First impressions: Mysteries of the Ancients (part 1 – the adventure)

Mysteries of the Ancients is the first third of a huge campaign featuring my favourite bit of Traveller, the Ancients. Secrets of the Ancients (the middle section) has been out for years (I wrote about it here), and the trilogy will be capped by Wrath of the Ancients, which is in pdf now and due in hardback later in 2024.

(I am delighted that the three campaigns are in alphabetic order. Whether by luck or design, that pleases me.)

Mysteries of the Ancients is a 304-page book by M J Dougherty. It takes the GDW's 1980 adventure, Twilight's Peak, and gives it a modern refresh. This review is based on a read-through – I have not run it.

Physically, the book looks good with an evocative cover, clean design, and artwork. Most NPCs have illustrations, which I like (and was a criticism I had of Secrets). The pdf download also comes with a file of handouts, which is unfortunately sparse.

Unfortunately, I found Mysteries extremely overwritten, with a layout and structure that didn’t help me understand the adventure. I'll return to those in a later post, but first, I will talk about the good(ish) stuff - the adventure itself.

And there will be spoilers ahead. Sorry about that, but it's hard to talk about the campaign without talking about the campaign.

A mysterious package

The campaign starts with a package from an old friend, Sorrel, arriving out of the blue, containing mysterious Ancients artefacts and a cryptic note asking for help. The note isn’t helpful – it doesn’t say where Sorrel is but instead directs them to look for a starship and its captain, BK.

There are several issues here:

• First, the old NPC friend is an overused trope. I hoped to see something where the players were driving the plot rather than reacting to a request for help.
• Second, the note is ridiculously cryptic. Why doesn’t Sorrel say where she is rather than force her friends to go on a wild goose chase? Instead, she could give the PCs a sensible reason to find the starship – perhaps she needs something from it or BK?
• Third, why does Sorrel ask the PCs? Why doesn’t she ask BK? (BK and Sorrel were recently crewmates since the PCs last saw Sorrel.) That would be more logical. 
• The package contains a handgun of an unusual design. I’ve no idea why, but it feels unnecessary.
• The package contains lumps of a strange alloy. These are never explained, although Aish Nirkha has a theory on page 66, but we don’t know if it’s correct (it may as well be). Equally strange is that the lumps of alloy don’t feature in the section where we meet Sorrel. So where did she get them from?

I’d rewrite the opening note, getting the PCs to get something from the ship. I might even have Sorrel say where she is so the PCs can go to her first if they want and give them more agency.

Ancient Hunters

The next scene (it’s not really an “adventure”) takes place at a museum of the Ancients – that, unfortunately, the PCs could miss. I say, unfortunately, because there’s information here that might be useful in the next section, and Aish Nirkha (the museum’s curator) writes to the PCs later in the campaign. So it would be ideal if the PCs visit the museum.

The GM can always force this (“You notice there’s a museum all about the Ancients here…”), but a better way would be for Aish to be a PC contact.

This is the first time the PCs meet an “Ancient Hunter” in Mysteries (although, technically, Sorrel is an Ancient Hunter.) Ancient Hunters are individuals seeking to understand the nature of the Ancients. Their theories are wild and varied – and, to be honest, a bit of a shock. The secret of the Ancients has been common knowledge (amongst Traveller GMs and players, at least) for 40 years, and it’s easy to forget that player knowledge and character knowledge are not the same.

The PCs will meet more Ancient Hunters as the campaign progresses – and they are likely to become Ancient Hunters themselves.

In Fleeting Memoriam

This is the first proper adventure of the campaign. The PCs are tracking down the ship and its captain, BK. However, there’s a problem when they find it…

This adventure is a monster hunt. A nasty monster (really nasty – you could easily lose several party members) is loose in a small village on a desert planet. The monster is tricky to defeat.

There are, however, two problems with In Fleeting Memoriam.

The first is timing – and this happens time and again in Mysteries. The PCs turn up just as the monster has escaped. Whether they are a day or two earlier or a month later, there’s no difference: the monster has just escaped. While the players may never notice, it feels contrived.

