Legend of the Sky Raiders session #3: The trail of stone

I’m running Traveller's Legend of the Sky Raiders for my regular group. Previously, I talked about session #2. This is session #3.

(The long gap between this post and the previous post isn't because we've stopped playing. It's because I talk about spoilers in this post, and some of those spoilers are still relevant even after session #5...)

The Travellers

A quick reminder of our players and their characters:

Jon is playing ex-Scout Timo Sosak  8A9B84 Age 38.

Terry is playing ex-space pirate Sir Sidderon Dubois 775ACC Age 34.

Thomas is playing drifter Felix "Dusty" Pygrin 478CB7 Age 34.

Tom is playing Zhodani prole Mustafa Lama Doka 586333 Age 38.

We have a full house tonight – everyone can make it.

And alongside our heroes, I have six NPCs who are part of the party: Lorain Messandi (their patron), Drew Kensing (who fancies Lorain and whose dad financed the expedition), Tallia McKenzie (Lorain’s friend), Hal Lewis (a guide), and the hovercraft drivers Dan and Kelli. (And two other unnamed support personnel I had completely forgotten about...)

Into the Outback

After a little business (catch up, check on cats, trade goods), the party sets off into the Outback.

Day one

Each day we made several rolls.

• I rolled for animal encounters (varies depending on terrain)
• I made the Travellers roll for time lost:
• Swamps/jungles: Roll an Average (8+) Navigation (INT) check. If failed, lose hours equal to effect. (You’re lost!)
• Rivers/Lakes: Roll an Average (8+) Drive (DEX/INT) check. If failed, lose hours equal to effect. (Tricky rapids or other obstacles.)
• I rolled to encounter natives (9+)
• I rolled for encounters again

I pulled this together from page 24 of Legend of the Sky Raiders. Canonically, the referee just rolls 1D and subtracts that from available travel time to allow for time lost, but I changed that to a skill check. 

The first day passed uneventfully.

Day two

The Travellers saw a large jaguar-sized creature, but scared it off before it could attack. They then came across a native village, where they spent a couple of hours trading for information and some disgusting foodstuffs (including bright pink berries called “kek” that, if the Travellers understood it correctly, had narcotic properties).

For each group of natives, I rolled on the reaction table – the one that Mg 2nd edition doesn’t have, which I discussed here.

Legend of the Sky Raiders doesn’t give the referee any guidance on playing the natives. They look alien, but we have no sense of how alien they are. They are either “friendly” or “hostile”. (I probably should have thought about this before.)

Day three

After an uneventful day, the PCs arrive at the village of Adalanayra, their target. They traded goods with the natives and learned about the trail of stone, which isn’t far from Sanalaysa, another native village. They exchanged more trade goods for a guide to take them to Sanalaysa.

Day four

Another uneventful day brings the Travellers to Sanalaysa, where they meet the natives. They arranged for a guide to take them to the trail of stone the following day.

That night, Kelli, one of the drivers, tells Mustafa that they suspect that one of the others is a government spy. Kelli doesn’t know who, but it wasn’t unusual for the government to bribe expedition personnel to spy for them. Mustafa’s response doesn’t give Kelli much comfort.

Day five

En route to the trail of stone, Drew Kensing (an NPC) is attacked by a snickersnak. Dusty zaps it with his stunner, and it flees. (I realise as I write this up, that Drew should be extremely grateful to Dusty for saving his life. So I will play that up next time.)

The PCs pretty quickly dismiss the idea that the trail of stone might be a landing strip, but they want to find out what is at each end. (It is straight, like a Roman road.) Unfortunately, they fail their skill check, so nothing happens.

Tom then explains task chains to us all (in a much better way than I could – and even though the players have the rules, they’d not spotted it). And so we decided to try a skill chain the next day.

That night in camp, they discuss the potential spy but fail to take any concrete action.

Day six

Day six is a day of task chains. Mustafa flies a drone, Sir Sidderon uses Recon to scout ahead, and we end with an Archaeology roll, which reveals the trail of stone as it disappears into a huge lake. Another successful task chain, and the Travellers follow it across the lake, where they spot activity in the distance. (It’s an archaeological dig at the lost city of Tlaynsilak, although they don’t know that yet.)

The Travellers return to Sanalaysa and plan to approach the dig from the north, from cover. But that is for our next session.

(I have gone off script here. According to Legend of the Sky Raiders, the Travellers should be ambushed and captured as they approach the archaeological dig. But I’m trying not to make the adventure so railroady – I don’t think the adventure needs the PCs to be captured, although that remains an option should they be careless. We’ll see.)

Plans for next session

So their plans for the next session are:

• Use a task chain to try and identify the government spy.
• Then move closer to the lost city and observe it to see what’s going on.

Reflections on the game so far

I’m being a little more circumspect about my thoughts on Legend of the Sky Raiders this time. Until recently, my players didn’t read my blog. However, Tom has joined us, and he moderates The Tavern (a gaming discussion board that syndicates my blog). By the time I publish this, it will have been a couple of weeks, and the game will have moved on enough that this isn’t full of spoilers for him.

Anyway, I’m now juggling six NPCs – and frankly, they are being ignored. (I’d like a game structure that gave NPCs more prominence, but I suspect if we did that, it would no longer be Traveller.) So instead, I will create a series of scenes for each, a bit like I did with Kelli last time.

Adventure support: Frankly, I’m finding that Legend of the Sky Raiders isn’t giving referees a lot of support now that we are in the jungle. As I mentioned above, information on the Mirayn natives is thin, and three key scenes are coming up that would benefit from maps. Yes, I can come up with my own maps, but it would be nice not to have to.

We’re being followed! Then there’s the bit in the text that suggests the referee should hint that they are being followed.

“During the course of their travels through the Outback, the players may on occasion detect the pursuers by accident, Glints of metal in the distance, a faint hum of hovercraft engines, or a rumour of other strangers picked up from a native village can all be used to point to the presence of these troops. Clues should be passed to the group as if they were a part of the regular encounter process; otherwise, too much importance will be attached to them.”

I couldn’t figure out how to do this – if I told my group they saw glints of metal in the distance, or a faint hum of hovercraft engines, they’d be all over it in a second. So instead, I used Kelli to plant the seed into Mustafa that there might be a spy in the camp.

Actions for next time

I need to:

• Remember that Drew owes Dusty his life. Or that’s how he thinks it.
• Come up with some scenes for each NPC that breathes a bit of life into them.
• Think about how I get them to the scene AFTER the next scene, if I don’t want to be too railroady about it.

Coming soon: To (not) catch a spy.

Previously: Session #2: Mustafa or start here with my review of Legend of the Sky Raiders.

Creating detailed characters for a Good Society one-shot

In my last post, I talked about what I will do differently when I run Good Society as a one-shot next, and I created a playset based on the character sheets, desires and relationships.

It didn’t change the game, but put everything onto a single sheet of A4 for easier reading – apart from the relationship cards, which would still be exchanged during setup.

But why not go further?

Making it more trad

Why, in a convention one-shot of Good Society, should I expect players to create their characters at all? 

After all, I didn’t roll up characters for the other games at Furnace—Traveller, 7th Sea and Cepheus Universal. I was given a character with names and backgrounds complete.

Yes, they were all trad games and have a different playstyle from Good Society. But I think there’s an advantage in giving players fully developed characters rather than expecting them to come up with something coherent in under 30 minutes.

Going awry

I find it easy to go awry when collaboratively creating characters for story games like Good Society (or Hillfolk or Fiasco). It’s particularly easy if you aren’t experienced at the game. And I’m not – I like to play and run a good range of games, but as a result, I’m not an expert at any of them.

As a result, I find it’s a big ask to facilitate the creation of a coherent set of characters in under 30 minutes for a convention game. (Vee Hendro allows 22 minutes in her video on running Good Society at conventions. But she wrote the game.)

