labcats | Time to Reread Reign

As I was going through and commenting this month's issue of Alarums and Excursions, I saw in Michael Cule's zine that there was an introductory Reign adventure, "Imperial Harlots". I did a web search and discovered that this was in the tenth supplement for the game.

For anyone reading this who doesn't already know, Reign is an rpg written by Greg Stolze. The game is for sale. The supplements are released ransom style, which means that the first twelve are now available for free download on Greg Stolze's website. I've downloaded them all, but haven't read them all yet.

So, Friday, I read the tenth supplement, discovering that Greg practically dedicated it to me. I'd asked him the same question I'd heard many times, to wit: What sort of sessions does one run with Reign? It is, after all, a game that operates on both the level of individual player characters and the level of Companies, which can be anything from one's personal band of (NPC) retainers to a fleet of pirates to an entire country.

Between this supplement and Michael Cule's thread on his Reign campaign, I think I'm beginning to get the idea. I'll need to do a little rereading, of course, but it no longer looks like a trackless wilderness out there.

I'm wondering if I could apply the Company rules to a couple of things I'm trying to run. There's an adventure I want to run for

mnemex and

ebartley set in the Lovecraftian Dreamlands and surrounding areas, only I've been having trouble figuring out what the adventure should be about. mnemex suggested I step back and look at the big picture, which, in Reign terms, would be a war between Companies.

Then, there's the Strange School play by email. In the weird world of 2036, the Microsoft Corporation just got caught doing bad. There's going to be fallout. While the focus of the game is not about how fictional Microsoft gets smacked down, it might an interesting thought experiment to stat the company out as a Company, and do the same for its more important enemies. I'm not sure how easy it is to apply Company rules to a modern or vaguely futuristic setting, but it should be doable.