Projection in Delta Green

One thing I love about Delta Green is the bond mechanic.  In purely mechanical terms, agents have bonds with loved ones, which can be used as ablative sanity armour - when you lose sanity, you can choose to project onto a bond, and reduce the sanity loss at the expense of reducing your connection with that person.

True Detective series 1 illustrates this pretty well.  At the start of the show, in 1995, Hart has a wife and children, while Cohle has nobody.  By 2012, Hart has all but destroyed his relationship with his family, but is still pretty much keeping it together, while Cohle, with no bonds to project onto, has gone entirely off the rails.

We've just finished playing the superb Delta Green adventure Viscid, and when I fumbled a sanity roll that I really didn't want to fumble, I decided it was time for a bit of bond projection.  I didn't have much time to think about the implications of it at the time, but after a bit of thought it's all making sense to me.

Minor spoilers for Viscid below.

---

Emily had never stopped loving John.

Their marriage hadn't worked out; it had been a struggle even before the incident and impossible afterwards.  Divorce had been a relief.  But it turned out that without the pressure of being his wife, it was easy to be his friend.

She didn't think about her home life while working.  Even her regular work put her in contact with the worst of humanity, and then there were the special jobs.  Like this one, which had already claimed the lives of two of the team.

And then that...thing, that creature of flesh and slime that somehow still had enough brain to remember a name and enough mouth to call it out, came crawling into the house.  She'd kept it together before, out by the trailer, determined not to embarrass herself in front of Matt and Glenn.  But this time, knowing what - knowing who - this time she couldn't.  And as she ran she thought of John.

There was nothing to be afraid of, she told herself, even as she went stumbling out of the house and into the garden.  Just a man, scared and confused, looking for his wife.  Just like John had called out for her in the hospital.  And then Glenn was there to unpeel her fingers from the gas can that had somehow seemed so vital to hold onto, and once she knew that the creature was gone for good she started feeling a little better.

But the trouble was, now she'd made the association between that creature and John, she couldn't forget it.  Every time she saw him, every time she spoke to him, every time she so much as thought of him, it was there.  In her nightmares it was her name that the creature called out, and John's voice with which it spoke.

Emily still loved John.  But, she couldn't help wondering, for how much longer?

Dungeon Crawl Classics Revisited

My first experience of DCC was at a convention, back when they still happened face to face, and it wasn't great.  While my normal convention experience ranges from good to great, this was merely OK.  I can think of three factors that contributed to that:

• The GM planned for 4-6 players and only two of us signed up.
• I'm quiet, the GM was a little hard of hearing, and the room was loud due to a group coming in to play video games so we struggled to communicate.
• I'd never heard of a funnel before so had no idea what was going on with these multiple character sheets or how any of it was supposed to work.

So I figured I owed DCC a second shot, and when a friend offered a one-shot of Creep, Skrag, Creep! I decided to give it a go.  This time I knew what a funnel was, we had the four players the GM had planned for, and...well, we had some internet problems so maybe the sound wasn't all it could have been, but at least we could all hear each other.

The adventure itself is a fun horror-themed scenario, which I suspect takes some inspiration from the Alien franchise.  One of my peasants was dead within five minutes.  Another followed shortly afterwards.  Since one thing I did like about the previous DCC game was the big red stamp the GM used on dead characters, I decided to improvise with MS Paint:

Going in knowing what a funnel was certainly improved the experience, and I was impressed by how the GM handled the fact that there were quite a lot of PCs in play, even after the initial massacre.  There's definitely fun to be found in attempting to guide your team of hapless potato farmers through a situation they're entirely unequipped to deal with, and a feeling of victory when any of them make it out alive.

That said, I doubt I'll sign up for many more funnels.  They're good for an occasional bit of fun, but not really what I'm looking for most of the time when playing an RPG.  I wonder what the game looks like once you're playing a character with levels rather than a random peasant though.  I've seen the core book and it's enormous - there has to be a lot more in there than what I've seen so far.

It looks like I'm going to have to revisit DCC at least once more to really get a feel for what it's like.  There's a massive DCC Humble Bundle currently available though, with a bunch of level 1 and higher adventures, so maybe I'll get the chance.

The Path to Eden, episode 8: Knightfall

 Venno's audience were unusually quiet.  Rumours had been flying that this episode would be particularly terrifying.  He smiled.  They had no idea.

