"She Cried Mauve!" - CHA'ALT Campaign 3.8

 

Another wild ride of a session that saw two distinct adventuring parties in parallel universes.  Lots of threads got tied together, exposition fell out of people's butts, and hilarity ensued!

Yes, that's a real "Like A Fucking Boss" desk name-plate.  It suits me and our Cha'alt game.

The "core 4" were in attendance... the half-orc warrior H'ork, Bandersnatch the blue-suede elf sorcerer, Thurberus the v'smm death-cult priest, and Tinker the pixie-fairy thief.  I banged the gong, and let the starting notes of southern darkness and desolation from Danzig's "Black Hell" play as I voiced the Cha'alt intro.  Now, it starts...

We began with the Purple Bastards in their purple Cha'alt dimension, except for the "normal" Bandersnatch who'd traded places with his dimension-brother last session.  After discussing what had happened, H'ork wasn't sure about this new not-purple sorcerer.  Realizing that his anti-purple bigotry might be a problem as the others wondered aloud just how much they could trust a stranger who looked and acted very much like their own Bandersnatch, but wasn't.  The sorcerer thought about entering the purple labyrinth just to see if it was possible to switch back, then the PCs heard and saw thunderous lightning coming from a cave up ahead.  That distracted them enough to temporarily put aside their reservations about adventuring with this non-purple "imposter."

Oh, I should also mention a few things before they checked-out that lightning storm cave - Bandersnatch (both of them) can nebulously feel the presence of the other.  Not enough to communicate, but they're vaguely aware of their counterpart.  

Another thing is Bandersnatch's turquoise helm.  The gift he received from Cholak, the PCs' patron who turned out to betray them.  It fractured during the fight with those giant slugs and broke apart when removed from the sorcerer's head.  The helm's purpose was to focus magical energy of the wearer, but its final task was to nullify the poison in his veins.

Last of all, I told the players to come up with at least one difference between their normal characters and their purple counterparts - H'ork is 1/4th crustacean, feistier, more chaotic, and an anti-purple bigot.  Bandersnatch has Tiny Danzig (see below), more chaos aligned with an eyepatch because one of his eyes was gouged in a knife fight.  Thurberus' mask was made of a purple metal and is magnetic, his suicide cult is more of a cargo cult based on this shake-weight device he carries with him - do you practice the mystic arts of tantric shake-weightism?"  Also, he's more benevolent.  Tinker can turn into a 2-inch earthworm instead of a full-blown sandworm.

Tinker checked-out the cave and saw Kurva'ak's sorcerer in meditation upon a prayer rug, lightning buzzing all around him.  Checking for traps, Tinker noticed a spherical shield of magic surrounding the sorcerer.  Bandersnatch cast dispel magic on it, Tinker went to backstab, H'ork sliced off his hand, and Thurberus (being a kinder, gentler priest) used his golden shield to body-check the sorcerer into the cave wall as he was running away while complaining that now he's only got one hand to masturbate with.

Getting knocked-out and tied-up, the PCs questioned him.  The sorcerer decided to switch sides and gave away the warlord's plan - Kurva'ak wants to use the plasma core to blow apart the gigantic stone doorway separating them from a Great Old One named Igg-Yig-Yatha'ak, also known as the dark effulgence.  Kurva'ak has an amulet with an ultra-telluric glyph upon it that has been "activated" or "attuned" in order to control that ancient god.  Although, the sorcerer (Zerlin) wasn't sure the ritual was correct - he was guestimating.  But if the amulet didn't help Kurva'ak control the Old One, his fallback plan was to let it ravage the desert as he and his men plundered, raped, and pillaged the settlements and cities devastated by the ensuing chaos

The cave was criss-crossed with veins of ulfire, a rare Cha'alt mineral.  Valuable stuff, if the PCs had a way of mining it.  Bandersnatch got himself a wand of lighting with 11 charges.  Zerlin was untied and stayed with the PCs in the background, in case his services were needed.

Moving on, they came to cave with deep jale cavities (another rare Cha'alt mineral) that somehow manifested a half-dozen dreamlike women of rare form.  Kurva'ak's mistress was also there, but she was a bitch - telling the PCs that they looked like flunkies and her warlord master would kick their ass if they didn't fall in line.  Both she and the PCs called for the guard who took Secra away, leaving the adventurers with the lovely dream women.  One of them led Thurberus to a discrete cave towards the back.  Luckily, Tinker flew behind at a distance to make sure the priest was alright.

Turns out, he wasn't.  That dream woman's skin hardened, cracked, and opened - revealing a slimy green humanoid thing underneath with tendrils that attached themselves to Thurberus and almost sucked the life out of him.  Tinker slashed at the tendrils, waking the priest up so he could take out his blaster and send that green slime thing back to Hell.  

Meanwhile, Bandersnatch and H'ork were watching the other girls put on a show... until Tinker ruined it with the unfortunate revelation that these girls were not what they seemed to be.  H'ork dispatched one or two and the rest fled.

Next, the PCs came to the main cave where Kurva'ak and his 9 minions were about to remotely trigger the plasma core to destroy the transdimensional door in the middle of the cave.  Bandersnatch used his psionic ability to disrupt the timing device.  That means someone would have to set it off by pushing the button themselves.  Bandersnatch himself volunteered, planning on tricking the warlord.

But the warlord anticipated that and sent one of his men to spy on the PCs as they left the cave system.  Sure enough, the PCs turned the plasma core off and placed it in the purple labyrinth as they said hi to their musician friend who'd finished with Purple African Child and was still working on Purple Haze With A Bit More Purple In It.

Once the spy saw this and told Kurva'ak, they came back to face these intruders.  As the feat implied, H'ork mowed them down with his sword.  "With a rebel yell," H'ork charged the warlord's minions.  That, of course, led to someone mentioning the Billy Idol song, and then I found it on YouTube and played it during the fight, but not before H'ork's player asking me if mauve was a type of purple, and I said it was.  "With a rebel yell... she cried mauve, mauve mauve!  In the midnight hour... she cried mauve, mauve, mauve - mauve, mauve, mauve!"  

Maybe you had to be there, but I laughed long and hard over that one, awarding him a purple stone for Divine Favor - why is it purple, rather than fuchsia, and what does that mean?  Well, as I'm thinking about it now, something purple will happen when he spends that point of Divine Favor.  Only time will tell exactly what's in store...

Also, purple-Bandersnatch named his little demon familiar Tiny Danzig, which also warranted Divine Favor, in my opinion.

Then it was time for a duel - just Kurva'ak vs the half-orc warrior.  Each hit for ridiculous amounts of damage - Kurva'ak had a sword of ulfire and another forged with jale and used them both against H'ork.  As the ultra-telluric blade's damage is tumescent, whenever Divine Favor was used, I allowed the player to role the potential future die (usually a d8) for additional exploding damage.  The half-orc was down to single-digit HP when his final massive strike decapitated the warlord.

Taking the amulet, they were still discussing what to do next when I thought this the appropriate time to pause the timeline happening in the purple dimension.  Restarting with the Crimson Bastards + purple-Snatch, the PCs realized they'd be much stronger if they got Ura'az-Vethun back from Simon... and then kill Simon because he's a dick and WAY too powerful to let him be.

