GM MorganJ

Alice Is Missing is a fantastic game designed to be played in a single session. I’ve run it dozens of times and keep loving it. All the players work together to create an eerie town and its inhabitants, one of whom (though you’ve established motives for everyone!) ends up being responsible for having kidnapped your friend. Every game unfolds differently with random prompts prodding each character (also uniquely created for each game!) in different directions. That narrative part lasts exactly C 90 minutes, which is set to a very atmospheric, thematic soundtrack that exquisitely amps up and pulls back as the different prompts drive the characters to action.

This is a great cross (or transition) between a classic fantasy, sword and sorcery, numbers heavy, heroic adventure system and a more story driven, open-ended, rules light, less optimization style of gaming. It’s based on the same mechanics as City of Mist and :Otherscape.

City of Mist is fantastic. It really allows for player and GM creativity in creating characters and narrating scenes. It treats characters as whole beings, and blends various levels of the real and fantastic without a character who is heavily myth/legend/god based not overpower the other characters who is occupation/relationship/backstory based. In fact, they’re equally powerful, and characters transition from one extreme to the other and back as they level up!

I really enjoy Call of Cthulhu. It’s a good combination of die rolling and character stats affecting game play while not getting too nitty-gritty. There are lots of games where you play heroes who succeed, but this is more realistic where you are regular people struggling to face horrific situations. It’s a different feel, one that’s not for everybody. That’s ok. There are other even simpler horror systems, but this has really stood the test of time and has what many people from all gaming backgrounds consider to be the single best campaign out there (even better than Curse of Strahd, which certainly has the name recognition), The Masks of Nyarlathotep. It’s globe spanning, terror inducing, machination thwarting, and … just maybe … world saving.

I had a great time in all my sessions with him. He taught me a new game system really well and made sure all the players were able to participate.