Tales from the Loop - Review and Thoughts on the End Game

 

My late teen years was in the 80s, so there's a lot of nostalgia for me. I didn't have an angst ridden high school, so Monsterhearts RPG never appealed to me. Goonies, Labyrinth, Ghost Busters, Gremlins, Stranger Things, Lost Boys, Aliens, and Stephen King was my 80s.

Tales from the Loop (TftL) RPG was published in 2017 and was based on Simon Stålenhag's art work. It's an alternate reality where The Loop exists, a high tech, top secret facility where particle physics experiments are being conducted. The result? Maglev vehicles, advanced robots, and dinosaurs. And throw all of this back into the 80s.

Kids ride bikes, have a club house whether in a tree house, a barn, or in someone's basement, but they don't have cell phones. The kids' ages range from 10 to 15. Their Luck Points is 15 - age; each Luck Point allows a reroll of failed die rolls. As the kids age, they gain more skill points, but their luck decreases. Kids follow specific templates: Bookworm, Computer Geek, Hick, Jock, Popular Kid, Rocker, Troublemaker, and Weirdo. Attribute + Skill level + bonuses such as an Iconic Item = dice pool of d6s (max 10d6). Each 6 rolled is a success, count total number of successes. Most tasks require only one success. Extra successes makes your success better by allowing you to ask the GM more questions about a situation or allows you to lend your extra success (a helping hand) to your buddies who failed. Kids don't have hit points, but Conditions such as Upset, Scared, Exhausted, Injured, and Broken (final Condition; if checked, you're unable succeed in any tests). Each Condition subtracts a die from the dice pool. If at anytime you fail, you gain a Condition. You can also voluntarily Push a roll, take a Condition and reroll non-6s. Basically for each die roll, you can spend a Luck AND Push a roll; if you still fail (no 6s), you gain a Condition and something bad happens. PCs also have a Pride which can be used once per scenario which is one auto-success.

TftL borrows from indie RPGs where the Players are asked questions to build out the PCs family life and relationships. What is your PC's family life like? Can you sneak out of school? Miss dinner? Do you have to take care of your kid sister? Do you belong to a single parent family? Latch key kid? This all comes into play as the kids try to solve a mystery. "Hey, guys. I gotta go home, it's dinner time. If I don't, my mom's gonna kill me."

Each kid has an Iconic Item (a skateboard, baseball bat, boombox, etc.) which adds 2d6 to their dice pool if they can think of a way to use it to help with a task. Normal items add 1d6, but doesn't stack.

I found the procedural system works fine. Declare what you want to do, roll dice, count number of successes, look up what bennies you have if you got extra ones. But what's odd is the end game (The Showdown, p. 87 / Extended Trouble p.70), it's sort of a mini-game in itself. The GM decides how many total successes are needed for a complete success, between 2 to 4 per PC, so for a group of 5 PCs, you might need a total of 20 successes. If you fall short, you'll either fail or have a partial success. So, each PC declares what they're doing, roll dice, total up the successes.

What I find odd is this. The PCs declare what they're doing in the planning stage. Then roll dice (allowing a Luck spend, a Push, and a Pride spend) based on their action. Then the GM narrates the outcome, again repeating what the PCs were doing and whether it was successful. You're basically telling the same story three times. WTF. I know Jackie Chan movies sometimes show the same action again and again from different camera angles (and sometimes the same angle), but this ain't a Jackie Chan movie, but Goonies. I found the shift from procedural to this mini-game jarring and a bit odd.

I've played in a few games by Daniel N of Bandit's Keep, where he just kept the end game procedural. We embraced the Swedish setting.

I've played in a short campaign set in Salinas run by Saul M and Bay C. Salinas is Saul's hometown.

I've run 3 of the scenarios from the core book, set in Palo Alto (I wanted Berkeley, but the Players wanted Stanford. Both have linear accelerators.), and planned on running Our Friends the Machines and Out of Time before segueing into Things from the Flood. But the end game just didn't work for me. Even when I kept it procedural, success seem too easy and there isn't enough risk in the end game.

I also played in 3 games a few weeks ago at A Weekend With Few Good Friends set in Boulder, CO. In one game, we ran short on time, so the mini-game worked fine, but if we had more time, it would have felt strange. I spoke with Nate after the games and he said after running 5 games in a week and a half that "I am feeling you on the end game mechanic needing some additional love. It really seems to halt the entire game and put the grand finale end scene into a mini-game mechanic."

I think I have a new way to run the end game.

