uthoroc

Shameless self-plug: I recently did an interview with Kobold Quarterly, which you can now read at their website.

So we played DnD on Friday...



... and it was pretty fun for what it was, i.e. a cliché-ridden, tactically-oriented, note-quite-role-playing game. Lots of jokes about the system (and the world it would create) flew across the table, and we had fun using the variety of powers even our 1st level characters had. Most players didn't get much into the role-playing mood, something I deplored a bit, because without it DnD 4e just seems an inferior version of a tactical dungeon crawl game like Descent.

We played two encounters, the opening one from the Keep on the Shadowfell adventure, and one from the free DnD Game Day introductory scenario. The maps created with CC3 and DD3 looked nice and worked well. Looks like we might continue the game to complete at least the introductory scenario - hopefully with a little more in-character play.

I'll be playing my first DnD session for 20 years or so on Friday. Of course it'll be the shiny new 4th edition, and of course it will use miniatures and battle mats.

As the resident map expert my DM asked me to whip up a few blank battle mats with generic backgrounds - and mentioned he also needed a road with trees on both sides, similar to this sketch:


( Look behind the cut to see the results. )

Last night we played the second half of a classic German rpg adventure: Der Wolf von Winhall (The Wolf of Winhall).

We've started a very small group (only 3 players) that plays parallel to our bigger campaigns to finally get to play some of the dozens of published adventures that sit on my shelves, most of which I've never managed to actually use. These are all set in Aventurien, the richly detailed word of Germany's biggest rpg "Das Schwarze Auge". This is the game I started my rpg career with and played for many years. It's great to be using it again, although we're not playing with their rules system, using FUDGE instead.

"Der Wolf von Winhall" is the first published big adventure by Thomas Römer, today's chief editor of DSA. It's classic werewolf story with a little twist, and although it is dated in places and I had to streamline a few things during play, the basic story is still sound and worked quite well. We had a lot of fun.

I love how easy it is to create opponents and combats on the fly with FUDGE. My prep time is basically nil and we still manage to create challenging fights and quite a bit of suspense.

Last Wednesday we played the last session of our "Cthulhu in Weimar" campaign.

While my campaign log is unfortunately still stuck somewhere in the middle of the story, I'm happy to report that I felt it came to a great climax and satisfying resolution (at least for me). Reactions from players were mostly good, only Momosnyx was not quite so happy with the campaign.

The final part of the campaign saw the story becoming very personal, with the characters wrestling with their heritage, and a difficult decision to make: Do we try to end the sorcerer's existence, risking a major intrusion of Yog-Sothoth into the world? Or do we allow him to live and maintain the status quo, letting him get away with manipulating his descendants for the foreseeable future? A flip of a coin, gave the final impetus...

In the confrontation with their nemesis, three of five characters were killed ... or better, sucked into an extra-dimensional space never to be seen again .... or to be even more exact, two were sucked away and one was possessed by a twelve-century-old sorcerer and then sucked out of this world. Of the two surviving party members, one was down to 1 hit point, and the other up to 60% in Cthulhu Mythos. Not a very promising prospect for his future, but as he was the prima candidate for the sorcerer's possession, he could call himself lucky.

I think that is an adequate outcome for a Call of Cthulhu campaign.

Here's the third session translation, which concludes the first chapter in the "Cthulhu in Weimar" campaign.

( Cthulhu in Weimar - Session 3 )

In September/October we'll be spending two weeks in Denmark again on the North Sea coast, together with a whole bunch of avid gamers. Besides lots of board-gaming, there's always time for some rpg sessions. Since I didn't GM anything last time, I want to run something again. I even have an idea, but some of the details need working out. Perhaps someone can help me out with ideas.

Usually I run little snippets from the progressing history of my own world (Jhendor), which makes for a nice body of background lore - I wanna keep this up. But my games are also very story-heavy, with much of the story existing in my head before the game. Players have freedom to choose and detail their characters of course, but where the overall story goes is usually strongly influenced by me.

This time I would like to turn this tendency on its head. I want to give the players pre-generated characters with rudimentary characterization and agenda, put them in a setting and leave the story development completely to them from there on.

The setting is the election of a king, and the players would be the nobles called upon to choose who it is going to be. Ideally it will result in wheeling, dealing and intrigue to gather enough support for their candidates.

What I need is some kind of tangible conflict resolution mechanic and/or score keeping system to make the outcome independent of GM interpretation. I am thinking along lines of giving the players physical tokens that represent their reputation, influence, wealth, etc. that they can "spend" by either affecting something in game world, or giving it to other players to make them do something, agree to a deal, etc. It should be extremely simple.

Has anybody run something like this, or can recommend a system containing something along these lines?

Now I gotta pack my bags for GenCon...

I'm still working on the backlog of campaign notes. Here's the next one.

