Last night, at Battlecry, I ran my first ever theatreform game, a gothic melodrama inspired by the movie Sweeney Todd, as well as a good dozen or so other bits of gothic media. It was written for 40 people and we ended up playing with 34, some of the missing roles being filled by NPC bit parts, but despite this, some of the missing characters could really be felt in some plots (mostly the portrait-painter plot and the bandit plot.) I also regret that there wasn’t enough time to actually set up the lights and turn off the main ones to give it a more shadowy, darker atmosphere, because I think that would have helped a bit too.
Despite these things, from a writer point of view, it seemed to go pretty well. I had a few unexpected curveball directions from players and at one stage, very late in the game, I went back my little GM cubby room and said “Man, I got no idea what that game out there is anymore, I’m not sure where half the stuff they’re asking me about has come from.” Everybody looked really good and there were, from where I was standing which was outside the game a lot, there were no major hiccups. I did manage to catch a couple of cool scenes, such as when Alexander Drake called out Prince Stefan and told him to leave his woman alone, as well as the punchup between The Highwayman and Chief Utterson, as well as one of the major villians accomplishing his major goal in the first fifteen minutes through sheer dumb luck.
I’m hoping to write up a debrief, including things like what inspirations and references I used, since the game was riddled with characters and situations based off gothic literature (Withering Mews Manor, anyone?) but I’m really keen to hear what the players thought, what they liked and what feedback they can give, so I can tweak the game accordingly and hopefully run it again in maybe a few years, or take it down to Wellingto and try to run it there. I had an enormous amount of fun with making this game, so I’d like to make it the best possible. Also, like I said, I missed most of the game by sitting in a room answering questions and sending in NPCs, so I also want to hear funny stories, dramatic moments, and who was really awesome at their roleplaying.
Thanks again to everyone who came and got all dressed up, I promise on behalf of my sister, our lovely photographer, that the photos will be up probably before the weekend is out.
), but I did really like my character’s dead body being used to resurrect another character. Just a shame the game was called to a finish while the ritual was still being performed…