Rivers of London RPG at CanGames, 2024

[JohnK]

Hullo, folks,

Just thought I'd mention, that for those attending CanGames, 2024, the local gaming convention here in Ottawa (Ontario, Canada), the (long) weekend of May 17th to the 19th, I'll be running a couple of Rivers of London: The Roleplaying Game sessions at the convention. Hope to see a few folks there!

Fairycakes

Game:  Rivers of London: The Roleplaying Game

Time:  Friday, 7:00 pm - 11:00 pm

Number of Players:  5

Description:  When a very normal, respectable but somewhat dull businessman savagely attacks a homeless man that he swears is some sort of monster, the case file comes to the Folly. Because the homeless man isn’t a monster – but he is a troll.  And DCI Nightingale would like some answers.  So your investigators are tasked to find out what's going on.  This adventure is one for the urban fantasy mystery roleplaying game based on the Rivers of London series of books by Ben Aaronovitch.

 

The Bookshop

Game:  Rivers of London: The Roleplaying Game

Time:  Sunday, 2:00 pm - 6:00 pm

Number of Players:  5

Description:  An employee at Stonewaters Bookshop has been assaulted by assailants unknown while working late.  The Charing Cross police have sent the case over to the Folly, as they believe it will be of interest to them.  While it may or may not be a Falcon case, DCI Nightingale wants your investigators to question the bookshop employee and see if there’s anything unusual about the case.  This adventure is the introductory case file (adventure) for the urban fantasy mystery roleplaying game based on the Rivers of London series of books by Ben Aaronovitch.

 

Don't know if anyone here on the forums is going to be attending CanGames, but would love to meet folks there.  And game with you, of course. 🙂

 

[JohnK]

Hullo, folks,

As noted, last weekend was CanGames, 2024 here in Ottawa, and I ran two sessions of the Rivers of London: The Roleplaying Game at the convention.  Here's the report, taken right off my blog about the Friday at CanGames, for folks to hear how it went.  The scenario I ran on Friday night was the "Fairycakes" adventure. 🙂

*****

Right off the bat things were fun from the point of view of sign-ups for the game.  It turned out that two of the six players signed up for my game Friday night dropped out because it was running so late (until 11:00 pm), but someone else had signed up in one of the two vacant slots so that was good.  Then another person dropped out of the game because of an emergency at home, dropping me back to four players, but then *another* person came up to the sign-up table and joined the game, and someone else noticed that the game was short a player and they signed up as well!  So the game was filled.  The irony of it all was... the three players who joined up to play the game were all people whom I'd spoken to at length about the Rivers of London: The Roleplaying Game during the afternoon because of the lack of information about the games in the CanGames booklet!  Fate and irony, I guess!  Then it was back to join the players at the table, and completing the set-up process for the evening.

The adventure I ran on Friday night for the Rivers of London: The Roleplaying Game is called "Fairycakes".  The adventure is set against the urban fantasy mystery roleplaying game based on the Rivers of London series of books by Ben Aaronovitch, and concerns a group of investigators from the London MET Special Assessment Unit (SAU), also known as "The Folly," investigating an attack on a homeless man who is actually a troll in order to find out what really happened and whether magic and the demi-monde are involved.  The player characters for the adventure, called a case file in the game system, are:  Nafeesa Jones, a London MET police constable and apprentice magic practitioner; Morgan Omans, a hedge wizard turned police officer, and also an apprentice magic practitioner; Mina Patel, an entertainer who does data entry work for the London MET and works with the Folly on odd cases; Jordan Schneider, a medical doctor who works with the Folly and rather enjoys the "weird bollocks" cases; Jules Garland, a chancer (opportunist) who works at times with the Folly; and Eli Venturini, a lecturer/historian on the 17th Century and particularly the life and times of Sir Isaac Newton who consults for the Folly.  Thus, all of the player characters work for the Folly or act as consultants with them from time to time.  I'm not going into detail about the plot here (because others might run the adventure down the line, and I'd like to run the scenario again sometime!), but suffice to say that the adventure went very well, though I did alter a couple of the plot's aspects to make it fit within the time limits somewhat.  The six players who played in the game were a good mix of people, some of whom I've played with at the convention before, and most whom I had not.  In a neat twist, none of the players were familiar with Ben Aaronovitch's novels or the game itself, but most of them were intrigued by the game system and the world on which it is based.  Bruce McDiarmid (a good friend of mine who plays regularly in games I run at CanGames) took on the role of Mina Patel.  A nice young woman named Jenny played Morgan Omans.  Ken Aranda (another fellow that I know at the convention) played the character Nafeesa Jones.  Eli Venturini was played by a person new to me at the convention, Tyler, who said he was looking forward to the game as he'd heard a good deal about it from his father that afternoon.  Another young woman whom I know at the convention, Emily, played the character of Dr. Jordan Schneider.  And finally, a newcomer to my games, Caroline, came into the game and took the character of Jules Garland.  She told me that she was playing the game as the basic premise was really up her alley. 🙂