If it happened once in Mysteries, I might overlook it. But as we’ll see, it happens repeatedly.

Second, as described, the logic of the situation doesn’t work.

The adventure is set in a village of 400 people – who are going about their business without realising there’s a monster in their midst, killing people off! (There are plot reasons for this, but I’m trying not to give too much away.) However, they also ignore the dead bodies – which isn’t how the monster works.

So I would either:

• Change the logic so anyone who sees a body also falls under its influence. (Page 35 hints at how that could happen.)
• Adjust the text so the villagers are scared and wondering what to do – and maybe they’ve called for help? 

(This second option could be a better entry point into Mysteries of the Ancients. The villagers are under attack, and the planetary authorities hire the PCs to investigate. There, they deal with the creature, which leads them to the starship and the campaign. That also solves the timing problem – although you’d need to get the PCs interested in Sorrel and the Ancients.)

A timeline would help this section – a clear timeline of events occurring as time passes. (This is not the last time I say that...)

Hell at Perihelion

Next up – it’s time to meet Sorrel. She’s working at a dangerous experimental mining installation on an inhospitable world with really lax security. I mean, it's amazingly lax. The PCs can just walk in. Oh, and it’s an Ancients’ site – but for no reason I can see, there’s no official interest in it. (Sorrel could have given them cover IDs and badges in her package, but no. They can come and go as they please.)

Luckily, they arrive just in time (again) to rescue Sorrel. Phew! Once rescued, the PCs can progress to the experimental facility, where they discover a terrible plot to blow everything up. As luck would have it, it is timed to happen shortly after they arrive.

Luckily, the PCs aren’t in too much danger because there’s a deus ex machina waiting to save them if they need it.

(I know it’s exciting to have all these things happening just as the PCs are there to see them, but it feels contrived.)

Hell at Perihelion also needs an event timeline, and it would be better if the PC’s actions triggered the end game rather than things being in a state of suspension awaiting their arrival. Perhaps the PC’s arrival (and something they brought from the ship) is why Sorrel needs rescuing, and the terrible plot is triggered.

Oh, one other thing about this episode: it’s unnecessary. It doesn’t drive anything in the overall plot – the PCs learn nothing useful other than reuniting them with Sorrel.

NPC interlude

We then have a brief interlude where the PCs meet enigmatic alien NPCs. The purpose of this seems only to introduce them to the PCs – they take a more active role at Twilight’s Peak.

Oh, yes, I should probably mention Twilight’s Peak. Twilight’s Peak is the name of a book which some think contains a coded map to an operational Ancients base. So far, it’s barely been referred to – and while the PCs encounter the book, it never feels like part of the campaign. The PCs don’t need the book to work through the campaign.

(I would include a reprint as part of the Ancients museum, maybe in the gift shop.)

Ancient Hunter conference

Next up, Aish Nirkha writes to the PCs to invite them to a conference of Ancient Hunters set aboard a Type-M Subsidized Liner. As is now almost inevitable, the conference is timed to start just after the PCs arrive, whenever that may be. 

(They can’t miss it – they get their next clue at the conference. I wish Mysteries was less of a railroad. The PCs could have been given clues to the different episodes, and they could have chosen which order to deal with them. That would have been much more satisfying. The conference could be a series of regular (quarterly, say) Ancient Hunter conferences held at different locations around the subsector. That would have worked equally well.)

Anyway, the conference is an opportunity for the PCs to talk to NPCs and learn about the Ancients. This is a pleasant change of pace from the more action-oriented episodes, although I’m not sure how easy it is to run.

Most importantly, the conference is an opportunity to meet (and hopefully befriend) Vlen Backett, who is pivotal in Secrets of the Ancients. Vlen gives the PCs their next clue, so hopefully they don’t upset him too much.

Off the map

Vlen’s information takes the PCs to a world that isn’t on the subsector map in Mysteries. Not because the world is secret or hidden, but as far as I can tell, due to poor cartography. It’s not the end of the world, as you can always refer to the online Traveller Map. Still, it feels like a careless omission – particularly when, 40 years earlier, the original Twilight’s Peak adventure solved this problem by moving the centre of the subsector map so it showed everywhere the PCs might want to visit.

