Local Cabal Campaign - Fifth Session

Our voodoo priestess character missed a second session and seems to be truly out of the campaign. Jonah (the vampire cop) missed a second session as well for other reasons.

Scott P. carried the narrative momentum as Sir Kay again, including moving his own storyline forward, splitting time with the ghost's mystery. Most of the time spent on the ghost's mystery this time was eliminating red herrings, providing more color than real information.

We may not have a lot more mileage in the ghost's story, so there won't be many more sessions of this campaign unless we start developing Sir Kay's story further. We might also save that as a way to continue into a later run of a sequel campaign.

Local Cabal Campaign - Fourth Session

Another good session, though it was more talk and less action than last time. We may have our voodoo priestess character dropping out for personal reasons on the part of the player. It's a pity if that turns out to be the case, since I've come up with some cool background information for the object she is searching for.

Special kudos to Scott P., who kept coming up with colorful additions to every scene, including an intense speech regarding the difference between an honorable fight and murder. He initiated a scene that involved the convention cast, which I may use as the introductory scene for my next convention Cabal scenario. It was exactly the sort of thing I was hoping would happen when I decided to run GURPS Cabal at home as well as conventions.

I think I'm officially re-inspired. And now I have some writing to do...

Meditation and Refocus

I was slacking for a while on meditation and yoga, and started to feel the difference, so I got back on top of both over the last week or so. The really positive aspect to that is I'm feeling much better, much more aware of what to do and how to do it from here.

Re: music. Sal (one of our guitar players) taped parts of the last session. Listening to the recordings showed me that, in spite of a lot of practice over the last year and a half, my singing hasn't improved very much. I've gained a little skill, but I'm still limited by the voice nature gave me, and that's a fair voice at best. Nick (another one of the guitar players) sounds better on the recording in some respects, even with his lack of experience. I'm better at knowing what to do; he sounds better doing it. Not that I ever claimed to be lead singer material, but I was hoping I'd improved more than I did.

This reminds me that I'd be best off getting back to my customary role focusing on bass and backing vocals. I'm a good instrumentalist and only a workable (if experienced) singer, so I'm going to have to operate accordingly. And unfortunately that's not what the group I have needs from me. Sal, Jason and I are getting together to play tomorrow, and all concerned have some issues to discuss, so we'll see what comes out of that.

Re: roleplaying. The urge to write roleplaying material is creeping back, specifically to write the Lovecraftian GURPS Cabal convention scenario I've been meaning to get back to. I'll make some notes. The home GURPS Cabal campaign is going well, and I think that helps.

I'm still having something of a creative identity crisis, but if it's about getting my proportions right, I'm working my way through it.

GURPS Cabal Home Campaign Session

Things finally seem to be moving again. We had a really good session of my GURPS Cabal home campaign. I'd dropped a major clue at the climax of the previous session, and after moving a few subplots along, the players had the chance to follow up on that clue, pertaining to who killed the ghost character.

Skipping most of the details, the characters were able to figure out the location of the werewolf who actually struck the killing blow, and nothing was going to stop the ghost from leading the attack. And naturally, there was a pack of werewolves that went along with that particular werewolf. The heroes came out on top, but not without cost. Three werewolves, including the one who killed Lauren, were dead by the end of the fight. The vampire cop was covered in blood, having needed to drain the werewolves to keep from dying himself, the newest member of the team was unconscious and in the form of a dove, and two of the others were seriously wounded and barely standing. Only the ghost herself was left in her usual state, and she is furious because she can't ask a dead werewolf who gave the order to kill her and why. The police will arrive in minutes, most of the player characters can barely move, and those PCs will have a lot of explaining to do if they can't get out of there fast.

Good session, giving us a lot to do at the beginning of the next. It was one of those times that remind me why I love to run games.

Local Cabal Campaign - Second Session

I wasn't as well prepared as I would have liked, and we were missing our voodoo priestess player for personal reasons, but all in all, it wasn't a bad session.

We introduced a new character this time, Nate's attempt at playing an enlightened 15 year old boy. I don't know how well this is going to work with the existing cast in practice, but it should be a worthy experiment that might show how dark (or not) the other characters really are. As usual with new character introductions, a fair part of the session was spent in adding him in a way that made some degree of narrative sense. This was a Very Good Thing, since the time it took covered my relative lack of preparation.

