Year One Supernatural and the Law

Setting fiction for a Year One superhero game utilizing supernatural-based NPCs and potentially PCs.

For the past decade, the number of supernatural occurrences has risen. The increase can be traced to the turn of the millennium. On New Year’s Day of that year, an event [define] occurred in the public eye, proving the existence of the supernatural to everyone witnessing the event. News reports ignored the event at first, thinking it a publicity stunt of sorts. However, reporters covering the police blotter soon realized the event did occur and it was related to the supernatural.

During the summer of 2013, the city of Miami saw a heavy increase of crime related to practitioners of supernatural powers. Ken Barton, president of Barton Security Devices*, worked with local police to develop a plan to counter the rise in crime. Unfortunately, the police were unable to provide the information needed by Mr. Barton to formulate an effective plan. The increase of crime culminated in a riot on South Beach at the end of August. Investigations after-the-fact and newspaper reports suggest a vampire attack. Local police were removed from the case and replaced by the FBI within 24 hours of the occurrence. Local police had no comment on their removal from the case and the FBI failed to return telephone and email inquiries.

This event resulted in police around the nation taking the supernatural as a growing problem they were not trained to support. Multiple requests for assistance to the FBI and Homeland Security resulted in limited help. These two agencies would slowly gain funds from Congress over the following decade. Today, they both have (small) departments designed to assist local law enforcement with handling supernatural cases. The FBI also began designing a training course for field agents in order to develop their abilities to solve cases.

Ken Burton did not let the Miami event ruin his involvement with supernatural investigations. He immediately began developing a team of individuals with specialties related to the supernatural. Little did he know, but others were developing similar teams across the nation. These companies included Cougar Security out of Portland, Gotham Protection of NYC, and Montrose Safeguard of Chicago. Over the course of the next year, these companies would develop consultants that could be loaned to local law enforcement and the judicial system, as experts in the field of paranormal investigations. Many were called to testify as expert witnesses in the court systems, while others were loaned to local police to assist on high profile and difficult cases.

It was not long before one of the security companies’ agents made a dire mistake while on loan to local police. Darren James III, an agent from Lone Star Rangers Security and Investigations, was on loan to the NOLA police departments’ homicide unit. New Orleans police refused to create a department for cases which it deemed to be part and parcel of their workload since the introduction of voodoo into the community. An expert practitioner of magic and rituals, Mr. James appeared to be the perfect fit for this case. The case involved a series of murders with elements of ritual sacrifice via magical ritual. In fact, Mr. James investigations concluded this same information and allowed him to provide further data to the police. The New Orleans police, however, chose to not act on Mr. James’ data, which possibly resulted in not stopping the next two deaths related to the case. When the police continued to refuse to act on Mr. James’ data, he took action himself.

Mr. James allegedly followed the clues to an abandoned warehouse not used since the Katrina flood. The former owners of the property had used it as a storehouse for furniture. The entire building and contents were a complete loss and put the company out of business. Various legal statutes had the property tied up in court, as the banks tried to decide who owned the property and who was owed restitution. During that time period, a group of alleged demon-worshippers began using the warehouse for parties and living quarters.

Mr. James’ arrival on the night of a full moon in November interrupted one of the parties, which was allegedly a ritual designed to sacrifice a young lady’s soul for power. Mr. James called the New Orleans police to report the incident in progress and they refused to send a car out to look into the matter. With that, Mr. James returned to his car, retrieved his shotgun, and entered the warehouse where he was met with violent response. Mr. James responded with more force. He shot and killed each of the alleged cultists who did not flee the building. In the process, the young lady died from stab wounds she received during the ensuing conflict.**

The sounds of the gunfight brought police cruisers and resulted in the arrest of Mr. James. No one else was alive and on-site to be arrested. All of the cultists on-site were dead or dying, as was the young lady, Ms. Samantha Toussant. Mr. James’ files were confiscated by the police and utilized in identifying other members of the Cult of Grrt-Chook.

Newspapers, television news channels, and bloggers descended upon New Orleans in a fashion not seen since the early 2000s. The public lined up for the spectacle and remained glued to their televisions for the latest developments. The case took two years to make it through the local court systems before it was kicked up to the Louisiana Supreme Court system. A year later, the case made it to the U.S. Supreme Court, where it is awaiting trial.

This singular case brought immediate attention to the growing supernatural presence in America. Suddenly, individuals such as the seers of Cougar Security were under the microscope both publicly and privately. Newspapers and Congressmen, alike, wanted an accounting of the paranormal investigators within security companies across the country. Lobbyists representing security firms began promoting a call for legislation to protect security personnel from the situation in which Mr. James found himself. Lobbyists for various local and federal policing agencies wanted legislation that would allow them to develop their own departments of paranormal affairs or the ability to hire on contractors that would function as police advisors in the field, complete with the ability to carry weapons.

Privately, the US Congress wanted nothing to do with the situation. Publicly, the situation was a quagmire with no good way out. Pressured by the US Supreme Court and the President of the United States, Congress made a public statement wherein they placed the ownership of the problem at the local level. The Department of Homeland Security immediately took action to develop their own group of investigators with the help of the F.B.I. Cities like New York and Miami developed a mixture of techniques involving individuals within the major crime units and homicide units who would work with outside advisors. Miami-Dade County completely outsourced the problem to Barton Security Devices. New Orleans and Los Angeles chose to hire individuals with supernatural abilities and assign them within various departments. As needed, they would hire outside consultants. Portland, Seattle, and Detroit all developed their own, tiny sized, departments to handle supernatural cases.

*Barton Security Devices is a Florida-based company heavily invested in the development of law enforcement equipment and supplying private security agents to high profile individuals. Ken Barton is a former U.S. Air Force Special Operations Command officer who served during the Liberation of Kuwait.

**Per Mr. James own statements to the Times-Picayune in the September 15th

Coming Soon: Supernaturals in the public eye, who is what or can do what? Or maybe something else.

My Superhero Game is Not Your Superhero Game

(was:  "I will never run your superhero game" - changed to improve the tone)

Fact One

I think the idea of running a superhero game could be fun, especially a year one style game

Fact Two

I do not care for what I consider classic, superhero comic books

Query

How do I resolve this situation?

Exhibit One

Lowell, Steve, and myself have been tossing around ideas based on running a year one super hero campaign for the past few years. As far as I know, Lowell is the only one who had done anything with the ideas. He is currently gearing up to run the third season of his Mutants & Masterminds online game. The premise of the game is the players chose different superheroes from various sources and have re-invented them in a “year one” style game. They were allowed to change up the characters as they are known and go their own way. Hey, they do it in the movies, why not at the game table?

