My mom goes in today for the post-surgery check up-- fingers crossed-- she seems really well. Now I can finally return her car to her (she wasn't supposed to be driving until the doctor gave her the ok).
Recycling Day-- I have a couple of things I'm working on so I hope to have two more posts up by Sunday. Big game weekend-- running four sessions.
Anyway, here's a pitch Derek and I did for a League of Extraordinary Gentlemen type sourcebook for Unisystem. That was, of course, before the movie bombed so dreadfully. We've seen some other games do similar genre motifs-- for example Rippers. Anyway the draft of the body and some notes at the end.
General Concept: Victorian era superheroes/adventurers.
Why:
*The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen movie will be coming out in early July. Based on the Alan Moore comics of the same name, they have done a brilliant job of rethinking old characters into a new setting, combining Fantastic Victoriana with more modern Steampunk concepts. Other game and media projects complement this. Hugh Jackman will be starring in Van Helsing (due May of next year) set in this period. (Note from the future-- If I'd known how bad Van Helsing was going to be, I would never have mentioned this...)
*A licensed affiliation is nice, but the concept can work well enough without it. This period is full of real people and fantastic characters which can be adapted and rethought. Moore built his story on public domain concepts renvisioned. Beyond the obvious Arthur Conan Doyle, Bram Stoker, Jules Verne and H.G. Wells sources, there is a massive stock of interesting characters real and imagined available. The website http://www.geocities.com/jessnevins/vicintro.html
illustrates this really well, providing an online encyclopedia of fantastic Victoriana. (You might also look at http://www.geocities.com/ratmmjess/annos.html which has annotations to the LXG comics and shows get how much open material is available.)
*This concept also works because it creates a new setting for the super-hero/super-adventurer genre. Most recent supers games have gone very classical, with a few older settings in some cases. The furthest back most material of this kind reaches back is into the Pulp era of the 20’s and 30’s. As well, most Steampunk materials so far have either been generically Jules Verne-ian or else have been fairly setting specific (i.e. Victorian Era Vampire and Castle Falkenstien). This moves out of that and gives a new spin on the era for gaming.
*Great deal of period artwork available to use and/or to modify.
Setting
A parallel Victorian World, where the strange magic of ancient curses, the untapped power of strange science, and the sheer force of human will have combined to make men who are larger than life. Serving Queen and Country, but also their own ambitions these agents fight to keep down ancient evils, sinister masterminds and technology gone amok.
A group might be made up of a combination of persons with a super ability and skilled adventurers. Essentially the two would balance out in terms of points, trading off having unique abilities with having better skills.
Possible Character Archtypes:
Inventor, Cursed Explorer, Monster Hunter, Spirit Photographer, Victim of Science, Supernatural Creature, Master of Disguise, Detective, Thief, Charlatan, Magician, Gunslinger, Voodoo Priest, Spiritualist, Occultist.
Game could be written with two parallel settings, one darker than the other. If a single setting, then the darker would be more useful.
Era of Hope
The first is the bright and shiny world of Early Victoriana…running from Victoria’s ascension to the throne in 1837 through the Great Exhibition in 1851 to the wars in Europe in 1870. Great Britain began this period lacking a sense of destiny, but within a decade had begun to transform its possessions into the largest Empire the world had ever seen. This is a brighter, shinier setting, with the hope of progress, a belief in science no yet sullied, and industrialization seen as a good rather than an ill. Agent in this setting are unsullied by many moral questions. They are helping to extend the Empire throughout the world and keep things safe at home from anarchy and rebellion.
Era of Decay
This game world is set among the crumbling edifices of Empire and honor. A later setting, beginning with Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee in 1897, it is much darker. The Empire has been established. Now, it has begun to decline, battered by the demands of administration and battles within itself about duties and borders. In a few short years the Empire will face the Boer War and the Boxer rebellion. With that will be lost a sense of higher purpose. The industrial age has shown the dangers and promises. Science has brought about great strides but has also begun to create monsters in the shadows which threaten the foundations of Pax Britannia.
Secretiveness
Open versus secret campaign. In an open campaign, people are aware of the strangeness around them. Victorian agents and heroes might be publicly acknowledged and accepted. Secret Campaign: In a secret campaign, the ordinary populace is unaware of the extent to which science, invention and the supernatural has controlled and impacted their lives. Part of the goal of any group is to maintain that façade, to keep people from being aware of the scale of the threats affecting their world. A secret campaign adds more to the setting. In an era with less information technology, these secrets are easier to keep. Certain people, “in the know” are aware of the existence of these agents doing battle with shadowy threats.
Differences with the Real World
In either case, science and technology have grown faster than they did in the real world. Steam and clockwork based machines, including robots, vehicles and mechas might be in existence, some secret, but some openly. It is an age of grand engineering projects, from tunnels to canals to bridges to dams, all made possible by larger and more fantastical equipment. The fantastic is just pushing the edge of what is possible, but agents engaged in this shadowy war are aware of much more strangeness.
Other Strangeness
The spiritual realm remains a potent threat. Classic monsters from vampires to werewolves to zombies, of course, threaten humanity. If other things, such as fey and witches exist, part of agents job will be to block these creatures from carrying out their plots or making their existence known. In a sense, the agents, in spite of their own inhuman skills and abilities, will be troubleshooters for the forces of rationality. They will have to keep revelations to a minimum, so that no one ever learns the horrible truth of things like the Hound of the Baskervilles.
Sections and Concepts:
*Real Historical Background, annotated with changes and events that reflect the secret history of the world.
*Character Creation. Essentially players choose from one of two paths, either based around a paranormal power or device or else based around the concept of a highly trained normal.
*Victorian Era technology. Ranging from the plausible, but unbuilt items such as calculation engines and advanced cars to more wild and speculative inventions, such a perpetual motion engines and lightning guns.
*Organizations and Societies. In this era, nobles tended to form clubs and cliques. Describes possible character organizations, real world strange groups (like the Golden Dawn), and more fantastical groups (like the Illuminati and villainous organizations drawn from around the globe).
*The world: a brief look at society, social roles and customs. An outline of the Empire. A look at events and characters in the various regions of the world.
*Monster and Villains: From the robotic dopplegangers of Dr. Cross in England to the villainous servants of Vingalo Shan in the Far East. This would detail a number of villainous groups and plots, some scientific and some supernatural, and their henchmen and creations.
Obvious supplements:
Villians and Lairs
New Abilities
Location Books
Technology and Inventions
Character Ideas: Just some thoughts. Ideas that I came up with more in terms of my thinking about the period.
Dinosaur Jim: Scientist Archaeologist who has managed to infuse himself with the vital essence of a dinosaur drawn from a well-preserved sample. Unfortunately, he is not entirely is control of this. Subject to fevered hallucinations of their Lost World.
Dr. Smile: A mulatto character from New Orleans who can pass as white. New Orleans comes under American control in 1815. Still, it remains a strange and remote area. Character would be a highly sophisticated voodoo shaman. Depending on the extent of magic (if it is or isn’t) this could be real or else a sophisticated charlatan act. There are a number of notable voodoo shamans in the real world during this era.
Damien Trask, Explorer: A big game hunter who traveled deep into the heart of the jungle only to meet his nemesis. He was cursed when he shot the lord of the jungle. Now under certain conditions he transforms into an intelligent gorilla, but one who cares little for humanity. Trask and his other self battle constantly for control of his body.
Nikolai Tesla: Historical character born 1856. Mad genius who invented many of the things Edison credited for. Had weird mystical theories about energy and matter. Believed he could create a device which would transmit power without the use of wires. Web page bio: http://www.sumeria.net/tech/tesla.html . Done as a character, he could be a weird mystic inventor or perhaps have figured out how to change himself into energy.
Henry Ford: (Born 1862) In his early years before founding his company, Ford was a daredevil racecar driver. He could be done as a wild adventurer type, with a penchant for inventions. He was progressive in many ways, acceptance of more women’s rights and equality of races (at least blacks), but he was also a rabid anti-Semite. Still, played right, he could be an interesting character.
The Combustible: Based on weird Victorian era science, particularly a theory that fire and combustion are based on a particular substance present in all materials. The more the substance has, the more flammable it is. (It think this is called philogesten or something like that…I know I’ve spelled it wrong). In any case, this character has managed to infuse his blood with this. Essentially, his blood now acts like sodium, reacting with the air. He can throw little fireballs or use it to ignite materials, but it has the side effect or requiring him to bleed himself. It has to be fresh to do this, so he can’t store it. Just an odd character thought.
The American Agent: Perhaps a character like Jim West or Artemis Gordon from The Wild, Wild West TV series.
Werewolf: A werewolf would be a classic archetype.
The Alienist: The term for a psychiatrist in the late 1800’s. People believed in Phrenology, the idea that bumps on your head could be used to determine one’s behavior, personality and temperament. Based on that weird science, this character could do mental power effects, but only if he can touch the subject’s head. He could do limited mind control (more mental suggestions), erase memories, hypnotize people, or do the equivalent of an ego blast…all with no range.
Annie Oakley: In real life more civilized and sophisticated than legend gives her credit for. P.T. Barnum is another idea for strangeness.
These are just a few thoughts.
