I'd been trying to gather folks into a dresden game around my (strange) work schedule for a while with some difficulties that were mostly due to the fact that my work schedule conflicts with a lot of people. the GM in a monday night pathfinder game I play in was going to be busy with a report of some kind and didn't think he'd be able to make it. One of the players brought some kind of Ad&d looking remake quickstart game thing he picked up at gencon, I brought night fears
. Since the guy who brought the other game had been interested in trying dresden, but conflicted with my other day off due to social obligations he had with his GF.. he voted for trying out dresden & the other guy agreed to give it a spin on the condition that we try out the other game if dresden seems to flop or something. Plus "how long could it take, we can probably finish either game up quick and start on the other one right?".... mwahaha!... That was at about 6pm. My players settled on mike the ectomancer for othergame guy & chris? the changeling for "how long could it take?" guy
The two made some jokes about the fact that all the characters seemed to look like they were like 10 or so while I was explaining that in the full blown game it's not just kids, just the pregens are for a simple no background needed quickstart sorta thing. & kids are easy enough to adjust as desired without complications due to the blank slate. I explained how they could be older if they wanted and asked the ho's idea was it to spend the night style questions.
It was decided that it wasn't a frat hazing thing and that chris was doing it to impress the girl character on a dare she gave him, but they were twenty somethings. He was also the one who experienced a death in the family (brother>plane crash>he blames a ghost for the crash and wants to destroy them all)... Mike the ectomancer was friends with chris since they were kids & decided that chris maybe suspects a little that he can d stuff b/c he's always getting "creepy feelings" before something happens... but probably doesn't know the full extent of his power.
I describe the mansion and ask them if they did any research beforehand or brought anything with them. Chris said he would have gone to the library and looked at some old newspapers & stuff & maybe brought a map, backpack, & crowbar. By sheer coincidence I had run off extra copies of the floorplan, gave him one & asked if he brought one for mike. Chris brought a flashlight and "like a pencil or something... maybe smaller" that he like to use his illusions to make look like other stuff. The map was pretty useful since we could draw on it and I could use it to explain the concept of zones, we had a dry erase grid map at the table, but I decided it was probably going to just complicate things compared to the maps and explained there are rules for using a grid map, but sit would probably be overkill for this and we could pull it out later if we decide we need it. Mike was getting a soda or some snacks or something out of the kitchen a few feet away (but in earshot) at this point. Seeing a chance to introduce the magic>technology fail mixing thing, I say "and you brought lets say a cellphone? I'll even let you use it for looking up stuff on the interwebs if you have a reason to"... Mike agrees that it sounds like a good idea and takes his smartphone with a flashlight app... He gets back to the table and displays his own with a giggle
. I asked them to just come up with a ghost story in the back of their head that may or may not get used or be important later and kick things off.
They decided to sneak in through the back door, which I decided led to that little closet looking spot near the stairs with the help of Chris' crowbar to pry open the boards so they can get in.
***
Originally I had intended to try and figure out some way to try and point out that chris has a difficulty with steel/iron using the cast iron sink so I could sorta drop in some setting shading... crowbar was just too perfect! Even better was he decided he stole it when I asked where he got it. I told chris it kinda tingles/feels odd in his hand, He chuckled and figures I'm saying he stole the "one crowbar in the world that's cold iron". I explain that it doesn't hurt or anything, just feels odd sorta like some people are allergic to nickles and any kind of iron/steel is enough, it's not just some hard to find crazy metal like D&D... The two think that's kinda cool & make it inside without trouble. I don't even think I made them roll to check given the presence of the crowbar and fun so far.
***
Originally they wanted to check out the kitchen first. Since that takes them through the main living room first, I got to start out with that after describing the little closet they came in through.
They ask if the spot in the kitchen could be blood & figure maybe it might be where he killed his wife while searching through the kitchen. By this point, I still was going 50/50 on if it was going to be survival horror or mystery... They find the tools and start talking about "stealing" them... I bang the table. "ok!... not stealing... maybe we will just leave them there and take them with us for now, but promise to put them back later" says mike. before taking the screwdriver & hammer in case & because he lacks a spiffy crowbar like chris.
Kinda freaked out, they go back to the living room and head to the dining room where I describe an old empty dining room with a hanging chandelier.Chris tries to invoke the old light to fall, I ask why it would fall or what he's trying to accomplish with the fall... He doesn't know & just figures it would be cool but wasn't trying to do anything. I explain there are limits to invokes and they can cause situations that give a bonus or penalty to someone/thing's roll, but have to be things that could possibly happen. They agree that it's unlikely the light would choose now to fall after 60+ years of hanging there & chris starts trying to convince mike to take it with him. After a bit of watching chris try to goad mike into taking it I decided to try compelling mike to point out the fact that chris us the one with the backpack. I don't remember what aspect I compelled (or if I even used an aspect, just seemed natural & I wanted to show how compels could be anything other than awful). mike agreed & did the expected "why are you asking me?... you want it & you got the freaking backpack, you take it... that thing looks heavy & we are going to be here all night, I don't even want it". Chris pretty quickly relents and the two start talking about moving on to continue exploring. At this point mike asks how he can use his described ectomancer abilities like talking with ghosts for information & such... "ever seen that ghosthunters show where they run around talking to ghosts?.. give it a try!