Anyway, Vlen’s information sends the PCs to a survivor of the original Twilight’s Peak mission, who is reluctant to tell the PCs anything. Reluctant, that is, until a team of baddies launch an assault on the NPC. Isn’t it lucky the PCs are there just at the right time? (It’s unclear why the baddies are suddenly making a move on the NPC, as they weren’t aware of her before now. Like many things in Mysteries, it seems to have been thrown in to make things exciting.)

So, with the baddies approaching, the NPC tells the PCs how to get to Twilight’s Peak before going on a mission of her own. (Hmm, apart from the just-in-time theme, there’s another theme: NPCs telling the players just what they need to know.)

As the timing of the bad guys is linked to the conference, it would be better if the PCs could learn of the imminent attack during the conference – at which point it becomes a race to see who gets there first.

Like all the adventures in Mysteries, this could do with an event timeline to keep track of everything that’s going on.

So it’s off to Twilight’s Peak and the campaign finale.

Twilight’s Peak

Finally, the PCs arrive at Twilight’s Peak, the place they have been searching for all this time, even though they didn’t know they were looking for it. To nobody’s surprise, Twilight’s Peak has a fully operational Ancients base below it.

Twilight’s Peak is a complicated section. As well as a detailed alien base to explore, three other factions are involved, each with different agendas. Towards the end, everything is likely to collapse into running battles – I can see montages being useful here.

And this time, we’re given a timeline, but it’s rather sparse, and I would have liked more detail. At least it accepts that the PCs might arrive midway through events.

While the ending is spectacularly cataclysmic, it’s difficult to tell how much influence the PCs will have as more powerful entities surround them.

So what do I think?

Sadly, I was disappointed by Mysteries of the Ancients. Compared to Secrets of the Ancients, I estimate that Mysteries has about half the adventuring time but with a longer page count. It’s overwritten, but I’ll come to that next time; this post is already long enough.

The actual adventures rely too much on contrivance and coincidence. The PCs being in the right place at the right time happens too often – it’s just lazy. (There are similar contrivances in Secrets, but I didn’t notice so many.)

A big difference between Mysteries and 1980’s Twilight’s Peak is that the PCs actively seek Twilight’s Peak in the original. It’s a mystery to solve, to find out what’s there. In Mysteries, Twilight’s Peak isn’t on anyone’s radar until the end – I can’t see how the PCs can work out how to get there without the final NPC simply telling them.

So many steps in the campaign happen because someone tells them. The PCs do not need to put the clues together – instead, each time they are told to proceed to the next part of the campaign.

There are quite a few errors and typos – this thread on the official Mongoose Traveller forum picks up many. 

Visions of a better campaign

So, as I suggested above, I’d love to see the campaign restructured. I would:

• Start the campaign with the PCs responding to a call for help in the village terrorised by the monster. As part of the aftermath of that (probably in the starship), I’d give the PCs clues about the other parts and let them decide which order to do it in.
• Make it so the PCs’ actions drive the disasters. At Hell in Perihelion, the PCs’ arrival forces the NPCs to advance their plans.
• Bring in the Twilight’s Peak mystery early and work out how the PCs can locate the Ancients’ base by decoding the text (perhaps with some help – maybe an NPC who served in the Third Frontier War).
• Make the Ancients Hunter conference quarterly, rotating around the subsector. The PCs can attend whichever they want – the people might be different, but the clues and the outcome can be the same.
• Add event timelines to each adventure so it’s easier to track what’s happening.

That’s a start. I appreciate that’s quite a lot of work, but it would be a huge improvement.

Next time, I explain what I mean when I say Mysteries of the Ancients is overwritten.

Airecon 2024

Last weekend, I was at AireCon 2024, the games convention in Harrogate’s convention centre.

AireCon is lovely. There’s a great mix of RPGs, board games and other activities and a lovely, friendly atmosphere. I was there Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

Friday

Friday was RPG day for me. I ran three RPGs (enough to get me a weekend pass). I ran Hillfolk (DramaSystem), Hazelwood Abbey (DramaSystem) and In Whom We Trust (Cthulhu Dark).