*LXG outline
Game should revolve around several variations archetypes based on three major themes: Adventurers, Misfit of Science or Servant of the Supernatural. Each of these should have a slightly different mechanic for using or purchasing abilities. At the very least, there needs to be a difference in the kinds of limitations and drawbacks that will affect them as well as access to certain types of abilities. There should be general powers, science powers and magical abilities. In any case, most heroes should be built around a single power or two. In some cases (such as a Vampire, Voodoonista or Gadgeteer) these will encompass a wide range of abilities and consequently be more expensive.
All of the descriptions should be built around two sides. On the one is the Colonial ideal. This will represent the non-questioning Defenders of Empire. However, there needs to be---integrated into the text via some device---a discussion of the more cynical and darker version of each of these ideas. This should represent the darker side, the shadow behind the Empire, the corruption and decay, etc.
Perhaps there should be the promise of a real Armageddon coming. An event which will change the way things are approached.
Consider how this might either of two ways which would be very different from what has been presented before: either a Victorian Superheroes game, although they would operate in the shadows…there are certain mechanics which help promote these ideas. The other is to head more in the direction of a Victorian Conspiracy X. I think one can complement each other, but at some point I need to make a decision about which one will carry the day. In any case that really is a decision of the company itself. Do they want an LXG game or a Zombies by Gaslight game. Either one is doable.
[Sideline thought for a particular Deadworld…fantasy setting built off of the convention of the marks upon the forehead. Adapt ideas taken from the RM game. Will eventually require them to figure out a way to protect themselves and others from the coming of the Zombies. There is a limit to how much they can protect themselves and others. Eventually the bad guys will move to cleaning the foreheads of their victims. Here’s another thought…a parody on DnD’s idea of clerics and turning undead…undead priests who can turn living beings. Imagine the horror! Undeadness as a limited commodity…Liches and whatever battling for this limited supply]
China
South Africa
Latin America: what is happening in Latin America around this time? By this point they’ve thrown off their colonial shackles so what precisely is going on there?
Villainous Organizations: Dr. Cross a robotic master of strange science. He has picked up the pieces from a previous organization. He projects his intelligence into a variety of robotic shells. This makes him relatively intelligent and able to broadcast himself from place to place. Different vessels could have different abilities. For example, one might be able to see through walls, one might be able to climb by digging his fingers into solid stone or brick. The question would be: how many of these can he have operating at any one time? How does he alert himself that one needs to be activated? What is his range?
The point of course being that Dr. Cross could be anybody. Well, not anybody…he needs to be someone whose appearance and disappearance will not be noticed. So, could be a hermit or a woman or a lunatic. The question of Dr. Cross’s larger motivation is also in question. What is he trying to do? What is his motivation? Is he a human or is he actually a machine out there somewhere? Is he in league with Aliens waiting to invade the earth?
The New Prometheans
Consider an organization led by Frankenstien’s Creature. He would also be trying to perfect the art and develop undead of a certain kind. This could be the basis for a nasty Zombie’s by Gaslight scenario. Consider the intelligence shown by the monster; his ability to develop classical language skills and pick up new knowledge rapidly. Imagine that he has enough time to learn more and then to decide that nihilism is his answer…that he is soulless and beyond the laws of man. In this case, becoming a criminal mastermind is just a small step. He doesn’t even need to be that nasty. He can remain hidden, operating behind the scenes. As Sherri has suggested, he might be a little taken aback by Mary Shelly’s depiction of him. He might also have commissioned it.
The British Empire: what is the Empire? How far does it reach? How is it governed? What does it look like on the ground? What kinds of services and communications exist between its various parts? How do the people at home view it? What are typical travel times between parts of the Empire? How far does the telegraph exchange reach…can you send a message from one end of the Empire to the other in a day?
Who are the other colonial Empires or other Empires in general? Should the geo-political situation be written as very different from our own? Might want to find that set of Moorcok books covering the Warlord of the Air and others. Certainly a portion of his novels deals with 1902. If this is to be a general Victoriana sourcebook for Zombie or other stuff then I should adhere closely to the material as presented by the world. If this is intended to be a LXG srtting then I have a little more leeway…I keep returning to the thought of China and how I can make changes to that. Certainly the concepts of the Boxer rebellion as well as ancient Chinese sorcerors…then there might be members of the Chinese rebels who serve as agents or other cells of the British group. That might make a really interesting sourcebook.
What if Japan managed to keep isolated for longer? Or what if the Menji restoration was handled differently. We also have the question of what occurred in the Indian Mutiny? Australia…I hate digeridoos…the slow and methodical killing off of the Abos there might be a kind of death magic for some group…carefully harnessed.
Here’s another thought…consider how to bring in a number of ideas drawn from Waldrop…for example the Rainmakers and the Bicycle corps. He does have a grasp of many of these concepts in a way I can’t even imagine. Consider how to look at the Victoriana and consider how to bring up and integrate theses ideas into the setting.
The shadow organization should have tendrils across the globe. One of the things is to bring together the sense of the Empire and hwo it actually managed to integrate many of these cultures in a very different way than the American Empire managed to.
In part, this should be a cultural and sociological experience. One of the things in regard to this is to consider two factors when thinking about any of these details: first how might it actually serve to create a scenario or an adventure? Second how can I present it in such a way that it actually serves as a useful basis for the gamemaster…i.e. so that they can transmit these ideas to their players.
Social drawbacks and such for heroes, madness and psychological defects for scientific men, curses and burdens for creatures of the supernatural. Try to differentiate between these three groups in several ways.
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Monday, August 10, 2009
Campaign Updates 8/11/09
Quick overview of where we're at in the various campaigns. I'm up to four right now, not counting the off-and-on game for my niece, the pick-up Supers game, and Crux (Exalted) which is on hiatus.
Libri Vidicos
We finally moved into the last sequence for Year Two. The first year of the campaign took about a year real time. This one has taken longer-- so since this is thematically based on Harry Potter, I'm getting to the Rowling book bloat a little early. I had a number of sub-plots hanging over from Year One plus the new material I brought in for this year. That ended up compounding some things-- I suspect I'll try to be a little less overenthusiastic in the next campaign arc. I also did a number of side stories that took more sessions than I thought they would.
As well the players significantly affected the flow of the story. We had more time well spent with various NPCs since everyone had a better idea of who they wanted to talk to and what they wanted to do. They also shifted significantly the course of things- figuring some plots out early and changing how events rolled out. That was good- I want the players to feel a little like they're in the genre, which is a literary one, but also know that the story isn't fully written. Bad things which could have come down the pipeline never materialized. Some storylines didn't seem to be as important, so they became sidelined.
At the same time, there were some things I didn't get to do as much with as I would have liked to. I wanted more Wickets and Imps, more chance at the club stuff with Kenny and Scott's characters, some more school events, the contest to matter more and so on. Quite a bit of that will hang on for next year. I am pleased that we did get some major shifts to the status quo: a better explanation of the Codici, revelations about the school, deaths/vanishings of some NPCs that had a strong impact on the players. We're set up for some pretty radical changes for next year.
A good deal of these last couple of sessions has revolved around those changes. Scott activated and pushed forward the bad guys' time-table which limited their plans. The group was forced to fall back on their wits and sacrifice their efforts in the school play to stop a threat facing everything. They fought through levels of the Etherplaces surrounding the school. In the course of that they finally met face to face with Dave's father and got some answers about his relation to Dave and to the school.
In the final confrontation they were able to put a huge stop to some of my enemy combat plans through some careful coordination. That allowed them to avoid risk to some student NPCs caught in the middle. Still some of the plans unfolded and while they rescued some of the NPCs they lost the Mistress of the Wards and the Headmaster. Last session revolved around the funeral and fallout from that. The new Headmaster was appointed, who has made her dislike for their House well known. Still other instructors who they'd forged bonds with stepped up to defend them as well. It was a fairly heavy info dump session-- and one I imagined would end the year.
The PCs have other plans- and want to provide underground events to take the place of those canceled in for the last weeks of a truncated semester. So we'll play out those hijinks next session. Of course, there will also be finals so they will have to add that into their calculations.
Changeling: The Lost
Changeling moves forward-- we're almost at the one year mark (next session will be number 24 out of the 26 of a full year). The players have made their alliances with the dual courts and started to try to find their places. I've finally been working with some of the Fetch plots as well. They dealt with Shari's fetch, but with some fear that the threads left over from that might come back and bite them on the ass. Mostly what's been going on has been NPC interactions and trying to get a feel for their place in things.
One PC got himself involved in an underground fight club, while another gained access to an old Changeling Workshop. Another has gained a position leading potentially to taking up some of the archivist role, while another got to play detective. We had some good scenes and interactions there. The session before last we had Sherri's character dealing with her Fetch and its potentially dual nature. It mimics her as a sick child, making her parent's lives really tough. At the same time they discovered that it may be eating the illness out of other sick children in the hospital wards. That was a strange session as we had some body language and play I associate with players bent on destroying the game. The other players commented on it, and I decided to keep an eye on that.
