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.
I hide spoiler sections with JavaScript. If you have JavaScript turned off, you can skip the spoiler sections I have marked.
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.
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.
I hide spoiler sections with JavaScript. If you have JavaScript turned off, you can skip the spoiler sections I have marked.
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
I hide spoiler sections with JavaScript. If you have JavaScript turned off, you can skip the spoiler sections I have marked.
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.
After watching a few videos by Seth Skorkowsky on Kult and playing a game of it and talking to people who've played it, I bought a copy during a Black Friday sale. I also got a few supporting products such as Kult: Beyond Darkness and Madness (GM guide) and Kult: Labyrinths & Secret Chambers (100 location maps with suggested creepy setting contents).
Kult is a combination of Dark City and Hellraiser. It is definitely a hard R-rated horror game, and can venture into X-rated (due to sex, violence, subject matter). The original KS book cover for Kult 4e showed the angel's nipples dripping blood. The rivulets of blood on her armor came from her breasts as if it were mother's milk. The art got changed for general publication. The original art was more striking, but bad for marketing reasons.
What I found odd was the game of Kult I played in and description of games from friends who tried it didn't delve into the core precepts of the game.
The idea is that humans are divine souls. That Earth is a prison built to contain us with the grinding banality of everyday life. Angels and Demons are tasked with keeping us on the hamster wheel of life. If we die, our experiences are stripped from our souls, and we are reincarnated in prison. The jailers (Angels and Demons) sometimes dutifully do their jobs and sometimes act out. If you're a jailer for millennia, you get bored and act out. The jailers all look like they came out of a Hellraiser movie. PCs are humans who have finally gotten a glimpse past the illusion of everyday life and momentarily saw the Truth. The game is about the PC's journey to enlightenment through a landscape of horror.
A PC's Dark Secret is not a dump score, but something a Player wants to explore because that is the lever used to propel the PC to enlightenment. So, only pick Dark Secrets you want to see in play.
The Demiurge (God) is missing or dead, so the fallout is civil war and power struggles between various powers. The jailers have their own domains and preferences. For instance, the Archon Tiphareth's domain is beauty and affirmation. Celebrity worship, beauty products, TV shows, TikTok, YouTube, etc. are traps created by Tiphareth. Each type of excess falls into a separate Archon's domain, some overlap, some cooperate, some compete for dominion. The Archon Malkuth is tired of it all and wants to awaken all the humans.
Outside of Elysium (Earth) are the Metropolis (a combination of Amber from the Nine Princes of Amber and Heaven), Inferno (Hell), the Underworld (underground labyrinthian complexes, a subway to other places), Limbo (dream worlds), and Gaia (savage nature, Earth was created from a slice of Gaia). These other places can be visited from Elysium where the boundary is thin. All these places are vast and contain various creatures and cults.
This version of Kult 4e uses a modified version of Powered by the Apocalypse (PbtA). It uses 2d10 instead of 2d6. In PbtA, a +1 or +2 is significant because in PbtA: a 6- is a failure, 7-9 partial success, 10+ complete success. On average 2d6 = 7. And PCs have up to -3 to +3 based on their stats. But in Kult, with 2d10, the average is 11. 9- is a failure, 10-14 success with complication, 15+ complete success. So, a +1 or +2 is less significant. PC stats are -2 to +3, so on average almost all Moves (when a PC does an action and rolls dice, it's a Move) are partial successes.
That said, Kult is more about a series of partial successes (which creates drama) until you succeed. If you view Kult as this type of game, versus a I-wanna-play-to-win game, then it all works out.
What I love about the books, which are well written, are the numerous suggestions for complications when a Move doesn't completely succeed. Lots of options and suggestions are planted throughout the book.
I don't know when I can find the right group who wants to try this out, but I highly recommend this for an adult audience that's not squeamish about adult content.
KULT: Beyond Darkness & Madness (GM Guide) is well written and I didn't find any advice I disagreed with. Lots of good examples. Some of the last couple of chapters started getting a bit repetitive though.
KULT: Labyrinths & Secret Chambers has 100 loose leaf maps with a clean generic layout on one side and on the other side, a version with furniture and objects, sometimes a rundown version of a location. A 64 page booklet describes each layout and what it can be used for (3 possibilities) and 4 to 6 creepy details that the GM can use as inspiration. There's also 18 pages of lists of locations, random names, and such for the GM.
I got unlucky and didn't get into any games through the shuffler, but was able to get into A Chill in Abishiri through the waitlist and A Dish Best Served Cold through an announced opening on Discord.
