As I reported before, during MEPAcon I was able to get Eldritch Shadows out into the wild and play it with a good sized group. During this session, Eldritch Shadows was played in its intended form, that being a Paranormal or Urban Fantasy setting heavily influenced by Jim Butcher, Patrica Briggs, and Simon R. Green. It was a lot of fun, and the personality of the modern setting, the focus on exploration and investigation over combat ( +Reese Laundry correct if I’m wrong but outside the final boss, there was only 4 combats in the entire 4 hour block, right?) made for some great interaction between the characters and between the characters and the world of the game.
(Although the best bit was the crowd we formed during the police stand-off section who got a kick out of the police assuming the Mage had a teaser when he used a sleep spell on the FBI agent).
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So imagine my surprise when last night I ended up using Eldritch Shadows to run a game about teenagers in a Magic Academy … Yep, I basically ran a game of Harry Potter mixed with a little bit of Gotham Academy.
Changes where of course needed, the only one being that anyone not playing a “Street Mage” or “Council Mage” class had to succeed an Intelligence SR in order to cast the spell with a negative based on level. So a Soldier Class with an Intelligence of 10 would have to roll under a 9 in order to cast a first level spell.
The kids had a blast and I thankfully surprised at how the typical bloodthirsty nature of the group vanished. Instead the kids focused their attentions on keeping away from patrolling teachers, finding secret passages and solving the “Riddle of the Ice Queen”. When combat finally did occur the kids used the landscape instead of direct confrontation with the Frozen Minotaur construct in the labyrinth beneath the school’s magically frozen lake.
With how much fun the kids had with this I may have to add a “other stories” section at the end of Eldritch Shadows detailing this alternate use of the S&W supplement.
2 thoughts on “Eldritch Shadows – Oh the Interesting Paths!”
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Ok, with no spoilers, I come up with four combats (two in the station and two along the tracks) and the (big) one I avoided on the tracks.
The investigations definitely led to more interaction with the setting, and with paranormal entities we didn't actually combat as well
No wait – five combats. There was a third in the station.
That sounds like a lot of fun with the kids. It just goes to show how flexible a rules-lite system can be. Same rule set for Lovecraft or Rowling.
Oh yeah, I forgot about the first encounter at the station! Thanks, Reese!