For those of you being introduced to the American Shakespeare Repertory for the first time with our production of William Shakespeare’s Rape of Lucrece in the 2011 Minnesota Fringe Festival, one of the distinguishing traits of the company is our “foundational” approach to Shakespeare.

As part of the Complete Readings of William Shakespeare, we go back to the original scripts as they were published during (and shortly after) Shakespeare’s lifetime. We then build up our performance scripts by re-exploring and re-establishing the scholastic traditions of the last 400 years while following a principle of least interference. The process has not only given us a deeper appreciation of the texts themselves, but also — in our opinion — resulted in more accurate and useful scripts for the purposes of rehearsal and performance.

We first performed the epic poem Lucrece as part of the Complete Readings in February 2010 with Emma J. Mayer in the title role. For that performance we used a complete version of the poem based on the original 1594 Quarto:

LUCRECE – FULL TEXT

Unlike many of Shakespeare’s works, there is not much to say about this text: It is remarkably clean and free from errors. One point of potential interest is that the poem was originally published as Lucrece and only later became popularly known as The Rape of Lucrece.

CUTTING SHAKESPEARE

When it came time to revisit the show for the Fringe Festival, it was necessary to cut the text so that it could be performed within the festival’s 60 minute time limit.

Cutting Shakespeare is a difficult and daunting task at the best of time. Before you can even begin, you must first have a deep understanding of the work: Otherwise you’ll have no idea what valuable dramatic beats and textual clues you may inadvertently and ignorantly discard.

Fortunately, having edited the text and previously performed the piece, I was intimately familiar with it. But, of course, there were still mysteries. (For example, I’m still not entirely sure why Shakespeare so frequently emphasizes the image of a honey bee over the course of the poem. Each individual piece of imagery makes sense; but I haven’t fully grasped its pervasive totality. Since I was uncertain what Shakespeare was trying to accomplish, I erred on the side of caution and left every honey bee allusion intact.)

Once the process of cutting actually begins, I find it most effective to perform multiple passes through the text. This allows one to gently massage the text instead of feeling the need to cut huge chunks out of it. I can identify the extraneous while also preserving the essential. And it generally makes me more successful in maintaining as much of the text’s original structure and content.

In the case of Lucrece, for example, I performed six passes through the text — each refining the result. (And later a seventh when we were still running a couple minutes too long.) I am very pleased with the result: The only element of the original poem which is entirely missing from this cut is the character of Lucrece’s maid (who fetches her pen and paper to write). And the success of the cut seems testified by those who have seen the show and, having read the poem, feel nothing in its absence.

Here’s the final version of our script as it is being performed:

RAPE OF LUCRECE (MINNESOTA FRINGE FESTIVAL – DRAFT 7)

This script also shows how the lines have been assigned to the two actors for the purposes of performance.

TEXTUAL PRACTICES

Source Text: First Quarto (1594)

1. Original emendations in [square brackets].
2. Spelling has been modernized.
3. Punctuations has been silently emended (in minimalist fashion).
4. In the Fringe 2011 script, lines have been assigned to the two actors for the purpose of performance.

If there is one place where the would-be RPG publisher goes wrong, it is when they think like an amateur instead of a professional.

The amateur is giddy and excited: A labor of love is finally going into print. You’ll see their inability to cope with the realities of publishing in a thousand different ways: Even though it took them two years to finish writing their core rulebook (and they have nothing else ready to go), they’ll include announcements in the back of the book for a new product every month until the end of the year. They’ll start under-capitalized so that, even if they did have material ready to go, they won’t have the money to print it until their print run for the core rulebook sells out. They’ll alienate their customer base by making extravagant claims about their game which only confirm their ignorance of the game market. They’ll publish something with low production values… but then charge the consumer the same price as a product with higher production values.

But there is one mistake that they will make which will put the final kiss of death upon their product: They will fail to take their competition into account.

For example, let’s say you want to create a Tolkienesque fantasy game – elves, dwarves, the whole nine yards. What’s the first thing that should come up on your radar screen?

