Noctum Games : Setting

Hey,

Was just wondering where people are choosing to set their Noctum games. What city, what country? I know its written to be dark and rainy and grim, but I think the game backround lends itself to other settings and other places.

Noctum seems to be a lot more flexible in that respect, more versatile than the likes of world of darkness. Especially when you add in some of the other flavour that's written into the game

Hi Bluenose!

Although I am German and am living in Germany, too. I prefer to set my games into the USA. We played Cthulhu Now in Atlanta and Noctum is set into Seattle now. I think the big advantage of the US as story background is the rather low population density. You can play either in the large cities or you drive a few hours and you are already in the deepest wilderness and you have a lot of different climate zones, too. So there is a broad spectrum of possibilities!

Greetings, Draugr!

Hello there!

I lead two groups and both of them are set i Sweden, one that's runnin' in Stockholm and I'm goin' to start up one in Gothenburg. But the citys aren't exact replications of real citys but they are alike.

I'm Irish, but I usually set my games in American cities (after a disasterous attempt to set a Shadowrun game in my hometown). I am intending to do something different when I get round to running Noctum, and set it somewhere new, for me, anyway.

I'm going to set it in Zimbabwe.

Zimbabwe, cool. What kinds of campaigns are you running?

Mostly investigative - the idea is that they're part of a Historical Enquiries team, with heavy use of the flashbacks (roleplay within the roleplay), so they're kinda investigating what they themselves have done in places. Course, there's a little more dark and creepy going on, the odd corrupted politician, way too deep in the pockets of one of the companies mentioned in the book, but it'll be a while before they get anywhere near that level of involvement

I'm actually really enjoying the prep work, which is unusual for me, cos I HATE prep work, and the whole flashback idea means I get to introduce a very wide variety of characters.

Bluenose wrote:

I'm actually really enjoying the prep work, which is unusual for me, cos I HATE prep work, and the whole flashback idea means I get to introduce a very wide variety of characters.

Really? I love prep work! It's crazy what you can find in the internet. A little while ago I found original blank warrants of arrest, search and following a suspect. They were on the website of the Department of Justice I think. Really cool and very atmospheric when you are playing in the US!

Yeah the internet is a godsend for material, especally things like that.

I love doing the backround, the setting details, the characters, the history, things like that. I just hate doing the nuts n bolts of it, the stuff you really need. The maps. The NPC stats. The actual game mechanics stuff as opposed to the story. One of the things I hated about Ars Magica was the sheer amount of nuts n bolts prep work you needed to run the game, and how hard it was to run it without that work.

I've enjoyed putting this one together though

Alright, I know what you mean!

I hated the prep work in GURPS and now I don't play it anymore! But that's actually the problem I have with each and every D20 game, too.

I learnt to roleplay with D&D, so there's a degree of comfort and familiarity there, that I know the system so well (or used to know it - I've heard some horror stories about 4ed.), but I know what you mean. It takes so much work to get any flavour into a D20 system, they're so generic (which is why any of my fresher games were D20, easy to teach and run and forget).

I've started doing my backround reading and note taking been fun and lots of ideas are emerging from the history of the country. Got a few ideas as to how to link my story ideas together, as opposed to making it case of the week.

When planning campaigns - do people have an over riding arc in mind, or do they just totally go with the flow, or somewhere in the middle?

How much prep work is too much prep work?

Too much prep work is when players don't appreciate it! And it should always be fun!

Early in my roleplay career I sometimes planned campaigns ahead, but as the players of my roleplaying group seem to constantly change, it doesn't make any sense to plan ahead. And I often get inspired by something the players do or when I see, read or hear something. I would change my campaign a lot in the run.

When I play a campaign it usually means that the stories are connected through the specific setting and sometimes a comprehensive theme. Right now my group tries to bring down Faustos Corporation. Each story is independent, but somehow more or less connected to Faustos.

But thats only the plan, as my next session on sunday was canceled, a few exams are coming up and I will go on 4 week practical I don't see any roleplaying time in the foreseeable future.