"The people gathered for an assembly.  With work almost complete on the temple and the sundial, it was time to start on some new projects.  Puzzle Paul was the first to speak up.  The Fellowship were bringing back artefacts, and he was sure that a museum to display them in was an excellent idea.  Despite a shout of 'No museum!' from the back of the crowd, the motion was approved.

Then Boss Johamed spoke up.  His lads wanted somewhere they could have a bit of fun.  They'd read all the holy books, and they wanted a tavern, like the Prancing Pony.  And furthermore, if they were going to have this museum, they were going to need to be ready for troublemakers showing up to steal them.  They needed a wrestling cage to practice fighting.

Scraggy Maggie was worried about the cannibals that the Fellowship had encountered.  She didn't think the fighting practice was enough.  They needed proper defences.  She hadn't wanted to keep living on sourdough starter, and she didn't want to get eaten either.  That seemed like quite enough to be going on with, and the assembly broke up so everyone could get to work.

Zippo decided he'd had quite enough of trying to work on the temple, and was going to do something he was good at.  He effortlessly interpreted the Ikea instruction manual and soon had the sundial set up and ready to go.

Silas headed for the tavern site, directing people in the proper layout of the building.  Not many people were actually listening to him.

Quin wanted to do some physical work rather than all this people stuff, and went to the temple.  Some solid hard work later, everything was in place and the temple was complete.  At last, Zippo's ears would be safe from Briktoria's anger.  She was now free to collect rocks for her slingshot.

Lenny was planning on working on the temple, but on finding that it was already finished, he headed for the tavern site instead.  There he found Silas directing people to run around like prancing ponies, not getting very far.  He pulled out his shovel and got to work.  By the time he finished, his shovel wasn't quite what it once was, but the tavern was close to completion.  Zippo got on the case, screwing it back together.

After seeing her artefact bow get broken, Katin was keen to ensure that that kind of thing didn't happen again.  She made her way to the site of the museum, much to Silas's disapproval, and got to work guiding the arrangement of exhibits.  Once she'd put in a decent amount of work, she headed over to the Seven Sisters cult to see how Eriel was getting on and when the hobbit was likely to arrive.  She was still getting sick a lot and sourdough starters were not agreeing with her.

Silas went to have an argument with Puzzle Paul on the subject of museums.  After a prolonged debate in which no agreement was reached, things were getting serious.  They both reached for their notebooks for an epic note-off.  At last, Silas slammed the door as he left, resolving to him him with the notebook next time.  But it wasn't long before he had another idea, and started putting up posters about how the museum was heretical and Puzzle Paul was lying to the community.

Meanwhile, Eriel was berating Katin for her ongoing failure to find a hospital.  Why hadn't she found one yet?  Maybe she could find a surgery as well?  Katin had no idea what that was.  Neither did Eriel.  But maybe if Katin could get her a hospital, she would stop blaming her for the death of Eriel's sister.

Katin ran away to cry.  Zippo, on his way to give Lenny his shovel back, spotted her and went to comfort her.  Together they went looking for Lenny, but they actually found Quin.  There was some disagreement over whether or not Ork was a good boy, and the hunt for Lenny resumed.

Lenny was up doing guard duty near the entrance, and had found some of Silas's posters.  He wasn't impressed.  They looked a bit heretical.  Silas explained his concerns, bringing up the recent damage to the temple, but Lenny pointed out that that was heretickal, with a k.  Silas still had a lot more say though, and the argument was still ongoing when suddenly night turned to day as the sky outside lit up.

Katin, Silas and Quin ran for the surface.  Silas dived for cover, only emerging once the light had died away.  Something had fallen from the sky - maybe it was the work of Sauron?  Perhaps his eye was passing across them?  Zippo thought it had landed somewhere beyond Alexandra's Tower.  Maybe they should go and investigate in the morning?

Katin's attention was drawn to the heretical posters on the wall.  Who had put them up?  Silas claimed not to have seen who put them up.  Ork sniffed the poster and Silas.  Katin told him he was a good boy, gave the poster a sniff herself, and turned to Silas.  Why was he putting up heretical posters?  Lenny took the poster down, and threatened that if he found any more, he would stuff them down Silas's trousers.

