Session Report: Beneath the Full Moon
Well the 16th has come and gone, as did our game of Beneath the Full Moon with me as first-time Host. As promised, here's my session write-up! I also have some observations/tips/ideas/brainwaves, which I'll post immediately after.
Spoiler Note: This is a full session report for
Beneath the Full Moon, the first scenario in the Dread core book. If you anticipate playing through it in the future, please stop now -- there are spoilers even in the character descriptions.
Cast of Characters:
Chad (Economics): A cold-hearted fellow who killed his parents for his inheritance, and abuses oxy and cocaine to overcome his "physical limitations." Since I sent out the questions in rolling sets, I was able to tweak later ones after getting answers for earlier ones: The guide dumped his oxy supply (not his beer), and I had him give me oxy withdrawal symptoms AND an unexpected benefit of that withdrawal. Result? A restless, jumpy psychopath with occasional hallucinations... but a hyper-alert, light sleeper.
Chantal (Philosophy): Aside from being the sharpest and most rational of them all (CON: wouldn't believe in the supernatural even when glowing red eyes were staring her in the face), she was a cake decorator by trade (PROs: steadiest hands in the group---icing is finnicky work). Had a crippling fear of water, which was... well, crippling
Crystal, pronounced "Cri-STAHL" (Fashion Design): A lazy, whiny, leather-clad princess, convinced that she'd be saved by the throngs of people sure to miss her absence. Cared not a whit for the group, but did take a motherly liking to the Freshman. Her "MOST useful member of the group" question gave her an unexpected background in hunting---she got into fashion quite unexpectedly, by hunting, skinning and tanning her own leather.
Darryl (Freshman): Player loved knowing the werewolf secret, so I was happy to arm him with a silver pendant, which turned out great in the climax. Considered geology/archaeology as majors, and read Darwin's "Origin of Species" 20 times, so I fed a lot of information about the beast and the canyon through him. Fierce independent streak, so I had him make pulls whenever people disagreed with him to avoid him going off on his own in a huff.
Eric (Engineering): (Formerly "Casey", but I vetoed a fourth C-name for my own sanity.) Became a chemical engineer to go into vengeful chemical weapons manufacturing (!) after his father was wounded in Desert Storm. Blew off a project dealing with phosphorous to go on the trip, so he got to do some fun things with those flares. Paranoid of strangers and suspected everyone else in the group (PRO: better able to spot sneaky shenanegans of others). Hated insects and was afraid of the dark (PRO: driven to keep that fire going!)---more fun phobias!
Session Report:
This may be one of the shortest run-throughs of Beneath the Full Moon, because of the time crunch I mentioned above, people showing up late, and the fact that the first scene was so damn slow.
Before I got a feel for the pacing of the game, I asked for too many pulls in the opening scene (e.g. check the guide, stabilize the guide, keep your cool, search his tent for the backpack, create a stretcher, carry the stretcher, avoid injury on the rocks, avoid dropping the guide...). When you multiply many of those pulls by the 5 players making them, I quickly noticed two problems. First, the game was draaaaaaagging: a wounded guide and an empty campsite does not an hour's entertainment make. Second, I found myself ramping up to a treacherous tower before they'd even hit the rafts: Chad knocked it over while carrying the guide down the path. Unwilling to let him out of the game this early, I shattered his leg and made him Dead Man Painfully Limping. He'd play an instrumental part in the story, which I've learned is
the redeeming feature of the initially-unappealing "Dead Man Walking" rule.
Taking advantage of the release of tension following the tower collapse, I bamfed them into the rafts and onto the river without many more pulls, setting them up for some easy rapids with a fairly stable tower. (I introduced them to the stalking wolf the minute they hit the river, because the game had gone far too long without the beast turning up.) But as I switched to my second playlist (Playlist 1: "Isolation", Playlist 2: "Dread", Playlist 3: "Panic" <-- very useful divisions!) and turned up some rapids sound effects, the atmosphere got a little too intense for "easy rapids." So, out came the crazy pull-fest: Pull to avoid capsize! Now everyone pull to avoid going overboard! Now pull to avoid losing your pack! To avoid vomiting! To not break an oar! To avoid losing broken-legged Chad! ... Now, raft two, repeat!
