Road Trip Remix: Two at a Time

For the moment we are shifting to two blog posts a month to be able to better provide timely posts.

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While doing my preparations for the next campaign for Technical Difficulties, I searched for advice on how to run games of Monsters and Other Childish Things. Although I have listened to this and many other games in the One Roll Engine family being played, I had never played in or run a game with it. Luckily, the cast of The Drunk and The Ugly are some of the most experienced with this game, so I asked questions on how to run the game and on running Road Trip using their forums.

As we talked, a few present and former members of their cast expressed interest in playing in it. Although this would increase my workload, I thought it would be an interesting prospect. While campaigns are designed to be run multiple times, I have never heard of someone running the same campaign for two groups at the same time. It would be interesting to see how the groups reacted to the same stimuli in real time and how that might affect my running of the campaigns.

Already this has borne fruit. I ran the first session for the other group before Technical Difficulties first session due to scheduling conflicts. By playing the other game first, I learned some of the weaknesses in how I had presented it.  One of the players brought up that when I described the monster the kids fought I only used the bare minimum of descriptive language to describe them. My intent was take make it more horrifying by leaving it up to the imagination, but since it is the theater of the mind, using more imagery gives it a unified image that makes the game more real.

While it wasn’t a complaint of theirs, they also flew through combat without a scratch. I feel that was more system mastery than the monsters, as they said that they felt right for a first session enemy. With their advice, I got a better feel of how the first session needed to go. While combat got a lot more crunchy with four PCs and six enemies, the Technical Difficulties crew has fun and had a challenging fight, as they took damage while fighting the creatures.

A new group was helpful to seeing these blind spots in my GM style. Laura had mentioned descriptiveness in the short story I had written, but once is an anomaly while twice is a pattern. I need to do better with description. It’s weird because the image is clear in my head and I can describe it well; perhaps I’m unnecessarily worried about dragging on in play, especially with Technical Difficulties’ scheduling. I just need to take the time to describe. And I know viciousness is not my strong suit, but in an RPG I need to know when to lay back and when to throw the hammer.

No matter what, all of the players across the sessions enjoyed the opening act. These are means of growth, not game breaking errors. Focus on fun at the table and be open to suggestion, and anyone can be a great GM.

Short Fiction - Monsterhearts: Sympathy for the Witch

JJ sat on his bed, trying to act inconspicuous - this whole situation made him nervous. He placed his copy of Segu on the side table and started to readjust his piercings for the fourth time. First his nose piercing, then his earlobes. Earl was sitting at his desk, writing in his huge leather journal, almost done filling out the second volume since JJ was forced into rooming with him after the snow storm devastated the campus.

When will this fucker leave? JJ thought. I just want to get this shit over with. Come to think of it, why am I doing this? I mean, I like Catrin, at least, I think I do, but this is just weird. I know she’s magic, but a pencil? She can really do shit with a pencil?

    After readjusting his navel piercing, three turns to get it how he liked, he started to reach further down to finish with his fidgeting when Earl shut his journal with a grand, theatrical thud.

“All done! Another fine piece for my canon. I’m going to go to Holy Grounds to grab a macchiato. Want anything?”
    “Hmm… hot chocolate, please.”

JJ stood up, reached into his black jeans, produced a canvas wallet, and handed over  some cash. Earl smirked, looking every bit the prototypical preppy white boy in his Lacoste polo and skinny jeans, his porkpie hat covering his slickly gelled hair.

“Cool. I’ll be back in a bit. Me and the boys are planning for the party at Charlene’s place next week. I hope Catrin’s gonna be there!”

JJ tried to not roll his eyes at Earl’s earnestness (Hope she’ll be OK. Wait, why do I care? She can take care of herself. I’m just doing her a favor.) “Dude, for like the fifth time, I don’t think she’s into you.”

“Ah, JJ, she’s playing hard to get! That’s Women 101! I’m sure when she hears me at the slam, she’ll realize how awesome I am!”

“If you think so.”
    “I know so! Later!”

Earl left the room and shut the door. JJ let out a deep sigh and rubbed his temples. Women 101… shithead needs some Steinem in his skull. He walked over to Earl’s desk. It was meticulously laid out with a variety of textbooks, notebooks, and writing utensils of every kind. Pens, pencils, mechanical pencils, even a quill and ink bottle with a plaque from the Mount Vernon Museum. Looking for a less obvious target, JJ saw a blue pencil, with numerous bite marks and a well worn eraser.

“... The fuck? You want me to do what?”

“Grab something of his, preferably something he uses a lot.” Catrin held up a wrist and jangled her bracelets. “If I can turn it into a charm, even better.”

“What does that accomplish?”

“It gives me options. I could hex Earl without having to stare him down.”

“So, what, make him freeze up like you did me?”
    “That was supposed to keep you from connecting if you swung again. I just… he’s not taking no, it’s gotten worse since we’ve all been stuck in the same building, and I’d like more options than ‘mace’ and ‘shank’.”

“Fair enough. Killing should be… low on the totem pole. He was saying he hoped you’d be at Charlene’s party Saturday.”

“One, Charlene, so no. Two, Earl, so definitely no. Want to go catch the matinee of Tomorrow Never Dies instead?”

“That’d be fun.”

JJ strode over to Catrin’s room and knocked on the door. “Coming!” came, muffled by the door, followed by a bit of crashing around. Catrin opened the door and smiled at JJ. “Hey there. Come on in,”Catrin said, opening the door wider.

    The dividing line between Catrin’s side and her roommate Maggie’s was practically a physical boundary with a pile of dirty clothes ending sharply at the half-line of the room.

    “Sorry about the clothes, Maggie’s laundry plan seems to consist of ‘as little as possible’.”

    “It could be worse. Earl trips balls if I place a single sock on his side of the room. God forbid I don’t make my bed.”

    “What is he, your mother? So, this refuge from the insufferable one or…?”

    “... He’s not here. ‘Sides. I try to not get angry at people. You know what happens when I get angry at people,” JJ said, clenching his fists.

    Catrin cocked an eyebrow, glancing at his hands. “Going to stab yourself with that pencil if you clench any harder. Hey,” she said, cupping his hand and brushing a thumb over his knuckles. “Safe place. Deep breaths. Maybe more expressing frustration and not burying it until it explodes? You ever tried meditation?”

    “Not really. Mom suggested it, but the few times I tried I couldn’t focus.”

    “Mantra or no mantra? It’s like any other skill, the more times you practice, the easier it gets. And the beginning is always frustrating as shit.”

    “Mantra?”

    “Something you chant to yourself. Doesn’t have to mean anything, it’s just a focusing tool. Hell, you could use ‘by the power of Grayskull’ if you wanted.”

    “I see. Well, it’s something I could try. So we cool?”

    “Didn’t think we were uncool there. I mean it about the safe place.” Catrin looked down at JJ’s hand. “Where did this thing come from anyway, doesn’t look like your style.”

    “That’s what I thought would be a good totem for Earl. Fucker’s obsessed with his poetry. Taking a fancier thing or one of his notebooks would be missed, right?”

    Catrin rocked up on her toes and kissed JJ on the check. “Thank you. Yes, this is perfect.” She turn to her desk and started rummaging through it.

    JJ caressed his cheek and blushed. It’d been too long since he’d had any type of pleasure like that. Too long. Wait, slow down there, cowboy. It was just a kiss. I don’t think… I mean, I don’t know...
    “Ah ha!” Catrin said, pulling out some thin wire. She looped a bit through one of her bracelets and then started twisting wire around the eraser end of the pencil. “Hand me those scissors on my desk? The heavier duty ones.”

    JJ walked over to grab the scissors. He paused to look over the desk. Catrin’s copy of Segu was sitting next to a pad of legal paper, half filled with notes. A couple moleskin notebooks and a dictionary leaned against her desktop tower, between it and a CRT monitor. Damn, it’s better than mine. Two whole gigs of harddrive? Who needs that much space? What she doing, hexing the internet? “That’s a mighty nice computer. What’s an English Lit major need something that beasty for?”

    “Hand-me-down from my older brother. So right now, still cleaning out his porn and playing Diablo. Idiot-brother does not know how to sanitize his hard drive.”

    “Shit, don’t remind me. I know it’s our thing, but finding my siblings’ and my parents’ stashes were awkward as all hell.”