The next morning, Silas, Quin and Zippo were awoken by cheering and the voice of Briktoria.  She had a plan to take a group to the site where the Eye of Sauron had fallen, to destroy Mordor.  Eriel was amongst them as the group headed to the Ark's exit.  Zippo's best efforts did nothing to dissuade them.  The crowd soon awoke Katin, who went straight to look for Lenny.  They joined the effort to turn them back.  They didn't have a ring.  And there were supposed to be only nine of them.  It was in the holy book!  And they might have a hobbit with them but it was still inside Eriel, and the health and safety manual was quite clear about how pregant people shouldn't go out on expeditions.

Finally Briktoria was persuaded.  The Fellowship would go out, supplied with some waybread and water.  They headed out, with Silas surreptitiously dropping some fliers on the way out.

There was an unpleasant smell at Alexandra's Tower, coming from the place where they'd found the hanging bodies.  Katin advised everyone to stay away from that part and head for the higher parts of the building.  While Quin scouted to make sure there were no cannibals still lurking, Katin looked out over the area where the Eye of Sauron had fallen.  In the middle of the crater she could see something moving around, and the best, least rot-contaminated way to get there.

The big shiny thing required further investigation.  Was it an olyphant?  They needed a closer look.  Quin offered to sneak her way in and see what she could find.  The thing she found looked rather like a troll, but a metal troll instead of stone.  It looked like it was hunting or looking for something.  She didn't think Ork would be able to hurt it, and Katin agreed that arrows would just bounce off.  Quin was sure it wasn't friendly, so talking wasn't an option.  What were they going to do?

Silas wanted to get a look at it.  Quin offered to take him, on the condition that he was quiet.  Silas wasn't sure he could promise that.  Quin agreed, but said that if he wasn't quiet, he would be in front of her.  He decided it was worth it.

The creature he saw was unlike anything he had ever set eyes on before.  A huge monster, covered in metal.  He had no idea what it was, but perhaps talking to it would be helpful.  But even as he reached that conclusion, Quin and Katin were reaching a very different conclusion.

Katin had seen something like this before, in one of the pamphlets from the Box of Lost Prophecies.  It was called a knight, and was made by covering a person in lots of bits of metal.  They would then be used in fights.  They were very dangerous.  And Silas was about to try to talk to it.

Quin wasn't quite so sure what it was, but she recognised it as something dangerous.  She started trying to talk Silas out of getting any closer when Ork drew her attention to another person in the area.  A cannibal.  And then the creature spoke, in a strange unnatural voice.  'Mutants must die.'  And then a beam of light shot out of its arm and the cannibal was instantly vapourised.

Silas found that a very convincing argument, and the three of them quietly left.  If that thing came anywhere near the Ark, they were really going to need those defenses.  They discussed how it could be stopped.  Perhaps the knight was a Nazgul?  In which case they would need the right prophecy to know how to kill it.  Maybe it could be stopped by a river?  Or by some of Zippo's bombs?  One thing was certain: if Briktoria came here, she would die.

Katin took a look around at the local area on either side of the crater.  To the west she saw a building, covered with strange structures of rusty metal rings.  And to the south she saw what seemed to be an underground carriage that had burnt up after falling from the sky.

The first seemed like a good place to find useful items.  Katin had confirmed there were no threats here, with anything unpleasant having presumably been scared away by the Nazgul.  And so they set out once again, in search of the treasures that might lie within."

Always leave them wanting more.  Venno smiled again as he walked away.

Gumshoe and Me

Within the next week I should have my hands on a print copy of Casting The Runes, an RPG based on the ghost stories of M. R. James. As a huge James fan I'm pretty excited about this.  As a kickstarter backer I've already got the pre-production PDF so I've already had a good read.  With the print copy of the adventure, The Secret of Chimneypots already in my hands, I've been taking another look at the PDF in preparation for the arrival of the print.

There's only one thing I'm not sold on regarding this game and that's its use of the Gumshoe engine.

I've played Gumshoe games before (Bubblegumshoe and Night's Black Agents) but they never really clicked.  I thought that I wasn't quite getting the system.  But reading Casting The Runes, I've realised that it's not that I haven't got my head around it. I understand it OK. I just don't enjoy it.

