[Candlewick] A Beginning... of sorts

[Mamcdowell]

As we begin our tale of woe and ruin, and I know dear reader, that the final decision rests in my hopefully capable hands, a question still haunts me.

Upon the children's arrival at the Manor, it assumes they were all gathered from the same place. Should this, and by "this" I mean a prior connection to the other PC's at least, be implied? Or has the good Doctor Candlewick scoured the land for such wretches?

[Shane Ivey]

I usually introduce them to each other as strangers. But if it will speed things up to have a connection in place, do that.

[Bailywolf]

I usually assume they've all been gathered on the same trip though not from the same orphanage. This gives me the chance to do an 'introduce your character' bit as each new orphan is gathered, and joins the others in the back of the big black car. Upon arrival at Candlewick, there's the assumption among the already-arrived that the newcomers have some previous connection, and so they're treated as a group even if they're not.

"Oh Dears, you'll be happy to know we've got you adjoining rooms! Got to share a washroom, but for such good friends that can hardly be a problem, now can it?"

-B

[w00hoo]

Going to bump this rather than start a new question as it kind of fits...

Candlewick has townsfolk and monsters, but there aren't any other orphans mentioned, however it's assumed that more orphans will be there...

How many other orphans do people feel is right for the Manor, and how big a role do they play in the game? It feels like Candlewick school is going to be pretty heavily orphan weighted compared to the villages own children of school age, although I assume that there are a small horde of faceless others in the village who aren't as uniquely special as the listed townsfolk

[Shane Ivey]

Every time I've run it, the PCs have been the first orphans in the latest "crop." There were other orphans before, but we don't like to talk about them, the poor dears.

[w00hoo]

OK, so you presume that whichever orphans came before had all passed on (in some manner ) and the PC's are the only orphans in the manor?

[Shane Ivey]

Right.

That's not the only way to do it, though. It's just been convenient for one-shot games.

[w00hoo]

OK, that makes sense. I have 10 pre-gen orphans that I'm using for Convention games (up to 6 players at the table as it's traditional, pick which characters they want from the 10 to ensure everyone gets a decent choice) and I've decided to use them as the only other orphans in the Manor. I'm keeping them in the background, but I think it'll give me some handy recurring NPC's to trigger plot. At least until the PC's have started creating a relationship map anyway. Plus it'll give me some handy kids to kill off should the game seem to require it.

On a different tack, how do people handle the reactions of staff and family at the Manor itself to Creepy skills being used? I'm thinking that it's likely they are either particularly good at appearing to miss that Creepy skills have been used at all, or that they are good at appearing that way, as they have other agendas regarding the orphans anyway...

[Shane Ivey]

Yeah. I either have the staff not notice them or else shrug them off in an "it takes all sorts; now finish your chores" kind of way.

[w00hoo]

Update on the worlds slowest conversation, it's great, almost like using snailmail

Here Be Spoilers.

We've done 4 sessions, things are going pretty slowly due to a mix of pretty Traditional orientated players and short gaming sessions.

Session 1 we created the characters and ran a 45 minute or so session of them being introduced to each other, the staff and the Manor itself.
Session 2 they met one of the other orphans, which allowed them to gel together a bit and experiment with Creepy skills without injuring anyone fragile. They also found a map to what they have decided is buried treasure which they tried to follow through the cellars of the Manor and in to the myriad of tunnels beyond. Meanwhile one PC found his way in to the Candlewicks private rooms and stole a watch. The session ended with them running after the monster in the tunnels (sorry, can't remember his name off the top of my head) and ending up back in the Manor gardens.
Session 3 they met Dorothy Naoiland, Miles Candlewick Jr and a monster on the shingle beach. They were all sent on a beach combing expedition where Miles had them all playing cricket (we've moved Candlewick to England as we're there too and it works pretty well being so out of the place anyway) then during the beach coming they had a coming together with a monster in a rock pool. Two of the PC's ended up turning Echoes in to Relationships with Dorothy and Miles. They were taken home, soggy, after Miles had been hit in the head by a stone flung out of the rockpool by the monster within.
Session 4 was first full day at school where they learnt a bit more about Dorothy, met the head master, Scout and Jack, the town bully. One of the PC's controlled a group of hornets to attack Jack, putting him down. During lunch Scout convinced one of the PC's to steal some chemicals from the school so they could go and set the tramp, Mr Fiddles, on fire, which they kind of did. Two of the PC's also went to the library to look for information on starfish. By the end of the session the remaining three PC's all had relationships set up too.

It's been my intention to run the first three full sessions as 'set up' sessions so the players could get to know the town. This has worked well and from here on out I'm hoping that with plenty of unresolved plot hooks and a relationship each they will start driving the game forward themselves from the next session...

[w00hoo]

Out of interest, where do people tend to put MacGruders Farm? (Think it's MacGruders...) I'd assumed it was actually on the map, being the farm by the bridge, until I happily went in to narration about it a session or so ago and realised that it was actually Old Man Snap's farm (again, from memory, which is poor) so backtracked a bit. Hence, the question back there, I know it doesn't really matter, just interested...

[Shane Ivey]

Not sure, but I'll ask Ben.