Roadtrip Retrospective #1

Introduction

Ian (@fandomlife on bluesky) and I decided to try out some 1-on-1 gaming, both as a way to put some meat on the conceptual bones of the gaming we enjoy and also, you know, to game! This is the story of those games… Well, it’s half the story as I am sure Ian will be blogging about these games too. I’ll link to them when they appear.

Concept and Game Choice
We threw around a few system ideas for the sessions. This process in itself was intriguing because it’s a proper balance needing to be achieved. The choice had to be:

• Something that inspired us both
• Something that worked for us mechanically
• Something that looked like it suited 1-1 play
• Something we hadn’t exhausted already

That last point is important for me, as we do tend to ‘play the shit’ out of a system and then move on, so one of our old systems would just feel like retreading an old path. Mechanically, we wanted something reasonably light touch, as in our Neil-GM/Ian-Player combo, crunchy rules systems are off the table. Most importantly, it had to be something that inspired us into the next step, where we really bed down a game concept.

We settled on Werewolf. Werewolf the Apocalypse 5e, to be precise. We nearly went with Vampire 5e, but I have done dark city games so many times, they have become almost pastiche, and I wanted to try something new. Both games were new to us, but the mechanics looked pretty low key, and the emergent setting ideas triggered our imaginations.

But how, I hear you ask, can a game about pack and tribe work as a 1-1 game?

The Tightest Concept
What if the PC was a lone wolf, estranged from their pack and wandering around solving mysteries and searching for some truth? Originally, our touch point was the Reacher TV show, but Ian suggested I try out some of the Taylor Sheridan modern cowboy genre of shows and after a few episodes of Yellowstone, I was crystal clear about the premise of the game.

The Importance of Session Zero
After throwing around some ideas online, we had a proper session zero where we laid down the framework of the setting, the vibes of the game and the dramatic crucibles we would work within. A marriage across a social divide, a suicide, a lost child mystery, an inciting incident of ultra violence which is itself another mystery. We dialled down some of the werewolf backgrounds and imported some older ideas – like kinfolk being supportive familial networks rather than wolves-in-waiting. 

Character generation became so easy after that. Our hero, Caleb, is a Galestalker Philodox, marked as a pack killer after an incident where he was protecting his now-disappeared daughter from his pack who attacked them for (mystery) reasons. He’s a wanderer, sometimes a biker, sometimes a carnie worker and sometimes even a bit of a bounty hunter. His father is the sheriff of their home town. His sister is a high-flying lawyer in Chicago. His former father-in-law is an all-powerful property owner in his home town. It’s primed with potential.

Names, Places and Facts
I then went away with my scribbled notes and wrote up a game bible. Everyone got a name, a purpose and some more detail. It’s crucial for me to get this down now, so we aren’t scrabbling around for names and relationships in the game. That central touchstone and resource also acts as a common springboard for planning and ideas.

Why Harry is Important
Caleb also has a spirit mentor nicknamed Harry. That’s very important in this set-up, as Harry acts as my voice, guiding the ‘reality’ of the setting. Caleb is not an experienced Garou, and doesn’t have a pack to guide him, so Harry is that voice – and by extension allows me to socialise ideas about the setting, like ‘stepping sideways’, in a way that seems natural. As Caleb learns to be a Garou, we learn to play Werewolf, together.

First Session Structure
I had three acts of the first session conceptualised in my head, and each had an important role to play in the future of the game.

The first act was a pre-credit sequence (we frame everything in terms of TV shows…) nailing down the gritty, dirty nature of the setting. It was a potential confrontation with some gangbangers on an old Greyhound bus. Nothing actually happened, but it layered setting and tension and the constant potential for violence that comes of being a werewolf. Everything is a potential threat, not of defeat but of devastation. 

The second act was a classic monster-of-the-week bottle scene with the bus stopping at a bane-infested diner. Again, this was setting establishment, peppered with body horror, tension and a palpable sense of decay. This allowed more layering of the mythic Americana setting, and allowed us to get used to the mechanics of the game, which were a lot easier to use than I expected. The violence, when it happened, was quick and brutal. We came to an exceptionally quick agreement that generally fighting should happen in Glabro form – the half human form – rather than the classic Crinos killing machine. That’s kept for those special scenes. 

The third act was back at Caleb’s home town, and explores the relationship with his parents, his home and the existential bad guy we have established so far. This not only allows us to show the human side of our drama, but also play with some of the kinfolk aspects and that gentle garou culture we were looking for. And of course, it ends with a bar brawl involving the same headbangers from the bus, and some vague threats of danger to come.

And then we play!

That seems like a lot of pre-game?

That is a lot of time and effort prior to a dice being rolled, but it is both essential to the game’s success and worth it for us. If you are going to do a focused 1-1 game then you have very little room for divergence in interpretation. You both have to be on the same long dusty highway, to extend our game’s metaphor. So nailing this from the start is critical. However, let’s be honest, we both love this side of things. It’s as much part of the fun of the game as the game play and character stuff. 

What happened?

Well, rather than a blow-by-blow retelling, I’ll just say it went as expected but also with some great additions too. The bus scene was tense and introduced some throwaway NPCs which were reincorporated into the diner scene. That set-piece was really enjoyable too, with the body horror aspects hitting just the right level of icky to get a reaction, but not an over-reaction. I thought it was also important to lay down some expectations for possible future investigations and how I want to handle them – loosely, with the outcome more important than the process. The town scenes were great too – especially the hushed conversation between Caleb and his father, and the emerging political machinations of the bad guy to oust the Sheriff from his office. We even introduced some new characters – Bryce (High school buddy), Nicky (unnamed at the time local reporter), and the fact that the town has a reasonably decent high school football team. 

Afterthoughts

I think that first session went as well as it could have gone. We reflected afterwards that 1-1 games give you very little space to hide in the game. They can be relentless and quite tiring. However, they also dispense with any concept of spotlight hogging, and minimise those divergences in interpretation and direction that can happen easily in a x-1 game. You want to get it all out there on the table, and you can. There’s an energy there that I kind of love.

I’m definitely looking forward to the next session. There are multiple fronts emerging for Caleb to tackle, and more to come as the pressure builds. Where this goes, I have no idea at the moment and as always that uncertainty is the magic sparkle that makes roleplaying games such a compelling hobby – regardless of the number of players at the table.