They drove the RV for a couple hours before running into Karl, holding up a sign that said, "Hey, I'm Karl."  As the lore dictates, Karl was cloned many times over years ago and there's quite a few of them all over the place.  Asking Karl to pay with gas, grass, or ass, Karl started unbuttoning his pants when they told him to stop.  Their hitch-hiker friend talked about his dismal return on investment from a lemonade stand.  He didn't have any lemons or water, but didn't think that was a big enough hurdle to stop him.  Given the PCs' advice, Karl decided to acquire some lemons, feed them to a sandworm and get lemon-flavored worm wine, instead.

But it turns out, Karl had pipe-weed with him, he just thought the adventurers were talking about ordinary green grass.  Apparently, something strange happened with the cloning process when Karl stepped inside the booth.  It cloned a thousand of him, but they're all kind of dumbasses.

The additional 6 hours of driving went by quickly as the PCs passed-out and woke up right outside The Black Pyramid.   Upon entering, they read the circular room's parchment under glass - which I've read dozens of times over the last six years, and has prompted me to come up with a new one for the next time adventurers traverse The Black Pyramid... maybe it varies by dimension?

BTW, Tinker's player who's newest to the gaming group had never heard the spiel before, and I found his commentary after I'd finished reading to be priceless.  He said, "At no time during that entire thing did I know what was going to come next."  

In any case, they followed what they believed to be sand tracks up to a black triangular room.  And wouldn't you know, but a strangely color-shaped entity floated above the floor.  Tossing stones and blasting holes into it only created windows into forever.  The PCs gazed into it until they saw ultra-telluric glyphs (the encounter literally states that staring at it might impart ultra-telluric knowledge, so I took that, of course, as part of the prophecy).  

They learned that the ultra-telluric glyphs needed a special "translation activator and ritual" in order to use them, and that each glyph corresponded to a specific Great Old One (fun for the whole family, collect them all!).  Once the PCs had absorbed enough exposition, they noticed a secondary exit - a black portal that shone with some of the kaleidoscopic tones from the entity.  Believing that to be a better option than the standard door, they proceeded through the black portal.

They came to a black room with a coral-skinned elf with webbed hands and feet laying in the corner of the room, gutted like a fish.  The elf's blood pooled around him, quietly coagulating.  At the opposite corner was a banana-man rocking back and forth.  Upon approach, the banana-man (named Shento) told the PCs about the handsome man wearing beige robes who attacked and killed him, saying something about revenge.

When the PCs responded with conversation rather than violence, the banana-man opened up about what else he'd heard Simon monolog before the bloodshed started (though, Shento still doesn't know why he took revenge upon the coral-skinned elf).  Apparently, Simon is neither a New God nor one of their avatars.  He is, instead, a 16-year old who stole thousands of dollars from his parents to bribe a tech guy who used to work at the company that developed Cha'alt: The Immersive Computer Virtual Reality Game to make him the most OP, badass character on the entire server.

Before leaving to go to another room with the banana-man as "carrier of unnecessary items" or junk-humper, H'ork wanted to taste Shento's ripeness.  He ate his banana middle-finger knowing that for the next few weeks or even months, whenever he ate or drank something, it would have a banana under-taste.  Since the half-orc warrior loved bananas, he went ahead with it.  And lo, it was delicious.

In the next shiny, smooth, irregular, black room was a black trapezoidal altar at its center.  Driven into the altar was the magic sword they were looking for - Ura'az-Vethun, ablaze with golden flame.  A lone humanoid stood not 5-feet away, holding his arms in front of him.  The humanoid appeared to be a gilded statue.  Naturally, the PCs feared touching the sword.

As they were deciding what to do - whether it would be worth risking the life of an NPC to see if touching the sword surrounded by gold flame - a flash of outrageously puce light startled them as a small group of humanoids fell out of a portal.  These humanoids were very animated, agitated, and with a distinctly puce glaze.

It wasn't until they started giving the PCs direction that the Crimson Bastards realized the puce-hued individuals were themselves from yet another dimension.  "We don't have long to talk, so quickly tell us where you are in your timeline?"

After a smart remark by Tinker (I believe he asked what was currently happening in their timeline), The Puce Bastards told them about The Hive - Nexus, destabilization of the Federation, and a banana-shaped dildo shortage on Alpha Blue.  There wasn't a moment to lose, apparently, because the fate of the galaxy was in their hands - having mostly to do with the banana dildo thing.

Before leaving for their puce dimension... puchsia, is that a thing?  Hmm... Anyway, before leaving they told the PCs not to touch the golden flame, and they should go to The Museum within The Black Pyramid and look for a special hammer that could defeat Simon.

Vanishing from sight, but not before asking where they could find the museum, the PCs headed down more rooms, quickly moving through a room full of precog judges accusing a man of trading away an access crystal.  Eventually, they came to Thoth-A'amon.  In this room, he was being attended by a variety of servants and the place was full of hangers-on, clout seekers, sycophants, and cultists - Thurberus, eat your heart out!

Thoth-A'amon, of course, was the revenge target of the half dark-elf, half demon NPC Bela'ak whom they met a few sessions back.  Bela'ak asked the PCs to create a diversion.  The PCs were all too happy to distract the folks inside this room and Bela'ak, lavender light dancing in his eyes, slowly made his way up to the sorcerer-priest who rules this ocho... docho?  Yes, Docho, or 8-room realm or domain - could be 7 or 9, but traditionally 8, and routinely these Docho are used for immersive and hardcore training, learning, and military campaigns.  Yeah, I just made that shit up, FYI, but it sounds cool so that's a thing now.  

I gave Bela'ak Advantage on his attack roll with the obsidian magical staff because he'd been waiting for this moment for a long time.  And if he failed, I also planned on the dark-elf demon using his one-time (for certain, special NPCs) lavender demon-moon die of destiny to finish Thoth-A'amon off.  Turns out, I didn't need any of that.  My first roll was a natural-20.  Bela'ak got real close and said something like, "Thoth-A'amon, you killed those dear to me, and now I shall have my revenge - say 'ello to my little fren!"

Bela'ak blasted him center mass and Thoth-A'amon went up in flame and moments later that fire died to reveal nothing but ashes.  Having completed his chief objective, Bela'ak gave his obsidian staff away to Bandersnatch.  

I can't quite recall if we ended the session there or if they made it to the museum and then ended it.  Either way, that was it for the night.

Saturday, May 10th is our next session.  It's the day before Mother's Day, so hopefully that won't conflict with our gaming schedule.  Thanks for reading - I love comments, so comment, y'all!

Enjoy,

VS

p.s. Want the hardcover Cha'alt trilogy?  Here's how (and they're currently on sale!)!!  Want to join the Kort'thalis mailing list to stay up-to-date on what's going on in the skinematic Vengerverse?  This is it!!  Last but not least, I'm organizing a based-as-fuck RPG convention in Madison, WI this July (Sandy Peterson will be joining us as VENGER CON's Guest of Honor).  Grab your weekend badge for VENGER CON IV: Post-Modern Apocalypse!!!

"Through the Purple Glass" - CHA'ALT Campaign 3.7

 

Today, I offer you a very special session report from our Cha'alt campaign.  Year three, session seven, four players.  In this blog post, I'll describe our breaking the metaverse wall, among other weirdness.  Strap yourselves in for another wild ride, hoss.  

