horns! These changes remain should the character return to their own world. The game had rules for fear as well, so in some ways it was closer to "Call of Cthulhu".

Some of the sessions simply didn't work well, I was extremely inexperienced at the time and my preparation should have been much better than it was. Occasionally though, it worked wonderfully. There was one game were the villains were werewolves. I'll never forget the atmosphere that we,as a group, captured that night. The characters were very powerful at this point and yet were extremely intimidated by the locals in the town inn. Great roleplaying all round and it's something I try to recapture in other games.

I need to get a copy of the game again to see how it reads after all this time. I have no doubt that I could do a lot more with it now, though I'm not sure what system I'd use. I did love AD&D 2E at the time, though again, it's been decades since I've looked at it. Even though I'm primarily a "Call of Cthulhu" GM these days, "Ravenloft" was my first signature game and will always hold a special place.

Trail of Cthulhu - The Campaign Begins!

This weekend I kicked off my latest campaign. It's in the "Bookhounds of London" setting for "Trail of Cthulhu". This campaign takes place in London, 1935.

The session lasted roughly four hours and the first two and a half were spent on setting things up. First was character creation, something we didn't rush, especially with most of the group being totally new to this system. We have a great cast of characters...the Bookseller (owner of the bookshop and party leader), the Book Scout (dodgy acquirer of books), the Catalogue Agent (think of Johnny Depp in "The Ninth Gate"), the Occultist (enough said), the Antiquarian (museum contact and part-time employee), the Forger (again,enough said) and a Private Investigator (unusually the one with morals).

Next we created the Bookshop itself. This was a collaborative exercise for us all,with the Bookseller having final say on some decisions. We came up with a name ("Marlowe & Sons"), physical description of the store, its location (Soho), main lines of business, clientele and rivals. This was great fun and gave me,as a gamesmaster, lots of hooks and material to work into the sessions I already have outlined. It was also a pleasure to see how everyone contributed with great ideas. It's a very effective way to get the players invested in the setting itself, as they've created so much of it. This is definitely an exercise I'll embrace in future campaigns.

I then turned over the names of the investigation stories that I'd created loose frameworks for, along with a one-line intro. The group could choose which one to start with,and the order in which the others will be played.Again, a bit of a gimmick, but it gives the group some ownership and helps me plan things out and get a sense in advance of how the sessions may flow. They were offered "Dust to Dust","The Poe Ritual","Lot 666","When The Wind Blows" and "The Seance". They went for the Poe story which was a really good choice for a starter.

We managed to get a solid hour or so of gaming in so they could get a feel for their characters and I'd say we got halfway through "The Poe Ritual". I really enjoyed the system,setting and group dynamic. That being said, as usual, the system was really there as a backup for the story, something that I prefer and encourage. I like the feel of "Trail of Cthulhu" and look forward to using it in other settings. If you like Cthulhu games with more emphasis on the investigation and storyline side of things, do give it a try.

Trail Of Cthulhu - Preparing a New Campaign

This weekend will be the beginning of a new campaign that I've written, using the "Trail of Cthulhu" system. I'm excited about this as it's the first time I'll have run "Trail" with my usual group, I have some new faces at the table, and the setting is also new.

This campaign will be in the "Bookhounds of London" setting, in the 1930's. I'm using what has now become my standard approach for campaigns. I run six sessions, once a month. The first is all about character creation and setting things up. The following five sessions are actual investigations, presented as standalone stories that have an overall story arc. This keeps the game open and accessible for people who join later on, or for players who miss a game here and there. Sometimes I get the first story going in session one, depending on how long character creation takes. I think the eagerness to play can mean rushing through this process,and it's something I want to change this time. I will also encourage the group to create a few extra characters which I'll have as NPCs, available to become player characters for newcomers or replacements to existing characters.

The stories I've prepared are loose threads. I have things like twists and the big reveal already in place, but the rest of the structure is very open so the players can take the story where they want it to go. I will also be trying a gimmick of allowing the players to choose which threads to follow, in such a way that they will be deciding the order in which the stories are played. I'm looking forward to seeing how this unfolds and how the story order will impact on the flow of the campaign.

Another aspect that's new this time is that I have certain situations or setpieces that I want to put in to really make each story a different experience, rather than just a "monster of the week" approach. I've done this a little with "Delta Green" and it's very rewarding to see the players really think through a situation with unique challenges.

Each story will feature a book. It may be a Mythos tome, or something less sinister. The goal in one story might be the aquisition of the book, in another it could be to sell one. It could even be a case of keeping a book out of the hands of a rival. Again,these are all angles I'm looking to explore.

I'll be posted summaries of the sessions in the coming months. I hope they play out well and they give you some ideas to throw into your own campaign, if you enjoy the same psychological horror that I do!

The Type Of Game I Don't Enjoy

A browse through the pages of this blog should give the reader a clear impression of the games I really enjoy running or playing. Certain themes and styles keep coming up. I do make an effort to try different games with different groups too to get exposure to different approaches, and also to get a feel for the different systems. You don't know till you try!

That being said, there are sometimes when I run a game or play in one where I'm just left feeling flat. I know there are various factors in every game....the setting, the system, the GM, the group composition and the location all contribute. In my case I can say that there are two aspects that leave me cold, even with a great GM and group.

The first is when the focus of the game is combat and there is a strong tactical emphasis. I've experienced this in Pathfinder, Shadowrun and Twilight 2000. The game sessions have been essentially one huge combat setpiece, with grids and miniatures laid out. Initiative, distance, position and range all matter. This just isn't for me and I'm aware that it's the major approach in most roleplaying groups. I often feel that I'm the only one at the table not having a great time in these cases, and that it's exactly what the other players were looking for. I guess I'm looking more for mystery, investigation and story....the undeniable influence of "Call of Cthulhu", where a long combat situation is a sign that something is wrong.

The second is a high level of "crunch". "Crunch", if you don't know the term, is the level of complexity in the game mechanics. High crunch games will feature a lot of rules to consider in resolving conflicts, numerous combinations of dice to roll, lookup charts etc. Some games put more of this in the character generation phase, some in the actual gameplay...some both. I don't mind it in character creation, but in gameplay it frustrates me. I do like the random component that rolling the dice introduces, and I do like some lookup tables here and there, but I don't like having to know a lot of rules just to be able to play my character.

Obviously these are purely personal preference and I'm certainly not in step with the majority of gamers out there on this. This is another good reason though to get exposure to a wide variety of games and groups, especially when you're a GM. It helps you to understand what different players are looking for in a game, and how important it is to have their expectations line up with your approach and what you plan to deliver.

Apocalypse World - The Hocus and the Maelstrom

The second part of +Tony Reyes "Apocalypse World" campaign wrapped up last week, and as I've come to expect from this game, you can expect the unexpected regardless of who runs it.

I'm playing a "Hocus", often characterized as a cult leader, though a read through the playbook offers many more angles and options. The real essence of the Hocus is that the characters abilities are derived from their followers, the psychic maelstrom and their own personal charisma.

