New campaign notes – not really a recap, not buffed-up, just trying to capture the main points of the first session.
I have three players, the Knights of Time crew: Bo, Israel, and Miller.
Israel’s character is Winston Slade, an older, mastermind type character, evoking Rhas Al Ghul or Slade Wilson. Except without all the villainy. Slade is an American (for a change, I’m not going to play a minority
– this does make it easier for Israel’s character to believably boss people around than in the last campaign, where his character was twelve). He comes from a humble (redneck
) background (Arkansas, perhaps), and although very talented, he always felt trapped and limited in his life, even when he became a stockbroker (we figured Slade was in his thirties in the eighties). Taking assorted self-help advice to heart, he had a sort of mid-life crisis, went to the desert, and came back transformed, filled with Native American mysticism, he’s decided to fix the world with his own two hands. Slade has a big thing about self-reliance, tought himself martial arts, and developed funky Chi powers, which allow him to send shockwaves through solid objects, walk on air (three extra steps
), and (as we learned when we started playing), detect other people with super-powers.
Slade is now a rich enturpenuer, based in Los Angeles, and his current pet project is space-travel related.
Boaz’s character is Jack MacDonald, a 22 year old New York bartender. Jack’s parents inherited a bar (called MacDonald’s) from an uncle, and passed the burden on to Jack, his sister and her husband. Jack’s brother in law actually manages the place, and Jack doesn’t get along with him very well.
Oh, and recently, Jack has found out he has super-powers: he’s very strong, he’s bullet-proof (some telekinetic force field protects him), and he can freeze time to sort-of move in super-speed, or something. Possibly this involves messing about with the many-worlds interpretation of quantum physics.
Bo claims that Jack has his super-powers because he’s descended from space aliens: they’ve been around for a long time, and (unlike Superman), they’ve been breeding with humans for a while. Ergo, superkids. Apparently, strange people have been visiting Jack and saying odd things to him that hint at this, things that only he percives, in moments where time stands still for everyone else.
Finally, Miller is playing Alex / Ajax, a 16-year old Atlantean. Apparently, the last survivors of Atlantis have maintained an unbroken cultural and genetic lineage into the present day; the line is carried on by the women, who have some form of racial memory to guide them. An Atlantean woman will usually have a child without marrying and raise her (the child is almost always a girl) by herself. Atlantean males are very rare, and apparently special, although Alex doesn’t know this.
Oh, and Atlanteans are genetic supermen and also basically Jedi. They have this weapon, like a curtain hanger (a cornice), except it’s a super-strong and super-flexible telescoping stabbing weapon, available as either a one-handed (sword-like) or two-handed (lance/spear – think Darth Maul’s double lightsaber here). Atlanteans should be tough enough to stop a bullet, and they make their own cornices as a rite of passage. Later on we also learn that Atlanteans have webbed feet (and possibly other aquatic adaptations).
Alex (Ajax is his Atlantean name) comes home one day to find his mother dead on the kitchen floor. Stabbed by an Atlantean weapon, apparently. She has been agitated recently. So he follows her contingency instructions to Vanish
and hops on a greyhound bus to New York.
That’s all part of Miller’s background for his character. Now the actual session.
Israel tells us Winston Slade is in New York to recruit a prodigy engineer for his space project, because the founding genius is retiring. We decide the guy he’s trying to recruit is a friend of Jack called Daniel Suthers, and being a geek, MacDonald’s is the one plce he’d think of to take his out of town potential employer.
So, after they talk, Jack comes over to say hi, and Slade’s supergaydar goes off, and he gives Jack his card, pays the bill and leaves.
Only to find Alex fresh off the bus standing outside, keeping out of the rain under the awning in front of the bar.
So Winston invites Alex to join him, because he detects that he’s another super, and Jack runs out of the bar to talk to him. So all three sit in the Limo, and the driver, James, starts driving to the hotel, and they discuss destiny and big things along the way.
Except in Colombus Plaza (or wherever), a sniper shoots out the driver’s brains, and they all jump out (Alex drawing his double cornice, Jack protecting Winston) just in time for a missile to hit the limo and explode it (Winston just managed to send a chi-ripple to knock the dead driver’s foot off the accelerator and jerk up the hand brake).
