Actual Play – Big Bad Outreach at UVA (9/29/2017)

GMs: Ezra Denney, Colin Fahrion, Beth Daggert, Matt Klein, Karen Twelves, and Sean Nittner
Players: The kids at University Village at Albany (UVA)
System: Paranoia, D&D 5E, Ghost Lines, Parsley Games, and Ghost Court

It was a lot to wrangle but we did it. We ran five games for the kids at UVA… and we had a blast.

Pizza, games, kids, adults. A few ringers but mostly kids who had were playing for the first time… and oddly had requested larps! How cool.

Matts game ended up not firing off, but it worked out great as we needed someone to keep track in Action Castle!

We’re excited to do this again next year!

Here’s pics from the event:

Actual Play – Peace Made in Tangletown (9/26/2017)

GM: Sean Nittner
Players: Karen Twelves,  Adrienne Mueller, and Eric Fattig
System: Blades in the Dark

Notes I jotted down before the game. Did these make sense back then?

Tentacle Monster Attacked their ship as they tried to dock. What the what even? (it was drawn to their lightning barrier hull)

At the meeting in Tangletown

  • Sergeant Lochlan (speaking for Captain Dunville)
  • Corran, in butchers garb cooking meat (fierce, loyal, quiet)
  • Erin (ghost, shrewd, tough, cunning)
  • Darmot, with the Bluecoats
  • Tor (Billhook, chewing, spitting, bored)

How it went down:

We’ were just doing a job: 6/6 Ticks filled and the Billhooks back off, but with the following consequences:

  • Corran will not rest until Elke is dead
  • Corran hates Elke but believes her that Erin isn’t totally stable. (A crack in their bond forms)
  • 4 coin spent to appease the Bluecoats as well as the Billhooks.

Entanglement

Unquiet Dead: Erin comes for retribution!

Faction Clocks Move

The Ministry is investigating the death of Captain Lannock. Rooting out seditionists and making an example of the Emperor’s might. Naria Strangford (the Lord’s daughter) brought on trial for harboring rogue spirits and practicing vamparism! Found guilty by Judge Mora and imprisoned in Bellweather.

Leviathan Hunters demand the Iruvian hunting grounds as theirs have all but run dry.

Ghosts are close to breaking free from the bonds that tether them to the Keeper’s lighting towers (3/4 ticks)

 

Actual Play – The Coalridge Demon Job (9/24/2017)

GM: Judd Karlman
Players: Pete Cornell, Jason Bowell, Rob Bohl, and Sean Nittner
System: Blades in the Dark
Crew: The Wobbegong Crew

In which Maude’s guild leads to our doom.

This game was such a good one that I completely flubbed it up and didn’t save the video before it expired on Twitch. My lamentations know no end.

However, fortuantely Judd wrote up this great actual play post here: https://githyankidiaspora.wordpress.com/2017/09/25/wobbegong-crew-the-coalridge-demon-job/

I’m also (call it broken link paranoia) going to copy/paste his write up here as well!

Wobbegong Crew: the Coalridge Demon Job

In which the Wobbegong Crew try to set Maude’s demonic mistake right, angering the Hive and the Lampblacks in the process and brutally fail in the mines under Coalridge.

The Gang

In the end this game happened because Maude failed some rolls and turned Coalridge into a charnel house. Sean decided that Maude had a conscience, which is a gutsy and fun decision. My favorite parts of this game were when the players made decisions for their characters that gave the situations and supernatural setting stuff real weight.

Maude deciding that she had to own up to her mistakes and ask the gang to do a job to make it right.

Willoughby and Charming acting scared when meeting Roric’s ghost.

It is one thing to have a Heavy-Metal-Album-Cover Demon unleash hell in a city district and having a ghost smoking a cigarette but Sean, Rob and Jay’s decisions gave it all real weight and feeling. It was inspiring.

Everyone had moments where they shined and the group is getting better at playing off one another. From Charming making brutal use of Willoughby’s truth-hearing to the way Willoughby managed to be the only person to escape.