Having played alongside this class in the past, I wanted to push deeper into the possibilities that this character has, especially with the maelstrom. The beauty of the maelstrom is that it's an open concept for the group to define...it's a "thing" that we can all tap into with our minds. Is it "the Force", the collective subconscious or microwaves? All are valid. In the case of my character, it's seen as the remains of a shield built with advanced technology to keep us imprisoned. Now it is broken and contains pieces of communication channels. I can interact with this mentally, and did so in two major ways.

The first was rather than just interpreting the things I could "see", I pushed the information the opposite direction, to implant information into the maelstrom. The message was that a new character, the "Driver", was an emissary of sorts and totally unaware of his true role. By putting this information in, other people channelling the maelstrom would have an impression of this message, a potent way for the Hocus to shape his own prophecies.

The second was even more mindblowing and came at the session finale. After a disastrous confrontation (I'll swing back to this shortly) which left an entire village slaughtered, I was left looking for my main rival in the game, another leader named "Aristotle". I channelled the maelstrom and with a major success, literally pulled him through the maelstrom itself to our location in a bolt of lightning, where we swiftly disposed of him. It gave a great end to the chapter as all the characters were left to ponder the extent of the Hocus powers...and if he's been telling the truth all along.

As for that confrontation? That was a direct result of another Hocus power, the ability to rile up a crowd. In this example, it was the main gang in our town. They were out of control and my character managed to harness those emotions, inspiring the crowd and redirecting their anger to my rival,Aristotle. We marched on the other town where I attempted the same thing again with the local population, only for it to backfire completely! The result was carnage.

This all happened in the second half of the game session and it was amazing to experience the sheer havoc and destruction that a Hocus can inspire,very quickly and very easily. It's a challenging character to play and well worth it. 

My Life With Master - "The Countess"

When an unexpected gap in my schedule appeared, I decided to offer a "one-shot" or "demo" game. I really like doing that because it's a great chance for me and prospective players to try something out without having to commit to any further sessions.

Some games are especially well suited to this format, which is why you often see them played at conventions. This time, I returned to one of my favorite games of all-time, "My Life With Master" by +Paul Czege . It's billed as "a roleplaying game of villainy,self-loathing and unrequited love", and it certainly lives up to that. The game is about the Minions (think of characters like Igor), who are servants of a terribly evil Master. They have miserable lives and are trying to find a way out.

We had a small group of four players, the ideal size for this. Three were experienced players with a taste for dark games (yes, +Tony Reyes was one of them), the other was a total newcomer to roleplaying, and she handled it brilliantly.

As a one-shot I spent the first hour on creating Master and the Minions (the player characters). Creation of Master and the setting are done collaboratively, Minion creation is done by the player.
We then jumped into the game, which is played in "scenes",each owned by a player,giving the game a cinematic feel. I also altered the game balance and math to make it feasible for someone to trigger the "Endgame" in a single session. All "Master" games lead to this, culminating in the death of Master. To do this, a character must accumulate enough "Love" points to overcome their own weariness and fear of Master and successfully stand up to him/her.

The scenario that we created was one where Master was "Countess Elizabeth", an old crone living in castle ruins who wanted to act out fairytales. The actors in the play were special "toys", human beings captured from the nearby village and surgically altered to fit their roles. The Minions were a tailor (also the surgeon), the kitchen girl, the overseer of prisoners and a pretty girl who would lure victims from the village. The Minions made their attempts to protect or woo ("Overtures") the objects of their love with mixed results, some of which,in true "Master" fashion, were disastrous, sparking a village revolt.

In the end it was the soft-spoken tailor who rose up to protect a young boy,and killed the Countess. He went on to make a new life for himself in the village, two minions were killed and another took his own life.

All in all, everyone had a great time and were genuinely surprised at how dark this game really was. Having run this before, I can honestly say that the level of darkness we reached was fairly typical and to be expected in this! It really is a game like no other and I love running it. You do need a group that can deal with very dark,mature themes with a good dose of black humor.Next time I will run this for several sessions to play it out as it's meant to be played, and I look forward to seeing what the returning players will come up with second time around.

Mage: The Ascension - A Retrospective.

Back in 1993 I was still living in Liverpool,England. My spare time was spent primarily in pubs and rock clubs (I was still very much in a Goth phase) with the other nights dedicated to tabletop RPGs. I was running "Ravenloft" back then but also found time to play in some other games. One of them was the first edition of "Mage: The Ascension" by White Wolf.

"Mage" was the third major gameline produced in the classic "World of Darkness" series, the first being "Vampire: The Masquerade", the second was "Werewolf: The Apocalypse". Each had its own feel and metaplot, though they all had a buildup to a great "something". This was the 90's and popular culture was full of pre-millenial fears, everything from Nostradamus' predictions to the "Y2K Bug".
White Wolf did follow through and publish official endings for each line, which cleared the decks for them to reboot the games later on, minus the metaplot.

I had never played "Vampire", a game which was massively popular with my Goth friends, though the popularity was firmly on the LARP side of things rather than tabletop. I had played "Werewolf" and while I loved the rich setting, I struggled on a personal level to play it. The animalistic aspect was too much of a challenge for me. "Mage" however, was perfect.

The central concept of the game is that reality is consensual.It is maintained,powered and reinforced by our combined beliefs about what is possible and what isn't. A Mage is someone who has an awakened Avatar (like a higher self) and understands the nature of reality from a particular perspective ("Paradigm") and can alter it. Reality,like a rubber band, will stretch when manipulated but will snap back into it's original shape, albeit slightly looser than before. This is the real goal of the Mage...to gradually tweak reality so their magic becomes more acceptable and believable to the masses, and thus easier to do. If the Mage pushes too hard, then reality hits back hard in the form of "Paradox", an unpredictable punishment.

The main opponents of the Mages are the Technocracy, an organization seeking to enforce their own vision of reality. The Mages are organized into Traditions, schools of magic and mystical paths. I really liked this as at the time I was reading a lot of Occult and New Age material. The "Verbena" tradition for example, were representative of Wiccans and Druids, all about nature. The "Dreamspeakers" were Shamen. "Cult of Ecstasy" were like a Dyonisian cult and "The Order of Hermes" were the classic Hermetic group, a nod to the games predecessor, "Ars Magica".

Magic itself is described as "Spheres", of which there are nine. Each of the nine Traditions specializes in one of the spheres, though you can learn any of them. Combining the powers of the spheres is where the fun really is, and what I liked was how the sphere would be interpreted differently depending on your Tradition. The "Life" sphere, for example, would be interpreted by the "Sons of Ether" as the elecrochemical jolt that starts your heart, whereas the "Akashic Brotherhood" see it as Chi. The other spheres are Matter, Correspondence,Prime,Forces,Time,Entropy,Spirit and Mind.

