LOEG: Them That Die

Back in 2018 I set a number of requirements for a League of Extraordinary Gentlemen style game here.

The adventure combines  genre-busting serial comic League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, and Kenneth Hite’s spy thriller Night’s Black Agents. Players will take on pop-culture characters from the last 20 years co-opted as spies for Queen and Country, tasked with stopping a nefarious plot.

LoEG Them That Die

What’s in the box?

• Genre: Spy Thriller
• Duration: 4 hours
• Number of Players: 2-5
• Dice: d6

The adventure module itself comes with five ready to play character sheets, safety rules and maps ready for play.

I have had the opportunity to run the adventure at our weekly one shots and at a number of cons. It always really cool to see the same adventure played out in different ways with different outcomes.

If you get the opportunity to run the game yourself I’d love to hear how it went.

LoEG: Them That Die at Go Play Brisbane 2019

An Extraordinary Musing

For some time now I have wanted to run a League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (LOEG) inspired adventure for our one-shot players. With Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill currently releasing the conclusion to the franchise with Tempest, I had decided it was time to write that adventure.

The first hurdle I wanted to tackle was which system I wanted to use that would give me the LOEG feel I wanted. I have seen actual plays of Wushu and One Roll Engine (ORE) used with the franchise. Recently I have been trying to add some systems engineering principles when hacking games, as a result I listed a set of requirements for the system I wanted before settling on one. 

Before I delve into my requirements, I had recently watched a video on poor movie adaptations and why they failed. The opinion expressed was that in many circumstances (barring bad edits and other technical aspects) it was simply because they failed to address the themes and central premise that made people excited by the source material. Having said that I believe it was Alan Moore that stated that LOEG was originally supposed to be a Victorian Justice League but turned out to be bit of the darker side of espionage than the blockbuster superhero genre, deconstructing the very familiar characters.

Bearing this in mind I made the following functional requirements:

• Shall involve investigation.
• Should allow for powered individuals.
• Should encourage descriptive play.
• Should allow creation of larger than life characters/powered characters.
• Should be relatively simple for beginners to pick up.

With these requirements in mind I turned away from ORE and FATE. Powered by the Apocalypse systems tend to very specific to a specific genre and play. So I turned to GUMSHOE and in particular Night’s Black Agents (NBA).

The system puts an emphasis on investigation without having to roll for clues, allowing the players to focus on the what to do with said clues rather than rolling well. Night’s Black Agents investigative abilities have been designed to be aligned with the spy genre. Utilising Paranormal powers (pg 196 from NBA); powers like invisibility or wand magic can be simply simulated.

Over the next couple of weeks I will put together the adventure that I ran for our one-shot players. The adventure much like comics is based in nostalgia, with particular emphasis on reboots of the past twenty years or so.

Blackout: The Manor

In the previous posts I covered the general premise, the background  and the playbooks of Blackout; a Powered by the Apocalypse adventure, a cross between Buffy’s Tabula Rasa and the College of Wizardry.

This installment lays out the further hooks and clues that may help the PCs navigate their predicament. This is not an exhaustive list and it is implored that the GM introduce anything they seem are necessary for their adventure.

Blackout: The Playbooks

In the previous posts I covered the general premise and the background of Blackout; a Powered by the Apocalypse adventure, a cross between Buffy’s Tabula Rasa and the College of Wizardry.

In this entry I will run through the playbooks I used to run the game, most of which came from Monster of the Week with one originating from Apocalypse World. I will relate each Archetype from the Background and I will link them to the existing playbook they correspond to. For the original playbook I implore you to support Monster of the Week or Apocalypse World. The ratings and terminology used should for the most part correspond to the Monster of the Week rule book. I will continue on to describe what I did differently with these original playsets.

The Mulder: The Flake, Monster of the Week

Muggle: You are unable to cast spells, create potions or perform alchemy due to a lack of magical potential. Your weirdness is a measure of your knowledge of the secret magical world helping you use magical artefacts.

Moves and Ratings remain the same for the Mulder.

What’s in your pockets?

Badge: Detective Sergeant Wasserman

99mm [gun]: 2-harm close loud

Flashlight: 1-harm hand

Flip phone: One unread message:
‘If you are hearing this message it means they’ve got you again and they have erased your memory, killing a past version of us. The short story is these people are from a secret society of magic users, hiding amongst us. On the most part they seem just like us besides the fact that they can use magic. There seems to be some sort of government and law enforcement agency that aids in keeping their world secret. Their favourite tool to employ on ‘muggles’, (this is what they calls us) are memory altering charms. They change your lives with their power and then they take away our memories of these events.