D&D.

What’s the second thing that should come up on your radar screen?

Earthdawn, Ironclaw, Shards, Ars Magica, Sovereign Stone, Warhammer FRP, Hero Wars, and a dozen other games – major and minor – that fall within the classic fantasy marketplace to one degree or another.

And at that point you should be asking yourself a simple question: Can I offer something that these other games don’t?

For example: Ars Magica (arguably) does magic better than any other game system around. Legend of the Five Rings was an Eastern Fantasy game at a time when there wasn’t any serious competition. Ironclaw is anthropomorphic. Hero Wars has Glorantha. And so forth…

And if Enchanted Worlds possesses a flaw, then this would be it: It’s a game without purpose. Without a niche. Without a role to fulfill.

The boxed set, as a whole, comes across as a slightly amateurish effort, but with a certain amount of quality within those boundaries: A ring-bound booklet, a short introductory adventure, two eight-sided dice, a full-color map, a reference card, and a handful of character sheets.

The main booklet presents both rules and setting information. The rules are difficult to learn and reference because almost every single system is split up – with one half of the system described on an overview page and the other half of the system located later on in the book. Once you get past this odd fact (and the lay-out, which routinely leaves major sub-sections completely unlabeled, mixing dissimilar concepts together into one big lump of text) the system is fairly clean: Point-based character creation, a simple Attribute + Skill incarnation using a 2d8 die roll, and casting spells from a list.

The setting for the game is squeezed into about a dozen pages, and looks the worse for wear: It’s a standard Tolkienesque fantasy settings (elves, dwarves, humans, and the humanoid minions of evil), and the limited information which is provided does little to nothing in helping it stand out from the dozens of other settings out there that look just like it.

There’s a persistent problem with everything in this box: What’s there is fine for as far as it goes… but it doesn’t actually go anywhere in particular. There are at least a half dozen games on the market which do almost exactly what this one does – and do it better.

So I’m left searching for some reason you should buy this game, and I’m afraid I just don’t have one. I’ve seen this game before… only it was in full color and about 200 pages longer.

Ultimately, that’s a problem Enchanted Worlds just can’t live down.

Writers: Matthew Rodgers and Daniel Price
Publisher: New Worlds Gaming
Price: $14.95
Page Count: 40
Product Code: EWRSK1

Originally Posted: 2000/09/05

If I had written this review a couple of years later, I could probably have gotten away with just writing IT’S A FANTASY HEARTBREAKER! in blazing capital letters.

By the time this review rolled around, I was receiving RPG review copies from a number of different sources, including RPGNet, Games Unplugged, and the defunct Gaming Outpost website. Graveyard Greg over at Gaming Outpost contacted me about this Enchanted Worlds Starter Kit, complaining that he couldn’t find anybody who wanted to look at. Could I help him out? I said sure.

About a week later I got a copy of the game in the mail, but it wasn’t from Greg. Instead, Games Unplugged had decided to also throw me a review copy. A week after that I got a second copy, but this one ALSO wasn’t from Greg: New Worlds Gaming had somehow gotten my snail mail address and had sent me a copy directly with a request that I produce a review. (I never actually figured out where they got my address from.) The Gaming Outpost copy showed up shortly thereafter.

So now I had three copies of this shitty game.

I also had an obligation to both Gaming Outpost and Games Unplugged to produce a review of it. Which, after some deliberation, I did: I wrote two completely different reviews (albeit with the same basic conclusion) for two different outlets. You’ve just read the Gaming Outpost review (which actually appeared second). I’ll be posting the Games Unplugged version next week.

Go to Eternal Lies: The Alexandrian Remix

Campaign Notes – Diorama – Props Packet

New York is relatively straight-forward and is primarily designed to launch the PCs on their investigation.

The major addition to New York for the remix is to follow-up on local leads: Going to Winston Mansion will foreshadow some of the horrors which are to come, but major progress can be made if the PCs manage to dig up Walter Winston’s travel records (which can point them directly to Los Angeles without stopping in Savannah first).