What made this special, and still to this day my favorite game, was the way this all translated into gameplay. We were playing very powerful characters, people who could tear reality apart with our thoughts, yet the threats to us were just as powerful, in terms of the antagonists and the consequences of creating paradoxes.We were also lucky to have a GM and group of players who thoroughly understood the game. "Mage" can be a hard game to understand or explain, so group composition is a major consideration if you want to do it justice. With the right group,it's something special. 

Savage Worlds RPG

I recently became a player in an ongoing zombie campaign using the "Savage Worlds" RPG system. I'd heard a lot about this system in various reviews and from gaming colleagues, so I was eager to experience it as a player with a view to possibly using it in the future as a gamesmaster.

The first thing I noticed was how easy and intuitive the system is. The game is played with a variety of dice. The die indicates a level of skill and is rolled against a target difficulty of 4. For example, I might have a skill represented by a D6, or a higher level of skill in something else for which I'd roll a D8. A success would be a roll of 4 or above. Also, as a player character, I roll a D6 alongside any roll I make and get to choose whichever is higher. If I roll the maximum number possible,I get to roll again and add the number to my previous roll. Initiative is handled with a regular deck of playing cards.

This all works really well and makes for a fast-moving game. As a GM that tends to struggle with combat systems this is very appealing to me as an option for future games. I usually have large gaming groups and my sessions lean to action-adventure, so it's definitely time for me to try something that fits better with that style.

From a character perspective, you have "Edges" (feats or special characteristics) balanced out by "Hindrances" (ongoing penalties or tendencies towards danger). Again, very simple and it translates nicely into actual gameplay. The game encourages heroic,risky,headfirst playing, which is my preferred way as a player.

Savage Worlds has had a number of interesting settings published, all which take a genre and add a spin to it. "50 Fathoms" takes the pirate genre and transports the players to another world, one which is drowned and has a "Jules Verne" feel to it. "Slipstream" is pulp 1930s style science fiction, much in the vein of "Flash Gordon" and "Buck Rogers". My personal favorite is "Rippers", a Victorian Steampunk Gothic Horror game that blends "Van Helsing" and "The League of Extraordinary Gentleman".

Finally I must mention "Realms of Cthulhu", the Savage Worlds setting for a game I've been running for years. What strikes me is how great this system would fit one of the more pulp,epic campaigns like "Masks of Nyarlathotep". The characters would have a much greater chance of surviving till the later stages of the campaign and the action sequences could be fantastic. I can easily imagine this adaptation being my game for 2014.

I highly recommend trying this if you want a generic system that lends itself to fast and furious games.

Dungeon World - The Ranger and his Rat

In the latest session of +Michael Bay's Dungeon World campaign, the group returned to the gritty business of doing dirty jobs for sneaky characters down in the harbor.

I didn't really feel that my Mage character worked out for me, so I took the opportunity to play another class that I hadn't tried before, the Ranger. I'd played alongside that role in the past but wanted to give a different spin on it.

The inspiration really for me came from the Wildlings in "Game of Thrones". Rather than play the classic Ranger,a hunter and survivalist much in the mold of Aragorn, I wanted to do a Ranger that was much more of an urban character.The city in this campaign has an extensive network of tunnels and sewers, so I decided to make a Ranger that was an expert in that environment, a tunneler and sewer scout, the man who literally takes the dirty jobs that no-one else wants to do.

Looking through the list of available animal companions, I chose the rat. It was perfect as a sewer companion and very much the animal representation of what my character was all about. I named my character "Jonah", and in a nod to "Fawlty Towers", the rat was named "Basil".I made a tweak to the character in a step away from the conventional Ranger weapons, typically the bow and short sword. Instead I opted for a set of darts and a dagger, again to reflect the environment in which he operates.

The session itself was tremendous fun and in a group that featured a Fighter, Thief and a Mountebank, we were in all kinds of trouble very quickly! The Ranger was great fun to play, much more than the Mage. I think this was personal preference in that I had a better understanding of my character concept and what he was trying to do. Also, the combat and exploration aspects of the game were much easier with this class.

The rat companion was a great touch, adding some humor to the game, though he was genuinely useful...the final showdown would have seen my character die if it hadn't been for the precious extra points of damage that Basil inflicted on the fearsome beast from below.

All in all it was a nice change of character concept for me, and I look forward to playing the Ranger and his Rat again.

Trail of Cthulhu - "Bookhounds of London"

Every so often you find a roleplaying game or setting that just gets you as a player or gamesmaster. It fits you like a glove in terms of the atmosphere,theme or mechanics. I've experienced that over the years with games like "Call of Cthulhu", "Kult" and "My Life With Master". I also felt it when I ran games in the "Ravenloft" setting for AD&D 2E.

Now I've found another in Pelgrane Press "Bookhounds of London", a campaign setting for "Trail of Cthulhu" written by Kenneth Hite. The setting is London in the 1930's. The players are somehow connected with a bookstore that deals in occult books, and this serves as a backdrop for drawing them into deeper mysteries and a lot of trouble. The 1930's brings the pressures,and opportunities, of Depression era economics. There are plenty of dilettantes who have fallen on hard times and have very rare and dangerous books to sell, along with an audience of buyers who may well be cultists or satanists.

There are new options for character occupations too. A player could be the bookstore keeper who owns or manages the store, the character who is effectively the party leader. There's the book scout, the "street" character who trawls through junk sales to find that special bargain,by fair means or foul. Then we have the catalogue agent (think of Johnny Depp in "The Ninth Gate"), the private investigator who represents a specific dealer. Of course, given the pressures of supply and demand, we also have the forger.

The group create the bookshop together at the start of the campaign and can invest some of their points into the shop itself, to provide it with the chance of having just the right book when they need it. This alone would provide plenty of story hooks. When you add in the new occupations, there is tremendous potential for character-driven storylines.

The background material on London is superb, lots of maps from the era are included and guidelines for evoking London. There are also three "types" of London suggested, and I'm already struggling to choose one, so I'll let the group decide. There is "Sordid" London, which is along the lines of "From Hell". "Arabesque" London is the labyrinthine world that Sherlock Holmes knows well. "Technicolor" London is more akin to the world of Dennis Wheatley and Hammer horror, full of vivid colors and wealthy satanists.

This will be my first run of "Trail of Cthulhu" as well, though some colleagues tell me that me my games are already closer to it in spirit than "Call of Cthulhu". This starts in August, so do look for gameplay reviews and summaries later this year.

Delta Green - "Bang"..the Campaign Finale

Yesterday was the final chapter in my Call of Cthulhu "Delta Green" campaign. It was a five part story played with a truly great group (including +Tony Reyes and +Michael Bay ).

It was a short gaming session, lasting perhaps two hours, but it achieved what I wanted from it. The goal was to have a simple adventure that would give a solid ending to the campaign while also tying together the conspiracy threads from the previous sessions.

