Finishing 23 Session Arkham Campaign

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I did a cool thing last week: I wrapped up a 23 session Call of Cthulhu campaign that was entirely set in Arkham. The PCs ran an antique/book shop called Astral Antiquities and Appraisals but spent most of their time investigating weird and terrible events in and around Arkham, never straying too far from their store in the merchant district. Over the course of a year in real life, I ran the group through four scenarios but there was enough customization to keep me on my toes, and I want to discuss not only those scenarios and the campaign framework, but also what worked and what didn’t.

Accounting: the RPG

One of my all-time favorite TTRPG books is Bookhounds of London, for Trail of Cthulhu, and I love it for exactly the reason this campaign was successful – whether in London or elsewhere, the book creates a framework of the people and things necessary to make running an occult bookstore (or antique or oddity shop or anything other business focused on buying and selling the weird and esoteric) interesting and gameable. Now that I’ve finished this campaign, I can say that my own two favorite campaigns that I’ve run have been based on this framework of running a shop, and so clearly it works for me in a few ways.

First, it quickly and easily gives the players and GM a framing device to build their stories and characters around. I offered many options for a PC group, but they all wanted to run a store, and we ended up with a fun and eclectic mix of PCs: an ex-con turned shopgirl, veteran turned accountant, forger and second-story man, and failed astronomer turned business owner. They all used opening the store as a reason for their PCs to have gone through a recent personal transformation (a question I asked them up front), and I gave them Connecting Cards (I’ll have to write these up at some point) that loosely tied their backgrounds together.

Running a store that sells weird stuff is really easy for people to understand thematically, and within 2-3 sessions we had a clear picture of Astral Antiquities as a business in Arkham’s Merchant District that had been open for about a year after Wesley the Failed Astronomer inherited the store from his mentor Ruper Merriweather (more on them later). It snapped into place quickly.

Another reason I like having PCs run a store is that it gives the PCs’ universe the center of gravity for framing new scenarios and adventures, which players and GM must have bookshop or not, and it just skips past all the awkward conversations around why the group knows each other and allows the GM to easily put interesting situations in front of the party. Much like Delta Green or the Advocacy (my own contemporary horror sourcebook – more on that in later post for sure), providing a reason for the investigators to explore mysteries gets to the heart of running investigative horror quickly and cleanly.

Building a store in a static location such as Arkham or San Francisco also allows the group to explore that location more deeply, as opposed to globe-trotting campaigns such as Masks or Eternal Lies that drag the party to many locations. With the static location, everyone gets to feel more verisimilitude and connection to the world and the discrete stories and stakes feel more real. Now I love globe-trotting campaigns, but there’s something special about digging into a location and making it your own, finding out what you like and hate about it and giving its characters reasons to be. It’s true escapism.

Connecting the Mysteries

Over the course of these 23 sessions, I ran four scenarios, three of which are in print: The Haunting, Edge of Darkness, Dreams and Fancies, and Queen of Night. I had plans to later run Crimson Letters, also set in Arkham, and then maybe head to Innsmouth for my white whale scenario Escape from Innsmouth. But those last two will have to wait.

Two important things about these scenarios (let’s replace Dreams & Fancies with Crimson Letters to make my point): they are all in print and they all take place in Arkham (well, you can easily put The Haunting there instead of Boston), meaning that running a year-plus campaign like this is really easy and relatively inexpensive to do (as opposed to tracking down either the Innsmouth or Kingsport books if you don’t already have them).

I also used the new Arkham book quite heavily, especially relying on the descriptions and stats for the witch coven (spoilers! There’s a coven in Arkham!) and just getting a great vibe for many locations. We figured out exactly where the PCs lived and what building on the map was the store, and used NPCs from the book for many great encounters – Abner Wick is a gem!

It was very easy for me to string together these scenarios, as well as tie together two early scenarios with Queen of Night at the end for deep thematic call-back and resolution. The Book of Eibon, found in The Haunting, holds many secrets to communing with Tsathoggua (which I’ve written on), which is the Old One I ended up using as the Dark Master for Queen of Night; and then I threw in Bertrand Merriweather, scorned son from Edge of Darkness, to continually harass the PCs until he eventually hired a gang (no Mythos, just fists, bricks, and blackjacks) to beat up PCs, smash shop windows, and generally confuse the plot until he messed up and was chased and tackled by the ex-con shopgirl who it turns out was as fast as an Olympic runner. It really came together nicely.

Between these scenarios and the Arkham book, I found it incredibly easy to string together a cohesive campaign in a way that I had never done before. Yes, at times it did take me a bit of effort to create episodes but building the three fronts for Queen of Night was a very worthwhile investment that paid out multiple dividends later in the campaign.

I am confident that I could run the same scenarios (with Crimson Letters instead of Dreams & Fancies), buy no new books, and even provide the same frame of “you are running a business in Arkham” (which could be books/antiques or detective or?) and run 20+ sessions again with the same factions and have the game be totally different but just as successful.

However, there was one key learning (aside from all the above) that helped me tune the game and find its groove for everyone at the table.

Favored Play Style

As I discussed on MUP 320, I ran Dreams & Fancies from the Kingsport book and it did not work for my table at all. I misjudged how the PCs should engage with the scenario – it should be on top of another scenario for ideal effect – and so everyone was lost on how to really dig into the scenario, including myself.

I pulled the plug on it early, after messing around creating The Door in the Floor (which I need to write up) and thought about what the table (including myself) needed. Remember, all my players were new to investigative horror, and they really jumped at the clues/mysteries presented in both The Haunting and The Edge of Darkness. Yes, they ran a store, but they were never there, which created an ongoing joke of “who’s tending the store?” and “well, I came by but the store was closed, again,” that pointed at the table’s greater interest in mysteries than accounting.

Also, I don’t have a lot of time to create new content for my games, which is why I ended my Bookhounds of SF game in the first place. I’m really working hard at writing consistently and continuously, building up momentum to set my attention firmly back at novels, and while I love to mess around with scenarios and customize them to fit the table, using my own understanding of storytelling and character arcs to create a very bespoke and deep story for my table, I just don’t have the time for it.

So I rely on published scenarios to help me – whether running Masks over three years or Edge of Darkness over three sessions, sadly my writing doesn’t pay me enough (yet) to playtest new materials all the time.

When Dreams & Fancies spun out, I realized that it was not a very clue-heavy scenario, and that it asked the players to be very curious in a way that my rather new investigative table was ready for. I think really understanding how investigative games work takes time to learn, and while a more mature table (like my Masks game which is comprised of veteran Cthulhu players and GMs) might know how to scratch at thinner clues, my table of new investigators needed (and liked) a clearer, more concrete set of clues and mysteries.