Exhibit Two

I have played three superhero roleplaying games:  Superworld from Chaosium, Champions from Hero Games, and Mutants & Masterminds from Green Ronin. By all accounts, I had fun with all three. Mind you, I was in grade school with the first one. I stepped in to the second one to help cover while another player had to take a break. I ended up staying for most, if not all of, the rest of the campaign. It has been awhile and I apologize for not remembering. The third was the most recent and not a painful experience. The players were a disparate group that surprisingly gelled, in my opinion, to form a supergroup. It was a limited run campaign, going for less than 20 sessions.

Exhibit Three

I have not read and enjoyed a classic superhero comic book since the 1990s, outside of several Batman graphic novels and a single Superman graphic novel. I have read Punisher MAX, Nocturnals, Gotham Central and enjoyed them. I have read various Conan series and liked them. Punisher remains my favorite character and has been a constant favorite since watching him go toe to toe with the likes of Captain American and Spider Man. When I was still in school, my father bought my brother and I a comic a week (or thereabouts). We would also save up our money to buy other comics, quite often from the $0.25/5 for $1 bin. Looking back, I remember reading a lot of Transformers, Power Man and Iron Fist, Captain Carrot and the Amazing Zoo Crew (I was old enough to get the jokes and my brother was old enough to like anthropomorphic animals), GI Joe, Master of Kung Fu, Aliens, Spider Man (not Peter Parker, not Spidey and His Amazing Friends), The Teen Titans, and spatterings of The Brave and the Bold.

The blog Ask Chris provides some elements of why I may or may not have liked different comic book styles over the years with an article on DC, Marvel, and “The Problem”. Reading this article is not imperative to my own post here, but it suggests a few things that make sense to me, now. I am not certain his thoughts are correct, so I will let you read the article and make your own decisions later.

Exhibit Four

My father wrote comics. My friend Lowell writes comics.

So, how do I make this work?

I don’t.

In the Play on Target podcast discussing superhero roleplaying games, they make one thing abundantly clear – if you don’t like superhero comics, don’t run a superhero roleplaying game. That is a pretty bold statement. However, I think it is spot on. I have run games I don’t enjoy running, most game masters have. There’s nothing worse than dreading an upcoming event that happens on a regular schedule. So, why do it? If you cannot find a way to enjoy a hobby, it’s not worth doing.

Yet, I liked playing in the superhero roleplaying games. I like elements of the genre. I’d like to be able to run something like a year one game in the future.

No, really, how do I make this work?

I have to break my mind and reform my thoughts around what a “superhero” roleplaying game is about. I need to remove any elements I do not enjoy and boil the rest of them down into a nice hero reduction sauce. So, what are the elements I enjoyed from those roleplaying games, the few comics I recall enjoying, and the movies I have enjoyed that fit this genre?

Heroes don’t have to have classic superpowers. They don’t need the ability to move faster than a speeding bullet, flame on, or hulk out. Heroes can have a high level of agility and acrobatics. They can be very smart crime fighters. They can bring the fury of two-fisted justice to criminals. They can cast spells. They can move things with their minds. Yet, they can also be a speedster, meat-shield, or robot.

Being a hero is often about saving the day and making the world a better place. They stop criminals, expose the truth, and bringing evil doers to justice. They can fight mobsters, aliens, mad scientists, or super powered criminals. They do not only fight the latter.

I think this leads to an easy set up for a year one game where the power level is local, not global, not epic. The rules system for said game would need to support this ideal. I should be able to do it with Gumshoe system’s Mutant City Blues and work in elements from Kerebos Club and Night’s Black Agents, Unisystem (especially if Beyond Human ever sees the light of day), or even one of the World of Darkness flavors.

Could I use Superworld? Probably, but I doubt it as I have no interest in it. Could I use Mutants & Masterminds? Absolutely, but it tempts for a higher power range than I currently think I want. Could I use Champions? No, no I could not. I am not running a game which requires as much detail as Champions.

Two Worlds

I see two options for a world wherein to run a superhero roleplaying game. The first option is to take an existing comic universe and drop the game into it. This could be the world of DC, Marvel, or even a television series like Heroes. The other option is to put it in our known world and sprinkle in a few heroes. The idea of building a whole world from scratch is a bad one to me. It takes up too much time and offers too many possibilities of jacking something up. However, if you are like me and love the sandbox approach, you can still develop a grand world in which to set the game.

Start local, think global. By using the real world, a lot of the basics are complete. You have street names, maps, and events you can tie into the game. By starting “locally,” you can keep it under control without the lid blowing up. Local can be a street, a neighborhood, or a town. This also allows you to build up and out as the game goes on.

I think my approach would the city setting would be to give the players options I think I could work with. For me, that is likely to be NYC (classic home of so many comic books), Chicago, Miami, New Orleans, or Seattle. All of these cities are large enough and have enough elements that I think I could place a modern game in them.

My Superheroes are Supernatural

The second part of the setting deals with the supers and the how/why they exist. I think this is the area where my world breaks from the superhero genre and runs away screaming. The sources of power in my game will be supernatural and/or super-science based. Genre characters like Dr. Strange, Blade, and Swamp Thing come to mind. However, the tropes of television shows like Buffy, Angel, and Supernatural also would work here. There is a good blog series of posts called Strange Squad starting up. It looks at taking supernatural elements and using them to make a world of crime fighters with the game Mutant City Blues. Strange Squad is about supernatural criminals in a Ryker’s Island style jail who are given the option to help hunt down other bad guys. While this setting is a bit darker than I want to run, I think it proves the idea of a supernatural based, superhero style, roleplaying game can be done.

Okay, so I have potential rules systems, a city setting to use and the start of the sources of power. The latter will need to coalesce with more setting details. I also need to decide where the world sits when it comes to viewing these supers. The important thing is that the supers are out and known. They may not be wanted, acknowledged or have voting rights, but they are known. I have run two games in the past where superheroes/supernaturals were hidden in the background and soon to come out to the forefront. The lead up time involved with such a game is not worth it. It needs to be put on the table at the start. It is the subject of the game, do not hide it. The lead up is great in a form of singular experience like a book, comic, tv show, or movie. It is not all that great at the table. I think letting the mystery be the crimes to be solved and experiencing different powers with various setups is a better way to handle the game.

The next step for the players is to decide if they want to have powers or to be the humans dealing with the supers. Do they want to run around chasing down bad guys ala Gotham Central, do they want to be more like Angel or Scooby Do, investigating supernatural crimes, or are they interested in being the local superpowers who are on the side of the good guys, or functioning as freelancers for the local Major Crimes Unit/FBI special agent in charge? I think all of these work and depending on

I will need a list of potential character types for the players. I will also need something akin to the Mutant City Blues Quaide Diagram for both the players and myself. The players will need it for the supernatural character types, so they know what builds they can put together. I will need it for the core clues and bad guys. Whether I share it out with the players or not, does not matter. I still need to know how things will work together. I think the he old game Psi-Wars had a similar structure to it.