The basic story for this chapter involved one of the characters receiving a letter from the near future,from himself.The message told him that there'd been a nuclear incident arranged by Majestic 12, blamed on Delta Green operatives who were now being hunted down by Presidential decree. The message had instructions to record a conversation at a hotel between two of the leaders of Majestic 12, and to "take them out" before the nuclear incident could happen.

The group spent considerable time weighing up their options and trying to agree on a plan. A further revelation, was that Agent Selene had forged the letter from the future, something which she didn't share with the group. The group split between those doing surveillance in the hotel and some outside in vehicles. Some of the operatives had explosives in place.

There were several big reveals and twists along the way to total destruction of the hotel room. One was that MJ-12 was divided,with two leaders wanting to make money from selling alien technology, their plan being to blame a rival leader for the nuclear explosion and frame him as the Delta Green leader. Another was that the explosion was caused by the linking of two portals, tied together in the hotel room. One portal led to the nuclear plant, the other led back in time to the church in Fredricksberg.The explosions triggered by the team in the second chapter of the campaign to kill the Tindalosion Hound had literally blasted through into the present, firing from one portal into another and triggering the nuclear disaster. Some of the players had stepped into the church itself and faced instant death, the others managed to escape.

The final scene had two of the escapees,including Agent Selene, meeting the new leader of Majestic-12 and the President.They reveal themselves to be Yith observers who have been pulling strings the entire time to analyze human decision making. Selene is now possessed by a Yith and her first task is to forge a letter in the hand of a team mate, which will be sent back in time to see how it plays out...

I really enjoyed running this and introducing much of my own material.It was the first time I'd run a tightly focused short campaign with a distinct beginning and end, which I think was more satisfying for everyone involved.It's definitely the format I'll be using for future games.Time to prepare for "Vampire:The Requiem" and "Trail of Cthulhu".

Vampire:The Requiem - "Danse Macabre" Supplement

I'm preparing for a short campaign using the new upcoming version of "Vampire:The Requiem" and got hold of one of the last major supplements released for the current version, "Danse Macabre".

This is more than a player or chroniclers guide. It's a collection of ideas and concepts for how to strip down and rebuild "Requiem" itself,boasting some great ideas, at least one of which I'll be leveraging for one of the core stories threads I have in mind.It also touches on other games in the "New World of Darkness" series.

The first thing the book does is to offer "Requiem" in three tiers or scales of game:Coterie,City and Global. This is very much along the lines of "Hunter:The Vigil" and offers scope and options to the game. The "Unknown Armies" RPG does the the same. Each of the covenants are interpreted at each tier, the global versions have different names and of course different agendas, with new roles that the characters can play. I think this makes sense especially for "Vampire", given that the characters can potentially live for a very long time. As they grow more powerful with age, they may well get drawn into a higher tier of the game.

The covenants are revisited with some nice bullet points presented to explain why a player might want to choose each one. Some are reinvented, "Ordo Dracul" for example is rehashed as "Brides of Dracula", a motorcycle gang! There are some new ones, one in particular (no spoilers for my players) will definitely be an important part of my campaign.

New rules are presented for social conflict, lessons clearly learned from the highly rated "Requiem for Rome" setting. Speaking of which, the Roman supplement,along with this one, are proving to be very influential on the new version of "Requiem" and it's fun to see how those ideas were already taking shape. The book ends with advice on how to run "Requiem" with different themes, such as "Noire".

Overall this is a superb supplement and one that convinced me to go with "Requiem" rather than "Masquerade". I just have to avoid spoilers now, as it's given me some outstanding material to throw at my players in August.

Apocalypse World - Fear and Loathing Pt1

The new Apocalypse World campaign headed by +Tony Reyes kicked off yesterday with a group of four players (soon to be five) and had a nice blend of the new and familiar.

I play a Hocus who runs a hedonistic UFO cult. Jason plays the Brainer, the twin sister of my character. Neil chose the Battlebabe, the cool,distant yet violent assassin. +Michael Bay took the role of Hardholder, the guy who runs the town that we live in.

The town is "The Vault", the remnants of a skyscraper. Business is doing well,but not so well as to be seen as a threat by rival towns. It has a bar and marketplace, which gives it a very different vibe compared to "Circustown", the setting for last time. The dynamic is very smooth as well, our characters get along well and have a relationship very much defined by how we all contribute to the town.

The Hocus and Brainer emphasize the truly weird side of life, and given that we made up half the group it shifted the focus of the game heavily onto the psychic maelstrom. Tony gradually introduced external factors in the form of visions, an ambushed training mission and visitors from another town.As in any first session there is significant time spent on character concepts and history, along with getting a feel for the system and how the characters play.

I thoroughly enjoyed it, though I think I'd like to stir up the dynamic somewhat. The Hocus/Brainer relationship is fascinating and extremely creepy, but I wonder if we contribute too much of the same thing given the size of the group.I might suggest that the opening event of the next session, a mass orgy and psychic channelling that involves every character except the Hardholder, backfires horribly and takes the Hocus out of play. That would totally shift the dynamics and give the other characters a whole new set of challenges to deal with. How would the Brainer handle the sudden responsibility for the cult, for example. I could introduce a new PC shortly after, such as a Skinner. Food for thought, and we'll see what the group thinks when we reconvene.

It was great fun to meet new players and also to have Tony run a game, it was the first time I'd played in one of his. He did a phenomenal job with a challenging, improvisational setup.

Returning to Apocalypse World

This coming weekend I'll be returning to one of the most challenging and unusual RPG's I've had the pleasure of playing, Vincent D Baker's "Apocalypse World". This time round the game will be run by one of my regular gaming colleagues, +Tony Reyes .

Last time he played a "Battlebabe", a fighter who is also a charmer, and was instrumental in some of the trickier storylines. The "Master of Ceremonies" (the GM) last time we played was +Michael Bay , who will be a player in this game. He's assuming the role of "Hardholder", the character who runs the town in which our campaign is based. I played that role last time and it was definitely a challenge, though it did result in probably my most memorable character. The rest of the group are people I haven't played alongside before.

The big challenge for me,as always, is what character should I play? A few appeal and while I want to try something different, there are aspects of the game that I'm drawn to. The "psychic maelstrom" for instance, is a wonderful concept...that "something" lingering over us all that can be tapped into for weird and bizarre inspiration. A few characters are more tied to that the others, such as the "Brainer", the "Hocus" and the "Savvyhead".

I also like idea of taking one of the more overtly violent characters and doing something more nuanced with them. Taking the "Gunlugger" for example and giving him some sort of personal code that he must follow, like a futuristic Bushido. Or the "Faceless", a brutally violent character who has a totally different personality when unmasked.

There are also characters tailored to the social side of the game. The "Skinner" looks fantastic, totally captivates an audience and can be the glue between the other characters. The "Maestro D" runs a social establishment. I was very tempted by this one, the idea of someone running an Amsterdam-style coffee shop where anyone can go to escape the real world for a few hours. That would heavily shape the focus of the game though and doesn't always work.

