Game: Auf Weidersehen Berlin

 Berlin: The Wicked City, Unveiling the Mythos in Weimar Berlin By David Larkins with Mike Mason and Lynne Hardy, Chaosium 2019

I've mentioned this before, but the concept of doing full-fledged reviews carries with it the responsibility of actually playing the game. I talk about my recent arrivals with the light hand of first impressions and initial read-throughs, but full reviews demand a higher level of engagement.  The downside of this is that it may take weeks or months to get to a post-worthy review. This is hardly a good recipe for telling you about the new hotness.

But anyway, Berlin: The Wicked City.

Berlin was the capital of Germany in the twenties and thirties (the government was based out the town of Weimar briefly after WWI and that's where the name "Weimar Republic" came from). It was a vibrant, cultured, and often decadent city, with cabarets, art, a thriving literary scene, and a nascent movie industry. And sex. Lots of sex.

The book is recommended for mature readers, and leans hard into the city's cabarets and sex workers. A lot about sex workers. Even when talking about the various districts in Berlin, it drills down on what kind of sex workers are common there. Sort of like if you were writing about Las Vegas, but concentrating on strip clubs and escort services. It's a bit much, and while it adds depth to the setting, I never want to hear  people complaining about the Random Harlot Table in the DMG ever again.

The sourcebook section is incredibly detailed - we're a hundred years in the past in another country. And most people's knowledge of that era is primarily watching Cabaret on their iPad (which is not horrible, since the movie is based on the musical which is based on the book by an author who LIVED in Berlin during that era). So the first hurdle is getting people to understand what it is about Berlin they should consider when adventuring there.

And the authors have done their homework, and want you to know about it. Bios about everyone who hung out in Berlin in the 20s and 30s. Floorplans of famous buildings of the era. The adventures themselves are filled with name-checks and famous characters, such that I took the rare measure of asking the players not to look up everyone they encounter on the Wikipedia. 

The game rules? OK, we talked about the new system a while back. In general, they hold up well in play, and I like the fact that the staged nature of success makes it easier to narrate combat. In addition, the setting for the adventures makes for new players to slide into. Germany in the immediate post-war period had stricter gun control laws, so the idea of player characters packing heat is initially off the table (Gun laws were loosened later, but then only for "approved" people).

What about the adventure? Ah, there's the rub.

Well, I wasn't impressed. I ran the first of the three adventures, and after reading the second, thought about just going on to something else with my team. But after a vote, we pressed on, and had a good time of it. Of course, this requires a bit more detail and explanation, and with it a big SPOILER WARNING for those who are planning to get involved with this. So consider the SPOILER LIGHT lit and know that HERE BE SPOILERS.

My regular group on this was four players. A big-game hunter looking to book rich tourists to safaris in East Africa. A grizzled American reporter who came for the war and stayed for the beer. An albino heiress who lost her father and brothers in the war. An alienist who had an unpleasant encounter with Deep Ones when he was in the Kriegsmarine in the Baltic. You know, your typical grab-bag of Call of Cthulhu characters. They were all members of the Independent Order of the Owls, a club of paranormal researchers. This was one of the groups suggested by the book for creating a common theme among diverse heroes, and it gets good marks for giving the Keeper a place to start and unify the team.

The further good news is that the adventures swing away from the standard CoC plot ("You are summoned to a distant, unfamiliar place by someone who will be dead by the time you get there"). The bad news is that the players are often bystanders in their own adventure. They are roofied, magically teleported (a couple times) and in the case of the first adventure, have their fates determined by a single die roll at the beginning of the game. At the same time, there is a lot for the Keeper to do as well, in that you have to come up with encounters as the Brownshirts and their allies in authority close in on you (the Owls were raided at one point, and I had to make that up on the fly). Plus there are places where the text leaves you high and dry on basic reasoning about NPC behavior (Why DOES the Russian count choose to hire you?) and places where you have to make sure certain clues are delivered (make sure the amnesiac Grand Duchess mentions the Berlin Zoo to lead their players there later).

The adventures cover the rise and fall of postwar Berlin. The first adventure takes place among the physical and economic decimation following the end of the War and features the malevolent spirit of a mass murderer. The second occurs during the roaring 20's recovery and deals with a group seeking to incarnate an ancient goddess (and unfortunately succeeding). And the final adventure occurs during the authoritarian takeover of Germany, with the SA (Brownshirts) rising, and takes a tour through German cinema.  And through it all we have murdered prostitutes, dissolute, naked celebrities, and SS-supported brothels. 