And I was right. Holy smokes was I right.

Queen of Night (found in Arkham Gazette #3 which I can’t recommend enough – do you already have a copy?) starts like the best of mysteries – with a murder – and tips sideways fast. It has plenty of research to do, with a good collection of clues and props that help the PCs dig into the lineage of a long-time gestating Arkham witch cult. There are multiple dead bodies, plenty of NPCs to engage, and lots and lots of weird and spooky moments to throw at the PCs. It really is a smashing scenario.

And the players LOVED it. By the end of the first session, the confusion and incomplete conclusion of Dreams & Fancies had left us, to be replaced by a haunting and terrible murder mystery. Then I stacked on the extra details and mysteries of not only the Merriweather Gang but the other Arkham coven (the one in the Arkham book), which stirred the clue-pot considerably and really had the players scratching their heads for a long time.

By the time we were a few sessions into Queen of Night, it was clear that I had found a style of game that worked for everyone. I still had to do some work to get the factions up and running (which I’ll write more on in a later post), but once I did that work my job at the table was very easy.

One of my favorite moments of the game, and a favorite moment in 35+ years of GMing, came toward the end, when my players were, once again, sifting through the clues and trying to pick out the narrative. They did something similar every couple of sessions after they got a couple new chunks of clues, but this time it was different. They had met and faced down the threat of the Merriweather Gang, figured out that the Arkham Coven was different than the Queen of Night coven, and begun to understand who each of the NPCs were.

The grand moment came when a player said, “I think there are three different groups here…” and listed them out and all their relevant context. This was a stark difference from 4-5 sessions earlier when they were conflating all the factions into one with wide-eyed confusion, “This witch cult is HUGE!” Now they had sifted through all the clues like the thorough investigators they had become, and had been able to arrive at thoughtful and well-researched conclusions based on the myriad clues I had thrown them over multiple sessions. And they got it right.

It was beautiful.

I Would Do it Again

Now that I’m here, I would totally run this campaign again, even if I took out Dreams & Fancies and didn’t replace it at all. Bookstore, Detective Agency, Florist, really it doesn’t matter. Running a campaign where the PCs are business owners in Arkham is just so easy and satisfying. And those scenarios are all well-constructed and easy to use as building blocks to create a deep and fun game of exploration and investigation in and around Arkham.

It would totally do it again.

New Convention Table Rules – Part 1: The Troublesome Player

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Earlier this month I attended 1d4 Con held in Charles Town, WV and, for the most part, had a smashing time. I just attended one day, but I played in three games, including running my Alien game “Games without Frontiers” (more on that below), met old and new friends, including James who runs the con, ate amazing tacos at a roadside stand, and generally just had a pleasant time hanging out with other gamers for the day. All great except…

Except the one player who came really close to ruining my Alien game (and my second ad-hoc game of Into the Odd/Sytgian Library) – he has triggered numerous conversations about how to set up convention games for success, as well as getting me to sit down and write this post where I’ll attempt to put some new rules in place for when I (and maybe you) run convention games.

The situation is not new – you sit down to run or play in a convention game and while most of the table is collaborative, friendly, and focused on creating a safe and fun space for everyone else, there is one player who starts sending up yellow and red flags early that they are not willing or able to think of anyone but themselves. Maybe they are extremely juvenile in their humor or engagement, maybe they are super-distracted with their phone, or maybe (like in my case) they quickly show that they are at the table to highlight themselves, their character, and their fun – at the expense of everyone else.

I have discussed table safety extensively on MUP (especially in these two episodes that I’m very proud of) and how safety tools make sure that everyone at the table gets on the same page at the start of a game to have a fun time. But what I’ve never really discussed or even thought about was what I’m calling “table fun rules” – a set of upfront expectations detailed at the beginning of a game that give the GM and table clear boundaries and actions to take to make sure everyone is supporting the table and the collaborative story that we build together.

(This topic also merges with something I’ve wanted to discuss for a long time around building a “Gamer Hierarchy of Needs” and I begin to wander in that direction, turning this into a multi-part post and helping me realize I do need to put down those thoughts. Warning – this post goes long.)

So I want to develop a set of tools that GMs and players can bring to their tables that bring the necessary conversations front and center to the table, just like Table Safety, and start weeding out troublesome players up front.

Let me use my Alien game at 1d4 Con to illustrate why we need these tools.

Our table of five players – all of whom were new to the Alien RPG – was very dynamic and different, with widely varying player personalities, styles, and experiences. The first yellow flags came early when our troublesome player Larry (not his real name) took the one PC that holds a key narrative element and began using that narrative to set himself apart from the other PCs (to my later point – I need to take care in who takes this PC because they own an important part of the story and they need to be willing to share the story).

While there was a little friction with him setting himself apart from the rest of the table, I let it ride because the first hour of the game is really just warming up. I re-greased the narrative skids and kept the story moving until, at the halfway point, things went sideways – fast.

I have run GWF about a dozen times, including multiple convention runs, and I’ve never had anyone ruin the narrative like this – I was caught off-guard so dramatically (and I continued to trust the player to do the right thing) that I let it go too far without correcting and that ended up really challenging the other players to play their own roles.

Larry jumped past any “figure out what’s happening” actions and directly tried to instigate combat between the other players and NPCs multiple times, attempting to use his PC’s in-game authority to basically upturn the whole narrative (literally saying “Kill him,” “shoot him,” and “take this gun and destroy him”). There wasn’t discussion with the other players, there wasn’t discussion with the NPCs, there wasn’t consideration for what the purpose of the agenda was that he was using to attempt to instigate combat – he just tried, repeatedly, to get PCs to kill the NPCs, and when that didn’t work, tried to get the NPCs to kill each other.

The table was very unclear on where to go with this – mostly because I was unclear on where to go. I had never had someone take the agenda so literally, so quickly, and try to get into combat in the second act. Technically the PC was following his secret agenda, but it really went against the spirit of the game, and I worked with the other players to bring the narrative back on track – offering many options that did not include killing the NPCs – but Larry wasn’t having it. He tried every way he could to instigate combat and was visibly frustrated when everyone else at the table worked around it.

I even mentioned at some point as the table was getting frustrated, “He is technically working within the bounds of his agenda,” which he was. But – and this is the important part – he was wayyyyyy outside of the bounds of the table’s fun, and his continued efforts really challenged the rest of the table, including myself, to have a good time. (Also – very important – this is where I should have said something more direct to Larry, but did not. More on this below.)

All of this friction took time, and the table fell behind the allotted pacing for fitting into the four-hour slot. I pushed the group to engage with the final act, but Larry would not follow the very clear action his PC needed to take to move the story into its final stage. Every single player that has played this role has moved the story into its third act because that’s what the story expects you to do – because they were playing with the table’s story and not their own. I even explain this goal multiple times as part of the mission briefing. This is not a matter of miscommunication or unclear agendas – this became a player refusing to play the game in front of him.