1. Have the kids plan their Rube Goldberg plan.

2. Determine Player order, who goes first, etc.

3. GM determines the Threat Level (p.70), how many successes are needed per PC, depending on difficulty and failure stakes. e.g. if it's dangerous or not. It'll depend on the PCs skills. With the pre-gens, each PC got 10d6 to roll and got a total of 20 successes which was 4 per PC.

4. Each PC (hopefully picked their strongest skill) rolls their skill, applying it to their task. They're allowed, if available, one Luck spend, one Push (which adds a Condition), and their Pride. Not getting enough successes for the amount determined in #3 above, will result in one condition per shortfall, unless the next PC can pick up the slack. The next PC rolls their skill and can lend extra successes to the previous PC to prevent their injury. This continues until the last PC rolls. After each die roll, the Player (with GM input) describes how their leg of the plan worked or went sideways. The following Player (with GM input) describes how they rescued the previous PC and how they continued with their leg of the plan.

Page 71 does state the Kids can Push multiple times in the end game, something to think about. Maybe optionally, they can continue Pushing until they're Broken, trying to get their required number of successes. Even though they're gaining another Condition, the Push is just rerolling the non-6s and not reducing the dice pool for this task, but for future tasks.

Lead skill (p.74) can either lend extra dice to other Kids (2, 4, or 6) or be successes in the dice pool. You can't double dip. So, if a PC wants to Lead as their skill (help plan and give a rousing speech), they can mix and match, lending dice to other Kids and succeeding in their own right. e.g. Maria decides to Lead, explaining the plan in detail and making a rhyme explaining all the steps like right out of The Dirty Dozen, and rolls 4 successes. The target is 3, so she decides to spend the left over success as  extra dice for kids that won't roll 10d6. The extra success is converted into 2d6. She decides to give 2d6 to Linda, by giving her words of encouragement ("You can do this!") who's going to try to Tinker with the electronic door and shut it behind the rushing Raptors who's chasing Fred into the trap they've set.

5. If the last PC succeeds by the amount determined in #3 above, their plan worked. Otherwise, it fails.

Not is all lost because there's a few conceits in the game:

• Kids are bored and like adventure, they risk getting into trouble just to have fun.
• Kids can get hurt, but can't die.
• Adults are basically useless, so the Kids must solve the mystery themselves. They can get help from adults, but most of them will ignore the kids (I've got more important things to do), think it's a prank, or get into worse trouble.
• Most mysteries return the world to a status quo. Like most episodic TV shows, the town always returns to normal for the next episode.

Overall, I really enjoy the feel of the game. It's nostalgic and captures the sense of wonder kids have with robots, magnets, and dinosaurs.

I'll report back after trying this new way of doing the end game.

Morgan's A Weekend with Good Friends Aug 2021 Most Excellent Adventures

 

The return of one of the best Call of Cthulhu online conventions around. And it's FREE!

This year, it's the new and improved shuffler. Initially, I got into three Tales from the Loop games, one Eclipse Phase, and one CoC game. The Eclipse Phase game got cancelled. Then as people dropped out during the week before and during the convention, I got in more games and the final tally was five CoC games and three Tales from the Loop games. Wow!

AWWGF brings the best role players and GMs. Consistent, high quality. 

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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Slot 1: Thursday 8/19, 5:30pm - 9:30pm (4 hrs)

Penguin One for Call of Cthulhu

GM: doctorkreiner

For 4-8 players, ages 16 and older. This game is beginner friendly.

Pre-generated characters will be provided.

Players: Morgan Hua, CD, seanpp, staffantj, bilgepump, Bill P

1958. An aircraft on a top secret mission near the north pole. A hastily assembled rescue team. The Cold War meets the Cthulhu mythos in a race across the top of the world. What secrets was the Army trying to understand? What happens if the Russians get there first? And can you really trust your team, or could one of them be a communist spy?

Content Warnings: Body horror, cosmic horror, blood, gore

Additional Safety Tools: Pre-game discussion

DoctorKreiner is the same GM as the The Victim's Ball in Jan 2021's A Weekend with Good Friends. He changed discord handles between games. Now I know, avoid games with 8 players.

This game was better in play than The Victim's Ball, but story-wise less interesting. There were 6 Players, and we only split up into two groups for a short time, so we had more total screen time. Since we were in the Arctic wastes, there weren't many NPCs to interact with, so we had a little bit more roleplaying between the PCs.

I feel some GMs are frustrated novelists who impose their will upon a game trying to make the game the Great American novel.

GMs need to understand that there are big paint brushes and small detail brushes and when to use them effectively. From my writing courses, I learned that the usage of words should be proportional to the importance of it. Gloss over unimportant things and only go into detail on important things.

