Unseen Masters: The Wild Hunt

[lordofstella]

Hello all,
I've been preparing the run The Wild Hunt for quite some time now and will be starting soon. This is going to be the first pre written campaign I have ever ran and I'm looking for some tips on organizing prewritten material from both people who have ran this specific one, and those who have ran any campaign. I'm usually very familiar with sessions I run because either I wrote them, or they're short reads. This allows me to look prepared and keep the game running smooth and fun. Sadly, I'm a bit intimidated with how much information there is and how in depth everything is.

My main question is basically, how do I properly prepare for this? I've read it all and have been taking notes on computer paper about every scenario and event, trying to summarize so i have something brief and easy to look down on during the night. Is this effective? Obviously I'll have the book with me too when I run it, but how do you guys handle all the information included in long campaigns? (Yes, I'm aware this one is short compared to most) I don't want to look like I'm reading everything off a piece of paper! That bores players.

[christian]

The wild hunt is an excellent short campaign that I mastered twice. You seem to have done your homework quite well. The thing to remember, here, as always, is this ( imho): each of the NPCs is a character in his own right. No one believes that he is a walk on part, a second rate citizen. Everyone believes he's at the center of his life story. make each NPC a live one, have a clear picture of how he looks and how he speaks ( I ALWAYS use actors that I know well and can impersonate). And keep a timeline as lots of things happen in the space of a few days... I placed the wild hunt, the second time, just after 9/11. Just saying...

[eternalchampion]

I must say that this scenario was quite memorable, but yes it is also complicated with many encounters, characters and things going on. It is an excellent chance for the investigators to take a trip through various levels of the modern city’s night-life. It did remind me the film “Seven” in some parts.
As far as you have read the whole of it, say, three times and you have taken your notes you have nothing to worry about. Sometimes I take some notes with a pencil on the book it self so I can see them immediately.
In a scenario like that the players will have a lot to do and this will keep them occupied. As Christian mentioned, write down the timeline and highlight the important clues, so you will not forget anything of those. I would n’t worry about the players. They will be seriously occupied with their actions and the rich role playing opportunities.

[lordofstella]

Eternal, thanks for the advice. If you (or anyone else reading this who has done this campaign) wouldn't mind dropping me an email at lordofstella@gmail.com that would be awesome. I begin the game late tonight and would love to ask a few specific questions before it begins.

[bintz]

I only read a short introduction of the plot but I was thinking if it couldn't be mixed with Tiger Transit to open up even more possibilities en branch it for a longer term campaign. What do you think about it?

[lordofstella]

I only read a short introduction of the plot but I was thinking if it couldn't be mixed with Tiger Transit to open up even more possibilities en branch it for a longer term campaign. What do you think about it?

Can't say I'm familiar enough with Tiger Transit to state my opinion.

As an update, two sessions have come and gone now and its going pretty well. The players dont seem to mind the occassional skimming of the book. I've given each player a journal in which to roleplay in during the course of the evening. It's completely optional, but at the end of a session, I collect them all and award one or two players the next night with different prizes for keeping exceptional journal entries. A prize also goes to the most outstanding roleplayer for each night as well. This has been keeping players serious and focused, loving it!

[christian]

Seems excellent... Try to make them feel, as time goes by and people die, the angst due to the realisation that they are the only ones with even a small chance of catching the killer... so that each additional death should weigh them with some guilt... This is not a game, not when they have to confront and question the decease's family, etc.... ( I found that specially effective when they had to interview one after the other a victim's husband - with baby in arms- and just after that the victim's lover, a seedy artistic type who actually fished around for a cigarette butt in an ashtray in which were crusted three old used preservatives.

[lordofstella]

That's a great idea that I never considered before. Next session, I'm gonna bring in some upset family members =D

[christian]

That's a great idea that I never considered before. Next session, I'm gonna bring in some upset family members =D

In a real life investigation, family members and associates will ALWAYS be met, most of them will be interviewed ans sometimes suspected. you MUST treat this like a normal investigation, it will make everything more vivid...

[ShaneC]

ooh, just saw this. If all goes to plan, I'm starting this one tomorrow (or maybe on the 9th, depending on schedules). Originally I was going to run DG's Holy War, but Wild Hunt looks easier (or at least it's laid out better for me). That reminds me, I need to copy the handouts too.

I'm really liking the idea of interviewing family too. Any snags you've ran into yet in trying to keep things moving smoothly?

[lordofstella]

Shane,
We're 5 sessions in and it's going well. Everyone is having a good time. Keep in mind, this will take a lot longer than you will probably be expecting. There are so many things you're players will want to do in one day, and most of the good action doesn't happen till day 5 which means, several sessions. Had an interview with some family members and it went great. The psychologist and the public speaker in the group really got emotional during it.

