Society of statue people

Other London is filled with different factions, and part of my enjoyment when running Other London is seeing how the players navigate through those factions. (Desk 17 is, itself, a faction.)

As part of session zero game creation, I ask the players to come up with new factions which can be allies of Desk 17. The last time I ran the game, the players invented the society of statue people, filled with ex-Desk 17 burnt-out operatives and protecting London’s leylines.

I’ve taken that and expanded it into a full Other London faction.

The Worshipful Company of Statue Artists

Concept: Watchful street artists posing as statues

Trouble: Someone, or something, is picking off our members

Goal: Protect London’s ley lines

You can find them whenever the tourists are out: statue people. Motionless, watching. Just simple entertainment. That’s what they want you to think…

Among the run-of-the-mill, everyday statue people are those who belong to the Worshipful Company of Statue Artists. The Company (as its members call it) guards London’s ley lines and prevents magical havoc.

Karen, as a statue

Karen Carpenter: Statue artist and burnt-out D17 operative, I’ve seen too much, “No, not that Karen Carpenter.”

Skilled (+2) at: Observing, ley-line knowledge, Desk 17 processes and procedures

Bad (-2) at: Trusting anyone

Stress: O

Karen used to work for Desk 17, but found the pressure too much and quit. Nathan Pearce found her a position with the Worshipful Company of Statue Artists. She can now often be seen in Trafalgar Square as Queen Victoria, protecting the ley lines and observing the tourists.

Information, rumours and lies

• Old Desk 17 artists often become statue artists.
• Statue artists never appear alone – if you see one, another will be nearby. Somewhere. Watching.
• Not all statue people are members of the Worshipful Company of Statue Artists.

Questions

• Why are statue artists never alone?
• Can statue artists tap into the ley lines they guard?
• What are statue artists guarding the ley lines against?
• Why do statue artists guard the ley lines only in tourist areas?

Enemies: King of the Tangled Wood

Allies: Desk 17, the rat king, Tuberunners

Location: Statue artists can be found at popular tourist spots. The Company’s headquarters are on a narrowboat, the Temptation, usually berthed at Camden Locks.

Other London: Desk 17 - status report

 I’m heading rapidly towards the finishing line for my Other London: Desk 17 RPG. 

Other London: Desk 17 is a modern urban horror RPG, where the PCs work for Desk 17, an obscure part of London’s Met that investigates magical crimes. So yes, it’s a bit Liminal and a bit Rivers of London, but also neither of those.

Assuming all goes to plan, the book will be 6x9 and around 80 pages long. There will be a bit of background, details on character creation, some pregens, lots of factions and NPCs, and a short investigation. Further adventures will follow. I’m using Fate Accelerated, which simplifies the system side.

I’m deep in layout at the moment. I have Affinity, but I’m struggling to use it on my laptop (it keeps crashing – I don’t know if that’s a conflict or if I have insufficient memory). So for the time being I’ve reverted to laying out the book in MS Word. That means I can’t upload it to DriveThruRPG, but I should be able to use Lulu. Either way, the pdf will come first – with luck by the end of the month.

NPC portraits

Artwork has been a challenge. Other London has been a labour of love. I’m not expecting much of a return, which rules out paying for artwork. But I like having artwork for NPCs, and Other London has a lot of NPCs.

So I’ve embraced AI art – in particular, Artflow.ai. Artflow lets me create portraits for everyone. They’re not perfect and can look samey, but I rationalised that by thinking that every artist has their own style – this is just artflow’s. 

One thing I like about artflow’s portrait creator is that you can tweak the results – turn the head, age them, and change their expression. The results can be a bit odd sometimes, but I’ve quickly been able to create portraits for all the major NPCs.

Other artwork

For other artwork, I’ve taken free-to-use images from Pexels and massaged them a little in paint.net.

Pregens

However, I have a dilemma for the pregens. I’ve created five pre-generated characters – they’re the ones I use at conventions when I run a Desk 17 one-shot. I’ve created them so they’re customisable – much like a PbtA playbook. So each character has options for their aspects, and they can choose different NPCs as their contacts.

