Therefore, why do my players keep asking for more games ?
For my storytelling.
I believe that a game maser is more than simply an enforcer of the rules of the game,
more than a combat organizer : I think a game master is a storyteller : He writes a
scenario in which the players evolve.
Notice the use of the word "evolve". My campaigns are nothing but boring : my
players are forced to evolve in a mysterious environment where every single decision they
make will have consequences in the future.
For example, in James Bond ( Which I ran for a period of close to 2 years, once per
week ), my players rarely got the chance to kill the enemies who would keep coming back to
haunt them. Eventually, the sum of new and old enemies leaded to a mega adventure where
the characters where forced to re-make some of their past choice and face the consequence.
My Dungeon @ Dragon and Vampire:the masquerade generally involved the characters in
their daily lives, trying to attain their long term goals. In one of my Vampire campaigns,
it meant protecting a human scientist while fighting the Sabbath.
Therefore, when I found Kult, a game with an Infiniti of future, where even the Death
of a character can be a beginning, I dropped every single other RPG to concentrate on it.
I now have been running a regular campaign for more than a year, with my players following
a constant evolution.
My campaign started modestly, with only a few players, but the number of players grew
with time, reaching, last June 13th a total of 6 characters.
Here is a brief description of each characters. Please take note that during the
Taroticum adventure, the five of the characters became Mage ( one per lore ) due to a
modification I made in the scenario. One of these characters ( The Dream mage )recently
retired and his player is now plying Shon ( see below ). :
- John Kelly : lore of Death
An ex-military, he was officially in the
- Raymond Greene: lore of Time and Space
A librarian. Rationalist, I think he blocked
every single occult experience he lived since he started playing.
In fact, he is the Time and Space mage in the sense that he was forced to learn spells,
gained magical intuition and
learn a little of the Time and Space lore : he refuses to built a temple, or even
acknowledge that magic exists
- Jack Knife : lore of Madness
Jack has two personalities. When he takes his little
blue pills that his doctor gave him ( a servant of Malkuth... )
he has enhanced Awareness, he sees creatures in their true form,he is stable, and has a
low mental balance
When he doesn't take his pills, he is schizophrenic, he has hallucinations, he is
unstable, and has an extremely low mental balance
Add the fact that he is a martial artist, that he is introverted and that he grew up in a
mental institution, and you get a very crooked
characters. To add a little twist, he is also a painter, and paints the reality as he sees
it. Lictors buys portraits he made of them
in their true form. Therefore, he has a living standard of 10.
- Eliza Davidson : lore of Passion
An exotic dancer. She owns a dancing class. In the
Taroticum scenario, she learned Passion Magic from Christopher himself, and
helped him become a women to give birth to the child of magic. To thank her in helping
Christopher become Christine, Rhianna and
Selenna's sect accepted her as a member.
Eliza is the member of the group who is the most anxious to learn her lore. She is also,
consequently, the most advanced.
- Female FBI Agent ( Liz Harper if I remember ) : future lore of Dream Mage
This
character is new. She is played by the girlfriend of the player who plays Eliza. She is an
FBI agent, and just recently joined the group by a dream she made.
- Shon, a Siddartha Monk:
The campaign started with the 2nd edition introductory scenario.
However, the characters kept two things after the adventure: Robert Bullis's office,
and Shiko Sukeban's card. But, after they made their phone call, the card went blank.
From time to time, the card would show information that would guide them in the
illusion by, for example, revealing corrupt people (who were actually lictors). One day,
they even visited Judge Harrington.
Eventually, after a lot of questioning, they manage to learn quite a lot about lictors,
but only about lictors: they didn't even know about Archons, the demiurge, Death angels,
Inferno, or even Magic.
Taroticum
When the characters thought they knew enough (Since they knew a lot about lictors, they
didn't know they didn't know a lot), I threw them in the Taroticum scenario.
But I modified it a bit. I added the fact that each of the five episode centered on a
lore would give one of them partial knowledge of that lore (and magical intuition).
I also added some other hints.
The characters, at first, weren't really sure what an Archon was, so imagine their
surprise when they learned about Death Angels.
After the Taroticum, they got a little pause during which they explored their lore.
They either got the opportunity to contact someone, or were contacted by someone.
In the beginning of the campaign, Shiko Sukeban had told them that they had a destiny
to accomplish, and that it would be revealed in time.
Their destiny revealed
Later, after the Taroticum scenario, they met Mrs. Nakamura. She told them that the
Taroticum gave them a special power, but that she couldn't tell them what yet. She also
told them their destiny : each of them, one day will hold one of the seven keys that will
unlock the gates protecting the Iron Book.
She told them that humanity was in a prison (they kind of had figured that out by
now...) and that one day, they would give the iron book to Tipareth, and Tipareth, with
it, would free humanity.
The characters therefore started to try to gain an understanding of their key (they
only know about the 6 first keys: they don't know about Voodoo yet), in order to one day
liberate humanity by giving the book to Tipareth.