We also covered more territory in the mystery of Lauren's murder (the ghost character), with Jonah the vampire cop getting some screen time that way. Lauren's investigation of her own murder should be the centerpiece of at least this initial phase of the campaign, especially since it's very easy to tie Jonah into it as a resource. We were able to end the session with a cool scene involving Lauren visiting her comatose husband and dealing with a young psychic woman who seemed to be checking on him for reasons unknown at this time.

Next up, I expect we'll spend a little time re-starting the voodoo priestess' search for a lost magical flute, go a little further with Lauren's investigation, and throw a few surprises in Jonah's direction that don't have to do with Lauren's murder.

Not Going to DexCon This Year

I've come to the difficult conclusion that I'm going to skip DexCon this year. My enthusiasm for RPGs isn't what it was, and I find myself too busy with other things (mainly my musical actitivies) to put the time into it to do it as well as I'd like. It isn't lack of preparation, as I'd finished enough material ("Room Service" and "Another Mission from God"); it's just that whenever I started preparing for DexCon (submitting events, making room reservations, etc.), I noticed that I kept finding reasons not to follow through, and finally decided to listen to myself.

One odd thing about this is that RPGs and music seem to take up the same headspace for me. I don't know the reason for that; I've simply noticed over the years that when I'm doing one, I don't feel much like doing the other.

The reason the decision was so difficult is that it feels almost like quitting a long term job because I've been doing it for so long. I couldn't tell you how long it's been since I've had a year that I didn't go to at least one convention as a player, if not as a GM. I'm fairly sure that streak goes back to 1985 or so. I finally realized that stepping away for one year wasn't going to make that much of a difference to anyone, and that it might help me regain my enthusiasm in the long run.

I'm not giving up roleplaying entirely. I still plan to follow my local GURPS Cabal campaign through to a conclusion, then reassess how I'm feeling from there.

"Room Service" Playtest

I was able to run a playtest for my newest Paranoia scenario yesterday. Overall, it worked out pretty well, though I think it needs a few tweaks, since the ending was a bit muddled. Everybody said they had a good time, though. Big points to Nate for stealing the show as Harp-O-MRX, though Scott P. was especially good as Chic-O as well.

I enjoy playing running Paranoia, but I'm not sure I have much else to say of my own with it, at least for now. I have one concept that I think is fun, but didn't fit with the rest of "Room Service", so I had to leave it out. Time will tell if I have the opportunity to use that idea in another scenario down the road.

Local Cabal Campaign - First Session

We finally got my new GURPS Cabal campaign off the ground this past weekend. We got off to a good start, with some of the characters actually meeting before they were supposed to. Surprises like that are one of the reasons that RPGs can be better than fiction at times. The group consists of a voodoo priestess trying to locate a lost mystical artifact, a ghost trying to solve her own murder, the reincarnation of Sir Kay of the Round Table, a vampire trying to mainstream as a police officer (working night shift, naturally), and an apparently regular guy in his late teens who simply can't be permanently killed by any means.

I've already been able to weave in an abundance of references to my ongoing GURPS Cabal convention sessions, and will start working references to the home campaign into the convention sessions when I start writing the next one.

One of the more entertaining aspects for me is that I've tied together bits of all of the characters' backgrounds a few layers beneath the obvious, so that those ties will eventually surface as fun surprises for the players. It reminds me of the Lost TV series. As those common elements are revealed, the result should be a conclusion with epic consequences for all involved, effectively ending the campaign, but my best estimate is that it will take about two years for that to happen.

Another Mission from God

I finished my most recent In Nomine scenario today, largely because I was able to spend a lot of time on it over the last couple of days. So it looks like I'll have two new scenarios ready for DexCon after all. It turned out that I was able to do a few things differently with it than I have in the past. The PCs are all one team, and there are significant differences in the opposition from what I've done before (can't give those differences away here, though). My last IN scenario didn't draw at the last DexCon. I didn't see some of my IN regulars, so I assume they didn't follow the change in the con location, or had other reasons not to come. Looks as though I'll have to build a new audience for it from scratch, or move on to other things.