However the next session was much better. We had a little investigation, but primarily an extended combat with a fairly credible threat. All the players got the chance to really have the spotlight in the fight with high drama and action. Everyone took damage, some pretty heavily. But they managed to fight and win against superior odds. Some of the credit for the session going well has to be given to Will who did a nice job “traffic managing” and organizing the approach at the table. I was really pleased with the session, as I said to everyone after.
Of course the next day we lost two players when the crazy mask came off. That was especially bothersome given the stress and work of the last couple of months. On the bright side the remaining players seem energized and ready to move forward on the campaign. I'm looking forward to getting more individual table time for everyone and I'm hoping it will all turn out to be for the best.
I also made the mistake of playing narrative chicken with the players. One of the core mystery plots for the game is the death of the person who rescued them from the Hedge and brought them into the real world. At the beginning of the campaign they found him dead. I've been putting little clues out, but nothing big. That's a fairly long term plot arc. Anyway, I asked Will, Shari and Sherri if they had any questions and Will asked: “Who killed Mr. Charlotte?”. I said, “do you really want to know?” which is my typical answer for players who ask those big questions. Will shook his head, eventually.
Then Sherri said, “I know who killed Mr. Charlotte.” I, of course laughed at her, because I haven't given them enough information yet on that. “So tell me,” I said.
“The same person who killed Dr. Bargosian,” she answered. That was another NPC who'd died some time before they entered the scene.
“That doesn't tell you anything, you don't know who killed either of them.” I was pretty pleased with myself. “Who killed them?”
“Lord Burn's driver.” Sherri said.
Those of you who know me also know that I don't have a poker face. I clapped my hands to my mouth. I've been told that I then leapt to my feet and shouted obscenities at them, much to my visiting sister's amusement. I may have stormed out of the room-- I don't recall. Eventually I walked back in and asked how the hell she knew that. Sherri carefully walked through a list of bullet points, tying together each and every clue I'd given out-- scattered and then culled from gameplay and hundred of pages of emails-- in which he only appeared a handful of times.
I was floored and pleased. I always want to play fair with those kinds of mysteries, so there's a certain pleasure to seeing people connect the dots—even if I hadn't believed I'd put enough out there for them to actually discern a shape from them. Pretty amazing.
Dammit. On the plus side, they have no tangible proof and no sense of motive, but they do have a direction now.
Third Continent Game
Still pretty pleased with the course of that. We've had two satisfying combats back to back with everyone having a chance to do some great stuff. The damage system for Action Cards still seems to be holding up to the stress test, but we'll see how that works as we move further into the campaign. We've got some social/cultural interactions coming up next session as well as potential dungeon delving should they decide to go that way. I know they have a couple of ideas on how to bring the mythic into it, and I'm looking forward to seeing how that plays out.
Wushu
We introduced Brandy and Dusty's characters to the table and moved the plot forward from the last big write up I did. They reached the city where the tournament is going to be held and met some other NPCs. They also had a chance to see some of the tensions within the various Wulin Orders (The Holy Society and the Righteous Party). I did a little set up there including the suggestion of recent murders which (from Scott's analysis) clearly have a supernatural bent.
Most of the session was devoted to some two-on-tour tournament preliminary combats. I did that to give the two new players a chance to see how combat works. That particular set up is actually kind of weakness for the system-- as I think it works better en masse or one-on-one. Dusty did a nice job of analyzing a couple of the potential weak points of the mechanics, which I'm always glad to see. I'm going to make a couple of minor modification and try to keep careful notes so I can make adjustments. I have a bonus session coming up this Saturday night for that.
Libri Vidicos
We finally moved into the last sequence for Year Two. The first year of the campaign took about a year real time. This one has taken longer-- so since this is thematically based on Harry Potter, I'm getting to the Rowling book bloat a little early. I had a number of sub-plots hanging over from Year One plus the new material I brought in for this year. That ended up compounding some things-- I suspect I'll try to be a little less overenthusiastic in the next campaign arc. I also did a number of side stories that took more sessions than I thought they would.
As well the players significantly affected the flow of the story. We had more time well spent with various NPCs since everyone had a better idea of who they wanted to talk to and what they wanted to do. They also shifted significantly the course of things- figuring some plots out early and changing how events rolled out. That was good- I want the players to feel a little like they're in the genre, which is a literary one, but also know that the story isn't fully written. Bad things which could have come down the pipeline never materialized. Some storylines didn't seem to be as important, so they became sidelined.
At the same time, there were some things I didn't get to do as much with as I would have liked to. I wanted more Wickets and Imps, more chance at the club stuff with Kenny and Scott's characters, some more school events, the contest to matter more and so on. Quite a bit of that will hang on for next year. I am pleased that we did get some major shifts to the status quo: a better explanation of the Codici, revelations about the school, deaths/vanishings of some NPCs that had a strong impact on the players. We're set up for some pretty radical changes for next year.
A good deal of these last couple of sessions has revolved around those changes. Scott activated and pushed forward the bad guys' time-table which limited their plans. The group was forced to fall back on their wits and sacrifice their efforts in the school play to stop a threat facing everything. They fought through levels of the Etherplaces surrounding the school. In the course of that they finally met face to face with Dave's father and got some answers about his relation to Dave and to the school.
In the final confrontation they were able to put a huge stop to some of my enemy combat plans through some careful coordination. That allowed them to avoid risk to some student NPCs caught in the middle. Still some of the plans unfolded and while they rescued some of the NPCs they lost the Mistress of the Wards and the Headmaster. Last session revolved around the funeral and fallout from that. The new Headmaster was appointed, who has made her dislike for their House well known. Still other instructors who they'd forged bonds with stepped up to defend them as well. It was a fairly heavy info dump session-- and one I imagined would end the year.
The PCs have other plans- and want to provide underground events to take the place of those canceled in for the last weeks of a truncated semester. So we'll play out those hijinks next session. Of course, there will also be finals so they will have to add that into their calculations.
Changeling: The Lost
Changeling moves forward-- we're almost at the one year mark (next session will be number 24 out of the 26 of a full year). The players have made their alliances with the dual courts and started to try to find their places. I've finally been working with some of the Fetch plots as well. They dealt with Shari's fetch, but with some fear that the threads left over from that might come back and bite them on the ass. Mostly what's been going on has been NPC interactions and trying to get a feel for their place in things.
One PC got himself involved in an underground fight club, while another gained access to an old Changeling Workshop. Another has gained a position leading potentially to taking up some of the archivist role, while another got to play detective. We had some good scenes and interactions there. The session before last we had Sherri's character dealing with her Fetch and its potentially dual nature. It mimics her as a sick child, making her parent's lives really tough. At the same time they discovered that it may be eating the illness out of other sick children in the hospital wards. That was a strange session as we had some body language and play I associate with players bent on destroying the game. The other players commented on it, and I decided to keep an eye on that.
However the next session was much better. We had a little investigation, but primarily an extended combat with a fairly credible threat. All the players got the chance to really have the spotlight in the fight with high drama and action. Everyone took damage, some pretty heavily. But they managed to fight and win against superior odds. Some of the credit for the session going well has to be given to Will who did a nice job “traffic managing” and organizing the approach at the table. I was really pleased with the session, as I said to everyone after.
Of course the next day we lost two players when the crazy mask came off. That was especially bothersome given the stress and work of the last couple of months. On the bright side the remaining players seem energized and ready to move forward on the campaign. I'm looking forward to getting more individual table time for everyone and I'm hoping it will all turn out to be for the best.
I also made the mistake of playing narrative chicken with the players. One of the core mystery plots for the game is the death of the person who rescued them from the Hedge and brought them into the real world. At the beginning of the campaign they found him dead. I've been putting little clues out, but nothing big. That's a fairly long term plot arc. Anyway, I asked Will, Shari and Sherri if they had any questions and Will asked: “Who killed Mr. Charlotte?”. I said, “do you really want to know?” which is my typical answer for players who ask those big questions. Will shook his head, eventually.
Then Sherri said, “I know who killed Mr. Charlotte.” I, of course laughed at her, because I haven't given them enough information yet on that. “So tell me,” I said.
“The same person who killed Dr. Bargosian,” she answered. That was another NPC who'd died some time before they entered the scene.
“That doesn't tell you anything, you don't know who killed either of them.” I was pretty pleased with myself. “Who killed them?”
“Lord Burn's driver.” Sherri said.
Those of you who know me also know that I don't have a poker face. I clapped my hands to my mouth. I've been told that I then leapt to my feet and shouted obscenities at them, much to my visiting sister's amusement. I may have stormed out of the room-- I don't recall. Eventually I walked back in and asked how the hell she knew that. Sherri carefully walked through a list of bullet points, tying together each and every clue I'd given out-- scattered and then culled from gameplay and hundred of pages of emails-- in which he only appeared a handful of times.
I was floored and pleased. I always want to play fair with those kinds of mysteries, so there's a certain pleasure to seeing people connect the dots—even if I hadn't believed I'd put enough out there for them to actually discern a shape from them. Pretty amazing.
Dammit. On the plus side, they have no tangible proof and no sense of motive, but they do have a direction now.
