I'm a Travelling Man

 It's 2022! How did THAT happen?!

Greetings to anyone who still checks this site. I am still kicking and gaming. I hope everyone has kept safe and sane during all the craziness. I haven't posted much as late because my group and I haven't been playing much D&D. I've been running the group in a new (to me) system for the last 8-9 months.

 

Science fiction gaming is a genre we haven't done much with over the years, so it's an interesting departure. We tried playing classic Traveller back in the day with the little booklets, but beyond the character generation rules (which are a lot of fun), we never really seemed to get a proper game off the ground. Currently, I am running the group through one of Mongoose's published campaigns, The Pirates of Drinax. We've been using online tools like Roll20 to meet and play.

Last year, finding myself with little face to face gaming and a lot of time on my hands (for some reason), I set about picking up some new games and trying to learn them. Of course, true to my grognard roots, I ended up with the latest editions of three games that had been around for decades: Runequest, Call of Cthulhu, and Traveller. 

 

Thus far, I haven't sprung CoC or RQ on the group, though I have run a demo adventure over Discord for some folks on a one-shot server, and I've played a few games of 7th edition CoC. It's been great fun. 

I will also actually be making the trek again to Lake Geneva next month for Garycon. Hopefully, there won't be any "public health issues" to screw that up. I am not a good traveler (See? One 'L', so you can tell I'm not referring to the game. ;-P ). I mislike flying and I am not a fan of being away from my home and family for any length of time, but I generally have a good time at GC. Perhaps I will see some of you there. If anyone is still reading this, that is.

Taint nothing like the Real Thing, Baby.

Sorry! I couldn't resist!

According the DCC RPG rule book, patron taint is decribed as "The spells cast by patron-based wizards eventually take on the aspect of the wizard’s patron." In a nutshell, this is the magical bond between the wizard and the patron bleeding over into the physical world. Usually manifesting when the wizard fails a spell check or similar, representing him failing to control the energies unleashed and having them act on his spell, or himself, in ways defined at least in part by the nature of his patron.

Since Elbaphraxis is a chthonic cloud of eyes, I decided to -aheh- focus on those aspects for the table results. Here goes:

Patron Taint

D4 Result
1 The wizard periodically shifts “out of phase” to onlookers’ eyes. He turns momentarily ghostlike or two-dimensional in appearance as a portion of his being harmonizes with another dimension. This bizarre manifestation is brief enough to dismissed as a trick of the eye, but is still unsettling enough to result in a -1 to Personality. If the result is rolled a second time, it happens with enough frequency to give a -2 to Personality.

2 During spellcasting, shadowy form appears nearby. It appears as an amorphous blob covered in eyes. The eyes look in all different directions and blink lazily. Some are bestial, others are human. If rolled a second time, the acquires 1d6 spectral eyes that float ghostlike around him. They cannot be harmed and convey no useful information to the caster. 

3 The wizard’s dreams are haunted by strange visions of terrifying worlds. He can recall no specifics upon waking but is left greatly unsettled in his mind and feeling poorly rested. He must make a Will Save (DC 10) or his natural healing rate is halved. If the result is rolled a second time, a failed save means no healing occurs from that night’s (or day’s) rest.

4 Elbaphraxis transcends our notions of time and space. One tainted by his essence begins to find their existence less rooted in “reality.” Once a week, the wizard find himself “slipping” from his proper spot. A Will Save (DC 15) resists. A failure indicates the wizard has (Roll 1d3): 1) Teleported 1d100 feet in a random direction (he will not materialize in solid matter, but he can appear up in the air); 2) Moves d20 minutes forward or backwards in time (determine randomly); or 3) plane shift  to the ethereal plane for 1d6 turns. A second roll of this result causes this to happen daily. 

The Mythos: Canon or suggestion?

One of the risks of working with a licensed RPG or setting is the idea that the source material is the final measure of things. In other words, your stories, etc. need to match with what was put down before. You can't put the Shire next to Mordor or give dwarves bazookas and still call it Middle Earth.

Lovecraft is interesting in this regard because despite all the stories, entities, and monsters the whole idea is that people don't know these things' true natures. It gives you a fun springboard to start from.