Winston runs in one direction (where the shot that took out the driver came from), and both Alex and Jack make their way using their distinct styles (climbing the stairs in super-speed or retro-motion or whatever, vs. swinging aqnd vaulting using the cornice) to the other corner of the plaza, where someone is still shooting missiles down at the passing cars.
Jack and Alex burst into a room with two gunmen, with automatic weapons, body armor and an advanced mini-missile launcher. They take them out quickly – Jack smashes one guy’s head in with a slap, Alex stabs the other in the chest through his body armor.
Meanwhile, Winston has slightly more difficulty, as the room he’s reached is occupied by two women, a younger woman with a crossbow and an older woman with a steel whip. They are obviously pretty tough, but Winston can hold his own, so while the older woman engages him in combat (which culminates in him knocking the floor down), the younger woman makes a break for it, trying the door (which Slade locks with a chi ripple) and then through the window up onto the rooftops. Alex and Jack show up to help, and Alex pursues the younger woman onto the roof. She whips out a pair of Atlantean swords and they duel, Alex wins and stops before killing her, asking the woman (who is obviously Atlantean) why she’s stying to kill him. She calls him “Abomination”. He confronts her with the fact that he’s not going to kill her and knocks her out, going inside. Slade has disabled the older woman (the other woman’s mother, it seems) and has her hog-tied and held down with his knee pressing into her back. Alex and Jack show up and the older woman explains that Alex and his mother are abominations, that a male Atlantean and a woman who bears one are considered unclean and dangerous. The male Atlantean, she says, is genetically unstable, and upon reaching a certain age will produce endogenic viruses that can cause a devastating plague. Alex is shocked, but stares down the woman, confronting her too with the fact that he chose to spare her life.
Winston calls his government contact to clean-up and collect the two Atlanteans. The agents show up, screeching black vans and teams of operatives in bright coveralls posing as emergency workers. Winston’s contact, Bernice Malamud of the ETIA (Extra Terrestrial International Authority), introduces herself to Jack and Alex. She expresses sympathy for Alex’s loss, and asks him to spit in a test-tube. Apparently, her agency is familiar with Atlanteans and with the health hazards of male Atlanteans. They take away the two women and Bernice leaves Jack and Alex her card, asking Alex to notify her if he leaves town. She says that she’ll let him know if she learns anything about his mother’s murder. Alex is convniced that the two Atlantean women who tried to kill him weren’t responsible for his mother’s death – she was killed with a different (two-handed) weapon. Winston offers Jack and Alex to join him in LA.
Winston goes about arranging for the limo driver’s funeral, and orders plane tickets to LA for Jack and Alex. Alex goes to swim in the ocean and meditate. Jack reunites with his buddy Daniel, who has accepted Slade’s job offer. He offers Jack to be his roommate in LA. Jack tells his brother in law that he quit.
Thoughts: Miller has set up some clear goals for his character, find his mother’s murderer and the more nebulous “fulfil the Atlantean legacy” and the mysterious role of males in this. I actually had some vague thoughts about Atlantis when I started to think of this setting, and I think I can fit my more cliched ideas into Miller’s version of the Atlanteans. Israel has a character with some sweeping and ambitious goals, which are also pretty nebulous. Bo seems to have set up his character as an ordinary joe with ordinary problems that gains amazing powers. It’s a bit annoying I think how Winston’s money will now sweep aside all those issues. Also, Winston will drag everyone to LA, ditching the bar and the New York setting Bo was expecting.
Something else that bothered me was how angry I got during the session, throwing dice and acting hostile. I think part of this is my anxiety over GM/player power, with Israel saying that I can not really stand up to Bo. Miller’s presence just intensifies that, because he’s both more stubborn and more proactive than Bo. I think I need more of a system to help me stand up to the players – our current technique of “opposed roll of precentile dice, higher roll wins” annoys me, perhaps because it requires me to be assertive of my NPCs coolness and their ability to counter the PCs. And this makes it very easy for me to either wuss out or abuse GM power.
1 reply on “My mom had sex with space aliens and all I got was this lousy bar”
Aaallright!