    Catrin looked up with a slightly shell-shocked expression as the scissors snapped through the wire. “Nooooope, not thinking about that and my parents…. Nope.”Glancing at her watch, Catrin stood up with a start. “Shit, we have to book it to Dr. Smith’s class,” she said, grabbing her book-bag and swiping the Segu off the desk. “Got 10 minutes until she starts docking points.”

    JJ ran back to his bedroom to grab his book-bag and join Catrin. He looked back over at Earl’s desk guiltily before running back to the door to the stairwell.

    Walking out the dorm, Catrin looked over at JJ. “Any chance I can talk you into snagging something from Neko?”

Short Fiction - Monsterhearts: JJ and Catrin's First Meeting

           Catrin opened her eyes, blinking at the weak sunlight that had pulled her out of slumber. Art department, 3rd floor, right. She rolled her head left, then right, trying to work out the crick in her neck from sleeping on a college building floor with nothing but a folded leather jacket for a pillow. Catrin pulled her left arm up over her head to glance at her watch (6:30, half and hour before the building officially opens, several hours before anyone shows up on a Saturday. Probably.) and then tucked her hand behind her head, between it and her jacket. Looking down, she contemplated the head of short, curly black hair resting on her stomach, right above the jeans. Somehow or other, the boy said head belonged to had managed to nuzzle her shirt up in his sleep, enough to be resting on skin. He was curled on his side, left arm snaked under her at the small of her back, right arm thrown across her hip. Catrin tried wiggling her right hand out from where it was trapped between her leg and the boy’s shoulder, but stopped when he whimpered a little and clung tighter. Again.

           All night in one position. That can’t be comfortable. Catrin sighed and contemplated the ceiling while massaging the back of her head. They could probably afford another fifteen minutes before she really needed to start poking him awake. Hm, probably less if he didn’t have a spare set of clothes around here. The boy was as naked as the folks on a nudist beach and his clothes definitely hadn’t survived… well, last night.

           A soft change in breathing drew her attention back down. Guess she wouldn’t have to start poking after all.

           “G’morning. JJ right?”

    “Good morning.” Ah, that’s what someone yawning against her stomach felt like. Interesting. “Catrin?”

“Yeah, I think we have Writing Composition together.”

    “Right, with Dr. Compton. So, how much do you remember from last night?”

    Catrin raised an eyebrow. “Me? I remember perfectly. You’re the one who passed out after transforming back.”

    “Shit.”

    “Have to admit, this is my first run-in with a shapeshifter. That common, passing out when you come back to human form?”

    “Well, I’m not a shapeshifter, I’m a Minotaur. And, well, sometimes I pass out, other times I am awake. Whatever you did probably didn’t help. What did you do, anyway? I couldn’t touch you. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad, I didn’t want to hurt you…”

    “Yeah, sorry about the binding hex, got kinda rushed when you took that swing.”

    “It’s fine. So, you’re a magician?”

    “Witch, but eh. It’s not like there’s an official body of magical terminology… that I know of. Mind relaxing a bit? I’d kinda like my hand back.”

    “Oh, shit, sorry.” JJ tried to pull his left arm out from under Catrin’s back, but could not. “The hell? I can’t move. Well, my arm–”

    “Whoops. Almost certainly my fault. Sorry. Uh, just relax and don’t tense up.” Catrin tried wriggling her hand out and off the floor. Hand finally free, Catrin shook it out to regain circulation, then rested it on JJ’s head. “Give me a second, and I’ll undo that little hex. Be really freaking nice if I could get that thing to work reliably,” she muttered, fingers tangling in JJ’s hair.

Breathing out, Catrin let her eyes defocus on the world around her and started paying attention to the feel of her magic. A thin pool of magic lay over JJ’s head, with some snaking down his neck, like a waterfall, before branching out across his back to terminate inside each shoulder socket. Catrin shifted her fingers half an inch over to the left and cupped the back of JJ’s head with the palm of her hand. Just like centering; pull in with each breath. The magic felt warm and soft on return; half a minute later, Catrin had reclaimed all of it. “There, that should do it.”

“So, now what?”

    Catrin’s stomach rumbled. “Breakfast?”

    “Yeah, that sounds like a great idea…” JJ said, absentmindedly reached his arm down towards his thigh, hitting skin about where a pants pocket and wallet would be if he were clothed. Catrin smiled softly at his look of bemusement; most teenagers in her experience went with abject horror at unexpected nudity. “Oh. That might be important. Let me get changed.” JJ climbed to his feet and headed over to the workbench.

    “I take it you’ve got a bit of practice waking up somewhere buck naked,” Catrin said, taking the opportunity to sit up, reach up the back of her shirt, and refasten the clasps of her bra. She’d been lucky to manage unfastening it last night before falling asleep; damn thing was awful to sleep in.

    “Yeah,” JJ said, pulling a book bag out of the workbench and then jeans out of the book bag. “I don’t have magic Incredible Hulk pants. Most of the time I control when I transform, so I just wanted to come to a safe place to let off some steam.”

    “Makes sense. Sorry for intruding on that. Nice to know I’m not the only one with ‘unusual’ abilities around here, though.”

    “Yeah, it is. I only ever knew my siblings were ‘unusual’ since they’re also Minotaurs. No big deal. What were you doing in the art building anyway? I thought you were an English major?”

    “Jessica.”

    “... Is a name. I’m not familiar with her.”

    “Senior, dual major in biology and illustration – wants to be a medical illustrator. Incredibly demure until you piss her off, at which point she has the foulest mouth I’ve ever heard on anybody. That Jessica.”

    JJ shrugged. “I do more physical art and don’t have any classes with seniors. Were you here to meet her or… ‘meet’ her?”

    “I’d say ‘a lady doesn’t kiss and tell’ but no way I want to qualify as a lady. Yeah, we had a very lovely evening fucking before I wandered by and ran into you. Right before you punched that wall and suddenly grew horns. Impressive by the way.”

    “Thanks. I was just gonna… let off some steam by myself, but then you showed up and, well, that’s out of the question. I just needed… needed to vent. After Charlene–”

    “She is the worst.”

    “Right! I mean, I was trying to be nice, I don’t know why she’d… she’d... “ JJ sighed again as he finished zipping up his jeans. “It’s lonely here, you know? I’m from Iowa, so to come here with no friends, no support, no… lovers, it’s hard. I was just trying to make a friend.”

    Catrin accepted JJ’s offered hand up, climbed to her feet, and then dug her fists into her lower back, stretching. “I’ve only seen her in one class but she’s such a fake snot. I’m from Cali, that is not what the Valley Girls sound like.”

    “Yeah, everything about her is so fake. Well, thanks Catrin. I appreciate what you did. Sorry if you got an eyeful.”

    Catrin snorted, a sharp burst of air out her nose, as she threw on her jacket. “I’m not. It was a very nice eyeful. Trust me, if I wasn’t so hungry, I’d be working on getting you back out of those pants. Come on, let’s go get that food.”

    JJ’s mouth opened to say something, shut, then he started to speak again as he followed Catrin out the door. “Holy Grounds?”

    “Yeah, the dining hall is shit.”

Short Fiction - Monsterhearts: JJ - The Final Weekend

Right.

Straight.

Right.

Left.

Left.

Center.

Right.

Straight.

Straight.

Right.

"Time!"

    JJ strode out the exit, a wicked grin on his face. He used his 6'4, 312 pound body to do a little turn in the dirt as he strutted to Farmer Carsten, who was resplendent in his denim overalls and straw hat while having a look of shock.

"Time?", said JJ, looking at Mr. Carsten.

"One... one minute and thirty-two seconds."

"Yes!" JJ shouted, pumping his fist as he leapt in the air. The rush of wind swept through his short black hair. Realizing his proud actions, JJ looked sheepishly at Mr. Carsten.

"How do you kids keep beating these times?!? Every damn year..."

"I don't know, Mr. Carsten. I guess we're just... lucky."

Mr. Carsten shook his head, and shoved a finger towards the prize display. Nothing but extra large stuffed animals and sports balls, nothing that caught JJ's eye... until he saw the bull plushie. Flashing a grin he pointed at it. Carsten threw him the toy.