So now I'll take a short break from RPG writing to get the two new scenarios properly playtested and leave a little time for revisions before the con. Might take the time to write a couple of songs in the interim.

Next up, the Lovecraftian installment of my GURPS Cabal series, to be run next year.

New In Nomine Scenario

My local GURPS Cabal campaign is now ready to go and scheduled to begin in late April, so I'm going to move my roleplaying focus over to the new In Nomine con scenario. As I'd expected, this one is turning out to be a relatively simple situation and location with a lot of interesting characters for the players to interact with, which is where the complexity comes in. This means creating a truckload of relatively detailed NPCs (not to mention keeping track of them all when I run this), but since that's my idea of fun, I don't mind at all.

I'm using a real life location from my musical experiences in Philadelphia, renamed, transplanted to Chicago and slightly modified to make things easier for gaming purposes. Several of the characters are based on real people. Not only does that make it faster and easier to write, it also makes the characters feel more real and helps me to improvise details if the players manage to surprise me in some respect or another.

The tricky part of this one is proving to be making the climax actually feel climactic, since the ultimate objective of the scenario is kind of low key. I have some ideas about how to do that, but I don't think I can be sure that it'll work until I playtest. I have to playtest this one and "Room Service" by sometime in June to allow time for any necessary modifications. Sounds like a lot of time, but it's really not, considering everything else I have tying up my weekends these days.

Intertwining Cabal Campaigns

I've been working on my local GURPS Cabal campaign for the last week or so, with some progress. I have the big pieces in place; I'm just trying to refine some details for the first session or two so it'll be truly ready to go. I'm not going to try to plan too much detail from there because players always find ways to derail any plan that's too specific.

One of the interesting aspects of this local campaign is that I'm planning on interweaving it with the ongoing GURPS Cabal series of convention scenarios in the same setting. The two PC teams will be operating out of the same lodge and interacting with most of the same NPCs, plus each other as NPCs, adding depth to both sets of sessions. I'm looking forward to seeing what sort of effect this has and how long I can maintain it without serious continuity glitches.

Creative Updates

Yet another music project session bit the dust this weekend, this time due to snow related injury. Grrr. The female singer is definitely out due to personal issues that emerged in her life. The guitar player I'd gotten together with on one occasion remains a possibility, as well as another guitar player that Jason found. And so it goes...

I've written another verse of one of the songs I'd been working on. Songwriting has to take a back seat to RPG writing, at least for a while, since I'm running out of time to get a second new event ready for DexCon and I'd like to get my local Cabal campaign going as promised.

The new In Nomine idea still needs a lot of work, but it's the sort of work I like to do (mainly writing character backgrounds for NPCs), so I doubt that's going to be a problem.

For the last couple of days, the main creative project has been the local Cabal campaign. I finally figured out whodunnit for the murder mystery that will be one of the main story arcs of the campaign, and a lot of other things will fall into place from there. I don't need too many specifics, as the players would derail any but the most general of plans anyway, but some things really have to be in place from the beginning, or the campaign won't hang together.

I'll jump back and forth between the con scenario and the local campaign as inspiration takes me for the next week or so, and see how that goes.

We All Seem to be Playing Something Different

I was doing some general internet surfing regarding roleplaying games this past week as well, and did some thinking on the subject. Popularity of the form in general seems to have continued to fall off steeply. I've heard from many sources that the future of the roleplaying market is PDFs, and I'm ultimately okay with that, though I'm old fashioned and still have a preference for physical books, given a choice. The real problem is the old critical mass question regarding quality GMs and players. It takes good GMs to create and maintain player interest, and it takes entertaining players to keep GMs interested in continuing. Where are those quality GMs and players going to come from when the player base is shrinking? Some of my favorite players no longer turn up at conventions, and a few of those told me the last time I'd seen them that the one or two good sessions they experienced each convention just weren't worth the three or four that weren't very good. Two of the best GMs I've ever seen don't run RPGs (at least not at conventions) anymore. I don't see the hobby going away entirely, but I could see it shrinking to the point where the participants are the same familiar faces at the same regional conventions, year after year.

