Morgan's DundraCon 47 Adventures

If I homebrew my own scenario, I generally run it all year through the con circuit. I last ran A Place for Wellness at BigBadCon in 2019 and COVID hit and I never got to finish running it at the other conventions. So, I'll finally be able to finish running the game through the con circuit this year. I'll be running it at KublaCon and that'll be it.

The Shuffler hated me this year. I only got into one game via the Shuffler and it was my 2nd choice for that slot. Drouin's game was via a priority slip. So game-wise, it was very disappointing. I only got to play in 2 games.

For some reason, 16 games got cancelled. I also felt compared to years before there were fewer games. This could all be due to Covid concerns (very few people were wearing masks, I counted 3), the new location, or the economy. Because of this, I noticed games were oversubscribed. One game had 45 first choice requests for 6 available seats.

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A Place for Wellness

Friday Noon in 149 for 4 Hours

GM: Morgan Hua

Type: RPG

System: Cthulhu Dark

Players: 6 (C Scott, J Scott, N Winters, P Perez, J Gonzalez, L Ruifrok)

Provided: All characters provided by GM

Rules Knowledge: Beginners Welcome

Game Content: Mature Themes

You will play various characters from movies such as Terminator, Halloween, Hellraiser, IT, Psycho, and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. All are new patients in an insane asylum. Patients suffer from various persecution complexes, delusions, paranoia, and some have violent tendencies. When not playing a Patient, you will play as Doctors in charge of evaluating patients, recommending therapies, and administering outdated therapies to the patients. The asylum is modern and similar in tone to One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. This is a PvP game where the Patients are pitted against the Doctors and the system. This is a game about perceptions, observation, deception, and human cruelty. Remember: The Institute for Wellness is here for your safety and well-being. Patience is a virtue and a patient is only released when they're ready to face the world.

I had a table of exceptional players and the game play was very good.

=== SPOILER SECTION START ===

After the initial interview with patients, a few Players said they felt sorry for Laurie Strode. Laurie hid the pills she was supposed to take, passed a 2nd evaluation, and one of the Doctors just let her out the back door. Hey, you're supposed to fill out the release form first. That's against Hospital policy!

In the end, 2 of 6 patients got lobotomized. 4 escaped. 2 died. 

Pennywise and Pinhead slaughtered the hospital staff, shook hands and departed with mutual respect.

=== SPOILER SECTION END ===

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Torn: The University

Saturday 8 AM in 145 for 4 Hours

GM: Steven Drouin

Type: RPG

System: TORN

Players: 5 (D Brubeck, L Saunders, N Fuller, S Phelan, Morgan Hua)

Provided: Characters created for game

Rules Knowledge: Beginners Welcome

Game Content: Mainstream

You awake in the small village of Point Reyes Station, with no memory of who you were. Artifacts and documents will help you will learn who you were and then you will tear yourself apart to learn what happened to you. Torn is a mystery/horror RPG system rooted heavily in media, character development, and narrative improvisation. No knowledge of the system is required, but willingness to role play is a must.

Steven always delivers a good game. He's the author of this game system. It's chockfull of props and handouts. I had a really good time.

=== SPOILER SECTION START ===

We wake up with no memories, but we're given 5 objects to choose from (1 for each PC) and to create a memory based on it. I picked a yes/no coin and told the following story: Death is Random. I met a guy in a bar and he told me, "Death is Random." To show me, he pointed at a person and asked, "Is that person going to live?" He flipped a coin and it landed on, "No." That person just keeled over and died. So, I decided to influence chance and murdered him and took the coin. Yes, death is random, but you can influence the outcome. 

From this I also got to label this memory. I called it: "I know how to kill people."

Sean picked a small cup and decided it had something to do with his winery.

The next thing we got to see was something familiar in our bedroom. I decided it was a large hourglass filled with children's teeth. Most have fallen to the bottom half, but 3 were caught on the upper half, poised like grains of sand.

Then we went to a living room and there were various posters, letters, journals, etc. We got to pick one that we liked. One was a flier for a lost cat that liked hats.

Then we got to build a memory with another PC that had to have cause us regret. Sean and I got together and decided that Sean's winery required renewal of the wine terroir with a human sacrifice, but strangers won't do, it has to be people who had a connection with the land, so we chose a cousin. That cousin had a dog and it would sleep where the cousin's remains were spread and it would howl all the time, to shut it up, we had to feed it, but it would return to its vigil, so now it's a fat, sad dog. That was our regret. In the future, the human sacrifice couldn't have a pet.

We found we couldn't influence anything in the house except for things we had a strong connection to. One PC wanted to turn on the TV, so he sacrificed one of his memories (tearing it out of his character sheet -- thus the system name TORN), to turn it on.

We escaped the house and one PC put his hand in running water and lost a piece of his soul. At some point, we concluded that we were ghosts of some sort.

The clues pointed us to the multiCULTural Day event. We explored the event and got more clues. Sean got attacked by the cat wearing a sailor's hat; it toyed with Sean's PC and then tore away a part of his soul and ate it. We went to the University President's Office and got more clues. In the end, we had to trick a djinn back into its lamp (Sean's cup was its stopper) and undo a wish that held back the sea.

Steven asked what our last words were as the wall of water came to wash us away. I asked, "Will I live?" I flipped the coin in the air, all the Players leaned in to see how it landed. The answer was "Yes."

Everybody did their epilogues. I woke up to the cat kneading my chest, and I coughed up brackish water. A new sea shore was here and a Point Reyes Lighthouse which I would reside in for the rest of my life as I combed the beach for a lost coin and an old lamp.

=== SPOILER SECTION END ===

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The Valley of Multifarious Deaths

Sunday 10 AM in 139 for 8 Hours

GM: Norm Albert

Type: RPG

System: John Carter of Mars

Edition: Modiphius (2d20)

Players: 8 (full table, 2 crashers got in)

Provided: All characters provided by GM

Power Level: Hyper-competent, like true ERB heroes

Rules Knowledge: Useful

Game Content: Mainstream

What starts as an expedition of commerce quickly devolves into a fight for survival in the unknown lands west of Bantoom where a new threat lurks, threatening all Barsoom!

Not my first choice because there's 8 players and that's always a bad sign, but the game is an 8 hour game, so I assumed I'd get enough screen time and I was right.

My main issue is with the GM. He didn't explain the system, dice mechanics, nor the world. So, I had to explain the dice mechanics to the people on either side of me, and the person next to me had to explain it to his neighbor. Several people still didn't understand the dice mechanics half way into the game, by the end, I think everybody finally figured it out. But yeah, this should have been explained at the very start.

The GM also had to continually look up the rules. Also when someone had a question, he'd get side tracked and would wait forever until the table talk quieted down before speaking. But since he took so long, side conversations would start up and then he'd wait again. So, the GM had no table control.

I actually enjoyed the system, one of the lightest 2d20 systems. And once we figured out the combinations for various actions (and wrote them down instead of asking the GM), things went quicker.

The adventure was as advertised and we had a good group of Players who made our own fun and numerous jokes while we waited for the GM.

=== SPOILER SECTION START ===

We were given a map and told to take an airship and find the ancient and forgotten land of Kobal. We were a diplomatic trade mission. Our direct route took us over an ancient crater. Once over the crater, our airship gets shot down.

Our water stores are destroyed and we decide to descend into the crater because it's green with jungle growth and thus a source of water. Inside, we run in to various creatures and conclude that the crater is really some sort of zoo or breeding pen.

We rescue a Kobalian, a lone survivor, whose scientific party was wiped out. She was holed up in a cave that the scientists had previously cleared and made safe.