At one point, the GM was arguing with a Player about landing gears and fuel dumping from an airplane. The details didn't really matter that much and was really inconsequential. They really got into the weeds and wasted time. The Player was trying to rationalize some details as normal, but the GM kept on insisting that it was abnormal. I doubt any of the participants were that knowledgeable about airplane crash forensics and were just arguing about stuff they weren't experts in (in real life).

Overall, I felt I didn't make that many choices and it was an ok game.

=== SPOILER SECTION START ===

First we choose PCs: Amaruq (Morgan), Rosetta Hamlin (CD), Lou Chase (Bill P), Mike Jefferson (bilgepump), Jumpy Jermayn (Sean P), Zach Bowen (Staffan).

An aircraft with a payload/cargo has gone down several hundred miles from our Arctic base. The base commander has no idea what the cargo is. A Dutch research vessel can help in 18 hours, but a Russian sub is heading there too. The only way to get there ahead of the Russians is to parachute in, do our mission (rescue survivors, destroy payload, recover dog tags), and then get picked up by the Dutch research vessel.

As in The Victim's Ball, time is spent getting our equipment. But at least this time were not forced to abandon it right after we start. I really wish we had our equipment listed on our pregens. The pregens had well done backstories with various secrets.

I picked Amaruq, the only Inuit native. Everyone else was either a scientist or military personnel.

The first thing was jumping out of airplane without any training. Tough for Amaruq and the scientists. This actually didn't make any sense as there's a high death rate for first time jumpers without training. Maybe a floatplane would have made more sense.

Once we landed and some landed badly (where upon they spot some tracks), we found the payload was gone and the co-pilot was shot in the head from behind while still strapped into his seat.

Two tracks left the plane. One single track, one way; another track with two people pulling a sled another. We followed the sled. We also noticed a third set of tracks following the sled.

Eventually, we find the person following the shed. At the same time, a giant flying creature (later we learn it was a Shoggoth) disappears (in mid-flight) where the sled tracks disappeared. After some argument and back and forth and experimentation, we all decide to follow the sled in order to destroy the playload.

On the other side of an invisible barrier (SAN loss and possible HP loss) is an alien city. We go into a pyramid and find two of the missing crew members setting up the payload. They seem possessed and not themselves. The equipment and the crew members chant Tekeli-li. We shoot them and plant explosives to destroy the payload.

The Shoggoth approaches us and we flee. We make Luck rolls to see who runs into the Shoggoth. Two PCs die, my character and CD's Rosetta. 

The PCs run into the Dutch rescue party who also found one surviving Russian sailor.

This was a variation on At the Mountains of Madness. I assume the crew members were possessed by Yithians bringing a device to control the Shoggoths, but we never knew this in game.

=== SPOILER SECTION END ===

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Slot 4: Friday 8/20, 8am-12pm (4 hrs)

The Space Between for Call of Cthulhu

GM: Hilmar

For 3-4 players, ages 18 and older. This game is beginner friendly.

Pre-generated characters will be provided.

Players: Morgan Hua, [Leo], Saccharine Choking Hazard, Yajster (Andy)

Four members of the "Church of Sunyata" meet at a half-deserted film set in modern day Hollywood. Mind you, this Church is not a cult. It has excellent contacts in Hollywood, and is producing this feature film to present their beliefs to the public. The filming is in trouble, though: the leading lady has vanished, the director has retreated from the world, and the second lead actress hasn't even been cast.

Enter the investigators: You will play the Church's PR guru, its fearsome fixer, the director's personal assistant and a young actor getting entangled in a web of deceits. You movie for tonight: "The Space between".

This is, of course, a scenario by Scott himself, and I am aware of the chutzpah to run it at his own convention ;) But I have run this 10+ times and I bring in my own props and extensions. It's always been a blast.

This game will be run using voice and video over Zoom. Please make sure your internet connection and camera gear hold up to this. Voice-only gamers will not be accepted.

Content Warnings: Extreme violence, religion, body horror.

Additional Safety Tools: X-Card

Hilmar wears multiple hats (literally) when he plays different NPCs and his enthusiasm for running this scenario shows. When the party is split up, he does like to do a scene cut at a cliff hanger. Hilmar did several things to make the game as cinematic possible, thus the requirements for video.

Players also leaned heavily into being loyal cult members of the Church.

This was an excellent game, loads of fun, and highly recommended.

=== SPOILER SECTION START ===

You quickly figure out the Church is modeled on Ron L Hubbard, Scientology, Tom Cruise, etc. with the serial numbers filed off.

