Pages: 92 total (75 pages of scenario text, 4 pages of handouts).
Runtime: 9 sessions taking 3 hours each session. Chapters 1, 2, 3, and 5 took two sessions each; chapter 4 took one session.
Campaign is 5 chapters, each chapter is a scenario.
This is the first campaign for Vaesen. It was originally a podcast of actual play and converted into a campaign. I listened to 3 episodes of the podcast and I felt it was ok (this was a 3 part prologue and became the first chapter of a 5 chapter campaign), there was too much anachronistic side chatter that I didn't like, so I stopped listening to it. I did note that the podcast was slightly different from the published campaign in minor details.
Since the campaign was based on the core book, there were no new Vaesen in the campaign. A number of published scenarios included new Vaesen. This campaign does highlight and bring in various bits of Swedish culture that is missing from the core book such as Fika and Valborg. Mining is a big industry too.
Overall, the various chapters has a tenuous throughline. Chapters 1, 3, and 4 can easily be played as standalone scenarios, chapters 2 and 5 less so.
I think the overall impression of the campaign is that it's ok, but not the big blockbuster campaign people were expecting. There's also some implications about a key element of the campaign that may have major repercussions to Vaesen lore, so inserting this campaign into your world may change some things irrevocably and also some of the chapters may have a chance of TPK. I'll discuss these things in the spoiler section.
=== SPOILER SECTION START ===
The Green Stones
One of my main concerns is that this campaign introduces a green stone that is the solidified blood of giants. One of the properties of this stone is that it absorbs Vaesen magic and attracts Vaesen to it. Once it absorbs the magic, the magic can be accessed. This is a major magical item and it's not guaranteed that these stones will be destroyed by the end of the campaign.
I decided to call this green stone Magnussonite as there's no official name for it.
In chapter 2, we learn that miners working for Svea Mining Corp were deemed insane and were taken to Upsala Asylum for treatment, but in reality, they were seeing Vaesen. It's not clear what gave the miners the Sight, if it's exposure to Magnussonite dust or that Magnussonite attracts Vaesen like moths to a flame and that increases the chance of a miner to suddenly notice Vaesen. One of the PCs visited the Asylum and saw the insane miners acting out, swatting at Vaesen, running away from them, attacking them. The PC instantly understood that the miners looked insane, but were just reacting to the Vaesen normal people didn't see. In my game, the PCs convinced Sigrid that the miners weren't insane. Sigrid has the Sight. And it was easy to show her that the miners weren't insane, but had the Sight.
In chapter 3, the PCs killed the Lady of Cold, a frost giantess. Her body shatters like stone and her heart becomes a giant green stone. I made it the size of a large steamer trunk and weigh several hundred pounds. The PCs sold it to Svea as they needed to pay off back taxes for Castle Gyllencreutz. In my game, Linnea Elfeklint has been in the Asylum for at least a decade and no one has paid the property taxes on the rundown castle. Once the PCs started to cleanup the property and upgrade it, the authorities noticed this and sent tax collectors. A number of Players used Resources as a dump score (yeah, a number of Players like to min/max), so nobody could afford the back taxes. Property tax is called fastighetsbevillning. Castle Gyllencreutz is a fairly large estate. Selling the heart also got them an invite to the Abisko Mine in chapter 5.
In chapter 5, I had to do more heavy lifting to make sense of the elements presented. The lab with the shelves of dead Vaesen had shock value, but didn't make sense. How do you kill so many Vaesen? How do you collect so many? So, I decided inside the mine was a Vaesen trap. Spiked iron cages (very medieval) held Magnussonite. Vaesen get attracted to it and when they touch it, it drains their power and powers up the stones. The weakened Vaesen are then killed. What prevents the Vaesen from running away with the stones? The stones are held in place with iron prongs much like what holds diamonds onto a ring. Who kills the Vaesen? The miners with the Sight who were at the Upsala Asylum were given a new job at the mine. To keep to the scenario where Sigrid enters the mine to get the Vaesen bomb, I decided there's a Magnussonite repository / vault in a played-out part of the mine. The Vaesen trap is there too. Inside the vault is the giant heart that was purchased from the PCs, it is still unpowered. It sits on a wheeled cart. When they tried to wheel out the heart, I had Lisa's Revenant attack, in an effort to keep the stones where they belong. The PCs used the heart to defeat the Revenant, knocking her onto the stone several times, and finally defeating it, but at the same time charging up the giant heart, making it pulse with Vaesen power. Sigrid had a detonator filled with Magussonite and told the other PCs to flee before she sets the heart off. Two PCs didn't trust her and watched as she got possessed by the Revenant and started to open up the gate for the ginormous giant (see campaign book cover). After a fight, the PCs forced the detonator onto the heart and set off the Vaesen-nuke.
I didn't like that Sigrid had murdered Karl, so I left that out of the scenario. I decided that Karl would hire investigators to look into the PCs and their involvement with Sigrid's disappearance.
There's also supposed to be some early warning system as Svea didn't want another repeat of the Abisko Mine Disaster. I decided it's some sort of non-modern air horn, Gjallarhorn. The miners have been drilled to leave the area orderly and quickly when it's sounded. Sigrid set it off as soon as they got near ground level with the heart. This emptied out the mining area and reduced the number of casualties due to the Vaesen-nuke.
I also explained Sigrid's aging as the magic that kept her youthful was being continuously drained by the Magnussonite.
In my game, only one piece of Magnussonite survived. It was one of the two that Franzibald Hansen had. The PCs are currently using it to negate the Gloson curse placed on one of the PCs. That PC was turned into a Gloson piglet. The Magnussonite causes the curse to cycle, draining the curse until it's powered up, then as the stone leaks power and becomes ready to drain the curse again, the curse reasserts and changes the PC into a Gloson piglet again.