And I want the players to choose their gender. But that means I can’t give them character portraits.

Current pregen design (character sheet design isn't my strong suit!)

I’m aware, however, that they would look better with portraits. But they wouldn’t be so useful at the table.

So I’m torn. I need to decide before too long.

Games in 2022

So it’s time to look back at 2022 in terms of gaming. I normally leave these posts until January (or very late December), because the year hasn’t finished – but my regular RPG groups have all now finished until January (both games hit a sensible finishing spot). So I’m fairly safe that nothing will change much between now and the end of the year (I will probably play more boardgames).

Freeform Games

Freeform Games had a good year. We haven’t fully recovered from the pandemic, but sales levels are almost back to what they were. I will write more on the Freeform Games blog, in January.

Freeforms

I played or ran 14 freeforms in 2022, which is probably a record for me. This was boosted by attending Retcon in November – a convention I don’t normally attend.

Favourite to run: I think All Flesh is Grass, the second of my first contact games, was my favourite freeform to run. I felt it went better than the first (The Roswell Incident) and the third (Children of the Stars) was unfortunately beset by technical difficulties.

Favourite to play: Smoke and Mirrors, which I played at Peaky, was a delight and my favourite freeform as a player in 2022.

Plans for 2023: Run Messages from Callisto, the next first contact game, and plan the ones after that. I also hope to run The Roswell Incident and All Flesh is Grass at Retcon B in February. This will be the first time I’ve run any of them face-to-face. And attend Peaky, of course.

I also hope to publish in 2023 my book on writing a freeform larp. I’ve been pulling my notes together and laying it out this year, I’m nearly ready to let others see it for comment. I’ll publish it in book form in Lulu (and probably put it on my itch.io page).

Tabletop RPGs

My 2022 top games in terms of numbers were Fate of Cthulhu (16 sessions as GM), Troubleshooters (8 sessions as a player), ALIEN (7 sessions as GM) and Fate Accelerated (7 sessions as GM).

Favourite to run: My favourite games to run were Murder of a Templar (a Desk 17 investigation using Fate Accelerated) and Perfect Organism (my cinematic one-shot for ALIEN), equally. (And very differently.)

Favourite to play: Without a doubt, my favourite game to play was Jon’s Cthulhu Deep Green investigation set in London. We only played a couple of sessions, but they were a delight.

Plans for 2023: I want to get Kingdom and Hillfolk to the table. And if I manage that, maybe even Good Society and a bit of Traveller. I also want to develop an investigation for the Department of Irregular Services – ideally for Liminal, although the current investigation I’m working on (based on MR James’ Count Magnus) feels like Cthulhu Dark would be more appropriate.

With a bit of luck, I’ll also publish Other London: Desk 17, an urban horror setting using Fate Accelerated. (Murder of a Templar will be an adventure.)

Boardgames

The year isn’t over for boardgames yet, but so far I’ve played more games of Wingspan than any other game – mainly because it has a good solo option. Sadly, my family don’t enjoy it as much as I do.

The only new game for my collection was Everdell, which turned up for my birthday. Only a few plays so far – but we’re enjoying it.

Other games

And as usual, I played the usual assortment of video games: too much World of Tanks Blitz, plenty of Star Realms and Race for the Galaxy.

A good year

2022 might have been rubbish in many ways, but in terms of games played, it was great.

Fate of Cthulhu #4: And that’s a wrap

I finally finished my Fate of Cthulhu mini-campaign. Although we started well (see here, here and here), I was pretty fed up with it by the time we finished and was looking forward to doing something else.

Overall, we played 16 sessions of Fate of Cthulhu. The players succeeded in all the missions, and while Great Cthulhu’s rise wasn’t exactly thwarted, it wasn’t as catastrophic as in the original timeline. On average, each mission took four sessions.

I had some thoughts about Fate of Cthulhu in my earlier post. In essence:

Core concept: Good (travel back in time to foil Great Cthulhu), but too much murder hobo-ing for my group.

Missions: Fine. Not too detailed, so improvising is easy.

