[Actual Play Report] Fiasco: Saturday Night '78

When the mob hitman punched the undercover cop in the police station parking lot, I knew we had a fiasco on our hands.

The Setup

There were six of us, all veteran gamers, and all new to Fiasco except me (only by a hair's breadth, though) so I stepped back to facilitate the others. Saturday Night '78 won out over Flyover and News Channel Six. I was secretly happy because if we were gonna play Flyover I wanted in on the action, dammit!

I don't know if it we were trying too hard to connect everything at the beginning or if we just got a Setup that was more nonsensical than most, but there was an early speedbump in trying to get a coherent starting situation going. We got there eventually, but we had dry-erase markers and relationship maps drawn up, which made me wonder about getting through the game in two hours (hint: we were not done in two hours).

The situation was complicated enough at the start that 2 of the guys just used their real names for their character names. We had:

• Mitch, playing Mitch the mouthy dance club boss, a has-been former rival of
• Todd, playing Jackie the breakout disco star, coked-up daughter of a New York state senator. Her last dance partner, secretly an undercover cop assigned to protect her, was killed, and now her new dance partner was
• Matt, playing Karl Correia, an undercover cop assigned to protect Jackie, but who was still sweet on
• Ben, playing Tammie, secretly pregnant lover of Karl and
• Joe, playing Joe, mob hitman employed by Mitch to kill Tammie's twin sister, who was Jackie's dancer partner as well as an undercover cop.

Whew.

Act I

Real early on, we set up a rivalry when Joe punched Karl in the police station parking lot. Everyone got arrested, Tammie let slip she was pregnant, and most importantly, Joe's car got impounded with Tammie's dead sister in the trunk. Karl got assigned to protect Jackie and as they started training for the Discocentennial dance party to be held in Mitch's club, Mitch started plotting against Jackie. See, she was the actual target. Joe fucked up and killed Tammie's sister, Sammie, instead. Mitch gave Karl and Jackie some doctored coke but it went all wrong for Mitch. The two dancers performed like nothing anyone had ever seen, leading Mitch to start obsessing over recreating this disco super-soldier coke. Oh, and he also sent Joe to kill the right person this time.

Joe knocked out Karl on the steps of Jackie's brownstone and dragged him and the seriously impaired Jackie inside. He didn't even bother to tie her up, she was so wasted. Joe just set fire to the house and walked back to his car. Karl had come around, coaxed Jackie into fishing in his pants for his penknife, freed himself, and crashed out the window carrying Jackie - right onto the hood of Joe's car! Joe got out to flee but Tammie came out of nowhere driving Joe's car (recently freed from the impound), Sammie's corpse riding shotgun. She tagged Joe with the front fender and sent him to the pavement. That left crazy pregnant Tammie with three unconscious or incapacitated people. What to do, what to do...

Apparently what to do was take everyone to an abandoned slaughterhouse, tie them up, and start torturing them until someone told Tammie who killed her sister. It was Sammie's idea. Joe was first, since Todd was still playing Jackie as completely useless and drugged out of her mind and Karl was a cop. It was interesting here that this was Karl's scene. He had us establish it, and most of the early interaction was between Joe and Tammie, but Karl finally got all those stereotypically great lines like "You don't want to do this!" and "It'll be worse for you if you kill him!" and "It won't bring Sammie back!" Inside, Karl was wrestling with his duty as a cop to save Joe's life. Joe, the scumbag who had been banging Tammie behind his back. Tammie took bolt cutters to Joe's pinky finger and Karl made up his mind. He reached his leg up and managed to reach the ankle holster. There were two shots, then screaming, then end scene.

Jackie had the last scene of Act I, and we learned that Tammie lived but lost the baby, Joe and Karl never made it to a hospital, and Jackie was still going to dance in the Discocentennial celebration. Especially if she could get more of Mitch's crazy coke.

The Tilt

Confusion, followed by pain

A dangerous animal (possibly metaphorical) gets loose

Act II

It was really, really late when we begun Act II. All the attempts to maintain continuity and our longer-than-normal setup phase were dragging us into the wee hours, so we made a group decision to just do one scene per player for Act II. Joe started it off duct-taped to Karl's car, his hand roughly bandaged, while Karl tried to set up a meeting with Mitch somewhere public, like a zoo. Mitch just hung up (dammit, no rampaging elephants!), Karl had Joe start driving over to Mitch's club at gunpoint.

Tammie's last scene was a flash-forward. She was in court, and Jackie and Karl were there near her. All she asked them was, "Can you ever forgive me?"

Karl replied, "You need to start by forgiving yourself."

Jackie just said, "Of course I forgive you!" We weren't sure Jackie knew where she was or even what she'd been doing the last couple scenes. Or ever, really.

Then it was back to the present and Mitch's club, which was packed with people. Some of them were even there for the Discocentennial. As things progressed, however, it became apparent that most of them were undercover cops or people working for Jackie's father, Senator Wolfe (there's your dangerous animal). What happened next had the "confusion followed by pain" covered. Karl tried to accost Mitch, but Mitch had several cops on his side in his VIP room. Plus, Karl's tape recorder had been pickpocketed on his way up to Mitch. He had nothing he could use to touch Mitch. Mitch, who was Senator Wolfe's biggest drug supplier. It was the 70s, man.

Aftermath

We were all amazed at how prescient the Aftermath table results were. Even though Mitch tried his damndest to "win" in the narrative, most of the other players picked up on the strategy of poisoning a player's dice pool with mixed dice. Meanwhile, Todd (Jackie) wasn't really doing anything to antagonize anyone, either in-game or out, so although Jackie ended up with a small pile of dice, it was a monochrome pile.

• Mitch (white 2): Mitch failed at disco dancing, and with the heat and suspicion brought on by the Discocentennial debacle, he failed at being a drug dealer. Mitch could never move on, though. Year after year, he'd travel to more and more backward countries as disco died, trying to recapture his heyday and failing every single time.
• Joe (white 6): Joe avoided jail time because there was no conclusive evidence that he'd killed Sammie. He learned an important lesson about doing work for drug addicts, however, and kept his head down after that. A little smarter, a little older, and with nothing to show for his efforts, Joe kept on in much the same way he always had as the 1980s crept over the horizon.
• Tammie (white 2): Tammie was convicted for the murder of her sister and went to fucking jail, where he still saw Sammie's corpse from time to time. Sometimes it rocked a small bundle in its arms.
• Karl (white 5): Karl got thrown off the force for good and ended up manning a tollbooth. His existence was so banal he almost didn't notice that the latest guy to drive through the tolls was missing his pinky finger. Karl looked up in surprise and recognition, but the man was already gone.
• Jackie (white 11): Jackie danced her way to the Discocentennial championships and won. Her coked-up meandering through life (and the lottery of being born a senator's daughter) ensured she never pissed anyone off so badly that they tried to kill her again.

We all loved Fiasco. What I'd probably do next time is, now that we have several people in the group who have experience with it now, is split any future games into 3 or 4 player chunks, as they recommend in the books. I also wouldn't worry so much about keeping internal consistency, because that really dragged the time out. Shorter scenes, more dialogue, less attachment to the characters. There's a very strange effect that happens where you know going into Fiasco that the dude you're playing is not going to make it out in one piece, but goddammit, you try anyway. You try like hell.

I Kissed a Pathfinder..and I Liked It (Pathfinder)

If you have been following this blog - and if you have, thank you! - you will be no stranger to my personal ambivalence towards d20 based games.

Why ambivalent? Well, like most of my generation, I started in this hobby by playing D&D; the original d20 game, back before d20 became a thing-unto-itself. So for me, d20 is the baseline by which all other games evolved outwards from. I can't really hate d20; d20 is my roots, after all. And within it are the basic building blocks for the hobby itself.