– (Glen Quagmire)
Some buffdom, especially the kind that makes my char look better:
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Me
—
The name is definitely inspired by Deathstroke who was sort of a childhood Hero for me (yes, I am younger than you. Besides, pretending to have only one good eye is easier than pretending to fly and comes out just as impressing), but that’s just the name. We have very little in common other than that. Age, maybe. And seriousness.
Ras, OTOH, has nothing to do with the name but slightly more to do with the character. Specifically that cool thing he has with perspective, being so old and shit, and the green activism thing. Except Winston’s commitment is not to the planet, it’s to humanity – which makes the fact that the other PCs are not human so much cooler for me.
Very committed, this dude is. Oh, and I know how he looks, white suit and all. Get your Planetary comics to session if you get the chance.
I would also like to remind you that having a super-evolved twelve YO pushing people around was COOL. Even the parts where people put their foot down and say “not gonna be pushed by you, kid” is cool in retrospect, specifically because they usually end up with said foot up their asses.
Coming back to Slade – forget Arkansas. He is Texan. It’s so obvious I don’t know how I missed it till now. He is so OBVIOUSLY Texan he prolly still has family he is supposed to marry back there. It also means he was smack in the middle of the ecstasy revolution in the 80’s – good background for my first SACHI character in a while (could even be the reason for going sXe).
He was not just “talented” as a kid, he was really considered gifted. He always knew that he showed great promise and that promises are to be kept. Things were always expected of him by everyone around him and eventually by himself. This hovers over him. It caused his breakdown, led his self discovery and became the foundation of his commitment.
Now, I know breakdowns come and breakdowns go, but this was not just a mid-life crisis – he really went mad. His brain turned to mush. He walked out to the desert and were he not a PC he would have died. His salvation did not come from self-help books, it came from within (although it is possible that pink lasers uploaded information into his head). He had this really bad trip and then suddenly he just knew things, and that knowledge helped him rebuild himself (Better. Stronger. Faster.) From there on he nurtured that knowledge through Injun mysticism, martial arts and commitment. Super-hero like, even.
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Bo
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Then there is Bo’s char. The only thing I have to say about it is that I have almost nothing to say about it. I mean, I hardly remembered him when I got back home. Probably because there is not much of him, character-wise, as is many times the way of Bo. This bothers me a little. Bo does not read your blog regularly, so I should bring it up in session.
Maybe I shouldn’t? Maybe this is how Bo is? Much fun I had with characters that have only the “played by Bo” characteristic. Still, it bothers me. I should bring it up. If I hop on your toes for not hopping on Bo’s toes I should also hop on Bo’s toes myself. Besides, I have the Ging to back me up with his hoppity hoppness.
Also I should remind myself that as hard as toe-hopping Bo is, it has proven a fecund activity in the past. Non-violent Bo did some of the finest Bo-playing ever, IMO.
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Ging
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Yes, da Millerman gets our story juices flowing. Is way cool background, no doubt.
There is no reason to think, however, that the Atlanteans maintained *unbroken* cultural and genetic lineage. Seems borked like hell to me.
Also, I check and cornice does not have the same meaning as KARNIZ in Hebrew. The former has fathered the latter, no doubt, but in SHIPUTZNIKIM talk it seems to mean the entire rod while originally it means just the ornaments.
Also, it seems that the word is etymologically related to “cornix” which is crow in Latin. And because “corn” is horn in same language, “corniger” means with horns, “cornipes” is with hoofs (foot-horns) and – most importantly – “cornicen” is trumpeter. If you want to talk about “the Knights of Time crew”.
As far as I can recall the mother was not stabbed. The only mark on her body was a flat red spot on the back of her neck which was caused – Gingi later divulged – by a frontal “hit” to the throat. In my rendering the assassin’s KARNIZ never touched the bitch, it stopped an inch in front of her, but maybe I just see everything through the prism of my own power.
On the same note, Atlanteans are not tough enough to stop a bullet, they are able to concentrate their energy in a way that can make a bullet bounce. I remember sinewy Gingi going through the motions and flexing his muscles and going “pwing”.
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Session
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Founding genius is not retiring, just old.
