Consensual Character Torture

So - I ran the game in September. It went... well. Mostly.

I've yet to learn how to design my own stuff to actually be as awesome as it is in my head, so there were a couple of extra encounters, but fun was had by all. My boyo stabbed lots of things, my players got drunk and their characters set everything on fire, there was intrigue, doom, destruction, terror, and fun was had by all.The session went a couple hours too long, but it was highly entertaining.

Nothing really of note, except that I do GM another game during the week and have been getting increasingly more sadistic with them. I've started actively trying to kill them, which is quite delightful. I was trying to describe to a friend how much FUN it is to send my poor players into despair that their characters will never get out of the terrible situation they've found themselves in and he was a little bit, "o_O" about it. He rephrased everything I'd been telling him about the game as, "So you like to torture them? Do they hate it?"

And I simply said, "Of course not! It's no fun unless they're on board with it. After all, they get epic triumphs after the despair. And levels. Never underestimate the soothing power of leveling up."

Another friend, on a similar topic, said, "So it's consensual character torture." Of course, I hadn't thought of it like that prior to her comment, but yes. Yes it is.

The story's no fun unless they have to work for it and I get to come up with all the most fun traps, situations, monsters, and mindfucks to make sure they don't get everything for free. As I improve as a GM, too, everything gets that much better.

So, there you have it: for a mild sadistic thrill combined with the joy of storytelling, learn how to run tabletop games.

One Tabletopping Domme, Coming Right Up!

This is a musing/amusing post for my own enjoyment, talking about the game I'm about to run for a few friends this weekend. If you want to stretch and say that being a dominant in a BDSM sense is like running a tabletop game, knock yourself out, but it's true that there is a delightful sense of control in being a storyteller and having to wrangle a handful of strong personalities to cleave to a coherent plot.

I'm not entirely sure how well this game with go on the weekend because my boyo is playing under duress (He had a GM that absolutely ruined him and I am very bitter about it. *grins*) and one of the other players is a hack-n-slasher who always seems extremely grumpy. The other two are super-excited, however, and have been asking me gaming questions non-stop this week.

Ah well. It'll work out. 

Probably. 

The world is a Lovecraftian D&D 3.5 homebrew setting, based a little bit on Hollowfaust with a decidedly dark horror theme. One of my players has a whole rack full of tabletop gaming books that I do not believe he has ever used, so I was browsing through them and some are really really neat settings that I liberally lifted elements from to flesh out my world. I have another setting that I play in all the time that I might drop this campaign into at a later date, but since it's currently a one-shot I've had to do some worldbuilding.

I'll come back later and post the campaign notes and monster builds for posterity, but for the moment I've just the setting and the hook. 

**

Generations ago, the city was a god.

Azo, the Mad God, roamed creation and left death, madness, and chaos in his wake. The world bred necromancers and the greatest magics used the ubiquitous death so readily available. The necromancers and their undead minions took advantage of the struggling civilizations that clung to the battered materiel plane and ruled by both fear and hope in turns. Heroes rose again as the Second-born, resurrected through the power of Azo or his sibling, Aket. The world burned and the Mad God laughed.

Seeing in his laughter the doom of the living, a necromantic sorcerer and his undead ranger companion sought and killed Azo, draining his body of its immortal essence and ensuring a prosperous era for those who had survived the Mad God's rampages. As the body rotted, helped along by the sorcerer's fel magics, enterprising individuals discovered that the decomposing corpse's stone and metal interior was a superior route through the mountain range where the god had fallen.

The obsidian bones were hollowed out, and Azo’s outflung limbs became the primary trade route between north and south. As the world rebuilt and fortunes grew, a city was founded within Azo’s arching ribs and sundered chest cavity. A palace was built within his skull, a caravanserai within his pelvis, and farms upon his scapula. The city developed into a vast, sprawling maze of streets and buildings, a shining stone and metal metropolis.

At the base of the chest, beneath the cracked and half-fallen breastbone, laid the gently pulsing obsidian heart of Azo, fallen when the attenuated ligaments that held it suspended finally snapped. It was this immortal heartbeat the the city rulers tapped for power. The city grew great. As long as the rulers could siphon away enough power to keep the pulse faint, the world would thrive.

Centuries passed. The city of Azo began to show influence of the Mad God starting in the second century as the council of rulers grew weak through assassination and intrigue. All who passed through the city streets and caught a glimpse of strange stars between the cracked ribs above heard whispers. The voices, unidentifiable and at the edge of hearing, murmured mindless nonsense and were, at times, prophetic.

The city fell into decline. Pockets of altered time and space crept in and took up residence in abandoned homes. Creatures of madness became bolder and more aggressive. Azo's followers grew in number. The original sorcerer's method and skill that had first killed Azo was lost and the rulers could no longer use enough of the Mad God's power.

The bones began to stir.

Calling soldiers of fortune and heroes of the living age, the rulers of the city sought to keep Azo dead, fearing what would happen if the Mad God awoke. At first the calls were infrequent and the city remained populous. Trade continued. Of late, however, each resurgence of Azo’s power grows more and more potent, leaving the single remaining ruler grasping for miracles and attempting to stave off a seemingly inevitable Age of the Dead.

It is Lord Narvol, last remaining Lord of Azo, who has put out a final, desperate call for heroes.