Dread Zombie follow-up

After talking with my players and getting feedback, I realized the truth in the statement "you are your own harshest critic."

I thought I didn't do a great job giving everyone spotlight time. They seemed to disagree. Most felt like they got enough time to shine and have their character do stuff.

I thought I "shot down" player ideas. They disagreed. Example: a player attempted to leave by the back door. I said that "They" parked a truck in front of it so you can't get out. I wanted to give her something, though, for her effort, rather than just "No you can't go that way" so I threw a clue in the form of overhearing some plans. Afterwards I felt like the clue was too small/lame. She disagreed. "As a player, I didn't expect to get out." And she felt the clue wasn't lame.

I thought the plot seemed slapdash and incoherent. They liked it and were able to follow it. Though they agreed that at times it felt like they were going in circles.

So... overall I'm not going to improve my game's grade (which I gave a B+), but I am going to feel happier about it. It was fun. And that, after all, is the most important part.

That was ... interesting

Just got home from the Zombie game of Dread I mentioned in the previous post. Now I'm trying to figure out if it was a wreck or a success.

First, the most important question: Did I have fun? Yes. I did. Most of the time.
Second, did the players have fun? Yes. I think so.

Cons:
- Half-n-half doesn't work.
I wanted to run an improvised game, but was too nervous to fully commit to said improv game, so I prepared notes and clues and scenes and stuff. But since I didn't want to prepare too much, I only half-prepared. Important lesson: half way between improvised and prepared is a dangerously non-committal game which confuses both players and GMs.

- Silliness.
I wanted to run a more serious game with players more invested in their characters' fates and personal stories. I would say this only succeed at about 33%. Only about a third of the time did I feel like I go to make good use of interesting character quirks, draw out intercharacter relationships, or create clues or scenes based on the characters. I will in no way place blame for this on my players.

I gave each player a few scraps of paper and they occasionally passed me notes, and I passed them notes. In a couple of instances players passed me "hey this would be cool for my character" notes or took me aside to tell me them secretly. Actually, these worked out pretty well. The problem was that I didn't feel like I, as GM, did enough to encourage this and to make sure every player got an opportunity. At least one player got left out of the spotlight the whole game. Sorry, Allie. That was my bad.

- Ran out of ideas
Towards the end I really started to run out of ideas and felt like I was making the players pull for things that were silly. I also felt like my default "I can't think of anything" solution was "hey look, a zombie!" It felt too cheezy after a while.

Pros:
- The players (thankfully) acquiesced to my story premise: you are locked in the building with the zombies and a "clean up crew" is on the way.

- We all seemed to enjoy stealing classic zombie tropes
Someone was already bitten. Someone had been part of top-secret experiments before. There was the classic stereotypical lab. We had some great ripped-from-the-slasher-flicks characters. It was lots of fun.

- The End!
Even though a split party proved a challenge for me, it ended well. One group escaped by helicopter (first character death of the game was a Heroic Sacrifice to take a bullet for the chopper pilot). The other group descended into the secret basement labs, then the sewers.

In the sewers the climactic moment was a series of inter-player conflicts (bid a number of pulls, highest bidder wins, but has to make those pulls) in which one character shot at another (missed), then was attacked by a third character (and died), while the fourth character tried to steal the stolen data and escape (and got shot by the dying first player)!

Overall:
I think I'm going to chalk this one in the "Win" column. I had fun. I'm pretty sure my players had fun. There were some rough spots, but we pulled through. It was silly, but in a campy zombie-flick sort of way. And the mistrust between characters, the paranoia, was palpable and resulted in great end-story conflicts.

If I had to give it a letter grade? B+. Solid effort, clearly there's something there. With a little refinement, a better hold on the reigns, and a clear decision between full improv or full preprepared, this could easily be a solid A game.

Tower Corp: a game of Dread

Dread has to be one of my favorite RPGs. Ever. It does survival horror PERFECTLY. But that's for another post.

Right now I have about 30 minutes until I'm going to run a game of Dread and I am nervous as hell! I'm not normally a nervous GM for RPGs. But this time I am trying two very dangerous things:

1. I'm trying to keep the game largely improvised. That means planning less. That means a scary feeling of no control.
2. I'm running a Zombie plot. Zombie plots tend to be fairly open-ended. And the last time I ran a zombie plot the game felt like a failure (I didn't have fun and from my point of view the players looked bored).

