So it is only 5 days out from the 29th of May and our final session.  I am still not sure on the location, but if it is down south, let me know and I'll arrange the carpool.

I feel I owe an explanation over the slightly earlier than expected end to my contract.  It wasn't that I was trying to shaft the players out of another session of fun, but that in the grand scheme of things, something that I wrote long ago, became less and less challenging as we progressed until it reached the point that it finally became irrelevant.

So with us approaching the end, I'll share some of my notes on the entire Winding Paths Arc.  In a world filled with DVD commentaries, I can't help but shine a little light on what was for me a two year throught process.  Let me thank you first for playing and helping the outline for an empty world come alive.

I designed the campaign like a comic book series, with multiple single issues comprising chapters, which in turn make up the larger story arc.

Chapter 1

1. Beginnings - The Mercator Incident, a wierd session that focuses on survival and rescue, while subtley laying out so much foundation for the rest of the Arc.

Key introductions:

The Six Characters (there were always six with the players running four of them)

George

The Zho'dani Trio

Eric and Company

2. Training and Diversions - The Red Flag Operation, this one was designed to give all of the characters the opportunity to become a team.  It did little to advance the story arc beyond establishing Horace and Walt as characters to stay, but it was supposed to be player training in GURPS rules and party building.  It was also designed to be Sean and Jack-centric since they needed to know the combat rules the most.

3. A look behind the curtain - Welcome to a Wider World, this session was supposed to provide the first look behind the curtain.  The Great Oz exists and he is dimensionally aware.  Here we introduce the Zho'dani Trio and get to know the Eric's team including the last two of Tim'met's quartet.  By this point, we already know everybody that is critical to the finish of the story (Ar'kanto's quartet, Tim'met's quartet, George and Eric.  This was clearly a Ben-centric episode but it was not always written that way and much of how things worked out was added later and improved this story greatly.

Of the first three, I would rate 3 as the strongest in terms of story.  1 is huge in its importance, but limited in its scope with the players trapped on a ship, and in hindsight, 2 is dangerously close to filler, but I would argue that the players needed 2 to find their feet with their characters and one another.

Chapter 2

4. Welcome Home - Trouble in Dowling, this one was designed to be a clear break from the first three.  It was supposed to establish home, and that there was a clear threat to home, and that the players would have to rise to the occasion.  Although there were no major story revelations, it did set up the world we lived in and also established the premise behind the emergence of Tim'met while providing the backdrop for what would later become major insights into how the universe works.  This was again a party builder.  I wanted to use the combat of the session to push the players into turning away from their seperate careers and walks of life and while becoming this multi-talented team.

5. The IIS Takes its First Steps, this one was all about putting an official stamp on the team.  From before the campaign or Angela began, I had envisioned this as an Angela-centric episode.  Sadly I could only see one go-to person when it comes to responsible role playing, so in a sense, the IIS became a situation where game impersonated work and real life responsibilities.  A part of this session's requirements was that it set the players up to be overconfident, and that it introduces Tim'met through his followers.

6. Hostages from the Hartshorne, I always wanted us to explore certain rpg mission staples.  We had ''prevent an assassination', 'man hunt', 'struggle to survive in combat', 'have your way with the enemy'.  This one was all about allowing overconfidence to grow and then contrast it with a great rpg staple: 'the hostage rescue'.  The plan here was to even further develop the time aspects of dimensional awareness, but the players went an entirely different direction.  So I meshed it in with something that would come later in the tetrahedron.  This one was supposed to be a Sean and Jack-centric mission, but Ben and Angela held their own beautifully.  I needed to establish Ottokar and Nilson as well as the Answer and Ailur.  Ottokar was originally intended to be a much more serious bad guy, but he ended up as more of a henchmen in my opinion and not a true villain.  This is one that I would have like to have had another shot at.  I think I could have done a better job setting up the payoff in the next session.

7. In the Shadow of Connolly Tor, this was the big payoff for 4, 5, and 6.  The story was supposed to reveal not only the deeper connections behind the S'moot Ring, but to allow greater insight into Tim'met and the threat that he poses.  It was always designed (even before Ben was Ben) to be a Ben-centric episode and IMO, showcased some of Clay's abilities as a player.  Sadly, we haven't given the other players similar opportunities, but perhaps someday.  This, like 1 and 2 is a major reveal of the larger arc.

Key reveals:

The bad guys are Zho'dani and have been all along.

Tim'met is nearly all powerful, but there are other sides to the fight.

Future Ben - enough said ;)

This ends the middle chapter of the story.  I had always hoped that by this point, the players would be comfortable in their world, in their newfound powers, and in the steady exposure of the underlying mythology of the story.  I wanted us to reach this spot knowing not only the players, but also Horace and Walt and their weaknesses and foibles.  These were the last of the 'normal world' sessions and I wanted everything to follow to feel really wierd in comparison.