The system: I’m not a fan of Fate Condensed and much prefer Fate Accelerated.

And now I’ve finished, I have more thoughts.

Time travel rules!

The rules around time travel didn’t work for me. The idea is that as the PCs complete the missions, the timeline changes. This is represented by giving pluses and minuses to the missions they have yet to finish. But this is treated abstractly in the rules – and I didn’t find it clear what they actually meant.

For me, it would have been better to say that if you complete the mission successfully, you’ve changed time. If I were to run it again, I wouldn’t worry about all the admin involved in checking resistance boxes and what-have-you. Just do the missions – they’re fun as they are.

Missions

I gave the players complete freedom to tackle the missions in whatever order they chose, but in the end, they completed them in the order they were presented in the book. Destroying the skyscraper in New Zealand presented more challenges than usual – simply due to the scale of the problem.

However, given the nature of the game is that time is changing, there is no advice for how things might change depending on how the players are doing. In theory, having successfully completed a mission, something should have changed. But Fate of Cthulhu gives you no options – and it’s as easy to use the text as presented.

(There is one exception to this. In the last mission, The Great Serpent’s Lament, things are radically different to what the players expect. This worked for us, as it was our last mission – but it wouldn’t have made any sense had the players chosen this as their first mission.)

If I were me, I would provide options for each mission the GM can use to show how the PCs’ actions are changing the timeline.

The great anti-climax

And then there’s the end – I found that Fate of Cthulhu fizzled out. The PCs finished the final mission, but it wasn’t clear to them that they had completed it. The other missions were clear, but because the timeline had changed so drastically in this one, it wasn’t obvious to the players when the endpoint had been reached.

The final mission is followed by a scene where Great Cthulhu rises – but it was a big anticlimax.

Cthulhu Rising by artflow.ai

In conclusion

Overall we had a good time, but that was largely despite the system rather than because of it. Were I to rerun it, I would use Fate Accelerated rather than Fate Condensed, throw out the time travel rules, and think beforehand about how the timeline could change. Oh, and I’d choose one mission to be the climax and instruct the PCs that they must do that one last.

But I’m unlikely to run it again.

Cthulhu Rises

 I’ve been playing with  AI art generators, using the prompt “Cthulhu rises”.

Cthulhu Rises #1

This is artflow.ai. I like the octopoid quality – and it’s not a traditional take on Cthulhu. Normally I’d expect him to be green, but artflow went for a different look. (Weird wings – if that’s what they are.) This was my first and only attempt on artflow – I didn’t try again as I thought this was good enough.

 

Cthulhu Rises #2

This is Midjourney’s interpretation. This time I did one variation. Midjourney’s Cthulhu lacks an obvious face, but puts him rising above a sleepy town somewhere. (And he’s green.) The moon seems somewhat misshapen, though (Cthulhu must be warping it).

Cthulhu Rises #3

Dream.ai took the following take – a much smaller version of Cthulhu (who appears to be cuddling a garden gate). I like the old town setting.

MR James ghost story RPG scenario design

As I continue to listen to MR James’ ghost stories (see last post), my thoughts inevitably turn to how I would do this in a roleplaying game. And the short answer is, it’s not easy.

So what do I want from an MR James-inspired game?

A sense of unease

A sense of unease. Details. A sense of measured pace. A creepy backstory. Long-dead occultists whose reach extends into the present. No real closure. Things that should not have been done. Bleak endings.

Taken at Calke Abbey

MR James’ ghost stories lack the terror and horror stages that Ash Law talks about in The Trajectory of Fear. There’s unease and dread, but that never (or perhaps only rarely) becomes terror or even horror.

While that works for MR James, how on earth do I wrap it all up into an enjoyable RPG adventure? Compromises will have to be made.

Casting the Runes

Casting the Runes is Paul StJohn Mackintosh’s GUMSHOE-powered game of occult investigation, set in the world of M. R James’ ghost stories. The Design Mechanism publishes Casting the Runes, and you can download a preview here.

