So, what does that stat do again / Coming back to World of Darkness

I've been running Night's Black Agents, a Gumshoe game, for nearly a year now, and other Gumshoe games (Fear Itself, TimeWatch, Trail of Cthulhu) for longer. I've become familiar with  the system, how it works and how to make stuff up on the fly. It's now my 'go to' system. 

It used to be World of Darkness, though. I learnt to GM by running Vampire: the Masquerade. The first game I ran to an actual conclusion was a Hunter: the Reckoning/Mage: the Ascension mash up. I loved the games and the Storyteller/telling systems. 

I still have a great fondness for them, and hold them in high regard. 

So I've been thinking about what I would like to run once NBA finishes. I decided that I would like to run Mage: the Awakening. I've always had a soft spot for Mage, and would like to do something with the nWoD game. 

I play almost exclusively over Google+ Hangouts these days, and we use Google spreadsheets as character sheets. This means that there's a one off exercise of transcribing the character sheet to a Google Sheet format. 

I did that this weekend, and realised that WoD games, and Mage: the Awakening in particular, are really complicated. 

Keeping track of three different types of damage - Bashing, Lethal and Aggravated? Awakening also throws in Resistant damage as well, for four(!) types. 

Tracking Willpower, Morality trait (Wisdom in Awakening), Mana, Gnosis, Paradox, spell tolerance and Virtues and Vices is a massive drain on the player and storyteller before you start adding temporary health, speed, initiative and defense bonuses. 

I don't think I can do it anymore. It just seems like so much effort. 

Which is a shame - the settings and a lot of the game conceits are excellent.

Games of Future Past / Planning my next game

I'm running a successful campaign at the moment, which obviously means that I'm thinking about what I want to run next.

I've been toying with a few plot ideas and potential settings for different games for awhile now, and suddenly have hope that I'll be able to run them.

I'm probably getting a bit giddy...

The games are:

Trail of Cthulhu
The first Gumshoe game I bought, and a work of beautiful genius. It successfully evokes multiple interpretations of Lovecraft's work, from the pulp two fisted tales of dark adventure to the doomed and weak minded soul not long for this world with the tenacious and fearful academic somewhere in between.
I have an idea for a game that draws upon The Mountains of Madness and Call of Cthulhu for mood and theme and a real life lost Arctic expedition for setting. I've already started mentally mapping out this idea. It's a strong contender.

Trinity
Originally released as Aeon and soon to be re-released under that name, Trinity is the game from the Aeon Trilogy that I have played the least and have the most books for.
I think I ran a short one shot game for two players back in 2001/2.
It's a game that deserves another crack of the whip - a mix of epic sci-fi, space opera, cyberpunk, post apocalyptic wasteland, Starship Troopers, intrigue and horror. You can set the equalisers to any level you want just by varying the locations and organisations involved.
I'd run a vanilla Aeon Trinity game with a mix of investigation, combat and political manoeuvring.

Hunter: the Vigil
I think of all the World of Darkness games, H:tV has the broadest appeal. Used to playing the monsters in the other games? Have fun playing the other side for once. Never played a WoD game before? Here's a no nonsense gateway to the setting. Not sure about playing a monster? Play a legit human instead.
I was running a nWoD cops game when Hunter: the Vigil announced, and it quickly became apparent that I was running a proto hunter game.
When I finally got it I ran a short introductory story arc for my gaming group, then promptly got my wife pregnant again so had to scale back my gaming for awhile.
I've still got a load of unused ideas that I'd like to try out, and my wife bought me the Compacts & Conspiracies splatbook for my birthday, so it's fresh in my mind.

Ars Magica
My first gaming love. The second game I ever played, the first game I ran. Over the years I've built up and lost a sizable ArM library. I had about 20+ books for 2nd, 3rd and 4th edition, some of which are probably worth a bit of money now, and stupidly gave them all away to charity when the 5th edition came out. To make matters worse, 5th edition wasn't what I wanted it to be, and I gave up on it.
A few years and a bit of perspective later I realised that I wasn't giving it a chance. Different doesn't mean bad. And it couldn't be as much of a disappointment as Dungeons & Dragons 4th edition.
So I'd like to run Ars Magica again.

Changeling: the Lost
Look, this game is fucking brilliant. Really. It's the most well rounded game that White Wolf has ever produced. It's beautiful, horrific, terrifying, paranoid, innocent, brave, redemptive and compelling. It's everything good about folk tales and myths and everything good about modern horror.
It's the best Slender Man pictures meets Pan's Labyrinth meets The Evil Dead.
As I see it, Changeling: the Lost is a game about self discovery and personal agency - freed slaves learning that they can do anything they want, and trying to work out what that actually is, whilst fighting to preserve that freedom.

Mage: the Awakening/Mage Noir
It's hard to get a grip on Mage: the Awakening, to definitively say "this is what the game is about", especially when compared to its predecessor, Mage: the Ascension.
In Ascension it was explicit within the setting that you were caught up in an ideological, metaphysical war with clearly defined sides and an achievable goal. Awakening lacks this direction and forces the players to determine what they want to do and who they have to fight to do it.
The rules are great though. They allow the player characters to bend reality to their will and do a truly impressive range of miracle working.
If running Mage: the Awakening I'd use the Mage Noir setting and play in post war America, late 40s to early 50s, with the players hunting down magical artifacts like an arcane Maltese Falcon.

