Emissary Lost, episode 1: Missed Meetings

 Neither Tahir nor Sayah were particularly keen to leave the Aliya, both being rather attached to it - if not for exactly the same reasons.  But sometimes you didn't get a choice about these things.

Sayah had no intention of hanging around on Coriolis for any longer than necessary, but Tahir knew people, especially pilots, and managed to find a ship willing to take them on.   But before they'd actually managed to ship out again, Sayah got an unexpected message.

Sayah had always got on well with her cousin Noor, who shared her rebellious streak, but had lost touch with her after leaving home.  So she certainly wasn't expecting to get a message from Noor, needing help and asking to meet up.  Not trusting anything family-related not to be a trap, she asked her new friends to go in first to check things out.  But arriving at the tea room, there was no sign of Noor.

What there was, once everyone was settled down drinking tea and eating dates, was a woman none of them recognised, pursued by what first appeared to be station guards - except unusually well armed.  She seemed to know who she was looking for, launching herself at them, sending candied dates flying in all directions.

While Tahir, Razaq and Khalil distracted the guards, Sayah, Arin and the strange woman slipped quietly away until they were able to vanish down a side passage and get some answers.  The strange woman's name was Althea and she was a friend of Noor.  Both of them had the 'mystic's disease', as she called it.  Noor had been in contact with another mystic, Aram Yafa, and had contacted Althea a week ago, wanting her to come and meet him.

But Althea hadn't found Noor.  All she had found was Noor's communicator, where she had seen the messages Noor had exchanged with Aram, and also the final message that she'd sent to Sayah.  And then the guards had found her, and she'd had to run, dropping the communicator in her flight.

The group met up again once the coast was clear, and headed for Noor's home.  The student apartment was tiny, with barely room for the five of them.  Searching wasn't going to take long.  They soon found a pamphlet from the Samaritan Sanitorium offering help for people with the mystic's disease.  General group consensus was that being a mystic wasn't a disease.  But still.

Sayah spotted a loose floor panel, and soon had it pulled up, revealing a transactor and of all things, a paper diary.  But before anyone could get a look at it, they were interrupted by the apartment building's senior studeont, Ekvias Memoxes, who had serious opinions on the subject of all these strange people being in Noor's apartment.  Khalil swung into action, with a torrent of fast talk that soon had Ekvias on the back foot, allowing Sayah to pocket the transactor and diary and put the floor panel back in place.

Arin went a couple of doors down the corridor to talk to another student.  The girl who opened the door wasn't entirely helpful, but had seen a mysterious tattooed man recently.  She couldn't say exactly what the tattoo was of, but her description did resonate with those of the group who'd had a good look at the guards at the tea house.  Facial tattoos were no more a common sight among the station guards than those carbines had been.

A second trip to Noor's neighbour and some rather circuitous discussion managed to extract Noor's communicator from her, at the cost of a rather extortionate 'reward'.  On it they found another message in addition to the ones Althea had had time to read - one from Aram telling her to show up an hour earlier than planned for the meeting with Althea.

Back down in the more concealed parts of the station, Sayah took the lead hacking into the station security cameras.  There they saw Noor arrive at the tea house, where she was grabbed by three guards, possibly using a stun pistol, then handcuffed and dragged away.  No sign of Aram, but some street children did see what happened.

After a chat with the street children (and a bit of shopping), they headed for an address where they had found the name Yafa, if not Aram.  There they found a bakery, and some headed inside for baklava and a chat.  Tahir, waiting outside, ran into a reporter, and managed to keep her occupied when Aram himself showed up.  Gathering outside, they had just enough time to ask Aram about what was going on and what happened to Noor, when they saw the red light of a laser sight, and a moment later Aram's head had turned to red mist.

Grogmeetish 2020

I've never been to Grogmeet before, although from what I could determine from last year's Twitter chatter, it seems to consist largely of people exchanging jam, with maybe some games in between.  Obviously in 2020 the jam exchanges aren't possible, but the games are.

Game 1

When in doubt, I find a modern day Call of Cthulhu game is a safe choice.  'Restitution' (coming soon to the Miskatonic Repository, I believe) is set in the Netherlands and based on current events, specifically the de-poldering of one of the polders.  Our group of entirely normal people (the mayor of the nearby city, a journalist and a PR specialist) went to do a press thing at an archaeological dig and things went downhill from there in true Call of Cthulhu style.

I really enjoyed this scenario.  Being a modern day scenario, it's entirely possible to jump into the location in Google Streeview and take a look around.  I wasn't sure what a polder or a dyke looked like, but now I've learned something.  Also the pacing is excellent, gradually ramping things up as the horror goes from more mundane fears to full on supernatural terrors.

Game 2

I skipped the middle session, as things were pretty booked up by the time I came to look at it and I figured a break would be good for me.  But in the evening it was time for another outing of Mother Said I Never Should.  While I wasn't initially planning to run anything, when the only Liminal game on the schedule booked up entirely from GMs before player bookings opened, I thought maybe they could use another game and took up Dirk the Dice's invitation.

A few hours before the game I lost two players, due to illness and getting the wrong time zone, but soon had replacements and we dived in.  Some enthusiasm for cricket lead to the group being called Edgbaston Investigations, and through stealth, charm, and creative use of pepper spray, they solved the case.

