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| Two Stormbringer campaigns run with Tripod. |
Last weekend I ran for a longer time continuously than I have done in years. The reason? It was Longcon. Longcon is a roleplaying convention where long-form games are the order of the weekend, rather than shorter slots of 3-4 hours. You get to spend the weekend playing a single game, so it gets time to breathe like a fine wine. I've been to one previously, when we played through a shortened version of the Dracula Dossier run by Steve Ellis that was perhaps one of the best games I've ever played in.
Longcon used to be organised by John Dodd, but he passed the mantle over to Graham Spearing in 2023 and I offered to help. Unfortunately, we found that we couldn't get enough people to get it off the ground properly on 2023 (an aborted takeoff) so we focussed on this year. We ended up with four games and an attendance list in the mid-twenties. That's really a little too low, but with figured we should just for it as hopefully people would enjoy themselves and the word would get out.
Preparing for the convention required three different sets of forms to prepare; one to register for attending, one for GMs to submit game details, and a third to allow players to chose their game preferences.
The registration form was pretty similar to those from Furnace and the other Garricons, except it asked if we could take pictures and also if you'd already agreed with a GM to play in their game. This was one of the changes from the way we do the other conventions; GMs could take up to half the spaces in their game for people they'd pitched to themselves. The game details form covered this and after confirming tags, age ratings and safety tools, it asked for a short pitch. We also asked GMs to describe their style and mention anything that to would be useful for players to know. Once we completed game booking, we finalised the last form. That described the games being offered, how many spaces were available, and allowed players to express a preference. However, we did give the GM a final say on who was at their table.
This was the summary for my game:
THE STEALER OF SOULS (Tripod) - 4 spaces available
This is a hack of the classic Stormbringer RPG campaign, the “Stealer of Souls” to run using Tripod (Wordplay2). The characters are hired in a quest for vengeance in Illmoria by Freida, the daughter of the merchant Nikorn of Bakshaan, who was slain by Elric of Melnibone having made the mistake of allying himself with the Pan Tangian sorceror Theleb K’aarna. Freyda wants revenge upon the merchants hired Elric to kill her father, before she plans to go after the White Wolf himself. Why Tripod? The system runs faster and is more narratively focused than the original game and I’ve successful used its predecessor Wordplay to run Stormbringer based adventures at Furnace on multiple occasions.
Guidance - 15 rating, Adult Themes, Dark Sorcery, Demons, It would be useful to know a little about the Young Kingdoms and Elric of Melnibone, but not essential. Safety Tools: X-Card, Lines & Veils, Open Table. GM Style: Player focussed, narrative-led, open.
I had one pre-signed player (Graham) and three more players from the open sign up.
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| Two example badges - GMs in purple, Players in Red - the final version had the game title on the bottom as well. |
The only other preparation I really did was impulsive. We'd agreed we weren't going to do badges, but then I saw some fun 'craft-your-own' ones so ended up ordering them and did them so attendees had a little memento. I suspect Graham thought I'd gone mad when he saw them. Certainly not an option for the other cons as they have too many people, but I felt they were kind of fun.
For a long time I'd wanted to revisit the two classic Stormbringer campaigns using the Tripod engine. I'd previously run both a single session adventure ('The Song of Loess' from Adventurer magazine) and a three-part set of linked scenarios ('The Madcap Laughs' from White Dwarf Magazine) at Furnace using Wordplay (the game which Tripod is the second edition of) and they'd worked really well. I had a block of rules to make this work which needed tweaking, but hoped that having a system and scenario that I was familiar with would make things easier.
I ended up doing some of the preparation late, and ended up away from home several days the week before with work, so had some late nights (or rather early mornings) but fortunately, I don't think the tiredness ever interfered. I did end up doing some final prep for the Black Sword on Sunday morning first thing.
The two campaign books take their plots by closely following on the events from originally recounted in the Bane of the Black Sword. This is now collected in this Gateway eBook (Amazon UK link). If you prefer a hardcover version, then I recommend this glorious set of three books - Vol 1, Vol 2, & Vol 3 - which Blackwells have the first two in stock, and Amazon have the second two. The Bane of the Black Sword is in Volume 2 "Stormbringer". Whereas Michael Moorcock was a fantasy must-read when I was younger, it appears that it has subsequently become somewhat obscure, which disappoints me.