Floating back to the setting, I will need to design the power structure for each of the supernatural groupings and individuals within the setting. Vampires could form families around similar ancestors within the bitten blood line. They may or may not have different powers based upon siring. The werewolf pack unit can be based around family. Is there a werewolf gene, is it due to bite, or to curse? Is there a mad scientist working for the mob, supplying them with versions of Adam Frankenstein? Do chantries styled after games like Ars Magica exist? Are there cultists like those found within the pages of Unknown Armies or the books of HP Lovecraft? Witches lurk about town in their shops forming loose-knit covens. Demons flit in and out of the world, as summoned by magic users. Psychics move about the city trying to find each other and figure out why they have these migraines and nose bleeds. Scoobies exist the world over, trying to make sense of it all.

Which superheroes and super-villains currently exist? Can I or the players take existing comic book characters and rework them for this type of setting? Does the Daredevil have a magical ability to see granted by a demon? Is the Punisher actually a cursed knight named Frank Castle who was charged to defend the innocent? Could Doctor Octopus actually be a leader within the Cult of Cthulhu with tentacles for arms? Green Arrow could become a super-scientist with various bows and arrows which produce different effects. What if the reason Doctor Banner “hulks out” is due to being a descendant of Doctor Jekyll (or Dr. Hekyll and Mr. Jive for those of you old enough to remember the song). Like I mentioned earlier, characters such as Blade and Dr. Strange already fit the setting.

How is this different than running a World of Darkness or Unknown Armies game? For some of you, it may not be any different. For me, it would mean not leaping down the monsters we are, lest monsters we become rabbit hole. While that can be an element within the game, it should be limited to one particular NPC. It also means the game is not about world domination through the occult underground. I know many people have run WoD and UA which have more in common with superheroes than with the horror elements of those games. I have done it myself. It can work, but that is not the purpose of those games, as written.

If this game sounds like something more akin to the television shows Buffy or Supernatural than to Birds of Prey, it should. Superheroes don’t need giant letters on their chest. In my opinion, they simply have an important decision to make:  the decision to do good. Some, like John Constantine, do it reluctantly. Others, like Cordelia, grow into their role.

At the end of the day, there are many questions that need answering.

 1. Which city do the players want to explore?

 2.  Do the players want to be humans or supers?

 3.  What level of involvement with the law do the players want?

 4.  What is the structure for the different supernatural creatures and powers?

 5.  Are there lone practitioners with powers or abilities not displayed in others?

 6.  What is the purpose and drive of the supers in the city?

 7.  What is their place in the world?

 8.  How are the non-supers dealing with those just coming out of the superhero/villain closet?

 9.  What are the super-villain/criminal types up to?

10.  What are superheroes/vigilante types up to?

11.  What place does super science have in the world?

12.  Which normal superhero stories do you take and twist into a supernatural story about spooky types?

13.  What is the story I want to tell?

I think if I took the time to answer these questions (or work with the players to answer these questions), I could build out a game of superhero horror or supernatural heroes.

Link Dump

Deleted due to Malware attack.

Not so old school, modern horror rpg revival?

I made this comment on Lowell Francis’ blog back on June 2, "Is there a not-so-old-school, modern horror rpg revival coming along anytime soon?" I've spent the better part of this evening browsing the Internet looking for blogs that are mostly dedicated to modern, supernatural, horror rpg topics. I have got to say, the pickings are slim. 

The biggest search hit is FlamesRising.com. Matt and Monica have done a good job building their site and its Internet presence. However, it comes across more as a promotion website than it does a blog website. They also cover a lot of material that isn’t strictly role playing games. Still, they cover a lot of material.

Moving on, it becomes bleak very quickly. Blogs appear to either over-specialize or not be solely dedicated to modern, supernatural, modern role playing games. There are blogs dedicated only to the author’s favorite flavor of the World of Darkness, only Call of Cthulhu, only Delta Green, only The Dresden Files, etc. I guess that’s okay, but they seem overly anchored in those settings. If I cast a glance at blogs dedicated to fantasy settings, I see plenty of blogs that can be reviewed for use by a GM.

There are definitely blogs that have material I’m looking for:  Age of Ravens and Voices in My Head are a good start. Still, they both wander away from that material, as well. AoR dives into fantasy settings and TR delves into cyberpunk. I can’t fault them for it, I do the same here.

So, what am I missing? Are there blogs that are not overly-specialized that will allow me to Harvest their ideas and make them my own?

Final Flesh and Retrospective

And thus ends my biweekly All Flesh Must Be Eaten game. . .

:-:

The party left the military convoy with which they were traveling. The goal was to hit Cape Canaveral, meet up with the Navy, and head to Hawaii. Having no proof that such an idea was a great option, they decided to go rogue and investigate an odd facility back up near Beaver City.

At the facility, they found a shed full of zombies, a building for observing zombies in a closed environment, two living quarters, a garage facility, a radio tower, and an office building. The entire complex was surrounded by ten foot tall fence line topped with razor wire – an easy feat to beat when your mode of transportation is a helicopter. They killed the shedful o’ zombies, discovered an underground tunnel system that connected the buildings, and a scientist.

The scientist confirmed what they had been told by an insider, that there was no known cure and everyone else had given up on finding one.

While investigating the tunnel system, they were set upon by zombies that were released into the tunnels. As it so happened, one of the zombies was carrying a 9mm handgun and knew how to use it. He managed to incapacitate one of the party members and nearly incapacitate a second. In the process of escaping the tunnels, the incapacitated party member died and took a bite out of another party member. Luckily, another member of the party was able to put the zombie down before he could do more damage.

Moving from the heat and into the fire, the cast was taken prisoner by the insider and her military squad. Quick thinking by the party led to an escape that resulted in no more PC deaths, but brought about the death of the NPC nurse traveling with the group.

The party fled back to their rendezvous point and an NPC they met a few nights prior came by (via the dead PC’s player). It was apparent that the informer and her military squad had tracked the party to this rendezvous point. All of the NPCs left behind with the gear were brutally killed and some supplies were taken. The party decided to head back to a fuel tank that they had stashed at an old farmhouse in order to fuel up their helicopter. They took a giant dump truck, Suburban, and the cable guy’s work minivan with them.

Arriving onsite, they discover the barn where the fuel truck was hidden to be chained and locked shut. They took the easy route and shot the lock off the door. With two party members in the Blackhawk helicopter, another in the dump truck several miles up the road, yet, and a fourth waiting in the Suburban, the fifth member of the party opened the door to the barn. Peering inside, he saw the fuel truck, several other trucks and tractors, plus what looked like feral human males, including an eight year old boy. The boy quickly turned and shot a .22 rifle at the party member. The other feral males brought their shotguns and rifles to bear and the party member ran for cover. Thus, started the end.

The helicopter came closer to the barn as the boy stepped outside the barn, chambering another round into his rifle. The door gunner cut a path with bullets in front of the boy, who shot at the helicopter and did no damage. The men inside the building began shooting at the helicopter, but not hitting it or the door gunner.

