"The ghost ship" continues - using audio samples while running a game

Today I have finished the first part of my Call of Cthulhu scenario called "The ghost ship". I divided this adventure into two parts and since they are independent, i.e. the fist one is just a well-developed introduction to the another, I am going to prepare it in a proper scenario form and publish it here. It will consist of a plot, maps, drawing and descriptions and it will be available as a regular post on this blog and a downloadable PDF file.

However, I want to focus on something different today. I think many GMs use music on sessions. It is great way to create suitable ambience or distinguish peaceful moments from battles. It is very useful during Call of Cthulhu scenarios when we want our players to feel disturbed. However, I have been thinking about taking one step forward. If you watch The Blair Witch Project, you will soon realise that people are not afraid of what they see but it is other way around: they are afraid of what they cannot see. We, human beings, rely almost exclusively on our sight and when we cannot use our eyes, we become confused. That is why, besides using music, I decided to use audio samples of footsteps, screams, raindrops, creaking doors and so on.
The only thing missing was a tool that would allow me to use different samples at the same time without necessity to stop the background music and that is why, among others, I could not use a regular audio player. Since I know a little about programming (I do it as a hobby - I am not a professional), I created an application which has all of these functions. Now, when player characters go through a door or they wait for something to come, I can get rid of boring descriptions - they will hear everything. I still have to improve few things - that is why I am posting just a screenshot today, but that is another thing which I am going to place on this blog and make it downloadable.

RPG Mixer window

Some basic features of RPG Mixer:

• You can set up to 15 audio samples (WAV or OGG file format)
• Customisable shortcuts for each file
• Looping and turning volume for each file separately

The program still has some minor issues and I have found some features that I want to add but you can expect downloadable version soon.

Egyptian 2000-years-old die

Have you seen a D20 which is THAT old?

Link for more information: Click!

Some news

Today I was going to write something about the D&D session that supposed to take place yesterday, but one of my players got sick. That is a shame because this particular adventure has been a little bit problematic for me and I wanted to share my ideas how I deal with that kind of problems.

Let me just outline the background: One of my player characters is a druid and she has really wanted to participate in the Druidic annual holiday on the shores of Lake of Steam, during the Feast of the Moon, which was described in Magic of Faerun. The problem is what the another player, who is a bard, should do at this time. She cannot participate in the Feast - it is exclusively for druids, and running two scenarios for two players at the same time is tiring and, honestly speaking, it is never a good idea. The session is postponed until two weeks time, and then I will describe not only the solution to the mentioned problem, but also the scenario itself. 

I want to continue my Call of Cthulhu scenario about the ghost ship next week but the Easter comes and I do not know if there will be time for that. If not, I will work upon articles and publish them here. Otherwise you can expect some reports on the game.

Controlling player characters' senses

Today just a short tip for GMs. As you run RPG games, you probably know awkward moments like that:

GM: "Make a spot check."

Player: "I failed."

GM: "Oh... So, never mind."

I think I do not have to explain in details why it is so pathetic, but let me tell you just a few words. After this dialogue players perfectly realise that they have missed something. In D&D and other RPGs where action is on the first place, it does not matter so much, but in Call of Cthulhu, where atmosphere is everything in fact, it destroys all the GM's work. Imagine a situation when characters enter a new room and there are some evidences of the crime or a presence of a daemon which they failed to notice. After the "...never mind" presented above they know that something important has been in that room and instead of moving forward, they are going to try to re-enter the room again and try to examine it once more. How to improve it?

Be prepared to make all the checks connected with characters' senses by yourself. Note somewhere what bonuses your player characters have to spot, listen and so on. If you do, that situation is going to look completely different. Next time, when your players enter a new room, you will check their senses by yourself, and your job will be just tell them what they have noticed, and if they fail, you will just remain silent. No more awkward text during your sessions.

One important thing is not to exaggerate. I am not telling you to ban your players from making those checks at all. If you just want to check whether characters noticed a hidden enemy or not, let players do that - characters will meet the consequences two minutes after that so it does not matter, but if it is something which is to make their task easier (especially in detective stories), do not hesitate to use my tip.

