Well, my favourite game in Coriolis, that that is set in the future. But there is more to talk about here. I would assume that, given the prominence of D&D, and fantasy gaming in general, that “the past” would be the expected most popular answer. But are fantasy games set in the past? Just because they use mostly medieval technologies it doesn’t mean they are historical. Indeed some, like Numanera are explicitly set in the far future.
I have already said that fantasy settings are my least favourite, but historical settings can be fun. Again, I have already said that I am less keen on supernatural elements in those historical settings, but Vaesen is a favourite, because the supernatural elements are not necessarily the antagonists. Indeed they are often a symptom of human activity in the area. For this reason, if I had to have magical elements in the past, Vaesen would be the game I choose.
I am more relaxed about supernatural elements in present day games. My favourite present day game though, is Unknown Armies, where the supernatural is broadly all the fault of normal, broken, people trying to make the world a better place. So it’s still not externalised, it is still all about people. That said I also love Night’s Black Agents where it is clearly all the fault of vampires. And I am looking forward to giving Rivers of London a try.
But the future is where most of the games I play find a home. Be it Traveller, 2300AD, Firefly and now Coriolis. The beautiful thing about sci-fi is that it can be influenced and product of the past and the present.
It’s hard writing a scenario for UKGE and GenCon for a game one has not played, so I was eager to get Vaesen to the table. I had that opportunity last week, and this post is a reflection of that session, plans for the next, and lessons learned that I will apply at UKGE. There will be spoilers for The Dance of Dreams, the scenario included in the Alpha, but I will save them for the second half of this post, which is mainly for the players of the game, to remind them where we got to. We won’t get to play again for another week.
First things first. Character generation is quick. Choose an archetype, then an age, scatter the relevant number of points across your attributes and skills, make a few narrative choices, and select one of a choice of three talents. Alien was similarly quick, and I LOVE the idea of only having one talent at the start of a campaign. Having to pick three in Coriolis seems positively onerous in comparison.
Indeed it struck me as almost as simple as making the choices in a PbtA playbook. So I quickly turned the archetypes into something like a playbook, and then gave them to the players to fill out. That process went pretty well.
Tom, Thom, Jase and Craig make characters.
I was thinking of perhaps letting convention players make their characters, limited only their choice of archetypes. But I think, timing the process on this run, that it might take too long, especially as I will also want to make time for safety tools too. So I will provide pre-gens in the adventure, and maybe include fillable playbooks as an option, with a caveat on time.
As it turned out, the players chose four of the six archetypes that I had planned to offer convention gamers: the Academic; the Servant; the Occultist; and, the Officer.
Then we got stuck into the adventure. It’s written as the first adventure in a campaign, so we start by introducing the characters to Castle Gyllencreutz and the society. This was fine… but it strikes me that a better starting adventure might involve a bit of an exploration of the castle itself, rather than what this felt like: “here are the keys to the castle, dump your stuff here and get on the road to the Witch Cat Inn.”
It wasn’t quite that bad of course. After all, the PCs were expected to use the castle’s resources to gather initial clues. This step of the investigation afforded me my first surprise as a GM: the occultist spurned the library and decided to get clues from the source itself, using the MEDIUM talent to summon up the spirit of Oscar Hjort! Now… this stumped me for a moment, the Medium talent is written as though it’s meant to be used “on-site” as it were, and there is a Seance Parlour facility you can purchase for the castle, enabling the very long-distance clue gathering that Niclas (Thom) was proposing. But this one was a one off, not the start of a campaign, and in the pursuit of Maximum Game Fun, I decided that his seance would produce results though it wasn’t Oscar Hjort that he summoned.
I definitely think, though, that a convention game and introduction to the world of Vaesen might do better without a prelude in the castle. Indeed, I am inclined to make mine a sort of prequel whenin three or more investigators meet of rather first time, drawn by different routes to the same mystery, and each coming pre-equipped with different clues, that they can share with each other.
I was really pleased with how the Journey went, with each player recounting an atmospheric scene to earn their advantage. Ghostly figures seen while lifting the cart’s axle, pages of textbooks that disappeared … the players really fell into the spirit of the game with very little prompting.
Other GMing thoughts, the different games have rules variations that mean after you have played a lot of them you find yourself wondering “how does grapple work in this game?” I am pleased I paused to check.
What actually happened *spoilers*
When the players arrived at the Witch Cat Inn and met the private detective Olaus Klint, who had sent them the mysterious note, they were eager, not just to get into the warmth of the inn but also to take rooms upstairs a get get dry. So they did not quiz the other guests for clues. Upstairs they took the opportunity to check out the other rooms, and so quickly found Nora’s Journal, which provided them with most of the clues they needed to understand the nature of Oscar Hjort.
This was the moment I decided to bring the players attention to the Countdown, buy having the innkeeper, Sami, wailing in horror as his customers fell asleep. (I failed the have the players roll for fear, as I should have done, at the sight of this mass narcolepsy). They confronted Sami (at last) with the playbill for Sophie’s shadowplay, so Sami raged, took Sophie into the kitchen to scold her and slap her, at which point she ran out of the kitchen and up to her attic.
Which act prompted the most wonderful reaction from the players: the party split up!
Not only did they split up, they went to all the right places. Prof. Brugge (Craig) sent West, his servant (Jase) to investigate the Orangery while he himself investigated the Root Cellar. Nicolas (Thom) followed Sophie up into the attic while Frank Linden (Tom) stayed with Sami. The dominos were all in the perfect places.
So, we started with the Shadowplay. Sophie suggested that Niclas watch her rehearsal, and in her sweet voice started to narrate Oscar’s story as she turned the clockwork. Her voice slowly became rougher until Oscar himself appeared from behind her screen and accused Niclas of his murder. Niclas failed a fear roll and panics, flinging himself down the ladder (for an old man however, he is mobile, and did not hurt himself).
Cut to Prof. Brugge, who broke into the root cellar to be confronted by a horrific vision of a rotting cave, and a vision of Oscar’s murder. His fear roll succeeded. West, sees the sleeping patrons of the inn coming out to attack the professor and tries to grapple one of them.
Meanwhile Franz realises that Sami is somehow possessed and has to stop him hanging himself.
Niclas, stumbling out of the house sees his friends seemingly attacked by the sleepwalkers. Rolls for Fear and fails again. Rather than flight, he choose a fight response and stabs one of the sleepwalkers, the priest.
Then using his advantage the Professor removers what was on a disappeared page on the journey here. A prayer against enchantment. I wasn’t sure how to handle this, rules as written, but in the last few seconds of the session, citing Maximum Game Fun I let him make a roll and he succeeded. (Perhaps a pro would have made him wait ’till the next session.)
fictionsuit.org 