Too eager to please

And because I’m bad at saying “no” to player suggestions, characters can sometimes end up a little “off”. And as a result, we can end up with ideas that don’t feel very Jane Austen-y. 

Now, that usually doesn’t matter. We still have great games, but the purist in me wants to play a Jane Austen-y game (even if we are ignoring the more awful views of that time).

I’m sure that’s my lack of experience, along with not wanting to upset anyone.

Luckily, this didn’t happen at Furnace this year, but I can think of games of Hillfolk where player choices (and my lack of pushback) meant we stuttered in places.

Making it more freeform-y

So that’s what I’ve done. I’ve taken the Wealth and Fortune playset (page 196) and fleshed out the characters and relationships.

I’ve given the characters names and genders. I’ve not touched the connections – we can still do that as part of setup at the start of play.

The character sheets look much more like freeform characters now. Mostly backstory, with just a little room for mechanics. The character sheets are also clearer and simpler, as I cut plenty of text that, once I’d made a decision, wasn’t needed. I can’t say I’m displeased with this.

Harder than I expected

But it wasn’t easy. In fact, it was a lot harder than I expected.

In Jane Austen-land, women don’t have as many rights as men. They rarely own property, and in the stories, the female characters’ fate is often entirely in the hands of menfolk. (Now I know in a game things can be different, but I’m aiming for a traditional Jane Austen vibe. It’ll go crazy enough as soon as players are involved—I don’t want it to start crazy.)

I started with the five-player set: Heir, Cornerstone, Dependant, Tutor, and the New Arrival. (I ignored the suggested spare character.)

Traditionally, the Heir ought to be male and the Tutor female. The others were less clear-cut, but the relationships (in love, cousins, previous romance, patron and so on) made it harder to create coherent backstories than I expected.

For example, the Tutor has a patron, but that is unlikely to be the Cornerstone or the Dependent (who both have money problems, so are unlikely to be able to sponsor her) or the New Arrival (unless the Tutor is also a new arrival, but that has complications elsewhere), which leaves the Heir as the Tutor’s patron.

(That assumes I stick to standard Jane Austen heterosexual genre tropes. I don’t have to, of course, but as I’ve said, I want to create Austen-compatible characters.)

I wanted roughly equal male/female characters, and played around with combinations for a while until I realised I needed a relationship map. So I created one:

I found this really helpful – I referred to it constantly. The spurs to unnamed characters (eg to the unnamed uncles) are for minor characters. We will add those by hand at the table.

(In a regular game of Good Society, where you have a full session zero to thrash this sort of thing out, I don’t think it’s a problem. But in a convention one-shot, time is pressing.)

Changes for four players

Changing to four players should be easy, right? Just drop a female character (so we have two male and two female characters) and shuffle the relationships to fill the gaps.

But it wasn’t that easy. If I dropped the New Arrival and reshuffled the relationships, that would make the Heir and Cornerstone (both males) old flames. That’s fine for a queer-game, but it doesn’t work for my Austen-compatible game.

(And if I drop the Tutor, then the Dependent and the Heir become cousins, which changes the dynamic of the inheritance desire. And dropping the Dependent means the Tutor and the Cornerstone are publicly engaged, which would need explaining, given that Cornerstone’s family has money problems and the Tutor is a, well, tutor.)

So I dropped the New Arrival and looked for a completely different relationship (rivals).

Here’s the four-player relationship map:

One-shot backstory madness

Thinking all this through has revealed how hard it is to create a coherent backstory in under 30 minutes for a one-shot. 

I found it interesting that a notionally very flexible playset turned out to be actually fairly restrictive in trying to get it to make sense.

Anyway, now I have a set of characters I’m happy with, and I’ve uploaded them here if you want to see what I’ve done.

Is this an improvement?

Well, that’s a good question, and I don’t have enough experience to tell at this stage.

Am I taking too much away from the players? I’m not touching their connections, so they will have some input. But is that enough? I won’t know until I try it.

And will players mind? I doubt it – pregens are common in convention games.

(I can apply the same logic to Hillfolk. Creating characters is fun, but there’s rarely enough time at con game to do it justice, and if the players aren’t firing on all cylinders, the result can be a little weak. So maybe I should create the characters myself and then concentrate on play?)

What have I learned?

I like ttrpgs where the players drive action. I want to see dramatic scenes where players are trying to outwit and complicate their fellow players. So games like Good Society and Hillfolk.

However, a weakness of storygames like these is that creating characters in a rush can be unsatisfying.

The games are supremely flexible, and with enough time, you can really dive into the relationships and background and create solid characters. But at a convention, I don’t have time. As much fun as character creation in these games is, there’s a lot to be said for creating a solid set of characters for players just to pick up and play.

But of course, I’ve yet to try it…

(And if you want to try them yourself, you can download them here.)

One-shot Good Society: Changes

Having recently run Good Society as a one-shot at Furnace (see here), I have some thoughts.

From what I could tell, the players enjoyed themselves getting up to Jane Austen-y hijinks. It was definitely a success, but I think a few things would have made it easier for me to run it.

My changes

Five main characters at most

Maybe Good Society is happy with more main characters (which is what Good Society calls its PCs), but not in a time-limited one-shot. Having fewer main characters gives everyone more time to play.

Don’t play and facilitate

I tried to both facilitate and play a character. That was a mistake. Perhaps with an experienced group it would be fine, but with players new to the game (and, honestly, a relatively inexperienced Facilitator), I should have stuck to facilitating.

Simplify character documentation

The Good Society character sheets are pretty, but didn’t find them particularly practical for a one-shot. They consist of an A4 sheet with three columns, one of which is taken up with a character portrait, plus another third of an A4 sheet (for family background), plus a desire card and a relationship card…

They also include things that aren’t necessary for a one-shot (eg inner conflict), and the text is tiny because of the huge character image. 

So I have redesigned the character sheet to be simpler:

• Removed the image and put that on a separate card as an identifier/standee.
• Removed the unnecessary information (inner conflicts)
• Added the desire to the character sheet – that means I can eliminate the desire cards.
• Added their side of the relationship card. (The relationship card itself will still be given away during the backstory.)
• Added summary details for their connection. (But connections are otherwise unchanged.)

It's not as pretty, but it is more readable.

Have a starting scene in mind

This wasn’t an issue, but it’s worth having a starting scene in mind to get the game moving. Our first novel chapter was set at a ball for the New Arrival, and the starting scene I had in mind was the host (or hostess) welcoming the New Arrival.

Create a relationship map

Which I didn’t do, and I lost track of how everyone knew each other. And that was just the main characters – let alone all the minor characters… I’ll know better next time!

Ignore reputation conditions

A one-shot has only one reputation phase, so they are unlikely to trigger. So instead, use the reputation tags for roleplaying (and resolve tokens).

Redesign the public information sheet

Everything is too small. Move the reputation tags to table name tents (see below) and make everything bigger. There are unlikely to be more than seven or eight rumours (there is only one rumour phase in a one-shot), so use the extra space so you can write larger and more legibly.

(And I’ll add a blank relationship map to it as well.)

Use table name tents

(You should do this in every game – not just Good Society.) Include your character, their role and family, their reputation tags – and the name of the player playing them.

In fact, I’ve gone one better and created some bespoke table name tents for the characters. (Click here to download the table name tent files.)

Is play different?

Play is basically unchanged. During backstory, the players will still exchange relationship cards and create connections. And then we’ll play.

Trying it out

And all I need now is an opportunity to try this!

But before I do, I have ideas about making a one-shot game of Good Society more like a freeform. More on that soon.

Messages from Callisto

A very short note to say that I've published Messages from Callisto, the fourth in my series of first-contact freeform larps, on Itch.io.