We find a "temple" where great white apes are mind controlled and harvested for their blood. Tentacled Martians with advanced technology are the big bad things here. We kill a number of them and escape.

We capture Kobalian mounts that were roaming free and get to Kobal to complete our trade mission.

Overall, it wasn't a bad adventure.

=== SPOILER SECTION END ===

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A Place for Wellness

Friday Noon in 149 for 4 Hours

GM: Morgan Hua

Type: RPG

System: Cthulhu Dark

Players: 6 (A Zisch, V Garcia, 2 crashers got in, 4 no shows)

Provided: All characters provided by GM

Rules Knowledge: Beginners Welcome

Game Content: Mature Themes

You will play various characters from movies such as Terminator, Halloween, Hellraiser, IT, Psycho, and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. All are new patients in an insane asylum. Patients suffer from various persecution complexes, delusions, paranoia, and some have violent tendencies. When not playing a Patient, you will play as Doctors in charge of evaluating patients, recommending therapies, and administering outdated therapies to the patients. The asylum is modern and similar in tone to One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. This is a PvP game where the Patients are pitted against the Doctors and the system. This is a game about perceptions, observation, deception, and human cruelty. Remember: The Institute for Wellness is here for your safety and well-being. Patience is a virtue and a patient is only released when they're ready to face the world.

The game was designed for a full table, but I only had 4 Players, so it wasn't as good as an experience as I had hoped for.

=== SPOILER SECTION START ===

The players used the Word Association and Ink Blots several times to good effect.

In the end, one patient got lobotomized. Sarah Conner escaped. Mother killed Laurie Strode and McMurphy. And the Joker blew up the Hospital.

=== SPOILER SECTION END ===

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D-Day 80th Anniversary

Saturday 2:00 PM in the Monterey Room for 2 hours

Presenter(s): Dana Lombardy

June 2024 will see the 80th anniversary of the huge Allied invasion of Nazi-occupied Europe along the Normandy coast of France. Dana worked with acclaimed artist Keith Rocco to publish a comic and hardcover book based upon the two huge wall murals Rocco created for the First Division Museum. Hear the backstory of the murals and the books, PLUS help playtest Dana’s new solitaire and 2-player board game Bloody Omaha: The Big Red One at D-Day.

This was basically a waste of time. The Presenter basically did a sales pitch for a hardcover book, a comic book, and a related game for Omaha beach. He also pitched another book with cartoon versions of WW2 aircraft and a previously published card game.

He wasn't able to get the art for the Omaha boardgame from his artist in time, so there was no play test material, so the event ran for only 1 hour.

There was virtually no content about D-Day. The game was supposed to be an educational game, so if we were able to do the play test, I assume we would have learned something about Omaha beach.

I added my contact info to his mailing list which he promised to send info on the playtest material when it became available. So, not a total loss.

Morgan's Raspy Raven Gumshoe Season 2 Adventure

The convention games ran from Jan 31 to Feb 12, 2024. I assume there was a cut-and-paste error on Warhorn, the convention title was Raspy Raven Gumshoe Season 2023, not 2024.

This is an interesting free online convention. 12 different GUMSHOE systems, each run by a different GM. None of the games overlap in time. Since there are limited seats, Players are strongly encouraged to only sign up for only one game, so other people can have a chance at playing. As of Feb 1, two games still had an open seat, so those open seats can have a Player who wanted to double dip.

The systems offered were: 13th Age, Da'Zoon, Fear Itself, GUMSHOE System, Night's Black Agents, SH/AM/US, Swords of the Serpentine, The Esoterrorists, The Fall of Delta Green, The Yellow King RPG, TimeWatch, Trail of Cthulhu

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Feb 3 (Sat), 11am-3pm (4 hrs)

Find FOREVER

System: Night's Black Agents
GM: PTroilus
4 Players: Jim McCarthy (Rufus - Hacker), Ian Stronach (Ashanti - Analyst), FermeLaBoucher [Simon] (Ren - Black Bagger), Morgan Hua (Jordan - Journalist/Cuckoo)

You all have your own reasons for looking into FOREVER. Maybe it was linked to your colleague, your handler, or your family disappearing. Maybe it was linked to the operation that got a half dozen of your teammates killed. Whatever it is, it also got you out or burned.

Your leads have all made a habit of disappearing, but this most recent one - a frantic, last-minute call for an extraction - looks like the most promising by far, if you can get him out in time.

In Night's Black Agents, you play modern-day highly competent burned or retired spies, working in the shadows to take down supernatural forces of darkness.

Pregenerated Characters will be provided. Newbie Friendly (to Night's Black Agents, Foundry, or both!). Age minimum 18.

Tone: Highly competent former spies in a paranoid mystery-thriller.

The scenario is pretty simple and works as an introductory scenario. We had 2 newbies, so that was fine.

=== SPOILER SECTION START ===

As an introduction, we do a short quick extraction of a NPC. The issue was I asked if we were going to plan this or go by the seat of our pants, and another player didn't want to spend to much time planning, so we each did sort of a montage of actions, so it wasn't very satisfactory.

We basically spirit away an informant from a crowded outdoor shopping area. He's being tailed by two goons. He tells us where FOREVER is.

We then did a back-at-our-hideout scene and how did we customize our hideout and what extra things we have in our bugout bags.

Then we wake up in a motel in FOREVER. After finding out that we've lost time, we're still under surveillance, and that we're in an artificial town underground somewhere, we find a way to escape. I likened this to The Village from The Prisoner. The other prisoners seemed listless and lacked memories.

We find an underground tunnel complex and cut a deal with Orlok, a vampire, to cut off the UV lights that protects a hatch that leads to a military base and freedom.

The vampire was being harvested of serum that extended the life of powerful people. It in turn fed off of people living in the village. Guards and UV lights watched for people who acted out of place and locked in the vampire. We came to our senses because the vampire deliberately left our memories intact in his bid for freedom.

My PC, a NPR podcast reporter (deep cover), then blew the whistle on the stem cell experiments various rich and powerful people were doing to extend their lifespans. Illegal activities were done. Public money was mis-spent. And various rich and powerful people suddenly aged and died when their source of serum dried up.

=== SPOILER SECTION END ===

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KULT: Divinity Lost (4e) - Review

After watching a few videos by Seth Skorkowsky on Kult and playing a game of it and talking to people who've played it, I bought a copy during a Black Friday sale. I also got a few supporting products such as Kult: Beyond Darkness and Madness (GM guide) and Kult: Labyrinths & Secret Chambers (100 location maps with suggested creepy setting contents).

Kult is a combination of Dark City and Hellraiser. It is definitely a hard R-rated horror game, and can venture into X-rated (due to sex, violence, subject matter). The original KS book cover for Kult 4e showed the angel's nipples dripping blood. The rivulets of blood on her armor came from her breasts as if it were mother's milk. The art got changed for general publication. The original art was more striking, but bad for marketing reasons.

What I found odd was the game of Kult I played in and description of games from friends who tried it didn't delve into the core precepts of the game.

The idea is that humans are divine souls. That Earth is a prison built to contain us with the grinding banality of everyday life. Angels and Demons are tasked with keeping us on the hamster wheel of life. If we die, our experiences are stripped from our souls, and we are reincarnated in prison. The jailers (Angels and Demons) sometimes dutifully do their jobs and sometimes act out. If you're a jailer for millennia, you get bored and act out. The jailers all look like they came out of a Hellraiser movie. PCs are humans who have finally gotten a glimpse past the illusion of everyday life and momentarily saw the Truth. The game is about the PC's journey to enlightenment through a landscape of horror.

