Review of shadows over Scotland, bumps in the night gaslight

[ashmie]

I'm just recovering from our second Halloween games weekend here in Tsu Japan.
I played a couple of card games 'Family Businuss' and Magic followed by 4, yes 4 RPG sessions.
Gamma World to kick off. Then I ran a double bill of Cthulhu Saturday night into the early hours and another Sunday morning. Some of the players stayed for both.
The first scenario was Shadows Over Scotland setting with Gaslight era and a critter from Bumps in the Night. Bumps in the Night had the Vampire Skelleton and lots of grizly murder cases for me to use. The Scotland setting was lovely especially as we had 2 Scottish players in the group who took the heat off me having to destroy the accent. The Edinburgh Vaults and parks were set off all the more with a Gaslight setting. Using the new Gaslight book I found the character sheets to be gorgeous and the character creation to be a joy in itself. Particuarly the attention to class, income and traits. My players enjoyed rolling for these.
We had 6 players. A consulting detective, a scientisit from Romania who was secretly a vampire hunter, a police inspector who later was bitten and became a vampire, a Laird Waverly who was an artist, an Antiquarian and a Dilletante. The characters worked well in a pulp Victorian setting. Usually accustomed to purist Lovecraftian play this was a nice break for me to have some running, jumping, shooting action.
The scenario was The Hand of Abyzou from the Shadows Over Scotland book. Well recommended for an evenings play. 5 hours in total. It may have taken a bit longer because I made the critter from the Bumps in the Night book the main threat to the party.
I had a side goal running as well. The 'winner' of the game would be the one who either went the maddest without dying or the sanest character. We had two winners of course.

The next morning from 10am until 1pm we had the absoloute unexpected delight of playing and running Dockside Dogs the Indiegogo scenario from earlier in the year. Without giving too much away I simply want to say this is a must play scenario for a game weekend group of 5 or 6. Please drop whatever else you are playing and play this. It is a great creation. Easy to run and full of delights for both Keeper and players.
This may well have been the best game I've ever played with a group. It's perfect for new players and Veterans as well as Reservoir Dogs fans. Make sure you set in it 1992 and have fun remembering that beautiful time just before decent cell phones, pin numbers, high security and the accursed Internet. We opened with some Prodigy music playing but fans of the film will most definitely want to use the soundtrack. We did swear a bit too much and were told to take it easy from other rooms so that's something you might want to check before going straight into Tim Roth mode of, "I've been F'()in shot Larry, I'm dying" etc Loved every miunte of it.
Seriously well done to the author of this one.

My final game was the wonderful Dragon Warriors where I played a knight who insisted on fighting in only his pants, leather jerkin and metal gauntlet. Again a great world and easy old skool system, well recommended for smooth flowing uninterupted roleplaying.

Many thanks and regards from the Yoggies of Japan.

[Tenorikuma]

Thanks for running those, Ash. Shadows over Scotland was a lot of fun. Having several authentic Scottish accents at the table was great as well.

[me_in_japan]

Many thanks to Ash for running this, and to everyone who played for making it a fun session. It was actually very nice to meet another scot - there ain't many of us out here, and it's good to be able to speak to someone normally for a change :p

Btw, I dunno if anybody else noticed, but AGP used the word "teuchter" in his last post. Y'see - Chthulu can be fun and practically educational at the same time!

[ashmie]

Teuchter means Englishman right?

[Tenorikuma]

Teuchter means Englishman right?

It means a Scottish highlander, apparently.

[me_in_japan]

Ten's right. An Englishman is a "sassenach"