A free online convention, focusing on Call of Cthulhu and other horror themed RPGs.
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Thursday, June 12, 2025 at 4:30-8:30pm (game went +45 mins)
Up on the Rooftop (playtest) System: Call of Cthulhu GM: inquist_games (James) Players: 2-4 players, ages 18+.
Morgan Hua (Thursday Luis - middle child), Mellow - mellow_berrie (Michelle "Myst" Luis - older child), binarylife (Alex Luis - dreamer adult), Brian - BryBearian (Jessica Newton - practical adult).
Pre-generated characters will be provided Content Warnings: Children in peril, harm to livestock, gore, goring Additional Safety Tools: Pre-game discussion, X-Card Recommended experience level: Any level of experience is welcome
Celebrate Christmas in almost July!
It is December 23rd, 2018. The Luis Family, life-long Floridians, have flown to Vermont where they have rented a cozy farmhouse in the country to experience a white Christmas. All is not calm though in this winter wonderland. Strange occurrences disturb the peace, and that clopping heard on the rooftop is no reindeer.
This scenario is in the tradition of Christmas horror films such as Gremlins and Krampus. Your suburban investigators will have previously faced nothing scarier than a flat tire. PCs will have little combat skills and must use their wits to survive when the terror comes.
Before the game, the GM told us the game would take longer than 4 hrs and asked us whether we could go longer or if we wanted to narrate the ending. All the Players said they could go over time.
Good GM and great table of Players. GM was good at describing things.
The scenario is well designed with the pre-gen PCs. The PCs' backstories and relationships drive the scenario, so I wouldn't use random PCs with this. When this scenario is available at the Miskatonic Repository, I highly recommend it.
=== SPOILER SECTION START ===
We had a great table of Players who really played the PCs realistically. We got to pick our own family relationship and names. I picked the name Thursday because "Thursday's Child has far to go." There was the standard family conflicts.
There is one NPC with the family, Molly, the youngest child. This wound up being a good idea for this scenario as she reacts to various family members and events, creating either drama or tension.
As we approached our Xmas vacation rental, we spot a few eviscerated cows, frozen in the snow. They're only a short drive to our destination where a sheriff and a neighbor are discussing something outside, we learn that it's about her dead cows. She's a dairy farmer. Some sort of dog or wolf must have gotten to her animals, maybe post-mortem.
While exploring the non-wifi, no TV, outdated home, the dairy farmer drops by with a basket of goodies (cheeses and unpasteurized milk). We get hints that something bad had happened to the previous family. Creepy attic has Xmas ornaments and Xmas tree stand (no tree). One nice touch was the Xmas wreaths on the front door and fireplace mantle were plastic, so I was looking for a plastic Xmas tree also.
With nothing to do, we ignore the outdated boardgames, and check out the small library of books. The haunted myths and legends of the local area and book on local area history stood out. Thursday gets his dad to read out the spooky stories about the local area and we get a rundown of a fair number of creepy cryptids and hauntings.
In the morning, the family goes outside to harvest a Xmas tree. We get lost, find a weird sacrificial tree stump with eyelets for shackles and wear marks. Yeah, nothing bad at all. PCs harvest a Xmas tree and wander around for a while before getting back home.
In the evening, only Myst notices something. Molly is up out of bed and talks about a Reindeer who wants her to go outside and play. Myst sees nothing. One of the funnier lines was when Myst tells Molly that not all reindeer are nice, the other reindeer bullied Rudolph.
In the morning, a drunk aggressive neighbor bangs on the front door looking for his two missing kids who he thinks is in our house. Apparently, the sheriff wasn't at his home either. This is when we find out our rotary phone doesn't even have a dial tone. Alex fake calls 911 and tells the drunk that he contacted the police about the missing children and he should go away. Jessica talks down the drunk and convinces him that the kids aren't in our house. The parents do find out that his two red haired children had left their home without their shoes. The drunk leaves.
Alex goes outside to see if he can spot if the phone line is down. Gets lost outside, finds a good sledding hill, and winds up at a car repair shop that belongs to the drunk. Follows the road and finds our house.
Bored, Alex takes the kids sledding on the hill. Alex goes first and gets injured and pretends to be dead (dad joke). Meanwhile, two barefoot red headed kids show up and tells us if they take Molly with them, no one else will die. Thursday and Myst tell the kids to get lost. Dad finally gets up from the snow. Thursday goes down the hill and also gets injured, dislocating his shoulder. Not too bright, huh? PCs return home and Thursday gets his shoulder put back in.
At home, the kids tell the parents about the creepy kids. The parents put 2 and 2 together and take everyone out to see if we can find the missing kids. We follow their footprints until they disappear in the snow. Our footprints are gone too. We get lost and windup at the repair shop. The shop is closed.
On the way back, we see a cabin and the sheriff's patrol car. No one seems to be there. Alex gets into the porch area (some B&E through a screen door) and opens a large unplugged freezer, inside a dead body. The PCs nope out of there and return the house.
We find the car has been tampered with (earlier Jessica noticed that a pool of liquid under the car had melted the snow, but didn't mess with it). This time, either Alex or Jessica figured out it was break fluid. The break lines were cut. Alex looks for things to fix the car. Jessica wrangles the kids as they pack up their stuff to leave.
The reindeer shows up outside of the kitchen window and demands Molly. PCs refuse. Reindeer crashes through the window and attacks. At one point, Jessica tells Alex to take Molly to safety, but Alex wound up attacking the reindeer also. Myst takes Molly to the car (doesn't know there's no breaks). Thursday uses pepper shaker on the reindeer's eyes. Alex goes insane and goes outside to make an igloo (custom xmas themed insanity chart - Stay Frosty, bury yourself in snow). Jessica almost goes unconscious after being mauled (spent Luck). Thursday goes insane (You're Getting Coal in Your Stocking, Do something naughty) and starts taunting the reindeer by standing on a table, shouting obscenities (suck my d*ck), and peeing on the reindeer's face. Myst starts the car and honks the car horn. Reindeer misses Thursday. Jessica stabs the reindeer (kitchen knife). Thursday runs out of the kitchen and moons the reindeer (kiss my ass). Alex finally comes to his senses and actually takes down the reindeer. The reindeer evaporates. Alex goes insane again (Santa Baby, Act like a Toddler) and sits down in a corner and sucks on his thumb. Outside, Santa knocks on the driver's car window.
Luckily Myst isn't violent and it's Uncle Benji dressed up as Santa bringing presents as a surprise for the kids.
Uncle Benji goes to the house, finds Alex unresponsive, and fumbles on his First Aid on Jessica and Jessica dies in view of everyone.
Merry Xmas everybody!
=== SPOILER SECTION END ===
Saturday, June 14, 2025 at 7-11am (game took 3 hrs as per game description)
Recommended experience level: Any level of experience is welcome
For the past week, huge clouds has been lingering in the sky above the sea west of Nanafuse City. It is purple and does not move even when the wind blows, nor has it rained. However, it is descending little by little each day, and is currently only about 200m above sea level.
Today, a research team from the Japan Meteorological Agency is using a drone to investigate inside the rain cloud. The investigators, who have come to gawk and hang out at the beach, are called out to by an old woman who appears from behind them.
'It's dangerous here, run, now...'
Cloud Jaws is a B-movie-esque Japanese scenario written by Nanamine Kizashi, and it is exactly as ridiculous as it sounds. It is relatively short, estimated to take 2~3 hours. While it doesn't use the Pulp Cthulhu ruleset, it does use some of the Japanese-only 'Cthulhu World Tour - Cthulhu Horror Show' ruleset to make things more like a B-horror movie. It changes only a little, and we'll go over it before game time.