It looks like I'll try my hand at the "Hocus". This character taps into the weird side of life and at a glance seems like a Manson-like cult leader. I have my own ideas for it though that I haven't seen in play before, more along the lines of Gaius Baltar from Battlestar Galactica. I'm thinking less hippy, more an intellectual with a compelling (if strange) vision and taste for hedonism. I have a feeling this is going to be just as good as last time.

Delta Green Pt 4 - The Clinic

The latest Delta Green session had the players visit a small fictional town in Nevada, in an adventure that brought them closer to "Majestic 12", the main rival faction in this setting.Rather than run parallel adventures like last time, this one had half of the group join the main mission halfway through, but initially playing NPCs.

The basic story had former Agent "Andrea", a leader of Delta Green who had gone into hiding, re-emerging in a clinic in Nevada. She had been sent there by Agent Alphonse and contacted a player character, "Selene", who she had established a connection with in the previous game. Three players, including and led by Selene, faked clinic admission documents to get inside as patients. The other four players were waiting in the wings for further instruction.

I had created basic character outlines for five NPC patients who were already in the clinic, and these were randomly assigned to the four players. One of them was a Majestic 12 insider, another was a resurrected former player character from another time, a nod to the Nathaniel Bishop storyline. This worked great and all the players really embraced the roles.

Behind all this was the story of what was really going on. The town itself was a facade, home to an observatory run by the Mi-Go and a place for MJ-12 to try psychological experiments and conversion programs on Delta Green agents. I used a plot device from the "Music of the Spheres" scenario, so at certain moments the observatory would contact an Outer God, resulting in random psychological reactions from anyone in the town. Some of the reactions where violent, which triggered the usual destructive path established in this campaign.

With the clinic destroyed and all but one of the NPCs dead, the group quickly set about using explosives to destroy the town and observatory. While no-one went to inside to discover the story secrets, one character experienced a temporary mind swap with the sole inhabitant of the observatory..a Mi-Go. This obviously had big implications for his sanity.

So four chapters in and yet another small town destroyed. I might jump ahead and make the next chapter the final one, as I feel it's time to tie up all the threads and ramp up the scale. This has definitely been fun so far with plenty of insanity,paranoia and plot twists.

Vampire - Blood and Smoke

As followers of this blog will know from previous posts, one of my plans is to run a "World of Darkness" game. Having compared the 20th anniversary edition of "Vampire:The Masquerade" to "Vampire:The Requiem", "Masquerade" was the one I settled on, though it was a tough call. Now everything's changed with the brand new version of "Requiem", "Vampire:Blood and Smoke" due out this summer.

I have been following the developer blogs over at White Wolf and have downloaded the playtest documents. The main thing that has struck me is the redesign of the disciplines, the special powers that vampires have based upon their clan.I'd been reading the guidelines of the disciplines in "Masquerade" and after numerous readings, still wasn't blown away by what the disciplines do, and in some cases I was downright confused. The new versions are crystal clear. I can describe and explain each of them off the top of my head, which is the level of comfort I prefer to have in a game like this.The story potential from each is immense too.

"Auspex", for example, used to be about extra-sensory perception. Now a lot of those powers (seeing in the dark, smelling prey) are common to all vampires. Auspex is now about secrets, much in line with the clan that it's associated with, the Mekhet. At the most basic level, it allows the player to ask the GM questions about a situation to shed light on what's really going on. "Protean", which used to be more along the lines of animal shapeshifting, is now an emphasis on the vampire becoming less human and more of a beast. At the highest level the vampire can transform into mist!

While the clans appear to be the same as those in Requiem (Daeva, Mekhet,Ventrue,Gangrel and Nosferatu), the covenants could be changing. There is a new villain, the Strix, who prey on vampires. They first appeared in the "Requiem for Rome" setting and will be fun to use. The predatory nature of the vampires themselves has led to new mechanics being introduced.

Overall, everything I've read simply makes more sense to me.There also seems to be more of an open acknowledgement that many players aren't looking to play vampires for the angst, they expect vampires to be cool and enjoyable to play as well, possibly an influence from recent shows like "True Blood".

There will be a quickstart version of the game released in select stores on "Free RPG Day', June 15th, and it'll be published online soon after. This will definitely be my next game to run, probably starting in August this year, and I'm already looking forward to it.

Dungeon World - New Beginnings

Yesterday was a new chapter in the Dungeon World campaign being run by Michael Bay, the name of the campaign is "Screams In The Darkness". It was particularly fitting for this episode! Some of the characters had died in the last session so this had something old and something new.

The biggest change was realigning the group to being mercenaries in a wonderfully lawless town named "Gondgul". It has various influences, including Dwarven, Pharazonic (Egyptian) and numerous others. In the absence of government, the city is run by rival mercenary "expeditionary companies", wizards and religious orders.

Three characters returned from previous sessions, the Shaman, Thief and Fighter. The new characters were a Paladin, a Barbarian and my character, a Mage. I've never played a Mage or Wizard in a fantasy game before, I've tended to play front line law and order characters so this was a great chance to try something different.

I chose a magical path known as "The Mask". It's really all about illusions. My character can solve general problems magically which aren't related to his school, but that comes with a penalty. When he uses magic aligned with his path (misleading others,avoiding notice,cunning plans) he gets major bonuses. On the other hand, there are heavy restrictions....he can never use magic for brute force or to break facades. This was great because it forced me to play a style which was non-confrontational.

The game itself was excellent, a security operation to protect a warehouse, leading to the classic trek through underground sewers and ruins. I had a succession of spectacular failures in my attempts at spell casting, one which left us in complete darkness and having to abandon the mission! The dynamic within the group was fun as always,with a real sense of mischief from the various roguish characters. Michael did a nice touch in giving each character their own plot threads here and there.

The session ended with a revelation that there were Dwarven ruins beneath the city,plenty of exploration ahead of us.After levelling up, I added a new magical path for my character, "The Twilight",giving him the ability to manipulate shadows.The penalty? He can never create light or fire, very apt after the failures this time around. It was a great session with a more gritty feel this time around.

Monster Of The Week RPG

I recently purchased the "Monster Of The Week" tabletop RPG by Michael Sands. It uses Vincent Bakers "Apocalypse World" rules, along the same lines as other adaptations such as "Dungeon World" and "Monsterhearts".

I've played "Apocalypse World" and "Dungeon World", both run by Michael Bay. I like the simplicity of the system, just 2D6 rolled to determined success and no opposing rolls needed from the GM. Also the emphasis on bonds and history between the player characters adds a nice layer and encourages the making and breaking of relationships.

"Monster Of The Week" takes the system and applies it to a setting that would be familiar to fans of shows like "Buffy" and "Supernatural". From a game perspective, this game also resonates with me as a "Call of Cthulhu" and "Unknown Armies" GM...both are cited as influences on the game, and as in CoC the GM is referred to as a "Keeper". Essentially you have a group that investigates a supernatural event, identifies the monster behind it, finds its weakness and kills it.

