Author: Eloy C

Running Noir Mysteries, Lowell-style

I just finished listening to the Dresden Accelerated game run by Lowell Francis . Everyone was on point, system seemed to run efficiently, and overall it was a great listen.

But my main takeaway was Lowell’s masterful conception and execution of a Noir style mystery.

For a guy who says he’s only read a couple or three Dresden novels, this game was the Dresdeniest Dresden thing I’ve ever come across outside the books themselves (of which I have read all several times).

Why? Because it was a real Noir setup and story.

Kudos for the incredible worldbuilding thing with the “I’ve lost a Hell” and the associated lore, which was simply brilliant, and felt like something Jim Butcher would have written in a novel. Where did you come up with that? Is it those Detective Chen books you posted about today? Simply Brilliant.

I think that perhaps discussing the GM’s thought process/preparation methods and techniques during the sessions would be a great teaching tool for us detectively-challenged GMs (I’m looking at you, Richard Rogers 😉 )

How much work/outside of game prep went into developing the mystery? Did you have the whole thing sketched out before hand? How much was improvised along the way? How long did it take you to set up?

The flow from clue to clue was spot-on hardboiled/noir fiction, with some of the ‘clue-piñata’ aspects that Jason Cordova has discussed in early Gauntlet episodes, but also had unexpected developments in scenes, which is also a very Noir thing. Again, was that a clue flowchart, a la Gumshoe?

I’d love to pick Lowell’s brain on this, though I realize you’re busy juggling a bunch of things. If you’ve the time. I’d love a short video/podcast episode discussing this, if possible.

Fantastic job, everyone. My first time seeing Christo Meid and David LaFreniere and Jason playing. (Didn’t catch Steve’s full name, but first time seeing him too! 🙂 )

Oh, and related to this: I am in AWE of Lowell’s ability to pick up on player prompts and develop NPCs. At one point, Steve creates an NPC on the fly and directs the GM: “He knows about the subject, but he’s like a conspiracy nut.” Without missing a beat, Lowell immediately drops into an accent and references some paranoid things. It was really impressive. That and the fairy hookah palace thing where he took it an ran flawlessly.

Anyway, great series. Really grateful for the opportunity to listen and see it.

31 Flavors of the Apocalypse

So, Richard Rogers talking about his new game got me all nostalgic for the first Apocalypse World game I played (and which he ran), so I started listening to Adam Koebel ‘s season 2 AW game and I really want to play again! And that got me thinking about the different types of Apocalypse which might serve as your setting. Which are your favorites, Gauntleteers?

I’ll start with some of mine, and give some media references. Add more references if you like.

Here we go:

1. Post nuclear desert-pocalypse – the classic that never goes out of style (Mad Max Fury Road, the Road Warrior)

2. Snowpocalypse – Started snowing and hasn’t ever stopped.this was the game I played with the Gauntlet. (John Carpenter ‘s The Thing)

3. Rain-pocalypse – Started raining and only rarely stops.(Adam Koebel’s first AW game)

4. Blackout-pocalypse- electricity failed and hasn’tcome back. (NBC’s Revolution, SM Stirling’s Emberverse books)

5. Toxic Jungle-pocalypse- fungal plants and giant insects! (Nausicaa Valley of the wind)

6. Zombie-pocalypse- “Brains!” (Walking Dead, too many things to list here)

7. Dragon-pocalypse – Dragons rule the earth (Reign of Fire) and it’s cousin, Dino-pocalypse (Jurassic Park franchise)

8. Pacific Northwest-pocalypse- yeah, running out of good names. Basically takes place in mountain/forest terrain (The 100, The Road… maybe?)

9. Robo-pocalypse- Sarah Connor? (Terminator franchise, Fred Saberhagen Berserker books.

10. Alien-pocalypse- they ain’t phoning home… (Independence day, Defiance)

So, there must be at least 21 more flavors. Add your own, or add media recommendations for these!

I just finished playing the second session of the Coriolis:The Third Horizon… Lowell Francis is TEH AWSUM GM, and I had a blast playing with Victor Wyatt , Kyle Simons and Fraser Simons . The full rules are now out to kickstarter backers, so I’m sure this’ll be on sale for everyone else soon. Enjoyed it a LOT! Thank you, guys!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1192053011/coriolis-a-sci-fi-rpg-from-the-makers-of-mutant-ye?ref=nav_search

Hey, Gauntleteers. This sounds very interesting. Check it out!

Originally shared by Christian Griffen

The Meridian kickstarter is now live! If you enjoy imaginative gaming and stories about fantastical journeys (Labyrinth, Alice in Wonderland, etc.), this is for you.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1344826513/meridian-a-story-game-of-journeys-wondrous-and-fan

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1344826513/meridian-a-story-game-of-journeys-wondrous-and-fan

Originally shared by Eloy C

Eloy’s gaming progress report for March- April 2016:

I’m a little late posting March’s report, so there’s some April stuff in here too.

Tl;dr : Burning Wheel! Burning WHEEEL! BUR-NING WHEEEEEEL!!!!!  😛

WARNING: These reports are super long and ranty. Proceed at your own risk…

1) Played another session of A Song of Ice and Fire. We’ve switched back to my original character for the game, a Knight, now recently become an lord of our House (by marriage to the daughter of the former lord, following a highly successful tournament we held last November.) My character and his retinue have journeyed to Highgarden, to find out where the allegiance of House Tyrell lies. The other 2 players have rolled up new characters and things are starting to become interesting again.  