A PC's Dark Secret is not a dump score, but something a Player wants to explore because that is the lever used to propel the PC to enlightenment. So, only pick Dark Secrets you want to see in play.

The Demiurge (God) is missing or dead, so the fallout is civil war and power struggles between various powers. The jailers have their own domains and preferences. For instance, the Archon Tiphareth's domain is beauty and affirmation. Celebrity worship, beauty products, TV shows, TikTok, YouTube, etc. are traps created by Tiphareth. Each type of excess falls into a separate Archon's domain, some overlap, some cooperate, some compete for dominion. The Archon Malkuth is tired of it all and wants to awaken all the humans. 

Outside of Elysium (Earth) are the Metropolis (a combination of Amber from the Nine Princes of Amber and Heaven), Inferno (Hell), the Underworld (underground labyrinthian complexes, a subway to other places), Limbo (dream worlds), and Gaia (savage nature, Earth was created from a slice of Gaia). These other places can be visited from Elysium where the boundary is thin. All these places are vast and contain various creatures and cults.

This version of Kult 4e uses a modified version of Powered by the Apocalypse (PbtA). It uses 2d10 instead of 2d6. In PbtA, a +1 or +2 is significant because in PbtA: a 6- is a failure, 7-9 partial success, 10+ complete success. On average 2d6 = 7. And PCs have up to -3 to +3 based on their stats. But in Kult, with 2d10, the average is 11. 9- is a failure, 10-14 success with complication, 15+ complete success. So, a +1 or +2 is less significant. PC stats are -2 to +3, so on average almost all Moves (when a PC does an action and rolls dice, it's a Move) are partial successes.

That said, Kult is more about a series of partial successes (which creates drama) until you succeed. If you view Kult as this type of game, versus a I-wanna-play-to-win game, then it all works out.

What I love about the books, which are well written, are the numerous suggestions for complications when a Move doesn't completely succeed. Lots of options and suggestions are planted throughout the book.

I don't know when I can find the right group who wants to try this out, but I highly recommend this for an adult audience that's not squeamish about adult content.

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KULT: Beyond Darkness & Madness (GM Guide) is well written and I didn't find any advice I disagreed with. Lots of good examples. Some of the last couple of chapters started getting a bit repetitive though.

KULT: Labyrinths & Secret Chambers has 100 loose leaf maps with a clean generic layout on one side and on the other side, a version with furniture and objects, sometimes a rundown version of a location. A 64 page booklet describes each layout and what it can be used for (3 possibilities) and 4 to 6 creepy details that the GM can use as inspiration. There's also 18 pages of lists of locations, random names, and such for the GM.

Morgan's Illusion Horror Con 2023 Adventures

I got unlucky and didn't get into any games through the shuffler, but was able to get into A Chill in Abishiri through the waitlist and A Dish Best Served Cold through an announced opening on Discord.

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12/2 Sat, 10am-2pm (game took 3.5 hrs)

A Dish Best Served Cold

System: Kult: Divinity Lost

GM: Cameron Smith (cameronthetall)

3 Players: Yashtruna (Aiden Burnham - assassin), Automeris_io (Dean Lithian - hacker), Morgan Hua (General T - soldier)

In-game character creation.

Content Warnings: Violence, language, drug abuse, mental illness, possible child harm

No VTT - Theater of the Mind only.

You awaken in darkness sprawled out on a cold, plastic floor. As you push yourself onto your knees, you see red text on a terminal. “Emergency alert! Multiple system failure. Power and life support at critical levels. Shield systems down. Radiation will reach lethal limits in 30 minutes.” This improv-heavy scenario is set up by initial choices made by the players, with conversation driving the development of the characters and the story that unfolds.

I wanted to try Kult because I had watched some of the videos on it by Seth Skorkowsky and he was really positive on it. I also just bought a few Kult books from Mödiphius during the Black Friday sale a few weeks ago. But the default Kult setting is modern urban.

1-1/4 hrs character creation. The scenario took 2-1/4 hrs.

Kult's system is PbtA, but uses 2d10 instead of 2d6. In our game, as a quick generation method, we were given a +3 and -1 in two Attributes and a +1 in all remaining Attributes. Setting these Attributes took 10 seconds. I noticed that a +1 on 2d10 really didn't move the needle that much compared to 2d6. A 15+ is needed for a success. 10-14 a partial success with generally a minor set back. 9- a failure with a major setback. I spoke to someone afterwards and he told me that Kult's philosophy is really fail forward and set backs is how the GM adds intrusions and tension. Ok, this makes more sense then.

I thought the scenario was ok, but we spent a lot of time making the characters for a short one-shot. The Players were asked a lot of questions to flesh out our characters' backstories. The GM took our answers and wove it into the scenario.

=== SPOILER SECTION START ===

Automeris said this was a space version of the scenario: The Driver.
The GM confirmed this.

The long Q&A and the pacing for the rest of the game was too slow for me. I'm glad we had only 3 Players. If we had 6, it could have taken 3 hrs to just create the characters.

We're out in a small spaceship and it's failing. The GM then asks a lot of background questions to flesh out our backstories and the situation. I wound up being a failed coup leader. Aiden a student environmentalist that tried to assassinate a person in power. Dean a hacker who modified his commanding officer's AI. We escaped from a labor camp on a mining asteroid. On our ship is the warden's daughter (NPC), Sina. We crash land on a mining planet.

We found the mining colony is in cold storage and there's only one maintenance guy, Dyson, who gets drops of supplies every 6 months. He's repairing the facility and keeping out marauders, who he first mistook us for.

We make friends and drop the injured and unconscious (from the crash) Sina into a stasis medical pod.

In order to try to make a call off planet, we get Dyson to shunt power to Central Command. Dyson disappears and when power comes back on, the computer restarts and the console says Dyson 3.0. Then Dyson reappears. He's a hologram of some sort. (Which explained why when I shot him earlier, I destroyed the wall behind him. -- I thought I might have missed.) The comms failed to go online.

The marauders show up and they're the natives of the planet whose ecosystem was destroyed by mining. The marauders periodically take what's valuable from the facility. Dyson protects it.

We try to cut a deal with the marauders.

A fleet of arresting ships show up for us, ready to bombard the facility.

The marauders flee, we think with Sina. Dyson offers to save us if we give him Sina. We accept the deal and he disappears in a flash of light. We go after the marauders, I shoot down their craft and Sina isn't on their craft. We return to Dyson and find that Dyson is now possessing the body of Sina. Dyson had also vanished the fleet as fulfillment of our deal. He also let us call off planet, so I can contact my people, so we can leave. We think Dyson is either some sort of hyperintelligent computer program or an alien superbeing.

=== SPOILER SECTION END ===

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12/3 Sun, 10am-2pm (4 hrs)

A Chill in Abashiri - A 1920s Taisho-Era Japan Scenario

System: CoC 7e

GM: Michael Reid (mjrrpg)

4 Players: 

Will - sirponcenby377 (Gen Kiyoshi - Tokko - Special Police),

Andy - RandomAnswer (Yoshioka Masao - Doctor of Medicine),

Fab - sweet_fhtagns (Kitamura Chiyoko - Journalist),

Morgan Hua (Ishihara Aiko - Zaibatsu Exec).

Pregens Provided.

Content Warnings: Political/Colonial Oppression

December 1922, Abashiri, Northern Japan. Abashiri Prison, located on the northern shore of Hokkaido, houses ‘dangerous’ criminals and political dissidents, and is no stranger to death and cold. But when a guard dies under suspicious circumstances, and amidst an unprecedented cold snap, a team of mixed professionals is sent to investigate the facility and its occupants, both staff and imprisoned. Amidst the Taisho-era empire’s political maelstrom, the investigators must navigate suspicious guards and uncooperative prisoners to uncover a plot that threatens not just Abashiri Prison, but the future of their changing nation.