"If I didn't know you were moving away for college I'd reckon I'd ban you. Five straight years you've won."

"Well, we'll see. Take care, Mr. Carsten."

"Take care, JJ."

JJ strode back to his family; his mom, dad, and four siblings, Kendra (14), Lucas (10), Marie(6), and baby Nicholas. JJ started to put the doll close to Nicholas even though he was too small to hold it. "Got this for you, little guy!"

"I'm sure he appreciates it, JJ.", said his mother.

"You coulda gotten more stuff out of Mr. Carsten, JJ! I wanted the football!", said Lucas.

"And I wanted the teddy bear! I don't want to be a dumb bull when I transform, I wanna-"

The three older siblings and both parents shushed Marie before she finished her sentence. Mrs. Areleous, sighed and Cole, the patriarch, knelt down. He dipped his wiry frame low enough to get to eye level with Marie but not so he got dirt all over his crisp khakis or his clean polo.

"Why don't we get some ice cream before we go? We need to say good bye to JJ, right?"

The two younger kids shouted in delight and ran ahead. Cole and Kendra ran off to catch them, leaving JJ, Nicholas, and Hattie. Hattie gave a chuckle, readjusting her grip on Nicholas with a mechanical precision as Nicholas squirmed in his blanket. Hattie's free arm pulled down her long, flowing dress, dotted with a daisy pattern. She smiled at JJ, her dark brown skin glistening in the sun as it sank in the sky. She ran her hand through her curly hair and looked ahead at the other Areleouses.

"Ah, to be young again. Lucas and Marie are such a handful. But so precious. All of my children are." she said as she ran her free hand through JJ's hair.

JJ blushed as he responded. "Yeah, yeah..."

"Have you thought about what you want to do? What your major will be?"

"Yeah. I think I'm gonna go into art. There's also so much art around us, so much you've shown me from your home, it just inspires me, and... and..."

"And what?"

"It keeps me calm. I still can't maintain control when I... you know..."

Hattie smiled and pulled her eldest son (of this brood) close with her free arm. In spite of JJ's size and weight he could feel the gentle power as she embraced him.

"It comes with time, JJ. Rest with comfort; all of your siblings had to learn. Your younger siblings will learn as well. In their time."

"Yeah... Isn't that right, Nicholas? Some day you'll grow up big and strong and when you go minotaur-"

Hattie lightly tugged on JJ's nostril piercing, just enough to playfully tug his face up.

"Ow!"

"Not in public, dear. What did we just do with your sister?"

"Sorry, sorry. Mom?"

"Yes?"

"Am I... am I ever going to have control? When I'm... different?"

"Of course, Jason, of course. It's know it's scary. I've seen your stepbrothers and stepsisters go through the same thing when they come of age. Because of your humanity it... conflicts with the other side. It just takes time. Be patient. Besides," Hattie readjusted her grip on Nicholas as she walked ahead, leaving JJ behind.

"You need to get laid more anyway. That might help. Find a nice girl in New York. Or two. Or six. Or a boy, whatever, you just need to lose your inhibitions already. Ra, some days I wonder if you are my child. You should've had a kid or three by now."

JJ's face instantly turned red; his mother tilted her head back and laughed as she walked. He darted his eyes to see if anyone heard; realizing he shouldn't care, JJ ran to catch up with his family. If living with a fertility goddess, her human consort/his dad, and four demigod siblings was this ridiculous, how hard was college going to be?

Short Fiction - Monsterhearts: Neko - Starting from the Bottom

I’m waking up…good, as planned. The Great Spell still works. Thanks again, Osiris. But you still owe me.

Wait...there’s something off. This isn’t the tomb I commissioned in Thebes. Those aren’t my shabtis and my scarabs. Hell, those aren’t even my canopic jars. This is just a bunch of random junk, stolen from a dozen other Pharaohs’ tombs -- where’s my stuff? Where am I?

My eyes are still clearing... There, I can focus them again. The walls and ceiling are some sort of plaster, painted with random inscriptions copied from who knows which pyramid. Nothing about this tomb is right. And there’s a big fresh crack in the ceiling, still dribbling broken plaster and letting the sunlight in.

Something’s gone very wrong.

The last time I woke up, Osiris had returned my ka after 400 years as per our arrangement. The secret priests got me back on the throne in short order, and I got to work. Unsurprisingly, the kingdom had badly rotted in my absence. I restored the temples and got tax collection back in order. I started a new canal and even built a navy, something which had apparently never occurred to any of my idiot heirs.

They hadn’t held onto my conquests in Syria, either. So that was a top priority. I made a little alliance with the Hebrews (that name sounded familiar -- hadn’t they been slaves or something? I guess they must have gotten free somehow in my absence), and marched north. That’s...when things get vague for me.

I’ll bet I died in battle. Shit, I must not have made it back to Egypt. The Babylonians probably captured my body. But why would they have put me here, in this crappy fake tomb? Thoth, I’m going to need some answers.

Oh, good. I hear voices outside the doorway. I should be able to wring some information out of whoever these guards happen to be. But what language is that -- something from the Arabian desert tribes? I don’t recognize it.

Let’s hope at least some of these stolen trinkets are authentic. I need to get some magic going. Here we are, this Ibis figurine looks legit. Thrice Wise Thoth, Lord of All Secrets, Grant Me Knowledge of This Tongue.

Much better. They’re talking about an airstrike, by someone called the Americans, and how their boss President Hussein will probably execute them if his museum got damaged.

I don’t really know what any of those things are, but I know how slaves sound when they’re afraid of their master, and I can gather that they’re currently in the process of losing a war.

And I can start putting pieces together. New languages. New nations and titles for kings. New weapons of warfare. That fresh crack in the ceiling -- I’ve been sealed in here. No way for my ka to return to my body when the time came. It’s been more than 400 years. Maybe a lot more.

When the guards come in to check on the damage, I’m ready. I don’t quite have the full strength of my majesty back yet, but I’ve got more than enough to dazzle a couple of downtrodden lackeys. Anwar and Malik drop to their knees, and I have them fill me in on the details. I’m in a place called Iraq, ruled by a man named Saddam Hussein (who calls himself President instead of King for unclear reasons). This tomb is in the basement of one of his palaces, a museum put together from artifacts he’s bought, stolen, or dug up. I was his prize centerpiece, found right here in this city -- Tikrit. Okay, I know that name. Now I know where I am.

As to when -- It’s been almost 2,600 years. It’s 1411 in their calendar, 1991 in the Americans’ version. And these Americans are the ones currently kicking the shit out of Saddam in this war. Anwar says they’ve got invisible flying weapons called stealth fighters, which can drop exploding stones called bombs anywhere they want. That’s what blew that crack in the ceiling.

Screw this Saddam guy, he sounds like a chump. Looks like America is the big-deal empire right now. Richest, strongest, most famous -- they boss the world around and do whatever they want to whoever they want. Malik says they have a city called New York where billionaires live in glass towers taller than the Great Pyramids.

Well then. Sounds like my kind of place. Anwar fetches me some of his old master’s best clothes, and Malik gathers up the still-functional artifacts from the tomb. I take a look in a full-length mirror on our way out the door. Nice job, Osiris, I’m back to looking eighteen. And I like this new style of suit, much sharper than robes. I miss my double crowns, though. All in due time. Right now, let’s focus on what’s essential: getting to the center of the action and starting to climb back on top.

Short Fiction - Monsterhearts: Catrin - Off to College

Catrin rolled over and fumbled for the alarm clock on her bedside stand – no need to wake her parents for this little chore. Especially not at 8am on a Saturday. One of the so very few times in the week she was sure she would have some privacy. She just needed to finish packing her personal things before starting the drive to the other side of the country. The last of the graduation parties had been thrown months ago, at the beginning of the summer, but still, there had been the chance she’d run into someone at her crummy retail job, or out on the beach over the summer.  With only a couple days until she left though, it was time.

Sitting up on the edge of her bed, feet flat on the floor, Catrin rubbed her face briskly for a moment to wake up just a little more. She then grabbed the scrunchy on the stand and pulled her hair back into its customary ponytail. Standing up, she briefly debated not getting dressed but settled on a loose pair of yoga pants and a sports bra – easier to lie to Mother that she’d gotten up early for one last morning meditation that way. If it came to it. Not that Mother would approve of meditating with all her bracelets on.