I don't like not rolling dice for the investigative abilities. I understand the design principle that the game is about interpreting the clues, not finding them, and the way that the players should always be able to find the core clues.  However, I prefer the approach Liminal takes, where if you're searching for a key clue and fail the roll, you're still going to find it but there's some negative consequence.  Imagine you're searching an office for a letter.  You suspect it's in a hidden drawer but fail the awareness roll.  You still find the drawer, but you make so much noise trying to brute force the thing open without having located the trigger mechanism that you attract the attention of the owner of the office.  Now what do you do?

I can see the merits of both approaches, but the latter is the one I find more fun.

I don't like pool spends for the general abilities.  Having to gamble on how many points to spend on something before you've rolled and without knowing what target number you're aiming for isn't fun for me.  It's stressful.  When I roll dice I like to have some grasp of  how likely I am to succeed, and I never have that in Gumshoe.  Constrast with Call of Cthulhu, where I know exactly what my chances of success are, and while luck is a finite resource, I don't have to spend it until I already know how well I rolled.

I like tension and uncertainty in investigative horror, but I like it to come from the unpredictability of dice rolls, not whether I happened to pick an appropriate point spend.  And I can absolutely see how that aspect might make for a more thrilling game for someone else.  It's just not my kind of fun.

It's time to accept that Gumshoe and me don't get on.  The issues could certainly be mitigated; the rules allow for 'toll tests' where you do know the difficulty and can spend points after the roll.  Simply doing all general ability rolls that way would remove a lot of what I don't enjoy.  Including some kind of roll to investigative abilities if there's a potential for negative consequences would also add some extra interest, although that would be mathematically more complicated to handle.  All of this does require that the other players and the GM are all on board with the changes.

I intend have a shot at running Casting The Runes as written, using the pre-written adventures and maybe the above rules modifications.  However, I rather suspect it's going to join Serenity as a game I use for its setting material rather than its system.  The question is, which system do I use?

Call of Cthulhu is the obvious choice, as the classic game of investigating occult mysteries.  The time period is slightly different, but not so much as to require significant changes to skills, and the stereotypical James antiquarian protagonist is near enough to a Lovecraftian librarian to be confident we're going to end up with similar types of character.

Cthulhu Dark is another good option.  The rules-light system requires effectively no conversion, and the focus on narrative over combat is very fitting.  The idea where if you actively take on the horrors you will die certainly works thematically.

Liminal, despite being a modern day setting with a lot of explicitly supernatural character options, is also a contender.  It shares what I consider Gumshoe's strong point - a focus on abilities over attributes - and while the thematic differences would require more work to overcome, with such a simple underlying mechanic it's certainly possible.  It's my favourite game for doing investigative scenarios, so could be worth the effort.

To me, Christmas is just as much a time for spooky tales as Halloween, so whatever rules I end up using for it, I hope to get Casting The Runes to the virtual table very soon.

The Path to Eden, episode 7: There and Back Again

Chronicler Venno's audience were once again eagerly awaiting the next episode.  Not such a cliffhanger this time, but with so many injuries, who knew what might happen?

"Zippo and Katin dashed to Lenny's aid, Katin keeping Lenny distracted while Zippo attempted to set his broken leg.  An enormously stressful experience for him, seeing his friend in so much pain as he treated the wound, but ultimately a success.  Lenny would be OK - eventually.  The two of them celebrated briefly, before moving on to Silas.

This didn't go quite so well.  Zippo already wasn't feeling great after seeing far too much of the inside of Lenny's leg, and Katin wasnt much help.  For now, the crossbow bolt stuck in Silas would have to stay there.  Perhaps he could use it as an extra arm?

As they discussed getting some sleep and hoping they felt better in the morning, Zippo was distracted by the sound of yapping.

'Ork!'

'Where?  Where?  Oh, that Ork.'

It was a dog.  A dog they all recognised.  And he seemed to want something.

'What's that, Ork? Someone's trapped down a well?'

While Lenny ate some more stew, Katin and Lenny followed Ork to a door at the back of the room.  Pushing it open they found bodies.  Lots of them, hanging from the ceiling, and several with clear signs of having been carved.

'Lenny, don't eat the stew!'

'Too late.'

In amongst the bodies was one who was still alive.  Ork's handler, Quin.  In a flash, Zippo and Katin were at her side, cutting her down to take her back with them to the fire.  Silas began to come round just as Quin was also waking up.

