Deadlands RPG Session Three

Out of game comment: When the game started, it was unclear where in the West our adventures were actually taking place. Now we know that we are in the Black Hills heading north to Deadwood. Therefore adventures we had in Eastwood Ridge would have actually been occurring in Eastmont, South Dakota. I shall use that name henceforth.

From: Mr. Zebulon Pike, Custer, Dakota Territory
To: Mrs. Hannilore West, Kingsport, Mass.
July 1878

Dearest Sister,

With all the weirdness going on in Eastmont, it was decided that we would continue to maintain a nightly watch lest anything untoward occur while we were sleeping. The night before we were to leave Eastmont I awoke late, lot having been alerted to my watch by Mr. Tobin. During his watch he had packed up his things and left, leaving us a note that he was taking the “short route” to Deadwood and that he would make arrangements for our arrival. As an unbalanced fellow prone to gunfire, I thought it might be for the best to spend some time away from his presence while he pursued his own agenda.

The next morning, our departure was again delayed. We thought to say goodbye to the tavern keeper but Miss Bowden the sister of one of the now dead deputies, was having a hysterical fit in the tavern. Mr. Pace, Mr. Bongiovi and I were all agreed that it would be best to ride on when she stormed out to confront us over the death of her brother. We were able to able to honestly say that we hadn't seen what had occurred and speculated that it was some sort of dispute between the marshal and his deputies. We benefited greatly in the obfuscation by Mr. Tobin's absence and were finally able to make our escape.

The road to Deadwood is paved with disappointment. The discovery of gold in the Black Hills by Custer back in '74 lead to a rush. Many of those camps and towns that grew overnight quickly disappeared when the gold found there played out or never materialized in the first place. Since the towns of Deadwood, Central City and Lead and the gold that supports them continues, the towns on the trail to them have endured, if not as actual communities, at least as way stations.

I will refrain from using the colloquial “Ghost Town,” to describe the former town of Hot Spring as it is devoid of actual ghosts, in so far as we could determine in our brief stay. There were a few wooden foundations and outbuildings but most of the tents that had been the town had been packed up long ago. One building remained as a stagecoach station except that when we arrived it had been burned and there was no sign of the station keeper. A search revealed a number of unshod hoof prints, indicating that Indians might be responsible.

Rather than staying there and drawing attention to ourselves we rode on until nightfall and camped without a fire off the trail. Even so, Miss Bowden had been able to find us. She seemed intent on being our companion on our trip to Deadwood where she would meet with another of her brothers. She also grilled us again about the events surrounding the death of her brother. There was little we could do to prevent her from joining us.

The next day we rode on to Custer. Much like Hot Spring it was little more than a way station but unlike Hot Spring it was, as yet, unmolested. The old man (and why does it always seem to be old men attending these stations?) seemed less concerned that I would have thought at his neighbor having been burned out by Indians and the distinct possibility that his place may be next. He said he was expecting a stage through soon and we decided to wait. The stage never came but that evening we were attacked by Indians on horseback. Riding through the darkness they somewhat ineffectively launched flaming arrows at the building. Mr. Pace, from his vantage point on the roof fired a few rounds and down one of their ponies, which was sufficient to drive them off.

As I write this, it is the next day and the Indians have been showing themselves on a rise in the distance. The station attendant seemed intent to have us ride on, saying that he thought we should be able to continue and that he wouldn't be bothered. I thought the man delusional for the natives had clearly shown their hostile intent the night before and would have the distinct advantage over us should we mount our horses and take to the open road. No, we were set to stay.

I have set a table out on the porch for a clear view with my pistol nearby. I have been trying to do some development work on my personal defense weapon but to advance that I will need some additional scientific apparatuses. Instead, I have alternated between writing this letter and sketching some other concepts. What do you think of the armored convenience on the next page? I have heard of so-called “war wagons” but an armored wagon leaves the horses exposed. What one would need is a self-propelled vehicle, much like a trackless train engine. It would need wide wheels to support the weight of the boilers and armored passenger compartment. Are the slopped sides and lighter armor adequate for deflecting bullets? Would the boilers provide enough power to propel its own weight at a sufficient speed over terrain? I seem to recall reading of a German producing an engine wherein gas is ignited within the drive cylinder rather than having externally heated steam drive the pistons. This strikes me as a much lighter and more efficient method. Would a stratified downdraft gassifier produce fuel quickly enough to drive the engine or would some sort of pressurized cylinder be necessary to hold the combustible gas? Carrying only the concentrated fuel, perhaps even if it could be liquefied, would save additional weight.