Looking down at the open dresser drawer, Catrin had to admit that Mother might have a bit of a point. Enough thin, single-band stainless steel charm bracelets to form a solid(ish) cuff of two inches up each of her wrists was a lot of bracelets. Slipping them on one-by-one was a pain in the ass too, but moving from just one to multiple charms per bracelet would make it harder to grab precisely the right one in an emergency. Which had been the entire point in the first place.

Having finished slipping all of her bracelets on, Catrin reached in the back of the drawer and pulled out a box. It wasn’t a very interesting box to look at it, just one of those cheap colored cardboard pieces jewelry stores packed your purchases in to walk out the door with. But inside were about half of the charms which had originally come with the bracelets. She was going to need to put a lot of them back on.

Sitting down in the middle of her floor, between the packed suitcases and sealed boxes, Catrin began systematically taking off all the bits-and-bob sympathetic tokens she’d collected from her classmates over the past four years of high school. Once those were all off and in a small heap at her feet, Catrin examined her other charms, the teeny-tiny test tube charms she’d spent so many hours scouring the city for. Be a shame to lose those, but she really didn’t need the scraps of bloody tissues in them anymore.

Trying to work the first of the little corks off a tube nearly sent it flying out of her hands and across the room. Tapping the end of the tube to get the tissue out didn’t work either. Catrin made a moue of frustration with her lips for a second, then her face cleared and she headed off to the bathroom for a pair of tweezers… and the tiny bottle brush that’d come with the box of test tube charms.

Half an hour later, the heap of old sympathetic tokens on the floor included all the test-tube contents and all the bit-and-bobs had been replaced with some of the original charms. The cutesiest of the originals stayed in the box – Catrin figured she might need them at some point, like if some of the tubes broke. Maybe she could drive over to that crafting store she’d found them in the first time and pick up another set today.

Catrin paused at a faint sound from her parents’ room next door. Were they getting up already? No, must have just been turning over in bed.

Looking at the heap of tokens on her floor, Catrin bit her lip. Some of them were probably old enough to have lost their emotional significance to her former classmates. But the others could still be magically useful for hexing their original owners. Wouldn’t be fair to the classmates for her to dispose of them only for some other witch to come along and use them. Seemed like a remote chance, but still. Worth the time to do things right, Catrin figured. A cleansing ritual should do it.

From the back of the bracelet drawer came her blade. She did rather hope that Odin would approve of the wisdom of using a butterfly knife as her magical tool. She wasn’t really worried that any of the Æsir would object to using a practical fighting knife for magic, though. After all, what good was a knife you couldn’t fight with?

Kneeling down, Catrin took a deep breath and centered herself. It wasn’t even nine o’clock yet. As soon as she’d cleansed the tokens of their sympathetic links and disposed of them in the trash, she’d have plenty of time to start hiding her sex toys in suitcases before her parents woke up.

GM's Corner 10: The End of the Reformers

After 18 sessions, our Red Markets beta campaign reached its end. With a good recon and planning session, our heroes and their unexpected DHQS allies tried to stealth their way into the Truman Building to destroy the printing machines, only to end in a hail of gunfire. Through strategy and a little luck, they completed their mission and fled to the sounds of Governor Carnavan’s men brutally murdering him for putting the whole nation at risk. Their task completed, they were flown to the Recession and succeeded in playing the Red Markets.

When I first planned for my Red Markets campaign, I knew I wanted to structure the campaign with an overarching plot. Ethan had written up Jeff’s City as a potential Enclave, and mentioned the possibility of Carnavan making fake driver's licenses. With the economic theme of Red Markets I knew I wanted that to be my plot. While making fake ID is normally a dangerous idea, in an economy where the IDs are the primary form of currency it can also act to destabilize the economy.

My plan was to introduce this slowly in the campaign. I laid hints in multiple missions, like the dead Taker diary in the mine, the DHQS presence at the warehouse, some of the DCA encounters, etc. However, after the Reformers’ mass influx of bounty I felt I had laid enough ground work to not finish the story. I should have let them and take the consequences, but it’s in my nature to want to see the best possible ending. Plus, the raid on the Truman Building turned out to be an amazing end to a wonderful campaign.

As a first time GM, I was satisfied with how I ran things. I know I made mistakes with pacing and rules mastery. However, the players had a good time, it was helpful to Caleb, and we’ve been happy to see the fan response. This likely won’t be the last time we slip into the Loss, but we’ll probably wait until we have our Red Markets books in hand before the next campaign.

- Gre

GM's Corner 09: Road Trip Remix

As you may know, we are closing in on the final episodes of our Red Markets Beta campaign. I hope you’ve been enjoying The Reformers’ adventures and are tuning in for their final battle.

With one campaign drawing to a close, it comes time to plan for the next one. The next games you will be hearing will be a couple of one-shots, followed by our MonsterHearts campaign, a Powered by the Apocalypse setting. The campaign was run by Aaron, and I can’t wait for you to hear them.

The team had discussed what system to play next. I had always wanted to try out Monsters and Other Childish Things, a system where players play as a child and their monster friend. Having never played a game in the system, I suggested that I could run a pre-made campaign. Continuing with the theme of RPPR, one of the campaigns was written by the host himself, Ross Payton. Road Trip, a six adventure campaign, is available as a PDF and print product on DriveThruRPG.

Having read the campaign, I like Ross’ design of a set of places where the kids and creatures can have adventures throughout the country. However, his design is for a modular campaign where the kids can reach any of the destinations in any order outside of the ‘final boss’. This can work well for letting the GM design how they want to run the campaign.

The inspirations for Road Trip come from a variety of sources, both childish and adult. For example, the most famous leg, Sucrose Park, takes place in a Las Vegas theme park where the heroes fight a creature that kidnaps kids and replaces them with robots. The cited sources include Saturday Morning Cartoons, Theme Parks, and Stephen King’s Misery, though after reading I also see parts of Invasions of the Body Snatchers and a critique of consumerism, to say nothing of neglectful parenting.

As a child, I was taken on many road trips. Some of my happiest memories are of going places with my family to see the sights. As an adult, the road trips I’ve taken have still been fun but have also been marred with worries about my safety, how much money I can spend, and where I’ll stay and what I’ll do. I wanted to take inspiration from these memories, and from my own childhood fascinations and adult readings and anxieties. My plan is to move Road Trip from a choose your own adventure to a linear path, mixed in with custom legs of my own. To that end I’ve been reviewing some of my own childhood favorites, including superhero comics and cartoons, Nickelodeon classics, and interactions with family and friends. In keeping with Ross’ design, I want to use my own past to more fully evoke the sense of an actual road trip.

Road Trip Remix will take our kids and monsters on a wide spanning journey from California to Florida with a grandparent as they’ve been chosen to appear on their favorite kids game show, live at the studio in sunny Florida! However, as they see the sights on their way to fame and fortune they keep coming across situations where kids, monsters, or kids and monsters are being manipulated against one another and with plots against the greater world at large. Are these plans connected? Will they make it to Florida in one piece? And is TV glory the only thing waiting for them on set? Stay tuned. In a few months, Road Trip Remix will be your ticket to find out.

Greg

GM's Corner 08 - Red Markets Episodes 13-15

Now that the Takers had their massive amount of Bounty, they had to design their Mr. JOLS – their Score that would render all of them independently wealthy in the Recession. The Mr. JOLS process, like the process for designing Scores, works really well as a collaborative tool to make an adventure. The players are making a mission they want to do, while the GM manipulates things behind the scenes to make their hard final mission even harder.

The players’ idea of raiding a vertical farming startup seemed like fun, but I needed a challenge worthy of the series finale. After starting the Delta County Avengers storyline in earlier sessions they seemed to be a perfect fit for a cinematic fight near the end of the campaign. I had intended on them being a minor nuisance throughout the campaign, but with how thoroughly demoralized they had become at the hands of The Reformers, their rage became an excellent weapon.

All throughout the campaign I had wanted to better test the combat rules against human opponents, but the players had either used charisma skills to talk opponents down or crippled their enemies so fast a protracted fight wasn’t happening. The closest was the fight against the DCA in the beer plant, but even then the players had ruined DCA limbs and left them to be devoured by zombies. Not that this was a major concern; as a play test this was a unique set of circumstances that were hopefully helpful for Caleb as he prepared the next version of the rules, but coming from my background in RPGs I had been hoping for more combat.

