My Week with Harlan Ellison

Odyssey 1998 Writers Workshop

Harlan asked me to do this pose, to look through his glasses, I didn't know this was one of his iconic poses.

Harlan during a story critique (I'm in the far right with my back turned to the camera)

Boring Background Stuff

I was born a middle class Chinese American kid (cue Steve Martin in The Jerk) in the San Francisco Bay Area, Berkeley to be exact; Ground Zero for The Black Panthers, Vietnam Peace Protests, and Hippies. I grew up speaking Cantonese at home and watched over-the-air TV shows (all in English) and spoke English at school. In kindergarten, I had pooped in my pants. I was sent home and my mom asked me why I didn't ask to use the restroom. I told her I didn't know how to ask in English. She then taught me the phrase. Yeah, people on TV never ask someone to use their bathroom. I was strong in math and less in English, so I leaned heavily into math and the sciences. Magnets, dinosaurs, and things that glowed-in-the-dark were mysterious and cool. Thus my love for science fiction.

I wound up becoming a software engineer. When I was at UC Berkeley, they still had room-sized computers that took punch cards to be programmed, but I was spared that as we had access to computer terminals and computer screens that allowed us to write software programs from the computer room. During my junior year, IBM introduced the IBM PC. I lucked out because who knew computers was going to be the next hot thing. This reminds me of the lines in The Graduate. "Just one word: Plastics. There's a great future in plastics. Think about it." Just one word: Computers.

I loved science fiction and wanted to learn how to write better, so I took a UC Berkeley extension course teaching science fiction writing, taught by Marta Randall. When I signed up, I had no idea she used to teach Clarion (East) and Clarion West, and was a past president of the Science Fiction Writers of America. She taught us the Milford method of critiquing which both Clarion and Odyssey uses. This is where I learned there was such a thing as Clarion. Marta did say two things that I always remember (my paraphrasing): 1. Don't continue meeting as a group after the class was over; if you do, don't make it a social group, write and critique. 2. There were more talented writers in my peer group, I was persistent, I outlasted the others, I kept on writing.

In 1993, I attended the Clarion West workshop which was an offshoot of the Clarion (East) workshop. Each week was taught by someone famous in the science fiction genre. That year, the instructors were Pat Murphy, Geoff Ryman, Connie Willis, Lucius Shepard, Alice Turner (editor), and Greg Bear. The workshop ran for 6 weeks in Seattle. You basically read everybody's work, critiqued it, and wrote new stuff each week. I had applied to Clarion West multiple times, and finally got accepted the 2nd or 3rd time (I don't remember), and was admitted late in the process. I was later told that I was on the bubble and was accepted when another student couldn't make it, so I was filled with self-doubt as to my writing ability. I did ask one of my instructors as to why, what my weakness was, what did I not have that the other writers did have. I was told to think of myself as a pinch hitter, not as a runner up. Nice of that instructor to say that, but I wasn't convinced. I did learn that Connie Willis and I wrote the same way, we started with plot, and plot created character, not the other way around which was how some other authors approached writing.

Clarion West 1993 with Greg Bear

Clarion West 1993 with Lucius Shepard and Alice Turner

In the late 90s, I was working for Netscape. One of the perks was that you were given a sabbatical after 5 years of service, so in 1998 I took it to attend the Odyssey Writers Workshop, a 6 week writer workshop focused on speculative fiction: science fiction, fantasy, and horror. Odyssey was a new workshop, founded in 1996, taught by Jeanne Cavelos, known for launching and editing the well-received Abyss line of horror books. She would have guest lecturers for two days: Patricia A McKillip, John Crowley, James Morrow, Ellen Kushner & Delia Sherman (as a team), Warren Lapine (editor), and Harlan Ellison who was teaching for a whole week.

OMG, Harlan Ellison!

I read Deathbird Stories when I was kid and Dangerous Visions, and Again, Dangerous Visions. I loved his work.

The guest lecturers were also amazing. I'm also a big fan of Patricia A McKillip and James Morrow. Apologies to the other lecturers.

I applied for the workshop -- and got in!