Amazingly, EVERYBODY made EVERY pull, never declining, and the tower was teetering by the time they were out. They
all risked death to avoid
sea-sickness. I must have scored 20 pulls out of the rapids alone.
Looking at the time, I realized the game was running long. So, I quickly accelerated to a Friday-night climax: I had the wolf appear on the opposite side of the rapids, scaring them with its impossible ability to keep pace, and offered Chantal the Philosopher
(with the map/compass) a pull to find a good campsite, where they built a fire with a flare. Amazingly, despite Chad and I both making no secret of it, no one noticed Chad's shattered leg had apparently healed all on its own. I didn't even offer them a pull to notice this, since I was all but telling them for free, and besides, you can't buy this sort of "gotcha" foreshadowing. Chad and Daryll spooned with the guide in a tent to keep him warm (aww) while Eric and Chantal took the other tent. Princess Crystal took first watch... which was a terrible, terrible mistake, since she promptly declined the pull to stay awake.
The result? "Fight Around the Bonfire" begins with everyone asleep in their tents, and Crystal asleep on a stump in the middle of the camp site. I cackled, and Crystal... oh, poor Crystal.
I changed my playlist to "Panic", made some (remarkably Werewolf-sounding) Lion noises with my speakers, and terrified Princess Crystal by regailing her with how completely exposed and unconscious she was. I even positioned myself over the teetering tower so she couldn't look away from it; I hoped she was deciding which of her limbs was her favorite.
Even though I fully expected to take Epidiah's advice against running "round-by-round" combat, this scene fell quite naturally into it just given the dynamics of things, so pardon the detail I go into as I think it's a nice counter-example of how it can work in chaotic situations (i.e. not where everyone's surrounding something and whacking it with sticks). Starting with the Werewolf, everyone got a free action, and they could pull for each additional action (e.g. you can grab your knife, leave your tent, OR pull to do both).
Round 1
Werewolf: Makes a beeline for Crystal, who's still asleep. I offered her four pulls: Wake + React + Dodge Full Hit + Avoid Side-Swipe. She made three of them, taking a brutal "Savage Shoulder Gash" major injury complication from that side-swipe.
Crystal, in the open: Declines a pull to avoid panicking, and already had a "Haunted By Blood" psychological complication, so she was on the verge of snapping. She did little more than crab-walk away from the beast, sobbing and weeping, as it vaulted off the cliff face, came full-circle, and bore down on her again. Everyone else?
Still asleep in their comfy tents!
Daryll, in the guide-sandwich with Chad: He wanted to wake up, leap from that tent, and hurl his silver pendant at the beast. I offered five pulls: Wake + Exit Tent + Grab Pendant + Throw Pendant + Telling Blow. But I stopped him as he went for his "Exit Tent" pull, and offered him an immediate pull to "notice something." I was CERTAIN he wouldn't take it, given the three/four pulls ahead of him and the ridiculously tall tower, but he DID, and noticed something... BEHIND him.
Chad: It was
Chad---frothing-at-the-mouth Chad, with red eyes, standing on an unbroken leg, lunging for Daryll's neck. Ooops! Dead Werewolf No-Longer-Limping! (Must have caught something from the guide's blood...) Daryll abandons his original plan, pulling to dodge Chad-wolf instead, careening out of the tent and into the open. Now there are two werewolves in our "round-by-round" combat. Huzzah!
Chantal, in the tent with Eric: She pulled to wake up and grab her combat knife. Her questionnaire described her as unrelentingly rational, so I demanded she make a pull before she'd believe she was facing anything other than a big animal seasoned with hallucinations brought on by exposure and/or exhaustion. She declined, so was happy (relatively speaking) with stainless steel against this "rabid grizzly."
Eric: He pulls to wake up and grab the flare gun.
(Both Eric and Chantal declined to pull to leave the tent.)
Round 2
Werewolf: Poor Crystal; she's still the only one in the werewolf's sights! Another three pulls: Shake Off Panic + Dodge + Avoid Side-Swipe. She declined the first, but made the other two. I swear we must have been at about 40 pulls by now. My "Panic" playlist was not helping their nerves.
