Kickstarter (et. al.) projects I am backing

There are some great products out there at the moment which are looking for some financial love.  Here is what I have recently backed/supported:

Timewatch by Kevin Kulp

Pelgrane Press has come out swinging with another major kickstarter.  This time its is Timewatch, the investigative GUMESHOE game of time travelling agents sent into the chronsphere to put right the time-stream and face off against giant, radioactive cockroaches called Ezeru.  What's not to love?

I'm a big GUMESHOE and Pelgrane Press fan, so there was never any question about whether or not I would back this. However I'm particularly keen on what seemed to be the slightly simplified approach to the game, which I believe will work really well at cons and the like.  I'm already seriously thinking about pitching some for Kapcon in 2015.

You can immediately get access to the Jurassic (playtest) edition of the rules once you pledge, so take a look for yourself.  I must confess I have only skimmed through them it to date, but from what I seen, I like it very much.

Tales of the Crescent City by Oscar Rios

Tales of the Crescent City promises dark things with a set of scenarios for Call of Cthulhu set in New Orleans, which I have also backed.  

Playing or running a Call of Cthulhu campaign in New Orleans is something I have always had a hankering to do. With it's strong French and Caribbean influence, fascinating hsitory and unique musical sound, it is in many ways the perfect foil to Lovecraft's WASPish New England. 

I'm particularly pleased to see a follow-up the The Great Old Ones's 'Tell Me, Have You Seen The Yellow Sign?' which is one of my favourite scenarios from that collection.

I'm certainly looking forward to seeing what kinds of awful adventures I can wreck on my players with this set of scenarios.

Angels and Automatons: a shared-world steampunk anthology edited by Stephen Minchin

Closer to home, I have also backed this collection of steam-punk tales, intriguingly set in the fictionalised town of Angelston on New Zealand’s rugged and remote West Coast.

Featuring writers from both New Zealand and abroad, including some locals connected to the Wellington gaming scene, I'm very interested to see how the standard steam-punk tropes will be applied in a historical New Zealand context.  It's also a chance to support local creative talent, which I always try to do.

This project out of all the ones I am backing looks in most danger of failing to meet its target, so get behind it if you can to make this project a reality

Five Fires by Quinn Murphy

I'm using the slightly different Patreon service to provide on-going support to Quinn Murphy's quest to bring interesting RPGs with a strong African-American voice to life.

In Five Fires, the players take on the role of members of a hip-hop crew dealing with the problems of life while trying to make it big. I love the pitch of this game (in the same way I love Umlaut), so I'm very keen to read the play-test document and see what interesting things Quinn has come up with.

I also like the idea of broadening the diversity within our hobby and finding ways to help empower that process.

By using Patreon, I'm also supporting future work by Quinn, which sounds equally exciting:

"Five Fires is in my sites now, but it won't be long before I'm working on an Afrocentric fantasy game, or building a game about Double Dragon."

It's very exciting to see so many interesting products being developed. As always, the problem will be trying to find time to play them all.

Not so quiet published

I am a little slow off the mark in mentioning this one, but Pelgrane Press have recently released 'Not so quiet', the Trail of Cthulhu adventure some of the Kingsport guys and I play tested a while back.

Reading through it I was pleased to see they adopted some of the suggestions we made and have provide additional guidance is some of the areas we identified. 

All in all it is a really tight little scenario, though I still think that if I ever run it again I will make some extra changes to suit my own style of play more.

If nothing else, however, it is one of the more compelling treatments of the First World War I have read of in a gaming product.

The Wreck (finale)

Monday saw the suitably epic finale of this current 'season' of Empire State Secrets, where our brave band of NYPD's finest fought back against the accursed and eldritch secrets of Innsmouth and saved the city of New York.


The last game went well and the players really gave it their all, which was really appreciated. Even the miserable Wellington weather came to the party. As we started a little late, I felt a little like I had to 'push' the story along in parts more than I would have preferred. I also wasn't able to draw out the tension as much in the final scenes as planned, but these are only very minor quibbles in what has been a very enjoyable series. I've really had a great time.


Although things started a little hesitantly, we all fell into a really nice groove with the game and hit that gaming 'sweet spot', where it all just seemed to work. This was really gratifying for me as a GM as this was something I really wanted to work and for which I put a lot of effort into. It was also a couple of players first real Cthulhu experience, so I wanted to share what I love about the game and mythos and give them an authentic experience (contrary to the popular opinion of some, this does not mean going mad and dynamiting a Shoggoth, but taking part in a really creepy mystery where you have no idea where it will lead).


I'm taking a break from the GMing duties of the group for a few weeks as Dan is running an Exalted game, which I'm looking forward to as I have never played it before. However, I will confess I'm feeling ambivalent about wrapping up my game (even if only for a couple of months). 


While I'm looking forward to the break, as I have some more mundane tasks to concentrate on, I'm also a little concerned about loosing the momentum and great vibe that has been developed so far. My players assure me I have nothing to fear, but what if a younger, more attractive GM comes along!


Jokes aside, the mature and solid relationship my players have means it won't be a problem. And I've already got some suitably grim ideas for next season... 

