Four Campaigns I’d Like to Run

We’ve been playing a lot of EPOCH recently, which has been terrific fun, but too much single-session madness can sometimes set you hankering for the meaty substance of a longer campaign.  There are many games on my shelf that I’ve been looking at wistfully – planning to run one day when time permits.  Here’s my shortlist:

 

1. Call of Cthulhu 7^th ed.: Horror on the Orient Express

A Chaosium classic, I played through parts of this campaign and ran parts of this campaign years later, but I’ve yet to give it a thorough and solid run.  An evocative campaign with many classic horror moments, I plan to run this campaign with 7^th edition next year, when both that kickstarter and the new Orient Express Kickstarter are delivered.  I’m particularly interested in seeing how the writers have addressed some of the more ‘clunky’ elements of this campaign, and what material they’ve added to the new prequel scenarios.

 

2. Rogue Trader: The Warpstorm Trilogy

After running Lure of the Expanse I had a hankering for another, longer Rogue Trader campaign.  The Warpstorm Trilogy remains high on my ‘to be run’ shelf, although I am a little concerned about how many Rogue Trader books have been published since we finished Lure of the Expanse, and what new or extended rules might now exist, and have to be ferreted out, deciphered and interpreted.  As always with Rogue Trader, the amount of preparation needed to stay ahead of the curve seems fairly high, as each sub-element of the game has different rules and tables.

 

3. WFRP 3^rd Edition: The Enemy Within

This version of the game has vexed me for some time.  I really like the idea of this game, and some of the elements of the latest edition of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay seem really neat.  My initial playtest of this edition was not a great success, but that probably had something to do with just how many choices are involved in character creation.  I’d love to give it another try and this campaign seems like a good option.  I ran the original Enemy Within Campaign, and this product seems to have little resemblance to that, but I still think it will offer an entertaining and accessible epic fantasy campaign, if only we can get through character creation.

 

4. Mutants and Masterminds 3^rd Edition

Epic Villains and Vigilantes campaigns were an important part of my formative gaming years.  Ever since I’ve thought it would be great to have an ongoing supers campaign with a decent amount of crunch.  My recent supers campaigns have had a much more narrative style – and while these have been great, I’d really like to run a game which used a more detailed system, and have players that were engaged with their characters on that level.  I think it would add a deeper level to the important narrative aspects.  M&M 3rd Edition seems like it might offer an interesting entry to this style of campaign.

You Got Game?

It must be 'con season, beacuse there are a lot of really interesting posts around the place about writing 'con games. I particularly enjoyed Jacinta's post about the kind of people you might encounter in your 'con game. This is of particular interest to me because I'm working on some advice about overcoming some of the more common player-initiated problems that can cause games to de-rail. I've also been interested to follow Luke's progress on preparing his own 'con game 'Tears of Vykyris', particularly the idea that he will use 3 images instead of a traditional text blurb. Then there's DrBunnyHops who is detailing her thoughts about 'White Rabbit' a game which mixes sci-fi and parenting which obviously struck a chord with the punters, as all 9 player slots filled up in record time.



I'm about to pick up the pen and have a shot at writing my offering for Fright Night, which I also plan on running at Kapcon. I thought I'd try and detail my own thoughts about this process - albeit in a general rather than specific sense (I'd hate to spoil anything for potential players).

For me 'con games are about memorable scenes. Scenes where the players are fully engaged, living in the skin of their characters, confronted by challenges, with sufficient ownership to actually feel the ramifications of their decisions and interactions. My job (as GM or writer) is to secure that ownership, create the context, and then frame the challenge. Finally I need to be able to troubleshoot, tweak, extend, sharpen or otherwise tailor the scenario as it plays out, so that it delivers the desired experience.

So when I think about the game, I ask what kind of scenes are these? I don't mean specifically what scenes - unless I want to force a railroad I won't get to actually script a complete scene where meaningful encounters occur. That's the realm of directors and authors - but I can get a sense of the kind of events that might lead up to these scenes, the backdrop if you will. However, I also know that no matter how impressive my backdrop (players are never going to be impressed with settings for very long), the real action has to be played out by the characters, so along with a general idea of the scenes I want, I need to think about the protagonsists - the characters - their motivations, ambitions and circumstances.