But...I've moved on, right? I have other, more advanced - more modern - game systems to play. Fate! Dungeon World! If I want a crunchy d20 game to play, I can spy Fantasy Craft right there on my shelf, waiting to be explored.

Plus, I've played a D&D 3.5 game, and I found the whole experience utterly lamentable. The basic problem was we had GM who was utterly committed to playing the game RAW with no exceptions: but really, if any game played RAW is a dull game, then it's just a bad game system. Right?

Right.

But...well, then there's Pathfinder. The sexier younger sister to D&D 3.5, with the beautiful art and presentation, with the legendarily well-written and flavorful modules ('Adventure Paths'), play-tested and fan-supported, all wrapped up in a cute little bow by local Seattle-area gaming studio Paizo.

Pathfinder always intrigued me. But not enough to play the damned thing. I flipped through the main book, and the modules, and the innumerable splat books with interest and appreciation..and then put them back on the shelf of my FLGS. Great stuff guys...but no thanks.

Flashback to 2012: looking for some gaming aids for my ongoing Fantasy Craft campaign, I stumbled across the Pathfinder Beginner Box. Complete with a playmat, some artful 'pawns' (cardboard miniatures), and set of dice, for just under $30.00? Sure..why not!?



And my gaming group used the hell out these tools: the dice rounded out my polyhedral collection well, and the map and pawns got plenty of use in our Fantasy Craft campaign. As for the rest - the character sheets and pregens, the Game Master Guide and Heroes Handbook- these stayed in the box as curiosity. Flipped through, but unread and unused.

Flash-forward to 2014. It's 8am on Saturday morning, and I'm packing up my stuff for Go-Play NW 2014. Gary has a supers game set for the day...but I've got nothing at all prepped to run. My eye spies the Pathfinder Beginner Box, and I think: sure, why not? If we have a spare moment during the day, I can run this. Easy-peasy.

Long story short: such a spare moment appeared, and I wound up running a game using the Black Fang's Dungeon scenario from the book. The result? I loved running it, and my group had a great time enjoying an old-school dungeon-crawl.

Before we go any further, note that I made some minor rules modifications before we even got started:

• I failed to bring the playmat and minis, so movement and range were made to be largely narrative: Close (melee range), Near (penalty-free ranged attacks) and Far (ranged attacks at -2). Characters were allowed to move one 'zone' for free, or two by giving up an action.
• Skill use was based on narrative justification: if you could justify the use of the skill, it was valid. If the book said 'Knowledge: Religion' was needed for the check, then 'Knowledge: Arcana' could sub as well.
• Penalties for firing into melee combat? Attacks of opportunity? All narrative: the GM says when this stuff matters. If it slows things down or makes the experience suck..it doesn't matter.
• You had to narrate what you were doing to do it. Attacking a goblin? Tell me how you are doing it! You succeed and kill a goblin? Narrate that shit: I want some cinematic flavor at my table, or it's all just boring numbers.

In short, I was running the game using Pathfinder mechanics to modify rolls, but acting like I was GM'ing a game of Dungeon World. And it worked like a dream, and fun was had by all.

What's the take-away from this experience?

For me, it's that any game system can be fun, provided that everyone - players and GM included - are committed to having fun. The minute that any rule gets in the way of that, that rule should immediately be abolished or ignored. 

Secondarily - but just as important - don't ever think of the players as agents that derail your story. They are there to contribute to the story. The players will do things not imagined by you or the module's designers: in this case, improvise!  

In the case of this module the scenario suggested either a resolution as a physical conflict or a diplomatic one: in reality, it was both with the players slaying King Fatmouth and interrogating a charmed goblin;  I chose as GM to provide the 'diplomatic solution' info via the charmed goblin, as this seemed the logical reward to this cautious approach. The story was thus adjusted based on player initiative, rather than being derailed altogether. 

So will I be running more Pathfinder games in the future? 

Sadly, the answer to this seems to be 'no'. My gaming group prefers the flavor found in newer - and more narrative, and flexible - game systems like Fate: as soon as I suggested we play Pathfinder ongoing the conversation led to talk of Fate Freeport being used for fantasy gaming. Which is great: I loves me some Fate gaming.

So for now, Pathfinder will have to live in inside of it's little Beginners Box, unloved and hardly played. But we did have a moment, once.

And I liked it. 

***

Actual Play: Fate Core (Highway to Hell)

I've been running a Fate campaign about monster-hunting bikers for a year or two now. We started with the Dresden Files RPG, then converted over to Fate Core when that Kickstarter took off. This was our 15th session, and effectively a season 2 finale.

A bit of background: I use the Dresden Files bestiary in most respects, but politically the supernatural world is more like the TV show Supernatural, with small nests or cells of monsters instead of secret nations like in Dresden (although there is room for some government conspiracy).

In this session, our heroes start to use and then completely ignore John Rogers' excellent Crimeworld supplement from the Fate Core Worlds in Shadow book, we bring in every character any player has played in the campaign, and I kill a PC.

Pretty much.

The "serious business" name for the campaign is "Highway to Hell", but my group just calls it Dresdenatural.  Here we go.

Session 15 - The Windy City (Season Finale)

Reward: Phat Lewt (and lots of it!)

Who was there?

Scott Specter, "Mean Motherfucking Servant of God".

Carter Mews, "Arcane Acquisitions Expert".

Clayton Haycock James, "Marine Recon Biker".

Ajaz Gurt, "Relentless Nephilite".

Rick Eagle, "Avenging Roadie".

THE ROAD SO FAR

Last time, the gang captured Magog’s denarius and acquired up-to-date intel on their nemesis, the denarian Pantagruel, and the corporate offices of Crowley-Lampkin he was currently using as his base of operations. It was time to put down the demon and rip off his vault full of magical artifacts. The only snag was that the gang had Magog’s denarius in hand. I set up this session to open with a hard choice - do they take the time to properly secure the denarius but potentially lose their intelligence advantage against the vault’s defenses, or do they go straight to Chicago but carry the cursed coin with them?

As it turns out, Bill Stockburn’s player canceled at the last minute. It was disappointing, as Bill used to be host to Pantagruel and I really wanted him there to face down his nemesis, but you play the hand you’re dealt. I decided that the group entrusted the denarius’ removal to Bill, allowing them to hit Crowley-Lampkin immediately without the temptation of a fallen angel hovering over them.

The All or Nothing Box

The gang planned the heist / assassination in their usual spot - a threadbare room at the Hacienda Courts motel chain outside Chicago. They were calling all their contacts, cashing in all their favors, and holding nothing back. Going in with nothing less than their full resources would be foolhardy.

Luckily, we had a new player! Rick Eagle was a roadie for a metal band that was slaughtered by a demon. As the most likely suspect, Rick Eagle (SCREECH!) traded his old life for vengeance and righteous monster-slaying mayhem, teaming up with Scott and Clay to take down his band’s killer. Rick didn’t bring a lot of occult experience to the gang (“Has the Will But Not the Skill”), but as a roadie, he was an expert pyrotechnician and all around handyman.

Someone knocked at the door. Jimmy Pale Wolf stood there, six-packs in both hands. This was my replacement for our normal round of Create Advantage rolls - every player character we ever had or any suitable NPC contact on friendly terms could be called in to help on the job. A few of the help would be compels due to reliability issues, and all of them would require a cut of the take. That said, however, each contact or favor called in could cover parts of the heist that would be time-consuming or boring to have a PC handle.

