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

Previous parts in this series: #1 My first-impressions review of Legend of the Sky Raiders. #2 Creating characters. #3 My prep.

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.

Previous parts in this series: #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 is 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.

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.

Ludonarrative Dissidents

I’ve just stumbled upon the Ludonarrative Dissidents podcast which I’m enjoying (I’ve only listened to two episodes so far.

Ludonarrative Dissidents is a podcast about rpgs, how they’re made and how they’re played. In each episode, Ross Payton, Greg Stolze and James Wallis take a critical look at a particular ttrpg.

I think there are about 40 episodes so far, and I’m not going to listen to them all (largely because they often talk about games I have no interest in), but I will dip into them as and when.

So far, I’ve listened to the very first episode (Apocalypse World), ALIEN: Chariot of the Gods, and I’ve just started the Fiasco episode.

(There are occasional episodes that cover things like using cards in rpgs, initiative systems, metacurrencies and so on. And even an actual play or two. I’ve not listened to those yet.)

The good

The discussions are interesting, with all three hosts having a good knowledge of the games industry. The discussions are friendly, although I sometimes get Greg Stolze and Ross Payton confused because their voices sound a little similar to me.

So far, they’ve been pretty much in agreement with the games. It will be interesting to hear an episode where they disagree.

And the show notes for Season 3 (written by James) are excellent, and cross-reference everything they talk about.

The pillars

According to the website, every episode of Ludonarrative Dissidents is built around four pillars:

• What does this game do?
• How does it do that?
• How do people play it?
• Why do they play it that way?
• (and how well does it succeed?)

Do they answer the questions? Maybe, but I’d be hard pressed to tell you their answers.

I wish the team were a little more strict in sticking to this approach. While I was expecting the first episode to be a bit scrappy and unfocused, I had imagined that 40 episodes later, things (ALIEN: Chariot of the Gods is one of the recent episodes) would be a little slicker, but no.

For example, I was expecting that after 40 episodes, each episode would have a slick intro, where they would introduce themselves and the game they are talking about and the four pillars (and then structure the podcast around those four pillars). But no. At least, not in the episodes I’ve heard so far.

Not everyone has played the game…

My biggest criticism, however, is that in the two podcasts I’ve listened to so far, only one of the three (Ross Payton) has actually played or run the game. (Not even Apocalypse World.) 

That seems to be a bit of a failing if you’re going to discuss the game in depth. You can’t even run a one-shot? You can’t even play a one-shot?

I know lots of other ttrpg reviewers don’t run the games either (I don’t always, although I try to), but I suspect that some of the commentary on ALIEN: Chariot of the Gods would be different had they all run the game. (For example, most reviews I’ve seen of Chariot of the Gods love the agendas that the pregens come with. Greg Stolze was dead against them – but he hasn’t played or run the game.)

They wouldn’t even have to run a game – I’m sure they could find someone to run a game for them.

Overall

Anyway, with that caveat aside, it’s definitely worth listening to – especially for games you are interested in. I’ve added it to my podcast feed.

A couple of days later: I've just listened to the Traveller episode, and they still don't introduce the podcast properly. They don't introduce who they are, and they don't say what their experience of the game is. That's not hard to do and makes it seem really amateurish. (Compare with Fear of a Black Dragon, which is excellent in this regard.)

The scope of their comments also ought to be explained. For example, in the Traveller episode, they are only looking at Mongoose's 2022 rulebook, not the rest of the Traveller line (or its history - although they mention it). That's the sort of thing that ought to be made clear in an introduction. 

They also don't clearly address their four pillars – instead it’s just a rambling discussion. That’s fine, but if so don’t pretend to have these four pillars.

Writing Freeform Larps now has a website

Writing Freeform Larps has a website! writingfreeformlarps.larps.org.uk

The owner of the larp.org.uk domain offered to host any larp-based website as a subdomain from it. He already does this with Gods and Monsters and Cyberpunk, which are both laser-tag sites built using Blogger.

As I use Blogger for this site, I thought it might be a good idea to create a mini-site just for Writing Freeform Larps.

Using Blogger to build a mini-site

I find Blogger much easier than Wordpress to build a website. It has far fewer features, no plugins and everything seems much more straightforward.

I'm sure Wordpress is more sophisticated, secure and flexible. But for a small mini-site dedicated to a particular project, it’s fine.

Why a mini-site?

I decided I wanted a separate site for Writing Freeform Larps because it’s not always clear what I am talking about when I say “freeform larp”. So this gives me a public-facing page to explain what a freeform is, along with links to a few examples and photographs.

I also explained the process I use for writing a freeform, hopefully providing just enough information to whet the appetite of an interested visitor.

I also moved a few posts from this blog over to the new site. I had several posts discussing suggestions and ideas for a second edition, so they are now there.

Going forward, I’m not sure yet how I will manage the split of information between here and Writing Freeform Larps. I expect I will write it in one place and link to it from the other.

Other mini-sites

And having done this once, I’m wondering about creating mini-sites for Other London and for The Harvesters, my series of first-contact larps. But if I don’t want …blogspot.com as my website address, I may have to look into learning how domains work. Ugh.

Writing Freeform Larps

Click here to visit Writing Freeform Larps.

The Department for Irregular Services – design notes

Three years ago, I had an idea for a Liminal crew assigned to Historic England, and responsible for dealing with Hidden World situations associated with scheduled ancient monuments and other historical buildings.

I wrote this up for the blog (here), and it sat in the back of my mind for a while.

Then, about a year ago, the temptation of mixing historical sites (which I love visiting) with modern horror/fantasy rpg grew too much, and inspired by Neil Gow’s Case Files Patreon, I decided to expand the article into an unofficial supplement for Liminal. 

