Lonely Phareflaw - Learn to Play Time Without Tide

Creating your character

No character creation required! This session uses the six pre-generated Delvers (player characters) that ship with the Quickstart: Cyrena, Lady Hollis Grey, No Boots, Bunk, Sutler, and Dr. Vespal. Each comes with a full sheet, a short backstory, and a couple of pieces of kit, so you can spend your time playing the game rather than scratching your head over a new character creation system! There should be something there to suit everyone - whether that's "hardy brawler," "charming socialite with a rifle," or "reanimated corpse who's better at medicine than you'd expect." If you've got a strong preference for a particular Delver, feel free to speak up and claim it, otherwise you can fight it out over who gets to be whom. In a safe, non-lethal fashion obviously...

Preparing for the session

You'll need a Discord account to join voice/text on the night, and a Roll20 account for the maps, tokens, and dice rolling; after you sign up for this I'll send an invite link with all the details. Everything you need, including character sheets, reference materials, and any handouts, I'll provide. You don't need to know anything about Time Without Tide beforehand - this is literally the point of this being the first organised play event from Chaosium! The system is genuinely light - three traits, six skills, and you combine them to roll a handful of d6s. After that, you count 5s and 6s as successes and compare how many you got to the number needed to succeed. Simples. However, there will be an in-game tutorial of sorts, so everyone gets a chance to learn, and nobody's learning the rules while also trying not to die. Finally, a headset is appreciated but not mandatory. If you've got a mic that echoes half everything back at us, though, I will gently ask you to sort that out. Politely of course. I'm not a monster.

What Iain brings to the table

This is a two-session run through Chaosium's official Quickstart adventure for Time Without Tide, played as part of the game's first organised play event. I'll be running it as written, but "as written" for me still means it's about the people at the table and what they're enjoying and not the module. A few things about how I run games, so you know what you're walking into: I'm not a rules-heavy GM. I'll adjudicate tests fairly and ensure combat has real stakes, but if the rule as written is getting in the way of a good moment, I'll lean toward the moment. Also, this isn't a tactical combat sim - if you want Napoleonic positioning and like optimised builds, my table probably isn't your table. However, if you want combat that feels dangerous and a bit desperate (which, given the mechanics in this game, it genuinely is), that's exactly what's on offer. I care a lot about roleplay and inter-party dynamics. Time Without Tide pregens have real personalities and messy relationships baked in, and I want to hear you play into that; feel free to bicker, cover for each other, and make horrible bad decisions for good in-character reasons. Don't worry though - I'm not asking for method acting, just for you to treat your Delver as a person rather than a stat block. I use music and ambience to set mood, and this game's atmosphere is going to give me a ton to play with. Being completely honest, I'm not great at doing character voices myself (all my characters will have some variant of a Scottish regional accent), but I love it when players do, so don't hold back on my account (just, please, no "Hollywood Scottish" - I'll know and become horribly offended). This is Gothic-industrial with a streak of dark comedy running right through it - the game calls it "mirth and misery," and that's the tone I'll aim for. Expect a creepy monster, a scared kid who needs help, and at least one moment that's funnier than it has any right to be. If you've played Paranoia with me before you've probably already got a good idea of what to expect...

Homebrew rules

No home-brew rules - this is run straight from the Quickstart.

How Iain creates a safe table

I always send out a document prior to games where players can indicate what they are and aren't comfortable with. This is a fairly light hearted game so don't expect anything too heavy. However, my door is always open and I want to ensure that everyone just has a good time, so if you've got something you really don't want to see in the game I'm always happy to listen. This is pretendy-funtime-games after all, not something that should be upsetting people.