All you know is that they don’t understand technology very well and their reliance on magic has left them complacent to physical attacks. Get in close remove their wand. Your partner can be trusted. Once you have listened to this message mark it as unread.’

Look:

Man, woman, transgressive, concealed.

Wild eyes, tired eyes, focused eyes, searching eyes, suspicious eyes, wide eyed.

Utilitarian clothing, unkept clothing, neat clothes, comfortable clothes, ruppled suit.

The Scully: The Mundane, Monster of the Week

Muggle: You are unable to cast spells, create potions or perform alchemy due to a lack of magical potential. Your weirdness is a measure of your knowledge of the secret magical world helping you use magical artefacts.

Moves and Ratings remain the same for the Mulder.

What’s in your pockets?

Badge: Detective Sergeant Pavlov

99mm [gun]: 2-harm close loud

Pocket knife: 1-harm hand useful small

Car keys [BMW in fairly good condition]

Look:

Man, woman, transgressive, concealed.

Friendly face, alluring face, laughed-lined face, trust-worthy face, ‘every-man’ face, serious face.

Uniformed, casual clothed, immaculately kept clothing, street clothes, slept-in suit.

The Warden: The Brainer, Apocalypse World

Cloistered: Blessed with magical potential you are able to cast spells, brew potions and perform rituals with roll +Weird. You are unfortunately cloistered from the muggle-world and receive -1 to all rolls when dealing with muggle artefacts. For fast magic you require a wand like all witchards.

The Moves remain mostly the same but are flavoured differently:

• Casual brain receptivity = Casual leglimancy
• Deep brain scan = Deep leglimancy
• Direct-brain whisper projection = Forced entry
• In-brain puppet strings = Hypnotic eyes

The Warden was also given the Moves:

• Bottle it up: If you want, you can take up to +3 bonus when you act under pressure. For each +1 you use, the GM holds 1. That can be spent later – one for one – to give you a -1 on any move except act under pressure.
• Healer: You have a full healer’s kit, and the training to go with it. When you do first aid, roll +Cool. On a 10+ the patient is stabilized and healed for 2 harm. On a 7-9 choose one: heal 2 harm or stabilize the injury. On a miss you cause an extra 1 harm. This move takes the place of regular first aid.

The ratings were also altered to to reflect those of the Monster of the Week format. The Warden was also given one additional Ratings line:

• Charm =0, Cool +1, Sharp +1, Tough -1, Weird +2

What’s in your pockets?

Identification [edict of legimancy]
Warden Konstantin as part of their duty to uphold the tenants of secrecy is awarded extraordinary means to determine the truth during their investigation. This provides Warden Konstantin the authority to administer truth serums and utilise memory extraction techniques on those thought to be in breach of the tenants or protecting one in breach of the tenants, jeopardising a witcharding Conflux.

This edict is published with the authority of the Warden.

Wand: Range small

Photograph The people in this photograph are moving. It depicts two muggles within a witcharding conflux/conclave dressed in ludicrous attire, one actually appears to be wearing a bath robe.

Veritaserum: small vial potent truth serum

Look:

Man, woman, transgressive, androgynous.

Soft eyes, dead eyes, deep eyes, caring eyes, pale eyes, ruined eyes, wet eyes, scarred eye.

Ministry blue robes, tattered robes, garish robes, impractical robes, leathers.

The Scion: The Spell-slinger, Monster of the Week

Cloistered: Blessed with magical potential you are able to cast spells, brew potions and perform rituals with roll +Weird. You are unfortunately cloistered from the muggle-world and receive -1 to all rolls when dealing with muggle artefacts. For fast magic you require a wand like all witchards.

Combat Magic, Tools and Techniques are ignored for this archetype, it is assumed that the wizard is able to cast magic appropriately.

The Moves remain mostly the same but some are flavoured differently:

• Advanced Arcane Training = Advanced ritual training
• Arcane Reputation = Reputation through lineage

The remaining Moves remain the same. As do the Ratings.

What’s in your pockets?

Signet ring: On your finger is a signet ring looking around the room you notice a coat of arms over the mantelpiece that matches the ring. The name Van Maldergem and Quia Divina et Humana Prudential.