I am terrified and excited and eager for and dreading this game.

Here's hoping it works.

The basic premise:
The players are all employees of Tower Corp. After working late one night they are about to leave when suddenly a strange man (zombie) attacks one of them. The well-meaning security guard insists that everyone stay put until an ambulance and the police arrive. But instead of the police/ambulance, a team of pseudo-CDC types arrives and locks down the building.

They say that a CDC Incident Evaluation Team is on the way, but that's a lie: it's really a "clean up" team who are there to eliminate any witnesses or traces of infection.... with extreme prejudice.

Meanwhile, the players will have to deal with zombies and each other. Hopefully they'll want to investigate the cause/source of the zombies and find it in their workplace.

Dear lord I hope my players are willing to take as many chances as I feel like I'm taking with this.

Session 2

Mostly thoughts about GMing an improv game and the nature of The Armitage Files as such.

To summarize Kyle's input, I'm running the game both too "sandboxy" and at the same time not "sandboxy" enough. Basically, I need to either give the players a lot more leeway, and run with what they do, or I need to more clearly define the boundaries of the plotline.

How to do that?

Bold and __Underline__ and Highlight the major clues and important scenes.

Examples:
Jamie talking to Dr. Clever at the circus - Dr. Clever didn't have information about the topic Jamie was asking about, but he does have other sinister secrets. But I was too wishy-washy through the interaction.

Interrogation of Olaf Olson - there had been fairly strong build-up to this encounter, but the information offered didn't satisfy. Not in a "oh I guess he's not the guy" sort of lack of satisfaction, but more like "The information we did and didn't get, didn't live up to the build." Olaf was supposed to point to the Circus, but I dropped that clue in small type amidst a long list of non-information, dead ends, and little clues. Without the bold highlight, the Circus didn't seem that important.

Something the Armitage Files is missing: Advice on running an improvised campaign or scenario.

Armitage Files does offer a scenario spine worksheet, but doesn't develop that thoroughly enough for Keepers not experienced with running improv or freestyle-like games. I think The Armitage Files would do well to include an article along the lines of The Three Clue Rule.

I really think that I'm starting to learn that I need to have a solid story idea in mind in order to feel satisfied when running a game. Perhaps that's just my inexperience with improvised gaming. Although...

I think what I did after Session 1, I should have done before Session 1. I think, instead of making cards for every entry, I should have made cards for the entries that I wanted to be important, with notes about the important clue elements. That way, if something wasn't important to the story, I could just gloss over it, and in the meantime, the important stuff would be well prepared, and that would serve to boldify, underline, and highlight the relevant clues.

It would seem that it takes MORE work to prepare an improvised game than a pre-written one. I'd have to try running another improv game or two in order to find out for sure. We'll see...

The lesson from this session:

Identify the Major Clues ahead of time, and when they are encountered, put them in BOLD BRASH TEXT. Minor clues, red herrings, and dead ends, should be in regular text or at least clearly defined as alternative plot-lines not necessarily leading to the Grand Conclusion.

But the most important question...Did I have fun?

Yes. Lots.

Armitage Files - Playtesting Session 1

I think this session went very well. I had a lot of fun, and my players did too. We went in and out of humor, but when the in-game goings-on got intense or suspenseful, the mood was appropriate.

Generalities out of the way, here's some details on how I felt about things:
1. I felt less prepared than I would have liked. This is partly due to the nature of how I am going to run the campaign: improvised. I have not run a lot of fully improvised games before (one - as a play-by-post). I was not sure how to prepare, and so I decided on reading and rereading the MANY entries for people, places, and things in the campaign material.
1.a. I made awesome notecards (see below) by typing up very short notes about some of the entries (the ones most likely to be encountered in the first session) and attaching them to old Call of Cthulhu:CCG cards.

1.b. I think those worked out really well, but for the rest of the cards I may try to add more info and leave room for adding notes during play.

