Building History (We All Met At An Inn)

The Bull 

East End boozer near Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park and on the edge of Limehouse, West India Docks, narrowly missed by Nazi bombs during the war and now a hangout for peculiar characters of all kinds. 

Owned by: Ex-IRA (silent partner). 

Publican of record: Charlie Brown (not the Charlie Brown), someone who everybody knows. The police may or may not realize he's a front for the Ex-IRA. Edom certainly knows. 

The Brewer: Bowman Brewery, vans coming and going at odd hours. 

Watched by EDOM via Maggie Canter, Church Scavenger (p96 Field Manual). 

Let’s talk history. 

For a major plot location like this it’s reasonable to assume that it has two kinds of history. One is the historical record, things that happened a while ago, probably before the characters were born. A cathedral in a fantasy setting might have been on that spot for hundreds of years. A brutal slum might have been there for several generations. That wizard’s tower might have been there since the beginning of time itself. 

The other is the characters’ history, their lived experience. 

They may not know about the historical record, but it’s a certainty they know about their own history. That time they had the lock-in and danced on the tables till dawn. That time the lads from the estate started a fight and got a kicking. That time the police came to break up a fight and got thrown out but came back again, in force this time, and everybody spent a night in the cells. Snogging in the toilets. Watching the 5th November fireworks display from the upstairs window.  

None of this may matter to the historical record, but it matters to the characters. It forges a connection with the adventure hub, which will play into future scenes. In games were Trust is a mechanic, it directly influences Trust and therefore conflict, which is future plot.  

Just as before this is a Four Things moment. The historical record gets at least four, and the character’s history gets four. There is a difference, though. Where the Director usually specifies the Things, this is one time where you let the players have their way. 

Let’s talk about the historical record first. 

Dracula Dossier has a convenient dividing line for the historical record. There’s the 1890s, the War, the 1970s and the current era. Not every system is as helpful, but since this one has been it seems only fair to divide the historical record’s Four Things along those lines: one Thing per era up till the 1970s, and then the Fourth Thing which could easily fit into any of the eras. 

With all that said: 

• 1890s: then known as the Black Bull, this coaching inn had underground stables which became notorious as a smuggler’s haven; it was said at the time that tunnels leading out from the stables emerged in a dozen different places. The stables were supposed to have been filled up in the 1890s due to subsistence problems. 
• 1940s: a bombing raid flattened the old Black Bull, killing the landlord and four other people and injuring a half dozen more. The spot remained an open crater till the 1950s, when the modern Bull was built. 
• 1970s: a series of slasher murders came to an abrupt halt when police raided the Bull and the bartender Duncan MacNeil was arrested. He committed suicide before trial. [Edom may or may not have been involved.] 
• FOURTH THING. 

As before, the Fourth Thing will depend on what variant you shoot for. In this example I'm shooting for Supernatural: vampires are the result of magical or other supernatural activities on Earth; spirits, ghosts, witchcraft and the like. 

So, the Fourth Thing in this example is: the lights either don’t work properly or are being interfered with in some way. It seems to happen most often during the summer; lights are seen on when they shouldn’t be and flicker off without warning. Tradition has it that this is ‘the spook’ monkeying with the electrics, and depending on who you talk to that might be the ghost of murderer MacNeil or some long-forgotten smuggler in the filled-in tunnels down below. 

That’s the historical record. I’ve gone into a little more detail on these four things as the Bull is the adventure hub. It stands to reason that the characters will be spending more time here than anywhere else.  

What about the lived experience? 

This is where the players come in. There should be a minimum of Four Things and the players should collaborate on what those things are. This may or may not happen in Session Zero. The important point is, this is their history. They get to decide what happens. If it physically changes the location in some way, then the location changes.  

For example, they could say that there was a big fire a few years back that damaged the Bull. Maybe that’s why the second bar upstairs is no longer used. There could be smoke damage or boarded up windows/doors as a result. That’s a change you may not have anticipated, but it happened, so now you work with it. 

In the ideal each player gets to contribute one thing. If your group conveniently has four players then you get four things. If you have five, then it’s five. This is one of the few occasions when it’s a good idea to break the Four Things rule, and it’s only a good idea because it’s the players doing it. They might not remember things you decide or say. They have a much better chance of remembering what they decide or say. 