My complaint with the game is the mechanics. Combat is fine, but this is one of those games where niche protection is a strong thing, so if you’re good at one thing, you are horrible at everything else. I’m playing the knight, so fighting is my thing, We’ll see what happens.

2) Have run 5 more sessions of From Distant Shores, my Burning Wheel game. The game keeps getting better and better. The characters were all comfortable cleaning up some things and taking care of some mundane stuff, when I threw them a curve ball. This led to fantastic reactions from the group. We had a couple of exciting sessions, full of action and drama. We’re now at pretty much the end of a chapter. 

Had our first Trait vote session, and next session will help us see where the campaign goes next. Really looking forward to that. 

 I’ve also started writing procedural reports of these sessions (see the links in my profile page), describing how I run these, both for personal use and hoping that they are useful to others to learn how to play Burning Wheel.

3) Played 2 more sessions of Dogs in the Vineyard, run by Dan Maruschak  I had some difficulty with the session, until we had a conversation and hammered down exactly what the townsfolk expect the Dogs to do. We had a little disconnect as to how exactly we’re supposed to run this, although it seems well described in the book. In any case, our latest session ended in a gunfight against a demon-possessed heretic. This was kind of how I expected the game to be when I started playing.

I still have some difficulty playing the game. The mechanics are second nature now. It’s more a matter of how to approach the religion. I know next to nothing about the real life religion upon which the game is based, so best I can do is related it to the religion I know best. It’s still a disconnect. Reconciling gunslinging/justice dispensing with priests and missionaries as I know them is difficult.

If the game is expecting to confront my real-life religious issues in gameplay… I don’t think that it’s going to really work for me. I got those issues squared away a long time ago.

I’m also starting to feel done with the game. This is one problem I have with these narrow focus games. This is who we are and this is what we do, as my friend Neil Goodrich  says. I find stuff like this, like Blades in the Dark, difficult to play in the long run. At some point, it just becomes repetitive.

4) Started running a SECOND game of Burning Wheel. Met this nice guy on the G+ BW group, who posted a setup for a Burning Wheel game he’d love to play in. Apprentice Sorcerers trying to get accepted into an established Cabal of powerful Sorcerers.

 I’ve wanted to play exactly that sort of setup using Burning Wheel for YEARS.

So I said to him: “I can run this!”  In no time flat, we had 2 more guys looking forward to play. All 3 seem like really nice guys. We started talking, and hit it off immediately. We had a few online sessions and post discussion, agreed on a Situation and setup, Burned up characters and got underway! 

We’ve played one session of the actual game, and it was a blast! I’ve got tons of ideas for the upcoming session, and the characters and the setting that we came up with are really fantastic!  

I’m also doing procedural reports discussion our sessions over at the BW forums.

I don’t know if it’s partially due to our procedural reports, but there seems to have been a spike in increased activity in the BW forums. 

I guess Adam Koebel  ’s Roll20 videos are spreading the word about Burning Wheel, but there are have recently been all sorts of new actual play posts. Reading these, commenting and interacting with the new and old Burning Wheel players in the Forums is a lot of fun.

There are at least 2 new Westeros themed BW games going (It should be obvious from my post that these are 2 of my loves, and they go great together), as well as Judd Karlman ,  Rachel E.S. Walton and Drew U ‘s Swordlords BW game, which are a fantastic mixture of knights, orcs and sorcery. Also, very close to my heart.  As if that weren’t enough, Judd’s also running a BW game with lots of Art Magic in it, with Renee Knipe and Eric Duncan , I believe. I’m not crazy about combining my fantasy with my sci-fi, but, judging from their AP reports, they’re making it work. Very well.

5) I’ve also been having fun reading Paul Beakley ‘s commentary on The One Ring, and now he’s started talking about Eclipse Phase, which is another game I’m curious about.

6) I plan on organizing an irregular online Fight! practice session. I’ve got at least 1 interested person. The idea is to run through the infamous Fight! subsystem of Burning Wheel. 

Most people seem completely intimidated by the system and unsure of how to run it. I’ve studied it a bunch and actually played out quite a few fights, but the ones I have been involved in usually involved little armor and mostly glossed over positioning and clumsy weight (I’ve studied up on those too) . Those are things I’m interested in working with. 

I’ll give more details once I’ve had time to build this up a bit more. My idea is not for this to become an exercise in Character Burning. Quite the opposite, as a matter of fact. 

My plan is to create premade characters, likely a Saxon warrior against a Dane Viking warrior, with similar stats and skills, and just change weapons loadouts. This’ll put the emphasis on Scripting, dice rolls and weapon differences, and minimize character optimization as a factor in running fights.

I’ll post when I’ve structured this thing a bit more. If I get more than 1 player interested, I’ll be happy to arbitrate the fights, and learn from that.

All in all, I’ve made quite a few new internet friends in the last couple of weeks. Looking forward to making more. All my gaming is online, these days. Looking forward to gaming more and more. 

How about you? What have you been up to?