As an example: in one of my Council of Champion's games there was an extremely memorable scene was aboard a transport plane en route to a lighter-than-air weapons platform controlled by a villain. But that wasn't important. What was important was that the 8-year-old son of two of the heroes had just picked up a firearm (borrowed from a gun-slinging hero) and this caused a massive confrontation between the parents about the kind of life their son should have. It was epic, and went to the heart of the real story - not the villains - but the way that heroes balance real concerns with their dangerous jobs. The responsibility of the team to be role models. The ethics of having a child in a dangerous situation. The very nature of being a superhero in a team with others. I couldn't have scripted that scene, and I couldn't have imagined that it would take place in the belly of a transport aircraft which was entirely unimportant to the plot. But I could decide that the role of the child in the team could be a major catalyst for action. I could shape the characters to be in conflict, and exacerbate this by involving more of the team than just the parents. I could script a plot where the characters were put under relentless pressure, and be ready for it to errupt. The players did the rest.


So, now I have a general idea about some of the scenes, and the characters who want to fill them, I need to do the hard yards. I need to get the characters into a position they can deliver the drama. Characters aren't ready to go from minute one - there's no context - their actions lack meaning. I need to let the characters develop - shape themselves - explore their repsonses and develop a group dynamic. To do this they need details, small challenges, tests, encounters where they can establish these traits. The more of these details I can bring, the more the players have become immersed in their characters, and immersed in the setting. We need a lot of detail, but we only need to apply it when necessary. Colours, smells, metaphors, lot's of descriptive elements and NPC's, people to help the players moderate their characters - benchmark their behaviour.

Next I need to think about how the scenes are going to play out. Players can spend hours just hanging out - but I don't have that kind of time. I've got 3 hours. If I'm running any kind of action, that's going to take time - I need a lot of detail. Each player needs an explicit opportunity to act, probably several, and I need to keep a track of their actions, reinforced through recap and narration, so I need to factor that in. Introduction scenes also take a lot of time - especially if you're encouraging the players to add their own descriptive elements. A first scene of a game often runs for a full hour after all the introductions/setting/rules stuff has been done. So I need to decide the key scenes are. how will the game end? Is it a climax? In which case, what are the scenes that will lead up to that climax? How will I communicate the ascending importance of these scenes? How much ability for I want to allow the players to improvise, or create their own scenes? What about small scenes - travelling, or just passing time. Players need space to breathe and characters need an opportunity to interact with each other.

Now I should have a skeleton. An outline of the scenario I'd like to run/write along with an idea of some of the characters and details that will populate it.

To be continued...

The Evolution of Superheroes

I’ve been a little quiet here of late, mostly due to venting my thoughts about gaming on Australian roleplaying boards in the great “system vs systemless ‘con game debate” that I seem to become enmeshed in annually. I’m not sure there’s much point in posting here about it, as I doubt folks reading this blog will care overly much about the issue.

Instead, I thought I’d document my process of setting up Reverie, a Superhero game I’ve now run a few sessions of, as an example of my current thinking about campaigns.

By way of introduction, I’ve been running superhero games on and off for a while now, but usually as short run games. My Council of Champions ‘con outings have been a lot of fun over the years – I designed a cast of powerful, famous, established superheroes with fairly complex relationships, and then let each group tackle the villanous challenge in their own ways, in as much of a sandbox style as possible. At the time these games represented what I thought were the best element of ‘con gaming. The ability to play complex characters, each with sufficient drama (incorporating both comedy and tragedy) to provide a satisfying interactions with the other PC’s and goals to drive them, as well as a powerful array of superpowers and the opportunity to devise unique and individual solutions to each challenge the game threw up.

Nowadays I see this style of character establishment as overly detailed and prescriptive – too brittle to be fit for purpose in a ‘con environment where I want to achieve 100% player activation. There is a danger the players feel they are being dictated to, and don’t ‘buy in’ sufficiently into the game space, or feel overwhelmed or confused by the complexity of the back-story. But, it was a useful exploration, and probably rates as the most consistently successful series of ‘con games I’ve run.

Next I ran ‘Potential’ a 3 part mini-series featuring a group of troubled youths who are experimented on whilst in juvenile detention, and develop superpowers. There were a lot of elements I was fairly proud of in this game, but it reinforced to me that a good origins story, which reveals meaning and purpose to seemingly random things like the development of superpowers, can really add to the depth of a game. I also borrowed an idea from Morgue, surveying the players about the kind of powers they wanted their characters to develop – without being specific – so I could reveal the powers during game-play. Ultimately, however, the anchors holding the group together were probably not sufficient to hold together the diverse and socially troubled kids the players developed meaning the 3 session limit was probably necessary without overly contriving the setup.

