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| Warlock! on Discord |
This afternoon saw my delayed one-shot of Warlock! I'd originally planned to run over my birthday weekend, but my mother passed away just before so I delayed the game as I really wasn't in a place to run it. Fortunately, despite the delay, everyone still wanted to play so this afternoon we sat down and played using Discord for AV and Google Docs for the character sheets. Overall, I think we had a fun time.
I'd set up the game in Grim Biskerstaf, the port city beside the River Vessen described in the Kingdom supplement. It had resonated with me when I read it, perhaps because something about it reminded me of Liverpool, a city where I spent part of my childhood. It had just the right amount of spaces for my GM-brain to start to wonder how to explore it. Bizarrely, I settled on riffing a little bit on the BBC sit-com "Bread". This screened in the 1980s and - over seven series - explored the fortunes of a working-class family on the hustle to make ends meet.
I cheekily stole the character names and traits to build around and created the characters using the expanded systems in the second Warlock compendium. This meant that - as well as traits - the characters had passions and talents. These definitely added something to them. I used Google Docs for the character sheets because the updated Compendium 2 sheet isn't form-fillable. I also wanted the players to finalise their own characters. I provided name, talent, traits, passions and career, and they built up the skills to their own taste. This seemed to work well (except for a moment of confusion where I'd typed 'starting skills' rather than 'career skills' in the guidance).
I spent 10 minutes at the start showing the map of the Kingdom and giving a quick run through what was nearby, and then ran through a whistle-stop tour of Grim Biskerstaf.
The plot was simple; the character's father - Freddie - had appeared back after absconding and 'borrowed' the cash for the rent for an investment that had been organised by his old school mate and sailor chum, 'Uncle' Reg. Unfortunately, he hadn't told his wife (from whom he was separated) so she set four of the family off to find him before the rent was due, or they'd get thrown out. The rest of the plot had two legs (find Dad, find Reg) which came together with shades of Sweeney Todd. The end offered a chance for the family to get away from immediate financial worries.
I'd deliberately printed a sheet off with each of the character's passions, traits and the two random elements that each career gets off so I had things to riff off. I drew on this if things started to flag and also to make sure that each of the characters had something to do.
Eventually, the characters ended up in the sewers (for which I repurposed a map from the 2016 Dyson compendium) and there they surprised me, deciding to avoid the obvious fight and instead negotiate with the Ratmen ('You can keep the body, we just need to check the pockets for something that's been lost') which was secured with a fantastic roll.
The game engine was light and simple enough to fade into the background. As it was investigation-led, I deliberately didn't block clues behind rolls. Instead, I decided to make the roll to decide the quality of the information that they obtained. It's something I've done for a long time, not something I learned from Gumshoe's "innovation"[1]. The players had sussed that combat looked dangerous and deliberately avoided conflict where they could, negotiating, sneaking and running away. We had one attack roll, when the 'angry young man' of the party got angry with a warehouse guard who was - frankly - doing his job.
The characters got to meet their father's love - Lil Moloney, who was lying low because she was a 'medium' (necromancer). The use of a glamour spell brought a new meaning to 'putting my face on'. They ended up getting her to call the spirit back to a severed head to find out exactly what was going on. The game ended with a handoff of the loot to the Gutter Queen, Lady Alice, and a negotiated removal of the price on the head of the brother who was the 'man of the family'.
The game had moments that went pure Ankh-Morpork, combined with a medieval Dickensian vibe. Overall, it was quite a gentle game; the avoidance of violence made it a lot less nasty than it could have been and I never had to get the spare character out.
I think I under-used luck rolls and I initially got the mechanic wrong (but corrected it before we actually rolled). We used Passions and Pluck (both worked well). There was a discussion as to why Pluck used a 2d6 roll rather than a 1d20, but I realised after the game that it mirrored the critical tables in what it was doing, so it made sense.
The rules faded into the background and the setting was fun to play in. In the end, everyone was of the opinion that they'd happily play in this setting and system again. Perhaps we'll have a Christmas Special Episode...
In conclusion, I had a fun time and would like to do it again. It has the same kind of feel of slight incompetence and risk of failure that Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay does, but far less system overhead, which is a massive win from my perspective. You can focus on making the setting breathe, and it has the spaces to encourage that. Great stuff.
8 November 2020
[1] To be fair, Laws/Pelgrane probably formally codified it first.
My other Warlock reviews are here:
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