The
shared campaign notes document is four pages long now. Player
generated session reports are over 64,000 words. The campaign since
it started covers five weeks of activity. This has taken 22 months of
gaming with a live session every other week. Sometimes a month can go
by without a game happening because of life. Either way the players
have covered much ground and there has never been a let up on the
action. The group of four core players is down to three with a fourth
able to play infrequently. Sometimes we have five. There has been a total of three PC deaths,
countless of NPC's of course.
The
second year of BRP Cthulhu & Chivalry opened with the PC's trying
to unlock the secrets of Constine Mallebench and ended with plans to
storm a tavern to apprehend an alien god.
Here
are the top five highlights of this year's action from your Keeper's
perspective:
#5.
Taking Advantage of Norton Manor: With the Senior Norton chasing his
fancy back to Keswick and the Dr.'s bedridden mother laying close to
catatonic the rest of the PC's did not let the Norton's crumbling
fortunes deter them from enjoying the upscale digs. After the trail
of gore and horror just endured, and more danger sure to be faced,
the PC's counted a quiet evening at home a win. While typical
wisecracks of using the “#1 Son” coffee mug, scraping blood and
brains off their boots, using the monogrammed robes carried round the
table made for memorable levity it was the indicated small release of
tension among the Players which was most gratifying. This meant the
game wasn't stale and there were still many more good adventures left
in the campaign.
#4:
To Kill A Mime: I love collateral damage. I like supers roleplaying
for the implications of collateral damage at scale. Our Cthulhu &
Chivalry world is but a background of literal collateral damage. War,
famine, plague terrorize civilians country wide. Chaos and confusion
are the order of the day. So it takes something exceptional to happen
to make me notice any one death among many. Or just mimes. Are they
the gnomes of seventeenth century alt-history gaming? When the PC's
survived a street ambush and the smoke cleared we had mimes bleeding
out and dying. The PC's promptly ignored their suffering and looked
to the well being of other wounded bystanders forever establishing if
“Street Entertainers” are rolled up for an encounter and they end
up getting shot make them mimes if you want to hurry things along. My
point is, what I find important about this bit of gaming goodness was
that it was a procedurelly generated event. I enjoy being a game
master because I get to world build and constantly pose the question
of “What if… ?” to myself in fantastical context. But much of
my enjoyment also comes from letting the PC's actions dictate what
will be. Taking the great information being shared here in the
Google+ OSR I've learned to use random tables for oh just about
everything now. Name generators, encounter tables, reaction results.
Published and homemade. Injecting random stuff and trusting the PC's
will make something of it has been a real big learn for me. It gives
me enthusiasm to muster more “stuff” for the PC's to do because I
know each session is going to have as much surprise for myself as the
players.
#3:
Dr. Norton's Yarmouth Chronicles: I know it isn't great literature
but the continued writings of the PC's of their trials not only is a
fun read, but preserves vital world info I would otherwise forget.
The in-game time has only been a month and a half. The voluminous
testimony of events as they occurred reveals how chock full of
“stuff” we cluttered the campaign with. Items or incidents which
were thought of as bits of color now may be the source of entire
adventure arcs. I'm sure our group has a better game as a result of
these records.
#2:
Inky Pete at the Asylum: Another randomly generated encounter which
provided much more game than expected. Taking a cue once again from
information and tips shared online I have a much better approach to
making my own encounter tables. It basically boils down to a simple
question; “If I roll it do I want to run it?” There goes all
sorts of “normal” encounters I might reflexively generate for a
game, or use from a published supplement. When I create a random
encounter table for a session I now trust whatever comes up is going
to be fun for myself as well as the players. If I don't want the PC's
to encounter wolves in the woods don't put them on the random
encounter table! And I don't mean every random encounter is pregnant
with meaning or significance, but the idea is it is worth talking
about and gives players “stuff” to do. This is a good place to
point out how often I use Vornheim: The Complete City Kit. I did not
know how to run urban adventures, at least to my liking. This book
not only has content I find interesting and useful, the whole
structure of the book is instructive on how I can make the same. This
means Vornheim is probably the first truly “universal” game
supplement I've used fulfilling on the promise.
#1:
The Badger's Drift Bear Trap: Simple, effective and truly inspired
from the roots of my early OSR upbringing. What I enjoyed most about
this encounter was how ordinary items produced a harrowing, memorable
danger. As any good accident points out it isn't just one thing that
gets you. It is the layering of consequences from seemingly minor
threats which begin to spell d-o-o-m in player's mind. When you can
pull it off it is justly earned referee glory. Fantasy games accent
the fantastical. So much so actually frightening your players can
seem nigh impossible. The feeling of discomfort and disfunction
sometimes has to be mechanically enforced on players because of the
distance created by the game's fictional devices. Call of Cthulhu
being an obvious, and successful, use of mechanically enforced fear.
Therefore with the PC's unbalanced by a simple trap hidden in the
snow and simple woodland animals (Yes, now wolves are interesting!)
an ordinary skirmish quickly rose to deadly stakes at the same time
confounding expectations.
There
are many more, but I want to limit myself to just a few events which
were a direct result of all the tips learned here on Google+ and the
OSR online community. As the group closes out another year of
entertainment I promise there is much more to come because there is
so much more to come from the DIY OSR creators!