NPC BRIEFING SHEET

I’ve prepped briefing sheets for each of the key NPCs in Eternal Lies. (In the case of New York, that means Janet Winston-Rogers and Frank Kearns.) These use the Universal NPC Roleplaying Template, which I’ve discussed previously as part of my remix of Keep on the Shadowfell and also used as part of the “Muse on Your Left” concept for Eclipse Phase. Here’s a quick overview of how I’m using them in the Eternal Lies remix.

Character Portrait: Most of these NPCs have a photograph associated with them. It’s reproduced in miniature on the briefing sheet for the GM’s reference (and to make it easy to find the corresponding photographic prop to hand to the players).

Character Description: A short description of the NPC.

Roleplaying Notes: This is the heart of the briefing sheet, but it should also be the shortest section. Generally two or three brief bullet points at most. I’m looking to identify the essential personality traits or mannerisms which will serve to define my performance as the NPC.

Background: Also bullet-pointed for easy reference. This provides a detailed reference for when you need to pull out specific information

Clues: This section fluctuates a bit throughout these campaign notes as I experimented with different ways of presenting this information for Trail of Cthulhu. The general format is a bullet-pointed list, with additional details where necessary and almost always an indication of what investigative skill would work best for gaining the clue.

Notes: Some NPCs also get a separate section for important notes. This is stuff that it’s really, really important that you don’t forget about while playing the NPC, but which don’t comfortably fall into Roleplaying Notes or Clues. Most of this stuff would probably be appropriate for Background, but I don’t want it to get “lost” in there during actual play.

Stats: Should be fairly self-explanatory.

THE SILVER SABER

Unless the PCs do something totally wacky, Janet Winston-Rogers will loan them a plane for their investigation. As detailed in the campaign notes, the Silver Saber is a DC-2 that’s been upgraded by her personal friend Donald Douglas (owner and founder of the Douglas Aircraft Company) to include features from the DC-3.

The idea of getting an “updated” DC-2 has no historical basis as far as I know, but the basic concept here is that the DC-3 could make transatlantic flights and the DC-2 couldn’t. While it’s possible to limit the group’s use of the Silver Saber to the Americas, the bulk of the campaign takes place in Eurasia and I liked the image of the plane serving as a touchstone throughout  the campaign.

But the DC-3 doesn’t fly until December 1935. Hence the compromise.

PROP NOTES

Silver Sable Photos / Interior: A large number of photographic references are included for the Silver Saber. The plane is meant to remain a significant set piece throughout the campaign, so I wanted to provide a rich visual reference for it.

Henslowe’s Letters: These are deliberately designed to be a vague trove of information. The players are likely to pour over them again and again throughout their investigation in Savannah (and perhaps beyond). I printed these on some very nice linen parchment and then crumpled them up, tore their edges, and the like. If you wanted to make the players really work for it, you could take the letter dated August 9th, 1933, and tear it up completely (forcing them to piece it back together). This would direct their attention strongly towards the journal, of course.

Go to 1.2 Savannah

Go to Eternal Lies: The Alexandrian Remix

Campaign Props (Zip)

This is a special props packet containing a bunch of campaign-wide material that doesn’t fit conveniently into any of the individual locations.

Letters of Inquiry: These props are specific to the characters who played in my original campaign, but I’ve included them to provide a template for creating your own (including the necessary fonts). I actually printed these letters and physically mailed them to my players so that they’d arrive roughly a week before the campaign began. (I used the Veteran Typewriter font to address the envelopes, using the character names.)

Calendar: A simple wall calendar from October 1934 to December 1936 (which should be more than sufficient time to complete the campaign). I printed off fresh months as I needed them and posted them on the wall. The calendar conveniently includes the phases of the moon for easy reference once that becomes significant in the campaign. I had the players keep a log of where they were and what they were doing each day.

Reference Documents: For use when the players learn about either A Spell to Open the Sky or the Rituals of Self-Denial, regardless of where they learn about them.