Little by little, the motel room started to get pretty crowded:

• Jimmy Pale Wolf, “Shaman Vigilante”. Jimmy’s player was an intermittent attendee but our schedules were such that he only ever played Jimmy once, back in the second session.
• Kathryn Bryant, “Hot Slice of P.I.”. Kathryn’s player was at college, but Kathryn had been a valuable member of the gang, and more recently, possessed Bonney’s Bane, a magic bullet that made her immune to gunfire.
• Joseph “Josey” Wales, “High Plains Drifter”. Carter’s player, Scott’s player, and I visited our friend in Austin, and I ran a session for those three guys. Josey was our Austinite friend’s character, a shooter somewhere between Michael Biehn in Tombstone and Norman Reedus in the Walking Dead.
• Lucy Collins showed up next, and the “Goth Witch Antichrist” was the first helper for whom I offered compels. This wasn’t because of Lucy herself - Lucy was more or less a team player, in the same way Wolverine is a team player when he’s with the X-Men. No, the compel was for Bad Car, the evil black Charger Lucy half-stole, half-created from their run-in with some backwoods hillbilly orks.

Next up were a few NPC contacts:

• Carter tracked down Warfield and got in touch with the former Crowley-Lampkin thug. The gang helped Warfield escape from a corrupt SWAT team back in Vegas in return for him cluing them in on Houdini’s Key, which they swiped from under Pantagruel’s nose in Austin. Warfield was down with giving his former employers a black eye.
• Finally, Clay called up the Scooby Gang, a group of junior monster hunters who had encountered the PCs in Kansas City and again in Louisiana - Fred Bundy, Sonny Falco, and their pet Black Shuck. This was another opportunity for compels, as Fred and Sonny were only borderline competent, but they did have a van. Vans are great for carrying lots of stuff, such as the contents of magical vaults.

Next, we went over what the PCs actually knew about Crowley-Lampkin’s security, the vault contents, and Pantagruel. I had written up the loot on 3x5 index cards and placed them picture-side-up in front of everyone. Carter took point on the Overcome roll, aided by a few created advantages or boosts. They decided to use Jimmy Pale Wolf’s’ occult knowledge here as well, and were able to identify roughly a third to half of the items. The gang figured they wouldn’t be able to bring all of the artifacts with them. There was a rowboat and a guillotine, for example. Furthermore, they didn’t want some of the items left in anyone’s hands. The plastic candy bowl, for example, or the Shroud of Lazarus. Rick Eagle could handle demolitions work, claiming it was easier than pyrotechnics. When you did pyro for rock shows, you didn’t want to actually blow anything up.

I Don’t Think This is a Brains Kind of Operation

The players entered their planning stage. We were all pretty gun-shy when it came to planning in RPGs after some real time-wasters, so the group was fairly efficient at tossing out overcomplicated but safe plans, focusing on plans that were simple, loud, and dumb.

They decided to split the party.

Kathryn and Warfield would handle Crowley-Lampkin’s lobby and any initial security response from inside the building, then Warfield would move outside to assist Lucy and Bad Car with the frightfully entertaining but dangerous task of holding off the inevitable police response. Clay, Scott, and Ajaz would head up the executive elevator, lock it down, and try to kill Pantagruel in his office. Josey would be in position on a neighboring building with a .50 caliber rifle, covering the windows in case Pantagruel attempted to simply break through the glass and fly away. As a secondary role, Josey would keep police helicopters out of the area.

That left Carter and Rick Eagle to hit the 13th floor where the vault was. Because Crowley-Lampkin had a team on site to research the growing number of artifacts, the vault was open during daytime hours. A few human guards, a very sophisticated cloud-based video surveillance system, and a few magical traps protected the treasure. Stealth wasn’t really on the table, so Rick decided he could bring a few barrels of explosives up with them to destroy any magical items they couldn’t take with them or decided were a threat.

Finally, the Scooby Gang would be waiting in their van, ready to transport the loot to a safe location. The PCs didn’t really trust them with anything else, and there would be gang members in the van during the escape, to make sure Fred and Sonny didn’t doublecross them.

A Plan is Just a List of Things That Don’t Happen

The plan relied on speed and violence, which are two areas the gang excelled at. Additionally, I didn’t want to compel too much at this point, because it was honestly a pretty good plan, and took the group’s weaknesses into account as much as their strengths. Besides, I like heists, and why would I want to stomp all over this one right as it started? So the gang took the lobby and split up like clockwork. There was no attempt at stealth, so Pantagruel and his top henchmen were immediately alerted. The denarian immediately started gathering magical power (Creating Advantages for the inevitable throwdown or potential escape) and started packing a large duffel with books and a laptop and some other files. The PCs hadn’t even made it to his floor yet and Pantagruel, thanks to his “Starscream Syndrome” aspect, already had one foot out the door.

When the elevator door opened onto Pantagruel’s library and office floor, two men bull-rushed their way into the car! Mr. Rosdower and Mr. Troy were Pantagruel’s youngest but most combat-capable henchmen, and they turned the elevator car into a mess of elbows and headbutts. Unfortunately, they got the elevator car carrying Clayton Haycock James, and Clayton Haycock James wasn’t fazed by elbows. Scott locked down the elevator once Clay got the two assailants out into the library floor. It was a close match until Clay and Ajaz managed to land some consequences, then the free invocations turned the tables against Rosdower and Troy. The PCs left the henchmen unconscious and battered but breathing and went to corner Pantagruel.

Upstairs, Carter and Rick Eagle opened their elevator doors onto a pair of security guards who clearly weren’t expecting two bikers hiding behind a hand-cart full of explosives. The presence of the pyrotechnics made the guards hesitate long enough for Rick and Carter to bum rush them and, despite some surprisingly good rolls on the unnamed minions’ part, knock them the hell out. The thief and the roadie figured the vault itself would have protection as well, so Carter climbed up into the ventilation shafts while Rick rolled the explosives down the corridor towards the vault. As part of his reaction to heavily-armed monster hunters blowing through his corporate headquarters, Pantagruel sat his most experienced henchman on the vault. Mr. Ransom should have been accompanied by Mr. Bale, but since the PCs had locked down both elevators, Bale was relegated to using the stairs and wouldn’t arrive for a while. That left Ransom on his own, who noticed Carter sneaking through the vents. A brief but furious firefight ensued, with Carter falling out of the ceiling and Rick once again using explosives as cover, but I compelled everyone to run out of ammo. The gunfight turned into a fistfight, which turned into an odd sort of standoff with everyone kind of sitting down, exhausted, and thinking real hard about the life choices they had made that got them into this whole mess. Rick Eagle broke up the quasi-professional moment of understanding between Carter and Ransom by knocking Ransom out. Carter and Rick high-fived and Carter got to work cracking the vault door.

D.A.R.E. To Keep Kids Off Denarii

One level below the fracas at the vault, Clay, Scott, and Ajaz were prowling through Pantagruel/Alex Abel’s library. Step one: force Pantagruel to take his denarian form by setting off the fire suppression system. They had thought ahead and were all wearing firefighter-style SCBA masks, because any fire suppression system meant to work in a library would probably work by smothering the oxygen, not spraying water everywhere, and a lack of oxygen would more than likely flush the demon out.

Sure enough, the hunters heard Josey Wales’ radio chatter confirming Pantagruel about to burst through his office windows and escape. Several .50 caliber rifle rounds tore through the library level a moment later, narrowly missing our heroes but forcing Pantagruel back inside and right into their path. The denarian unloaded a terrifying lightning blast powered by his stored advantages, dealing Severe consequences to Scott and Ajaz but only a Mild to Clay - between dumb luck, some fate points, and some well-chosen stunts, Clay fought through the sizzling energy and buried a trinitite shiv in Pantagruel’s belly. After his alpha strike, the demonic librarian was on the ropes against the party’s three close combat experts. They traded hits but Pantagruel was taking on consequences like the Titantic took on water. Ajaz was a “Relentless Nephilite”, Scott was a “Mean Motherfucking Servant of God”, and Clay “Fights Like an Engine”. There was no way they would let Pantagruel live, but… Scott was also “Driven By Redemption”. He might let Alex Abel go, if the CEO gave up Pantagruel’s coin.

