The 94th Day : cWOD : Vampire the Dark Ages

June 2010 - March 2011
The 94th Day
cWOD : Vampire the Dark Ages

Thirteen Individuals from varying backgrounds each receive an invitation to be present in a banquet being hosted by Lord Claudius Giovanni. Rich. Poor. Religious. Talented. Beautiful. Intellectual. Skilled. Each one a shining example of one virtue or another. Each one with a reason to accept the invitation.

On the 3rd of April, 1444, the thirteen arrive at the Red Lamb Inn and make the decision that will change their lives forever.

On the 94th day, the thirteen leave the Red Lamb Inn and make their way to La Bella Casa Giovanni. Little did the thirteen know this was going to be a day that rewrites the destinies of countless immortals forever.

This was the fourth time, to my recollection, that I have run a Giovanni Chronicles game.   Alas, this was one of the chronicles that had to be indefinitely on hold due to real life pressures and responsibilities demanding time from the players.    You can see how far we got in the game by checking out the blog I made for it.

In as much as Giovanni Chronicles has been described by many gamers as too rail-roady and a showcase for Mary Sue characters, I personally love it because it allows the players to experience key events in the classic World of Darkness metaplot and yet give them enough wiggle room to do things that are different and unique.

So who knows.  Maybe years from now, when the kids are bigger and life offers us more time, me and the four players of this game might see this page one day and decide to push through with it again?  Personally, that would be awesome.

Vampire and its lure is immortal.

Definitely.

Once : nWOD

Around 2010
Once
nWOD : Changeling the Lost : Promethean the Created : Slasher

Inspired by the comics series Fables, the video game franchise Kingdom Hearts and Grimm's fairytales comes a game that mixes myth with murder, romance with re-imagination, and obsession with omnipotence.  Once explores the stories of a group of changelings who discover the very Gentry may be at war, and the hopes of a Promethean threat to achieve godhood may be the very thing that unites friends and foes together to face the one true antagonist of the world.

Here, four characters discover that their stolen identities might actually have some connection to one living a stolen life. Three of the players have begun to learn their lives are intimately tied to the tales of Jack the Giant slayer, Captain Hook and Briar Rose... and are learning even much faster that things aren't that simple. The Promethean in the game is slowly discovering more about herself, her past, and how her fate may be tied upon these prodigals of legend.

Mahar, Rocky, Adrian and Nabs were the players of this chronicle which gave new horrific meaning to Carpenter songs, answered the riddle of where Amelia Earhart vanished to, and gave us a glimpse of how the popular tales and myths can be twisted by a malicious force with the resources and reach of the Walt Disney Corporation.

Music was one of the biggest tools in this game, with a serial killer known as The Clipper stalking and murdering women all over the city with only a Carpenter's tune and a pair of scissors as his constant modus operandi.  Each time the Slasher would enter a scene, I would play an appropriate Carpenter's song to mark his presence.  It didn't take long for players to feel uneasy and worried at any point a Carpenter's song could be faintly heard.  Sort of like how the theme music of Jaws served as a thrilling device, Carpenter's became the ominous tune to be afraid of.

The game had loads of wonderfully funny and horrific moments too.   Rocky found himself struggling to find peace between the warring groups of political circles that he unfortunately was entangled among.  Nabs fought against her eternally diminishing sense of humanity as she slowly uncovered the truth of her Gentry past.  Mahar pondered over the importance of protecting one's children, even if one seemed to have the destiny expected of an anti-christ.  And Adrian discovered quite terrifyingly how the path to hell is indeed paved with good intentions.

The Sword : Scion

Image is a recreation of the actual sword art.
Creators are here.

08/22/2010
The SwordScion

This game was based on the really well-written comic by the Luna Brothers, The Sword.  I ran this for Rocky and Urim one night as a demo game to get a feel for the Scion system.   The story is about a young physically-challenged woman who survives the  murder of her family by three seemingly super-powered individuals and her acquisition of a powerful artefact which her father had hidden somewhere beneath their home.

In the comic, the Sword empowers her and gives her the ability to recover from woulds very fast as well as immense speed and strength that she never had before without granting her added skills in the actual use of the weapon.  In the game, I represented these powers by simply giving the player access to Epic Attributes when necessary.  I had to tweak the Regeneration power in the game, however, to represent how much power intensely powerful and rapid it was as done in the comic.

The game was fun, albeit a tad short.  But enough for both to get a nice feel for the system, as well as grasp the concept of Birthrights in the game.   In Scion, certain powers (called Purviews) can only be accessed and used when one has a Birthright currently on their person.  This was nicely reflected by the fact the lead character was utterly powerless without the Sword in her hands.