The fight outside the startup was the fight I had been wanting. By adding combat NPCs to the party, the players were more effective against the DCA and we were able to get a lengthy fight, with players, NPCs, human enemies, Vectors, and Casualties all in play. In the end the fight was thrilling and would have been an excellent end to the campaign…

If I hadn’t had them wrap up my meta plot. In all honesty, it might have been a better move to leave things there, but as I had accidentally given them so much Bounty and had started to establish the end game, I felt I had to finish it. So I shoehorned in roughly four sessions worth of exposition into 20 minutes of post fight chat. They had also managed to avoid directly fighting the Aberrant I had created, so the end of Session 15 was a little lackluster. I should have had the courage to let go and either let them live with the consequences or thrown the Aberrant at them anyway, but that was Monday morning GMing that I’ll be mindful of in future campaigns.

Regardless, as a new GM, I’m thankful that these issues did not derail or ruin the game. My players still had fun, this chunk of the campaign was still good, and the conclusion of The Reformers was about to begin.

GM's Corner 07: Writing Historical Roleplaying Scenarios (Ethan)

I've been dedicating a lot of my recent RPG creativity to writing historical gaming scenarios. I've written three Lovecraftian horror scenarios set during the American Civil War (with a fourth in progress), as well as another couple of scenarios set during the standard Call of Cthulhu period of the 1920's that include strong real-world historical elements. I've also been researching the Black Death in 1340's Europe, ideally for a future Red Markets-related project. If you want to listen to some of my scenarios, I'm running them here on Technical Difficulties (check out He Calls Me by the Thunder, part 1 and part 2), as well as for Role Playing Public Radio.

I also really love reading and playing historically-focused RPG scenarios, like Caleb Stokes's No Security scenarios set during the Great Depression, and the Trail of Cthulhu World War I collection Dulce et Decorum Est from Pelgrane Press.

I figured I'd share a few of my thoughts and tips about designing historical scenarios, since I've been thinking about it so much recently.

1. For me, the most fun thing about historical scenarios is getting to explore a new time and place, to imagine how people living in that place would deal with strange and dangerous situations differently than someone living in our modern world. I always play up the unique historical conditions of a scenario, even as I'm mixing in fantastical or supernatural elements. How might a Lovecraftian monstrosity affect an Antebellum slave plantation? How would a 1920's radical socialist newspaper deal with a malevolent sorcerer?

2. I recommend writing pre-generated characters for most historical scenarios. I don't want to force my players to do a bunch of their own historical research just to make up appropriate PCs. So I'll write characters that fit an appropriate archetype: the wounded artillery officer, the corrupt militia trooper, the crusading field nurse. But I also make sure to leave the pregens vague enough that each player can invest their own details into their character's personality, to make it their own.

3. When I'm researching for a game, I start broadly and then get more specific. A prominent historical event can be the seed of a scenario plot, like the Gettysburg Address or the Missouri Mormon Wars. I'll cruise Wikipedia or read a general history to get broad ideas. Then to develop the scenario, I'll dive into the detailed facts of the event and let that shape my plot, like how the black workmen on the Gettysburg National Cemetery project were surprisingly well-paid, and how Lincoln was getting sick while he was giving his speech. Having loads of details adds a lot to the players' sense of immersion.

4. That said, I have to resist the urge to cram every single tidbit in. Remember, we're writing games, not lectures. The main focus needs to remain on the characters' choices and actions, not just on the set dressing. Make sure that the details you do emphasize are ones that the PCs can use to inform their actions, so that they feel more like they're embodying real people from the era. The design of the Gettysburg courthouse probably doesn't matter, but the person playing the war widow might like to know a lot about the traditions of mourning dress.

5. Make sure that you let the actual play at the table be as free and open as you would in any game. Don't pull a "Stop having fun, guys!" on your players, just because they're doing something that doesn't quite make historical sense. Maybe gently remind them of how a particular historical fact might guide their behavior, but don't be a stickler about it. Remember, nobody's getting graded at the end of this.

Those are just a few tips. I might revisit this subject again in the future, to talk more theoretically about how to use historical games to explore big themes, or how to take ideas from historical research and use them in other genres like fantasy and science fiction. Let us know if you you find this sort of thing interesting! I hope I'm not the only one. :)

Ethan

GM's Corner 06: Red Markets Episodes 9-12

News: The Red Markets Kickstarter is live! Help us reach the offset print run stretch goal, so we can get a full-color print run of the book.

Coming to tabletop role-playing through video gaming, one of the things that always strikes my fancy is the ‘boss fight’ concept; the player not just facing adversity through run-of-the-mill enemies, but fights or encounters that demand strategy and focus are what pull me in. When creating jobs for Red Markets I was drawn to the concept of Aberrants, though I wanted to be cautious in how I designed them. Without knowing the specific rules I did not want to go too far from the design that had been given, but I also wanted to include these bosses for the players to encounter.

My chief aspect of design in the Aberrants I made for the Legal Tender campaign revolved around the concept of the secondary Blight nervous system in a Casualty. The black strands are a very evocative element and were the central idea around the monsters I created. The Mole Variant from the Little Pittsburg job came about as a means of the strands hardening and covering body parts, thus providing natural weapons.

While trying to think of a new job, I was struggling to find a core concept. I needed more jobs that involved the main storyline, as I didn’t know how much longer the campaign would last and I needed ways to drop hints. I came up with using the plastic for the licenses as a draw for a job, but how to integrate it? Living near a candy factory I contemplated wrappers, thus a need for huge rolls of plastic. But what would be the challenge? Could I create an Aberrant? If so, what was unique about it? I pondered a means of creating an Aberrant with a ranged attack, but how so? I reflected on how Vectors are made, and ways to die in a candy factory. Somehow, my mind wandered to being boiled alive in molten candy, and thus the Candyman was born.

As a means of further evolving the monster, I gave him the cult; a group of Archivists who kept feeding sugar to the vats. Some were mad from seeing such a monster and became worshippers, others tended to their crazed friends and studied this monster that didn’t attack them. I made them all Latents for two reasons: first, as a possible reason why the Candyman wouldn’t attack them. Second, as a means to continuously perpetuate the Candyman once the Aberrant broke down from being constantly encased in napalm-like sugar. The key aspect I wanted to take in is that, horrifyingly, the process to becoming an Aberrant is repeatable if the circumstances are right.

Thinking back months later, I might not have fleshed out the creature and cult as much as I had wanted to. The motivations of the cult seem murky, and by not fighting the Candyman they didn’t see the projectiles or the carnage he could have caused. However, the fear instilled by seeing the crazy cultists and the threat of what was on the USB drive (CCTV footage of the original Candyman becoming Candyman, causing a massive self-control check), combined with the rising and eventual proven fear of the Candyman, elicited the reactions I wanted and left me satisfied with my work. And after hearing about the Ganglia in Episode 9 of the Brutalists, I had become more confident in the designs I had created for the campaign.

What was unsatisfactory was when I botched the score rules and let the players negotiate for the bottles from the brewery. They made so much Bounty they lept from the first Milestone to their last, and could’ve even left without completing a Mr. JOLS. I now had a story to finish and not much time to do it in. However, there are many ways to skin a cat, and the Mr. JOLS was the start of a grand conclusion...

Greg

Red Markets: Character Sheets

As a special bonus to all our fans and a helpful sample to backers or potential backers of the Red Markets Kickstarter, we’re posting the character sheets for Elder, Freebird, and Pixie. These are the original sheets for the versions of the characters as played in Episode 1. Thanks to all our fans for enjoying our campaign! Please support Caleb and help us make Red Markets the best it can be!

Elder

Freebird

Pixie

GM's Corner 05: Red Markets Episodes 8-9

One of the chief tenants of writing for any media is to never throw away ideas. If something has potential, do not forget it or destroy it because it doesn’t work at the moment. There is always a new angle to make a concept work. Case in point was the Mega Playground scenario.