Pantagruel’s feathers sloughed off and he shifted back into a battered and limping human. The denarius bounced along the floor and rolled right at Ajaz. I miscalculated here - I knew Scott wouldn’t pick it up and Clay was too paranoid, so I figured Ajaz would be the weakest link, but I forgot what he was good at. Ajaz wasn’t bad in a fight, but he had willpower out the ass and even had a special stunt, “Defiance”, that gave him a +2 against supernatural coercion and fear. He was the perfect party member to pick up the coin. Also, he never really touched it, since he always wore fireproof gloves when handling his flaming whip. Score one for the good guys!

We essentially negotiated Alex Abel’s concession from combat. He was losing his company and his denarius, and was crossing over into the Nevernever courtesy of the one magic item they let him keep - ruby slippers. The fact that the area around Crowley-Lampkin’s vault connected with the Nevernever via an insanely dangerous ur-dungeon colloquially known as Undermountain was not lost on the players. Abel was trading certain death by monster hunter for an uncertain but very likely death on the other side, and the PCs were okay with that.

Kill Things and Take Their Stuff

Outside, Kathryn, Lucy, and Warfield were up to a three or four GTA wanted level. The gang didn’t have much time before their hired help would have to bail. Scott, Clay, and Ajaz met up with Carter and Rick in the vault, and I revealed all the artifacts I had prepared for the session - including the final intrusion countermeasure. Hydra’s teeth, planted in the tasteful interior landscaping around the vault and adjacent office space, erupted out into giggling, gibbering skeleton warriors!

Why are skeletons always the most jovial of the undead? I blame Army of Darkness.

I treated the onrushing skeletal horde as a round-by-round Overcome action against an ongoing difficulty of 2. Characters could choose to attack the horde (destroying a skeleton on a success and two with success with style), defend another character (destroying 1 skeleton on a success with style but otherwise stopping harm from coming to someone else regardless), or take another action (like help Carter crack the vault, set the explosive charges, load up loot, or create advantages to help the heavy hitters take down the horde). Failure typically meant taking stress equal to the margin of failure. Mechanically, this worked really great, and I’d totally use it again for a Challenge-type situation with a little more bite to it than a simple set of three rolls, but where a conflict against mooks wouldn’t call for fully-opposed rolls. The gang also protected Mr. Ransom from the skeletons, earning the now-former henchman’s professional respect. They’d part without animosity, even if they wouldn’t be exchanging Christmas cards.

Rick Eagle does good work.

With Rick Eagle’s explosives in place and the desirable artifacts packed up, the gang headed back to the elevators and down to the Scooby Gang’s van. The NPCs running police interference scattered as Josie Wales covered their escape from his rooftop, then the Texan gunslinger used a wingsuit of all things to glide to safety. The gang divided up the take in the back of the van, got back to their bikes, and scattered. They would meet back up later after the heat died down, which gave me the perfect window of opportunity to kill Carter Mews.

Get Carter

A bit of backstory for the overly dramatic previous sentence: Carter’s player had been thinking about a new character for a while, and we had talked it over together. This session was a great breakpoint to switch characters - Alex Abel and Crowley-Lampkin were primarily Carter’s nemeses and they were now going to be relegated to background threats after the thrashing they just received.

Carter split off from the gang to secure his take at one of his Chicago safe houses. He had just about finished when he heard the light scratch of slippers on concrete behind him. Alex Abel stepped out of the shadows, gun in hand and worse for wear, ruby slippers twinkling on his feet. The former CEO knew Carter’s old safe houses and made it out of the Nevernever just in time for a brief monologue and some murder.

Carter spun, his own pistol raised, and both men shot each other. As Abel lay dead beside him, Carter felt his spirit slipping away, pulled from his body by supernatural forces. Carter woke up in a noose with an angry sunset blazing behind him. He was trapped inside the painting he had stolen from Nick Van Owen’s house in session 12! The eldritch artwork acted like a phylactery, trapping the soul of the owner should that person die. Carter’s meager thanks (after all, he WAS still in a noose) was cut short as a spectral centaur flickered into unlife before the gallows. The creature’s face was covered by a luchador mask, and ribbons festooned his biceps in the style of the Ultimate Warrior. This was a compel I’d been waiting to drop ever since Carter stole the gold from some centaurs in Hades, preventing them from crossing the River Styx. He had subsequently paid off all but one during a battle with some backwoods orks. This last luchador ghost centaur had refused Carter’s payment, opting for the slow burn of vengeance instead of paradise.

His quarry was a ghost now, same as him, and trapped in a gallows to boot. Justice would be served.

Use your imagination for the horse half. You're welcome.

Season Finale

Well, that’s pretty much it. We actually played this session 3 months ago, and the recap was compiled over several weeks as my memory got hazier. Ajaz Gurt’s currently the keeper (but not wielder) of Pantagruel’s coin. Crowley-Lampkin is in the wind, its supernatural collection destroyed or stolen, and its mundane dealings under intense federal scrutiny following the discovery of a dead CEO in a storage unit outside Chicago next to a notorious thief. Although the gang gave away a lot of the stolen items to their allies as part of their take, their collective power level’s jumped up thanks to the artifacts they decided to keep. Project BLACKBOX will be hunting the PCs more seriously now, since Crowley-Lampkin and BLACKBOX had several backdoor government contracts in place. The Denarians are still a threat as well - perhaps a greater one than ever, since the gang took out two of their number within a few days. Ajaz Gurt learned of an ancient conspiracy seeking the destruction of all nephilim - they killed his parents, and will no doubt come for him in due time. Finally, Carter’s player’s new character brings new enemies to the table as well.

Actual Play: Lasers & Feelings

What you hope to avoid in FTL

Two coworkers and I gave Lasers & Feelings a shot, a one-page RPG for doing some light and fast sci-fi stuff. It's set up to be generically Trekkish, but we agreed to tweak our assumptions to be more like the space roguelike FTL.

I got thrown under the GM bus, and rolled the following for Space Adventure:

• A Rogue Captain 
• Wants to Build/Synthesize 
• A Pirate Kingdom 
• Which Will Reverse Time

While I boggled over how I could make something make enough sense out of those results to be playable, Joe and Chris went through the very simple 4-step character creation process.

Clarke Isaacs is totally not this guy

Joe made Clarke Isaacs, a Dangerous Engineer (4) whose goal was to Keep Being Awesome. Chris made Mono, the Raptor's Android Doctor (3) who loved solving Weird Space Mysteries.

Isaacs and Mono convinced the crew (rolling above their Feelings number) that they needed to find some riches to possibly purchase more medical pods because Captain Darcy, incapacitated during an encounter with an implacable and malevolent Pregame Metaplotholian Entity, was clinging to life in the ship's sole pod.

Also, with the captain incapacitated, they were no longer receiving pay.

Isaacs used the ship's sensors and found a distress call in a nebula, but it was a pirate trap (he failed the Lasers roll)! A 20-year-older eyepatched Captain Darcy flying a junky-looking but dangerous pirate ship attacked them (after some failed Feelings attempts). Both crews ran to their starfighters, including the PCs. During the battle, Mono managed to get his ship disabled and started drifting helplessly through the nebula. He used his android tech to hack an enemy fighter, but screwed it up so instead of ejecting its pilot, it ejected him right into Mono and they spun off into space sans ship.

Isaacs tried to tractor beam them both back, but he had to slow down and Evil Captain Darcy was able to shoot down his fighter too. Now the two PCs plus one alien pirate were floating in space, so Isaacs made a jetpack out of the poor alien's airtank and they boarded Darcy's ship, which was... from the future! Mono talked to the AI on the ship and learned that it was indeed their own captain who was attacking them. Had their timeline continued unchanged, the Raptor's crew's lust for riches would turn into full piracy and they would never try to heal their captain. Eventually, the poor medical pod figures out what was wrong, heals Darcy, he wakes up pissed, kills his crew, and finds an alien race grateful for his help in some past endeavor, and they send him back in time to make sure things progress differently.

