City of Mist - Demons in Cross End
Description
Quickstats
Playlist Length
0 days, 1 hours, 1 minutes
Playlist Followers
11
Source
Playlist Last Updated
September 6, 2019
Mood
Mixed Mood
Track Popularity Rating
Somewhat Popular
Style
Varied
Average Release Decade
1990s
Main Genre:
Mixed
Reddit Info
Reddit Post
I recently MC'd a one-shot of *Demons in Cross End* for our gaming group. I had never DM'd anything in my life and the group, and I, was mostly only familiar with D&D. I put together an intro video to tease the one-shot and developed a playlist to go along with the story. I had two sessions to complete it before we got back to our normal D&D adventure. Two sessions to teach the game and run the adventure for six players. Two sessions to figure out what the heck I was doing. And then the initial date of sometime in October was abruptly moved up a month. But I thought, why not? Let's be ambitious. Let's give it a shot and see what happens. Well, this is what happened. (Spoiler alert for those who haven't played/read through *Demons in Cross End*) First session went really well. Five of the six players were present. >!I split the party right off the bat with Declan and Excalibur hanging out at her place, while Job, Post-Mordem, and Mitosis chilled at a diner. I sent the former down the line of the Art Gallery and the latter towards the murders. They did their various investigations which eventually led them all meeting up at Proximo's hideout. The first session ended with a cliff-hanger with Proximo standing over Mitosis, after Mitosis (by himself at the time), tried to land an attack on Proximo, leaving him dazed and confused from a sleeping gas mine.!< All in all, the players were loving the descriptive nature of the game. They liked the system and seemed to have a great time. Second session went rather poorly, however. Four of the six players were present, with Flicker taking the place of Job and Excalibur. >!After the Proximo battle ended up with him getting away, Declan and Flicker went to the Beasts' Den, while Mitosis and Post-Mordem traveled to the church. It was set up well enough. Even a possibility of the PC's maybe fighting each other in the showdown. But then things went south. I struggled mightily with managing the combat and the climax really fell flat. The players ended up defeating the Beasts and keeping the Stag Head from emerging, but both Christina and Bear died in the process, and Proximo disappeared during the battle.!< Some thoughts and reflections for any first-time MC's who want to give this a try: SYSTEM - The system was simply fantastic. It makes the moves so easy adjudicate. Whereas D&D is always a myriad of checks, stats, rolls, and tactics, CoM lends itself to a very fluid style of gameplay. No worrying about proficiencies or bonuses or checking equipment. No worrying if something is 25ft away vs. 30ft. It's just a beautiful system, and reinforced why I fell in love with CoM the moment I saw it. THEME - The theme was a big winner. The players loved the gritty, modern-noir setting. They were able to RP effectively without having to know tons of lore. Each player represented their character perfectly. The video (posted in the title) and the soundtrack used (posted below) really helped set the scene. COMBAT - Combat was difficult, but that was my fault. I was approaching it like the other moves, figuring it would be pretty easy to adjudicate. What I wasn't expecting was the amount of hard moves and complications I'd have to make. I failed to complicate things after each move, like I was supposed to. And then when they missed on a roll, I was having a lot of trouble figuring out what hard move to make. Since combat (especially the showdown) had so much going on, there were a lot of failed rolls. I was having a really hard time keeping up and finding interesting or logical reasons to impose a status or complicate bigtime. For any first-time MC's, I'd recommend having a few hard moves in your back pocket ready to throw out at a moment's notice. And maybe practice soft moves you can do in between moves to keep things intense. STORY - I loved *Demons in Cross End*. I thought it was a fantastic case. I would, however, recommend not putting a time limit on the story. Let it breathe. I think the main reason the story fell flat in-session was because I was rushing to finish in time. And the story suffered because of it. I kept pushing it along, knowing I was running short on time, and that took away much of the oomph from the story. Overall, despite my disappointment in my own performance, I can't wait to try it again. Hopefully the players feel the same way. Any recommendations from more experienced MC's on some pitfalls to watch out for? Or some thoughts on how to avoid problems? Or some hiccups you've experienced yourself? For anyone interested, here's the link for the video: [https://youtu.be/up0zafxo2-g](https://youtu.be/up0zafxo2-g) And the playlist I put together for the case: [https://open.spotify.com/playlist/48csiGmCP0nRtiqdW5FziS](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/48csiGmCP0nRtiqdW5FziS)
Upvotes
6
Subreddit
cityofmist
Reddit Username
boondockbear
Reddit Timestamp
9/22/19 11:51
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