Kapcon 21 - Part 1

My Kapcon started on Thursday this year, when we playtested Liam’s The Matter Involving the Missing Cats, an adventure for Cat-thulhu, where you play Arkham cats investigating the Mythos.  I reprised my role as Pops the (mostly) fearless maine coon, and we soon got to the bottom of the mysterious lights and missing cats, and managed an improbable victory of sorts.  I tried to provide some useful feedback, and Liam said the game ran well at Kapcon

I spent most of this Kapcon (5/6 rounds) running games, and these games either ran to time – or slightly over time, so it felt I had less time to talk to folks than in previous years, but it was good to catch up with some people at the drinks beforehand.

Round 1 was Games on Demand. This was my first ever time in the G.O.D room during a round, and I was impressed by the enthusiasm of those proposing games, and the range of games on offer. I elected to play Geiger Counter (although it was a close call over Monster of the Week) as I wanted to try this well regarded survival horror offering as part of my thinking about EPOCH. The game was admirably facilitated by Svend, and we somewhat randomly agreed to play Steampunk adventure in a South American Jungle, with an abandoned research station, ancient temple, and infectious Panther People.  It was very much like the opening chapter of The Passage, only with more Victorians:

This was a fun game, and I think the mechanics were very interesting. I liked the idea of a thought dump at the beginning, and was very impressed with the trailer mechanic, but I’m not sure that this, and the inclusion of useful ‘elements’ at different ‘locations’ is sufficient to create a rich or well developed plot when the players are trying to balance a mechanical consideration of their own characters survival against the fluctuating dice pool of the ‘monster’. The game had a rich set-up, but the twists and developments were executed on a much less ambitious scale, as the burden of balancing continuous creativity wore against mechanical considerations and general fatigue. Like many Indy games there is also a constant tension around getting universal buy-in for new ideas, as these will affect all the characters – so a group of like-minded individuals might furiously agree and have a great time, but a group of strangers are more likely to be tentative, and often accept ideas they don’t like for the sake of politeness, and have a less rewarding experience as a result.

For the record, my character, the cruise director of our giant zeppelin cruise ship, Athos Theopopolus, managed to keep things together until the very end, trying to keep the spirits of his Victorian cruise ship passengers high until he discovered the zeppelin had crashed in a freak storm, and the survivors were finally overrun by Panther People.

Round 2 was Sundown, my Western Call of Cthulhu game, and the third time I’d run it. This time I had decided to run a game with all 8 pre-generated characters, as I was fairly sure the simplicity of the scenes and relative dynamics between the group (there are 3 bad-ass loner types) would allow this increased cast.

On the day, one player didn’t show. I radioed for a replacement, but alas, none were forthcoming. The game was actually great – it delivered almost exactly the kind of experience I wanted. While reasonably limited and formulaic in structure (it is a Call of Cthulhu ‘con game), the players did a great job of bringing the characters to life, and ensuring their drama overshadowed, but did not obstruct, the main plot. I thought every player did a great job, and afterwards I was immediately keen to run the game again – which is usually a sign that the game has gone fairly well. 

To be continued...

Gearing Up

I haven’t had much to post about, as I didn’t actually do any gaming in December, and most of the things I post about come out of gaming experiences. But for the New Year I plan to run more Rogue Trader, finishing “Lure of the Expanse” and possibly doing the “Warpstorm Adventure Trilogy”. The epic Call of Cthulhu campaign for 2012 is looking to be “Beyond the Mountains of Madness” following the popular vote amongst players, probably using a cut down version of my pulp rules for a little extra character longevity on the ice.

Meanwhile Kapcon preparation is also on the agenda for this month – I’m running “Sundown” and the most recent Esoterrorist release “Love of Money” then finishing up with “Kapcon Summer Slam” – so it’ll be cowboys, spooks and wrestlers for me this year.  Kapcon needs more games, so if you've got some game, drop them a line and join the fun!

Finally – more interesting than you'd think– Luke talks about balls.

Into the West

As I’ve mentioned previously, I recently wrote Sundown, a Call of Cthulhu adventure set in the Old West, as my Fright Night offering, and to celebrate the 30the Anniversary of the Call of Cthulhu roleplaying game. This is now available, free to download, via Chaosium or RPGNow/DriveThruRPG.

As you will see from my previous post about the anatomy of Call of Cthulhu adventures, I haven’t managed to steer away from the pitfalls of this kind of old-school offering entirely, in some-part because of the constraints of this scenario as a ‘con offering - although I have tried to flag them, where applicable. Thanks to all the playtesters who made this a memorable game to run.

Feedback welcome.