The game starts with a basic setting up of the theme for the group, the reason for them to be together. They could be a slayer like Buffy with the rest of the group forming the entourage, or perhaps they're a family on the road, taking the fight to the monsters. Once that's established, players choose a "playbook", a character sheet. Each character has a set of moves, things that they,and only they, can do. If I were to play this I'd have a real tough time choosing which to be, as they all have so much appeal. There's the "Chosen", basically a Buffy kind of character. There's the "Wronged", like Dean on "Supernatural". Throw in the Expert, Flake (conspiracy theorist),Mundane,Professional and several others, and you have the makings of some great stories. One player can even be a monster that joins the group.

I really like the advice for running stories and campaigns in this,and what struck me was how closely the guidelines given map to my own process of running and preparing games. It's taken me two years to find my own style, and it's interesting to see someone else from a "Cthulhu" background end up in the same place! The advice is really clear and well articulated. I recommend getting this for the advice alone.

"Delta Green" is set to finish after three more sessions and then I'm on to "Vampire:The Masquerade". "Monster Of The Week" is my top contender to run after that, or perhaps alongside it. I think it'll be great fun  to run.

Delta Green Pt 3 - Cleanups and Conspiracies

The third part of my Call of Cthulhu "Delta Green" campaign took place yesterday and was a departure from previous games, featuring some elements I'd never tried before.

The group consisted of eight players, so my thoughts in advance were to break the group into two or three smaller ones. I specialize in this anyway and enjoy running a game in parallel threads, taking full advantage of the group being divided. It also means that each player gets a piece of the pie in terms of game time, rather than being sidelined by the group as whole.

Instead I did something I've never done before. I split the session into two separate missions, completely unrelated to each other but tied to previous sessions. The beauty of this was that I could make plot revelations in one mission that had importance to the characters in the other mission. The players of course would all realize this, but the characters can't acknowledge what they don't know!

Also, the missions themselves where very basic "one room" stories. One was about destroying evidence that had been salvaged from the previous game, the evidence was being mailed to a college professor, later revealed to be one of the leaders of Delta Green. The other was a cleanup mission at the woodland cabin of former Agent Alphonse, a character who'd died in the "Aklo" game.

I sent a group of NPCs to the cabin game and this is where the conspiracy ramped up. They claimed to be members of Delta Green, that the organization had been compromised at the highest level...and that "S" Cell was really part of Majestic 12, the arch rivals of Delta Green. "S" Cell of course, consists of the player characters in the other mission! Characters turned on each other,lied to each other, even shot each other. Lots of twists and turns played out in mass confusion. Nobody knew who they were really working for anymore...though the big revelation at the end was that the players are legitimately members of Delta Green. The cell sent to the woods was from Majestic 12...though there are still big questions about who really runs Delta Green and to what level it has been compromised.

All in all this was exactly what I hoped it would be. An intense, confusing session that left everyone feeling really uneasy at the end, setting the next three sessions up perfectly. I'll be bringing more horror back into the next one and I'm delighted with how this format works. Some of the players were even discussing creating a new Delta Green..."Delta Greener"! Lots of fun and good preparation for other future games that I have planned, such as "Vampire:The Masquerade" and "Monster Of The Week".

International Tabletop Day

Yesterday was International Tabletop Day, an event promoted heavily across social media (notably Twitter and Tumbler) by celebrities such as Whil Wheaton and Felicia Day. Despite battling an especially nasty chest  ailment I decided to attend the event at Gigabites Cafe in Marietta,GA.

I had planned to maybe play a game that was on offer, like "Fiasco", or run something myself. Given how bad I felt, I thought I'd play it safe and take along a fun scenario that I could knock out in a few hours and knew inside out. My choice was an old favorite, "Jailbreak", a scenario by Greg Stolze for the "Unknown Armies" RPG. I've run this at Gigabites before and also at Dragon*Con 2012.

A few gamers who I consistently play alongside or run games for where there when I showed up, none of whom had played this before.I spent thirty minutes describing the system, setting and character sheets, then we played. The whole thing took maybe two hours, consistent with the previous runs that I've done.

The scenario is simple. A group of convicts escape from prison during a riot. They hijack a car which runs out of fuel. It's a stormy night, so the prisoners take their hostages to the nearest building, a remote farmhouse. The game plays out over the course of that evening. The players can choose to play a convict, a hostage (including a prison officer) or an inhabitant of the farmhouse. The convicts want to avoid detection, the hostages want to be freed, and the farm owners want their "guests" gone.

The characters also have secrets and personal triggers that have been set up in such a way that they're bound to conflict with each other in the situation.Having run this with three different groups, everybody really understands the characters, interpersonal dynamics and system with little explanation. That shows how well this was designed.

I don't like to publish major spoilers but a minor one is fine in this case. What turns the scenario on its head is that one of the characters is an occultist. Nobody is told this up front as I like the possibility of a player choosing that character without knowing the secret...until they get the sheet! It's also possible for that character to be an NPC if not chosen. There is a real sense of uneasiness in this scenario and it's been a success every time  I've ran it. I'm glad I took part in the event and it's great to see the hobby get so much recognition.

Dungeon World - Death of a Cleric

Part three of Michael Bay's "Dungeon World" campaign took place yesterday with a good turnout and some new characters, who proved to be instrumental in the plot twists.

At this point the group consisted of a Cleric (me),Bard,Wizard and Ranger. The Shaman,Druid and Templar players couldn't attend. Lacking heavy firepower, one of the new players chose to be a Fighter,playing the "sword for hire" angle to great effect. Another player returned from the first session, his character,the Artificer had died last time out. He was given the Thief class and played it brilliantly.

The new characters and changed dynamic brought a rogue element to the group. Coupled with the Wizard character being possessed by the villain of the piece, we had a situation where mistrust and bickering ruled. Lots of notes where passed back and forth between some players and the GM, and my character was quietly pursuing his own agenda,one unknown to most of the group.

The story wrapped up with most of us in a cavern featuring a lava lake and a stone ship. The Thief and Fighter, true to form, stole the artifacts that we were sent to find and abandoned the Cleric, Wizard and Bard to their fates. The escapees will reunite with the Ranger, Druid and Shaman next time and it will be very interesting to see what story is given regarding the rest of the group! Really good roleplaying from everyone involved.

So now I have to think about a new character. I've done the lawful enforcing zealot thing a few times now and need to try something different. The Bard would be a very different experience, the Initiate (martial artist)  would be fun....but I'm leaning to the Mage. This is different to the Wizard in that there is no list of spells as such, it's all about understanding a particular style of magic and describing how you're using it to solve a problem, with an emphasis either on black magic or counterspells. I've never played a magic character and on the other hand like characters that are reckless, living on the edge. I might choose to be a Dragon Mage (highly destructive, no subtlety), a Storm Mage (unstable and dramatic) or a Clock Mage (messes with time). Already looking forward to next time!