'Quin!  It's so good to see you again.'

While Silas removed the bolt from his own chest, Quin explained how she had got there.  She'd been out searching for junk and anything else that Zippo could use to get the temple and the sundial done faster, so that Briktoria would stop pulling on his ears.  Not that she had a problem with his ears.  Quite the reverse, in fact.  And she'd met these people who she thought were going to help, but instead had hung her up in their larder.

Zippo collected up weapons from the fallen enemies, and handed them out.  Scrap spears, good for poking people while out of arm's reach.  Also useful as crutches while Lenny and Silas needed help walking with their broken bones.  What was left of what Quin had found out here was a flat basketball and a picture showing two people and 2.4 hobbits.  Perhaps it would look nice in the temple?

While the others got some sleep, Zippo sat down to talk to Quin.  He was concerned about her putting herself in danger.  Quin tried to reassure him that she had Ork to look after her.  And between that and some sleep, he started to feel better.

The next morning, everyone was feeling significantly better, broken bones notwithstanding.  Zippo took on the challenge of repairing Katin's artifact bow, but was so confused by its complex construction that he completely destroyed it.  Fortunately, he'd given Katin the crossbow he'd taken from Malcolm the night before, so she wasn't too angry about it.  And Silas's scrap bow proved significantly easier to repair.

While Zippo was at work, the others went to do a bit of exploring.  With Katin taking the lead, they managed to hunt down a small number of bullets, plus some rot-contaminated food that wasn't made of people and which could be cooked into something edible back at the Ark.  Next they tried climbing upwards in search of a good vantage point to get a look at the nearby area, just in case the red cross symbol the elf had told them about was visible.  But getting a really good look was going to take time, and Katin was worried about Lenny.

The five of them (and the dog) set out once more, and a few hours later they were all safely home.  It was time to do some work.  Katin and Silas worked together on the sundial, getting quite a lot more completed, although the words of the great prophet Ikea remained too confusing for Katin.  Quin, Lenny and a reluctant but resigned Zippo made their way down to the temple.  The damage done by saboteurs was restored and more progress made.  Perhaps with a little more work both projects would soon be completed?"

There was a small murmur of disappointment that the story was over, but the fact that he was not leaving them on yet another cliffhanger left many of them more relieved than anything else.  For now, at least, their heroes were safe.

---

If you'd like to watch us playing this game, we play on Sunday evenings on Twitch and you can also catch up on past games on YouTube.

Furnace XV

I was supposed to be playing one of my favourite LARPs at the weekend, so hadn't planned to attend Furnace this year.  But when registration opened, back in June, I signed up anyway because who knew what things were going to be like by October?  Good choice, past me.

Game 1

Saturday kicked off with a game of Punkapocalyptic, a game that I have learned to pronounce since my first time playing.  We played the scenario 'Bad Luck in Luckyland,' a rather less bodily fluid focused adventure, but even more absurd.  A simple cooking contest kicked off a chain of events that included constructing a Disney themed mecha, frolicking like woodland sprites and the accidental creation of a mutant buffet.

Describing the game to a friend afterwards, he said it reminded him of Borderlands, and that's not a bad comparison.  While the content is very different, there's a similar feel in the game's irreverant tone.  I don't know if Punkapocalyptic is intended to be a comedy game, but it's absolutely the funniest thing I've played this year.  Of course a lot of that was due to the GM's brilliant scenario and the way my fellow players embraced it.

And talking of fellow players, not only was I not the only woman at the (virtual) table, but for the first time at a convention, I was at a table where the women outnumbered the men!  What a great way to start the weekend.

Game 2

Saturday evening's game was Vaesen, with the scenario 'A Wicked Secret'.  Fria Ligan have done an amazing job with this adventure, with a bunch of handouts that bring the setting to life and a mystery that seemed obvious on the face of it but turned increasingly complex as we delved further into it and kept the surprises coming until the end.

Five of us headed into the Swedish forests to solve this mystery.  As in Mutant: Year Zero, we all had a bit of text to describe our relationship with each other character, plus our own opinions on the subject of vaesen, which resulted in some spicy conflict.  My only regret is that we didn't have more time to roleplay that aspect of the game - we already overran by nearly two hours without things ever feeling slow, and could easily have taken another hour on our traumas, relationships and dark secrets.