Potential TPKs
Chapters 3, 4, and 5 have a chance of killing PCs and a possible TPK. In chapter 3, the frost giantess broke 2 of the 4 PCs. One PC was able to distract the giant and dodge multiple attacks as the 4th PC actually took down the giant. It was pretty close to a TPK. If the 3rd PC failed a single dodge, it would have been a TPK. In chapter 4, the Lindworm can enslave the whole party and cause a TPK. One PC was broken by the Lindworm and the other PCs basically surrendered and they traded Mikaela for Eira as per the scenario's setup. In chapter 5, the Vaesen-nuke has the potential of a TPK. Two PCs were annihilated by the nuke at the end of the scenario and one PC was broken by the blast. That said, my Players loved chapters 3 and 4.
The mines worked three 8 hour shifts, so its operations ran 24 hours.
When I ran the scenario, PCs wanted to tour the mine. I said, it's too dangerous, but bribed miners were willing to let them have a very limited tour of the first level. I did find it interesting that in chapter 1, the Myling was buried deep in the mine which doesn't make any sense. In the podcast, the baby's body was buried under the church floorboards, but when they wrote up the campaign, they placed the body deep in the mine.
Of particular note is the very end of the video where pigeons are confused by different colored concentric circles. They can't enter doorways and windows with that displayed. I found that was an interesting fact (if true) and could help explain why Revenants can't pass a Christian symbol painted in tar (p.151 core book under Ritual). This could be a cool rationale for Vampires and their aversion to holy symbols too.
In my game, the PCs put Lisa in one of the rooms in the Abisko Research Center and painted Christian symbols over the doorways and windows. While the PCs were at the banquet, she (under the influence of the Revenant) used a pillow case to smudge the symbols and this allowed her to escape and get to the mine.
Fika
In chapter 1, Fika is introduced. It's a wonderful thing to introduce as part of Swedish culture.
Falu Red
Falu Red is mentioned in chapter 1.
Falun Mine
The Swedish Royal Coat of Arms
The PCs see it prominently displayed at Upsala University for the royal visit in chapter 2.
Period Ice Breaker (chapter 3)
Bergen, Norway
Sørland
Værøy
Viking Long House
Royal Mounds of Gamla (chapter 4)
The 3 big mounds from left to right are Freya, Thor, Oden.
I'm the Forever GM. I've been GMing games since starting with D&D (white box edition, heavily homebrewed) since the mid-1970s. We did dungeon crawls and were murderhobos. During that time, we tried d6 Star Wars, Paranoia, James Bond, Space 1889, Shadowrun, Stalking the Night Fantastic, etc. It was only after college that I got into more of the storytelling aspects of roleplaying (by playing Vampire and GURPS). I only started to intensively run CoC in 2011. My gaming style has evolved from combat based (random combat encounters) to more story based (coming up with clue trails, clue details, NPC motivations, plot twists, etc. on the fly).
Anyway, I'm seeing a number of people who've never GMed asking how to prep for a game.
Here are my steps (do steps 1 to 6 days earlier and those steps takes about 4+ hours):
Read it quickly (you can skim or speed read it) just to understand what's going on, to understand the story. Most CoC scenarios has a What's Going On section (Keeper Info, Overview, Background) at the beginning of the scenario spelling out exactly what has happened. Don't worry about stats, mechanics, or spells, just read it for the plot. The reason you need to know the plot is because this lets you improvise clues and clue trails that makes sense during play. If you don't know the plot, then you might create conflicting clues that'll confuse your Players.
Cut-n-paste handouts (either copier for in-person, or screen shots if running online). Read them also because they sometimes contain info not in the scenario text. I've been blindsided a few times when a Player asked about something that was in a handout I didn't know about. In most published scenarios, copies of the handouts are also at the end of the scenario or in the appendix in the back of the book.
Google pictures for additional handouts. Note what is missing in above step. You'll generally notice you're missing a NPC portrait, a location map, picture of a landmark, or period objects that you're not familiar with.
Have pre-gens (pre-generated PCs) ready. I don't recommend having Players make PCs in their first game. Just provide more pre-gens than Players, so at least the last Player isn't left with no choices. Also maybe gift or reserve 100 skill pts that they can add to any skills they want (other than Cthulhu Mythos). An extra PC can also be used as a replacement PC if a PC dies early, unexpectedly; it's no fun to be at a convention and your PC dies 1 hour into the game and the GM tells you you can't play anymore. When I run high lethality games, especially at a convention, some systems (Godlike, Mörk Borg, Alien) are more lethal than others, I make sure there are plenty of backup PCs. If they are creating their own PCs, have them use www.dholeshouse.org. Some games, I use a spreadsheet when I create characters to make sure all skills needed for the scenario are covered and the PCs are balanced.
Highlight a copy the scenario (hardcopy or digital, I hate writing in books). Read the scenario again carefully and use a highlighter on important bits. You can use different colors for GM info, stuff to read aloud, save throws, names, important aspects, etc. Create more handouts that you've missed on the first pass. This is also when you'll realize that parts of the scenario either doesn't make sense or is missing details and you'll have to modify the scenario or add additional details that fleshes it out.
Create a single page bulleted outline of important stuff that must happen. Also add your own notes.
Right before the game, I reread again to refresh my memory and add any additional highlights or handouts I missed. At a convention, I generally don't look at the scenario again (unless I have to), but use the single page bullet pointed outline.
Have pencils, dice, character portraits, character sheets, maps, handouts ready for running. I don't like using a GM screen because it's a barrier between me and the Players. I also roll dice out in the open and don't fudge rolls, but I might fudge an opponent's HPs or skills in the Players' favor. If I have to hide info, I use a clipboard and make sure I have a cover sheet hiding the information. If I need a rulebook for various charts or tables, I use a sticky note as a bookmark for that page or a cropped screen shot if I'm running online. At conventions, I arrive early to pick my spot for all my stuff and rearrange the chairs if necessary. I then layout all my stuff.
At conventions, where timing is important, I use a watch I can casually glance at to see what time it is and use it to compare to where the PCs are in the scenario, so I know whether to speed it up or slow down. I also have optional scenes I can throw in to lengthen the scenario if I'm running too fast, or know which scenes to drop if I'm running slow. I also don't unnecessarily lengthen a scenario, I'd rather end early than run out of time. I've been in games where the GM ran out of time and had to summarize the ending. The best part of most movies is the ending. How would you feel if instead of the climatic ending of a movie, you get a screen crawl summarizing the ending?