The Mouth: This image had a tendency to manifest itself throughout the campaign.

MAPS

Campaign Maps (Zip)

These 16 maps are designed to be printed at a large, poster size and used as the centerpiece for each location’s diorama. This can be surprisingly affordable: I was able to go down to my local FedEx/Kinko’s store and get them printed off for a couple of bucks each.

When I initially started this project, I thought it would be relatively easy in this internet era to find period-appropriate maps for each city. That turned out not to be even remotely true, which is why some of the maps are a decade (or more) out of date. In a few cases, however, I’ve been able to provide multiple options for a map and you can use whichever one you feel is most appropriate. (Or all of them if you want to go hog wild.)

Of the maps that are out of date, the only one that’s truly problematic is the 1910 map of Valletta, Malta. One of the key locations in Malta is located in the parish of Paola on the far side of the Great Harbor from Valletta. The only problem? As far as I can tell, the section of Paola which abuts the harbor (where the key location is to be found) appears to have been almost wholly constructed between 1910 and 1930. So it’s not on the map.

If you find more period-appropriate maps for any of the locations (particularly at a size conducive to poster printing), please share!

Go to 1.1 New York

Eternal Lies is an amazing campaign written for Trail of Cthulhu by Will Hindmarch, Jeff Tidball, and Jeremy Keller.

The basic conceit of the campaign is that a decade ago a band of occult investigators battled against the summoning of an ancient and monstrous evil… and failed. Now the PCs need to piece together what went wrong and try to salvage whatever they can. It was explicitly designed to be a spiritual successor to the Masks of Nyarlathotep and, like that classic campaign, features a freewheeling, international investigation of epic scope.

Long-time readers of the site may recall that I consider Masks of Nyarlathotep to be one of the best RPG campaigns ever published, and that it also provided the core concept for both the Three Clue Rule and Node-Based Scenario Design. Despite the incredibly high esteem in which I hold the Masks of Nyarlathotep, however, I’m of the opinion that Eternal Lies is even better.

It’s probably unsurprising, therefore, that a few months back I started prepping to run Eternal Lies. As is often the case, however, I got a trifle ambitious with my plans. The result was a large expansion (and a slight revamping) of the entire campaign, and over the next couple or three weeks I’d like to share with you the material I developed in the form of the Alexandrian Remix of Eternal Lies.

SPOILER WARNING

This should probably go without saying, but from this point forward there will be huge spoilers for Eternal Lies. Literally stuff that will spoil the entire campaign for you.

As a particular warning for players in my extended gaming network: I’m planning to run this campaign again at some point in the (probably near) future. If you’d like to be able to actually play the campaign, I’m afraid you’re going to have to tune out of my website for a little while.

DESIGN NOTES

There are several core elements which make up the remix, and I think the material will be a little clearer if I explain its structure.

First, there are LOCATION DIORAMAS. The campaign, as published, is broken up across nine distinct locations. For each of these locations I prepped a diorama which could be hung on the wall near the gaming table. The centerpiece of each diorama was a large, poster-sized map. This was accompanied by a variety of photos, drawings, period advertisements, and the like. The idea was to provide a rich, visual reference for the players.

The dioramas were also intended to be persistent and interactive. As the PCs gathered clues and other materials in each location, they could be added to the dioramas. And as the PCs moved to each new location, the dioramas from the previous locations would remain. Over the course of the campaign, the gaming area would become immersed in the 1930s through a slow, inevitable, kudzu-like growth.

Second, there are PROP PACKETS. These are, again, grouped by location. I used a handful of physical props which, in the absence of 3D printing, I’m unable to share with you, but most of the materials are paper props of various kinds.

• For newspaper articles, I printed them on sheets of 8.5” x 11” newsprint.
• Most of the photos are designed to be printed directly onto 4” x 6” photo paper.
• Larger photos are designed for 8.5” x 11” photo paper. (In some cases, multiple images are arranged so that they can be printed on a single sheet and cut out.)
• For telegrams, I found that simply printing them on yellow paper was extremely effective.
• For the record album, I have included an MP3 audio file and also a CD label that can be printed using the Neato CD labels. (The CD is obviously anachronistic, but the ability to actually take the prop and play it is pretty awesome.)