When I was first coming up with contracts for my players to obtain, I was trying to think of different adventures for them to come up with. The first that came to mind is one they never encountered, raiding a spice manufacturer and fighting with the people who took up residence. My second concept was to have the players emulate the game Five Nights at Freddy’s by having them invade a children’s restaurant and fighting with the Casualties wrapped up in animatronic nightmares. While I fell in love with this idea, as I further talked with my players they indicated they wanted a more serious campaign. It was instantly obvious that this Five Nights at Freddy’s concept was a bit too absurd, and I had to abandon it.

I was disappointed, because the chief image in my mind was the Takers going into a kids’ restaurant to fight zombies. It was a striking image that I wanted to recreate in game, but couldn’t find an angle. So I kept my notes, but continued to create new missions, like Anton’s mission and the LIttle Pittsburg Mine.

One day while driving, I was reflecting on the Five Nights at Freddy’s contract while racking my brain for a new idea for a contract as I was fresh out of ideas and needed more in case my players weren’t interested. I started to think, well, if a video game kids restaurant wouldn’t work, what would? I thought of Chuck E Cheese, but it’s more of an arcade than a playground, like Discovery Zone–

There was my answer, my angle. I laughed out loud in my car as the concept seemed so obvious in hindsight. Discovery Zones were an active restaurant, with a huge playground complete with climbing structures and a huge ball pit, as well as an arcade. A place where the players would have to fight through the playground and clear out the party rooms. A means of reflecting on how far things have fallen in the Loss and looking at the individual tragedies, like Charlotte sending her daughter to a birthday party and never seeing her again, somehow forever lost in the Crash.

Even if an idea has to be cast aside, do not throw it into the dustbin of history. You never know when a stray thought can unlock a scenario, chapters of text, or clarify an image or shot. That absurdity or odd piece might become the centerpiece of your creation. The Mega Playground was one of if not the personal highlight of my creations for The Reformers. I hope it’s also one of yours.

Greg

Money for Clicks: What Ten Dollars Gets You on Facebook

Marketing can seem, at best, alchemical. Trial and error. Post something on social media, put up a flyer, hope your lead turns to gold. Today, with that experimental spirit in mind, I’d like to share my experience using Facebook ads. Hopefully this will help anyone else venturing into the world of self-promotion. If nothing else it can fill up a Sunday blog post.

Fair warning: If we lived in a percentile-system world, my Marketing skill would be 5%. I know very little, and I sure as hell don’t know how to be successful at it.

When we went live back in March, I decided to spend ten whole dollars on a Facebook ad for the podcast. We were already announcing the launch via our individual social media and the RPPR and the Drunk And Ugly forums, but every little bit helps, right?

I placed my Hamilton as the lifetime budget. This meant I would be charged every time someone clicked the link, and the ad would stop running when the money ran out. Everyday that your ad runs requires a minimum five dollar budget (Facebook’s policy, not mine), so I got a whopping two days of ads. I picked Thursday and Friday, supposed prime-time for Facebook according to a friend who is a professional social media-er.

The part of the process that took the longest was choosing a demographic. Not everyone wants to listen to us pretend to be post-apocalyptic troubleshooters, so putting our ad in front of the wrong person is a waste. For other actual play podcasters out there, I’m sure it’d be as simple as choosing users who already like the game they’re running. Our main campaign is in a game that isn’t even out yet, so I had to create a demographic Frankenstein-style.

The ad only lets you choose a max of two groups to venn diagram together, based on pages that users “liked”. After some experimenting, I chose Zombies (in general, not a show or comic) and Call of Cthulhu (the role-playing game). Since we were playing a horror game that also featured the undead, it seemed like a chocolate & peanut butter-esque combination.

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I also narrowed it down to anyone ages 18 (sorry, youths) to 50 (sorry, the elderly) who lived in the United States, since Facebook told me that adding other countries would make my selection “too broad”. I took the algorithm's advice.

This brought our potential audience down to 5,600, which Facebook says is still “fairly broad”- whatever that means.

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But it wasn’t in the red or yellow so  - good? I decided to trust the colors.

With Facebook, you can also choose the times of day when your ad is shown. I focused on what I thought were prime hours based on personal use: during the morning commute, lunch, and late afternoon until 2am EST for the night owls.

All in all, a lot of mental effort was spent trying to hit some perceived golden ratio of viewer to interest, and I hadn’t even written the ad proper.

Again, playing a game that doesn't’ officially exist yet sets you a couple yards behind the starting line as far as a built-in audience is concerned. But instead of lamenting our situation, I spun it to our advantage. Some of you may have seen this ad:

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An RPG actual play podcast is old hat, but a chance to get a sneak peak at a new game is less old hat.

And that was it. I clicked the button and we were off, two days of obsessively checking who had hit the link when, and whether or not they were on the toilet or at their desk when they did it.

So - what did I actually pay for?

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I don’t know whether or not the ad did well. How many of those clicks translated to subscriptions or episode downloads? Is $0.44 a good price per click? Only 0.014% of people who saw the ad clicked the link. Is that bad? I mean, it feels bad, but with nothing to compare it to I’m in the dark.

Was the experiment a flop? Should I have just bribed strangers on the street to subscribe?

Maybe. So much of this seems like gambling or voodoo - or gambling on voodoo. There’s just no real way to tell if I’m doing well, other than the fact that twenty-one clicks are empirically better than zero. I do know that I won’t be going back to Facebook ads anytime soon, not until we try some other, more grassroots outlets.

Maybe we’ll sponsor a little league team.

The only thing I can say with certainty is “thank you” to anyone who took a chance and clicked on the ad. And thank you for sticking around. The $0.44 it cost me can be reimbursed through PayPal.

- Aaron

Short Fiction Sunday - Day 2741

Welcome to Short Fiction Sunday, where we take a break from our usual blog post to bring you original short stories set in some of our favorite game worlds.  Our first installment was written by Laura and takes place in the Eclipse Phase universe.  Enjoy!

I was shoveling the fourth scoop of irradiated dirt on top of the bundle at the bottom of the shallow grave when Emil stood up and whined. Abandoning the shovel to the dirt pile, I leaned over to give Emil a scratch behind the ears while I pulled the backpack for my plasma cannon back on. Both of us were watching the ridgeline with all senses on high alert. I’ve never been sure if Emil had one of the smart animal enhancements or had just been well trained before he trotted into my life.

I may have been willing to drop the cannon for this little chore outside, but I wasn’t completely suicidal yet; I was still suited up in full combat armor with rail pistol easily to hand. I’d gotten the backpack strapped down, and the tear tracks down my face mostly wiped away before the metal-on-metal thrumming and the screaming reached us.

At my hand-signal Emil raced ahead as I brought up the rear. Some idiot was about to die by the half-broken TITAN war machine trapped on the other side of the ridge.

Emil was racing ahead, paws digging through the softly crunching dirt and was nearly halfway up before I even made it past the rows of stunted food crops laboriously coaxed out of this fucking planet. My breath was already hitching. Bad day to be short on both water and food rations. I gave a mental sigh for the stupidity of wasting one of my last two doses of MRDR on the fractal-bait I just knew I was going to find on the other side. But I pulled an injector and, shooting my wrist out of the armored arm cuff of my suit as much as possible, pressed it against the skin.

I felt a couple blood vessels in my eyes pop. Just in time for the aches and pains that were my constant background noise to recede.  The rest of the world fell a stutter-step behind as the combat drug sped up my nerves. The world always looks slower on MRDR.

Up the hill. Over the edge of the ridge. Past the stunted trees growing metal leaves. Start down the other side of the hill.  I miss my muse, Galahad. And TacNet. Battlefield awareness has never been my strongest suit.

Combat hasn’t altered the landscape this side since I last saw it. Usually I avoid this side. Half-dead war machine and all. Running, then sliding down the hill – the last of the trees and brush died off months back, it’s just loose dirt now. Stunted yellow grass at the bottom of the hill, a flat area I can charge across safely. All the dangers in this bit are on the mesh; I had turned off my inserts years ago. Burned out vehicles up ahead, reminders of the last stand that partially crippled the war machine, left it in a crater it still hasn’t climbed out of. Futile gesture. Found the convoy the folks who did that bit of military heroism must have been buying time for a mile or two up the road. Well, their decapitated skeletons anyway. Head hunters don’t leave skulls behind.

