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After my first viewing of the show, I posted by initial thoughts on the podcast (HERE). I was very impressed, but had fallen asleep in sections because I watched it late at night. Since then I have finished the series and rewatched most of the episodes where I missed things. Going back and rewatching just strengthens my impression of the writing and direction, as well as the performances. I also have to amend my criticism of the accents. When I first watched it, I was a little disappointed at the lack of New England accents in the show. I understand one of the reasons they gave for not including them as much (that the Boston accent is so associated with humor and parody it would affect the tone), but the other explanation (that the accent is basically going away) didn't seem justified (it is a fading accent but still quite prevalent, especially in old isolated towns like this one). But I n
oticed that there are more accents than I caught at first, primarily among the local townies (the show refers to them as hicks, but townies is more the word you would hear in this region I think).
I decided to do a Widow's Bay inspired one-shot for Strange Tales of New England. I know the basic background, and that the adventure will be a mystery with ticking stakes. I am going to employ an approach to mysteries I have been calling the sediment layer model. This is just an easier way for me to wrap my head around the backstory and clues, where instead of doing a trail of clues chart, I am going to draw a diagram that is a cross-section of sediment layers with the bedrock at the foundation (this is where the backstory and history go). Each layer builds on further history and clues. For example if the bedrock backstory is the spirit of a woman who drowned at sea, perhaps in one of the layer layers, a local writer penned a poem about her (this would serve as a potential clue). This will help me track clues over time as well. It is basically just a visual guide I intend to use for the timeline of strangeness in town over the years. If that doesn't work, I may just use a literal timeline, but this seems like it will give me more space to provide a sense of geography to things.
Something else I want to incorporate, which was directly inspired by the show, is rumors about the PCs themselves. The adventure is a mystery and so investigation and finding rumors in town are key. The players will be able to go to a local pub and gather gossip. But people will also gossip about them, because this is a provincial Massachusetts town (I am going to use Marblehead as my location). This is what I have so far for handling rumors about the party:
RUMORS ABOUT THE PCS
Not much has changed since the witch trials in the region. Rumors are silent forces that can bring harm, even death, to the characters. The more they interact with the community, the more they displease locals, the greater the chance people whisper about them. You should use your judgement in deciding what rumors spread and their effects, but you can roll on the following table, sliding results up the more positive an interaction is (so a very positive interaction might be +5). Below are descriptions of different levels of rumor, with an example of what it might mean
1 Terrible Rumor: The players have committed crimes while in town, perhaps even murder
2
3 Very Bad rumor: The players are outsiders come to cause problems or dig up dirt to sew discontent
4
5 Bad rumor: Players are untrustworthy outsiders
6 Good rumor: The players are reputable and not here to cause problems
7
8 Very Good rumor: The players are here to help the town
9
10 Great rumor: The players have been making life better for the town since their arrival
I decided to have my central evil be based on real events. This has opened up a number of interesting possibility for handouts. For example there is a history book about Marblehead written in 1880 that directly mentions the events, and so I will use a portion of this as a handout, but the players can also have access to the book and inspect it for themselves because it is available online. And there was a poem written about the events in the 20th century, which can also serve as a clue that helps create atmosphere. I am going to be playing around with history here, leaning into darker readings of the events to make them more fitting for a horror adventure.
After the session I should be able to post the adventure itself here.
