Join Michael and myself for four sessions of Monster of the Week in April!
Join Michael and myself for four sessions of Monster of the Week in April! We’re trying out a new Saturday afternoon time slot, which should work out great for folks on both sides of the Atlantic. If you’re interested, follow the links! Being able to attend each session is ideal, but not required.
I wanted to share this write-up of The Watch long con that I did a week ago at Dreamation.
I wanted to share this write-up of The Watch long con that I did a week ago at Dreamation. This is just part one! These were some really amazing sessions, and I highly recommend backing the KS if you haven’t already. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/medeiros/the-watch-rpg/
Surprisingly, what our campaign reminded me of most was Battlestar Galactica – a fantasy military drama that’s chiefly focused on what happens between the battles. It’s a really, really great system and I’m very excited to bring it to the table again in the near future.
Originally shared by Michael X. Heiligenstein
The Watch Long Con, Dreamation 2017 – pt 1
I started writing this on the train home from Morristown, the morning after finishing the last of three sessions of The Watch at Dreamation. When I started, I was writing solely for myself: I wanted to remember as much of this campaign as possible. But I’ve talked to a few people who were curious about these sessions, and I also wanted to share this with the wonderful people I got to play this with.
So far, it’s longer than I expected. I’ve edited it down a bit, and have split it into two entries. There are a lot of scenes I necessarily missed, since we were running two tables – I have a pretty decent sense of what happened in the other scenes, but I’d always love to hear more. There are also some missing scenes from the tables I was at. It’s hard to keep track of everything that happens in three rapidfire sessions, and unfortunately I can already feel some holes in my recollection.
Thanks so much to the 10 people who brought so much fantastic energy to the table, and a special thank you to Anna Kreider and Aaron Friesen for running such an amazing experience, plus a double thank you to Anna again and Andrew Medeiros for creating the system. Back it on Kickstarter if you haven’t already!! https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/medeiros/the-watch-rpg/
Our Cast:
“Mean Girls squad”
Cpl. Cal, the wolf. Clan Royshan (warriors) Played by Rebecca W
Lanec, the lioness. Clan Thason (herders/equestrians). Played by yours truly.
Trull, the bear. Clan Toltho (craft folk/farmers). Played by Joe Beason
Reme, the owl. Clan Sharn (hunters/gatherers). I don’t have his real name : (
guided by the amazing Anna Kreider
“Degrassi squad”
Cpl. Laustec “Lau”, the spider. Clan Richti? (nomads). Played by Albert D
Preshi, the eagle. Clan Molthas? (mountain folk). Played by Tony Lower-Basch
Tabak, the fox. Clan Charsa (miners). Played by Christo Meid
Peyma, the raven. Clan Dothas (mystics). Played by George Austin
guided by the fantastic Aaron
Both squads launch straight into two missions to reclaim ground taken by the Shadow. Our squad attacks a hill with some mysterious standing stones nearby. Lanec charges too far into enemy lines, and Cal and Trull have to close in to back her up. Meanwhile Dalu, an NPC, gets separated. Afterwards Cal asks Ruenti, our Commander, to launch a search party for her. Ruenti refuses.
Reme examines the standing stones and has a vision of Doshan-clan mystics sacrificing a woman. Afterwards, Reme criticizes Trull’s hackwork swordswomanship, and offers some pointers. Meanwhile, Lanec finds Cal and demands she let the squad go after Dalu. Cal calms Lanec down, asserts her authority, and hatches a plan to deceive Ruenti into launching a mission that might help them find Dalu.
Before they can act on it, a wave of Shadow attacks the camp, taking everyone by surprise. Cal quickly hashes out orders, but the situation spins out of control. In the chaos, Reme is wounded and the shadow overtakes Lanec, who injures Cal. Things look desperate, but the squad manages to drive the Shadow back.
After the battle, Cal summons Trull to dress the wounds Lanec inflicted. While Trull treats her, Cal tells Trull to put her sword, a family heirloom, aside, and use a hammer or axe instead. Trull doesn’t take kindly to this and storms off – though she does toss her sword aside on her way out of camp, taking a warhammer as her new weapon.
