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Author Topic: Pulp Alley: Memento Mori, DevLAM '17  (Read 8273 times)

Offline Mad Lord Snapcase

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Pulp Alley: Memento Mori, DevLAM '17
« on: November 14, 2017, 12:00:30 PM »
Over the Guy Fawkes weekend recently myself, Doug em4 and Vagabond got together to play some games. For the full story go to:

DevLAM '17

This is a place-holder for the AAR (which I am still writing) of our Gothic Horror game using Pulp Alley rules.

Before the event, Doug em4 and Vagabond received the following telegrams, dispatching them on a secret and mysterious mission.




« Last Edit: January 05, 2018, 10:16:08 AM by Mad Lord Snapcase »


Offline marianas_gamer

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Re: Momento Mori
« Reply #1 on: November 14, 2017, 12:05:53 PM »
Great ephemera! I always love these lead ins to games. Sadly lacking your normal humor and naming practices, or did I miss something?
Lon
Got to kick at the darkness till it bleeds daylight.

Offline Mad Lord Snapcase

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Re: Momento Mori
« Reply #2 on: November 14, 2017, 12:32:14 PM »
Great ephemera! I always love these lead ins to games. Sadly lacking your normal humor and naming practices, or did I miss something?
Lon

Hi Lon,

I wanted the lead character of each league to be the player's LAF name or similar. Hence, Sir Douglas D'Emfore is Doug em4 and Vagabond is Vagabond. However, in the lead-up to the game, I allowed the players to choose the names of their followers, you will definitely see some silliness there!   ;)

More to follow......................

Offline dinohunterpoa

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Re: Momento Mori
« Reply #3 on: November 14, 2017, 12:44:19 PM »

As far as I know, the lovely Ms. Ives is more than able to take care of herself...  Looking forward to see how this adventure develops anyway!  ;)

"Because life is made of inspiration, dreaming and insanity in about equal measure."
- Erzsébet Báthory - 1560-1614 (?)

Offline Elk101

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Re: Momento Mori
« Reply #4 on: November 14, 2017, 12:51:07 PM »
Great props. I like to see things like this in games.

Offline Mad Lord Snapcase

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Re: Momento Mori
« Reply #5 on: November 14, 2017, 12:59:30 PM »
.................and then the badinage began! Extracts from e-mail exchanges between the participants.

From Doug em4

Quote
I look forward to the arrival of my courier. I imagine mine will arrive in a 3.5 Litre Bentley Drophead Coupe, be dressed immaculately in pinstripe and bowler and speak with a laconic, upper class drawl. As Snapcase Hall is definitely “county”, he may substitute a classic Ratcatcher outfit for the pinstripe.
 
John’s man I picture in shapeless fawn mackintosh over an off-the-peg, shiny brown suit, a rakish cheap trilby, fingers deeply nicotine stained and a coarse South London accent. He’ll have the customary chip on his shoulder of a plain-clothes copper in upper-crust society and will be given a brown ale in the servant’s quarters while my man sips a whisky and soda in the library. His Austin 7 will have been parked out sight behind the stables.

From Vagabond

Quote
I'm afraid Sir Douglas's barbed arrows have struck home and I am speechless with rage as I don't own a Macintosh but do like brown ale. He has me typecast already which I fear puts me at a disadvantage but I think when Basher and his brother have finished he may have a problem getting the silver spoon out of his Willie's or Bills or whatever he calls his associates.

From Doug em4

Quote
Looking forward to DevLAM and locking horns co-operating fully in the Burgh Island investigation.

From Vagabond

Quote
...............would be able to put you right about your misconceptions of the Greater London Constabulary, working hard and honestly for King and Country, as opposed to the lads with the silver spoon stuck up in their dark recesses. The secret squirrels who are too bound up in self interest and betrayal of everything we hold dear.
Philby and company may be in the future but the seeds were sown long before.

From Doug em4

Quote
No idea what you’re on about, old chap. If by Philby, you are referring to Kim, he’s a great chum and working at this moment just down the corridor from me....Except, of course, for the fact that we don’t exist.
 
Typical working-class over sensitive reaction. A few terms at a decent boarding school would knock that kind of feeble nonsense out of you. And anyway, I was describing your courier. You, detective Vagabond, I reserve judgement on.

.................and so it went on! The secret dossiers were delivered by their respective couriers, containing different information for each player. They were briefed that they could share, partial share or not share at all, as they saw fit. Doug's courier got his whisky and soda in the library at Snapcase Hall and Vagabond's courier had a brown ale with Old Scrotum (the Snapcase family's wrinkled retainer) in the butler's pantry.

The scene was set....................the old antagonisms between the Secret Service and Scotland Yard had been brought to the fore and the animosity was rising just as I planned (maniacal laugh).  lol




« Last Edit: November 14, 2017, 01:01:57 PM by Mad Lord Snapcase »

Offline Remgain

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Re: Memento Mori
« Reply #6 on: November 14, 2017, 03:22:27 PM »
Great start!!!

May I ask how you manage to "build" the telegrams??

Marco
« Last Edit: November 14, 2017, 03:53:34 PM by Remgain »


We don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.