Pathfinder
Every now and then I have an urge to run a good old fashioned high fantasy dungeon bash.
So far I've primarily used Pathfinder to run Goblin games, because Goblins are ace. The Goblin games I've run so far have been independent of each other but set in the same game world, so the events of the first game (slaughtering a farmer and his family, burning their house down and eating the livestock) informed the second (humans try to drive the Goblins out of the area, Goblins retaliate by setting fire to what they think is a religious monument but is in fact a signal beacon) and the second will inform the third (possible war due to the sudden amassing of an army after an invasion has been signaled).
In every game, though, the players have basically been looking for food and tribal status.

Old school modern Faery tales / Changeling: the Lost game pitch

That girl that played kiss catch with you after school - she steals children, turns them into mice and chases them through her garden. If she catches them, she eats them and leaves their heads for the other children to find.

That gentleman that watches the dance recitals - he takes the best dancers, sets them on fire and makes them dance in his fireplace to warm his cold hearth. If they burn out to ash, he scatters them on the wind.

The old lady that cleans your house? If you don't pay her, you have to clean her house until every one of the countless rooms are clean. First you have to pick up the bleached bones of the last cleaner.

There is a place, full of terrible beauty and burdensome duty, blinding light and lurking shadow, burning love and freezing fear, where stories are told because that is all the occupants know, where madness is codified and the sane wither and die.

People from our world are dragged into this world, bent to its needs and used until they're spent. A process that can take days or centuries.

In place of these lost souls the occupants leave behind a model made of string, gaffa tape and rags, leaves, twigs and old bones or Lego, glue and tin foil. These mockeries live the lives of the stolen so no one ever notices they're gone.

Every now and then, someone escapes back to our world. Or is released. Or is sent back. They find the world has turned without them, that they've aged faster or slower than everyone else and that there's this thing pretending to be them.

Back in our world these survivors gather in loose communities, attracted to the only other people who could possibly even begin to understand, the only other people they can trust to run or fight or hide if these things come back for them.

It's a bit like: Pan's Labyrinth, Hellboy II, The Lady in the Water, Spirited Away, Howls Moving Castle, Coraline, the Sandman

Bringing the Aberrant smackdown / Conforming to my players expectations

I am faced with a dilemma in my Aberrant game.
Do I actively try to kill all the player characters in one session, or not?

The game has been ramping up to the point where the player characters find themselves opposed to the local equivalent of the Avengers and the cliffhanger for the last session was the seconds directly before a direct physical confrontation.
The players have uncovered evidence that Utopia are not all they seem to be, and have effectively teamed up with a recurring villain to break into a Utopia facility and free a Terragen affiliated Nova.
Which has put them squarely at odds with Alpha Strike, the city's primary Nova team and Utopian agents.

The players have seen this coming from a way off, especially as we took a six month mid season break, and have started statting new characters because they don't believe they'll be walking away from this one.

Which is the source of my dilemma.
They expect me to throw everything at them and to wipe them off the face of the game world, which is exactly what a team like the Avengers should do to them.
Thing is, I'd be an irresponsible Storyteller if I just threw a straight fight at them. I have no intention of killing them, this is a story encounter as well as a set piece combat.
But they don't know that. They have to go into this presuming that they should be putting their affairs in order. They also can't be allowed to think that I'm going easy on them.

I'm going to have to kill one of them.
Which one?
The Adonis, the honourable and reserved tank?
Solar Flair, the narcissistic and slow witted fire starter?
Max Control, the arrogant and superior mind controller with Terragen leanings?
Tim Roley, the shape changer with multiple personalities?

They all bring something important to the group dynamic. They're a pleasure to play with and easy to place in situations.

Who should I kill?

Two fisted tales of Adventure! / The best game ever

I often describe Adventure as 'the best game ever'. This is not just hyperbole. One of the authors, Bruce Baugh, commented last year that he and the other authors had "bottled lightening" with the book.

For a game that I originally only bought to complete my set of the Aeon Trilogy (including Trinity and Aberrant) it has had a significant affect on me.
If I had never bought Adventure! I would never have read Planetary or Hellboy. I wouldn't have been exposed to Pulp literature. It paved the way for me to appreciate and enjoy Trail of Cthulhu and read Lovecraft's work.
This book, this game fired my imagination like no other.

Why? What makes this game so God damn good?
Everything. The commissioned short stories (including ones by Warren Ellis and Greg Stolze), the setting - presented as journal entries, newspaper clippings, letters and notices that makes up the first third of the book.
The control that just stops everything from tipping over the edge into complete absurdity and keeps it running on that razors edge of genius.

It is the swinging 20's and everything is possible if you're willing to seize opportunity by the lapels and shake it until the good stuff falls out. Those with the initiative to make a difference can change present and define the future.