Hillfolk (DramaSystem)

I set off from home a little later than I planned and arrived at my table to find my three players waiting for me. Unfortunately, that was all we had – three players. I know the game was sold out, but two players never turned up. 

Of the players, one had never played Hillfolk, one had run it some years ago, and the other had the Kickstarter, but their partner had played in the game I ran at Continuum last year! They’d said it was awesome, so no pressure this time…

We spent an hour or so developing our characters and creating the network of needs and wants that drive the action. The characters this time were the Chief, the Artisan and the Curate and our story involved cave paintings, the suspicious death of the previous chief and (eventually) the successful raid on a neighbouring tribe.

Some thoughts:

• Hillfolk with three players was fine. It wasn’t as good as with five, but it was more intense for each of them.
• We had quite a few procedural scenes this time.
• I introduced a few NPCs – I think I’m getting better at managing them in DramaSystem.
• I kept track of scenes this time – we had 18 scenes in total.

After Hillfolk, I had a quick bite to eat, and then it was time for Hazelwood Abbey.

Hazelwood Abbey (DramaSystem)

Hazelwood Abbey is Hillfolk but in a Downton Abbey setting. Again, I had three players, and this time they chose the Earl, an illegitimate Heir and the (Dowager) Countess. Our story this time was driven by Dowager Countess’ refusal to accept the Heir and her eventual murder of the Earl!

Some thoughts

• Again, just three players – but I think five had signed up. Again, the game was intense and would have benefitted from more players.
• Only one procedural scene. When I ran it at Furnace last year we didn’t have many either – maybe that’s a feature of the setting.
• Again, 18 scenes. I think that’s a coincidence. The situation for Hillfolk has an obvious ending (dealing with the neighbouring tribe) whereas with Hazelwood Abbey I have to judge the right time to stop – so the Earl’s murder was ideal. 
• I played even more NPCs this time than I did last time.

In both Hazelwood Abbey and Hillfolk, the players embraced the game and the system, and we had lots of lovely dramatic scenes. And DramaSystem games are so easy to run – almost no preparation is needed. I’m now planning my next playset – this time set around a successful rock band.

(My Hazelwood Abbey DramaSystem playset is available on Itch.io.)

After Hazelwood Abbey I went to get some tea and met Philippa, a friend. I had some time before my next game, so I taught her the Villagers board game (and, um, won) before heading back to the RPG rooms for Cthulhu Dark.

In Whom We Trust (Cthulhu Dark)

I had all five players for In Whom We Trust, a one-way trip deep into the Amazon jungle. Inspired by the movies Outbreak and Arachnophobia (the scariest PG movie ever), I originally wrote In Whom We Trust as a Call of Cthulhu “tournament” adventure for Convulsion/Continuum in the mid-90s. Since then, I’ve redone it for Cthulhu Dark and made it available via Itch.io and DriveThruRPG.

Thoughts

• We had one survivor this time – but from what I could see, all the players were enjoying themselves. Even those that died grisly deaths.
• The system was simple and great, as usual. One character was close to going insane – which was about right.
• I last ran In Whom We Trust five years ago at GoPlayLeeds, and it was nice to revisit it.

After finishing, I walked back to the car past several light artworks – it was Harrogate’s Beam light festival, which was an unexpected pleasure.

Saturday

On Saturday morning I brought Megan and one of her friends to AireCon. I’d ignored the trade hall and the board games yesterday, so today was a chance to remedy that.

We played lots of games:

• War of the 3 Sanchos (a small wargame which I enjoyed more than I thought I would – but I won, so I might be biased)
• Forbidden Jungle (a co-up which we lost, badly – I’d happily play it again.)
• Panic Lab (a mental agility game which Megan won both times)
• Giant-sized Hey That’s My Fish (which Megan won – I came last)
• A playtest of a game about finding poison antidotes (which I won – the game was fine but not stellar and we gave some feedback)

Losing at Panic Lab

Then we had to say goodbye to Guy, and so Megan and I played Woof Days (which I don’t recommend, we won one game each) before catching up with Philippa again. We played:

• Wyrmspan (a heavier variant of Wingspan that I won but Megan was bored by – she found it slow towards the end)
• MLEM: Space Agency (a push-your-luck game I enjoyed but came last while Megan won; but the cat-based space theme I found offputting)
• Reef Rescue (a light memory game that I won)

After that, we entered the wonderful charity raffle. There are only a dozen or so prizes in the raffle, but each prize consists of 20 or so board games, and you stand almost no chance of winning. But if you do, you win big (and it’s up to you how you get them home)… We didn’t win, and the raffle raised over £10,000 for charity.

