2011 in preview

Following on from my 2010 retrospective, I thought it would be good to briefly mention my roleplaying plans for 2011.

I am looking forward to my weekly Monday night game kicking off again. We still have more of Dan's Exalted Dragon Blooded game to run, which ended on a suitably dramatic cliffhanger, so I'm keen to see how things end up. I'm also amped to run some more Cthulhu for this group in the coming year. I'm not sure what form it will take yet, but it might be a follow up to last year's 'Empire State Secrets'. Thought I did read 'Tatters of the King' over the break and am very keen to run that as well, so I'll see how the group feels.

Dale's fortnightly 'Kingsport Tales' looks set to continue, with the odd game by Liam and hopefully myself thrown in as well. It seems like we'll be continuing our zany misadventures in Kingsport and possibly building up to 'Beyond the Mountains of Madness' later in the year. Dale has gone some university writing to do this year, so I'm keen to help out when needed running a game here and there to share the work load.

I've also got the hankering for another regular game - perhaps fortnightly for a slightly longer session on a Sunday afternoon or something. With some much Cthulhu on, I've kind of got the hankering for a fantasy game. What game and system, however, is a very complex question, which I'll have more to say on in the future.

I'm also hoping to do something with my Kapcon Cold City scenario this year, probably in the form of publication. It still needs some tidying up from from Kapcon and a little more tweaking, but it's not far off. I have given some half thought to entering it in next year's Scenario Design Contest, but I'll have to see how things pans out. I've also got another project that came to me just a couple of days ago. I don't want to say too much yet in case I jinx it, but if it forms up, I'll be sure to write about it here.

I also definitely want to run something for Fright Night this year as well and, if time allows, see if Marcus needs a hand organsing/running things. It would be very interesting to see how a con runs from the other side. And of course there is Kapcon 2012 to think about...

Finally I want to try and keep this blog updated more regularly. There will undoubtedly be gaps and breaks, but if I can get on a roll it will get easier.

Bring on gaming in 2011!

Kapcon 2011 (Part One)

Well the high energy madness that is Kapcon is over for another year and, as usual, I had a great time. Not only was it an immensely satisfying weekend of roleplaying, it was also a great chance to talk games with people and generally bath in the reflected geek glory of New Zealand RPG scene.

Things kicked off on Friday night with the pre-con drinks at JJ Murphy’s on Cuba Street. The venue was well selected and it provided a chance for people to catch up with friends before the Con started. I joined in an interesting discussion involving Marcus, Dale and others about the nature of horror roleplaying before heading home to finish cutting out handouts and packing my kit for the morning.

I was up bright and early the next day and heading down to Wellington High School slightly optimistically in shorts and jandals. Round one saw me play in Idiot's Going down to Dunwich scenario for the Laundry Files RPG; a sort of Dilbert meets Lovecraft with a sprinkling of the IT crowd in the mix. Idiot ran a solid game with well constructed characters which proved a great introduction to the world of the Laundry Files. I've always found round one to be a bit of a hard slot for GMs as players are still warming up to the con, so Idiot did a great job of keeping the plot flowing and leading it on to satisfying conclusion.

Since we finished a little over time in round one, the break before round two saw me gobble up my lunch and set up for my first running of The Lesser Evil or the Greater Good, my Cold City scenario. I was a little unsure how it will all sit together after the playtest changes, but I shouldn't have worried as the players really came to the party and produced a great game. Special thanks need to go to one of the Auckland guys - Malcolm I think - for his great portrayal of Captain Bloom, which was possibly the toughest role. However everyone involved totally gave their all and the game really popped, leaving me a relieved GM.

Round three saw me back up Cold City with running The Herald of the Yellow Sign for Call of Cthulhu. Now this one I was worried about as I had offered to run it a couple of weeks before the con and only had time to read through it twice briefly before running it. My energy levels were also a little low. However I needn't have worried as the enthusiasm and willingness of the players to follow the story really lifted and re-energised me. It was especially nice to have a bunch of the Auckland LARPers in the group as they brought an additional level of characerisation and physicality that helped everyone get into character with ease. Special mention must also be made of the zombies groans coming from Siege Mentality II on the same floor as it provided a nice creepy backdrop to the story of dread Carcosa come to medieval Britain.

As most people started preparing for the LARP, I headed off into town with Dave, an old Hamilton buddy, and some of his friends for a well deserved curry and a couple of beers. It was great fun catching up with him and chatting to Liz and Russell, though after a full belly we were all feeling the need for a rest, so I headed home to bed with thoughts of what day two of Kapcon held in store.

