And 3.5 hours later, we’re done running Prodigal Son. Sir Tatton is reunited with his son, Ariadne has the Knife of Lethe (yikes!) and our heroes took out two vampires.
Here’s how it went. Look out, spoilers ahead!
(Note, this is the third of three posts. Start here.)
The session started at Northcott House in Sledmere where Sir Tatton asked the PCs to find his son and retrieve his books. There was a slight stumble when we discussed why the PCs would agree, but Sir Tatton was prepared to pay and we agreed that that was how it normally worked.
At the abandoned farmhouse (second scene) the PCs killed the two vampires (in two combat rounds—an enraged werewolf is really tough), rescued Omar and found the missing books, and directions to Castle Market in Sheffield.
In fighting the vampires, the difference between the fighters and non-fighters quickly became apparent. While Ygraine created the illusion of a sunbeam to distract the vampires, Naomi found herself sidelined. In future I will take a leaf from Fate’s book and allow characters to “create an advantage” (distracted, blinded by sunlight) that can be a +2 bonus by one of the combat specialists.
We ended the first session with the vampires dead.
Second and final session
We started second session with a brief recap, and then the players questioned Omar and headed to Castle Market. (I had hoped they would return to their base in between as I had an encounter with a representative from the Council of Merlin planned to make this and the following scenario seem more interwoven, but it was not to be.)
At Castle Market the players met persuaded the two Jaeger watchers to show them around the site, and Ygraine created a distraction so they could sneak into the ghost realm.
In the ghost realm they confronted Mark, who handed over the knife for help in exiting the realm. As they returned to Castle Market, they encountered Ariadne and her brood (who had taken out the two Jaeger watchers).
Mark (minus the knife) launched himself at Ariadne, while the others face the vampires. Ariadne beats Mark, and the PCs trade the knife for Mark. Ariadne accepts, and lets the PCs leave. Mark is broken, and the PCs return him to Northcott Hall and Sir Tatton’s gratitude.
How was it running someone else’s adventure?
I’d thought about Prodigal Son so much (much longer than the 3.5 hours we spent playing it!) that I’d internalised it and running it wasn’t too hard. I found I had to create a lot of the detail (the names of the stolen books, how the knife worked, how you access the ghost realm). I don’t mind doing that, but I might have resented it if I’d paid for the scenario.
The situation at Castle Market could be clearer in Prodigal Son. I’m pleased I put the Jaeger watchers in as site security, as otherwise the PCs would have just gone straight to the ghost realm and bypassed them.
I had to think on my feet in the ghost realm. I was trying to decide how to play it—I knew Ariadne and her brood had to make an appearance. I was tempted to bring her into the ghost realm, but I was hoping she would survive the scenario as a potential future foe. (I hadn’t expected her to walk away with the knife—that was a nice surprise.)
I enjoyed running Prodigal Son. I would have written it differently, but I liked having a scenario that I could adapt and flesh out. It will be interesting to run a scenario that doesn’t require so much work.
And how was Liminal?
I found Liminal fiddly, but that may be my unfamiliarity with it. It’s crunchier than I am used to—my favourite system is Fate Accelerated and Liminal is much more granular. There are a few mistakes (a few errors made it through proofreading), and the writing could be clearer.
I’m not a fan of having both dice modifiers and Challenge Levels. If it were up to me, I’d have a constant Challenge Level of 8+, and then everything else is a modifier. (Page 199 explains how to set different Challenge Levels when climbing down the wall of a house—but it’s as easy to assign modifiers as it is to change the Challenge Level.)
The changes I made to the stat block (see this previous post) worked well, and really sped combat up as it saved everyone from having to work out what to roll during combat. However, it didn’t work so well when I had two NPCs fighting each other, so I've made tweaks.
I wasn’t familiar enough with Liminal to want to run a big combat with it, so I hand-waved the big fight with Ariadne and her brood. Luckily the players didn’t mind and were happy for me to take a more narrative approach (particularly one where they didn’t all die). Re-reading the rules, I’m not sure Liminal manages such battles well—there are rules for ordinary mobs, but a mob of seven vampires is somewhat different.
I’d like to see examples of social challenges in the rules. While a social challenge is an opposed skill test, it’s not clear which skills are used on either side. On at least two occasions I wished Liminal had a Persuade skill. It has lots of other social skills (Charm, Conviction, Empathy, High Society, Rhetoric, Streetwise and Taunt) but not Persuade.
Player feedback
Player feedback was good. They were invested in their characters, and they want to continue. They enjoyed playing a game set in Yorkshire (and one player knows Thornhill well).
Most players had a copy of Liminal, and two had played it before. I took a collaborative approach to running the game, asking them to look things up when I was busy.
What next?
I ended with the start of the next scenario (The Haunting), with a letter from Sir Tatton delivered to Naomi. However, that’s in the future and we will do some character stuff first. The PC’s drives are all from the book, and a lot of questions need answering (such as exactly why was Naomi’s master thrown out of the Council of Merlin?). So I asked the players to think about what they want for their characters.
I also want to bring in a few factions—so P Division will be interested in the bodies in the abandoned farmhouse, the Council of Merlin are already interested in Sir Tatton’s library, and Omar (the rescued werewolf) will join the Jaeger Family.
Plus I need to decide what to do about Ariadne and Mark Northcott…
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