Empire State Secrets: The Wreck (Part 2) + Cthulhu Dice

Monday saw part 2 of our Empire State State Secrets campaign called 'The Wreck', where our noble characters investigated the arrival in port of an almost abandoned steamer carrying a mysterious cargo.

Looking into the events around the ship arrival and the cargo, the investigators dug up all manner of fun terms like 'Innsmouth', 'Kingsport', 'the Marsh refinery', 'Project Covenant' and 'R'lyeh'.

The investigation heavy parts of these Cthulhu adventure can sometimes be a little bitsy, as the characters are often off following up their own leads and contacts, but overall I think the game went well. The tension is slowly building and I think things are nicely coming together for the next couple of sessions.

As an added bonus, I also got the sanity loss inducing present of Cthulhu dice from J. and some delicious cookies from S. Thanks guys!  

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.

Dr Strangeplot: or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love my Players

I have been thinking a little lately as Empire State Secrets progresses, and as I read more GUMESHOE related material, about how my approach to running games has changed over the years. The moment of 'self-awareness' really dawned on me last weekend when I was running a session for the Thursday night (soon to be the Monday night) group.

When I was younger and less experienced, I remember getting frustrated or disappointed if the game didn't proceed down the carefully crafted plot line that I or the published story author had devised. If my players wanted to do something outside what was anticipated, which happened quite often players being players, it would throw me a little. If scenes were jumped or missed out, I would feel a little like I had failed. I would have 'succeeded' if I had carried out the scenario successfully and my players would have a good time accordingly.

As I have run more games and written more stories, I have to come to redefine success in running a game. I am successful not if I tick off all the different parts of the story (like a compliance document), but if my players have a good time. If that means they decide to jump certain parts of the story or bulldoze through my plot, that's fine, as long as I can run it without missing a beat so they still enjoy themselves. This involves being way more relaxed about how the game goes and to stop worrying if things don't go as planned.

An example of this comes from Thursday's game where the characters were investigating the kidnapping of a child from a wealthy family. The story, as written, pretty much has the characters doing waiting around until the money drop before they follow the kidnappers back to the hideout at the docks. However, thanks to the proactive investigating of one character, I decided the location of the hideout would be found sooner, thereby jumping all the scene relating to the money dump.

Now I could have 'blocked' his progress in order to keep to the story as written, but that would have felt really artificial as part of the story. So I relaxed, rolled with it and let the story take its course. The result was a really good scene that felt organic, natural and something my players seemed to really enjoy.

Taking a more laid back approach to running game has been helped by using the GUMSHOE system, which is a style of play that I am coming more and more comfortable with and fond of. The focus is on giving the players clues for the story without getting bogged down in the mechanics of how they get them. This is articulated well by another blogger sharing his thoughts about Trail of Cthulhu: 

So now I don’t worry about whether a clue would be better found by Evidence Collection or by Forensics. I just see that a character is looking where they should to find a clue, and give it to them. I keep a list of what abilities the different characters have, and I phrase the evidence in keeping with whichever of the abilities makes the most sense given the information. If they’re looking for more, I’ll ask for a spend from a particular ability, or I’ll ask them what ability they’re using to get more information.

The two important things are that the clues get found and that the players enjoy themselves.

Once the characters have the clues, it then up to them to decide how they want to proceed with them. This take a lot of stress out of running a game, as I don't have to quickly shoe horn another scene in if the players miss their roll, since plot advancement isn't dependent on dice. It also means I can spend more time on the stuff I really enjoy, like setting the mood, building the back story or working on the plot.

The total result being that my perspective on running games has changed, in my opinion for the better, which has in turn enhanced my enjoy of the process and I think that of my players.

On an unrelated topic, this weekend I watched the recent Sherlock Holmes movie that came out here in New Zealand about 6 months ago. I really enjoyed it as a movie, but what struck me how very similar it was to a roleplaying game, from the plot to the pacing. It also re-sparked my interest in running a Gaslight Cthulhu game again, so watch this space.

Play-testing time

Today, assisted by some kind souls, I ran a play-test for a soon to be published adventure for Trail of Cthulhu. Set in a field hospital during World War 1, the adventure asks the players to investigate some recent unexplained deaths. Overall I think the game went OK, but running a play-test presented me with some interesting challenges.

Probably the biggest challenge was not modifying the scenario before hand. As the game was a play test, I deliberately decided not to modify things in order to provide the most effective feedback. This is something I have taken for granted in my recent gaming life and, to be honest, something I wasn't aware I did so much. I guess it's only when I didn't have the ability to do this, that I realised I really appreciated it.

This made the game being a little more messy than I would have normally preferred, as there were aspects that didn't sit totally right with me. The adventure was also designed with a real 'sandbox' approach to the setting. The players found this good in that it gave them a lot of freedom to investigate different leads, but I felt some of the scenes were a little 'messy'. There were also a large number of NPCs to juggle which was a little draining and quite a shift in tone towards the end of the story.

This meant some aspects of the game didn't really 'pop' as well as I would have hoped, which is a little disappointing, as I was the GM for a new bunch of guys who I respect as gamers. I am also fighting off the beginnings of a cold, which didn't help matters much. However it did remind me of the importance of scenario familiarity, especially when you can't make changes, and I think the feedback generated will be very useful for the publishers. Next up is Thursday's regular New York campaign, so hopefully I'm feeling better by then.