FYI, new Kickstarter launching the end of this coming week, so watch the blog for an announcement... soon!

The players are H'ork, Bandersnatch, Thurberus, and Tinker.  H'ork just reached 3rd level and so picked-out a new old-school feat from Cha'alt Ascended (now, included in Advanced Crimson Dragon Slayer).  He chose "mow them down" which allows him to immediately attack a nearby opponent after felling a previous opponent.  Tinker stayed 3rd level, but Bandersnatch (who now has an orange ooze as a familiar which he named Oozy Oozbourne) and Thurberus made it to 4th.

So, the PCs were still in the punishment dome - Thurberus had merged the purple and orange spheres.  I wanted a little time to decide how they responded, and stopped the session there last time.  Picking back up, I had the death-cultist's player roll his fate.

It was a 3, which meant the sphere became small like a marble, fuchsia in color, and attracted The Fuchsia Putrescence... distant cousin of The Purple Putrescence from the purple islands.  But they wouldn't realize that for a little while.  As it was, they went through a floor hatch into the next room of the punishment dome.

A blue and orange checkerboard floor pattern was easily circumvented with flight due to Tinker and the sorcerer's fly spell.  A bit anti-climatic, but realistic as the PCs didn't have their inhibitor collars on, like they would have if they'd gone through the punishment dome while The Venturan was still in flight back when they were little more than slaves.

After that was a room containing a stone altar and 4 keys were upon it.  Thurberus had the idea to touch the little fuchsia sphere to the keys after Tinker grabbed the 1st key and it shocked him.  He got an interesting response from the crystalline key, forcing his mind to reflect on past trauma - like remembering a time when his best friend had relations with his woman.  He handed the key to Bandersnatch which triggered a traumatic event from his past, as well - a triggering memory that I borrowed from the TV show Barry.  After the 2nd "not good" result, Thurberus smashed the crystal key on the floor.

The other two keys opened two separate doors.  One contained an antechamber with The Watcher inside.  The PCs talked to him for a bit.  As The Watcher gave them a choice between two doors - one led to the ultra-telluric glyph that was at the center of The Venturan, the oldest part of the ship.  The other led to an escape pod.  Since the colony ship had crashed into Cha'alt, the escape pod was obviously less valuable.  

Choosing the glyph, the adventurers found themselves in a weirdly angled room with a crystal monolith and a keyhole.  Since they had both keys, Thurberus tried the second key first, the one that opened that other door they never explored, but led to a black void.  A compartment opened that was lined with orange and purple velvet.  It contained a dagger.  As soon as Thurberus picked the dagger up, it compelled him to either stab himself or another person in the room - the doorway back to The Watcher was locked (nice try, hoss), so the death-cultist stabbed himself in the leg.  Then, he used his black robes to carefully remove the dagger and keep it for later.  

Trying the right key, another compartment opened.  This time pink and lime-green velvet and it contained a scroll where the ultra-telluric glyph was scrawled.  Taking that, the PCs left through a small porthole that exited out into the desert.  

Climbing down, they saw a gigantic spider carrying nearly a dozen Ka'alestinian jiha'adist-warriors to the right; they were heading towards the PCs' left - an open-air music festival where Aldous Sand was singing about being inside of you.  The adventures tried to warn the concert goers and prepared for battle.  Tinker took this opportunity to pick-pocket a member of the festival audience, but the tables were turned as his mark ended up pick-pocketing the pixie-fairy for 44 gp.

Throwing away a bunch of styrofoam the other day, I almost chucked a broken piece in the dumpster when it occurred to me that I could transform that bit into part of the crashed colony ship for a mass battle.  That's one of the things I was working on in the two weeks between sessions - that and covering my nearly full Cha'alt campaign bible notebook with demon flesh.

I pulled it out and used little d6s for the enemy combatants.  The battle didn't last long as H'ork swung Ura'az-Vethun with its tumescent damage dice, now with the ability to keep attacking once an opponent went down (as long as the next foe was nearby).  Between that and everyone else's might, half the jiha'adists were killed by round two - but then The Fuchsia Putrescence appeared just above them and would be completely overhead within the next minute or two.  Tinker transformed from pixie-fairy to giant sandworm and the other PCs road him off into the distance, away from The Venturan and the rest of the people who attempted to hide before The Fuchsia Putrescence tentacled them up into its waiting maw.

Assuming the putrescence was attracted to the small fuchsia sphere, Thurberus threw it in the sand next to the crashed colony ship.  The NPCs followed close behind Tinker-worm in their RV, eventually heading for the lair of Kurva'ak the warlord.  As they were getting the Hell out of there, the PCs passed Aldous Sand who was still in the process of running away.  They rescued him.

They drove a couple hours before nearly running out of gas.  By this time, it was nightfall, and someone had the idea of opening a portal to the purple labyrinth, which Bandersnatch did.  It took awhile, but once he traced the purple glyph of dreaming, the sorcerer began to form a purple crystal which would fuel the RV.

In the meantime, Tinker looked for desert life and found those Quecida insects that Cha'alt natives like to eat and Federation elite prefer to stick up their butts.  Grabbing a few, Tinker snuck behind H'ork who was relaxing and slipped one down the back of his trousers.  It was a pleasurable sensation.  Thurberus was lecturing his acolytes on the importance of self-sacrifice or something like that.

Opening the portal back up, Bandersnatch exited the purple labyrinth.  During these few minutes of downtime, I was racking my brain trying to come up with something different, something special about the purple labyrinth to set this experience inside of it apart from all the other times the PCs have gone through.  Perhaps it was that catchy tune by Infinite Sorrow?  Shortly before describing his return, it hit me... it me hard, hoss.  And I went for it like a man holding an empty vial of zoth over his mouth knowing that in the fullness of time, at least one drop upon his tongue.

The Cha'alt that Bandersnatch returned to had a subtle purple cast to it.  The sorcerer attributed this to spending so much time in the purple labyrinth and put it out of his mind.  Having the fuel they needed, they loaded up the RV and drove another half-hour or so before coming to weird colored lights off to the right.  They went right to investigate and found a depression containing a 20-foot wide, amorphous, rainbow slime.  Everyone but Bandersnatch was mesmerized by it, so he took a closer look and discovered the slime was actually some form of ooze-like crystal with a thousand facets constantly undulating.  The rainbow slime ate a large dragonfly and the PCs assumed it was hostile, but almost decided to destroy it just in case it was hiding some sort of treasure.

Before leaving, a caravan pulled up to the rainbow slime.  They had a weird rake and glass spheres where they scraped away a portion of the slime and captured it within the transparent orbs.  Apparently, decadent nobles and sorcerers liked to use these as house-lanterns as they can last up to 10 years, providing a kaleidoscopic ambiance that's second to none.

Tinker attempted to extort the caravan by pretending to work for the Department of Cha'alt Wildlife or something.  He got 19 gp and a bottle of worm wine out of the deal.

There were a couple more hints as to the purple strangeness that had befallen the party's sorcerer.  His ooze familiar tried to warn him that "you've been displaced."  But he wasn't sure what that meant.  Also, this Bandersnatch (purple-snatch) didn't recall the half-demon, half-dark-elf, Bela'ak, who'd been traveling with the PCs since the beginning of last session.  Well, that's strange.  What could this mean?  Speculation abounded.