You want to give the players as much freedom as possible but there are going to be boundaries. You can't let a random decision break plot. The Bull has to be the Bull; it can't be under new management, or burn down, or not be close to Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park. Those are plot-defining characteristics. Equally you don't want to give the characters access to too much power from the jump. The Bull can certainly have a London white van which the characters can borrow from time to time. A quartet of matched tuned-up Maserati GrandTurismos? No.  

So! The History.  

Next week: Rival Groups.

The Bull (We All Met At An Inn)

It's the perennial bugbear. The cliche to end all RPG cliches. The adventuring party has to meet somewhere. Why not an inn?

What would make it more interesting? 

It's your local. Nameless tavern number 368 in a life full of nameless taverns is not a good start. What if you and your mates have been coming here all your lives? What if you have history with this place?

The Bar, dir Álex de la Iglesia

So how does this work in practice?

Assumptions: Night's Black Agents, starting locale London, small Edom (as per Field Manual p58), Supernatural variant, and whether it's Thriller, Mirror or something else isn't relevant to this discussion. 

I posted the clip for two reasons: first, it's a brilliant film, go see. But second, just look at that bar. All those little details. I don't doubt for a minute I could walk into any one of a dozen different places in Madrid and find a bar exactly the same as that bar. It's the local spot on the corner. It's the place you walk by every day. If you didn't cross the threshold, you'd still know what you'd find if you went in there because it's no different than a dozen others. It's a bar.

And yet ...

The Bull

East End boozer near Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park and on the edge of Limehouse, West India Docks, narrowly missed by Nazi bombs during the war and now a hangout for peculiar characters of all kinds.

Owned by: Ex-IRA (silent partner).

Publican of record: Charlie Brown (not the Charlie Brown), someone who everybody knows. The police may or may not realize he's a front for the Ex-IRA. Edom certainly knows.

The Brewer: Bowman Brewery, vans coming and going at odd hours.

Watched by EDOM via Maggie Canter, Church Scavenger (p96 Field Manual).

Four Things:

• The telly’s constantly on the go, showing football at all hours of the day and night. There’s usually half a dozen faces paying it attention. Sometimes the same half a dozen, day in, day out.
• The upper level ballroom used to be a second bar but that’s been closed for donkey’s years, used for storage and the like. The Ex-IRA’s pals sometimes meet up here.
• There’s a back way out not many people know about. It leads into a smelly little alley that runs along the cemetery wall; someone athletic could scale over the wall and get into the cemetery.
• FOURTH THING

The Fourth Thing will depend on what variant you shoot for. In this example I'm shooting for Supernatural: vampires are the result of magical or other supernatural activities on Earth; spirits, ghosts, witchcraft and the like. This can be a broad canvas, but I shall shoot for:

• Some say the old black and white photos framed on the wall have peculiar properties. You think it's all a load of crap, but there's no denying some of those photies are creepy as hell. Why does it always feel like the people in those pictures are looking right at you?

OK, so that's the bare bones. This is the adventure hub. It's where the characters initially gather. I see this as a kind of Kingsman variant, where the characters start off as dumb kids messing about. Of course, they don't know what's hanging around in Tower Hamlets Cemetery which, conveniently for plot, is right next door.

So what will this hub have?

Well, it will have surroundings. There will be neighbors. There's that convenient cemetery, and Limehouse not far off. It will have history. It will have rival groups seeking to extend their influence over it, and those rival groups don't necessarily have anything to do with the Conspiracy.

Finally, it will have Plot Function. There's something about it that is necessary, perhaps vital, for ongoing plot. 

This week let's talk about the neighbors.

I've mentioned the Building before: that area in which you, as GM, expects plot to happen. For plot to happen, the GM needs to populate the Building, either with people or events with which the players can interact. 

That's all the neighbors are. They're part of the Building. These are locations where you, the GM, expect plot to happen. That doesn't mean they're all mandatory, that the characters absolutely have to interact with each and every one of them. What it means is, you, the GM, have options. Plot can happen in any of these places and, if you give yourself enough options, you'll never be flailing around wondering what the hell to do next because there will always be somewhere to go, something to do.

I'm just going to discuss a few options this week but always remember, the more options you give yourself the less likely you'll find yourself down a plotless blind alley.