We are ready for Cthulhu

Yesterday I ran Call of Cthulhu. The main theme of the scenario was a ghost ship which had disappeared few years back in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Now the ship has showed up near Boston, there is no sign of life aboard and she looks like she was eighty-years-old even if she is seven. Player Characters' task was to get aboard and reveal the mystery (as in ninety per cent of CoC scenarios, I guess). Well, I have not foreseen that my players want to prepare themselves for every possible condition (they even attended a diving course!) and in result, for few hours they have been buying equipment, searching for some information about the ship, learning new skills and so on, and when they finished, there was not much time left. I had prepared the main part of the story, i.e. the ship, to take about two hours and they have not finished the half of it, but that is even better! I can develop my story and now I can be sure that nothing similar like those preparations will repeat on the next session, so my players are going to face four hours of pure horror story!

The table just before the game.

* * *

Now just a few words about what I am going to publish here in the nearest future: I am working on a next article over techniques which I use during sessions. It will discuss one facet of NPCs in role playing games and how to develop a side threat inside a main story. Secondly, I want to prepare the story about a ghost ship to became a ready-to-play scenario of Call of Cthulhu and put it in there. Off course I will be able to publish it online when we finish it - I am not going to give my players spoilers.

Dead villains are (well, were) humans too!

Dungeons & Dragons is a very peculiar role playing game. There are lots of people who really hate it and, honestly speaking, I can see their point. On the other hand, it gives you an impression of playing the very first RPG and the ambience of swords and wizardry has some magic inside. When you run D&D you have to be careful to avoid one common mistake which is very easy to make especially if you stick to this system for longer time: You can become a ‘spawner’ – a Dungeon Master who do nothing more than spawning countless, more and more powerful crowds of monsters and villains whose only one task is to be smashed by your players. There are tons of articles in the Internet which can guide you how to improve your NPCs, how to make them more vivid and real, but DMs seem to forget that evil wizards, barbarians and thieves who are their main bosses are living creatures either. Honestly, in most games a dragon which has lived in a cavern for his entire life has more personality and better story to tell than a necromancer who was born and grown up among people in big cities of Faerun.

There is an example of a standard adventure located in catacombs or something similar: Four characters, let’s say a warrior, cleric, thief and a wizard got inside and after countless corpses left behind them, they finally find themselves in the main chamber – big, beautiful, filled with columns, stairs and everything what can make the nearest battle more interesting. Off course, in the middle of the room there is a tombstone where the main loot waits for its finders. Suddenly, tens of undead start to attack our main protagonists and finally the big star shows up – The necromancer Black Andrew The Master of the Dead, who wears black robes and a traditional skull on his head. Battle is very hard and our protagonists end up with ¼ of their hit points, no spells and potions but with the awesome loot in their bags. Yay! Great story! But wait… What had Andrew eaten? Where had he slept? What had he done when he had been bored of rising the undead and doing all other evil stuff?

That is my point. Do not let those villains to be just spawns to kill. You can simply add a few things to your story to make Andrew more vivid and, well, real. First of all, create another room just next to this main chamber. Put a bed, desk and a cupboard inside. If you have got any problem with that, picture yourself as a bad guy and imagine that you have got a door in your main chamber which leads to your private room. Think about your friends’ rooms and what they have on desks, walls and how those things express their personalities. Look at those two lists below:

Awesome loot	Loot that makes your bad guy real
·      Awesome sword of awesomeness (+5 to being awesome) ·      Dark shield of darkness ·      Screaming dagger of killing mothers-in-law ·      More awesome items which make your players’ characters look like a sparkling exhibition of a sex shop	1.       Basic needs: Some salted meat and an old bread; Bed, table, chair, candles and other stuff like these 2.       Interests: Among books over necromancy: Romances, D-I-Y handbooks, hidden paintings of naked sexy elven women (well, that one fits better in Basic needs above, doesn't it?) 3.       Look what YOU have in your room

I think you have got my point. Those are really easy things to add and they do not make characters more powerful in any way. Next time your players will know that Andrew is a human and has to eat and sleep just like their characters and he is not just a spawn.

Furthermore, if you want to put a little more afford in Andrew’s story, you can prepare some letters (not extremely well-built – they can just begin with “How are you?”), notes over his researches and similar hand-written supplements. This way, besides eating and sleeping, you show your players that the villain is set in the world – he/she has friends, things to do, work which he/she had been doing just before the moment when PCs attacked him.

Think this way: This stuff does not take much time but it can make another facet of your play more real.