Classified images from Voyager showed a regular, pyramid-shaped structure on the surface of Callisto. The structure looked too regular to be natural, and in 1983, the US government sent a follow-up mission, Arcadia, to Callisto to learn more.

It is now 1993, and the first signals from Arcadia have arrived. UNET (United Nations Extraterrestrial Taskforce) is meeting in London to discuss Callisto along with several other issues that have all come to a head at once.

Messages from Callisto is a 3-hour freeform larp for 13 players.

I've written a longer post on Writing Freeform Larps, going into some of the details in publishing Messages from Callisto. TL;DR: It was more involved than expected.

Posts about Messages from Callisto.

Furnace 2025

It’s October, which means it’s my annual trip to the Garrison Hotel in Sheffield and two days of great ttrpg gaming.

It was Furnace’s 20th anniversary, and the organisers gave us each a nice dice tray! (You can’t miss them in the photos below – they’re bright orange.)

New for this year was taking over the hotel restaurant space for eight tables of games. That gave more space for games, but more importantly, the new space was light and airy – a huge improvement on some of the dingier tables elsewhere. (I predict that next year they will be snapped up quickly!)

I played four games. (I don’t play in slot 3, Saturday evening, as I go home instead.)

Calli’s Heroes - Traveller

John ran Kelli’s Heroes, a military heist adventure for Traveller, inspired by a certain movie. Set during the Fifth Frontier War on Becks World (or “Space Iceland” as we described it), we were a Recon company sent to check out a downed shuttle that led us to rescue some scientists who had discovered a vault of Ancient technology.

Lots of fun – with a nice scene where we intimidated the heck out of some Vargr, forcing them to flee rather than actually engaging them in battle. I played squad leader Calli, a compulsive gambler, who was heavily in debt and happy to go after priceless Ancients artefacts!

We had two firefights – the first lasting no more than two rounds, the other over in the first salvo.

The Price of Arrogance – 7th Sea

Remi ran The Price of Arrogance, a swashbuckling adventure involving sinister conspiracies, a mysterious artefact, a race across the sea and a slave uprising. I played Eberhardt Fischer, a merchant.

It was my first time playing 7th Sea. We were playing second edition, and there was some debate as to whether it was better than first. I have no idea – it seemed fine to me, very dramatic and encouraged over-the-top actions.

I particularly liked the rule that gave you an extra die to roll if you describe what your character is doing with flair (rather than just say “I attack”). I’d happily incorporate that in other games.

Good Society

I ran Good Society, the Jane Austen rpg, on Sunday morning. I  had five players, and I used the Romantic Comedy playset from the book. (I used Storybrewers one-shot advice from here.)

The players seemed to enjoy themselves and leant into the spirit of the game – secret betrothals, marriage attempts, a very sweet gay romance between two of the minor characters, and even a duel.

A few things I will take away:

• I made a mistake in also playing a character. It wasn’t my original plan, but one of the players suggested I do so. Well, I wouldn’t do it for two reasons.
• Six main characters is too many in a three-hour slot. (Storybrewers recommend 3-5 players.)
• I found it hard to juggle both facilitating and running a character, and I don’t think I did my characters justice. With longer, or fewer players, I’d happily facilitate.
• Strangely, the players found the minor characters almost more interesting than their main characters. I don’t know if that’s because we had the main characters (as cards) on standees, while the main characters were just character sheets.

Anyway, I will run Good Society again, probably with a different playset.

Pirate Bait – Cepheus Universal

Graham ran a Cepheus Universal game, which put our crew of adventurers on a remote survey outpost as bait for pirates.

I played Tara Vix, an ex-media star (rank 6, “National Treasure”!) turned navigator on the Quicksilver, our 300-ton starship.

Our adventure ended with a space battle against the pirates (we were only supposed to be bait – our backup never arrived…), which I think is the first time I have ever used space combat rules in Traveller (or a Traveller-derived game). We destroyed two fighters and got away.

Graham had good table bling, including stands for the characters, a full-colour hexmap, and standees for the ships.

And that was me done! I wonder what I’ll run and play next year?

Halloween Night

Over on my Great Murder Mystery Games site, I’ve written a review of Halloween Night, an interactive murder mystery for 8-24 people (and a host) aged 18+ and published by Murder and Adventure Games in the UK. I’m not sure who the author is, as they are uncredited.

The game is set in 1892 Transylvania, at the castle of Count and Countess von Falcate. There, a tour party gathers for a social evening. Unfortunately, tragedy has struck lately – three local villagers have been savagely attacked and murdered. But who did it?

You can read my full review here.

Thinly-disguised larps

Halloween Night occupies the same sort of space as our Freeform Games’ murder mystery games – they’re thinly-disguised larps.

However, although neither company uses the term “larp” when describing the game, I think Halloween Night assumes a greater level of responsibility on the GM than we do. We provide a lot of help to hosts because we understand that hosting a larp is a significant step.

Halloween Night, unfortunately, expects more from a host (as I explain in my review).

And although Halloween Night doesn’t say who is behind it, I think one of the people involved is Richard ‘Doc’ Williams (who you can see in some of the videos on their YouTube channel). He used to run freeform-type murder mystery games at RPG conventions back in the late 80s/early 90s.  I may even have played one of them – I’m not sure.

Failed crowdfunding

Interestingly, I’ve just found this failed 2024 crowdfunding page for it.  Curiously, although it failed, they haven’t posted an update announcing the final game to potential backers. Perhaps you’re not allowed to do that.

(I’m not sure they got their marketing right – I would have been a key target for this, yet I didn’t hear about it until August 2025.)

Will I run it?

Yes, probably.

I’d like to run it to see how it works and how it compares to both our murder mystery games and also other modern freeforms. But I’m not sure when or where. 

Legend of the Sky Raiders session #2: Mustafa

I’m running Legend of the Sky Raiders for my regular group. Last time, I talked about our first session. This is session #2.

The Travellers

A quick reminder of our players and their characters:

Jon is playing ex-Scout Timo Sosak  8A9B84 Age 38.

Terry is playing Sir Sidderon Dubois 775ACC Age 34.

Thomas is playing Felix "Dusty" Pygrin 478CB7 Age 34.

Unfortunately, Jon can’t make it today. Luckily, Tom has joined the group (bringing some much-needed system mastery), and introduces his character, Mustafa Lama Doka.

With four players, I am happier 

Mustafa Lama Doka 586333 Age 38

Animals 0, Broker 2, Carouse 0, Electronics 0, Electronics (Remote Ops) 1, Engineer 0, Flyer (Rotor) 1, Gun Combat 0, Leadership 0, Melee 0, Steward 0

Aged before his time, Mustafa is a beaten-down refugee from the Zhodani Consulate. He has been sent to the re-education camps three times. Not necessarily at his own volition, he was part of a mass escape and ended up being people-smuggled out of Zhodani space. He washed up on Mirayn and has attached himself to the group, where he makes himself useful, haggling for prices and making apple tea.

(Adding a Zhodani is interesting. The Consulate is closer to Mirayn than the Third Imperium, so it makes sense that there are more Zhodani here than Imperials – not that Legend of the Sky Raiders makes anything of that.)

The fight

With Mustafa as part of the group, we restarted the game where we left off: a fight in a dark alley. We replaced Timo (Jon’s character) with Mustafa and carried on as if that was our original plan.

So, our three heroes (one of them armed with a stunner) up against four thugs (888666 with Melee 1 and knuckle dusters).

Initiative

Sir Sidderon has Tactics, and rolled 10 on his Tactics check, giving everyone +2 on their initiative rolls. This meant Sir Sidderon acted first, followed by Dusty, with Mustafa and the thugs acting at the same time. 

Two rounds later...

The fight lasts two combat rounds. Sir Sidderon takes out one thug while Dusty stuns two. The fourth flees, having failed a morale check. None of the thugs touched the Travellers – my rolls are terrible. 