Kult & Unknown Armies - A New Approach

I've just started working on a side project to deal with something that's been gnawing away at me for some time. There are two games that I'd love to run but I have reservations about each : "Unknown Armies" and "Kult".

In the case of "Unknown Armies", I truly love the system. It's simple, makes sense and lends itself to the kind of games I like to run. The madness system is excellent. What I'm not fond of is the setting, which focuses on the weird rather than the horrific. It makes good reading but doesn't inspire me to devise a campaign...my style simply isn't "gonzo" enough to do it justice.

"Kult",on the other hand, is a game that presents a setting that really gets me. Gnosticism, fallen angels, madness, dreams and cults. This one really does inspire me to write. The problem is the game system..very old-fashioned,clunky and unbalanced. It's a flawed masterpiece.

So that got me thinking.Why choose? I know what I like and dislike in each, why not combine them? Run a "Kult" game that is built on the "Unknown Armies" system. I've already hit various forums to see if others have done it, and of course they have. I'm going to do it my way though and I'm genuinely excited about this one.

The most significant alteration is obsessions and dark secrets. Obsessions are the main character aspect in "Unknown Armies". The obsession determines the school of magick that a character follows, and also has a direct relationship with a particular skill. The game mechanics are designed in such a way that you're rewarded for playing to your obsessions,fears and other passions. "Kult" has some of this too though places great importance on a "dark secret" that each character has. My plan is to rework the system so that the "dark secret" replaces the "obsession"...so the players will be rewarded for leveraging this.

The approach I have in mind will make for some very dark game themes and will appeal only to a certain type of player. Fortunately, they're typically playing my games! There's more work to be done on this before I roll it out, but expect it to be covered in blog when it comes.

Delta Green - "Aklo"

Yesterday was the second session of my six-part campaign in the "Delta Green" setting for "Call of Cthulhu". I read a great scenario posted on another forum which formed the basis of this game.I took some core elements and played around with it for a few weeks, finally settling on a new story the night before the game.

I wanted to introduce two things into the game that I hadn't tried before. One was to keep the entire scenario contained in a single room, a "closed room" crime scene. The other was to have the core of the mystery tie directly into the overall campaign storyline, deepening the conspiracy and setting things up for future sessions.

The story this time was a murder scene at a small town community center. One victim had been killed by another, three of the victims appeared to have died from anaphylactic shock. There was also smoke at the scene, the source of which couldn't be determined. The characters secured the scene and the action moved inside the community center.

They examined the bodies and found evidence telling them that this had been a language class,to learn an obscure language known as "Aklo".The course had been privately funded and offered free to military veterans. The class was really a trap, and the recitals of Aklo were a ritual to summon a creature from another dimension, a Hound of Tindalos, capable of warping time and space. The class members didn't realize that they were performing a ritual..though one new member was suspicious and attempted to halt the proceedings.

The plot twist was that the new class member was Agent Alphonse, a senior Delta Green official who had directed the previous game.The other class members were part of Delta Green in the 70's. The trap had been set by Reinhardt Galt, a Nazi looking for revenge against the group. This discovery unfolded in gameplay really well and made the players realize they were pawns in a bigger game.

Of course, the Hound of Tindalos was still present, hiding in the unexplained smoke. I unleashed the hound, stalking the characters from different angles of the room. All of them survived though all but two of the group failed sanity rolls...very lucky to survive. They blew up the community center and killed the hound.

Overall this was a shorter session but satisfying and very intense. If you haven't used Tindalos Hounds in a game I suggest you do...they're a very intimidating villain and give a lot of useful options for surprise!

Planning for "Vampire:The Masquerade"

This week I've started planning a new monthly game that will run when "Delta Green" ends, probably in July or August this year. I've toyed with a few ideas and asked around to see levels of interest. "Unknown Armies" definitely has a high level of interest and it's something I really want to do, though I may do so at a later date or on a different day. "Changeling:The Lost" is also something I plan to offer, but I want to have more familiarity with the setting first. I've chosen a game and will see how it goes. If it doesn't work out, then I'll switch to "Unknown Armies".

I've settled on "Vampire:The Masquerade". Why?Several reasons. It's a true role-playing classic, yet I have never played it or run it.Despite the immense popularity of the game,I rarely see it being offered as a game (the live-action version is much higher profile).It tickles the nostalgic side of me that still loves the 90's.The game was played to death in the 90's so a lot of gamers are jaded by it, but no-one seems to offer it to people who never had the chance to play it. I can see my regular group of players loving it, as the "pretension factor" will be absent in my version.Most of all though, I already have a solid storyline in mind for a six-month run, and the rules are really straightforward.

The version I will run is the 20th Anniversary edition of the game. This is a game that has a huge and well established metaplot.Most people coming to the game would already have an understanding of the various clans and sects in the game, along with the overall theme.It's very easy for players to get conceptually, even more so these days with shows like "True Blood" on TV. I did give serious consideration to the new World of Darkness version, "Vampire:The Requiem". It has a lot going for it and some great ideas...it has less metaplot and more of a toolkit approach. The GM can do a lot more tweaking and the politics aren't so carved in stone.

I want this to be a big splash for a small game though.The storyline I have will introduce certain events over the six sessions..there will be mysteries to solve, larger than life villains, lots of twists and manipulation. I know who the main NPCs are, but this will be the backdrop to the stories of the players themselves. There will be an initial session just about them...how they became vampires, who they used to be, what their stories are.Each game session will be played as a chapter in a story, and the story will have a definite end.

The main consideration I have is how to get players.I will be using my established timeslot with "Meetup.com" and would prefer to draw my usual players. If I open it up broadly, it would be great to bring in someone who has always wanted to play it but never had the chance, though there's also the risk of a big turnout. Also, this game comes with a lot of preconceptions and can easily be very different to what players were expecting...especially ones who have played it before.

There won't anything against the established canon or too unexpected in this, it'll be straightforward "Masquerade" and I'm looking forward to it.Whether I stick with it or switch to "Unknown Armies", next year will see a return to "Call of Cthulhu" in the 1920's..possibly with a new system

Dungeon World - New Planes

Yesterday I played in the second part of a "Dungeon World" campaign run by Michael Bay.This was only my second time playing the game itself and I'm more in tune with the rules now, along with the rest of the group.

The storyline picked up roughly where we left off last time, though at the start of the session not all players were present. This actually set things up beautifully and freed the smaller group to pursue another direction.Two of the players did join the session later on with almost spooky timing in terms of the storyline and narrative.

What had started as a standard dungeon crawl last time progressed through woodland ceremonies, abandoned altars, dissolving planes of existence,the "world tree" and finally an old ruined city in the desert.This was all in a single five hour session, and all the settings really added to the story and sense of adventure.