I definitely would love to run this game again for another group.  Maybe even be able to go through all three main story arcs of the comic.  Someday.

Singularity : nWOD : Mage

12/2010
Singularity
nWOD : Mage the Awakening

Singularity was a game I ran after realizing I wanted to create a game which allowed players to feel godlike and ultra-powerful and yet at the same time understand how much weight and responsibility that carried with it.  I knew I was going to use Mage the Awakening's Arcana system to reflect their power range, but I did not want to just run a Mage game.  Digging up my old notes on places like Thylea, Atlantis and the like I realized I could create a game world where all these missing or mythical lands are actually "the same land" located in the same general area in various "parallel worlds."  And that these places were locales which a group of people called Walkers could easily travel to and the like.

Major sources of inspiration included Magic the Gathering's Planeswalkers, who pretty much had this sort of ability.  But while Planeswalkers tended to stick the five thematic areas of Magic the Gathering, my Walkers were masters of a specific Arcana and utterly useless in another particular one.

Children's Game in Sargasso Isle

I intone the names of the Twelve Who Walk

Irkalla, Khnum, Elohim, Brahman

I summon the names of the Twelve Who Shape

Shin, Coatl, Fata Decima, Vor

I praise the names of the Twelve Who Destroy

Melek Taus, Proteus, Alpha, Omega

And I weep for the worlds the Twelve had Lost.

Later on, the players also learn of how they actually are responsible for many other events in the past, particularly the fall of Atlantis and the unfulfilled promise to migrate its stranded people to a new world.  For this plot twist, I borrowed heavily from CrossGen comics' CRUX, which was written by Mark Waid and sadly was cancelled due to bankruptcy.

The game has a blog here, where many of the old coded posts are still online.

The 12 Zodiac Ministers : Weapon of the Gods

04/06/2010
The 12 Zodiac Ministers
EOS' Weapon of the Gods

This was the third time I've used the concept of the 12 Zodiac Ministers (with the first time being a forum-based game which I ran from some international friends using the Exalted system, and the second being a table top series of games with local players using also the Exalted system) with Mahar, Rocky and Urim as the players.  Like before, each player was to embody one of the 12 Zodiac Ministers, who all served the Emperor in his quest to unify the land.   You can find character write-ups and maps here.

 The game borrowed heavily from Exalted, using concepts of the Shadowlands and the threat of seemingly undead ministers and a demonic force hoping to take over.  But even with such touches, the game was more Hero and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon than an oriental take on the Iliad.   A larger source of inspiration for the game came from old Jademan comics such as Blood Sword Dynasty and Force of Buddha's Palm comics.  Both were even used liberally in the site for images to serve as inspiration.

The game lasted pretty long, with players actually reaching a second generation as far as time is concerned.  While all the player stuck to their original characters, enough time passed in-game for the players who had children to have their kids grow up and become characters in their own right.   One player even landed the seat of Emperor, in what I felt was a test to see how the player would manage having hold of such great influence and power.  Thankfully neither was abused.   But it was still a cool thing to try.

The game has memorable moments, ranging from having an NPC wife who has better stats than her PC husband, to the presence of a character who was based on Zac Efron.   Battles against very large numbers of soldiers were fun, but the greater fun came in when players had to come up with ways to circumvent the many tactics the enemy used.  In one example, Urim's character, who used musical instruments as martial arts weapons, used a drum and a shield to propel himself sonically across a field of burning tar.

In another sequence, martial arts techniques were used in a bid to win a massive cooking contest (a scene that I admit was inspired by the anime classic: Cooking Master Boy).

A classic memorable moment would be the final battle, where Rocky and Urim's character fought against the big baddie to delay him long enough for Mahar's character to have sex and get pregnant with the next Emperor.  Can you imagine making rolls to extend orgasm and to delay actual fertilization until the time was appropriately auspicious?

But yes, the Weapon of the Gods system lends itself very well to this kind of game.  The different kinds of chi force players to consider moves that allow them to maximize the use of their available chi without leaving them too vulnerable in others.  The River system is a beautiful way to have sudden surges of advantage come in too.  I wouldn't mind playing with this system again in the future, once the freshness of The 12 Zodiac Ministers fades away.

