NEW TO ME
I ran twelve new games this year. That meant learning these
well enough to manage at the table. How well I succeeded remains a matter of
debate. I enjoy figuring out new games and calculating the minimum I need to
know to not crash & burn. As with most of my rp work I’m trying to find the
path of least work. Two of these games I ran as campaigns, a couple for
conventions, but most are part of The Gauntlet Podcast’s TGIT Hangouts.
For that I’ve focused on running two Thursday sessions of “new
to me” games. I put priority on with a sample adventure and/or pre-gens. If I
see something new & cool come out, I’ll try to get that to the virtual
table (hence City of Mist and Coriolis on my list). I’ll be running
this series in 2017, starting with Feng
Shui 2e, Chill 3e, and 7th Sea 2e. I don’t think
I’ll double the number of new games I run in the coming year, but I’m going to try.
Before the Storm
One of the Seven
Wonders anthology games I reviewed earlier this year. It’s GM-less, so moderated more than GM’d it, but it
counts. Since I planned to take it to Gen Con, I ran one session for my home
group. That gave me perspective teaching it. I ended up running just a single session
of it for Games on Demand. It’s a good game. I love the premise: a group gathered
on the last night before the final battle, dealing with all of their fears and
feelings. This goes in my one-shot collection. Tangent: Before the Storm uses playing cards and I had a Dragon Age pack that really fit the
setting.
Noir Mythic Superheroes Powered by the Apocalypse. I ran two
sessions of this game while it was in Kickstarter. It had an excellent and complete
quickstart packet. As a result I backed the project. I’m looking forward to
seeing what the final release looks like. I wrote up my thoughts on the sessions here. We recorded two actual play
videos (first and second). I talked about
it on Episode 77 of the Gauntlet Podcast.
Coriolis
Another Kickstarter I backed. I took the plunge for two
reasons: my experience with their other game, Mutant Year Zero, and the evocative setting. Coriolis describes itself as “Arabian Nights” in space. While I am
a little nervous about potential Orientalism, the production and material looks
good. It feels like Fading Suns done
with another cultural template (i.e. not high medieval Europe). I ran two
sessions from their excellent quickstart packet. I talked about my experience
on The Gauntlet Podcast Episode 81. I’ve also posted the AP videos (session one, session two). The final
book’s apparently at the printer so I hope I get it in the next couple of
months.
My game and my first attempt to hack PbtA. In it grown-ups
return to the secret fantasy world of their youths and find it changed. I tried
to get closer to the simplicity of Worlds
of Dungeons with this. I don’t think it worked, in part because we had a
strong genre feel that I could have exploited. I made several mistakes: the
first being how I structured the campaign. I’d do it differently next time. As
for the mechanics, I needed more “build-your-own” move examples or handled it
as I did with The Last Fleet. There players
told me talents they wanted and I wrote those up. Despite all that I’m glad I
ran it.I recorded the sessions and I’ve written a longer post about it. I talked about it on Episode 58 of The Gauntlet.
One of the best surprises of the year. As with Godbound, I went in unsure and came out
ordering a hard copy. Cryptomancer’s
tag line- fantasy hacking- intrigued me, but I’d been burned before. Miraculously
it delivered that and more. I ran two sessions which we recorded (first and second). You can see my full write-up and review here. Long story short: if you’ve seen
the game and had a spark of interest, it’s worth picking up.
A post-apocalyptic PbtA game aimed different play level than
most games. Players have a family (with moves) and a character (who has
influence/control within that family). I ran three sessions, one for the
character creation and two for play. There’s a lot to like here, but I’m not
sure it holds together. We found it hard to shift between levels. I’ve thought
about other approaches: starting much further away with the family level, but
I’m not sure how to get to scenes between players. That’s where the fun is.
Still I think Legacy’s a neat game
and worth checking out if you have an interest in new takes on PbtA or
community-based games. You can see my write up on that here and the two AP videos here (session 1, session 2). We talked
about it on Episode 72 of The Gauntlet.
So good. Mid-year we wrapped a fantasy campaign using
Action Cards we’d begun in early
2014. I put four new games before the group: Mutant: Year Zero, Genlab:
Alpha, Urban Shadows, and The Sprawl. MYZ won, though the other
three tied in points. I wasn’t sure how it would go. We moved from game of high
competency to one of serious struggle and danger. The players took to it-
especially the tools for developing their Ark community. We’ve just finished
session seven and we have one more left in the year. I’m enjoying it and the
group seems to dig it as well. I like how the metaplot is rolling out and the society
has evolved. We've talked about it a couple of times on The Gauntlet.