The balkanized nature of roleplaying interests (and strong opinions associated with that fracturing) isn't helping, and I think that will have to change in some way as the market gets smaller. Once upon a time, if you were a roleplayer, you played D&D, and maybe one other game, two if you were adventurous. Now we all seem to playing something different and reluctant to reach across the breach due to increasingly strong personal tastes.

As for myself, I'll continue to GM as long as scenario writing keeps my creative interest and people keep showing up to play. But I don't see myself trying to write ahead the way I used to. I'll maintain my two con scenarios a year and probably a local campaign if there's interest, then put the rest of my creative energy elsewhere.

Room Service Completed/Another Mission from God

I've finally finished off my new Paranoia scenario, "Room Service". It's likely that I'll do some tweaking after watching a couple of Marx Brothers movies I haven't seen yet, but I could run it right now if I had to.

Next, I'd like to have a new In Nomine scenario ready in time for DexCon and to get my home GURPS Cabal campaign started. I have a terrific idea for a new series of In Nomine convention scenarios, but it's going to take some time to organize what I want to do for that, and I don't have much time right now. So I'm going to use the "Mission from God" cast of characters, put them in a tricky situation in a relatively small location with a truckload of colorful NPCs and a couple of plot twists, and that should be enough to get something workable together quickly. It'll be familiar territory for me, but hopefully I can make the twists dramatic enough to not repeat myself too much.

After that, I'll probably start the Lovecraftian installment of my GURPS Cabal series illuminating the secret history of a long running major NPC so I'll have plenty of time to get it right for DexCon 2011.

Room Service and the Marx Brothers

I've had a little free time lately and continue to make progress on the "Room Service" scenario for Paranoia. I've got most of the character goal interactions sorted out (the most important part of a Paranoia scenario as far as I'm concerned) and a good outline of likely events.

The player characters are based on the Marx Brothers, and of course, there aren't quite enough brothers for a six player game. I've used that to advantage in a couple of respects. The sixth character is based on Margaret Dumont, an actress who appeared in many of their movies. And of course Gummo never appeared in any of the movies, but that gave me a lot of leeway to play with. Anyone who knows me knows that Zeppo is going to have more going on than might be apparent from his movie appearances. I'm shooting for that chaotic feel of the better Marx brothers movies while still keeping it Paranoia, and I think it's going to work.

I've got to stay focused on finishing this whenever I can, as I'm running out of time to write another scenario in time for DexCon, and I'd really like to have one more, preferably something for In Nomine.

2010 Convention Plans

I'm again looking at a lean convention schedule for 2010, with only DexCon as a sure thing. I'll post here if that should change. My repeat offerings will be "Lives in the Balance" for GURPS Cabal and "Tiger by the Tail" for GURPS Banestorm. The definite new scenario is "Room Service" for Paranoia, which is finally coming together.

I'd like to offer at least one other new scenario, but time is getting away from me, and inspiration seemingly in short supply. The most likely possibility is something for In Nomine. I'm not going to throw something together just for the sake of offering something new; I'd rather simply do less GMing than usual and pay to get into the convention than do that.

I've been saying for some time now that I need to reprioritize my spare time, and that's going to be even more important now that I'm going to have less of it for the foreseeable future. My tentative plan is to put writing into the same rotation as playing music to see if that helps.

RPG Projects - Let It Snow!

We're getting some serious snow here, and the plan is to stay at home for the day. We could go out if we needed to, but why risk it if it isn't necessary? It'll be a nice change from recent events, actually. My wife has a sizable project for work that requires computer use, so I'll have to find other things to do most of the day.

Taking inventory, I found that I actually have quite a lot I'd like to do, but since I've really been slacking on RPG writing, I'll spend at least a little time working on the "Room Service" scenario for Paranoia. I've done some work on this one in the last week or so, and the theme does hang together, though it rather overshadows my original intentions. That's fine as long as it works as a whole, and I think it will.

If I still have time and the inclination, I may also work on the local Cabal campaign that I haven't started yet, but other priorities will likely delay the start of that campaign anyway, so it's less of an immediate need.

