RPG Update (44)

Last evening I had got rare occasion to run a game and play in two others. Everything in real life setting, so actually a rare occurrence. We meet up, as usual sometime near Halloween and play in couple of games. The whole thing took us about 6 hours, so everyone got about an hour and a half to two hours of game time.

I've run the first game of the evening Delta Green RPG, but I used Scott's Dorward Unland scenario from Fear's Little Sharp Needles from Stygian Fox. The game went great, there was lots of losing sanity, and very atmospheric from the start. I tell my players that they should save those pregens for later. These should be secondary characters for my upcoming (hopefully) Impossible Lanscapees campaign. There were some great scenes in this adventure and is easy to combine with the author of the campaign visions of King in Yellow Mythos.

The second game was the Alien RPG. Scenario from the rulebook. We played a second time in this adventure, but nevertheless, it was a nice and chilling game. Especially the secret agendas of every player shines in this one. The end was bloody but satisfying. My character pulls it off. As the only one. I played Singleton, so whoever plays in it, knows what it's all about.

The third game was Warhammer 40k BRP hack. We played as a Deathwatch team. We boarded the space hulk and started to search for long lost relic. It was a more crunchy game, but the climate was dense and moody. We also enjoy it.

Overall it was a pleasant evening spent with friends. We cannot believe at the end that time flies so quickly when You have fun.

Searching for deeper meanings

After the last session and my first foray into a bit of sidequest of Sins of My Youth from Oscar Rios brilliant horrific mind, I've started to search for other such little seeds of horror. After some time, I found The Two-Minute Horror by Dennis Detwiller. Some are on his Patreon page, and one is in the Black Sites book. So now I've printed them and just started reading. There will be great downtime additions to everyday home scenes for my players... 

Last things last

Spoilers ahead!

Yesterday I Handled Last Thing Last by Dan Harms. It was a nice little session. I've got two experienced players and one newbie not only to Delta Green but to RPG as a whole. It was a nice start for him.  He chooses to be a CDC scientist so for the first time in many, many years I've got someone other than PCs from alphabet soup. I've prepped maps found on some Reddit thread:

Clyde's apartment

Clyde's cabin in the woods.

I've used some suggestions from Seth's Skorkowsky video about that scenario:

But my biggest surprise was, that my players didn't search that in the first place that cabin, but went straight to the septic tank. Where do they meet with Marlene. You can imagine what was like...

They all survived, but not intact. They all like the scenario. Also, they said that next month we should play again. This is the best recommendation for me, that I did something right. Right?

First things first...

Once again I'm starting with my notes for that particular adventure. I've run it a couple of years ago, so writing new notes helps me once again remember what is all about. The biggest change is that after prepping the main plot, I'm going to write some more plots for each of the Agents. I will randomly select who will have what in terms of these stories. One of them will be Sins of My Youth from Fear's Sharp Little Needels. The other will be from fan fic I think, that I encounter on the official DG page with some strange handler, that in reality is the Yithian agent. The third I didn't decide yet. This time this group will be Cowboys, so maybe the third one will be a Mole from the official DG? We will see n the coming days. Lots of work, but this is work that I like. Stay tuned...

 

Here we go again...

So it was only apparent calm on my DG front. Behind the scenes, I was looking for a new scenario. My choice was obvious, after some time o thinking. There was only one choice. Last things last. Now I'm searching the internet for some handouts and music. But about that, I will write in my next post.

Aside from neverending prepping, I'm also reading The Madness of Cthulhu. Very entertaining book. Cannot say which story is the best yet.

Also, I'm taking part in this initiative fronArc Dream:

This is my answer:

Plotting again...

 Our next session will be in March, so I've got more time to prepare myself for another session. This time there will be three players, and one of them will be a first-time player so I must find some nice/horrible little scenario to run for them. Also, I must remember that two original characters have to be introduced yet to DG/Program. So Once more I'm scanning books from Stygian Fox and scenarios from Denni Detwiller Patreon for one of them to be a bridge between normal investigation and first Opera. So many possibilities. My brain hurts...

Post battle report

Yesterday was a blast. My two old players make up characters. One was an FBI agent second was Sog/Sag CIA operative. They both went into the unknown with no intel, this was their first brush with unnatural. They lived thru it, and in the end, made contact with someone from a conspiracy. Nothing was said yet about allegiance to the official Program or the Outlaws. Also, they are just begging their trial period of observation from higher-ups in the conspiracy. So this is for now 

Already thinking about my next adventure. Probably there will be more players, so I'm thinking maybe Last Things Last will be a suitable beginner scenario for them, or maybe something else? Could someone point me in another direction?

The game takes us about 15 minutes to create characters and then almost two hours of running the adventure. This was my first real gaming since... Don't even remember when? Also, first time running an adventure in meat space for a long time. All went good. This is the most important thing. Everyone has fun. So my mission here, for now, is complete. Thanks to Matt Sanderson for the great scenario and to Stygian Fox for their superb book.

 

Prep... Wait! Today is the day!

So today is the day that I will run my first adventure in meat space for a long, long time. I'm a little rusty but hope that everyone will have fun. My bag is ready, the only change a made to the setup from the photo is the Handler Screen I almost forgot that I bought it a couple of years ago.  

Prepping... Day 5

So today I went to my local Copy Point and printed out one map that is available for Pulvis et Umbra Sumus scenario. It will be a good handout for players. Also, I'm planning to gather up everything for tomorrow evening, but I will do it in the next post. For now, I must read my notes once again. 

Dices are for scale. 