And, though things are somewhat tense, the fact that your are reading this proves that I have escaped relatively unscathed and have found enough civilization to post this letter to you. Fear not, for I shall write you again soon with news of my daring escape from marauding savages.

With fondest regards, your brother,

Zebulon

Deadlands RPG Session Two

From: Mr. Zebulon Pike, Eastwood Ridge, Dakota Territory
To: Mrs. Hannilore West, Kingsport, Mass.
July 1878

Dearest Sister

After the “Dread Tree Incident”, it had been decided by our somewhat haphazard assemblage that we would wait the day or two until the expected arrival of the area's marshal. There had been a series of gruesome murders that would need to be explained to authorities. Since the truth would most assuredly not be believed, it was also agreed that we would describe everything as having happened exactly as it had occurred with the substitution of “bandits” for “ambulatory demonic tree” and “the walking dead.”

And even though the townspeople had received this edited version of events, the “bandits” were still at large and the town had apparently had enough of the killings. They spent the day preparing to abandon their homes. We took the time to investigate the homes of those that had been murdered in recent days. For many of my comrades, it was much a matter of sanctioned looting. The townspeople had already gone through many of the homes and recovered what useful items they could before their own abandonment. Mr. Tobin found a workable shotgun and employed my technical skills in shortening the barrel and stock to add a shotgun pistol to his weighty arsenal.

The cut-away barrel and Mr. Tobin's flaming distillate has given me an idea for a device for my own protection. While my pistol is certainly effective and I am not unskilled in its employment, there are many situations where a pistol's use may be restricted or obviated altogether. There are establishments and entire towns even here on the frontier that require one to check all firearms before entering. I doubt that people such as Mr. Tobin will abandon all their protections and so it seems logical that I also should have such a camouflaged holdout for myself.

Though I know you have a keen interest in the sciences, I will not go into details at this time as I am only in the early formulation of the idea myself. Suffice it to say that it will be an incendiary projector and, should my chemical formulation balance out, this device should be overwhelming in it's effect so as to end hostilities immediately.

As nightfall approached there were signs of a fire quite a distance outside of town. The tavern keeper indicated that “Zeke” lived out that way and since none of the townspeople were interested in investigating so our happy band mounted our horses and set out.

Zeke's home was fully engaged by the time we arrived and the Marshal and his two deputies were on site. It seemed a suspicious coincidence but, as the Marshal was the law in these parts, I suppressed my initial skepticism in favor of a more civilized expectation. As might be expected, the Marshal found us dubious as well and we explained the events of the previous days (as we had agreed). He didn't seem overly concerned with a troop of bandits having murdered a dozen townspeople in the past weeks. My suspicions were elevated.

His two deputies were left at the homestead where it was feared that the body of the unfortunate Zeke was still within the conflagration. We returned to town and were witness to a strange interaction between the Marshal and the tavern keeper. The Marshal, a relative of the tavern keeper, revealed himself to be quite the bully and he was irate with the tavern keeper's decision to pack up and leave.

It was past midnight when the deputies came riding noisily into town. Mr. Bonjiovi and I realized that Mr. Chenshaw and Mr. Tobin were not in the house and instantaneously concluded that they had gone off and done something precipitous. When the Marshal and deputies rode out of town, we collected our horses and followed at a discrete distance.

There was another fire. I guessed that Mr. Tobin had gathered combustables that had not been burned on the previous night and set another bnlaze to draw the Marshal's attention and provide some light for the gunfight I expected him to be initiating. Before coming upon the entirety of that situation, Mr. Bonjiovi and I discovered one of the deputy's horses tied to some brush behind a low rise. Having read von Clauswitz does not make me a tactician but I clearly deduced that one of them was likely to have taken up a firing position on that hill. As we dismounted, my expectation was confirmed as there was a rifle shot from there. We advanced stealthily in an effort to ambush him.

Then there were a pair of shots from the homestead; a report that I recognized as one of Mr. Tobin's Walker pistols immediately followed by a shotgun blast. There was another rifle shot over our heads and I assumed that it was Mr. Pace firing at the deputy on the hill. That suspicion was confirmed when the deputy came upon us heading headlong down the hill.