PCs: Spencer Shull (Morgan), Julio Cortese (Leo), Blake Tevis (Andy), David Otera (Saccharine Choking Hazard).

We start at the set of a movie where the main actress and director has been missing for 3 days. It has been kept as a secret to avoid negative publicity. Soon, the cops are knocking on the door of the set and we're given orders not to let them in. Eventually, they do get in, but I do some Cop Talk and get info that an unidentified body, of someone totally skinned (Silence of the Lambs style), was found in a sewer drain a few miles away. They think it's our missing star actress, Verity Harrow. Blake also gets some of this info from the head detective. Once the cops are inside, a number of us gets phone calls to get the cops out. The detective finds something interesting on the set. Julio throws a stiletto heeled shoe at the detective's back. I run and pull the fire alarm, setting off the sprinklers. After the set is vacated, we look at what the detective was looking at, a cleaned up patch of what might be a pool of blood. I dumped bleach on the evidence site to destroy any DNA evidence.

The PCs split up. Julio and Blake go to director Woodward's home and editing studio. Spencer and David go to the missing actress's apartment.

At the director's home, Julio and Blake find a door into a field of stars. Blake enters and finds himself on a real location that looks like the set for the movie. There, at that location, is Woodward and a very tall, woman made of stars. Woodward pleads for help. Julio enters and find he's trapped too. Woodward tries to jump off the cliff in order to commit suicide, PCs restrain him. The lady approaches. Blake jumps and everyone follows.

Spencer and David see the cops take Verity out of her apartment. We approach and David finds that Verity is strangely pliant and spongy. The cops are spooked out, some run. David sees stars in place of eyes under Verity's dark glasses. Spencer convinces the detective that it'll be best if he took Verity.

Back at Woodward's. The PCs land back in the editing studio instead of crashing to their deaths. Woodward is unstable. Blake steals the rough cut of the movie to prevent Woodward from damaging it. He takes it to the high-end Retreat.

Spencer calls his boss and is told to bring Verity back to the high-end Retreat. He and David do so (David doesn't mention the stars).

All the PCs get to the Retreat. David goes for some treatment and in secret gets skinned. David, walking oddly, speaking oddly, shows up at the cafeteria. Blake sees the stars in David's eyes and has an indefinite insanity and is taken away. Julio helps finish editing the movie. My character is oblivious and has a beer and salad.

That evening, there is the screening of the rough cut. Verity, David, and Blake are in wheelchairs in the front seats. The walls disappear and we wind up at the cliffs. The woman is there and starts touching people, turning them into stars. I shoot her and get engulfed in stars. In the end, all of us are turned into stars if we hadn't been already.

GM made a deliberately horrible video which he showed as the rough cut. He also created end credits with the names of all the Players. Nicely done and a great touch.

=== SPOILER SECTION END ===

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Slot 6: Friday 8/20, 5:30pm-9:30pm (4 hrs)

Our Friends the Machines for Tales From the Loop

GM: your friend nate

For 2-5 players, no minimum age. This game is beginner friendly.

Pre-generated characters will be provided.

Players: Morgan Hua, julian33, fieryangel, Brent (he/him), seanpp

Springtime. It's the afternoon of March 30th, the Wednesday before Easter. The weather is still a little cold but the snow is gone. Tomorrow, on Thursday, the new line of robot toys, Our Friends the Machines, arrives in the local toy shop Toy Corner, as promised. This is as expected because the launch was preceded by a massive campaign with interviews in the newspapers and flooded with advertisements in the toy catalogs everywhere. Since it's a local trial launch, the focus has also been that this is a unique honor for Boulder City and its surroundings - the little town will be the first to see the new toys!

You and your friends have agreed to meet up tomorrow and try to get your hands on the newest craze. Maybe you're getting a little too old for toys... or maybe you're just right. Should be fun!

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Tales from the Loop is a collaborative storytelling mystery RPG set in a 1980's that never was Playing as teenagers, you'll explore a dangerous mystery, and maybe change the world - or wake up in a hospital, jail cell, or worse. It's up to us.

The six principles of the Loop are:

1. Your home town is full of fantastic things.

2. Everyday life is dull and unforgiving.

3. Adults are out of reach and out of touch.

4. Mysteries are dangerous but Kids will not die.

5. The game is played scene by scene.

6. The world is described collaboratively.

Content Warnings: Body horror, child endangerment (as you are playing as teenagers), but principle 4 is key: Mysteries are dangerous, but Kids will not die.

No Additional Safety Tools.

I'm a fan of Tales of the Loop except for the end game mechanics. The game is procedural until the very end and then suddenly, everybody rolls dice, you add up the number of successes and compare it to some number and if you get enough successes the kids succeed; if not, then they get a partial success or failure.