While the women of the Watch care for the dead, Reme asks Lanec about her clan’s funeral practices. Lanec, still rattled from being overtaken by the Shadow, rebuffs her and tells her it doesn’t matter: clan Thason got overrun so fast they left the dead where they lay. Lanec tells Reme the Shadow possessed her, and Reme, worried Lanec might still be possessed, asks her to disarm. Lanec tosses her sword to the ground in a show of faith. Cal, still bleeding, walks up and tells Reme to back off. Reme responds by critizicing Cal’s handling of the battle, and says something personally vindictive that I honestly can’t remember. Cal attacks her and they both become possessed by the Shadow. Lanec pulls Cal off Reme and throws her down the hill; both regain control of themselves. Cal asks Reme never to speak to her again – and storms off.
Lanec follows Cal back to her tent and asks how they can deal with an enemy that can attack from within. Cal tells her that they can’t beat it, but they can fight it, and the only solution is to keep fighting for as long as possible. Lanec respectfully tells her she wants something better.
Reme, meanwhile, discovers that Trull has left in search of Dalu. Cal asks Reme to take Trull’s sword back to her campsite to preserve the illusion of normalcy, but Reme insists on taking the sword straight to Trull. Reme and Lanec go after Trull and Dalu, while Cal covers for them with command.
SESSION 2
Trull soon finds Dalu in the woods not far away, bound and gagged, surrounded by freaky distorted Shadow warriors. She tosses Dalu a knife and proceeds to draw the Shadow off of Dalu long enough for Dalu to get to her feet. As the shadow close ranks, Reme and Lanec (on a shining white horse, of course) arrive to back her up. Dalu frees herself and the four of them drive off the shadow and return to camp largely unharmed.
They find out that command is sending Cal away, to be replaced by Laustec, who can hopefully discipline the unruly “Mean Girls” squad. Before leaving, she summons Lanec for a private “briefing”. Lanec is surprised to discover this is not a briefing at all but a TOTAL MAKEOUT SESS. But Cal soon has to leave for the other squad.
At this point, the Cal and Lau switch squads and we keep going from there. But this marks a good stopping point for now – expect the second & last entry in a few days.
Note: This is part 2 in a series of retrospectives on running The Sprawl for my local gaming group. I’d recommend you check out part 1 to get some background.
Last week my gaming group and I spent some time establishing a gritty future Detroit, where crime syndicates and mega-corporations loomed large over the downtrodden and destitute. This week, we got to start playing in that rusty, crime filled sandbox.
If I’m being honest, things got off to a bit of a slow start; two of our players weren’t able to make it, and while we had a new player to help backfill, he had to spend some time creating his character. I did my best to keep the group engaged while the new player built up a Tech named Nikki, but I was also spending that time boning up on some of the rules after watching Episode 3 of the Roll20 actual play. Once the new character was up and running, however, things got rolling pretty quickly. While we weren’t able to complete the first mission in the time we had, we all had a blast getting to the cliffhanger I left us on.
The Crew
Three figures slipped out from the sleet and acid rain of the street and into the clamor of the Railyard. They picked their way through the stalls selling cheap imports, the ramshackle restaurants, and the bars carved out of the hulks of long dead train cars; the practiced moves of professional operators marking them as “not to be fucked with” to anyone with the guts to give them a second glance.
For this mission, we had three operators:
Riyoh, the Pusher — a true believer, working her way up through one of the corporations in an effort to bring them all burning down.
Henry, the Killer — “nature’s happy blunt instrument,” to quote the player. Henry is a violence tour-de-force, just looking for a direction.
Nikki, the Tech — a once beautiful woman who lost much of her organic body when the corp her father worked for had him killed. Now she’s out for payback.
While Nikki’s player didn’t get to establish a corporation of his own, he was able to make the world interesting for the entire group by setting up “links” with the other characters.
I didn’t think to highlight the “links” last week when I discussed character creation, but now I feel like they deserve a few words. In standard Powered By the Apocalypse (PBtA) games, characters establish existing relationships with each other by declaring them. In other words, my character Brutus the Barbarian distrusts your character, Melisande the Purple, because she once bewitched me. I declare the existing bond/string/hex, and you fill in some of the details of what your character did with/to/for mine.
