Have you seen it? (playing The Yellow King RPG)

Have you seen it?

I had the pleasure of playing through the first chapter of 'The Yellow King' roleplaying game over May and June, run ably by Paul Mitchener. There were four of players; Simon (playing an American painter and photographer), Elina (playing his Muse), Richard (playing a Portuguese poet) and myself (playing a British-Indian former military cadet turning his hand to architecture).

It was a great experience; all the players leaned into their characters and graciously shared the spotlight, offering up opportunities for Paul to bring their backgrounds in. Meta-knowledge was ignored, knowing that it would drive the plot forward (for example, several of us read the play; as players we knew it would open us to the Carcosan meme, but the characters wouldn't).

Despite the concerns about there not being enough to hang a game on being raised in the Improvised Radio Theatre with Dice Podcast (August 2020), we had a great time. Paul had more than enough structure for the plot to gather its own momentum. The chapter ended strongly, with three players lost in Carcosa, and my character escaping, emerging in Delhi to find that his companions had been lost in the corridors and rooms of the palace by the lake under a white sky with black stars. Bittersweet.

The Discord Server

The variant on Gumshoe seemed to work well, with tailored cards for the setting. Paul set up a Discord server to run the game. In the end, we abandoned the AV side of that, as one of the player was struggling for a stable connection so we fell back to Google Meet. The card mechanics and pushes worked well; it seemed nicely optimised for the setting.

We plan to return for the second chapter later in the year; however, at the moment my Gumshoe fix is being filled with the second chapter of "Eternal Lies" as we start travel to California and Los Angeles.

I leave you with the colour version of the notes that I took during the game using a reMarkable eInk tablet. They started off very structured but I got an urge to have them more representative of my characters state of mind. The multiple layers actually have game notes but they just become a pattern, and I let the Yellow Sign round it off.

4 July 2021

Once more, with colour.