At MRCon, I played in Unseasonal Blooming and Minuet run by Michael and I knew this would be a good game and it was. Michael GMed the scenario he wrote and we also had a fantastic table of Players.

I highly recommend the scenario (and GM).

=== SPOILER SECTION START ===

An odd group of PCs get called to investigate the death of a prison guard. All the PCs have secondary secret agendas, though not necessarily in conflict with each other. So it's not PvP, it's just that we have plot B side quests.

GM did admit that the scenario is longer than our 4 hour time slot and he'll try to do a speed run through it. At the end, GM had to hand wave a few things and we ended about 7 mins over time. Still, I really enjoyed this game and recommend the scenario. Though I wouldn't run it in 4 hours.

Though the dead guard was covered in soot, he was actually frozen to death, supernaturally so. His still frozen body continued to emanate cold. Icicles of blood had burst through his body. Where the body lay, a snowflake design etched in ice fractured stone, marked the ground.

Our investigation uncovered a cult in the prison consisting of prison guards and prisoners. They were sacrificing prisoners for rituals.

In the end, Gen faced the cult leaders, killed them and was overwhelmed by cultists. Kitamura led a prison escape. Yoshioka and Ishihara fled the area in a car. Bitter cold descended everywhere.

I did complete my side quest. I faked the death certificate for my uncle and left clothing and supplies for him under a bridge for him to get. And he had escaped the prison with Kitamura.

=== SPOILER SECTION END ===

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Thoughts on Chain of Command in RPGs

 

There are RPGs with a Chain of Command: Star Trek Adventures, Godlike, Twilight 2000, Alien RPG (Colonial Marines), War Stories, Achtung! Cthulhu, Fall of Delta Green, YKRPG: The Wars. And even systems that were designed for non-military settings and characters, but someone decided to write a scenario set in WW1, WW2, etc. I've played in a number of Call of Cthulhu games where PCs are soldiers on a battlefield.

If everyone buys into the scenario and mission, then there's generally never a problem.

But I've experienced and heard nightmare stories:

1. One Player declares that he must play the highest ranking PC because when he played in a game before, their leader messed everything up. Well, the joke was on us, because this guy had no clue as to what he was doing and almost got us all killed until he died from his own incompetence, then someone else took over and the rest of us survived.
2. The highest ranking PC ordered everyone to hunker down and stay in place for the whole scenario because it was the safest thing to do. Even the GM told the Players that the "adventure" was out there. I believe they spent more than half the game doing nothing.
3. PC leader turtles and sends other PCs out to die or even picks on one PC to always do all the dangerous things.
4. PC ignores a direct order by another PC.

So, what can you do?

In Star Trek Adventures, Command Talents (p.136, core book) give other PCs extra dice if they follow your advice or orders.

In Alien RPG, Pull Rank (p.76 core book). It's an opposed roll to make someone follow your orders.

In Yellow King RPG, Leadership (p.19, The Wars). Spend a Push to inspire someone to work at the best of their ability.

In Achthug! Cthulhu, Tactics Talents (p.94-95, Player's Guide). Bonuses to other PCs.

In Godlike, Command (p.48, core book). This is a superpower akin to mind control.

Most offer only carrots and very few sticks to follow orders. 

Do you throw someone in the brig or court martial them? But what if you're out in the field? Do you take away their weapons and arrest them? Do you execute a PC in the field? All of these options are horrible. Unless you just don't like the other Player (note that I say Player not PC because all these actions will take the PC out of the game and thus the Player).

So, the best solution I've found is at Session 0 explain the following and get buy-in from all the Players: A NPC is in charge. The Players can vote for their course of action and the most votes is what the NPC commander orders the PCs to do. Then you have majority rules and buy-in from all the Players. This also makes the command seem like a snap decision even though the Players may have spent a long time discussing what to do before their vote.

This also models Star Trek when the captain turns off the viewscreen and discusses options with his officers on the bridge.

Call of Cthulhu - Thoughts on Chases

p.132 Keeper Rulebook has a whole chapter on the rules for chases. This was wholly new for 7th edition. p.414 Keeper Rulebook has a Summary of Chase Rules. The chase rules has some nice ideas, but a fair number of people don't use it because of the improv nature of it. It's also a bit abstract.

Before 7e, most people just did an extended test, for example requiring PCs to make 3 DEX rolls to get away. This was of course also very lackluster. 

The best implementation of the new Chase Rules that I've experienced was from Heinrich D. Moore's The Great Trap. Instead of making up the chase on the fly, he made cards for each location describing the Hazards / Barriers for each location. So, instead of making it up on the fly, he thought about it earlier and designed it.

The problem comes in when you get an unexpected chase. As a GM, you expected some sort of combat as the resolution, but the PCs decide to run for it. Now, you have a chase situation and you forgot to prepare one, so now you've got to put your improv hat on and try to make an exciting chase.

Do you break out the Chase Rules? Is it worth the time and effort? Does switching to the new chase rules break immersion? Does spending a few minutes re-reading the rules kill the pace of the game? 

CoC 7e Chase Rules:

    Pros:

• Codifies how to do chases so it's consistent between GMs.
• Handles groups of individuals in different locations.
• When done properly, it works great and becomes cinematic.

    Cons:

• Chase Rules look abstract and is a different subsystem that has to be learned.
• Rules look complicated with many steps.
• Requires heavy lifting from GM. GM either needs to plan ahead or have great improv skills.
• Done improperly, it just looks like dots on a sheet of paper.

What if you want just a quick and dirty resolution?

I recommend going back to the extended test, but borrowing some of the ideas from the Chase Rules.

I'd go in DEX order and ask each Player what their PC would do. If they're running for it, make them roll DEX rolls. I also ask each PC, when it's their turn, if they're sticking with the other PC or scattering. Sometimes the PCs are all running for a car; sometimes they're scattering, hoping that some of them would get away. If they're hiding, make them do Stealth rolls. If they're climbing a tree, Climb rolls. Jumping a ravine, Jump rolls. Swim across a river, Swim roll. Once they've started running, you may ask for CON rolls to see if they tire out instead of doing repeated DEX rolls. In any case, anybody who fails become targets of the Chaser. Ask all the PCs who failed their rolls what their Luck is, the Chaser goes after the PC with the lowest Luck. The unluckiest one gets attacked. If everyone made their rolls, then the Chaser still goes after the PC with the lowest Luck. The Chaser may then have to make a skill check to catch up with the unluckiest PC.

For the next round, I'd go through the PCs again asking what they're doing. Again have them roll skill checks, if they want to do the same thing again (which they might do as they might have picked their highest skill to get away), you may switch to a CON roll to see if they tire out. If the Chaser is still occupied (hasn't killed the unlucky PC yet), then the PCs get a reprieve. Otherwise, the Chaser goes after the next unlucky PC who failed their skill check. Repeat this until you've decided the PCs have gotten away (I generally go with the rule of three, 3 successes and you're out of there) or the Chaser has taken care of all the pesky kids (investigators). PCs who may have hidden or climbed a tree (stationary targets), might still get targeted, depending on their levels of success and number of successful skill checks, all at the GM's discretion. 

Fumbles will draw the attention of the Chaser.

That's my simplified Chase Rules.

Instead of making the GM do the heavy lifting, put part of the burden on the Players, they decide what their PC does. Their skill rolls determine if they get away or not. Lowest Luck determines who gets targeted by the Chaser.