Waiting for the raffle

Entropoly

Finally, on Saturday, Megan and I watched Ivan Brett (from The Traitors) host Entropoly, a game where the players invent new rules each time they take a turn. The rules got crazier and crazier, with rules for wearing wigs, moving anti-clockwise, and changing the spelling of the board.

The game ended up as a co-up, with all the playing pieces merged as one trying to find the correct finish space, which had been duplicated twenty times. There was much laughing and silliness, and it was a lovely way to end the day.

Sunday

I was tired after Saturday and almost didn’t go to AireCon on Sunday. But I decided I would, and I’m glad I did, as I played in a tabletop RPG and did some networking.

What’s Old Is New (WOIN)

I took the last place in a game of WOIN, where we played adventurers with strange abilities (I was a martial artist with mysterious chi powers, another character was a mutant, and another was a cyborg) helping the oppressed. Like the A-Team. We fought vampires, met some nuns, built an improbable vehicle and smashed a sinister vampire plot. I had a good time, but I’m not sure the WOIN system is for me. It was fine but didn’t stand out – we could have used almost any trad ruleset.

After that, I found friends (old and new) and talked about Jubensha, freeforms, escape rooms, and Dune 2 before heading home.

And that was my AireCon. What will I do next year?

First impressions: Most Trusted Advisors

It’s not often that I read a roleplaying game and can’t wait to get it to the table. Microscope was one (a story game rather than a “proper” RPG, but even so) and Hillfolk another (although that took me years to play). Most Trusted Advisors, a Forged in the Dark game by W.S. Healed & Citizen Abel is another.

Most Trusted Advisors

is a 54-page “comic game of feudal intrigue.” The players take the roles of a profoundly incompetent monarch’s eponymous privy council. As lords and ladies of the realm, they must keep their liege safe from foreign agents, court conspiracies, and their most dangerous enemy: their own incompetence. The GM gets to play the monarch – The Liege.

So it’s the game of Blackadder II. The GM plays Queenie, while the players are Blackadder, Lord Melchett, Malcolm Tucker, Moist von Lipwig and others.

What’s not to love?

Setting

Most Trusted Advisors is set in the fictional city of Valdrada, the capital of the feudal realm of Dulcinea. 

Valdrada is a mashup of 15th-century Florence, 13th-century London, and 11th-century Paris. It’s a city of castles, slums, sprawling streets, busy markets, theatres, taverns and brothels.

A few truths about Dulcinea:

• It’s ruled by a Liege, a blithering royal shit with immense political power. Their Most Trusted Advisors are the ones actually running the realm.
• The Nobility occupy most positions of political, social, and economic power. They are all to the last man either useless or malevolent, often both.
• The Burghers, city-dwelling merchants, occupy the rest. They’re equally useless and malevolent, but usually better at hiding it.
• The Church is a powerful institution that demands belief in their god or gods. Some people believe in witches and sorcery, which may or may not be real.
• It’s neighboured by the Duchy of Zobia, a bitter historical enemy. A Great War has been fought, and the ink is still drying on the treaty.
• Thousands of peasants slave away thanklessly to keep the realm running.

Plus, the players get to add their own truths as part of the game setup.

This melting pot background means never having to worry about being historically accurate – or accidentally offending someone. (And Most Trusted Advisors definitely doesn’t want to offend.)

Would Most Trusted Advisors work if it were set in Elizabethan England? I’m sure it would, but I’m not a history buff and I’m happy to set it in a nonsensical world and not worry about accuracy.

