Session 1 Down, Let Us Evaluate!
Last week, on the 20th December 2025, we had the first session of our campaign, the scenario was “The Haunting”. Much like with the other games with these guys, it has been a massive learning experience. Trying to manage seven players is wild! Before we started this, I did have a sit down and let them know they will need to be a bit more split up this time so everyone would have a little something to do.
This for the most part worked wonderfully, and I was able to put a little attention on each group, give them some clues to work on whilst I moved onto another group. That was probably my biggest success with last nights session. There were still points that people were sitting there with nothing to do, but that was brought more on by their own actions and nothing I could do to dissuade them was helping, but more on that in a moment.
Let me try and give a little play by play and talk about the individual parts of the session.
Pregame
The week leading ot the game, I had prepared a little treat for each of the players to get them amped up for the game. I put together a little telegram, which asked each of the players to attend a location on a certain day, 12th Nov 1923. There was no time specified so that I could play out an introduction sequence as I will explain in a moment. I went and posted them through their letter boxes on the Thursday night so that they would get them mostly that night, a couple of them the next night. But all before the game and to give them a little pre hype. It worked great and there were great messages in the WhatsApp group. Mostly the eyes emoji, but it was great seeing people react as they got their telegrams, then the confusion of those who hadn’t got them yet.
The Introductions
To start the session off, I had everyone join me at the table and got them to roll a D12, this was the order in which I would have them come back into the room to make introductions. This sort of worked, they would come in and sit down, I would introduce myself and ask them to introduce themselves. I don’t think everyone had quite picked up the feeling at this point, the majority just sat there twiddling their thumbs not quite sure whether to talk, play or what. My brother however had it down pat and came in swinging… obnoxiously, but he played his character and tried making conversation with the others.
Over all a middling success. Having introduced everyone and initial handouts given, things got off to a rocky start. This all comes back to a learning experience with everyone. The 2, for lack of a better word, problem players made themselves known early on. Now I say problem players, they weren’t a problem in terms of nuscenes problematic, but their immediate style of play caused holdups and tension.
The first was my brother, which I knew would happen. He is playing an Irish missionary… with a combative self righteous nature. This makes him very vocal, I want to do this that and otherwise and I am not going to listen to anyone else. He seems to gravitate towards these kinds of characters and personalities because of the person he is I think. I am going to have to figure out how best to deal with this… the subtle training has not worked so far, but he knows he is in the firing line for being murdered, if not by me then certainly the other players! We will get there though.
The second is my dad. He has a tendency to overthink, over analyse and try to over plan everything, and as we will see later, can’t take a hint. This started right from the get go, as soon as I had handed over the first document, over analysis and planning went into action and he let all of his thoughts out without really talking about it with the others. So why did this cause an issue? Well my dad has a very one track mind sometimes and he tends to get tunnel vision on an idea.
This is reflective in other games we play together too, especially wargaming, very easy to read and lead into a trap.
But once we got past that, plans were made, groups were formed and they went off in their own directions.
The First Locations
So as part of the campaign story, there are 7 NPCs that are tied into the plot. These NPCs will be used to replace my players characters if (or when…) their characters need to be removed from play. Two of the locations that were visited first, gave me the perfect opportunity to introduce a couple. Let’s start with…
The Boston Globe
In the scenario as written, The Haunting, when you go to The Globe, you are introduced to Ruth who is the records keeper, she will assist you finding the news paper draft. In my campaign, I have an investigative journalist named Evelyn, she has spent some time in the records room and takes the place of Ruth. I set it up so that when my players spoke to Arty, after much convincing, he would tell them to find Evelyn in the bullpen and ask her, because she has spent some time looking into weird and unresolved stories.
Unfortunately, my players didn’t take notice of the reason why they were asking her… So that led to a bit of a stalemate, but taught my players to listen and make notes. Win-Win and in the end they asked a question I could get hold of narratively to bring them to the records room.
Hall of Records
Ok, so this is the first place my dad went to, with my sister who was playing for the first time and it really became apparent that my dads mind was not quite in the place it needed to be. When he came into the hall of records, he was expressing what he wanted to do while there and posing it to me like I was going to give the answers. Then when I got him to direct questions to the NPC Dorothy, it was again asking her directly like she was the font of knowledge. It is tough to really explain the interaction, but it was obvious that there was this mind set of, well I need answers so asking the only person I can see for those answers is what I need to do. I didn’t want to sit there and say, look stop asking this poor woman these questions she wont know the answers to, but luckily my sister came in clutch and asked the right questions. Where can we find information about XYZ, can you direct me to…
I thought that was the key that would make my dad go… ahhh right got ya. But as we will see later, not quite.
