Interviewing the Fans #1

[JLV]

Now that's something I'd like to hear more about!

[zot]

Originally Posted by bergec

TFT has proven so versatile that the older group I play with uses it for a variety of pickup games as well as long-term campaigns. We've done several Wild West games, a send-up of Jurassic Park, an annual Christmas game based on the Rankin & Bass Christmas specials, and a game set during the Vietnam war. My favorite, though, was a Lovecraftian horror game set in Victorian London which started as a one-shot but turned into a seven year long campaign because we fell in love with our characters, the unlikely pair Sir Andrew Hope-Davies and Inspector Matthew Mulgrew. The unique aspects of TFT magic definitely lent a distinctive feel to the game and I was surprised at how little we needed to tweak to make it work for the setting.

Originally Posted by JLV

Now that's something I'd like to hear more about!

Yes, please talk a little more about the Lovecraftian game. Did sanity come into play? What kinds of things did the horrors do? How did you handle resisting fear?

[bergec]

Originally Posted by zot

Yes, please talk a little more about the Lovecraftian game. Did sanity come into play? What kinds of things did the horrors do? How did you handle resisting fear?

We didn't have a sanity system. Occasionally, we'd have to make an IQ roll for shock or fear when something really terrifying. Most of the horror came from the tension of threats to the well-developed setting. By the end of the campaign, we both had spouses and children, making the things we faced even more stressful. We lost a lot of friends over the course of the game and each loss hit us hard.

Some of the stuff we dealt with were: fragments of a mirror which warped the minds of those who gazed into it and allowed them to become possessed by otherworldly entities; a scroll containing the ritual to summon the Egyptian god Set; a group of powerful vampires operating a "feeding house" containing kidnapped indigents; a war with magic-wielding goblins dwelling deep beneath the city; ghouls feeding on corpses in the London sewers who occasionally would get a taste for living flesh; the Fair Folk; and a number of dangerous artifacts purloined from the British Museum. That's just a sampling.

Both of were recruited into an organization called the Order of St. Cyprian, a pseudo-Masonic lodge of gentleman wizards tasked with protecting the empire from supernatural threats. A fair amount of the stuff we dealt with was rogue members of the Order or their artifacts falling into the wrong hands. One of the most popular spells in the order was Summon Demon and corruption of members was a constant threat.

[zot]

Originally Posted by bergec

We didn't have a sanity system. Occasionally, we'd have to make an IQ roll for shock or fear when something really terrifying. Most of the horror came from the tension of threats to the well-developed setting. By the end of the campaign, we both had spouses and children, making the things we faced even more stressful. We lost a lot of friends over the course of the game and each loss hit us hard.

Some of the stuff we dealt with were: fragments of a mirror which warped the minds of those who gazed into it and allowed them to become possessed by otherworldly entities; a scroll containing the ritual to summon the Egyptian god Set; a group of powerful vampires operating a "feeding house" containing kidnapped indigents; a war with magic-wielding goblins dwelling deep beneath the city; ghouls feeding on corpses in the London sewers who occasionally would get a taste for living flesh; the Fair Folk; and a number of dangerous artifacts purloined from the British Museum. That's just a sampling.

Both of were recruited into an organization called the Order of St. Cyprian, a pseudo-Masonic lodge of gentleman wizards tasked with protecting the empire from supernatural threats. A fair amount of the stuff we dealt with was rogue members of the Order or their artifacts falling into the wrong hands. One of the most popular spells in the order was Summon Demon and corruption of members was a constant threat.

Sounds fantastic!