Rules

Most Trusted Advisors uses a stripped-down Forged in the Dark engine. At least, I assume it’s stripped down because there’s really only one roll: Action rolls.

Anytime a character is attempting something dangerous (or uncertain), they make an Action roll. To do this, they pick an appropriate action rating (such as Bluster to lie or bluff) and then roll a number of d6s equal to their rating. Ratings range from 0 to 4, and you pick the highest result. A six is a success, a 4-5 is a partial success and a 1-3 is a tragedy.

Tragedies and partial successes attract misfortunes, which are conditions such as Angry or Enemy of the Crown.

That’s pretty much it for the rules. There are some fiddly bits such as flourishes (sort of enhanced actions), twists (spend them to avoid misfortunes and do other things), Ducats (bennies), and arms (countdown clocks shaped like shields).

There are also fortune rolls, which are used to answer questions like “How good is the feast’s dessert?” You build these like action rolls, but really, they’re the kind of thing I would roll 2d6 for and interpret the result, high = good, low = bad. That kind of decision-making is part of my GM tookit – it feels weird to have a game specifically tell me how to make those rolls. (Yes, I realise fortune rolls are from Blades in the Dark.)

Playbooks

The six playbooks in Most Trusted Advisors are delightful.

• The Treasurer, a persnickety, long-suffering bean counter
• The Lover, a charming, naïve consort to the monarch
• The Alchemist, a brilliant but unhinged occultist
• The Hierophant, a pompous, self-righteous priest
• The Marshal, a bold, hot-headed general
• The Blackguard, a sneaky, treacherous backstabber

Abilities are described as “titles”, which is nicely thematic. You choose three as part of character generation, and they’re things like:

• Keeper of the Swans: As a Twist, you can unleash angry, escaped swans wherever you please
• Royal Librarian: You can spend a ducat and know of a book that can tell you exactly what you need to know.
• Lord Spymaster: You have spies in every nook and cranny. As a Twist, you can reveal any NPC to be one of them

(The one I don’t like is “Noblesse Oblige: Pick a title from another playbook.” Not because I don’t like picking another title, but because it’s messy and it requires either more mastery of the game than is likely amongst my players, or too much dreary analysis paralysis. [I don’t like this option in PbtA games, either.])

So the characters are great. Don’t tell me you don’t want to play right now.

Secret societies

And of course there are secret societies! Six of them, each with agendas, contacts and even more titles. The agendas give players extra objectives – more things to do.

• The Hermetic Order: Secretive occultists in search of metaphysical truths
• The Inquisition: Religious fanatics looking to punish sins, real or imagined
• The Sky Chamber: There is no such organization as the Sky Chamber
• Zobian Traitors: Seditious and cunning spies, loyal to the Duke of Zobia
• The Chamber of Commerce: Wealthy burghers and merchants conspiring for profit
• Karian Loyalists: Staunch traditionalists still loyal to a long-deposed dynasty

The Liege

The GM, meanwhile, plays the Liege, an unpredictable, irresponsible idiot. So Queenie or the Prince Regent from Blackadder. Lieges come in different flavours, each with their own playbooks:

• The Royal Buffoon is the median wealthy jackass.
• The Have-at-Them is an upstart warmonger.
• The Bleeding Heart is terminally afflicted with noblesse oblige.
• The Loathsome Toad mistakenly thinks they’re a master of intrigue.
• The Powder Keg is a paranoid tyrant always looking for someone to behead.

Liege playbooks come with a list of characteristics and two signature Misfortunes and Mishaps. (Misfortunes happen when the dice are rolled, as mentioned above. Mishaps are things the GM can do to kick a session off, or during a lull in the game – along the lines of GM moves in other games.)

I suspect I’ll pick the Royal Buffoon for my first game, but they all sound like fun.

But what do you do?

Once characters have been created, the Liege starts everything off with a mishap. If you can’t think of anything, there’s a table of inciting incidents at the end, such as: “Your liege’s brother has claimed the throne.” As liege, you demand that your advisers sort it out – and you’re off and running.

As a player, you want to become the Liege’s most trusted advisor – the first amongst equals, as it were. Except they were never your equals.