While I am working with several ideas based on actual "official" creatures for the campaign, I do think I will be homebrewing a few things as well. Another issue with licensed/derivative games is that the players may be quite knowledgeable about "the lore." While good players will avoid metagaming, an obvious tell as to what their dealing with might wreck the suspense.

[I'm deliberately avoiding spoilers here, as a potential player or two might stumble along these posts.]

Behind the Curtain

So the next big question in the assembling of my campaign is What The Heck Is Going On? This entails some spoiler territory, so rather than listing lots of plot details, I'll discuss a little about what goes on in my decision-making process.

Sandbox campaigns (nonlinear or plotless) aren't a good fit here, as there needs to events or mysteries for the investigators to, well, investigate. There needs to be a secret to uncover or a cult to thwart or similar. As the goal here is an ongoing campaign instead of a single adventure, there needs to be some sort of link between adventures. This can be as simple as receiving a new research assignment from the board that oversees your fellowship with no real connection to the previous job, or there can be a thread of common elements that lead the PCs on a progression from start to finish.

The latter certainly has an appeal from a narrative satisfaction point of view, but in my experience complex plots like that can quickly get off the rails. On the other hand, simply dropping the night's adventure in the party's laps can feel rather artificial and "rail-roady."

All aboard the Plot Train!

My theory is to steer a middle course. Events will transpire –barring PC intervention– along a certain timeline and in a certain order. The party will be given direction at least occasionally via the research project plot device, but not constantly. PCs are free to investigate matters on their own, but may find balancing their "normal" responsibilities difficult at times- which is a nice touch of realism, I think.  If things are progressing too quickly, an unrelated mystery may present itself as a break from the main plot. I may limit that a bit, so as to avoid muddying the waters too much regarding the central story.

The mysteries at work in the background will react to the PCs as well. For example, if the bad guys' next step in their plan is to perform some ritual, but the party managed to capture a crucial relic last session. Obviously the cultists will need to get the relic back first.

I have in mind that the "forces of evil" in the campaign are working toward an ultimate goal that is achievable during play. It will be up to the PCs to stop them. Delta Green isn't charging up at the last second to save the day. Thwarting the bad guys will be possible, but not guaranteed and not without a cost. I usually like to give characters a shot at a "clean win," but this is Cthulhu, darn it!

Spookiness, Horror RPGs, and campaign ideas

So, back again.

I don't know if anyone is still reading this blog, but here I are.

I've talked about horror gaming in the past. It's not my usual thing, but I'm way too fond of HPL stories and Warhammer (Fantasy & 40K) to not think about it as a playable genre. With Halloween approaching, it's also not so strange that horror is on my mind.

Lately, I've been re-reading my old copy of d20 Call of Cthulhu. It's really an excellent conversion IMO. The GM section on the Mythos and running a horror game is a must-read regardless of version or system you're using.

In any case, I'm not going to argue the plusses or minuses of the d20 version vs. the BRP rules. My point simply is that I've been thinking about running a CoC campaign. This is a bit of a departure for me, as I normally prefer horror in one-shot doses and I'm more often a player than a GM for things like Cthulhu. Short adventures make is easier to build and maintain suspense. Also not everyone is up for a longer term investment in spookiness. 

All that said, I am going to pursue trying to piece together a framework for a campaign. It might not be sustainable indefinitely, but I'm after something that doesn't just come to a close after the first adventure.

CoC as a system wasn't a given for me. I took a good look at Goblinoid's Cryptworld. It's a nice, compact set of rules, but I'm just not up to speed on the Pacesetter action tables system. Perhaps if Mr. Snider will be so kind as to run a game or two at Garycon next spring, I'll get a chance to see it at work! 

Anyhow, for me that left Cthulhu. I haven't actually decided about BRP (Chaosium's classic rules) vs. d20. I'd like to give the d20 version a spin, but I may get more player buy-in with BRP. We shall see.

Next up on the to-do list was location and time period. Cthulhu defaults to 1920's but that's not set in stone. I'm leaning toward that era to avoid some of the issues with technology short-circuiting (a-heh) certain challenges. Of course it also meshes nicely with the source material.

Next up on my to-do list is a general outline of events. I have cocktail napkin level ideas, but they need organizing.