For this new scenario I was woefully unprepared. I had only the slightest idea what could be happening and as a result the session was rather short. Still it all worked out for the best in the end. At least for me... :P

( Read more... )

Oh my, the backlog has grown enormously on my campaign notes. But I'm not giving up yet! Here's the log for session 8 (in May).

( Session Log )

It's been a while since I managed to translate one of the logs, but I've not given up. Here's the second session log in English. The first session can be found here. Enjoy!

Note: There's some pretty gory scenes (well, one actually) in this log. If you are offended by blood and gore, don't read it.

( Cthulhu in Weimar - Session 2 )

It looked for a while like we would be complete this time ... but then Christoph didn't show up for the session. He'd been without internet and phone for a couple of days and missed my reminders. Too bad...

( Session Log )

Continuing our tradition of missing one player each session, Uwe wasn't there this time. This entry is rather late, and trying to get all the things together that were done is a bit hard. Let's see what my memory reveals...

( Session Log )

Last session's log - again minus one player, as will be the next. It's a pity, but it's getting harder and harder to get all players together for a night.

Since I'm in a bit of a hurry, there are no links today. I'll add those later. EDIT: Links added.

( Session Log )

We were a bit short-handed last Friday, because two players were missing, but we still managed to play a fair bit. Unfortunately Mert, for whom I had planned a special role, was ill and couldn't make it. The dangers of plannign personal involvement for player characters - but the alternative is no special roles at all, and that's boring.

( Session Log )

Here's the English version of the first session's log:
http://www.mapsandmoreshop.de/cthulhu/cthulhu_weimar_01.html

Phew... that was close. Next session is tomorrow already and I finished this log just in time. I hate it when a backlog builds up. :P Now I only need an inspiration for tomorrow...

( Cthulhu in Weimar - Session 3 )

Friday saw our second Cthulhu session in the current campaign. Again a player had to miss it, due to snow on the roads, but at least Uwe who missed the first session was there.

The session log has one rather gory description in it, so if you don't like that, skip the film scene.

Use Babelfish for translation: http://babelfish.altavista.digital.com/

( Cthulhu in Weimar - Session 2 )

Yay, my new campaign is finally underway! Saturday saw the first session and we got off to a very good start, although one player unfortunately had to miss it.

Here's the session log with a lot of links to background information. Unfortunately for all English-speaking readers it's all in German so far, but I'll try to provide a translation this week.

As a side-note, I'm using vanilla CoC rules so far, but after having playtested Esoterrorists and the GUMSHOE system, I now painfully realize the deficiencies of the system concerning investigative story-telling.

( Cthulhu in Weimar - Session 1 )

The player character cast for my upcoming Call of Cthulhu campaign is finalized. A Prussian minor noble's (Junker) daughter, a free-thinking, communist author, a brilliant young physicist studying under Max Planck, a cameraman eager to make his mark in the German movie industry, and a hard-boiled ex-soldier/private eye will have to be brought together.

The setting is Berlin, the first days of November 1918. News from the front are dire, navy seamen are mutineering in Kiel, rumors are flying around that the Kaiser will abdicate. The word "revolution" is on everybody's lips. People are afraid.

In a hotel room a young and haggard army captain is feverishly pinning letters to a few trusted relatives, friends and comrades...

Recently I have ended my latest Jhendor campaign, and while it was a rousing success ("Chinese Ghost Story" style far-eastern fantasy), I need a little break from the fantasy genre. I've decided on something I've wanted to do for a long time: Run a classical Call of Cthulhu campaign.

I've played in several and ran the odd stand-alone scenario, but never got around to running a full campaign. 1920/30 Germany makes a horrific (literally) setting for the game, and not surprisingly there is a vibrant German CoC community with its publications centered on this period.

Not that I really need the published material. I've never been a good GM for other people's scenarios, and as a history M.A. with a focus in modern history - and more importantly a friend in the local university library, I can find the background material easily enough.

I want this campaign to really live on the historical background of the Weimar Republic, and therefore I will try to spread half a dozen scenarios over the time from 1918 to 1933, each linked to one of the major themes/events of the time. The first will take place in the early November days of 1918 in Berlin, with the navy mutinying in Kiel and the Kaiser about to abdicate.

But I don't want to fall into the trap of explaining the major historical events with mythos activity. I always thought that was cheapening history. Instead the actual happenings of the campaign will be intensely personal for the protagonists (the PCs of course), with the events of history serving as background and theme.

I'll also try to apply a few lessons I learned (or think I learned) from Pelgrane's Book of Unremitting Horror about horror role-playing. Whether that will work out, time will tell.

I can't discuss my ideas for the storyline, since some of my players might be reading this, but I'll try to follow the development of the campaign here. It will be useful as a place ot focus my thoughts at least.