The game ends with a footnote – where your character ends up in history. To determine your fate, you roll one dice for each of these that are true:

• You survived until the end of the game.
• You’re your Liege’s most trusted advisor (the Liege player decides who this is!)
• You completed one of your secret society’s agendas.
• You completed two or more of your secret society’s agendas.

Success lets you choose questions to answer from the legacies list (How did you permanently change the realm’s political system?); failure means choosing from the list of infamies (Why did nobody go to your funeral? What was the least convincing excuse?)

It’s worth letting the players know how the game will end so they can work towards those. Once they realise they will get dice for not dying, being the Liege’s favourite and completing their agendas, they should drive all the action.

Epilogue: There’s then a slightly odd, optional epilogue, a short mini-game called How’s it going, Geoffrey? Where you look at events from the point of view of the unluckiest peasant in the realm. It sits slightly oddly, and I’m not sure how I feel about it. I’m sure I’ll try it when I run Most Trusted Advisors, but from reading it, I’m not entirely convinced.

But it’s not perfect

Some things are explained in a bit too much detail, as if I’ve not played a roleplaying game before. Is that likely? Is anyone likely to stumble across Most Trusted Advisors without knowing what they’re getting? I suspect not, but anyway.

Fortune rolls: I’ve already mentioned fortune rolls. Making snap decisions is something every GM has to learn – yet most games don’t cover it. Does that mean it’s missing, or is it not needed?

Countdown clocks: Most Trusted Advisors takes a page to explain “Arms” – which took me a moment or two to realise it was just a new name for countdown/progress clocks. Part of me likes the way the mechanic is renamed to suit the setting, but a bigger part of me is irritated that so much explanation was needed for something that is pretty simple (and described in many other games).

Safety and inclusion: I’ve seen so many sections on safety tools that my eyes usually glaze over them. Does every game need a section on safety tools? Can we not just point to the many excellent online web pages? Apparently not.

Anyway, Most Trusted Advisors has sections on safety tools, warns not to be antisemitic when using secret societies, includes a page on queer identity and oppression, and talks about ethnicity. Even the epilogue minigame, How’s it going, Geoffrey? is there to help reflect on how awful most people’s lives were in the Middle Ages.

I know I’m a white, middle-class, middle-aged bloke, but to me, it all feels a bit heavy-handed. But maybe that’s the point – and my slight irritation reflects more on me than it does the game.

GM improvisation: Most Trusted Advisors relies on the GM to keep things going. While character creation should result in conflict and agendas, if the players don’t fully embrace the idea that they are driving the action, the game could struggle to get going.

Why I like it: ticking boxes

Most Trusted Advisors ticks many of my boxes. The key things I like in a game are:

A plot. For me, this is probably Most Trusted Advisors’ weakest area. While there’s no specific scenario, between the initial premise, character generation and the rules for determining your character’s fate, some sort of plot should present itself. However, it’s very reliant on the players – if they falter, everything then relies on the GM.

The characters are important. I like the characters to be important to whatever the game is about (my pet gripe are convention games that just use the published pregens without tying them to the adventure). Characters with a stake in what’s going on help keep their players engaged.

Players talk to each other as characters (not just to the GM). Most Trusted Advisors is slightly player-v-player, so the players should talk to each other rather than just to me. And as part of character generation, the players create shared backstories by asking each other questions.

Other points in Most Trusted Advisors favour include:

• It looks easy to run – most of my friends are familiar with Blackadder and the playbooks are full of flavour.
• It’s ideal for one-shots, and I like one-shots. (I suspect it’s exhausting to run and play, so it might even be rubbish for longer games.)
• Character generation includes choosing a friend and a rival. Why don’t more games do this?
• For the most part, it’s really nicely written.

Overall

So that’s Most Trusted Advisors. I’m looking forward to playing it – hopefully soon.

You can get Most Trusted Advisors from the creators’ page on Itch.io, here.

And click here for my report of play.

LarpCon 2024

Last weekend I drove down to the Whitwick & Coalville Leisure Centre for LarpCon 2024.