One of the players - Debbie - had taken the protagonist from the scenario, Freyda Nikon, the daughter of a merchant whose father had been killed by Elric of Melniboné at the behest of four rivals. I was glad that she had, because it meant that I wasn't having to focus on keeping credible and engaged NPC in action with the party the whole time. She embraced the challenge of seeking down her father's killers and having vengeance magnificently, and it was lovely to see the character growth over the two days. What was even more fascinating was that a driver for this was a failure on a roll that drew upon her goal of vengeance. This planted a seed of doubt (a game mechanic) and meant the story adjusted.
The other players had versions of characters that my old Stormbringer group had. Jon had a half-Melnibonéan scoundrel, Remi a fallen knight of the Church of Law, and Graham had a somewhat light-fingered sailor and bodyguard from the Purple Towns.
The first two sessions played out with a story of revenge, as Freyda parlayed with the people who commissioned her father's death, faced legal threats to take her inherited fortune off her, killed one in a duel, escaped an assassination attempt, and then stormed the houses of two of the merchants with murder in mind. Finally, they tracked down and slew the one of the quartet who had fled town. In the latter element, they used a bound Demon of Transport very creatively to catch up with and coldly kill the final victim in his sleep. Naturally, a small fortune was retrieved off most of their enemies.
The evening session took the source of a rumour at the Imyrrian camp and turned it into whole exposition of a dying culture, with associated debauchery and decadence. I didn't expect this to play out the way it but was just riffing on the way that the players responded. We were very careful; I made sure all the agency and suggestions came from the player group, not me, and naturally veils were drawn. I did love the way that Remi's knight simmered and didn't want to get drawn into this decadence. There was also a scenarie
The party pushed on into Nadsakor, the city of Beggars, and we ended the first day with Freyda offered the aid of a Chaos Lord and on a cliffhanger whether to accept.
We had a pint and a natter in the bar after, but I was tired so went to bed pretty early.
The final two session saw the offer negotiated, and then a visit through the Forest of Troos (beating off a beastman attack), followed by the party participating in the collapse of the Kingdom of Org in fire and plague. Although I do like this section, it was somewhat scripted, but naturally the players decided to bypass this. It almost became very messy when they reach the citadel of the Kingdom, but fortunately, the chaos around meant the murder of the guard was missed.
The party then entered the Weeping Wastes, befriended Nomads. At this point (around lunch) Remi had to go, so his character chose to stay with the Nomads to try and find some piece, perhaps to search for the City of Tanelorn afterwards. Going deeper into the wastes, the party were accosted by agents of an ancient sorcerer from an alien race who had ongoing enmity with the Melnibonéans, and taken to a refuge deep in the Badlands. Fortunately, they spotted to way to get out easily, stealing the Demon of Knowledge the sorcerer depended upon and using it to plot a swift escape.
They retrieved their horses and made it to the city of Karlaak, where Elric had settled down with his new love Zarozinia. Elric was out of town, but the party met Zarozinia and Moonglum, Elric's sidekick. Moonglum also gave them a stark warning about the dangers of fighting Elric and his hellsword Stormbringer. Finally, in a private room in the Inn, Freyda met Elric. I honestly didn't know if this would become a fight or not, but somehow things were settled honourably. They recognised that perhaps in other circumstances, they could have been friends.
We finished the scenario at 1630. I'd run from 10:30 to around 22:00 on Saturday and 10:00 to 16:30 on Sunday. We'd had decent meal breaks.
What I loved about Longcon was the chance to let a scenario breathe. Although there is a timer for the convention (it finishes at 1800 on Sunday), it never felt as upfront as it does when you are running a 3-4 hour slot. Spotlight was shared and things from the earlier part of the game affected the decisions later on. Of course, I did have break points for the second day if we'd been running behind, but I didn't need to use them.
The players were fantastic, and I had a lot of fun. I was very tired the start of this week though; it's been a long time since I've done this kind of thing for such a sustained period; these days the closest I come to this is if I run a training course.
Tripod rose magnificently for the game; just enough crunch for fun, but light enough to fade to the background. The spread of the dice rolls meant even if you were a hero, you were never certain if you'd win out. Converting the scenario was simple; I'll cover that in another post though.
Overall, a fantastic weekend and one that we will be repeating next year. But do I run or play?
4 July 2024
