ACNW 2011 recap
Long recap, and lots of quotes. You have been warned. :)
Slot 1: Lady Faiella's Finishing Academy GM: Me
Having finally finished reading ALL of the Amber books (hey, it only took me 2 1/2 years!), I decided I could run an Amber-ish game, and wanted to gear it towards the people who feel like they aren't quite ready to jump in with the sharks in a normal Amber game. :) So I started out the seven characters as newly arrived students at Lady Faiella's Finishing Academy, where they had been sent for their education.
What I failed to remember is that by letting all of the characters come from different Shadows, they didn't all come in speaking the same language. I wanted Thari to be something they learned in game, which might have been a mistake. But the need to learn Thari as quickly as possible so that they could communicate with their classmates (and do well in the school) was a good bonding experience. It just ate 3 hours of game time. :) So the plot got a little rushed, and I had to railroad the ending a teensy bit.
The next morning, the first thing one of the players said to me was "you're running that next year, right?" :) I still need to send out the E-mail to everyone, but yes, I am planning on it, and possibly doing some stuff over E-mail between cons. There will probably be a wiki and a soundtrack, too. :)
Quotes:
Artemis (C.J.): "My mother unified the world." (probably in relation to them telling him his mother couldn't possibly be the Empress because no one had an Empress in their home Shadow)
Alistair (David): "Even Vicky with her brain in the book doesn’t do magic."
Vicky (Amanda): "Fuck you."
(Alistair was the older, dumb as a box of rocks, brother, while Vicky was his brilliant 13-year-old skipped a grade sister.)
Alistair: "You mean we’re stuck here?"
C.J. (OOC): "You do get a trip to Hogsmeade’s in third year."
Malcolm: "We’re doing the good fencing instructor/bad fencing instructor routine." (as Duncan (Malcolm) and Alistair tried to teach Artemis to fence)
Malcolm: "You know like more than a hundred wrestling moves! (making fun of Alistair’s inability to grasp "infinite.")
Everyone in the game, at one point or another: "COUSINS!!!!!" (because most of the budding romances were nipped in the bud by that one word. :) )
Calliope Rose (Chloe): "Which means the senior class should be noblesse obliging us?"
Artemis: "You know, as a team, as a functioning unit, we would appreciate cake."
Slot 2: Heathers of Hogwarts: The Breakfast Club GM: Me
This was yet another one of my Hogwarts games. This time, the PCs were in detention. This was largely because the PCs from LAST years ACNW game had been sentenced to detention. But I ended up with none of the same players as last year. So instead, everyone came up with reasons why they landed in detention on a fine Saturday morning. The plot was that a magical creature had been accidentally released in Hogwarts, and their supervising professor had to leave to deal with it. Unsurprisingly, the PCs broke out of detention and saved the day. They then formed the Students for the Ethical Treatment of Magical Creatures, and demanded that they get to go with the creature to Africa, where it could be rereleased in its native habitat. Thus, sequel! :)
I am going to have to find a new system, though. And figure out what movie title to borrow for next year. (Thus far, The Gods Must Be Crazy and Gorillas in the Mist have been suggested. I've never seen either. Though I did run my Fast Times at Hogwarts High game without watching that source material... :) )
Quotes:
Donna (C.J.): "The magical creature would say ‘Oh, I can’t go back there. It’s restricted!’" (discussing whether or not they should hide in the restricted section)
Lorelei: "Can we find any exploding rhino poop?"
Gwendolyn (Gina): "So if anyone asks [stares at Molly] we were chased into the forest by the rhinoceros."
Donna: "Maybe you could make Hagrid look like a girl Explorous."
Ginny (Thaddeus): "I represent the Students for the Ethical Treatment of Magical Creatures."
Donna: "I speak for the Triexplososaurus because it cannot speak for itself."
Molly (Chloe) :"Occupy Forbidden Forest!"