How did our group fare? They lived, sorta. The American reporter sacrificed himself to defeat an elder god and was replaced with an exact duplicate. After the third adventure he joined the big game hunter and emigrated to Wisconsin. The alienist fled to Switzerland, and the heiress attempted to use the knowledge they gained to resurrect her dead husband. This last bit did not go well, and she went quietly mad and remained in Berlin until the Allied bombers arrived.

Berlin: The Wicked City, is an impressive sourcebook. The research is excellent, and by using period maps of the city, the maps are well-done. The handouts were well put together, and we discovered that even the newspaper typefaces of the time were politicized. Ultimately, though, this is a challenging product, not so much for the adult nature of it but because the adventure often denies players their agency, and requires the Keeper to thread some very narrow needles to keep the plot moving forward. 

More later,

Theatre: Jack and Tollers

 Lewis & Tolkien by Dean Batali, Directed by Karen Lund, Taproot Theatre, January 22- March 8 

CS Lewis and JRR Tolkien. In the real world, they were compatriots, fellow professors, members of the Inklings writing group, occasional pranksters, and good friends. In the world of fantasy literature, their followers and fans rival the Tupac/Biggie rivalry. I will admit I'm on Team Tolkien, but let me back up a moment for some background before weighing in on the play itself.

The Lovely Bride and I had a busy Saturday, with Tai Chi class in the morning, a light lunch at the Greenwood restaurant Razzi's, then joining up with friends John and Janice for this play. Then we had additional errands (grocery shopping, getting more bird seed and cat litter), before returning home. At our age, that's a big day.

And we got to break in the Isaac Studio Theatre, which is a nice, smaller venue than the main Taproot Stage. I've described Taproot's main theater as a jewel box with a thrust stage and 225 seats. The Isaac is even smaller with 150-some seats laid out in a more traditional manner with a high-rise of comfortable seats looming over a small stage. Perfect venue for a play about two men in a bar. Lewis and Tolkien reunite after many years apart at the Eagle & Child, their favorite pub, to reminisce, reconnect and settle a few old scores. 

Now, my mental image of Tolkien, supported by interviews over the years, is that of a scholarly Hobbit. Brilliant in his chosen field (Middle and Old English), who in his spare time side wrote what would become defining books of British Literature. He sits there in a highbacked chair, smoking a pipe and discussing Beowulf. Not something for dynamic playgoing, I will admit. So I had make some strong mental adjustments for both the Tolkien and Lewis as presented on the stage. 

Jeff Allen Pierce's Tolkien is much more animated. Gruff, grumpy, and defensive. More conservative and Catholic than usually presented. Tolkien and Lewis were both religious, but from his writing, I always put Lewis down as being more hard-core to his faith. Narnia, Perelandra, and the Screwtape Letters all drip with Christianity. Tolkien's works were also extremely moral, but he lacked all the bells and whistles, or rather, the allegory, found in Lewis's works. The play's Tolkien is much more emotional, loud, pedantic, and often loud.

Lewis (Peter Cook), on the other hand, is more aloof, controlled, and professorial. He comes off as the more cerebral of the two, more in command of his emotions. He is more in line with what I think of as a Oxford Don. He comes off as man hurt by the end of their friendship, but has let the years scab over it, while Pierce's Tolkien still grapples with the situation. Of the two, he is the better man.

Both actors are good in their roles, as is Chloe Michele as Veronica, a waitress of the bar, whose character is often referee and audience for their set-too. She pops in regularly both to take the edge off both men, and break up the back-and-forth as they argue. 

The play succeeds when talking about the relationships between two men who have grown apart. The Lovely Bride got it and was moved the by tragedy of their breakup and the hope of restoration. For my part, I had to turn off the part of my brain where I kept comparing the two against my imaginary versions and instead broke them down into component parts - effectively, a priest and a rabbi walk into a bar. And in those terms, it worked.

Also, forgive this pedantic digression, but when you say someone is an apologist, it does not mean in these circumstances that they are sorry for what they may have done. Rather they are offering a reasoned argument for someone. That's unclear in many cases, but the Apology of St. Paul (Acts 22), for example, is not that he's sorry for being a Christian, but a thoughtful explanation of Christianity.  We toss the word around here a bit assuming that the audience would pick it up correctly, but I don't know if that's the case.

Anyway. Was it a worthwhile afternoon? Yep. Did it work as a play? Also yes. Should you go see it? Yes - the Saturday matinee had a full house and has already been extended two weeks. But as history, even as historical fiction, it fails to live up to expectations. And mind you, expectations were high.

More later,