Call for 10 min breaks when you're stuck, so you can think about stuff and for people to use the bathroom or get food. Do this a few hours in or at a natural stopping point. Most convention games have at least one break after 2 or 3 hours.
For convention play or a one-shot (where PCs don't come back), I always allow the Players to do an epilogue for their PCs, a short sentence or paragraph as to what happens to their PC after the scenario ends and how the events have affected them or their lives. This gives some closure for the PC.
If you have to do more than one session because you didn't finish, try to stop at either a natural stopping point (after a reveal or end of combat) or a cliff hanger. Then schedule a follow-up session.
You can ask for feedback on what the Players liked or disliked and what you can do better (this is more for games at home or with your own group, not at a convention). At a convention, there might be feedback forms that are handed into the convention runners, not to the GM. Comments might be forwarded anonymously to the GM.
Pack up your stuff and leave the convention room as clean or cleaner than when you arrived.
I tried The Yellow King RPG (YKRPG) in 2019 and finally got through all 4 books, mainly because I've been playtesting Cassilda's Song, a campaign for YKRPG.
Chambers wrote The King in Yellow in 1895. He introduced the ideas of the two act play, The King in Yellow, the Yellow Sign, masks, and connections to Carcosa, spawning the a whole mythology about The King in Yellow. Since then, The King in Yellow has been associated with the themes of mental viral memes (not called that at that time), surrealism, and dreams.
Paris is set in 1895 Paris with the PCs being American art students studying abroad. It's the Belle Époque period with Absinthe, Cezanne, Debussy, Rodin, etc. In this golden age, Impressionism flourished. Could the mind bending effects of The King in Yellow intruding into Paris at this time be the cause? I love the setting.
The Wars is set in 1947 Europe during a delayed WWI. The PCs are French soldiers fighting with HG Wells-ian and Jules Verne-ian weapons. Trench warfare, tripod tanks, poisonous gas, ornithopters, wireless typewriters, and strange creatures from Carcosa stalk the PCs. It is a war between the daughters of The King in Yellow. Europe is their chessboard.
Aftermath is set in modern day America (with stunted growth, a mid-1970s feel) after one of the two daughters of The King in Yellow has won their war, but finally overthrown. Various factions fight for control of a new free America. Remnants of the previous rule dot the land such as Suicide Booths, leftover Carcosan entities and artifacts. The PCs are members of the resistance who suddenly found themselves part of the new world order. This setting is based on Chamber's short story: The Repairer of Reputations.
This is Normal Now is set in a parallel modern day America where The Wars and Aftermath didn't happen. But The King in Yellow is slowly permeating reality using modern technology such as memes, the internet, the dark web, Instagram influencers, killer apps, and SRIs (Safety-Related Incidents). SRIs are Carcosan creature attacks which people don't talk about. Facing the SRIs causes mental instability, so there are apps for dealing with this cognitive dissonance. PCs are normal people pulled into the weirdness.
I did find it odd that in This is Normal Now there is advice for running the other time periods and how to run a interwoven campaign. The chapters: The Alien Truth, GM Masterclass, and Entanglement should have been in the Paris book. I strongly recommend reading these before running any of the books. There is also recommendations for linking various PCs from each time period, I'm not sure that's really necessary. As a Player, I would prefer to choose which Investigative Kit (occupation) to take in each book vs having it be dictated based on my choice in Paris, but Aftermath and This is Normal Now are connected as parallel universes, and it does add a dimension to the game if the two PCs have the same name and similar occupations.
In trying to link all 4 books into one campaign, there's a time travel thread that can be used, but I didn't quite like it. Having time travelers go to 1895 Paris just seems really odd to me. A very 12 Monkeys thing. They do recommend other ways to link the four settings. I personally prefer odd historical coincidences and dream connections instead.
Each book gives you a different game. Paris feels like Trail of Cthulhu for the Belle Époque period. The Wars is for those who want war stories. Aftermath is for those who are interested in struggling political factions. This is Normal Now feels like Trail of Cthulhu for the internet age.
There are some design philosophy clunkiness that I have issues with, mainly the Fight system (p.54 Paris). The roleplaying comes to a screeching halt every time I bring out the Fight Tracker (p.241 Paris). I do like the Relative Challenge Table (p.47 Paris, p.24 The Wars, p.19 Aftermath, p.12 This is Normal Now) and the QuickShock cards (though there are too many of them and are unwieldy to use).
The main strengths of the game are the various settings (time period, location, equipment, creatures). They easily engage my imagination on how to bring elements in an interesting fashion to my Players.
Overall, I quite enjoyed the game and do recommend it.
In 2018, I played this game at a convention when there was buzz about this game, lauded as a feminist RPG written by women. I came to the game cold and totally hated it. Here's my experience. I'm a guy, so I thought maybe I just didn't get it. Years later, at another convention, while chatting with a fellow Player who I respected, she told me she liked Bluebeard's Bride, but she had to be in the mood for it. Another friend of mine said he'd only play it with a specific group of people, but he liked it.
In my local group, one of our rotating GMs wanted to run Bluebeard's Bride. I was willing to give it another try since this GM was a woman. The GM I had at the convention was a man.
Well, I actually enjoyed it a lot more this second time. Part of it is because I knew what to expect.
Bluebeard's Bride uses a system lite version of Powered by the Apocalypse. When we played, we rarely rolled any dice.
This time, we didn't have a large group of personas, but we only got 2 Players and 1 GM. We spent very little time creating the characters, maybe at most 20 mins compared to the 2 hours I spent at the convention with 4 Players. I picked Witch (with the Viper move). Ken, the other Player, picked Mother (with the Kingmaker move). The Viper move lets me kill servants with my lies. The Kingmaker move lets the Mother gain a champion. We went with PCs who could manipulate NPCs.
We explored rooms with the expectation that every room was horrible and haunted by a previous bride, looking for evidence of her demise. We improvised pretty dark stories about how Bluebeard manipulated the brides to cause their deaths.
