DFRPG 9/24/2011 Hell Hath no Fury...
We started this session with the party taking the unconscious Agent Anderson to Alex's White Council-owned "Cutting Off Warlock's Heads in Privacy" (tm) warehouse. A steel chair bolted to the ground and some shackles later, and the party was ready to extract the needed information from Agent Anderson.
This afforded me the wonderful opportunity to once again emphasize the philosophy of "Yes, No or roll the Dice!". Agent Anderson had information they needed to get, so the party were going to get it. However, what was in question was how long it would take them to get the information from him. Using the handy, dandy Time Chart in the book, I determined that assuming no roll of the die, it would take several days to extract the needed details. However, those several days would give his boss Ares a bonus on his "Surprise roll" to see if they could sneak in and ambush him. For each level of success on the die roll, would reduce the time frame by one step, as well as altering the modifying to Ares surprise roll.
Venus decided to go with the Good Cop routine, while Riley played the bad. Riley placed the Aspect "I'LL KILL YOU IF I NEED TOO" aspect on him, which Venus then tagged on her rapport roll. After all the modifiers were taken into account, they ended up getting the information in an afternoon, letting them know that Ares had relocated to one of his compounds up in the Woodside Hills down the peninsula.
There was a hot discussion as to how best to proceed, With Venus being the main proponent of going to the compound and sneaking in and/or knocking on the front door. Ted was mainly opposed to this idea, thinking it was tantamount to suicide.
It was quite obvious that Ted's position was going to win, so I chucked out pretty much all of my prepared material for the evening, and scrambled around for a solution. I came up with compelling Riley's MY EX-HUSBAND IS A GAY VAMPIRE aspect, having her contact him to help things out.
They relocate to some other location so as not to compromise the Warden hidey-hole. Felix, Riley's husband shows up to discuss the possible plan. He suggests that the group offer to trade Ares for the Apple. When pressed on what that something is, Felix says he can get his hands on an item that Ares would be very interested. When his motivation was questioned, he let it be known that he was willing to help Venus increase her power to vex his father, as well as to put the goddess into his debt.
With the plan formed, Felix heads off the arrange the meeting, calling back a little while later to inform them that the meeting has been arranged for midnight upon Alcatraz island, and that he's got a boat waiting down by the pier.
The group arrives at the pier, board the boat, as Felix arrives with what appears to be an ancient warrior's spear. The Wizard decides it would be a "good idea" to open his third eye and look at it, which of course wasn't. He sees the swirling anguish of the tens of thousands of souls killed by this weapon, the fabled Spear of Leonidas. He grapples with the mental stress of looking at it for several rounds, almost succumbing to the strain of witnessing this object.
As the warden struggles to recover, Felix hands the spear to Venus, giving her the advice that she should double cross her brother before he does the same to her.
At that very moment, Riley's player offer's Venus' player a compel to stab Felix with the spear, which she gladly accepts. I have her roll a +8 Legendary weapons attack with the spear, and ended up doing like 19 stress with the spear, slaying his instantly! He managed to utter a rather smug sounded "touche" before collapsing dead on the pier. Alystria tried to help, but it was quite obvious to everyone that he was D-E-D, dead.
Venus calmly climbs onto the boat, with spear in hand, and states that they need to get going. Everyone is kinds stunned at this point, while Alystria is compelled to succumb to the intoxicating effects of the White Court Vampire blood, she heads down into the hold of the boat to "shower".
Riley, still mostly in shock, tried to socially confront Venus, however she doesn't manage to inflict any stress upon her, and finally gives up and walks off.
Next, Ted approaches the Goddess, and going on bended knee, offers to wield the spear on her behalf. Intrigued, the two enter into negotiations as to the terms of his service, which ends up being until sunrise, doesn't involve killing anyone in the party, and Venus deciding against whom the spear shall be wielded. The pact is made and sealed with magic, and Venus hands over the spear while the boat pulls up to the docks on the island.
They are brought around to the back side of the island, to the recreation yard, where the God of War is there waiting with a retinue of armed goons. There is a couple of lines of banter, while one of the goons opens up a briefcase to show the glowing golden light of the apple nestled within.
At which point I compel Venus' "ITS ALL ABOUT ME" to initiate the conflict against her brother for control of her golden apple.
CLIFFHANGER!
What Rocked: Compels of awesomeness!!! The compels were flying, and lead to the death of Felix, Riley's gay husband, son of Gregor Raith, one of the other major supernatural players in SF. While not quite burning down Bianca's house.... the repercussions will be significant, and dramatic.
Chucking plans out the window: I had expected the group to roll better on the interrogation rolls, and thus be able to catch Ares unaware at his home in Woodside. Once the players decided that stealth was not going to work, I had to scramble to figure something out. The compel to go tot he WCV husband, the Spear, and the meeting on Alcatraz were all pulled out of my hat on the fly, and ended up having tremendously awesome results. In fact, had this not happened, the final encounter would have going down quite differently, and the game would have proceeded on a completely and totally different trajectory.