Mr. Bonjiovi assaulted and disarmed him and as he was restrained be began babbling incoherently, his speech impediment a direct result of his deafness. (I apologize for not having mentioned this fact earlier.) He seemed genuinely scared and mostly harmless in this state so I handed him a piece of paper and a pen in hopes that he could make clear his attempts at communication. It was difficult to see in the starlight but I could make out a drawing of a knife and a star. This, and his wild gesticulations, lead us to confirm our suspicions that the Marshal had stabbed Zeke for some reason and subsequently burned the house to conceal his crime.

Another drawing of a horse indicated that the deputy wished to be allowed to escape. And to that end he pulled from his saddlebags an item for each of us. Heavy and about the size of a pack of playing cards, even in the dark it had the faint glitter of gold. For this bribe, we would allow him to escape.

It was Mr. Bonjiovi who traded the bar back to the deputy and then claimed the saddlebags. The change in the deal was apparently acceptable to the deputy who rightly feared for his life and fled with his single bar leaving us with a total of five bars.

By the time that Mr. Tobin and Mr. Pace had joined us, Mr. Bonjiovi and I had divided the bars with a pair for each of us and the one handed to me to share with the others as the bribe we had accepted to allow the deputy's escape. Mr. Tobin had another bar and, given that I estimated the value of each bar at around five-hundred dollars, there were not many questions. I admit to a certain. . . discomfort in how easily I fell into this deception. It is a weak justification that Mr. Tobin, in looting the abandoned homes had probably acquired some items of value that had not been shared and it was entirely possible that he had found additional bars of gold. It seems unlikely that the deputy would have all the gold save the one that Mr. Tobin found lying about.

We may never know the full story of the dispute but Mr. Tobin had suspected that the dispute had been over something of value and that the deputies had been left behind to guard whatever it was. He had gone out in the night, determined that that gold was the root of this evil and sent the deputies back into town to draw the Marshal out. The Marshal obliged and was killed when Mr. Tobin, defying all reason and probability, outdrew the Marshal's already drawn gun and killed him. The other deputy shot the falling Marshal in an ultimately unsuccessful attempt to ingratiate himself to to Mr. Tobin and was himself subsequently killed.

So, dear sister, as I close this letter you will surely have realized that this weighty package contains more than just my correspondence. The enclosed will more than compensate you for the cash that you advanced me for my passage westward and also lessen the stress caused by my brother-in-law's incharitability. If you do not already have for yourself a trustworthy financial advisor, I suggest calling on Mr. Freeman at his business on Bedford Street near the Green in Boston. He will remember my service in averting damage to his establishment in the fire of '72 and will extend to you every courtesy.

With deepest affection,

Zebulon

Deadlands RPG Game Session One

From: Mr. Zebulon Pike
To: Mrs. Hannilore West, Kingsport, Mass.
July 1878

Dearest sister,

I will first apologize for the lateness of this correspondence. Having left the silver rail of civilization, I have also left the somewhat more regular channels of communication. I will endeavor to continue in my regular writings and will send them as the opportunity becomes available.

I had late this afternoon arrived at the prairie town of Eastwood Ridge, an interesting moniker in that it is not particularly east of anywhere, there are no woods nor is it located in proximity to a ridge. It was also strange that at the still early hour, there was absolutely no activity. Like those puritanical communities that "roll up the streets at night," all the shops and houses were shuttered, barred and locked. That is, except for a pair of horses tied up at the town's drinking establishment. By a remarkable coincidence, the horses belonged to two gentlemen that I had met at the station some weeks ago.

The first was one Mr. Don Bongiovi, apparently a former cavalry officer (though for which army I could not determine) who was continuously strumming upon a well-worn guitar. Even when conversing, he would play upon his instrument to accentuate certain points, much like an orchestra would accompany and operatic performance, though singularly more pedestrian.

The other occupant of the tavern was another former soldier, one Mr. Ezekiel Tobin. My first encounter with Mr. Tobin was his asking me, entirely without provocation, as to whether I had ever met or heard of a certain man. Given his demeanor and the armory he carried I had the distinct impression that Mr. Tobin had some deadly unfinished business with this mystery man. It also seemed that Mr. Tobin had received the worst of it so far as he drank heavily and had raspy cough.

The taverns proprietor made an appearance and we learned what had the town closed up so tight. There had been a series of horrible assaults and murders in recent weeks. Homes would be broken into and the occupants would be dragged out of town to be hung en-masse from the so-called hang'n tree a mile outside of town. Several posses had been formed to seek out these marauders but many of them had not returned. Out of fear, the proprietor said.