It all boiled over when, about 15 minutes from the end, as the final scene spun out of control (with gunfire and panic in the true Alien way), the PCs began to retreat – because Larry’s PC has not done was is needed for the group to be successful – and another PCs runs past Larry’s PC (who has been critically injured and is having trouble moving) and Larry says, “I shoot her” (meaning the other PC). There was no narrative reason to do this – Larry was just frustrated that all of his shenanigans have spun the narrative and table against him and got him injured.

I said, “No. You can’t do that.”

That’s a really big deal for me, and that’s when I realized that I let the story get too far out of sync and that Larry was now ruining everyone’s fun. I told him he needed to do something else other than PvP –it was now acceptable to shoot the NPCs per the narrative – and I pushed the story hard back on track. But the damage was done.

Shortly thereafter the session ended, and the players left, except Larry who asked to play another game with me later. (To which, strangely, I said yes. More on that later.) And with that, my table walked away frustrated and confused with a game that didn’t need to go sideways.

All of this drama has led me here, and I needed to write down what happened to give detail and merit to the idea that Larry never wanted to be a part of the group, and never had collective story in mind during those four hours. I talked with other players at the table, as well as players who were frustrated with Larry’s behavior in earlier games, and all of these discussions lead to the idea that I needed to do something earlier about making sure the table – including myself – had the right guardrails needed to keep one player from ruining everyone else’s game.

Because that’s what happened, and it’s not fair to everyone else who shows up to do that, including me.

And while this is not something that happens to me regularly, it’s enough of a thing that anyone who goes to cons has experienced this in some way or another, and it’s bound to happen again. I think it’s time to set some ground rules to help myself and other GMs prepare for it.

But this means we need to do some real work on ourselves and be willing to have hard conversations. Like Safety Tools, though, it’s really important to get this right. More in Part 2.

Tsathoggua – Primeval Duraflame Log – Pt 1

Through no fault of my own – I swear these universes build themselves – I suddenly find myself needing to become more acquainted with the Great Old One Tsathoggua as well as figure out some very practical places for it to appear in my Call of Cthulhu game. So in my effort to figure out how to make it appear and influence my game, you get a blog post on how to better use Tsathoggua. (edit: MULTIPLE blog posts…)

According to The HP Lovecraft Wiki’s entry on Tsathoggua, he is one of the most referenced GOO’s in all of Lovecraft, which is crazy for how little he is used in Lovecraft investigation games. Furthermore, while Sath (my shorthand for it, at least for this blog post) is a creation of Clark Ashton Smith, Lovecraft of course took him and made him his own, and the two versions differ substantially. Finally, in most books Sath is represented as a monstrous toad-like creature who sleeps all the time – not the most horrifying of visages when put against its peers. So no wonder Sath is underutilized, which is all the more reason to figure out how to use him.

My Arkham Call of Cthulhu campaign strings together published scenarios for a group of PCs that run an antique store that was inherited by Rupert Merriweather (of Edge of Darkness fame). In the group’s first scenario – of course, The Haunting – one of the PCs got his hands on The Book of Eibon (TBOE), in which the titular wizard Eibon learns to communicate with Sath and eventually shares spells to do so (as well as summon Formless Spawn, which I’ll come back to).

I am working on a mini-game to make studying Mythos tome more fun, which is not ready to share, but for now know that I’m using it as this PC (a forgery artist named Miles) continually goes back to TBOE and tries to crack its code. TBOE is full of references to Sath and I’ve started to feed in some information, bit by bit, on what that looks like. But honestly, I don’t have a full take on how to make reading about Sath fun and interesting as well as dangerous.

Then, months later in game time, the group is now investigating a series of murders that seem not only related but powered by witchcraft (and probably Mythos magic). In this scenario (which I’ll be vague and spoiler-free for now), the antagonist has made a pact with Sath (via the mentioned murders) and the deity in turn provides all sorts of Mythos magical powers to be used in nefarious ways.

So I have two needs to crack the code on Tsathoggua:

  • What does making a pact with this deity – trading magic powers for ritual sacrifices – specifically look like for both the antagonist (who made the pact) and the PCs investigating her? How is a pact with Sath different from a pact with Nyarlathotep or any other GOO?
  • How does reading TBOE (basically an instruction manual on how to contact and make a pact with Sath) impact the reader? What changes does my PC undergo as he continues to investigate this arcane and very dangerous tome?

But before I do any of this, I need to do some research of my own and figure out who the subterranean madness this Tsathoggua fellow is.

New GOO – Who ‘dis?

One of the main reasons to own the Trail of Cthulhu book (by Ken Hite and Pelgrane Press), whether you have a weathered 1e (like me) or backed the upcoming 2e (also me), is the incredible section on Gods and Titans. Hite, a Mythos scholar if there is one, doesn’t just give static descriptions of GOOs – instead for each GOO he provides a few options of how that GOO may appear in your game that both works thematically and gives you practical advice on how to incorporate into actual investigations.

So when I am challenged to visualize how a GOO might appear in my game, this section is the first place I go. Without repeating the whole entry, after reading and mulling about, I found this entry on Sath most appealing:

Tsathoggua is a protean, formless Great Old One, usually encountered in the shape of a loathsome toad-like lump of black slime. He was the first GOO to seep onto Earth. His spawn are likewise formless, and they are his primary servitors. In some sense, all his spawn are the same being, connected through immaterial pathways of perception and lineage.

This entry has so much to sink my teeth into! It ties together how and where Sath and its servitors may appear (in the cracks of Earth), how they appear (black slime), and how they interact with each other, as well as mortals (connected through immaterial pathways of perception and lineage). This gives me everything I need to frame up both the pact and the PCs’ research (both for the PC reading TBOE and the overall group investigation).

Armed with this, I can now fill in the details on what the pact looks like.

More in Part II…

Gladiator 2: Not the Worst of the Pointless Ridley Scott Sequels

Sequels, to paraphrase Jamie Kennedy in Scream 2, need to be the same, but bigger. And Gladiator 2 does just that.

Honestly, I was never a fan of the original, but a recent re-watch showed more nuance than I remembered, and the family was all in so we got to see it while Bella was in town.

Importantly, it is not the worst of the pointless Ridley Scott sequels (*cough* Prometheus *cough*), and actually it works well enough to be just worth the long runtime. No, it’s not as good as the original, but it’s also not too bad either. It could have been much much worse. Much.