Third Continent Game
Still pretty pleased with the course of that. We've had two satisfying combats back to back with everyone having a chance to do some great stuff. The damage system for Action Cards still seems to be holding up to the stress test, but we'll see how that works as we move further into the campaign. We've got some social/cultural interactions coming up next session as well as potential dungeon delving should they decide to go that way. I know they have a couple of ideas on how to bring the mythic into it, and I'm looking forward to seeing how that plays out.
Wushu
We introduced Brandy and Dusty's characters to the table and moved the plot forward from the last big write up I did. They reached the city where the tournament is going to be held and met some other NPCs. They also had a chance to see some of the tensions within the various Wulin Orders (The Holy Society and the Righteous Party). I did a little set up there including the suggestion of recent murders which (from Scott's analysis) clearly have a supernatural bent.
Most of the session was devoted to some two-on-tour tournament preliminary combats. I did that to give the two new players a chance to see how combat works. That particular set up is actually kind of weakness for the system-- as I think it works better en masse or one-on-one. Dusty did a nice job of analyzing a couple of the potential weak points of the mechanics, which I'm always glad to see. I'm going to make a couple of minor modification and try to keep careful notes so I can make adjustments. I have a bonus session coming up this Saturday night for that.
Sunday, August 9, 2009
Campaign Postmortem: NOLA Nightwatch (M&M 2e)
The other half of a post I began here-- about two Mutants and Masterminds campaigns I ran.
NOLA NIghtwatch
When I was asked to run a short superhero campaign a couple of years ago, I decided to go to the players to ask them what they wanted. Most comments remained fairly general-- higher powered, not street level, some four color action. But a couple of players suggested that they wanted to do something set in New Orleans. They'd been there several times and had run some campaign set there pre-Katrina. I'd opened the floor to their input and decided to go with it. However to avoid a lot of the political and cultural potential baggage I made a couple of changes.
Since this was a superhero universe, I opted to have the disaster which had visited the city be of a super-powered nature. Katrina had occurred the year before, and had been slightly ameliorated by the presence of super-beings. Then the following year, a major villainous calamity destroyed the city. That event coupled with the suspicion that supers had deliberately directed the menace towards New Orleans, or at least had done little to really prevent it would hang over the campaign. That theme of distrust towards supers following such devastation would serve as an important element.
Also, I wanted to show repercussions which would last for some time in a supers game. I've read many comic books which have had these “crises” happen and then the next issue, it seems to be forgotten. In the Avengers, Kang took over the world for several issues and put all the supers in camps, but once that arc was over-- no one talked about it or the fact that he had trashed New York. In fact the only one which kept those consequences going that I recall was “The Pitt” arc from the short-lived New Universe line from Marvel. Another might be the Gotham DMZ arc from Batman, but eventually that got washed away.
My goal would be to have the group work on two fronts-- fighting villains but also trying to reestablish trust with the community. I'm not sure how successfully both elements worked, but we had a generally solid twelve session max-series campaign with a beginning, middle and an end. I think a real weakness in the running of it came in my sense of what might be called in an essay “the controlling idea.”
I believe campaign sketched out for a short run have to have a stronger thematic to them. Well, they don't have to, but I believe they operate better inf they do. If you're just doddling around to get a feel for a setting, then perhaps not. But generally I have a tighter sense on my plotting and ideas for these kinds of games. In a longer or even open ended campaign, you have the room to explore through things. You can run and flyby arcs and themes. In a mini or maxi series campaign, having a better sense of your goal will help you craft more.
For example, in the case of the Bloodlines campaign, six sessions, I knew I wanted to bring things back around to exploring the reason for the big event at the start of the campaign. Add to that my wanting to give players an overview of the consequences of a limited genetic origin for super-powers. In the case of the NOLA game, I knew I would end the campaign with theme dealing with some fallout from the original threat to the city. That things had been done to stop the Big Bad and there remained a price to pay. Beyond that I also wanted to have the trust of the populace and their media treatment improve if they worked on that.
But given the room outside of that-- twelve plus session to fill, I don't think I had as stronger a sense of things. NOLA, in my mind, lends itself to magical events and plots. Or at least there's an occult theme worth running there. There's also the theme of local corruption, popular in Noir literature of the area. I played with some of that and some other things, but it ended up being more of a sampler platter of appetizers-- the kind you get from a restaurant which is never really all that satisfying. Some of that came from my own realization that despite New Orleans being a great setting, it didn't grab my interest like other cities did. I wasn't invested in the local color and mythology as I have been with games set in Chicago or elsewhere. Some of it came from a vary diverse group of players who wanted different things from the game-- some wanted gritty, some wanted four-color, some had a hard time hiding a dislike of magic plots, and so on. So in many ways I grade myself a C on execution of the campaign, but a higher grade for background prep and some structural ideas.
Another thing worth considering is how this campaign provided another answer to the question of how one begins a new supers campaign in a world with a “continuity”. Mind you that continuity is all artificial. In both Bloodlines and Nightwatch, I built everything pretty much from scratch. But Nightwatch gave another disaster as a starting point-- the devastation of a city as opposed to the supers populace-- and gave a motivation to the players. I'd like to try that again since I'm fond of building games-- perhaps in another genre or setting.
NOLA NIghtwatch
When I was asked to run a short superhero campaign a couple of years ago, I decided to go to the players to ask them what they wanted. Most comments remained fairly general-- higher powered, not street level, some four color action. But a couple of players suggested that they wanted to do something set in New Orleans. They'd been there several times and had run some campaign set there pre-Katrina. I'd opened the floor to their input and decided to go with it. However to avoid a lot of the political and cultural potential baggage I made a couple of changes.
Since this was a superhero universe, I opted to have the disaster which had visited the city be of a super-powered nature. Katrina had occurred the year before, and had been slightly ameliorated by the presence of super-beings. Then the following year, a major villainous calamity destroyed the city. That event coupled with the suspicion that supers had deliberately directed the menace towards New Orleans, or at least had done little to really prevent it would hang over the campaign. That theme of distrust towards supers following such devastation would serve as an important element.
Also, I wanted to show repercussions which would last for some time in a supers game. I've read many comic books which have had these “crises” happen and then the next issue, it seems to be forgotten. In the Avengers, Kang took over the world for several issues and put all the supers in camps, but once that arc was over-- no one talked about it or the fact that he had trashed New York. In fact the only one which kept those consequences going that I recall was “The Pitt” arc from the short-lived New Universe line from Marvel. Another might be the Gotham DMZ arc from Batman, but eventually that got washed away.
My goal would be to have the group work on two fronts-- fighting villains but also trying to reestablish trust with the community. I'm not sure how successfully both elements worked, but we had a generally solid twelve session max-series campaign with a beginning, middle and an end. I think a real weakness in the running of it came in my sense of what might be called in an essay “the controlling idea.”
I believe campaign sketched out for a short run have to have a stronger thematic to them. Well, they don't have to, but I believe they operate better inf they do. If you're just doddling around to get a feel for a setting, then perhaps not. But generally I have a tighter sense on my plotting and ideas for these kinds of games. In a longer or even open ended campaign, you have the room to explore through things. You can run and flyby arcs and themes. In a mini or maxi series campaign, having a better sense of your goal will help you craft more.
For example, in the case of the Bloodlines campaign, six sessions, I knew I wanted to bring things back around to exploring the reason for the big event at the start of the campaign. Add to that my wanting to give players an overview of the consequences of a limited genetic origin for super-powers. In the case of the NOLA game, I knew I would end the campaign with theme dealing with some fallout from the original threat to the city. That things had been done to stop the Big Bad and there remained a price to pay. Beyond that I also wanted to have the trust of the populace and their media treatment improve if they worked on that.
But given the room outside of that-- twelve plus session to fill, I don't think I had as stronger a sense of things. NOLA, in my mind, lends itself to magical events and plots. Or at least there's an occult theme worth running there. There's also the theme of local corruption, popular in Noir literature of the area. I played with some of that and some other things, but it ended up being more of a sampler platter of appetizers-- the kind you get from a restaurant which is never really all that satisfying. Some of that came from my own realization that despite New Orleans being a great setting, it didn't grab my interest like other cities did. I wasn't invested in the local color and mythology as I have been with games set in Chicago or elsewhere. Some of it came from a vary diverse group of players who wanted different things from the game-- some wanted gritty, some wanted four-color, some had a hard time hiding a dislike of magic plots, and so on. So in many ways I grade myself a C on execution of the campaign, but a higher grade for background prep and some structural ideas.
Another thing worth considering is how this campaign provided another answer to the question of how one begins a new supers campaign in a world with a “continuity”. Mind you that continuity is all artificial. In both Bloodlines and Nightwatch, I built everything pretty much from scratch. But Nightwatch gave another disaster as a starting point-- the devastation of a city as opposed to the supers populace-- and gave a motivation to the players. I'd like to try that again since I'm fond of building games-- perhaps in another genre or setting.
8/8/09
Limited retcon link dump
The best review I've recently read. Yo Joe.
At risk of repeating myself, you owe Unforgotten Realms and Unskippable a chance.
PR Consultants to Super Villains, a concept that needs to be worked into any supers rpg.
A list of some Japanese pen and paper rpgs, with some comments about the odd systems involved.
So a couple of interesting things-- still catching back up on a back log of stuff. Remember- crazy is as crazy does.
The best review I've recently read. Yo Joe.