2. The material. I feel like there is a lot going on in the first two documents. There are some leads mentioned in passing in the documents that my players picked up on that are not covered in the corresponding document keys (Document 1 examples: the Hornets, the Red Box). This contributed to my sense of under preparation, since I hadn't readied that material.
2.a. I used Olaf Olson's sinister mode. Wasn't sure how to deal with him at the military base. I think I may have mishandled that. Redo? I would have said the military had no record of him, since it hadn't happened yet, and tried to hint later that he wanted to join the military to better/redeem himself?

3. Future plotting. I'm a little nervous about keeping all the details and plot-lines straight. I have audio from the game to review, so that will help. Though I'm a little nervous about maintaining a clear progression.

4. This should have been #1. LISTEN TO WHAT THEY SAY WHEN THEY TELL YOU TO HAND OUT THE DOCUMENTS AHEAD OF TIME!!! This ate up a TON of time and dragged everything down in terms of pacing. Either send it ahead of time (Note to Simon: include with purchase of game .pdf handouts for the documents) or bring multiple copies to the game (Note to Simon: layout the documents so there are not two documents on the same page. ie. use page breaks).

5. The material is excellent, and I can definitely see myself running the same material through a completely different lens and getting another wonderful story. I hope I get the opportunity to!!

-----
Notes added during/after listening to game audio.

Document 1 - The players all felt that the document was very rambling and incoherent (it is! it's supposed to be). But they felt that it was very difficult to weed out the useful/relevant information. I suspect that this problem would be alleviated or minimized by giving the players the documents ahead of time, thus giving them more time to absorb and filter.

Honoré Fragonard

Inspired by the question "Where would your investigator look for information about ghouls?" thread over at Yog-Sothoth.com, I was inspired to look up Honoré Fragonard again. I find the man fascinating and would love to get my hands on any sort of biographical information I can find. Unfortunately it seems there is very little. I think I may have to visit a medical library or similarly specialized library to find much.

In the meantime, I have this biography from the Honoré Fragonard Museum. And there is the French Wikipedia article as well, which I have translated (roughly) for the aforementioned YSDC thread.

What I find most fascinating is that he made his Écorchés not only for scientific purposes, but for artistic and entertainment and money! He sold many to aristocrats to help furnish their Curiosities Cabinets.

And then when he tried to collect all of his works in one place he was foiled! People, both of science and the aristocracy, wanted them too much to see them displayed in a museum. So there are only 21 specimens that have survived at École National Vétérinaire d'Alfort, and one or two other at other museums and universities. But he made around 50 or more! Where are those other 30?

Keeper's Cupboard 4 - FINISHED!

I just finished doing the layout and converting to a .pdf file! Woohoo! I'm just waiting on PoC regarding permission for some art, and then I'll send it off to Ye Olde Yoggie.

I think this scenario is almost good enough to be published. The audience is a little too specific to have universal appeal, so I think I'll pass on trying to submit it to any RPG companies (let them come to me!). So it should be available soon on www.Yog-Sothoth.com. We shall see!

Great Morning

First: Last night's dream

I don't remember much, except that I was on an archaeological expedition in Egypt when I suddenly found myself hiding in a very narrow cave. It was quite wide, but so short that I had to lay flat on my stomach. Hiding in the cave with me was an older man and his daughter who was blind. I started talking to the girl in French, Hebrew, Arabic, Spanish, and German. In real life I'd only be able to hold a decent conversation in French, use minimal halting Hebrew, and say "hello" in any of the other languages. Somehow in this dream I was fluent in all of them.

The next scene I can remember was the girl leading me into an underground complex as we fled from the Black Wind avatar of Nyarlathotep. We were fleeing underground in search of the Dark Mother (Shub Niggurath) to seek her aid in defeating Nyarlathotep and prevent the end of the world. The only other inhabitants of the cave were strange hulking monstrosities with huge mining drills as arms.

We found Shub Niggurath on a metal catwalk spanning a deep lava-filled chasm. She was an old wizened woman, stooped over, and looking very feeble. Yet when we intoned the proper prayer (I wish I could remember the words!) she grew to an immense height, filling the cavern with her presence. We felt, rather than saw, Nyarlathotep's avatar fleeing from the power of Shub Niggurath, racing for the exit of the cave. As the girl and I also fled, fearing a collapse of the cave, we sealed Nyarlathotep inside. The last image before I woke up was one of an invisible fist desperately clawing at the cave walls, only managing to strike twice before Shub Niggurath dispelled the evil.