Most importantly, though, is Denzel Washington, who is – pun intended – a legend and welcome on any set. The movie is ultimately his as he chews his way through every scene, and would come back for more if given the chance. He is almost worth the price of admission alone. Almost.

So yeah. Gladiator 2. If you want to see it, you should. If you don’t, then you’re not missing anything.

“It’s a Cold and Wet Sunday” – Calendar and Weather in Investigative Horror

Closed on Sundays

Recently, in both 1920s Call of Cthulhu games I’m running, the players laid forth plans to get out on the town and get some shit done – knock on doors, talk to folks, figure out what was happening. But as they went about their business, they soon found that all the shops were closed and people were unavailable. It was Sunday, and most places are closed on Sunday.

This forced the players to retune their expectations and come at the problem in different ways. In one game, where they wanted to interview a shop owner, they asked if there was an apartment upstairs that might be the residence of the owner. There was indeed a residence, and a successful Luck roll later, they found the shop owner home on a Sunday morning, surprised in her morning robes, but willing to bring them in for tea and a brief visit.

In the other case, the group wanted to find a professor of archaeology at Miskatonic University and ask them some questions. Since there’s no school on Sunday, chances are the whole department is closed and no one available. “We’ll try anyway – see if anyone is working the weekend.”

Another Luck roll and this was a Critical Success – as it happened, they found the department head redoing his bookshelves on a Sunday, and were able to capture his imagination with their recent artifact finds. They engaged with the NPC and got the clues that sent the story off on a whole new direction…

In both cases, what might have originally been seen as a blocker – it’s Sunday so no clues for you! – was actually an opportunity for both the players and me to reframe the scene and solve the problem in a new way. It was less about preventing clues or encounters and more about verisimilitude and presenting the world in a way that feels real.

I love the word “verisimilitude.” First off, six syllables is a lot, and 50% more than my last name, so it’s just a big, neat word. Also, it packs a lot of punch for investigative horror games where the disparity and dichotomy between our “normal” reality and the cosmic horrors we encounter are what gives these stories a lot of punch.

The word means “the appearance of being true or real” and while that seems pretty straightforward, it’s definitely a tool that can easily be misused or mishandled in these sorts of games. It’s an amazing tool that definitely needs careful use.

I’m not even going to talk about people who use it to justify prejudice (racism, sexism, etc) in their games, saying “XXX people had no rights in that time period, so we’re going to lean into that part of the game.” Blech, no, shut up and go away.

I’m talking more about people who get lost in the details of the period and roleplay the least important part of the games  – like buying bus tickets or presenting a dinner menu. These are neat, yes, and certainly taking a brief moment to set the scene and ground the story in historical appropriate details helps build the atmosphere.

But often writers and GMs get lost in these details and use them as excuses to avoid real stakes or interesting traction in the story. Just in my above example, I could have just said, no the place is closed on Sunday and moved on. But the players pushed back and asked for a way to work around in a manner that felt real. So they themselves leaned into the details and countered the real situation with appropriate details of their own.

This is good, and we want to encourage and reward this behavior. Good players, here is a clue.

But also good GM – I didn’t let the verisimilitude get in the way of the story and instead used the details to create something different than what was expected.

Cold and Tired

The next thing I’m trying to do with this verisimilitude is with the weather, which everyone is discussing but no one is doing anything about. Seriously, I describe the weather all the time, especially when it becomes inclement – rainy or even snowy and cold. One of my groups is currently in London during the month of February, and before that were in NYC in January, so I was constantly describing the cold weather in an effort to bring the scenes alive.

And that’s great, but… then what? So it’s raining and cold and overcast and damp, and we need to carry umbrellas and wear coats and hats… And then? How do these details make acting during these scenes more interesting and real? What tools can we as GMs bring to bear that make the weather more impactful?

I don’t actually know at this moment, but what I am wrestling with is being realistic with PC exhaustion, or “you haven’t slept in 36 hours because you’ve been running and gunning from the police, so you’re too tired to do anything.”  Again, this came up in both of my games, and I wrestled with how to bring realism to the game and still keep it fun.

No one wants to be left out when the group gets together to discuss clues and the mystery and what to do next. I don’t. Those scenes are one of the best parts of the game, and it’s no fun to be told by the GM “you failed your CON roll so you’re asleep in the other room.”

I know that it’s not fun, because I did that in both games and watched the players itch to get back in the scenes. As a follow up then, I had the PCs check their CON, and that potential success could end in a reward of MP or HP, resulting from a good night’s sleep. And then I just picked up the whole scene and brought everyone together for breakfast together. It worked great.

Paying Attention

Verisimilitude is not just a great word – it’s a tool to use to ground players in the realness of our game, and is particularly useful in period games. But it can be overused or misused to put up roadblocks or churn for players who just want to engage with the story.

Paying attention to the day of the week often feels like too much bookkeeping for my tastes, but it allowed me to bring some realism and shift the tones of scenes without much effort. It worked very well and I will definitely use it again.

However, if my investigators spend too much time out in the cold rain and happen to get colds or the flu, I’m not sure needing to spend the weekend in bed will be as fun for them as it is for my storytelling. I need to find a better way to use weather to impact the game.

What are your tips for using verisimilitude to build details and realness in your game?

9 Player DCC with Player Roles

9 Player DCC with Player Roles: Caller, Mapper, Quartermaster, Time-tracker

I recently ran a 5-hour session of Operation Unfathomable with 9 players, and one of the key things that helped everyone at the table – especially me – stay engaged and organized was that I had four players help me run the game. Before the game I identified four sets of information and decisions that I wanted to offboard from me, and then I asked folks ahead of time who could help me. It was easy to setup and once everyone was engaged it worked like a charm.

I’ll describe each of these roles, and will finish by talking through what it means to have responsible players that you can trust.

Caller

Back in the early days of OD&D/AD&D, having a party of 6+ players was the norm. The legends speak of 8, 10, 12 or more players around the table for the early games, and I’ve certainly played in larger games back in the early ‘80s. There just weren’t enough DMs (still a problem today, though not as severe) and getting invited to sit at a game – any game – was a thrill, no matter the party size.

In order to maintain the chaos of decision-making during non-combat turns (the 10 minute long ones, more on that below), one player is designated the Caller. I’m still digging through the AD&D books to find a citation, but the Caller is the player responsible for holding the party’s collective decision making process for the DM. This is the first time I’ve ever run a game with a Caller, and while I only needed it a few times, when I did it was beautiful.

The Caller’s job is to hold the answer to the question “what are you doing now?” for the entire party, gaining consensus (or not) and anointed by the DM as the single point for an answer. My friend Dan is a Sr Director at a large tech company and so he was an easy pick for this role.

