Star Crossed Musing

Leaving last session's dinner party, the group heads back to the Citadel for a quick regroup and identity change before leaping forward in time. They return to London in May 1930 at a swanky party that HRH Prince Edward is attending, where in theory he meets Wallis and her then-husband, Ernest Simpson.  Caroline and Jason keep the same personas, and thus are recognized by the people they met at the weekend in the country. Freda in particular seems very interested in Caroline and invites her to stay at her house, determined to find her a suitable husband and keep her around. Caroline, who is likewise interested in Freda, maintains her cool, keeping the conversation open.  Solomon acts as a photographer at the party, documenting and seeing how the crowd interacts. He's the observer, looking for things that might be out of place.  Micah's persona is very much himself, but as a captain after the WWI who stayed in England. He's a fish out of water a bit, but can p

So after a significant RL hiatus, we picked up at the dinner party, reconvening after tea and rest to embark on the dinner portion of the evening. Things that were learned: 1) Prince Edward is bored and has a roving eye for married women. His relationship with Freda Dudley Howe is waning, and he's getting interested in Lady Thelma Furness. This is as it should be in 1930. 2) Prince Edward thinks that war is awful and should be avoided at any cost. He also thinks he has something to offer England and that the king should be thoroughly in charge, with a lot more power than his father chooses to wield. Also, he really likes Germany. 3) No one has heard of Wallis Simpson. She should be living in London about now with her husband Ernest. and they should meet Prince Edward in a few months at a party in town. 4) None of the women except Lady Anastasia, Lord Mountbatten's wife, seem to have any real affection for their husbands, and Anastasia is much more focused on her life as

In session three, the characters get back to the house and are determined to get back to 1930 and find out where Wallis Simpson is and what exactly is going on. When they talk to Ronnie, however, he flatly reminds them that they have to stay with him until the recalibration is done and get him back to the Citadel. So they set up in the house and start the waiting game. About 20 minutes in, they realize that on the same corner they met Eddie and Reg earlier, they can see the barkeep standing about nervously. He seems to be looking for something -- or someone. Caroline is tempted to go out and see what he wants, but everyone else says no. Jason says he looks like bait, waiting to ID someone, and everyone agrees it's probably them. Instead they decide to spread out throughout the house and keep an eye out. Ronnie is trying to get through things as fast as he can (holed up in the first-floor bathroom) but he realizes he's having trouble syncing the time resonances -- almost lik

The group goes to the pub to get something to eat. The pub is rundown — not much business. A couple of locals drinking at the bar, talking to the bartender. Everyone in there is suspicious of a bunch of people coming in. There’s a grease-spotted paper menu on the table with some oddly German-seeming foods on the list, along with some more traditional Scots bar food. No flags and such on the walls, just bottles of booze and old pictures and newspaper clippings.  The characters order food (pretzels with mustard and fish& chips) and listens in for a bit. Eventually they make conversation with the barkeep (Solomon tries and fails, while Micah and Jason succeed). They still aren’t sure what’s going on, or even if anything’s going on, but their time-abnormality-senses are going off like crazy. Not long after they get their food, Eddie comes in, panicked, and tells the barkeeper “they got Reg!” Reg, as it turns out, is Reggie, Eddie’s older brother. They are both the sons of the ba

So not having run a game in a few years, but wanting to design a couple of Gumshoe hacks, I decided some time back that when our bi-weekly Monday gaming group hit the end of the most recent Promethean story (run by Matt) that I would throw my hat in the ring to run the next game. I really wanted to do Bookhounds of London (a take on Trail of Cthulhu ). The group agreed, albeit with some misgivings, but the more I sat with it, the more I realized that it just wasn't the right group for what I wanted to do with that game -- don't be a Book History scholar and run an evil books game for laymen, is what it basically boils down to. I'd spend my time excited over paper types and whatnot, and they'd be -- well, not as enthused, by and large. So instead I took that back and suggested running TimeWatch, and the idea was met with approval. We generated characters and then last week had our first session, albeit a slightly short one. Characters The characters are as

 I am home from Gen Con 2018! *falls over* *sleeps* *writes this post* Okay, so Gen Con was a thing that happened last week. It was huge, pushing 70k unique attendees in a 4 block radius, roughly. Some weirdness happened, which I'm not really going to touch on since a Google search can reveal it, but suffice it to say that Ms. Sarkeesian's presence touched off a wave of fetid attendees who felt their right to be politically icky was being threatened. Overall, though, the con and its attendees were fantastic, and I am thrilled we were able to be there and join together in fun and imagination. So, let's talk about what happened on my trip! First, the swag: The pic above shows the RPGs we bought. Cypher System , Unmasked , and Predation : At Origins we got to play Numenera for the first time, which yes, I know, I'm late to the Monte Cook Games party. I really enjoyed it, and as a result, when I found myself in the Monte Cook booth at Gen Con, we walked away