GM Commentary: Last Rest Episode 4: Return to Restport

Same caveats as always... go read the summary of Last Rest Episode 4:Return to Restport.

Episode 4 was a much better installment than Episode 3, mostly because I went with the flow of the PCs instead of railroading them through non-threatening challenges and forced plot points.

• @Ironsolo txted me the following the afternoon of the game "The likelihood of Trent getting blackout drunk tonight is fairly high. Seems like the kind of thing that would happen returning to port and whatnot."  While I had originally planned to have the company's stay in Restport be quite quick I couldn't pass up a player character driven scene for the night and I largely ran the game on the fly around it.  Trent's problem of blacking out when he drinks also let me take and add in a little mystery for @Ironsolo to have to worry about, which is, how and why did he lose a sleeve and end up with his arm covered in feral scratches.
• Having run DREAD the weekend before and working to run Reign more like a DREAD game paid off, as it felt like a much more natural flow emerged that was driven by the players instead of my GM contrivances and NPCs.
• Even though Norah and Hinrik spent much of the first half of the session in investigation/research mode I hope that the bits of information I let them glean will work well for them.  I am especially happy that Amber cursed me after her character, Norah, discovered unsettling clues about the identity of the Mole.  Honestly, moments like that where a player sees how you've taken a background detail they've given you and how you've twisted it back are always a great joy and one of the reasons I live running games.
• I feel like I did a decent job of keeping the player's a little off balance.  Though they decided to ambush the Locklight goons, they never quite got to feel like they had the situation completely in control.

That's about all I have to say about the Episode, I really should have written both the Summary and this commentary closer to the date we played, a mistake I will correct with the next episode.

Take Aways for the Next Episode

• Keep the players off balance.  I have several sinister ideas for how to accomplish this.
• Keep weaving in things from player backgrounds and previous episodes.  Now that I'm nearing the halfway point of Season One, I have plenty of material to work with.

As an outro,  Akron/Family's "Silly Bears" from S/T II: The Cosmic Birth and Journey of Shinju TNT was almost my choice for Opening Credits of Episode Five:...And Through the Woods...