" ....
"mrs cranston?... are you there? it's alright, we aren't here to hurt you... can you come out and talk to us?" I decide this brings out a bang from the kitchen and sorta scratching rustling noise from the living room. Not wanting to tangle with the bang, they check out the living room and I decide to put her fingerbone in the wall behind the mattress
wondering if the mattress is there because "someone might still living here like some crazy homeless person or something?" Having previously described it as old &moldy I give it more detail and have them imagine a mattress left outside in the back yard for a week then pulled into the garage to grow because it's probably been sitting there for like 60 years in the Florida humidity and broken boarded up windows, but the mold doesn't look disturbed after making an average alertness(?) check by tagging mike's suspicious(?) aspect after an unlucky -3/-4 set of rolls. Thy think it's pretty cool that they get to make the roll
then decide to start tagging aspects if it's not good enough while d&D/PF & most stuff is the other way around.After a lot of suspicion that the mattress was a trap or going to hurt them, they decide to use the crowbar to pull the mattress away from the wall. The rustling noises stop as soon as they start moving it...
"mrs. Cranston?" >rustle rustle rustle... They start digging into the wall with the crowbar & mike hears some sobbing coming through the hole in the wall & eventually pulls back enough of the wall & insulation to find the fingerbone. (mike pulling & chris making shadowpuppets of bunnies and such in sarcasm admittedly not trying to scare mike "because it's freaking obvious, it's like bunnies and stuff")
Mike decides to keep the fingerbone with him in his jacket pocket. Chris doesn't believe it's a fingerbone and sticks with the idea that it could be anything, but mike is blowing it out of proportion & the noises were just rats or something.
They decide to go visit the kitchen with the fingerbone *bang table*. The spot does not like them coming back in the room like they did (with her bone). They stay along the back wall and mike tries to have a brief conversation with a rather despondant mr cranston who keeps talking about his wife in not too pleasant terms about how she killed his little boy. Eventually that conversation plays out its usefulness and they decide it best to go check out the study. while chris (still) has only heard bangs and mike at this point is calling mike a little crazy & trying to just scare him or something so he can get with the girl he wanted.
They head over to the study where I describe an old desk and bookshelf with lots of old books suffering from years of florida humidity exposure. Mike gets suspicious of me and asks if there are any books talking about the old ones or lovecraftian horror type things. I chuckle and ask him how hard he's going to be looking.. he just wants to do a quick scan of the covers and such. I describe that it's mostly old "grown up" type books like encyclopedias,dictionaries, etc.. but nothing looking out of the ordinary.()neither one knows -anything- about the dresden setting beyond a quick 2 minute introduction earlier & what I told them about the cranston house, it seemed a reasonable worry)
I eventually point out that they are going to be spending the night in the cranston house and ask if they have decided where they are going to stay when they start trying to really dig into the books out of suspicion. I'm getting a distinct "why would there be books if they weren't an important clue"* vibe at this point & decided to try and move on to act2 if need be... they head upstairs!
mike manages a miraculously high alertness roll at the top of the stairs (it was like +6 or possibly better!) thanks to some tags and fate point spending. I point out that he sees the string to pull down the attic stairs is right there & he (but not chris) can hear the sobbing in the bedroom along with the occasional "horrible things" and "I did it... my fault" type thing. They head in there and talk to mrs cranston who eventually tells them to go check the attic for her proof.
I veered off the module a long time ago, in the attic they find someboxes, paintings (probably the ones that were on the walls downstairs) & her wedding dress Chris is still looking for riches and tries to invoke a civil war era rifle... I point out this all happened in the
nineteen thirties and that such a thing might be out of place, what did he wamt it for & such "You know how valuable that would be?! ", he says in a way that reminds me if bob. I decide "no.. but you do find mrs cranston's jewelrey box with all it's jewelry in it"... "Score!", Chris giggles in glee about how he's going to pawn it and take the girl out to dinner & shag or something. The two are about to leave the attic with the hidden compartment still unfound & chris decides to check out the wedding dress. On their way over there a floorboard creaks and they stand frozen with chris thinking the attic floor is going to fall & mike wanting to investigate it, he finds her knife/silver cup/sketchpad.
The two look at the sketchpad& think it's pretty creepy stuff but wonder what was up with the knife & bowl. They decide to go ask mister cranston in case his wife is a possible threat.
