Monthly Archives: January 2015

TEAM BANSHEE: Pinfeathers, Part 2

By | | Unknown Armies, What's he playing?
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**SPOILER WARNING**

I’m using the scenario Pinfeathers from the UA 2nd Edition rulebook for the first adventure in our UA campaign. Now, the book’s been out for twelve years, and Pinfeathers was originally released as a free adventure for the first edition, so it’s gotta be past the statute of limitations, especially with the third edition on its way. Still, don’t read any farther if you want to make sure you avoid knowing too much about the adventure.

In UA, knowing too much will save your life but damn your soul.

**YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED**

This was an interesting second session of our UA campaign. The characters spent most of the time trying to clean up the mess they made in the previous session. They had chased a woman into traffic, where she was hit and killed, and then grabbed her purse and driven away in their TNI-issued SUV ((That’s enough initialisms for one paragraph, yeah?)). So, their first order of business was to swap the plates on their vehicle.

This led to a caper comedy of our less-than-inconspicuous heroes ((“Heroes” may be the wrong word for UA PCs. It’s certainly highly debatable for this group of characters. But it is traditional.)) prowled residential streets, stole license plates, fast-talked patrolling police officers, and calling on contacts to get a replacement vehicle. After that, they thought they’d go check out the hotel room their ((Kind of.)) victim had been staying in, to see if they could learn a little more about what was actually going on.

They split the party at that point, for some reason that seemed entirely reasonable but, upon reflection, may have been not-so-good. In the hotel room, two of them were taken at gunpoint by an unseen man who bound them and left them facedown on the floor before vanishing just ahead of the other two PCs arriving. The only traces they had of him were the zip ties on the wrists of the ((Very embarrassed.)) hostages, and the word “HUSH” written on the bathroom mirror.

This got Cruz all fired up, because he had, at one point, been a low-level operative of the Sleepers before TNI snatched him. So, he knew that was a Sleeper warning sign, and that the Sleepers are major-league bad-asses in the Occult Underground. With that information, TEAM BANSHEE called in for directions, and were told by Eponymous in no uncertain terms to break off the operation and not to engage further with the Flock, Sid, or the crazy ritual that was going to happen in a few days.

That rankled a bit, so the team decided that, if nothing else, they could burgle Sid’s place and steal the compass they found there – the one that they think belonged to Amelia Earhart. That’s where they ran into the mysterious Angela that their previous victim had been worried about – she showed up and started to pick the lock of the apartment while they were already inside, so they yanked her inside and tried to knock her unconscious to take and interview her later.

Two things really interfered with that: first, it’s very hard to actually just knock someone out without doing enough damage to possibly kill them ((This is reflected in the combat mechanics of UA – if you get really, really lucky, you might be able manage it, but mostly you have to beat your victim into dreamland in an ugly, violent manner, and hope that he or she doesn’t just die from it.)). Second, Angela is a fairly powerful avatar of the Flying Woman, which means it is very, very hard to capture, confine, or restrict her.

A third factor was the fact that I had introduced the idea of Madness checks this session ((None of the players had played UA before this campaign, so I’m building the complexity of the rules at a slower pace.)). In the midst of trying to capture Angela, there were a couple failed Violence and Unnatural checks. I was tempted to throw in a Helplessness test or two as she kept slipping out of their grasp, but I thought that would just be cruel.

So, the team’s first real combat in the game turned into a confused, desperate, panicked, and chaotic mess, just the way it should be. It ended with Angela literally flying away out a mysteriously open window, and our heroes took their stolen compass and skedaddled.

We’re playing again tonight, and I’m not sure if the group is going to cut and leave things in Boston alone, or if they’re going to defy their orders and see if they can observe the Flock’s ritual and see what happens when Sid tries to channel the power of the Flying Woman through his male body.

I’ve got their next assignment ready, just in case. It happens to be another adventure I ran years ago in my first UA campaign, and had a surprisingly high body count for what it was. It may have been – to my complete and utter shock – the deadliest scenario that group ever got mixed up in.

We’ll see how TEAM BANSHEE handles the mystery of… STOON LAKE!

Monsters Wearing Evil Hats!

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So, I wrote a few months ago about the game Monster of the Week. The second edition of the game has just been released – today – by the new publisher, Evil Hat Productions. It is, as I noted in my earlier post, a fantastic game, and the second edition has more material that makes it even better. You should go buy it.

To help encourage you to do that, and for those who already have, I’m linking some mysteries that I’ve created for the game. I mentioned these in that earlier post, and someone asked to see them. I checked with author Michael Sands and publisher Fred Hicks, because I didn’t want to step on anyone’s toes ((Or illegally distribute anyone’s copyrighted material without permission.)), and they gave me the go-ahead. So, here you go: three ((I have a fourth, but upon reviewing it, I think it needs significant work to be ready for anyone’s eyes but mine.)) mysteries, written up in the note form I use for them.