Back in the present, Isaacs accidentally convinced the AI that it should be unto a god and it opened all the airlocks, happily solving the issue of the pirates attacking them. Yay! It then started plotting a course around a nearby star that would bathe the remaining lifeforms inside its hull with deadly radiation. Boo!

Working together, Mono and Isaacs rolled bunches of Lasers dice, wrecked the AI, stole the advanced medical pods from its sickbay, and healed Captain Darcy from their timeline.

We stopped there because... paradox. If the Captain's healed in their timeline, he never comes back with a future ship with the advanced tech needed to heal him ZOMG 5000XP let's go back to work now.

Great Scott!

Lasers & Feelings was a blast. We finished the whole thing in about 40 minutes. It does what it says and doesn't do much more, but that's fine. It works really well when you're thinking on your toes and can chain one disaster into the next. So... like... nearly every gaming session I've been in, then. Give it a try!

***

Four-Color FAE: Supers Gaming via Fate Accelerated - pt11

New Sentinels member Arrowhead takes aim

As promised, here is a synopsis of the first gaming session of our Four-Color Supers game, New Sentinels, powered by FAE.  

There is no discussion about game-mechanics in the synopsis itself, but I will be examining how they came into play in the postscript. 

***
Game Synopsis - New Sentinels, Issue 1: "With Great Power..." pt1

As evening sets upon the metropolis of New Troy, team organizer Emma summons the New Sentinels to their HQ, The Ready Room.

Jimmy (Quorum) is already on the scene, working upstairs at the Ready Room Bar & Grill as a bar-back. Excusing himself to his boss Molly (who knows that the bar is a front for the team HQ), he and Emma board the elevator down to the team HQ below.

Meanwhile, Touchstone Industries President Max Monroe is in a board meeting when he gets the call. Quickly ducking out of the meeting, he races across town at supersonic speeds, arriving just as the elevator doors close; already suited up and ready in his heroic identity...Mercury Man!

At this moment Lance (Arrowhead) is cleaning up throw-up on aisle 9 at H-Mart. Answering the call, he charms his female boss into letting him leave early, slowly making his way through rush-hour traffic via moped to meet up with the team.

New Sentinels HQ, 'The Ready Room': interior

Manning the teams super-computer, resident teen-aged supers expert Taryn Reid gives the low-down along with Emma:

Although the Inca treasures for the upcoming 'Secrets of the Inca' exhibition at the Schliemann Museum of Antiquities arrived safe and sound, the Inca mummies bound for exhibition did not: and the panicked government of Peru has asked for the team's help, provided that they use the utmost discretion.

As Arrowhead finally arrives on the scene, the team decides to visit the landed plane formerly carrying the mummies, now parked in an abandoned airfield in Baja California, Mexico.

Mercury Man offers to race ahead and investigate, but Emma wants the entire team on this. So instead they load up the team jump-jet with Quorum piloting. The track lights guide the way to the hidden cliff side exit, and with a whoosh! the team is off and away.

*

Arriving in Mexico a few hours later, the team is confronted by skeptical Mexican federales. But Quorum - using his super-intelligence gained when split - has learned fluent Spanish on the flight: and while he distracts the police Mercury Man and Arrowhead investigate the abandoned airplane.

What they find there is disturbing: the pilot on the black box describes a bizarre 'green light' stopping the plane mid-flight, before cutting out completely. Investigating the cases holding the ancient mummies in the storage area yields even more worrisome information: they are clearly empty, and show signs of being broken out of from the inside.

The only other evidence left behind from this strange crime is a symbol - clearly Mesoamerican in origin - burned into the ceiling of the storage compartment of the craft.

All of which begs the question: what happened to the missing crew?

Quorum tackles the question with his duplicates - and finds evidence of footsteps leading into the wilderness beyond. Mercury Man acts immediately on this new lead, by racing into the night and searching every nook and cranny until he finds the missing flight crew and passengers: tied up, and dazed by thirst and exposure, but still thankfully alive. One by one he carries them at breakneck speed before depositing each on the tarmac.

At last useful, the Mexican federal police act to provide the surviving crew of the downed flight with food, beverages and blankets. Using the flashy charm he normally reserves for the opposite sex, Arrowhead is able to glean more information about the fate of the doomed flight from the now recovering crew and passengers:

Each remembers the strange green light surrounding - and then stopping - the plane, before they themselves were frozen in place by it.

Then memories of a presence- more felt than seen- moving through the plane, before it and a group of shambling figures led them into the woods, binding them helpless to the surrounding copse of trees.

Finally, they described a terrifying circle of greenish light, as the figures and their apparent leader vanished before their very eyes!

With this, our New Sentinels conclude that they have learned all that they could here: and further care of the members of the flight as well as the plane itself are best left to the Peruvian and Mexican governments.

Wary with concern about what they have learned thus far, our heroes re-board the jump-jet and begin the supersonic flight home.

While in the air they forward the photos taken of the mystic image burned on the plane's ceiling; Taryn's analysis reveals it to be a pre-Colombian representation of the Inca god Supay: Lord of the Underworld, and Prince of Demons.

Instinctively concluding that the next target of whatever force downed the plane might be at the museum itself, they vow to stand guard over the treasures there, waiting for whoever- or whatever- might come to claim them.

*

New Sentinels team Jump-Jet: CAD model shown

The jump-jet lands in the parking lot of the Schliemann Museum of Antiquities in the dead of night.

Having radioed ahead, the museum security team is already aware that the team is coming to help, and they are given the 'grand tour' of the museum by flashlight courtesy of security head George Smart.

While Arrowhead and Mercury Man enjoy the sights - Arrowhead being careful to stay within seeing distance of the Inca treasures - for his part, Quorum keeps one split in the museum, sending the rest out into the crisp April night air to patrol the perimeter.

Quorum notes how very quiet the Paris Hill neighborhood is compared to his own neighborhood, where the thin walls of his apartment shares the music, arguments and lovemaking to all that care to listen. But this reverie is broken up when he sees a flash of greenish light flare bright, and then quickly fade on the roof of the museum.

He then immediately radios a heads up the team; and true to form, Mercury Man instinctively races up to the rooftop to be first on the scene.

There he finds seven figures: swaddled head to toe in black ski-gear, complete with masks. Way too much coverage for a crisp spring evening....even for burglars.

Having caught his opposition by surprise, Mercury Man attacks one of the figures with lightning-quick speed; the figure loses it's balance in the tussle, and goes tumbling off the roof: landing with a sickening thud below!

Mercury Man has no time to wonder if he has accidentally killed a man though, as the remaining six figures rapidly close in on him with apparent murderous intent...

Meanwhile in the museum gallery below, Quorum regroups his splits into one before racing up the stairway to the rooftop. Not wanting to mess with the stairs, Arrowhead wills a psionic arrow and grappling line into being; he shoots into a skylight above, then contracts the line until he rapidly accelerates to - and through! - it, emerging from a spray of shattered glass onto the roof.

Mercury Man is grappled by a particularly burly interloper - but he manages to free himself at the cost of leaving part of his costume behind, and off-balance from the experience.

Arrowhead sees a teammate in trouble...but before he can react he catches the attention of two of the interlopers himself, who begin to make a bee-line straight towards him! He doesn't hesitate though: drawing back his 'bow' he fires a psionic arrow at one.

It falls lifeless to the floor; more than lifeless, really, as it seems to be frozen into place and lands like a fallen statue.

