Idle thoughts and notes from my game (Started 04/14/16)

[TK Nyarlathotep]

Started the game on April 14th using PDFs and my personal group. Reception is good. Here are idle musings.

 

--They trust Deputy Hunter. Good.

--They trust Blaine too. Good.

--Lots of roleplaying. I was happy about that.

--Lost some sanity to a spooky mi-go hell dream.

--PCs semi-arbitrarily decided to overthrow the mayor, who I improvised completely as an incompetent J.K. Simmons type. He'll probably be slaughtered by the Young.

--The music of The Residents, all three Binding of Isaac soundtracks, Aphex Twin (as performed by Alarm Will Sound), and, of course, Chaosium's own Sense Impacts really sealed the deal, tonally.

--For mood, decided to go Twin Peaks as directed by the John Carpenter who did The Thing, Prince of Darkness, and In the Mouth of Madness.

Edited April 15, 2016 by TK_Nyarlathotep

[sverbridge]

I'll probably play music from Midnight Syndicate, they have a nice collection of spooky music.

[Mike M]

13 hours ago, TK_Nyarlathotep said:

Started the game on April 14th using PDFs and my personal group. Reception is good. Here are idle musings.

--The music of The Residents, all three Binding of Isaac soundtracks, Aphex Twin (as performed by Alarm Will Sound), and, of course, Chaosium's own Sense Impacts really sealed the deal, tonally.

--For mood, decided to go Twin Peaks as directed by the John Carpenter who did The Thing, Prince of Darkness, and In the Mouth of Madness.

 

Nice music choices!

[TK Nyarlathotep]

Thank you! I'm a die-hard Rez Head. My group is very excited about this and I'll update after every (or nearly every) session. Question: Should I add updates to the main post or just post them as their own reply?

[Mike M]

I guess, post updates to this thread.

[DMWCarol]

I ran the first half of part one at Open Skies games club last week.  We played for about five hours and had just reached the end of day three when we called it a night.  There was loads of RP and the atmosphere was building up nicely.  I'm going to having another go at running this on the 7th May at Niche Comics (my local games shop) - I'm hoping I can up the pace a bit to bring up down to a length that would work at UK Games Expo.  Their slots are under five hours so I'm not sure it will be possible but you never know...

[morganhua]

4 hours ago, DMWCarol said:

I'm hoping I can up the pace a bit to bring up down to a length that would work at UK Games Expo.  Their slots are under five hours so I'm not sure it will be possible but you never know...

I've seen people who run a Part 1 and Part 2 at conventions, so maybe you can do that instead?  Take two slots and run the whole scenario.

Edited April 18, 2016 by morganhua

[Cthulhu.Bob]

On 04/18/2016 at 10:41 AM, morganhua said:

I've seen people who run a Part 1 and Part 2 at conventions, so maybe you can do that instead?  Take two slots and run the whole scenario.

I was going to ask about play time.  This can be run in a couple of sessions at a con then?

[SteveMND]

16 hours ago, cthulhubob.lovely@gmail.co said:

I was going to ask about play time.  This can be run in a couple of sessions at a con then?

See the existing thread here:  http://basicroleplaying.org/topic/4458-time-issues-for-a-time-to-harvest/

 

[TK Nyarlathotep]

No session last week, so session notes for 04-28-16 here we go!

 

--They no longer trust Blaine, although I've planted the seeds of doubt that they're right.

--Not sure if they trust Jason or not. He checked Azathoth and Others out from the Library. This is weird.

--Kept the Mi-Go in the shadows, physically, so they're not sure if the creature is a single, very big entity or an army of entities. Good. Used a combo of Hypnosis and a made-up syringe tentacle that knocks people out to capture the survey group, which one PC was in and is the sole escapee.

--Looking forward to mind-freaking the PCs next session when the brain-swapped students show up.

--Next week they're checking the woods for John Jefferey, a plot that almost got skipped. I hope I didn't railroad it too hard.

--Two of the players agreed "I'll be looking over my shoulder the whole way home." Oh good God this pleases me.

--Anxious about this Dreamlands thing and the ensuing sub-adventure. Hoping it's not too at odds with the rest of the adventure, or that they find the reveal suitably terrifying.

--Excellent use of The Residents this session (The Ughs and Coochie Brake have some buzzing Spanish language dialogue that really freaked 'em out.)

[TK Nyarlathotep]

Session notes for 05-10-16 (Had to play on Tuesday this week due to having company Thursday).

 

--They killed the beast. That was pretty rad.

--Replaced the Moon Beast and the zoogs with horrifying, unnecessary biological experiments in combining multiple animals.