Slot 3: Sandman: Broken Hearts GM: Jen
This was an awesome game, at least for the parts where I wasn't feeling utterly miserable and falling asleep. Both of those, however, were related to me coming down with a cold, not the game. The system was Nobilis, which I didn't really understand, but I got enough figured out that I could play my character, Musetta, who was an NPC from the previous game--a mannequin who had been brought to life by Desire, but not able to feel emotions. Last year, the PCs got Desire to give Musetta emotions. I played her as terrified of Desire and looking for someone to love.
After the game, we escaped to buy DayQuil and NyQuil, and I spent the majority of the rest of the con dosing myself at appropriate intervals so that I could remain upright.
Slot 4: Weird West: The Beggar's Tomb GM: C.J.
This game was epic amounts of fun. Mary, Amanda, Kath, and I played four sisters in a small New Mexico town. We owned the silver mine, which was doing all sorts of weird things. And this was meant to be a dark game, so we all had some badness in our backgrounds. Of course, by 8 p.m. on Friday, people are feeling the sleep deprivation, so the game was not as dark as our loving GM wanted. But we all had fun. And lots of crazy. And none of us ended up dead. :)
Quotes:
Henry (NPC): "Oh, God!"
Mercy (Kath): Well, it ain't God, it's just Mercy."
Henry: "I'll take that."
(ah, the joy of naming all of your characters after the virtue they exemplify least!)
Hope (Mary): "But we don't have to go poking about its intimate innards."
Charity (Amanda): "That's kinda what you do in a mine."
(we ran with that "intimate innards" thing to all kinds of places...)
Hope: "I do have this powerful pain in my head."
Prudence (me): "It's the Lord. Working in mysterious ways."
("The Lord works in mysterious ways" may have been the most often said phrase in the game. That or "Bless his heart." Or "why are my sisters so goddamn crazy?!")
Hope: "Speaking of liquor, I need to make more pie."
(crazy? or brilliant!)
Charity: "Mercy, you are far too old and far too well armed to need a chaperon."
Charity: "I'm gonna wait until I find out what happened before I kill her. And then I'm gonna kill her."
Charity: "Didn't I tell you you were fired?"
Hope: "Does that mean go home and make dinner?"
Charity: "Yes, please."
(you keep the crazy sister around when she's the only one who knows how to cook!)
Mercy: "We aren't missing any men, are we?
Charity: "No, we're missing a baby, and that's more than a baby's worth of pus."
Slot 5: Dust in the Wind II: May You Live in Prosperous Times GM: Me
This was my Firefly game that got canceled by the attack of Jeremy's gall bladder. I had all but one of the players who signed up and didn't get to play back in the game, and we got a Jules! So, in other words, super epic fun game. :) The PCs had to steal a ship from the Alliance. And they succeeded. And got a cloaking device for their ship, and the inventor of the cloaking device (who had hired them) as their indentured servant. Yeah, it all made sense. :)
Quotes:
Isaac (Tyler): "Does the preacher plan most of your jobs?"
Hugo (Jules): "Don’t mind me, I’ll just go back to my bible. Hey, it says in Deuteronomy that we should wait till they resupply!"
Sam (David): "I’m trying out this new thing called ‘listening to my crew.’ I’m not thinking I like it."
Sam: "Shepherd, I gotta get me one of your bibles."
Hugo: "Oh, I got plenty. I got this King James one, and this something something something Buddhism something. I think they’re the same."
Isaac: "He is our insertion specialist." (About Raj (C.J.), the boy whore.)
Hugo: "Anyway, release the whores!" (Part of the plan involved the female crew members and Raj drugging a cargo crew. They were then referred to as "the whores.")
Amanda (Kris): "We can leave them a set of panties or something."
Raj: "But this is my last pair."
Hugo: "Keep it professional, boys."
Raj: "You mean they have to pay?"
Hugo: "Yes, and get a receipt."
(Talking about the infiltration team’s love triangle.)
Hugo: "I think we go with Plan B."
Amanda: "What’s Plan B?"