Morgan's Miskatonic Repository Convention 2023 Adventures

I felt the games were ok. My favorite was the modern Japanese scenario due to the table dynamics and the fresh setting.

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10/13 Fri, 10am-2pm (took 3 hrs)

The Causality Trap

System: CoC 7e

GM: Benjamin Wenham

4 Players: Neal T, Sam I, Lorraine A D, Morgan Hua

The Causality Trap is a short Hard SF/investigative horror scenario in which the investigators are tasked with investigating the wreck of humanities first FTL ship.

The Prometheus, humanities first manned FTL craft has failed to return from its maiden interstellar voyage to Proxima Centuri. Now, the crew of the Sisyphus (the Prometheus sister ship) have been scrambled to find out what happened to the Prometheus and its crew. [This is a playtest for a forthcoming module]

Very Hard SF. This a logic puzzle where having some familiarity with knowledge of Analog SF level of science fiction would help. Not a pew-pew type of game. This is more like Solaris or Stalker.

That said, I enjoyed the game for what it was.

=== SPOILER SECTION START ===

We jump to Proxima Centuri and find the Prometheus disabled and missing several sections of the ship and an unexpected automated probe from Earth. The first thing we do is send back information we've gathered and a status report. After repairing our ship, we discover we're 5 years in the past, FTL takes negative time! The probe triggers a flashback where we remember seeing it 5 years ago. It had mysteriously arrived on Earth with images of the Prometheus.

GM also gives us another flashback where we learn that a giant storm wiped out the east coast of the US and killed many people. After some calculations, my PC figures that if we send a message back, it'll arrive in time to evacuate the East Coast and save many lives. When I try to send that message, the laser relay fails and we notice our communications tower had disappeared. Sending a message back would cause a paradox, so paradox prevention erased our communication tower from reality. The Prometheus is also missing their communication tower and their FTL drive. We conclude that the Prometheus tried to communicate with home and tried to jump back home.

We gain access to the Prometheus SysOps and found that the crew is missing and there are voids inside the ship that matches the number of crew members. The missing sections of Prometheus aren't sheered off, but is filled with a black void.

We checked the probe and found that it was put in sleep mode by the Prometheus crew and it would wake up in 10 years and jump back to Earth with it's video of the Prometheus.

So, our solution was to have the probe sleep for 5 years and send a laser message back to Earth explaining the FTL time travel issues, paradox preventions, and to send us supplies that would last us 10 years.

Not much later, a probe shows up with provisions and entertainment. We wait 10 years and then jump back to Earth, so we'd return after we'd left, without causing a paradox.

At one point, I said, "Why don't we just look for a habitable planet and just stay there?" The GM said, "That would end the scenario." Oh, ok. Also the GM pointed out some background info on our character sheets at key points, depending on that for our character motivations. I dislike that as I always think character motivations are up to the Players to interpret. Scenario designers shouldn't depend on background info to drive the plot. Background info is just for flavor. Acting on it or not is up to the Player, not the GM. Novelists can make their characters dance to the author's will, GMs shouldn't do that. PCs should be under the Players' control, that's what makes it a roleplaying game vs a novel.

=== SPOILER SECTION END ===

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10/13 Fri, 3-7pm (4 hrs)

The Bottle Episode

System: CoC 7e

GM: Heinrich Moore

4 Players: Neal T, Lisa P, Samantha P, Morgan Hua

Join Keeper Heinrich Moore as he runs "The Bottle Episode," a classic-era scenario for Call of Cthulhu written by Benjamin Wenham for the Miskatonic Repository. Set in dream-shrouded Kingsport, investigators look into the sudden disappearance of lawyer and amateur historian Joshua Abbott from a seemingly locked room. Where has the missing attorney disappeared to, and what might it have to do with a near-decade old maritime disaster?

This scenario was written by the GM of my earlier game session, The Causality Trap.

I enjoyed the investigation aspects of this scenario and it was fun. Though later analysis does bring up some issues which I'll point out in the spoiler section.

Heinrich is consistently a good GM and did a great job running this.

=== SPOILER SECTION START ===

My issue is that in the ending we had where we failed our freeing ritual and broke the bottle, all manner of hell broke loose. If we had just broke the bottle in the first 10 minutes of the game, we would have been better off. So, the only thing that prevented us from doing this was that the GM told us, all the PCs, that we loved Ships in Bottles and treasured them. Again, the scenario design required that the PCs thought in a specific manner dictated by the GM. 4 random PCs who were asked to investigate loved Ships in Bottles, a bit of a stretch. If we were PCs who belonged to a Ships in Bottles club, that would have made more sense. Then you'd have to have to come up with a reason for the club to investigate the disappearance of Joshua Abbot.

I also suspected that the scenario was designed such that the ritual should fail because that causes the giant reveal, without it the scenario would be pretty flat and anti-climatic.

Another issue is that we were chasing down clues related to the history behind The Spirit of Providence (the Ship in the Bottle). We found out afterwards that was all a red herring. That 80% of our investigations were pointless. The quicker clue trail was finding the maker of the bottle, a dream bottle / dream catcher. It would have been better if there was a stronger tie between the bottle maker and the ship. It was just a coincidence that the ship in the bottle was The Spirit of Providence.

With some tweaks, the scenario could have been stronger.

=== SPOILER SECTION END ===

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10/14 Sat, 4-8pm (4 hrs)

A Murder at Heck's Peak

System: CoC 7e

GM: Aaron Boss

4 Players: intothewild, yoSteph, ZanderGM, Morgan Hua

In the year 1877, a shocking trio of murders rocks the mining town of Heck's Peak, with locals blaming a mysterious pioneer caravan, though players may find more sinister things afoot...

Content Warnings: Alcoholism; Cannibalism; Child Endangerment; Gore; Smoking; Violence

GM had a terrible microphone and sometimes we were only able to hear about half to one third of his words. So, that was a bad experience.

I thought the scenario was marginal. Had a good table of Players, but that didn't overcome the negatives.

=== SPOILER SECTION START ===

PCs are strangers that arrive in town and for an unknown reason, the sheriff deputizes us to investigate 3 murders, his deputy is sick. WTF. This makes no sense at all. You'd think trusted locals would be deputized instead. The sheriff sits in the jail and we go investigating the murders by ourselves. Still, WTF.

We talk to town's folk and check out the crime scenes and bodies. The local townies were torn apart by something big and dangerous the previous night. That morning a caravan of deformed strangers had left town. The locals think the caravan strangers committed the murders and left town.

We track the caravan and the trail spits off into the badlands (caravan) or large goat-like hooves that went into an abandoned mine. After some discussion, we go into the mine. We run into ghouls and have a fight in the dark tunnels. Upon exiting, we blow up the mine entrance (after finding a single stick of dynamite) and vow to return in the morning to collapse it completely.

In the morning, two people from the caravan return to town to buy a new wagon wheel. After talking to them, they seemed a bit fishy (Deep Ones fishy and maybe even a Shoggoth Lord), hinting that one of their members at the caravan might have been responsible for the town deaths, so we put them in the town jail.

We go to the mine, find evidence the entrance was reopened, and use up a case of dynamite and blow it up, causing multiple tunnels and part of the mountain to collapse. Then we head to the caravan and bring the suspicious guy back into town and found that the two caravan people had killed the sick deputy and escaped.

Then the caravan people show up and there's a face off between the caravan people and the sheriff. At that point, we decided to nope it out of there. Behind us, a big fight erupts between Deep Ones and a hoard of Ghouls.

It's bad when the GM has to voice two groups of NPCs and his audio keeps on randomly cutting out. One of my rules is you never have NPCs talk to NPCs while the PCs are just the audience. Basically, the GM is talking to himself and we're just passively listening. A bad idea.