When I went to Clarion West, I didn't bring any books for the instructors to sign. I had no idea that I should do that. But Rob Vamosi who worked at a book store brought books by every author and got them signed. I saw how the instructor's eyes lit up when he did that. So, at local conventions, I started to bring books to be signed by authors. This year, I packed my suitcase and brought books. I already had a few books signed by Harlan Ellison when he had attended local conventions, so I didn't bring those. I went to my local used book store and looked for books I didn't have. They were scarce and I found a few beat up books. I had a copy of Fantasy and Science Fiction magazine with Harlan's Jeffty was Five in it. I had kept in on my shelf for 20 years, but one year, I had decided to clear out shelf space and discarded it. Then I had gotten into Odyssey with Harlan teaching. And I had thrown it away! Oops.

The Effectiveness of Workshops

From my Clarion West 1993 workshop, only one author did well: Louise Marley. She went on to publish several books.

From my Odyssey 1998 workshop, only one author did well: Carrie Vaughn. She has published multiple short stories and novels. One of them on the New York Times bestseller's list.

The workshops do make you a better reader and writer, but Marta Randall was right about persistence. A lot of people give up. See, there was a reason I brought that up earlier. Foreshadowing!

I don't mean others haven't done well, but in the genre field they haven't made a name for themselves.

Odyssey 30th Year Anniversary -- or why I wrote this

Recently, Odyssey held a 30th anniversary zoom meeting with old graduates. I had hoped to see my old classmates, but only Carrie Vaughn showed up from my class. I was great to see her and Jeanne, but damn, we've gotten old.

We were prompted to talk about key learning moments from our workshops and there were some interesting anecdotes. Basically Jeanne is a great teacher, giving out custom advice for each student, helping them on their journey to be better writers.

I decided to tell a Harlan story.

One of the attendees commented that they thought we weren't supposed to talk about Harlan week. The first rule of Fight Club, is you don't talk about Fight Club.

A few graduates of Odyssey had passed away, Julia Duncan and Larry Hall. Harlan Ellison had passed away, and so did his wife, Susan.

Susan and Harlan Ellison at Odyssey 1998

Carrie reminded us that the lectures were recorded on cassette tapes. And are available for people to listen to.

If I don't tell these stories, who will? Are they to be lost?

We are what our memories are. I will not let these memories be erased by time and death. I will rage into the night. Or at least into the vast emptiness known as the internet. 😊

The Story Begins -- HE arrives. (HE = Harlan Ellison)

There was great anticipation as to the arrival of Harlan Ellison. In Odyssey's early days, we stayed at visitor housing, various townhouses on a tiny New Hampshire college campus. Two students per townhouse with our own bedrooms. I learned about noseeums (small mosquitoes) and had to buy a blanket because the thin blanket they gave us wasn't warm enough to sleep under. My roommate was Steve Prete. The running joke was that the mosquito was the state bird. I bought a lottery scratch-off ticket that was mosquito themed. To win money, you had to find 3 mosquitoes in a row before you hit either a fly swatter or bug spray. The townhouses were middling, clean, slightly rundown, nothing like a Hilton or Hyatt. Outside each townhouse was a small corkboard for tacking up messages in case you were out.

Jeanne and a few volunteers went to the townhouse that was to be Harlan's and his wife, Susan's. We did the run through and Jeanne thought it would be amusing to create an interactive story puzzle for Harlan. Students were tasked to make various paper props that we would tack up on the small cork board outside of the condo. I laid down on the living room floor and Jeanne used masking tape to make a dead body outline on the floor. The story was supposed to be some student drug deal gone wrong.

The legend was that Harlan is a super observer of details and human behavior. He tells a story about how he sees a couple at a restaurant, the woman is upset, and he approaches them and immediately tells the woman to not trust the man. His only clue? He was wearing a wedding ring and she wasn't. So obviously they were having an affair. I believe the woman flees the restaurant.

So, we were banking on Harlan figuring out our puzzle.

Harlan arrives. We have an evening meet and greet with him and his wife. In the morning, one of the students just vanished. According to Julia Duncan, he had just packed up and left. That guy was a bit weird.

Harlan in a camo t-shirt, bootcamping us on writing.

We've already had a few weeks of Milford style of critiquing, so we should be up to speed on listening to critiques and taking in feedback. He told us that I was at the foothills of incompetence, but compared to me, Carrie Vaughn was on top of the Mount Everest of incompetence. Who got on the New York Times Best Seller list? See? Foreshadowing paid off again!