As Mercury Man dodges and weaves fluidly though the clumsy attacks of the cloaked figures, noting Quorum finally arriving at the rooftop door via stairs as he splits into his five duplicates...

The final panel of this issue is a splash-page; viewpoint behind Arrowhead's drawn bow, and looking towards Quorum and the Mercury Man surrounded by black-clad figures.

***
Postscript:

What I hope reads here as the tightly plotted first act of an action movie (mystery revealed, investigation, and first contact with the opposition), really was just a lot of me floundering as a GM to play catch-up with my players. It somehow had not occurred to me that the team would want to investigate the landed airplane itself, so I had to make up much of what they found there on-the-fly. 

Nor did I think that they would have the wherewithal to stake out the museum at night: during which time I had planned for exactly nothing to occur! 

But it all worked out pretty well either way, and when we wrapped things up that evening mid-battle both Pete and Gary (playing Quorum and Mercury Man, respectively) were excited to see what emerged next session. Arrowhead's player, Shay, was a bit less enthused- but that is a story for another day. 

There was a bit of a learning curve for everyone involved: this was the very first time Gary and Pete had played FAE - though both were familiar with Fate Core - and there was some discussion about what the characters could and could not do on occasion. Shay in particular struggled with this, as he is more accustomed and comfortable with 'crunchy' systems.

On my end, I suspect that the past year and a-half of fantasy GM'ing really impacted the flavor of the sort of narrative I was prepared to present in play: I played my cards close to my chest, and cranked up the 'mysterious' knob to eleven. Which isn't at all bad, just maybe not the tone I should have set for the campaign at the get-go. 

If I run another supers game in the future, I will instead follow my gut and start with a bank-robbery, or an adventure in an undersea base. You can't go wrong with either of those options. :-)

Having said all of that...the mechanics worked great! We had a speedster, an archer, and a duplication guy operating side-by-side with no real gap in overall effectiveness between any character. As this was the main design goal for using FAE to begin with, I'm putting the choice to use the system itself in the 'win' column.

***
Next Issue: Night Battle at the Museum!

***
The Ready Room (Google Docs)

Four-Color FAE: Supers Gaming via Fate Accelerated - pt10

New Sentinels member, Quorum

***
Heroes Assembled!: First Session, World and Character Creation

It's been a while since my last post about playing Four-Color FAE; but as of this writing we are currently five sessions in, and so far it's been a blast.

As we will be exploring in future posts, Fate Accelerated has managed to work as well in practice for Supers play as I hoped that it would in theory. Any problems encountered at the gaming table thus far have been due to my shortcomings as a GM, rather than being system-related.

***
If have read my earlier posts, you will know that I already had a clear picture of the outline of our game-world before our group sat down to play. As the game's GM, I felt that it was a good idea to establish from the outset what sort of world I did - and did not - want to build stories in. My basic expectations were:

• No grimdark. Although I certainly wanted to avoid playing a G-rated game with no real consequences, I wasn't interested in playing a game of grey vs grey morality, complete with girlfriends being located in refrigerators. This should be game of heroes vs villains, rated PG...or PG-13 at worst.

• The PC's are awesome. Fitting back into the 'no grimdark' rule, this shouldn't be the sort of supers game where the heroes are so outmatched that they can barely make a difference. Every player at the table should be confident that their hero has what it takes to save the day...even if at a cost.

• A world of wonder. Everyone - including the GM - has permission to do crazy, amazing stuff in play within the bounds of their character and/or the story concept. As in superhero comics, the fantastic should regularly rub shoulders with the mundane as friendly neighbors.

Fortunately for me, the players agreed that this was also the sort of game that they were looking to play as well: helped by the fact that two of them - Pete and Gary - were both fans of the modern animated SC Universe, especially Justice League, Young Justice and Batman: The Brave and the Bold. 

Since the world-building guidelines in the FAE main-book are rudimentary at best, we knew we wanted a more robust system for creating the major issues of the world. Fate Core presented such tools, but Pete suggested that we try out the Fate supplement A Spark in Fate Core to ask the questions and present the answers that would make up the world in play. 

Per the document, we all listed some basic inspirations we brought to the table ('List Media'):

• Gary - Legion of Superheroes
• Me - Monkeyman and O'Brien
• Pete -  X-Men
• Shay - Hellblazer

We then expanded on these media inspirations to say what important elements we wanted to see in play ('Gather Inspirations'):

• Gary - Real Heroes!
• Me - Gonzo Fun
• Pete -  Family Relations
• Shay - Working Your Reputation

We then moved on to discuss what the scale of the campaign would be. I then piped up with my personal 'grand vision' of the campaign world: 

This world is now recovering from a dark age, where the lines between hero and villain had become muddied. During this ear all of the major villains were exiled or destroyed by a Justice League/Avengers/The Authority type group called The Enforcers, led by the ultra-powerful meta-human Invictus (a Superman expy). 

Although at first motivated to restore justice and order to a world gone mad, eventually The Enforcers established what amounted to a benevolent dictatorship, striking down anyone - individuals and governments alike - that didn't match their vision of a Finer World. 

Then, roughly a decade ago, all of the active Enforcers members disappeared (in what Pete dubbed 'The Omega Event'): somehow neutralized by a powerful and mysterious force of unknown origin. 

The only clue left behind by the entity (or entities) responsible for this event was a message displayed worldwide on every display screen in the world, in every written language, that read:

"The future is yours now."

Everyone liked this idea, so we endeavored to build the campaign based around this premise. Since the 'cosmic level' heroes were now all gone, we decided that the current hero groups should be smaller and regional. Although our team certainly could expand to become the world's new 'Justice League' as the game progressed, we certainly wouldn't start out that way. 

I suggested that maybe we could do city-based heroes to start, citing Jump City of the Teen Titans cartoon as inspiration. Like Jump City, I thought it would be cool if the city was West Coast based rather than East-Coast/Midwest based: especially since we already knew the culture of a West Coast city (we all live in the greater Seattle area, IRL). 

New Troy: the city of tomorrow...today!

After some discussion, we decided to set the game in the fictional city of New Troy; a Pacific Northwest city that is a mashup of Seattle and Vancouver, BC in a world with a decades-long legacy of superhuman champions and threats.

We then created some major 'Facts', 'Sparks', 'Issues' and 'Faces' to round out our campaign world. Some of which are explored more fully in the document linked at the bottom of the article, but the major players active in the campaign include:

Emma Hunter Hull

Formerly known as The Enforcers member 'Mirage', she had retired to pursue her business interests as chairperson of New Troy's Hunter Corporation. Although no longer active as a hero, she serves as the main supporter and advisor to the fledgling New Sentinels. 

Shadow Syndicate
A mysterious group of high-tech equipped thugs, led by an oligarchical leadership structure. Little is known about the group's inner-circle, but they are known to be led in field by the masked villainess Lady Destine. Group MMO includes the theft of high-tech and prototype-level technology, corporate espionage and blackmail.


The Fist
Former second-string super-criminals, who have concluded that they can be more effective working together than apart. What they lack in power and competence they make up for in experience: each one of them already knows the wrong way to execute a plan, which illuminates the right way to do so.




***

Now having comfortably fleshed out our setting well-enough, we now moved forward to making our characters. Both Pete & Gary came to the table with their characters 90% created, so discussion about their characters was mostly about how they fit into the campaign. We then helped Shay cobble together his character from scratch.

The resulting characters were:

Quorum

Handyman Jimmy Novak was forever changed by a lab-accident that allows him to split into five mentally-linked duplicates. Each split not only expands his physical abilities but also his mental acuity - when all five 'dups' are active he expands from average intellect to genius level prowess.

