Musings about the world, life, and everything in it.
Monday, December 13, 2021
Morgan's Dead of Winter 2021 Adventures
16 RPG games run over two days. Unfortunately, a few ran from 7pm to 1am, way past my bedtime. I found out the hard way that I'll suffer for the next couple of days if I did stay up past my bedtime. Tempting, but not worth it. So, I only signed up for games that ended by 11pm.
"A man's got to know his limitations." - Harry Callahan
I attended the Friday night Zoom party and stayed up way past my bed time, I think I didn't get to sleep till 1am. I normally go to bed by 10am. It was fun catching up with old friends who have a similar love for RPGs. I did suffer a little bit on Saturday.
There were some lively discussions about trigger warnings and whether we should approach RPGs as Art vs Entertainment. If it is truly Art, then we should push the envelope and Trigger Warnings are spoilers and counter productive, the artist should determine what is presented; audience beware. If it is Entertainment, then the audience's sensitivities should be taken into consideration. Verdict? There were strong opinions and no agreement was reached.
I personally feel that the audience must be taken into consideration and various efforts must be made to at least tell the participants what they will be in for, but without giving out spoilers. Certain expectations should be stated in the game description so that there aren't major unexpected, unpleasant surprises. I do think in story telling games, where the Players can make up anything, there is no reason to list the kitchen sink of warnings because the GM is not responsible for what other Players bring to the table, but it is part of the GM's responsibility to list the major themes and tone, and for table control if the game spirals way past what was expected.
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HOPE'S LAST DAY
Saturday, December 11, 2021, 11:05 AM-3:05 PM GAME SYSTEM: ALIEN RPG GENRE: SCI-FI HORROR GM: MORGAN HUA VARIATIONS: NONE POWER LEVEL: SPACE TRUCKERS NUMBER OF PLAYERS: 5 (Luke M, Michael R, Felipe M, Frank F, Honda C) CHARACTERS PROVIDED: YES
TONE: PG-13. Alien body horror. Serious survival horror, joke references and dialog call backs to Alien movie franchise acceptable and expected.
DESCRIPTION: Introductory scenario from the core book. It's 2 weeks before Ripley and the Colonial Marines arrive on Hadley's Hope for the movie Aliens. You are colonists terraforming Hadley's Hope. Rumors of an inspection team from corporate and one or two people infected by snake-like parasites swirl around Hadley's Hope. Your maintenance crew hoofs it back to the shake and bake colony after your transport breaks down.
I've run this 4 to 5 times and this is a great cinematic game. It delivers the Alien experience in spades. The outcome has been different every time and PC choices are always different and varied. I love this scenario.
=== SPOILER SECTION START ===
PCs: Luke M (Singleton), Michael R (MacWhirr, Osterman, Komiskey), Felipe M (Hirsch), Frank F (Halroyd), Honda C (Sigg).
Halroyd and Sigg made it to the shuttle and off planet. There is still a Chestburster, hatched from Komiskey, hiding on their shuttle somewhere.
Felipe, Frank, and Honda all fulfilled their hidden agendas.
Highlights: PCs too scared to enter Administrator's Office. Finally, Sigg volunteers. Singleton operates the motion detector and sees something go by their hiding place, go to the Administrator's Office, and comes back around and leaves. Later, they find just a blood streak outside of their hiding place. MacWhirr stands her ground as an Alien charges her, the rest of the PCs flee, she fires the bolt-gun, it then slams her on the ground, making her drop the bolt-gun. When Hirsch peeks outside to see what has happened, she and the Alien are gone. Facehugger wraps around Halroyd's face and he fires the bolt-gun right at his own head to kill it.
=== SPOILER SECTION END ===
MURDER, THE MUSICAL
Sunday, December 12, 2021, 11:00 AM-5:00 PM GAME SYSTEM: MONSTER OF THE WEEK GENRE: HORROR, ACTION, ROCK OPERA GM: BRYANNA HITCHCOCK VARIATIONS: CUSTOM PLAYBOOKS POWER LEVEL: NIGH IMMORTAL AVATARS OF VENGEANCE NUMBER OF PLAYERS: 5-6 (Jason M, Dani L, Honda C, Travis S, Morgan Hua)
DESCRIPTION: Many music scenes are brutal, but nothing compares to Detroit where even murdering a whole band is on the table. The Ravens were ready to hit the big time, until the competition took them out in spectacular fashion. What the scene didn't expect is for The Ravens to launch a deadly comeback. It's the Crow meets The Warriors in a gothic, metal-infused showdown on the dark streets of the Motor City. (No singing required.)