Rob’s write-up of the game is well worth reading over on G+.

Duskwall again

We learned a bunch about Duskwall tonight. From the warehouse where the Hive sells people and their brutal security teams to the fact that if you sacrifice the right people on the Saint of Witch’s altar you can rummage around in the dead bodies and pull out weapons.

Lucella: accountant for the Hive – sacrificed to the Saint of Witches

Atreus: The Saint of Witches blood-thirsty son, now roaming free in Coalridge.

The Job with text

We were going to do a job concerning the hostage they had and using that leverage to broker peace between the Red Sashes and the Lampblacks but Maude had a problem. She had unleashed a demon into Coalridge and the word I used to describe the quarantined district was charnel house. It was weighing on Maude’s mind.

Charming and Willoughby agreed to put the hostage job aside and help Maude try to put this demon back in the bottle. Charming grabbed 2 people from a Hive-owned warehouse where they stored slaves, or as the Hive calls them, Product. He grabbed a guard and an accountant.

Willoughby found a coin-generating job to do in Coalridge, finding out that a factory foreman had a vault with treasure in still in the deserted district. It was a way to make some money on the endeavor. They never got to it.

Maude took the 2 human-traffickers from the Hive and killed the one still alive. The Saint of Witches put weapons inside them. It was squicky! Killing someone in a fight is one thing but killing an accountant who is chained up, even one who helps the slave trade was uncomfortable for all of us. It wasn’t over the line but it was close.

The failed their engagement roll and ended up in the crossfire between the Spirit Wardens and the demon and its cultists. Turns out the cultists were Lampblacks.

It was a total disaster. They prowled into position. Willoughby provided a distraction, acting like a scared citizen. After that it was a disaster. Charming broke against the demon in an assault – he trauma’d out. Maude tried to channel the demon’s mother’s voice. She failed to contain that much energy and vomited blood.

Willoughby wanted to grab Charming and bounce but she rolled a 5. She got out but Charming stayed.

The Mechanics in White

I don’t keep track of the players’ stress; they do that. When Charming trauma’d out it was a surprise to me. The stress mounted slowly and surely. The scoundrel’s grind is brutal.

Demons are no joke.

I liked the way it all shook out. I can’t wait to see what happens next.

 

Art

Leon F. Czolgosz, the assassin. Photograph. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, <https://www.loc.gov/item/90707285/>;.
The Corliss Bevel-Gear-Cutting Machine. Photograph. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, <https://www.loc.gov/item/2004678678/>;.
The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Photography Collection, The New York Public Library. “Wm. Hawes in front of jewelry store with intricate clock.” The New York Public Library Digital Collectionshttp://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47e0-69ca-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99
The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Photography Collection, The New York Public Library. “Grand View, City and Canal, Syracuse, N.Y.” The New York Public Library Digital Collections. 1880. http://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47e1-5eee-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99

Actual Play – Sign for IndieCade (9/21/2017)

GM: Kate Hymes
Players: Hakan Seyalioglu, Joe Sondow, John Kim, and Karen Twelves
Videographer: Sean Nittner
System: Sign

Kate and Hakan needed video of people playing sign to submit to IndieCade so Hakan lit up the bat signal and we showed up to play (or record) a game of Sign, which I guess was good enough, because this happened!

Side note: When I was filming I was super proud that I figured out when Karen was signing Grandmother. True love right there!

Actual Play – Ending the Smear Campaign (9/19/2017)

GM: Sean Nittner
Players: Karen Twelves,  Adrienne Mueller, and Eric Fattig
System: Blades in the Dark

Notes I jotted down before the game. Did these make sense back then?

Frost comes back with Lizette in manacles. Tells Hix about the investigation, asks what in the Devils she is doing.

Preceptor Dunvil (formally)

Danwood and Harland requested to consult on new cult activity. Someone is luring students into Crow’s Foot. When the come back they’ve started having violent nightmares.

