Morgan's Madonna Inn-vitational 2019 Adventures

This was an invite only RPG event. We took Amtrak down to San Luis Obispo, played 3 RPG games over two days and then returned home on the 3rd day. Game location was in the Madonna Inn, named not after the pop star singer, but after the construction magnate Alex Madonna. The hotel boasts of 110 uniquely decorated guest rooms. A favorite place for weddings.

Alex's wife loved the color pink, so many things in the hotel was pink. He even painted his construction equipment pink. You knew that any pink colored second hand construction equipment on sale came from his construction company.

I had a great time. Thanks to Todd E and Marty C for putting together this event.



I hide spoiler sections with JavaScript. If you have JavaScript turned off, you can skip the spoiler sections I have marked.

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Session 1: Sat Night, 4 Hours, 7-11pm

Game Suite - Country Gentleman

In the tradition of a stately English manor with a casual atmosphere, this suite welcomes you into a sitting room graced with a large fireplace of hand-placed native rock. The master bedroom with king bed and private bath, is just off the sitting area and the staircase leads to the 2nd floor bedroom with 2 twin beds. Stroll the surrounding grounds and wander the pathways to a hillside oasis and heated pool. This suite is ideal for a couple and comfortable enough for a family of four. King and 2 twins. One bathroom through master bedroom, tub/shower combo.

THE EXCITING EXPERIENCES OF THE EXODUS EXPEDITION: VOLUME X

From the depths of you imagination, call forth your insatiable lust for wonder, riches and fame, to join the Exodus Expedition on their adventures, far, wide and deadly!  Exotic locations, treachery, plunder and pirates a plenty stand against your curiosity, your cunning and your cutlass.
Based on Inverse World but utilizing aspects of Inverse Fellowship, it's a PbtA hack of a PbtA hack of a slash of collaborative storytelling you won't soon forget!

GM: Tyler Pugliese

Players: Charles P, Gennaro K, Karen Y, Morgan Hua.
System: The Inverse World

I liked this game. The PbtA playbook was very extensive, 4 pages of things to select from, consisting of 11 things to customize. I picked an Elf for my character and through choices, I wound up with a cold-blooded killer pixie with several Companions: an elven blade dancer, an elven archer, and a killer hummingbird. The other players customized a Collector (Gennaro), a Dwarf (Charles), and a Constructed (Karen).

There's no spoiler section because this game is unique to our session and knowing what happened won't help you at all since your game would be completely different.

Instead of a Tolkienesque world, through Player choices, we wound up with an ethereal plane of concepts. Wound up being chased by the Shadow of the Overlord we had just defeated. The Overlord had destroyed half the verdant and lush moon before we had killed him, leaving behind a cratered desert on half the moon. We found that he could only be defeated by one of two ways because he was protected by the shadow of the moon: Destroy the moon (which would take away his power) or Imprison the Shadow in a device. We decided to Imprison the Shadow. We had to get the device from a Dragon who pooped out poop and sometimes gold coins that looked like old Chinese coins. These coins can capture abstract things like love, anger, pride, etc. So, we had to defeat a Excremental (a poop elemental) and sneak into the dragon's lair. Once there, we were able to enlighten the dragon who gifted us with one of the coins. With the coin, we were able to capture the Shadow after bringing it to a tesseract fortress which could power it.

I credit Tyler, our GM, and the other Players for creating such an imaginative and interesting world. I enjoyed the game due to the odd concepts and utter strangeness. Yeah, not your standard Tolkien world.

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Session 2: Sun Morn, 6 Hours, 11am-5pm

Game Suite - Fox and Hound

Talley-Ho! The bugle is sounding... welcoming you to this country lodge. In the character of an English summer home, this rustic suite captures the ambiance of a restful retreat with a cozy sitting room and large stone fireplace. The master bedroom is located off the living room with king bed and private bath (tub/shower and double sinks) and the staircase takes you upstairs to the 2nd bedroom with a queen bed. This suite is cozy enough for a couple and comfortable enough to accommodate a family of four. One bath only through master bedroom.