Where did this dream come from? Most likely a combination of things. Nyarlathotep likely appeared because I've been listening to the Yog Radio podcast audio game of "Masks of Nyarlathotep." Shub Niggurath was probably conjured from my reading HPL's "The Whisperer in Darkness." The drill-bit monsters seemed remarkably similar to the "Big Daddys" in BioShock on the Xbox 360. But where did the girl come from? And my polyglot abilities? And the thematic good v. evil elements of the dream?

It was truly a great adventure of a dream, very exciting and enjoyable and it left me in a good mood when I awoke.

Then, this morning I found out that one of the captions I had submitted in the Pelgrane Press Caption Competition made it to the final four! So vote for #3 Here.

Keeper's Cupboard 4

I'm very excited about how this episode of The Keeper's Cupboard (KC) is coming along. I gave myself a great prompt, based on the theme of Yog-Radio 30: A 10th Anniversary tribute scenario for Yog-Sothoth.com. From that prompt I've got a fun scenario concept. Now I just have to get down to the nitty-gritty "work" part of writing.

I've laid out the clues, the "what's going on," and general motivations for NPC's. What I need to do now is arrange/place the clues and create a well-defined storyline that will be clear enough for other Keepers to follow, and with enough clues and mystery to be fun and intriguing for players.

Once I've got that, I'll send a copy off to a few people for proof-reading and playtesting. I want this to be ready to release by June 15th (YR 30 is tentatively slated for mid-late June) so that I will have enough time to record the audio for KC #4 and get it to PoC with enough time for him to get it into YR 30.

Any RPG writers out there with tips, tricks, suggestions, feel free to contact me. I could use the help ;-)

Ageing my book

Thanks to Altricaj over on YSDC for the link to a website that turns new photos into old-timey wonders. My book of the Yellow Sign looks much more impressive 80 years ago, don't you think?

D&D in honor of E. Gary Gygax

I just learned his first name was Ernest. He seemed like a friendly guy and it's a shame he's gone. Yes yes, I know it's late to talk about this as it happened over a week ago, but tomorrow I'll be running a session of Basic DnD, first ed. both to honor Mr. Gygax, and to try to recapture the fun I had playing AD&D 2nd ed. as a kid.

I will be running Palace of the Silver Princess (B3), which I downloaded from the Wizards of the Coast website. It seems like a pretty basic dungeon crawl with some good tricks. We'll have a small group tomorrow (DM + 2 players) because two players had a schedule conflict. That's ok, we'll play next time (I'm excited to get started on Harris' Unknown Armies campaign).

Saturday Night's Alright for Frightening

This past Saturday I had the opportunity to play in a one-off RPG hosted by Dan Bayn. The scenario was titled "Project Blackwood" and was introduced as "Four college students go into the Virginia woods to shoot a movie. A year later, their footage was found. (Maybe also their mangled corpses. We'll see how it goes.)" Sound familiar?

Yes. The premise was quite similar to that of The Blair Witch Project, but with a significant twist. Instead of a ghostly-horror witch thing, the scares came from a couple different directions.

The first element of horror came from, as Dan put it, the "multiple layers of reality." Our characters were college students producing a fake documentary, but each character had a role to play in said film. For example: my 'mormon boyscout with wilderness survival skills' played the role of 'the arrogant frat boy who gets himself killed' in the film. Already there is a difference between who I am, who my character is, and who his role is. It offered some excellent role playing opportunities.

The horror in those layers came from trying to distinguish the scares created by the director of the film (i.e. "fake" scares), and threats from outside forces ("real" scares). Early in the game we attributed most of the surprises to the director, even though in a few cases we were wrong. Later in the game, everything was real whether the director had anything to do with it or not.

For example: on the first night, when my character saw the words "go away" burning brightly on the side of a hill he assumed it was the director (wrong). The next day when the characters entered the cave and saw that the walls were red and wet, Becky tasted some of the wet liquid on the floor and discovered it was blood. The characters assumed the blood on the walls was not the director's doing (wrong, it was). Later it turned out that the blood on the floor that Becky had tasted was really the Director's blood, that he had been murdered.

So the layers added to the horror at the end, when we were able to see them all at once.

The other source of excellent terror was the monster of the night: the Mi-Go! It's too bad it's a few months late for the HPLHS competition which asked the question "What are the Mi-Go up to in the hills of West Virginia?"

