So, I ran my first session of Night Witches over the weekend at a con. When we changed duty stations I volunteered to take over GMing duties. And it was a blast.
Though despite how hard I tried to make it grim and capture the vibe of the setting. Night Phase, no problemo. It was a brutal run of poor luck. With one plane shot down and another two damaged. I found that our Day Phase, while fun and productive. ended up, in many ways, feeling a bit like MASH. With the players trying to work around authority and the outright idiocy (at times) of the military. And backroom deals with unsavory people for black market goods. All in all it was great. If not exactly what I was shooting for. Anyone else have a similar experience?
As a side note, I think part of the disconnect, at least for me, was the nature of it being a one-shot. Without a ton of time to get attached to the characters and have them become interconnected amongst themselves. That, coupled with the fact that they had their full bag of tricks to throw at the NKVD to thwart their designs. Which I’ll admit. I rather enjoyed watching the players scramble, pulling out every stop to dodge a full blown inquiry.
Well, MASH was the first thing that came to mind when I read about the Day Phase. I’m not at all surprised that your players went there too.
What were you looking for out of the session that you didn’t get ?
I wasn’t really looking for anything in particular. Grimmer, less hope and more desperation.I guess. It’s just that when my roommate mentioned that it felt like MASH. I was a bit taken aback. As dark humor and tongue in cheek comedy is what I associate MASH with. In fact, he enjoyed the feel so much he spent the first twenty or so minutes tonight post-work. to tell me about a proposed NW, MASH hack. With a Choppers/ downtime dichotomy.
Which, being a big fan of the Eastern Front and the stories from there. Are not the first thing that springs to mind. In addition, another friend of mine ran two games of Night Witches at the con. And hers, from what I’ve heard, were far grimmer. Whether that is a factor of presentation or players. I really don’t know.
And don’t get me wrong. I loved my players and quite enjoyed the game. I’m just wondering about personal experiences and if people had run into this before. And how what they did or didn’t do.