Then, in Australia I ran a year-long supers campaign ‘Mayhem’ using the M&M Paragons setup, with a lot of my own material. Again I surveyed for powers, but I also gave the players a second survey about the style of game they wanted to play, the level of system crunch, and a list of elements which they rated as either liking or disliking (robots, aliens, time-travel, realism etc.) This time I also designed a cohesive element to bind the players together more thoroughly, tied to the plot.

While this did prove more successful in providing a basis for the group to work together, the players (who did not really know each other before the game) designed characters whose individual plot interests often superseded the group action, meaning the characters frequently split, and gameplay suffered some pacing issues as I tried to juggle equal screen-time, and cater to individual stories. The crunch level of the system also proved challenging over a longer span game, as some players strongly engaged with the system, while others actively disliked it. I also tried casting a player as a supervillain – the idea was that the player wouldn’t go to most games but would be kept appraised of key plot elements remotely, send me what they wanted their character to do in response, and show up to key sessions for epic battles as appropriate. In practise however, the style of the game was a lot less over-the-top than I’d envisaged, and the supervillain player ended up playing most sessions, adding to the diversity of the game, but also adding to the load of individual scenes.

After Kapcon this year, and the enjoyable experience of running the 4th instalment of my Council of Champions game I thought I’d give it another shot. With Reverie I sent the two surveys I’d used previously (with some editing) and included a third to establish some basic character details which I’d use to include the initial plot.

As with Mayhem I wanted to create a sandbox experience, so the characters could choose almost any course of action, and be ready to plug an appropriate scene or encounter. But I also used the origins story to bring the group together in a way that would lead them to work together. Fortunately, this group was much more willing to embrace the group dynamic, probably due to their fairly extensive roleplaying experience. The group has also really engaged with making the characters their own – adding detail and even creating fictional Facebook accounts to interact outside the game space. I feel very privileged to have players willing to make that effort.

I've ditched M&M in favour of BASH Ultimate Edition - BASH does a good job of providing a simplified superhero system, but the math stemming from combat is still undersirable - it's probably on a par with the Difficult Check damage calculation in M&M, but I'd still like an even better fit...

In Reverie the origins story forms a major part of the plot, and I’ve tried to create something complex enough that the players will be interested to investigate and speculate about, but hopefully not so convoluted they give up (it’s a delicate balance). To do this I’ve used elements of the players own creation, balanced against a range of day-to-day concerns for the characters, and sufficient immediate danger to spur super-heroics. Because of the skill of the players, this is often more like conducting the game, than facilitating it – each instrument knows its part and adds to the overall harmony seamlessly.

What remains to be seen is how the game will evolve, because ultimately, once the detail of the origins story is laid bare, the players will need to take a more active ownership of the game. I only hope the second phase will be as enjoyable as the first phase has been.

Christchurch Red Cross Earthquake Relief - RPG Bundle

Thanks to the efforts of Matt at RPGNow, Morgue, and others you can now buy a bundle of RPG products for US$20 to support the Red Cross earthquake relief effort in Christchurch. A number of NZ writers have contributed their products for this worthy cause - please buy this bundle and add your support.

Kapcon 20 - Part 2

Because I have a bit to say about the LARP, I think I’ll leave that to the next post. So, continuing my Kapcon adventures on Sunday:

Round 4
I was running ‘The Thursday Crisis’ the fourth instalment of my ‘Council of Champions’ superhero games. This series is one of my all-time favourite things to run, and I knew that I had 3 strong players (Norm, Jenni and Nick) to reprise their respective roles from previous adventures, so I was confident that it would be a lot of fun. However, round 4 can be difficult. Many people are sleepy or tired from the LARP, and my third instalment of the series hadn’t been a smash-hit (I call it my ‘Batman and Robin’ installment) so there was a little anxiety. I also hadn’t had quite enough time to prep, so I had to swap out systems at the last minute and re-use old character sheets (as the LARP ate my last ream of paper). To cap matters off one player was sick, but I wasn’t told that until I went looking for them at the admin desk.