Chad-wolf: Pursues Daryll out of the tent and lunges at him again, trying to grapple him. Daryll declines to pull to dodge (after I confirmed it was a grapple attempt---Chad-wolf was trying to protect his master and, as a not-quite-werewolf-yet, he lacked those lethal teeth and claws). Daryll gets tangled up in Chad-wolf, this time with no guide between them.
Crystal: Declines ANOTHER pull to avoid panicking, making it her third. Three strikes, you snap: She scrambled to her feet and fled headlong into the brush. I immediately asked her if she was stealing a raft: She answered yes, so I wrote her a note saying she had ... survived! (I have a soft spot for selfish princesses in horror movies; they have an unfairly high death rate for their crimes.)
Daryll: Grappling with Chad-wolf, he wanted to shove that silver pendant down Chad-wolf's throat. It took him three pulls (Resist Grapple + Grab Pendant + Down the Gullet), and Chad-wolf's throat exploded. Typical zombie-movie logic applied as to why explosive head-gore did not infect Daryll.
Chantal: A bit of a Jenga-show-off, this one. I offered her four pulls, on a tower that was almost as tall as she was: Exit Tent + Get to Wolf + Hit Wolf + Telling Blow, despite (as a player) knowing it would do little harm. She makes them all, and our werewolf takes his first real injury: A six-inch serrated blade neatly impaling one blood-red eye. Of course, this just makes him angry, and now the biological equivalent of a freight train is bearing down on Chantal and, directly behind her, the tent still housing Eric.
Eric: In a PERFECTLY climactic moment, his knowledge of phosphorous comes to the fore as he recalls that flares also include silver nitrate (do they? hell if I know). He takes his "free" action to leave the tent, then actually rolls his eyes at the tower before announcing his heroic sacrifice: charging the one-eyed, one-knifed werewolf and jamming that flare down its throat (still wide open, screaming in pain---1 pt. assist from Chantal... GOAL!). CRASH goes the tower, Eric looses his arm and most of his torso, and the werewolf's upper body explodes in molten red and orange fire, to match the brightening sunrise on the horizon.
And that's that! All-in-all, a fun ride...
with the exception of the first scene---my criticisms of which, I think, would also apply to many of the scenes I left out due to the time crunch. (I
call them criticisms, but as I'm a first-time Host, I think a lot of these concerns will evaporate as I find my sea legs.)
CRITICISMS/CONCERNS
(Specific to Beneath the Full Moon)
- I found a lot of scenes seemed to beg for more pulls than they were "worth" in terms of the fear they'd instill or plot they'd advance. Pulls dragged out these scenes, and delayed the introduction of some truly frightening themes (the beast). Of course one can cut some of the pulls, but I'm talking specifically about scenes where a lot has to happen that really should require a pull.
Take the opening scene, where the guide is discovered and carried back to the rafts. You've got psychological pulls, pulls to stabilize the guide, pulls to build a stretcher, pulls to carry him back over the rocky terrain, pulls to secure him into the raft... all with very little "dread" beyond what the players know immediately upon hearing the introduction: guide is incapacitated, we're screwed. Throw in even a bit of interpersonal conflict over leadership and, unless it involves ALL of the players, you're going to have some people getting restless for something to happen.
- I also found a lot of the listed scenes were repetitive in tone: "You see a wolf." "You think you see a beast." "You think you hear a beast." "You think you hear a splash." My motive for shortening the game was time crunch, but I think it was better for it: opening scene, one set of rapids with the stalking wolf on either side, then right into a Friday night (not Saturday night) climax. I think the scenario would benefit from some more variety: perhaps seeing evidence of a campsite from a distance, only to discover it's been torn to pieces; or multiple werewolves, with an emphasis (in the questionnaires or scenario) on splitting up the group.
Question
One thing I had difficulty with was in fitting the story/roleplay in between the pulls: So much of it was "make three pulls: one to do this, another to do this, and a third to do this. ok you succeed and now you need to pull to do this, and ok, and now you need to..." It was almost as if narration/roleplay had to
interrupt the game -- a "wait, let's roleplay what just happened" sort of thing. Any advice on how to knit the pulling/roleplaying together a bit more tightly?