Heading on, they eventually came to the entrance of the warlord's cave-system.  However, the entrance was clearly a massive demon's head and the cave mouth, the demon's mouth.  Leaving a photon torpedo near the cave entrance, the PCs jumped through, two of them being slightly wounded on the way in.  

Inside the first cave contained three massive guard-slugs.  Combat ensued, Bandersnatch led with a fireball that softened them up as the smell of scorched slug wafted through the cave.  H'ork used his ultra-telluric blade to kill one and wound another as the third shimmied his slug-butt down the larger of the two tunnels out of that area.

During that battle, Bandersnatch had almost died again, going into the red HP-wise.  His unconscious body convulsed until Thurberus healed him enough to wake up, though he was weakened, his vitality depleted.  

Stopping to rest for awhile before heading on, and with approximately 15 minutes of the session remaining, I paused what was happening here to go back to Bandersnatch's exiting the purple labyrinth (again).

As Bandersnatch exited the purple labyrinth, everything had a distinct lack of purple to it, from the sorcerer's perspective.  But everyone in this Cha'alt world where he now was, considered Bandersnatch himself to be slightly purple in appearance... or was it just his appearance?

Revealing what had happened for those still confused, the original Bandersnatch stepped sideways into a parallel universe where 99% of things were the same except that this new Cha'alt dimension was subtly saturated in purple and the PCs hadn't met Bela'ak.  Also, it's unclear if the purple bastards (as opposed to the crimson bastards) have ever encountered Simon.

But the original Cha'alt PCs were about to create another divergence in the dimension-line as Simon appeared.  Snapping his fingers, the giga-chad (even his flaws are perfect) disappeared H'ork's arms after the half-orc attempted to skewer the strange humanoid.  Then, Simon turned his attention to Thurberus, telling him of a new way of religious worship, the silent prayer.  Another finger-snap and the death-cultist's mouth disappeared.  Taking Ura'az-Vethun, Simon told the PCs he was late for an important appointment (note to self: never try to say that out loud again).  His last snap caused him to disappear.

Bela'az stepped-out of the RV to say "I think that was one of the New Gods... or one of their avatars," which is probably what the players were thinking (see year two of the Cha'alt campaign).  But I'm sure that at least some of the adventurers are skeptical enough to doubt that's all there is to Simon.

So, I pulled the purple rabbit out of the hat and now we have to discuss the purple elephant in the room... two adventuring parties in two different Cha'alts at the same time.  WTF?  Quickly followed by, how am I going to navigate that from a game perspective?  Well, I have a couple weeks to figure that out.  The easy thing to do would be to quickly snap them back together or make one go away and simply focus on a singular and linear dimension... but where's the fun in that?

The only funny and/or poignant lines I remembered to write down were "This gives new meaning to the phrase 'The gloves are coming off'."  Tinker was referring to the gloves Thurberus (or anyone) might wear when wielding that cursed dagger.  Because once you take off the gloves, you have to either stab someone nearby or yourself.  That led to a comparison of Michael Jackson's glove and my saying "Moonwalk, moonwalk, stab!"

The other was prompted by Aldous Sand (just curious, does everyone see what I did there... Aldous Snow, John Snow - because he's a bastard it's customary to take the last name of your immediate environment, in desert regions it's Sand, so that's why it's Aldous Sand) volunteering to spend a considerable amount of time in the purple labyrinth.  The PCs wanted him in there to check to see if anything weird was happing.  Answer:  Yes. Yes, there was.  

Aside from the purple-snatch displacement, there were a series of cha'altquakes rumbling the labyrinth purple.  Aldous agreed to go because it would give him ample time to work on his next hit single.  Apparently, he's just about perfected "Purple African Child."  Still working out the solo, though.

Did you like this session report?  Do you have any questions?  Can anyone hear me?  If so, comment below.

Enjoy,

VS

p.s. Want the hardcover Cha'alt trilogy?  Here's how (and they're currently on sale!)!!  Want to join the Kort'thalis mailing list to stay up-to-date on what's going on in the skinematic Vengerverse?  This is it!!  Last but not least, I'm organizing a based-as-fuck RPG convention in Madison, WI this July (Sandy Peterson will be joining us as VENGER CON's Guest of Honor).  Grab your weekend badge for VENGER CON IV: Post-Modern Apocalypse!!!

Immersion in Roleplaying Games - the Ultimate Metric

 

One of my favorite topics is being talked about right now.  It's in the air, can you feel it?  We've been dancing around the issue for decades.  Just when it seems like the hobby has reached a consensus, new theories crop up, alternative paradigms.  I've been discussing it back and forth with folks since writing How To Game Master Like A Fucking Boss.  

The ultimate yardstick for gauging an RPG's merit and the experiences it yields - immersion.  

Unrelated interjection: I'm pleased as punch to announce that Sandy Petersen will be this year's Guest of Honor at VENGER CON IV: Post-Modern Apocalypse - it's very own blog post coming soon.

This all started when I was watching this YouTube video on a channel called Family Table Top.  I was happy to see he called out "fun" as a false metric for judging RPGs and the experience of playing them.  Fun is vague - how can you determine how much fun was had?  Fun is limiting - fun doesn't account for all the things that go into roleplaying, what we put in, and most importantly, what we get out of it.  And fun doesn't take into account what RPGs are for, their purpose, what gives that medium its meaning, relative to other pastimes that are exclusively meant to provide some form of entertainment. 

The vlogger was talking about connection, seeing that as the chief goal of RPGs.  Connection between all participants (since he roleplays with his kids, wife, and ex-wife).  I thought that was interesting, and understandable considering the context.  

I told him that I could see immersion as a connection between those playing an RPG and their characters, the world, and overall narrative, but as he was using the word "connection," we seemed to be at different places.  

In response to his comment, I asked if he could basically roleplay in a holodeck powered by a sophisticated A.I., would he do it?  I certainly would.  I can't say if that would completely replace my home gaming group as I like those guys, I like what we do at the table.  I like the shared imagination and collaborative effort we all put in.  The social connection aspect is not lost on me.  

However, if it was a choice between gaming around a table and actually putting myself in Cha'alt for several hours, I'd absolutely jump at the chance to make that my reality, rather than simulating it using boxed text, dice, random tables, and silly voices.

And if that's the case for others, as I assume it would be, social connection (as awesome as it is) must take a backseat to immersion.  If anyone wants to disagree or build a case against, please comment below.

Elsewhere, he asked how I get my players to connect to Cha'alt... and vice-versa.  Below is my reply...

• I start by treating Cha'alt like it's a real world.  Things are happening all around the players, big and small, fast and slow, perilous and whimsical.  Even if the PCs weren't there, stuff would be going on.
• I use aesthetic keys or watchwords to keep Cha'alt consistent and cohesive.  You should all know them by heart at this point... eldritch, gonzo, science-fantasy, post-apocalypse, humor, sleaze, pop-culture, and grindhouse exploitation.
• As the GM, I try to respond to the PCs as if there were an overarching narrative or meta-plot moving people and events in a certain direction like the current of a river, while still giving players as much agency as possible.  There are forces at work, and those forces have their own agendas, usually contrary to whatever the adventurers have in mind.