Harlan handed out cheap fridge magnets, with aliens printed on them, as rewards for good work. I got 4 of those Attaboys.

At some point, finally, Harlan asked me about the body outline, he was angry and thought it was a death threat. I played dumb. Also I was too embarrassed and afraid to admit the truth. I swung by the outside of his townhouse and noticed the paper props were still untouched on the cork board, I checked the push pin holes and such. He had only seen the body outline. So much for the legend of being a super observer.

After the workshop, I actually left a phone message for Harlan explaining the whole thing to him. He returned the call, and left a message on my answering machine. He didn't chew me out and spit my remains onto hot coals before flushing it down a toilet. I have that tape somewhere, but I don't even have a cassette player anymore. I remember it was graciously apologetic.

Shopping with Harlan and Susan -- business, business, business

The townhouses were a bit basic. Harlan and Susan needed a tea kettle, so I took them to the local megamart (it was a Sears or something) where I bought my blanket. At one point, they were discussing whether to buy the cheapie tea kettle or the nicer one. If they got the nicer one, they'd take it home. I think they got the nicer one.

But I was thinking, what? WTF? Don't you have a lot of money? This is the same conversation my parents would have, trying to save money.

I also remember that Marty Hiller was upset about Susan and couldn't understand how Susan was wasting her life, as an intelligent woman, subsuming her life with Harlan's. Marty was a PhD.

Susan dealt with the business side of Harlan's life. At some point, we were handed order forms for Harlan books. We all bought books (at full retail) and he signed them all. He also brought various knick-knacks. A dancing Flubber toy from Robin Williams that he didn't want. I believe Walt Cuirle took it home to his kids.

Harlan told us he didn't like writing with a computer and loved using his typewriter. First thing was the tactile feel of it. Next was that it forced you to take time to compose what you were writing versus vomiting your thoughts onto the paper which a word processor lets you do. You can type as fast as you can think without thinking what about what you are writing, whether it was garbage or worse. Lastly, you can sell your original typewritten manuscript. No one wants a printout.

He also told us to put into our contracts a clause to have an option to buy back your remainders (unsold books) at the publisher's pulping price. Then you can autograph and resell them at retail prices. Also request at least 3 author's copies on your contract. One to read, one to put into your archives, one to sell (if you had to).

When I visited his townhouse, he had his typewriter staged in the middle of the living room. It sat by itself on a small table with a chair. It was the oddest thing.

Harlan asked me why I didn't visit more often, he said others did. I forgot what I told him, but the truth was, I had a ton of homework. He made us write a story a day. To prevent us from handing in trunk stories, he gave us daily topics to write about. The normal pace was one story a week. Generally, the previous week's story was critiqued the following week. And we had to read everyone else's story. When you had to write a story a day, and you're short on sleep, a lot of garbage gets written -- which we had to read and critique. Our tempers got short. When would I have time to socialize?

There was also an issue of Harlan's fee for teaching at Odyssey. He wanted more money because he was "saving" Odyssey. Jeanne stood her ground and insisted Odyssey existed because of her efforts and it didn't need saving. Well, hindsight is 2020. Harlan taught only one week. Jeanne taught 6 weeks every year. Odyssey made it to the 30th anniversary. Guess who was right? Persistence matters.😀Foreshadowing strikes again!

At one point, my roommate told me that Harlan had bought his story for The Last Dangerous Visions (TLDV). I was glad for Steve Prete. TLDV finally saw print in 2024 after Harlan died. I was sad to see that Steve's story didn't make the final cut. Straczynski's introductory essay on Harlan made a lot of sense. I actually thought TLDV was just an excuse for Harlan to give new authors hope by buying a story from them and saying, you made the cut, keep on writing. Before attending Odyssey, Stephen Chambers had already sold a two novel series and he was just a high school kid. During Clarion West, Patrizia DiLucchio sold a story to Alice Turner of Playboy, unfortunately it wasn't published, but she collected the full payment as a kill fee. In those days, Playboy paid an amazing amount of money, $2000 for a story. Playboy and Omni paid real money for stories, not 5 cents a word.

One night, Julia Duncan was in distress, either a panic attack or a heart attack. Harlan sat with her and told us about his acid reflux and his experiences with his open heart surgery. Eventually, Julia went to the hospital. At some point, she returned to class.