I only used him a few times – a key example is when the party emerged from the entry side tunnel (we’re underground) and I asked “do you go left or right?” The group took a good five minutes to discuss, and then slowly waded into a confused back and forth that these large group decisions often go. So then I pointed to Dan and said, “Well?”

He stopped the discussion, made a decision, and checked back in with the group (“everybody okay if we go right?”), got a collective shrug of acceptance, then told me, “we go right.” And that was it.

There is an important psychological moment with agency and decision consensus that the group went through, but it took Dan’s energy and focus to hold the group in that moment, and I didn’t have to do anything. Furthermore, it wasn’t me as the DM holding the decision, it was the party who did it, which also builds a greater sense of buy-in and agency. We didn’t need it often – most of the turns I gave people the opportunity to do their own thing – but when we did, it worked extremely well. I’m all in with the Caller.

Mapper

There was a mix-up at the start when I asked the second Dan to bring a battle mat and he only brought smaller folio-sized combat maps. I had envisioned mapping the tunnels in a large-scale – not necessarily to scale, with one square equaling 20 feet – but putting the large map out in front so everyone could see it. But it all worked out in the end.

Rob heartily volunteered for the role of Mapper, and his job was to draw a map that showed the dungeon with any notes of encounters. This was particularly important because we are only playing once a year, so there needs to be continuity for the group to pick up in 2025. Rob did great.

We agreed on a few key ideas as we started:

  • 20 foot squares
  • There are no cardinal directions (as we’re underground) but for the sake of simplicity, the top of the map is north
  • If Rob needed clarification, he could hold up the map and ask “like this?” and that while I would not correct every single detail, I would make sure he has the overall structure correct.

And that’s how it worked. Like the Caller, we didn’t need it until we needed it. He checked in a few times, but for most of the game he was sitting at the end of the table, creating a map of the dungeon and quite enjoying himself. A few times he helped steer the group back on course, a few times he asked if he had it right, and now there’s a map of what they’ve explored so far. Absolutely easier than what I had in my head when I started.

Quartermaster

Again, I was thinking about getting decisions and tracking off my plate and onto a player’s, I asked Dan2 (not the Caller) to manage the group’s inventory. I did this for three reasons:

  • The campaign starts with the PCs getting a bunch of magic items that I didn’t want to manage myself.
  • I wanted someone to track food and ammunition (more on this below).
  • And there would be treasure and other items the group came across to track.

Moving the consensus building from me to a player was again so helpful. When the party arrived at the start of the dungeon, I gave Dan2 an index card with a list of 10+ magic items, and then he went around the table and figured out who got what. While he did this I continued to prep and think about where the first encounter would be.

Also, I don’t really like tracking individual rations and ammunition, and like to use the One Year Engine’s resource-tracking die mechanic (they didn’t need torches because the dungeon is lit by phosphorescent fungi). Basically, your resource (eg rations) start at a d20 value. Then, whenever you eat (let’s say daily) you roll that resource die, and if you get a 1 or 2, it drops down to the next die in the chain (usually d12 down from d20 but we’re playing DCC and I haven’t decided where the d14 and d16 fit it, lol). Then you repeat until you reach d4, when if you roll a 1/2 you are out of that resource.

We did it for ammunition for the one crossbow in the group (no bows strangely) so it wasn’t used a lot, but Dan2 just rolled a couple times and didn’t get a 1 or 2, so ammunition stayed at the d20. Much easier than tracking individual shots, and really great to have this all managed by someone not me.

Time-tracker

This final piece was the one I wasn’t sure about, and I waffled up until that morning, then just decided to go for it. I’ve not run a large scale dungeon crawl in a while, and 9 players or not, I don’t have a go-to framework for managing the action economy while exploring. After some research and discussions with a friend, I just went simple and built the following rules:

  • It takes 10 minutes to explore a 20’ square and gain the core information.
  • Any other exploring or resting will take another 10 minutes.
  • 60 minutes to an hour, etc.

The key for tracking time is used for:

  • Tracking daily rations usage
  • Tracking spell and other underworld and Chaos effects
  • Understanding overall time spent for in-game context

It was fascinating to discover at the end of five-hours in actual time that we had spent five hours in-game. The ebb and flow of 10 minute exploration rounds versus the few intense encounters centered on the large combat (which only took 30 minutes in game but a whole hour in real time) still ended up with a very similar time-frame.

Glenn gladly took up this role, and he pressed me a couple times to be clear in how much time had passed. The first few times I had to think about it, but we got into a groove and by the end, I was comfortable judging whether or not to tick off another 10 minutes. He created his own tracker on a piece of graph paper, and again, was happy ticking time away with almost no inputs or management from me. So good.

On Players

The key thread through all of these roles is that I had players who easily jumped into their responsibilities with almost no prodding or management by me. These are all good friends of mine, and I’ve known most of them for decades, so there’s a level of trust and communication that already exists. I’m thankful for their help, and I recognize that a less mature table (maybe comprised of strangers at con) may not be as easy and effective as mine was.

One would hope that sitting down with a larger group at a convention, or even at an annual gaming weekend of friends like mine, would naturally bring the engagement needed to pull this off. I could write a whole blog post on managing people’s expectations and what communication skills are needed to pull this off, but that will be for another day.

For now I’ll leave saying that these roles not only helped the party function and gave the players more agency – they made the game more fun for me as the DM. It’s a lot of work managing a dungeon crawl, never mind one with 9 players only run once a year. Getting help in this way significantly improved my enjoyment of the game, took many decisions burdens off my mind, and let me focus on the story and encounter flow.

I heartily recommend these roles for larger groups, and feel like the whole thing is possible with these shared responsibilities. I hope you get a chance to try them some day.

DCC and Operation Unfathomable Session Report – Summer 2024

DCC and Operation Unfathomable

SPOILERS ABOUND!

SPOILERS ABOUND!

SPOILERS ABOUND!

Every summer I get together with a group of long time friends for a gaming weekend. We mostly play board games, but for a few years I was able to run a DCC game with the same PCs.

I started with the Hubris! campaign setting and ran the funnel and L1 scenarios there, and then had a great time playing Fever Swamp. However I really struggled trying to tie the sessions together and then Covid came and ended it anyway.

This year I ran the DCC version of Operation Unfathomable (OU) with a full table of 9 players and it. Was. Awesome.

We had a mix of L1 and L2 PCs plus one player ran a coterie of 0L. But more importantly I had the players help me run the game in a very AD&D way.

One player served as Caller, another as Mapper, then one each for Time Tracker and Quartermaster. It was so much fun to have all the assistance at the table and just be able to have everything tracked without my effort. (I will do another blog post on this shortly.)