George Bernard Shaw

Offline Mad Lord Snapcase

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Re: Memento Mori
« Reply #7 on: November 14, 2017, 03:37:29 PM »
Great start!!!

May I ask how you menage to "build" the telegrams??

Marco

Hi Marco,

I got a blank image from Google and then used MS Publisher to insert text boxes in the appropriate places. Typewriter font from DaFont

Offline Mad Lord Snapcase

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Re: Memento Mori
« Reply #8 on: November 14, 2017, 03:43:14 PM »
Another telegram arrives for each player whilst their valets are still packing spare socks and unmentionables! These telegrams and following secret dossier items were not seen by the other player.

Telegram to Vagabond



Telegram to Doug em4





Offline Remgain

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Re: Memento Mori
« Reply #9 on: November 14, 2017, 04:01:28 PM »
Thank you, MLS!!  ;)

Marco

Offline Malamute

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Re: Memento Mori
« Reply #10 on: November 14, 2017, 04:19:33 PM »
 Burgh Island - my favourite walk is along the beach and around the estuary towards Batham. ;D

Its a great setting for a game. I believe Agatha Christie was inspired to write Evil under the Sun and also Ten Little Indians after staying at the hotel on Burgh Island. :)
"These creatures do not die like the bee after the first sting, but go on age after age, feeding on the blood of the living"  - Abraham Van Helsing

Offline Elk101

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Re: Memento Mori
« Reply #11 on: November 14, 2017, 04:32:37 PM »
Burgh Island - my favourite walk is along the beach and around the estuary towards Batham. ;D

Its a great setting for a game. I believe Agatha Christie was inspired to write Evil under the Sun and also Ten Little Indians after staying at the hotel on Burgh Island. :)

It's a cracking little location. The pub gets bloody crowded though and the walk back can be interesting if you leave it late. I've only been once but it certainly stuck in my mind.

Offline Mad Lord Snapcase

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Re: Memento Mori
« Reply #12 on: November 15, 2017, 08:41:41 AM »
Don't walk back, get the tractor!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Burgh Island Sea Tractor
« Last Edit: November 15, 2017, 08:43:26 AM by Mad Lord Snapcase »

Offline Mad Lord Snapcase

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Re: Memento Mori
« Reply #13 on: November 15, 2017, 08:54:05 AM »
.............and now on to the Leagues. Please ignore the rather poorly painted eyes, I am in the process of rectifying these after seeing the photos!

The Secret Service


Left to Right: Sir Douglas D’Emfore KCB (Leader), Sir Sidney Ruff-Diamond (Sidekick), Seaman Willy Staines, Big Willy McGrin, Private Bill Pahrts.

Sir Douglas is ostensibly a man-about-town and bon-vivant. However, unbeknownst to the general public he is a renowned agent in the newly formed Secret Service. Sir Sidney, recently returned from India, where he was the Governor of Khalabar, has retired to his estate in Devon after a scandal involving his wife, Lady Ruff-Diamond and the Khasi of Khalabar. The allies all come from a small village in Ayrshire. The village is dominated by the small, Presbyterian sect known as the Wee Frees. It is a custom in the village to name all second sons William and send them off into the world to make their way. Hence, in The Department, the allies are known as “The Three Wee Free Willies” which their superiors find to be wildly hilarious (their superiors are all ex-public school so no more need be said).



Scotland Yard


Left to Right:   Investigating Detective ’Vagabond’ GC (Leader), Sir Algernon Paget-Snapcase (Sidekick), James "Basher" Smith - Dr Harry "Flashy" Flashman - John "Bruiser" Smith.

Investigating Detective ’Vagabond’ is known only by his code name and is a member of the newly formed Detective Division at Scotland Yard. ‘Vagabond’ heads ‘X’ Department, tasked with investigating unsolved muders and bizarre phenomena. Sir Algernon has recently returned from Africa after leading the expedition formed to find the legendary Oozlum bird in the territory of the bloodthirsty "Noshas", a tribe of feared cannibals. Basher and Bruiser are brother's, sons of Zebedee they were known in the force as the Two Disciples because they didn't keep to the straight and narrow confines of the law. Dr. Flashman is the fore-runner of today’s forensic scientist.



« Last Edit: November 15, 2017, 08:57:36 AM by Mad Lord Snapcase »

Offline Mad Lord Snapcase

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Re: Memento Mori
« Reply #14 on: November 15, 2017, 10:37:46 AM »
Burgh Island - my favourite walk is along the beach and around the estuary towards Batham. ;D

Its a great setting for a game. I believe Agatha Christie was inspired to write Evil under the Sun and also Ten Little Indians after staying at the hotel on Burgh Island. :)

Malamute,
As I understand it, this Beach House (which is part of the hotel) was built for Agatha Christie in the '30s. The two books you mention were actually written in this Beach House. She was born in Torquay and there are connections there to another book, The ABC Murders. She wrote her first book, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, whilst staying at the Moorlands House Hotel near Haytor, Dartmoor. She also had a holiday home, Greenway on the River Dart which is National Trust property now.

 

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