Long time, no post

Well is has been a long drink between posts, that's for sure. That has been mainly due to the inevitable Christmas and holiday shenanigans, but also because things have been a little quiet of the gaming front, with only the odd game here and there to keep me occupied.

However I haven't been totally inactive. I have been busy beavering away on my Cold City scenario for Kapcon, which is only in a few days time. I was hoping to keep a more detailed account/analysis of its progress, but once I overcame my block in completing it, it was all go.

I am very happy with how the story turned out. The feedback from my playtest was good and provided some useful advice on tweaks, but the real test will come on the weekend. Since I'm relatively new to the system (which I'm not very good at), so that gives me a little cause for concern, but it is a pretty forgiving system so should work out.

I am slightly bummed that after months and months of having the session full that someone has pulled out in the 11th hour, meaning I might have to run with only three players or with a walk up. Neither of these are big deals, but I guess I want to walk in with the status of having a full game. It's a bit of an ego thing.

Also, because the organisers were short, I offered to run a Call of Cthulhu scenario in the third session last week. I have only read it once before and haven't playtested it, so I'm running it a little raw, but it should come together OK.

All in all I'm really excited about Kapcon. I need to go now and keep working on my preparation, but I'll have plenty to say after the weekend. 

My gaming life

After a busy few weeks, it is nice to pause for a moment and reflect on some of the gaming I have managed to sneak in.

Since the first season of 'Empire State Secrets' finished, Dan has started running a Dragon Blooded Exalted game, which has been mighty good fun. Playing Exalted has been a new experience for me and one, to my surprise, I have really enjoyed. He has even set up a very slick blog for the game, which puts my Trail wiki to shame.

If I'm honest, the concept of Exalted has always left me a little cold in the past, but Dan has done a great job of introducing me to the setting and the features of the game that do make it so much fun (I have forgotten how satisfying it can be to roll handfuls of D10s). I that feel there is a nice symmetry at play here, in that I have 'talked around' Dan to Cthulhu, while he has got me on side with Exalted.

Dan also spent a lot of time and energy in running in depth preludes for the characters, which has worked really well. It has given us all a lot more 'depth' to our characters and this shows in the quality of the roleplaying. I haven't really used preludes as a technique before that much, but I'm looking at re-accessing that for the future seeing how well it has worked in this instance.

Unfortunately just as we were getting into a good rhythm, one of our players had to go off and do something awesome like go to Antarctica. He'll be back in a few months, so the collective decided to hold fire until his return. Which is the perfect opportunity for me to throw some Cold City into the mix...

My other regular game is Dale's 'Kingsport's Tales' for Call of Cthulhu. This game continues to be a lot of fun and I have been involved in it for well over eight months now. Dale runs the game very well and rolls very easily with all our off the wall ideas. Playing the Innsmouth scenarios were a particular highlight, though all the different adventures have been strong. 

It has been particularly refreshing to work with some of the often maligned Dreamlands material, something for which I now have a new appreciation.

The only slight downside for me is that I still don't feel like I have a handle of my character's 'point of difference' in the game. Since we're usually playing with a big group (5-7 people), I feel his characteristics and mannerisms are perhaps too subtle and he blends a little into the background. His skills (like researching, history, persuading) also overlap with others in the group, so this has led to him being less involved at times than perhaps I would have liked him to be. This is something that is more of a 'roleplaying issue' for me than a 'game issue' for Dale, so I will keep working it through and see what I can do. 

However, this doesn't detract from the fact that I enjoy the game immensely and look forward to it. Perhaps the best part has been getting to meet a good bunch of guys to game with!

I really want to get my Kapcon scenario finalised in the next couple of weeks as well to have a playtest before Christmas, so say tuned to hear more about that!

Still here...

Wow it has been over a month since the last post. It has been a pretty flat out September for me with work, study and wedding planning occupying a lot of my energy. However, I'm back now, so on with the roleplaying update.


Due largely to the overseas excursion of one of our players, we have yet to kick off Dan's Exalted game with the Trail of Cthulhu group, but I have a neat character and am looking forward to getting into it in the next couple of weeks.


I have been largely keeping up with Dale's Cthulhu game and we have just finished the most epic and enjoyable 'Escape from Innsmouth'/'Raid on Innsmouth' campaign. The Shadow Over Innsmouth is one of my favourite Lovecraft stories and so I have always been keen to play (and one day run) this scenario. It was a lot of fun and Dale more than did it justice in his GMing, as well as showing me the skills needed to pull it all off.