In any case, it was a lot of fun to see how the final scene played out. My character, having gone from pretending to be the leader to the now survival-driven boyscout, saw the Brain Case as the only hope of escape - especially after both of his arms were clipped off at the elbow by the Mi-Go. Becky fought to the end, getting scissored in half by the giant claws. Zack similarly fought to the death.

The ending scene was great. Fade out on the cave of carnage and fade in an off-colour, grainy image of the Mi-Go adjusting something like it's leaning over you. Then the Mi-Go turns and walks away, while my character's voice screams "no! Wait! Come back!" The camera pulls back, revealing a brain cylinder, newly plugged-in, and the monster walking away down a corridor lined with similar objects.

Notes for Halloween LARP

I know. The term LARP scares a lot of people. But in this case it's really more of a murder-mystery party with a group of people a little more excited about getting into character.

The theme is Hasturian (my favorite!) and the title is "Last Night in Carcosa." Which I assume means the last night in Carcosa, not what happened last night.

So far, this is what I know about my character:
Name: Vega
Occupation: Executioner
From Dan, the Host:

"You've got a lot of wiggle room when it comes to characterization. His thing is that he's fed up with being a tool of oppression and he's turned to the occult in his quest to restore some sanity to the throne. His schedule for the evening includes a human sacrifice; he's just trying to decide who it's gonna be.

There are a lot of directions you could take Vega. At Gen Con, I gave him to a guy with a big, Erron Flynn style, feathered cap and he was the most effeminate executioner ever... but it made him really, really creepy :)"

I didn't want to play Vega as the stereotypical isolated executioner in a black hood, so I did some research. On wikipedia I found the perfect character: Giovanni Battista Bugatti. "When not carrying out his official duties, Bugatti and his wife sold painted umbrellas and other souvenirs to tourists."

So I'll take that and add in an element of sadism and depravity. A source of inspiration came from wikipedia's list of methods of execution. Although, this did lead to the discovery of a very disturbing bit of writing. Using my initial impression of Vega as a socio- or psycho-path, mixed with Bugatti, I think I will end up with an excellent character.

Borrowing a bit from last year's LARP in which a Blue Sun engineer handed out mysterious mints throughout the evening, I might bring a bag of black rocks as my "business card." Then let everyone know that my favorite method of execution is stoning or crushing by stones. (Although for sickness sake, I think sawing would make the character a bit more frightening).

Since there is the bit about Vega trying to figure out who his human sacrifice will be, perhaps I will use the stones to decide who will be my victim. If I give a stone to everyone, then the victim will be the person who does not get a stone or the person from whom I reclaim the stone I gave them. Or perhaps I will simply give stones only to those people I am considering for the sacrifice.

In the past few days I have been listening to Acting with an Accent to develop an Italian accent. So far it has been a lot of fun. However, if I don't feel that I have a good enough accent by the time of the game, I won't use it. Better to have no accent than to have a bad one that detracts from the character. I think a good Italian accent would make the character seem intriguing and friendly up front, which would allow the appetite for torture to stand out in stark contrast and have a greater impact.

As for costume:
I still need to get a mask. Any suggestions for style or specific masks?
I would like to get a couple umbrellas that I could bring with me to sell or use as props.
I need to find a pouch and rocks.
Since the wikipedia article describes Bugatti as well-dressed, I am considering wearing my suit. Although finding some fancy robes or something similar might be fun too.

In case you couldn't tell from the long post, I'm very excited about this upcoming party/game. I'll post a game recap/review after all is said and done.

Dread

I played my first game of Dread last night. I was host and ran the plot "Beneath a Metal Sky" found in the back of the book. The first surprise came when I found out that not everyone in my gaming group had seen the movie Alien. But the biggest surprise was how much fun it was.

I never had any doubts that I would enjoy the game. I was, however, concerned that others might find the game mechanic (Jenga tower) too gimicky. On the contrary, at the end of the game one player remarked cleverly "The game mechanic is such that the terror actually builds." As host I tried to narrate what challenges the character was trying to overcome while the player was pulling a block. I did this primarily for two reasons. It filled the time and provided a link between the time it took to pull a block and the time it would take to accomplish the task. For the few pulls where I didn't narrate, other players interrupted with humor. I didn't bother to try to stop them, because I wanted a fun game. If that meant the game wasn't as 'scary' I was ok with that.