The party member in the Suburban grabbed bow and arrow, left the Suburban, and scrambled through a field to get behind the barn. The first party member poked out of hiding and shot the child.

The dump truck came rumbling on scene at this point, drawing fire from a nearby farmhouse. The dump truck pointed itself at the house and aimed to run down the woman shooting at it.

With the boy no longer in the way, the party member who had opened the barn door snuck in and to the side. He kept low and behind tractor equipment – staying away from the fuel truck.

The helicopter pilot brought the chopper closer to the ground, allowing the door gunner to start shooting at the feral men with long arms. The pilot’s only words to the door gunner (with 2 Life Points left to his name) were, “Don’t shoot near the fuel truck.”

The dump truck roared closer to the farm house. A farm house less than 50 yards from the barn.

The party member inside the barn shot and killed one of the feral men.

The party member with the bow and arrow managed to prop open the back door to the barn. He deftly put an arrow through the lung of another feral man.

The driver of the dump truck pulled up short and to the side of the house, providing cover for said driver to jump out. The plan? To sneak about and kill this feral woman with a shotgun who had retreated into the house.

The helicopter pilot kept the Blackhawk in place as the door gunner’s player BOTCHED his roll to near negative 20, spraying M-60 bullets throughout the barn. Several of them pierced the fuel tank on the fuel truck before a last bullet scraped metal somewhere near the leaking fuel, causing the rest of the fuel tank to go up in a massive explosion.

Faster than the speed of love, the barn exploded in a shower of splintery death. The feral men, bow and arrow PC, the PC who had snuck into the barn, and the door gunner were killed instantly. The helicopter pilot fought to maintain as much control of the bird as he could. The force of the explosion pushed it away from the barn and towards the farm house. It tore through the farm house, digging into the dirt just in front of the dump truck.

As we pull away from a close up of the dump truck driver pulling the unconscious helicopter pilot from the wrecked Blackhawk, we see the carnage of the explosion, the destruction placed upon the farmhouse, the ruined vehicles in the drive, and the giant smoke plume rising into the air as if to tell any zombie who can see it, “Come, there’s food here and it’s fresh.”

:-:

In retrospect, I picked up on a few of what I consider my old, bad habits as a ZM. I naturally prefer “sandbox” style games. The problem is that I usually don’t have any rails designed, so the cohesiveness of the party (or lack thereof) gets in the way of moving the story along in the right direction. Once the party got out of town and holed up at one of the party member’s country home, it because more driven. That stalled at one point, but then it picked up, again, with gang bangers coming out to play.

I put in too many NPCs that I wanted to be important. That resulted in very few of them being important to the players. There were a couple of moments, but it wasn’t until they met up with the military that the party would really start to interact with the NPCs. I need to let go and let them interact with the NPCs. I needed to develop more personality traits.

So, my lesson from this game is to remember not to dial the game out to the 10,000 foot level. Keep it dialed in, let the players dive deep if they want to and it bothers none at the table. Slow the pace down, unless it’s a race against the clock or combat. Make more interactions meaningful by bringing out the personality side of the NPCs. This will force me to have fewer NPCs that I want to be important.

Next up, I think I’m staying with modern, but not post apocalyptic. We will be heading into modern supernatural with horror. The group seemed keen on that, so I will send out the usual email asking for some feedback on ideas and see where that goes. I plan for it to be more structured than a sandbox and be more of a controlled setting. I suspect I will be pulling from source material such as Unknown Armies, The Esoterrorists, and Mutant City Blues.  

Free Book, Skyrim, BRP, and Pendragon link dump

Today's a short day, so I thought I would toss out some links.

I discussed James Hutching's The New Death and Others here. Well, it's free on Amazon for a week or two. If you are remotely interested in it, I would say now is the time to pick it up.

When I'm home, I've been spending time playing Skyrim. I have been thinking of running a fantasy rpg sometime after I'm done running AFMBE. That, of course, leads to looking at stealing ideas from Skyrim. After all, the technological level is about where I want it for an rpg. James Desborough discussed using BRP or a variant of it, such as Legend or Runequest on the Postmortem Studios page.

BRP links: BRP, BRP quickstart, Runequest, Legend, Discussions,

Although, you could do Skyrim with DnD or a variant, quite honestly.

I've picked up Pendragon and The Great Pendragon Campaign after Lowell pointed me in the direction of actual play articles that are fun to read. You'll find the actual plays in the blog section of that Great Pendragon Campaign link. I'm reading through the corebook, now, and hope to gather my thoughts on it for you once I've finished it.

First Times, part two

A Kind of Magic
The scenario was designed for a party of 1st level adventurers. I wanted to keep it simple and show PJ what it was like to start from the start. Let’s face it, if you are going to start playing, you don’t get to start at 10th level, or 6th generation, or what-have-you. You start at the ground level and you build that character up.

The characters were all invited to a yearly, end of summer party at the baron’s manor house in the Village (read: outskirts of the Village and a mansion). They were friends with one of the baron’s daughters and she routinely invited them out early for a little pre-party…and kept them around for the after-party. Hey, a girl likes a party, you know?

Upon arriving at the manor house, all is dark and quiet, except for the servants’ quarters at the rear of the property. Investigating the manor house they find a set of specific clues in this order:
• Footprints belonging to a small, non-player character race in the grass leading up to the home and in through the front door (Goblins of Golarian sitting to the left of me on the table may have been a give away, but it was a good, fun read).
• Two dead bodies, one chair, and swirling patterns drawn in blood on the wall and floor. The bodies were of the baron’s daughter’s handmaiden and (gasp!) the baron’s daughter.
• The entire manor house had been tossed from 3 feet and down.
• Occasional spots of blood leading from the room of death out the back door, over the fence at the rear of the property (which the party noticed kept the perps mostly out of view from the servants’ quarters), to a stand of trees, where they appeared to mount giant rodents (goblin dogs).

The party took the time to do what I would consider light to medium investigation at the scene of the crime. They were afraid to mess with the blood on the wall and floor, even though those small footprints walked (ran amok?) through it. They, therefore, were not able to get as many details from the bodies as they could have otherwise. They went through all of the rooms of the manor house and then questioned the main servant. They figured out the two patterns in blood were for summoning and binding an unknown something.

Following the trail led them to a small farming community. The idea here was that I wanted to give them a chance to interact with the little people in the setting. The party had been on the road, by foot, for close to 12 hours. This would give them a chance to rest and recharge spells. It did not go so well, but that came out of role play, not roll play. The players latched on to a few details and would not let go of those details, even though the NPCs claimed no knowledge. It reminded me of the old computer/console rpgs where you could choose from a specific list of questions, ask every NPC in the game those same questions, and if you didn’t ask them all, you would not get all the answers you needed to complete the game. It is a little like beating a dead horse. I need to figure out how to get players to move on from those situations. (Note: Maybe more out of game knowledge from me about the NPCs or community?)