And why title the scenario "A Murder" when it starts off with 3 murders? Shouldn't it be "Murders at Heck's Peak?"

=== SPOILER SECTION END ===

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10/15 Sun, 11am-3pm (took 3 hrs)

Unseasonable Blooming and Minuet

System: CoC 7e

GM: Michael Reid (mjrrpg)

4 Players: Jo S, Alex S, Denice K, Morgan Hua

The investigators travel with a friend to his mountainous hometown of Hodaka City, home of the ancient Hodaka Shrine and its enshrined God of Learning. Their trip is interrupted by chilling phone call, sending them on a search for a missing person that connects modern day social media with ancient history.

Modern day Japan - Pregens provided - Beginners welcome

Fairly straight forward scenario, but I had a lot of fun. Great table of Players, great GM. My favorite of the 4 games I played in.

=== SPOILER SECTION START ===

NPC's sister calls her brother, she's in distress and the phone goes dead. She was with a friend and either was at the Hodaka Shrine or a restaurant after visiting the shrine.

After some social media and google searches, we decide to go to the Hodaka Shrine. It's closed, so we trespass, talk to the priest in charge and get ahold of CCTV footage and see two figures go up the mountain path to the adjunct shrine. After some searching, we think they went further up the mountain. It's winter, but the mountain is unseasonably cold. And there's a blooming plum tree somewhere up on the mountain that shouldn't be there.

We notify the police, they tell us to go home or wait at the bottom. One of the PCs has a stroke of genius, slips their cell phone into one of the police backpacks, so we can listen in to them. We let them go up, then we follow behind them. Some horrible disaster befalls the police.  

We learn about the history of the shrine and about a demon and a required ritual needed to imprison it. On the trail, we improvise modern ritual items to re-imprison the demon in the plum tree.

Fun scene: my PC puts his hand against the tree and yells at another PC to stab his folding knife into my hand and into the tree, so fresh blood anoints the blessed knife that stabs the tree. We had blessed the knife earlier via a cellphone call.

=== SPOILER SECTION END ===

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Morgan's BigBadCon 2023 Adventures

I had a good time except one of the games I signed up for, I got gatekeepered by the GM and was strongly asked to give up my seat. That pissed me off because I used one of my rare signups to get into that game and by the time I got kicked out of the game, all the other games I was interested in were filled up. 

BigBadCon required proof of vaccination (you flashed your card, but they didn't verify who I said I was), negative Covid test (honor system), and masks. I did appreciate that there were free KN-95 masks and free Covid test kits. I haven't caught Covid yet and don't want to. I had avoided gaming conventions for the last several years. I do know that due to a vocal few who protested conventions that required vaccinations and masks that some upcoming conventions had decided to remove all restrictions and only rely on fed, state, and local restrictions. I wore a mask most of the time (3 days in a row) except when I was drinking and eating either alone or a distance from people. Wearing a mask and playing and running games wasn't much of a problem. Now I wonder why it is such an issue. It wasn't much of a burden. I'd rather wear a mask all day vs catching Covid. BTW, a new strain of Covid was spiking in the Bay Area.

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9/29 Fri 9am-1pm (4 hrs)

Galadriel's Fellowship

System: Savage Worlds

GM: Hanju Kim

5 Players (3 of 5): David J (Dusan-buri-Ghân), Toby S (Peregrin Took), Morgan Hua (Amrothos)

Attendee/Player Age: 18+

Safety Tools: Open Door Policy

Characters: Provided

From across the free lands of Middle Earth, you have gathered to Lothlórien. There, it is said, a fellowship is being formed to resist the Dark Lord whose forces threaten the land. Lady Galadriel needs those with pure heart and gallant spirit for the task.

This game is an alternate history of Middle Earth - one where the fellowship formed at Rivendell was broken as it left the Mines of Moria. After Merry was struck by an orcish arrow while leaving, they struggled vainly to save his life and were overtaken by orcs at night. Those who survived came through wounded and grief-stricken. In sympathy, Galadriel steps up and gathers heroes from across the land.

This is an action-filled and dramatic game about a new set of characters trying to bring the One Ring into Mordor, distinct from the originals. It mixes cinematic action and soulful drama.

See the player doc here with character overviews:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ilP3zn8AY2LeqclJKjHmaG8OyTMMs4sFJlKtsNMN4F0/edit

Basically, it is what it is. This is the LotR alternate history edition. I think I was the least knowledgeable at the gaming table. I've only read The Hobbit and The LotR trilogy and seen the movies, including the extended editions. Toby was able to distinguish between book and movie differences and asked what was true in this world.

We were short 2 players and our group lacked in fire power, so most of the time we did a lot of fleeing and hiding. But in the end, we did drop that ring into the volcano.

Unfortunately, most of the beats were predictable, but afterwards, the GM said that the path we could take to Mordor and through Mordor depended on which PCs we picked, based on their local knowledge. Our group stuck too closely to the movies. So, we didn't get enough surprises nor new wonders.

I'm not sure running the B-Team into Mordor was the best scenario idea. I think a totally different mission would have been more interesting.

=== SPOILER SECTION START ===

So, we took an Elven boat/canoe down the river, hiding from Orcs, using branches as camouflage to hide us and make the boat look like floating refuse. At one point, we realized we were being followed, we saw a specific tree trunk several times. So, we unmoored it the next morning before heading on our way. At one point, we captured Gollum and made him lead our way into Mordor. Once reformed, we called him Smeagol.

The only surprising and fun bit was when our ring bearer, Peregrin, went AWOL to look at the Oliphants when we were outside the gates of Mordor.

We took the Stairs of Cirith Ungol, where Peregrin accidentally put on the ring at the top and alerted a Ring Wraith. We fled into tunnels and ran into Shelob. Ran some more and we disguised ourselves as Orcs and entered lava tubes to get into the heart of Mount Doom.

Dusan-buri-Ghân did a last stand against some trolls as Amrothos grabbed Peregrin and carried him toward the lava. Peregrin refused to destroy the ring and wanted to go back and save Dusan. Amrothos grabbed the ring and tried to destroy it. Peregrin and Smeagol tackled Amrothos and after an extended fight, Amrothos was able to crawl to the lava and shove his hand into it.

Peregrin and Smeagol dragged Amrothos' badly burned, but still alive body, out and Eagles came to medivac the surviving heroes to safety.

Eventually Peregrin and Smeagol went across the Western Sea as previous ring bearers.

=== SPOILER SECTION END ===

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9/29 Fri 2-6pm (4 hrs)

Sorrow in Tsavo

System: Call of Cthulhu 7e

GM: Bridgett Jeffries

6 Players: Isaac C, Laura B, Matt C, Ryshili, Zack H, Morgan Hua.

Attendee/Player Age: 18+

Safety Tools: X-card, Other

Characters: Provided

Tsavo translates to "a place of slaughter." Welcome to 1898 Kenya. The British are building a railway bridge over the River Tsavo to solidify their position of trade and wealth in the region. The Investigators serve as leaders to the project. In addition to social dissonance and illness within the camp, a pair of man-eating lions known as "The Ghost" and "The Darkness" are stalking and brutally killing members of the construction crew. Gold Bestselling Scenario on the Miskatonic Repository.

Content Advisory! Slavery, torture, body horror, gore

I played Bridgett's Project P.A.W. in 2021 and had a fun time. So I wanted to try out her version of The Ghost and the Darkness and meet her in person.

Bridgett has loads of enthusiasm and is a great cheerleader for the Players. In this scenario, I thought the PCs and NPCs were well designed and the scenario serviceable. I had fun and was not disappointed. 