One thing that definitely did not surprise me was how much the plot changed from what was written. I want to let my players do what they want as long as it makes sense. It made sense for them to shoot the one man who could operate the escape pods on the Auerbach. After all, he had just shot and killed a member of their crew. They didn't really uncover the whole truth, but that was partly my fault. I wasn't very clear on how much information I should give them and where.

There were a few good answers on the questionnaires. The first one made me go "oh cool" right off the bat when I read it. One player decided that the thing his character feared most was "hallucinations" or a general loss of the ability to believe his senses. This was perfect, as the radiation levels on the Auerbach would tend to cause that to happen if the group were exposed to the elements. Unfortunately, the crew came well-equipped with exploratory suits. Another memorable answer did not become apparent until late in the game. On the captain's questionnaire it asks "what food that most people like can't you stand?" The player intimated that the captain had survived a ship-wreck that left most people turning to cannibalism to survive. So the food he couldn't tolerate was ribs. At first I thought it was mere silliness and almost made him change his answers. But I wanted to let my players do what they want as long as it made sense. He explained it. It made sense. Then later when the crew encountered one of the strange zombie-like monsters, the fear of cannibalism and disgust with ribs came into play. The tower almost fell as the captain tried to maintain his composure.

I hope that the players would be willing to play another session of Dread, this time with a home-brewed plot line. I know that I'm hooked. The only trouble I foresee is the lack of continuing characters from session to session. Perhaps if I were to adopt a more consistent time-line or plan a more longterm storyline. Depending on how characters exited the game, they could be brought back in another session. Hmm....

Getting Nerdlier

Lately I've been getting even more nerdly. If that is possible. Perhaps it is my nigh-constant self-exposure to YSDC. I keep listening to their podcasts and wanting to make something like it. I think my nerdly heart knows no satiety. I am always longing for ten more minutes of nerditude. One more post on the forums. One more session of gaming. One more chance to write a great story.

Perhaps I will someday... soooooon!

Backstory for Dr. Phillip Gabroman

The Symposium on Unknown History is a world-renowned event held once every four years. This year The Symposium is being hosted by the Erwight Raleigh Museum of Natural History and features an expert on the subjects of sunken continents and ancient lore: Dr. Phillip Gabroman (b. 1943).

Dr. Gabroman earned all of his three PhD’s from Miskatonic University in 1962 at the age of 19: making him the youngest graduate to earn three PhD’s at once. The more illustrious universities – Yale, Harvard, Dartmouth – only recognize one of his degrees: Ancient Mythology. He has been on many expeditions to exotic locations, including a National Geographic documentary in search of the lost continent of Mu at the age of 23.

The documentary was a complete failure and Dr. Gabroman became the laughing stock of academic society and was left bankrupt. He disappeared in early 1967 and resurfaced in 1988: in Peru. A missionary group was decommissioning a corrupted and neglected Spanish colonial-age sanatorium and bringing the patients to America for study and treatment. He was found, delirious, in the depths of a basement yammering and gibbering.

For six years he had been kept locked in the darkest most isolated cell while his mind purged itself through hell-fire. The pale, emaciated, scholar’s broken mind conjured up terrifying images and summoned the most inhuman screams from his tortured soul until his voice gave out. The staff completely ignored him, except for the rare feeding. He was alone with his terrible thoughts and his mind slowly cleansed itself while his body was ravaged by the effort.

After spending an additional two years institutionalized in America, Dr. Gabroman was deemed mentally fit to reenter society. He maintained a fairly low profile, scratching at the poverty line by writing hokey “non-fiction” about lost lands – like Mu – featuring bland cliché plots stolen from the pulp magazine “Weird Tales.”

In 1988, the aging Doctor was invited to speak at a science-fiction convention in Boston. His lecture on the lost continent of R’lyeh shattered even the strongest theories. Dr. Gabroman provided undeniable proof that over the millennia, the lost continent had shifted and was located somewhere in the Gulf of Mexico.

The Doctor was granted an Associate Professorship at Miskatonic University and spent the next 17 years utilizing the university’s vast library and resources to continue his research.