Thoughts About Silent Titans

Silent Titans is a unique and creative campaign/setting. The book offers a surreal vision of an English countryside wracked by nightmares. There’s guidelines for conducting a campaign, some terrific general GM advice, and all the rules you need for Into the Odd. It has many positive qualities.

That said, when I ran a campaign with it I had a few difficulties.

Things I Wish I’d Thought About Before I Started

• Many areas have descriptions saying that things warp, glitch or blur (except with a far better vocabulary). It’s difficult to differentiate one glitchy reality warp from another like this.

  Suggestion: Come up with a clear identity of exactly how reality is broken differently in different places. Find reference images. Veins of the Earth had a great list of different kinds of darkness. Make your own for distortions.

• Some bits are just generally un-understandable. I might explain something, and the players’ response is “I have no idea what that is”, and then I could show a picture, and they look at the art, and they still have no idea. In this way the art is perfectly fitting, but doesn’t help us much.

  Suggestion: I’m not sure this is actually a problem. It’s just the Silent Titans experience.

• The set up of the adventure is that some PCs are from somewhere else in time, while others might be native to Wir-Heal. In any case, they’ve lost their memories. As the book puts it, quelling the Titans will save the universe, and is also profitable. But how do the PCs know this? Who can tell them?

• Beyond that, who really knows what about the setting? The map shows the Titans’ areas of influence. Is this common knowledge? Would an in-universe map show these territories? Who could tell you “taking the diamonds will quell the Titans”? Do people even know the Titans exist? How would they? The PCs can figure some of this out, of course.

  Suggestion: Maybe the monks/priests know things (either for defending against, or because they’ve become corrupted)? Maybe there are books/clues in the Cathedral/churches? Maybe the dwellers in the wilderness know things? Maybe there are cults of Titan worshippers, some warped by the Titan diamonds? The Harbormaster’s staff and the boat murals in Elles Mere are a bit of a clue of how things work. Maybe the Ouzel can tell them. Correction: In the post about Dr. Hogg, there are a few more lines he can drop to give clues about how things work. That seems good. Do that.

• Thinking about the encounter system. One reviewer I read had too many encounters and gave up on it. It can also make it hard to predict where the session is going to go, what material to prep. My players (almost) always travelled during the day. I ruled that if they were travelling with a guide during the day, there’d be no roll on the shifting terrain table, and no encounter chance. This worked pretty well for getting around, but they had few encounters.

  Suggestion: If I were to do it again, I’d increase the number of day-time encounters, but have more of them be creature spoor. Avatars seen from a distance, the aftermath of their attacks, etc… Also some of the results of the day-time roll are rooks. I think travelling with a guid was probably too good. I like better the idea of being able to draw a semi-stable map. The PCs should generally be able to retrace their paths as long as they are relatively fresh.

• The little villages out in the wilderness are great. they’re all atmospheric, but some of them are a little… pointless.

  Suggestion: A rumors/events table for each Titan’s area could provide some variety and direction. Also, corresponding rumor and alternate encounter tables for the land after the Titan has been subdued and guards and travellers pass more safely.

• Into the Odd is a different system. With no rolling to-hit, particularly with multiple enemies using area attacks, it was difficult to avoid TPKs at low EXP. I house-ruled that multiple area attacks don’t add together. Maybe I was too lenient, but Dementia Bomb was nearly a TPK. OTOH, after a few EXP, they had enough HP that most encounters weren’t really dangerous.

  Suggestion: Use your favorite system, or consider a different HP progression. (maybe alternate re-rolling HP dice and gaining a new die?). Or just be meaner, don’t allow HP recovery as often.

• The Ouzel is said to be an ally who seems like an enemy, Uriel is said to be an enemy who seems like a friend. How does one roleplay that?

  Suggestion: I had the Ouzel be grim, urging the PCs to give up and avoid death, but give clues after a riddle. Perhaps the Ouzel could urge them to destroy the Titan Diamonds (rather than sell them). That would drive a wedge between them. I think Uriel’s “quests” are a good start.

• It’s a well-trod joke that the optimal way to play Call of the Cthulhu is to have a deaf and blind character who avoids all possible contact with dangerous creatures or information. Sometimes it felt like the best way to progress through the dungeons was to run in, grab the diamond, and run out. There were some neat things to mess with, and sometimes good stuff worth looting, but it felt like more of it was nasty things you’re better off not touching. My players did take a bottle of the white liquid from R8BY, so that was a way of turning something nasty into a treasure.

  Suggestion: Remember the loot table.

• The loot table on the back of the book… there was an early version that was really nice. It had the name/description of every item right there next to it. The one on the back of the book has the item descriptions on the back inside flap. It’s a lot less usable.

  Suggestion: If the list on the back flap was at least numbered, that would be fine.

• ‘Close, near, or far’ works pretty well for Theater of the Mind, but in some cases “how many turns does it take to get from one side of the room to the other” is an important question. I’m thinking of two rooms in R8BY in particular. But the final room of Brunan as well.

  Suggestion: Put some thought into how big each room should be. What can the monsters do to keep the players from leaving? Consider if Theater of the Mind is right for your group. I think some of the Titan’s rooms would make for great maps.

• Hugh Lupus is a great NPC. His section in the book is one of my favorites. But it’s mostly set-up in case the PCs are in opposition to him. My players were on very friendly terms, so there was a little less to go on.

  Suggestion: A table of “The Earl confides with you about” and “Hugh rewards you with” could add to the terrific energy of this character

• Players often miss sessions. What to do with their characters?

  Suggestion: Veins of the Earth had a great table of reasons why your character was gone. Wir Heal offers many potential reasons.

• Hilb is horrifying.

  Suggestion: I tried to tone things done by having nothing organic. Everything is false, like an anatomical model or a wax museum. Plastics, polymers, glass, wax, rubber, latex, concrete or stone.