This paradigm is reversed in the Sprawl. Instead of telling other characters what they did, you tell the group about a job your character undertook against a corporation, and then you ask the other players if their characters helped. If they did, they describe how, and then they take a “link” with your character. This, like many of the systems in the Sprawl, is very elegant, as it gets around one of the issues my groups often run into when playing games like Dungeon World; namely that you get to declare something about my character, and that takes away a bit of player agency.
As I stated above, “links” also tie into the existential threat of the corporations by letting the players dial in the amount danger they want at the start of a game. It works like this: for each player who declares a job against a corporation, that corporation’s clock advances by one. If every player uses one or two corporations to establish their links, then those corporations will be actively seeking the players out, which opens up plenty of hard moves for the GM. If the players instead spread their links around, then more corps are interested in the characters, but to a much less urgent degree.
The Job
The teahouse was hazy and poorly lit; red and orange light creeping out from underneath cracked glass lamp shades. Sparing barely a look for the hostess, the trio marked their contact in a booth at the back of the rail car; a slender man in a suit 150 years out of fashion, sitting next to a woman who was clearly wired for military action. The man smiled as the group approached. “As-salāmu ʿalaykum. You can call me Mr. Draper. Would you like some tea?”
Hamish Cameron, the author of the Sprawl, recommends that you start your players with a fairly straight-forward mission, and that’s precisely what I set out to do. I decided that one of our syndicates — a local crime outfit turned “legitimate” corporation — wanted to steal some technology from an out-of-town rival. In this case, the Madmen were after some sweet augmented reality blasting hardware from Bud Light Optics, which they would hire the characters to steal. To add a bit of flavor to the standard smash-and-grab setup, I decided that Bud Light would test their new hardware at a free concert, so they could see the effects on a large scale.
Last week I alluded to the structured nature of a play session in the Sprawl, and that extends to the setup, as well. With the job created, I created a simple set of directives — milestones which indicate when the players get to mark experience — and wrote them down with the rest of the prep:
When you take the job, mark XP.
When you decided where and when to make the hit, mark XP.
When you make the drop at the safe house, mark XP.
When you finish the job and get paid, mark two XP.
Writing this stuff down helps me to remember what, exactly, is important in terms of tracking the progress of the mission. It also gives me a very clear reference to look back to, and helps communicate to the players that they are making forward progress; something which is very important when you’ve got this kind of mission-based gameplay.
The last bit of prep I did for the mission was to write a custom move; a little something special that I could hit the players with which would make this mission stand out from any others. In this case, my move had to do with the hardware being tested at the concert:
When you get hit with BUD SPLICE, roll +Synth (Synth being a character stat).
On a 10, you’re fine; your hardware shuts down the ads.
On a 7–9, you’re handling it, but not well; you’re Acting Under Pressure until you can get some time to purge your systems
On a 6-, Bud Light is everywhere; literally everywhere.
That last option ended up tripping me up, as we’ll see in a bit, but overall I was happy with the mission, and we were ready to play.
The devil’s in the details
The trace was coming hard and fast, but she still hadn’t found the file she needed. All of her counter-programs were running at full tilt; the processors in her rig were screaming hot and threatening to turn into melted slag if she pressed any further. A sudden sizzle and pop from meatspace let her know that one of her cores was dead — either burned to a cinder, or destroyed by some corporate ICE. But they were too late; she had found the file. Now all she had to do was disconnect before the trace could lock her down…
When players in the Sprawl decide to accept a job, two things happen:
They roll the “Get the Job” move, which can set up advantages in terms of how much they get paid, how much intel they have about the target, how much they know about their employer, etc.
The initiate and engage in the “Legwork” phase of the mission; that is they role play a series of vignettes where the characters hit up their contacts or do some digging to prepare for the job itself.
Both of these systems are directly tied to the tension of the mission at hand. If the players roll poorly when they Get the Job (and mine did), then they lose out on key advantages — they have no idea what they’re getting in to, they get paid poorly, or worse, someone notices what’s happening.