This is Bry's take on one of Matt Steele's games based on The Crow. I had fun in this game, though I felt the pacing could have been amped up a little bit more in some spots (a minor quibble).
=== SPOILER SECTION START ===
PCs: Jason (Troy, guitar werewolf, guitar), Dani (Amy, lead singer, ghost), Honda (Jen, singer and guitar, Valkyrie), Travis (Tim, base player, hex-master), Morgan (Will, drummer, weresnake).
The PCs, belonging to the band, The Fallen, suddenly die during one of their concerts and wake up in a construction site. The venue they were playing in has been bulldozed and is going to be the new site of a shopping center.
We wake as supernatural spirits of vengeance. Our goal, find out what happened, who was responsible, and to wreak vengeance.
We find three bands who may be responsible, hunt them down, and murder them. The cool thing is we find out that all three bands were partially responsible. One poisoned us, one started a backstage fire, and one blew up the venue. As we hunt each down, we face tougher and tougher opponents.
It was fun seeing each of the PCs flex their supernatural powers. I loved how Travis used his hex-master abilities, calling up heavy metal imagery (from album covers) to drag our enemies to hell or tear their souls apart. Honda's Valkyrie with black angel wings was cool. Dani's ghost was key in possessing people and making them talk. Jason's werewolf was very, very werewolf. I got to transform into a giant constrictor rattlesnake and bite people and eat them while playing my rattle rhythmically.
As an aside, I wonder if a story based system (PbtA) where actions are discussed and described, can deliver a faster paced combat. Though the combat was cool, as we did our special moves, I felt the pacing was a little bit slow at times. The sense of danger was there, but I felt it could have been heightened. I've been running 7th Sea and it also has a similar issue, but it's tough to "turn it up to eleven" without accidentally killing the PCs too early.
=== SPOILER SECTION END ===
THE CELEBRATORY HUNT
Sunday, December 12, 2021, 7:05 PM-11:05 PM GAME SYSTEM: KING ARTHUR PENDRAGON 5.2 GENRE: ARTHURIAN MYTHOLOGY GM: SHANNON MAC VARIATIONS: VERY MINOR POWER LEVEL: ANTI-D&D NUMBER OF PLAYERS: 4 (Aaron T, Marty C, Matt R, Morgan Hua)
CHARACTERS PROVIDED: YES TONE: Mature themes but not gross themes. Pre-tabletop discussion.
DESCRIPTION: You are attending a celebratory feast for your friend, Squire Ruhn, who is soon to become a knight. A celebratory hunt will follow thereafter.
Pendragon is a game focused on the high ideals amidst the brutality of a cruel world. As combat is "Cthulhu dangerous" it is recommended players find non-combat solutions as often as possible. This scenario will have some horror to it at the end. Surprise!
Introductory game to Pendragon. We got a good tour of the world and system. Shannon's depth of knowledge helped bring the world to life, though for me the description of some aspects went on for a bit too long (minor quibble as I know the system and world very well already). Going over the PCs and world took about one hour before the game started.
I did have fun though.
=== SPOILER SECTION START ===
PCs: Marty (Arcavia), Aaron (Miles), Matt (Rhys), Morgan (Pellonis, squire to Arcavia).
We get to Squire Ruhn's party, speak to the Lord, feasted (tried the feast event cards which were cool), attended his vigil (well actually only Miles did, the rest of us said hello and left), went on a hunt, then lost Ruhn to the Fae.
In the end, we bargained the Fae down to letting Ruhn go, if two of us stayed for a day and year instead. Surprisingly, all of us decided to stay a day and a year for various bargains to our advantage.
Miles creates the Knightly Order of the Stones to maintain diplomatic relations between the unseelie court and the humans. And he gets a promise from the Fae to help defend Arthur against the Saxons in the future.
Arcavia already pregnant, gives birth to twins: one human, one Fae. She doesn't know which one is which.
Rhys takes a Fae lover who is very much like the one of the lord's daughters.
Pellonis trains martially (and learns how to dance) and eventually gets knighted by the unseelie Queen Mara.
I just found your blog. Really interesting thoughts on Savage World, Delta Green and Call or Cthulhu. Seems to have gone a bit quiet this year. As inspiration, I've been playing a lot of Blades in the Dark recently which is a really well balanced world and system. It is one that might appeal to you. https://tinyurl.com/2p9ymbea
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I just found your blog. Really interesting thoughts on Savage World, Delta Green and Call or Cthulhu. Seems to have gone a bit quiet this year. As inspiration, I've been playing a lot of Blades in the Dark recently which is a really well balanced world and system. It is one that might appeal to you. https://tinyurl.com/2p9ymbea
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