What we played this week, and what we enjoyed about it.

[Al]

D6 Evil Dead Lake Obewokehee (sp.)

3 players, 6 PCs so we took 2 each. Which was monstrously hard work but did lead to some moments of pure comedy gold as we argued between our split alter egos.

(Looking left) Travis how did you tap the brewskie keg?!
(Looking right) Dude the tap fell out of your jacket when you picked up the crazy dead cheerleading dude
(Looking left) Shee-it but how did you assimilate the knowledge to use the tap?!
(Looking right) Dude You said 'assimiliate' hurr hurr
(Looking left) slaps forehead Assimilate doesn't mean Anal!
(Looking right) I made you say 'Anal' in front of your cousin I'm gonna high five MYSELF
etc


D6 was as simple as I remembered it. The much (mis)used doesn't get in the way of the game line really applied. Liked the renaming of skills as well (Drive = burnin' rubber; Demoloitions = blowin' stuff up and so on)

Comedy US telemovie stereotypes and tropes may well have lacked intellectual rigour but were very easy to buy into.

Plus GMs funny voices made it abundently clear which NPC was sayin' what

GM let us add stuff in about backgrounds and relationships without getting precious

The sheer amount of effort which went into the various handouts and visual aids was very impressive.

[w00hoo]

The Hot War took a fairly savage turn last night with a quick trip to a parallel dimension giving all of the characters a very good reason to stick together and fight the good fight (well, 5 out of 6 of them anyway, not sure about the Captains grip on reality or allegiances thanks to that!) Oh, it presented a couple of very quotable moments including one that may have gained instant legend status!

[Evilgaz]

Hot War

Initial session was a bit D&D in its trad-osity, but showed how the rules work and established the characters.

This session built on the feel of the world, increased the idea of how the game works (rather than just dice mechanics) and had some really good scenes. Probably over did it with conflicts, notably ones that didn't really have an interesting outcome if failed... but overall very good, including a strong finish at the internment camp, with one PC narrowly avoiding getting stoned to death.

Need to work on letting the players know how to instigate their own scenes, stop being so trigger happy on the conflicts, and giving more information away "for free" (say yes or roll the dice).

Looking good for a strong third session and things kicking off for the last half of the story arc.

Word.

Gaz

[dr_mitch]

More Diaspora. The PCs got themselves deeper into trouble by taking on jobs including fuel smuggling and gun-running to gangs. The gun running got complicated when another gang ambushed the gang picking up the weapons- and killed the guy who was going to pay the PCs.

The gang also rescued the crew of a military ship that had been shot down and was within a gas giant's atmosphere- and incidentally recovered some ancient technology that was being stored on that ship.

[mr toad]

Shab Al-Hiri Roach,

AP can be found here.


Toad

[w00hoo]

Serenity using Unknown Armies.

Ran the fifth session of this on Sunday and it has taken a much appreciated up turn. The crew have been stranded on Greenleaf after crashing their Firefly in the third session and I'd been worrying that the game had lost some direction, too much adversary stifling the will to plan and move forward, but it looks like the slow burn effect of the situation has really worked out. Things are now coming to a head with a local threat becoming ever more of a worry while on the remains of the ship sparks flew when a rescued native child turned bad ending in a very tense and completely unexpected character v character confrontation over what to do next.

The next session, in a couple of weeks time hopefully, is shaping up to be very fine indeed.

[ncmreynolds]

Second week of Dark Heresy and it's going well, although that might be down to...

• The GM doesn't make us roll much so we whiff less
• The GM is a massive 40K fan and knows the background well
• We're currently working directly for an Inquisitor so can throw our weight around knowing we have backup

[Lusus Naturae]

Last Friday at the club we finished the first Episode of my Supernatural season. It's set in the UK and the first Episode was 'Something rotten in Rochester'.

I won't give any details here though as I was thinking of writing it up to run at a con.

[ncmreynolds]

A really good session of Shadowrun at Phoenix Games Club. Our GM, Brian is glossing over or narrating past the worst of the crunch so it's rocking along at a good pace.

Next week it will all undoubtedly go a bit Pete Tong as we've just shot who we thought was the bad guy. He probably was the bad guy but now all his planned bad stuff happens anyway, just without anybody at the helm.

[w00hoo]

Played the third session of the Exalted campaign (I guess you'd call it a campaign for want of a better description) and finished the starter scenario we were playing through, saving Arriva the bus goddess and gaining a Scythe of Death in the process.

Ray, my street urchin, almost got killed in one hit (from said Scythe) thanks to a failed perception type roll but as a plus side the necromancer in waiting character seems to be turning in to more of a healing cleric than a bringer of death and destruction. So that's nice.

Next month I think we start GM created adventures, so will hopefully see some more character specific stuff written in and fewer gleaming railway tracks...

[Evilgaz]

Hot War finished this week, with 5/6 agendas resolved in one way or the other. Plenty of scope for carrying on and indeed, without any prompting last week two players had already thought of wholely appropriate new agendas within seconds of completing one of their first ones. Awesome.

Pushing agendas is really the key. I was partially holding on to the vestiges of my trad heritage and trying to keep more mystery than necessary, hoarding revelatory events and trying to maintain the pace, building to a more climactic ending initially, but no, the bye word with this game is push it. No game suffers from too much pace (anyway) but particularly true in this case.

There was some disinterest in the setting per se, I know I kept drifting into 1940's rather than 60's but I guess that's because the Cold War was before my time and doesn't really resonate in the UK like it did in the US perhaps were it might be more of a genre. For Brits, I think directly post war (WWII) is a better fit, but to each his own. Either that or go 70's, but again, its a personal taste thing.

Good campaign, players at the heart of it, got to surprise them and push their buttons still. All good.

[thenovalord]

Wives work patterns gave me long gaming leash this week....

Monday: dominion card game marathon in Nottingham
Tues: Pathfinder Society, played
Wed: online C&C 3
Thursday: 3:16 rpg played,+galactic emperor boardgame
Friday: Hellfrost rpg played
Saturday: LOTR rpg, GMed, as part of east midland monthly meet all day meet, though i only stayed for one session

Im John, and Im a geek!!

[Lusus Naturae]

More Supernatural this week. Our geek hunter nearly got downed by a spirit dog. He was battling against it in a small study and was using the roller chair as defense. He got pretty beaten up but survived when our Irish hunter came leaping in with his knives.

It was a good session and showed just how vulnerable hunters can be. I'm really enjoying the Cortex system as well.

[Das]

The Irish Hunter sounds well hard (oh wait thats me)! Great game and fun. Well run and rolling with the game. Irish HUnter overconfident and we end up in a pub in Hereford (thanks for that)!!! Can't wait for Friday!

[thenovalord]

TUESDAY game cancelled due to lack of players!!

THURSDAY
-Gangs Of New Glasgow, set in the future, distant earth like planet...akin to the UN gone mad
-used GURPS at TL9 order of tech.
-Spacemaster combat
-passing of little notes
-quiet 5 minute discussions between PC and GM every so often.

despite all this, it was fun and fast paced. we where all enforcers of various factions and after much madness and use of blaster rifles ending with the party in a circle all pointing guns at each other, unsure who to shoot and who to trust. continues next week i hope.

FRIDAY
2nd edition WFRP. on-going campaign, maybe 8th session?....utterly wondered off plot in a player driven session. 2 party members fell to chaos....but being wfrp you have fate points....PanzerSi and JohnnyGrey will never be the same again.

...its almost 12 days since i GMed....blimey

SATURDAY
Family game of Dominion about to start.