At another point, another student (I shouldn't say whom) wound up in the fetal position in his room. His roommate alerted us, word spread, and we tried to comfort him. Not sure what had happened there. What we did get out of him was definitely Harlan related.

I got my books signed and Harlan complained about the condition of some of the books, the ones I found at the used bookstore. Oops. More embarrassment. I muttered some excuse. I should have lied to him and just told him they were well loved. I guess he wanted to sign mint first edition hardbacks that were never read. 🙃

I was also writing articles for Speculations, a magazine for genre authors. The magazine had gotten a few nominations for a Hugo. Kent Brewster, the publisher had asked me to do an interview with Harlan since I had access. I asked Harlan for permission and he said only on the stipulation that he got final edit. I decided not to.

HE leaves -- an oath of secrecy.

On the last day, Harlan suddenly becomes a nice guy and tells us we can now ask him any question and he'll answer them. By then, we're all burned out. The top two pictures are from the last day. You can see the townhouses behind us.

From Clarion West, I had a notebook, where I asked each lecturer for writing advice. I did this because I didn't do what Rob Vamosi did, bring books to be signed, so I had them write something in my notebook.

I did the same thing at Odyssey. But lesson learned, I also brought books to be signed.

Earlier in the week, I had asked Harlan to write in my notebook, but he declined. He was interested in what Connie Willis wrote though. I thought this was a bit curious, but thought nothing of it, until I heard about the Connie Willis / Harlan Ellison groping incident at the 2006 Hugos.

On the last day, I decided to not ask Harlan to write in my notebook. I was too tired to deal with it. And my image of him was greatly tarnished.

Harlan left us with a promise to not talk about Harlan week. A secret held between all of us. He told us what we experienced was life.

Maybe a year later, I stood in line at a convention to say hello to Harlan and Susan. He was signing books. I finally got to the front of the line to say hello. I got a courteous hello, nothing else. I think he didn't recognize me. Disappointed, I walked a way. Susan saw what had happened and intercepted me and said a few kind words and made an excuse for Harlan.

When Ellen Kushner and Delia Sherman taught at Odyssey (tag team teaching), right after Harlan had left, they heard what a can crushing moment Harlan had been. Their response? Teaching doesn't have to be like that. There's no reason for it.

Looking back, there was a big ball of ego there. It was all about creating a mystique and self-promotion.

There was nothing that had happened during Harlan week that was a secret handshake, secret sauce, or answers to the mysteries of the universe. No tap from a magic wand that anointed you as being the next best selling author. No reason for a "What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas" promise.

I enjoyed my experiences at Odyssey and my week with Harlan. I ate lunch with him at the cafeteria, the food was horrible, but for some reason Harlan liked it. Went shopping with him and his wife. Chatted with Susan. Hung out with him in the evening when he brought back some horrible Japanese soda and got Sean Finn to try it. Sean gagged. During class, something happened and I blurted out that Sean had drunk stuff worse than that. Not thinking that it would be taken the wrong way, as a fellatio reference. Sean was taken aback and I reminded him of the soda he drank. All was forgiven.

Heh, good times.

You have this idealized view of someone. But then you meet them. As per The Matrix, "He's still only human."

Sometimes you shouldn't meet your heroes.

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Here's a copy of an article I wrote for Speculations, in lieu of the interview that never happened.

Deathmatch Island vs Eat the Reich - a Review

I ran Deathmatch Island and played Eat the Reich. Both had similar systems, you rolled lots of dice and narrated what had happened, but I felt one worked really well and the other didn't. So, I pondered why and came up with the following.

I'm a fan of Battle Royale. A bunch of teenagers from the same class are dropped on an island, issued random items including weapons. Are told to kill each other over 3 days and the sole survivor gets fame and fortune. The previous year's winner is shown, a blood splattered little girl with a psychotic smile. To force the kids to kill each other, they're given a map and over time, the safe zones are eliminated. Kids left in a prohibited zone die as their explosive collars detonate. Each day, the list of dead students are announced over a PA system. The movie is about friendship, betrayal, savagery of man, survival.

Battle Royale begat Hunger Games, Squid Game, and Survivor. Those shows begat Deathmatch Island.