At risk of repeating myself, you owe Unforgotten Realms and Unskippable a chance.
PR Consultants to Super Villains, a concept that needs to be worked into any supers rpg.
A list of some Japanese pen and paper rpgs, with some comments about the odd systems involved.
So a couple of interesting things-- still catching back up on a back log of stuff. Remember- crazy is as crazy does.
Thursday, August 6, 2009
Campaign Postmortem: Bloodlines (M&M 1e)
So I'd thought I'd talk a little briefly about the last two Mutants and Masterminds campaigns that I ran-- mostly in terms of background set up. Eventually I want to do full campaign postmortem write ups on them, but for now I wanted to talk a little bit about what my intent was in each for theme, how I tried to get at that and a little of how well that went.
Bloodlines-
The Bloodlines setting focuses on family lines of superheroes and how they exist in the world. As the Cold War of the 1950’s intensified, the US tested its most powerful thermonuclear weapon. Contrary to models and expectations, this blast’s effects continued on in what came to be known as the Promethean Wave, a series of aurora borealis which lasted an entire year, spanning the globe. Somehow, it activated genetic potential hidden deep within humanity. Within the year the first natural occurring superhumans made their mark. However it became clear quickly that the Promethean gene was held only in a few bloodlines. As humanity takes its first tentative steps into the 21st Century, the superhumans are with them as well. Now with the third and fourth generation of these beings there are still many more questions yet to be resolved.
The background theme for the game would the implications of superpowers being within the genetic lines- rather than the classic democratic everyman image often in comic books. It echoes a little of the issue of Mutants from X-Men, but takes a different approach. Here there's a more science-fiction acceptance and consideration of the consequences.
There are a couple of interesting implications that I wanted to play with in that set up. Even in Superhero games I've played in with no “magic” there are always people who gain their powers through strange accidents and projects. Here I'd have something a little more limited and a little more hierarchical. I mean that in the sense that only “special” people get powers-- and how would others react to that. Some of the Bloodlines of the title had tighter ranges of blood-- meaning only close relations to a particular branch might have powers. Other lines might be more dispersed, with distant relatives possibly gaining them. I considered some of the geopolitical implications-- if particular lines were limited to a region, then how would the government of that area react. One player character, Grey, came out of an oppressive Chinese regime which took for granted control over the genetic potential of its citizens.
The Anti-Mutant theme of Marvel echoes certain things of course-- racism and homophobia. Grant Morrison expanded on those ideas a little in his run on the X-Men, to broaden the implications. Bloodlines would be a little bit about public reaction being awe, fear and a little jealousy. There'd also be an undercurrent of anti-elitism, questioning why people should get any special treatment for being different. On the supers side there would be a certain degree of arrogance and craziness arising from being gifted and super-talented-- a belief that simply possessing those powers made them all around excellent.
One of the other advantages for me as a gamemaster is that the structure of these bloodlines created some nice templates for the players. Each bloodline had associated with it certain powers and sometimes certain other character traits. Interestingly a couple of years later, I'd see some of that echoed in Robin Laws' excellent Mutant City Blues-- where that association became a vital path to handling forensics in a super-powered world. Players could decided on a power set they liked and then build their relationship to the bloodline or come at it from the other direction and choose a line and then pick powers. It also gave a nifty shorthand for the PC when meeting new characters-- a decent sense of what kinds of things they might be able to do. If you're running a superworld that doesn't build on existing continuity, I think that's really important and gives the players an easier entry into the setting.
The other thing I did with the campaign was to begin with the death of many, many superbeings-- both heroes and villains. This occurred in something called the “Zero Incident” (no exact reason given for the name but it had a proper weird sound to it). It left a power vacuum which the PC group could then fill. In particular they went to Chicago to set up. Previous to the Zero Incident, that city had been generally controlled by super-villains and heroes stayed away. This device worked well for the campaign, and could be easily adapted to other campaigns. Sine this was run as a limited “issue” game, everything eventually tied back to explain why the incident had happened, but a GM could leave that more open-ended.
I think the important idea here for games is about a way to establish a place for your heroes while at the same time having there exist a population of established supers. How do newbie supers fit into the establishment? Having an incident like this (retirement, vanishing or destruction of a significant bloc) provides a dramatic story moment and also gives the group a motivation. It also removes some of the “why wouldn't we call X?” to deal with the situation question. I've seen it in other forms, but I think this worked pretty well especially as it played strongly into the plot of the limited series.
I ate way too much at the farewell dinner for my sister, so I'll cut it short here. I'll finish up tomorrow or the next day talking about the other game and the structural necessities of the mini/maxi series a little bit.
Bloodlines-
The Bloodlines setting focuses on family lines of superheroes and how they exist in the world. As the Cold War of the 1950’s intensified, the US tested its most powerful thermonuclear weapon. Contrary to models and expectations, this blast’s effects continued on in what came to be known as the Promethean Wave, a series of aurora borealis which lasted an entire year, spanning the globe. Somehow, it activated genetic potential hidden deep within humanity. Within the year the first natural occurring superhumans made their mark. However it became clear quickly that the Promethean gene was held only in a few bloodlines. As humanity takes its first tentative steps into the 21st Century, the superhumans are with them as well. Now with the third and fourth generation of these beings there are still many more questions yet to be resolved.
The background theme for the game would the implications of superpowers being within the genetic lines- rather than the classic democratic everyman image often in comic books. It echoes a little of the issue of Mutants from X-Men, but takes a different approach. Here there's a more science-fiction acceptance and consideration of the consequences.
There are a couple of interesting implications that I wanted to play with in that set up. Even in Superhero games I've played in with no “magic” there are always people who gain their powers through strange accidents and projects. Here I'd have something a little more limited and a little more hierarchical. I mean that in the sense that only “special” people get powers-- and how would others react to that. Some of the Bloodlines of the title had tighter ranges of blood-- meaning only close relations to a particular branch might have powers. Other lines might be more dispersed, with distant relatives possibly gaining them. I considered some of the geopolitical implications-- if particular lines were limited to a region, then how would the government of that area react. One player character, Grey, came out of an oppressive Chinese regime which took for granted control over the genetic potential of its citizens.
The Anti-Mutant theme of Marvel echoes certain things of course-- racism and homophobia. Grant Morrison expanded on those ideas a little in his run on the X-Men, to broaden the implications. Bloodlines would be a little bit about public reaction being awe, fear and a little jealousy. There'd also be an undercurrent of anti-elitism, questioning why people should get any special treatment for being different. On the supers side there would be a certain degree of arrogance and craziness arising from being gifted and super-talented-- a belief that simply possessing those powers made them all around excellent.
One of the other advantages for me as a gamemaster is that the structure of these bloodlines created some nice templates for the players. Each bloodline had associated with it certain powers and sometimes certain other character traits. Interestingly a couple of years later, I'd see some of that echoed in Robin Laws' excellent Mutant City Blues-- where that association became a vital path to handling forensics in a super-powered world. Players could decided on a power set they liked and then build their relationship to the bloodline or come at it from the other direction and choose a line and then pick powers. It also gave a nifty shorthand for the PC when meeting new characters-- a decent sense of what kinds of things they might be able to do. If you're running a superworld that doesn't build on existing continuity, I think that's really important and gives the players an easier entry into the setting.
The other thing I did with the campaign was to begin with the death of many, many superbeings-- both heroes and villains. This occurred in something called the “Zero Incident” (no exact reason given for the name but it had a proper weird sound to it). It left a power vacuum which the PC group could then fill. In particular they went to Chicago to set up. Previous to the Zero Incident, that city had been generally controlled by super-villains and heroes stayed away. This device worked well for the campaign, and could be easily adapted to other campaigns. Sine this was run as a limited “issue” game, everything eventually tied back to explain why the incident had happened, but a GM could leave that more open-ended.
I think the important idea here for games is about a way to establish a place for your heroes while at the same time having there exist a population of established supers. How do newbie supers fit into the establishment? Having an incident like this (retirement, vanishing or destruction of a significant bloc) provides a dramatic story moment and also gives the group a motivation. It also removes some of the “why wouldn't we call X?” to deal with the situation question. I've seen it in other forms, but I think this worked pretty well especially as it played strongly into the plot of the limited series.
I ate way too much at the farewell dinner for my sister, so I'll cut it short here. I'll finish up tomorrow or the next day talking about the other game and the structural necessities of the mini/maxi series a little bit.
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
A Meta-Chronology of the Game World (Part Five)
A Meta-Chronology of the Game World
Part V
Part IV here
OK, this is the last entry I have charting all of the campaigns which have taken place in my fantasy game world. This should bring us up to date. At this point we have a current score of thirteen complete campaigns- those with a beginning, middle and an end- and six incomplete (several or many sessions but no final resolution). I'm not sure what that is in terms of batting averages, but there we are.
After I wrapped up the Steambuckler campaign on the Second Continent, I wanted a break to regroup and figure out. I was pretty certain I'd be returning to that world, but I knew I wanted to do something different and wanted time to figure that out. I ran a short, complete arc Mutants and Masterminds campaign-- Bloodlines which was a nice change of pace. It was unfortunately, the last game that Barry played in. That three us off for a time, but we dusted ourselves and kept moving forward. After that I decided to fulfill a promise I'd made to Dave years before-- that I'd eventually run a Planescape Game.