I hide spoiler sections with JavaScript. If you have JavaScript turned off, you can skip the spoiler sections I have marked.
12/2 Sat, 10am-2pm (game took 3.5 hrs)
A Dish Best Served Cold
System: Kult: Divinity Lost
GM: Cameron Smith (cameronthetall)
3 Players: Yashtruna (Aiden Burnham - assassin), Automeris_io (Dean Lithian - hacker), Morgan Hua (General T - soldier)
In-game character creation.
Content Warnings: Violence, language, drug abuse, mental illness, possible child harm
No VTT - Theater of the Mind only.
You awaken in darkness sprawled out on a cold, plastic floor. As you push yourself onto your knees, you see red text on a terminal. “Emergency alert! Multiple system failure. Power and life support at critical levels. Shield systems down. Radiation will reach lethal limits in 30 minutes.” This improv-heavy scenario is set up by initial choices made by the players, with conversation driving the development of the characters and the story that unfolds.
I wanted to try Kult because I had watched some of the videos on it by Seth Skorkowsky and he was really positive on it. I also just bought a few Kult books from Mödiphius during the Black Friday sale a few weeks ago. But the default Kult setting is modern urban.
1-1/4 hrs character creation. The scenario took 2-1/4 hrs.
Kult's system is PbtA, but uses 2d10 instead of 2d6. In our game, as a quick generation method, we were given a +3 and -1 in two Attributes and a +1 in all remaining Attributes. Setting these Attributes took 10 seconds. I noticed that a +1 on 2d10 really didn't move the needle that much compared to 2d6. A 15+ is needed for a success. 10-14 a partial success with generally a minor set back. 9- a failure with a major setback. I spoke to someone afterwards and he told me that Kult's philosophy is really fail forward and set backs is how the GM adds intrusions and tension. Ok, this makes more sense then.
I thought the scenario was ok, but we spent a lot of time making the characters for a short one-shot. The Players were asked a lot of questions to flesh out our characters' backstories. The GM took our answers and wove it into the scenario.
=== SPOILER SECTION START ===
Automeris said this was a space version of the scenario: The Driver. The GM confirmed this.
The long Q&A and the pacing for the rest of the game was too slow for me. I'm glad we had only 3 Players. If we had 6, it could have taken 3 hrs to just create the characters.
We're out in a small spaceship and it's failing. The GM then asks a lot of background questions to flesh out our backstories and the situation. I wound up being a failed coup leader. Aiden a student environmentalist that tried to assassinate a person in power. Dean a hacker who modified his commanding officer's AI. We escaped from a labor camp on a mining asteroid. On our ship is the warden's daughter (NPC), Sina. We crash land on a mining planet.
We found the mining colony is in cold storage and there's only one maintenance guy, Dyson, who gets drops of supplies every 6 months. He's repairing the facility and keeping out marauders, who he first mistook us for.
We make friends and drop the injured and unconscious (from the crash) Sina into a stasis medical pod.
In order to try to make a call off planet, we get Dyson to shunt power to Central Command. Dyson disappears and when power comes back on, the computer restarts and the console says Dyson 3.0. Then Dyson reappears. He's a hologram of some sort. (Which explained why when I shot him earlier, I destroyed the wall behind him. -- I thought I might have missed.) The comms failed to go online.
The marauders show up and they're the natives of the planet whose ecosystem was destroyed by mining. The marauders periodically take what's valuable from the facility. Dyson protects it.
We try to cut a deal with the marauders.
A fleet of arresting ships show up for us, ready to bombard the facility.
The marauders flee, we think with Sina. Dyson offers to save us if we give him Sina. We accept the deal and he disappears in a flash of light. We go after the marauders, I shoot down their craft and Sina isn't on their craft. We return to Dyson and find that Dyson is now possessing the body of Sina. Dyson had also vanished the fleet as fulfillment of our deal. He also let us call off planet, so I can contact my people, so we can leave. We think Dyson is either some sort of hyperintelligent computer program or an alien superbeing.
=== SPOILER SECTION END ===
12/3 Sun, 10am-2pm (4 hrs)
A Chill in Abashiri - A 1920s Taisho-Era Japan Scenario
System: CoC 7e
GM: Michael Reid (mjrrpg)
4 Players:
Will - sirponcenby377 (Gen Kiyoshi - Tokko - Special Police),
Andy - RandomAnswer (Yoshioka Masao - Doctor of Medicine),
Fab - sweet_fhtagns (Kitamura Chiyoko - Journalist),
Morgan Hua (Ishihara Aiko - Zaibatsu Exec).