What Could Have Been Better:
I think there was an opportunity to call for a social conflict during the discussion as to whether or not to ambush Ares in Woodside. not only would it have made the scene a little shorter, but it would have also allowed the highly-social skilled characters to mechanically alter the decision making process, instead or relying purely upon the strength of their quasi-OOG RP skillz.
This afforded me the wonderful opportunity to once again emphasize the philosophy of "Yes, No or roll the Dice!". Agent Anderson had information they needed to get, so the party were going to get it. However, what was in question was how long it would take them to get the information from him. Using the handy, dandy Time Chart in the book, I determined that assuming no roll of the die, it would take several days to extract the needed details. However, those several days would give his boss Ares a bonus on his "Surprise roll" to see if they could sneak in and ambush him. For each level of success on the die roll, would reduce the time frame by one step, as well as altering the modifying to Ares surprise roll.
Venus decided to go with the Good Cop routine, while Riley played the bad. Riley placed the Aspect "I'LL KILL YOU IF I NEED TOO" aspect on him, which Venus then tagged on her rapport roll. After all the modifiers were taken into account, they ended up getting the information in an afternoon, letting them know that Ares had relocated to one of his compounds up in the Woodside Hills down the peninsula.
There was a hot discussion as to how best to proceed, With Venus being the main proponent of going to the compound and sneaking in and/or knocking on the front door. Ted was mainly opposed to this idea, thinking it was tantamount to suicide.
It was quite obvious that Ted's position was going to win, so I chucked out pretty much all of my prepared material for the evening, and scrambled around for a solution. I came up with compelling Riley's MY EX-HUSBAND IS A GAY VAMPIRE aspect, having her contact him to help things out.
They relocate to some other location so as not to compromise the Warden hidey-hole. Felix, Riley's husband shows up to discuss the possible plan. He suggests that the group offer to trade Ares for the Apple. When pressed on what that something is, Felix says he can get his hands on an item that Ares would be very interested. When his motivation was questioned, he let it be known that he was willing to help Venus increase her power to vex his father, as well as to put the goddess into his debt.
With the plan formed, Felix heads off the arrange the meeting, calling back a little while later to inform them that the meeting has been arranged for midnight upon Alcatraz island, and that he's got a boat waiting down by the pier.
The group arrives at the pier, board the boat, as Felix arrives with what appears to be an ancient warrior's spear. The Wizard decides it would be a "good idea" to open his third eye and look at it, which of course wasn't. He sees the swirling anguish of the tens of thousands of souls killed by this weapon, the fabled Spear of Leonidas. He grapples with the mental stress of looking at it for several rounds, almost succumbing to the strain of witnessing this object.
As the warden struggles to recover, Felix hands the spear to Venus, giving her the advice that she should double cross her brother before he does the same to her.
At that very moment, Riley's player offer's Venus' player a compel to stab Felix with the spear, which she gladly accepts. I have her roll a +8 Legendary weapons attack with the spear, and ended up doing like 19 stress with the spear, slaying his instantly! He managed to utter a rather smug sounded "touche" before collapsing dead on the pier. Alystria tried to help, but it was quite obvious to everyone that he was D-E-D, dead.
Venus calmly climbs onto the boat, with spear in hand, and states that they need to get going. Everyone is kinds stunned at this point, while Alystria is compelled to succumb to the intoxicating effects of the White Court Vampire blood, she heads down into the hold of the boat to "shower".
Riley, still mostly in shock, tried to socially confront Venus, however she doesn't manage to inflict any stress upon her, and finally gives up and walks off.
Next, Ted approaches the Goddess, and going on bended knee, offers to wield the spear on her behalf. Intrigued, the two enter into negotiations as to the terms of his service, which ends up being until sunrise, doesn't involve killing anyone in the party, and Venus deciding against whom the spear shall be wielded. The pact is made and sealed with magic, and Venus hands over the spear while the boat pulls up to the docks on the island.
They are brought around to the back side of the island, to the recreation yard, where the God of War is there waiting with a retinue of armed goons. There is a couple of lines of banter, while one of the goons opens up a briefcase to show the glowing golden light of the apple nestled within.
At which point I compel Venus' "ITS ALL ABOUT ME" to initiate the conflict against her brother for control of her golden apple.
CLIFFHANGER!
What Rocked: Compels of awesomeness!!! The compels were flying, and lead to the death of Felix, Riley's gay husband, son of Gregor Raith, one of the other major supernatural players in SF. While not quite burning down Bianca's house.... the repercussions will be significant, and dramatic.
Chucking plans out the window: I had expected the group to roll better on the interrogation rolls, and thus be able to catch Ares unaware at his home in Woodside. Once the players decided that stealth was not going to work, I had to scramble to figure something out. The compel to go tot he WCV husband, the Spear, and the meeting on Alcatraz were all pulled out of my hat on the fly, and ended up having tremendously awesome results. In fact, had this not happened, the final encounter would have going down quite differently, and the game would have proceeded on a completely and totally different trajectory.
What Could Have Been Better:
I think there was an opportunity to call for a social conflict during the discussion as to whether or not to ambush Ares in Woodside. not only would it have made the scene a little shorter, but it would have also allowed the highly-social skilled characters to mechanically alter the decision making process, instead or relying purely upon the strength of their quasi-OOG RP skillz.