I ran Electric Bastionland last weekend with an adventure of my own: Verschollen im Archiv des KfK (Lost in the KafKa Archives).
To start with, I kept my (secret, at this point) promise that we’d begin play in less than 20 minutes:
I did a brief icebreaker activity, introduced the world (e.g. its ‘tech level’ and how it’s surreal), said a few words about the rules (e.g. that PCs can die, but rarely do so and then usually as a group) and had the three players roll up characters.
My players were Fred, Daniel and Cooper, long-time friends I hadn’t played with in years, so I included the icebreaker activity to test & time it, not because it was needed.
I brought both the physical book and printouts of the game’s 100+ failed careers in transparent sleeves. The latter meant everyone could read their PC’s career’s description at the same time, including related entries (for different starting scores for hit points and money) for fun. Along with the gorgeous artwork this is an effective way to introduce the players to the setting and its vibes and weirdness, much better than long expository monologue.
I started them off right in front of a huge building: the KfK (pronounced ‘kafka), i.e. the “Konsiliaramt fรผr Kontrollierungsangelegenheiten”, a labyrinthine government agency dedicated to mediating disputes between citizens and other government agencies:
The characters’ creditor provided a lead on a pile of blank, but pre-approved (!) building permits, stored deep within the KfK’s archives, so off they went!
The players debated their approach for a slightly maddening 20 minutes before finally setting foot inside the KfK and realizing the problem at hand: endless lines of petitioners in front of a single help desk open for business as well as an arrogant doorman guarding access to the stairwell and the lifts.
Daniel was nonplussed when it became apparent that I had no solution in mind. No need to worry, though! The players soon came up with a plan and had their PCs enter a storage room, finding work coats and an experimental piano-sized vacuum cleaner. They put it to good use by making one hell of a racket and threatening to ‘accidentally’ suck in people to drive off the masses — their first, if unsuccessful gambit.
I was delighted, especially because I had only created the room to fill a blank part of the foyer’s map with no thought to concrete applications.
Next, they navigated a number of departments to get a lead on where they needed to go. I rolled departments randomly, as they relocate all the time, one of several surreal elements.
Again, I was delighted: They ended up in Information Retrieval first, straight from Terry Gilliam’s Brazil. They saved a “potential source of information” from torture, who then joined the party (1:6 chance they are a murderous psychopath, by the way) but also grabbed some documents to later intimidate a pesky clerk.
After navigating three departments, they were confronted by three gatekeepers inspired by Kafka’s Before the Law. For the last one, they almost decided to use a secret tunnel, another surreal element of the adventure:
There is always a secret tunnel to be found, leading to a known location of your choice or to the next room — but the tunnels get more and more dangerous.
However, Connor had a brilliant idea: Having perceived the macho attitude of the second gatekeeper, his character had entered the room with his hands behind his back and Connor mimicked this approach at the table. He then challenged the gatekeeper, an intelligent gorilla, to a hand-crushing contest: the first dude to wince forfeits.
Perfect, as his character had an industrial strength mechanical hand! Here and elsewhere, unique & weird features of the PCs’ saved the day.
Finally, they entered the archives situated underground, i.e. “beneath reality” and ruled by machines according to EB, i.e. the dungeon proper. This happened after about three of six hours of play.
I randomly rolled for encounters, treasures and reactions on my tables. The PCs found a modified gatling gun with self-stapling staples early which later allowed them to negotiate confidently with a horde of favorably inclined undead clerks.
They did find the permits in the end, though I could kick myself for forgetting to roll the 3:6 chance of their rival turning up just then. The rival’s position is not tracked by the GM, but they have a chance of turning up via random encounter rolls and at special occasions such as this.
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I was rightly wary of a post-game discussion, so I used the “Stars & Wishes” approach: One round of positive feedback, limited to one or two items tops (including stuff like others’ play), and one round of constructive criticism, limited to one item — and no further commenting.
Most noteworthy, the players loved the place’s atmosphere and Connor commented he had felt intimidated by my introductory remarks regarding lethality, quick replacement of dead characters etc.
I refrained from commenting and also (gently) cut some people short. Still, some further discussion while packing things up led to some participants putting on their game designer’s hat. Some frutiful stuff, to be sure, but I could see things becoming a discussion of preferences in general, which I do not find productive at all.
(I want death on the table, for instance – here and with my Nibelungs game, anyway -, so when someone criticizes something as “too deadly”, following up on that leads exactly nowhere and likely makes me defensive to boot.)
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I’m very pleased with the session. I’ve settled on Electric Bastionland for the express purpose of running oneshots at conventions and at the local gaming club. I love the game’s simplicity and especially its quick, yet powerful character creation but did not find an introductory adventure to my liking, hence Verschollen im Archiv des KfK. It’s almost ready for publication, but I plan on taking my time, i.e. running it half a dozen times first (which is the point, really, with publication being icing on the cake).
The adventure’s many random elements combined beautifully with the random character classes and the players’ creativity: I feel very confident that I’ll get very different results in play when running this again and again — and this unpredictability is one of roleplaying’s chief delights for me today (good memories of railroading in decades past not withstanding).