Well, in this game, we were running short on time, so it does summarize the ending very well, but it still left a bad taste in my mouth because what happens is the PCs do some crazy plan, outline it as to who does what. Then we roll. We made it! Then the GM again summarizes what had happened. Um, it's like déjà vu all over again. I'm still trying to figure out how to house rule this so the end game works in a better way.

This game was fun with some great roleplaying by fieryangel and Sean P.

=== SPOILER SECTION START ===

PCs: Isabella (morgan), Linda (julian33), Maria (fieryangel), Tim (Brent), Fred (seanpp)

Transformer toys are coming to Boulder, CO. The special guests, developers of the product, don't show up for the product launch at the local toy store. We buy up some toys and find out they're more than they seem. There are some creepy undercover police guys watching people enter the store. The toys, according to the package, should just be posable toys with no special electronics and requires batteries.

Outside, one kid complains that her toy flew away right after she opened up the box.

We head to our pirate tree house hideout and run into what looks like the remains of a tiny robot battlefield. So, my PC decides to do some forensics on the robot remains and finds sophisticated robotics in what should be just a toy. I open up our new toys to do a comparison and the toys activate. The bad guy robot immediately flies away. The good guy robots take their damaged companion to the repair station that we bought. We then take all the robots to our treehouse and talk to them. We get the indication that they want more companions. I fix the robot with a missing arm and leg with a hook-hand and a peg-leg, now renamed Pirate Pete.

We then go to the toy developer's home and find that she's plugged into some neural control system and is franticly programming chip upgrades that control people; obviously an evil robot plan to take over the world. She is oblivious to us. Some evil robots show up and we flee. I had a fight with Tim about shutting down the building's power and I lost, so we left the power running. Maria called uncle Vinny, our cop uncle, to come and "fix" this. I fed the starving cats.

We then go to the toy store, I pick the lock, and we open up the good robot boxes. The robots create a collective intelligence, getting smarter as more link into a larger neural network. I show them the development plans I had taken from the game developer's home and posit that we can create a computer virus to deactivate the chips that are in people's heads, uploading it to the same terminal the developer is typing into, thus upgrading all the chips so they all become inactive. We also find the toy store owners unconscious, but chipped.

We then make a plan to attack the house, Pirate Pete sliding down the military grade data cable with his hook-hand; Fred hocky sticking evil robots and uncle Vinny, now under evil robot control; Tim and his pet rat helping distract the evil robots, so Linda can get upstairs; The good robots assaulting the bad robots; Maria acting as Leader, giving us advice; Linda with her dog uploading the computer virus I created; There's also some cat action as they bat at some evil robots.

In the end, we got 20 successes, what we needed for our plan to work.

=== SPOILER SECTION END ===

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Slot 9: Sat 8/21, 8am-12pm (4 hrs)

The Great Trap for Call of Cthulhu

GM: GMDante

For 3-4 players, ages 18 and older. This game is not beginner

friendly.

Pre-generated characters will be provided.

Players: Morgan Hua, Leland T, julian33, JeremyE

The year is 1927, and a letter arrives from a Professor Adhemar Osterman. The letter beseeches you to travel to an observatory on the banks of Lake Geneva, and there recover an experimental device stolen from Osterman's possession.

The letter is dated almost thirty years earlier. Though it bears your signature, you do not remember signing the letter; nor could you have - you were not yet born. For that matter, neither could Osterman have sent it, for he is dead.

In the days following the letter's receipt, you experience strange dreams. Dreams of signing the letter in the company of a man once a friend, now a stranger; of running from the shrill whistling of an invisible assailant; and of walking towards the trumpet sounds of a dying alien race.

Visions of what was, what is, and what may yet come to pass.

"The Great Trap" is a stand-alone scenario for Call of Cthulhu 7th Edition written by Heinrich Moore and published via the Miskatonic Repository. The scenario examines human concepts and experiences through the unknowable Cthulhu Mythos. The investigators will explore themes of regret, obsession, and revenge, and be challenged to question who they are, what they might do, and how the answers to those questions could change if only history played out a little differently.

This scenario is also an homage to Dungeons & Dragons scenarios of yesteryear. 

Content Warnings: Scenes of graphic violence and alien horror.

Additional Safety Tools: X-Card

Another really fun game. And an excellent interpretation of the Chase Rules. The GM was an expert in managing the chaos inherent in the scenario.

I really enjoyed the surprises and will run this scenario for my own RPG groups (yes, plural).