That campaign would be a hodge-podge and an odd beast. I looked around and tried to find a hook that interested me. At the time I had a copy of The Black Company Sourcebook. Given the amount of fighting and wars happening on the Planes, I thought it would be natural to link the two things up. I decided to run d20 3.5-- although I spent a great deal of time trying to figure out a way to handle things in True20, before they'd really come out with any True20 books but the most basic. I hadn't run D&D in years and certainly not the newer versions. But others had and we rolled along-- I kept some of the Black Company rules, like Grievous Wounds, and the like but otherwise pretty much opened things up to whatever supplements and sourcebooks people wanted to take things from. That was pretty funny. I also had people make up two characters-- stressing the idea that death would be easy. Despite that, I actually only killed a few of the PCs. Dave did a nice job writing up in character summaries that I have to see if I can find. They were unbelievably good.
The connection to the game world came in that a couple of the PCs actually came from there. In Kenny's case, he had a skaven-- one among many who had been sent out into the Planes in the hopes of finding Barry's character who fell into the void at the end of the Steambuckler campaign. He would eventually be located and the group would begin to piece together that the big bad moving things behind the scenes in the game was in fact The Thonak, the Chaos Avatar sundered and sent from the world at the end of the grand Thonak campaign years before. The defeated the foe before he could reassemble and descend back through the Planes to the world. Interestingly, while I'd originally planed for six sessions for that campaign, it ended up ballooning out to twelve (in part because of my extensive sidebar for a multi-session riff on Final Fantasy VI as a joke for Dave).
After we finished that up, I took a little more time off and then decided to run the Libri Vidicos game. I'd been bouncing the idea around for some time, it wasn't sure if it would work. A fantasy campaign set in a school, with everyone playing young people...it sounded risky. Everyone knew and liked Harry Potter but could it sustain itself? On top of that, I opted to use my Action Cards system. I'd run it with a couple of other campaigns but I wasn't sure I could get it to work with classic fantasy.
Suffice as to say, I was wrong. That group plays together better than any I've ever seen. The players like the system and run with it. I could go on, but I don't have to. That campaigns ongoing and every player there manages to surprise me every session. Timeline-wise, that campaign takes place about eighteen years after the Steambuckler campaign.
More recently I started another Third Continent game. As you may have seen if you follow the over-indulgent mechanical discussion on my blog, I'd originally intended to use Storyteller (having just finished running a Scion campaign for the same group). Then I thought I wanted to use GURPS and spent a couple of weeks mucking around with mechanics on that while Sherri politely nodded. She waited patiently until I finally came around to using Action Cards again to do what I wanted. I then spent two pretty intense weeks building the rules modifications I wanted for that. I had three major goals for the modification: building a profession structure that echoed both old Rolemaster and Final Fantasy Tactics; retooling the magic system to make it easier to work with an understand; and adding in a crunchier method for tracking damage. That last one involved adding dice to the system, but seems to have worked well so far.
The other real question in my mind would be how much time had passed on the continent since the last campaign. I was worried about the sync-up in time between the present game of the Second Continent (Libri Vidicos) and this one. If I tried to match those, then the Third Continent game would take place 300+ years after the last campaign there which most of these players had been in. Eventually I decided to stop worrying about it and simply moved things up a couple of generations, like 80 years. That would allow the material I had for the continent to still remain relevant, but I could make some significant changes as I desired.
We've had four session of that game and it seems to be playing well. My target is about a year of play, give or take. I hope to eventually start introducing some of the larger mythic elements here soon-- a couple of the players have already cooked up a ritual plan for next time that they haven't given me too many details about, so I'm looking forward to that.
Lastly, and I'm not going to talk too much about this as I don't want to give away too much yet, the current Wushu campaign takes place on the First Continent.
Fourteen complete
Six incomplete
Three ongoing
I should also note Kenny's heavy references to the shared game world in his game-- something I'll call on him to talk about in the future.
Done early. Next time some session overviews, then some reviews, then talking about rpggeek, then a piece on players who refuse to be wrong.
Part V
Part IV here
OK, this is the last entry I have charting all of the campaigns which have taken place in my fantasy game world. This should bring us up to date. At this point we have a current score of thirteen complete campaigns- those with a beginning, middle and an end- and six incomplete (several or many sessions but no final resolution). I'm not sure what that is in terms of batting averages, but there we are.
After I wrapped up the Steambuckler campaign on the Second Continent, I wanted a break to regroup and figure out. I was pretty certain I'd be returning to that world, but I knew I wanted to do something different and wanted time to figure that out. I ran a short, complete arc Mutants and Masterminds campaign-- Bloodlines which was a nice change of pace. It was unfortunately, the last game that Barry played in. That three us off for a time, but we dusted ourselves and kept moving forward. After that I decided to fulfill a promise I'd made to Dave years before-- that I'd eventually run a Planescape Game.
That campaign would be a hodge-podge and an odd beast. I looked around and tried to find a hook that interested me. At the time I had a copy of The Black Company Sourcebook. Given the amount of fighting and wars happening on the Planes, I thought it would be natural to link the two things up. I decided to run d20 3.5-- although I spent a great deal of time trying to figure out a way to handle things in True20, before they'd really come out with any True20 books but the most basic. I hadn't run D&D in years and certainly not the newer versions. But others had and we rolled along-- I kept some of the Black Company rules, like Grievous Wounds, and the like but otherwise pretty much opened things up to whatever supplements and sourcebooks people wanted to take things from. That was pretty funny. I also had people make up two characters-- stressing the idea that death would be easy. Despite that, I actually only killed a few of the PCs. Dave did a nice job writing up in character summaries that I have to see if I can find. They were unbelievably good.
The connection to the game world came in that a couple of the PCs actually came from there. In Kenny's case, he had a skaven-- one among many who had been sent out into the Planes in the hopes of finding Barry's character who fell into the void at the end of the Steambuckler campaign. He would eventually be located and the group would begin to piece together that the big bad moving things behind the scenes in the game was in fact The Thonak, the Chaos Avatar sundered and sent from the world at the end of the grand Thonak campaign years before. The defeated the foe before he could reassemble and descend back through the Planes to the world. Interestingly, while I'd originally planed for six sessions for that campaign, it ended up ballooning out to twelve (in part because of my extensive sidebar for a multi-session riff on Final Fantasy VI as a joke for Dave).
After we finished that up, I took a little more time off and then decided to run the Libri Vidicos game. I'd been bouncing the idea around for some time, it wasn't sure if it would work. A fantasy campaign set in a school, with everyone playing young people...it sounded risky. Everyone knew and liked Harry Potter but could it sustain itself? On top of that, I opted to use my Action Cards system. I'd run it with a couple of other campaigns but I wasn't sure I could get it to work with classic fantasy.
Suffice as to say, I was wrong. That group plays together better than any I've ever seen. The players like the system and run with it. I could go on, but I don't have to. That campaigns ongoing and every player there manages to surprise me every session. Timeline-wise, that campaign takes place about eighteen years after the Steambuckler campaign.
More recently I started another Third Continent game. As you may have seen if you follow the over-indulgent mechanical discussion on my blog, I'd originally intended to use Storyteller (having just finished running a Scion campaign for the same group). Then I thought I wanted to use GURPS and spent a couple of weeks mucking around with mechanics on that while Sherri politely nodded. She waited patiently until I finally came around to using Action Cards again to do what I wanted. I then spent two pretty intense weeks building the rules modifications I wanted for that. I had three major goals for the modification: building a profession structure that echoed both old Rolemaster and Final Fantasy Tactics; retooling the magic system to make it easier to work with an understand; and adding in a crunchier method for tracking damage. That last one involved adding dice to the system, but seems to have worked well so far.
The other real question in my mind would be how much time had passed on the continent since the last campaign. I was worried about the sync-up in time between the present game of the Second Continent (Libri Vidicos) and this one. If I tried to match those, then the Third Continent game would take place 300+ years after the last campaign there which most of these players had been in. Eventually I decided to stop worrying about it and simply moved things up a couple of generations, like 80 years. That would allow the material I had for the continent to still remain relevant, but I could make some significant changes as I desired.
We've had four session of that game and it seems to be playing well. My target is about a year of play, give or take. I hope to eventually start introducing some of the larger mythic elements here soon-- a couple of the players have already cooked up a ritual plan for next time that they haven't given me too many details about, so I'm looking forward to that.
Lastly, and I'm not going to talk too much about this as I don't want to give away too much yet, the current Wushu campaign takes place on the First Continent.
Fourteen complete
Six incomplete
Three ongoing
I should also note Kenny's heavy references to the shared game world in his game-- something I'll call on him to talk about in the future.
Done early. Next time some session overviews, then some reviews, then talking about rpggeek, then a piece on players who refuse to be wrong.