The coincidences piled one upon the other when Mr. Alexander Pace, who I mentioned in my last letter, also arrived in town. Quite spontaneously we all took action to investigate this situation. Mr. Tobin and I took the horses to the livery, Mr. Tobin having to be exceptionally persuasive to get the stable attend to unbar the door and take in the horses. Mr. Pace took up a position on the roof of the tavern while I and the others were at the one end of town in the house that had been most recently assaulted.

After midnight, there was a gunshot from the tavern and while both Mr. Tobin and Mr. Bonjiovi had earlier exhibited selfish tendencies, they both showed good character in immediately moving out into the street to lend assistance.

Up the street, the unfortunate tavern keeps was being dragged away by a shadowy assemblage of assailants. And while Mr. Pace and Mr. Tobin each dispatched several of the brigands with rifle shots, others set upon the tavern keeper and continued towards the edge of town, still intent on hanging this man even though several of their own had been killed.

Now, dear sister, I must stress upon you at this point not to pass on what I am about to replay to you to any others, most especially not your husband. His opinion of myself is already at an ebb tide and I would not want to fuel his disdain.

As the others continued their pursuit of the attackers, I paused to investigate the bodies as, even at a distance in the dark of night, they seemed unusual. They were corpses. Not for having been just shot but the cold, deep lifelessness of having been deceased for day or even weeks. Their spines had been broken and the heads swung loose on only the muscle and tissue of their necks. It came upon me the dread realization that these people were the victims of the previous week's lynchings and after having been dressed in their best clothes and respectfully laid to rest by their neighbors, they had risen from their graved to reap some unknown revenge.

When I caught up with the others, they were locked in battle. The hanging tree was not a mile outside of town, it was right at it's edge, and by some dark arcanum was ambulatory, having literally pulled itself from the ground to advance upon our group with malevolent waving of limbs and ropes, like tentacles, reaching out. Mr. Bongiovi had cut one such rope from around the tavern keeper's neck and was fighting off additional ropes while Mr. Tobin repeatedly fired rifle rounds into the apparently unaffected trunk. Mr Pace was nowhere to be seen, having gone back to the stables to recover the horses to accelerate our pursuit. He can easily be forgiven for missing out on the fight, not realizing that the tree had come to us.

I am quite pleased with my steadfast comportment under the deadly assault from otherworldly horrors. Lesser men might have fled or be struck dumbfounded but I set upon the task with purpose and fortitude. I drew forth one of the sticks of dynamite that I had purchased on a whim in Chicago. I had placed two stick in the pocket of my jacket earlier in what I had thought at the time as being somewhat overly paranoid. The first stick hurled at the tree with a short fuse exploded with little more effect than to make the monster "angry" and advance upon me with surprising swiftness, that is, for a tree. The second stick landed in the boughs and hurt it more significantly but it set upon me with enchanted ropes and threatened to throttle me were I not to escape in short order.

That monstrosity of a pistol you had insisted I take with me was drawn from a pocket and fired at close range, severing the rope that had attached itself to my leg. Meanwhile, Mr. Tobin had set on the ingenious idea of taking one of his whiskey bottles and, with his handkerchief inserted in the bottle and set alight, he threw the improvised incendiary at the tree. This slower burning weapon was much more effective than the explosive effect of the dynamite I had thrown and in short order the tree was fully ablaze. (I must make myself something similar for future use.) The walking dead who had been under the tree's evil influence collapsed, signaling the end of its power.

So, the rumors are true. Strange things are moving out on the frontier and I was right to travel here to investigate. And while little would please me more than to reveal this revelation to your husband and his cadre of doubters, there is not yet enough proof. I will show them, though. I will show them all.

This chance meeting of four travelers in the wilds and our subsequent adventure, did I not know better, might have me believe that divine providence had taken a hand. And even though it is the most suspicious of coincidences, I have nonetheless taken the opportunity to throw in with them. Their "type" seems the sort to invite adventures of the preternatural sort and since research of such things was, again, my initial goal, I will continue to travel with them.

Do not fear if my letters do not come with as much swiftness as they had previously. The vast distances of the frontier make such correspondences unlikely. But I will continue to write regularly and post the letters as a group when such opportunities present themselves. Give my warmest regards to your sister-in-law and my continued disdain to your husband.