Hugo: "Kill the scientist, take his stuff."
Amanda: "I don’t think you’re a Shepherd."
Hugo: "He’s not my religion."
GM: "Some of the purple bellies ask if you need to inspect them."
Hugo: "No, I don’t think we do."
Kris: "I don’t think that’s the point."
Yu (James): "The ship now works on DNA, so we shouldn’t have a problem."
Isaac: "How’d you get my DNA?"
Slot 6: Hogwart's Summer Camp GM: Amanda
We totally fuckin' leveled. That is all. :)
(The game was derailed by a pervasive need by the people involved to get girl talk time with other actual girls. :) )
Slot 7: Torchwood 1889: Celestial Fire GM: Me
This game turned out to be a lot of fun. Oddly enough, I planned the hell out of this game, so very little of it was by the seat of my pants. There was a little bit that I didn't expect (Amanda's character finding the Vortex Manipulator and then USING it!), but for the most part, it went as planned. The group ended up with a good spread of abilities and alien tech, so that they had what they needed to get through the investigation and weren't scrambling for what they needed. I suspect my two physical characters would have been happy for something to punch, but I never run combat heavy games. :)
GM: "Yeah, you know, with those goggles, you’ve seen everybody’s." (I was referring to Lenora's (Amanda's) goggles that let her detect alien tech and odd energies, and the fact that she would know about all of the alien tech that her teammates carried. But she was the only female character, so what I said got a good laugh.)
GM: "She’s got darker hair and darker skin, and she’s not from around here."
C.J.: "So she’s Welsh."
Mathew (Todd): "And you’re not a man of morals, right?" (Asking Eli before they go to do some breaking and entering.)
GM: "How does the Bermuda Triangle touch northern Scotland?!"
Kurt: "It’s a very bendy triangle."
Lenora: "The maid had it in her petticoats."
Cuddy (C.J.): "And what were you doing in the maid’s petticoats?"
Eli (Kurt): "This is going to sound strange. The Queen would request that you not point your experimental device towards our planet in the future."
Slot 1: Lady Faiella's Finishing Academy GM: Me
Having finally finished reading ALL of the Amber books (hey, it only took me 2 1/2 years!), I decided I could run an Amber-ish game, and wanted to gear it towards the people who feel like they aren't quite ready to jump in with the sharks in a normal Amber game. :) So I started out the seven characters as newly arrived students at Lady Faiella's Finishing Academy, where they had been sent for their education.
What I failed to remember is that by letting all of the characters come from different Shadows, they didn't all come in speaking the same language. I wanted Thari to be something they learned in game, which might have been a mistake. But the need to learn Thari as quickly as possible so that they could communicate with their classmates (and do well in the school) was a good bonding experience. It just ate 3 hours of game time. :) So the plot got a little rushed, and I had to railroad the ending a teensy bit.
The next morning, the first thing one of the players said to me was "you're running that next year, right?" :) I still need to send out the E-mail to everyone, but yes, I am planning on it, and possibly doing some stuff over E-mail between cons. There will probably be a wiki and a soundtrack, too. :)
Quotes:
Artemis (C.J.): "My mother unified the world." (probably in relation to them telling him his mother couldn't possibly be the Empress because no one had an Empress in their home Shadow)
Alistair (David): "Even Vicky with her brain in the book doesn’t do magic."
Vicky (Amanda): "Fuck you."
(Alistair was the older, dumb as a box of rocks, brother, while Vicky was his brilliant 13-year-old skipped a grade sister.)
Alistair: "You mean we’re stuck here?"
C.J. (OOC): "You do get a trip to Hogsmeade’s in third year."
Malcolm: "We’re doing the good fencing instructor/bad fencing instructor routine." (as Duncan (Malcolm) and Alistair tried to teach Artemis to fence)
Malcolm: "You know like more than a hundred wrestling moves! (making fun of Alistair’s inability to grasp "infinite.")