Half-broken TITAN war machine still in its crater, 250 yards ahead. House-sized center mass with its ever shifting color patterns. Seven tentacles sprouting out, constantly furling and unfurling, the edges fluttering off into ragged fractal fronds.

Too far to see individuals.

Shots ringing. At least they’re using the dead vehicles as cover, sounds like. Two assault rifles, probably the same blueprints, same printer they’re so similar. An SMG, the smaller ammo has more of a popping sound. With a whining clatter, three rail-pistols tossing off bursts. Massed fire? Why?

Snap a shot off at one of the telescoping fractal metal arm cocking back, ready to slam down on a burnt out vehicle, while I’m running up. Plasma leaves a burnt ozone stink. Spot Emil barreling sideways into something before the arm comes down. A pause from the weight slamming into ground. Then a human head pops up from where Emil landed, followed by armored arms and an assault rifle that starts walking shots up the machine arm. Other rifle, also a human morph, comes out of cover 20 yards east to join in the shooting, going for center mass at least. Pause for a better placed shot myself, center mass – must have gotten through some of the armor, couple of the tentacles curl further back.

SMG dashes out of cover, charging straight towards the crater. First rifle, the westward one, starts screaming at him to get back, ‘Azar’ is already dead. Emil’s not going to reach the SMG in time. I’m charging forward after him, wondering why the fuck I’m do–

Neo-octopus

There’s a neo-octopus morph behind the husk of a vehicle 15 yards to my northwest now. Space suited octopus as tall as me. Two railguns aimed and ready, third one having a clip slotted in with the fourth of eight arms. Fractal-hells, when did transhumanity start uplifting octopi? Explains the massed fire.

A screech of metal, the ground shaking again, and railguns firing forward push my attention back on task. SMG is almost to the crater, slowing down like he’s going to jump in and slide to the bottom. Emil is barking up a storm, distracting at least one of the tank’s many limbs. I’ve never seen the damn thing grow more limbs, for once when dealing with a TITAN toy, so hail to the poor dead bastards whose vehicles I’m using for cover.

A burst of speed, and I reach the edge of the war machine’s crater just as the SMG does. A kick to the back of his knee forces him down far enough that I can take another shot over his head. Might have singed a bit of hair; idiot isn’t wearing a helmet. I grab at the back of his neck, find the bar for clipping on a rescue line, and yank him up and off his feet, back towards the neo-octopus. Just as the edge of the crater crumbles under my feet.

I’m on my ass, sliding down, firing as often as the plasma cannon can cycle, when I spot what SMG must have been coming in for – fresh corpse. Must be Azar. I let the slide continue until I’m next to Azar, pulling out my knife as I go. Wish I had an axe for this.

Fire the cannon. Flip the corpse. No helmet. Fire. No neck protection either. Line up the knife at the base of the neck. Swift chop. Fire. Knife got stuck halfway through the vertebrae. Leverage knife back and forth until vertebrae crack. Fire. Saw through more muscle and skin. Fire. Grab head by the hair, throw it up and out of the crater. Fire. Push back up to my feet and start walking backwards up the hill. Fire. Never stop firing. A meter or so from the top, turn and scramble out as fast as possible.

Back out, Emil is racing in a straight line towards home, decapitated head dangling from his mouth. Good dog. The neo-octopus isn’t far behind him, fouling the shot SMG man is trying to line up on my dog. Idiot is kneeling, back to the crater, screaming at ‘Akemi’ to get out of the way. He’s so focused, there’s no resistance as I grab the gun out of his hands, booking it past him. Didn’t even have it clipped to his armor or anything. If he doesn’t figure out to start running away at this point, there’s no saving this idiot.

Both assault rifles disengage and fall in behind me as I hightail it away. Three sets of pounding feet, good. Falling behind, less good. But none of us stop running until we’re back past the flat grassy area, past the metal trees, over the ridge, past the open grave I’d been digging, past the garden I’ve coaxed out of the ground, and in front of bunker I call home. Akemi is standing outside the door, rasping noises coming from the suit’s intake valves, looking at Emil. Emil’s sitting right outside the bunker airlock, head still dangling by its hair from his mouth. He stands up, tail wagging furiously, trots over to me, and drops the head at my feet.

Akemi just stands and rasps, staring at me, as I work through the vertebrae. Two up from the cut, I find what I’m looking for – the grape-sized, diamond encased copy of whoever just died in that crater. A cortical stack. Almost certainly uncorrupted by the war machine. I toss the stack to Akemi.

The other three skid to a halt behind me, wheezing. I turn, backing away towards my front door, and look them over. Armor no dirtier than I’d expect from just that fight. No scrapes, dents, or gouges. One of the rifle users pulls their helmet off to suck in air faster. Bright eyed, no hollow circles under their eyes, cheeks full and round. None of this lot have missed a meal, perhaps ever.

Turning back to Akemi, I prepare to say my first words to another person in almost three years.

“Why the fuck would you come back to Earth?”

GM’s Corner 04: Red Markets Episodes 6-7

After our Technical Difficulties in the prior episodes, we opted to go for system difficulties in these two. A rule set within Red Markets allows for the players to make up their own mission, called a Score. They talked about what to do and came up with the concept of raiding a maker space, a place where people can work on projects, whether electronic, artistic, mechanical, etc. The challenge in this from my end was to give them enough incentive to complete the mission while making it difficult.

Wracking my mind to come up with a solution, I actually asked Caleb for further elaboration about one of the cults made for the game, the Archivists. With religious conviction, the Archivists are assuring themselves that the zombie apocalypse will eventually completely destroy humanity. Thus, it’s their job to preserve as much of human knowledge as possible for whatever come next. As a concept for either an NPC or player character, it means playing them as fatalists with a purpose; they aren’t concerned with human life because it’s all going to end soon one way or another, but they have a mission that at least can give them a reason to keep living just a little bit longer.

With this in mind, I made up ‘antagonists’ for the Reformers to run into. The two heavily armed Archivists aren’t evil, just defending their base. They didn’t even care so much for the non-media contents, just that they were being invaded. After allowing the players to navigate the building undisturbed, I initiated the sequence where they came back. I was fully expecting a fire fight. What I wasn’t expecting was them to try to talk it out with the Archivists.

In retrospect, it’s one thing I should have. We are all fans of Role Playing Public Radio, and one of their hallmarks is trying to negotiate with and / or befriend antagonists who aren’t necessarily out to kill them. The rules don’t really have a means of talking things out with people on the field. What they did have, however, were rules for negotiation for jobs. On the fly, I thought to use the negotiation mechanics in this setting, and we engaged in what we had nicknamed ‘Combat Negotiation’.

If they players dip too far into the bad end of the negotiation table once the rounds are over, the opponents will not be pacified and will initiate combat. The low end of the positive side and they’ll want you to do something for them, the high end they’ll acquiesce. Our heroes succeeded, but I didn’t feel enough to just let them take what they wanted after entering the maker space uninvited, so I made up a mission on the fly for them to help raid a library for the Archivists.

The lessons I learned at the beginning of the campaign were showing their usefulness. Without my experience with Anton, a session where I had to blend player expectations with the job they made and the necessary changes to make a challenging scenario could have caused me to freeze up. Instead, as the heroes stood in a Mexican Standoff, I was able to do backseat game design and allow us to have an exciting game session.

Greg

GM’s Corner 03: He Calls Me By The Thunder

I hope you've enjoyed the first of my Civil War Cthulhu scenarios! I had a great time running He Calls Me by the Thunder for the Technical Difficulties crew. I've been developing this scenario for quite a while now and this is about the sixth or seventh time that I've run it. You can hear a very early version that I ran about two years ago for Ross and Caleb of RPPR over on their feed. Each run through has been unique and it’s been especially entertaining for me to see how each group makes different choices in their investigation.

As I’ve developed the scenario, I’ve added a lot of elements to help encourage the PCs to progress, including the encircling buzzard swarm, the missing seal for the parole passes, and the objective of discovering the whereabouts of Eveline’s family. Still, it’s up to the players to decide what they feel is important. Aaron, Greg, and Laura were a lot more cautious and deliberate than some of the other folks I've run it for. They almost went straight for the Tobacco Shed without even exploring the big house first, which would have been very interesting. But then they backed off and decided to collect clues. Darn!