Your most loving brother,

Zebulon

Marvel Super Hero RPG, Game Session 4

Having returned to the city it is decided to start on the list of dirty cops that Dr. Impossible gave us. Some inquiries linked with the death of the rest of the group's neighbor leads us to a local strip club where we find one of the dirty cops enjoying a lap dance.

Oh, at this session, Christian Soldier isn't with us and we have a new member. Another neighbor who was killed and came back from the dead (more like "Reanimator" but we keep calling him a zombie). he has telekinetic powers so has earned the superhero name Dead Lift.

The dirty cop goes in the back to screw the lap dancer and Overgrowth goes to spy. I can send out a surreptitious tendril to appear as if he's just standing by the hallway. The prostitute comes out and he spies the copy doing heroin. Doing his good deed, he calls the cops on his cell phone.

If I had known he was going to do that, I would have stopped him because I noticed another patron taking an interest in his standing there. Shortly after Overgrowth called, the lookout gets a call and then rousts Overgrowth from his place. He come back to our table and says he's going around back. I say I'll be approaching from this side.

Dead Lift is busy watching the floor show.

When I get to the back, Overgrowth, having changed to his "vegi-hulk" form, had just slammed them both inside as they had tried to sneak out the back. I pick them both up by the hair and drag them into the back office where we are going to proceed to beat them up.

Yea, we didn't have anything better planned that that. Actually, I decide that since we have one of the bad cops hopped up on heroin, if we drip him off at a hospital or, better yet, at the TV station, his career's is pretty much over. Justice can be served.

Once I drag him outside, I convert to my full demon form and put the fear of Hell into him. I fly him over to the TV station and in classic Spider-Man form, leave him there with a note pinned to his jacket.

"What the wicked dreads will overtake him and his ultimate punishment is yet to pass, but I give him to you as a gift to find justice as you see fit. Were I to exact that justice, this dirty cop would have been left rotting in a ditch somewhere. Enjoy."
---- Brimstone

Later, Overgrowth's cell phone call came around when the police, all of them, raided his apartment. He heard them coming and was able to disguise himself as a shrubbery but they got the list.

We were able to salvage something. The car that Dr. Impossible gave him had a printer to produce a new identity and another copy of the list. Some party unknown killed someone and dumped him in the river and then faked the official record to say that Overgrowth's secret identity had been murdered. It's all fairly messy but we're planning on focusing our attention on the name at the top of the list, the Chief of Police, with every intention of bringing him down. In some sense, it's be so much easier to just kill him but we're still a little dubious about the pedigree of the list were working from and don't want to do the wrong thing.

And Brimstone made the news. It was a few of terrified witnesses, the drugged up cop, and a blurry cell camera picture but the TV station is describing what they saw as "what can best be described as a demon." It was bound to happen and, in fact, I intended it to happen eventually and had hoped I could manipulate it to be the good guy. Or at least not the villain. Vigilante will do.

Marvel Super Hero RPG, Game Session 3

This game consisted of a great deal of talking, misdirection and misunderstanding. For the other characters, Christian Soldier and Overgrowth, they were being picked up by cops when the cops are attacked by armed troops rappelling from an airship. There are fireballs, forcefields, stun guns and a Magneto-looking guy making an offer to join him and change the world.

The play to my character is the airship flying overhead and a holographic projection of his mother, Lilith, asking him to join up.

I'm really going to make this long story short. The guy in charge, Dr. Impossible makes all sort of New World Order offers that scream supervillian. He's got soldiers. Asian chick servants. An airship. A secret island base. The works. Only after meeting the rest of the people he has assembled (they meet every send Thursday) do we finally figure out that these people really are a loose association of heroes lead by this guy with a flair for the dramatic, too much money and not enough genuine leadership skills.

The other players in the game finally learn Damon's codename "Brimstone." and still think evil. They probably should but, though he is a demon, that's not being about evil. Damon's mom seduces Christian Soldier. ("Mom, I though you had much better taste than that.") Every time he speaks, he reveals himself more and more to not be a real Christian. Just a right-wing neo-con wrapping himself in a cloak of righteousness. I don't like him much and none of the other heroes do either. It's going to very interesting as the game progresses and the demon begins training the so-called Christian in how to be a hero.

The first lesson is that heroes don't think.

When there was gunfire at the toy store in th last session, Christian Soldier was standing outside trying to figure out how to advance without any risk and Overgrowth had taken the form of a potted plant, waiting to see how everything went down.

