Something Wicked This Way Comes

I ran an incredible session of Mage the Awakening (MtA) this weekend. I was lucky enough to
end up with a very competent group who made a mage from each path, and I'm excited to see how it pans out in the long run.

For the readers who don't know what MtA is about, its World of Darkness, and its where all the players create a human who is capable of casting magic and changing reality around them. Spells aren't a limited list like most traditional RPGs with a magic system, although MtA does have many predefined spells in the book. Instead the players can create their own spells based on their mage's abilities and knowledge of certain arcanum. This makes for a very inventive and creative play style.

I have learned a bit about MtA over the years, and each session I run I always walk away with something new. When running MtA you shouldn't be surprised when your players pour over the books looking for cool spells to cast. You should also attempt to encourage the players thinking creatively about how to bypass a situation in an inventive way. The rules allows for a lot of storyteller interpretation and I think one should never say no to anything, just attempt to scale it to fit.

The most valuable lesson I learnt from this session though is how to truly challenge mages, and encourage players to think about casting spells creatively rather then buffing their own stats and turning themselves into combat machines. The trick is to fight them with something they can't see! Being WoD, ghosts fit the mark nicely.

Anyone who's played the Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines will have a good idea of the horror present in the haunted house scene. I attempted to use as much as I could from that, and from some of my favorite ghost movies. That's when it clicked into place, ghosts are so darn terrifying because you cant see them! Even a mage struggles to fight invisible entities and lacking the correct spells damaging them is nearly impossible, especially since they can always run away through walls.

By the end there were a few frightening dangerous encounters with the ghosts, the memorable one being the Spirit/Life mage running away from a rusted upside-down pickup truck. There was plenty of investigation into why the ghosts were haunting the mill in the first place, some of the mages using technology and research skills, others using occult methods to gather information about what had truly happened in the area. The one true combat scene between some of the ghosts and the players happened during a seance and the players really pulled some creative thinking to scare away/kill the ghosts. A final scene of laying the ghosts to rest rounded it all off. I really hope my players enjoyed it as much as I did.

Question of the post...What about ghosts scares the nuggets out of you, and how do you think that aspect of terror could be worked into a rpg game?

Yes, my Master

Today's post is about themes and what it can do for your story. A definition I quite like for a theme is "a unifying idea that is a recurrent element in literary or artistic work" (thanks Google). E.g. The boy gets girl theme. A theme used in your story can be broken up into multiple sub themes. To further the example...Boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl.

White Wolf published games tend to go bananas over the idea of themes and even prescribe certain ones you should use when running your games. Try reading the books if you dont believe me. J Sometimes its a bit easy to get lost in the game and forget about the theme but I feel that not using them loses a sort of unification to the story. While the plot can remain intact and logical, each session or story within the plot can feel disjointed as if not part of the whole story.

Moving on to actually implementing a theme in the story, I will apply one to my Star Wars campaign. A theme I've really wanted to explore in Star Wars is the relationship between a master and his apprentice which immediately made me think of Jedi. However only exploring the Jedi aspect of this would make for a rather boring game, especially for any non-Jedi. To broaden this and provide more opportunities for diverse adventures we can expand the theme to include the relationships between Mentor and Protégé, Jedi and Padawan, Sith Lord and Apprentice, Commander and Soldier. All of a sudden we have a lot more to work with.

Some of the seeds of this that I want to include in my game are:

• The student/teacher relationship between a Jedi Master and his Padawan
• The authority a commander has over his soldiers
• The tight bond between a captain and his crew
• The evil manipulations of a Sith Lord through his proxy, his apprentice.

The Sith Lord/Apprentice makes an especially interesting dynamic to explore as a villain. Even if the PCs get rid of the apprentice they will still probably have to face his master. If they do it the other way round, the apprentice might want revenge. Also having the Sith Lord berate the apprentice infront of the PCs, and basically showing how mean and bitter the relationship is makes the villains more deep. The Jedi Master/Padawan is an obvious one with a Jedi in the party and the Jedi Master being around as an NPC. Does he treat his padawan kindly? Would he sacrifice himself for her. Would she sacrifice herself for him? What inspires that sort of loyalty? Working all these aspects together can give the overall story a cohesive feel instead of having each adventure stand alone.

Homework for the followers...can you list 3 themes you think of when you think Star Wars. I'm going to shamelessly steal them. For those of you that run games (or are preparing to run games) what do you think about using themes in other systems like D&D? Do you use them or just go with the flow?