Wand: Range small

Pendant: Set in one panel is a small photograph, which includes yourself and someone that looks suspiciously like you. On the opposite panel are the words.
‘Never Forget Avalon’

Look:

Man, woman, transgressive, concealed.

Sly eyes, fierce eyes, weary eyes, sparkling eyes, soft eyes, ancient eyes.

Fashionable robes, ink stained robes, gothic robes, casual slacks.

The Magus: The Montrous, Monster of the Week

Hedge mage: You are an illegal magical practitioner, you did not attend any of the magical colleges and learnt the craft through trial and error. Most die before they come of age, those that do normally dabble in crime, dark magicks or both. They often bear the marks of their unsanctioned experimentation on their person. For fast magic you require a wand like all witchards.

For the Magus; Curses, Natural Attacks, Mental Dominion, Unquenchable Vitality and Incorporeal are ignored.

The Moves remain mostly the same but some are flavoured differently:

• Immortal = Dorian Grey
• Unnatural Appeal = Monstrous appeal
• Unholy strength = Full metal alchemist
• Preternatural speed = Quicksilver veins
• Shapeshifter = Animagus

Ratings remain the same for the Magus.

What’s in your pockets:

Wand: Range small

Bag of salt useful

Stick of chalk useful

Vial of viscous crimson liquid useful

Ritual Dagger: 2-harm hand small

This dagger has a living bloodshot eye fashioned into the hilt like a gemstone which follows the holder.

Hand: animated useful

Look:

Man, woman, mysterious, transgressive.

Tattooed face, manic face, scarred face, soft face, aged face, gaunt face, monstrous face.

Archaic robes, tattered robes, singed robes, stylish robes, animal skins, white flowing robe.

Next we will delve into the manor itself.

Blackout: Background

The HP inspired adventure first mentioned in Blackout: or How I Stopped Worrying and Love Powered by the Apocalypse. Blackout features five different player characters archetypes; the Mulder, the Scully, the Warden, the Scion and the Magus.

Some time the Mulder and the Scully as police detectives stumbled upon the witcharding world. After their first encounter with it their memories were obliviated. Fortunately, the realised something was amiss and were enraged by the fact that erasing their memories was akin to murder. They put measures in place so their memories though they were erased the Mulder was reminded that they don’t remember everything.

Along with the Scully they begin investigating these witchards eventually making it to a conflux of this magical beings. But they also discover that  kidnappings and murders made five years ago were connected to a group of fundamentalist witchards. To their shock they soon find out that not all the perpetrators were arrested, that some to this day still lived. This is when the Mulder and the Scully hatch a plan to arrest the Scion for their crimes.

Discovering the Scion addressed they address a letter and attach it to an owl setting it free. They follow the owl to the address with a sneak-a-scope (to detect hidden things) and discover the Scion’s manor out in the cold northern country side.

~~~~

The Warden is a member of the Magical Ministry and has been tasked to investigate two muggles who have continuously ‘relapsed’ from their obliviation. He has been given privileges to use leglimancy to disseminate the cause of their relapsing, and put an end to the tirade once and for all. Keeping their distance on their broom the wary Warden follows the muggles to the Scion’s manor…

~~~~

The Scion is the last of their bloodline, once they were two. Twins. But their twin took the wrap for the kidnapping and murders of those muggles. See they were members of the Iron Legion, a group of witchards that don’t see magic as dark/light but as a haze of grey. They champion that demonology, blood magic and other dark magics can be harnessed if used appropriately.

The Scion’s twin was put to death for their crimes and the Scion became obsessed with their death creating a shrine of sorts in the twin’s old room. Eventually the Scion turned to the Magus and imploring them trying to help resurrect their dead sibling.

~~~~

The Magus is an unregistered witchard who is known through the circles of the Iron Legion, mostly known as a mad diabolist. Most self-taught witchards dabbling in dark arts are either driven mad or killed but the Magus is savvy and has beaten the odds. The Magus’ illegal practices means they need to keep moving to avoid Ministry attention.

The Scion in need of the of the experimental expertise of the Magus and has agreed to harbour the Magus in their manor during the duration on their resurrection experimentation. The theory behind resurrecting the twin is to create a body or vessel that will be able to house the soul and memories of the deceased twin.

The Magus plans to contact a demon of the choir of destruction and arrange a pact that will attain the memories of the twin. Together the Scion and the Magus are gathered in a hidden room in the cellar of the manor gathered around a summoning circle that will bring the demon into our plane. They begin the ritual but are interrupted when intruders barrel through the front door of the manor and they disapparate and confront the intruders (the Mulder and the Scully, and soon the Warden).

