The Black Campbell

We finished the Supernatural pilot tonight. Overall, the game went well — the first night was a blend of humor and creepy, the second night was more of a setup/investigation night, the last a wild, almost pulp-style series of action sequences in and around Central Park.

The characters were having some trouble, as by this time, they’d been up for almost 24 hours and fatigue was making them sloppy. The apprentice priest got slapped around by one of the werewolves and knocked cold (the player was out tonight), the former FBI man got knocked about and found out the hard way his 10mm S&W 1076 wasn’t doing much to the hairy buggers. They had a chase and showdown in Central Park in the pre-dawn hours, then tracked “Werewolf 0” — the one that started it all — to a pump house along the reservoir and captured him just as the sun came up and turned him human, then exorcised him.

The players responded that they had all enjoyed the game and were interested in doing more, so that’s a successful night, I think… Going to have to work on the creepy and the darker tones of the setting — we’re a humorous lot and that occasionally overwhelms the horror aspect.

The third night of our Supernatural campaign closed well. Although I’m not wholly satisfied with it, the players seem to be enjoying it. The horror aspect got a bit lost in this one thanks to a few very amusing NPCs they had to deal with, but they also had their first run ins with “bad guys.”

Taking up where we left off, the team is interviewing the victims of the “killer” (werewolves, they think) — one of the first two is highly suspicious; they think she might remember her transformation and actions. The other (her boyfriend) is less so. Both are professors at NYU where a few attacks happened; the woman lives in Flushing, where another attack survivor described the assailant as female. They interview that last survivor in the hospital. Hilarity ensued.

They finally found one of the first victims, who thinks he killed his girlfriend in their apartment, but can’t remember…he also has had blackouts and woken up bloody.

The players have been enthusiastically researching the subject and found that there were old exorcism rites for lycanthropy…so they decide, with the full moon in the offing, to give it a try, first with the hospitalized victim. She gets violent and starts to turn, threw a few characters around, but they succeeded. They tried it on the first victim who thinks he’s a murderer with success. Their souls are saved…not the former FBI agent (working as an inspector for the Bureau on this, thanks to their being understaffed for the 9/11 threat response), has him arrested.

The female professor that might remember her transformation is in the wind, but they find blood in her drain trap. (DNA’s not back as of the end of the session, but it will be the hospitalized victim, giving Parkes [FBI guy] another murder suspect)…they ended with them attempting to locate the professor in the middle of the night with the full moon due to rise very soon.

Overall, the team is gelling, the players seem happy with the game, but I need to work on darkening the flavor a bit. i think more atmospheric description and a bit more reliance on traditional “horror movie” tricks to build suspense might be in order. Still really want a subway foot chase that ends up in the 9/11 memorial space.