Vaesen is a bit like Call of Cthulhu, in that not only can you play it with little to no knowledge of the setting, it can actually be a better experience to play it that way.  This is a bit of a challenge for someone like me, who aims to be both player and GM.  I'll just have to hold off reading certain bits of the book until I'm actively planning to use them.

A key part of the setting that did shine through though was the conflicts brought about by the increasing industrialisation of northern Europe during the 19th century.  Not only does it drive the whole setting, but it ran through the game right down to a very personal level.  My initial impression of Vaesen when I first saw the game on Kickstarter was that it was something like a 19th century Liminal, but after a couple of games, the best comparison I can find is Princess Mononoke.

This game gave me a new insight into the world of Vaesen and I really hope to play more.

Game 3

A rare opportunity for me to play Liminal, with a London based scenario using some of the Pax Londinium content - including pre-gen characters from the Worshipful Company of Investigators.  I picked Mika, the urban explorer, which reminded me of one thing I love about Liminal - you can play a character with no supernatural abilities at all, and still feel just as valuable to the group as anyone else.

A tense investigation followed, full of poor decisions and good natured ribbing but ultimately ending in success.  It was fascinating to see someone else's take on the setting.  So far most of the scenarios I've run were either my own or written by Paul Mitchener, and the only time I've played before was also with Paul Mitchener.  In this game the GM leaned a lot more into the Neverwhere side of Liminal London, making for a very different experience.

Game 4

Unfortunately one player had to drop out of my afternoon game of Liminal, but a quick advert on Twitter soon netted me a replacement.

I can't even remember how many times I've run Mother Said I Never Should now, but the players still manage to find ways to surprise me.  The scenario is set up so that there a number of pieces of information for the players to find, but it's up to them how they go about finding them, and this time a player took an approach that nobody has tried before.

This adventure is getting one more outing at Grogmeet until it gets (temporarily) retired in favour of the new stuff I'm working on.

Reflections

I'm glad to say nobody in the games I was in made any attempt to use the Roll20 AV (although I'm told one of the other groups actually got it to work!)  We used Discord or Google Meet for each game, and apart from one of my Liminal players having some internet wobbles, it all went very smoothly.

By the time social gatherings are safe enough for conventions to resume at the Garrison, I'll probably be LARPing again, so might not make it to an in-person Furnace for a while.  But it's going to be a tough choice.  A lovely group of people that I'm really looking forward to meeting in person.

AlbaCon 2020

As far as I know, AlbaCon (definitely not Al Bacon) is another new arrival on the convention scene, headed up by the same person as Tabletop Scotland.  As a southerner, Perth is a long way to go for a convention, but my internet connection is right here...

Game 1

First, a complaint, unrelated to the game itself: Roll20 AV does not work.  Presumably there are groups out there who do manage to use it, and it sure would be convenient to have the AV and the VTT all running in the same place.  But it's not going to happen.  Save yourself the trouble and go straight to Discord/Hangouts/Jitsi.  But back to the game.

I love Alien, and have run my scenario The Toxic Jewel a few times now, but this time I was signed up as a player.  The scenario was excellent, hitting all the right story notes as we started out confident that we knew what the threat was and how we were going to go about neutralising it, only to discover things weren't quite as they seemed.  On a scale of Alien to Aliens, it was at the Aliens end of the scale - good scary action fun.

One thing I loved was the GM's creative use of props.  As well as being fully branded in Weyland Yutani clothing, he also had action figures, and his 'the last thing you see' vignettes of an upside-down xenomorph slowly lowered down from the top of his screen were a delight.  I'd not thought of using props this way, and in these strange times of exclusively online gaming it's great to see creativity in the use of video.

Alien remains one of my favourite systems, and I need to get on and write my next scenario.

Game 2

Conventions are a great opportunity to try out new games.  I'd never heard of Broken Shield before, and it's hard to describe exactly what it is, as it has elements of cyberpunk and superheroes while at the same time not being either of those things.  I was intrigued enough to sign up.  I was a little worried I wasn't going to get to play, as for a long time nobody else did, but as the date approached, one of the convention organisers signed up, and my husband decided he'd like to join me at a convention for a change, so we set out with a party of three.

Rather than a VTT, the GM was making use of Discord's screenshare facility to share a digital whiteboard with all the maps and handouts which worked very nicely.  Important bits of text were copied into the Discord chat (where we also did the dice rolls).

