Was just looking back through some old emails and discovered that the criticalmiss.com URL went live on 1st October 1998 (the actual first issue didn't come out until a month or so later).

I guess that's as good a birthday as any other, so there it is. Ten Years.

"Jonny Nexus" is a little older. I came up with that name a few weeks before the domain name went live, but alas, like cats and dogs whose arrival was not properly recorded, I have no record of exactly when the name was born, and thus no chance of snagging a second birthday.

I guess this is the point where tradition dictates that I describe how it only seems like yesterday, but actually, it does seem an awfully long time ago.

About ten years in fact.

Tags: critical miss

Back in Issue 5 of Critical Miss I wrote a scenario entitled "The Big Push", which was set during the First World War and was designed to offer players desiring of "gritty reality" more "gritty reality" than they had ever dreamed existed.

I envisaged it more as a funny piece to read, a satirical comment on so called "gritty realistic" games. But now Spatula's gone one better. He actually tried running it!

Actually ran this game last weekend, with a few small modifications. We spent just over an hour on character gen, and I really pushed the players to dig deep and make some complex and enjoyable characters. To begin with, I told them the game was set in 1910, so they all made very normal characters, not combat machines. One guy wanted to be an Indiana Jones clone, another wanted to own his own pub. Naturally, I gave them every possible indulgence.

Then I jumped ahead to the war and their characters "volunteered". They were a bit unhappy about this, but when I explained it was all to ensure that they developed really good, deep characters, they seemed to accept it. Then came the actual Big Push. I had decided to use the Cthulhu system, both because it's quick and easy, and because I detest GURPS. It also made a useful large distraction unit, helping to create the illusion that I had some actual plot in mind. But I digress; the result of using Cthulhu was that I may, possibly, have made the artillery too deadly (made up my own rules for it).

Even so, you should have seen the look on the face of one guy as his character got mowed down by machine gun fire in the very first round of combat. I don't think any of them made it more than 30m past their starting trench. One guy tried to run back, using the excuse of bringing his fallen comrades back for medical treatment, but I kept enough "friendlies" waiting in the trench that he couldn't just sneak by them, as he had planned. Eventually, he was forced to rejoin the attack, but he still insisted on leopard crawling his way there. That wasn't altogether stupid, except that a random artillery shell caught him dead-on (I believe I rolled 02).

However, thanks to his gallant cowardice in dragging half-dead corpes back to safety, two of his colleagues actually survived the battle, though with bits amputated or non-functional.

We spent over an hour on character gen, and played for less than 10 minutes. The flogging I got for this was totally worth it.

Also, I mentioned adding my own modifications: Apart from using Cthulhu, I also changed some historical facts a little. For a start, I put the players in a Highland division (I had stipulated at the start of character gen that they'd all be scotsmen from in or around Glasgow) which in reality only took part in the battle several months later. This was done for two reasons: First, to add insult to mortar-induced injury by having my players die wearing kilts, and second, so that I could have a Scottish NPC named Lt James Tait as the officer leading the party on their 'special mission'. James Tait was my great grandfather, and he actually was wounded at the Somme, an event I included in this session. It's not often you get to include real family members in roleplaying games.

http://criticalmissforums.com/viewtopic.php?t=130

Damn. I wish I could have seen their faces.

Tags: critical miss, roleplaying