Similarly, as the players play out the legwork phase, they run the risk of alerting their quarry that something is up. If the legwork clock for the job gets too high, then not only do the characters get paid less; they also start running up the action clock (the clock associated with the “doing shit” part of the mission). If the legwork clock creeps even higher, the corporate clock of the corporation they are acting against ticks up, as well. All of this plays into the over-arching meta-game built into the Sprawl; deciding which risks you are willing to take in the hopes of gaining an advantage later down the line.
This system, which gives players agency over the amount of tension and danger they are willing to deal with, is brilliant. It lets the players decide, in a tangible way, what the priorities are for their characters, and how much they are willing to wager on those priorities. It’s something I’d love to see in other games in some form or fashion.
Our group didn’t spend too much time on legwork. Nikki hit up her uncle, a man who works for Bud Light Optics, in the hopes of getting some intel about the security at the concert, and then followed it up by staking out the concert venue. Henry went sniffing for a street dealer to get some tech for the job, and Riyoh decided to try and do some research about the Bud Light hardware itself. Nikki succeeded at her first roll, and then all three of them failed the subsequent rolls. This let me push the Legwork clock up considerably, which meant that the concert would have heightened security and the action phase would start with one of the clock segments filled.
Now, I will say that I stumbled a bit with this phase; the gist of the system is that characters spend the legwork collecting intel and gear; abstract currencies they can spend during the action phase of a mission to gain bonuses to their rolls. In a nutshell, it allows the characters to have exactly what they need, when they need it, and then retcon why they know that particular detail, or brought along that piece of kit.
While intel and gear are further examples of the elegant systems at play in the Sprawl, their implementation tripped me up a bit. The rules intentionally want these currencies to be vague; if a character needs a smoke bomb, they can spend 1 gear to have brought one along. My players, on the other hand, wanted to seek out very specific things; Henry, for example, wanted a Mission Impossible-style rubber mask. The solution, I think, is to push the players to keep their actions a bit more vague during legwork. It’s something I’m going to have to fine-tune during the next session.
Death Metal
Bud Light knew their business, that was for sure. The promise of free booze and free music had brought out a throng of people; so many that they spilled out of the venue and into the parking lot. Huge virtual screens hovered in the air, making sure that those outside could enjoy same effects people inside were getting. The operators didn’t care; they had a job to do. Things going just as they’d planned, and then two of them dropped off comms as their AR gear barked and spat at them. Without warning, their ware was overloaded with a flood of ads for the latest Bud Light Optics tech and swag; their entire field of view choked off; the noise of the concert completely drowned out by an oppressive corporate jingle that just wouldn’t stop.
Once the characters were through preparing for the mission, it was time to move from the legwork phase to the action phase. Since the players had rolled so poorly during the former, they entered into the latter phase with one or two segments of the clock already filled. This meant that security at the concert, and around the Bud Light hardware, would be stronger than they otherwise would have been. In mechanical terms, this let me bring out some heavy threats for the group to push up against.
Things started simply enough; the characters formulated a three-pronged approach, where-in Riyoh would cause a distraction (and try to push her anti-corporate agenda), Nikki would attempt to cut the power, and Henry would grab the hardware and run. It was one of those plans that could only work in a RPG or cartoon, which meant it was perfect.
Once inside the concert grounds, things didn’t go as smoothly as they could have. While Riyoh got off to a strong start with a couple of great dice rolls, she failed when it came time to lean on her personal goals to sway the crowd. At that point, Nikki was successfully cutting the power, but also drawing lots of attention to herself in the process, and Henry was prepping his trigger finger.
It was at this point that I decided to have Bud Light test their new gear on the crowd, which highlighted some poor planning on my part. Nikki was outside of the venue, and wasn’t affected. Henry rolled a 7–9, so mechanically he just had to deal with some extra rolling to accomplish his tasks. Riyoh had a hard failure to withstand the effects of the BUD SPLICE, and the vagueness with which I wrote the move kept me from putting any meaningful mechanical consequences behind it. I didn’t want her Acting Under Pressure, since that was the consequence of rolling a 7–9. In hindsight, I should have more explicitly spelled out the result of a failure. Instead, I decided to give her a -1 ongoing to some of her rolls. This is another lesson learned; be explicit!
