The Wives of March is a horror mystery set in Barefoot Crossing, a sharecropping community on the rural outskirts of Savannah, Georgia. Two investigators from opposite sides of society are charged with examining the murder of a Methodist preacher and accidentally reveal an ancient, inhuman conspiracy in the process. Can they overcome a supernatural evil masquerading as the banal atrocities so commonly perpetrated by mankind? This scenario is a playtest of the upcoming PDF release from Hebanon Games.
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A beautiful start to this scenario. Having listened to the Wages of Sin it was interesting to see the similarities and dividations as you changed genre. And by the end I was getting giddy with anticipation and excitement of the mystery and horror unveiling to “Black Lightning”. I cant wait to hear the next part and I cant wait to run this for my players.
THE TRUE EVIL IS THE PLAGUE OF BOLL WEEVILS!!!!!!
3 hours later. IM SCARED AND NEED MORE!
Noooo cliff hangers are the worst. D:
Is it just me, or did Ross and Aaron have some out of game anticipation as to what was going to happen next in the game? Like they were nervously proceeding, worrying about death traps at every turn? It didn’t detract and actually drew me in more as they seemed as freaked out about the happenings as the characters were.
Kudos to Aaron for proceeding into the depths of madness by the end.
I’ve noticed that my penchant for death-traps and monsters that exist nowhere but in my own head leads some people into a more cautious play-style than usual. The RPPR guys are used to it by now, and I think they use that caution as a way to lend weight to the narrative foreshadowing. I think it made the game much stronger.
The downside is that the reputation sometimes turns my players into 1st ed. DnD characters, poking ahead of them inch-by-inch with a 10 foot pole despite the fact the game is set in the modern-day Silicone Valley and all the characters are corporate executives, or whatever. At least they’re still on edge?
Regardless, the death-traps will continue until moral improves.
For me, Caleb had explained some of the back story of the villains in this scenario some time before we playtested it, so I was already D: the entire time we played this.
Also, I dispute the notion we have ever played in games you ran where we were powerful ‘corporate executive’ type PCs.
Caleb’s next Kickstarter? Possibly involving “Red Markets”?
Insane scenario. Loving it so far. Kept going “oh shit” at every reveal. The nursery shit is the stuff of nightmares. Hat off to you, sir.
@Caleb
I think that’s just a certain kind of psychological conditioning with some horror games, maybe. Or it could be like you say, and it’s just a metacontext thread in your work people have picked up on (Deathtrap is singular, and all that). Or maybe RPPR is just shitty at keeping it all in character.
I don’t run horror/suspense super often (Though I started running with CoC scenarios), but my players are moderately used to it. But I recently ran a little Nemesis scenario as an experiment, and one player kept it very in character in thinking everything going on was a hoax or a prank until the masked boogeyman put a suppressed 5.7mm round in his back. And even then, he didn’t imagine shit was supernatural until he sarcastically summoned a minigun. Everybody knew out of character is was some kind of horror scenario with vague cosmic ramifications, but they stuck to in character responses in context as white-collar cube drones pretty well.
I had a good reason for my character to be afraid virtually all of the time: he was a black man in the 1930s South.
@Omega
To clarify, I thought Ross and Aaron did some fantastic roleplaying in this game. I never thought their caution did anything but add to the story. I designed Wives with far more players in mind, but cancellations left us with two. The fact that they slugged it through to the end without noticeably meta-gaming is really admirable and helped really boost my confidence in the piece after this playtest.
I have no idea what’s going on and I love it! it’s funny that comparing this with an early adventure like Andrew’s Fortune what’s changed isn’t so much the complexity of the scenario as it is Caleb’s grip over his players. much less ridiculous goofiness here than in those first few APs. but that’s just a function of having a smaller group, but I like to think it’s that they’ve learned to fear.
gah sentence structure in that comment is the worst thing of all time y u no edit button
This
” the death-traps will continue until moral improves.”
Made me think you need to run a Paranoia game. Just use any system you like, but run the world.
Caleb, did you write some of this stuff with Aaron in mind? It was a fantastic listen.
I agree that Ross and Aaron fretting about what was happening but doing it anyway was really great. As far as listening goes, it added a lot. I’m now torn between waiting for the second half of the AP, or reading the documents to find out what’s going on.
I definitely want to run this for my players.
I love this. Wages of Sin was the game that sold me forever on Caleb, and it’s great to wander through that territory again, even if without LeGrass and Horn.
Also, was Caleb professionally involved in some kind of probate thing? I remember him going to it like a bear to honey and this game just furthers that.
relistened, got it now! missed the last fifteen minutes or so somehow. trivia: it’s actually impossible to be able to see someone in a mirror who can’t see you! if you can see someone’s face in a reflection, they can see yours, because of how the rays and angles work. check it out, shit’s crazy. thanks, Bill Nye! the source of all my knowledge about the real world
Bill! Bill! Bill! Bill! Bill Nye the Science Guy!
also if this be true, and I don’t doubt the guy of science, then my former boss at wally world totally lied about those security corner mirrors at the end of aisles.
The more you know.
this totally takes me back to the days of the radio serials…’i love a mystery’, ‘x minus one’, ‘the shadow’…
it is obvious that the three of you work so well together, riffing off of each other and going with the story instead of getting too caught up on mechanics (bless Caleb for being that type of ref…) or the silly ‘oh my, is this metagaming?’
Jesus & Ross, your performance reminded me of Abbott & Costello, the Red Nose & the White Face and you both did an excellent job of being immersed in the slow burn horror
when your characters realize that their world has changed forever…that’s horror
this was a fine wine performance, almost art?
Like this game? Get a copy here:
http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/120072/The-Wives-of-March
Or buy my book and get a print copy:
http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/122756/No-Security-Horror-Scenarios-in-the-Great-Depression