=== SPOILER SECTION START ===

PCs: Ai-Ling Soong (morgan), Florence Maxley (julian33), Flint Larson (Leland T), Spencer Raistlin (JeremyE).

The conceit of this scenario is that there will be death and lots of it. You need to lean into doing risky things and dying. The observatory is a nexus of alternate timelines, so if you die, you can come back, but altered. The first early deaths were a big surprise, especially for a convention game, but then PCs come back, but changed and in a different location.

The end game looked like it was going towards a TPK, but in the end 3 out of 4 of us made it out, with my PC the only original untouched. But I did loose an alternate reality version of my PC.

The game started with a horrible auto accident on the way to the observatory. Some PCs get a flash of what might have been during the accident. Then on the walk to the observatory, we get attacked by a giant invisible monster. Two PCs who hesitated during the chase died (one went back to save the other, but yeah, they didn't know the GM was willing to hand out the death card early). Yep, in the first 30 minutes of the convention game.

Two of us made it inside and find, lo and behold, we meet alternate versions of the dead PCs who are younger and stronger. I guess you get a bennie for dying early. 😃

We explore the observatory trying to figure out the mystery and run into various oddities and occurrences because different timelines and alternate timelines intersect in various locations. This is why the GM said this was an homage to old fashioned D&D scenarios. Each door leads to something surprising and different. But you can combine things from different rooms to get different results.

There's a lot of trying to stop what's going on and things going horribly wrong. It's lots of fun.

For a brief moment, I was running two versions of my character. My original character got caught in a slow zone, so I got to manifest another version, one that existed in an alternate reality where there was a communist revolution taking over the US.

In one scene, my communist version of Dr Soong (wearing a peasant's jacket and an arm band with the hammer & sickle and stripes, and a Lenin beard and mustache) has taken a silver box with a time lock into the far future, unlocks it, and gets the key, just as a giant insect carries him away.

In another, we (unslowed capitalist Dr Soong and Flo) try to stop a telescope apparently shooting a beam into the sky, we try to stop it by raising the observatory floor and accidentally make it shoot at the observatory walls and it starts exploding things.

In the end, as everything is falling down, there's a chase scene where we're trying to escape the observatory. GM had prepared cards for various locations of the observatory and obstacles to overcome in order to escape. One of the best implementations of the chase mechanic in CoC 7th edition.

p.s. I've run this scenario for one of my gaming groups. They entered with 3 PCs and escaped with 5, one original and 2x 2 alternate versions. The first time in a CoC game where you leave with more PCs at the end than at the beginning. 😊

=== SPOILER SECTION END ===

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Slot 10: Sat 8/21, 1pm-5pm (4 hrs)

The Kolakalee Thunderbird for Call of Cthulhu

GM: GM Bill

For 3-6 players, ages 16 and older. This game is beginner friendly.

Pre-generated characters will be provided.

Players: Morgan Hua, sodmikail, hlynurjokull, fieryangel, Recalibrated, TR

When a strange, giant bird is seen hovering ominously over the Kolakalee Springs Family Fun Park, the cast of "Haunt Hunters: Coast 2 Coast," the fourth-most popular paranormal investigation show in their timeslot, are called in to film an episode about it.

Having faked all the "evidence" they've found over the course of three seasons, the cast is confident they can spin a compelling episode out of a few grainy YouTube clips, some interviews and atmospheric footage of the nearby Everglades. But there's just one little problem...something did kill one of the Family Fun Park's prize petting zoo attractions last night.

No Content Warnings

Additional Safety Tools: X-Card

We're modern characters who've worked together for 3 seasons on a shoestring cable TV show. We've internal issues and don't necessarily like each other. Nor are our scripted TV personalities are the same as our real personalities or beliefs. The Players brought to life all these different layers through our actions and arguments. Another really fun game due to the roleplaying.

The GM has three scenarios using these same characters.

Exceptional roleplaying by fieryangel and TR. Everyone else was really good too.

=== SPOILER SECTION START ===

PCs: Jessica Salverson (morgan), Jax Lanswell (fieryangel), Roger Jefferson (Hlyner), Jimmy "Bomber" Bartlett (Recalibrated), Mike "Madman" Baxter (TR), Stephanie Cortez (sodmikail).

We go to the Family Fun Park to dig into a giant flying creature that was sighted. We find the prize pet, Porky the Pot Bellied Pig was found floating belly up in the river. We check the body and it has long claw marks. When one of the PCs stuck his finger into the wound, the pig animated and bit him. Madman puts the pig down with one hit. The veterinarian swears the pig has been dead for half a day. One of the PCs exclaims it must be a giant vampire bat that creates zombies.