We decided Bluebeard's previous bride was our older sister. Originally plump, she got addicted to cocaine until she wasted away like a concentration camp victim. In her room were mirrors everywhere for the cocaine and also so she can see her reflection that wasn't thin enough for Bluebeard's liking. Depression combined with the rollercoaster ride of drugs doomed her. We encountered our sister's ghost and using the Viper move, put her spirit to rest (yeah, GM let us bend the rules for better story effect).
In a picture gallery of previous brides, we found a portrait of our sister. Her plump self stood in front of a mirror whose reflection was her inner thin. Also her thin version looked like us, since she was our sister. Portraits of other brides showed either subtly or overtly their fate. There was an animated statue that tried to paint our fate. It refused to let us move, "Stand still." Mother called the champion to rescue us, eventually I had to ridicule the statue and made it (a dark liquid inside the hollow statue) withdraw (I berated her artist abilities).
In the kitchen we found beautiful pastries and cakes, but mixed into the batter were herbs and drugs that caused diarrhea and vomiting. I got infected with bulimia before leaving the room.
We also found at the stables how our champion, Helen, was thrown by her horse and made into a hunchback. Another plot by Bluebeard to punish her for NOT ridding sidesaddle and losing her virginity to her saddle. Chastity belts and a punishing nun was in the barn. The Mother used the move Dirty Yourself with Violence. Took her scourge away from her and punished her with it.
In the finale, we decided to go into the Final Room. According to the rules, since we were Disloyal to Bluebeard, we we're only supposed to Present Evidence to the Town or Run Away and Start Anew, instead we wanted to Enter the Room. The GM let us do that. Bluebeard punished us by making an Aviary to cage us (one of our desires was freedom). Our long white hair and ribcage bones were woven into a bird nest. The birds, looking like doves, cooingly whisper about the fates of the other brides, when ignored, the doves transform into vultures and peck at recalcitrant brides.
So, with expectations set (there is no escape), creative Players and GM, Bluebeard's Bride becomes a very dark and psychosexual adult game.
As an aside, we wondered if we had more Players, we might have gotten a less sinister view of what a room really meant.
I came up with an alternative interpretation of the bedroom. Our sister was locked into her room by Bluebeard due to her drug addiction, in order to detox her, but with easy access to expensive furnishings, she was able to bribe servants to obtain drugs for her. Her death was self-inflicted.
Helen wasn't deflowered by her saddle, but by the stable hand. The stable hand put an irritant under her horse's saddle in order to cause her accident and death, so he wouldn't be found out and punished by Bluebeard.
Three of the four games that I played in were really, really good. Thus the Excellent in the blog post title. The most fun game was The Great Hog Purge of Marrow County. Goodcliffe brought out improv skills in all the Players and no duds, everyone was excellent. Ultima ratio was very interesting and Hilmar always delivers a great game. The pacing for Murder Most Foul! was just too slow for me; round robin through 6 Players just kills it for me.
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Slot 4, Friday 3/1, 7-11am (4 hrs)
Goodcliffe
System: Cthulhu Dark
GM: GrahamWalmsley
4 Players: SpoJino (Joseph playing Felix the Blacksmith), CollegeOfCthulhu (Andrew playing Otis the Miner), CaptainKudzu (Jeremy playing Bill the Baker), Morgan Hua playing Truth the Barber.
Characters will be created during or before play by the players.
On the stormy Cornish cliffs, William Trevellyn has created a model village. It's an idyll, where workers learn and grow in the beautiful stone buildings, all provided by the company. But why has one of the teachers disappeared? Why is everyone acting erratically? And why can't you sleep? This is a Cthulhu Dark mystery. Expect bleak horror and not much combat. You are all doomed. Spoiler: The village is not really an idyll.
Graham Walmsley designed and wrote Cthulhu Dark. Sometimes good GMs aren't good Players and vice versa. So, I wondered if a system designer is a good GM. Cthulhu Dark is a rules lite system, so the GM has to be good at improv. I was not disappointed. Graham was very good at tying together our individual backstories, created at the table, into a cohesive game. The first 1/2 hour of game was a Q&A session about our characters.
One interesting thing that Graham did was that there's always that guy that wants no NPC connections, the lone PC, but Graham insisted that there was at least a NPC that the PC would have left behind in a previous life. The Player had to invent one. Graham folded that into the game. Yes, there's no escape from your past. No lone wolves. A number of Players create lone wolf PCs because they don't want the GM to have a handle on the Player's actions, it insolates them and lets them act selfishly. It gives them no reason to act in accordance to social norms. Also there's the romanticism of Shane and The Man with No Name.
In Cthulhu Dark, "When you investigate, ... on a 6, you may glimpse beyond human knowledge (and probably make an Insanity roll)." Graham treated it as should glimpse. Also he told us we should make an Insanity roll whenever we feel weirded out, not when he tells us. I really liked this because in most games, Players will decide to just roll their one human die and their one occupational die, but never their Insanity die.
Graham was an excellent GM and the Players were excellent also. Lots of imaginative improv.
=== SPOILER SECTION START ===
Goodcliffe is a god fearing, upright, tin mining town designed by Trevallyn. He's also bringing the railroad to the town. Sarah Trevellyn, daughter of William Trevallyn, is a common thread we all have.
We start off with creating our occupation and why we decided to be at this model village. After various questions about our characters by the GM, we were ready to start.
We start off in art class one of the few diversions in the town. Both Bill and I had disturbing visions after finishing our work. Bill painted a manger, but got carried away with adding various animals, including chickens. I did the crucifixion of Christ, but it was more of a hill with crucifixes on the hilltop. In my fugue, I saw my wife Patience crucified on the hill and tried to knock her cross down and she screamed at me. Then I snapped out of it. Bill saw Joseph's badly done drawing of a horse come to life and stare at him.
Mary, the Lady's maid for Sarah, told us she was suddenly fired. Sarah has also not been seen for a few days. The PCs investigate.
My wife faints when I show her the painting and I decide to bleed her for her health. Her bleeding gets out of hand and I finally stop her bleeding, getting blood everywhere, including my drawing.
Joseph found a short tunnel branching off from the train tunnel being built. Inside were strange glimmering stones. Sort of a mix of the Color out of Space and the Dreamlands.