I don’t own Casting the Runes (and I’ve never played a GUMSHOE game), but from what I can tell, Casting the Runes is Call of Cthulhu (or, rather, Trail of Cthulhu) with ghosts replacing tentacles. So there are investigators, monster stats, combat rules, magic rules and so on. 

My main problem with Casting the Runes is that it doesn’t model the MR James stories. Monsters aren’t fought – they are mysterious and otherworldly. Magic isn’t used – except by the bad guys. That’s not what I’m looking for.

While researching this, I tried to find free scenarios for Casting the Runes (just in case I was mistaken). I found The Bone Mill and A Reckoning Come October (both by Dosmania) on itch.io. Instead of a traditional investigation, the two scenarios use a structure that I didn’t find easy to grok. But from what I can see, the scenarios appear to be traditional investigations.

What I’ve done so far

I’ve already used A Warning to the Curious as the basis for Operation Curious Warning, a D-Day mission for Achtung! Cthulhu. That’s about as far from MR James as you can get. In the scenario, Section M is charged with investigating and neutralising the legend of three ancient crowns said to protect the French coast from foreign invasion.

Unfortunately, whoever disturbs the crowns suffers a ghastly fate – so the PC who destroys the crown (allowing D-Day to be a success for the Allies) is doomed. 

While I’m pleased with the scenario, it’s much more pulp action than Jamsiean unease.

The only time I think I’ve got the Jamsiean aspects right is after the crown has been destroyed: that PC’s doom is foreshadowed by having a shadowy figure getting closer behind them. (“Sorry, Sir, I thought there was someone behind you.”) 

But given that the PCs are in the middle of a commando raid on a French chateau, any subtlety is lost in the cordite and action.

What I’m planning

My current plan is to base something around Count Magnus. Something has been accidentally awakened, and the long-dead count is stirring. 

I’m considering setting it at Calke Abbey, the National Trust property in Derbyshire. Calke Abbey passed to the National Trust in 1985, and much of it is in the same shabby condition as when it was handed over.

Taken at Calke Abbey

It is tempting to set the adventure in 1985 and involve members of the Department for Irregular Services (the Liminal crew I wrote about recently). They would be called in to check over the property before any work begins to make Calke Abbey visitor-ready, which would start our scenario.

And while that’s tempting, the scenario doesn’t feel quite the right fit for Liminal. I won’t get the bleak, supernatural feeling I’m hoping for with Liminal.

Instead, I think I need Cthulhu Dark.

I’ve written about Cthulhu Dark before – it’s elegantly simple and suits bleak one-shots. I suspect it’s what I’m looking for.

I haven’t made my mind up yet. While I suspect Cthulhu Dark would be ideal, I also want an excuse to give the Department for Irregular Services an outing.

I expect I’ll try them both.

Christmas Ghost Stories

It’s that time of year again. Christmas is approaching, the evenings are drawing in, and I’m listening to ghost stories.

My latest M James audiobook

In particular, MR James’ ghost stories.

I know I should listen to them after dark, but I usually listen to them when walking our dog.

A new collection of stories

I wrote a few years ago about my ghostly tradition and listening to MR James, and I now have a new collection. To add to my David Suchet and Derek Jacobi performances and the dramatisations in The Conception of Terror, I can now add M.R. James: The Complete Ghost Stories Collection, narrated by Jonathan Keeble.

I haven’t listened to it all yet (it’s only early December), but already I’m enjoying new stories.

I was slightly worried that I wouldn’t like Keeble’s narration, but I think he does an excellent job.

Favourites

I don’t find them scary – instead, I find them dark and subtle. I like the slow build-up, the architectural details, and the sense of unease. But they’re not scary.

(The dramatisations can be creepy and have the occasional jump scare.)

So my favourites are A Warning to the Curious, A View from a Hill, and Casting the Runes. I would have added The Ash Tree in the past, but I think I’ve grown out of it.

I hope the new collection will bring new favourites.

Reading or listening?

I also own a book of MR James’ ghost stories. I’m sure I’ve read them all, but I don’t find them easy to read. I’m sympathetic with those who say they struggle to read MR James – I find them so much better when performed.