  1. Unnatural History is a mystery put together from one of the two example mysteries in the book. I fleshed it out a little, and organized it into a structure that I found I liked.
  2. The Desrick on Yandro is inspired by the short story of the same name by Manly Wade Wellman. It’s one of the Silver John stories, and I love it. So, backwoods town with something scary out in the dark.
  3. Project MAROON SPHINX is more of an X-Files kind of mystery, with something going wrong at a government research lab. This may be the loosest of the mysteries, as the Keeper will need to decided where in the countdown the players enter the game, and what the town looks like at that point.

There it is. Buy the game. Download the mysteries. Let me know if you run one of them, and how it works for you.

Most importantly, go kill some monsters.

Firefly: Followin’ Yonder Star

By | | Cortex Plus, Firefly, What's he playing?
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The time before Christmas is always busy. I found that, for our last Firefly game before Christmas, I was running short of time, and didn’t have time to do all the prep I wanted on the session. At the last minute, I decided to instead use a scenario that I created for the previous year’s Winnipeg Harvest Charity Game Day, and used again at GenCon at Games on Demand this past summer. Having run it twice before, I figured it would be an easy one for me to run, and I already had all the background worked out.

It took me a few minutes to tweak the set-up to fit the current state of play in the campaign. After the previous session, the crew of Peregrine were kind of on the outs with their boss, Tully, after meddling in job. So, they were reduced to sticking to the Tullymore Run regular stops, not being given any special assignments until they proved that they could be trusted again ((How long would that take? As long as seemed fun in play.)). That meant I had to do a little less-than-believable finessing of their ((Non-existent, in the real world.)) contract clauses so they could accept the job that was forming the basis of the evening’s adventure.

To that end, I told the players that Domino and Price had negotiated a service clause in the crew contract whereby they could use Peregrine to undertake freelance jobs as long as:

  1. It didn’t interfere with the mail schedule.
  2. They were responsible for all repairs and maintenance of the ship necessitated by the job.
  3. They paid Tullymore a reasonable fee for use of the ship, fuel, food, etc.

In terms of real-world logic, that kind of contract provision makes no sense, but what the hell. It got the game going, and I firmly believe that anything that moves the game from boring to fun is always worth it.

The other impediment to using this adventure with the campaign was that it had, as written, a big payday at the end. That sort of thing ((Even in a system like Firefly, that doesn’t track money as such.)) can be a big disruption of the game, and I had to think about whether or not I really wanted that to happen. If I was willing to change the status quo ((Why worry about the status quo? Isn’t change and surprise good? Well, yes and no. The players agreed to play in – and designed the campaign structure – to reflect the game they wanted to play. Unilaterally changing the game to something else is kind of a dick move.)).

Domino had decided that one of her goals was to buy Peregrine from Tully, so that wound up being the deciding factor. I decided that, if they pulled the job off, and if they made the right choices as far as payment went, that could happen ((It helped that I expect the campaign to run only four or five more sessions before we wrap it up. Status quos don’t matter so much in games of limited duration.)).

This is, as I mentioned above, the third time I’ve run this scenario, and it’s gone quite differently every time. The broad strokes are all similar, but the route the characters take to get to the end goal varies wildly. I started this time on Albion, because it’s the one Core world that the Tullymore Run stops on. Domino and Walter met the three principals in a dive bar, and got the pitch: take the three principals ((Along with their aides.)) to St. Alban’s, locate the reclusive inventor who has perfected broadcast power, and get them in to see him and make their pitch.

And then, like a moron, I forgot the scene where they find out the ship is security locked in port and have to get past that to break atmo. Not a huge deal, overall, but the main function of the scene is to tip the crew that there is another interested party involved, and because that party is Blue Sun, they’re quite happy to be underhanded.

I finessed it a bit by using the 1s rolled during the trip ((Plotting a fast course, scanning for followers, etc.)) to put an Enemy Pursuit complication on the board, showing the players that there was opposition, though their characters didn’t know about it. This worked pretty well.

By the time they made it to St. Alban’s, things had been going well enough that I decided to ignore the other bit of distraction – the idea that there was a traitor on the ship. There was a bit of a stall when they tried to figure out how to find where the inventor was on the planet, but they figured out the location, and went to have a chat with him.

Cue the firefight.

There was negotiation going on inside the inventor’s cabin, with Walter and Domino pinned down outside. Price managed to extract them all – including the inventor – under fire using one of Peregrine‘s shuttles. I think there was also a big explosion, taking out the cabin and the prototype and the enemies.

So, they managed to get the inventor and his data, though not the working prototypes of the broadcast satellite or the receiver station. It still earned them enough money that Domino was able to secure a loan to purchase Peregrine from Tully.

I’ve managed to schedule the next few sessions, which may wrap up the campaign. I’m going to have to do some thinking about how the next sessions are going to go, and how we end the game.

We’ll see what I come up with.

RickFest VI

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Last weekend was RickFest VI, my annual invite-only mini gaming convention. It’s twelve hours of hanging out with my friends, playing games, and eating way too much food that’s not really good for me. As I did last year, I rented a small community centre hall, because RSVPs showed we were looking at about 35 folks showing up.

