Thursday, December 18, 2014

Morgan's Dead of Winter 2014 Excellent Adventures

Again, due to weather and time, I didn't get to visit the Foresthill Bridge, but I got to visit the Haggin Museum in Stockton and see the Alex Ross exhibit.  The Haggin Museum is a small museum situated in a nice park.  It contains some historical displays about the early days of Stockton and a fine art collection.  I was in there for about two hours.

I used to read comics when I was a little kid, but stopped.  Only later as an adult, I noticed the excellent photo-realistic art of Alex Ross in Kingdom Come and that had gotten me back into reading select stories such as The Dark Knight Returns, Aliens vs Predator, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, and Requiem: Vampire Knight.

The art of Alex Ross was very interesting and the museum included Norman Rockwell and J.C. Leyendecker pieces that influenced his work.  And the Haggin collection has over 50 Leyendeckers, the largest of any museum.

Shannon M. and I went through the museum and Frank F., uninterested in comic book art, decided to skip "The Jewel of Stockton" and visit a Starbucks instead.  So much for getting some culture.  :-)

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Sunday 11am
Game System: Call of Cthulhu, 7th Edition
Scenario Title:
The Woebegone Winter
GM:
Josh Clark & John Castillo
Variations:
Modified sanity rules
Power Level:
Plain ol’ Humans
Number of Players:
6
Characters Provided:
Yes

Description: A family treks across the 1850′s American frontier to lay claim to a plot of land bursting with gold, but what they find once the snow starts to fall should have stayed buried.
Players:  Badger M.  Dovi A.  Gil T.  Jack Y.  Matt A.  Morgan H.

An amazing game.  I guess I'm becoming jaded by CoC games that follow the template of follow the clue trails, figure out how to kill the big bad, and then confronting the big bad.  Well, this game was way different.  

The players were excellent and we picked the right scenes to highlight and pulled in the right PCs at the right time.  It was one of those games where everything clicked and worked out.

The game was full of surprises brought on by the players.  Some gems were:

Dovi wrapping his fleece jacket into swaddling and playing a crying baby audio from his cell phone as he rocked the "baby."

Gil started as the most hated PC and wound up being a favorite and the only survivor.


Saturday 7pm
Game System: Call of Cthulhu 6th ed
Scenario Title
: Pale Harvest
GM:
Badger McInnes
Variations:
Maybe
Power Level:
Competent Officers
Number of Players:
6
Characters Provided:
Yes
Description: Los Angeles, 1950. In the late 40s, the Los Angeles Police Department created what became to be known as the “Gangster Squad”- an elite group of police officers, reporting directly to Chief of Police William Parker. Their job: to combat organized crime in LA, and to eradicate mob boss Mickey Cohen. Given wide latitude, you and other members of the Gangster Squad were able to use any means necessary to stamp out the mob.

That’s your official duty, anyway. But Chief Parker has called you and a few of your fellow officers in with an assignment that he says he needs to bury in the books of the Squad (which itself is buried in the LAPD’s finances). Seems some teenage girls have been gone missing. One body has been found. The press hasn’t gotten a hold of it yet, but it’s only a matter of time before they do. And the last thing the department needs is another Black Dahlia PR disaster. Your assignment: find the girls. Find out who’s kidnapping them. Bring them to justice. By any means necessary.

Note: This Call of Cthulhu scenario deals with sensitive topics of an adult nature. Strong investigative elements and role playing emphasized. Mature players only.
Players:  Anthony B.  Morgan H.  Shannon M.  Jill S.  Gil T.  Jack Y.

Another great game with great players.  I'd seen the movie "Gangster Squad," and enjoyed it.  We basically played the characters from the movie, but instead of busting Mickey Cohen, we were solving a CoC mystery.

I was entirely immersed in the police procedural and loved it:  multiple clue trails, red herrings, dead ends, interrogations, bribery and murder.  What was there to not like?



