Post-Campaign Porn

Post-Campaign Porn

Post-Campaign Porn

7 PCs, 48 named and illustrated NPCs, 19 sessions.

Cult crew. Because they were bent on keeping their cult secret, I house-ruled that rep did not raise heat, the trade-off being that they could only earn it for jobs that satisfied their demon-god, Azarax (motto: “Order through suffering”).

Of the 19 scores executed, the most memorable included:

The taking over a sex cult via showdown with that cult’s leader in the midst of an orgy. Afterward, the cult clubhouse did double duty as the Slide’s base of operations and vice purveyor.

The formation of a cutting-edge chamber music quintet, whose eerie/occult performance won the attention of the “edgier” students at Charterhall University.

The brutal slaughter of the Wraiths, by glue bombs and razor wire in the tunnels beneath their HQ.

The breaching of the lightning barrier using a sparkcutter hull as a favor to the Silver Nails, the twist being that the Cutter managed to murder Seresh and take her place as leader through an elaborate series of flashbacks involving a porcelain skull and goat brains.

The final showdown with the Lord Governor for the control of Doskvol itself, wherein the PCs broke open Ironhook and released all of the prisoners, destroyed the lightning barrier once and for all, silenced the bell at Bellweather Crematorium, and assumed control of the City Council. In the final act, they infiltrated the Lord Governor’s stronghold (which was besieged by an army of feral ghosts and escaped convicts), eluded carapace sentinels and ghost hounds, went to-to-toe with elite Whisper bodyguards, and struck down the Lord Governor with a lightning bolt from a distance. Only to discover that that Lord Governor was a hollow automaton decoy, and the real Lord Governor was [redacted], controlling everything from a subterranean grotto. Suffice it to say that the credits rolled across a Doskvol forever altered, the final order of their dark lord (who ended up being more of a sentient pattern than any kind of traditional demon) imposed over all things.

Has anyone cobbled together or found a good map online to use for the Governor’s Stronghold?

Has anyone cobbled together or found a good map online to use for the Governor’s Stronghold?

Has anyone cobbled together or found a good map online to use for the Governor’s Stronghold? I’m prepping for our 25th and final campaign session and I would love to have something on hand in case the big showdown gets tactical.

Kicking off “Season 2” of our Cultist campaign tonight.

Kicking off “Season 2” of our Cultist campaign tonight.

Kicking off “Season 2” of our Cultist campaign tonight. To get people in the mood, I wrote an opening credit sequence which I’m going to read over “Furnace Room Lullaby” playing in the background.

Close up on half of a hollow metal sphere the size of a fist, as glittering powder is poured into it with a sshhh…

Someone’s hands, the cuffs of a heavy-knit sweater visible, screw the two halves of the sphere together until they click…

A wick is dipped in fluid and inserted into the top of the sphere

A match is struck.

The screen goes dark.

[cue music]

A match appears in the darkness, held by a white-gloved hand which touches it to the wick of a candle…

Shallow focus on a taut catgut thread, stretching away from the candle…

A sharp knife is held up for scrutiny, an eye reflected on its shiny blade…

A painting of a uniformed woman with a scarred face, as the knife cuts into the scar and across the canvas…

A cloaked figure, observed from above as it crosses a cobbled street at night…

Close on the muzzle flash of a flintlock pistol, then a hand clutching a shoulder torn by the shot…

Fade back to the catgut thread as it meets another lit candle, from which several other threads radiate…

Tea is poured from an ornate porcelain kettle, the teacup is lifted to a mustachioed mouth…

Rings glitter on the fingers of a hand that traces words in an ancient language across parchment on a cluttered desk…

Fade into a face wearing a beautiful mask, which is removed to reveal another mask, grotesque and disturbing…

Close on a torso sheathed in shiny eelskin, drawn up to reveal a perfect set of washboard abs…

Brief glimpse of overlapping naked forms contorted in pleasure, or suffering, or both…

Close on a complex knot being tied, the rope tight against a bare body…

The rope fades into the catgut thread as it meets another lit candle, from which several other threads radiate…

Shallow focus as an elaborate rifle scope, an eye staring through it as the trigger is pulled…

A fist wrapped in cloth strikes a face in such slow motion that droplets of blood are visible, suspended in space…

A blueprint is unrolled across a table…

Fade into the back of the head of a woman with long white hair, a strange shape visible coalescing out of the darkness in front of her… her hair flares out in a numbus…

Close on the catgut thread from above as it reaches the last candle; we pull back to a top-down view of the complete sign of Azarax, marked out on the floor.