PCs have bad dreams during the night. I dreamed of being on the crucifix hill again. Everyone being crucified were screaming. I took out paints and an easel and started painting them. In the morning I asked Joseph to look at my drawing and see if he could see a small man drawing on an easel. Joseph doesn't see anything.
Through hook and crook, we get into the Trevellyn mansion. We find Sarah locked in a small room, she's clutching a small bundle to her bosom. Andrew's backstory was that he abandoned his pregnant wife, Elizabeth, who Sarah reminds him of. He keeps conflating the two. Andrew climbed a tree and was looking through a grimy window at Sarah. Joseph and Bill free Sarah and find that she's cradling a baby-sized glimmering stone.
The PCs try to leave town with Sarah, but get stopped by the townsfolk and the miners. The miners insist that Sarah's stone must be returned to the mine. Sarah resists. I try to take the stone away from Sarah, but I get affected by it, so I take it and smash the local reverend's head in with it; yeah, I had issues with the reverend.
In the end, the stone is put back in the tunnel and sealed off. The visions dissipate.
My PC is lynched for the reverend's murder. Somewhere, my drawing, blowing in the wind, has a small drawing of a hangman game, a stick figure of someone hanging at the gallows, at the top of the crucifixion hill.
=== SPOILER SECTION END ===
Slot 5, Friday 3/1, 12-4pm (4 hrs, took less than 2 hrs as per game description)
Ultima ratio
System: Call of Cthulhu
GM: hilmar_firestarter
3 Players: CrimsonShadow_08370 (Jon playing as Manfred Hermaan - Soldier), ben_nor (Ben playing as Werner Muller - Engineer), Morgan Hua (Luisa Grünfeld - Antique Dealer)
Pre-generated characters will be provided.
Germany, 1937. Adolf Hitler’s government is issuing new state bonds to fire up the arms industry. In Spain, the German bomber squadron “Legion Condor” levels the town of Guernica. Back home, millions of adolescents are flocking to the Nazi youth organizations, while jews are barred more and more from higher education. Thousands of convicted criminals are sent to concentration camps during the first mass roundups of people not deemed to be political opponents. In this highly charged atmosphere, three Germans need to find their way. They are two men and one woman. They don’t know each other yet, but soon their fates shall be bound up with each others’, when it falls to them to take one final decision of the last resort – “ultima ratio”. “Ultima ratio” was voted best German RPG expansion in 2022. It has been run at countless German conventions, often as a freeform game. It’s fast-paced, it puts constant pressure on its protagonists, and it’s mostly over after an hour or two.
Hilmar is an excellent GM. So, I look for his games. This was an interesting short scenario, quite enjoyable.
=== SPOILER SECTION START ===
The 3 PCs start with amnesia. We wake up with no knowledge as to why we're in a strange room. There are strange walkways and a large black box. As we investigate various things, our memories return in flashes. I learn I had drawn the sigils on the black box. Werner learns that he had originally planted the bomb that he had just defused.
After some more clues and running around, I realize we're in an airship.
The black box is about to fail and release something horrible. After some fights and fleeing. An insane Werner dives out of the airship, falls only hundreds of feet to his death, the airship is moored. Luisa after a miraculous evasion of some Nazis gets to the dining car. The creature gets out and there's a huge explosion.
Camera pans out and it's the Hindenburg going up in flames.
=== SPOILER SECTION END ===
Slot 6, Friday 3/1, 4:30-8:30pm (4 hrs)
Murder Most Foul!
System: Swords of the Serpentine
GM: markk_1848 (Mark K)
6 Players: khneori (Klil playing Sarina - Warrior), SaccharineChokingHazard (Andiel - priest), hellogold (Jaxon H playing as Lucius - Mercenary), modoc31 (Keith playing as Torio - Secret Police), BinaryLife (Connolly B playing as Marius - Spirit of the Goddess), Morgan Hua playing as Hassia - Market-priest.
Pre-generated characters will be provided.
Master Pietro Contrari is the city's greatest slink; he's solved one or two murders per month for the last 35 years. How has he always been in the right place at the right time? It doesn't matter; what matters is you have invitations to his 60th birthday party. I'm sure it will be a tasteful, mystery-free celebration . . . Swords of the Serpentine is a sword & sorcery game of daring heroism, sly politics, and bloody savagery, set in the fantasy city of Eversink, rife with skullduggery and death. The rules adapt the GUMSHOE investigative roleplaying system to create a fantasy RPG with a focus on high-action roleplaying and investigation inspired by the stories of Fritz Leiber, Terry Pratchett, Robert E. Howard, and others.
I got into this game when a seat opened up. I wanted to play this game because it's Swords of the Serpentine, but I had reservations about a 6 player game and I was right. The GM took about 1/2 hour going over character sheets. Then when we arrived at the birthday party, he did a round robin between characters as to what they were doing in the party. The issue was that he put up very vague descriptions of various NPCs for us to interact with; none of the descriptions were very interesting. Though each NPC had some interesting info. It was almost like opening a random door to see what was behind it. At some point, the PCs spit up into two groups of 3. When the other group was doing their thing, I almost fell asleep. The plot was interesting, but I found the pacing too slow for me. That said, the game did take 4 hours with several short breaks, and didn't run over time.
=== SPOILER SECTION START ===
The PCs are basically strangers sent to investigate why Pietro have solved so many murders. Something doesn't smell right.
We arrive at a giant ballroom with lots of NPCs. Each PC gets to interact with NPCs. Then there's a murder at the party. Pietro starts investigating. The PCs split up into two groups. One watching Pietro and investigating the murder. Another group snoops around investigating Pietro's home.
The PCs solve the murder at the same time Pietro does. The other group finds an old demon trap and proof that Pietro has been possessed.
At the dénouement, the PCs with the demon trap gem show up, make Pietro's demon manifest, beat the crap out of it (easily with 6 PCs), then trap it the gem. Pietro gets arrested. The end.
=== SPOILER SECTION END ===
Slot 14, Sun 1/3, 7-11am (4 hrs)
The Great Hog Purge of Marrow County
System: Frontier Scum
GM: trnshmn (transhuman)
4 Players (3, one no-show): karohemd (Ozzy playing Snake Toes), rocinante_on_focus (Robert playing Gadabout), Morgan Hua (playing Firebug)
Characters will be created during or before play by the players.
