The story of Damp With Murder begins one sordid day in August 2007, when Lucas went to see Ocean’s 13 in theatres with a friend, and came out wishing there was some way to accomplish a heist of that kind in what is supposedly the world’s most popular fantasy roleplaying game, a hobby which is a favourite of his.
Then he remembered a certain campaign setting of that game, and realised that it might just be possible to run a real heist adventure in that setting.
And then he began to think. And it’s dangerous when Lucas thinks. His friends usually try to stop him from doing so if there’s any threat of cognitive process. Really, it’s kind of scary.
But this time, no one stopped Lucas, and Lucas realised what he wanted to do for the new roleplaying campaign he wanted to start come September. And he sent some emails and got together an 8-person group (which would later fall to 7), a bigger group than he had ever GMed for in his life.
And he was excited. Which is also dangerous.
So he spent all of August planning and plotting and doing more of that dangerous thinking thing (oh, his poor, clueless friends…) and then he began his campaign. And it was a triumph of roleplaying and intrigue and excitement and is, in fact, still going on at this moment. (Well, not at the precise moment, unless you happen to be reading this on a Friday night when he happens to be running game.)
Then, sometime in November, Allison, one of his players, instead of paying close attention to the intrigue and plotting going on around her, doodled some sketches of the characters in the party, a deed that would seal her fate as soon as Lucas saw them, which was later that evening, for he had previously been busy writing a sentence with far too many, in fact, an excessive number of, commas.
For the sketches were beautiful, perfect, humourous, and most of all—comic-like. Lucas had occasionally dreamed of writing a webcomic, but Lucas couldn’t draw worth a green cp. But now was his chance! And what better topic than the very game they had been playing when Allison made the fated sketches! After all, he had a standing list of humourous quotes said during game (and a sitting list of ideas for other jokes), and there were many a sordid antic discussed during game best kept strictly out-of-character—or, Muses willing, on the pages of a webcomic!
Of course, there was no way Allison would agree. She was already incredibly busy with her own life and hobbies and oh yeah, that university thing. But, Lucas underestimated just how insane she really was.
And so, Lucas and Allison present you with the humourous side of what is otherwise a serious, intrigue-laced roleplaying campaign of epic proportions, a campaign that is providing them with more jokes every week.
The One-Shots
When Lucas was first conceiving the idea of his new campaign, he knew that he wanted to make it something special. Something brilliant. Something that would boost his already-massive ego for years to come.
One of the main things he wanted to do was to have what would be the adventuring party come together naturally—he didn’t want to flog the old party-meets-in-a-tavern-and-randomly-decides-to-adventure-together dead horse. He wanted the characters to be well-thought-out, realistic, driven. In short, he expected a lot from his players.
In order to accomplish this, Lucas devised a devious plan. (Yes, he was still plotting and thinking. No one had yet thought to stop him.) Rather than starting the game with everyone in a normal session, he would instead run a gaming session with each player separately, a single session that would introduce the character, and somehow get him involved in the plot, so that when all the characters finally did meet, they had a natural, organic reason to work together and drive the plot forward.
Thus were born the one-shots. And it was good.
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Damp With Murder is Copyright © 2007-2008 by Lucas Johnson and Allison RAPTOR. Contact at dampwithmurder@gmail.com