The party moved on to following the goblin dog tracks to a river crossing. Being close to dark by this time, they chose to head downriver to River Town and rest in a safer environment than an unknown wood where thar be goblins. The River Town sequence went quickly, which was good. It was not designed to test the players’ abilities. I threw in a few familiar-to-me faces which allowed for some easier role-play. It also gave the players a chance to stretch their legs with local law enforcement. They were told by the Sheriff’s sergeant to either keep their weapons in their room at the inn or in the Sheriff’s office. They opted for their rooms and then promptly to the tavern.

They caught on to their mistake 30 seconds before I was going to have the sergeant and a couple of the town watch walk in the door. I let them recover their situation and quickly spirit away their weapons to their room at the inn. It was nice to see the group do this. I was afraid I would need to drop a higher level NPC on them and relive nightmares of 2nd ed. PCs running amok killing everyone that disagreed with them in the setting.

The following day, they travelled back up river and continued their hunt for the murderers. They came across a temple in the Haunted Wood wherein goblins were chanting appropriate goblin songs about eating people and killing horses and dogs. The party did a little set up for the situation, but did not completely organize themselves for it. The lack of organization made them rethink their actions. I think you have to expect such things in one-shots, first time games, and low-level games. I know I play characters that way, at times, and build them as such for one-shots at cons.

The combat went well overall. I brought out the hex-map (your square maps are rubbish) and we did it up with figs and wet-erase markers. The fighter would eventually go down under the swords, arrows, and scimitar of the goblin warriors. The sorceress would eventually stop shooting things with her bow and stepped into combat with only a dagger. She managed to roll a critical hit on at least one of the goblins and nearly slice his head clean off (thank you critical and botch charts via Ars Magica 3rd ed.). The cleric was able to beat up on some of the goblins, collect the belongings of the baron’s dead daughter, and with the sorceress, get the fighter out of the collapsing from fire temple (thank you gnomish ranger!). The ranger and half-elf were able to handle their own in combat, providing good 2nd tier fighting abilities (aka not standing directly in the line of fire). By the end of the fight, the cleric was out of spells and had to use the Heal Skill to stabilize the fighter, who was bleeding out.

The party then escaped to an area where they could hopefully sleep and recover spells. That evening, they looked over the contents of their “loot.” Three items of note were within it: bloody dagger with the baron’s seal upon it, the baron’s daughter’s jewelry, and a scroll. The scroll was written in an unknown tongue (probably Abyssal or some such) and while the cleric and sorceress could not figure out what it said, the cleric failed a Willpower Saving Throw. They did see the blood patterns from the manor house on the scroll, as well as a third. The cleric decided to not burn the scroll, in case it would blow up, release a creature, or do something evil in general. She would take that to her order in Port City to see if they could help.

That was the end of the game. At that point, we were on hour 5.5 and anything else I would have thrown at them would have taken several more hours. I did have that material ready to go, though, in case the party made it through the scenario quicker than I expected.
• What, exactly, was going on in the room where the bodies were found?
• What was the third pattern for and why wasn’t it found?
• In what language was the scroll written?
• Did the goblins really kill the baron’s daughter?
o If not, what were they doing there?

Jazz
While I did enjoy running the session, Pathfinder will not become my go-to game anytime soon. It runs well enough that if PJ or enough other people wanted me to run a game using the rules, I would not mind doing so for a short run (2 years or less playing every other week). I had much more fun with it than I did 3.0. I need to finish reading the books I have for it, including the GameMastery Guide, Beastiary, Goblins of Golarian, Curse of the Crimson Throne: Edge of Anarchy, and oh yeah, the Core Rulebook. All of the books have high value in their creation and I like that about them.

Would I continue the current group? Absolutely not. I may use the story as a seed for a future game, but I would not re-use all (any?) of the characters. I’m also not sure I would use my homebrew setting. The amount of work that goes in to the crunch of a Pathfinder game may be more than I’m willing to do. Several of the adventure paths look like they would work for my tastes, specifically Curse of the Crimson Throne and Carrion Crown.

I examined game play in this game versus my prior game. In my prior game, there was a lack of NPC interaction at times. I played this up to the players being young to my style of gaming. In watching the interaction in this one-shot, I think more of it has to do with me. My skills are rusty and need to be re-honed. I noticed that I glossed over or completely did not describe the NPCs. More details about what they looked like would lead to better understanding of their place in society to the players. Clothing often makes the wo/man in a fantasy setting. Another thing I think I need to do, and I will need to re-examine this in the future, is think more about how I speak for the NPCs. What would the NPC know/do versus what does Derek know and want the end result of the interaction with the NPC to be? If the NPC is seen as a boring computer, it’s going to be treated as such. There is some counter to this that experienced players already know or understand to be tropes that inexperienced players will simply not get. Those things also must be drawn out in game play. Otherwise, they do you no good.

I’m calling the game session a success. PJ got to play in her first rpg and as nearly as I can tell (“I loved kick’n goblin a$$.”) had fun. I found the system easy to use and was able to adapt personal material to it.

First Times

Sunday was the first time PJ played in a group rpg. It was also the first time for me to run Pathfinder. I think overall, things went well. Here’s the break down.

Greatest Hits
• All of the people playing had played before, besides PJ.
• One of the other players hadn’t played in awhile.
• No one at the table had played Pathfinder before this session.
• Scenario and setting are mine, not pulled from anyone else.

A Night at the Opera
PJ decided she wanted to play an half-elf sorceress. We also had an half-elf rogue (female player), human cleric (female), gnomish ranger (male), and human fighter (male).

The player of the rogue, the two guys, and I have all played various forms of D&D, including 3.X editions (but not D&D5e).

The player of the cleric (Lori from Marimba and Ice) had not played in quite some time and also needed assistance. Not a problem for this group of players. In fact, gamer_girl from Girly Nerdy Gamer as the rogue immediately took over keeping PJ and the Cleric on target with their abilities. This was nice to see, as she had been somewhat quiet in my previous game.

The downside of having the two most inexperienced players at the table playing magic users was that there was not much spell-slinging at the table. Even when reminded why her character was being hit by goblins, PJ chose to attack and not cast Mage Armor on herself. Given PJ’s aggressive personality, this does not surprise me. I wish I would have done a better job reminding the two of them of their buff spells, but such is life.

Steve from Kaijuville did an awesome job as the human fighter and looking for the tropes I used in the game. I’m not big on using standard fantasy tropes, but he knew I would be using a few of them. He went after them hoping the spell casters might follow along.

El Ranchero from Meanwhile, back at the Ranch did a great job with the gnome. I have enjoyed playing with him in all of the games we have played together. He does a wonderful job pulling out character from the sheet.

The Game
I’ve heard Pathfinder described as D&D 3.75 and D&D done right. I think the first is definitely apt, I’m not sure about the second. I haven’t touched it enough to figure that out and I am also not sure it is a phrase I would ever use, not being the world’s biggest fan of D&D.