=== SPOILER SECTION START ===

The PCs are a variety of leaders on the railroad bridge project: Project Leader, Engineer, Doctor, Police Chief, Head of Labor, Big Game Hunter.

The game starts with a staff meeting and malaria and morale issues due to the lion attacks are brought up and action items are approved. I was Police Chief and one of my chief concerns was the low morale and defections of workers fleeing the worksite.

I recommend that the Big Game Hunter make a demonstration to show her prowess. We call an all hands meeting. We placed a can of tomatoes at 300 feet and she blows it away with her elephant gun. After that impressive demonstration, morale was boosted.

Investigations reveal where the malaria is coming from. Also the lions are of incredible size. That something is firing giant poison quills en masse that somehow make those hit hallucinate and become docile.

Following the missing workers leads us to an oasis and a creepy-otherworldly boab tree. The lions with poison quills are there too. The PCs who see this barely escape.

Back at the camp, a wealthy white slaver shows up, trying to sell a body. After a confrontation, we learn that beneath the boab tree is a cavern where the missing people are feeding the boab tree with their essence.

That evening, the two lions attack the camp. We get lucky and the Hunter one-shots one of the lions with an elephant gun. I one-shot the other lion with a Winchester rifle.

PCs enter the boab tree and plant explosives inside and out. I was able to save 4 prisoners from beneath the tree. We blew it up.

The plot is fairly straightforward.

I think the best parts of the game are PC interactions. Friction between the PCs and conflicting agendas made the game interesting.

=== SPOILER SECTION END ===

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9/29 Fri 8pm-Midnight (4 hrs)

Green Knight: Quest for Honor

System: Green Knight

GM: Robert G. Reeve

5 Players: Alandra H, Arthur G, Brian V, Gabriel F, Morgan Hua

Attendee/Player Age: 13+

Safety Tools: X-card,Lines/Veils,Cut/Brake,Open Door Policy, Script Change

Characters: Created at the table

The official RPG of the A24 film, where occult folklore and uncanny forces become more real the farther you stray from the castle. A knight, sorcerer, hunter, bard, and noble must decide between virtue and vice, between honor and dishonor.

I had never heard of this game, so I googled it and decided I really wanted to give this a try.

One funny thing, one of the reviews complained about how in each scene, the result of choices didn't make any sense and you'd get punished for things or rewarded in a very unfair or caprice way. Others mentioned it was worth playing, but it was like a murder mystery, there's no replayability.

I've played King Arthur Pendragon, read Mallory, am versed in Fairy Tales and Fables. I figured, I had a better chance of puzzling out the given scenes. I was right.

What's interesting about the system is it's sort of a pick your own adventure, but round robins through the PCs via an initiative roll. So, if the first PC decides a course of action, the whole party is taken down that path. The action is resolved and story text is read. Then the next PC determines what to do next. So, the first PC to act completely sets the tone and thrust of the encounter.

I really enjoyed the game and it was worth staying up past my bedtime to play (and an unexpected freeway shutdown and detour on my way home that night).

=== SPOILER SECTION START ===

I think the issue is that old stories are episodic and there is no throughline through the stories. In the game, you run into 3 set pieces and then the final encounter with The Green Knight. Each set piece is a test of a person's honor. For my character, the Knight, I did what I thought was right and actually, almost everything turned out as I expected.

The only scene where I thought I screwed up was when a whole bunch of ghosts showed up, but in the end, my choice was correct. 

Those that approached the set pieces as D&D where you kill things and take their stuff, you get punished. What else do you expect? So, I think that's were some reviewers were confused, they didn't understand the genre.

=== SPOILER SECTION END ===

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9/30 Sat 9am-1pm (4 hrs)

An Amaranthine Desire

System: Call of Cthulhu 7e

GM: Morgan Hua

5 Players: Anne H, Heath B, Jason M, James T, Steven K

Attendee/Player Age: 13+

Safety Tools: Lines/Veils, Open Door Policy

Characters: Provided

It is 1895, and on the English Suffolk coast a smuggling ship approaches the shore. Assisted by locals from the nearby village of Dunwich, the crew begins unloading its cargo as a storm grows around them. Dunwich used to be a thriving port, but much of the city was claimed by the sea hundreds of years ago. Now, all that remains is a shadow of its former self. In the darkness beneath the waves, a powerful force remains, keeping a shard of the past very much alive. The investigators, as the smugglers, find themselves entering an echo of the night that sealed the fate of the city. Pre-gens provided. Warning: The setting is actually pre-1895, so do not expect this to be Cthulhu Gaslight nor Cthulhu Regency.

I had a really good investigation table and had a good time. They uncovered every clue and aspect of the mystery. They solved this pretty well using a good combination of skills.

=== SPOILER SECTION START ===

This group and the two GenCon Online 2023 games I ran, took 3 iterations before solving the mystery. When I play tested it to make sure it fit in a 4 hour time slot that group also took 3 iterations.

I had a table with mostly veteran CoC Players and knew you had to ask NPC questions to get answers. And once you got an NPC to talk to you, you keep on asking questions until you're satisfied.

They used new iterations to inspect locations before they were burned and found that all trails led to Levett.

This group was very clever, they never met the Priestly Ghost and convinced all interested parties to leave Dunwich without the crown.

The first time anyone got hurt was when they jumped out of Levett's Manor's second story window and a PC fumbled and broke his ankle, causing all of the PCs to suffer the same fate. Oops. That iteration ended quickly as the city guards easily chased them down.

The next iteration, they put Levett's horse cart outside the window and used it to escape with Sarah.

2 PCs were lost to the void. 3 PCs survived.

=== SPOILER SECTION END ===

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10/1 Sun 9am-1pm (4 hrs)

The Expanse RPG Intro

System: AGE System

GM: OnlyPlayWizards, John Bultena

5 Players: Eric D, Jason T, Peter P, Tezra R, Morgan Hua

Attendee/Player Age: 18+

Safety Tools: X-card, Lines/Veils

Characters: Provided

Based on the sci-fi novel series by James S.A. Corey, The Expanse is an extrapolation of humanity's progress towards the stars with a hard science twist. The Expanse Roleplaying Game utilizes Green Ronin Publishing's Adventure Game Engine (AGE) utilizing just 3D6.

This game will introduce players to the AGE system and the political intrigue as Earth, Mars, and the Belt strive to carve a place out in the Solar System and beyond. No experience necessary!

Shannon played in The Expanse in 2018 and told me he had a horrible time and had issues with the system. I love the TV series and because of that, I read all the books. I was actually able to get a ding-n-dent copy of the game for only $10, but haven't read it nor played it, so I was excited to try this out and see if it was as bad as Shannon said.

Well, I actually had a great time.

The GM has actual plays with guest stars from the actual TV series. But instead of reprising their TV characters, he wanted them to pick any character they wanted to play instead. His YouTube channel is here.

Years ago, Shannon ran Dragon Age for us which was the first AGE system. The Stunt die and lists of stunts were interesting at first because there were Social stunts in addition to combat stunts, but then we found out they were pretty limited and you generally use the same stunts over and over again. And when we reached 5th level, we got too powerful for the written scenarios and we easily defeated every encounter. At that point we put the game away.

For The Expanse, there were several pages of Stunts, but I saw the same issues. There's only a few Stunts per tier. The GM told us, he can take care of the Stunts for us. He basically interpreted and picked the Stunts for us and this sped up die rolls immensely and kept the flow of the game at a good pace. I think if we had to pause, ask the GM about each Stunt, and pick multiple things from the Stunt table, it would have killed the flow.