Jimmy is very conflicted about his powers. He feels that when he is duplicated, his vastly increased intelligence makes him into a different person, and he’s not sure he likes that guy. Unfortunately, Quorum feels the same…

Nemesis: Id & Super Ego (Karen Vargas). Created by the same lab accident, Karen can now split into two super-powered threats who represent the duelings halves of her psyche. She blames Jimmy for her current situation.

Mercury Man

The fastest man alive! Secret ID: Max Munroe. Super-Speedster by day, billionaire playboy by night: a man with a decidedly mixed reputation in his public identity.

Son of Enforcers member Moleculon, his father manipulated his genetics in the womb using his powers. Max discovered his abilities in his teenage years.

Nemesis: Mean Streak (Vanessa Dunn). The fastest woman alive! Daughter of the super-villain Howling Fury, she is the only being known able to match Mercury Man's amazing speed.

Arrowhead

During his teenage years, Lance Flynn discovered that he could manifest psionically-generated weapons and projectiles, provided that he had a physical object to 'focus' those energies.

Ever-confident in himself - even when this confidence isn't warranted - as adult he began his super-heroic career as the solo hero Arrowhead; using his psionically created arrows to mete out justice on the streets of New Troy. He was recruited to join the New Sentinels by Emma Hunter-Hull, who had easily deduced his secret ID.

When not fighting crime, Lance is a checker at local houseware/hardware chain Home Mart.

Nemesis: Muramasa (Hana Mitsurugi). When not possessed by the demon-sword, Hana is really a nice, bright young girl. But the sword always seems to wind up in her hands again; and when armed with the magic blade she is a vengeful terror. Her mystic sword can cut through any material, save those protected by powerful enchantments.

***
Next up, a recap of our first full play session: Issue 1 'With Great Power..' pt1.

***
New Troy Gazetteer (Google Docs)

MTG: Born Of The Gods Prerelease Tournament

Many of us here at Station53 love to play some casual Magic The Gathering, typically in multiplayer games that go far too late into the night. I've been chomping at the bit to give some organized tournament play a try of late, so I signed up for the Saturday midnight sealed prerelease tournament at my local game store. I figured it would be fun, I'd get some cool new cards, and get my spell-slinging derriere handed to me all night. What's not to love?

To begin with, I did a bit of online research about how to approach a sealed tournament. Deckbuilding might be my favorite part of MtG, but building a 40 card deck is a different animal altogether. This is where baked goods come in.

The BREAD method is a shorthand way to prepare for a draft tournament, but seems useful for sealed as well, since both tournament styles are for 40 card decks. Its a handy way to sort through the 75 cards you'll have in front of you to determine which colors and cards you should play. Based on the acronym, you prioritize your cards as follows:

B - Bombs
These are the the cards that you build a deck around. Ideally, when they come into play, your opponent rage-quits, flips the table over, and passes out on the floor after inarticulately cursing you and spasming like a 3 year old who consumed too much candy.

R - Removal
Since so much emphasis in this format is on creatures, we want something that can deal with those creatures. Creature destruction, bounce spells, discard and sacrifice effects all take priority here.

E - Evasion
We want creatures that can get damage through our opponents defenses, so the emphasis is on flying, deathtouch (so they won't want to block them), effects that make them unblockable, and trample. Research informed me that lying and cheating falls into this category as well, but I'm no good at that, and my mom would ground me if I tried. Mom qualifies as a bomb in MtG terms, even 38 years later.

A - Aggro
These are creatures that hit fast and hard, swarming our opponent. They are quick to cast and like songs with double-bass drum at 180 BPM.

D - Dregs/Duds
These poor cards are the ones that round out the remainder of your deck. They tend to fill the holes in your mana curve, and hopefully my opponents mistakenly think them to be bombs.

The interwebs advised me* to make sure I have 17-19 lands, try to stick to two colors, pick my cards such that the majority of them have a 2, 3 or 4 casting cost, and to make sure I know the rules for the various effects present in the set. Having read up on tribute and inspiration, I loaded my backpack with cards to trade, electrolyte water and power bars, then made my way over to Card Kingdom in the Seattle neighborhood of Ballard, ready to fail and fail often!

This place rocks. They have an attached bar/restaurant too.

11:23 PM 
I arrived early to survey the battleground. I told myself I'd have a chance to observe the competition and find some strategic insight, but in reality I wanted to make sure I knew where to go, get signed in, etc. Also, I have an anxiety issue around being late. Upon arrival, I spoke with an employee, who verified I was registerd and handed me a DCI card to fill out. According to WOTC, I exist now! The conversation then took an odd turn:

Employee A: "Now that you've signed in, choose your primary color to draft in. You'll get a..." He was interrupted by Employee B.
Employee B: "Hey, smell this pen!" He thrusts a ball-point under Employee A's nose.
Employee A: He instinctively recoils from the aroma of the pen in his face. "Get that away from me - it smells like sex!"

As Employee B scampered off into the store laughing maniacally, I considered my options. I'd be given a box with three 15 card booster packs from the Theros set, two from Born of the Gods, and one prerelease pack that had one unique rare card and mostly cards of the corresponding color. I chose Blue, as its probably my favorite color in MtG, due to its capacity for trolling.

Would I be destined to outwit my opponents or myself?

11:45 PM
With a bit of time on my hands, I pursued some of the amazing selection of board games, miniatures games, card games and RPGs they have (seriously, its an impressive assortment). I plan to start a Bulldogs! game soon, so I leafed through the hardback copy on hand. I love the design of the book - quality pages, great artwork, and was impressed by the map they included to help new players figure out how zones work. I'm looking forward to this one!

I walked over and spoke with Kris, our head judge for the event. He was here the evening prior for the Friday night prerelease tournament and officiated that one as well. He'd come in early this morning for the 11:00 AM tournament, and hadn't left since. He told me he'd been up for the last 14 hours, and walked me through how the evening (soon to be morning) would unfold. I discovered there would be four rounds with a different opponent for each. We'd play until one of us won 2-3 games, and at the end of the thing, BotG booster packs would be awarded to those who defeated at least two opponents. He also stated that I could bow out and go home whenever I wanted. What he didn't know was that I took a nap earlier! I silently cackled like a villain, knowing I had one leg up on my unwitting competition.

Destined to Outwit indeed!

12:13 AM
As the remaining players filter in, many look weary. Two guys are asleep with thier heads down on the table. A quick count shows 3 female players, and only one guy wearing a Seahawks jersey (#37, Shaun Alexander). I guess MtG and the NFL don't mix all that often. Several casual 1-on-1 games pop up, and I spot a guy in peacock-colored pants, matching women's flats and three-colored socks. We've just been informed that at some point, pizza will be served.

12:32 AM
Time to start! A large flat-screen TV starts counting down, as we have 45 minutes to build a deck. We all furiously crack into our packs, and its impossible to hear Judge Kris going through the rules. I try to listen, but there's so much conversation about who got what that I cannot focus. The guy across from me sports a 6 inch red beard, and I imagine him to be some lost viking, since we are in Ballard, after all. I open my box to find my packs, a blue 20-sided die to use as a life counter, and a 'hero's journey' card. This thing is a bit confusing; when one of two listed events occurs, I am to have my opponent sign their name witnessing the event, and I turn it in - for what?

I go through with the BREAD method and sort my cards by color, identifying first the bombs and removal, and then filling out the rest. Most of my quality cards were in blue, and black offered some decent removal. I had a lot of auras and bestow creatures to pair with heroic creatures, so I took that route. Also, I landed this guy:

Bronze, buff, and bitchin'.

I'l splash red! Since he counts on red devotion to become a creature, I decided to add a few red permanents to trigger it, plus, I did nab a few solid red removal spells. I ended up with a three-color deck, rolling with blue black and red. My viking friend, who decided on white and black (how very coal-chewer of him!) agreed with my strategy - the volcano god is just too strong not to include. Still, I was nervous - three colors will be hard to pull of. With 4 minutes left until we begin, I had no time to second-guess myself anyways, and I shuffled the hot mess together.