Morale

Before this session, I looked through Mongoose 2e, swotting up on the combat system, and I thought I remembered something about morale checks. Nope, couldn't find it.

So I looked in The Traveller Book and, sure enough, I found this:

It always seems daft to me that enemies in ttrpgs often seem to fight to the death, so having a morale check makes sense. I'm not sure why Mongoose dropped it, but I decided to implement it for my game.

What seems odd is that the original rule appears to be aimed at the PCs - a “party of adventurers.” I kind of like this, but I know it takes agency away from the players, which is often frowned on. Anyway, I’m using it for the NPCs.

The shadowy Kalamanaru

With the fight over, the Travellers interrogate one of their assailants and learn that Bren Pylory hired them. Further investigation reveals that Pylory is one of Kalamanaru’s lieutenants. 

So why doesn’t Kalamanaru want the Travellers to venture into the Outback, the players wonder. Why indeed…

Finalising the expedition

The other half of the session was spent finalising the expedition. This was in two parts – the equipment and the route.

Expedition equipment

Between sessions I populated the group spreadsheet with the equipment and vehicles from the book. Rather than going for the huge expedition suggested in Legend of the Sky Raiders, the Travellers decided to keep the expedition small: the four PCs, Lorrain and her two companions, a guide and two drivers for the two hovercraft.

Let’s hope that’s enough.

Following the encounter with the thugs, they also armed themselves – including mounting a heavy machine gun on the back of one of the hovercraft.

Planning the route with Roll20

When it came to planning a route, I fired up Roll20 and invited them all to it.

The Travellers then planned a route to their first destination: a native village named Adalanayra. We will set off next time!

(I gather Tom likes Roll20 – he has added his character to it.)

Actions for next time

I need to:

• Read what happens next in Legend of the Skyraiders.
• Review the hexcrawl rules. How do encounters work?
• Create some stats for the hovercraft drivers.
• Remind myself about the natives.

Coming soon: The trail of stone

Previously: Session 1 or start this series with my review of Legend of the Sky Raiders.

Legend of the Sky Raiders: Session #1

I’m running Legend of the Sky Raiders for my regular group. Last time, I covered my pre-game preparation. Now it’s time to play!

The Travellers

A quick reminder of our players and their characters:

Jon is playing ex-Scout Timo Sosak  8A9B84 Age 38.

Terry is playing Sir Sidderon Dubois 775ACC Age 34.

Thomas is playing Felix "Dusty" Pygrin 478CB7 Age 34.

Setting the scene

We started the game with all the characters generated, but I had yet to set the scene. We spent 30 minutes figuring out why the characters were on Mirayn and down on their luck. We established that although they knew each other from their past, they had each made their way independently to Mirayn and had only now come together. We agreed that Timo’s Type S Scout, The Tyrant’s Fate, was on Alzenei, two parsecs away. (He apparently lent it to a friend. Hopefully it’s still there…)

More than once during this session, I regretted not coming up with pregens. (But then I remembered that I didn’t want to put the work in.)

We began with Lorain Messandi hiring the players to outfit an expedition to investigate the Sky Raiders. As part of that discussion, Timo tried bargaining with Lorain for a percentage of any finds - but rolled snake eyes, so that’s a fail. Hopefully not a sign of rolls to come!

Val Prezsar 

With the offer accepted, the action moved to the town of Val Prezsar. The Travellers are staying in the Loose End, a cheap hotel. They started by investigating Lorain’s father, Jothan Messandi, who went missing in the Outback two years ago. We worked slowly through the rumours and encounters - I’m pleased I extracted them into a more usable form (as I described last time).

After prompting from Loraine, they started thinking about outfitting their expedition. As they didn’t know where to begin, they interviewed the local guides and hired Hal Lewis, one of the NPCs in Legend of the Sky Raiders. Hal gave them a suggested equipment list for an expedition, which I copied from the book.

What I hadn’t noticed is that the list in the book includes the figures that the guides are using to skim from the Travellers. In particular, the food prices are super-inflated. Luckily for me, Dusty had already been calculating how much food they would need (I had shared the rules for exploring the Outback), so I said that he spotted the discrepancy.

(Another example of how not to present an adventure…)

Anyway, Hal’s suggested expedition was much larger than my players had envisaged - as well as Lorain and her team, the guides and labourers it allowed for eight PCs! Eight! (I couldn’t imagine running a table with eight players - we were made of sterner stuff back in 1981.)

The players were thinking about a seven-person expedition - them, Lorain’s team, and Hal Lewis. I suspect when they start planning in detail, they’ll realise they need drivers for their hovercraft. I offered to put all the details into our shared spreadsheet for next time.

Old Lin, and an ambush

I then introduced Old Lin, a survivor from Jothan’s expedition and the only truly critical encounter. He sold them his book and map (Dusty made a superb roll and got it for a song). At this point, I gave the players the detailed map of the Outback and realised I had left a native village on it that I should have removed! Bah.

The players started thinking about routes, but I told them that next time we would use Roll20 so they could scribble collaboratively on the map. (At least, I hope that’s what Roll20 will let them do.)

We ended the session with an ambush. Thugs want Old Lin’s map and book, and challenged them in a dark alley. We ended just as Sir Sidderon started to throw the first punch - partly to end on a cliffhanger, but mostly so that I have time to remind myself of the combat rules.

Actions for next time

I need to:

• Read the combat rules – and produce a summary that we can all work from.
• Put the expedition equipment list into the spreadsheet.

(I know from long experience that it’s not worth trying to get my players to do this. I don’t mind – I have more free time than they do.)

Coming soon: Session 2 and our first combat

Previously: My prep for the game. Or start this series with my first-impressions review of Legend of the Sky Raiders.

Legend of the Sky Raiders: Prepping the first session

I’m running Legend of the Sky Raiders for my regular group. Last time I covered character generation, now I’m explaining my prep.

Our Trello desktop

Prepping the adventure

So obviously I’ve read the adventure (I did that when I wrote my review), but because running a game is different to writing a review, I’ve been reading the first part of the adventure in more detail. I’m focusing on that now because that’s the bit I need first. I figure I can worry about the second part of the adventure (into the outback) once we get started.

(Experience tells me my group will be easily sidetracked, so there’s no point prepping too much too soon.)

So I’ve concentrated on the rumours, the NPCs and the initial journey out from the city.

The rumours

Legend has sixteen rumours for the players to find in the initial part of the game, as they outfit their expedition. Some of them are more important than others. Legends presents them as an unordered list, but I’ve rejigged them and grouped them by category, so if the Travellers are looking for information, I know where to find it.

Additionally, some of the rumours are really encounters, so I’ve separated them from the rest.

I’ve copied the rumour text into a Word document and edited it to create something that I will find more useful at the table. I’ve printed it out so that I can cross off rumours as I feed them to the players.

Ultimately, there’s only one key piece of information they need – and that’s the name of the first native village they need to get to. As long as I remember that, the rest can be handwaved.

Hexcrawl logistics

With the start of the adventure requiring the Travellers to prepare an expedition, I realise I need to know how the hexcrawl works. Unfortunately, Legend of the Sky Raiders isn’t well organised, so I’ve pulled together the hexcrawl rules into a single Word document that I can refer to. I will let the players see this, so they can see what the plan is.

(There is an option in the adventure for an NPC to put together the expedition, but I don’t trust my players not to want to do that themselves.)

I’m pretty excited by all this. I’ve never done this sort of resource management game in a ttrpg before. It’s always something that I thought was a bit tedious (I stopped playing Traveller before spreadsheets were commonplace), but I’m hoping it will be fun. (If it does become tedious, expect some handwaving pretty quickly.)

Online set-up

With the group scattered across the country, we’re playing online as usual. We have a Google Drive folder for rules and documents, and our tabletop will be Trello (as usual).