The Expanse has a Churn Tracker. It's reminiscent of 7th Sea's Death Spiral, except it's for the whole party. Each scene increments the tracker and every Fortune spend increments the tracker. At various points, a GM intrusion/twist happens. So, this Churn Tracker serves the same purpose as Mödipius's Momentum and Doom in their 2d20 system.

I mentioned Shannon's experience years ago and the GM said that he was told of bad experiences by other Players during an earlier game at BigBadCon. He did say that he doesn't really run The Expanse RAW (Rules As Written) and that AGE shouldn't be run RAW.

The scenario was from the core book. The GM had 9 pregens, a variety of Earthers, Martians, and Belters.

My verdict? The Expanse works fine, but you need an experienced GM.

=== SPOILER SECTION START ===

The setting is Tyco Station years before the proto-molecule is discovered. Several people have disappeared from Tyco Station. The PCs are hired to find and retrieve them.

We wound up with: 1 Earther Executive (played by me), 2 Martians (1 security expert, 1 sciences), 2 Belters (1 laborer, 1 OPA fixer).

The PCs snooped around the station and hit their contacts for info. This of course drew the eyes of various factions. Coverups were uncovered and the PCs had to do various illegal things to accomplish their mission.

We wound up stealing a ship and assaulting an asteroid.

My PC had no combat skills. I was the Face character. At one point, the other PCs got in a bind, and I had to pick up a discarded rifle from the floor. I rolled a 16 (3d6) and blew one of the bad guys away. "Sweeet! This is so easy to use, you just point and shoot. I should invest money in this company!"

In the end, we brought back the two we were hired to find, one voluntarily (by me), the other not (by a Belter). Brought back various prisoners and other hostages, murdered some scientists (those Belters are murderhobos), and blew up the asteroid (Belters again).

My Executive got rewarded and bumped up his Income from 8 to 9. Sweet! (The other PCs had Incomes of 2 which were bumped up by one also 😊).

=== SPOILER SECTION END ===

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10/1 2-6pm (4 hrs)

An Amaranthine Desire

System: Call of Cthulhu 7e

GM: Morgan Hua

5 Players: Chelsea, Ennio, Grace N, Matt C, Rachael G

Attendee/Player Age: 13+

Safety Tools: Lines/Veils, Open Door Policy

Characters: Provided

It is 1895, and on the English Suffolk coast a smuggling ship approaches the shore. Assisted by locals from the nearby village of Dunwich, the crew begins unloading its cargo as a storm grows around them. Dunwich used to be a thriving port, but much of the city was claimed by the sea hundreds of years ago. Now, all that remains is a shadow of its former self. In the darkness beneath the waves, a powerful force remains, keeping a shard of the past very much alive. The investigators, as the smugglers, find themselves entering an echo of the night that sealed the fate of the city. Pre-gens provided. Warning: The setting is actually pre-1895, so do not expect this to be Cthulhu Gaslight nor Cthulhu Regency.

I had a great group of role players, but a number were new to CoC. This group took longer to figure out the mystery, but brought up a lot of surprises for me and due to the roleplaying and banter, a humongous amount of fun. 

=== SPOILER SECTION START ===

This table only one veteran CoC Player, Matt, the rest were fairly new. I think the Players didn't know that if you got an NPC to talk, you should keep on asking questions until you run out of them. Several times, they would overhear an NPC, then ask one question, get their answer, and then just leave. And I'm sitting there with more clues. That's pretty funny.

They also did some unexpected things that the Players in the 4 other runs never did.

They panicked the village of Dunwich by accidentally making them think the French were attacking. They arrived at fairly late at the burned out windmill and when the communication problem hadn't been resolved yet, the French character tried French. The villagers fled back into the walled town and raised the alarm. This started a whole string of French invasion jokes.

They got a lucky break when they were fighting Hawkins who missed every attack and jumped out of the windmill's second story window to land in a handcart filled with twigs and hay, and escaped. So, the next time, they decided to move the handcart and then sneak up on him, but Hawkins wound up killing his attacker instead. So, then they moved the handcart and did exactly the same thing in the previous iteration, and he landed badly and broke his ankle, then they were able to capture and question him.

They never met the Coven of Witches. They never met the Ghostly Priest. In the end, they let Sarah take the crown.

This group took 4 iterations.

1 PC was lost to the void. 1 PC drowned. 3 survived.

After running this 5 times, I have a few suggestions for GMs running this in the future.
1. I looked up the kings and queens for 1287, 1895, 1753 and got pictures of period coins. The PCs coins should be accepted, but the locals would note their foreign make, but saying, "Silver is always welcome here." I always have an NPC, a gate guard or local, feel someone's shirt sleeve and ask if it's silk, mistaking the unknown fine weave for the foreign fabric which they have never seen before.
2. I got various pictures of The Three Crowns of East Anglia on buildings and stained glass windows. It should be commonly seen, so I never show them the pictures until they hear about The Three Crowns. Then I show them the pictures and tell them that you've heard the stories before, but never thought about them that much. Then I tell them the story.
3. Arson in 1287 requires pots of animal fat (tallow?) and dried rushes, twigs, or hay. Hawkins would require a handcart to bring all this material to the windmill.
4. I always mention the homespun quality of the local's clothing. The PCs clothing are mistaken for higher class foreign make. 
5. I don't do all the tests at the beginning of the scenario. I always just ask for one pilot boat roll to see if the rowboat over turns. Then a single swim roll, those that fail start drowning and must make a CON roll to avoid 1d4 damage. Then a rogue wave hits the shore and slam into the two PCs on the shore (I don't bother having them join the rowboats) and they have to make swim rolls also. Once everyone has done their rolls, I do the underwater bell ringing, then I drop them in the forest, dry and unhurt.
6. The Edge of the World tests are a cumbersome. I do a POW test and DEX test on failure to see if they let go, but didn't bother charging the MP cost (the first time I did, it didn't matter and there was excessive die rolling). I also limit the tries to save themselves by making the DEX test increasingly harder (regular, hard, extreme, impossible) each round they are untethered. If you do the increasing difficulty, then you probably don't even need to charge them MP. If you want to charge them MP, I'd go with 1d4/1d6 instead of the odd 1d4/1d4+1/1d4+2. Once through the void bubble, I drop them back into the sea. This time even further from the shore due to the additional erosion of the shore. I make them all make swim checks. If they fail their swim check, they must make a CON check or start drowning (1d4 damage). Once they start drowning, they continue to automatically take 1d4 damage until they succeed in a swim check. They just need to make one swim check to make it to shore.
7. As a kicker, once they get onshore, wet and cold, with a storm raging throwing lightning and thunder all over, they see some steady lights, more steady than gas light. And I describe the modern Ship's Inn with modern signage, plate glass, and materials. When they enter, the barkeep always says some pleasantry about it being nasty outside, "Hello, Come in out of that nasty weather," then turns to someone inside and comments, "Marge, I didn't know the Dickens Festival was here." And I tell them the year they've arrived in. "Welcome to 19xx."
8. I assume Dunwich's city walls were gone by 1895, either washed away or repurposed by the locals as stones for other buildings. I always bring up the gates and walls as unusual when the PCs see the burning windmill. I don't tell the PCs about the burning windmill directly, I always mention the glow in the sky as if there's a giant bonfire in the distance. Only when they want to detour to the fire do I show them the windmill picture and depending on their distance, the description of the villager's clothing.
9. During character selection, I always warn that the French PC would face a fair amount of discrimination. If the Player was ok with that, then they can pick the PC.

When I review all of Nameless Horrors, after I've run all the scenarios, I'll move the notes out of this section into that book review.

=== SPOILER SECTION END ===

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