Chaugnar Faugn Rides the Market-Frankford El

I got back into tabletop role-playing games in 2013 after a long hiatus from the hobby. (Here, I have to give many, many props to my friend, Derik, who started the gaming group that rekindled my interest in gaming.) I could tell that it was only a matter of time before I'd want to run something myself.

This may be the result of my history with RPGs. I first learned about RPGs in what now seems the painfully stereotypical manner: I was young -- probably around 10 years old, in 4th or 5th grade -- and my good friend at the time had a neighbor who lived a few doors down on the same block, a kid who was a few years older. One afternoon, this older kid invited us to hang out on the canopied front patio of his parent's house and try out a new game: Dungeons & Dragons. Sitting on the patio's circular, metal table, among a lot of loose paper, was the famous red Basic Edition box. I played a thief named Einstein (I was still getting my bearings on the parameters of genre convention) and I loved everything about the game. Over the next month or two, we explored a dungeon and then -- if memory serves --  embarked on a journey to the infamous Isle of Dread, which we never completed. I can still recall seeing the bright orange background and odd, green Tyrannosaur of the adventure's cover sitting among the paperwork during our sessions. I bought my own copy of the red box set. Before long, I tore some lined paper from a school notebook and sketched out a regional map and another map for a dungeon within it, which I eventually ran for some other friends a few years later. Throughout elementary school and high school, I continued gaming (transitioning from Basic into Advanced D&D's 1st Edition, then ultimately into 2nd Edition). During the majority of this time, I was our group's DM. I enjoyed playing a lot, but I seemed to frequently gravitate towards the role of active storyteller. I ran far, far more games than I played.

Now, as anyone who games with me knows, I love love love a horror RPG. Thus, in 2015, when I finally decided to try my hand at running my own campaign, it was no surprise that I turned to Call of Cthulhu first. As a kid, I read through a lot of Lovecraft's collections, which led me to the CoC role-playing game, which, at the time, was in its 4th edition. The design and artwork of that edition made an indelible impression on me that likely continues to impact the way I conceive of the game. But in 2015, Chaosium had just released its 7th (current) edition, so I felt it was an auspicious time to start a new campaign. The stars were right! I and a group of willing friends launched this new CoC campaign -- which I'm pleased to say is still running to date.

The campaign is entitled Sentinels of Strange Aeons, and is set in 1920 in Philadelphia. Each of the players created characters with varying degrees of backstory, some quite extensive. At the beginning of things, none of the characters knew one another. Before long, they found themselves in the middle of a weird situation and working together at the behest of a strange benefactor and a mysterious organization. Four years later, I'm pleased to see that the campaign still has legs.

Originally, I'd considered writing out session logs as multiple blog posts, but my current thinking has me leaning away from that. I may change my mind again on this; we'll see. But what I am still interested in is parsing out some of the things I've learned as I've run the campaign, as well as some of the ideas I've homebrewed up. I'm sure that bits of plot and character action will be summarized and dissected. The issues and lessons arising from the sessions are useful to examine, even if the campaign logs may not surface. Many of the scenarios I've run are published, though I've heavily adapted most of them, so that's also worth discussing.

So consider yourselves warned! There will be some posts on running horror games and more introspection from me about my campaign. Keep an eye on that catchy title in the post labels (see, I've come a long way from my first RPG name 😉) and you'll see more soon.