I really enjoy Mike's games. This was one of my top choices for a game even though it'll run shorter than 4 hrs. The funny thing is Mike overslept and he was 1/2 hr late. Meanwhile, we found out that Austen was a CoC newbie and wanted to play at least one game before he GMed CoC himself. We waited 15 mins, no GM. No way to contact Mike, we pinged the convention staff and left messages on Discord. So, I volunteered to run a game. Just after the Players picked PCs, Mike showed up. Because I was going to run a game, we were all present. Luckily, the scenario still fit in our timeslot. In the end, we took 3 hrs, finishing at 10:30am.
The scenario we played was available, but only in Japanese.
Cool thing, each PC has one red flag they can use on a NPC. When a NPC is red flagged, they will die. This is a way to save your PC if faced with death, sacrificing a NPC to save your butt.
The other cool thing is that we have an Improvised skill. It's used to both create Improvised weapons and to wield them.
This was a crazy-fun game with great illustrations and NPC portraits.
=== SPOILER SECTION START ===
Our backstories brings each of us individually to the beach where a gigantic purple storm cloud is approaching. Various NPCs are also there. A clipboard wielding official tells us to leave the beach. A crazy old lady tells us there's an ancient prophecy and we're in danger, comparable to the grizzled old man at the gas station who gives a warning to teenagers on a road trip; after her warning, she leaves. There are oceanographers sending drones into the cloud. Other NPCs include a Quint-knock off shark hunter, his apprentice wielding a chainsaw, and a nerdy movie buff who makes meta-comments.
The oceanographers make a surprising comment as smaller purple clouds break off, each containing a shark. The flying sharks attack. An oceanographer dies as he's bitten in half.
PCs flee to the Oceanographic Institute (clipboard official guy dies as he's red flagged to save Umibe). We meet another NPC, a knowledgeable oceanographer. PCs go upstairs to see what's going on. A marlin smashes through the glass. Enoshima flees downstairs. PCs kill it. Umibe harvests the marlin's rostrum and makes a weapon out of it. Enoshima starts up the car in the garage. Everybody hops into the car.
Enoshima drives the car slowly (she has only the default skill) to the fishing docks to see how her father's doing. During the drive, a pigmy shark chews through the roof of the car and attacks everyone inside. This was a tough fight due to the restricted space inside (penalty die for all attacks), but they finally kill it as Enoshima gets the car to the docks.
At the docks, the fishermen are safe as they have multiple radio frequency shark repellent devices that create a perimeter. They have two extra. PCs pick them up and fireworks, cans of gas, harpoons, etc. And prepare to go to the crazy old lady's house because she mentioned she knew how to stop the ancient evil. Enoshima's father decides to go after purple cloud by himself and takes off. Enoshima gets a PC to throw a repellent device into his boat and they watch him make it to the cloud but his boat gets pulled up into the cloud and destroyed, dropping him into the water.
Enoshima and Umibe grab the remaining repellent device, get in a boat (with the shark hunters) to save her father. The other PCs (with nerdy guy and oceanographer) go to the old lady's home (after Marco steals one of the repellent devices protecting the fishermen, the fisherman boss gets eaten).
On the boat ride out, Umibe realizes that if we get fuel onto the surface of the water and ignite it, the fires will dissipate the smaller clouds, and eliminate the free flying sharks as a threat. The PCs get to Enoshima's father; Umibe dives into the water and recovers his unconscious body.
Meanwhile, the other PCs get to the old lady's home. She explains to them that her family has been here for generations and one of her ancestors had banished the giant shark that's in the middle of the main purple cloud by getting fire into the its mouth as its tough hide is impervious to weapons. The old lady can pilot a helicopter which is available at the heliport at the docks. The PCs head there and attach fireworks to a harpoon gun attached to the helicopter.
Enoshima brings her father back to the docks and PCs start spraying fuel onto the surface of the water. They use fireworks to ignite the surface of the water. The fire creates purple rain and the fish fry as they fall into the water.
Meanwhile, the helicopter approaches the Kaiju shark; a sail fish comes flying through the helicopter. The PCs deal with it (nerdy guy gets red flagged and dies) and they fire the harpoon into the Kaiju's mouth. The Kaiju shark explodes, sending ginormous pieces everywhere; PCs need to dodge pieces.
The PCs save the day and take the old lady back to her home. As Quint-knock off gets out of the car and starts monologuing about how great he was, in reality he was a coward and took credit for our work, he trips and shoots himself in the head (I red flagged him).
In the sky, the PCs see an even bigger shark eclipse the sky and prepares to eat the earth. Credits roll.
This year, KublaCon changed the signup system for games. The shuffler and weighting system is now gone. If you're a GM (or VIP by paying extra money), you get to sign up for games early. 25% of the seats are reserved for signups when the convention is running, otherwise all the games would be filled before the convention starts; this lets people who buy tickets at the door to have a chance of getting a seat.
The good news is you'll know your schedule and as a GM, you get to sign up for as many games as you like. Previously, I'd get into 2 or 3 games and I'd had to crash to get into another game or so. This year, I got into 6 games.
All the GMs and most of the Players were excellent. In most games with random Players, there's always that ONE guy, the problem player, but I only noticed one ONE guy.
I do want to say, after trying Nugget and Eat the Reich, and playing in some very system lite dice pool systems, I'm becoming a fan of lite systems for pulp games.
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Fri 1pm - 7pm (6 hrs, we finished at least 1 hr early)
Buckaroo Banzai: Find the Jet Car, the President said!
System: Nugget
GM: Mike Silverling
6 Players (+1 crasher): Morgan Hua (Clyde - Orangutan Driver), Jill S (Loco Ojos - Cowboy), Todd E (Maxwell Haus - Coffee Brawler), Badger M (Tokyo Jane - Ninja), Gil T (Lazer Keys - Musician), Ren C (Kawaii Kate), Ted A (Hammer Time - Gun-toting Mechanic).
Characters created at the table.
Buckaroo is in trouble! Can the newest Interns of the Banzai Institute save the day?
Nugget is a simple system. It's two pages. Dice pool of d6s. Count successes. 4+ on a d6 is a success.
A fun scenario with lots of references to Buckaroo Banzai lore. Loads of pictures and pulp adventure. We had a great table doing crazy stuff.
=== SPOILER SECTION START ===
Buckaroo Banzai (BB) is missing. Go find him. Basically we went from location to location following breadcrumbs until we rescue BB.
I don't remember why, but we take a titan rocket and attached a space plane to the nose cone and fly it into an alien space station. Since Clyde who drives a Pink Cadillac, is the only PC with the Drive skill, he gets to pilot the rocket. We all suit up in space suits (see Escape from the Planet of the Apes).
The alien tells us if we retrieve the head of a dead bad guy, he'd help us. We take an alien craft down to where we are told the head is, some secret government research facility on earth. We break in, fight a giant mutated spider, and get the head and give it to the aliens. The aliens tells us that BB went through an interdimensional gateway and is lost. There are gateways opening up all over the world. There is a gateway opening up in Egypt.
PCs go there. Find the pyramid was beaming energy to power up the gate. PCs enter the pyramid and kill ninjas who attack us. Confront and beat a gloating villain.
Repeat at another gate location in an Asian tropical jungle island nation with rebels. Clyde drives the hippie tour bus. We make friends with commie rebels, give them a concert and ride. Beat up ninjas in an Asian pyramid.
Take individual gyro-packs and fly to a gate where ninjas are getting ready to shoot at whatever is coming through the gate. Surrounding them are weird snake/lizard people. We kill the ninjas. BB comes through the gate. We save him. Yay!
Highlights: Maxwell Haus using heated metal coffee pots as brass knuckles. Lazer Keys using his keytar to fire lasers (as a weapon and as a light show) and play music. Clyde saving Hammer Time who was falling by swinging on a rope like Tarzan. Clyde driving and piloting every vehicle. Nothing odd about that.