Think of heroes. Not the comicbook fictionalizations of heroes but real people. Firemen who run into burning buildings. Police officers putting themselves between gunfire and bystanders. People just walking by who jump into raging floodwaters to save someone they've never met. These people are all heroes and one of the things they have in common is that they act without thinking. They don't look for ways to proceed safely. They don't consider their own safety. They don't hesitate. They act. As naturally as anyone else might take a breath or blink their eyes they jump into danger to save someone else.

"Fools rush in where angels fear to tread. And thus, are heroes made."

Marvel Super Hero RPG, Game Session 2

This week's scenario (two game weeks after the bank robbery of the last session) began with my character Damon making a delivery and pickup at Warner Center. Well, not actually Warner Center just like the game is not actually taking place in Pittsburgh. Sort of a Marvel version of Pittsburgh (just as Gotham and Metropolis are DC versions of New York). Anyway, this version of Warner Center was actually a decent urban mall and several of the other characters witnessed me entering the mall. They followed me in.

As I went from the one customer to the next, I finally noticed that someone was calling "Hey, Fire-Man." Since I had revealed myself to be self immolating, I eventually figured out it was me.

"What do you want?"

"You have superpowers."

"And you don't. Bye."

The Christian Soldier (As a player, I've learned his superhero name) demonstrates his powers by causing a wind to blow through the mall, blowing up the skirt of a nearby nun. I suppose I can appreciate that so I offer to meet them upstairs in the food court in five minutes (intending to just walk out the front door instead).

But then automatic gunfire erupts somewhere in the mall. I run up the escalator, looking for action, when I find them hesitating in front of the toy store. I run by them, past the polar bear (a minimum-wage teen with her mascot costume caught on shelving), down the isle and deliver a flying tackle to the person spraying the store indiscriminately with bullets.

It turns out to be a kid with a real gun hidden inside a toy gun. At the end of another isle there is more gunfire so I run and tackle a second kid. Meanwhile, the other two (Christian Soldier and the plant guy) have pulled some people out of the store and are questioning the manager, who is ranting about some movie merchandising.

When the cops show up, they begin explaining what was going on.

Christian Soldier says, "When I saw the kids with guns, my first thought was Islamic terrorists."

When a cop finds me in the back of the store investigating the box that the guns came in, he asks if I was with them.

"With those freaks? No."

I duck out of the store when no one is looking. Unfortunately, the other "heroes" have also been able to extricate themselves from the situation. The hulking plant guy herds us into the elevator and we make our exit. Christian Soldier says "I'm Brad and this is Scott. We want you to join our team." Scott (now transformed out of his plant form) smacks himself in the forehead at his partner's stupidity. Brad gives me his phone number so we can keep in touch. I give them my name (Why the hell not?) and a number they can call at the messenger service to get me on the radio for a "pick up."

That evening, I get a call to meet them at a Chinese restaurant. I'm told that they are going to meet God, who has been talking in Christian Soldier's head. On the second floor in a dingy apartment is an old man in a wheelchair and hooked up on oxygen."

"Well, that's a bit anticlimactic. I was hoping for Morgan Freeman."

Not really. But the story he spills is of Nazi scientists brought to the US after the war. Secret formulas. Rogue scientists. A greater battle between the forces of Good and Evil.

"Man, I am so outta' here."

The old guy reveals that he knows who I am and ties me into this whole mess. He gives a sword to Christian Soldier (who, in the last gaming session was whining about how weak his super powers were and we recommended that he get himself a holy sword) that I recognize the style of. (The GM doesn't reveal the details but I suspect that it's a truly holy relic.) The old man again comes back to me and is really cryptic as to my purpose but I get the picture, I am going to have to help prevent the end of the world.

"No, really. I'm done here."

And I get out.

I'm going to have to get in contact with the GM before the next session to spell some things out so that he doesn't write a stupid background for my character. Also, since we were playing in Bill & Walt's Game Shop, I spent some time sifting through HeroClix figures looking for something appropriate. I found a Human Torch figure that looked cool. I also found a demon chick I figured I could pull the wings off of and attach to the back of the Torch. But the check had the cool demon feet so I thought of doing some more hacking. In the end, I decided to take a knife and file to the breasts of the chick to turn it into a guy and see how that turned out. Many fewer modifications that way. I think it turned out pretty well (except that the picture makes him seem more orange than red). I can't wait for the "reveal" when Christian Soldier discovers that the bike messenger he's been working with is actually a demon.