Something awful is going down in the old MacReady farm. The pigs have all gone bad, wrong, somehow, and the menfolk followed soon after. Someone said he heard one of their hogs speak like a man, saying the most awful things. Another that they saw the oldest MacReady girl on all fours, snuffling around in the forest muck like a truffle pig, hooting and hollering. Someone should do something, and as an honest, god-fearin', right minded man of action, I'm paying you dumb sons of bitches hard cash to go make all that nonsense go away. Frontier Scum is a rules light game of gonzo violence and strange people getting into deadly trouble.
Content Warnings: insects, parasitism, body horror, loss of agency, loss of self, cruelty and harm to animals and children, eye trauma, monstrous pregnancy, gore
Additional Safety Tools: Pre-game discussion, Lines and Veils
I had an incredible amount of fun in this game. A version of Mörk Borg in the Wild West. I used the first character the PC generator made because he was so on point for this scenario.
One of the coolest thing is that every PC has a hat. You can use your hat to take a bullet or attack and it might survive, so you can put it back on again. Your lucky hat can save your butt.
I'd definitely run this system for my own groups. I liked this more than Pirate Borg.
I let out my inner MurderHobo. GM said we were the most murderous of playgroups so far. Oh, yeah!
=== SPOILER SECTION START ===
Rev Ollie sets us on a task to murder the MacReady family. The sheriff was sent and either he didn't do his job or the MacReadys did him in. Once the family is taken care of, we're to go to another town and collect our pay from a lawyer. Plausible deniability for the Reverend. The MacReadys consisted of 10 family members, no babies or small children are at the farm. After our deed is done, another group will go to the farm and destroy all their pigs, about 200 of em.
We decide to go around the left side of their farmstead, sneaking in through the backwoods. We start seeing hogs that aren't right. At one point, a tapeworm as big as your forearm was dragging a real sickly looking pig into the brush. As we got a vantage point to have a looksee at the farm, these babies carrying knives and guns crawled out of the high weeds near the pond and headed towards us. Well, we opened up with our guns and blew them to high heaven. The farm stayed silent, but two of the MacReadys were just standing in the front yard, staring at the sun. We thought we spotted some movement in one of the cabins.
So, Snake Toes and I ride towards the back corner of the farm. Gadabout on watch. Two MacReadys jump us, there's a gun fight. The resulting dead MacReadys were not right. Strange worm-like things sprouting from them. I did find in the cabin a whole sack of money and bearer bonds. Yee Haw! But we made a promise to do a job. So we'll take that, but split it up later.
It had gotten dangerous, so we decided to set the main house on fire. Then the grain silo, which got the barn on fire too. Things came at us. In the end we got only 7 of the MacReadys and the Sheriff who was right strange also. That Sheriff darn near strangled me. Good thing Snake Toes got a good shot at his back.
In the pigsty was an abomination of a pig, birthing those baby things that we killed. We shot it to hell and set it on fire too. One of the MacReadys was there, not quite right in the head, but at least he wasn't full of worms. Apparently he was some sort of artist as he had painted the night landscape Gadabout found in the other cabin. Though we had all preferred that it was instead a portrait of a reclining naked lady that you generally see hanging in a saloon behind the bar. We shot him too.
Did I tell you that I had a fascination with flames? It lets me ponder what the fires of hell would be like. We watched the fires burn and waited until it cooled down to embers so we could dig through the ashes to look for the 3 bodies of the MacReadys we're missing.
There were no bodies, but we found a trap door. That gave us a start as we figured on an ambush, but under the burned out house was a tunnel. At the end of the tunnel, there's some leftover dynamite, used to make the tunnel, and an entrance to a cave. We find another MacReady and he tells us the last two are inside some metal sphere. I thanked him and shot him in the back of the head. We decided we didn't want to go in there, so we started setting a slow fuse for the dynamite, but before we were done, this three faced Cherubim came out of the sphere. As we ran, it tried to smote us with a divine ray of light. Luckily the dynamite blew up, blocking the tunnel, but it still tried to come at us. Well, stuck the way it was, it was like shooting a fish in a barrel. We dragged the Cherubim's body out. I took his ray gun. In the tunnel was Snake Toes, knocked out by the explosion, but still alive.
Then we went into the sphere, looking for the last two MacReadys. We found them inside, bound to some infernal machine with their guts all hanging out. We put them out of their misery and set the insides of the place on fire.
We rode out and collected our pay from the lawyer. We got an honest dollar for an honest days work and as a bonus, the MacReadys' life savings, which they have no need for no more.
We did hear later that some giant worm-thing came out of the pond and ate some of the boys sent to slaughter the hogs. Well, ain't that something?
If I homebrew my own scenario, I generally run it all year through the con circuit. I last ran A Place for Wellness at BigBadCon in 2019 and COVID hit and I never got to finish running it at the other conventions. So, I'll finally be able to finish running the game through the con circuit this year. I'll be running it at KublaCon and that'll be it.
The Shuffler hated me this year. I only got into one game via the Shuffler and it was my 2nd choice for that slot. Drouin's game was via a priority slip. So game-wise, it was very disappointing. I only got to play in 2 games.
For some reason, 16 games got cancelled. I also felt compared to years before there were fewer games. This could all be due to Covid concerns (very few people were wearing masks, I counted 3), the new location, or the economy. Because of this, I noticed games were oversubscribed. One game had 45 first choice requests for 6 available seats.
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A Place for Wellness
Friday Noon in 149 for 4 Hours
GM: Morgan Hua
Type: RPG
System: Cthulhu Dark
Players: 6 (C Scott, J Scott, N Winters, P Perez, J Gonzalez, L Ruifrok)
Provided: All characters provided by GM
Rules Knowledge: Beginners Welcome
Game Content: Mature Themes
You will play various characters from movies such as Terminator, Halloween, Hellraiser, IT, Psycho, and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. All are new patients in an insane asylum. Patients suffer from various persecution complexes, delusions, paranoia, and some have violent tendencies. When not playing a Patient, you will play as Doctors in charge of evaluating patients, recommending therapies, and administering outdated therapies to the patients. The asylum is modern and similar in tone to One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. This is a PvP game where the Patients are pitted against the Doctors and the system. This is a game about perceptions, observation, deception, and human cruelty. Remember: The Institute for Wellness is here for your safety and well-being. Patience is a virtue and a patient is only released when they're ready to face the world.