For Traveller, I’ve set up Trello with the following columns: Admin (links to our game folder, The Traveller Map, the setup and the like), PCs, NPCs, Locations, Library Data. (See above)

As part of the game is a hex crawl, I need a space for the players to draw on, so we’ll use Roll20 for that. I’ve loaded the maps (which wasn’t as intuitive as I hoped). It’s been years since I’ve run a game using Roll20, so I hope I can remember how to use it.

And because it’s Traveller, I’ve put a blank Google spreadsheet in the folder to help manage the resources. I’m sure we’ll need it.

From Classic to Mongoose 2nd Edition

Everything in Legend of the Sky Raiders is written for Traveller’s old little black books. I do have The Traveller Book, so I can refer back to that if I need to. But we’re using Mongoose’s 2022 rules, so we’ll see if it really is backwards compatible.

(I’ve already noticed that carbines aren’t in the new rules, so I’ve swapped some NPCs' weapons.)

Planning for next week

Next week, we start properly, and we need to figure out how everyone has gotten from mustering out to being stranded on Mirayn. The character creation minigame creates a lovely history for everyone – but it would be brilliant if it finished with something that suggested how the characters finally get together. Yes, there is the connections rule, but could there be something more?

Anyway, I’ll be taking away most of their toys.

Coming soon: Session 1.

Previously: #1 My first-impressions review of Legend of the Sky Raiders. #2 Creating characters.

Traveller character creation

I’m running the Keith brothers’ classic 1981 Traveller adventure, Legend of the Sky Raiders, for my regular group. I recently wrote a first-impressions review – ie, I’ve only played it. To begin, we are creating characters.

Setup

We started our first session with me explaining the basic setup (the Travellers are down on their luck on Mirayn, accepting a job from an archaeologist) before we rolled up characters.

(After my last post, you might wonder why I didn't give my players pregens. Well, partly it's because the adventure doesn't come with interesting pregens, and partly because I wanted to try Traveller's character generation, partly and because I wrote that post after we generated characters, and partly because I was lazy and didn't want to do the work on top of all the other prep, but mostly because I chickened out.)

The players each had a pdf of the rules, while I had a paper copy and the pdf. I had the flowchart on my screen (why isn’t that on a single page?) and flipped back and forth through the careers as I answered questions and guided them through character generation.

The players rolled real dice and told me their results – we didn’t use an online dice roller.

Generating characters

Character generation took us a little over two hours to generate a single character for each player. One character mustered out after four terms, the others five. I’m sure this would be quicker were we to do it again – none of us had rolled up Traveller characters in decades, and certainly not with the new rules. For a first-time player, character generation isn’t super-intuitive – there is a lot of flipping back and forth.

We were running late by the time everyone had mustered out, so we didn’t do the skills package. We’ll do that next time.

Afterwards, one of the players shared a couple of online character generators (here and here). We all agreed that while they would have made things simpler and quicker, they weren’t necessarily better. I suspect doing it by hand will give the players more ownership of their characters.

In trying out the generators, I discovered I’d missed a rule (about gaining an extra roll when you achieve a commission), so we’ll do that. (That rule makes no sense to me. People generally still develop, regardless of whether they advance or not. So everyone should get a second roll – but those who advance get a wider choice of tables.)

The Travellers

So here’s our group:

Felix "Dusty" Pygrin 478CB7 Age 34

Admin 0, Animals 0, Art 0, Broker 1, Carouse 1, Deception 1, Drive 0, Electronics 1, Gun Combat (Energy) 1, Investigate 0, Medic 0, Navigation 0, Persuade 2, Pilot 1, Recon 0, Science (Planetology) 1, Science (Archaeology) 1, Stealth 0, Streetwise 1, Survival 1

University dropout, drifter and occasional broker. Has a weird Ancient artefact.

Sir Sidderon Dubois 775ACC Age 34

Admin 0, Carouse 0, Language 0, Drive 0, Vacc suit 0, Engineer  (J-Drive) 1, Athletics 0, Gun Combat (slug) 1, Broker 1, Explosives 1, Leadership 1, Medic 1, Melee 0, Heavy Weapons 1, Pilot (Starships) 2, Stealth 1, Recon 1, Tactics (Military) 1

Graduated from university, joined the army. Left the army to become a space pirate. Has a cat – apparently, IMTU Terran cats are as widespread as humans.

Timo Sosak  8A9B84 Age 38

Pilot 4, Survival 1, Science 1 (Archaeology), Gun Combat (Slug) 4, Melee (Blade) 2, Electronics 1, Medic 1, Engineer 1, Recon 1, Vacc suit 1, Astrogation 0, Mechanic 0, Carouse 1, Seafarer 0, Language 0

Five terms in the Scout service – mustered out with a Scout ship, which I need to take away at the start of the adventure. (He also rolled six weapons during mustering out – hence Timo’s high weapon skills.)

Hmmm, Mongoose 2e Traveller characters have many more skills than I remember…

Observations

My thoughts on Traveller’s character generation:

• The minigame is very Third Imperium-centric. We’re playing in the Far Frontiers sector, centred around the League of Suns. Do they have the same careers? Are the assumptions the same? For simplicity’s sake, we assumed so, but “realistically”, a mini-empire like the League of Suns probably doesn’t have much need of a scout service.
• The players created connections with each other during character creation, but in hindsight, I think that would be better done at the end. This is because we all started at the same time, and so everyone was going through each term together. However, the characters mustered out at different ages, so events that seemed to occur at the same stage for the characters turned out not to be the case. (This isn’t a big issue, but I would do it afterwards later on. It also means that if anyone joins the group later on can also create connections. Interestingly, this character generator creates connections after mustering out.)
• Judging by how the rolls went, there are clear bonuses for sticking with a career rather than flitting between careers. Probably like life.

I can’t work out how much I like Traveller’s character generation. On the one hand, it spits out interesting characters with a backstory and history. On the other hand, it’s hard to steer a character in a particular direction (without fudging die rolls) if you have specific game needs (which is my personal preference). 

The players seemed to enjoy it, though, and that’s probably what matters most.

Coming soon: Preparing for the first proper session.

Previous parts in this series: #1 My first impressions review of Legend of the Sky Raiders.

“Character generation is massively overrated”

Source

Why don’t campaigns come with pre-generated characters?

Call of Cthulhu’s Masks of Nyarlathotep expects the investigators to drop everything and leave the country to solve the murder of their “good friend” Jackson Elias.

Delta Green’s God’s Teeth requires a very specific set of player characters – a single Delta Green agent (the lone survivor from their cell) and some friendlies.

Traveller’s Secrets of the Ancients requires the Travellers to care about a distant relative they’ve never met.

(And as I discussed in my review, Traveller’s Legend of the Sky Raiders requires down-on-their-luck Travellers stuck on a remote planet far outside of the Third Imperium.)

I don’t know of anyone who puts their regular groups through these enormous campaigns. Instead, they create characters just for the campaign. With a bit of luck (or good guidance), the players must create characters that care about whatever it is that is driving the campaign. But given the campaigns themselves rarely provide much guidance, that can be luck more than judgement.

(And if you get it wrong, it can feel like the PCs are doing what they are doing because the players are playing the campaign, and not because it’s something the PCs are driven to do. Or you get mismatched PCs, as Neil Gow describes here.)

A better approach: pregens

But wouldn’t it be easier if the campaigns came with pregens? Characters suited to the campaign? With suitable skills and, more critically, the right connections, interests, and drive to follow the leads and see the campaign through?

Even if players would rather create their own, such pregens would provide a template for what would work for the campaign.

The pregens could even have room for the players to tailor them (like PbtA’s playbooks).

But don’t players hate pregens?

Well, that’s the theory. But I’m not sure.