~~~~

While upstairs gunfire and spells are fired; downstairs in the cellar the demon, Anamnesis swirls into existence, the ritual that would normally bind it is incomplete. It takes this advantage its smoke-like form to central chimney of the manor to attack everything in the manor. Devouring their memories leaving them with nothing of their past.

Unable to vacate the premises due to the sunlight outside, the demon waits for night to come.

The player characters awake in the disheveled lounge of the manor.

Blackout: or How I Stopped Worrying and Love Powered by the Apocalypse

Wednesday night leading into a heatwave we held the fourth Weekly One-shot meetup in the comfort of an air conditioned meeting room. Tonight it was my rotation to host a game. I decided to playtest a home brew adventure of mine I’ve penned as Blackout with those that attend our weekly games.

An adventure for 3-5 players, Blackout would interest players interested in investigating and those who enjoy conflicting agendas between the player characters.

You wake up to find yourselves in chateau, with no memory of who you are or how you got there. As you all try to piece together the events of the previous few hours from things on your person and from the house, you begin to realise that something definitely went wrong. But will you be able to stop this threat before you tear each others throats out?

This year I plan to attend the College of Wizardry LARP in Poland which probably inspired the adventure. Other inspirations include Sir Poley’s Harry Potter and the Natural 20 as well as JK Rowling’s popular Harry Potter series. The themes I wanted to capture in this adventure are heavily inspired by the Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode Tabula Rasa where the player characters play a mixture of muggles and witchards that find themselves in a strange manor with no memory of their past.

Since the beginning of this year I have been tossing up what system to use. The adventure would be heavily investigative so Trail of Cthulhu came to mind but didn’t quite serve the PVP that might ensue. So I turned to Fate which I have previously used in Potterverse RPGs but figured that Aspects that linked the players may give away too much of the mystery. Finally, I decided to road test Powered by the Apocalypse (PbtA) even though my adventure goes against the very tenants of the system and improvisation. But I felt that how the playbooks aid quick character development and the Moves really suited the adventure I had planned (also this year has been a bit of a showcase for the PbtA system).

Monster of the Week was the PbtA system of choice, the idea of each ‘episode’ contains a mystery with a monster of the week, which was the driving premise of my adventure. I had a couple of ideas that differed from Monster of the Week that I thought would suit Blackout. The ideas I wanted to experiment with included:

• Instead of using Cool to Help or Hinder, I planned to use HX much like Apocalypse World but with the difference; instead of HX being determined during character creation a character would gain HX as they learned about another character throughout the adventure. The incentive to learn about your enemies would be just as important as learning about your allies.
• Character creation would remain much the same the players choosing their Ratings, Appearance and Moves. But each character would also be given items that they find on their own person. These included identification, weapons, or sinister artifacts that aim to give the characters an impression of who they are, provide hooks and raise suspicions between the other characters.
• The biggest deviation from the PbtA mission statement are the pre-established flags of the adventure.

Alpha Test of Blackout

The adventure was played with 3 players and ran for 3.5 hours. There were enough hooks in the adventure flags that the adventure could be easily played over two sessions, especially with more players.

The HX mechanic I introduced unfortunately was not utilised to enough to truly gauge if it was effective.

The players felt that the most of the Basic and Hunter Moves were appropriate to a Potterverse world but a couple of Hunter Moves just did quite work with the amnesia or a one-shot setting. The hooks that were found on each character were effective, though once again sort of goes against the intent of PbtA.

Overall the players enjoyed the adventure and the hooks. The only thorns from the players was that one didn’t really like investigation games but he said he just made up for it by causing conflict.

Conclusion

I plan to run the adventure again the next time we run a introduction to RPG session. I haven’t decided yet if I will continue to use PbtA or try a different system like Trail of Cthulhu.

Over the next couple of weeks I will post the adventure in segments for those of you who would like to try out the adventure which will start with the background for Blackout.

Time Lord Ascendant

Now with complete control over time and space, the Temporal Masters are a strategic tour de force. Through the guidance of the Temporal Master Victorious, commander in chief and visionary of the pure timeline any opposition has been met with ruthless alterations to their personal timeline. Time and space is at an impasse with those races still capable of time travel are paralysed by the threat of extinction or simply do not have the capability to mount a resistance. The Doctor has been desperately trying to  undo the damage done, feeling responsible for his progenitor’s work.