Expanding the department

So I needed to develop the Department for Irregular Services (DfIS). Here’s the full team, NPCs and PCs:

• Bernard McTavish, who leads the DfIS. (NPC)
• Hester Babbage, the wheelchair-bound archivist. (NPC)
• Cecil Philip Mayhew, a dead academic archaeologist “living” in a ghost realm.
• Dr Cassandra Blackwood, occult history specialist (PC)
• Titus Stone, expert in paranormal engineering and protective wards. (PC)
• Grey Calderwell, the DfIS’s fae expert (PC)
• Erik Grimsson, cryptozoology specialist. (PC)
• DI Yasmin Burton, P-Division’s liaison officer (PC)

In my head, the youngest characters are in their fifties – the oldest are past retirement. (McTavish is 71.) Of course, players can play them at whatever age they want, but I like to think of the DfIS as a bunch of old folk.

Tools of the Trade

I decided that the DfIS probably has a store of occult artefacts – including a hand of glory, blessed weapons and other mysterious devices of limited use. My favourites are probably the Nails of Wem:

Nails of Wem: 17 bronze Roman nails were discovered with the famous Wem Hoard collection of coins and silver. To anyone with The Sight, the nails were clearly occult – and the DfIS took possession of them. When hammered into a doorway, a single nail will prevent the passing of any fae. The DfIS have only 11 nails left. 

One of the things I’ve tried to do is suggest that the world is wider and stranger than just the things that directly affect play. So I’ve dropped in hints and suggestions that can be expanded upon if a GM wishes. (For example, what happened to the other six nails?)

The investigations

I created three investigations – one of which was an update of an investigation I’d published previously.

The Hairy Hands involved the famous Dartmoor legend – they’re back! I wrote this after visiting Dartmoor and realising that we had been driving along the famous “hairy hands” road.

Hardknott Roman Fort Ghost Realm consists of a ghost realm new to the DfIS. This is the investigation I had already published, so it just needed updating to suit the department.

The Wherewell Cockatrice is a longer investigation that ends with the PCs face-to-face with a cockatrice, which I decided was a fae creature.

I ran my online group through these adventures, and we took about ten sessions to work our way through them all, which was about right. I’m not sure I’d use any as a convention one-shot, so that's maybe something I should work on.

The ghost realms

I figure the DfIS has records of dozens of ghost realms, and I thought it would be good to describe some. 

So I conclude with a description of four ghost realms: Machrie Moor stone circles, Rushton Triangular Lodge, South Stack Lighthouse, and Bilton Viaduct. (I’ve visited all of these, which probably gives you a sense of what I do on my holidays…)

One thing that I found I needed to pay attention to was making sure that the ghost realms aren’t too easy to get into. I like to assume that the world of Liminal is pretty much like our own, and since people aren’t being regularly swallowed by ghost realms (if it happened often it would be news and we would know about it), I made the ghost realms tricky to access (requiring specific times or activities to be performed).

AI input

Given the current furore surrounding AI art, I decided not to use AI for character portraits. Instead, I found suitable public domain and Creative Commons-licensed artwork.

However, I did use ChatGPT for brainstorming, so I acknowledged that.

Approval from Mr Liminal

Once I had everything formatted, I sent the pdf to Paul Mitchener to ask for permission to publish it, which he kindly granted me.

Purchasing The Department for Irregular Services

You can purchase The Department for Irregular Services from itch.io or DriveThruRPG.

The many, many trains of our Switzerland holiday

This summer we visited Switzerland, and I thought I'd take a photograph of all the trains we travelled on...

(The trains in Switzerland are very nice. Much nicer than ours.)

York to King's Cross. Our first train, an LNER Azuma, arriving at York.

Eurostar from London St Pancras to Paris Gare du Lyon. This is once we arrived in Paris.

TGV from Paris Gare du Lyon to Geneva. This is at Paris, where the temperature was a blistering 38C.

I didn't take photos of all the metros we travelled on (we used the metro a lot), but this is the one we took when we visited CERN.

From Geneva to Lausanne, where we spent most of our time.

From Geneva to Neuchatel, at 5:35 am! We had to be in Adelboden by 10 am.

Neuchatel to Bern. (At Neuchatel.)

Bern to Frutigen, in Bern. (After this we caught a bus to Adelboden. I didn't take a photo of the bus.)

Frutigen to Bern. This is as the train arrives at Frutigen, and I have that slightly pained I'm-trying-to-work-the-camera-and-compose-the-photo-and-get-the-timing-right-and-smile expression. I should have let Megan take the photo...

Bern to Neuchatel, at Neuchatel. (I have no idea what model these trains are, by the way.)

Neuchatel to Lausanne, at Neuchatel.

Okay, so this isn't a train either, but it's the ferry we caught when travelling from Lausanne to château de Chillon.)

Veytaux-Chillon to Lausanne. (At Veytaux-Chillon.)

Lausanne to Palézieux, at Lausanne.

Palézieux to Gruyères (yes, the place with the cheese!), at Palézieux.

Cheese!

Gruyères to Palézieux, at Gruyères.

Palézieux to Lausanne, at Palézieux.

Lausanne to Nyon, at Lausanne.

Nyon to Lausanne, at Nyon

Lausanne to Grandvaux, at Lausanne.

Lutry to Lausanne, at Lausanne.

Starting our journey home. Lausanne to Geneva, from Lausanne.

TGV from Geneva to Paris Gare du Lyon. This was more exciting than it needed to be, as it was 1 hr 40 mins late into Paris, leaving us with a stressful dash across Paris to catch the Eurostar. Which we luckily did!

Eurostar from Paris Gare du Nord to London St Pancras. At St Pancras (because there really wasn't time for taking photos at Paris).

And finally, LNER Azuma from London King's Cross to York, at London.

Phew!