In the end, Riyoh ended up getting carried away by a panicked crowd while Henry was blowing holes in security personnel with his shotgun, and Nikki tried to evade some angry drones who were shooting at her for blowing the power. I felt like that was a good place to end, as we were out of time, and it seems like the players are all anxious to get back to the action and see what happens.
Curtain Call
Machine gun fire raked across the pavilion, biting into her body as she dove behind a nearby transformer. Luckily, they got the metal parts of her, rather than the flesh; she couldn’t afford to lose much more of that.
While the session was a success, I’ve got a few things to tweak, and a few challenges to prepare for before the next game. Namely, I need to handle legwork better, and I’ve got to get some better conditions attached to my moves. I also need to work out a satisfactory way to both bring the current mission to a close, and potentially begin a new one. The Sprawl tells you to try and give your missions (and characters) time to breathe, from a fictional perspective, and I don’t want to bleed this beginning mission into another. This will be particularly challenging if our other two players return, as I don’t want them spinning their wheels while the rest of the group wraps things up. I might have the current characters call on any newcomers as a way to help them with extraction, if that becomes necessary.
In the end, we all had a great time, and I will continue to recommend the Sprawl to anyone who will listen to me. It’s mechanics are really a delight, and a I think anyone looking for something different from the standard PBtA fare would have a great time playing it. Sadly, you’ll have to wait two weeks before I can give you my next play report; I’m out of town for business, so there isn’t a session this week.
Until next time, stay jacked-in, cowboy.
!!! ALERT !!! ALERT !!! ALERT !!!
Incoming emergency response request…
Connection established.
Subject: Terrorist action against marketing project Z100-A34
Message:
Alert. Terrorists have attacked the concert venue being used to test . Request immediate heavy drone support and security response team. Subjects are armed and EXTREMELY dangerous. Multiple final-death casualties. Multiple critically wounded.
Repeat: request immediate heavy drone support and security response team. Special asset usage is authorized. Authorization code .
The Hooded Luchador looks at this week’s Gauntlet League Wrestling show from Portland.
The Hooded Luchador looks at this week’s Gauntlet League Wrestling show from Portland. Non-resurrections, violent offenders, and a dark wind. Part of the Gauntlet Hangout’s full season of World Wide Wrestling. You can see the actual play episode here: https://youtu.be/GYGakoDgj3I
Thanks to all my players of the second Anglekite mini campaign: Michael X.
Thanks to all my players of the second Anglekite mini campaign: Michael X. Heiligenstein Jennifer Erixon josh gary Maxime Lacoste Patrick Brannick ! Campaign 2: the city of the dead had one hell of a transition (emphasis on hell!) into the demons and thieves mini campaign three. I loved how these players dealt with the difficult situations that are a key part of the Anglekite settling. It’s so dark, grim, and scary. But the end is neigh, and the players are struggling hard to prevent it! The Archlich (pictured below) had had no chance to to pull off his plan to transport the living dead to a safe pace, but attempted his best before he was attacked by the thieves guild and stabbed in the back! I can’t wait to see what happens next!
For all lovers of sci-fi games, a new pbta game is in the works: Impulse Drive by Adrian Thoen.
For all lovers of sci-fi games, a new pbta game is in the works: Impulse Drive by Adrian Thoen. If you’re interested, go check out his new G+ community.
Great fun was had with David LaFreniere and Michael X. Heiligenstein in our impromptu game of Dungeon World.
Sometimes in one’s busy life you find a random nugget of precious free time, and what better way to spend in than with some games? Well, that was our opinion anyway. Due to the unplanned nature of the session, I decided to run DW because I’m familiar with it and it lends well to short form play without much preparation. I used a dungeon starter by Isaac Williams called “The Queen’s Heart” to frame our story on and it turned out great: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1261682/dungeon-world/the-queens-heart.pdf
David played Androxous the Obscene, a character I was delighted to see return from a previous game. However, by his own admission, not many would be pleased to see the return of the elven bard, as he leaves mobs of angered priests in his wake through each Steading he travels through.
Michael X played Omar the Thief, a halfling who could be described as suave, debonair, and a little pudgy. In the end he won the Heart of the Queen, but gave it away to save his own skin.