=== SPOILER SECTION END ===
Fri 8pm - 12 (4 hrs)
Escape from Disneyland
System: Savage Worlds
GM: Todd Evans
6 Players: Morgan Hua (Ember - Spiritualist), Bill L (Ollie - VIP Tour Guide), Jim M (Toymaker - Gadgeteer), Greg M (Rowan - Weapons), Gil T (Princess - Animal Friend), Christine H (Lenny - Mute Scavenger)
Level: Novice
Pregens provided.
1988. The crime rate in the US raises 400 percent. The once great amusement park, Disneyland, becomes the one maximum security prison for the entire country. A 100-foot containment "berm" has been built around the perimeter of the park. All streets and waterways around the park have been mined. The United States Police Force, like an army, is encamped around the "Happiest Place on Earth." There are no guards inside the prison, only the prisoners, and the "worlds" they have made. The rules are simple, once you go in, you don't come out. 1998. NOW. Air Force One has been hijacked and has crashed into one of the themed lands inside Disneyland. The president has been taken hostage by a group of inmates. In exchange for their freedom, a team of six notorious inmates are given 24 hours to rescue the President of the United States and Escape From Disneyland!
Another great table. Gil killed it as Princess. We TPKed, but we had fun and it didn't matter. If we had 15 more minutes we probably would have made it out with the President. We were that close.
=== SPOILER SECTION START ===
The start is exactly as other Escape from New York movies. An explosive tracker is injected into us. We're given a tracking device to find the President. A timer is set that'll blow up our tracker, killing us, if we don't retrieve the President before our time runs out (Todd started a real timer that counted down from our remaining time).
We're given a glider to infiltrate the prison. We aimed for the Matterhorn, but didn't make it.
Todd had an electric train that ran around the map of Disneyland. He blindfolded himself and randomly stopped the train to find out where we landed. We landed in the Jungle Cruise. Fought an animatronic croc and followed singing to the Tiki Room where there's some Lost Boy and Girls. Princess convinced them that we were harmless and they agreed to take us to the Ancient Ones.
On the way there, the Toymaker decides to steal a toy from a vendor stall, gets caught, and we wind up being captured and sold to the Ancient Ones, Pirates. We escape and wind up in the Log Ride. Attacked by bees, Briar Rabbit, and we confront Pooh Bear.
Pooh Bear has the President on the River Boat prow. We distract Pooh Bear while others free the President. I shoot Pooh Bear with my low damage Derringer and through luck (multiple exploding dice), did a crap ton of damage, so GM had to use 2 GM bennies to save Pooh who continued to chase us.
We finally get on the Train, but before we could get to the Disneyland walls, our time ran out, the capsules in our necks blew up. TPK.
Afterwards, Rowan tells us he has an Uzi. Like, WTF? Here we are throwing rocks (Ollie used a sling shot) at Pooh Bear and I use a crappy Derringer (I only had 2 bullets, the second shot, a last ditch effort, did nothing).
=== SPOILER SECTION END ===
Sat 9am-3pm (6 hrs, finished about 1.5 hrs early)
A-Paw-Calypse Meow
System: Year Zero Engine
GM: Morgan Hua
5 Players: Todd E (Wild Thang), Christine H (Snoop Catt), Daniel K (KFC), Jesse H (Byrd), Joe O (Tinkerbell)
Level: Pets of Rich and Famous People, Animals can talk to each other.
Pregens provided.
You play Jackie Chan's Squirrel, Samuel Jackson's Parrot, Snoop Dogg's Cat, Paris Hilton's Chihuahua, and Gary Busey's Dog. Your human is at some charity event and they abandon you at the hospitality suite. As the world spirals into collapse, you must work together to survive and travel to your wormiest heart of darkness. Tone: Darkly Humorous (Dale & Tucker vs Evil, Evil Dead 2, Shaun of the Dead, Animal Farm) Content Tags: Horror Tropes, Apocalyptic, Cannibalism, Harm to Animals, Drug Use (light), Political Satire (definite), Fowl Language (possibly)
I had a fun table. Todd killed it as Wild Thang, kept us laughing throughout. I'm not sure why, but whoever picks Wild Thang really kills it. Maybe its that Gary Busey energy.
=== SPOILER SECTION START ===
KFC's archnemesis (invented by the Player) was Michael Jackson's Chimp, Bubbles. KFC's signature move was the Nut Chopper.
Wild Thang had a thing for dumpster diving and wearing leftover spaghetti.
=== SPOILER SECTION END ===
Sat 5-11pm (6 hrs, went over about 1 hr)
Bride of Dracula
System: Year Zero Engine
GM: Kevin Shrapnell
5 Players: Morgan Hua (Emillian - Betrothed of Helene), Renata C (Daciana - Hunter), Andrew W (Dr Henric - Historian), Joseph R (Lady Bebek - Mother of Helene), Emily H (Florian - Ex-boyfriend of Helene)
Pregens provided.
A gothic, Hammer Horror inspired melodrama with a cosmic twist.
A mother sobs, a daughter missing. A village in fear, the third this year. Anger in the eyes of the gathered crowd. Pitchforks gripped in callused hands. Nervous eyes glance to the distant mountaintop castle. The Mayor's inspiring speech. Torches lit. Blood hounds baying. An angry mob released.
TONE: Gothic melodrama. Role play heavy. TAGS: Hammer Horror. Pitchforks & Christopher Lee. GAME SYSTEM: Year Zero variant SETTING: 19th Century Eastern Europe
From the description, I thought this would be a straight forward mystery. Kevin kept us guessing. A really good scenario and another good table of Players.
=== SPOILER SECTION START ===
Lady Bebek and Emillian return from a less than fruitful business trip. Lady Bebek's business contacts proved almost useless. Lady Bebek's daughter, Helene, is betrothed to Emillian. She used to be Florian's childhood sweetheart, but Emillian's family is wealthier.
Upon return, we learn that Helene is missing. Also a young girl, Mira, was missing days earlier. The town is looking high and low for both, but suspect the castle.
Someone tells us they saw Helene in a coach heading up to Dracul's castle.
The townsfolk are carrying pitchforks and torches and want to go to the castle. Florian and Emillian want to go to the castle too. But Lady Bebek urges caution. The town has lived under the shadow of the castle and the cycle of missing people come and go over the generations. Previous generations that had tried to set fire to the castle have paid a horrible price with even more deaths.
We decide to go to the castle, but in a more cautious manner. We take about 12 townsfolk with us.
On the way up to the castle, we found the body of Mira with her head torn off.
It was pretty funny because Joseph wanted to bring maximum firepower on Dracul's castle. He wanted to recruit troops and have a show of force. I explained that's not how things work in RPGs. NPCs are ablative armor and they're mostly ineffective. The PCs must solve the problem. Once that was explained, Lady Bebek and Emillian decided to ring the bell on the front gate of Dracul's castle with only a few villagers with us.
Meanwhile, Florian, Daciana, and Dr Henric sneak around trying to find another entrance to the grounds. They climb the rear 8' wall.
Lady Bebek and Emaillian face Renfield, the butler at the front gate. After some discussion they get invited in.
After a comedy of errors, all the PCs are invited to dinner. This was actually pretty funny, as the other PCs trickle in and Lady Bebek makes excuses for each one as they show up and settings are added to the dinner table. Renfield rolls his eyes.
The PCs find out that Helene is now the new bride of the new count of the castle. She is now a countess. The Count shows up for dinner, but not his new bride. Dr Henric is an old acquaintance of the Count.