Prepping... Day 4

So today I'm using my own printer and some glue to make this NPCs portraits. I think they look great in black and white. I'm hoping to use them in the future in another run of this scenario for another group. Nothing to add more, no more time for RPGs today...

Prepping... Day 3

Today I'm focusing on music. I like to have some ambient sounds in the background during play but nothing to distract players. So my go-to pages are freesound.org and YouTube of course. I need some ambient sounds for the hotel scene, and the strange happenings at the end are an adventure. Maybe some car crash sound for one of the events and something more? We will see. I do not want to tell more without spoiling the scenario. But here are some of my finds in no particular order:  

For hotel restaurant scene.

Panic in the city scene.

Otherworld places.

Airport scene.

Car ride scene.

Car crash.

Prepping... Day 2

Today I've decided to write my notes as You can see in the pictures below. In this regard, I'm an analog guy. I always read the scenario for the first time, then after deciding that I will run it, always read for the second time and make my notes. If there is a time gap between reading, taking notes, and running the game I mostly read the scenario for the third time and notes also. This is of course in the case of one-shots or separate scenarios. The campaign is another whole different story. 

Prepping... Day 1

I've started with NPCs. For me, the most important is to show my players them. So I went on This Person Does Not Exist and generated all of them. With some MSPaint magic, I will show them as Polaroid photos to my players. Here You have my NPCs for Pulvis et Umbra Sumus.

Dennis Carter

Joseph Chalmers

Laura Carter

Louise Wright

Ophelia Atwood

Change of plans...

Only some people can make it to our initial session. I decided to change my plans a little bit. I first planned to run Last Things Last, but after quickly making characters I will run Pulvis et Umbra Sumus from Fear's Little Sharp Needles, by Matt Sanderson. This is a good scenario for starting a workgroup of DG agents. I will do the conversion from Call of Cthulhu to Delta Green mechanics on the fly. Cannot wait to put those new characters in that grinder to dust...

Here we go again...

This was surprising for me, but one of the old groups that imploded sometime at the end of 2019 reached out to me with questions, about coming back as their GM. With a little kid, it is only possible to play outside my house so after a brief consideration I've said yes. My group will be something around 4 players, sometimes more, sometimes less. Most of them are players with a couple of years of background in gaming, mostly with me, but they got other GMs also. One is completely new, that's good. But most important is that they are ready to play Delta Green. For the first scenario, I've run for them Last Things Last, from Need To Know starter. I've already listened to RPPR's actual play of this adventure and cannot wait to find out what will happen when they meet Marleen. I will know that in two weeks. For now, is prepping time for me. As always...

RPG Update (34)

This time will be short. For my Impossible Landscapes reading I've created a dedicated bookmark. What better material I could find than King in Yellow tarot card from Arc Dream deck? So after two printouts, some cutting here I have this little piece of art. To bad that the shipping cost is outrageous right now. But maybe in the future, the whole deck will be in my possession.

For now, I've got only The King in Yellow (sorry for the overexposed pictures).

RPG Update (33)

Good Friends Of Jackson Elias decided to give a discount coupon for Dockside Dogs - an adventure by Paul Fricker himself for their Patrons. As I'm reading Impossible Landscapes for Delta Green right now, I'm thinking of running this adventure prior to the campaign. I know that campaign is a behemoth to prep and run, but I think I can squeeze PCs from Dockside Dogs in there somewhere. I've got a couple of ideas but I want to be spoiler-free, so I will not say any more at this moment. What do You think about my idea? I've created another cover for this adventure, just for the fun of making it. 

RPG Update (31)

Hello there! Since my last update, there is almost nothing to tell You about. Almost. Because I've finally printed my copy of Static Protocol for Delta Green from Dennis Detwiller Patreon feed. This is another effort to prepare for my Impossible Landscapes campaign. This will be a more in-depth game if my players will use this resource. Also with my lovely wife, we translated Cassilda's Song from the Yellow Sign book from Chaosium. But we are working on smoothing it out in the Polish language. 

RPG Update (30)

A couple of days ago I've finished reading Cyberpunk Red. There is lots of fun stuff and lots of stuff that I need to tweak for Our hometown campaign. There are some aspects of global history that I must consider in Our timeline. So it will be whole a lot of work before we come back to Bielitz City.  Worldbuilding and World-changing can be very enjoyable and also stressful things. I'm hoping for an enjoyable experience. We will see. In the near future, maybe after I will read thru the correspondence of H.P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard from 1934, I will delve into this great book of madness. I'm going to run this monster in the future (but cannot tell how distant). This is one of my goals for the future. For now, I can only say that Dela Green's approach to King in Yellow and Carcossa Myths is very interesting and strange than typical. Cannot wait to shed the yellow truth on my players. 

RPG Update (5)

I cannot tell when all this time went. Almost two weeks since my last post! Strange. where did this time go? Not all this time was lost. We played in four sessions. Two last week and two yesterday and day before that. What we played in? Delta Green.
First, my wife runs adventure in Montana with hotel in middle of nowhere and group of archeologists. They stumbled on something they shouldn't. The enemy was something a long time buried and recently discovered. And the sound that it created... This scary sounds...
Then I run for one player on the first session Lost Equation. This all-time favorite is solid and fun. I've run it in the mindset of police procedural, so it was a slow-burner.
Another session run by my wife was a little gem of adventure circling around Jackson Pollock painting:
Number 1A

It nearly crippled three agents, burn down motel, and end in a shootout, but it was very fun.
Lastly, I continued Last Equation but this time another agent join the Opera. I cannot wait for what will happen next week!

P.S. I'm still creating handouts for Heroes of Rura-Tonga, but it comes very slowly. I hope it will be worth the work and wait.