I had a table of exceptional players and the game play was very good.
=== SPOILER SECTION START ===
After the initial interview with patients, a few Players said they felt sorry for Laurie Strode. Laurie hid the pills she was supposed to take, passed a 2nd evaluation, and one of the Doctors just let her out the back door. Hey, you're supposed to fill out the release form first. That's against Hospital policy!
In the end, 2 of 6 patients got lobotomized. 4 escaped. 2 died.
Pennywise and Pinhead slaughtered the hospital staff, shook hands and departed with mutual respect.
=== SPOILER SECTION END ===
Torn: The University
Saturday 8 AM in 145 for 4 Hours
GM: Steven Drouin
Type: RPG
System: TORN
Players: 5 (D Brubeck, L Saunders, N Fuller, S Phelan, Morgan Hua)
Provided: Characters created for game
Rules Knowledge: Beginners Welcome
Game Content: Mainstream
You awake in the small village of Point Reyes Station, with no memory of who you were. Artifacts and documents will help you will learn who you were and then you will tear yourself apart to learn what happened to you. Torn is a mystery/horror RPG system rooted heavily in media, character development, and narrative improvisation. No knowledge of the system is required, but willingness to role play is a must.
Steven always delivers a good game. He's the author of this game system. It's chockfull of props and handouts. I had a really good time.
=== SPOILER SECTION START ===
We wake up with no memories, but we're given 5 objects to choose from (1 for each PC) and to create a memory based on it. I picked a yes/no coin and told the following story: Death is Random. I met a guy in a bar and he told me, "Death is Random." To show me, he pointed at a person and asked, "Is that person going to live?" He flipped a coin and it landed on, "No." That person just keeled over and died. So, I decided to influence chance and murdered him and took the coin. Yes, death is random, but you can influence the outcome.
From this I also got to label this memory. I called it: "I know how to kill people."
Sean picked a small cup and decided it had something to do with his winery.
The next thing we got to see was something familiar in our bedroom. I decided it was a large hourglass filled with children's teeth. Most have fallen to the bottom half, but 3 were caught on the upper half, poised like grains of sand.
Then we went to a living room and there were various posters, letters, journals, etc. We got to pick one that we liked. One was a flier for a lost cat that liked hats.
Then we got to build a memory with another PC that had to have cause us regret. Sean and I got together and decided that Sean's winery required renewal of the wine terroir with a human sacrifice, but strangers won't do, it has to be people who had a connection with the land, so we chose a cousin. That cousin had a dog and it would sleep where the cousin's remains were spread and it would howl all the time, to shut it up, we had to feed it, but it would return to its vigil, so now it's a fat, sad dog. That was our regret. In the future, the human sacrifice couldn't have a pet.
We found we couldn't influence anything in the house except for things we had a strong connection to. One PC wanted to turn on the TV, so he sacrificed one of his memories (tearing it out of his character sheet -- thus the system name TORN), to turn it on.
We escaped the house and one PC put his hand in running water and lost a piece of his soul. At some point, we concluded that we were ghosts of some sort.
The clues pointed us to the multiCULTural Day event. We explored the event and got more clues. Sean got attacked by the cat wearing a sailor's hat; it toyed with Sean's PC and then tore away a part of his soul and ate it. We went to the University President's Office and got more clues. In the end, we had to trick a djinn back into its lamp (Sean's cup was its stopper) and undo a wish that held back the sea.
Steven asked what our last words were as the wall of water came to wash us away. I asked, "Will I live?" I flipped the coin in the air, all the Players leaned in to see how it landed. The answer was "Yes."
Everybody did their epilogues. I woke up to the cat kneading my chest, and I coughed up brackish water. A new sea shore was here and a Point Reyes Lighthouse which I would reside in for the rest of my life as I combed the beach for a lost coin and an old lamp.
=== SPOILER SECTION END ===
The Valley of Multifarious Deaths
Sunday 10 AM in 139 for 8 Hours
GM: Norm Albert
Type: RPG
System: John Carter of Mars
Edition: Modiphius (2d20)
Players: 8 (full table, 2 crashers got in)
Provided: All characters provided by GM
Power Level: Hyper-competent, like true ERB heroes
Rules Knowledge: Useful
Game Content: Mainstream
What starts as an expedition of commerce quickly devolves into a fight for survival in the unknown lands west of Bantoom where a new threat lurks, threatening all Barsoom!
Not my first choice because there's 8 players and that's always a bad sign, but the game is an 8 hour game, so I assumed I'd get enough screen time and I was right.
My main issue is with the GM. He didn't explain the system, dice mechanics, nor the world. So, I had to explain the dice mechanics to the people on either side of me, and the person next to me had to explain it to his neighbor. Several people still didn't understand the dice mechanics half way into the game, by the end, I think everybody finally figured it out. But yeah, this should have been explained at the very start.
The GM also had to continually look up the rules. Also when someone had a question, he'd get side tracked and would wait forever until the table talk quieted down before speaking. But since he took so long, side conversations would start up and then he'd wait again. So, the GM had no table control.
I actually enjoyed the system, one of the lightest 2d20 systems. And once we figured out the combinations for various actions (and wrote them down instead of asking the GM), things went quicker.
The adventure was as advertised and we had a good group of Players who made our own fun and numerous jokes while we waited for the GM.
=== SPOILER SECTION START ===
We were given a map and told to take an airship and find the ancient and forgotten land of Kobal. We were a diplomatic trade mission. Our direct route took us over an ancient crater. Once over the crater, our airship gets shot down.
Our water stores are destroyed and we decide to descend into the crater because it's green with jungle growth and thus a source of water. Inside, we run in to various creatures and conclude that the crater is really some sort of zoo or breeding pen.
We rescue a Kobalian, a lone survivor, whose scientific party was wiped out. She was holed up in a cave that the scientists had previously cleared and made safe.