I needn’t have worried. I ‘borrowed’ Nasia from the desk to make up the numbers and got my players jumping around (literally) before hitting them with a Jerry Springer style talk show opening. It was great fun, and had me in fits of laughter as per usual, and was the highlight of the ’con for me (outside the LARP). All the players did a terrific job, and I really felt that the game brought it – for everyone. Oddly, when this series of games go well the players applaud at the end (it happened when I ran the first instalment in Canberra last year as well) so you know that people had a good time. Awesome fun

Round 5
Due to a scheduling error not only did I not get my first or second round choices, I wasn’t allocated to any game for round 5. It turned out I wasn’t the only one, and so I took the opportunity to jump into the game I would have signed up for in round 1 if I wasn’t otherwise busy, Purgatory 13 – Descent to Abraxus. I’ve co-Gm’ed with Zak before and I know how he rolls, so I was fairly sure it’d be a good time. I also managed to form a posse with some other good folks with mad skillz to come and join the fun; Sophie, Luke and Morgue.

Three words sum up this game: Old School Mayhem.

The GM’s challenged us at the beginning. They had killed 44 PC’s and were aiming to achieve 100 kills for the ‘con. Then they made me a team captain. Awesome. I picked an elite squad and we got down to business. It took a while for my first character to die, as I really played up her humility trait, but after that it was time to buckle up and enjoy the ride. There were so many insane, and memorable moments – The soccer hooligans, the cannibals, Danny my nailgun killer, having lots of characters get shot in the head by Sophie’s characters with the same gun. It was a great time and it really helped blow the cobwebs out.

I burnt through a lot of characters, trying to put a unique spin on each where possible (it wasn’t always possible) but still, the character sheets flowed. After we were done, and the dust had settled, we’d accounted for a total of 81 character deaths (Danny took out 10 all by himself until Zak dropped a lift on him) giving them a total of 125 character deaths for the ‘con. It was like a roller coaster ride, and if I’d had the energy, I’d have gone again!

Round 6
After that, I was pretty tapped for energy, but I managed to get down and help with the LARP pack-up. Once again, big thanks are due to the folks who helped out. That wiped me out and after a few last snatched conversations, I headed home, satisfied that Kapcon had delivered another great instalment.

What do we get?

This post has been a while coming. Not because it’s especially profound, but because writing jobs for the Kapcon 20 LARP have been eating my time (in a good way).

Today’s subject is campaigns. It’s been something I’ve been musing for a while now – the difference between the one-off or short run games versus the longer term campaign. Part of what made me want to consider this was this topic on the Canberra Roleplaying Meet-Up boards. Partially it was because my long-running D&D campaign GM said to me the other day that his entire aim in running a campaign; all he wanted – was to create enough mystery and interest in his players that they came back for more. Particular session-to-session enjoyment was not the driving consideration. Partially it was this very flattering post by Mash where I’m referred to as ‘the GMing Stig’ which is exactly the kind of thing that’ll make me entirely insufferable. And finally, it was because I’ve really been enjoying my Kingsport Call of Cthulhu campaign, which is now going on one year old.

So, my question out of this jumble of thoughts is; what do we, the GM’s want to get out of a campaign?

I think we can all agree that campaigns are a huge investment of time and energy, and that like all relationships they have their ups and downs. Sometimes the downs are so severe that we just want to quit. In the WFRP campaign that Mash recollects with such kindness, I suspended the game for almost a month and came very close to calling it off. Why? Because the game that I wanted to run wasn't the game that the players wanted to play. They didn’t want to have their characters snared by the (often fairly woeful) plot hooks set up by the Paths of the Damned campaign. They wanted to adventure in the Old World, and they wanted the story to come to them. If they were to investigate leads, they wanted some compelling reasons – in character – to do so. I had never had players refuse to investigate a plot before, and I felt that the rug had been pulled out from under me.

Ultimately I decided that my WFRP players were right, and I was wrong. The story should come to them. They should have compelling reasons to act, and if this wasn't within the scope of the scenario then it was down to me to create and introduce these elements. This provided me with ample opportunity to level in-game consequences and trials to really develop the character beyond the mere scope of the scenario. When I did that, I found that the more we learned about these characters, the more complex and real they were, the richer they became, and the more meaningful the action was when it came.