The House
Well, unsurprisingly some folks decided they wanted to go to the house right away. The last 3 went off to the house, I was tempted to really thwart their attempts to go there, but just had some fun, as soon as they got their I told them the doors were all locked up and they never asked for a key to the property. Not having a map to hand, it was difficult to really nail down timings, the one thing I didn’t think about with all of this was them wanting specific locations and times from different places… So I told them that the house was a 30 minute drive away so that tied those 3 up for a bit of time. Once they had got back to the lawyer, they got the key and headed back and opened up.
They explored the property and didn’t find anything, this is when the second PC/NPC comes into play, in the spare bedroom, where the bed attacks the players, I had a homeless WW1 vet hiding away. This is Patch, he has been hiding away in the house for a little while, doesn’t know why he keeps getting pulled back there. This is where I left him for the time being. He holds the basement key, well did… but that will be explained later.
God this is all over the place!
Central Library
Evelyn (The PC not the NPC) and Clarissa (sister and dad respectively) headed to the library after finding a couple of bits at the hall of records. I can’t quite remember what they managed to find there, but they didn’t roll well enough to find everything I had for them to find. I was able to fix this a bit later, no one seems to want to stick around where I want them to looking for more stuff.
The First Evening Get Together
Once everyone had done some poking around, they all met at “Fat Sam’s”, a place they completely made up, but hey it is a new place to add to the list of places for the future. They spent the rest of the in game night there discussing and talking over what they had found, I do need to go through and find where about’s in the recording they had this chat, I took that moment to go to the loo so missed what they spoke about. When the time came, I had Sam walk over and and tell them it was closing time and they all had to head on out. Most of them decided they were going to head to bed for the next day.
The Police Station
Except two, Evelyn and Clyde. My sister wanted to go and check out the police station, see what she could uncover there. Being a prostitute high class escort, she had some charm and went and spoke to the officer at the front desk. Clyde waited outside because he is the mob boss… Didn’t want to get recognised. So this is how I was able to introduce the next NPC/PC Thomas the police officer.
After some flirting and talking, Evelyn was able to get some files from Thomas, the police reports or the raid and the domestic disturbance at Corbitt House. I made the condition that they had to be returned to him in the morning so no one would find out they were given to her… not like they could just be photocopied.
The one flaw with this plan, I had already said he was finishing work in a couple of hours from that point, so wouldn’t actually be there, but I managed to get round that one and slot in a little more suspicion to the story too.
The Next Day
Come the next game day, everyone met back at Fat Sam’s, they continued to discuss and plan what they were going to do and they read over the police paperwork thoroughly.
Finneas, my brother, decided he didn’t want to sit around, he seems hell bent on “exorcising the demon” from the house and just wants to fight. That wont end well for him. He wanted to go around to all of the churches listed from the hall of records to ask about the Chapel of Contemplation. Because I hadn’t really got any plan for where these other churches were or who was there, I had to basically tell him that any that he visited, told him the same thing and wanted nothing to do with the house or that church. They were all of the opinion that if there were devils occupying either place, they were there and not spreading elsewhere.
So he was busy for a couple of hour, and I said that he was making his way slowly over to the house.
So with that, it was everyone else.
Back to the Police Station
Evelyn had to go back to the police station to return the papers. But found that there was a different officer on duty that morning and that Thomas wasn’t back until the following night’s graveyard shift. This gave her an opportunity to either give the papers to this new officer and ask a few more questions. She decided not to hand back the papers, she surmised that it wouldn’t end too well. But she did ask about the other officers involved with the raid on the Church of Contemplation. I took this opportunity to continue the cover up and said that either those officers never worked there or left long ago and no idea where they were now. Sewing a little more unsureness into it.
Once she had some more information, she quickly left the station. This is when I had Thomas appear and take the papers back. I wanted to give some elusiveness to his actions, his backstory is that he doesn’t trust the people he works for and is suspicious of it all.
Back to the Hall of Records
Clarissa decided to go back to the hall of records and ask for more information about random things. All things that I didn’t have any handouts or other information on. This is where I really tried to drop not so subtle hints to my dad. He again came in saying he wants to find out XYZ and was asking Dorothy at the front desk questions directly. Again I had to remind him that she wouldn’t know the answer, but to ask where something might be located and he could go there to look. So after much fussing about, he goes off to some corner of the records wanting to look up what was standing on the plot of land before the house. They seemed to be convinced that it was on some kind of Indian burial ground or something. So I informed him that he could go look over in the planning sections. Once I did the rounds with the others, I came back and told him that there was nothing found. I didn’t get him to roll, hopefully giving some hint to there was nothing else he could find regardless. But no, he goes back to Dorothy for another location. etc etc…
Back to the Globe
Beryl decided she wanted to go back to the newspaper to ask some questions about some of the old employees and freelance writers involved in the draft story that never got published. Along with Mabel, they went and spoke to the person at the front desk and enquired. I was able to push them our of the globe because the people involved had left or were freelancers and had no contact details for them, and they could have been visiting from another city.