Sunday 11am
Game System: Call of Cthulhu 6th Edition
Scenario Title:
Thirty-Five Miles to Jalalabad
GM:
Gil Trevizo
Variations:
None
Power Level:
Wives and Daughters
Number of Players:
6
Characters Provided:
Yes

Description: It’s been five days and three thousand dead since the column left Kabul, where not long ago you were drinking madeira wine and watching the men play cricket amidst what then seemed a bastion of the British Empire. The men had taken Afghanistan back in 1839, all for Queen, country, and the greater profit of the British East India Company. Now, just three years later, the men had lost Afghanistan, lost your homes in Kabul, and perhaps lost all your lives. As the snows deepen and the tribesmen snipe from the mountaintops, rumors have spread that the women and children will be allowed to surrender. Nonetheless, your husbands and fathers have spoken and it will not be: a proper Englishman would never allow their woman to fall into the hands of these rapacious savages, not when the column is so close, just thirty-five miles left to go before safety awaits at the garrison in Jalalabad.
Players: Marcus F.  Janaki S.  Shannon M.  Morgan H.  Skylar W.  Scott M. 

Another really good game.  This time Gil has taken some mechanics from independent storytelling games and put them in CoC.  Given the historical context, Gil gave us scene cards where we read out the historical event and we made up a scene with our characters.  This added or subtracted points from our bonds.

More great players and the incredible Gil, who ran this game again right afterwards to replace Dovi's game (who had gotten very sick with the flu).  Gil was also sick and I would be surprised if he still had his voice the next day.

Kudos to Skylar who played an amazing Grand Dame, the epitome of British stiff upper lip, unperturbed by almost everything: from a starving death march to gunfire by Afghan savages.

The game was unrelenting and grim.  Perfect for DoW.



Sunday 7pm
Game System: CASTE
Scenario Title: The Dust Lust Bust
GM: Arthur Stone Wallis
Variations: Historical
Number of Players: 5
Characters Provided: Yes
DescriptionSan Francisco, 1849. The discovery of GOLD at Sutter's Mill has created a worldwide panic of immigration. Once a backwater Spanish missionary village of less than a thousand, the City by the Bay as become a vibrant boom town...more than a quarter of a million souls have arrived in less than a year. Abandoned clipper ships choke the harbors, their crews running to the gold fields along with their passengers...only to return scant weeks later, wealthy or penniless. Crusty West Virginia miners rub elbows with East Coast industry magnates in the saloons, risking fortunes on the turn of a card.

In mere days, a disaster of terrible proportions will befall this fledgling city. 

Far from the diggings on the American River, where Christ is Lord and men pull wealth from the earth, a war of commerce is being fought in the boardwalk-lined streets of San Francisco. What little law there is must be swift and brutal, as the rules of warfare have not yet been written here. 

Players will take on the role of various immigrant personalities in this tumultuous time and place, just before the famous disaster. With a level playing field, a certain saloon is out earning its rivals to a vast degree. Chinamen, former slaves, and other unscrupulous types have been seen coming and going in the night. Solving this mystery would be worth a lot of money to the waterfront saloon league...but don't expect any help, and steer clear of the law.


CASTE is a system of merciless chance, and deep humanity. Easy to learn because it is so hard to forget. Bring your love of character development, history, storytelling, and at the bottom of the bag pack your blackest cruelty. Just in case...
Players:  Morgan H.  John C.  Marcus F.  Andy V.  Basil B.

CASTE is an interesting system.  It uses tarot cards instead of dice.  Character classes fall into suits of the tarot deck.  If you draw your suit, you get a bonus.  Face cards and Major Arcane cards have special meaning.  The only flaw is that you use a standard tarot deck and for the cards with special meaning, you still need a lookup chart.

Another fun game with great character interaction.

Marcus played a great Chinese character and had the best bits.

The mystery did keep us guessing until I figured out which movie we were in.  But it was the character interactions that were fun.

A good end to DoW.

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