Which is to say, I disagree – for at least four reasons:

• My experience of playing freeforms for over 30 years is that players are very happy to play good pregens that are linked to the game.
• Having run and played many convention games in the past ten+ years, I find that games work so much better with PCs designed for the adventure. I’ve never heard anyone complain.
• As I hinted at above, characters in PbtA games are largely pregens. And PbtA games are very popular.
• Reviews of ALIEN’s Chariot of the Gods and other adventures often praise the conflicting agendas of the scenario’s pregens. Players seem to love them. (And similarly, Greg Stolze’s disturbing Jailbreak.)

So the argument that players hate pregens is, in my experience, tosh. 

How did we get here?

I blame D&D’s concept of “modules” and the idea that pre-written adventures can be dropped in anywhere for any adventuring party. With that model in mind, why would you provide pregens? (I hate the term “module” for adventure or scenario, but let’s not go there.)

But I started with Traveller – and I followed that with Call of Cthulhu. Traveller’s original LBB adventures were scattered across the Third Imperium. There was no way a single adventuring group could do all the adventures, so inevitably, you’d have to create new PCs for the adventures.

And to be fair, Traveller’s adventures came with pregens. But they were just a list of stats and skills – no actual character. If Traveller had been more bold, and made their pregens more compelling so that players actually wanted to play them, things would have been different.)

Legend of the Sky Raiders

Here are the pregens for FASAs Legend of the Sky Raiders.

That’s it. That’s all you get. (Ironically, the key NPCs in Legend of the Sky Raiders would make better pregens.)

Call of Cthulhu

As for Call of Cthulhu, most of their adventures are independent investigations scattered across the globe. They were often deadly – the game doesn’t encourage campaign play. (Maybe that’s changed with the latest edition, which I’ve not seen.) If your investigator survived one investigation, they were hardly motivated to dive into a second. Or third…

So, pregens.

What’s the solution?

Give your adventures pregenerated characters. Write them for your one-shots, write them for your campaigns. Give them meaningful hooks and links to your adventure, and make them compelling.

As for me, I try to practice what I preach. I’ve put pregens in most of my published ttrpg adventures, particularly the more recent ones. And where I haven’t, it’s usually for a mission-based game where the game's characters are already focused on driving the adventure (such as Abaddon’s Puppet for The Dee Sanction).

Traveller: NPC stat blocks

Traveller’s stat blocks are not very helpful for a new GM. Why? Because they don’t include the stat bonuses. And that makes them easy to overlook.

I’m a big fan of making games as easy to run as possible. Especially roleplaying games, which require juggling plot, multiple NPCs and (sometimes) extremely complicated rules. Especially in something as high-stress as combat.

And forgetting to add a stat bonus/penalty could be the difference between life and death for a PC.

The stat block

But this is a modern character stat block from Death Station.

So, no stat bonuses listed.

And while not all NPCs are hostile to the PCs, this one probably is. So they are likely to attack the PCs with their club. What modifiers do they have to hit?

For a Traveller expert, this is easy. But for a new GM? (And remember, this is a free adventure that’s often suggested to new GMs as a good starting adventure.)

Worse, the NPCs in this adventure have a second stat block, depending on whether they are “enhanced” or “fatigued” – and they still don’t include stat bonuses.

Untrained NPCs

So here’s something that I’m not sure about. In Mongoose 2nd Edition Traveller, does an NPC get the same -3 penalty that an unskilled PC gets?

I’m going to argue no, for the following reasons:

• The -3 DM is referred to on page 58 of the core rules, which says “If a Traveller has no level in a skill at all, then they are untrained and will suffer DM-3 when trying to use that skill.” Note, it says nothing about NPCs. It could say “character” instead of “Traveller”, but it doesn’t.
• NPCs don’t generally have level 0 skills listed—so you could argue that they have level 0 on anything that’s unlisted.
• NPCs don’t have to follow the exact same rules as the PCs.
• It’s much simpler for the GM to ignore the -3 no-skill penalty for NPCS.

But goodness, it would be so much better if the rules were clear.

Clearer weapon stats

And while I’m here, things are worse if the NPC has a gun…

Here’s an NPC from Mysteries of the Ancients. (I’ve just noticed they have Gun Combat 0. Eh?)

They’re attacking us from 85m away. What attack bonus do they get? Well, that depends on what they are using – and that means I’ve got to go to page 126 (for the weapon stats), page 76 (for what the ranges mean), and page 74 for the actual DMs… Is it only me who is frustrated by this?

(In this case, at 85m is DM-2 for the shotgun and DM0 for the rifle.)

But we could write gun stats thus:

Shotgun 4D, bulky. Short (DM+1) 0-12m, Medium (DM0) 12-50m, Long (DM-2) 50-100m, Extreme (DM-4) 100-200m.

Rifle 3D, Scope. Short (DM+1) 0-62m, Medium (DM0) 62-250m, Long (DM-2) 250-500m, Extreme (DM-4) 500-1000m.

Yes, it’s a bit more text on the statblock, but it’s much easier to use at the table.

And that surely is the point.

Legend of the Sky Raiders

And what about Legend of the Sky Raiders, which I’m preparing to run for my group? (My review here.) Well, I don’t expect attribute bonuses in Legend’s stat blocks because back in 1981, attribute bonuses weren’t a thing.

Legend of the Sky Raiders review

Legends of the Sky Raiders is an adventure for Traveller written by J Andrew Keith and William H Keith Jr and published by FASA, way back in 1981. It is the first part of a trilogy, and is followed by Trail of the Sky Raiders and then Fate of the Sky Raiders.

Physically, Legend of the Sky Raiders is a LBB-sized 48-page book with extra maps. Maps and illustrations are by William H Keith Jr.

I am working off a pdf now, but my memory of the book is that it felt very satisfying to hold and read.

My plan is to run the Sky Raiders trilogy for my gaming group. I’ll run it pretty much as written. As I write this, I think we’re two or three weeks away from starting. Anyway, back to the review.

The plot

The Travellers (although they are called “players” here, this is before “Traveller” became a term for PCs) are stuck on Mirayn, a dead-end world in the Jungleblut subsector (in the Far Frontiers sector). There, they are hired by Lorain Messandi, who has a small university grant to lead an expedition into the jungle to search for ruins that might link Mirayn to the legendary Sky Raiders.

Oh – and also possibly find out what happened to her father, who wrote a book on the Sky Raiders and disappeared into these very same jungles some time before.

The Sky Raiders themselves are a semi-legendary culture that flourished around 5,000 years ago. But nobody really knows who or what they are.

So there’s the mystery – learn more about the Sky Raiders. (The pull, as it used to be called. Does anyone still think in terms of the basics, pull, push and gimmick? I’m not sure I ever did.) And I like mysteries in my SF.

Preparations

The adventure is broadly in two parts. In the first, in the city of Val Prezar, the Travellers must help Messandi prepare her expedition by buying equipment and provisions and gathering intelligence. 

Fortunately, as far as equipment and provisions are concerned, Messandi also hires an experienced guide, Jen Kelso, who can equip the expedition. So unless the Travellers want to equip an expedition, they don’t have to if they don’t want to.

As for intelligence gathering, it appears that Messandi doesn’t really know where to start searching. Despite this being her field of study, and despite her following in her father’s footsteps (who, as I said, wrote the book on the Sky Raiders). So instead, it’s up to the Travellers. (I know this is all about player agency, but it makes less sense to me that the PCs would have more success than Messandi, but anyway.)

Into the outback

Once the expedition is equipped, it’s into the swampy outback, a hex crawl with encounters and friendly and hostile natives – and a dangerous rival. Eventually, the expedition makes its way to a mysterious temple where the nature of the Sky Raiders is revealed further. There is more to learn, but that’s in a following adventure.

This section of the adventure is likely to involve combat, and is more action-oriented than the first part.

Sandbox or railroad?