With them leaving swiftly, I was able to have them bump into Evy again, the journalist not the player one, I used this opportunity to get some more handouts into their hands, after all they were revisiting places that wasn’t going to give them anything new and not the places they could have got more info from. Regardless, I handed over the rest of the handouts from the library and somewhere else, but can’t think where… So more info for them and they can move on.
They both then left to go to the Hall of Records (god damn it…) and meet back with Clarissa. This is where my sister who is playing Mabel was able to pick up on the hints that I was dropping, there was nothing left here for them to find and they should move on.
Back to the House
In the meantime, Clyde and Oswald headed back to the house, I wanted them to find the diary entries which no one decided to actually look for on the previous visit. It was at this point, that I remembered about sanity… All of the events from the day before went completely unpunished because I forgot to make people roll for sanity… what a dick.
They were mainly there to go and see Patch again, but he wasn’t there. I did make note of the bedside table again, but they completely brushed it off. So I decide this was the time I was going to punish them and threw the bed at them. They took quite the beating. This was also when Finneas joined them at the house. They wanted to get into the basement, but with it being locked there was no way in. So they headed outside to see if there was any windows or anything they could enter. But no, one way in.
The Church of Contemplation
Mabel, Clarissa and Beryl decided to go finally check out the old church. I gave them an address, which I will have to hope one of them wrote down because I cannot find my notes for that anywhere. Looking around, they found the symbol on the wall and managed to avoid falling into the hole that opens up in the floor. Ok great, they don’t want to climb down in case there is no way to get back up. So they look for a way to get a light down there, one of them rolled so poorly on their search roll I had to tell them there was absolutely nothing to hand they could use.
Mabel being the photographer she is (and for some reason carrying round a kit to develop photographs) decided to stick her camera down there and take a photo hoping the flash would illuminate something. So with that done, they head off to the house which was said to be 5 minutes away from the church.
Evelyns’ last actions
Ok, that makes it sound worse than it is, but after she had done with the police station, she wanted to head to the Sanitorium to visit the old occupants of the house. But as she went off alone and there was no verbal arrangement of meeting back up with the others, she had kind of separated herself. But I was able to use this. Nothing of note really happened at the Sanitorium except meeting another NPC/PC Maggie the nurse.
Once she was done there, she headed to the Hall of Records (FOR FUCK SAKE), but only hoping to bump into others. However, they had all been long gone by then. I then told her she should go off to the Lawyer and speak to him, maybe ask about this Mr Knott that the handouts had mentioned, the current landlord. With my story, that was a name that was going to bite me because he wasn’t the initiator like the original scenario stated, nor was he the owner of the house… the Patron was.
I decided that this Mr Knott was an alias to keep the Patron anonymous. Another thing that may work to my favor in the long run.
This is where she finished up. Everyone else was at the house now and she had no idea where they were… I have plans though.
The House again
At this point, everyone else was back at the house and it was fucking late. The game needed wrapping up, but with the way they had been playing, they were going to be like an hour or so until they get to the climax of the scenario. Mabel got he makeshift dark room sorted and the photos developed, nothing could be seen except some old furniture in the hole. So that was useless. One of them went back up to the spare room with the bedside table and actually uncovered the diary pages. This gave a little more exposition for them to read.
It was at this point I decided we needed to call it and wrap it up another day.
So Now What?
Well that is the thing, they have a lone fight left, against an old man. There isn’t much left for the next game night if I stick to my current plan.
Although I had Patch appear right at the end, intending on giving the key to them all so they could enter the basement, that is now going to have to change. There were a few things the guys theorised during play, firstly, everyone was in this cult and against them, especially fat Sam and the other police officer Evelyn met. The other one is that the only way into the basement at this point is through a tunnel that connects the house to the church, probably through this hole that has opened up.
So I know some of them if not all will want to go back to the church and investigate this hole, in hopes that there is a tunnel. There won’t be, although a good idea, I am sticking to the script of needing a key. But instead of being in Patch’s pocket, I will make it now in the hole.
This I am hoping will extend the play time by a little bit, half hour or so. I have told them it wont be a full one next time because I need this scenario finished to put the next one together.
But What About Evelyn?
Right yes, the one stranded in the middle of town not knowing where any of the others are.
One thing I didn’t mention before is that she had met another NPC/PC, Marco the taxi driver. She has had a couple of interactions with him at this point and a couple of the others just so happened to interact with a couple of the other players. Bob I think I called him, on the spot name pulling at its finest.
So the hook will hopefully be that Evelyn runs into Marco again and he can say that he was talking to Bob about his last passengers and that the things they were asking him were familiar and sounded a lot like things Evelyn had asked him. I can then use that to bring her over to the house to meet back with the others. Genius if you ask me.
Anyway, this post has taken me over a week to write and I need to gather my shit together for the next game. The 1st with hangovers by the sounds of it.
Until then much love <3