Dr Henric breaks some sort of spell on the Count, who falls ill, and a yellow mist starts filtering in from upstairs. Renfield retrieves the Count and takes him upstairs. The PCs follow. Upstairs, the PCs find a ritual to close a gate. The PCs find the gate and on the other side is Helene who is feeding the yellow mist. Lady Bebek and Florian rescue Helene. Dr Henric and Daciana close the gate, which requires sacrificing the Count's life (with his permission). Meanwhile, Emillian is outside having the townsfolk pile wood around the castle, ready to burn it down to the ground if the others fail.
The PCs emerge from the castle with Helene. Emillian sets fire to the castle anyway. We were already running over time, otherwise Emillian would have had to defeat Renfield and his daughter who would protect the castle.
Emillian had already given up marrying Helene because in his mind, she was just a social climber and the business connections from her mother was useless. Afterwards, the GM did confirm that Helene really loved no one.
What was funny was that Florian kept on espousing his love for Helene, even in front of Emillian. Like WTF, dude? It was only after the game we realized that the Player had shown up after we picked PCs and didn't hear that Emillian was Helene's fiancé. Pretty funny.
The castle had lots of creepy stuff. The paintings. And the priest who married the Count to Helene kept on running his hand over his head and long stringy hairs would fall out. Ick.
What was cool was that we didn't know who the real villain was, etc. It was the Count, but not in the way we thought. And there was a vampire somewhere, but we didn't find it.
=== SPOILER SECTION END ===
Sun 9am-1pm (4 hrs)
Alien the RPG
System: Alien RPG
GM: Bill Huet
6 Players: Morgan Hua (Elaine Keswick - Company Agent), Alex Z (Calyx-9 - Science / Synthetic), Gregory B (Dr Iian Harrow - Medic), Jerry M (Leo Torrez - Engineer), David B (Kara Brandt - Security), Michelle (Mitchell Brandt - Team Lead)
Pregens provided.
Fortitude Station is a research facility orbiting Delta Epsilon III, a promising candidate for terraforming. A day ago something triggered their emergency beacon. Initial attempts to contact the station were met with silence but after a little more than an hour later the beacon was turned off. Next the station manager radioed that the beacon was accidentally activated and that everything is nominal. Those reassuring words notwithstanding, Company policy is clear: all activations of emergency beacons must be investigated, no exceptions. Your team is tasked with checking things out and while you hope everything is okay, you can’t escape the nagging feeling that you are heading into great danger if not certain death…
Completely not what I expected. This turned out to be 90% investigative which surprised me. I enjoyed it for what it was, but if you were looking for action-horror, you'd be disappointed.
GM handed out the wrong characters sheets and we didn't find out until we tried to sign the W-Y NDA and discovered our names weren't on the signature page. Other people found contradictory info on their character sheets (Kara was wife and sister to Mitchell, sister-wife wound up being a table joke).
Alex killed it as the quirky annoying Synthetic. Michelle kept us from falling into chaos as an excellent team lead and her action at the end saved our butts. Most people who play the leader always messes up bigly as it's like herding cats (PCs never do what you want).
Another great table of Players. Dice was rolled only twice and not in combat.
=== SPOILER SECTION START ===
I think the problem is that we're expecting Alien and this really wasn't it. The space station was new, the crew were competent and experts in their field (some were Nobel laureates). The PCs were competent and experts too.
Apparently, someone had activated the emergency beacon by jury rigging a mechanical device to trip the alarm. CCTV footage was erased.
There were over 20 NPCs to investigate and interview. The planet the space station / lab orbited was rich in biology (very rare and valuable). Later we found out there were ancient ruins too.
After a few interviews, we realized the NPCs were all under high stress and very paranoid. We ruled out chemical and biological contamination. That left radiation and psychic manipulation. Torrez discovered a spike of low level radiation (not dangerous) when a shuttle returned from the surface. He created a portable radiation detector. Dr Iian inquired on who was taking what medication and found most of the NPCs were on sedatives and tranqs. Using that, narrowed down who to do full medical exams. He found the NPC who stopped taking anti-anxiety drugs first was physically different. Much healthier and didn't match his baseline.
We realized someone had brought back an alien artifact. We mapped out who was affected and discovered ground zero. Breaking into that PC's berth, we didn't find the item, but found a loose ventilation shaft cover. Using mapping-bots, we found a foreign item in the ventilation shaft in the shuttle bay where a NPC was murdered by someone with incredible strength.
While Dr Iian was escorting our patient zero to the cryopods, the prisoner killed one guard and maimed another. Then the station was being emergency vented into space.
PCs in the shuttle bay suited up. Keswick put the alien artifact in an isolation container. Then the self-destruct countdown started. Kara an Calyx-9 went to try to stop the self-destruct, but found the 4 affected crew members were barricaded inside the command center. The remaining station crew took one of the shuttles and abandoned ship. The PCs waited in the shuttle bay for Kara and Calyx-9 to return.
Mitchell took the artifact from Keswick, stated that he was taking responsibility and he can be fired afterwards, and ejected it into space. Before the space station blew up, the artifact went past it's effective range and the crew inside the command center regained control of themselves and deactivated the self-destruct.
Damn. We saved the station, saved most of the crew, understood the threat, figured out who set off the emergency beacon (the NPC confessed during one of the interviews), and retained the planet for W-Y.
Time to talk about the bonus situation!
=== SPOILER SECTION END ===
Sun 1-7pm (6 hrs, finished about 1 hr early)
Eat the Reich
System: Eat the Reich
GM: Peter Hymel
6 Players: Morgan Hua (Astrid), Elizabeth R (Flint), Dave L (Iryna), Jacob (Nicole), Brandon D (Chuck), Nick L (Cosgrove)
Levels: Absurdly Violent Vampire Commandos
Pregens provided.
The Year is 1943. You are a crack team of Vampire commandos coffin-dropped into occupied Paris with one mission: Drink ALL of Adolf Hitler's blood!
Live out the fantasy of tearing your way through hundreds of Nazis, using instruments of violence in increasingly absurd ways in this simple d6 pool system. Beginners welcome, characters provided.
I had heard about this game and wanted to try it. Who doesn't want to be kickass vampires killing and eating Nazis on the way to kill Hitler? There is a bit of mental adjustment to play the PCs. My PC didn't have high Shoot and we kept on finding firearms, so there's a mental trick to figure out how to use another skill with firearms. My highest skill was Terrorize. But I still wanted to kill Nazis and drink their blood, not just scare them to death.
System is simple, d6 dice pool. Count successes. 4+ on d6 is a success. 6 on d6 is either a double success or activation of a Special Ability. You can narrate and use as many items as you want. Each item adds a d6, but if you can qualify the use conditions for the item, you get additional dice. And if the item has more than one use, the last use doubles the number of added dice. The successes can be used to negate damage, kill Nazis, help reach an objective, or drink blood.
One small issue I saw with the system is that if you narrate the usage of all your items, then roll dice, but if you rolled badly, the die result won't be as epic as the story you just told. Let's say you used 12d6 and only got 2 successes and only used the 2 successes to reduce damage to you. Then this doesn't match your story of throwing grenades, firing machine guns, and drinking lots of Nazi blood. A few times, people re-narrated what happened as they spent their successes.
Even though there's an incentive to try to always use all your items, the narration can drag on too long. So, I think you want to use a fair amount of items, but only go all-in sparingly. You still have to get a good feel for the table because if everybody goes all-in, the scene might end early, then others won't get a chance to tell their story.
Another good table. Elizabeth killed it as Flint, the Nosferatu-ish Giant Vampire Bat. I've never played with this GM before, he was excellent.
=== SPOILER SECTION START ===
The game starts off with our metal coffins doing hard landings in Paris. We pop out and murder some Nazis. We start off with 0 blood and are hungry.
