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.
Showing posts with label Delta Green. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Delta Green. Show all posts
Tuesday, December 31, 2013
Sunday, June 9, 2013
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".
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".
Monday, May 13, 2013
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.
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.
Sunday, April 14, 2013
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".
Sunday, March 10, 2013
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!
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!
Sunday, February 10, 2013
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!
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!
Sunday, December 30, 2012
A New Start - Playing in the USA, 2011-Present
I moved to the Atlanta, GA area back in March 2007.After becoming a father and settling down, curiosity and a need to have a hobby, led to "meetup.com" and the "Atlanta Gamers Guild" (back then it was the "Atlanta Dungeons & Dragons Group"). I've already discussed Call of Cthulhu in an earlier post, but there have been other games that I've played and ran in the last two years.
First was Pathfinder 3E. This was originally a homebrew take on D&D resulting from fanbase frustration with the fourth edition. It was my return to gaming after the 90s and the first thing I'd played Stateside. It was good to be back and the game clearly has a passionate following. I felt it had great ideas but was too tactical...I thought it was more about what characters had the ability to do rather than who they were. That sparked the return to Cthulhu. Pathfinder is a very good game indeed, just not for me.
One of my Cthulhu players, Michael Bay, was running "Warhammer Fantasy Roleplaying" in the same club on a monthly basis. We have a good rapport so I thought it'd be fun to play in a game ran by one of my players...also interesting to try a setting and system I'd never tried before. It was a very rich experience, there's a distinct Germanic feel to the game. I played a Witch hunter, completely got the concept and ran with it.I ended up taking actions in the game though that brought the campaign to an early close..something we still laugh about now! I did learn that as a player I prefer to stay true to what I think my character would do rather than trying to win.
I then played another game ran by Michael, "Apocalypse World". This is a very new game and has a clear improv influence. It puts the narrative more in the hands of the players with the GM playing more of a reactive role. The GM doesn't bring a structured storyline to the table so you never know what's going to happen. It's a superb, rewarding game though very challenging. It requires more of the players than most games and shines when you have a creative group who aren't afraid of conflict with each other.
In terms of GM'ing other games, I've done one-shots of two other systems. I like doing this as it allows me to try different games without laying out a huge plan in advance and also gives a good opportunity for players to do the same. As they're "throwaways", players can takes chances with their characters in ways they wouldn't normally do and really get a feel for the game. I'll do more of these in the future. The first was "All Flesh Must Be Eaten". I did a scenario blatantly pulled from "The Walking Dead" TV show. It's a great game, the players liked it, but it just wasn't for me. Too heavy on combat and tactics. Also, everyone knows what the "bad guy" is before the game has even started. I prefer, as a GM, to have plot twists and surprises to spring on the players. I'm sure another GM would've done it more justice.
The other game I ran was "Unknown Armies". I chose a published scenario called "Jailbreak", written by Greg Stolze. This was phenomenal...I loved the scenario and prefer to system to CoC. I had a group of players I'd never met before and we really nailed the game. The influence of CoC is clearly there but the emphasis is more on personal horror than cosmic. I ran it again at Dragon*Con in 2012, again to great success. There's a strong possibility I'll run this in 2013 depending on interest and my schedule...which is the subject of next weeks post.
First was Pathfinder 3E. This was originally a homebrew take on D&D resulting from fanbase frustration with the fourth edition. It was my return to gaming after the 90s and the first thing I'd played Stateside. It was good to be back and the game clearly has a passionate following. I felt it had great ideas but was too tactical...I thought it was more about what characters had the ability to do rather than who they were. That sparked the return to Cthulhu. Pathfinder is a very good game indeed, just not for me.
One of my Cthulhu players, Michael Bay, was running "Warhammer Fantasy Roleplaying" in the same club on a monthly basis. We have a good rapport so I thought it'd be fun to play in a game ran by one of my players...also interesting to try a setting and system I'd never tried before. It was a very rich experience, there's a distinct Germanic feel to the game. I played a Witch hunter, completely got the concept and ran with it.I ended up taking actions in the game though that brought the campaign to an early close..something we still laugh about now! I did learn that as a player I prefer to stay true to what I think my character would do rather than trying to win.
I then played another game ran by Michael, "Apocalypse World". This is a very new game and has a clear improv influence. It puts the narrative more in the hands of the players with the GM playing more of a reactive role. The GM doesn't bring a structured storyline to the table so you never know what's going to happen. It's a superb, rewarding game though very challenging. It requires more of the players than most games and shines when you have a creative group who aren't afraid of conflict with each other.
In terms of GM'ing other games, I've done one-shots of two other systems. I like doing this as it allows me to try different games without laying out a huge plan in advance and also gives a good opportunity for players to do the same. As they're "throwaways", players can takes chances with their characters in ways they wouldn't normally do and really get a feel for the game. I'll do more of these in the future. The first was "All Flesh Must Be Eaten". I did a scenario blatantly pulled from "The Walking Dead" TV show. It's a great game, the players liked it, but it just wasn't for me. Too heavy on combat and tactics. Also, everyone knows what the "bad guy" is before the game has even started. I prefer, as a GM, to have plot twists and surprises to spring on the players. I'm sure another GM would've done it more justice.
The other game I ran was "Unknown Armies". I chose a published scenario called "Jailbreak", written by Greg Stolze. This was phenomenal...I loved the scenario and prefer to system to CoC. I had a group of players I'd never met before and we really nailed the game. The influence of CoC is clearly there but the emphasis is more on personal horror than cosmic. I ran it again at Dragon*Con in 2012, again to great success. There's a strong possibility I'll run this in 2013 depending on interest and my schedule...which is the subject of next weeks post.
