We have the house ruled system
We have the pre-gen characters
We have the adventure
Now the game itself.
As mentioned in the adventure prep discussion, I had 2 adventures ready to go for Halloween. The decision for which to run would be based on how many folks signed up.
In the last days before Halloween, the number of player's ballooned so that I would definitely run Fall's Run. I ended up having one last hop-on the night of. There were a few character swaps as people found they had selected the same pre-gen, as well some some pre-collaboration and character introductions over chat.
The game itself was to be set over video chat, and scheduled to be about 3 hours or so. The night of we found ourselves with 6 players on 4 screens, plus me as GM. After the initial tech setup, game setup, and general mood setting we got into it.
I started off play with a clear statement that this was a horror scenario, and the expectation is that most characters will die, hopefully in fun interesting ways. The hope was that setting that expectation would help more the night along. I also set one more expectation, this game takes place in the 1890s and in a world with the cultural norms that implies. I was not going to lean hard into the gender and racial politics of the time-frame, but I wanted to be clear, they would be present in the material.
The start of the adventure is a mystery, and while the events happen for all to see, the supernatural elements are hidden behind skill checks. I quickly amend this (thankfully 2 of the characters have occult skills/abilities), I make the ghostly elements automatically visible to the occultists in the party, but not the rest/NPCs. This allows me to keep the mysterious tone but keep the action moving.
Once the party gets to the main location of the adventure, they settle into a bunch of character play. This is fun for everyone, but does sort of put the adventure on hold. That plus a few die rolls that could have gone the other way, things start to languish. So at this point, I start having the villains take more direct action, eventually one of the Party is charmed by the cabal.
In many way, the night plays out like a proper slasher film. Odd happenings around the margins, and then a fairly quick descent into the direct conflict. This can be great tension for a film, but less so for a game. Thankfully, we had the aforementioned character play to keep the buy-in going.
As the night goes on, things quickly come to a head and the cabal is revealed and a fight happens in that moment. Most of the character's are defeated, killed outright, or scarified. A few are completely oblivious to the terrible events and go on with their lives.
Lessons Learned:
It was a fun night, but there are some things I would do differently. First, Increase Sanity Loss. Insanity effects did not really "go off" as much as I would like. I think I will just go with automatic sanity loss/the higher value, and forgo saves vs sanity. I may also consider shaving off some of the longer lasting effects of a sanity break. It kills the momentum of a game if a players is catatonic for days/long hours....
Second, I should know better by now than to hide clues behind skill checks. I need to make them clear, and save the skill checks for the follow up/"Forensics" portion.
Third, I need to add another caveat at the game start, "This is a mystery scenario, you are expected to proactively engage with it."
These all sound more heavy handed or critical than intended. I am really just talking about a few moments, light tweaks here and there that could have made a better balance between the events of the adventure and the play of the night.
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