The mechanics are interesting. You roll different sided dice based on various stats (default is d6) add the highest two dice rolled. Also roll a handful of d4s (for items used) take the highest die rolled; there's a level of diminishing returns as the max is 4 and there's no reason to use up too many items; add this to the previous die roll. GM rolls dice and that's the Target Number. Compare all the numbers. It's a roll once and done system. Losers narrate first, winners in order of lowest results narrate first. So, the ultimate winner narrates last. Part of the narration is weaving in the skills and items you've used to try to accomplish your task. 

We found the system doesn't really work. It's functional, but broken. We found the system works well with people who are good with improv. But still, the Player weaves a tale of how they used their skills and items and then have to come up with why they failed. In their mind's eye, they have a brilliant plan of how all the items used worked. Then after the die roll, they have to ret-con in their head what had happened. This is too much to ask. Players would tell a story about how they used each item, roll the dice, then retell the modified story. Of course, the system was designed so you're supposed to only narrate after the die roll, but it's hard to break that habit.

I found the illustrations with all the generic items and the random charts amazing, but as per my play group said, "We'd play this once a year." The other downside was I wanted a packet of NPC portraits because the enemy teams had tons of NPCs and it's a lot of work for the GM to come up with them.

Now, on to Eat the Reich. You're a bunch of vampires dropped into Nazi Occupied Paris and are tasked with hunting down Hitler and drinking his blood. Since vampires exist, so do Übermensch. As you visit scenic and fictionalized bits of Paris, you kill Nazis and various Übermensch until you reach Hitler.

The mechanics are simple. You roll a dice pool of d6s based on your stats and equipment. 1-3 = failure, 4-5 single success, 6 = double success or activate special. You may use as much equipment as you want: a knife, a flamethrower, a machine gun, a car, etc. Just like Deathmatch Island, you can narrate how you use all these items.

The GM rolls a pool of d6s which is the damage the Nazis do to you. You can chose among 5 ways to spend your successes: Advance to an Objective (a set number is needed to get out of the current scene), Eliminating a Threat (killing Nazis or hurting Übermensch), Defend Yourself (reduce damage), Feeding on Nazis (gain Blood points which are sometimes needed to activate Specials, including healing yourself), Activating Specials (super extra abilities). The difference between killing Nazis and Feeding on them is you can kill them with bullets and such, but to feed on them, you need to drink their blood (and you gain a Blood point).

Even though both systems are a roll as many dice as you want and THEN narrate what happened, Eat the Reich actually works. I think it's because there's the next step of picking your effects based on your number of successes. And the Objective, Threat, Damage, Blood points are advancement resource tracks that need to be filled before the scene ends (with teamwork), so there's a feeling of progress and accomplishment which you don't get with Deathmatch Island's roll once and done.

Eat the Reich also has great graphics and interesting locations. I really enjoyed this and would play this again (more than once a year).

Both Deathmatch Island and Eat the Reich have a limited map and locations, so after a few plays, everything would have been explored. Deathmatch Island does have 4 Casts of NPCs (different groups to fight against, thus my complaint about a lack of NPC portraits), so there's more variety; and an expansion has 9 replacement islands.

Morgan's A Weekend With Good Friends Con Excellent Adventures

A free online convention, focusing on Call of Cthulhu and other horror themed RPGs.

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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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 ===

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Saturday, June 14, 2025 at 7-11am (game took 3 hrs as per game description)

Cloud Jaws: Hell's Fleet ~クラウド・ ジョーズ：地獄の艦隊~

System: Call of Cthulhu

GM: mjrrpg (Mike JR)

Players: 2-4 players, ages 18+.

Morgan Hua (Enoshima Nami - Job Hopper), Jeremy - captainkudzu (Aizawa Yousuke - Salaryman), Austen - austenking11 (Umibe Kyuuto - Lifeguard), Travis - binarylife (Marco Neapolitan - Pizza chef).

Pre-generated characters will be provided

Content Warnings: Gore, sharks!

Additional Safety Tools: X-Card

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.

=== SPOILER SECTION END ===

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Morgan's KublaCon 2025 Excellent Adventures

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.

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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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 ===

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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 ===

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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 ===

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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 ===

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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 ===

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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 ===

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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.

=== SPOILER SECTION END ===

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Deathmatch Island - Review

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.