Hullo, folks,

Here's the report on the second running of my DESOLATION scenario, "Shadow of the Wolf", at CanGames, 2009 here in Ottawa this past weekend. For the report on the first game, see viewtopic.php?f=26&t=287. Some of what follows, about the basic plot of the scenario and the player characters used is taken directly from the previous post.

The "Shadow of the Wolf" scenario for DESOLATION is a scenario that I came up with for the game based on the CanGames theme for 2009, "Wolves at the Gate", and I wanted to run something that fit the theme and wasn't one of the DESOLATION scenarios that I've come to know and love over the last year and a bit (Jamie, Stephen, Matt, you know what I mean! ). The scenario can be summarized as follows: The player characters are low on supplies when the find a savagely attacked caravan. Finding a few items, they reach the village of Green Moon, and aid the villagers in dispatching the creature that has been plaguing the villagers for some time. The characters put together several pieces of information and a riddle provided by the villagers, and travel to the ruined monastery nearby to deal with the creature. The only question is whether they will succumb to the Shadow of the Wolf. The scenario has a bit of everything in it, as well as all manner of beasties and critters, and gives the werewolf and lycanthropy a Sconderan spin, so to speak.

The player characters for the game were the seven standard characters that I have really grown to love: Esther LaVore, a noblewoman sorceress; Lem Ollender, a former soldier of the Empire in love with Esther; Tarl Ishrak,a farmer with Faith; Menelaris Covelanar, an elf and an elementalist; Denner Khent, the scavenging dwarf; Krek of Kharhut, the Mongrel outcast forester; and Sasha Veng, the female Rover performer. This group of player characters is really a good mix of character types, skills, and abilities, and the personalities of these characters tend to come out strongly in the hands of the right players.

The Sunday game of DESOLATION was run at 12:00 noon, and to be honest, I was worried that I wouldn't get a good number of players as it was an experiment to see if the other time slot worked (normall time slots in the day are 9-1 and 2-6). The guy running at my table finally gave it up to me around 11:45 am, 15 minutes before I was supposed to run the game, and I finally had time to set up for the game and eat a hurried lunch. It turned out I had one pre-registered player for the game, but three other folks had pre-registered for the game on Saturday (!!), so I just needed to fill three slots at most. I didn't have to do a lot of recruiting, as I managed to convince one of the fellows from the previous night's SkyRealms of Jorune game to play, and Steve Ross decided that he would also play in the game (he wanted to see how it worked out after the Saturday game's (supposed) fiasco). Another guy that I knew from last year's HEX game, Ray, was able to get his daughter to play in the game, so we had a full seven players for the game again. Yay!! My LJ friend from Toronto came by to say goodbye before he headed back to T.0., and snapped a photo of SteveR and I. You can see the image here, in my blog: http://jkahane.livejournal.com/257022.html. That's Steve Ross making the "V" sign, and Ray sitting to my right. (Btw, Stephen, Jamie, if you're reading this entry, we really do need a GM Screen for DESOLATION! <hint, hint!> Can't keep using the HEX screen to run the game; folks are starting to expect dinosaurs in the games I'm running! )

It turned out the first pre-registered player for the game was the sister of the 14-year-old player, "Penny", from the day before, whom we'll call "Carol"), and the players all seemed to have a really good time. Completely different experience from Saturday's version of the game. Carol played Esther, and she and the guy playing Menelaris were both quite hesitant about using magic, because of their fear of the Burn (after they both did a couple of Magic Skill rolls to practice, and then had a minor pair of injuries during the fight with the squirrel-like creatures. However, once she had enchanted the sword, Esther's player did a great job with the magic aspects of the game. She played the character as a somewhat haughty Noblewoman rather well, frequently commenting on the fact that she wouldn't stoop to acts of "barbarity", and berating some of her fellow characters' acts of barbarism.

The fellow playing Lem Ollender was also highly amusing, constantly trying to get the others to sit and discuss strategy and tactics to no avail, and was frustrated when various characters went off on their own - notably the forester, Krek, the elf, Menelaris, and the farmer with Faith, Tarl. Great stuff. SteveR did a nice job playing the female Sasha Veng as a dancer/acrobat, with only two things on her mind , and he was the one who convinced the villagers of Green Moon to allow Krek, the Mongrel, and Menelaris, the dirty Elf, into the village. Ray played Tarl, the farmer with Faith, and he did a great job keeping the peace, getting the other characters to help send the caravan guards to their decent afterlife, and in the way he showed himself to be a worshipper of the Two Above. (He actually asked me stuff about the Two Above before we started to play, to get a better feel for the character.)