I think this was partial list of gang members (sometimes it’s real hard to remember everyone in the crew)

  • Cavelle (ghost, destroyed)
  • Wester (ex-member, now a Lampblack)
  • Ring (ghost, ex-member, returned to the Path of Echoes)
  • Quintus (ghost, paranoid, insistent, savage)
  • Scapa (ghost, lawyer)
  • Thistle (leader in the True Path cult)
  • Brie (recidivist, part of the True Path cult)
  • Hoxen (ghost, knows the ritual of spirit embalming)
  • Myst (Tycherosi)
  • Leanna (Rosslyn’s of the Gills daughter)
  • Litha (part of True Path cult)
  • Lizette (leader in the True Path cult)
  • Irelen (former member of the Dimmer Sisters, broken)

More fallout stuff

The office of the Ministry of Preservation claims that the City Council are harboring rogue spirits any the council members have refused to comply with their attempt to investigate. Lady Slane is taking members of the council to appear before a magistrate. Judge Moria presiding.

Lord Strangfor has refused the summons and his ship, the Nightbreaker has halted it’s return to Doskvol and is now moored in the bay just outside the city. It is full of refined Leviathan Blood, much needed by the city.

Quellen asks Elke for Electroplasm, her supplies are running out.

Notes from the game

Oh Sean, why do you do this to yourself. Who is supposed to know what this means?

Ink Rakes: Echo Mae / Urlan Bertani – Have  vendetta against them because in Charterhall they reserved the reading room indefinitely and she could never find a place to study. But, also she was payed to draft the smear campaign by “The Hook”.

Corro appears – Armed with silver nail mercenaries and offers the Crow’s Roric’s location to buy his own skin.

Roric negotiates with the Reconciled who all vie for powered. Tipping Ministry of Preservation off about Reconciled (Maybe I meant council?). Sneaks one of them into use the Hand.

Entry into Crows Foot

  • Encounter Ghost Echo, which Elke destroys with Tempest (first time using it)
  • Scouted after the enter by Lampblacks (but one in hospital?)

Talk to Cross and find out “Hook” is Corran (one of the leaders of the Billhooks)

Convince Darmot (Bluecoat) to setup a meet with Corran in Tangletown.

Present at the meeting is Sergeant Lochlan (works for Dunvil)

Summon Ink Rakes with this lure:

  • We have info about the City Council
  • Meet us in a canal under Hill Street
  • Contact is Echo Mae

Clocks

  • Wanted (8 Heat): 5/8 ticks
  • Spirit Wardens Destroy Six Arms: 0/4 ticks
  • Path of Echoes takes The Gills: 1/6 ticks
  • Find out who is involved with the smear campaign: 4/4 ticks (Billhooks, Bluecoats, and Ink Rakes)
  • End Investigation: 1/6 ticks (First tick gained by sending Inspector Frost to investigate the Church of Ecstasy)

 

Actual Play – The Roric Job, Part 2 (9/17/2017)

GM: Judd Karlman
Players: Pete Cornell and Sean Nittner
System: Blades in the Dark
Crew: The Wobbegong Crew

Trying to beat the Dimmer Sisters the punch and finding Roric. Not without ghost field troubles!

Be sure to check out the 11 minute mark of part 2, where I say “umm, and uhh” about a thousand times.

Blades on Air

Actual Play – Big Bad Online with Stras Acimovic (9/14/2018)

Atlas ReckoningGM: Stras Acimovic
Players: Jayson “JIB” Tryon, Harry Morris, Shaun Hayworth, and Sean Nittner
System: Atlas Reckoning

Here was a game Stras ran for Big Bad Con as part of the Big Bad Online GM pledge in our 2017 Kickstarter. Thanks Stras!

Yes, I did the kill steal…again. Showboat? Yeah, pretty much.