Sunday, August 2, 2009
White Mountain, Black River Session One
Finally hoping to get things back on track-- been really jumbled for about the last eight weeks. As some of you know, my mom had been planning to move to Seattle at the end of July and had made the necessary arrangements. However, in mid-June, we got a diagnosis of colon cancer. That put everything on hold. Long story short, we had to make many other arrangements and preparations. Cat, my sister, arrived and has been handling most of that- with a skill and energy I have to envy. Having her here has been a life-saver on all accounts. Bottom line, my mom is back from the hospital, recovering well and in all likelihood will be well enough to travel at the end of August.
I want to thank everyone for their well-wishes and support. I also want to thank everyone who had been patient and tolerant with us over the last couple of months-- between all of that, cat illnesses, trying to get two new campaigns up and running, new projects I've been working on, and various other crises in the lives of others in the group, I'm been bad about keeping up with things. I appreciate your patience and understanding. I'm dreadfully behind on game emails, and I'll try to get caught up on those.
Had a good evening yesterday-- Cat joined our normal Rock Band crew and we had a nice full house. The memorable moment for me will always be my brother Eric singing "Sex Machine" by James Brown. For other it may also be me singing "Pretty Fly for a White Guy". Will also coined a couple of new catchphrases, of which one- Kobold- I plan to use often. Nice session and just about wiped away the bad taste of having several people in the group rip away their faces away to reveal The Crazy recently.
Anyway, back to blogging-- beginning with a session write up for the Wushu campaign.
Wushu Session One
So we finally got started with the Wushu game and the first session which gave us a chance to see how the combat and action mechanics modifications actually worked in practice. After just two combats, I'm generally pretty hopeful. We'll have to see how it plays out over the course of several more fights, but I think it will work.
Right now the group is:
Wu-Long, Warrior (Kenny): Wu'Long also goes by the Taoist name 'Dancing Wind'. I see Wu'Long as a classic character to this genre. The young well trained warrior, with a variety of styles and weapons at his disposal. He has a trait that will be interesting, in that he believes that his life is being steered by the Heavenly Mandate of the many Gods. In effect he believes he is the hand of fate and watches the world for signs guiding his actions. We shall have to wait and see if this is a blessing or something more problematic. He is also a recognizable figure in some Wulin circles and is often confronted and challenged by others from opposing schools and clans. Much to their dismay, they shall find out for themselves that his Kung-Fu is strong.
Fei-Lang, Scholar (Scott): Sent to monastery at an early age to learn the scholarly arts, he was abducted by an evil Snow Queen and forced to serve her. Learning her icy sorceries, he was eventually able to make his escape, but the Snow Queen's minion's are always searching to get him back. This, combined with his upbringing in a secluded monastery, has caused him to develop an aversion to beautiful women.
Zhen Ai, Courtier (Sherri): Charitable and possessed of the sort of beauty that inspires love at first sight from all the wrong people, Zhen Ai is the perpetual tag-along to her other Gorgeous Cousins. If only they let her play too...
We also have a fourth character, Brandy's Alchemist (who I don't have a name written down for). She's a magical scholar as well, but of a very different kind than Fei-Lang. All four of them are cousins, children of a set of heroic brothers (and one sister) who helped fight for the Kingdom in the previous generation. Because of those connections and their own native skills, they have been appointed to the new post of magistrates for the Offices of the Provincial Inquiry. They spoke with General Jing Ping who formally assigned them to their posts. He also instructed them that they would be in charge of handling matters in the Province of Yanzhou, a delicate responsibility. Three other Magistrates would also be assigned to the province (the other PCs: Dusty, Gene and one other) who would meet them in the province. These magistrates would be traveling from time to time and meeting up with them as the opportunity or cases arose.
The group agreed to the responsibility and received further instruction. They would travel incognito to the province and head to the city of Rooted Serenity. The city governor there, Flawless Ning, is said to be a close ally of the Provincial Governor Qui Cheng. In fact he's often described as the Governor's man. In any case, Flawless Ning holds a small tournament of skill for youthful martial artists and scholars. The group would travel to Rooted Serenity, participate in the tournament and gain acclaim. Only after having established their reputation would they reveal themselves as incoming magistrates- a plan devised by the General to make sure that people take the new agents seriously.
However, in order to gain entry into the tournament, the players would have to travel to the town of Willow Repose, in the province of Geyuan, south of Yanzhou. There they would meet with Shenhua Fudoyan, a person of importance owing favors to the general. He would provide the proper papers to allow the players entry into the tournament. They agreed and set off, with one additional complication, in that their Alchemical cousin would have to wait behind a couple of additonal days in order to repair a particularly devastating accident she'd caused. She would catch up with them later.
The group traveled north, following the path of the Black River. Arriving in Willow's Repose, they began looking about for directions to the estate of their benefactor, Fudoyan. However they noticed some things while in Willow's Repose, the first being a certain laxity of enforcement on the part of the city magistrates. Open gambling, thugs lazing about on the streets and so on. They even had the sense of the watchmen perhaps looking them over to see if they could be exploitable persons, and thinking better of it. Fei-Lang also noted a couple of persons heading towards an inn, disguised to blend in, but bearing themselves as members of the wulin world.
Zhen-Ai assessed the situation and decided to seek out a senior member of the Beggar Clan, a society found throughout the Empire. After some hunting and the appropriate donations they made the acquaintance of Fulsome Dog. He told them of the waywardness of the town guards. Some of the thugs in town belong to a group run by Iron Monk Yan, a wushu master who had recently gathered a number of them together. Through payments, he'd clearly become a friend to the local officials and to the gambling houses. When asked about the strangers at the Inn, Fulsome Dog told the group that they had arrived a few days ago and seemed to be waiting for someone. After they had a good sense of the town, Zhen-Ai asked if Fulsome Dog and the Beggar Clan might be able to provide them with a guide. He agreed and summoned his own niece, Scampering Weeds who agreed to lead them to Master Fudoyan's estate just outside of town.
At the estate they found things in disorder-- or at least the general household tending now untended. They gained an audience with Master Fudoyan, who reluctantly agreed to tell them of his troubles. He clearly wished the aid of the party but could not openly say so. It seemed his son had fallen in with iron Monk Yan, wishing to become like him instead of following his father's path as a fruit merchant and distributor. His father had forbidden him from associating with the Iron Monk, but the son had disobeyed in an unfilial way. Then his son had recently returned, begging for forgiveness and saying that he would break with his bad ways, if only his father would sign a small letter of credit in order to cover his gambling debts. The father agreed and signed off. However, the next day Iron Monk Nan's men returned, showing the paper Master Fudoyan had signed-- which agreed gave away Master Fudoyan's daughter, Sun Petal to Iron Monk Nan in marriage. After some further questioning regarding the details, the group agreed to handle the matter so that Fudoyan could devote his attention and actually finish the paperwork they needed from him.
Back in town, they tracked down several of Iron Monk Nan's men, while Fei-Lang watched over the Inn in case the strangers turned out to be associated with the thugs. Using a spell, his drew their words to him and heard whispered talk about a master arriving that evening, a cart, and the transport of some valuable goods-- but nothing about the Iron Monk. Meanwhile Wu-Long confronted one of Iron Monk Nan's men in an alley. After questioning him by dangling him over a latrine, the thug provided information about the path to Nan's hideout through the woods and into the mountains. Wu-Long left the thug to soak in the outhouse.
Deciding that the strangers and their fruit transport cart were likely uninvolved the group traveled into the woods, finding the carefully left path markers. They noted that Nan had left no guard down here-- and began to fear that they'd been recalled for a wedding celebration! They hurried forward and eventually found Nan's fortress, an abandoned small military post on a cliffside. Using the power of Lightfoot and Fei-Lang's mastery of the air, they flew silently up over the walls. The realized that the location was only lightly guarded and spotted the likely place for the holding of Fudoyan's daughter-- however when they went to rescue her, she screamed, alerting the guards. Luckily Fei-Lang has taked the time to lay ice down on steps and in front of doorways. The half-dozen guards, rushing forward in the dim light fell down and were made short work of. Wu-Long questioned one and discovered that Iron Monk Nan and his men were elsewhere-- carrying out a raid-- on the strangers' caravan which Fei-Long had overheard details about!
Leaving Sun Petal in the care of Scampering Weeds, they flew through the woods and came upon a gruesome scene. Iron Monk Nan had begun with three dozen men, while the caravan guards had started with only a half dozen. The strangers' now number only two, with a ten times that number left to harry them. The group flew into the melee, taking wounds and cutting down bad guys left and right. Wu-Long struck with furious reach, Fei-Lang let loose with ice mastery and Zhen-Ai humiliated the Iron Monk by striking him across the face and painting his cheek with a rude ideogram. The tide turned and most of Iron Monk Nan's crew fell or fled. The Iron Monk, seeing his chance flew away, vowing revenge. W-Long grabbed up Master Fudoyan's son and destroyed the letter agreeing to the marriage.
In the aftermath, the two remaining stranger revealed themselves as wulin brothers, members of the Pilgrim's Ox Escort Bureau. The older man, Turbulent Stone, thanked them for their assistance and explained that they were transporting valuables hidden in fruit to Yanzhou. They'd made the purchase of fruit from Master Fudoyan's son, who had in turn tipped off Iron Monk Nan. The two groups discovered that they were heading to the same destination, Rooted Serenity, and decided to journey together. Turbulent Stone's sister, Dawning Rose, planned to take part in the tournament there as well. All returned to Master Fudoyan's estate where he greeted them warmly and gace them both hospitality and the letters necessary for entrance to the tournament.