VOLUPTUOUS PANIC

With Weimar Berlin in its death throes in February 1933, the Nazis rise and an ancient festival takes hold in the infamous Berlin demimonde. The players are prostitutes, hired to entertain for one final celebration in the estate of the notoriously perverse Obersturmbannfuhrer Wulf von Hellstrom. It will be a night of unearthly pleasure, pain and sacrifice and that they wish they could forget as true horror is birthed into the world.

GM: Marty Caplan

Players: Mike G, Bill L, Tyler P, Morgan Hua.
System: Delta Green

Play test of Marty's new game. Lots of good stuff going on with custom mechanics developed by Marty. Our group was cursed with really, really bad dice rolls. But in the end, we "saved" the day and only one of the PCs died (Mike's character).

=== SPOILER SECTION START ===

We got to pick from a set of cards our exterior (public) and interior (secret) identity: gender, preferred clientele, sexual orientation, etc. This was fairly interesting and innovative.

We're all down and out prostitutes in the last days of the Weimar Republic. We started with some short vignettes - a day in the life of a prostitute. My character witnessed a murder (by a serial killer) in an alleyway and I quickly ducked back into street and tried to hide in a doorway. When the killer walked by, he noticed me, but I propositioned him and he left in disgust. I then went to the victim and took any valuables from the body.

Then we got invited to the uberparty (Nazi escort required) while at our local club hangout. But we detoured to the Sex Museum first and ran into Jean Harlow and invited her to the uberparty. While at the Sex Museum, Tyler's PC got her fortune told with a Tarot deck and when the "future" turned up, the card burst into flame.

On the way back to the our local club to pick up a Nazis escort, we ran into two dead bodies on the street, one little girl was obviously pregnant (and biologically too young to have that happen). My PC had forensics, so I cut her belly up and found a weird chimera fetus inside of her.

Onto the party. It was at a grand estate - very Carcosa-like. My PC stole as much stuff as she could (brought along a big purse). The guests were mainly "degenerates" of Berlin. At the height of the party, wolf-masked men starting attacking (sacrificing) the guests.

Our party escaped from the mansion and tried to leave the estate. We ran into Loki who uglified my character. We ran into various Angels (also trapped on the estate) which liked to consume various interior aspects of our characters (those cards we selected at the beginning describing us). This was very cool. We ran into Raphael which didn't want to consume any of our aspects, so we brought her along. We ran into Gabriel in a church who consumed Tyler's PC and returned her pregnant. I spoke with Gabriel and found that we had to kill von Helstrom to escape his estate. Mike and Bill ran into Michael who started to consume their PCs, Mike sacrificed his PC to save Bill's, by having Michael charge at Mike's PC and barrelling them both into an obelisk which collapsed. The obelisk killed Mike's PC, but only pinned Michael's leg which he proceeded to chew off. With Raphael (an angel in tow), we returned to the Mansion to kill von Helstrom.

We found out our weapons were useless against von Helstrom. We finally cut a deal with Loki who removed von Helstrom's protection and after a fight, we killed him. The deal? We told Loki that the clown Hitler would cause more chaos than von Helstrom, if he became the leader of Germany.

We then set the mansion on fire and left in a stolen automobile with our loot. We all departed Germany and went to Hollywood with the help of Jean Harlow.

=== SPOILER SECTION END ===

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Session 3: Sun Night, 4 Hours, 7-11pm

Game Suite - Harvard Square

SMALL TOWN CHARACTER EMBRACES THE APPEALING CHARM AND SIMPLE COMFORTS of the Harvard Square. This spacious 3 bedroom, 2 bath suite captures the ambiance of an English country retreat with a large stone fireplace and sitting room. The master bedroom with king bed and bath (tub/shower combo) is just off the living room on the first floor. Upstairs is a 2nd bedroom with a king bed and bathroom with shower. Just a few steps more will take you into a quaint attic room with 3 twin beds.

A PLACE FOR WELLNESS

You will all play patients in an insane asylum being evaluated as to whether you should remain or be released. When not playing a patient, you will play as hospital staff: doctors, nurses, and orderlies in charge of recommending therapies, evaluating patients, administering therapies to the patients.