Back in the kitchen they find out that mr cranston thinks he should have known something was wrong with her because she used to use the knife to bleed rats into the bowl for the "little people". Chris is being his usual silly making comments about his wife ("bet she was hot", "ask him if I can
do her")type stuff through the whole conversation betwen mike & mister cranston who decided to be sitting on the counter (I forgot the chair originally) for the conversation. During the conversation mike tries to convince chris to be a little more respectful, chris still doesn't the ghost is real "Pfft... what's it gonna do, send rats to come attack me?".
Mister cranston laughs in amusement after a rat runs up chris' leg (2 mental stress after the roll, (I rolled good & him bad repeatedly, but he got it to +2 vrs +0) I got to explain consequences & both thought it was kinda neat.
Chris swats the rat across the room with the crowbar & kills it in the process. & eventually I decide to tell them that mike can hear a baby shrieking downstairs in the basement leaving them to run offand check on the screaming.
I describe the basement for them, low ceiling, dirt floors, the baby crib/furniture over in one corner & the furnace in the other (still shrieking for mike).Mike tries to convince chris that he hears a shrieking baby & warrily takes the crowbar to open it. Mike sees a transparant ghostly baby shrieking & on inside... chris sees nothing inside.
Mike decides to take the baby out and the flames stop immediately leaving him with a somewhat burned baby cooing in his arms (which chris can not see & is calling mike crazy). Mike puts the baby in the crib & it crawls over to curl up with the teddy bear.
The two decide to go tell the cranstons that they saved the baby. Mister cranston (first stop) quickly runs downstairs & chris hears the footsteps.
Not sure if they want to risk his wife just yet, they eventually go back to the basement to find him holding the baby with tears streaming down his face. Through conversation they learn that he was burned whenever he tried to take the baby out.... I raise a pair of crossed fingers and explain that magic works partly because the practitioner *believes* it will work. mr cranston was burned because he believed it would, mike was not because he did not (and I wanted to see what he was going to do!).
They decide to try using the smashed rat to fill the cup in the backyard and see what comes. Chris puts up a veil & mike goes upstairs looking through a window by way of the reflection on his iphone (thanks to chris' suggestion!).
At this point, everyone was still having fun (it was probably like 9pm or so) so I decide to have a sidhe come out of the forest. I think I called her Seline & she started chatting with chris... who tries to find out what she was to mrs cranston. She explains that he has nothing of value to her that he would be willing to part with & suggests he go ask her Eventually mike notices the reflection thing was bunk & comes outside to check on the two. Seline is friendly but sufggests they go ask her again. Eventually she agrees to trade chris his blood for the answer. I kinda do the cross fingers thing and point out that he'd bordering on trading "his blood" and that he can pretty much treat the entire conversation as like trying to get an iffy wish past the GM in d&d where the letter & intent were not the same & she steps through to the nevernever using a tear she created. I'm still being generous at this point and allow him to revise it as a small amount at a time over the course of 500 years (at his suggestion!), she accepts and mike is expecting this to kill the adventure, I point out that it's not and one of the really nice things about the system is that it makes it a lot easier than d&d type games for the GM to wing it even with a split party. Mike had tried to go along initially, but Seline told him she couldn't guarantee his safety & didn't think he could get back to the mortal realm on his own. Mike was wise enough not to try and bargain.
Chris walks towards arctis tor while chatting with Seline & I eventually cut back to mike who had passed through about 30 seconds of time by now with the tear only closing a moment ago. He decides to go talk to Mrs cranston (We called her Maggie).
Maggie is happy that her baby was saved and explains how it's probably not important to keep it secret now, given her being dead & all, but Seline was her teacher & was teaching her to control her powers. She explains through conversation that she was giving selene the rats blood as payment, but "oh god no I wasn't stupid enough to give her -my- blood.. oh you say your fried did?.. maybe we can save him"
Mike & Maggie go back outside & call Seline back with maggie's instructions.
Cut back to chris, a year has passed with him in arctis tor & Seline explains how he needs to come with her because she can't guarantee the safety of her investment while she's gone and that she needs to go to the mortal realm to uphold her end of a previous bargain.
Chris comes back with Seline in a new wardrobe a year older and tells mike about all the hot fae chick he was with (Chris's kid will come up in a future game I'm sure!). Maggie & Seline work out that it's not a secret anymore and the debt between the two can go to the kids. Chris figures it's about time to be getting baxk to his remaining 498 years and 287 days of the bargain and remembers the blood on the dress (I had firgitten but earlier suggested could have been Maggie's). After helping him around a couple oops bragains trying to get them used to dealing with fae while the risks were low, he eventually was able to bring her the bloodstained dress & Seline agreed that she would accept it from Maggie on their behalf in exchange for Chris' debt
Eventually a cop came & chased them off, but I decided to wrap things up before continuing since it was after 10 already and these were just throwaway characters that weren't going to be reused in another game.
Everyone had fun & it's looking like I might get to have alternating mondays with our monday pathfinder game. The guy who didn't come said he didn't know there was a dresden game, but loves the series & would be all over the idea of joining one. The pathfinder GM likes the idea of taking a bit of a load off him with his reports and such sounds great.