LarpCon is a live-action role-play (larp), cosplay, re-enactment and steampunk convention. (But frankly, mostly larp.) It’s a lovely occasion to meet like-minded people, and spend money on costume and props.

The sports hall (photo from LarpCon Facebook page)

I was there to help Ray, Simon and Nick on the UK Freeforms & UKLTA (laser tag larps) stall.

The venue

Larpcon took over the leisure centre’s sports hall, the squash courts and a dance studio. Alongside people in costume, armour and elf-ears were people in sportswear going to the gym or the pool. It made for an odd mix in the foyer.

The con started at 10 am, and I arrived just before because I wanted to make sure I could get a parking space. Parking appeared to be a challenge – although apparently there was an overflow car park, I’m not sure where it was. 

The sports hall was full of traders – and smelled not unpleasantly of leather. 60-odd stalls sold costumes, weapons, accessories and food. If I was into costuming, I am sure I would have come out much poorer.

The squash courts contained the bring-and-buy (and archery range, I think), an art exhibition, and talks. One of Sunday’s talks was about mega-games, which I wish I had known about because I’d have gone to that. (If there was a timetable pinned to the wall, I didn’t see it. I know it’s on the website, but I’m old-fashioned.)

Upstairs in the studio was the promoter area - a few trade stands and stands for those promoting larp groups. That’s where we were.

UK Freeforms and UK Laser-Tag LARP

Ray had booked two tables, one for the UK Laser-Tag LARP group and one for UK Freeforms. 

The laser tag stuff had loads of exciting equipment: guns and sensors and props. The guns and sensors worked (the guns even made exciting sounds), and the props included Orac, a beautiful demon hunting compass (that worked), a computer with clever access requirements, and the Enigma machine used in Café Casablanca. It was all very clever and drew lots of attention.

The UK Freeforms side was a little less glamorous – some game printouts and character sheets. I also brought a few books to help with the visual appeal.

While it was clear the exciting kit drew many, they were all very happy to hear about freeforming as well.

Talking to punters

This wasn’t Ray and Simon’s first time at a con like this, and they happily started talking to anyone who showed even the slightest interest in the stall. Me, I’m more reserved, so I took a while to get going.

I found it tricky to pitch freeforms – but I know it’s not something I’m good at. But after a while I got into the hang of it – asking people if they’d heard of chamber larps or parlour larps, or sometimes I used murder mystery games as an example.

(I wasn’t there to promote Freeform Games, although I mentioned them once or twice.)

Then I talked about the range of genres that freeforming covers: pirates, Jane Austen, wild west, modern, future, musicals and many, many more. (One benefit of not being too focussed on costuming and props, I think.) Oddly, the idea of a Father Ted larp seemed very appealing to many.

I then explained how the games worked: prewritten characters with detailed backgrounds and (conflicting) objectives. Up to the players how they do things. Combat light – some rules, but depends on the game.

Then I explained about Consequences and the Facebook group and gave them a business card that Ray had brought with the links.

Everyone was friendly, a couple of people had already heard of freeforms, and I would have sold a copy of Writing Freeform Larps had I accepted credit cards.

(And that all sounds much more coherent than it actually was.)

Next time

I think next time, more signage would help. Ray had put photos of freeforms on the wall, but we could have done with a vertical display stand for more pizzaz.

I would also have a few flyers available on the table. Some ideas:

• A one-page summary description of the games themselves.
• A list of typical games of different sizes and genres. Including a few that can be downloaded (either free or paid for) – and some good games for beginners to run with friends.
• A list of events where freeforms are played. (We mostly talked about Consequences and Retford, but we should have had a poster with Consequences, the weekend games, Continuum, Bristol Games Day, Sheffield’s The Box Northern Larp Festival, and London’s The Smoke larp festival and even Peaky on it.) It was noticeable that because laser tag uses an established larp site, it sometimes got the response, “oh yes, I know where that is.”
• A summary of where to go to learn more. The Facebook group, the mailing list, the uk freeforms Discord, maybe the wiki and Peaky Games. It would be nice if UK Freeforms had a proper website.

(And maybe turn that into a little 4 or 8-page booklet?)

Anyway, something to think about for next time.