Game: The Pemberton Mistake
System: Darkness of the Demimonde
GM: Stephen L McMorland
Location: Lomond
Age Rating: Adult Only (ages 16+)
Players: 3 – 6
Genre: Victoriana / Pulp Horror / Urban Fantasy
Description: Darkness of the Demimonde is a Victorian Pulp Horror game set in a Victorian Britain which has supernatural horrors hiding in the shadows. You play investigators, not all of them entirely human, who take on the Darkness for Queen and Empire and any other reason you like. This scenario follows the death of Lord Alfred Pemberton, the founder of a secret organisation which investigates the supernatural. You are the six best agents brave, strange, and smart, and you must find out what mistake Pemberton made and fix it before the world is consumed by a powerful eldritch threat.
Tags: Rules Lite
Trigger Warnings: This is a horror game, so scary, horrible things will occur, however, I will not present anything gory or unpleasant, themes might cross into quite dark places, this is Victorian London, not a nice place and the tone of this game is quiet, psychological horror (or as best as I can manage to make that happen), however, a discussion of Lines and veils will take place at the start of this game, this is not a game for youngsters.
Game: Pensions
System: Homebrew
GM: Phil Harris
Location: Craft
Age Rating: Adult Only (ages 16+)
Players: 2 – 4
Genre: Sci-fi Mobsters and Old People
Description: Two retired couples have drawn their pensions and are on the trip of a lifetime when they discover that they seem to have upset an intergalactic crime lord!
Is one of them holding a deep dark secret, or is something else going on with the hired spaceship, its pilot, not tipping the last waiter you had or your droid guide!
Tags: Rules Lite, Newbie Friendly, GM’s Own System
Trigger Warnings: Descriptions of blood and gore
Game: Alien: Olenya Bay
System: Year Zero Engine
GM: Bruce Laing
Location: Torridon
Age Rating: Adult Only (ages 16+)
Players: 3 – 5
Genre: Sci-fi, horror, player vs player possibility
Description: Premise: As survivors of a sunken UPP prospecting sea vessel, you have been adrift for days. Tired and hungry.
In the distance, you spy a drilling platform in the distance, and hope to get to a safe place. It rises as you start paddling toward it…
This adventure was written by Dave Sermark (Effekt Podcast, Lead writer of Alien: Building Better Worlds supplement)
Tags: Newbie Friendly
Trigger Warnings: None
Game: Tumbledown
System: Cursed Be Our Name
GM: Chris Dean
Location: Pentland
Age Rating: Teen (ages 12+)
Players: 2 – 6
Genre: Post-apocalyptic super-powered fantasy
Description: “Cursed Be Our Name” is a “super-powered post-apocalyptic fantasy” RPG, set 200 years after the emergence of six Primordials beings, whose appearance, existence and deaths forever devastated and mutated the continent they arrived upon.
All of humanity, the creatures, and even locations and objects are Cursed, each possessed of an (often unnatural) physical Mark, and for the living, a Compulsion related to their Curse. Each Curse is defined by a word or phrase, and manifests in individuals differently. One human with the Curse of Gold may have shining golden hair, and kleptomania, for example, whilst another may have golden skin and deck themselves in the finest jewellery.
Player characters, however, are amongst the Transformed; they are possessed of Cursed Talents (mundane feats that they can achieve more easily due to their curse) and Power (a unique ability bestowed by their curse).The Curse of Gold might provide Talents when “searching for valuables, attracting attention, proving your value”, and give you a Power that lets you transform inanimate materials into gold.
A Little on the Rules: Cursed be Our Name is a highly descriptive game where players have a lot of ability to alter the narrative and their environment, and where complications and success often mix.
When you make a Choice, you pick from one of five Approaches, each unique to the character, with a Value of 1 to 4. Successful Choices create Effects. Effects are spent to achieve what you describe, and possibly more (and you may not have enough to do all of what you wanted).
When you make your Choice, the GM describes between 0 to 3 Sources of Pressure. If you have no or only one Source of Pressure to achieve what you want (such as somebody hearing you whilst you pick a lock) you can choose to make a Quick (diceless) Choice with 1 Effect, and can spend from one of your stats to get further Effects.
Otherwise, roll d10s equal to the Approach’s Value (between 1 to 4). Each roll of 6 or above creates Effects. Effects can remove the Sources of Pressure, but you can accept them to achieve other things. A point of Pressure alone does not necessarily impact you, but every 3 points of Pressure taken causes a Setback, which can result in both success and complications.
Tags: Newbie Friendly, GM’s Own System
Trigger Warnings: Blood and gore, some pregens will be “morally flexible”
Game: Track Dogs open playtest
System: Track Dogs
GM: Alexa
Location: Ochil
Age Rating: Teen (ages 12+)
Players: 3 – 5
Genre: Weird Science Fantasy Adventure, like Mortal Engines meets Sunless Sea/Fallen London
Description: A vast expanse of old-growth forest called the Cedar or Seven Cedars covers the Earth, filled with monsters, treasures, and mysterious clues to the world that came before. Above the tree canopy on the criss-cross of railways maintained by an inscrutable god-computer; you, the TRACK DOGS, wend your way between the settlements that poke above the treeline, in search of fame, fortune and glory.
TRACK DOGS is an in-development Powered By The Apocalypse game about post-apocalyptic train pirates. Players will be asked to provide feedback at the end of the session. The attendance and opinions of all levels of experience are welcome – a broad spectrum of perspectives is critical for further development.
Scenarios will be constructed communally during play, and have a broad range of possible themes. Will your crew get into an exciting train chase with the law? Descend into the horrifying depths of the subcedar, there to encounter monsters like the horrid soilshark and pistol shrimpman? Carry out a perfectly timed heist on a high-value target in port? It’s all up to you…
Tags: Newbie Friendly, GM’s Own System
Trigger Warnings: Some allusions to benthic/subaquatic horror (in a transplanted context)