Intelligence has told us Hitler is in the Zeppelin moored at the top of the Eiffel Tower. We head there.
We're given choices as to our route. We go to a Nazi funeral, the German Tech Pavilion, the Museum of European Warfare, the Jardin de Fee. Encounter Nazis and a few Übermenschen (high level lieutenants).
We finally get to the base of the Eiffel Tower, kill Nazis gathered there, drive up the side of the tower and land on the platform. Assault the Zeppelin, lots of marble and gold inside, beat the last Übermenschen and drink Hitler's blood.
The END.
The only odd thing is that I thought we'd get a big boss battle against Hitler, so I had my inventory saved up. We just ate him after beating the last Übermenschen, so that was a bit anti-climatic.
=== SPOILER SECTION END ===
Sun 7pm-12 midnight (5 hrs, finished about 1 hr early)
Liquify - A Cypher Sunday Event
System: Magnus Archives (Cypher System)
GM: Matt Steele
5 Players (+1 extra crasher seat): Morgan Hua (Buddy - Protector), Elizabeth R (Alice - Obsessive Occultist), Raaj - Investigator, Victor - Eloqutionist, Alexis G (Billy - Occultist), Sumi - Scholarly Investigator
Power Level: 1st Tier
Pregens provided.
As employees of the Magnus Institute, you head out into the English countryside to investigate the deathbed statement of a young man, Timothy Dunn. In fact he gave his statement using the dictation software on his smartphone while he was dying. Statement begins...
The Magus Archves RPG is based on the horror podcast of the same name. This adventure includes the following Content Warnings: Human Remains, Extreme Gore, Body Horror
This adventure is part of Cypher Sunday, a collection of adventures built on Monte Cook Games' Cypher System.
I was curious as to how Monte Cook built a system for Magnus Archives. I had listened to the first series and loved it. I tried the newer series, Magnus Protocol, and gave up after 10 episodes.
Magnus Archives added Horror Mode. It's a bit odd, but it works. At some point, the GM declares Horror Mode, GM intrusions happen on 1 or 2 (on skill checks on a d20), instead of just a 1. As tension ramps up, the number increases. Only when the PCs aren't in a dangerous situation, the Horror Mode is turned off. Mechanically this works, but I found it strange that it is declared openly, it sort of breaks immersion.
A Stress mechanic was also added, every 3 pts of Stress increases your difficulty level by 1 (every 3 Stress points increases your target number by 3 on a d20).
A good number of the PCs had occult skills which surprised me.
Liquify is the scenario in the core book. The scenario did feel like an episode of the Magnus Archives. Matt's descriptions were sufficiently creepy. I enjoyed the game. Also another good table of Players.
I understand why Cypher Sunday is in the poolside pavilion, so there's a whole room of people playing Cypher to show the Cypher rep that it was a grand event. My issue was even though I knew the room would get cold, I brought a jacket, but by 10pm, my legs and feet were freezing. Also, the noise level was very high. I sat in the seat farthest away from Matt and I missed chunks of what was happening.
=== SPOILER SECTION START ===
Matt started with a recording of Timothy Dunn, telling us of his demise. This is played to us. Unfortunately, we had to move twice and finally to outside the pavilion, before we could properly hear the recording. It was a 10 min recording. We had to crouch near the speaker to hear it.
I tried to do some research. The answer was you get nothing.
So, we finally went to farm house. There was toolshed and rusty car outside. There was nothing in the car. Raaj and Sumi went to investigate the toolshed. I was Raaj's protector and asked if I should go with him or the others going into the house. Raaj said, go with the others.
Inside the toolshed were large rusty circular disks, stepping on the loose floor board launched them at Sumi, it rolled over her toes. Raaj went to help, a disk rolled over his toes, and a mutated possum bit into his leg.
I found it funny that without his protector, he got hurt.
Meanwhile outside, Alice found the books mentioned in the recording.
At the house, Buddy tried the front door and it was blocked by a big cabinet, so he entered the back of the house. The carpet was squishy and there was a foul smell. He went to the front of the house, moved the cabinet, to open the front door and air out the place. The others investigated.
Billy used dowsing rods and kept circling the kitchen. Alice pulled up the soggy carpet and found a trap door, the entrance to the cellar. Billy, Buddy, and Sumi went into the cellar. Billy found a box and Buddy took it upstairs to the porch, to unlock and open. Billy continued to search and when she went upstairs, the stairs collapsed and rats fell out of the walls. Billy was slightly injured. Sumi pulled Billy out of the cellar.
Inside the box was a will, house insurance, deed to the house. Raaj noticed that the will was missing burial instructions for Timothy's grandfather.
In one of the side rooms, they found Timothy's body. Sumi examined the remains and took pictures and samples. Whatever dissolved Timothy ate only the organic material, leaving plastics and metal behind. PCs tag, bag, and box the evidence. Only taking a small sample of the goo that remained of Timothy.
There was nothing upstairs.
PCs decide to find the shack Timothy saw when he got injured. They find it and inside were bones strung up to make an alarm system. In the back of the hut was a hole and a tunnel. Raaj and Alice stay up on top. The rest go into the tunnel which led to a cave. Inside is the old man Timothy talked about. Eventually, Victor got him to talk. He tells them he's looking for a book which will protect him against The Sculptor. Inside the cave is a trove of occult books. Buddy notices a bible near the entrance. Victor uses magic to freeze the old man in place. He tells everyone to run. Buddy takes the bible. Up top, Raaj and Alice spot some horrible creature spying on them, The Sculptor.
Written in the bible is instructions to "bury me on top of the hill overlooking the farm."
PCs go to the top of the hill, find the grave and dig up the body and find the book. The Sculptor chases the PCs. We all get into the car and barely escape.
This game was offered a few times for online play and then it disappeared. I'm a fan of the movie Battle Royale and thought this would be cool. So, I decided to try this out as a GM. I watched an actual play run by the writer/designer and found the GM used a lot more material that wasn't included in the game (videos, sound effects, images). I actually had to screen grab images of NPC cards for my own online game.
THEME: The whole idea is that the PCs with a whole cast of NPCs are on an island and they'll have to kill each other. The sole survivor will gain fame and fortune. This is a combination of Battle Royale, Squid Game, Hunger Games, Survivor, and LOST. Initially, the PCs are part of a team and they'll need to depend on each other to beat the other teams, but in the end, they'll have to turn on each other.
First off, the writer is also a graphic designer/illustrator, so the book is amazing to look at and shows the full vision of the writer/designer. There's a fair number of random tables and illustrations of branded generic items which is a highlight of the book.
SYSTEM: The system is fairly simple. You get a variety of dice based on: Name (starts at d6), Occupation (starts at d6), Capability (Social game, Snake mode, Challenge beast, Deathmatch, REDACTED, starts at d6), Advantages (varies, usually d10), and Acquisitions (d4s). You roll all the dice, but since Acquisitions are all d4s, you can easily pick them out. You sum the two highest dice (non-Acquisitions) + highest Acquisition die for your Result. All rolls are opposed rolls.
Some Acquisitions are a single d4, some are multiple d4s, depending on how powerful the item is (knife vs rocket launcher). You can use multiple Acquisitions, but you only pick the highest die roll, so at some point it's diminishing returns as the most you'll get is +4, and the Acquisition is used up.
For the GM (called Production), the GM rolls 3 dice (2 Traits + 1 Advantage), picks the highest die roll and adds the current Danger level (starts at 4). Generally, the Traits dice are higher than the PCs (d8+). The GM rolls first, then the Players decide what to roll once they know the target number.