Everyone in the game, at one point or another: "COUSINS!!!!!" (because most of the budding romances were nipped in the bud by that one word. :) )
Calliope Rose (Chloe): "Which means the senior class should be noblesse obliging us?"
Artemis: "You know, as a team, as a functioning unit, we would appreciate cake."
Slot 2: Heathers of Hogwarts: The Breakfast Club GM: Me
This was yet another one of my Hogwarts games. This time, the PCs were in detention. This was largely because the PCs from LAST years ACNW game had been sentenced to detention. But I ended up with none of the same players as last year. So instead, everyone came up with reasons why they landed in detention on a fine Saturday morning. The plot was that a magical creature had been accidentally released in Hogwarts, and their supervising professor had to leave to deal with it. Unsurprisingly, the PCs broke out of detention and saved the day. They then formed the Students for the Ethical Treatment of Magical Creatures, and demanded that they get to go with the creature to Africa, where it could be rereleased in its native habitat. Thus, sequel! :)
I am going to have to find a new system, though. And figure out what movie title to borrow for next year. (Thus far, The Gods Must Be Crazy and Gorillas in the Mist have been suggested. I've never seen either. Though I did run my Fast Times at Hogwarts High game without watching that source material... :) )
Quotes:
Donna (C.J.): "The magical creature would say ‘Oh, I can’t go back there. It’s restricted!’" (discussing whether or not they should hide in the restricted section)
Lorelei: "Can we find any exploding rhino poop?"
Gwendolyn (Gina): "So if anyone asks [stares at Molly] we were chased into the forest by the rhinoceros."
Donna: "Maybe you could make Hagrid look like a girl Explorous."
Ginny (Thaddeus): "I represent the Students for the Ethical Treatment of Magical Creatures."
Donna: "I speak for the Triexplososaurus because it cannot speak for itself."
Molly (Chloe) :"Occupy Forbidden Forest!"
Slot 3: Sandman: Broken Hearts GM: Jen
This was an awesome game, at least for the parts where I wasn't feeling utterly miserable and falling asleep. Both of those, however, were related to me coming down with a cold, not the game. The system was Nobilis, which I didn't really understand, but I got enough figured out that I could play my character, Musetta, who was an NPC from the previous game--a mannequin who had been brought to life by Desire, but not able to feel emotions. Last year, the PCs got Desire to give Musetta emotions. I played her as terrified of Desire and looking for someone to love.
After the game, we escaped to buy DayQuil and NyQuil, and I spent the majority of the rest of the con dosing myself at appropriate intervals so that I could remain upright.
Slot 4: Weird West: The Beggar's Tomb GM: C.J.
This game was epic amounts of fun. Mary, Amanda, Kath, and I played four sisters in a small New Mexico town. We owned the silver mine, which was doing all sorts of weird things. And this was meant to be a dark game, so we all had some badness in our backgrounds. Of course, by 8 p.m. on Friday, people are feeling the sleep deprivation, so the game was not as dark as our loving GM wanted. But we all had fun. And lots of crazy. And none of us ended up dead. :)
Quotes:
Henry (NPC): "Oh, God!"
Mercy (Kath): Well, it ain't God, it's just Mercy."
Henry: "I'll take that."
(ah, the joy of naming all of your characters after the virtue they exemplify least!)
Hope (Mary): "But we don't have to go poking about its intimate innards."
Charity (Amanda): "That's kinda what you do in a mine."
(we ran with that "intimate innards" thing to all kinds of places...)
Hope: "I do have this powerful pain in my head."
Prudence (me): "It's the Lord. Working in mysterious ways."
("The Lord works in mysterious ways" may have been the most often said phrase in the game. That or "Bless his heart." Or "why are my sisters so goddamn crazy?!")
Hope: "Speaking of liquor, I need to make more pie."
(crazy? or brilliant!)
Charity: "Mercy, you are far too old and far too well armed to need a chaperon."
Charity: "I'm gonna wait until I find out what happened before I kill her. And then I'm gonna kill her."