That's probably as good an answer as I can give on how I approach my Cha'alt campaign setting, using the living world and living story as my guiding lights, simultaneously mindful that the PCs are the stars of the show.

Later, on X, I got into a discussion about immersion and what makes an RPG more immersive than another.  This is subjective, clearly, because my definition of an immersive game is rules-light, a "rule of cool" freewheeling vibe, and the occasional use of storygame mechanics.  A lot of gamers who also value immersion want something totally different in their RPG.

The final question I want to address is the following - why would immersion be the ultimate metric for determining the value of RPGs if half (I'm just pulling that share of the pie out of thin air) the fun comes from out-of-character and "character adjacent" banter around the table?  

For starters, immersion, like various parts of the roleplaying experience requires breaks.  In fact, I believe immersion benefits from stepping outside of the game in order to observe what's happing from an exterior position (a bit like thinking outside the box).  For instance, when you're busy swimming, you have a different perspective of the ocean than standing on the beach.  In order to fully understand the ocean, you need to experience it from at least two sides - the more "sides," the better your understanding. 

Secondly, (this is something that I'm writing about now in a new book focused on the player, rather than GM) everyone around the table can be in-character while not actually speaking in-character.  It's probably easier to think of it as a running interior monolog spoken aloud or stream-of-consciousness conversation happening parallel to what's actually happening in the game.  Like when a player is talking from his the point of view of his character, even though his character isn't saying those things - we still know it's the character being expressed and not the player... which is key.

Even when the GM is off-handedly musing about the geo-political zones in S'kbah, he might not be speaking as the narrator... yet, he, too, is, nevertheless, speaking in-character as it pertains to the campaign setting - which is absolutely part of the game.

Third, immersion doesn't just have to be for the character, world, and story (I'm assuming that genre-emulation is swallowed by world and story in equal measure, but I suppose there are some who want to see that as a separate classification) - we can also be immersed in the game itself, the act of playing and all its parts.  If we can be immersed in the game, that means everything, all around us, the totality is part of the roleplaying GAME experience.  Picking up dice and rolling them is part of the game, making a Monty Python reference is part of the game, the GM asking a player how his character knows the Wacha'ati tribe's native language - that's also part of the game. 

Not everyone is going to care about the same things.  Take religion, for example, some folks are going to focus more on the sacraments, others following the commandments, reading the bible, going to church, walking the narrow path, proselytizing to others, etc.  It's all Christianity.  I think it would be disingenuous to think that all Christians value all aspects of their religion a 10 out of 10 all the time, but it's all still Christianity.  Similarly, even the subjectively "less special" parts of RPGs are still aspects of the whole, and worthy of immersion, if one were so inclined.  

On the other tentacle, doesn't the separation of immersion beg the question - is there a hierarchy?  Sure, all are important, but are some immersive aspects more... essential than others?  Going back to religion, is thou shalt not murder primary in comparison with honor thy mother and father?  What about learning the stations of the cross compared to not committing adultery?  Stratification seems only natural.  However, I will leave it to you, dear reader, to decide for yourself which aspect of immersion is higher or lower on your personal list.

Ok, then... put that in your pipe and smoke it!

VS

p.s. Want the hardcover Cha'alt trilogy?  Here's how (and they're currently on sale!)!!  Want to join the Kort'thalis mailing list to stay up-to-date on what's going on in the skinematic Vengerverse?  This is it!!  Last but not least, I'm organizing a based-as-fuck RPG convention in Madison, WI this July.  Grab your weekend badge for VENGER CON IV: Post-Modern Apocalypse!!!

"There's No Place Like Home" - CHA'ALT Campaign 3.6

 

Ok, this doesn't have anything to do with this particular session, per se, but our family theater room is up and running again, and we kicked-off the new projector (last one died when the bulb burned out and fried some internal electronics) by watching Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 2.  

That scene after the opening where they're fighting the abilisk and rip it open - the thick, effulgent chartreuse blood pouring out - that's basically zoth.  What the Old Ones have flowing inside their eldritch veins... not just them but their spawn and their spawn's spawn, and various servitor-entities such as the star-born sovereign, black-yoke vassals, and principalities of darkness who attend to their divine pleasure.  

The last time I watched the movie, I remarked on that, too, but I'd forgotten the scene and watching it again made me perk-up.  It's almost as if Cha'alt were slowly but surely coming to life right before my very eyes...

This session is brought to you by skin-of-our-ass-games!  As in, we nearly didn't get to play today, but just made it by the skin of our ass.

Three players - Bandersnatch the blue-suede sorcerer, Thurberus the v'smm priest and cult leader, along with the astonishing appearance of Botsterdomus the droid priest ladies' man, and prophet of the almighty algorithm.  

Yeah, no thief and no warrior - good luck, hoss!

After leveling-up Botsterdomus and the opening evocation, I flashed the PCs back to the beginning of last session where they placed the soft blue dream-crystal upon a boulder-sized chunk of stone masonry from the temple at the end and beginning of the universe.

Reminding everyone what happened at the end of last session with the RV and the crash of The Venturan into the desert, I described the twisted metal and black smoke wreckage of that colony ship where the PCs' adventures began.

They slowly drove along the length of the crash, murdering a guard they never liked, and just seeing what's going on.  Soon, they came to Bela'ak, a half-demon, half-dark elf sorcerer who I wanted to introduce from my GaryCon pre-gens.  That one Cha'alt session in particular stayed with me, and the parallels between the LOST style plane crash on the beach and the colony ship crash in the deep desert seemed apropos.

So, there he was - Bela'ak stabbing survivors of the wreck with a magical staff of obsidian-like flesh.  Each soul taken added another thorn - 7 thorns meant that his staff could blast a death-ray, but then the thorns would be gone and he'd have to start collecting souls all over again.  The staff's name was Nya'avenkshem, which means "seven souls cast into the pit of Hell."  

The dark-elf demon would say "Praise be to Yog-Soggoth!  His seven-lobed burning eye gazes into the unquiet void."  The PCs questioned him, and Bela'ak seemed nice enough.  He was looking to kill Thoth-A'amon, the sorcerer-priest who made his home in The Black Pyramid long ago because Thoth-A'amon had killed those dear to him.  Bela'ak, realizing the formidable nature of the adventurers and cognizant of the fact that they were on a mission from god, made a deal with them.  He would adventure with the party until Thoth-A'amon was dead.  After that, he'd give up his staff to the party and go his own way.

Bandersnatch read his aura and saw it was both dark and transparent.  Sure, you couldn't trust him farther than he could be thrown.  Nevertheless, Bela'ak wouldn't betray the PCs out of hand.  He was an honest villain.

BTW, I decided to break-out a set of dice that I'd never used before... this one's got more orange and some shimmery purple.  I felt like coming back from GaryCon, I just wanted something new to mark the occasion.  

The 6th thorn was acquired when Bela'ak stabbed yet another wounded crash victim with his staff.  The victim, with his dying breath, said "Nexus... the hive.  It must be destroyed!"