OVERVIEW: How the game works is that the PCs arrive on the island with their Player maps (there are REDACTED areas not on their maps). Each location has a name and key as to what the PCs might expect when they arrive. Depending on where they go, they meet various tests. Roll dice, then depending on their results, either overcome their test and gain goodies (generally Acquisitions) or get nothing. Players narrate what their PCs did after the die roll. After visiting a few locations, the Battle Royale starts and they'll have to start killing NPCs, and at some point, each other.
There is a progression of different islands with each island having fewer and fewer survivors until there's a sole survivor (unless REDACTED happens).
LESSIONS:
1. Acquisitions are always used up (this isn't noted anywhere). Even if you pick up an Assault Rifle, it has limited ammo and it will be used up. You can't keep on using it on every test, even if you say, "I'll shoot a few bullets." It will run out of ammo after the test. Your knife will break or get stuck in an NPC's body. You will find or acquire more weapons (or ammo) at new locations. At some locations there are multiple handguns; the GM can decide it's only one handgun with multiple reloads.
2. Players should narrate what happens based on what Capabilities, Advantages, and Acquisitions that they used when they rolled their dice. If you used a knife, a hand grenade, cigarettes, rope, and camping gear on the die roll, add this to your narration.
3. Players need to be imaginative. If the Players just roll their dice to determine if they beat the test or not, that's boring and pretty mechanical. You need Players good at improv and storytelling.
4. The core book has limited replayability. There's only one set of islands. There are 4 sets of Casts (various groups of NPCs). Each pregenerated Cast list has various adversarial groups that the PCs will meet and either fight or make friends with. There's supposed to be a progression when you replay, but that's REDACTED. The Casts lists various names and stats, but no pictures of the NPCs and no org chart. This was a drawback in that as a GM, I needed to do lots of extra work to flesh out the adversarial groups. When I watched an actual play, the GM showed cards of NPCs themed to match the game design. No template for cards were included nor were they available online. I contacted the publisher who said he'd ask the designer, but I didn't hear back.
5. There's a supplement, New Horizons, which has 9 additional islands that can be used to replace individual islands to help replayability. Each island is written by a different set of authors and none of them were the original author. There are no new Casts. I have not looked closely at the new islands, so I don't know if they're any good.
6. For those used to procedural RPGs, where the Player says, "I'll do x" and then rolls dice to see the outcome, or wants to roll combat dice as they mow through competitors, this game is a stretch. You roll dice and then narrate everything that happens to your PC at a location. That's it. It can be satisfying if the Player is good with improv and storytelling, but if the Player isn't, it'll be dull for everyone.
OPINION: I ran three sessions of this with 3 Players. The consensus was it was fun, but let's only play this once a year. It's not for long term play.
I guess attendees of Illusion Horror Con think waiting a whole year is too long, so they got together and put together an impromptu online convention mid-year.
I signed up for several games and only got into two. But both games were excellent.
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Fri 4-8pm (4 hrs)
The Salvation of Honest Jakob
System: Legends of the Khurst Riders
GM: Jerod Leupold (JerodLeupold)
6 PCs (3 signed up): Robert (rocinante_on_focus as Kid Wekeyo), Leslie (ImaginationAscendent as Tennessee Azir), Morgan Hua as Shen Black
New Players Welcome
Pre-game discussion, X-Card, Lines and Veils
Pre-generated characters will be provided
Content Warnings: Demonic Possession, Saloon of Ill Repute, Squirmy Body Horror
No VTT - Theater of the Mind only.
One of the workers at Paradise South, the finest saloon of finest entertainments, has come down with something a little more serious than the morbs. The Baroness would love to get a favor from the owner. If Madame Lili can’t handle it, it must be something not right.
Each of the Riders is sworn 1 soul if they figure out what is infecting Gail Toussant and stop it from spreading. Bring your iron, gird your beliefs, the soul you save may be your own.
Interesting system. Roll a dice pool of d6s. Each 6 = +Legend pt; each 1 = +doom pt (for the GM, much like Modiphius 2d20 system). Pick two dice out of your dice pool (generally the two highest) and sum them. Success requires a 9. But you can spend Legend pts to add dice from your dice pool to your die roll (one for one). For combat, it's an opposed roll, same rule applies. For example if you rolled 4d6 (6, 4, 3, 2) = 10, but if you spend the Legend pt gained in the roll, it'll be 13; and if you spend a banked Legend pt, it'll be 15.
PCs have only 3 Attributes (Brawns, Brains, Belief) each with their dice pools, and 6 Skills (Bully'n, Charm'n, Fight'n, Find'n, Fix'n, Weasel'n) each with their dice pools. Add Attribute + Skill = dice pool. My PC's dice pools ranged from 3 to 7. Attributes were used for save throws.
My PC's dice pools
PCs had special talents that let you break the rules, gain or spend Legend points. PCs started with 1 Legend pt.
Overall, we had a good table of players and a good scenario. Also an excellent GM.
=== SPOILER SECTION START ===
We're sent to find out what's ailing Gail. The bar is full of quack doctors trying to find a cure for her and as we arrive, one flees screaming about a million moths. There's a 10 silver reward for curing her.
After poking around a bit, the PCs learn that Gail had recently visited a travelling preacher, Honest Jakob, in a tent revival.
We eventually enter her room upstairs and find her tied down in the bed. Before she can commit defenestration by telekinetically shoving a night stand at one of us, Tennessee just strides into the room and punches her (Quick Draw talent). Shen then Banishes the Dead and forces a flood of worms out of her mouth, finally squishing the last remaining one, the largest, under his boot. Gail is cured and we get paid. She does tell us she was baptized in big silver bowl when she visited the preacher. She also told us the caravan was heading to New London via Purity.
We trail the caravan to a valley and see some locals heading home from the revival tent already set up, further back is their camp with Conestoga wagons and one wooden Gypsy wagon around a campfire.
PCs sneak to the Gypsy wagon with Tennessee hanging back with a rifle. Kid and Shen notice a light in the wagon, but can't see inside. The camp followers are a bit weird, sort of zombie-like. Shen lights a small fire at one of the wagon wheels of the Gypsy wagon. Kid and Shen sneak away to see what happens.
An alarm is raised. The fire is being put out, but the preacher rushes inside the Gypsy wagon and rescues his undead bride who is holding a book. He kisses her dead mouth and she kisses back (so much ick).
The bride senses Shen and Jakob sends his minions to find us. Tennessee blows away the brides head, exploding it like a watermelon, she drops the book. Kid runs drawing away the camp followers. Shen curses Jakob with the 100 Year Dance where he dances uncontrollably. The zombies hesitate when the bride's head explodes, but they recover. The headless corpse still moves. Tennessee shoots her again, blowing away her ribcage. Shen picks up the book, finds it has a small taint, but nothing with the power he is seeing, so he uses the book to punt the bride into the campfire. Shen throws the book into the fire too. The corpse screams as it burns.
In the end, Jakob explains that he had made a deal with a cross-roads demon to bring his bride back to life, but her enchantment kept him from seeing her true form. Part of the deal was that he must feed the worms in an old sealed vase, but the worms (too small to see) get into the baptismal font and infect people.
GM also told us we were the fastest group to put down Gail. We did it in the first round. In one game, a PC got pushed out of the window and then got visited with horrible visions when he rushed back into her room.
=== SPOILER SECTION END ===
Sat 10am-2pm (4 hrs)
Winter Drums
System: Vaesen
GM: David Whitworth (dr_haegldagz)
5 PCs: Martin (penny676 as Chauncy 'Brick' Morgan - pugilist), SaccharineChokingHazard as Sergiusz Szymanski - soldier, Arbor (ItsArborDay as William Gidwin - writer), Joel (WanderingWonderer as Dagmar - vagabond), Morgan Hua as Johann Ludwig - doctor
New Players Welcome, Beginner Friendly
Pre-game discussion, X-Card, Lines and Veils
Pre-generated characters will be provided
Content Warnings: Lost love, death, war
No VTT - Theater of the Mind only.