Cowden Wing Tzun (Martial Arts Academy on Cowden Lane)

Popular among women and a slightly older crowd, this academy is open all day and night. The owner, Stanley Ho, is a friend of the Ex-IRA and occasionally does small jobs for Maggie Canter.

Four Things:

• The building was a funeral parlor in the 1900s-1930s and still has a large yard with what would have been a carriage stable back in the day and is now a tumbledown garage.
• Stanley Ho lives in rooms above the academy but his lifestyle is very Spartan; he seems to think that owning things is bad.
• Gym Rats know it as a prime place for finding students out on the prowl, wandering out of their comfort zone.
• FOURTH THING: Some say the carriage stable is haunted by a black carriage that wanders the streets at the dead of night. If you see it, pray it doesn't stop; it might be stopping to collect you.

Michael Townshend Memorial Statue

Made in 1954 by Avant-garde sculptor Townshend in memorial of an ARP warden who died trying to save children from a burning building. This is an abstract work that, to look at, resembles a pipe cleaner gone wrong. It stands close to one of the entrances of Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park.

Four Things:

• There’s a persistent story that the statue or the immediate area of the statue is haunted by the ghosts of the children who died.
• The Feral Child Vampire (p191 main book) likes to hang out here and can often be found nearby.
• The street immediately in front of the statue is an accident black spot; rare is the month when someone isn’t sprawled bloodily in front of it. Bike accidents are particularly common.
• FOURTH THING: never, ever touch the black bike. If you see it chained up to the Memorial Statue railing, run.

Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park

Also known as Bow Cemetery, Tower Hamlets opened in 1841 and closed for burials in 1966. Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park today encompasses the original historic cemetery, bounded by historic walls, and additional pockets of land including "Scrapyard Meadow" and the Ackroyd Drive Greenlink. The overall site is today celebrated as Site of Metropolitan Importance for Nature and Conservation.

Four Things:

• The Feral Child Vampire lives here and hunts here; the police know that assault victims turn up in the cemetery from time to time but haven’t made the connection.
• Victims of the Bethnal Green wartime disaster (173 dead) are buried here and the Feral Child Vampire sometimes uses their graves as a resting place.
• Scrapyard Meadow used to be housing until it was bombed flat and some say the house returns every so often; there’s a ghost hunting society spreading that rumor and investigating the site.
• FOURTH THING: The Man In Uniform is sometimes seen near Scrapyard Meadow. He looks official but a little old-fashioned, and whenever he's seen there's the persistent smell of burning, and scorched flesh.

Let's talk about this a little more. 

It should be obvious that I'm borrowing from reality to make this work. There really is a Tower Hamlets Cemetery, and it does have a Scrapyard Meadow. That much is true. Michael Townshend and the ARP warden story is completely invented. I ran a quick Google to see if there really is a Cowden Lane in that part of London and to my knowledge there isn't, so pop, there you go. The Feral Child Vampire officially hangs around in Kingstead, but ... well, Tower Hamlets is more plot-convenient.

Point being, you don't have to have an encyclopedic knowledge of London to invent a London that suits your purposes. You need to know just enough to invent a Building, and from that Building plot flows.

Think about it for a moment. Never mind what's in the actual London. What might you expect to find in any city, whether London or somewhere else?

• Public telephones. Bust, yes. But most places still have the spots where they've been. They just haven't bothered to remove them. The UK famously had its red box, and of course there is the Tardis box.
• Blind Alleys. Or narrow alleys, or closed-off-by-construction alleys, or any variant inbetween.
• Peculiar public monuments. That's how I got to Townshend but really, every city or town of size has some odd little statue or stone up remembering [insert peculiar historical fact here].
• Places that were used for something else once but have since been converted to new uses or left to rot. London's best example of this is probably Canary Wharf, which used to be shipping and docks and is now money and banks. You can still find bits of the old Canary Wharf, if you look hard enough. 
• Parks. Not just the big or famous ones, but lots of little parks with iron bars and sturdy gates. Perhaps this one is owned by the city. Perhaps it's owned by the neighbors. Perhaps nobody knows who owns it ... or who plays there after dark.
• Markets. London has more markets than you think. New York has markets. Washington DC has markets. Paris, Lille, Brussels, Berlin - markets, markets, markets.  