Pregens Provided.
Content Warnings: Political/Colonial Oppression
December 1922, Abashiri, Northern Japan. Abashiri Prison, located on the northern shore of Hokkaido, houses ‘dangerous’ criminals and political dissidents, and is no stranger to death and cold. But when a guard dies under suspicious circumstances, and amidst an unprecedented cold snap, a team of mixed professionals is sent to investigate the facility and its occupants, both staff and imprisoned. Amidst the Taisho-era empire’s political maelstrom, the investigators must navigate suspicious guards and uncooperative prisoners to uncover a plot that threatens not just Abashiri Prison, but the future of their changing nation.
At MRCon, I played in Unseasonal Blooming and Minuet run by Michael and I knew this would be a good game and it was. Michael GMed the scenario he wrote and we also had a fantastic table of Players.
I highly recommend the scenario (and GM).
=== SPOILER SECTION START ===
An odd group of PCs get called to investigate the death of a prison guard. All the PCs have secondary secret agendas, though not necessarily in conflict with each other. So it's not PvP, it's just that we have plot B side quests.
GM did admit that the scenario is longer than our 4 hour time slot and he'll try to do a speed run through it. At the end, GM had to hand wave a few things and we ended about 7 mins over time. Still, I really enjoyed this game and recommend the scenario. Though I wouldn't run it in 4 hours.
Though the dead guard was covered in soot, he was actually frozen to death, supernaturally so. His still frozen body continued to emanate cold. Icicles of blood had burst through his body. Where the body lay, a snowflake design etched in ice fractured stone, marked the ground.
Our investigation uncovered a cult in the prison consisting of prison guards and prisoners. They were sacrificing prisoners for rituals.
In the end, Gen faced the cult leaders, killed them and was overwhelmed by cultists. Kitamura led a prison escape. Yoshioka and Ishihara fled the area in a car. Bitter cold descended everywhere.
I did complete my side quest. I faked the death certificate for my uncle and left clothing and supplies for him under a bridge for him to get. And he had escaped the prison with Kitamura.
There are RPGs with a Chain of Command: Star Trek Adventures, Godlike, Twilight 2000, Alien RPG (Colonial Marines), War Stories, Achtung! Cthulhu, Fall of Delta Green, YKRPG: The Wars. And even systems that were designed for non-military settings and characters, but someone decided to write a scenario set in WW1, WW2, etc. I've played in a number of Call of Cthulhu games where PCs are soldiers on a battlefield.
If everyone buys into the scenario and mission, then there's generally never a problem.
But I've experienced and heard nightmare stories:
One Player declares that he must play the highest ranking PC because when he played in a game before, their leader messed everything up. Well, the joke was on us, because this guy had no clue as to what he was doing and almost got us all killed until he died from his own incompetence, then someone else took over and the rest of us survived.
The highest ranking PC ordered everyone to hunker down and stay in place for the whole scenario because it was the safest thing to do. Even the GM told the Players that the "adventure" was out there. I believe they spent more than half the game doing nothing.
PC leader turtles and sends other PCs out to die or even picks on one PC to always do all the dangerous things.
PC ignores a direct order by another PC.
So, what can you do?
In Star Trek Adventures, Command Talents (p.136, core book) give other PCs extra dice if they follow your advice or orders.
In Alien RPG, Pull Rank (p.76 core book). It's an opposed roll to make someone follow your orders.
In Yellow King RPG, Leadership (p.19, The Wars). Spend a Push to inspire someone to work at the best of their ability.
In Achthug! Cthulhu, Tactics Talents (p.94-95, Player's Guide). Bonuses to other PCs.
In Godlike, Command (p.48, core book). This is a superpower akin to mind control.
Most offer only carrots and very few sticks to follow orders.
Do you throw someone in the brig or court martial them? But what if you're out in the field? Do you take away their weapons and arrest them? Do you execute a PC in the field? All of these options are horrible. Unless you just don't like the other Player (note that I say Player not PC because all these actions will take the PC out of the game and thus the Player).
So, the best solution I've found is at Session 0 explain the following and get buy-in from all the Players: A NPC is in charge. The Players can vote for their course of action and the most votes is what the NPC commander orders the PCs to do. Then you have majority rules and buy-in from all the Players. This also makes the command seem like a snap decision even though the Players may have spent a long time discussing what to do before their vote.
This also models Star Trek when the captain turns off the viewscreen and discusses options with his officers on the bridge.