1:33 AM

My first opponent was Daniel. He's played every prerelease since Return to Ravnica, had had a board laid out very precisely, with a huge blue d20 for his life total. He was here last night and did well. 

Game 1 

I had to mulligan, as I didn't have enough land. I kept the next hand, with two lands and we were off! He ran a green/blue deck, and we traded blows, but I stalled out with only two lands on the board and a hand full of high casting cost cards. Eventually I got a few solid cards on the board, but then he dropped a bomb of his own: Kiora, the Crashing Wave. I had Purphoros in hand, and hoped to get a solid amount of red cards on the board so I could drop him in as a creature, but I should have put him out early, as at this point my only hope of beating him was to trigger Purphoros' enchantment ability and do direct damage by playing creatures. I got him down to 5, but it wasn't enough, and down I went.

Daniel: 1, Me: 0

Game 2

Once again, I had mana trouble. No problem with black and red, but I had a hand full of blue cards and no islands until turn 9.  I only hit him once, but he kept coming, and refilled his hand with Hunter's Prowess. This triggered his Hero's Path card, and I dutifully signed my name as witness before getting stomped down the next turn. I wished him luck in the next round, and decided to rebuild this thing.

Daniel 2, Me: 0

Destiny Progress: Outwitted

2:15 AM
Realizing my Magic Christmas Land dream of Purphoros leading the multicultural heroes wasn't going to happen, I took out all of the red cards save for the mighty god, and reinforced the deck with more black. No pizza yet, and more and more heads were dozing on tables as we awaited round 2. With only a few minutes left on the clock, I made a last minute decision to see what green had to offer. At a second glance, green looked sweet! I purged the black from the deck, banished Purphy back to his sulfurous mountain, and loaded up on centaurs and a fluffy little guy with a big heart. I cobbled my cards together and raced to the table to outwit my next opponent!

I settled on this deck:

                Badger Party

Creatures	Spells
1x Charging Badger	1x Warriors' Lesson
1x Sedge Scorpion	1x Stratus Walk
1x Leafcrown Dryad	1x Karametra's Favor
1x Mindreaver	1x Crypsis
1x Triton Fortune Hunter	1x Divination
1x Wavecrash Triton	1x Artisan's Sorrow
2x Nyxborn Triton	1x Raised by Wolves
1x Nyxborn Wolf
2x Chorus of the Tides	Lands
1x Staunch-Hearted Warrior	9x Island
1x Pheres-Band Tromper	8x Forest
1x Arbiter of the Ideal
1x Pheres-Band Raiders
1x Tromokratis

2:28 AM
I raced back to the table to meet me next opponent, Clinton. Last night's tournament was his first experience playing MtG in person. His girlfriend plays MtG all the time online, and he'd fallen in love with the game watching her play. After shuffling my deck, he asked me to do it again, this time making sure all of my cards faced the same direction. Apparently, this is a technique some players use to mark their cards. Gotta give it to cheaters, they are clever!

He was also playing blue/green. I had to mulligan the first hand, as it appears a plains snuck its way into my deck and we were underway. We began to race each other until he landed a Horizon Chimera. Now he kept gaining life, and began to pull away from me. I forgot a heroic trigger, and his experience playing online paid off, as he made no mistakes.

Clinton: 1, Me: 0

For the second game, I side-boarded my plains for a forest like a pro! After those first two lands hit, I went cold, not drawing another until turn 10, and of course by then it was too late. We opened up our decks and compared them - with the exception of 4 cards, we had exactly the same deck. It was a fun match though, as we chatted about the game and his experience thus far. He was particularly happy that in yesterday's tournament, he placed better than his more experienced girlfriend, and pulled a Thoughtseize, which they would use to pay for their entry costs. With a 2-0 victory, I'd say day two was looking up as well!

Clinton: 2, Me: 0

Destiny Progress: Outwitted

3:11 AM

All in all, the green/blue deck was much better than my original configuration, and I felt confident I could win at least one hand. But for now, the pizza had arrived! Card Kingdom underestimated the amount of plates they needed, so being the resourceful gamers we are, we improvised.

3:32 AM
Judge Kris called us all back to the tables. There were noticeably less people than the 56 we began with, and the hour was taking its toll. On the other hand, the nervous drunken revelry of Seattlites drinking nearby had finally died down, as they headed home to sleep up before the Superbowl the next day.** I sat down to meet my next opponent, Aaron. Aaron was here with his dad, and he looked tapped out.

We both took a mulligan (this was becoming a pattern), and got underway. He was running a black/green deck, and he rarely spoke. When I saw those swamps hit the board, I was nervous - but he never played even one removal spell. The action was fast and furious, but I eventually nabbed my first victory on the back of a huge Staunch-Hearted Warrior with three bestow creatures on him.

Aaron: 0, Me: 1

During the next match, he opened up a bit and was more relaxed; perhaps that's because he landed a Scourge of Skola Vale. This match was far more grindy and strategic, but I broke things open when I was able to use some instants to tap and uptap my Arbiter of the Ideal, triggering my Hero Path card. Untapping him let me cheat in a number of creatures, including Tromokratis! He misplayed the sacrifice ability of his Scourge, and once I dropped Raised By Wolves on the mighty kraken, it was all over.

Aaron: 0, Me: 2

Destiny Progress: Outwitting

4:23 AM
The pizza and caffeine are gone, and players have little left in the tank. We get the call for our fourth and final round, and I meet my opponent. Livia is here with her boyfriend, and she looks exhausted! She's quite nice though, and we both haven't done very well this morning. We both shuffle up our decks and we're off!

I get out to a slow start, with no creatures before turn 4. Livia is running blue black, and she can't seem to draw enough swamps to cast her hand, so my slow start isn't so crucial. Her weariness is showing though, as she makes a number of bad plays. I'm nervous that she has black removal ready, so I keep targeting my Mindreaver to exile her cards and get any out of her deck. Eventually Tromokrasis hits, and I take her down having not taken one point of damage. Afterwards, I ask to look at the cards she was sitting on, and realized that when she saw a casing cost of, for example, 5 colorless and 1 black, she thought it meant she needed 6 black to cast that card! We talk through a few rules, and despite her tired eyes, she's eager for round two.

Livia: 0, Me: 1

This time, the game is tighter. We both have a decent board state, with no real openings to push through. I hit my curve just about perfectly this time, bestowing auras onto my badger and repeatedly hitting the heroic triggers on my Staunch-Hearted Warrior and Chorus of the Tides. She gets a Siren of the Silent Song and Phenax, God of Deception on the board, so I go aggressive to ensure she doesn't have enough creatures to tap and mill me out. She cannot keep up, and once again I whittle her down without taking damage.

Livia: 0, Me: 2

Destiny Progress: Outwitting

5:17 AM

We're done! I head over to see Judge Kris to report my record of 2-2, which surprisingly nets me another Born Of The Gods booster. I turn in my hero card, which got me a metal pin (incentive!), and we talk a bit about how the tournaments have been running thus far. Card Kingdom had 56 players Sunday morning, 127 on Friday night, and 72 Saturday morning - not a bad turnout. JudgeKris now logged 62 hours on this pay period, and he is looking forward to his overtime.

I had a great experience with my first organized event! I've heard many complaints about the hyper-competitiveness of players who attend these things, but I never encountered anyone who met that description. Card Kingdom did a great job running the event, and I think there's something to this format! 40 card decks are very interesting - its nice to get to play most of the cards you put in a deck, something that doesn't always happen with a 60 card deck. I might have to stop in on a Friday night and see how it goes.

Destiny Progress: Blessed Sleep

*Thanks +Limited Resources !
** As a Raiders fan, that was an absolute blast to watch.

***