Crazy thing is that it took us five hours in real time to play five hours in game time. We didn’t get very far into the dungeon but now we are well into it. And we can pick up right where we left off…

Session Record – Episode 1 – Summer 2024

We had 4 L2, 4 L1, and 4 L0 PCs, so 12 PCs for 9 players in all.

Prologue – We read the player introduction and then I brought the party to the 1000’ ladder to begin their descent. We then went around the table and each player introduced their PC (or PCs for one player) and then they got to either ask a question or roll on the rumor chart. Most rolled on the chart, but a couple asked questions, specifically around visions and the chaos. I tried to give as many clues as possible, including showing the cleric Ned a vision of Shaggath-Ka lying injured in his cave (and I showed him the picture).

We also had a great moment when the Chaos Cleric tried to contact his deity for help, but rolled a 1, and ended up interacting with Ned’s Law deity instead. Laughs ensued.

Room 1 – The players then arrived at the first cave from the climb and set about getting organized. I asked the Quartermaster to hand out the magic items, and then asked the Caller to organize the marching order. I wasn’t super concerned about the exact order, just more looking for who was in the front, middle, and rear.

The Mapper immediately realized that the player map is wrong and great gnashing of player teeth followed. With inventory managed, mapping ready, but without searching the first room, they set off into the dungeon. We weren’t sure this was actually going to happen.

Room 2 – They fell right into proper paranoid dungeon crawlers and spent a lot of time moving through the pill bug husks, but of course the mind bats attacked! They were actually hard to hit, but the mind bats rolled poorly and did no damage. Eventually the party was able to kill them with no damage to themselves. It was good to get some dice rolled and have everyone figure out how to work together a bit.

Hell’s Back Road & Room 3a – The party moves into the large tunnel and spent some time interacting with the giant skeleton. They eventually cast a spell and drove off the flying prawns and were a little disappointed to find nothing of value on the giant, but they spent the time and collected the 200 gp worth of miscellaneous coin and headed “east.”

About 120’ Later – Despite GMing for almost 45 years, I don’t have a lot of experience with “proper” dungeon crawling, with time tracking, random encounters, etc (at least not as an adult), so to alleviate the pressure I rolled up just a few encounters to help me focus ahead of time. I’m all for letting the dice do the talking but I need something to sink my teeth into until I’m comfortable with the dungeon itself.

The first encounter I rolled up, which ended up being the centerpiece encounter for the whole session, was a combination of Merchant Riding Glutton-Newt and Bewildered Martian Ape. I had given all the warnings to the players that – a) not every encounter is combat-focused, and b) there is no balance and some encounters are very dangerous. Great example for both of these.

They hid out and waited until the newt-riding merchant and his guardian had passed, then came out to raise a hand in peace. The merchant stopped and they spent a long moment beginning negotiations for possible potion purchase. They had literally just collected 200 gp in loose coin and were glad to make a trade.

However, suddenly this terrible and furious sound came barreling down the hallway and everyone turned to find this giant four-armed white ape barreling down toward the group. We cleared the middle of the table, set up minis, and rolled initiative.

There were a lot of great moments that I won’t be able to describe in detail, but I’ll cover a few key actions:

  • In the first round, the Merchant’s Guardian fumbled and ended up hurting the newt!
  • Both wizards cast Spider Climb and got up onto the walls – and since one of the 0L had identified as “wizard’s apprentice” their player asked if they could try to mimic the other wizards and try the same spell. I said yes but with a d16 – they still rolled 14 total and everyone cheered as the apprentice got their first whiff of magic.
  • Everyone lined up to take swings at the Ape, and it was taking and giving some damage, but then Rob said, “I thought you said it had four arms – why is it only attacking once?” Of course everyone booed at Rob but I thanked him and discovered that yes, the Ape had 4d20 action dice, not just 1d20 as I’d been rolling. I didn’t retcon all the of the attacks, but suddenly the panicked Ape became much more dangerous. (Good learning moment for me and honestly if I had been swinging that much damage up front many PCs would have died. I’m fine with how it went.)
  • Ned the cleric used his healing powers successfully on the glutton-newt, and that was key in later negotiations. Nice move, Ned.
  • The group finally got organized enough to kill the Ape. Everyone worried about what it was running from. (Nothing but they didn’t know that.)

Once combat was over, negotiations began once again, and this time, between the guardian fumbling and Ned’s healing powers, the players had a lot of leverage. After some back and forth, the PCs were able to get 5 potions basically for the price of 3. It seemed fair.

Fungal Bloom + Beetle Ghosts – They spent a long time navigating these relatively harmless encounters and were weirded out by ghost beetles watching a be(etle)-heading.

Lava Demi-Gods – The party had just passed the fungal blooms when they heard the lava beings Hrrk & Krrgh coming toward them. They pulled into a full retreat back to a side passage and were able to escape any damage with some deft hiding. They saw the encounter for what it was and acted appropriately, I thought.

Detritus – After the party passed the third pile of Dungeon Detritus, and I asked for the third time if they wanted to examine it, they decided, “Well, the DM keeps asking us about it so we might as well look into it.” They spent the time and found some fire beetle bombs. They reluctantly thanked me.

Bottomless Pit – Turns out, after some nice die rolling, Reggie the Rag (L2 Thief) can read Ancient Beetle, so he was able to figure out what all the signs surrounding this deep black pit were about. They threw in some coin and carried on. They all agreed, better safe than sorry.

Room 3b – They found the scarred remains of black oozes, tested them, determined they were dangerous, and so just moved around them.

60’ Later – At this point, we’d been playing for about 5 hours, both in real-time and in-game, and a couple people had to take care of stuff, so I needed to find a good place to finish up. I looked through the encounters – I didn’t have time for another combat – and so thought Cave Lightning would be fun and distinct enough to end on until 2025.

So I set the scene, the smell of ozone, and here comes the lighting – everyone make a Reflex check… then I look down to see it’s a DC 2. Ugh, so look, “just don’t roll a 1.” Everyone rolls, I check around the table and see just thumbs up. No 1s…

Except Dan AKA Ned the L1 Cleric AKA Dan the Caller, sitting right across from me, is staring down at the 1 in front of him. “You told me not to roll a 1 so I rolled a 1.” I laugh. “Well, okay – roll again for saving throw…” He rolls… a 1. Okay then. I rolled 17 damage which is way more than he has as L1 Cleric.

So the Cave Lighting (Erol the Wizard says, “Why the hell is cave lighting a thing?”) comes and goes, everyone sounds off, except there, where Ned was just a minute ago, is just a pair of smoking boots.

<End session>

wHY sO uGLY?

Note – this post does NOT count for my monthly blog-post commitment. However, I am spending more time here, and I wanted to share a brief note in case you wanted to ask “Dave, why is your website so goddam ugly?”