Fright Night V

Okay, I’m interrupting my post on how I write ‘con games to detail my attendance at Fright Night 5, which happened this past weekend. But fear not solitary subscriber – I have included some detail about my creation of my ‘con scenario below which I will develop further in a subsequent post.

This was the fifth instalment of Fright Night, a one-night horror-con. I was facilitating Fright Night I, out of the country for Fright Nights II & III and posted about Fright Night IV here and here.

Round 1 – Miller’s Children
I signed up to play this game as the blurb sounded interesting, and Donna has often signed up to play in my games, and I thought it was high time to return the favour. I was given the character of Robbie to play, the oldest sibling, and something of a delinquent in a scenario which is very much 'Home Alone', with a magical twist.

I must give full credit to the other players. Ellen was a fantastic Carol - Robbie’s sister whose birthday was ruined. She was suitably annoying and particularly good at embarrassing Robbie. Stephanie did a great job with Krystal – Carol’s friend who had a little crush on Robbie, and constantly feuded with little Jamie (played by the effervescent Mike F.). Their feuding was totally hilarious and threatened to obscure the horror elements. Mike F. also deserves special credit for being disarmingly good at portraying a 7 year old and unexpectedly adding some sentimental sweetness to proceedings.

The scenario was good fun, we enjoyed the setup, although we may have caught Donna out with a few of our wackier ideas. The climax was a little frustrating for me, as I wasn’t in a position to really influence events, but it all ended well (in that we likely wound up in foster care). The scenario ran a little over two hours, so I decided to venture out for coffee and a little fresh air before launching into my game in the second round.

Round 2 – Sundown
This is the game I’ve been writing over the last few weeks. At this juncture I should point out that I decided to write this game as a Cthulhu adventure, which means it should to conform to a couple of conventions I’d probably not apply to a scenario for my own system:

1. There needs to be an investigative component. Cthulhu has always prided itself on offering the dual attractions of both appealing to problem-solvers and horror fans, potentially giving satisfaction on both levels.

2. There should be some reference to the Mythos – usually this is in the form of a Mythos entity encountered in the final scene of the adventure.

3. There should be a way of defeating said Mythos creature, or other villains, which transcends physical force.

4. There should be player handouts of some description.

Of course, you could throw all of these things out the window – but as I had decided to write this adventure as a scenario I’d like to publish, I decided that I’d try and incorporate these ideas to varying degrees, as well as using traditional pre-generated characters with a blurb, rather than employing my contemporary ideas about using framing scenes and objects to allow for greater player buy-in.

With this in mind I wrote up 8 pre-generated characters, folks from Tombstone who ride off in a posse to hunt a man that has committed a terrible murder. I put a bit of effort into creating come character tensions (with the obvious expectation that these may come to nothing if the players chose to ignore them) and then tried to tie as much of the scenario as I could into actual history and events of this era (another common element of Cthulhu scenarios). As this is a ‘con outing, it is actually a fairly traditional railroad – so I also created a couple of floating scenes to allow the players to choose to deviate from the expected path, and then hopefully choose to return to it.

The playtest went fairly well. The inter-character drama proved to be pitched at about the right level. The players seemed to enjoy the climax, and while some complained it seemed a little tough, I think it was an overall success. The playtest revealed several elements that I hadn’t paid enough attention to in the drafting, and I found that by refining these, the game looked a lot better. That said, I knew I couldn’t trust the playtest as these were players I run games for regularly, experienced Cthulhu players who knew the score and conceit of the genre and were willing to embrace it, as well as being fairly comfortable at playing together as a group.

On the night I was down to 4 players. Something I didn’t initially think would be a problem, but as I looked through the pre-generated characters I realised that I had linked them together more thoroughly than I had intended, and that the game would be so much richer if I could beg or borrow another couple of players. Fortunately Marcus was able to oblige me with Hannah and Ants, who were attired as zombie pirates! This was particularly fortuitous as I had arranged individual touch lights for illumination and the zombie make-up looked terrifying in the darkness, lit only dimly from beneath.

Just as we were about to start, Ants told me this was to be Hannah’s first ever tabletop roleplaying experience – and that I’d better not mess it up! Needless to say, I felt the pressure acutely (also, being threatened by a zombie pirate is scary stuff!).

The game went well. I think it was a richer and more dramatic run then the playtest (which is saying something as the playtest was pretty dramatic). The credit for this rests with the players who really embraced their roles. Bryn was fantastic as the bumbling doctor (blame the dice!) and put up with my comedic spotlighting with good humour, while Hannah did a great job as Marion, adding the memorable syphilis needles and ground-up turtle which I’ll definitely include in the published scenario. Scott, Mike and Ants really came through with their conflict, and even found a way to act heroically – which ultimately sealed their fate. I also really enjoyed the characterisation that Stephanie put into the School mistress, who she played almost exactly he way I had envisaged the character. I really enjoyed the game, and felt the story went almost exactly as I had hoped, and interestingly, mirrored the playtest almost exactly in structure and execution.

