So, I’ve signed up to GM in a (small, local) convention next year, and I need to pick one of the games to run. I’d love to run Rhapsody of Blood, as it’s got a really cool, self-contained arc, but it seems like it would be too long to wrap up in a 4-hour session. I’ve also not actually played or run it. Does anyone with experience have an idea of how long a full incursion into The Cas͡tle takes with 4-5 players? Especially if the Founders “prologue” is included? And would it be possible to cut that down?
One idea I had was to fill the Regent’s clock by a segment every real-world half hour, forcing the players into a confrontation before the end (as well as limiting the number of wards & acolytes instead of one-per-player), but would that significantly muck up the pacing or the moves that revolve around the clock?
…also, is there any particular pronunciation to The Cas͡tle vs the castle? 😛
I’ve run rhapsody in about that time, but it’s a bit of a rush. I’d still include the prologue, as that serves as a nice tutorial, but i’d ignore the bloodline mechanics and playbooks otherwise.
So:
– Prologue
– Explorer Creation
– Define the castle, picking Refuge, Drive and Breach.
– Secretly pick out Acolyte roles for the different Acolytes.
– Run the exploration!
Keeping the pacing up by ticking the clock in real-world time sounds fun to me, and a good way of keeping players on their toes.
Thanks for the response, setting aside the bloodline playbooks makes sense (I have set aside the Crew entirely when I run Blades in the Dark as a one-shot). I guess I’ll try to run it that way in a less time-crunched setting and see how it goes.
When I ran a con one-shot earlier this year, I used pre-prepared bloodlines that included a description of what happened in the prologue. Players picked a bloodline from the ones I’d prepared and created their own explorers.
I also pre-prepared some castle wards and acolytes that I thought would fit flexibly into the drives and breaches that the players might choose for their explorers.
The breach the explorers picked didn’t really fit any of my pre-prepared wards or acolytes so I improvised. The pacing was very quick because the reckoner used hold from their map to quickly reach the first acolyte, and then with subsequent exploration hold they attempted to travel to the heart of the castle, at which point they were ambushed by a second acolyte (one I’d pre-prepared this time)
I got a chance to run RoB (without modifications) a couple of weeks ago and came away with some notes (although we only made it through one ward). Filling out the Bloodlines and Explorers definitely took a lot of time but I think it might be hard to cut out the bloodline moves (like Forward Base and Rest & Relaxation) so in the future I may just stick with pre-filled Bloodlines. I may even use a premade castle setup, and customize it based on the prologue if someone becomes the new Regent (in my first game, someone took the chalice and became immortal, so I planned for the whole castle to be Death themed).
A question that came up is how utility gear can be used. Obviously some of it could just be narrative permission, like if everything goes dark they could use their light sources, but would it make sense to give fleeting advantage when they use it for a roll (like using medical supplies while healing)? Or should they just be kept as narrative flavour?
David Johnson Sure, if it makes sense in the moment I’d go for it – though I’d say using it for advantage might use it up until you have a chance to resupply?