The last time I remember being snowed in, it turned out to be a remarkably nice and productive day. I wrote virtually an entire RPG scenario in white heat while my wife curled up on the couch and read a book. And the system I was using for that particular writing session? Paranoia! This could turn out to be a good day.

Room Service

I've updated the working title for my new Paranoia scenario to "Room Service", and finally found a theme I can use to link the ideas together in a satisfying way, which is what I think has been lacking. Now I can go back to the beginning with the theme in mind and see if it works.

I received a phone message from my friend (and fellow Paranoia fan) John L. that included a brief idea for a new Paranoia scenario that has similarities to something I'd thought of on my own. I should be able to take elements of both ideas and get a good scenario out of it, but that's a project for the future.

Mike H's FATE Campaign

We finished off Mike H's FATE Dresden-style campaign last night. We had a lot of game time to cover very quickly, since he was ending the campaign abruptly because of a sudden move. Unfortunately, two of the five players unexpectedly had to cancel at the last minute, making it that much harder to bring things to a satisfactory conclusion. However, Mike rose to the occasion and found ways to make it work.

There were several things I've learned from this campaign. I rarely have the opportunity to participate in roleplaying games as a player because I usually GM. I had an interesting concept for a character, but ultimately the character turned out to be more of a plot device than a personality. It's not a mistake I usually make. I felt as though I had a grasp on the character during the first session, but after that I only seemed to have that grasp sporadically. I think that I always had a better grip on the sort of things that I wanted the character to do than on who he was, and I'm usually much better at understanding the internal workings of my characters. That's because I usually closely link the external abilities of the character and the way his head works. In this case, I didn't do that. I conceived of his precognition ability, then had to figure out who the guy was, and those two things never came together the way I'd hoped. It's a lesson for the future.

From a GMing perspective, I learned a few useful things from the way the game was run. I enjoyed the way Mike had each of the players supply campaign elements that he brought together into a reasonably cohesive whole. I know that the methodology wasn't originated by him, but it was the first time I'd seen it and I think he did a good job of implementing it. I found the methodology itself a little mechanical, as those things often seem to me, but the concept of having the players contribute such things is worth keeping, and I think I'll have to use it for my upcoming Cabal campaign.

I'm going to miss having a GM of Mike's caliber around. He was always well prepared (maps, photos of NPCs, etc.) in ways that I've tended to slack off of personally in recent years. He often ended up leading the group when he was playing in one of my campaigns. And I'm really going to miss the post-game conversations, which ranged all over the place subject-wise. Thanks for the gaming, Mike, and I hope we'll continue to cross paths in the future.

Persona Bands

I'm really intrigued by the whole phenomenon of musical groups aimed at extremely specific audiences, such as the Lovecraftian band, Darkest of the Hillside Thickets. Portland, Oregon apparently has a lot of them. I've just become aware of the Klingon death metal band Stovokor (named after the Klingon afterlife, by the way), though they've actually been around for a while. And of course there's the whole Wizard Rock subgenre, starting with Harry and the Potters. I've even seen ads for computer game conventions that include appearances by bands that play music specific to favorite video games. Pre-internet, some of these groups might not have amounted to more than a one shot laugh at a convention or a local oddity, and now some of them are able to go on short tours or release recordings of their music and actually become profitable (if not full time) enterprises. As I understand it, at least one of the Harry Potter themed groups works as a regular cover band most of the time and just changes clothes and material when they're using the other name, which strikes me as a good way to go.

As a musician and a gamer, it's a tempting path to combine the two, which is how Darkest of the Hillside Thickets started in the first place. You still have all of the usual work involved in piecing together a decent band, with the additional restrictions of making your original material stick to your theme and showing at least some thematically appropriate flare, but then the audience is about as likely to be receptive as you could possibly ask. Getting work in a mainstream setting may be problematic, but there's far less competition for the specialty work (at conventions, etc.). And if you're a gamer (or Star Trek fan, or whatever), you'd probably enjoy going to the conventions anyway. You probably won't become famous or rich this way, but I could see it being Big Fun if you have the right people involved and the right mindset.

As for me personally, I don't think I know enough people with the right combination of skill sets and obsessions, but you never know who you might stumble across at a convention, so I wouldn't rule it out if the opportunity arises or I come up with the right concept myself.