Well what a crazy month May has been! This blog is being written as the cosmic outpost is in transit through the dimensions to the UK Games Expo. But that event will have it’s own special blog! This one is about the regular bits the blog covers starting with the May image which depicts a young pulp hero about to swing across a ravine. The idea was to have the hero on a single rope swinging across two sides of the cliff with maybe some danger below. Sadly I couldn’t even get our hero to have two arms which is why one arm is behind a rock and I had to forget about him in action. Instead a I have a hero in a tangle of ropes doing… something! Better luck next time!
Productions
So with everything focused on Chaosiumcon production work this month was planning the tech for the live games to be played. You see when people get together in person there is an odd tendency for them to have fun whilst they play their game – funny I know! So we can forgive participants for not speaking slowly and clearly into the microphone! Then add to that the reactions of a live audience to make the game recording louder and more fun but also covering what the players are saying. Part of the creative process is overcoming these obstacles… with as many microphones as possible! We had 5 dynamic mics on stands which should be the main source of audio but they only work if players talk into them. So we need a general area microphone which was on the Keeper’s desk and that has enough range to get the players too as they tend to speak towards the keeper and therefore the general area mic. And finally I added a boom mic into the mix pointing at the keeper which was mainly so we have some audio going into the video mixer to have a track with which to sync the other mics. I think the final mix will be a mixture of all of the audio captured. Yes we had radios available but they were not used as there were not enough inputs and much as I’d like one, I’m not buying a mixing desk for the odd occasion where so many inputs are needed.
Games
The orient express steams on and we have reached Belgrade. No female NPCs with missing fathers meeting the players but a wonderful market and fortune teller before a high tension fight then a more relaxed trip on a train to a town near a fairy tale type forest. Then, as in all campaign games we had some folks who couldn’t make the session so when this happens we run a one shot that a Keeper knows they can run in a single session, you recall we played unland. So first up was me to run The Hammersmith Haunting, this is a fun Gaslight Adventure that I’ve run for the Miskatonic Playhouse which has some really nice role-playing moments as they must deal with ghost hunters, wiley inn keepers and a dead vicar! The great thing is that whilst the story beat are the same for each time I run this, the players are all unique and create their own story. The next one shot we played was called “My little sister wants you to suffer” where we a stranded on a space station with mutants roaming trying to kill us. A nice little mechanic in this game is that we all have lost our memory and as we move about the station, certain events trigger us to remember something. I can’t say I was keen on the ending but others had fun so another good session.
The Mexico chapter of the Trail of Cthulhu campaign Eternal Lies wrapped up with a bang which was a pleasant surprise as the amount of cultists we faced at one point had me worried. Top tip to remember, investigators that carry dynamite in Call of Cthulhu or Trail of Cthulhu live to fight another day! And with the Eternal Lies crew I had the opportunity to take them through a play test of a… well I can’t say too much but it’s another great setting for mythos investigators to explore and shoot unfortunate robbers dead with a blunder bust!
The extra parts of what happened in May will be in the Chaosiumcon Blog and another Blog about the UK Games Expo and of course the Fast Talk for June will include all the wonderful people I met at these events. June ahead will be a rest for sure! Not sure what the June image will be for us as I’m in between dimensions so we’ll find out on the next blog. Thanks for reading and we’ll roll or sanity again soon!