Overall, the players really enjoyed themselves, and it was a fun game session of Rivers of London: The Roleplaying Game.  I talked to the players about the basics of the Rivers of London series of books, the game world, how (Newtonian) magic works, and the basics of British police investigations, and then went over the game mechanics and rules.  After answering any questions the players had, I took Ken and Jenny (who were playing the magic practitioners) aside and talked with them briefly a bit more about magic and their spells.  All of the players grasped the d100 rules and how Luck worked very easily, and we then got into the adventure proper.  The player characters started with a briefing with their mentor and boss, DCI Nightingale, about the incident involving the attack on the homeless man/troll, and then proceeded to start their investigation into the matter.  They quickly got into the setting and the world, proceeding with their investigation and learning what they needed to in order to move to the next bit.  I helped them out with British law and police procedure when they needed it, and the case moved a bit slowly at first as the players got their feet wet, but soon picked up momentum and the players did a great job of things.  There was some really good roleplaying throughout the four-hour session, some of the best moments of it coming during the briefing/reporting to Nightingale about what they'd learned, during some of the investigation moments that give players the "AHA!" insights, and the like.

Each of the players played their characters quite well, though Tyler struggled a bit playing Eli Venturini, as he wasn't certain how to go about researching certain topics. Caroline told me later that she wasn't sure how to play Jules Garland, the opportunist, but gradually figured out what her character's strengths were and started to play with them.  Both Ken (playing Nafeesa) and Jenny (playing Morgan) did a great job playing the two apprentice practitioners.  With Nafeesa as the team leader, Ken did a good job of keeping the others in check and focused on the investigation paths that they needed to follow.  Jenny had Morgan focus on some of the research at times with Tyler's Eli Venturini, but both she and Ken had a marvellous time with the Sense Vestigia Skill.  And I've got to say that the whole vestigia/signare aspect of the game in terms of the magic had most of the players fascinated and intrigued.  Though they all did get tired of the "hints of apple" vestigia until they figured out the connection to what was going on in the plot.  My favourite moment in the game was the look on the faces of the players when I showed them the images of the [redacted] when they saw the drawings of the [redacted] and finally met them later on.  The final sequence in the scenario was a bit anti-climactic to me for a variety of reasons, but worked to bring the case file to a satisfying conclusion and the players told me later that they were pleasantly surprised at how the adventure wrapped up.

Due to some lovely roleplaying sequences that I didn't want to disturb, and the limitations of the time restrictions on the game, I had to cut a couple of scenes down or out of the scenario, but nothing that would have made a difference to the overall plot.  After finishing up the scenario around 10:35 pm, two of the players stuck around for a bit to talk about the adventure and the game, but all the players told me that they loved the simple game mechanics (especially the dice mechanics and the Luck system).  Two of the players told me that they were going to buy the game and the first few novels in the series based on how the game played and how much fun they'd had with it.  One of the players, Caroline, stuck around a bit longer and we talked about the Rivers of London RPG and a bit about the books as well, and gaming in general.

*****

Anyway, that's the report on how the Friday night game at the convention went.  Thoughts and comments are always welcome. 🙂

 

[g33k]

A very-interesting report, TYVM!

+1 that 'Con time restrictions can often cut into players' time.

After the first time I ran an event at a 'Con, I really doubled-down on something I had already ID'ed as an issue, which is the sheer unpredictability of the players you'll get, and how they'll engage with the prepared content.

Now, I always have several chunks (combat, puzzles, whole scenes) that I've pre-nominated to omit (or ruthlessly abbreviate) when the players are moving through things much-slower than anticipated.  Similarly, I create some "extra" content (brief combats, red-herring clues, maybe an extra puzzle, etc) if they're racing through at breakneck pace.

Decades later on, this is still the core of my advice for new-to-Con GM's:  pre-select droppable elements to speed things up, and prepare extra playable material to fill out a timeslot that suddenly needs more content.

Edited May 31 by g33k