You play one of the Inspired: either a Daredevil, a Mesmerist or a Stalwart - a traditional hero possessed of luck and determination, a person with mysterious psychic powers or a demi-god, a man of bronze capable of impossible feats.

The second reason that the game shines is the system. It's based on the standard White Wolf/Storyteller system, with additions that fit the setting perfectly.

Stunts: The game rewards creativity and engagement with mechanical bonuses. Describe what you want to do. If you've put on effort you get a bonus. If it's cool you get a bigger bonus. If everyone at the table goes "whoa" then you get an even bigger bonus.
You do cool shit, you get could stuff. Fortune favours the bold and all that.

Knacks: The Inspired get Knacks. Not quite powers, not quite enhanced abilities. Both. Neither. Daredevils get Knacks that allow them to push the boundaries of good fortune, Mesmerists get powers of the mind to push and pull objects and thoughts and emotions whilst Stalwarts get to dodge bullets, lift cars and walk across deserts without water or shade with no ill effects.

Finally, Adventure! is a game of undisputable character. It oozes it from its every pore. It is bold. It is bright. It is everything you need from a game.

And it is being republished. Onyx Path Publishing, the successor to White Wolf, has bought the rights and are working on new editions of all the Aeon Trilogy.
I cannot tell you how excited I am.

Hello, my old friend / Returning to your favourite system

The game that really got me into paper and pencil RPGS was Vampire: the Masquerade, back with the Revised Edition in, what, 98? I'd been playing in a couple of other World of Darkness games prior to that - Vampire, Dark Ages, Changeling: the Dreaming, Mage: the Ascension - and chose the Revised V:tM as my entry point to serious GMing, or Storytelling, to use the game language.
I immersed myself in White Wolf products from then on, with little or no time for other systems.

Of late, I've tried to break out of that thought prison, and expand my horizons somewhat.
I'd already given d20 a shot in the early to mid 2000s, and looked elsewhere.
In the past year I've run Fear Itself and Trail of Cthulhu, both Gumshoe games, and Star Wars Saga Edition, a d20 derivative. I've also invested heavily in Pathfinder and dug out my In Nomine books.

Tonight the GM for the d20 Modern game I'm playing can't make it, so I've offered to run a one shot game.
After a short discussion, we've settled on a supers game, which means Aberrant.
As a result, I've been pregenning some characters, and I cannot express how good it feels to come back to the Storyteller (ing? I forget which is which) system. Filling in the dots. Not having to reference stuff constantly. Understanding things I do have to reference.
It's great.

More, please.

White Wolf have officially confused me / Step back in time to 2000

I have just scoped this news article on the WW site:
http://www.white-wolf.com/old-world-of-darkness/news/masquerade-clanbooks-return-to-print

The thing I find amazing is that these books are for the Vampire Revised edition, which is out of print, and not for the Vampire 20 version coming out later this year.

For why?
Quick buck?

FFS White Wolf, what are you playing at? / Where are the game pages?

I'm half way through writing a post about Changeling: the Lost, and thought it would be a good idea to include a link the C:tL page on the WW website, for anybody that isn't familiar with this excellent game.

Turns out they don't hold any game specific information on their site anymore. Not even on Vampire: the Requiem.
There's a split between 'old' and 'new' world of darkness, Exalted and Scion, and that's it.
In the past they've given each game line its own set of pages that include a description of / introduction to the line, line specific news, downloads and bonus material.
Now they give nothing.
Thanks for that, White Wolf / CCP. Thanks a bunch.

I've seen the rationale of moving the pdf downloads off the site and letting DrivethruRPG handle it instead, and the sudden and massive move to fan generated content (which sounds fine, on paper), but what we are seeing here is a total abandonment of the games that made the company worth acquiring by CCP in the first place.

Hell, SJ Games still maintains an In Nomine site, and that's been out of print for nearly a decade.
Because it still has fans.

I feel disappointed and let down. How could you, White Wolf, how could you?
For shame.

Aeon Trilogy / Hiding stuff from my wife

I am a criminal. I went up in the loft this afternoon, on legitimate house storage business, and took the opportunity to re-introduce my Aeon Trilogy books to our shelves.
Adventure! was already there, so why not usher them all out into the open...

I love these games. They're Pulp, Cyberpunk and Superhuman games that run together into a two century long epic plot of human potential.
System wise, they birth both Exalted / Scion and New World of Darkness.
Presentation wise, they revitalized WWs book format, with in-genre setting material for the first half, and system & storytelling at the back. This made the first half readable as a standalone book. Rawrsome!

The three main books received critical acclaim when published, but didn't do well enough on the sales front to warrant continued support. Trinity, as the first game, received about a dozen supplements / story modules, and Aberrant got about six-ish. Adventure! stood alone, but was such a work of transcendental genius that it didn't need anything.

Let me be clear on that last point.
Adventure! is possibly THE best game of all time. Ever. Hands down.

Anyways, I was looking round the new WW website last week, and couldn't find anything to do with these games. Have they stopped supporting them? It would be a tragedy if they have.