We find a "temple" where great white apes are mind controlled and harvested for their blood. Tentacled Martians with advanced technology are the big bad things here. We kill a number of them and escape.
We capture Kobalian mounts that were roaming free and get to Kobal to complete our trade mission.
Overall, it wasn't a bad adventure.
=== SPOILER SECTION END ===
A Place for Wellness
Friday Noon in 149 for 4 Hours
GM: Morgan Hua
Type: RPG
System: Cthulhu Dark
Players: 6 (A Zisch, V Garcia, 2 crashers got in, 4 no shows)
Provided: All characters provided by GM
Rules Knowledge: Beginners Welcome
Game Content: Mature Themes
You will play various characters from movies such as Terminator, Halloween, Hellraiser, IT, Psycho, and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. All are new patients in an insane asylum. Patients suffer from various persecution complexes, delusions, paranoia, and some have violent tendencies. When not playing a Patient, you will play as Doctors in charge of evaluating patients, recommending therapies, and administering outdated therapies to the patients. The asylum is modern and similar in tone to One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. This is a PvP game where the Patients are pitted against the Doctors and the system. This is a game about perceptions, observation, deception, and human cruelty. Remember: The Institute for Wellness is here for your safety and well-being. Patience is a virtue and a patient is only released when they're ready to face the world.
The game was designed for a full table, but I only had 4 Players, so it wasn't as good as an experience as I had hoped for.
=== SPOILER SECTION START ===
The players used the Word Association and Ink Blots several times to good effect.
In the end, one patient got lobotomized. Sarah Conner escaped. Mother killed Laurie Strode and McMurphy. And the Joker blew up the Hospital.
=== SPOILER SECTION END ===
D-Day 80th Anniversary
Saturday 2:00 PM in the Monterey Room for 2 hours
Presenter(s): Dana Lombardy
June 2024 will see the 80th anniversary of the huge Allied invasion of Nazi-occupied Europe along the Normandy coast of France. Dana worked with acclaimed artist Keith Rocco to publish a comic and hardcover book based upon the two huge wall murals Rocco created for the First Division Museum. Hear the backstory of the murals and the books, PLUS help playtest Dana’s new solitaire and 2-player board game Bloody Omaha: The Big Red One at D-Day.
This was basically a waste of time. The Presenter basically did a sales pitch for a hardcover book, a comic book, and a related game for Omaha beach. He also pitched another book with cartoon versions of WW2 aircraft and a previously published card game.
He wasn't able to get the art for the Omaha boardgame from his artist in time, so there was no play test material, so the event ran for only 1 hour.
There was virtually no content about D-Day. The game was supposed to be an educational game, so if we were able to do the play test, I assume we would have learned something about Omaha beach.
I added my contact info to his mailing list which he promised to send info on the playtest material when it became available. So, not a total loss.
The convention games ran from Jan 31 to Feb 12, 2024. I assume there was a cut-and-paste error on Warhorn, the convention title was Raspy Raven Gumshoe Season 2023, not 2024.
This is an interesting free online convention. 12 different GUMSHOE systems, each run by a different GM. None of the games overlap in time. Since there are limited seats, Players are strongly encouraged to only sign up for only one game, so other people can have a chance at playing. As of Feb 1, two games still had an open seat, so those open seats can have a Player who wanted to double dip.
The systems offered were: 13th Age, Da'Zoon, Fear Itself, GUMSHOE System, Night's Black Agents, SH/AM/US, Swords of the Serpentine, The Esoterrorists, The Fall of Delta Green, The Yellow King RPG, TimeWatch, Trail of Cthulhu
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Feb 3 (Sat), 11am-3pm (4 hrs)
Find FOREVER
System: Night's Black Agents GM: PTroilus 4 Players: Jim McCarthy (Rufus - Hacker), Ian Stronach (Ashanti - Analyst), FermeLaBoucher [Simon] (Ren - Black Bagger), Morgan Hua (Jordan - Journalist/Cuckoo)
You all have your own reasons for looking into FOREVER. Maybe it was linked to your colleague, your handler, or your family disappearing. Maybe it was linked to the operation that got a half dozen of your teammates killed. Whatever it is, it also got you out or burned.
Your leads have all made a habit of disappearing, but this most recent one - a frantic, last-minute call for an extraction - looks like the most promising by far, if you can get him out in time.
In Night's Black Agents, you play modern-day highly competent burned or retired spies, working in the shadows to take down supernatural forces of darkness.
Pregenerated Characters will be provided. Newbie Friendly (to Night's Black Agents, Foundry, or both!). Age minimum 18.
Tone: Highly competent former spies in a paranoid mystery-thriller.
The scenario is pretty simple and works as an introductory scenario. We had 2 newbies, so that was fine.
=== SPOILER SECTION START ===
As an introduction, we do a short quick extraction of a NPC. The issue was I asked if we were going to plan this or go by the seat of our pants, and another player didn't want to spend to much time planning, so we each did sort of a montage of actions, so it wasn't very satisfactory.
We basically spirit away an informant from a crowded outdoor shopping area. He's being tailed by two goons. He tells us where FOREVER is.
We then did a back-at-our-hideout scene and how did we customize our hideout and what extra things we have in our bugout bags.
Then we wake up in a motel in FOREVER. After finding out that we've lost time, we're still under surveillance, and that we're in an artificial town underground somewhere, we find a way to escape. I likened this to The Village from The Prisoner. The other prisoners seemed listless and lacked memories.
We find an underground tunnel complex and cut a deal with Orlok, a vampire, to cut off the UV lights that protects a hatch that leads to a military base and freedom.
The vampire was being harvested of serum that extended the life of powerful people. It in turn fed off of people living in the village. Guards and UV lights watched for people who acted out of place and locked in the vampire. We came to our senses because the vampire deliberately left our memories intact in his bid for freedom.
My PC, a NPR podcast reporter (deep cover), then blew the whistle on the stem cell experiments various rich and powerful people were doing to extend their lifespans. Illegal activities were done. Public money was mis-spent. And various rich and powerful people suddenly aged and died when their source of serum dried up.
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