The books are great to look at and feel really good in hand. The page count for the three main books is in the thousands. Picking up the basic book reminded me of picking up a copy of Champions.

The basics of the system are the same as D&D 3.X rules. The last version I read was 3.0. I ran it for about 3 years using the core books, the basic class books, and a couple of handouts. I played it for a year or so, as well. That was over ten years ago, if my memory serves me correctly. Jumping into the rules would prove easy enough.

Character creation still works the same. Paizo (makers of Pathfinder) added flavor to the races and classes to make them their own. I think they round out the classes a bit better. I think it helps balance out the low level characters or at least make them more useful in combat.

It feels as if characters do not get as many skills per level that they should receive. However, taking ranks in your class skills gives you an additional bonus. That helps characters really excel at doing what their class should be able to do well. It looks weird on paper to me, though.

Basic “tests” still work the same – roll a d20 and add the appropriate modifiers.

Combat has a few tweaks, but nothing that wasn’t easy to pick up on. I like how combat maneuvers work in Pathfinder more so than 3.0. You receive a bonus to your attack that is the same for each of a list of maneuvers. The enemy’s defense will be the same for each of those maneuvers. These numbers are calculated for you on the basic character sheet so you know what yours will be when and if you ever decide to use them.

Feats are similar with tweaks, including when some are available due to either level or prerequisites. Nothing too outstanding here.

There was not a lot of spell use in the game. I chalk that one up to unfamiliarity of how they work (system), not sure when to use them (new to gaming), or how to use them (system and setting, per se). Clerics have access to a laundry list of spells. There is simply no way a newer player is going to pick up on how to use each one from memory at the first sit down. That’s expected. I mentioned PJ not remembering to cast Mage Armor earlier. That’s a pretty standard action that I am sure she would have done within a game or two. If not, she may have learned the hard way by needing to create new characters, if it was a killer GM game, or by the other players yelling at her to use her spells instead of stepping up into combat (wherein she rolled more d20s than the rest of the table combined). When I talk about how to use a spell, I mean what is the time and place for it? You have to know how the spell works, the effects of the spell, and how it will interact with your scene. A good example from the session was whether or not to cast Detect Magic at the crime scene. Detect Magic is all about whether or not there is something magical right there with you. You can expand out the distance a bit and the time frame can be stretched, but that’s it in a nutshell. By not knowing how old the crime scene could be with only blood, a chair, and two dead bodies in the room, it didn’t seem pertinent to let the party lose a spell for the day by casting the spell. Could have I done so and let them “learn on the go?” Yes, absolutely. However, this was a one-shot amongst friends; it was not a Pathfinder Society Game or a long-term game I was planning to run. It seemed more prudent for me to influence them to not use it. Instead, I let them think about the situation and follow the simple clues that were on-site.

Combat itself ran smoothly. In fact, I think it ran more smoothly than I remember 3.0 running. That could be learning curve on my part, though. It could also be than the people I ran 3.0 for had yet to play it or to my knowledge, any D&D recently before the 3.0 campaign. It probably helped that PJ and I created the characters and that the scenario was designed by me for the characters.

I think the system sets out what it intends to do: fix up some holes in D&D 3.X and add in flavor for the Pathfinder setting.

The Miracle
The setting was a combination of two other games. The deities were from one of my old rpg settings called “Origins.” There are ten on the side of light/good/neutral and ten on the side of darkness/evil. I set it up that the players would have no knowledge of the dark deities without a Knowledge (Religion) check of 30+. I want those deities to be old, forgotten gods from a time of darkness. Those deities would also not be important to this scenario. If I ever use them in a Pathfinder game, they will stay barely known. What information the cleric gleamed from making that roll at one point was little. It simply pointed them in a direction they could have jumped to without it.

I did not want to use the Pathfinder deities for two reasons. The first is that I wanted the deities to be in the background. By making the deities familiar to me, but not my players, I found it easier to gloss over the details. Second, by making them deities with familiar names, but not found in the book, I didn’t have to worry about anyone sticking their nose in the book all session or nerding it up by quoting specific items from the book that I may have missed.

The land is actually my modern Port City setting, but done in fantasy style, with one addition. I even printed out major NPCs from Port City that could be used if needed. Port City is a coastal town, in this case the head of a barony. Nearby towns of Lanark, the Village, Rivertown, and Fog Warren all made appearances. Rain Town was somewhat represented on the map, but not in the game.

My main use of Port City was for a police drama I ran called ISU #3 (Investigative Special Unit Number 3). It was a great game whose major influences were the TV show Millennium, friends from the Abyss Group (I had worked on Kult-related materials with them), and letting my mind go gonzo when needed. This game is probably the number one setting I would resurrect from my gaming past if I could do so. The tension and dynamic at the table was awesome. It also included two of the players from my Yeti Private Investigation game, which also included Lowell from Age of Ravens.

The additional material I added to the setting was the inclusion of the Winter King. While he and his kingdom didn’t make an appearance in the game, they were on the map and briefly mentioned in one scene. I thought I had something about him posted here in the blog, but I can't seem to find it. I will have to find it and post it.

Using a predesigned setting like this made the set up much easier. I was able to work through what kind of activities would be going on where and which NPCs would be available for interaction. This cut down on some of the prep-work for setting up the game. While I only used locations from the map, it gave me an idea of the world and made it easier for me to figure out who was what was where.


Up next: the scenario and notes!</>

GM & Player Badges

Stuart at Strange Magic has posted GM Badges, designed to tell potential players about your games. It looks like a fun idea, so here's what I came up with about my games. Keep in mind, there are categories I'm not including here, as I've used multiple techniques from the selections and they would conflict with each other.

The idea here is to display for potential players what type of games you like to run...or conversely for players to show which games they enjoy playing.

My games will tell an interesting Story

My games will be scary

My games focuses on Exploration & Mystery

I will Mirror back player ideas I think are interesting in the game

My games include Disturbing content

My games focus on interesting Characters and Drama





I'm sure everyone's experiences in my games differ and aren't completely represented here. However, if I think upon my best run games and those games that I enjoyed the most, this is the list that is most representative.

Interestingly, The Warlock's Homebrew has posted a Players version of these badges.

Hack and Slash! I like to kill things and take their stuff!

I like to role my character. I am my character!

Keep me away from torches and barns.

My character's actions are not for kids under 17 or sensitive ears at the table. Yeah, I'm that guy.

I like to explore the wilderness.

Wine, women and songs! Towns are for me!

I enjoy gritty pulp adventures!






It's all in fun and just a short bout of thinking.

Running a 1:1 Game for Someone Who has Yet to Play

PJ (my fiance) has wanted to try out roleplaying for a few months, now. She's never done so, despite having friends that have and a brother that is in to World of Warcraft. It started as a joke, but eventually became a serious thought. I tossed the idea of what to around in my head for quite some time.