Relieved at the news that the amazing tony dowler will be drawing maps for Duskwall, I can relent in my own…

Relieved at the news that the amazing tony dowler will be drawing maps for Duskwall, I can relent in my own…

Relieved at the news that the amazing tony dowler will be drawing maps for Duskwall, I can relent in my own mapmaking obsession in order to devote that time to more pressing matters. But, on the off chance others might benefit from those lost hours, here’s my pseudo-isometric view of Crow’s Foot for use with the quickstart scenario.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B254Gcq3LvXQX01QY0hibk5JRHM/view?usp=sharing

Played out first session using the quick-start last night.

Played out first session using the quick-start last night.

Played out first session using the quick-start last night. Overall it went well and everybody had a good time. I’m hoping they’ll be up for tackling their second score next week.

GOOD THINGS:

* Character and gang creation was good, everything is in place to help people make interesting/colorful characters. I’m dying to get my hands on the other crew playbooks!

* Filling in the details of “our” Duskwall during play was a great pleasure, thanks to the evocative setting prompts laid in everywhere.

* They chose to assassinate Baszo Baz in order to impress the Red Sashes, so that was their first score and the meat of our session.

* Really enjoyed the way variable Position impacts the dice mechanic and puts escalation in the hands of the players. I was worried that this would unnecessarily mechanize the contextual difficulty of *World games, but there is satisfaction to be had in determining a Position.

* Everyone loved the way flashbacks could get folded into the plan, and how it made them constantly assess the current situation, searching for opportunities to exploit. The most memorable came from the acquisition of fireworks (to be used for a distraction during the assassination attempt), and ended with the murder of the fireworks peddler (Devil’s Bargain on a Desperate roll).

* There’s a pleasing mechanical input->output aspect to the gameplay. There are a lot of terms and resources to juggle, which got a little confusing at times, but resource management has some very tasty hooks that tie nicely into the narrative.

* Downtime was short yet satisfying. 

NOT-SO-GOOD THINGS

* The “choose a Plan and dive in” approach worked as advertised at first, in the way it allowed us to go right to the score after deciding one detail (for us it was Deception: distract Baz and his bodyguards so we can kill him), but the brakes came on every time we had to count dice for Actions and Effects. It felt like the time we gained from not over-planning was lost to figuring out how many dice to roll in each instance,  then again each time Position was escalated.

* One contributor to the above was always feeling like we needed to come up with a Devil’s Bargain. In re-reading the rules I see that a DB’s are optional, but I think it would help to have their optional nature emphasized and/or mechanized. Because the dice mechanics are so crucial, it seems like PCs bent on success are going to want a Devil’s Bargain every single time in order to know all of their options. I love it as an interesting choice, but I would like to see some pointers or explicit rules about when a Devil’s Bargain is or is not available, because it a) slows down the action, and b) can be exhausting to keep coming up with them. The old 7-9 problem.

* Similarly, we rolled Effect too many times, not realizing it was optional until I went back to re-read the rules. Again, it might be worth emphasizing the fact that it’s optional, with maybe examples of when and when not to roll Effect. Add in the fact the Effect rolls also have a DB, and you can see why we felt bogged down in places.

* I can tell that for us, PC and Crew Advancement will work better at the end of a session rather than the beginning, because it gives the players concrete rewards for whatever dramatic and Stress-full Score they just pulled off, while it’s still fresh in their memories. I think I might house-rule a thing where whoever recaps “last week’s episode” at the start of a session gets a playbook tick, or something like that. And rotate that from session to session.

* Super-minor: I would like to see category headings for each of the faction sets on the Crew sheet so new players don’t have to figure it out by deduction: Criminal, Municipal, Industrial, Religious/Occult, or the like.

I know some of our problems had to do with learning a new system and not getting into a groove with it yet. The good thing is that we were gripped enough by what DID work for us that I want to keep at it until things click.

In any case, as a backer I’m grateful to have been handed such a substantial quick-start, and I really appreciate the obvious hard work and care John has put into this dark, bladed baby.