But they also had some interesting failed rolls that changed the way the scenario progressed (as a side note, one of the things I like most about Call of Cthulhu is how failures can have a very dramatic effect on the story). They distinguished themselves as the least greedy group (in most other runs, one character has taken the gold and hidden it for themselves), and they're the only group I've had so far that almost tried to brave the deadly buzzard swarm and make a break for it! Private Cubbins has only survived one playthrough, and he bit it again this time. Poor kid!

Overall, we all had a great time with the scenario and it’s encouraging to me to learn that it still works even online and split into two parts. It was pretty tough to wrap up the ending, though, so we went a bit long.

I can't quite identify when I first got the idea to write some cosmic horror tales set amidst the very earthly horror of America's bloodiest war, but I've found it to be a rich combination.

Even since I first began reading Lovecraft and playing and listening to Lovecraftian horror games, I've been interested in the realistic historical aspect of the genre. Even though Lovecraft was writing stories set in his own contemporary era – often with cutting-edge science and technology – the Call of Cthulhu RPG retained the 1920's as its typical setting, which makes it a historical game to us 21st-century players. It's a short leap to set similar tales in other eras, like Adam Scott Glancy's World War I games and Caleb Stokes' No Security was probably the biggest direct influence in prompting me to write my stuff).

In each of my Civil War scenarios, I try to combine the themes of Lovecraftian cosmic horror with the difficult issues of the American Civil War. In this case, I focused on two things: the suffering of wounded soldiers and the legacy of plantation slavery.

The Random Wound Table is a major feature that sets up the scenario. I've found that rolling randomly emphasizes the arbitrary nature of battlefield wounds and it helps the players embrace the fragility of their disabled characters. They can then focus on trying to overcome their physical weaknesses as they play through the story.

Slavery is (to make an understatement) a difficult topic to approach in gaming. The character of Eveline Prentis emphasizes how terribly racial prejudice stifled African Americans' opportunities to express their natural talents and how casually their abilities were exploited by their owners. Eveline was directly inspired by Blind Tom Wiggins, a real life African American musical prodigy from the Reconstruction era, whose talents were constantly exploited by white "managers."

Hikiton Mound Plantation was partially intended as a commentary on so-called "patriarchal slavery," the idea that slavery was actually in the best interests of African Americans. Promoted by major figures such as Benjamin M. Palmer and Jefferson Davis, the idea was that slavery could best balance the relationship between naturally inferior blacks and naturally superior whites, to the benefit of both. As absurd and casuistic as this sounds to our modern ears, many Southerners genuinely believed it and some slaveholders such as Davis tried to run their plantations as "humanely" and "progressively" as they could. I designed Hikiton Mound to appear to be such a place on the surface, but with a horrific cruelty concealed just beneath.

-Ethan

GM’s Corner 02: Red Markets Episodes 3-5

If the first set of episodes (Big Trouble in Little Pittsburg)  was a good test of improvisation and role play, the second set (Crying Over Spilled Ink) was a good showing of pushing through failures.

This has nothing to do with the system, the players, or the mission concept and story. I totally messed up the role of the GM in Red Markets, which is mostly as a storyteller and rule keeper, by actively rolling for the Vectors in Episode 4. Caleb joked in an episode of his podcast that there were times that he nearly drove off the highway to take down notes on things that players got wrong in the playtest, and I have no doubt this episode nearly killed the man who created our game. If I had played correctly, Ethan’s character would have almost certainly died and the campaign would’ve turned out very differently.

To say nothing of Episode 5 and the repeated technical difficulties that inspired me to suggest that as a possible name for our podcast. Microphones wouldn’t work, Google Hangouts would drop, the internet would slow down so badly I couldn’t hear my players, etc. The night was pretty much a disaster that could have easily turned us off of playing and derailed the campaign.

The important lesson I learned those two nights is perseverance. It’s part of my nature to feel guilty for failing, and the guilt of ruining Caleb’s system and the internet causing problems was palpable. But ultimately, those failures did not affect our fun or our ability to play. Mistakes will happen while learning a new system. When we are forced to play using technology, we are allowing failure points into the system that can break down our ability to play. What matters is pushing forward and continuing to play. None of my players were upset that we kept having problems, and I realized that the failure to keep the rules straight is, in its own way, helpful to the game designer in showing what is confusing about the system. In the end, even the failures have their own way of helping.

Ultimately, we did have a good time. It was a lot of expressive fun to design the warehouse, in that I made a shipping manifest of different goods for the players to find. The backstory given to Anton was a good arc that fleshed out his character and made him real to the players. Laura made her own score by raiding a Planned Parenthood location which challenged me to think of what to find on the fly. There were multiple thrilling close calls where the zombies could have easily overtaken our heroes. This adventure in stealing ink for printers was the important first step in the overarching plot of my campaign.

When things don’t go right, keep pushing forward. These issues will hopefully be speed bumps in the overall fun of a game session or campaign.

Greg

GM’s Corner 01: Red Markets Episodes 1-3

Our first campaign was done as a beta playtest for Hebanon Games’ upcoming RPG Red Markets (http://hebanon.blogspot.com/). None of us had an established gaming group that wanted to play Red Markets but we all wanted to take part in the closed beta. Our team first met on the Role Playing Public Radio forums, after I posted to the forum a suggestion that people should band together and play the game online.I was lucky to have Aaron, Ethan, and Laura respond, and the rest is history.

Now with our group set, our discussion fell to creating the world of our campaign. Red Markets’ system allows the players and GM to collaborate on their base of operations. As Ethan is on the side of the country that serves as the playable area in Red Markets, his home state of Missouri seemed like a good place to base our Enclave out of. We took to Google Earth, and they agreed that a place along a river or lake would work well. They settled on the serpentine Lake of the Ozarks. While checking it, we spotted the small Village of Four Seasons. Struck by the absurdity of naming a post apocalyptic city after a fancy hotel, our Enclave’s name and location were decided upon.

With our characters and Enclave out of the way, it fell to me as GM to create the scenarios for them to play in. Red Markets provides a random roll table to set up scenarios, so it seemed prudent to test these rules. My rolls gave me a job for energy goods. Not knowing what would make sense for the middle of Missouri, I searched Google and found a website for the Missouri Department of Energy, which said that coal is a major part of Missouri’s energy needs. Modifying my search to ‘Coal Production in Missouri,’ I found a page from the Missouri Department of Natural Resources. The Department asked people to provide old maps for abandoned underground coal mines, showing a map of the Little Pittsburg Coal Mine of Lingo, Missouri, originally surveyed in 1890 as a sample. (http://dnr.mo.gov/geology/geosrv/coalminemaps.htm) Such a striking and clear concept gave me all I needed to make a job for our heroes to partake in.

Their job in hand, I now had to provide a twist (as is also mandated in the rules.) My first thought was to trigger a mine collapse, but that seemed too deus ex machina and had the potential to kill my players with one set of bad rolls. My background is not in tabletop RPGs. I’ve only been playing games in these systems for the past four years. My background is mostly in video games, where one of the biggest tropes is boss fights. One of the creatures in Red Markets that had not (as of the beta) been fleshed out were ‘Aberrants,’ highly mutated zombies that could function as bosses. Taking a risk and some artistic license, I made an Aberrant for them to fight.

Perhaps my biggest lesson from this session is the importance of improvisation. Another facet of the Red Markets experience is the random Leg table. The GM places the jobsite for a session an arbitrary distance away using Legs: small vignettes or encounters along the way. I set out to make my own table for the purposes of our campaign, and had to think of 20 encounters. I was struck by the ability to use dogs as a companion in the game, so I created an encounter where the players meet a dog and have the choice to give it food to take back to its master. It was even written such that they did not have to meet the owner, but they followed the dog back. I had written no dialog or personality to this dog and its owner.

The only things I had written were that the owner, Anton, was the lone survivor of a group that failed their mission, whereupon he became a Latent, infected with the zombie virus but still human. So, naturally, they met the owner and had a tense encounter with him as they found he was infected and befriended him as he came to the realization that he was infected.

This one paragraph throw away NPC turned out to be the most important NPC in the game.

The thing I love the most about RPGs is the collaborative process. It should never be the GM forcing a story upon their players; it’s the GM and players working together to tell an amazing story. We hope you enjoy this session and the many more to come from Technical Difficulties.

Greg