She's read Shelly Nazzanoble's Confessions of a Part-Time Sorceress, which uses Dungeons & Dragons as reference points. Due to that, I thought the best bet for PJ's first gaming experience should be a d20-based, fantasy game. I don't own any of the current incarnations of D&D. I own several 1st ed. products, as well as some of the retro clones in .pdf format. Alas, I did not own any core books. I've heard nothing but bad about 4e and remember very little awesomeness to WotC's 3.X product lines. So, I picked up Pathfinder. Several friends play it and enjoy it.

We worked through making her first character as a first level sorceress. It took a couple of hours and was painful at times. From there we moved through making up the rest of the party that will be accompanying her. We did a couple per night and spread it out over a week's time. We created characters of various races, arcane magic users, divine magic users, a rogue, and a fighter. She is by no means a master at character creation, but she gets it.

PJ wanted to get to know roleplaying before playing in a group setting. This would help her learn as many of the rules as possible and make her more comfortable come time for the big show on Sunday. I'll be running an one-shot for her and some friends.

I decided that for her 1:1 sessions, I would have her make up a gestalt style character. she went with a cleric/rogue. This would allow her to function in city situations, cast magic, and have some fighting abilities.

I also decided that I would use one of my own settings, instead of using a produced setting. My thinking is that I can tailor everything I need to fit where I need it to fit. I don't have to worry about what really belongs where and who is actually this person or that person.*

Important Notes:
I have noticed that I tend to gloss over details that we history & arts type nerds know by rote. These very details can be very important to setting the scene. I know how far apart towns and villages would be and why. I know why different arms and armors would exist, what would lead to their development, and which cultures might even eschew them. All of my players do not.

You cannot assume that the player will know any of the conventions of the setting (or any setting). We all know that when you stay in the inn at the edge of the big, scary forest, you have to eat dinner in the common room. After all, you don't hear the good rumors or get in a fight by staying in your room eating your trail rations.

New players don't know to ask to roll to see if they know any local history. Therefore, they don't know that the big, scary forest, is a big, scary forest until they arrive at the big, scary forest and you describe it as a "big, scary forest."

Let them control the story. Let them describe some of the set peices in scenes. It gets more buy-in from them and makes them feel involved. With a 1:1 game, it also shares the responsibilities (and talking) in the game.

The first session went okay, after I got the story moving. I think she had fun, after all, she wants to play more this week and is looking forward to the one-shot on Sunday.



My game mastering in a recent game was lacking. Part of it was due to my waning interest. Another may have been that I had forgotten that while the above notes are very important to a new player, they're still important to seasoned players, as well. There were other reasons, to be sure, but these two may have led to my personal downfall in the game.






*And I can put my goblins wherever I damn well please.

Confusing My Players

I've incorporated two ideas into my game that confused my players a little bit. Both are stolen ideas from excellent GMs - Lowell and Kip. One idea my players know is in play (Kip's), the other (Lowell's), not so much.

Quick snapshot of my game - Firefly/Serenity 'verse five years later, using Cinematic Unisystem rules with Andrew Peregrine's Spacefarers and Prairie Folk ideas from ESP vol. 1. The cast is the crew and a passenger aboard a trading vessel with the captain being an NPC. So, these people spend a lot of time together.

During character creation, I handed each of the players two note cards. They were instructed to fill them out during the character creation process. On one card, they had to write something only their best friend would know. On the second card, they had to write down something that no one else would know. They turned these in to me, I jotted down notes about each one, and gave them back to their owners. I let them sit on these cards for two hours before telling what we would be doing with them.

Right before game play, I told everyone to take their "friend" card and pass it to the person to their right. This illicited groans from some of them. However, the result was that they immediately began interacting with each other, even if it was out of character.

The other card, they keep. I'll be using those for future plot lines. Many of their secrets will tie-in very well together.

The other idea may not originally be Lowell's, but he's the first GM I've seen use it in practice ~

Never say no, if you can help it, to the players.

If the players need or want something in game, a device, a weapon, a plot move, whatever, and it doesn't hurt anything, I let them have it. Sure, it comes with the usual caveat of, "If you get this really big gun, the bad guys will have access to the same thing." However, unless it's a rare item or moves the plot in a direction that hurts other players or future plot points, I let them have it.

This confused the youngest player at the table when he wanted a new gun that would do more damage. He wasn't asking for anything crazy (like a .45 automag), he just wanted to upgrade from a 9mm to a .45. They were in a city where such a thing would be easy to get. There is nothing that will be hurt in-game by him feeling more protected (his character took a round from an M-16 equivelent). The party had also just been paid very well, meaning no shortage of funds.

He kept driving at the fact that he had the money to pay for it and was I sure such a thing was available. He was very confused by the part where I didn't care if he accounted for the money or not. He wasn't as confused by the availability of the weaspons. After all, we're talking the Old (sci-fi) West. Why wouldn't a .45 handgun be available?

Another player was more interested in a sonic weapon. She asked near the end of the game. I told her I didn't have stats, but that I would get her stats before our next game. (Note to self: create stats, use Endurance Damage.) I also told her it would be no problem for her to get such a weapon, utilizing her underground contacts. I think it surprised her how quickly I said, "Yes." Settings-wise, the Alliance uses sonic weapons in the Core. They wouldn't want bullets flying around and hurting any of those pretty citizens.

I count all of the above situations as wins. The players are getting more out of the game, whether they realize it or not, and my life isn't any more difficult as a GM.

Levitz Paradigm, Three Act structure, and the RPG Scenario

I'm going to try and use the Levitz Paradigm, as well as, proper three act structures with my Saturday night game. It's more official structure than I've ever put around my games. Sure, I've scripted them before, but not like this. I've done crazy level of scripting and character development. I've run games that were mini-scenarios where I had a specific agenda for each episode. However, this feels like a new level.

Have any GM friends had any luck with either of these? It's hard to imagine that I've run successful games (and highly successfull convention games) not utilizing these tools. I know Lowell has his 3 Things layout and that Steve uses a variant. What about the rest of you?

I'm hoping it will make it easier to rope in the players who want action to come to them, instead of creating it themselves. By easier, I mean force my hand to actively include them.

I have created an Excel file that outlines the paradigm. I like the idea of having an electronic file for this that I can reflect back on during the writing process, instead of a hand-scrawling it out on a peice of note paper.

My episode notes are done in Microsoft Word. I have them broken down by Act, then scenes (usually just two major scenes per Act - should I breaking that structure in the future?). I bullet point everything here. The last page of each episode's notes includes a list of NPC names, quick function why they are there ("contact for job"), locations, and as the current game is sci-fi, list of ship names and type of ship fir that episode.

Archetypes versus Characters

Last night's post was forced and not great. To make up for it, I give you...

I've successfully run roleplaying game sessions since the early 1990s. Probably 1992. Before that, I ran them, they just weren't what I would call successful - or fun, if you will - for most of the interested parties.