So a new team of a detective, a priest and a psychic arrived for their first day working together, only to suddenly get dragged into a much bigger murder investigation where nothing was as it seemed.  As we followed the trail of the killer, uncovering secrets as we went, I could have done with a whiteboard of my own, preferably with red string to join things together.  As it was I settled for making notes.  And I absolutely loved it.  A really fun adventure, and a system with a fair bit of crunch but not so much that it slowed down play.

The GM was also the game's creator, and all the players got a free PDF copy of the game.  I'm looking forward to reading it, but since he's also written a novel in this setting, I might be taking a look at that first.  It's a future London that's very different to the ones I'm used to, and I'm really excited to see more.

Game 3

Another outing for Liminal: Mother Said I Never Should.  A couple of players had to cancel, but a quick advert on the Good Friends of Jackson Elias discord brought in two people who'd previously played my Alien game.  With two of the other players having been in the Alien game that morning, for once at a convention I was playing with a group that was almost entirely people I knew.

While Discord is generally a solid choice for AV, it does have its moments, and we had some initial hiccups.  Fortunately I've used Discord enough to know that when someone can't hear and/or be heard, there's a good chance this is because Discord has changed its audio input/output.  I normally run it with the output on my speakers, but now and then it will decide to change the output to use the headphones on my audio interface, which makes it seem like I'm not getting any sound.  Directing people to the user settings screen usually gets things sorted out.

Game 4

After not nearly enough sleep, I was up again to play City of Mist.

I've already picked this game up in PDF (there was a sale) but this was my first time playing it.  I've been looking for a superhero RPG that's a bit more Birds of Prey than Justice League, and this was recommended.  It certainly captures the aesthetic.  We played the starter set adventure, Shark Tank, and the maps and imagery gave me the feel of a dark rainy city suffering under the weight of deprivation and organised crime.

The premise is that you play a human character that has a link to a mythological entity, which is where you get your superpowers.  My character, a detective moonlighting as a private eye, reminded me a lot of Renee Montoya, except she also had a link to an ancient Mesopotanian mythological wild man, enticing her to break control and turn to the wild (and allowing her to lash out with thorny plant-like tentacles).

It's the strangest implementation of PBTA that I've encountered, feeling more like I was playing Fate a lot of the time. Picking the appropriate powers to apply to an action was fun, and since there's a lot of them and they're all worth 1 point it gets rid of the Fate tendency to try to use your best skill for everything.  I tended to go with the thorny tentacles in the fights, as it felt appropriate for her to be lashing out aggressively as the bad guys wound her up, but shooting them in a controlled cop-like fashion would have felt appropriate in other circumstances and been just as valid mechanically.

They've done a brilliant job with the starter set, and the roll20 implementation is superb.  Making a roll is a matter of selecting the powers you're going to use and then clicking the appropriate move, with a space to add positive and negative modifiers.  Damage involving inflicting conditions with varying levels of severity, which then apply negatives if you have them, or positives if your target has them, and there are places on the sheet to fill those in.

The end result is a visually attractive game, easy to pick up, and easier to explain than either Fate or PBTA.  Our GM mentioned that she was pretty new to running anything other than D&D, but she had a good handle on things and got us up to speed so fast I was wondering if I'd missed something.

This game was everything I hoped for, and now I'm going to have to actually finish reading the PDF, and maybe even try running it myself.

Reflections

This was a big con that felt like a small con.  I'm not sure exactly how many games were running, as there were a lot of D&D Adventurer's league games happening and I don't entirely understand how those work, but even not counting those there were 13 games happening in each of the Saturday afternoon and evening slots.

The level of organisation was exceptional.  Booking games through the website was a breeze, and it seems cancelling must have been reasonably simple too, as both the people who had to drop out of mine managed to free up the spaces so more people could book.  The Discord setup was excellent, and a convenient way to contact my players without having to invite them to my own server.

Unlike most of the online conventions I've attended, this one actually had a price - £5 per game.  I wondered if that put people off taking a chance on less familiar games, although given that the event was run as a charity fundraiser for kids with cancer, I didn't have any problem paying.

While my preference is for smaller cons, I felt just as comfortable with this one and I really hope it's going to be a regular event.