Chapter 3

8. Choosing a Side in the Larger Crisis - Out for Croissants, so we start with a very different feel for this session.  I wanted the players to feel that the campaign had suddenly become very sunny and friendly.  This session was supposed to start light hearted and stay that way until the final act where it descends into a long dark spell.  The key things to be shown here, was the potential for future work with Ar'kanto.  I needed the players to believe that something better awaited them in the future.

I loved the idea for the mission from the start, but originally it took place in 1777 USA in the midst of the American Revolution.  This section of the story underwent a number of rewrites and I ended up with something that I really liked, but was probably not as plausible as other versions (anyone speak French?).  We were meant to end with George revealing enough to keep the characters on the right side of the tetrahedron.

From there, it is off to gloom and doom again.  Enemies manipulating the dimensions so strongly that even Eric is willing to take a major risk.  This puts the players in the position to fall from grace, while allowing a plausible explanation for how their counterparts come be what they are in the final chapters.

It was always meant to be played 1 on 1, but I really felt that this would drag out the session and undermine good group dynamics.  I had originally intended for the players to be mistrustful of one another and the NPC's.  With everyone wondering who went to the Shadow and Tim'met and who went to Order and Ar'kanto.  But I figured that the players trusted one another too deeply to suspect a betrayal, so I only kept that aspect alive through Eric's mistrust.

9. The Great Crux of the Campaign - The Fall of Van Euden, so in this one, we are once again out in space, trapped in ships with little more than the enemy and one another to play off of.  I had hoped to make this session the best of the entire lot, with alot of crises pushing the characters and NPC's into opposed positions.  Horace was meant to start out as very rational and the natural leader in opposition to Eric's very odd way of looking at things.  And over time, he was supposed to degrade mentally, while Eric's oddness became more and more logical.  In the end, I think that I missed the boat by a good margin.  This didn't have the emotional payoff that I had hoped for, and if anything, the fall of Horace, stranding of the characters, abandonment of Walt didn't measure up to my expectations.  I thought the characters were great in what was a grueling session of combat after combat.  But I think that so much fighting may have undermined the character aspects that I had so hoped for.

In the end, we arrive at a situation where Tim'met has his four, and Ar'kanto has his four.  They were each meant to be nearly mirror images of each other with the physicality of Horace and Walt being countered by Jack and Sean, and the physicality of Wallace and Sara-Ann being matched by Ben and Angela.  At the same time, I had hoped for a mental aspect of mirroring as well, with Angela serving as the counter to Horace, who was always intended to be the great betrayer (hence his name).

10. The one we didn't play, this one was barely played for one reason.  The threat that I had envisioned for this session suddenly couldn't stand up to the realities established in the game.  From the beginning, I saw this session as a homage to Alien, where the players were stranded in this uninhabited and airless world while being hunted by these creatures (Zho'dani) that were far beyond them.  I had planned for this desperate holding action to get Eric off planet followed by this life and death hide and seek game where parts of the garrison occasionally return to the base as mind slaves and betray the players suddenly.  I had this remorseless never ending hunt between the players and the Zho'dani, which would be juxtaposed against the hunt in back session 3.  But it was all undone by a small little thing back in session six when I let the players access the Ordered and Shadowed Realms via a game dynamic that was never intended to work that way.  We had established that if you can go to the Ordered Realm, then the bad monsters can never get you.  So there could be no dramatic story of struggling to survive until you were rescued.

11. The Mother of All Misnomers - The Sure Goal, this penultimate session was meant to do two things.  First it was supposed to bring the characters back from the hell they had endured since the Tetrahedron, and second it was supposed to reveal the final wrench in the larger story: That Ar'kanto winning will result in the characters ceasing to exist.  Kenny losing his love was the first breadcrumb in the trail of breadcrumbs that leads us to the fact that there are only now only six survivors from the Mercator.

In this session, I wanted the players to be back in their element, finally free of depressing missions in space, back to Rigel Kent, feeling at home and with Eric in their corner and with the tools to get the job done.  At the same time, I wanted them to doubt their cause and wonder if unraveling their reality is the right cource of action.  This is a theme that gets played out a bit further in the last session.

12. Finale - The Avatar of Tim'met, I will save the details for after the weekend.  But we have a few things that have to be resolved.  Horace has a potential date with fate on the Senate steps.  The players finally have to face Walt after leaving him on Barnards.  The Quartet's get to face off with one another.  And most importantly, we get a final resolution with the last five survivors (the players and the Avatar) from the Mercator.

Big questions:

Was Future Ben really just Ar'kanto scheming to get the help needed to destroy this timeline?

Do the players die if they win?  If they die, do they lose?

Is this the end of the Winding Paths, or could there be a sequel?