I switched over to M&M 3e from M&M 2e. I really
liked 2nd edition, but I’d knew third had made interesting changes.
It has, but I’m still not entirely sold on it. Or rather I feel like I struggle
with the rules from time to time. Part of it comes from the crazily complex
system of conditions, each with different mechanics and names. I like to keep
things moving, so tracking conditions’ effects and recovery bugs me. Don’t get
me wrong, 2e had lots of conditions. But this version uses those as the key
building blocks so they’re everywhere.
On the plus side M&M 3e moved to universalizing result
checks and modifiers. That simplifies but butts up against the conditions. M&M
3e also shifts to a completely effects defined system (ala Champions). Previously we had a mix of effects and pre-built
powers. It was messy, but made pick up and play easier. Finally in retrospect I
wish I’d had players tell me what they wanted and built the characters myself. Yet
despite my uncertainties with the system, I’m digging the campaign. We used
tools from Microscope and Masks to develop the world and
the characters. That’s helped deepen things.
I’ve only run one session of this OSR-style Lovecratfian
investigation game. It has a simple system, the same one powering many of Kevin
Crawford’s other releases (like the amazing
Godbound). Because I dug the one-page Luchadores frame at the back I’m
running that. But Silent Legions isn’t
just a CoC-style investigation game. Instead it’s a toolbox for creating your
own Mythos -- elder gods, aliens, cults, relics, tomes-- and using them in a
sandbox horror game. It isn’t a Cthulhu game, instead it gives you amazing
random generators to build something that feels like one. That means players
will always be uncertain about what they’re facing. They have to learn the
mythos themselves. Crawford smartly gives examples and walk-throughs for using
the many table sets in his book. I’ve seen other collections of tables skip
this. The examples help and pull everything together. Neat game worth buying
for anyone doing horror.
Threadbare
I ran several sessions of this- both at Gen Con and home. I
like the “Stitchpunk” premise of toys in a strangely post-apocalyptic
landscape. The demo pack’s light on the setting or digging into the
implications, so I’m looking forward to the final project. I backed this on
Kickstarter before I’d even read the rules. It has a neat starting scenario (“Furry
Road”) that made each session distinct. I will probably run this again.
I’d played a couple of WiP sessions in a short-lived online
campaign. We had a great GM and solid players, so that colored my memories. I
wanted to run it since I’d finally GM’d some PbtA games and had my KS-backer hardcover
sitting on the shelf. Worlds in Peril
makes all powers abstract and a function of the fiction. That means a lot of
wiggle room and discretion with their use. That’s combined with a broad set of
moves and a condition system. Conditions track damage and can have additional
effects- again depending on the GM’s discretion. It’s looser than City of Mist’s approach to that mechanic.
I had a good time running WiP, but struggled. I’m not sure if that’s style,
unfamiliarity with the mechanics, or my trad supers background interfering.
Regardless, if you’re looking to play “comic book” superheroes with PbtA this
works. I talked about our games on Episode 79 of The Gauntlet and recorded the AP sessions for YouTube (first and second).
MTV launched during my formative years. I watched more of it
than any other TV channel. So I saw the “Rock-and-Wrestling” era begin with
Cyndi Lauper and Hulk Hogan. And I hated it. That dislike stuck with me; I’ve avoided
pro-wrestling. In the last few years my attitude has softened. Matt, from my
M&M campaign, has contagious enthusiasm about wrestling. Plus many comic book
blogs frequently went off on WWE PPV events and happenings. I picked up World Wide Wrestling on Rich Rogers’
recommendation and told Matt about it. He asked me to run it.
I wasn’t sure, so I played in a session Nathan Paoletta ran
at Origins. It hooked me immediately. Even eliminated in the first round, I had
a great time with my character. I came back home and ran it online and f2f-
digging every session. It’s my game of the year. I talk about that on The Gauntlet’s Best Games of 2016 episode.
What Do I Want to Run
in 2017?
A longer Coriolis game when it arrives. Godbound either online or f2f. Urban
Shadows for my f2f group. Dragon Age
or Cryptomancer, not sure which. Tianxia for someone, maybe just as a
couple of sessions. Tales From the Loop
for Sherri. More 7th Sea
than just the two-shot I have scheduled. If I could figure out how to do Wrath of the Autarch, I’d consider that.
I’d like to try a streamline approach to NBA, Ashen Stars and/or Mutant
City Blues. They’re all good options.
What new games did you run? What new rpgs do you want to run in 2017?
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