The Doctor and his companions have arrived at the Temporal Masters’ stronghold to put an end to the Temporal Masters’ reign one way or another. The Doctor is unsurprised to find an old acquaintance with the mantle of Temporal Master Victorious. The companions find themselves amidst the glory of the Temporal Master capitol where they find out that they are not the only ones unhappy with the Victorious’ reign, as various factions are poised to strike and depose their leader.

The Time Lord Ascendant marks the end of the Temporal Masters adventure arc, 12 months of Doctor Who Roleplaying Game related adventures. A big thanks goes out to the Alexandrian it was his blog post outlining the Temporal Master story arc that inspired Doctor Who RPG Temporal Master campaign. Thanks also needs to go to BBC as the creators of Doctor Who and Cubicle 7 whose Doctor Who Roleplaying products inspired the project.

The project started as a challenge to myself to; A) share the adventures I had written for my gaming group and to share them, B) to produce something that I would be happy with, and C) to actually meet my own deadlines and finish the project. Overall I am happy with what I have achieved.

Next year I plan to at some stage compile all the adventures into one Temporal Masters sourcebook using InDesign rather than Microsoft Word.

I hope you enjoy the adventures over the past year!

Another World

The penultimate addition of monthly Whovian adventures has taken slightly different turn. This month’s edition Another World, is a bit more of a source book delving into the effect the Temporal Masters have on the timeline. The original inspiration for the campaign came from the Alexandrian.

The first chapter takes a look at the direct effect the Temporal Masters’ have on the established timeline and takes a look at alternate histories and integrating them into your campaign.

The second chapter tackles the Doctor, his companions and the Tardis and how they may react or adapt to the influence of an altered timeline.

Chapter three takes a look at the Temporal Master agenda, command structure and strategies.

Finally, chapter four presents two adventure hooks. Simulation Hypothesis takes place within the Temporal Masters’ Matrix while they are running a simulation, the Doctor and his companions must find a way through without getting killed in the process. The second adventure finds companions in another lifetime remembering events that never happened, especially an eccentric character calling himself the Doctor, they soon find themselves in an odd conspiracy.

I have been planning to collect all the adventures up on the blog into one Temporal Masters Sourcebook which I hope to include a fleshed out version of this month’s addition.

As with all of my uploads I welcome any feedback or criticism.

Be sure to stay tuned for the final instalment of the Temporal Masters campaign, Time Lord Ascendant.

Andromeda Burns

Few races have wielded the power to destroy a galaxy. The last were the Time Lords when their waged their time war with the Daleks. They unleashed untold devastation using super weapons from the Omega Arsenal. It is only fitting when the Temporal Masters would unearth one of these great weapons and turning it against the Andromeda galaxy.

After previously witnessing the abrupt disappearance of the Andromeda galaxy, the Doctor and his companions have travelled back in time before the galaxy’s destruction. There they find themselves within a maze station circling the super massive black hole. Stranger still are the prisoners of war made to run the maze pursued by Weeping Angels.

Can the Doctor and his companions navigate this maze and stop the Temporal Masters from destroying the Andromeda galaxy?

Andromeda Burns is an adventure written for the Doctor Who Roleplaying Game. It is the next arc of the Temporal Masters campaign setting created by the Alexandrian. Though it is intended for the the campaign setting it could be easily adapted for single play.

As always I would love to hear your feedback especially since I have published the adventure before getting an opportunity to run it with my group. The adventure can be found here.

Black Hole Bluff

It’s finally here! Last month’s adventure is a little late due to my Korea/Japan vacation.

In this adventure the Doctor and his companions are pitted against a cult of logicians planning on using a causal feedback loop for their own benefit. The characters arrive at Synch Hole station, a particle accelerator in orbit around a super massive black hole experimenting with temporal particles. Upon arrival the crew seem to be acting strange and facts don’t seem to add up.

Black Hole Bluff is an adventure written for use with the Doctor Who Roleplaying Game. It is intended to act as a standalone adventure but can be used as a precursor to Andromeda Burns of The Temporal Master campaign.

Due to my little holiday and scheduling issues, I’ve also fallen behind on presenting this adventure to my group. This means you will be the first to see it but this also means I’m not entirely sure how this scenario plays out. This means I am eager to hear your suggestions and questions. Please find the adventure here

The next adventure will be the next major arc of the Temporal Masters campaign, Andromeda Burns. I endeavor to get this completed this month but running late as I am might make it difficult.