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