Continuing with the review of games I did a deep dive in thanks to the pandemic, today I look at a group of games Powered by the Apocalypse (PbtA). I have talked before about PbtA games, particularly in a compare-and-contrast with Fate.
To be honest, this is a difficult set of reviews for me to write because I love all the creators and publishers involved so much, but I have some criticism to level. Please bear with me, this is written with love.
After 16 full episodes, running our City of Mist campaign continues to be a high point of the week for me. Here is the “crime board” page; the first image shows the investigation in the first story arc and the PCs’ circles of influence:
The second shares with my players Detective Suarez’s investigation of the crew in connection with the museum theft of the second story arc.
Just for fun. The boards are set up in Roll20.
The one thing in my life that has improved thanks to shelter-in-place is moving our online game of City of Mist from a biweekly schedule to weekly. It makes it easier to keep momentum.
Here is our Roll20 board right now:
Last episode, I opened our first case in our City of Mist: Dead of Night campaign. I started us easy, with the intro adventure provided in the All-Seeing Eye Investigations Starter Box Set.
Although I often have a hard time retrofitting published adventures to a specific group of player characters, this time it turned out pretty easy. Because of the characters my players had created, i.e. pure chance, we had pretty good hooks for the scenario even though it’s based on a completely different crew. Since this introductory scenario is full of handholds for a new crew and MC, it was very reassuring to rely on it rather than second-guess myself. Episode recap after the cut to avoid spoilers.
Continue reading “City of Mist: Dead of Night, Episode 1”
The Reef 