Two by two, hands of Blue : Serenity

09/2010
Two by two, hands of Blue
Margaret Weis Productions' Serenity

Three players end up requesting for me to run Serenity for the October session of the Open Gaming Meet.  One of them, Jovan, has played Kaylee in an earlier one-shot game.  Another, Adam, had wanted his girlfriend Lorie to experience a role-playing game.  To my surprise, the last player was Jon, a guy who had never played in a role-playing game before.  I think the game itself had two more players, but right now I can't recall who they were.

So how could I say no?  This game was to be set prior to the movie.

The game explored the idea that Shepherd Book had at one point wanted to try to teach Jayne a lesson by sending him to a job that was intended to be a trap.  River, on the other hand, was suddenly activated by a Fruity Oat Bar commercial and finds herself nearly attacking anyone wearing a Blue Sun logo.  Simon happens to be wearing a pair of boxer shorts adorned with the logo, so Kaylee ends up trying to strip him of his clothes to save his life.  The game ends with Jayne returning to Book with a greater respect for the preacher's view on penance and River asleep in Kaylee arms while a naked Simon makes for his own quarters.    The Firefly heads off, unaware of having nearly been once more in the sights of the men with blue hands.  The game was also known as "Shepherd's Gambit."

Something like this, eh, Kaylee?

Jon's portrayal of Jayne was perfect, with his rough demeanor and foul tongue nicely painting the scenes of the game.  Lorie's River was an absolute charmer, with her finding ways to have River kick butt without breaking out of character (or River's fantasy world).  And Jovan's passion for Kaylee and her romance with Simon made the game have that "awwww" factor that makes Firefly such a fun show to watch.  I should have realized, though, that Jovan would eventually want no one else to play Kaylee in any Firefly/Serenity game I'd run.
:-)

Glimpses : nWOD

11/27/2010
Glimpses
nWOD

Those touched by the Endless discover that in many ways their lives can never be the same again. Experiences lose their intensity. Colors gain more meaning. Even family and friends are laid upon the scales: have they become insignificant or have they become an anchor to what defines oneself. But none go through the experience unchanged.

But to be glimpsed.

Ah. Sometimes, things are far more difference when glimpses are involved.

The Endless? The Endless are merely patterns. The Endless are ideas. The Endless are wave functions. The Endless are repeating motifs. The Endless are echoes of darkness, and nothing more. We have no right to play with their lives, to order their dreams and their desires.

- Destruction, Sandman #48 "Brief Lives"

It was another Open Gaming Meet when I ran this one-shot using Neil Gaiman's The Endless as the jumping point of the story.  Knowing there were many fans of Sandman, I wanted to create a game that allowed players to experience meeting them or being in a Vertigo comic.   While I had a copy of DC Heroes for superhero games, this game felt it would better be done with White Wolf's new World of Darkness system.

"Love belongs to Desire, and Desire is always cruel."

I created character profile images which represented each of the players in the game, as well as some NPCs when applicable.  The game had a total of around three or four players that night, with rOckY acting as my first name (he played Fiddler's Green!).  The story sprung from the idea that Death becomes human and experiences death to understand it, so Desire goes through something similar too.  Desire split up into various people to experience varying kinds of desire, from intellectual to sexual to social and physical.  

Vrentae: Houses of the Blooded

09/18/2010

Vrentae
Houses of the Blooded
Using the highly received Houses of the Blooded role-playing game system designed by John Wick, the game explores the lives of the Ven and the intense interplay of romance, love, passions and revenge in this wonderful system that encourages players to be co-narrators of the story. Ever since I've first heard of this game, I've been anxious to run it. My friend and fellow storyteller Adrian found a physical copy of the book and has been asking me to run a game as soon as possible. I wasn't sure if this game was viable for a demo game, but after spending some weeks reading it I feel more confident now to run a session for the Open Gaming Meet.

I had four players in this game and quite frankly, the game was an absolute blast to play.  Mahar, Kristine, Paolo and Jammi all found the wagers system of the game to be a fun challenge to explore.  The idea of tagging and invoking aspects was definitely something they really got into.

The game was based on the sample adventure (page 386), with each player being a guest to the dinner hosted by Lady Shara.  There were moments of horror with Lady No, dangerous flirtations with Count Kether, a murdered Tulpa discovered in the maze garden, and the threat of a poisoned meal.  The night ended with one player using her excellent bow skills to slay the assassin the very moment another made a passionate admission of Love, one which won everyone's hearts long enough for a Dragon to be witnessed.

Ah Vrentae.  Love and Revenge.
Among the ven, they are one and the same indeed.

Too bad we weren't that versed into the game yet to actually also start using Sorcery and Seasonal Actions..  All in due time I guess?

Some pictures of that session.

Photos by rOckY