Our fearless heroes won the adoration of a tribe of rabbit-folk after sealing a den of shadow-wolves. Of course, they couldn’t have done it without the help of a pair of stone golems who appreciated their song and dance that both venerated Leelith the Queen of Shadows and mocked her brother Reeth, the Sun God. The racket did, however, manage to draw some of the bloodthirsty dogs out of their den. Omar discoverd that their teeth were in fact real and painful. With the help of brave little Jimmy Red-Fur he managed to get his revenge. Androxous threw some shade-wolf directly into a flaming torch to finish the opposition. It wasn’t graceful, but it got the job done.
The celebration that ensued in the rabbit-folk’s local tavern (named The Flower Patch for the drinks brewed from flowers so ancient that they had begun to ferment) was joyous, indulgent, and quite possibly lewd. Our hungover heroes woke up just in time to intercept a raiding party of froglings who were dragging the soundly sleeping rabbit-folk away in sacks. Omar delivered such a devastatingly existential revelation to General Warty (and his army of six froglings) that he laid down his arms and declared peace with the rabbit-folk, ending their ancient clan war and forgiving them of their long-forgotten crimes.
Together with some more-sober rabbit-folk, the General led our heroes to the center of the Warlock’s Woods, past the poisonous jellyshrooms and up the Warlock’s ensorceled stone staircase (you can only go up backwards, okay?). There they found the sundial altar where the still-beating black heart of the Witch Queen Leelith was chained. When the rabbit-folk and froglings fled in terror, they shared a moment of camaraderie when they realized that they both resorted to hopping to escape from danger.
Androxous explained that the the ruins found in the woods were actually once a temple to the Sun God before His High Priest had been tempted by the Witch Queen’s dark magic. Omar snatched the heart and hid it from the sunlight in a leather pouch. The bard serenaded the heart to placate the Queen as he led the thief through the woods to a macabre marketplace. He revealed that he was a servant of Death Wolf, the last of a line of sorcerers twisted into the hideous form of a gigantic, multi-faced, ravenous wolf. His preferred meal consists of the souls of gods and goddesses that Androxous so loved to mock and insult. With a heavy heart, Omar reluctantly relinquished the living relic to the merchant of death. As a thief, he explained, he found shadows to be very useful for his profession and appreciated the goddess’s portfolio. But he also found his knees very important for his profession, and the crime lord Andrino would make quick work of those if he didn’t settle his debts soon.
The Death Wolf was very pleased with his purchase, and as his three lower mouths viciously tore at the mystic flesh, the fourth, higher mouth spread into a grin, as the torchlight in the cavern underlighting his face grew stronger with every bite.
The session went very well for being spontaneous, thanks to David and Michael’s lively interaction. Bonus points to David for three on-the-spot limericks. Seriously, this guy could be a real-life bard. Hopefully one day we will all find another golden window of free-time to continue the god-hunting adventures of Omar the Free and Androxous the Obscene.
So, I dropped Phillip Wessels Pack of Strays on my gaming group last night and got a few takers (we’re a large…
So, I dropped Phillip Wessels Pack of Strays on my gaming group last night and got a few takers (we’re a large group, usually split into two games. There were three of us, so we decided to try kind of a collab/GM-less thing. That worked pretty well. The issues I had, and maybe we were playing it wrong (?) is that we started introducing other groups who had territories in the city — gangs, faeries, a death cult… and suddenly it wasn’t wolf against wolf anymore. It turned from a game of interpersonal conflict and power struggles to, essentially, Urban Shadows.
The main thing I noticed is that there’s not a mechanic for the GM to make any kind of move against the players, which was especially important in last nights run. Being new to PBTA type games, and having never played Lasers & Feelings or Monsterhearts before, I’m still getting used to the concept of just assigning harm in a conflict.
So, to sum up, my group really enjoyed the game, particularly having a populated city with lists of names and places and smells. I just found that if the conflict extends beyond the pack that things kind of break down. I think this could be really important, because with a pack in tension like this outside pressure could really up the ante.
Just my (and Chuck’s and Marc’s) two cents. So, six cents total. Thanks for the game, we had fun! Also, it’s got me wanting to write an PBTA werewolf hack now, so look for that in the future, I guess.
