So I changed it up a bit on them, I meant to go into the detective coming to the house but that just did not seem to fit the mood of the group, so I did something else. We started with Aiden calling about them almost getting caught at the house north of Winston-Salem, and then we moved on to the day shift of the next day. One of my player’s day job is that of a parking enforcement officer in GSO, and she don’t play, unless you give her food. They interaction between my storytelling and her responses was amusing to me, and the rest of the group laughed along as well.
(TANGENT!!!!!) I have found that if I can get my group to laugh at least once or twice during a session my job is complete, it allows for the lows of getting injured in combat and not succeeding at other stuff seem more palatable to the group. Yes, some of the group still gets frustrated, and I try and help them through that, as well as other players assisting by saying things that are supportive, to help them realize that it’s a game and that things are going to happen. There is something to be said about the ability to teach those playing to remain calm when bad things happen, it is my hope that for some they take these learned abilities and transfer them to when they have real world situations happen, and that hope is for the good and the bad. You know like, this character did this action, and all the other players reacted badly to that action. Maybe I just have high hopes, but I know in some groups I have played with in the past, some of the players were not very well socialized outside of the small group that they have known for a while, and playing in a different group helped them understand what other people may see in their actions and reactions. Of course, some people are dicks or trying to get into another player’s pants, so there is that. (END TANGENT)
AND NOW BACK TO OUR STORY
After we went to the end of the work day, which we fast forwarded through, I was judging the crowd so to speak, and we moved on to another little fight, this time with different players. Still trying to get used to the 20th anniversary edition of the old WOD so that I too can learn it. Well this time I put them up against a Mage and his creature, the fight went really fast as I made it up on the fly, one of my characters got pretty injured but he did not take it badly. He is a very seasoned player, and DMs one of the other games that much of the group plays in. I felt bad for one character, because the fight happened in the Umbra, and he was unable to get there because his shift from the physical world to the Umbra took like five minutes because of his roll, and the fight was only 2 minutes long. While that fight was going on I had two random cars drive by that the Ahroun later found out were stolen. One of my Ragabash (YAY TEAM RAGABASH!!!) decided to chase the cars down the road that the house is on, while in lupus form, turned the corner onto the main road, used rage to attempt to catch the cars, and then used her final rage point to shift back to homid and fire the gun she had been carrying in her mouth. Since she does not have any dedicated clothing, she was naked and has rainbow colored hair. Yes, a wolf suddenly changes form and is naked, shooting at what will be discovered to be a stolen vehicle. Now I could have said, “Are you sure, are you really sure, you want to do this?” but he seemed to be enjoying doing something that did not seem the most thought out thing, and to be fair this player does outlandish things on a regular basis, but he owns the consequences.
When she got back to the house she went inside and changed clothes, and talked to the group telling them about chasing the car. About 10 minutes later, two sheriff’s deputies showed up and asked if anyone in the house had seen a crazy women that was shooting at cars. Luckily the Philodox is the one that answered the door, and was not the naked rainbow haired woman. So at least the deputies were not able to find the culprit right off. At this point the Ahroun said, “Here you need to change the color of your hair.” I wanted the bad guy to recoup and plan his next move a little better. I asked if anyone had anything that they wanted to do before I jumped ahead to the full moon, which in game time was on the 20th of January. At the moot my Galliard did not do a dance routine, instead the character rapped about what the group has done. I had one more character/player that needed to leave and I was already down two. To be honest I had homework I needed to finish and we had played for 3 hours. I got there late, that was my fault, or it would have been 4 hours. I would have kept going but I was getting antsy and wanted to have some time after the game to debrief if necessary with my players.
I think that a debrief after game is ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS a good idea, just so that people will realize that it’s the character/PC that is having the adventure and not the actual person. These debriefs can be fun and just talk if the game is light for the evening. In other games I have seen people take the game too seriously and get upset. When this happens you should not make light of the person’s feelings, but you should still help them to understand that we are essentially doing table top exercises, so that they will know what is and is not a good reaction to a situation. Know that emotions are part of the game, you need to be able as the DM/GM/Storyteller to help your players come down from emotional highs and be able to help pick them up from emotional lows. Being able to talk through situations during or after a game will help players have a desire to come back and try again.