Marvel Super Hero RPG, Game Session 1

After the somewhat spectacular collapse of the Northern Crown game we were playing, I was surprised that it's replacement happened so quickly. It was probably helped by the fact that all the rules and supplements are available online. Also, comic book plotlines are likely to be less linear. Hopefully this game will go better than the last.

The GM introduced some of the characters to me but I've forgotten most of the details. That's OK because my character will end up learning that information through game play. One player can transform into a plant-thing. Another has disintegration and illusion abilities. A third has gotten merged with a robot and the last has some weather powers. They had apparently been granted these powers by some sort of alien looking for worthy beings on which to bestow great powers and great responsibilities.

The GM indicated that the party (or "team" to use the genre's term) could use a Batman or Punisher-type of character. I looked through the powers and didn't see anything that really appealed to me so I pulled out Central Casting. CC is an out-of-print generic supplement that allows you to randomly create a person for use in a game. I started rolling and everything either came up boring (both parents still alive and together) or bad (people died when he was born, member of an evil cult, etc.) From there, an idea formed. The guy with weather control is something of a religious fundamentalist. The Holy Warrior, or something like that. Wears a pries collar and everything. I suspect that in real life the person playing him is a bit Born Again as well. To me, the answer is obvious, my character is a demon.

So, I developed a demon character. Not so much a Good vs. Evil kind of demon but Order vs. Chaos. A lot like the conflict between the Vorlons and the Shadows from "Babylon 5." As I recall one of the stories from, the Apocrypha, Lucifer was one of the highest ranked angels in the host of heaven. When God created man, he demanded that the angels bow down to them. Lucifer took exception to this form of servitude and formulated a rebellion. A third of Heaven joined him and they were eventually defeated and cast down into Hell. I'm casting this story in terms of the pure order, conformity and obedience of Heaven against the freedom, liberty and anarchy of Hell. Well, it's not quite that way but that interpretation will allow my demon character to not be evil and thus work with the heroes.

I'm taking most of my character cues from a number of demon webcomics; 6x9 College, Sacrilicious, Krakow, Maxwell the Demon, Elijah and Azuu, plus some Hellboy and Dogma thrown in. I'm trying not to take this too seriously.

I haven't quite figured out his true name yet. It's probably not important because he certainly wouldn't tell anyone on Earth what it was. The name on his college student ID is Damon L. Maxwell. He's going to school part time and earning a living as a bike messenger. He seems fairly typical for the urban cyclist crowd but it is just a mask. His true form is much more demonic; red skin, fangs, horns, claws, bat wings, hellfire, the traditional stuff.

So, the game begins with Damon taking a break and getting some lunch. A calzone and a Mountain Dew at a local pizza shop. Suddenly, gunshots ring out across the street. A bank robbery. One wouldn't expect a demon to leap to the rescue and, in point of fact, he doesn't. He could care less about the bank being robbed. But with gunshots and people getting hurt, well, he cares a little more about that. But the most important factor in setting him in motion is an opportunity to play the vigilante, beat people up and have some fun doing it. People don't typically care if the bad guys get what they've got coming to them.

So, he jumps on his bike to go fuck with the get-away driver. Except that someone else has beaten him to it. Spiders come out of the sewers and swarm the car (an illusion). And as the panicked driver hits the gas, Damon sees a plant-thing advancing on the bank. He puts two-and-two together and figures that superheros are involved. Let them deal with the bank, he's going after the driver.

After chasing him for a few blocks on his bike, he finally gets close enough to set fire to one of the vehicles tires. Another block and the driver abandons the vehicle, still not realizing that the guy on the bike is after him. Damon clotheslines him. Charging uses the endurance stat, which Damon has at the "monstrous" level. It's like being run down by the Hulk. Damon checks to make sure he didn't kill the guy then rifles through his pockets. He finds a fake ID and a few hundred dollars. He leaves the ID and pockets the cash.

He bikes back to the bank and eventually tracks gunfire into a neighboring building. He climbs a fire escape, goes in a window and eventually encounters a fight. A hero (the illusionist, apparently) is looking over a railing in the stairwell. On the next floor down, a huge scary cop with a huge scary dog (an illusion) is menacing the bad guy who is engaged in a wrestling match with the Holy Warrior. This goes on for a while and Damon merely shrugs at the illusionist. When it looks like the bad guy has gotten the upper hand and might get away, Damon jumps the rail onto him and wrestles with him. Grappling uses the strength stat, which Damon has at the "Remarkable" level. He can bench press a ton and probably punch through reinforced concrete, the bad guy's shoulders don't stand a chance. "Pop! Pop!" Damon leaves him in a heap, wishes the stunned heroes a good day and heads down the stairs.