Charity: "Didn't I tell you you were fired?"
Hope: "Does that mean go home and make dinner?"
Charity: "Yes, please."
(you keep the crazy sister around when she's the only one who knows how to cook!)
Mercy: "We aren't missing any men, are we?
Charity: "No, we're missing a baby, and that's more than a baby's worth of pus."
Slot 5: Dust in the Wind II: May You Live in Prosperous Times GM: Me
This was my Firefly game that got canceled by the attack of Jeremy's gall bladder. I had all but one of the players who signed up and didn't get to play back in the game, and we got a Jules! So, in other words, super epic fun game. :) The PCs had to steal a ship from the Alliance. And they succeeded. And got a cloaking device for their ship, and the inventor of the cloaking device (who had hired them) as their indentured servant. Yeah, it all made sense. :)
Quotes:
Isaac (Tyler): "Does the preacher plan most of your jobs?"
Hugo (Jules): "Don’t mind me, I’ll just go back to my bible. Hey, it says in Deuteronomy that we should wait till they resupply!"
Sam (David): "I’m trying out this new thing called ‘listening to my crew.’ I’m not thinking I like it."
Sam: "Shepherd, I gotta get me one of your bibles."
Hugo: "Oh, I got plenty. I got this King James one, and this something something something Buddhism something. I think they’re the same."
Isaac: "He is our insertion specialist." (About Raj (C.J.), the boy whore.)
Hugo: "Anyway, release the whores!" (Part of the plan involved the female crew members and Raj drugging a cargo crew. They were then referred to as "the whores.")
Amanda (Kris): "We can leave them a set of panties or something."
Raj: "But this is my last pair."
Hugo: "Keep it professional, boys."
Raj: "You mean they have to pay?"
Hugo: "Yes, and get a receipt."
(Talking about the infiltration team’s love triangle.)
Hugo: "I think we go with Plan B."
Amanda: "What’s Plan B?"
Hugo: "Kill the scientist, take his stuff."
Amanda: "I don’t think you’re a Shepherd."
Hugo: "He’s not my religion."
GM: "Some of the purple bellies ask if you need to inspect them."
Hugo: "No, I don’t think we do."
Kris: "I don’t think that’s the point."
Yu (James): "The ship now works on DNA, so we shouldn’t have a problem."
Isaac: "How’d you get my DNA?"
Slot 6: Hogwart's Summer Camp GM: Amanda
We totally fuckin' leveled. That is all. :)
(The game was derailed by a pervasive need by the people involved to get girl talk time with other actual girls. :) )
Slot 7: Torchwood 1889: Celestial Fire GM: Me
This game turned out to be a lot of fun. Oddly enough, I planned the hell out of this game, so very little of it was by the seat of my pants. There was a little bit that I didn't expect (Amanda's character finding the Vortex Manipulator and then USING it!), but for the most part, it went as planned. The group ended up with a good spread of abilities and alien tech, so that they had what they needed to get through the investigation and weren't scrambling for what they needed. I suspect my two physical characters would have been happy for something to punch, but I never run combat heavy games. :)
GM: "Yeah, you know, with those goggles, you’ve seen everybody’s." (I was referring to Lenora's (Amanda's) goggles that let her detect alien tech and odd energies, and the fact that she would know about all of the alien tech that her teammates carried. But she was the only female character, so what I said got a good laugh.)
GM: "She’s got darker hair and darker skin, and she’s not from around here."
C.J.: "So she’s Welsh."
Mathew (Todd): "And you’re not a man of morals, right?" (Asking Eli before they go to do some breaking and entering.)
GM: "How does the Bermuda Triangle touch northern Scotland?!"
Kurt: "It’s a very bendy triangle."
Lenora: "The maid had it in her petticoats."
Cuddy (C.J.): "And what were you doing in the maid’s petticoats?"
Eli (Kurt): "This is going to sound strange. The Queen would request that you not point your experimental device towards our planet in the future."