The game went swimmingly well. The players had no problem figuring out the riddle and asking the villagers the right questions, and then went about the job at hand. In the final conflict of the scenario, they acquitted themselves well, and defeated the were creature, all of them surviving, even if I was worried at one point about the seemingly few Style Points they had left. The characters all survived the final struggle at the monastery, and did a great job of interplay during the fight, helping each other out. The game went a bit longer than it should have, finishing at 4:15 pm, but there was no problem as no other games were scheduled at the table until 7:00 pm.

When the game was over, Ray and a couple of others mentioned to me that they were surprised by how smooth the DESOLATION rpg game mechanics were (love those Ubiquity mechanics!), and that they loved the game world and how different it was from other fantasy rpgs they had played. Two of them said they would definitely play DESOLATION again next year if I were to run it. I felt a warm glow of satisfaction, let me tell you!

To be honest, this game highlighted one of the central elements of DESOLATION. The various communities found in Scondera are very much insular, frightened of strangers, and the like, and when a group of player characters makes their way to one of these places, the social skills and niceties are very important. The mentality of other fantasy games where the player characters are meant to be bigshots and the like and have "attitude" just don't work at times in places like this. The approaches by the two guys who played Menelaris in the Saturday and Sunday games highlighted the differences in roleplaying the character, and that's what cost most of the Saturday player characters their lives. I had a lot of fun with both runnings of the scenario, each gaming group offering different things to the table, and the scenario works rather well (even if I do need to add a bit more detail to the written version of the scenario).

Overall, a successful weekend of running DESOLATION at CanGames.

Again, comments, thoughts, questions, are all welcome.

You know, as a guy, I'm finding it disturbing how much I enjoy playing Sasha Veng.

Hullo, Steve,



hehe I can't say that I find it disturbing, since to be honest, in that group of player characters, Sasha's one of the safer ones to play. That said, I may have to write a scenario for DESOLATION where Sasha's got a bit more of a "dangerous" role to play.

Hey John,

I just want to say, I played in this very game at CanGames this year, 2009 was my first year ever at any Con and this was my first RPG that I have played at one, I came to CanGames with the thought of just playing board games and the such. (I have bit of an Anxiety around people I don't know which makes RPing hard for me at things like this). Well I heard you were a very good GM and you came highly recommended so I switched the game I was registered to play for yours, And I must say I'm not disappointed, I loved it, Honestly it was the highlight of my time at the Games and after the game it had sealed the deal for me, I know for sure I'm coming back!. As for the game it's self, I had a blast I love the world its in, I've always wanted to play a Post-Apocalyptic game and this gave me a taste of it . The system I found was very smooth and enjoyable I found by just using the D8's for everything it made it all a lot simpiler, And makes things less of a Roll PG and more of an Role PG (Which I enjoyed ). So I think I'm going to pick up my own Desolation book, Learn the system and maybe run my own out here sometime. Well I just want to thank you for the experience it was great, I look forward to seeing you there next year! And whether it be Desolation, HEX, or something else you run count me in! .


Cheers,
Mitch.

PS: I played the dwarf .

Hullo, Mitch,

Welcome to the DESOLATION forums and all that. It's great to see you here, and it's very nice to have another new face here playing the games and all.



I have to say that I am surprised to hear this, as you didn't seem to be all that anxious when we were playing. Did a good job playing the character, to be sure. From a personal perspective, I tend to get nervous just before I'm getting ready to run a game at a convention, but the butterflies and anxiety go away around the time that I start running the game. Believe it or not, I'm glad to hear that some players have the anxiety and all, too!



Well, I have to say that I'm very much flattered, but... gotta ask... who recommended me? (Inquiring minds want to know, well, mine does!)



Thanks for the kind words. "Shadow of the Wolf" was definitely a labour of love of sorts, as I wanted to give lycanthropy the DESOLATION spin. I'm glad that you had a good time with the game, and am pleased that you'll be back for more CanGames goodness next year.



This was flattering indeed. Thank you. The Ubiquity system is very smooth and wroks kind of nicely for the game. The Ubiquity dice (hate calling them D8s, since they're not really) really do make things easier, and I have to say that I find I'm spoiled by them, although games using D100 aren't too bad, either!



Look forward to seeing you at CanGames again next year, too, Mitch. Too early to decide what I'm going to run at the convention, but DESOLATION and/or HEX are likely candidates. Perhaps a sequel to "Shadow" called... "Return of the Wolf"! Nah, more likely something to do with the Oruskan races when Survivors comes out.

I had heard good things about HEX from two people who had played in it back in 2008 I do believe it was, And later on at the Con it was Ray who had recommended you, so we both joined your game .

Hullo, Mitch,



Ah, that explains it... Ray has played in several games that I've run at CanGames over the last few years. I'm glad he was able to talk you into playing in the scenario. And next year will see some HEX-y goodness from me at CanGames as well.