This being the second session, we were all more familiar with the rules, our characters and the relationships between us.This game gives experience rewards for playing true to bonds that you've made with other characters in the creation session,and also your alignment.This is a really nice way to give you a personal character "compass" for how to handle situations. In my case,as a cleric, I made several decisions in the game that put the group,and world,at risk, almost costing my life at the end. This was all part of staying true to the cleric's faith, and my last action was to turn away hordes of undead skeletons...having let the genie out of the bottle I saved the group.

The game finished with a character encounter that was unexpected yet managed to tie everything together with the core story.This was the first game I've played in a long time where we were so engaged in the game that we'd ran over time without realizing it...credit to Michael's storytelling and a great group who managed to really keep the game flowing. I've absolutely no idea what twists and turns the next one will take, but this was a truly excellent gaming session. If you like "Apocalypse World" and classic fantasy, I highly recommend checking this one out.

Call of Cthulhu - "The Sanatorium"

One of the first "Call of Cthulhu" scenarios I ran was "The Sanatorium"  from the compilation book "Mansions of Madness". In it's own way, it was the most important scenario I've run in terms of how it enhanced my GM style and built my confidence.

The scenario is about a private sanatorium on a small island off the coast of Massachusetts.The resident doctor is experimenting with hypnosis, still highly controversial in the 1920's setting.He invites a player character out so he can share his findings.Of course, it's not so straightforward.

One of the patients has been communicating with a creature from space while in deep hypnosis. The creature comes to the island and needs energy (in the form of human sacrifices) to free itself and return home. It can also possess the minds of humans. When the game starts, a male nurse has been possessed and has already started the sacrifices. The first victims are the hospital staff, and it's real fun when the players realize that the people welcoming them into the hospital are the patients!

One of the great things about this scenario is that all the characters encountered by the players at this point are patients, and hopelessly insane. The game becomes a challenge in that the players don't know who to trust, what information is real or imagined, all while being stalked by the crazed nurse. The real villain of the piece is so truly alien that they really won't figure it all out.

For me as a GM, this presented numerous challenges. The first was playing ten support characters.I had to keep track of them all and play them convincingly. All of the characters had important histories so it was a real test to make them come across as distinct people and interact with the players. The second challenge was the sheer size of the group...I had nine players! I'd never had a group that size before. The third challenge was the that group broke into three smaller parties, each exploring different parts of the ideal. So in all, a lot of moving parts where involved. That being said, the setting is a sandbox with borders....the players can't get off the island.

The important lesson that I learned was that I found it easier to run the game with multiple groups, timelines and threads. That was a surprise for me and it's certainly not the preference of every GM. I enjoyed that approach so much that I now encourage my Cthulhu groups to split up in most sessions, something that worked to great effect in the "Delta Green" game especially. It's a great scenario, especially if you enjoy confusing your players!

Delta Green Pt 1 - "Convergence"

Yesterday was the first session of "Delta Green" that I've ran.It's a "Call of Cthulhu" spin-off set in the 1990's and has the characters as agents in a pan-Government conspiracy. The game was created to tackle three common issues that players and GMs regularly run into when running "Cthulhu".

The first is having a reason for involving the characters in the scenario initially.The second is for having an reason for those same characters to continue investigating dangerous paranormal cases. The third is how to make it easy to introduce new player characters into an ongoing campaign given the high character turnover often associated with "Cthulhu" games.Making the players part of an organization gives answers to all three.

I chose one of the original published scenarios,"Convergence", as it gave a solid and potentially lethal taste of the new setting.It had an old Mythos baddie,Greys, Men In Black, alien viruses,UFOs,cattle mutilation and body alteration.The players in the group were all experienced in "CoC" and role-playing in general so I didn't see the need to ease them into things.

The player characters were a CIA Agent, FBI Agent, former FBI Psychologist,CDC Scientist,DEA Scientist and an Author specializing in the paranormal.Without going into plot details (I don't want to spoil it,being a published scenario), the group split up in their investigation,with most of the group heading to a small town in Tennessee to track the mystery behind a murder case. Two other characters went to a compound and did scientific research that would have huge impact on the outcome of the game.Again, without giving too much away,this resulted in helicopters being sent into the town overnight,to spray the town with several chemical agents to determine if a virus was present.

Of course, there were plenty of plot twists and the conspiratorial nature of "Delta Green" had characters sending mixed messages and sabotaging each other...paranoia levels were high. One character died at the hands of another, and some characters fled the country when they understood the extent of the threat they were dealing with.

All in all, it was a great session. It was a complex, dangerous scenario that flowed smoothly with great role-playing from the great.I wouldn't recommend this setting for GMs who don't have "Call of Cthulhu" experience, but it's a fantastic alternative setting to try...highly recommended!

Call of Cthulhu - "The Condemned"

This week I'm reminiscing about my favorite "Call of Cthulhu" scenario, "The Condemned". It's been published several times, I found it in the supplement "H.P. Lovecraft's Arkham".

"The Condemned" was the fourth published scenario that I chose to run.The first three were "Edge Of Darkness","The Crack'd and Crook'd Manse" and "The Sanatorium".It was the most complex in terms of plot and also the first that ran across two sessions.

What makes the story special is the villain,"Sermon Bishop". Bishop is a wizard from 17th Century New England, a truly foul character who makes a deal with "The Treader of Dust".The deal grants him immortality in exchange for his soul and the cost of a deformed neck.Bishop is captured and imprisoned by seven locals who entombed him in the support structure of a stone bridge.Fast forward two hundred years and a lightning strike to the bridge releases him.He stumbles upon two college students camping by the river and uses magic to perform a body swap with one of them.He kills the other student and buries him with his own seventy year old body,which is now "home" to the mind of the other student.

The players enter the story having been asked to track down the missing student as his colleague, now possessed by Bishop, has wandered into town claiming amnesia.The players interview the student and notice he has an odd accent (it's Bishops).There is another thread to the story of course.Now that Bishop is free,he scours the local libraries to trace the descendants of those who had imprisoned him centuries earlier.Once his list of the seven is compiled,he goes on a rampage killing each in different ways.

I finished the first session by hitting the players from three angles.First,they find the body of the student and also Bishops body.Interviewing "Bishop", they figure out the body swap.Second, the possessed student breaks out of hospital and starts the revenge killings.Third,they put the pieces together and get hold of his hitlist of victims.To add a bit of urgency, I handed over the list which I'd altered from the one in the published scenario...I replaced two of the victims names with two of the player characters! A great way to wrap up a session with the players knowing that the villain is coming after them.

The second session was much more aggressively played with the players decided to take the fight to Bishop. This resulted in an underground showdown in which "The Treader of Dust" himself is summoned.One of the players took the chance to do a deal himself with the Treader,thus cancelling Bishops deal! Bishop was swiftly dealt with,and we had the unusual situation going forward of a character being immortal.There is much more to the game that I've skimmed,but it's a special scenario that has all the elements you'd hope to see in a "Cthulhu" game...a deadly villain,complex mystery and a lethal old book.I highly recommend it.