Getting on his bike to ride off, he is suddenly enveloped by plant tendrils.

"Who are you?" the plant-thing asks. Damon instinctively immolates and the sulfurous flames cause the plant-guy to let go.

"You're calzone is ready," he says, transforms into a tumbleweed and rolls off, revealing that he recognizes Damon from the pizza shop.

So ends game one.

Neither the hero characters nor the people who play them know that my character is a demon. They know he's a preternaturally strong bike messenger who can set fire to himself but nothing more. I'm going to impress upon the GM the importance of keeping my demonic identity a secret. One, it's more dramatic that way. Two, it will allow me to become friends with the heroes before they learn that I'm a demon, preventing them from being prejudiced against the fallen. Three, if they do get judgmental, I'll be able to call them hypocrites.

Northern Crown/7th Sea game session #7

Those of you who are regular readers of my blog (And I know there may actually be one or two of you out there) may have noticed that the last posting in the continuing adventures of Orcish Grenadier Kurt von Sturmblähung was #2 way back in September. So, what has happened to sessions 3, 4, 5 and 6? Let me summarize:

After defeating the snake cult, the party's reward was mostly the loot stolen from the cult. Then there was some other sort of secret society causing trouble. The re-disappearance of the guy we were rescuing in the first place. Some high seas piracy gone bad. The snake cult again. Double-crosses. A supposedly good snake guy. Political intrigue. Triple crosses and daring escapes.

This all sounds very exciting when synopsized but there was also several game system changes. When this all started, it was going to be 7th Sea. The GM didn't like the fantasy world that only mirrored the real world so he brought up Northern Crown. This was to be the Caribbean but with magic and orcs. Northern Crown was a D20 campaign so D&D books filled in the rest. OK, then we got started. The city module he was using was Freeburg from 7th Sea. For some reason, he couldn't wrap his head around calling it Port Royal so the whole world morphed back to something more 7th Sea. I simply ignored this change and still considered Kurt to be from Bavaria instead of just some generic orcish mountain tribe. Then, the GM added "action dice". He also changed the way AC worked (absorbing damage instead of affecting to-hit probability). But then he chose a completely different game system. He took our character sheets and converted them to this new system. The new system appeared to be Deadlands, an undead western-genre game that uses multiple dice, poker chips in place of action dice and playing cards for initiative. Finally, last night, something else seemed to have changed. The combat system was using three dice instead of two and he had a book called Savage Worlds.

Having our characters unable to do the things they were originally created to do was frustrating enough but the final straw was the plot hammer.

The GM was running a module. That's all well and good but with all the double and triple crosses the party was reaching the point where we didn't trust anyone. We just wanted to get the hell out of there. But doing so would deviate from the linear nature of the module (of most modules) and the GM wouldn't allow that. The mostly empty boat that we were going to steal suddenly was full of crew members. When that plan went sour and we were arrested, we were going to cross the bay in a "launch." If the odds were even, we would have taken that boat over and made a run for it but suddenly this launch had a dozen crewmembers, something more like a sloop.

This is where the frustration reached a climax and the game collapsed with the GM throwing up his hands and saying "Fine! You attach the crew and all die. Happy now? You got what you wanted." He ranted about all the changes he had made "to make US happy." I made one pass at explaining how changing the game system multiple times was worse than operating in a flawed gaming system and that the linear nature of the campaign wasn't role playing, it was a novella and we were merely along for the ride. (I wanted to use the term "literary masturbation" but I passed on that.) While everyone else tried to assuage his ego, I packed up my stuff and walked out.

This isn't the first time I've done this either. Years ago when he was running a Star Trek game, he did the same "linear plot" thing. I had a Horta security officer as a character and when his inherent abilities (such as disguising himself as a rock and being able to burrow underground) threatened to unravel his plot, he started throwing absurd obstacles in my way. I walked out on that one, too.

I ran a Rolemaster/Middle-Earth campaign for three years and was able to keep people on plot. One key element was to have multiple plot lines. The major story arc and minor side adventures that actually fed into the arc. If they opted out of one plot hook, I could just put those elements somewhere else. The drawback is that even after that three years, we weren't half way through the arc.

I should probably try to run a game since most of my experiences over the past ten years being a player have ended poorly.