Most of these props are original (albeit often sourced from period photographs and the like). But several of the props were originally developed by and shared by others on Yog-Sothoth.com. I’m including my copies here because most of them have been altered or repurposed to fit into the rest of my campaign schema, but if you end up continuing to develop Eternal Lies material for your own tables I heartily encourage you to pop over to Yog-Sothoth and share your work with the larger community.

Third, there are my CAMPAIGN NOTES. As with the dioramas and prop packets, these are broken down by location. They serve as a quick reference for running the campaign, but obviously also contain all of the other alterations and additions I’ve made.

NODE STRUCTURE

One of my biggest goals with this remix was to enrich the node-based structure of the campaign.

As written, Eternal Lies has a fairly straight-forward structure: A short track of investigation takes you from New York to Savannah and then to a mansion in Los Angeles where you discover a book which contains clues pointing to four other locations scattered around the globe. While investigating those locations, you’ll discover additional clues which will combine to form a “final revelation” pointing you towards the conclusion of the campaign.

I liked the open-ended, go wherever you want structure. What I didn’t like was the book. First, it was a single point of failure: If the PCs don’t find the book, the rest of the campaign doesn’t happen. Second, it feels a little too on-the-nose in the metagame: It felt like the GM saying, “Here’s your menu for the campaign. Please make your next selection.”

I wanted something a little more organic. I wanted things to feel messy and real. I wanted to give the players a greater sense of charting their own course, instead of just picking from a menu of three options. And I wanted the choice of sequence to have a more meaningful impact on how the investigation played out.

First, I significantly decreased the importance of the book and liberally spread clues pointing to the other cult locations throughout the Los Angeles investigation. I also mixed things up by adding additional clues to both the New York and Savannah investigations: It’s now possible to go from New York directly to Los Angeles, for example. Or to follow a lead from Savannah and go directly to Bangkok.

Second, I radically increased the cross-pollination of clues between locations. For example, in the original campaign the only “access point” to Bangkok was the book in Los Angeles. In the remix campaign, investigators can be pointed towards Bangkok from Savannah, Malta, Mexico City, and Axum.

So if the investigators, for example, take the first clue they find in Los Angeles and skedaddle before completing the rest of their investigation there, everything will be just fine: Wherever they’re going, they should be able to dig up more clues to keep their investigation alive. (In a worst case scenario, of course, they might find themselves doubling back to Los Angeles.)

THE FINAL REVELATIONS

The biggest weakness in Eternal Lies are two revelations that the PCs have to make near the end of the campaign. The first of these is the revelation that the Devouring Mountain, where the ultimate villain of the campaign is located, is Mt. Kailash in Thibet. In the campaign as written, this revelation is theoretically split into three clues:

• A map in Bangkok showing that the villain is located at Mt. Kailash.
• A clue in Malta that the villain can only be reached at Mt. Kailash during a certain time of the month.
• A clue in Mexico City that reveals that Mt. Kailash is the Devouring Mountain.

I say “theoretically split” because it’s pretty obvious that once you get a map pointing you directly at the location, you can pretty much brute force the rest of the problem (which causes the entire campaign to short circuit).

To fix this, it has been recommended that the map in Bangkok is in a huge stack of papers and only becomes notable once the PCs discover the clue in Mexico City. This is unsatisfying, however, because it creates a dynamic where the penultimate conclusion of the campaign isn’t the result of the players solving a mystery, it’s just the GM telling them where to go next.

To make matters even worse, Eternal Lies then immediately repeats this mistake. At the conclusion of the events at Mt. Kailash, the GM is supposed to once again say, “Oh, yeah. Your characters now remember a piece of paper I never told you about that tells you what to do next.”