That's just off the top of my head. I'm sure you can think of more. Point being, all these are, or can be, part of the Building. 

It's up to you. It's your Building.

Next week: the History.

We All Met At An Inn (RPG All)

Yes, I know. 

It's the perennial bugbear. The cliche to end all RPG cliches. The adventuring party has to meet somewhere. Why not an inn?

I recently picked up a copy of Curse of Strahd and was unsurprised to see this very idea floated in the first adventure hook in the book: The characters start their adventure in an old tavern, the details of which are for you to describe. It's an old perennial. It crops up everywhere.

Why not? You've got to start somewhere. 

The problem is, the more you rely on an old standard the less satisfying it feels. Sure, you need to start somewhere. Yet if you start with something boring that's not a good lead-up to the adventure that follows.

What would make it more interesting? 

It's your local. Nameless tavern number 368 in a life full of nameless taverns is not a good start. What if you and your mates have been coming here all your lives? What if you have history with this place? It may even be your family that owns it, the proceeds from your adventuring that keep it afloat. The more stake the characters have in the location, the more likely they are to feel happy about being there. Variant: it's not just your local, you own the place. If you don't look after it, who will?

There's something odd about this place. Just Another Tavern? What if this one's haunted? What if the whole thing is built inside an elemental, frozen in place? What if the inn is secretly run by magical cats that are constantly underfoot? What if the beer is brewed by a God, or at least a Demigod? At least make this place stick out in the characters' minds. They may want to come back here one day; it'd be great if there was a here to come back to, not Just Another Tavern.

There's something very odd about this place. If the tavern is a front for the Zhentarim, or Edom, then it probably looks pretty normal on the outside. That's the whole point of places like these. They don't attract attention. They may be perfectly normal. Pay no attention to the peculiar carts and vehicles that come and go at all hours of the day and night. Don't go looking for secret doors or hidden passages. You won't find any. I swear.

There's something very odd happening right now. Even the most ordinary tavern becomes very interesting when someone sets it on fire. Or perhaps someone important to the ongoing campaign is paying it a visit. Ravenloft, for example, has the bard Darklord Harkon Lukas roaming one of the realms looking for new entertainers to join his act. If someone like that is performing onstage, the inn suddenly becomes a thousand times more interesting. Edom has any number of peculiar characters who might do the same. The Madman might frequent the local bucket of blood, or the Ex-IRA might show up as the behind-the-scenes owner of this particular establishment. Maybe they'll become the characters' patrons. Maybe they'll let slip some important clue.

It has a peculiar history. This works very well in settings like London, where there's an established history that goes back centuries and it's not uncommon for pubs to have a past that goes back to the Tudors.  Sure, everything's normal now. At least, it seems that way. But fifty years ago there was a string of horrible murders, or a cult, or a conspiracy, and at this very inn ... 

It's not really there. What if the adventurers are only dreaming? Or hallucinating? What if the inn only exists because of a shared delusion, perhaps inspired by a peculiar book that the characters all read, one that doesn't want to leave their minds? Let's say this is Ravenloft. In that setting there is a realm called I'Cath, infested by ghosts and hopping vampires. This is a realm with two sides, one of which is trapped in the throes of an eternal dream. Suppose the inn only exists on one side of that paradigm? The inn might be part of the dream version of I'Cath and the characters may only experience it by being part of the dream; God and the DM alone know where their bodies are in the waking world. If this were Cthulhu, and the inn only exists in the Dreamlands, then the characters might be in very different parts of the waking world. You could run a sprawling campaign with characters based across the planet, who meet each night in the Golden Cat to discuss their adventures and plan new ones.

That's it for this week! Enjoy.

Luxury On The High Seas

It’s not often that you see a cuckoo outside your coffee shop window.

I’ve been admiring the Ritz-Carlton's liner Evirma (from the Greek, Discovery) this week. It's conducting its first home port visit; the ship's on the Bermuda register, so it's been on Hamilton dock for a few days as I write this and will be gone by the time I post it, with some very well-heeled passengers aboard. It has the look of a ship built especially for vampires, all black and formidable. 

If you’re not familiar with the modern cruise ship market you might wonder why this seems remarkable but, trust and believe, it is.