It may sound straightforward, but it was a watershed moment for me. And it works well in every setting I’ve tried it. I used the same technique to run an 18 month Mutants and Masterminds campaign in Canberra, and it’s the same technique I’m using for my Kingsport Tales campaign. One year on in Kingsport we know that Professor Bishop is so timid that he’d rather sleep outside on a park bench, than risk a confrontation with his landlady for coming home after hours. We know that Dr. Holden will allow himself be set up on dates with women in which he has no interest, to keep up appearances and not excite the Kingsport grapevine. We know that Karl the fisherman is so haunted by his escape from Innsmouth that he sold his fishing boat and lives in a filthy squat. And we know a whole lot more besides…

So, back to the question – what do we GM’s want to get out of a campaign? I’m not sure I’m satisfied with just eliciting a sense of mystery and trying to lure the players back to find out more. I’m not sure that simply allowing players to explore my game-world, and marvel at it’s complexity is enough either. I’m not even sure that telling stories, solving mysteries and completing scenarios cuts it any more either. I want more*. I want to actually share a story with my players. I want them to own it, and I’m willing to let them shape events and have enough control to do that justice, because I know the story will be so much stronger, so much richer, if we have collaborated to tell compelling tales about characters we all care about.

*Intended more as a general statement of intent, or manifesto, rather than a literal plea for more.

Confusion 8

So this Saturday past I attended Confusion 8 a relaxed one day roleplaying ‘con. For various reasons I had offered to run 2 games, which I initially had cause to regret. First, I somehow managed to get sick on Friday night; I had a fever and only managed a handful of sleep hours. Also, the weather on Saturday morning was not exactly hospitable. Just to top things off I was having a lot of trouble getting my head around Castle Bravo, and felt woefully unprepared for it.

However, I had pledged to run games and take Fright Night registrations, and was still capable of functioning, albeit with diminished capacity, so I braved the rain and headed to the ‘con for the first round where I was to run Mutants and Masterminds.

Round One – Running the Proteus Plot
This is a fairly straightforward published scenario with a neat twist. To keep things interesting I had made some additions to put a lot of focus on the characters, which are created using templates and some randomly assigned elements, then fleshed out a little using some light collaborative method. It’s a bit challenging because I really ask each player to work with me and flesh out some initial scenes, requiring some up-front engagement and creativity - A big ask first thing in the morning.

As it happened, I had the maximum load of 6 players sign up for the game, which wasn’t ideal for this style of game and in light of my diminished capacity. On the plus side they were all talented and experienced players with love for the genre. On the downside, the collaborative hero creation process was a little rocky for some, but I did find that we got a cast of really great characters who really added more interest and depth to a simple plot. The Supers created included:
- The Spirit of Justice, a billionaire body-builder with a troubled marriage
- The Crown Prince, an elderly dad with a utility belt of 1980's gadgets
- Rain, a wealthy party girl turned dark avenger with a predilection for gun violence
- Crisis, a time travelling bad-ass loner with electricity powers and a stray cat
- Edge, a psychic investigator with a crummy day job and a rocket powered skateboard
- Beast/Simon, a man and monster fused together with a helping of anger issues

It was, for me, the fun romp that I had envisaged and I think every player got some decent spotlight time, and had a measure of fun. I don’t know if it hit everyone’s buttons, as there wasn’t a huge amount of investigation, combat, relationships or grand ideas, which I know some people really dig. I was fading a little toward the end, so was not really able to push for an epic cinematic ending of the type I think supers ‘con outings deserve, but all things considered, it was a fun game for me.

Round Two – Playing Apocalypse World
I missed out on the signup having chatted to people, then trying to take more notes for Castle Bravo while I ate lunch, so I arrived in Apocalypse World by default. On the plus side Mike (the GM) was really enthusiastic about the game and setting, and there a number experienced veteran players at the table who I enjoy gaming with.

I was nominated to be the Hard Holder, which was the gang leader in a Mad Max (2) style world. Accordingly I modeled my character, Calibre, after Lord Humungus, and took a fairly brutal approach to gang management theory. Unfortunately the dice betrayed me at several crucial moments, my captive escaped, some of my bodyguards tried to kill me, my ruse to uncover traitors failed and during an epic battle my gang turned on me and handed me over to the enemy gang and I was seriously injured (okay I can actually only blame one of those on the dice).