I have also been doing some more thinking about next year's Kapcon. I have decided to go ahead with running the Cold City adventure I mentioned back in August, as I had some inspiration on how to bring it all together. It's now titled 'The Lesser Evil or the Greater Good' and I hope it will succeed in its aim of forcing the players to make some hard decisions. You can check out the blurb on the Kapcon website. I'll be calling for playtest victims volunteers in the next couple of months in order to get it nice and tight to fit into the three hour slot.


Speaking of that, I'm still tossing up whether to run another game (probably Trail) at Kapcon. I was looking at running Graham Walmsley's 'The Dance in the Blood' which has now been released and I have downloaded, though I'm little uncertain if it will fit into the three hour Kapcon slot. It's a very atmospheric adventure, so may require longer than the three hours provided at Kapcon, though the premise and 'twist' is very satisfying. I'll keep you all posted on how that one goes.


Other than that, things are looking good for the next while with Fright Night coming up later in the month and my regular groups kicking on. Now to start writing that scenario...

Kapcon Calling

It's about five months to go until Kapcon 2011, but I'm already starting to think about what to run. This year was my second Kapcon, as my first time running a game (The Murderer of Thomas Fell for Trail of Cthulhu), and I really enjoyed the experience. Due to the high standard of games run, it pays to be on to these things early in order to build in enough time for playtesting and tweaking.

This year I think I'll stick to running two session and playing in four (though I might also go for a three-three split). Kapcon is interesting in that the sessions are all only three hours long, which presents its own set of challenges, especially if your players aren't used to the system. So this has to factor into any decisions as well.

I'm still very much in the brainstorming stage at the moment. I'm pretty sure I want to run at least one session for Trail of Cthulhu, possibly the soon to be published adventure called A Dance in the Blood by Graham Warmsley. The buzz online has been pretty good about it so far and it sounds like it might tick the boxes. I'm also feeling increasingly confident with the GUMESHOE system from my regular game, which means the learning curve wouldn't been so steep.


However I'm also thinking about running something that is not Cthulhu related. Current ideas include: 


A Cold City adventure I've had kicking around for a while involving a trail of murdered ex-Nazis. I've got the start and the ending of this one worked out in my mind, but I've got to figure the rest out before I can write it.


Something for the Esoterrorists set in old Wellingtown itself. This one has the advantage of using the GUMSHOE system, and I also really like the idea of setting it in Wellington for both the locals and the out of towners. In fact I've got a great idea in mind for the first scene at Wellington airport. I haven't written a word for this, so would have to figure out a story to go with the premise.


A Spirit of the Century game, which I haven't got anything more for than a vague inkling that I would like to run it. I like the concept of a 'high pulp' game and the fact that it's designed for pick up play, but I don't even own this one yet, so it would require some investment.


So those are the ideas so far, though there are still other options around including something for the Doctor Who RPG, though I'm probably just looking for an excuse to buy the books. I'm going to use this blog to record how my decision making progress goes and, if nothing else, the more adventure I write up, the better I'll get at them.

Thoughts on Cold City (Part 1)

Thanks to a rainy Saturday night while my beloved was out with some old Uni friends, I finally got around to sticking my nose into Cold City,a game of trust and lies, set against the backdrop of post-World War II Berlin. I played the sister game, Hot War (which I also have but haven't read yet), at a Kapcon a couple of years back, and really enjoyed the rule light approach and strong narratives both games share.
 

In Cold City the players each take on the role of a member of the Reserve Police Agency, comprised of members of occupying powers (USA, UK, France, USSR) plus Germany, who investigate and clean up the strange occult experiments of the Nazi regime, known as twister technology. There is certainly a strong noir feel to the setting, which is reinforced by the shady deals and conflicts between the occupying powers. Check out The Third Man and you'll have immediate sense of the setting.


Cold City also shines in its approach to character creation and game structure. It's highly narrative focused, which encourages players to contribute scenes or concepts they would like included in the game. The mechanics of the game are also light, which means there is plenty more room to flesh out character personality, with how a character is roleplayed counting for more than what stats they have.


At the heart of the game lies trust, and all characters have different national agendas and personal agendas (which can be in conflict). As all the players are working towards different agenda (and can get in game bonuses for doing so), it makes for a really interesting experience, especially as trust also plays an important role. 


I'm still working my way through it, which isn't a chore at all, so will have some more thoughts by the time I am finished, but already I have some ideas for a game or two. What is really exciting is that the rules could be adopted to any other slightly shady, noirish setting. I would love to run a game with an adapted version of this rule set set in 1930s LA, with a real Raymond Chandler vibe going on.