In brief, this site is broken in a few ways, and I need to fix some things under the hood before I spend any time on a redesign. I don’t like to spend my time figuring out technical problems (that’s how I spend my work days), and so the idea of sitting down and using up many writing sessions to fix my Google analytics makes my heart sad.

(I also have some of the same challenges over on the MUP-side, so it’s just one more unpleasant technical task in a long list of those sorts of things.)

But it needs to happen some time, hopefully in the next couple months. If I can get some of the technical issues taken care of, then I’ll try to get some graphics on here and redo the wordpress so it isn’t so… nothing.

So that’s what’s going on. Thanks for your patience.

George Norris – Crime Reporter – London 1925

The following character can be used as an NPC (or replacement PC) in the England chapter of Masks of Nyarlathotep campaign for Call of Cthulhu.

Spoilers for that campaign abound!

Geoff Norris is a crime reporter for the London Times who has been covering the “Egyptian murders” for the last two years, and the PCs will be pointed toward him if they inquire about further details that perhaps Inspector Barrington doesn’t have.

Norris is a gruff, no-nonsense reporter with a strong nose for bullshit – he knows when people are lying and is willing to call people out on it. He’s suspicious of authority and believes that “the people ought to know,” but is also cagey enough to keep himself out of trouble.

Norris is a tall and lanky 25 year old who chain smokes and perpetually looks like he slept in his suit (which he often has). Unlike many NPCs in authority, Norris will actually believe the PCs’ story about cults and murders for an ancient god, providing they’re willing to let him in on the scoop. That said, he’s not Mahoney at the Scoop – Norris will need pull out all the “occult mumbo-jumbo” to ground the story in abuse of power and will be an advocate to bring Gavigan to justice, even if it means a bigger scandal.

For the price of a couple of pints, Norris is glad to share all he knows, especially if it becomes clear to him that the PCs know more than they’re letting on. He is glad to join in on the investigation, or just follow one step behind and help break “the scoop of the century.”

Background

Born in 1900 and raised in the industrial city of Manchester, he grew up in the working class parts of town and knows how to keep his head down and out of trouble. Too smart for his own good, he quickly learned the hard knocks of life but could not keep his mouth shut when he saw hypocrisy and abuses of power. He figured out at a young age that the best way to deal with bullies is to stand up to them early, and quickly slid to the middle of the pecking order, ignored by teachers and hoodlums alike.

Norris found his calling when, in 1916 at the age of 16, he broke a story about criminal smuggling and black-market sales of baby food and chocolate during the Great War. Seeing the unjust nature of the smuggling, and the police department’s apparent willingness to look the other way, he used interviews with struggling young mothers with babes at home to draw a bleak picture of corruption and malfeasance during a time of national crisis.

He then sold the story, and two follow up pieces, to the Manchester Guardian and began his life as a crime reporter. However, having made enemies of both the police and criminal underground, and with the war in Europe at full pace, he soon skipped town and spent the next two years in the trenches of Belgium, where he came to understand the true cost of unchecked power.

Returning to England in 1918, he watched the world continue to burn as the so-called Spanish Flu continued to ravage England and his peers. Not wanting to return to Manchester, he settled in London as a young reporter with an eye toward uncovering corruption and exploitation. He pitched himself to the London Times, where he was able to uncover a hospital that was experimenting on its patients and hiding failures among the influenza victims. With a slightly salacious tale backed with solid interviews and that broke the news first, Norris had made it.

Now, at just 25 years old, Norris is works the crime beat hoping to uncover the corruption and abuses of power he knows are taking place. The Egyptian Murders are very suspicious to him and he has interviewed both Gavigan and Shafik, though kept their stories out of the papers without anything directly tying them to the crimes. As yet he has not yet seen any abuse of power or motivation to tie the murders together, and senses that Barrington is doing everything he can, especially after the disappearance of Munden.

He knows something’s rotten about these murders, but doesn’t have the facts to put a story together. However, if the murder of Munden can be proven, that will override any clout Gavigan has and that will be the “scoop of the century.”

How He Can Help

Norris is eager to engage with any story of conspiracy or hints that there is more to the murders than is apparent, especially since Barrington has nothing new to share. That said, Norris does not have much more information than Barrington, and is most useful to add context as well as be encouraging to the PCs’ involvement (as opposed to Barrington’s hesitancy).

He did not meet Elias and has not read any of his works. Barrington did say at one point that an American writer had come around asking questions, but then he left and was never mentioned again. As such, Norris has not heard of the Brotherhood of the Black Pharoah, but he will definitely be interested in learning more about it – if sources can corroborate its existence.

Norris has much of the same information that Barrington has around the core facts of the case:

  • There have been 19 murders over the last three years each with same MO.
  • 17 of the murders have been Egyptian, and one of the non-Egyptian was of an Ethiopian national (see below).
  • All of the murders have been committed with the same weapon, but forensic evidence points toward the assaulter being of different heights – again, more evidence that there is a conspiracy of some kind.

He has a few clues that Barrington does not, which he hasn’t reported because he can’t get any sort of confirmation. These are more rumors than facts, but he is glad to share:

  • One of the non-Egyptian nationals was an Ethiopian man named Badhu Girma (Yalesha’s boyfriend). He has spoken to the family and has not put together the connection with the Blue Pyramid Club. He can give the names and address of Badhu’s family in the East End (who can then point the PCs toward Yalesha).
  • Barrington’s predecessor, Munden, was an honest cop who probably got too close to the truth, but Norris has no additional facts to share. Sadly, Munden was a bachelor whose death was quickly cleaned up by Scotland Yard. Norris spoke to Munden about a week before he disappeared, and Munden had indicated that he might have something shortly for Norris. Then – snap – he was gone.

Norris sees himself as a champion for the oppressed and innocent, and can quickly be recruited as an ally for the party. He is also a fantastic replacement PC.

Skills

Norris is a skilled journalist and Great War vet, quick on his feet and quicker with a word. He shies away from violence, however, having seen his share in the trenches of Belgium.

  • Art/Craft (Journalism) 65
  • Dodge 40
  • Fast Talk 45
  • Fighting (Brawl) 45
  • Fighting (Rifle) 40
  • Persuade 45
  • Psychology 65

Dance Card Full

Whew – be careful what you wish for! After last year’s multiple traumas for many facets of my life, I vowed to lean into more gaming, both running and playing. Well, as of June 2024 my dance card is full, and I thought I’d take a brief moment to write about the four games I’m playing and what I’m hoping to get from each of them.

See, my time is my rarest resource, and it would be very easy for me to wander off into a crappy or even mediocre game. So I really need to be diligent about why I’m playing a game – what do I hope to get out of it?