Sunday, December 23, 2012
Returning to Gaming - the 1990's
In the early 1990's I was very much a part of the Goth and Metal scene in Liverpool,UK. Apart from the music and imagery, it was were I found and made friends that I had a lot in common with..a sense of belonging. Some of them were RPG fans and wanted to get back into the hobby. This marked my return to Tabletop RPG's, both as a GM and player.
My first step back was through my love of horror. TSR had just released a boxed set called "Ravenloft". This was a heavily supported campaign setting for AD&D 2nd Edition. It was the perfection combination really, a system that had broad appeal and familiarity coupled with a setting that I "got". I ran the published scenarios over a year long period with, in my opinion, mixed success, but the players seemed to love it. The high point was a werewolf adventure in which the players really did very little as they were so intimidated. That was the atmosphere I was looking for, and it would eventually lead me back to Cthulhu years later. I was also lucky to have a group who didn't know the rules very well...if I'd been called out on some decisions it would have been awkward as I didn't know the rules well myself!
The next game that I ran was "Kult". It was a very controversial Swedish horror game with a bad reputation.It was extremely dark and gnostic, but the system was very clunky. I loved it though, but when I tried to run a game it just didn't work. I didn't understand the game enough and simply didn't have the experience to do it justice. The players didn't get it either and felt I was railroading them, which I was...again because of inexperience and lack of confidence. I think in retrospect I thought that the game would just "happen" when I ran it. It only lasted one session.
Around this time White Wolf changed everything with their World of Darkness games. I bought "Vampire : The Masquerade", a game in which the players are vampires in a Gothic-punk modern setting. It was exciting and I was sure I'd have success running it. I never got the chance. The main problem was that my Goth pals weren't into tabletop games, the nearest they'd go was the Live-Action version. My pals who did play tabletop were turned off by the Goth angle, which they saw as pretentious. To this day I know that setting inside out without having played it.
I did get to play some other White Wolf games though, "Werewolf : The Apocalypse" and "Mage : The Ascension"."Werewolf" was fun though I had difficulty getting into character. I just didn't connect with the aggressive, animalistic aspect which is core to the game."Mage" on the other hand fit me like a glove..I understood it and really enjoyed it. It must be noted that the GM for "Mage" had a style that I hadn't encountered before, but it was perfect for that game. He had no storylines, just a firm grasp on the game mechanics. He focused the game on our characters and just reacted to what we did...we,the players, made the story ourselves to a large extent. That takes skill to do, and can be seen in some of today's new game systems. If I were to run a World of Darkness game I would call on my memories of his approach. He definitely helped shape my current style.
The last game I played was "Cyberpunk : 2020". The game was plain cool, loaded with attitude and good fun. It was the same GM we'd had for "Mage". Now it's horribly dated..this was in the days before people really used the internet. I did like the whole idea of enhancing yourself with cybernetics, at the cost of your humanity.
So around this time I stopped gaming. I think a large part of it was the time required. I had started working and simply couldn't be bothered with the time and preparation. It wouldn't be until 2011 that I'd do it again.
My first step back was through my love of horror. TSR had just released a boxed set called "Ravenloft". This was a heavily supported campaign setting for AD&D 2nd Edition. It was the perfection combination really, a system that had broad appeal and familiarity coupled with a setting that I "got". I ran the published scenarios over a year long period with, in my opinion, mixed success, but the players seemed to love it. The high point was a werewolf adventure in which the players really did very little as they were so intimidated. That was the atmosphere I was looking for, and it would eventually lead me back to Cthulhu years later. I was also lucky to have a group who didn't know the rules very well...if I'd been called out on some decisions it would have been awkward as I didn't know the rules well myself!
The next game that I ran was "Kult". It was a very controversial Swedish horror game with a bad reputation.It was extremely dark and gnostic, but the system was very clunky. I loved it though, but when I tried to run a game it just didn't work. I didn't understand the game enough and simply didn't have the experience to do it justice. The players didn't get it either and felt I was railroading them, which I was...again because of inexperience and lack of confidence. I think in retrospect I thought that the game would just "happen" when I ran it. It only lasted one session.
Around this time White Wolf changed everything with their World of Darkness games. I bought "Vampire : The Masquerade", a game in which the players are vampires in a Gothic-punk modern setting. It was exciting and I was sure I'd have success running it. I never got the chance. The main problem was that my Goth pals weren't into tabletop games, the nearest they'd go was the Live-Action version. My pals who did play tabletop were turned off by the Goth angle, which they saw as pretentious. To this day I know that setting inside out without having played it.
I did get to play some other White Wolf games though, "Werewolf : The Apocalypse" and "Mage : The Ascension"."Werewolf" was fun though I had difficulty getting into character. I just didn't connect with the aggressive, animalistic aspect which is core to the game."Mage" on the other hand fit me like a glove..I understood it and really enjoyed it. It must be noted that the GM for "Mage" had a style that I hadn't encountered before, but it was perfect for that game. He had no storylines, just a firm grasp on the game mechanics. He focused the game on our characters and just reacted to what we did...we,the players, made the story ourselves to a large extent. That takes skill to do, and can be seen in some of today's new game systems. If I were to run a World of Darkness game I would call on my memories of his approach. He definitely helped shape my current style.
The last game I played was "Cyberpunk : 2020". The game was plain cool, loaded with attitude and good fun. It was the same GM we'd had for "Mage". Now it's horribly dated..this was in the days before people really used the internet. I did like the whole idea of enhancing yourself with cybernetics, at the cost of your humanity.
So around this time I stopped gaming. I think a large part of it was the time required. I had started working and simply couldn't be bothered with the time and preparation. It wouldn't be until 2011 that I'd do it again.
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