At the local con, I ran four games. The game for Saturday morning was Darkening Skies by Chris Sakkas, an unofficial chapter two for Lady Blackbird by John Harper. The players at the con were the very same ones I had a year ago, plus one. Seven players!
Last year, we played *Lady Blackbird*, this year we played *Darkening Skies*. And I think they want to play another session next year. I had to make two new characters. They love it, they love my running the game, and I love them.
The game mechanics are great. Simple enough for everybody to understand. Using a trait and various appropriate tags replaces a multitude of related skills, and it informs the narrative. The results, on the other hand, cannot be talked away using bennies. You must invest your pool dice before you roll. Oh, the groaning at the table when a sure roll fails anyway! “One’s for free, one for being a veteran, one for being fast, and … uh … help, guys??”
The refresh mechanics are also extremely simple. Players need to replenish their pool. If there’s a lull in the action, two players can get together, have a flashback or some intimate conversation that lets us, everybody at the table, know something about them, how they got to know each other, how they felt about each other, how they feel about each other right now. When I run the game, I tell the players that we all want to be entertained. Tell us! And slowly, players start to appreciate that the game is also about the personal drama. He loves here but she’s looking for somebody else. This somebody else is an imperial captain out to get the pirates. One of the players is the pirate captain come to rescue them. One is the imperial spy come to rescue the imperials. One is the sheriff come to see justice done. One is the priest come to find forgiveness. This initial setup, and the mechanics slowly pushing the players to reveal more and more about their characters. At the end we have a sister betraying her brother, a gentleman shooting the true love of his beloved, an aristocrat rebuffed by a pirate, all of these things come together, and ships are exploding, and escape pods are raining down from the sky, and everybody is shouting and shaking their heads and whispering under their breath, “That was cruel, man. Cruel.”
I love it.
5/5 stars!
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
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Comparing it with my previous experience of running *Darkening Skies*, I’d say what worked much better was Jezebel’s love interest going on a mission to capture the pirates, so it wasn’t easy for her to leave. Other than that, we had the same effect as last time: the party split up into three groups or more, but this time, with so many players at the table, and many of them so much into it, this was not a problem. They simply moved aside and talked about things, in character. Twice, I had to tell such groups to please not keep their secrets to themselves. We all wanted to know what was going down. So many things were going on, all at the same time. It was confusing and wonderful.
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Extra German characters:
https://alexschroeder.ch/pics/15019650332_b4b497eae5_z.jpg
https://alexschroeder.ch/pics/14833375750_2bce34a3e9_z.jpg
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#Lady Blackbird #OerliCon #Games on Demand #Indie #RPG