At first glance, Legend of the Sky Raiders is a classic sandbox adventure, with a hex map to explore, resources to manage and encounter tables and a list of rumours. This is all stuff I’ve never really done as a GM. Usually, I handwave all the boring accountancy, but I think we may lean into it this time. (But things may change when the players get involved.)

But despite this sandbox, it’s also surprisingly railroady – several key encounters which result in the Travellers or NPCs being captured (and then escaping).

So a sandbox with railroady bits. Or a railroad with sandbox bits. Take your pick.

What I liked

Epic yet concise: There’s loads to Legend of the Sky Raiders, and yet it’s all wrapped up in a fairly concise 48 pages. Thinking about the speed of our sessions, I can easily imagine this taking three or four sessions – possibly longer if the players get sidetracked. (They usually get sidetracked.)

A mystery: This is the first part of the Sky Raider’s trilogy, and as with all mysteries, the anticipation is the best part. Who are they? What are they? These questions will be answered in due course – but not yet. I love it.

Things that irritated me

Hard to parse: The adventure is presented narratively, but I found that meant the structure was hard to see. I had to read Legend carefully (and take notes) to work out how the Travellers would get from A to B to C to D. There are various key incidents and clues the players need to follow, but I found they were sometimes buried in the text.

And I often had questions. For example, what happens if the Travellers don’t buy the important clue from the dodgy bloke? How do they then get to where they need to go? (The answer in the book does not convince me, but we’ll see what happens in play.)

Similarly, the rules for managing the hexcrawl are scattered around the book in different places.

The map: A hex map of the swamp is provided, but unfortunately, it’s GM-facing with numbered locations. I have created a player-facing version, but it’s a bit annoying that I had to do that.

Pregens: Given that Legend of the Sky Raiders is set in a remote part of Chartered Space, and given that it’s most likely to be run as a one-shot rather than dropped into a campaign, why aren’t we given pregenerated characters with backgrounds that are woven into the game?

Instead, we have a short story explaining how hard up the Travellers are and how desperate they are for work. I’d much rather have pregens interested in uncovering the mystery of the Sky Raiders for its own sake than a bunch of random mercenaries.

I might keep Lorraine Messandi as the patron NPC, but the players could easily play the key NPCs.

Too many rumours: Legends provides two pages of rumours to give to the Travellers why they equip their expedition. There are 16 individual rumours, many of which are trivial. Some are useful. This is fine, but it’s not clear which are critical (if any) and which can be missed. If they were presented as a random table, that would help – but they’re not. I’m sure I’ll figure it out, but it seems harder than it needs to be.

Is it dated?

Of course it is! But that’s not Legend's fault – it’s nearly 45 years old! But this entry made me chuckle:

The PORTABLE COMPUTER listed is a self-contained computer designed for use in the field. The unit in question, the Halliers Mark "I Field Computer, features excellent data storage and retrieval capabilities. A standard library program is central to the unit. It is carried as a backpack, and is rather bulky due to the need for an internal power source. Service life: 500 hours of continuous use. Weight: 25 kg. Base Price (includes library program): Cr 500,000.

Welcome to 1981!

Overall

Overall, my impressions of Legend of the Sky Raiders are pretty good. It will take some study to run properly, as I found that key details are buried in the text, but it’s hardly onerous work.

Coming soon: Creating characters for Legend of the Sky Raiders.

Continuum 2025

At the end of July, Megan and I went to Continuum 2025. It was Megan’s second time at Continuum – and I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve been. (I’ve not been to every Continuum – there was a long gap when it didn’t fit with holidays and life.)

Megan and I at Cranfield Management Development Centre

It’s a great con in a great venue with a good mix of board games, ttrpgs and freeform larps.

Anyway, we both went to Continuum and we both loved it. Here’s how it went.

Friday

We arrived at around 4 pm on Friday. We checked in, unpacked our bags and went to the atrium where we picked up our convention bags and lanyards. We then found some friends and played board games and a couple of Martin Jones’ BTL larps. These are intense and short (15-20 minutes) science fiction larps that are really good and pack a lot into those few minutes.

I played a Bene Gesserit in one, and Simon from Firefly, in another. Martin had six different BTL larps and was running them for much of the weekend. I don’t know how many times he ran them all. I think I’ve played most of them now.

I hope he makes them freely available one day.

The meal at the hotel was a BBQ, which was fine if you like that sort of thing. Megan is a vegetarian, and I was happy to go to the bar and buy a sandwich.

Instead of a freeform track on Friday night, there was a costume party in the bar. I don’t like costuming, and I don’t really like parties, so we gave that a miss. (It didn’t appeal to Megan either; it might have appealed more to her had she known more people.)

I would rather be gaming, so we went back to the atrium and played more board games and socialised.

Saturday

Saturday started with a full English breakfast – with fried bread. I don’t get a full English too often (and fried bread is even rarer), so this was a treat.

I played three games on Saturday: Lumberjills, Campfire and Queen, and I ran Hillfolk.

Lumberjills

In the highlands of Scotland in WW2, British women come together in brutal physical labour: felling trees and processing timber in service of the war effort. In the woods, they find newfound confidence and physical capacity – and in dance socials with neighbouring lumberjack and training camps discover romance, and new options for their lives.

Megan and I were both a little nervous going into Lumberjills. It’s a four-player larp and rather more intense than the usual kind of thing I like. (The game we’d originally signed up to play didn’t have enough players, and was replaced with Lumberjills.)

Each of the four players takes the role of a lumberjill – felling trees as part of the WW2 Women’s Timber Corps (part of the Women’s Land Army). Each character is presented on a card, with brief details suggesting why they decided to leave their previous life and join the WTC.

Through the game, each of the players is courted by three men (each played by other players) who are here as professional lumberjacks.

The game is played through scenes. There’s an opening scene where we explore the reasons the lumberjills sign up, then scenes where they saw trees and share their hopes and fears, and then dance scenes where they meet the menfolk. Do they find love? Do they realise their dreams? That’s what we play to find out. The game ends with each player narrating their lumberjill’s future. (When Megan and I were telling Mrs H about the game, she noted that I was the only person who chose a traditionally patriarchal “settling-down-with-a-man-and-having-kids” ending for my lumberjill. Busted!)

Lumberjills was fine and I’m glad I played it, but it’s not really my thing. Megan felt a little like me, and I’m sure it was awkward when either of us was playing our characters’ suitors.

According to the side of the box, Lumberjills was supposed to take four hours. Even with a few technical glitches, we had it finished in less than three – and that felt right for me. I guess players who embrace the emotional journey more than I did might want the extra time.

Lumberjills was run by Sue Lee – Charlie and Alison were the other players. Lumberjills was written by Moyra Turkingtonan and published by Unruly Designs. You can buy it from here.

After Lumberjills, Megan and I walked to the nearby Co Op for lunch. I discovered ginger and turmeric shots, which are just awesome.

Campfire and Queen

All of you have a reason for running away from court and the Queen. Some of you are on the run from an arranged marriage, some of you hate your old life and wanted to start a fresh, some of you just have a wanderlust. You are gathered around a campfire to tell stories to help pass the evening away but what will those stories reveal about you and the question that everyone will eventually face… would you protect the Queen?

Around the campfire at the start of the game (photo by Tsijon)

Campfire and Queen is a storytelling freeform inspired by the card game For the Queen.

Ray Hodson wrote and ran Campfire and Queen, and it was my favourite game of the weekend. I played a member of the Queen’s court, travelling in disguise – as was everyone else! 

We started the game sitting around the campfire, telling stories which revealed as much as they hid. (We created the stories ourselves – they weren’t provided for us. Mine wasn’t very good, and I wish I had thought about it more before the game. Ah well, I’ve never been good at homework.)