Now to write it up and get it published somewhere.

For further Fright night coverage see Luke's post here, Mash's post here, or Marcus' post here.

Fright Night IV - Part 2

Fright Night playtests and gaming continued:

(Spoiler Warning) Mash ran The Hand That Feeds, a western game with supernatural elements, featuring a cast of werewolves and demons. I was cast as Clem, a ruthless bandit, accompanied by my do-gooder brother played by Paul in the playtest as a Puritan. I was taken aback when the first encounter of the game revealed the town to be unbelievably wholesome (or so it appeared) and faced the hard choice of continuing to hunt the demon, or just try and sucker folks out of as much money as possible. Mash’s character questionnaire, complete with a snip and swap section was neat, although I think that the ambition had outpaced the mechanics as several players seemed confused by what they had received at the end (I had no such problem). I totally support the idea, and have a similar thing envisaged for EPOCH, but I’m not convinced I want to start the game with the players filling in paperwork.

Given the fairly moral nature of our party I was expecting to cause some waves by playing Clem as a real bandit, so to not ruffle too many feathers I went out of my way to try and have him be less ruthless than he might have been (his interrogation of hapless townsfolk was positively genteel by Hollywood western standards). Nevertheless I fell afoul of the party morals after Clem shot a woman (in the leg) who had previously been possessed by the demon. No one would listen to Clem’s assertions she was still possessed (the players had read between the lines of the GM’s description) so I was immensely satisfied when Clem turned out to be right, at which point Clem went his own way. Predictably the other character’s strategy of trying to talk people into doing what they wanted fell through and Clem did the inevitable and used the rather suspect dynamite listed on his character sheet, which regrettably killed most of the party. The game ended with a great final scene with Clem and a small child he had ‘rescued’ leaving the decimated town accompanied by Clem’s brother who was (unknown to us) now possessed by the demon.

It was a fun game, but I could see that Mash was really wanting to explore some dark themes, and to do so with characters who were deeply conflicted. An ambitious undertaking, but potentially a very rewarding exercise if you can pull it off. Again most of the suggestions made were around some of the details, rather than anything central to the plot or ideas.

(Spoiler Warning) In round two of Fright Night I played in Scott’s LARP All Saints’ Eve. I had been cast as Kurt Carter, a wealthy control freak who had recently lost his wife to cancer, and whose daughter had been abducted not long before. On top of that he had brought a gun to a Halloween party. My take was that Kurt was a man on the edge, a tragic figure who sees his life falling apart before his eyes, but is too weak and selfish to do anything to really stop it, and hides his pain and helplessness behind an obsessive need for order and coldness toward the world. Ants played Kurt’s son Jeremy, an 11 year old pyromancer who obeyed his father while under scrutiny but rebelled as soon as he was away from him. Jenni played his friend-from-the-streets, Arial, who Kurt didn't approve of. Clearly Kurt was going to be put into a tough emotional position, and I suspected that he would be expected to lead the action at some point.

The party started badly for Kurt, as we were trapped in a room without external communication. The control-freak was suddenly deprived of control. The unfortunate target of Kurt’s displeasure was Mandy the maid (played by Donna) who really took the brunt of Kurt’s self loathing passive aggression through the night. Largely this was compounded by her raising the matter of Kurt’s missing daughter early on while touching Jeremy. As it turned out, she was a bad egg, although Kurt was acting out of prejudice rather than any serious evidence.

Mandy wasn’t the only one to feel Kurt’s cold wrath, and Jeremy and Arial got a fair bit, with Kurt eventually alienating his son to the point he was ready to run away. Only the elder Cunningham (played by Jackie) really bothered to try and see through Kurt’s quiet aggression, and ultimately she was the only one who stood up to him, and forced him to back down (despite others having the ability to kill him with various powers).

The game ended rapidly after a really slow build up. Kurt, goaded by ghosts, convinced Jeremy to pretend he was having a fit as a distraction, so that he could question Mandy at gunpoint away from the others. From there, things accelerated until there was the discovery of the body of Kurt’s daughter (really creepy) and a knife point stand off as Kurt confronted Mandy, Jeremy was threatened and Arial moved to defend him. Finally Will, played by Glenn saved the day, and freed us.

It was a tough, draining and fairly unpleasant experience being Kurt. Toward the end I had to disengage somewhat, because I just didn’t want to go too far into Kurt’s grief. As we wrapped up I felt pretty bad about how mean I had been to the others, but I did find it to be a memorable and compelling outing.