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Atlas Reckoning in Air

Actual Play – Feast of the Dead (9/13/2017)

GM: Sean Nittner
Players: Karen Twelves and Eric Fattig
System: Blades in the Dark

Note: I fell way behind on my AP reports so these are written many moons later based off my notes. The accuracy will likely vary greatly! Also, this is just transcribed from my notes. Things may be out of order!

Downtime

Investigation of the Pox placed on those who touched the Hand of Kotar. Through some reference to the old text that once belonged to the Dimmer Sisters they discovered it was called Liar’s Bane ad that once infected the speakers lies would echo through the ghost field and attract angry spirits, which come to torment the speaker!

To break the transmission of the pox, the would have to find the ghost of a whisper who could consume the spectral resonance that surrounded the infected, otherwise it would travel from person to person, in the order that they touched the Hand.

Jadvyga recovering from both her limp (from jumping out of a building if I remember correctly) and from her dread.

Elke, now aware that ghosts could be “healed” by feeding them from the spectral remains of others trapped in a spirit well, took Scapa (who had become both Violent and Vengeful in her death) to the spirit well that Grigg’s fed Rorick on, and though she wasn’t attuned to it, she ventured to dip Scapa into the well, tether her with a lightning hook and let her feast on ghosts she compelled to offer themselves up. The process was dangerous and gruesome, but after being sated Scapa seemed to regain some of her humanity (or at least someone’s humanity, she was now Elitist and Fierce, not her original traits, but he she can keep feeding, she can hold onto them!)

Hix sought to become close friends with Oilweather by working with him and helping him elevate his status in front of the other professors and students, and to do she she delved into his works and became a catalyst for his connection to the Ministry, from whom he sought a grant [Devil’s Bargain, Hix’s reputation is chained to his, and vice versa].

A member of the I’Yalim named Zara Jayaan showed up (to reclaim the statues?)

Lady Drake and Elstera Avrathi (Magistrates). Why are they in my notes again?

Elke Indulges her vice by perusing Mordis’s wares.

She also tells Scapa now that she’s recovered, that they need help with legal issues.

What Rocked

Some revelations in this game! We figured out how Reconciled get that way, or at least how some of them do. It’s pretty horrific, but also, not surprising. It was delightful coming to that together. It also puts the Gondoliers in a strange position with the Reconciled. Fun!

Also, Liar’s Bane. How cool is that?

Actual Play – Good bad, bad good decisions (9/7/2017)

GM: Stras Acimovic
Players: Jory Bowers, Andi Carrison, and Sean Nittner
System: Scum & Villainy

Note: I fell way behind on my AP reports so these are written many moons later based off my notes. The accuracy will likely vary greatly! Also, this is just transcribed from my notes. Things may be out of order!

  • Notable quote from last game. “Wow, fish people can whistle.”
  • Aya is on Aketi laying low, a jungle planet.

 Starddancer on Air

More Stardancer

Yes, we would love to but work schedules have made us put Stardancer on pause. We’re excited to see the fate of Laren, Bhaz, and Faye!

 

Actual Play – Night Forest (9/3/2017)

Facilitator: Ross Cowman
Players: Kristin Firth, Kitty Stoholski, Alex Roberts, and more wonderful people.
System: Night Forest

Note: I fell way behind on my AP reports so these are written many moons later based off my notes. The accuracy will likely vary greatly! Also, this is just transcribed from my notes. Things may be out of order!

From the product page (hint, you should buy this game):

Night Forest is a ritual game where you and your friends play memories on a journey of self-discovery; moving through the forest by candlelight and forming new connections with each encounter.

Night Forest is a tool that brings people together through the interplay of histories and present experiences, weaving a beautiful web. As we play we cultivate skills of listening, sharing and creating safe community.

I both hear and told a story about being a teenager listening to music. I heard about people’s connections with their families and shared stories of my dad, who I still miss very much. And amazingly I didn’t fall down or break anything (it was very dark and the ground uneven and slippery near the stream). It was beautiful.

Picture of the fire late at night (though not from our game)

 

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