Madman goes into town to get some food as we're planning on staking out the zoo at night to see if we can catch the flying creature. I text him and ask him to get folklore stories from the locals. He hears stories of litigious Old Man Davis who lives in the swamp. He has a grudge against the zoo.

We rent an airboat to tour the swamp and see Old Man Davis's home. We get to see the 2nd most haunted spot in the swamp and find a sinkhole on an island surrounded by stone pillars covered in moss. Underneath we find Nacaal writing and it talks of the Temple of the Dead, Demons, Underworld, and prayer to slay one's enemies. A giant bat creature is what the natives worshipped, Tuluu. There's also skeletonal evidence that some giant bat-like creature had died here a long time ago.

We then convince Mr Ox, the airboat pilot to land us on Old Man Davis's home. We visit him and sweet talk him and convince him to summon the Vengeful Taulpa who he will send to the zoo. It works. Bomber goes crazy and sets Old Man Davis's home (full of occult books) on fire. Madman goes crazy and dumps Old Man Davis into the swamp. Jax runs to save books from the fire and recovers a journal and book. The book has the ritual for summoning and banishing the flying creature. Old Man Davis thinks he creates the creature with his mind, but he is only controlling it.

We go to the zoo to banish the creature. We find the sheriff and deputies which Roger was supposed to be imbedded in had turned zombie. Madman goes to town on the zombies and Jax banishes the creature.

One of my favorite bits was the zombie pig, firing Jimmy for setting the house on fire, then telling Jimmy that it's all part of the episode, interpersonal rivalry for heightened TV drama.

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Slot 11: Sat 8/21, 5:30pm-9:30pm (4 hrs)

The Recycled Boy for Tales from the Loop

GM: your friend nate

For 3-5 players, ages 16 and older. This game is beginner friendly.

Pre-generated characters will be provided.

Players: Morgan Hua, frieze55, bilgepump, diesel680, Nicky

What if your friend suddenly isn't himself anymore? What if he disappears, and strange things start to happen all around you?

What would you do?

Tales from the Loop is a collaborative sci-fi storytelling RPG where your characters, teenagers living in the desert town of Boulder City, Colorado, encounter mysteries set in a 1980s that never was. Six principles guide the play:

1. Your home town is full of fantastic things.

2. Everyday life is dull and unforgiving.

3. Adults are out of reach and out of touch.

4. Mysteries are dangerous but Kids will not die.

5. The game is played scene by scene.

6. The world is described collaboratively.

Content Warnings: Child endangerment (as you are playing as teenagers), but principle 4 is key: Mysteries are dangerous, but Kids will not die.

Additional Safety Tools: Pre-game discussion

Back for my second Tales from the Loop game with GM nate. When we were picking characters, I wanted to use the same character in both games, so I'm back with Isabella, unfortunately, none of the other Players were the same as the last game and some picked different names. Tales from the Loop offer American and alternative Swedish names for the pregens.

Another good game. This time, I had looked at the rules again because I felt the earlier game was too easy, too many allowed pushes and luck spends. This time I told the GM about what I found, so we used the more restrictive rules. And we succeeded, but barely (we got the exact number of successes needed, 20) without gaining new conditions.

Extended Trouble Rules:

• Luck can only be used once per die roll.
• If you gain a new condition via pushing (for additional rerolls), the extended challenge will still be considered a partial success, even if you hit the required number of successes.
• Lead rolls can only be used to add dice to PC die rolls, but does not add to the success pool.

We also didn't do the planning, die rolls, and recap cycle. We talked about what we wanted to do, the planning. Figured out who was doing what and in what order. Then we rolled in order and totaled the number of successes. Ta-da! Done, without having to narrate our actions 3 times.

Overall, I think Our Friends the Machines was a better game story-wise and roleplaying-wise. But I now have a better feel as to how to run the end game properly.

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PCs: Isabella (morgan), Kelly (frieze55/Howard), Linda (Nicky), Chad (diesel680), Timmy (bilgepump).

We find there's a crime scene in school. A teacher got hurt by an industrial robot that went amok. The teacher was arguing with Pelle right before this happened.

We go to Pelle's house and find that Pelle's bed is really something a robot would use for charging up and rebalancing. There are error messages on the bed's console. We go to Cape Horn and find Greta (Pelle's aunt) and Pelle's mom and dad, hiding out on their boat. We get a remote that would help shut Pelle down from Greta. Pelle's dad tells us he might be at the cooling towers.

We go to the cooling towers and shut him down.