Patients suffer from various persecution complexes, delusions, paranoia, and some have violent tendencies.

Remember: The Institute for Wellness is here for your safety and wellbeing. Patience is a virtue and a patient is only released when they're ready to face the world.

GM: Morgan Hua
Players: David J, Tracey J, Gennaro K, Karen Y, Shannon M, Marty C.
System: Cthulhu Dark

This was a play test of my new game. The beginning was close to how I envisioned it, but interestingly enough, Marty pushed into the 3rd act early, so the game ran an hour or so short. Players had a good time hamming it up and gave me some great feedback. Marty did pick the perfect PC and he demonstrated deep knowledge of various movies in his dialog. Great job!

I had fun watching the goings on and a lot of people were laughing; people had fun.

=== SPOILER SECTION START ===

The 1st act is the evaluation of the patients by doctors, nurses, and staff.
The 2nd act is the treatment phase, where various treatments recommended by the hospital staff are carried out.
The 3rd act is the end game where all hell should break loose.

In the 1st act, I thought more than one patient would try to act coy, but only Shannon decided to do that, everyone else went for straight forward camp. If the game went longer, I would suspect Shannon's PC would have been released.

We got through the 1st act, but then a majority decided to break out of the asylum and all hell broke loose as Marty forced the start of the 3rd act. So, we never got into the 2nd act that much.

I made the mistake of putting all the patients in the general population early, so they outnumbered the doctors (when you are playing a patient, the doctor isn't present). Once that happened, the patients sensed their advantage and decided to escape. Player suggestion was to only do 2 at a time, so do act 1 and 2 for 2 PCs, then move onto 2 new PCs.  Another suggestion was to add some NPC interns that add to the die roll of doctors, so they can't be so easily outnumbered. I'll figure out the mechanism for that before the next run of this game.

Marty had Kirsty Cotton from Hellraiser and she got her hands on the puzzle box and worked to solve it just at the end of the 1st act. He solved it fairly quickly and that triggered the beginning of the 3rd act. As he started slaughtering various people, he brought in various one-liners relevant to those character's histories.

Another player feedback was to have a simple mechanism for the 3rd act if more than one big bad shows up and they face each other. There were also suggestions for other possible patients.

=== SPOILER SECTION END ===

Call of Cthulhu - Thoughts on Character Generation

I've been playing Call of Cthulhu for years, so I get surprised when someone asks about character generation. My go to is https://www.dholeshouse.org; it's a free website. I use the random die roll method and yeah, if the stats are horribly low, I just hit the reroll button. The application also rolls your Luck, but doesn't set it on the character sheet, so you just need to take of note of it and set it when you save the character sheet as a PDF. Dholeshouse also doesn't roll the random backstory entries (p.39-45, Keeper Rulebook).

The main thing when buying skills is to put skills that you think you will use and be an expert in at or above 50% and have one or two key skills near the max of 75%. I enforce a 75% cap on starting skills (p.49 Keeper Rulebook, A Cap on Starting Skill Values - optional rule). It is better to have 5 skills at 50% to 75% than to have 20 skills at 20% -- and complain that they can't succeed in anything. You should rely on your party composition to cover any knowledge / skill gaps. 

Where do you put skills? It depends on what your game focus is. My games are mostly investigative though eventually there will be combat. So, I recommend Spot Hidden, Library Use, at least one social skill (Charm, Fast Talk, Intimidate, Persuade) and one combat skill (Fighting Brawl, Firearms Handgun, Firearms Rifle/Shotgun). Secondary skills would be Dodge, Locksmith (to pick locks and for breaking and entering), Psychology, and Stealth. Once you get a hang of a game, you switch things around for variety, I sometimes deliberately skip combat skills, just to be different.

I had referenced two great articles on being a better player, but now they're gone (and back again).