Once the stories were over, we started talking to each other in small groups, and slowly revealed our secrets… 

I’m not going to say too much to avoid spoiling it, but I enjoyed Campfire and Queen. My character ended in a very ambiguous position, and unlike almost everyone else, I couldn’t decide what I should do.

After that, Megan and I ate in the hotel, which was good and plenty of it. I had lasagne and parmigiana with veg, chips, and cheesy garlic bread.

Me: (photo by Tsijon)

Hillfolk

Finally, on Saturday, I ran a game of Hillfolk, or more accurately, DramaSystem. I had three playsets with me and let the players choose, and they chose Success2Soon, the playset about a band at the end of their first successful album.

I had four players, and we created a game of ageing rockers with musical differences. (Megan didn’t play – she went to bed instead.)

As usual, nobody else had played before (and as is often the case, one player had backed the Kickstarter and failed to get the game to the table).

After about 45 minutes creating our characters, we started playing and, apart from one or two misfires, we were off and running. We ended with the band just about staying together and finally signing a contract with their record company. (The contract had been torn up and had been taped back together.)

I never start Hillfolk knowing where the game is going, but I’m always impressed at how a satisfying narrative emerges over a couple of hours. I’ve only played DramaSystem as one-shots at conventions – I have no idea how it would play as an ongoing game. I guess we would explore what happens as they start to prepare for the second album.

I’ve now run Hillfolk seven or eight times at conventions over the past couple of years, and with the right players, it really sings. It really does – it’s fabulous. So far, that’s been only twice for me – once at Continuum (two years ago), and last November at Consequences. 

Unfortunately, this time, it didn’t quite sing. It certainly wasn’t bad, and I'd probably say it was good, but it didn’t sing.

I often come away thinking that there must be something I can change to make it work better. Perhaps I should change the playsets – do I need to define the characters more before we start? Should I just ignore the dramatic poles – they do so little during play?

But ultimately, I think it simply suits some players and not others. Hillfolk is so different to how we normally play ttrpgs that it’s a huge culture shock. I suspect that it’s no coincidence that my most successful games have been when freeformers have been playing.

Anyway, I’m going to give Hillfolk a rest and run other things at conventions. I’m sure it will be back. I also spotted a couple of typos, so I’ve amended the files and uploaded them to the game page on itch.io.

For an alternative view, here’s Simon Burley’s write-up of Continuum, including his perspective as a player of the game.

Sunday

After another hearty breakfast, it was time for me to run Venice.

Venice

Venice is ruled by five powerful families, alike in dignity: the Capones, the Capulets, the Corleones, the Montagues and the Sopranos. Lady Theresa Capulet, the Doge, the ultimate authority in Venice, has been murdered and the five ruling families of Venice are meeting to decide who is to replace her…

The Corleones (photo by Tsijon)

I co-wrote Venice with Kate Dicey, Debbie Hollingworth and Tym Norris at Peaky 2013. After Peaky I did a bit of tidying up (not a lot) and put it on itch.io. I have no idea if others have run it, but this was its second outing for me.

Venice is what I call a factions game. It has lots of groups (families and societies) all vying for power. There is a multi-stage election and a sprinkling of Romeo & Juliet-style star-crossed romances (in places).

The characters are thin, but I was hoping that with the weddings, the pirates, the election, family rivalry and the secret societies, there would be enough to keep people entertained. Certainly, from what I could see, there was plenty of energy in the room as the players negotiated and schemed.

I also saw a few quieter players on the sidelines, so I don’t think it was all perfect.

I’m delighted to say that Venice was Megan’s favourite game of the weekend. I did worry slightly because her character was a little thin (well, they all were), but she made a couple of good connections early in the game and ended up married to the Doge and also made the Religious Adviser. So her first freeform marriage!

(I am pleased she got married for another reason. Often, freeform weddings are all about love, and I wanted a game where weddings were also about family alliances. Megan’s wedding was entirely political – she married for power. And that’s how I wanted it!)

The game went well enough that I’d be happy to run it again, but I spotted a few (well, many) typos, so I've fixed those. I’ve made other changes to improve the game for everyone, but it’s never going to have extremely detailed characters, though. It’s not that kind of game.

Click here to download Venice for free from Itch.io.

After Venice, it was lunch. Neither of us fancied the hotel option of a burger, and the hotel’s range of vegetarian sandwiches wasn’t great, so we returned to the Co Op for a meal deal (and another ginger and turmeric shot for me).

The GM doing GM things (photo by Tsijon)

Fight for Survival

Zombies have taken over the world, and you feel like the last survivors. You all come from different walks of life and one of those people that you collected has started sneezing. Is that a symptom? And then there’s the radio, is it giving you information or is the broadcast more sinister? Who can help you and will they even try? Are you trapped or safe?

Written and run by Ray Hodson, helped by Jo Gould.

Sometimes, through no fault of your own or the game’s writers, you have a quiet game. This was my quiet game.

In Fight for Survival, players create their own characters. They get a secret from Ray, and then answer a few simple questions (what is your name, what do you do, what are you hording, who have you lost, and so on). I decided I was a maths teacher.

The game starts with news reports getting gloomier and gloomier. As a group, we decided to head for Twycross Zoo (don’t ask why), and so as civilisation fell, we held up there.

Now, my secret was that I had been bitten… Which meant I was falling ill and turning into a zombie. There were other people displaying symptoms (who weren’t infected with the zombie virus) – they were distractions. I was the real problem.

But very quickly, the group decided to isolate me (in the giraffe enclosure) along with another infected character. My character was feeling pretty rubbish (flu-like symptoms, easy to roleplay!), so for a large chunk of the game, I was on my own (or with just this one player).  I mean, I could have escaped, but I figured my character was ill and just wanted to be left alone.

(What was interesting was how wide a berth the other characters gave us. We often had about half the room to ourselves!)

Anyway, unlike other runs (which presumably end in disaster), the other characters got their act together and identified a potential cure and the game ended with us driving down to Bodium Castle, which is where the government boffins were hiding out.

The game was fine. It’s perhaps a little too light for my liking, but it’s a pleasant change of pace. I didn’t mind being isolated – it was actually quite relaxing. Sometimes you need a quiet game.

After Fight for Survival, Megan and I decided we weren’t interested in the hotel’s roast dinner, so we headed to the Co Op for a meal deal and a pile of chips from the kebab van. Then Megan turned in for an early night while I went to watch Death Wears White.

Death Wears White

You are among the staff and visitors at the Brighton Hospital, Detroit in 1999. A brilliant doctor has been murdered and there’s a hostage situation in progress. Is the killer still among you? This is a classic vintage murder mystery from 2001, which allegedly inspired the Chinese Jubensha industry.

I didn’t sign up to Death Wears White because I knew I’d be tired and I knew Megan would be having an early night. She’s not good at staying up late, and I didn’t want to disturb her by stumbling in at silly o’clock in the morning. (The same is true for Saturday night as well, but I really wanted to run Hillfolk and I knew we’d be done by 10:30 pm.)

So instead, I asked Jenny Dunn, who was running it, if I could watch. And she kindly said yes.

I stayed for about 90 minutes, but my impression of Death Wears White is that it was showing its age. It felt very overwritten (lots of words in a teeny font), and solving the murder is much more involved than our murder mystery games, with an action point system for investigating clues (presumably to stop them from coming out too quickly) that resulted in a queue for the GM. 

I didn’t see all the characters, but the ones I was aware of seemed somewhat contrived, including a gunman (who takes everyone hostage), twins, and a heavily pregnant woman (who I believe gives birth during the game – I’d left before that happened). 

I was tempted to stay until the end, but it wasn’t a fast-paced game, and I was very tired. I have no idea if the players solved the murder or not, as I didn’t see them before we left.

Monday

And after another hearty breakfast (how much weight have I put on?), it was time to say goodbye and head back to Yorkshire.

Megan and I are already looking forward to next year.