--Replaced the Men of Leng with Mi-Go servitors (combined with various insects) trying to brain-jar the girl.

--Players are EXCEEDINGLY paranoid right now, having seen everyone kidnapped at different points and then seeing them fine in the police station.

--Almost had to strongarm them out of Cobb's Corners. Now am not sure how I'll convince them to get /back/ to Cobb's Corners.

--They're still debating wildly about who has and hasn't been secretly replaced with "mushroom people".

--Music didn't get to do as much because the internet crashed halfway through. Forgot to put my playlists on Available Offline.

--They're freaked and excited and I'm so glad it's coming this week so I don't have to keep them waiting for the next installment.

--Worrying I may have revealed way too much way too soon. They don't know the true purpose of the mushroom peo--Mi-Go (dammit, you've got me doing it now), but they think an assimilation plot has gone down. The next few months ought to be very exciting.

[joggiwagga]

13 hours ago, TK_Nyarlathotep said:

--Replaced the Men of Leng with Mi-Go servitors (combined with various insects) trying to brain-jar the girl.

I've encountered that at a LARP... 

Edit - I take it back, they weren't trying to brain-jar her.  But if you want some visual inspiration:

Edited May 11, 2016 by joggiwagga
self-correction + visual

[TK Nyarlathotep]

Mother of God.

[TK Nyarlathotep]

It has been Quite Some Time since I updated this thread. There's dust everywhere! Too much to collate into one place. Let's go kind of episode by episode.

 

Ep. 1 End: Aftershocks

--They were hesitant to leave Cobb's Corners until Johnny Law got involved. Then they hightailed it.

--The paranoia was tangible. Good times were had.

 

Ep. 2: Reach

--This one went SUPER FREAKING WELL.

--One player had a psychotic break from the sorcerer's hallucinations, ended up having psychosomatic leg trauma. Nobody even made Talladega Nights jokes!

--Until after the session. Drat.

--Reintroduced Richard Wendell, who was surprisingly popular among the Playerss (and unpopular among all the PCs but the other Weird Photographer in the group).

--They befriended Akeley, Armitage, Wilmarth, and That Other Guy Who Shoots Himself During The Graveyard Ambush. Very useful allies.

--After an /extremely/ tense hunt through the graveyard, the one PC who went to the rendezvous got an Extremely (hint hint) lucky roll, popping the sorcerer with a Major Wound and leaving him cursing furiously on the ground. He convinced those who visited him in the hospital that he was shot by the PC who shot him over a love triangle with another PC. Very embarrassing.

--PCs managed to haul together and flee to the library during the campus-wide case of explosive amnesia.

--They saved the library, did not save the Pasquallium or the Professor (nor were they aware those things were in danger until it was too late). Vaporized the leader with a lightning gun and incapacitated the rest with a very convincing case for self-defense (no legal trouble, but weren't hailed as heroes. They are relative unknowns in the incident.)

--The lightning guns and any other mi-go wackiness dissolved into powder. Some bland excuse about a memetic kill switch. The surviving members of the mindswapped NPCs are currently Schrodinger's Servitors, either dead in a prison cell from the aforementioned kill switch or in the mines in Ep. 4 ready for another showdown.

--Final note: One PC found and read The Unspeakable Cults But In Badly Mangled German in the Miskatonic Library and learned the spell Call Aether Devil. He did it out of curiosity but failed his INT roll, blocking the memory of that meeting. When he was killed by a Mi-Go lightning gun in the library, he was given a second chance at life when he awoke in the Dreamlands version of the Library slowly turning to dust. A copy of the book in candy colors opened itself to the spell and said "Last Chance". He cast the spell in the Dreamlands and met with a buzzing voice that offered him "Life now. Eternal life later." He accepted. He is not only doomed now, but a triple backflip into a picture perfect dive off the high dive and into the pool at the bottom of the Abyss itself.

 

Episode 3: Hunger (Started 08-24-16 after almost a month's hiatus)

--Players seem to trust Abelard, FOC, and its employees fairly implicitly - even after seeing how long they've been trailing their group and learning that they intentionally torture the mi-go.

--Fairly boring session - it turns out nobody wants to roleplay up to a month of recovery after several sessions of nerve-wracking tension, and especially since they all more or less healed during the month hiatus. Also nobody is concerned about their Sanity except Mr. Doom up above, who  has gotten a terrible work shift and thus his character is currently undergoing severe psychiatric care following a psychotic break, paid for by the FOC until he can come back, minus one of two (!!!) permanent insanities and plus some SAN points.

--Gonna do the Canada plot next.

[Mike M]

My advice is don't roleplay recovery time - it's like watching paint dry. Fast forward things forward accordingly to keep player interest active.