I've run this scenario enough times now that I barely look at my notes.  Since I'm planning to write it up for publication, I actually looked at it again properly, and was surprised to find various elements from the first time I ran it that I no longer use.  It's been interesting to compare what I run now with the original version and see how I've refined it.

Reflections

I know I'm going to want to attend the real life version of Grogmeet once that's a thing again, which is annoying, because it's a long way to Manchester.  The Dutch GM in my first game mentioned flying in for it, and so long as he's not far from the airport his journey's probably quicker than mine.

There was quite a lot of additional stuff going on that might make it worth a trip next time though, including a quiz on Thursday and a Mausritter tournament on Friday, neither of which I attended because I had other regular games happening, plus the RoomZoom of Roleplay Rambling on Sunday morning which I did get to.  So maybe it'll happen.  LARP permitting.  Otherwise I'll be looking out for Virtual Grogmeet next spring.

I guess I'd better learn to make jam.

The Path to Eden, episode 9: The Prophecy Fulfilled, Whatever It Was

Venno's audience looked worried today.  Unsurprisingly, given where he'd left things last time.  But they'd all come back.  It was time for the resolution.

"The nearby building with the strange metal rings on the roof looked like a good place for Zippo to find some scrap.  A sign on the front appeared to read 'BBn', but when the last letter was poked with a spear, they realised it said 'BBC'.  After some thought, Silas revealed that this symbol represented an ancient distributor of knowledge through radio broadcasts.  Lenny remembered that the symbol also appeared on the Gardener's World magazine in the Box of Lost Prophecies.  Could this place be a library?

Quin and Ork went in to investigate, and soon learned that they were not alone.  There were people talking there, on the floor above.  This was concerning.  Last time any of them had met other people, they had been cannibals who wanted to eat them.  She headed further in, followed by Silas, with floorboards creaking under her feet, until after a particularly loud creak, the talking stopped and a door slammed.

Quin indicated to Silas that he should keep quiet, and headed up the stairs.  Silas followed, missed a step, fell back down the stairs, cursing loudly and letting an arrow fly into the ceiling.

The noise didn't bring anyone out though, and Quin continued.  There were people there, behind a door, speaking in strange voices.  She kicked open the door, which bounced off something and shut again.  Despite some strange noises, they didn't seem entirely hostile.  After some tentative words, introductions were made.  There was something different about these people.  Rather like that elf they'd found.

They were looking for a new home, and once it was established that nobody wanted to hurt people on either side, and they didn't want to eat anyone, it seemed possible..  They came from a mountain range far away.  Was it the Misty Mountains?  It seemed like it was, although they seemed confused about what goblins were.  Perhaps they were dwarves?

As a sign of good faith, they handed over a weapon which they called a shotgun.  It was like Zippo's scrap rifle, but more powerful.  The group weren't convinced yet, but the strangers then offered to deal with the Nazgul.  The Ark did have a few vacancies after some of the recent deaths, and they claimed to know how to grow crops.  It seemed like a reasonable offer.

While the strangers went to deal with the Nazgul, a task that they insisted they had to do without the team there, they went for a look around the building to see if there was anything interesting.  Lenny found an interesting object.  If you looked in one end it made things look bigger, and if you looked in the other end, things looked smaller.  It gave Lenny an excellent view of the Nazgul.  And the others, an excellent view of what was left of it after the strangers completely obliterated it.

After a thorough search of the area, which turned up a reasonable amount of grub, water and bullets, they made their way back to the Ark, with their new friends in tow.  They had also seen a building with a big red cross on it, and knew where to find it.  It turned out to be only a short distance from the Seven Sisters Ark.  The name St Ann was written on it.  Rather than visit it straight away though, they decided to get everyone home so they could all have a rest.

Quin and Silas took the lead, to warn everyone about the new arrivals, since nobody had ever seen twelve new people at once before.  Lenny, Zippo and Katin showed them around the outside area, pointing out the croplands and the sundial.  Boss Elona came out to meet them, and they told her about the slaying of the Nazgul.

Inside the Ark, Silas and Quin headed for the Dawn Vault, where Silas was forced to have a conversation with Puzzle Paul, much to his disgust.  Puzzle Paul had found one of Silas's heretical posters and he and the other chroniclers had recognised his handwriting.  They argued for a while about the relative merits of museums, until they finally got onto the subject of the new arrivals and how Silas wanted to talk to the Elder.

After a second argument, Silas was finally allowed in.  He explained to the Elder about the new people, who somehow seemed more like the Elder than the people of the Ark, and how they had defeated the Nazgul.  His arguments proved convincing, and permission was granted.

Silas returned to the Dawn Vault, where he found Quin and Ork exactly where Puzzle Paul had told them to wait.  Together they returned to the surface to share the good news.  Lenny headed in to talk to Boss Marlotte, to sort out tickets, and got sent back to ask the important questions, like whether anyone needed a family ticket, and if anyone had an oyster card.  Once Boss Marlotte's spreadsheet was properly filled in, Lenny was sent back up to hand out tickets, blow the whistle and shout 'All aboard!'

And with a cheerful chorus of 'Mind The Gap' the new arrivals were welcomed in."

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.