The best bit of fun is finding a 40 lb. pet Iguana, named Porky, at Pelle's home and we sort of adopt him. There's a montage scene of us dressing him up in different outfits, so he can catch a ride on the bus.

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Slot 14: Sun 8/22, 8am-12pm (4 hrs)

Snow Day for Tales from the Loop

GM: Mouse

For 3-5 players, no minimum age. This game is beginner friendly.

Pre-generated characters will be provided.

Players: Morgan Hua, jwmuk, panickedsheep (James), The Liar from Beyond, Michael Drueen

School has been cancelled due to snow, but stranger things are afoot in Boulder City, Nevada. Pets and people are going missing, and there are rumors of a wolf pack roaming the outskirts of town. Can a rag-tag group of kids figure out what's going on before it's too late?

Some good roleplaying by The Liar from Beyond and Michael who hammed it up.

Overall, a fun game due to the character interactions. Part way though the game, I realized I had run this game before. The scenario was in the core book. The GM had changed the title because the title was a spoiler.

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PCs: Sean Stubbs - troublemaker (morgan), Krueger - weirdo (The Liar from Beyond), Eric - computer geek (jwmuk, Jim), Stef (panickedsheep, James), Billy Upton - Rocker (Michael)

Part way into the game, I realized this was "Creatures from the Cretaceous" from the core book.

The GM did modify some details, so the game was slightly different, but the plot through line was the same.

We got some dinosaur eggs to hatch and we unknowingly stranded an NPC on the other side of a time portal, but we got a Stegosaurus and a pair of Raptors back through the portal before closing it.

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Slot 15: Sun 8/22, 1pm-5pm

Project P.A.W. for Call of Cthulhu

GM: Bridgett/Symphony

For 3-5 players, ages 18 and older. This game is beginner friendly.

You are genetically enhanced, technologically advanced, and highly modified canines. You were bred and created to save lives. However, things go awry when you discover your geneticist’s true reason for building you.

Pre-generated characters will be provided.

Content Warnings: None

Additional Safety Tools: Pre-game Discussion

This was a lot of fun and all the Players brought their inner dog. We did butt sniffing, territory marking, barking, howling, licking, self-licking, and all manner of awesome super-dog stuff.

The GM has a super energetic voice, I'm super impressed as this is the last slot of the convention. In most conventions, everybody by this time is normally tired and collapsing from lack of sleep.

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PCs: Rocky/Australian Shepherd (morgan), Lucky/Corgi (NoobishIndianGirl), Beau/Tibetan Mastiff (mikc), Harley/Shiba Inu (Chad B), Maggie/Golden Retriever (CarlyD).

Rocky was the parkour dog with mind altering saliva.
Lucky was a healing dog and his saliva could heal HP damage. Thus the licking and self-licking.
Beau was the combat monster with a tough hide.
Harley was sneaky and could pick locks.
Maggie was a rescue dog with gills that could breathe under water.

The first scene, we're in our separate pod/cages. Dr Bloom frees one of us and instructs the one dog to free all of us and instruct us to go to the medical center. As each one of us are freed, we get to introduce ourselves as the dogs may have seen each other at a distance, but were never kept together. At the same time, armed guards are coming to get us. Dr Bloom is dying. We get locator chips removed and get Dr Bloom into a chopper on the roof. During mid-flight, Dr Boom dies. There's much dog howling at that time.

Second scene, we're at the location Dr Bloom wanted us to go to, a cabin in the woods. We lay her to rest. We find a cougar has badly hurt a rescue dog and help her and also find the girl the rescue dog was trying to locate, a girl lost in the woods. We rescue her from the cougar and a fall into a freezing river. Right after saving her, the evil Dr Izsak calls us and asks us to save his wife and daughter.

Third scene, we land the helicopter at the evil temple that humans can't enter, but dogs can. We rescue Izsak's daughter and two other kids. We found a total of seven. During the rescue, five of the kids turned back at the last moment. We lose two PCs who wanted to rescue all the kids.

Favorite moments for my PC:
In an elevator, I jumped up, did a turn in mid-air, hit the roof button with my rear paw, and hit the close door button with my front paw, landed and watched the elevator doors close before the guards could do anything. When we got on the roof, I pulled the stop button out and, just in case, I hit all the floor buttons on the elevator.

In an extended rescue scene for the girl who fell into the river, I tried to break a tree limb to pull her out of the river, but failed. On my next round, I jumped 16' into the air, did a few flips, and landed on the limb to crack it, so it trailed into the water.

In my epilogue, I'm watching the premiere of a movie. The movie starts, Rocky is karate kicking some bad guys and does some parkour moves. The movie title comes up and it's: 00-K9.

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