In that time, I've come to see player characters (or PCs) in two different lights. The first is the archetype, which often becomes a stereotype. The beer swilling barbarian, the noble beyond belief knight, the thief that lurks in the corner, or the mercenary willing to sell out the party for a buck are all good examples. The second is what I can only call the "character," the real person, or in this case, ideas that make up that person.

There is no "stereotypical" character. Each one is unique. These characters take the longest to create, but receive the most love throughout the life of a game. The single mother, who works 3 jobs, 2 from home, and 1 ten miles from home, who by the way, also has to juggle those 2.5 children on her own with all of their sundry activities such as fencing lessons, trumpet lessons, homework, play dates, and then also school and chores and let's not forget about her deceased husband's family that want to stay heavily involved with the kids' lives - unless it means more than attending an occasional birthday or calling to offer help they won't follow up on, and she's trying to attract the eye of this new accountant at the day job who seems oblivious to her every wile, and then when can she fit in a ladies' night out and who would watch the children while she goes out and can they spend the night at the sitter's house or does the sitter need to use her house, in which case she needs to spend hours cleaning it up...

You know her, you love her, you admire her. However, I don't often see her in game play. She's real and she has real challenges to meet. Who wants that?

Judging from the most successful games I've run, most of you want the single mother versus the thief that lurks in the corner.

I use to run games at conventions. I've probably run close to 100 games at conventions. I don't anymore, but that's another tale for another day. Two of the most successful games I've run at conventions fit perfectly into the mold of this discussion.

"Dead Ops" by James Wilber is a military thriller for the All Flesh Must Be Eaten roleplaying game of survival horror by Eden Studios. The scenario is available via their Eden Studios Presents volume 2 book. The PCs are not. There simply wasn't room. (Full disclosure, I should know, I developed ESP. The PCs in "Dead Ops" are a handful of U.S. Army Rangers dropped into a South American jungle to save some of our scientists from a hostile situation. There isn't a lot of depth to the PCs, there really doesn't need to be much depth, in truth. However, as the PCs represent a squad unit, each has their own function: leader, heavy gunner, radio man, etc. The players quickly figure this out and they are good to go. You don't need a lot of background on these guys, but James delivers some to wet your taste buds. You do need to have a quick clue about military units. Have you seen a military movie? Saving Private Ryan? Aliens? Avatar? Okay, good.

"Dead Ops" is a slow build. It starts with, "Where is everyone?" It builds to, "What the heck is that?" Moves to "What the heck are they doing here and what happens if we shoot at them?" (Hint: Don't shoot at anyone carrying an rpg, in this case, rocket propelled grenade.) Builds up to, "Now, we've got 'em!" And climaxes with, "Ohshitohshitohshit!!!" Throughout all of that, there's very little that you need to know about the PCs other than their stats and their weapons' stats.

James and I have had great fun running this scenario. Groups have died in the first two hours with scarcely seeing a zombie. Other groups have made it to the end game scenario only to have the PC of the player who held the group together at the table take an AK-74 blast to the chest and die right in front of the other PCs. It was a moving moment, it was a bad player decision, it was a razor edge to just off the PC, but everyone at the table loved that it happened. It added a quick bit of realism to a game about zombies. And the killed the guy using the AK-74 several times over.

With grenades, even.

When I'm asked to run an AFMBE scenario, this is what I fall back on. I know it, I love it, and most of the players love it. Yet, not once is there a moral imperitive interjected into the situation. It's not built to have one.

I wrote "The Burning Wheel of Karma" with Derek Guder. Derek and I intended to design it for Eden Studio's CJ Carella's WitchCraft gameline. The story takes place seven years after the end of WWII. The party is a mixed group of individuals hunting the same bad guy. I say individuals, because the group really doesn't like each other.

You have the former Nazi SS witch-hunter, his wife, their child-prodigy psychic, an Englishman with a knack for guns, his former partner, turned undead revenant Scotsman, a witch that was the former assistant to the bad guy, and an Egyptian miracle worker who is only helping so that all of these people can get rid of the bad guy and leave her country.

Everyone has their reason for wanting the bad guy dead (or gone). During the war, he was British intelligence and operated out of Cairo. Eventually, the Englishman and Scotsman discovered he was up to no good. They cornered the assistant about it and she agreed to help them. (Secretly, she was hoping to redeem him, as she was madly in love with him.) The German witch-hunter is after him for two reasons. One, the bad guy kidnapped his wife. Two, the bad guy caused all sorts of problems for the German during the war. The wife wants the bad guy dead, because he used her sexually during a magical ritual (only available during the anti-climatic, face removal by shotgun, flashback scene). The kid's along because the parents are there. The Egyptian is there, because the bad guy hurt her people and she wants all of these foreigners gone.

Now, insert the fact that the former assistant is more of a mother to the kid than either parent, both of whom have demons they want to confront. The wife/mother is something that no one at the table knows about...potentially including her husband and child. (The player would have to spill the beans.) The Scotsman's sole goal is to kill the bad guy, because the bad guy killed him. As soon as that happens, his body drops and his soul moves on to the next world. The Englishman and Egyptian are almost the sanest people in this storyline.

Have I mentioned anyone stereotype, yet? Have I mentioned that we start with media res? Have I mentioned the scenario, if you walk through it, takes less than 2 hours of play time? Yet, most groups hit the limit of 4 hours game time.

And every game's end comes with the results of a stand-off that would make every fan of Reservoir Dogs scream and cheer.

I don't know about you, but I'd rather play in the second game. You have real people in a real situation, with extraordinary situations. Magic, psionics, l33t gun-fu to make Chow Yun Fat cry, golems, demons, weird men in fanciful clothing, and a twist in the story that leaves you wanting to more. You may not sit back and say, "That was a helluva ride," like you might with "Dead Ops." You will say, "Whoa."

There's depth to characters that you don't get with archetypes. That depth takes work. Long, hard, (until 4 o'clock in the morning, by the way) work. Yet the pay off is so worth it. Heck, I even met one of my best friends running the game for him, his then girlfriend/now wife, and a friend of theirs running this game. I couldn't tell you who I met or didn't meet running "Dead Ops." The players with characters embraced them in ways I'd never seen running "Dead Ops."

The same can be said for the games I've run back home, not at conventions. The players that show up with voudounistas who run little shops and give back to their communities, while at night helping solve supernatural crimes. The character who was a single father and worked in what was more or less, weird homocide department, trying to raise his daughter with his parent's help, yet was continuously working more and more night shifts. Those are the people I want in my games.

People. Not personas or stereotypes. Not the "thug" Brujah with an oversized chip on his shoulder. Not the thief lurking in the corner of the tavern.

Individuals.

Just remember, they take a lot of work and you may never truly know them. I never understood the voudounista, that’s my fault, not the player’s. And the cop, I only began to figure him out when that game ended. In the end, though, they were worth trying to know.






James Wilber and Derek Guder can both be found haunting the halls of gaming conventions, especially Gen Con Indy.