The setting of the fight scene was Columbus Circle (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbus_Circle), not some silly plaza. Shot could have come from where the wikipedia picture was taken from, Time Warner is a good lead, but another good place (though a bit high) is here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2_Columbus_Circle
Chi-ripple is a good name for what Slade do. And he did not run to window (like puny mortal) – Jack jumped up with him and came back down alone. Window was [[three steps away]]. I also have distinct style. Actually, I have distinct style before everybody else, AND in the opposite direction. I’m special.
Also, I am the only one that had an acceptable roll for distinct style, which means that both Bo and Ging described how their chars messed up, which was really cool. Ajax twisted his KARNIZ and slammed against a shut window while Jack rushed through time and possibilities to find himself in the wrong room. More of this later.
Also in the buff, as Winston came through the window he discovered that psycho bitches strung fishing lines like a net over the window (well fastened to floor, walls and ceiling) which almost sliced him. It is true that anyone capable of a high speed entrance through the window is probably a sup who can deal with the wires, but it was quite annoying and it had bells on it (or pieces of metal that chimed) to alert said psycho bitches.
We fought, she kicked my ass a bit, I was able to chi-ripple the door (this was cool move that Miller came up with: I was lying on the floor on my back so I slapped the floor to get up, kung fu movie like, and sent a ripple through the floor to the door; when I was up I sent a faster ripple through the wall to the door – when the two collided they rotated the door and the frame in opposite directions and stuck them into each other) so the young one had to escape through window, I kicked down floor and hung to a beam, bitch hung to one of them nylon strings, she let go, I take off my tie and kick the beam to rush past her, grab her foot with the tie, knock her in front of me so she hits ground first, hog-tie with tie and do the knee.
Then I “introduce her to the truthfulness of pain”, which sounds cool to me but also had actual effect. When I asked her “why?” her brain was so overloaded with pain that she had to tell the truth. Lying was not an option. I know that she would probably tell us the truth anyway and I know that she could have Atlantean mad skillz that give her resistance, but this is a power. Remember it. There are more to come (psi powers, remember?)
Meanwhile Ajax was not only sparing the young’un, he was almost giving her an even younger’un, if you know what I mean. And Jack had this bit of looking at me and the older chick through the window, with popcorn almost.
Regarding ETIA, I tried to give this air of being an important person at the encounter. Well, I am. Bernice doesn’t just know me, she (or affiliates) worked with me in the past. We have a trust thing going on. As far as I am concerned, it is highly improbable that she will try to fuck me up in any way. Please tell me if I think I am wrong.
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Thoughts (yours)
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You think Winston’s money will clear Jack’s problems? Let me tell ya, the Injuns have this deal called “coyote teaching” (I shit you not, google it) which really suits Slade’s obsession with self-reliance. Unlike me, he doesn’t have to read your blog to understand that money is a challenge young master McDonald must pass on his own. Not a penny will he see from me. And when Bo whines about it I will point the finger at you. You just stood up to Bo in a big way. Congrats.
You want NY? Don’t bitch. Give us a lead that will keep us in NY. I was hoping to visit Amber, but that’s just me. OTOH, what what with the “setting Bo was expecting”? Stand up! Do what is cool for game, not what is expected by Bo (who, just like the rest of us, doesn’t always know what is best for him). Sure, pleasing the players is important, but pleasing Boo is something we all do automatically (if only he knew), no need to try harder.
You are not the only one that got angry during the session. All three of you went ballistic over how Gingi should roll the dice. I was spared this madness for some strange reason, but let me tell you, it was freaky. It was the angriest moment I remember during our game, and it was over the moral legitimacy of rolling in reverse (i.e. using what we decided should be the tens die as the ones die and vice versa). You should so do martial art, dude, but that is for private talk.
I think we should have a party talk, though, about this anxiety thing you have. This ties in to the way Boo and Miller described cool botches. We should all take your disability into consideration, it wurx.
System is also an option, I think we should play around with bonuses for descriptions/settings/crap, but coolness should be voted upon (nothing official, if it is good enough for two other players to say “yes, this cool” then bonus is given). Also I think we should work with this thing of one person (usually you or dice, I suppose) telling another person the result of his action and demanding a cool description. I think it wurx mainly because there is a feeling of challenge to it and of helping someone else. Proportionizes things, it does.
And dude, do me a favor, don’t worry too much about abusing your DM power, OK? Only power you abuse is physical power, and even that only when you have water containers at hand.
yylpa,
I.