A young boy appears to be under some form of spell and has taken to wondering around the frozen Norfolk Broads at night. His father is worried about him and has sent a letter to the Society to ask for help. As members of the Order of Artemis you travel to the Victorian town of Potter Heigham to investigate the strange goings on and delve into the history of lost loves, a changing environment and the perils of war. This is the second of a series of Vaesen scenarios I am working on based in the East Anglian country side and the myths and legends from this haunted land.
GM based the game on the folklore from his local area, East Anglian in the UK.
We had a good smart table, but maybe too many Players. I did like this scenario more than the other game I played in because this was a little bit less straight forward as we tried to understand what was going on.
Excellent GM and good atmospheric effects.
=== SPOILER SECTION START ===
The town, Potter Heigham, is turning into a touristy area and there's tension between the poor locals and the well-to-do tourists. After navigating this maze of hate, the PCs learn that Thomas Wiston, the Drummer Boy, is a local legend. He disappeared when trying to meet his love on the frozen lake. Stories are that his ghost can be seen skating on the lake. Drumming can be heard. 8-9 teen locals have disappeared over the decades.
At some point, the PCs weren't sure whether the ghost was of Thomas the Drummer Boy or his love, Gwendolyn. Or a combination of both, two ghosts trying to locate each other.
PCs recover his uniform, drum, and drumsticks from Thomas's living relatives. And Gwendolyn's locket from her granddaughter. After doing a seance, the PCs learn they need to tell the ghost its story to put it to rest.
PCs follow Hubert Fields at night, who's in a trance, to the Broad. The PCs split up, 1/2 row a boat (with the recovered items), 1/2 follow Hubert and shine a Hurricane Lamp, so the rowboat can follow.
The ghost shows up, skating on the water. PCs tell both the ghost and Hubert the story. The PCs in the boat, who are floating above the boy's unburied corpse, give the locket and drumsticks to the ghost. The ghost takes the offerings and disappears. Hubert's trance is broken, before he puts on his skates and drowns in the Broad, and the PCs onshore take him back home.
This seems a bit straight forward, but we had to follow various clue trails to get all the items and figure out what was going on. This involved talking to people, looking at paintings, looking for missing newspaper articles, looking up local legends, etc..
Overall, I really liked the mystery and the atmosphere, especially the drumming that Hubert makes when he was under the spell. Also all the lost love dreams the PCs had while in Potter Heigham.
I'm currently trying out Doctor Who RPG Second Edition. I ran the Starter Set's scenarios: The Timeless Library, The Echo Chamber, and The Hermit's Lantern.
I found The Timeless Library a bit railroady, but it was the tutorial scenario which introduces the rules to the GM and Players. But combined with The Echo Chamber, things in The Timeless Library that bothered me made more sense.
The Echo Chamber booklet has two scenarios: The Echo Chamber and The Hermit's Lantern. In order to be NOT confusing, when I refer to The Echo Chamber, I'm speaking of just the scenario, not the booklet.
I do recommend running The Echo Chamber immediately after The Timeless Library for a complete mini-series story arc.
The Starter Set comes with 5 pre-gens: Sam (IT guy, 2000s), Charlie (Stage Actress, 1800s), Aiden (Investigator with cyber enhancements), Chamberlain (hospitality robot), Triketh (Silurian Scientist).
Notice that The Doctor isn't a pre-gen. I think this is for balance reasons and also newbies to Doctor Who may not have in-depth knowledge of the Whovian Universe, so playing The Doctor might be a stretch for a newbie.
The system is simple. Roll 2d6 + Attribute + Skill, look for 6's and 1's. Most tests require a total of 12 (Difficulty Number) for a Pass. Rolling a 6 (good) or a 1 (bad) bumps the Success Level up and down. Success Levels are: Brilliant! (box cars or pass with a 6), Success (pass with no 6s or 1s), Barely (pass with 1), Almost (fail with 6), Failure (fail with no 6s or 1s), Disastrous (snake eyes or fail with a 1).
Brilliant, Barely, Almost, and Disastrous include something helpful or an additional complication, much like other narrative systems like PbtA. Rule of thumb: 6 good, 1 bad.
Story Points can be spent to bump the Success Level, 1 for 1. So, to bump a Failure to a Barely, you need to spend 2 Story Points. You're not allowed to bring a Fail to higher than a Barely (p.77 core book), but you can bring a Pass all the way up to Brilliant! PCs start with 12 Story Points (minus points for gadgets).
Advantages / Disadvantages (p.88-89 core book) allows you to roll 3d6 and either use the best two or the worst two dice.
Focus Bonus (p.28 core book) and Recalling an Experience (p.60 core book) add an extra +1d6. This is separate from the 2d6 die roll, so you either need a different colored die or roll separately (and declare this before rolling the 2d6).
Each PC helping gives you a +2 to the die roll (Cooperation, p.77 core book), with some limits on how many can help. This also applies to NPCs such as a group of NPCs shooting at you (Multiple Opponents, p.89 core book), so instead of rolling each attack, you can roll once for a group against a specific PC.
One of the most Doctor Who thing is the initiative order: Talkers, Movers, Doers, and then Fighters go in that order. Intent of each PC / NPC is discussed, then actions are resolved in initiative order.
Story Points are your get out of jail free bennies for changing die roll outcomes. If you spent too much, you can recover a point by playing out a Focus that creates a complication or getting captured (another Doctor Who trope).
Your hit points are your Attribute scores. Depending on how you get hurt, your Attribute score goes down (also reducing your chance of success). Once an Attribute hits 0, you get a Condition, a Disadvantage to rolls involving the Condition. Two Conditions and opponents also get an Advantage die. Third Condition and you're Defeated, your PC quits and tells The Doctor you've had enough and go home. I found this very thematic and funny. This does make it sound like it's almost impossible for PC to die, but some creatures do Lethal attacks (Daleks) which can instantly disintegrate you.
Not all creatures or objects have pictures in the scenarios. The good news is that there's a Doctor Who Wiki where you can find pictures of various aliens.
I really enjoyed the game and it did feel like a Doctor Who episode. One issue is that The Doctor is very powerful, much more than the Companions, so there's a power balance issue. I've decided that The Doctor would be a rotating PC (or absent). I did tell my Players that if The Doctor is in play and you play The Doctor, your PC isn't, which means you don't get any XP for your PC. That is the tradeoff you have to make, if you want to play The Doctor.
Most of my sessions are 3 hours long. Different groups take different times, but my run times are here for comparison purposes.
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The Timeless Library
Pages: 48
Run Time: 1 session
Pre-gens: provided
Hook: PCs (pre-Companions) are gathered by the Tardis to save the Timeless Library.
This is the starter set tutorial. Some of the tests are easier with pre-gens with specific skills or backgrounds. If you're going to let your Players make their own PCs, you might have to adjust the skill tests or just assume the PCs will have to spend more Story Points.
I did feel this scenario was a bit railroady, but it is the Starter Set Tutorial with rules imbedded in the text or breakout boxes. So, the 48 pages does include rules sprinkled throughout.
If you ran this with experienced Players, you might get rid of some of the railroadiness, but that takes away some of the ties to The Echo Chamber.
=== SPOILER SECTION START ===
Spoilers! That's why the cover's here instead.