Moving on, the PCs encountered a tribe of primitive Zevateef wearing animal skins.  They were beating on an energy shield protecting 5 silver-skinned humanoids with colorful forehead crystals.  Their shield would give out soon by the way the wave patterns were fluctuating.  So, the PCs decided to wait it out to see what happens and possibly loot the bodies of the winners (whom they would surely murder).  

However, the silver-skinned dudes asked for help and pledged their loyalty to the cult of the dead and tentacled cow.  Botsterdomus lobbed a thermal detonator that went right into the central primitive's satchel.  They pretty much all died right away.

Oh yeah, there was a faction of Jurtwee throwing mud cakes and sand-balls at both factions.  A missile command spell made them scurry back to the recesses of The Venturan... or what's left of it.  One Jurtwee fell down from his perch and Bela'ak used him to gain the 7th and final thorn.

Moving on (with the silver-skinned humanoids following close behind - they were from the space station Liberator and so called themselves Libertarians), the PCs ventured inside The Venturan to see what could be salvaged.  Another small primitive but heavily mutated tribe was trying to get inside a locked door - hitting it with "the holy vessel" from the first adventure, which was revealed to be a plasma reactor core.  The PCs cautioned them not to smash the volatile power source into the metal door.

After investigation, no power was getting to the door, which is why it wouldn't open.  The mutants included a pink-skinned female with fish scales and 3 breasts.  Botsterdomus took her to a more secluded area where he laid his healing hands upon her and began "gleaming the cube" which, on Cha'alt, means running his pick-up artist game on her in order to achieve mutually beneficial sexual gratification.  

The sorcerer and priest waited patiently while listening to the moans of the pink girl.  Eventually, Botsterdomus came back to help with the door and they got it open - it was a theater room with Beta-Maxxx laser 8-track casette disk player - including 4 different Beta-Maxxx laser 8-track cassette disks that were clearly foreign imports, but still exactly what the cyber-surgeon Reznik wanted as payment for his digital services.  

The titles were... 

• Lucky Blonde Gets Her Fuck & Internally Jizz
• This Chick Named Ka'ara Has a Scandinavia Mature Babe in Her Pussy
• Edward Penisworm & Banana Vagina
• Womb Raiders of the Lost Lesbian Prophecy

Oh yeah, while they were waiting for Botsterdomus to finish, Thurberus inducted the rest of the mutants into his cult, and they promised to faithfully adventure with the PCs in exchange for a quarter of the loot found beyond that door.  Which means, this mutant tribe is now the proud owner of the Scandinavia porn diskette.

Before any further exploration could occur, Bandersnatch felt a disturbance in the magical fabric of the metaverse.  Putting his scrying crystal up to his head, he saw a cave containing a warrior wearing a badass helm and a sorcerer standing behind him.  Kurva'ak the warlord wanted his wizard to grab the mutants and their plasma reactor core, which is exactly what happened.  Becoming a giant, orange holographic head made of light, Kurva'ak told the PCs he was taking the mutants and their weapon of mass destruction (which was prophesied towards the end of last session by the Supreme Council of the Violet Alien Demon Worm).

With the mutants and their WMD gone in a plume of orange energy, the PCs were at a cross-roads - take off for the warlord's subterranean lair now, or continue to search the wreckage for valuables?  In the end, they chose the latter.  After all, they might find something that could help them fight - and at only half-strength, they probably wouldn't be able to defeat Kurva'ak, his wizard, and small army of men on their own.

Continuing on, they encountered the flying manta-ray scorpion that was still guarding the upper level.  This time, the PCs had weapons and experience.  So, they decided to slay the guardian and see what was up there.

It was a harrowing battle.  Thurberus was paralyzed for 5 rounds (I made a judgement call and decided that a paralyzed priest could potentially heal someone, but the other party would have to do most of the work, like pick up his paralyzed hands and lay them on him so all the priest would have to do is generate the energy or rather focus the energy generated by worshiping his god), Bandersnatch was knocked unconscious, Botsterdomus couldn't hit the broad-side of a barn-worm, and the NPCs weren't of much help, either.  Luckily, Bosterdomus did a fuchsia burn and scored a much-needed critical hit that crushed the manta-ray's skull.

Such a strange creature, the adventurers felt sure there was something to be harvested from it.  I had them each roll a d20.  Thurberus rolled a 1, but the other two rolled well and had heard rumors of draining the blood, treating it with zoth so it would become a sentient ooze - 2 gallons worth!

Due to the death-cult's priest crit-fail, I determined he was sure that putting the manta-ray-scorpion's nuts in his mouth would do something awesome.  So, that's what he did.  Looking like a squirl with bulging cheeks under his bronze (or is it gold?) v'smm mask, the others prepared the thing's blood.  Not wanting to waste the opportunity, I rolled the flavor random table in Chartreuse Shadows and got "pretzels," which made sense as we laughed at those salty manta-balls resting in Thurberus' mouth. 

Additionally, one of his cultists ran up to take a photo of the cult leader with his mouth full of salty, pretzel-flavored manta-balls.  "That's going in our cult newsletter - most likely the centerfold!"

Searching the upper-level, they found the armory.  I decided to give the players a chance to "win" weapons of war with the same dice rolls which had all but betrayed them in the previous battle.  I listed out what would have been there assuming a fully-stocked armory on The Venturan.  If they rolled a 16 on a d20, that item was still there.  Anything over a 16 meant that there was more than one, determined by how far over they got.

In the end, they found 2 stun-batons, 2 laser-swords, and I asked if they wanted me to roll (as I was due for something good, I thought, and they had been rolling so terribly).  This was the final roll with the biggest payoff!  They said yes, so I prepared the d20 for rolling, softly grinding it between my palms.  And then, I rolled a natural 20!  That means they found 5 (my math was wrong before... stupid math!) - yes, 5 - photon torpedoes.  Those things are, like, seven-fold more destructive than a thermal detonator.  Score!!!!!

Telling his remaining cultists to put their newly acquired weapons stash in the RV, the PCs had another decision to make as they looked out a window and saw a gigantic spider carrying a dozen Ka'alestinian jiha'ad fighters beyond the wall, heading for the crash - keep searching or go back.  In for a talon, out for a gold piece; they decided to push their luck.  The top of the punishment dome was cracked open with a rope already tied to some metal infrastructure so they could shimmy down.

They did, and soon rescued their crab friend from the first adventure.  Destroying the security droids with laser-swords and getting his inhibitor off, the crab followed the PCs onward.  

Next, they entered a weirdly angled five-walled room, each with a strange symbol upon it, and a blue sphere hanging mid-air in the room's center.  Meanwhile, a disembodied voice could be heard repeating two distinct sentences...

• "The black sphere leads to death."
• "This is the riddle of Tyr, the God-King of shadow dimension 11-A-437."

I won't reveal the secret of this room, except to say that Thurberus accidentally solved the puzzle almost immediately and then decided to merge spheres and that was a good end-point as we had 5 minutes remaining and I wanted more time to think through the ramifications of the sphere experiment being performed.  

Oh yeah, I rolled twice on the NPC detail table found in one of the Cha'alt books (this is for Bela'ak, since he's likely to be sticking around for awhile), and came up with sensitive hearing and magenta cat named Mistoffelees.

In the downtime, Bandersnatch wants to make that 2 gallons of sentient ooze into his familiar, which I thought was a fine idea.  