I want to thank everyone for their well-wishes and support. I also want to thank everyone who had been patient and tolerant with us over the last couple of months-- between all of that, cat illnesses, trying to get two new campaigns up and running, new projects I've been working on, and various other crises in the lives of others in the group, I'm been bad about keeping up with things. I appreciate your patience and understanding. I'm dreadfully behind on game emails, and I'll try to get caught up on those.
Had a good evening yesterday-- Cat joined our normal Rock Band crew and we had a nice full house. The memorable moment for me will always be my brother Eric singing "Sex Machine" by James Brown. For other it may also be me singing "Pretty Fly for a White Guy". Will also coined a couple of new catchphrases, of which one- Kobold- I plan to use often. Nice session and just about wiped away the bad taste of having several people in the group rip away their faces away to reveal The Crazy recently.
Anyway, back to blogging-- beginning with a session write up for the Wushu campaign.
Wushu Session One
So we finally got started with the Wushu game and the first session which gave us a chance to see how the combat and action mechanics modifications actually worked in practice. After just two combats, I'm generally pretty hopeful. We'll have to see how it plays out over the course of several more fights, but I think it will work.
Right now the group is:
Wu-Long, Warrior (Kenny): Wu'Long also goes by the Taoist name 'Dancing Wind'. I see Wu'Long as a classic character to this genre. The young well trained warrior, with a variety of styles and weapons at his disposal. He has a trait that will be interesting, in that he believes that his life is being steered by the Heavenly Mandate of the many Gods. In effect he believes he is the hand of fate and watches the world for signs guiding his actions. We shall have to wait and see if this is a blessing or something more problematic. He is also a recognizable figure in some Wulin circles and is often confronted and challenged by others from opposing schools and clans. Much to their dismay, they shall find out for themselves that his Kung-Fu is strong.
Fei-Lang, Scholar (Scott): Sent to monastery at an early age to learn the scholarly arts, he was abducted by an evil Snow Queen and forced to serve her. Learning her icy sorceries, he was eventually able to make his escape, but the Snow Queen's minion's are always searching to get him back. This, combined with his upbringing in a secluded monastery, has caused him to develop an aversion to beautiful women.
Zhen Ai, Courtier (Sherri): Charitable and possessed of the sort of beauty that inspires love at first sight from all the wrong people, Zhen Ai is the perpetual tag-along to her other Gorgeous Cousins. If only they let her play too...
We also have a fourth character, Brandy's Alchemist (who I don't have a name written down for). She's a magical scholar as well, but of a very different kind than Fei-Lang. All four of them are cousins, children of a set of heroic brothers (and one sister) who helped fight for the Kingdom in the previous generation. Because of those connections and their own native skills, they have been appointed to the new post of magistrates for the Offices of the Provincial Inquiry. They spoke with General Jing Ping who formally assigned them to their posts. He also instructed them that they would be in charge of handling matters in the Province of Yanzhou, a delicate responsibility. Three other Magistrates would also be assigned to the province (the other PCs: Dusty, Gene and one other) who would meet them in the province. These magistrates would be traveling from time to time and meeting up with them as the opportunity or cases arose.
The group agreed to the responsibility and received further instruction. They would travel incognito to the province and head to the city of Rooted Serenity. The city governor there, Flawless Ning, is said to be a close ally of the Provincial Governor Qui Cheng. In fact he's often described as the Governor's man. In any case, Flawless Ning holds a small tournament of skill for youthful martial artists and scholars. The group would travel to Rooted Serenity, participate in the tournament and gain acclaim. Only after having established their reputation would they reveal themselves as incoming magistrates- a plan devised by the General to make sure that people take the new agents seriously.
However, in order to gain entry into the tournament, the players would have to travel to the town of Willow Repose, in the province of Geyuan, south of Yanzhou. There they would meet with Shenhua Fudoyan, a person of importance owing favors to the general. He would provide the proper papers to allow the players entry into the tournament. They agreed and set off, with one additional complication, in that their Alchemical cousin would have to wait behind a couple of additonal days in order to repair a particularly devastating accident she'd caused. She would catch up with them later.
The group traveled north, following the path of the Black River. Arriving in Willow's Repose, they began looking about for directions to the estate of their benefactor, Fudoyan. However they noticed some things while in Willow's Repose, the first being a certain laxity of enforcement on the part of the city magistrates. Open gambling, thugs lazing about on the streets and so on. They even had the sense of the watchmen perhaps looking them over to see if they could be exploitable persons, and thinking better of it. Fei-Lang also noted a couple of persons heading towards an inn, disguised to blend in, but bearing themselves as members of the wulin world.
Zhen-Ai assessed the situation and decided to seek out a senior member of the Beggar Clan, a society found throughout the Empire. After some hunting and the appropriate donations they made the acquaintance of Fulsome Dog. He told them of the waywardness of the town guards. Some of the thugs in town belong to a group run by Iron Monk Yan, a wushu master who had recently gathered a number of them together. Through payments, he'd clearly become a friend to the local officials and to the gambling houses. When asked about the strangers at the Inn, Fulsome Dog told the group that they had arrived a few days ago and seemed to be waiting for someone. After they had a good sense of the town, Zhen-Ai asked if Fulsome Dog and the Beggar Clan might be able to provide them with a guide. He agreed and summoned his own niece, Scampering Weeds who agreed to lead them to Master Fudoyan's estate just outside of town.
At the estate they found things in disorder-- or at least the general household tending now untended. They gained an audience with Master Fudoyan, who reluctantly agreed to tell them of his troubles. He clearly wished the aid of the party but could not openly say so. It seemed his son had fallen in with iron Monk Yan, wishing to become like him instead of following his father's path as a fruit merchant and distributor. His father had forbidden him from associating with the Iron Monk, but the son had disobeyed in an unfilial way. Then his son had recently returned, begging for forgiveness and saying that he would break with his bad ways, if only his father would sign a small letter of credit in order to cover his gambling debts. The father agreed and signed off. However, the next day Iron Monk Nan's men returned, showing the paper Master Fudoyan had signed-- which agreed gave away Master Fudoyan's daughter, Sun Petal to Iron Monk Nan in marriage. After some further questioning regarding the details, the group agreed to handle the matter so that Fudoyan could devote his attention and actually finish the paperwork they needed from him.
Back in town, they tracked down several of Iron Monk Nan's men, while Fei-Lang watched over the Inn in case the strangers turned out to be associated with the thugs. Using a spell, his drew their words to him and heard whispered talk about a master arriving that evening, a cart, and the transport of some valuable goods-- but nothing about the Iron Monk. Meanwhile Wu-Long confronted one of Iron Monk Nan's men in an alley. After questioning him by dangling him over a latrine, the thug provided information about the path to Nan's hideout through the woods and into the mountains. Wu-Long left the thug to soak in the outhouse.
Deciding that the strangers and their fruit transport cart were likely uninvolved the group traveled into the woods, finding the carefully left path markers. They noted that Nan had left no guard down here-- and began to fear that they'd been recalled for a wedding celebration! They hurried forward and eventually found Nan's fortress, an abandoned small military post on a cliffside. Using the power of Lightfoot and Fei-Lang's mastery of the air, they flew silently up over the walls. The realized that the location was only lightly guarded and spotted the likely place for the holding of Fudoyan's daughter-- however when they went to rescue her, she screamed, alerting the guards. Luckily Fei-Lang has taked the time to lay ice down on steps and in front of doorways. The half-dozen guards, rushing forward in the dim light fell down and were made short work of. Wu-Long questioned one and discovered that Iron Monk Nan and his men were elsewhere-- carrying out a raid-- on the strangers' caravan which Fei-Long had overheard details about!
Leaving Sun Petal in the care of Scampering Weeds, they flew through the woods and came upon a gruesome scene. Iron Monk Nan had begun with three dozen men, while the caravan guards had started with only a half dozen. The strangers' now number only two, with a ten times that number left to harry them. The group flew into the melee, taking wounds and cutting down bad guys left and right. Wu-Long struck with furious reach, Fei-Lang let loose with ice mastery and Zhen-Ai humiliated the Iron Monk by striking him across the face and painting his cheek with a rude ideogram. The tide turned and most of Iron Monk Nan's crew fell or fled. The Iron Monk, seeing his chance flew away, vowing revenge. W-Long grabbed up Master Fudoyan's son and destroyed the letter agreeing to the marriage.
In the aftermath, the two remaining stranger revealed themselves as wulin brothers, members of the Pilgrim's Ox Escort Bureau. The older man, Turbulent Stone, thanked them for their assistance and explained that they were transporting valuables hidden in fruit to Yanzhou. They'd made the purchase of fruit from Master Fudoyan's son, who had in turn tipped off Iron Monk Nan. The two groups discovered that they were heading to the same destination, Rooted Serenity, and decided to journey together. Turbulent Stone's sister, Dawning Rose, planned to take part in the tournament there as well. All returned to Master Fudoyan's estate where he greeted them warmly and gace them both hospitality and the letters necessary for entrance to the tournament.
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