Tuesday, February 25, 2014

Musings on Masks: Episode 13

CAMPAIGN SUMMARY: James Paterson, Australian private investigator in New York, has been hired to investigate Sydney Silvers who went missing only a night or two ago but whose home was found ransacked by the receptionist.  He needs to find Sydney Silvers because she had been investigating the eugenicists who may be responsible for the death of James' beloved back in London.

EPISODE SUMMARY (Unwary): Wherein James Paterson, Australian private investigator in New York, reluctantly teams up with Martha Collins who lives with Sydney Silvers to investigate her disappearance.

EASTER EGGS: There's a few subtle prods here to point him in the right direction as the poor player is doing this on his own. While this does help reduce the amount of tangents and confusion around, it also means the campaign relies on one man's insights and ability to remember all of the facts.  Hence why I try to guide him to the right insights and conclusions when such things matter for the successful resolution of the plots.  I could leave him to it, but he'd probably just get frustrated.  On the other hand, it's a delicate balance because I don't want to make it too easy.

How do you think I've done?

Also, I meant to do some jive speak with the man at the Cotton Club but after taking a look at the truly atrocious Cotton Club menu I couldn't bring myself to do so.  It felt better to make him a bit taciturn and cautious.

I'll probably have a very jive talking black person using the slang in the Secrets of New York book (even though it'll doubtless be anachronistic, being as this is set in the late thirties rather than the early twenties) at some later point when the person is trying to specifically annoy him.  Perhaps when he pokes around the Ju-Ju House?

2 comments:

  1. Because it's really late when I'm listening to this, I heard "it's owned by Onie Madden, a lobster".

    Also, turns out I skipped episode 12 entirely. D'oh. That explains why I was confused. Now I might as well finish this one and then skip back.

    It felt to me like you did a reasonable job of warning him off dead ends and prodding in the right direction, and using the NPCs to make that less intrusive. From what I've seen so far, if he feels like tangents would be interesting to play through he'd go ahead anyway.

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    1. This is true. It's what happens when most of your game experiences are sandbox World of Darkness types.

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