Ok, next session is in two weeks... Saturday, April 12th.  I'm awarding 2 more points of Divine Favor to Bandersnatch and Botsterdomus, and 3 to Thurberus for being such a good sport and going with it as those manta-ray scorpion testicles sat in his mouth.  How long were they in there, anyway?

Here are some amusing quotes from the session...

• "Part cassette, part disc... all laser."
• "All the zeroes have turned into ones." - that means a machine is horny in binary language (get ready for a non-consensual robot orgasm.  Surprise, motherfucker!).
• "Clear!" - the idea of someone using Thurberus' hands as electro-shock paddles in order to heal themselves while he was paralyzed.  Lol
• "Hey, Bela'ak.  Tell us about your hot-pink pussy." - referencing his magenta cat.
• "Say cheese, Thurberus.  Oh yeah, that's going in next month's issue."

I just found my notes from that GaryCon Alpha Blue / Cha'alt session which I couldn't find earlier when I was writing up my convention report.  So, I'll just put them here...

• "Grabba the Butt... he'll mess you up... butt-quick!"
• "Purple petrified sand from a worm massacre - tastes like cinnamon."
• "There'll be space Hell to pay."
• "You're playing with space fire."
• "Do androids have artificial souls?"

That's it.  Thanks for reading.  BTW, I have the VENGER CON IV games list (so far) on the landing page here.  Lots of great stuff, and I'm hoping to announce this year's Guest of Honor soon (tentacles crossed the stars align and that comes together)!!! 

VS

p.s. Want the hardcover Cha'alt trilogy?  Here's how (and they're currently on sale!)!!  Want to join the Kort'thalis mailing list to stay up-to-date on what's going on in the skinematic Vengerverse?  This is it!!  Last but not least, I'm organizing a based-as-fuck RPG convention in Madison, WI this July.  Grab your weekend badge for VENGER CON IV: Post-Modern Apocalypse!!!

GaryCon 2025 Convention Report

 

This won't be a multi-part blog post like my recent videos here, here, and here.  Instead, I'm gonna try to get it all down right now.

Overall, it was a great time.  I saw Joe Manganiello at the bar during the charity auction on Saturday (was heading there for my dinner reservation - the yukon gold mashed potatoes were not as creamy or buttery as I remembered, but the prime rib was on point), and I had to get a quick photo with him.  For my wife if anything, but it's always cool to meet a celebrity.  Even if the entire interaction took 3.47 seconds.

Had dinner with the old-school, gray beard, X crew who saw me about to eat alone and asked me to join them.  Thanks, guys!  I'm all-in if they want to make this a yearly tradition, dinner together Saturday night followed by a gaming session (I volunteer, as tribute, to GM in 2026 and after that, whoever wants to), probably off-site.  Cerulean Rex mentioned a brew pub and pizza place just a few miles away that sounds ideal.

Anyway, I met a ton of friends, fans, familiar players, and well-wishers throughout the weekend, and that was awesome, too!  Bought some cool stuff + got a sack full of swag.  You can see all that in part 3 of my con report vlog.

But yeah, let's dive into the sessions themselves.  Obviously, I'm not going to detail the five sessions I ran at GaryCon, even if three of them began in nearly identical fashion.  Rather, I'm going to hit the highlights and talk about what worked, what didn't, noteworthy stuff, wisdom gleaned, and inspirational detritus (in no particular order)... 

Too much boxed text?  I'm not sure what the right amount is.  I think you can err on the side of a little more "read aloud" since PCs seize on any tangible (albeit in our collective imagination) stuff they can find.  I've recently been experimenting with X's grok A.I., and it gave me some nice descriptions for a Cha'alt location.  I asked grok to describe things in the style of Clark Ashton Smith - and it did - which made it so cool that I kind of wanted to use it all.  But when I publish the scenario, I'm going to rein it in.

The pre-gens were a hit.  I still can't believe (yeah, I can, actually) I forgot to hand-out the 2nd group's character sheet notecards until two-thirds of the way through the session.  But hey, it worked out.  There wasn't too much on the notecard, anyway, and the players focused on roleplaying, as they should.

Demographics: There was one woman each in the first and second sessions (both Cha'alt) of the five I ran, two LGBTQ+ individuals total (I didn't ask, just made a judgement call based on perception), and zero "people of color" or non-white folks.  Not that I care about mutable or immutable characteristics when we game (just thought it was interesting data), my focus is on the game, not identities or politics.

Interestingly, one of the women was in that Cha'alt session I ran years ago at GameHole Con around Halloween with the downbeat ending.  She remembered, especially since the PCs entered The Black Pyramid's museum and that's one of the rooms the other adventuring party explored, too.  She remarked that she was one of the few PCs in that other session who wanted to do stuff.  Everyone else (well, not everyone, surely) just kind watched and waited, believing discretion was the better part of valor, perhaps?  Years ago, that session was heavily criticized by another player at the table; you can see for yourself in the comments section here.  

Anyways, that was just one of the many strange and awesome coincidences that occurred at GaryCon this year - like finding a rogue d6 of the blue variety under an empty table next to where we were supposed to run Alpha Blue (the system uses d6 dice pools and it's called Alpha Blue)... except that I found the space too distracting and loud, so we moved to a hallway where it was relatively quiet.  I took that as a sign - one of many!  

Speaking of blue, that color was a theme in the dramatic reading (I handed out a two-page script to a couple of players and they read / acted it aloud while I took on the narrator and loud speaker parts) that began all three Cha'alt sessions.  It was inspired by those two older guys in the movie Cabin In The Woods.  I'd never done anything like that before, but I think it worked.  Mostly because it was referenced later in the sessions, and became a major plot-point in at least one of those sessions.  It led to a greater understanding of what was going on behind the scenes, causing an apocalypse (yes, another one) as a Great Old One awoke, which actually would happen later, off-screen.  

Everyone who read did a great job, and that's something I want to experiment with again.  Just getting players to loosen up and interact with the story in a physical but also theatrical way helps prepare for the session ahead.  I believe last year or the year before that I opened with a dream sequence where a specific line was repeated several times throughout the narrative like a feverish esoteric refrain.

The fruities were a big hit, they always are.  At the end of one of the three, the PCs encountered a small army of fruities from a mirror universe or dark timeline, providing another opportunity for combat.  I know my sessions aren't combat focused, but I was really surprised how many PCs did everything they could to de-escalate potentially violent situations.  That means, I should either skew encounters to have more non-combat usefulness / gameability or take them out altogether and replace them with more interesting non-combat encounters.  Of course, as soon as I do that, players are going to want to rip someone's head off.  Lol, sometimes you can't win.

When something comes up that's just tentacles-down fantastic (in terms of lore, more so than PC or GM success), it becomes more or less canon, unless something happens to upend it down the road.  The desire to taste a fruitie after its demise and some inter-player commentary led me to officially recognize that tasting a fruitie will leave that particular flavor in your mouth whenever you eat something.  I assume a priest could maybe cure that, or it goes away after several months, maybe a year.  So, be careful which fruitie you're going to munch on, if at all. 