They proceeded, therefore, to learn heir lore and their key, while fighting their
enemies.
On June 13th, after a pause in the campaign caused by my lack of time, another
adventure occurred which gave the campaign a 180-degree turn.
Other interesting notes
Here are changes and interpretations I made to the Kult universe:
- Only humans can reincarnate, since only them were once gods. Once dead, a lictor is
dead, it doesn't come back.
- Due to their divine nature, it is impossible to read the thought and memories of humans.
Emotions can be read, but not memories. It is however, possible to spy on dreams. Also, a
nepharite can read fears, and this is why they are so needed in Inferno.
- Finally, I divided events in two types: temporal and permanent :
- A temporal event is limited in time: if you move back in time, not only are you before
it, but you can prevent if from happening.
- A permanent event however isn't like that: once it happened, it cannot be undone by time
travel.
Therefore, A human who awakens, becomes awakened in all timelines: if you move
back in time, it is impossible to come back to a time when he is not awakened.
The same principle applies for the death of an Archon. Even if the date of the event is
known, and the cause is also known, if you undo the cause, the Archon will still be dead.
Plus, if you move back in time, it's lictors (who are not permanent) will obey him, but
the Archon will still not be there.
This concept is hard to grasp, but it is the goal.
June 13th : A new Direction
After a pause of a few months in Gaming, due to lack of time on the part of the Reality
Master, there was a Game on June 13th.
A new player was introduced in the campaign, and a player changed his character.
Start with a dream
Liz Harper woke up with a dream in which she saw the death of a stranger. When she woke
up , she saw the dream repeating, so she went to the area where the death occurred to
prevent it from happening.
Here is the what happened :
In the office of the other characters, Liz arrived explaining a woman would come in and
kill John Kelly and she was there to prevent that.
Unfortunately, she failed, and the stranger ( John Kelly ) died by a bullet inflicting
a fatal wound to the head. The lady dropped the gun and the gun transformed itself into a
ringing cellular phone. She left saying "Death is only the beginning"
Jack Knife answered the phone : "Quick, leave the building by the stairs, NOT THE
ELEVATOR, get into the bus and leave your dead friend there, your life is in danger. And
ignore the man in Armor in the hallway... leave now!" ( PS : They have the only
occupied office of their level ).
They saw a man in the hallway in a traditional Japanese Kendo armor, which completely
hides his body. He entered in their office after they left. The last one to leave
down the stairs was Jack Knife ( Being an expert at dodging, he generally finishes the
line ), he saw, coming out of the elevator a group of five individuals, two of which being
Razides.
Everybody ran down the stairs, and they saw, downstairs, a group of 6 individuals
entering the elevator, Jack Knife spotting one as a razide.
Outside a bus was waiting for them. They entered, the driver didn't say a thing. The
light was red. When it went green, they saw the man in the Japanese armor leaving the
building. Less than 90 seconds had elapse since they left their office.
In the woods
The bus left them in the middle of an empty opening in a wood, and they left the bus
which left.
Behind it, the woman who killed John Kelly was standing, empty handed. Several
characters wanted to kill her, but with her commanding voice, she got enough time to give
them a file in which, she says, there is enough information to bring John Kelly back to
life. She said that she saved their lives since they were about to get killed. The player
who play John Kelly said : "Isn't it ironic, she prevented our enemies from killing
me, by killing me before they had a chance to do so". She also injected a liquid in
Raymond Greene's skull.
A car and a minivan arrived on the scene, but they were both empty. The woman gave them
the minivan and left in the car.
Peter Pricket and John Kelly's purgatory
In the file, they was two sealed envelopes marked "Do not open until it is
time". There was also informations on Peter Pricket, the most powerful purgatory
death mage of the east coast.
They went to see him, and after talking he explained that John was in the Veteran of
War purgatory ( see the Purgatory sourcebook ). He said he needed a diversion, a person
looking similar to John Kelly, but with a positive mental balance ( Of course, these were
not the words used ).
The other players proceeded without questions, and soon Exchange souls was performed,
without the players realizing the consequences.
This segment is very brief, even thought it took about an hour to accomplish : There
was the search for the new body, the spell itself, the discussion, etc... But you can
imagine easily how it went.
The first envelope please...
Once John Kelly was back, Peter Pricket was exhausted and lost consciousness. The
players were left wondering what to do, when they figured out that maybe it was time to
open one of the envelopes. In it, even thought it seemed empty from the exterior, was the
key to an airport locker.
They went to the airport, to pick up what was in it : five airplanes tickets to Burma,
five fake passports ( Including one for John Kelly's new face, and one for Liz Harper ),
and a letter asking them to take the airplane to Burma. The letter was signed : Tipareth.
Burma
(Note, the game continued, but I still haven't had time to type it yet, so please be
patient.
I will also include, here, other ideas I have for the future.