Turns out we only had about 25 people ((There’s a nasty flu going around, so we had several folks who didn’t show. Also, my parents, who were planning to come into the city, didn’t, because my mom broke her ankle just before Christmas.)) over the course of the day, with a maximum of about 18-20 at any one time. I hauled about 50 games, a big pot of the traditional RickFest veggie chili, and a bunch of other food down to the hall ((Assisted by Michael and Sandy, who always do a lot to help out setting up and tearing down. Thanks, guys!)). I had to stop to pick up some ice and the hall keys, so there were already a few folks waiting when I got there. Loading the games into the club took almost no time with everyone helping, and everyone got playing games while I finished laying out the games and food, which was ideal.

Here are some pictures.

The game assortment for RickFest VI

The game assortment for RickFest VI

Tom and Clint playing Zombie Dice

Tom and Clint playing Zombie Dice

Fred, Nathan, Julia, Paul, and Steven playing Tokaido.

Fred, Nathan, Julia, Paul, and Steven playing Tokaido.

Paul, Michael, Tania, and Lindsey playing Ticket to Ride

Paul, Michael, Tania, and Lindsey playing Ticket to Ride

Sandy and Jen playing Ticket to Ride

Sandy and Jen playing Ticket to Ride

Dan, Chris, Paul, and Michael playing Settlers of Catan. Sandy is lurking in the background, playing something else.

Chris, Paul, and Michael playing Settlers of Catan

My first big game of the day: Sentinels of the Multiverse. With Chris, Lindsey, Tania, and Michael. ((We triumphed over La Capitan in the Ruins of Atlantis. The heroes were KNYFE, Wraith, the Visionary, and the Naturalist. The Naturalist's rhino-form tanking ability was crucial in our victory.))

My first big game of the day: Sentinels of the Multiverse. With Chris, Lindsey, Tania, and Michael. ((We triumphed over La Capitan in the Ruins of Atlantis. The heroes were KNYFE, Wraith, the Visionary, and the Naturalist. The Naturalist’s rhino-form tanking ability was crucial in our victory.))

I'm actually in this picture! Playing Elder Sign with Melly, Matt, Tania, Elliot, and Fera. Yig owned our asses.

I’m actually in this picture! Playing Elder Sign with Melly, Matt, Elliot, and Fera. Yig owned our asses.

"We're going to play a game with just the girls," they told me. So Melly, Fera, Sandy, Lindsey, and Tania decided to play Race for the Galaxy.

“We’re going to play a game with just the girls,” they told me. So Melly, Fera, Sandy, Lindsey, and Tania decided to play Race for the Galaxy.

Dan came by Maddy, and played some Zombie Dice. Later, Maddy got to play Werewolf with us, which was a game she really wanted to play, apparently.

Dan came by Maddy, and played some Zombie Dice. Later, Maddy got to play Werewolf with us, which was a game she really wanted to play, apparently.

Melly, Matt, and Elliot playing King of Tokyo

Melly, Matt, and Elliot playing King of Tokyo

Erik, Sigrid, Bjorn, and Soren managed to make it by. Here, they're playing King of Tokyo.

Erik, Sigrid, Bjorn, and Soren managed to make it by. Here, they’re playing King of Tokyo.

Paul, Steven, and Frederic playing Forbidden Island.

Paul, Steven, and Frederic playing Forbidden Island.

Lindsey, Tania, Chris, and Michael, also playing Forbidden Island.

Lindsey, Tania, Chris, and Michael, also playing Forbidden Island.

Another shot of the Elder Sign game.

Another shot of the Elder Sign game.

Battlestar Galactica with Michael, Chris, Elliot, Paul, and Matt. Messed up the rules a bit, because it's been a long time since I played. The cylons won, killing the humans with sadness.

Battlestar Galactica with Michael, Chris, Elliot, Paul, and Matt. Messed up the rules a bit, because it’s been a long time since I played. The cylons won, killing the humans with sadness.

Playing the Archer card/boardgame with Chris and Sandy. I played Cheryl and won through a combination of sex and insults.

Playing the Archer card/boardgame with Chris and Sandy. I played Cheryl and won through a combination of sex and insults.

We finished the evening with a game of Cards Against Humanity. That's me, Tania, Melly, Elliot, Chris, and Dan.

We finished the evening with a game of Cards Against Humanity. That’s me, Tania, Melly, Elliot, Matt, Chris, and Dan.

This was Dan's first game of CAH. He looked like this through pretty much the whole game.

This was Dan’s first game of CAH. He looked like this through pretty much the whole game.

We finished packing up and cleaning up the hall and loading the car. By the time I dropped the keys off and got home, it was after one. I had much less in the way of leftovers this year ((Though I ran out of chili. Need to find a middle ground between last year’s batch – way too big – and this year’s.)) – most of it was chocolate, rolls, and cookies.

But even with lower-than-expected attendance, it was a fun day of friends, food, and games. Thanks to everyone who came out to play with me, and special thanks to those who helped me set up and tear down. RickFest would be even more exhausting for me without you.

One final thing: I’ve been calling RickFest the eleventh most wonderful time of the year. Some ((Especially Tania.)) have disputed that. So, this year, I had everyone rate the degree of wonderfulness for the event. Now, using an advanced algorithm called “averaging,” I have scientifically determined that RickFest is the sixth most wonderful time of the year! Yay for RickFest!