• http://lookrobot.co.uk/2013/06/20/11-ways-to-be-a-better-roleplayer/
• http://lookrobot.co.uk/2013/06/23/stanislavski-vs-brecht-in-tabletop-roleplaying/

Basically, don't be a dick. Play well with others and remember you control the PC, not the other way around. If you claim you're playing the PC and he/she "won't do that (investigate)" that's bullshit and you're just making an excuse to not participate. You (with help from others or the GM) can always come up with a reasonable excuse. Otherwise, that PC can go home and you'll need to roll up another one that will investigate. So, why go through that exercise in futility?

Just once, I'd love to have a whole party decide they won't investigate. And I'll pull a near future montage of the PCs and their families dying horribly as the world ends. Then have them wake up in a cold sweat. Make them do a SAN check. And I'll ask them, "What is your PC going to do?" 

Dholeshouse.org - Random Die Roll Method

For samples of play:

Quests & Chaos: Masks of Nyarlathotep

How We Roll - Two-Headed Serpent (Pulp Cthulhu)

CoC 7th: Various Games GMed by Crazed Sheep

My campaign of Two-Headed Serpent (Pulp Cthulhu)

My campaign of Masks of Nyarlathotep with Gangster PCs (Pulp Cthulhu, only Masks has video recordings)

My campaign of World War Cthulhu: Cold War (Purist 1970's CoC 7th)

My campaign of A Time to Harvest (Purist 1920s CoC 7th)

Online Character Generator: DholesHouse.org

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Q (JK): One of my Players wanted to create a Student whose Occupation states that the Credit Rating (CR) is 5-10. The Player must spend 5-10 Occupation Points to set their CR. Can that Player spend Personal Interest points to raise the CR past the max of 10?

A: The short answer is yes.

There's the rules and there's the exceptions. In my world, the PCs are the exceptions. I'd let them buy whatever CR they want because it comes out of the same skill point pool.

In real life, one of my college classmates was Steve Wozniak. This was after Apple was already a successful company. The Woz wanted to have a Computer Science degree. His CR was 90+.

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Q (SB): How do you make a Player in my RPG a better team player and less of an ass?

A (MH): You need to privately talk to the problem Player. There maybe various reasons.

1. Game expectation mismatch. Player wants one thing, GM/Other Players want another thing. There's no solution to this other than, sorry game isn't for you, and you're disrupting the game and making it not fun for everyone else. We like you, but sorry, you're out of this particular game.

2. PC is lone wolf and "won't do that." This is a Player problem. You can see if you can make up some motivation/hook that would motivate the PC to work with the other PCs. This should be a conversation between you and Player to come up with a common solution. Do NOT let the Player put the burden on you to come up with a reason. You need Player buy-in for this, so best if you both agree on motivation/hook.

3. PC is being a dick and just throwing wrenches into your game for fun. Maybe ask the Player if he wants to play a secret villain. If he does, score. The other Players would love to kill his PC after a long campaign. Sometime, it should be revealed that the PC is a villain and now the job of the other PCs is to have revenge. Finale of campaign should be the extreme termination of villain PC.

SB: We’ve been in the same campaign for 10 months, maybe more, and it’s like something “clicked” in him and the last 4-5 sessions haven't been fun due to him. It's not just me. It’s the whole party, we’ve been texting about it.

MH: Sounds like your Player got bored or has a personal problem going on. You'll need to talk to Player privately and ask if he still wants to play. If the answer is yes, then bring up the disruptive behavior and talk about solutions.

If he's bored, which happens with a long campaign, then you can have a group discussion on how to make the game different enough to satisfy the whole group. If an agreement can't be reached, then it would be best for everyone if he left the campaign until the next one starts up. And when you start a new one, then a session 0 should be done where all can agree on what the new campaign is and how it can satisfy everyone. Or if you are all good friends and rather all meet, you can just declare the current campaign dead and do a session 0 for a new campaign.

If it's a personal problem, then tell him that maybe he isn't aware, but his behavior is disrupting the game and making it not fun for everyone. Can he tone down his behavior or does he need time off from the game to take care of his personal issues? Sometimes this is difficult because the social aspect of the game is an emotional crutch during a personal crisis. But the Player is unaware that he's acting out and ruining it for the others. That said, it's not your duty to be his therapist. He may need professional help instead.