I don’t like to sound so sticky about this – they are games, and isn’t it enough to just have fun? Mmmm… Maybe. But again I hold my time very tightly and if I’m going to get the most out of my gaming time, I would like to move past just having fun and be thoughtful about the people and games that I’m gaming with.

So yeah – I’m playing and running four games now. Crazy! But for the moment they have seem to moved into equilibrium, and I seem to be sustaining all of them. So here’s to having a full dance card of amazing games!

Game 1 – Masks of Nyarlathotep

I talk about this a lot on my podcast. I am running one of the greatest ttrpg campaigns of all time for MUP Professor backers. We have a full table of six, which is really one too many than ideal, but the greater table does allow for the game to go on even with absences. More importantly, the table is STRONG. Everyone in the table is fully engaged in telling the best possible story and leans into both the investigation and the world building with great fervor.

I would like to keep a journal and share it here, but that seems like a heavy load at this point to go back and write all of that up. 18 years ago I wrote a journal tracking my first playthrough of Masks (which you can find here if you are a member of YSDC), and I definitely would like to at least capture some thoughts for each of the chapters. Hm. (We have also been recording our sessions with an eye toward sharing with MUP Patreon backers – I will let you know if that happens.)

My goal for running Masks is twofold: one was to run the entire game, with all seven chapters, as I’ve never run Australia or China before, and Peru was new in the updated book. And, as I mentioned on MUP Ep 299, the sooner I started it, the sooner it would be done. But am also running it for MUP top tier backers, and all of my players are wonderful supporters and community members. It’s also a massive challenge to GMing skills to manage a game at this level – I learn something new every session.

Masks is amazing but so, so large. It’s June now, and so we’ve been playing for almost 1.5 years. There’s no way we’ll be done in 2024 – so now looking at EOY 2025 to complete. Wow.

Game 2 – Arkham Antiquities and Appraisals

This week I ran our third session of Call of Cthulhu with my new in-person group, comprised of strangers I met entirely at cons and discord. It was way easier to create a group from scratch than I thought – pretty much I said I wanted to make it happen and suddenly we were gaming together.

It’s a good group of friendly and engaged players, though we are still working out how best to navigate everyone’s personalities. Everyone engaged with the safety tools quickly, and that made table safety for a group of strangers feel easy and welcoming.

We just completed playing The Haunting – I’ve run this a few times in the last 30 years and it’s always fun to start a group new to CoC with it. (I think it was the second scenario I ran for CoC, after trying my hand unsuccessfully to run a Dreamlands game in college.) I’ll be tying some of the findings around the Chapel of Contemplation into the overall campaign, and there is enough mystery and questions to easily seed future scenarios.

I really dig the new Arkham book – I’ve read it cover to cover and it really paints a full picture of a living, breathing town. I learned a lot from running Bookhounds in San Francisco – a city I love and am familiar with. It’s so easy to breathe life into a place you know well, so there’s a challenge with bringing a fictional town to life.

So that’s one of the reasons I want to run a long-term campaign in Arkham – I want to lean into the town and create a version of my own. I want to run a number of scenarios set there, some of which I’ve run before, others I haven’t. And I want to create NPCs, factions, and events with my table that give life to this very Lovecraftian town.

Most importantly – I started this game to start playing with people in person. I have a set of friends and we play boardgames together every month or so. But I need consistent in-person gaming to fill my soul. I’ve been really struggling this year with feeling connected to people, and this game is doing a great job so far of meeting that need. Here’s to more of that.

Game Three – Blessed and Blasphemous

Running two bi-weekly games is enough. Really, I just needed to stop craving games so much that I would stack new games to run back-to-back. It’s just not sustainable. But playing games is!

An MUP community member approached me about playing in the pre-WW2 CoC campaign The Blessed and the Blasphemous, which I had heard of but not backed or read anything specific on. He wanted to run a more serious, in-period focused game and wondered if I was interested in joining. The short answer was HELL YES.

So we recruited a couple players from my Masks game (other community members, which is so awesome), and carved out a small slice for a weekly 2-hour game. The idea is that a smaller ongoing game is better than nothing, and everyone jumped in creating a very brainy party that has found itself in Morocco circa 1938. We have played one session so far and it was great right off the ground.

It’s really important for me to play more games on the player side. As a forever-GM I spend so much time not only with all the organizational efforts, but also knowing all the secrets. It’s super helpful both as a GM and ttrpg writer to play in a game and know nothing about the book or mystery. I love that I know absolutely nothing about this campaign and can just focus on living in the moment, showing up with my best player capacities and leaning into every scene.

We’ve just committed to playing the first two scenarios (of six) for now, which I think is a great way to keep everyone engaged with a longer campaign. We don’t have to worry about committing to two years – though it would be amazing to still be playing this when I finish Masks in ’25. I feel very blessed to make this work out. See what I did there?

Game 4 – Dragonlance of Youth

Finally, I’m playing in the latest Dragonlance campaign for 5th edition of D&D. As mentioned above, this spring I was feeling that I really needed to play in more games. Literally the next day my friend Ian texted me and asked me if I wanted to join our group of high school friends in playing through the new Dragonlance campaign. It’s a monthly-ish game on Sunday evenings, and is just infrequent enough for me to make it work as my fourth game. I was in.

Frankly, I’ve played enough 5e for my life, and there are so many more interesting and engaging games that I don’t feel I need to ever play it again. Going back to my original point – it’s not enough just to play a game. Why play a game that I don’t even like?

This is the same group that I ran Goodman Games’ Expedition to the Barrier Peaks for way back in Covid times. They are at the opposite end of my CoC games – they are old friends who take the roleplaying less seriously than my MUP community. But they love each other deeply, and use the D&D game as an opportunity to hang out and go on adventures together.

This less-serious take on ttrping is really important for me to remember. They play 5e because now they’ve been playing it off and on since it came out, so it’s easy for them to jump into and get a game going, trying out new classes and feats, and just using it as an excuse to hang out (the five of us live in four different states).

In the end, it’s really good for me to identify the reasons and expectations I have for playing and running a game. But it’s just as important for me to see where I’m having fun and lean into that.

But What About

Of course, part of my brain is clamoring about all the games I’m not running. I tried unsuccessfully to get a group of new gamers playing some Mothership, and have decided not to pursue that further. And of course there are always cons and playtests…

This year promises a whole new set of RL challenges that are just around the corner. Honestly. It’s not enough to just have our kid head off to college. It’s just change after change.

So I will keep this pace as long as I can. It’s sustainable now, and it’s easy enough for me to skip a game and not have the whole thing fall down. I had to cancel a Masks game last week and was not able to schedule a replacement. It is what it is.

I’ll give an update on these games later in the summer and see if I can get some sort of journal up and running. More soon.