The usual cruise liner packs them in like sardines and is painted like a kid at a clown festival. You know what it is by the tunes blaring out at ULTRA HIGH VOLUME (80's and 90's, please, none of the modern shit unless it's Beyonce) and the peculiar water slide that cannons guests into the pool which, as a visual, sticks out like a sore thumb. The Titanic's owners would go into conniptions at the very idea.

Whereas the Evirma is more like the classic ships of yore. It accommodates 238 people at a time in 148 suites and is much, much smaller than the modern liner. That means it can navigate ports that would otherwise be closed to a modern ship.

Bear in mind most of the ports that liners used to visit were originally established back in the 1800s or earlier and have narrow navigational access. Our own port of St. George’s is like that. The navigation channel through the reefs was blasted back in the early 1900s and assumed that all liners would stay petite; once their waistlines ballooned St. George’s lost access to the cruise liner trade.

The Evirma’s also a good deal more civilized than the norm. Michelin restaurant? Palatial staterooms with private balconies that actually are private balconies, not just glorified handrails that look over the ocean? Yes, please.

In game terms, a ship like Evirma has more in common with superyachts than it does with liners, with the caveat that the Evirma isn’t one man’s toy. It has several hundred guests aboard. So, while the rules effects remain broadly as before the scale is larger by far. It’s not just a handful of stews, crew and guests. Now it’s hundreds of passengers, scores of staff devoted to their welfare, plus the crew, cooks, and so on needed to keep this floating hotel functioning.

Why would the Conspiracy be interested?

Well, money’s always attractive. If there’s someone aboard that the Conspiracy wants, it’s a no-brainer. A ship that size is bound to have a fortune aboard, perhaps scattered in safes located in each stateroom; enter Raffles, or his equivalent, stage right. If there’s an exclusive franchise aimed at high-end patrons, like Belle Magie from the Edom Files, then there’s a decent chance there’s an outlet aboard the Evirma (or your campaign equivalent).

Or it may be that it’s not the ship itself that’s important to the Conspiracy, but its destination. Say there’s an old port that used to be high-end, back in the 1930s, but which fell off the radar and has become a shadow of its former self. Still picturesque, especially with that old monastery up on the hill, but not on the luxury itinerary anymore. Now the Evirma, built to get to out-of-the-way destinations like this, is going to pay a call. That exclusive tour of the old monastery might be more exciting than the guide suggests, but what happens when some bitten guest goes back to their suite on the Evirma?

If you aim for the pulpier end of the market and have organizations like the Satanic Cult of Dracula in our campaign, then perhaps some of the high-end patrons have booked this cruise for … let’s call them religious reasons. Got to use those Loyalty points, y’know. Perhaps there will be hideous rituals behind closed doors, out on the ocean deep where governments and those pesky Edom spies can’t reach.

With all that in mind:

The High Life

The agents find out (through their usual sources) that the Conspiracy intends to conduct a ritual aboard its latest acquisition, the high-end liner Trandafir, while it is in home port for its inaugural voyage. It's not clear what that ritual is, but it's something that has to be done on its first trip, not before in the shipyard or afterward. Perhaps it's something to do with attuning a Red Room, or perhaps it's something else. But if the agents want to know what, they have to get aboard and find out. Bonus points if they identify who it is conducting the ritual.

Option One: Board Meeting. Important members of the executive council will be attending to take formal possession of the ship. Once this ritual is complete those same members will be able to keep an eye on the ship remotely and, in certain special suites, use mental and magical powers (mind control, spread nightmares, that sort of thing) as if they were present in the room. They intend to use these suites to gain control over the high-end persons travelling aboard the Trandafir. 

Option Two: Time In Flux. Technical wizards employed by the Conspiracy, perhaps as third parties, will set up certain suites as pocket time capsules, perhaps to assist the creation of new vampires (see also Zalozhniy Quartet) or as miniature torture chambers for the unluckiest of patrons. It's difficult to keep your cool - and your control over your finances - if you think you're being aged to death in the space of a day ...

Option Three: Ghost Busters. The suites are being set up as haunted rooms, using artefacts sourced from Romania's finest castles. Each suite has its own special surprise, to be unleashed at a moment of the Conspiracy's choosing. In some cases the intent is simple possession; the visitor walks out a whole new person. In others, intimidation, or information gathering. The Michelin starred restaurant is the key; the menu is to die for. 

That's it for this week. Enjoy!