It’s as if you were playing a traditional murder mystery and, at the end of the scenario, the GM said, “Oh, yeah. Your character remembers seeing a clue I didn’t tell you about several weeks ago. Tom’s the murderer.”

To which I say: Bah! Humbug!

So as part of the Alexandrian Remix, these final two revelations have been significantly restructured.

First, the MT. KAILASH REVELATION consists of three clues:

• Sirikhan mounted unsuccessful expeditions to several locations searching for the Maw of the Mouth, including Mt. Kailash. (Clues to this effect are primarily found in Bangkok.)
• The Maw of the Mouth lies within the Devouring Mountain. (Clues to this effect are primarily found in Mexico City.)
• The Rift of the Maw opens only on the night of a New Moon beneath a clear sky. (Clues to this effect are primarily found in Malta.)

So in Bangkok the PCs will essentially gain a big list of location names, with no way to distinguish which location is the one they want. (Note that the only mountain in the list is Mt. Kailash.) In Mexico City they’ll be told that they’re looking for a mountain. And in Malta they’ll be told when they need to be there (which also explains why Savitree failed). It doesn’t matter which order they find these clues in, they won’t be able to piece the whole thing together unless they have all three.

Second, the REVELATION OF THE APOCALYPSE was trickier to solve. The method I eventually adopted was to NOT provide clues that allow the PCs to “solve” the mystery. Instead, I designed four key concepts:

• Great power requires great sacrifice.
• Echavarria’s ritual had two layers / two purposes.
• Edgar Job played a key role in Echavarria’s ritual, but no one knows what it was.
• Azathoth was the true focus of Echavarria’s interest.

And then I layered material supporting these concepts throughout the campaign. I can then pull whatever subset of material they discovered to form the final, spiteful vision sent to them at Mt. Kailash. For example: “Edgar Jobs dragging a cigarette and telling you he was Chosen by Echavarria in 1924. The summoning of the Liar From Beyond as only one part of the ritual. Montgomery Donovan sacrificing his wife because he knew it was necessary to sacrifice great things to achieve great power. What greater sacrifice could there be then a god summoned from beyond the Great Wall of Glaaki? And what greater power than the destructive gaze of Azathoth!”

The idea is that, at least thematically, the answer was in front of them the entire time (instead of being delivered from out of the blue). The actual solution to the problem has also been tweaked, so even after they get this revelation, they’ll still need to figure out what to actually do about it.

NEW LOCATIONS

Those already familiar with the campaign will also notice that there are two completely new locations in the Alexander Remix: The Severn Valley and Axum. Both of these arose through actual play, and I’ll be discussing the role they play in more detail as they actually get presented.

CHANGE OF DATE

A final significant change I made to the campaign was the date: As published, Eternal Lies begins in 1937, thirteen years after the original ritual was performed in 1924.

I suspect, however, that the campaign was originally supposed to start in 1934 and the decision to move it to 1937 was made rather late in the design process (for reasons that aren’t entirely clear to me). There are a number of subtle hints to this effect in the text, but the big one is that one section of the campaign is set during the Abyssinia Crisis, which started in 1934 and was concluded by May 1936.

Rather than try to completely rework the Ethiopia material, I decided to simply crank the clock back. My version of the campaign begins in New York on October 31^st, 1934.

THE ALEXANDRIAN REMIX

Campaign Overview

1.0 Maps and Campaign Props
1.1 New York
1.2 Savannah
1.3 Los Angeles

Books of the Los Angeles Cult – UCLA Lot
Books of the Los Angeles Cult – Echavarria’s Library

2.0 Act II – Floating Scenes
2.1 Bangkok

Savitree’s Research

2.2.1 Severn Valley
2.2 Ethiopia
2.2.1 Obelisk of Axum
2.3 Malta
2.4 Mexico City
2.5 Yucatan

3.1 Thibet
3.2 The End

After Action Report

Addendum: Airports
Addendum: Hotels
Addendum: Newspapers

You may also find my System Cheat Sheet for Trail of Cthulhu useful.