Thus, Calibre spent the later stages of the game confined to a hospital bed, being tended and often sedated by our ‘Angel’ or medic when she disagreed with my ideas. In all fairness, the real roleplaying hammer fell on Mash’s character Spice, who was the hottest guy in our gang, and also the unlikely vehicle of our salvation from a more monstrous foe.

It was a really fun game, despite my characters incapacitation, and I must give kudos to Mike for a great setup and execution while also allowing us an effective ‘sandbox’ approach to the game. The only real downside was that one of our number played a character that was really very creepy, even by Mad Max standards and was effectively ostracized by our characters, effectively cutting him out of the main action. I felt even worse when my character executed his character at the end for a perceived assassination attempt.

Also, my Calibre voice, really tore up my throat in a way that left me concerned about whether I’d be able to last out Castle Bravo.

Round Three – Running Castle Bravo
As I have alluded to, I was concerned about making sure I understood this scenario adequately. It is written as a series of increasingly bizarre events leading to an epic crisis point. This is set against nuclear tests at Bikini Atoll during the 1950’s. It was also my first experience at running Trail of Cthulhu (although I had previously run other GUMSHOE games). I had a full house again (6 players) which again, was not really ideal for the mood and pacing of the scenario – but them’s the breaks in the big show.

It was also the last slot of the ‘con, and a late one at that. We kicked off close to 6pm and I could see many of the players were wilting fast.

Overall, it went surprisingly well from my perspective (perhaps because I had so much anxiety about the detail). I think I managed to convey the creepy and bizarre against a backdrop of ever more dire circumstances. Most of my efforts were centered around the major NPC, which worked out fairly well. Despite their tiredness the players all engaged with the elements well, and worked with me to really push things along - particular kudos to Henry one of the few unfamiliar faces at the table who engaged really well with the plot and his PC.

On the downside, because this is a ‘purist’ scenario the players are left without the real opportunity for ‘victory’ and really have to settle for a much less decisive outcome. Also some of the more important information that is imparted to the players at the beginning didn’t really come out until the end, which meant I had to push things along in a more direct way than I’d prefer. Whether or not it’s reasonable to expect the PC’s to dump this info in a single scene, as envisaged by the scenario, is perhaps more of a question. Also providing some real detail and ambiance to the setting of the aircraft carrier was something I don’t think I really executed well.

In either event we made it without anyone falling asleep, or me losing my voice entirely, so I’ll call it a win.

Be Prepared

Last night I ran the first part of the Raid on Innsmouth. It’s a scenario for which I have some fondness, having run it several times more than a decade ago, but as I geared up to run it again, I wondered just how much attention I had paid to the scenario the first time around.

It’s a neat outing. There are six objectives, each a unique scenario with a series of ‘supporting characters’ and for each objective there are three parts. You switch frequently between each objective, as the actions of the raiders in other parts may change the circumstances of current objectives.

I like the idea, and the ability for one set of characters to take actions that impact on other sets of characters. But it’s pretty hard work. To compound the problem each of the 6 objectives has 6 pre-generated characters which can be used by the players. Again it’s a nice idea in concept; a player should be able to play several different marines, a sailor, a submariner and a treasury agent, in addition to their own character who is acting as a civilian advisor. Unfortunately the book does not make this simple, by printing the character sheets and info in a way that could just be copied and distributed. Instead they put the character information into the text, omitting base skills and often lapping over pages, making any quick attempt to copy and distribute characters impossible. So, it took me many hours to prepare the 36 pre-generated characters. This necessarily ate into the time I would normally spend preparing the actual scenario.

Then the actual game itself was pretty challenging. Run as written it’s fairly mechanical for a Cthulhu scenario with a lot more gunplay than an ordinary outing, which necessarily bogs things down a bit. On top of that there are a range of special weapons and equipment, and several NPC’s I need to keep animated, while also running the combat. I also found suddenly switching to a new group of characters to be a difficult process, and not especially smooth.

Thus far we have only managed to play 1 part of 3 objectives in about 3 hours, but I am reasonably sure that things will speed up as we go on. I guess I’d conclude by saying that the Raid on Innsmouth is an unrepentantly old-school Cthulhu outing, which really puts a Keeper through the wringer if run as written.

While I’m on game-prep, I really need to spend some more time making sure I’m ready for The Proteus Plot and Castle Bravo which I’d like to run at Confusion tomorrow, assuming I can actually find enough players.