The Plot: Random PCs are kidnapped by the TARDIS. They're not Companions yet and may not even know of Time Travel. On the surface level, the PCs are guided by a hologram of The Doctor, giving them tasks to save the Library of Carenthian that has been attacked by Daleks. The Daleks are looking for the Manifold of Ruin. The PCs need to get survivors onto a shuttle (while avoiding Daleks), get the Generator going (while avoiding Daleks), and reprogram a time field to banish the Daleks (while avoiding Daleks). On the meta-level, the PCs are actually in a VR video game that has infected the TARDIS. Winning the game, breaks the PCs out of the game, and frees the TARDIS from the purple crystals infecting the TARDIS. The Bad Guys: Daleks
You can run the scenario without the VR video game aspects and just have the PCs save the Library. But the Daleks have been dialed down a little to be less deadly. And if a PC dies, they're just respawned to continue the game. Without this, a PC might die in their first adventure. So, I do recommend keeping the VR video game aspect and running The Echo Chamber afterwards.
The Doctor's hologram pops up once the PCs depart the TARDIS, just like a video game avatar, telling the PCs what they need to do to complete the game. At various points, her hologram pops up congratulating them and reiterating what they have to do next -- very much like a video game tutorial. This makes the scenario railroady, but is on point for a RPG beginner tutorial, and a video game tutorial. At various times, there is interrupted video and indications that the PCs are in a video game.
As a joke, after the first PC dies, I tell the Player that the PC sees in the corner of their eye a blinking 2, as if it's a life count indicator.
I also delay shunting the PCs to the video game, letting them explore the TARDIS and hoping someone puts on the VR headset. If someone does that, I can then take them all into the game, making it more thematic. I actually show them the Library in the VR headset before continuing with the scenario description. If no one does, I follow the scenario description and have the TARDIS activate and drop them into the Library. I also don't make the TARDIS vanish after they arrive, I just close the door behind them when they step into the Library. Nobody's tried to get back into the TARDIS, but if they did, I'd just lock the doors.
The first time I ran this, I didn't do as many tests as written, I thought it was a bit die roll heavy, and the PCs finished with almost all of their Story Points intact.
The second time, I ran it as written, and Sam ran out of Story Points, and got Exterminated just as he handed off the Tehyspike to Aiden who needed it to unlock the door to the Instrument of Knowledge. It wound up being more exciting. I had Sam respawn at the bottom of the staircase where he picked up the Ood Sphere, re-enabled its Lethality, and used it against a Dalek.
TARDIS Exterior
TARDIS Interior
The Hologram
Various NPCs:
Kor-Dor - Jundoon - Head Librarian
Megrol-Koi-Ker - Lugal-Irra-Kush - Assistant Head Librarian
Wiley - Leonian - leg injury
Sekris - Skithra - Librarian - abdomen injury
Hastis - Silurian
3 Iron Deaths
Artifacts of the Library: I told the PCs that next to each item was a description and sometimes an image. For the vial of Balhoonian Bodily Fluids, there's a picture of a Bahoonian. For the Ood Translation Sphere, there's a picture of an Ood handling the Sphere.
Balhoonian - Vial of bodily fluids
Ood Translation Sphere
Swathe of Plenitude
Tehyspike
Tivolian Flag of Surrender
Artifacts in the Restricted Archive:
The Manifold of Ruin
The Mirror of Princes
The Revelation Dice
Lotos logo for the VR Headset
The Lotos logo
=== SPOILER SECTION END ===
The Echo Chamber
Run Time: 2 sessions
Pages: 42
Pre-gens: provided
Hook: PCs find a chalkboard with clues in the TARDIS and the TARDIS plays a voice message from The Doctor imploring the PCs to save her.
This longer 3 Act scenario is a lot more enjoyable than The Timeless Library, but best run after you finish The Timeless Library. There are also elements of the scenario that were designed for the provided pre-gens, tying into their skills or backstories.
Overall, I thought this was a pretty good scenario.
=== SPOILER SECTION START ===
The Plot: The PCs are dropped in front of the Lotos corporate HQ. The PCs learn about the Lotos headsets and Poppy Perdue, then Transmat to the Tempest, a spaceship that's a travelling theater. They learn that memories are stolen from people and stored in blue crystals. From there, the PCs Transmat to the crystal caves under Metebelis III. Inside a cave is The Doctor, trapped in purple crystal. The PCs need to free her with her sonic screwdriver. The Bad Guys: Dream Hound, Poppy Perdue
The Lotos logo
To tie things together more, when the PCs exit the TARDIS and see the high-rise that's the Lotos corporate HQ, I put a giant multi-story video screen on the front of the building showing their latest best selling video game, The Timeless Library. Advertising for the Lotos VR Headset and video clips of someone playing The Timeless Library is shown. Also a clip of Poppy Perdue extolling how great her technology is, how immersive her VR worlds are, light years ahead of the competition.
I found that there are Lotus-eaters (from Homer's Odyssey) and Lotos-eaters, a poem by Lord Tennyson. But I think they're actually the same thing.
I found it odd that the scenario didn't have a picture of Poppy, so I picked an actress that I liked.
Poppy Perdue - glamor shot for magazine
Poppy Perdue in business attire
The Dream Hound is a Dr Who version of the Hounds of Tindalos which can travel dimensions freely. It's really a GM tool to drive the PCs to action. At one point, it shows up to force the PCs to use a transmat device to escape to the next Act. In both runs of the scenario, the PCs removed the collar that controlled the Hound in Act 3 when it blocks their way.
Dream Hound
In one run, the PCs interacted with all the NPCs in the Tempest. In another run the PCs spent more time in the Lotos HQ, but avoided all the NPCs in the Tempest. Oddly enough, both runs took 2 sessions to finish.
Harcourt's Journal
Tempest Crew:
Bresh - Troupe Leader
Fleder - Head Chef
Tempest Passengers:
Lord Zusco - Silurian
Lady Zemra - Silurian
Tempest Players (actors):
Verdigris - Vinvocci
Strife - Sontaran
Lexis - Carrionite
Kahandra - Draconian
Ees Ky-Liss - Raxacoricofallapatorian
Crystal Caves:
Blue Lizard
Ruins of Gallifrey
Sonic Screwdriver
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The Hermit's Lantern
Run Time: 2 sessions
Pages: 20
Pre-gens: provided
Hook: The Doctor grabs all the PCs to go on a new adventure. A planet can only be accessed every 50 years. Others are looking for a treasure, the Doctor is joining this expedition.
This scenario is more action oriented as there are numerous challenges the PCs face.
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The Plot: Lord Trescothick hires a group of skilled people, including the PCs, to help him acquire the Hermit's Lantern. It's a race between Lord Trescothick, The Brazen Eye, and Baugulf. The Bad Guys: Lord Trescothick (he'll betray the PCs), various native animals, The Brazen Eye cult, Baugulf's mercenaries.
This scenario pushes the PCs to the brink with a lot of die rolls, burning up a lot of Story Points. There are points where it looks like the PCs are on the edge of getting their 3rd Injury. I liked this, but I felt there were too many die rolls to get the PCs to that condition. I almost feel like I should halve the PCs' Story Points and reduce the number of die rolls.
I also didn't like that there's a bit of Doctor ex machina where she shows up at the very end and resolves what should be the conflict in the finale. The Doctor also falls into a deep well 2/3rds into the scenario and disappears, so I don't recommend anybody play The Doctor as a PC.
The good news is that in the end, the PCs will get The Hermit's Lantern which is basically their own Tardis. So, you can continue having Doctor Who scenarios without The Doctor. The Hermit's Lantern is slightly damaged, so I decided it sometimes whisks the PCs to random adventures just like the Tardis does. When activated, those in its light get taken through time and space. It also does psychic translations, like the Tardis, and costume changes if required. Since it's damaged, it'll refuse to operate until the scenario they're in is completed; this will prevent the PCs from continuously using the Lantern as a get out of jail free card.
This scenario lacked a lot of pictures for the local creatures and NPCs. The creatures are unique and I wasn't able to find them in the Dr Who Wiki, nor via a Google search, so I just displayed the closest animal I could find.