[ShaneC]

My current group (3-5 players depending on schedules) is only meeting for about 3hrs per session every other week, so yeah, I figured this one would take quite a while. Most scenarios we've ran so far have only taken like 3 sessions at most, so this will be an 'interesting' change. Being that we're mostly using the DG setting, I think this could prove an interesting time to introduce them to Club Apocalypse and Phenom-X as well. Only in a shadowy background sense though, unless they really try to pursue those avenues.

For now, I intend to ignore the New York treaty w/ Alzis or work around it. Maybe Alzis doesn't care as this is all bad for business or maybe someone has made a deal with him or maybe Alzis will request a deal from the PC's....hmm....so many options. I'll have to see how that part plays out.

I think Cole Shack will be working for Phenom-X either way, though I doubt they'll play a major role as an organization.

Man I really need to gather up a list of NPC's and whose showing up when and where.

[Asmodas]

My current group (3-5 players depending on schedules) is only meeting for about 3hrs per session every other week, so yeah, I figured this one would take quite a while. Most scenarios we've ran so far have only taken like 3 sessions at most, so this will be an 'interesting' change. Being that we're mostly using the DG setting, I think this could prove an interesting time to introduce them to Club Apocalypse and Phenom-X as well. Only in a shadowy background sense though, unless they really try to pursue those avenues.

For now, I intend to ignore the New York treaty w/ Alzis or work around it. Maybe Alzis doesn't care as this is all bad for business or maybe someone has made a deal with him or maybe Alzis will request a deal from the PC's....hmm....so many options. I'll have to see how that part plays out.

I think Cole Shack will be working for Phenom-X either way, though I doubt they'll play a major role as an organization.

Man I really need to gather up a list of NPC's and whose showing up when and where.

I had a really hard time running this scenario. There are a lot of moving parts, and even after reading it a few times I had a heck of a time trying to keep the PCs from getting bogged down in all the side plots. Also, the whole goth angle is hard to sell - my players immediately assumed it was a red herring because it got pushed on them by the cops during their first meeting, and thus didn't spend a significant amount of time chasing down Gregor.

[Agent_Bluescale]

DELTA GREEN SPOILERS!!



In my campaign, we were playing up the whole angle of the new ADAM being MJ-12's Gavin Ross. I ran this particular adventure (me and macmonkey would often trade positions, he had an ongoing agent who went in and out of the Cell for ALPHONSE) and they ended up sending a sample of the blue goo to ADAM. They didn't know about the MJ-12 angle, only ALPHONSE knew and JONAH (macmonkey's character, he was a retired old school DG op who use to work with ALPHONSE in the cowboy era) found out after this adventure. He chewed out ALPHONSE pretty good for his devil's bargain (it was hinted that ALPHONSE allowed it to happen to try taking out MJ-12 from the inside out).

The best moment was when ADAM sent in backup. Lepus showed up with a specialized Blue Fly team. One of the player's characters had died (more on that below) so I allowed him to play the Blue Flies and make Lepus's rolls. It really made it more memorable as I kept having Lepus push their boundaries. Example? They had sent in some cops to set up explosives in an attempt to trap the bad guy. Things got hectic but they wanted to get the cop out of there before Lepus shot the explosive as planned. Lepus responded by shooting the explosive and killing the cop claiming he had saved the cop from dying a slow and gruesome death (we often played Lepus as thinking he was the hero of the campaign...the players were not fond of him). Come to think of it, either JONAH or Lepus made the final shot that destroyed the crystal. I don't remember.

An agent died when he started tampering with magic and not just by reading a few tomes. I would give him the magical formula, or in this case the mathematical (Einstein) formula. He started adding his own things and making his own interpretations. He actually ended up empowering the Einstein formula, enough that he briefly met Yog-Sothoth in his Tawil mask. He accepted a bargain to destroy this angular invader and started becoming possessed by Y-S. JONAH responded by shooting him in the head. The player was pretty pissed but I had given him several warnings, both in and out of game, that he had to be careful with tampering too much.

Another award winning moment was when they started tying balloons to each other and buying RC cars that they rigged with explosions. They were getting desperate as the body count started rising and A Cell started getting on their case.

[Agent_Bluescale]

Just to give you an example of how this player treated magic.

Me: The magical formula involves drawing a circle in chalk or pen or pencil.
I Want Ultimate Power: Got it. I'll get a toy railroad track to make a movable circle and run electricity through it.
Me: Ooookkkaay.
I Want Ultimate Power: I'll also do the chalk circle and start adding random mathematical formula.
Me: You know you might be stretching this a bit far...
IWUP: It'll be fine.
Me: Remember that A Cell told Jonah to 'debrief' you if you started showing unusual behavior.
IWUP: So they'll just send me away?
Me: Debriefing to them seems to mean being shot.
IWUP:...
Me: In the head.
IWUP: It'll be fine.