The all-time greatest lore addition to any session of the weekend has to be the Chad-player who cut through all the fancy language, romantic prose in order to get to the crude, sleazy center of those polished fuchsia stones representing points of Divine Favor.  "Dude, thanks for the cum-rock... nice," he said as I handed him the Advanced Crimson Dragon Slayer metacurrency which has been incentivizing awesomeness at my table (and many others) for at least 5 years.

Sexual gratification wasn't the only way to acquire Divine Favor, but it was definitely one of them.  Referring to it as a "cum rock" made me laugh the hardest at any point during the convention.  Wow!

I love it when groups of people who know and game with each other sign-up and play in my sessions because they already have the rapport of adventurers who've been doing this for awhile.  The built-in comradery is infectious and easy to (role)play off of. 

Case in point, another highlight (at the same table) of the weekend was the demonic possession of a PC.  I gave those other two PCs who knew him best the chance to notice that the possessed PC was acting "not himself."  The first PC rolled poorly.  The second who was balls-deep into his character rolled a natural 20... and without missing a God damn beat, said aloud to anyone who cared "I don't care at all what's happening to him," and went on to say that another person's, another character's concerns were so far beneath him that it wasn't worth another thought.  Which goes to show - stay in character even when you're speaking out-of-character.  It actually made perfect sense because that's the way he played his character from the get-go.  Honestly, I was taken aback for a micro-second but immediately realized that this is the way.  That player was doing what so few dare to dream - he found his character, got into character, and stayed in character.  It was immersion personified.  

Definitely, grab onto whatever scraps of personality / background the GM has provided and hold on tight.  But the rest is up to you, the player.  Treating it as an acting gig can help introverts and wallflowers overcome their reticence.  You've essentially been "hired" to do a job, which is to become that character for the entirety of the session.  It would be a shame if that character was never fully realized at the table, which is basically our stage, as roleplayers.  

So, my advice to all players in the future (in my games, if nowhere else)... 

• Find your character (who you're supposed to be that session or campaign, however you want to bring that character to life). 
• Once you've found him, get into character using whatever means at your disposal.  I think I'm going to write more about this soon.
• Stay in character - no matter what happens.  I'm not talking about occasionally breaking character when the table explodes in laughter or clutches their collective pearls - that's fine.  But if you're portraying Vanilla Ice with a crippling cheese addiction and penchant for buggery, then for the love of Yog-Soggoth, be that character until the session's over or your character dies.  That commitment is worth more than a carafe of zoth on Cha'alt.

In fact, I'd be interested in examining just how players make their characters come to life when in the company of other players that they're familiar with.  It's like the apprehension melts away and you instantly get a full-fledged character that is being roleplayed, back and forth.  But it wasn't simply familiarity - because I saw that at a similar table and it didn't fast-track or super-charge characterizations, the actual roleplaying.  And it wasn't interpersonal conflict since I had another group that were constantly trying to jack each other, but it was like their characters were merely pawns or masks they were wearing in order to get the other guy.

Yeah, I'm not sure what it is, but I'm going to keep thinking about it.  Eventually, the answer will come... it always does.  Maybe it's healthy competition?  When the potential conflict or agreement has friction (doesn't necessarily have to be two characters at odds with each other, but that tension / chafing / friction must come from somewhere... perhaps another faction, NPC, the dominant / counter culture, or even one's own disparate needs), it seems to create more juice than either cooperative or destructive.  Maybe that's the Goldilocks conflict... not too cold, not too hot, etc.?

But how to instill this - especially into players that don't have a long history with each other?  I suppose, come up with encounters that force them to compete, right?

Oh yes, I want to talk about one of the ways my old-school renaissance is very much venn diagram squished with story-gaming.  If a PC comes up with something on the fly, and it has potential (gameable potential) without breaking the proverbial bank by being over-powered, ridiculously stupid, or genre breaking, I'm going to ask for three things.  And if an answer for all three is presented, then it exists as the player has suggested (at the GM's discretion, of course).

1. What does it do?
2. Where does it come from?
3. How did you acquire it?

For example, a player wanted to use some poisonous or explosive (something like that) fairy dust because, after all, she was playing a pixie-fairy.  After she provided explanations for my answers, I was satisfied and allowed her to have it.

I'm not sure I need to explain why that's a net-positive thing, but can if anyone likes - just ask me in the comments below.  Debate me, bro!

Two of the three Cha'alt sessions got to play around with the Cha'alt X-Cards, and that was fun.  I talked about that in one of the videos.  Imagine (it helps to perceive it animated) sentient tentacles having a disagreement with each other that eventually breaks down into throwing tiny cream pies at each other.  That wouldn't have been possible without the Cha'alt X-Cards, my friend.

Outside of the game, I chatted with one of the Alpha Blue players the next day, and he asked me, though admitted he was almost afraid to ask, how much of the adventure was scripted / plotted and how much was improvised.  "It's a combination," I said.  And that whole acknowledgement of our hobby being one thing while also kind of being something else entirely, the elusive shift.  That's what makes it special, giving it power which almost no other hobby can claim.

For instance, it's about winning... while also not at all about winning.  It's about meeting player expectations, while also doing the opposite.  It's about saying yes... and no.  Simulating a natural or unnatural world as it is, while also having a narrative in mind.  Sandbox vs structured adventure.  The push-pull creates tension which generates energy and that gives roleplaying games life!

For the cosmic horror investigative 1970s scenario, I loved it because it all came together and lasted the 3.5 hours I wanted it to, right down to the minute.  Also, the players were fantastic bringing their characters to life with what little I gave them.  But at the same time, it was perhaps my least favorite because of the noise.  It was really difficult to hear people and I constantly had to project rather than use my normal, casual voice.  Nevertheless, I'm glad I ran it and everyone seemed to enjoy what happened.  

Without further ado, here are the quotables (not just at the table, but in private conversations and on social media, as well)...

• "That's not elder god money."
• "The partition of sleaze."
• "I know it seems like I've gone off the deep end, but trust me when I say there's a perfectly rational explanation for why I have to kill her."  A PC trying to tell us why he's about to murder an NPC who a pixie-fairy just had sex with on the beach after the party had a bitch of a time saving her from a giant crab.  Apparently, the player decided that each of his 11 daggers (part of his pre-gen backstory) was named after a woman he killed, and he had one unnamed dagger left.
• "That's a cum rock, dude."
• "Those fruties are tragically delicious."  
• "If women were a dessert, they'd be cheesecake."
• "Venger, I think you're the best Game Master I've ever experienced."
• "It's ShadowDark's con, we're just gaming in it."

Ok, I think that's it.  Feel free to ask questions if you're so inclined.  The Cha'alt campaign continues this Saturday, and I'm excited to get back to our "home table."  I will probably launch another Kickstarter at the end of April, so look out for that.  What will it be for (no, it's not Book 4 of the trilogy - I still have around 100 more hardcovers left to sell before I can crowdfund that son-of-a-bitch)?  Here's a hint... less is not always more.

Thanks for reading, hoss!

VS

p.s. Want the hardcover Cha'alt trilogy?  Here's how (and they're currently on sale!)!!  Want to join the Kort'thalis mailing list to stay up-to-date on what's going on in the skinematic Vengerverse?  This is it!!  Last but not least, I'm organizing a based-as-fuck RPG convention in Madison, WI this July.  Grab your weekend badge for VENGER CON IV: Post-Modern Apocalypse!!!