Spirit of Century actual play from yesterday.
Yesterday four other people came over and we made characters for Spirit of the Century and then did a test run afterwards. :) It was a fun day and trying out a new system is not always an easy thing, but we managed to get through it without too much difficulty. Two of have played the game (a one shot at Big Apple Con).
Here are the characters (I will have more on them once they actually get them back to me). I will post them on here.
Penelope Pureheart (gadget girl) played by Dawn.
The Darkness (man of mystery) played by Henry.
Alex…I don’t remember her last name (international reporter) played by Farrah
Malizma The Mysterious Magician (Illusionist) played by Don
Here is the story; all GM related stuff is in bold.
Our story starts out as the intrepid band of adventurers are returning to their headquarters from a gala they had been invited to. Their headquarters is owned by Penelope and is located in Queens. She has three staff on hand. Two lab assistants (Bob and), and a butler named Horatio. Upon arrival, Bob approaches Penelope and states that the group had been delivered a letter. The letter states that there was a bomb located at the Grand Central Terminal. There was nothing they could do to stop it and he wanted them to feel just how useless the situation was! There was a signature mark on the letter of a burning raven. It is from the nefarious villain Kung Lao!
After a brief discussion, they decide to hurry to the Grand Central to stop the bomb! They decide to change their clothing (whereas MMM goes in puff of smoke and is standing there looking exactly the same as before). Penelope suggests calling the cops and letting them know there is a bomb, which they did since they have a direct line to the New York Police (kind of like the bat phone). After a funny bit whereas we realize not ONE person chose a drive skill, they call upon Horatio who acts as chauffer as well. They are off!
They get to Union Station and notice how empty is seems to be. Worried about the possibility of the bomb, they began searching the area for clues. Nothing really shows up here and as they are about to go into another room a group of oriental looking gangsters enter the room. One stands out to be their leader. He laughs mockingly and began to speak.
“Insolent fools; I will destr-“This was as far as he got as The Darkness opened fired on the group. I compelled Henry’s “shoot first ask questions later” aspect.
At this point the battle was on! Malizma distracted two of the minions with his stage magic stunt. I was very lenient. I should not have allowed it, but what the hey. J Our heroes made short work of the gangsters with a dazzling array of killing moves. They all rolled awesome and got a ton of shifts and overflow, and I rolled horrible. The funny part of this was the man whose name is Liu Kang was peeved that the Darkness interrupted his speech. He then kept trying to yell over the gunfire, telling them of their impeding doom. Getting angrier and angrier cuz no one was really paying attention to him.
When Liu Kang saw that he was not going to be able to win the fight, he pushed the remaining gangster into the group and ran for the exit! The Darkness took chase and beat him to the door. Henry rolled Athletics against me and won a contest to see who made it to the door first. At this point, The Darkness then intimidated (after Liu was tied up) Liu Kang. Again a very high amount of shifts. And found out there was no bomb and it was a diversion! Kung Lao was after the mysterious artifact known as the Ruby Claw, which MMM was keeping until they could figure out what to do with it. At this point they called the base with their communicators, but no one answered. Penelope used her universal gadget stunt and created a wrist communicator on the fly.
Putting Liu Kang in the truck of the car, they rushed back to Headquarters. Upon arrival Malizma (to Penelope's chagrin) decides to kick the door in. He bounced off the door and landed on his back. Don had to roll might and my god did he fail. As they entered the headquarters (Penelope glaring all the while) they could not help but notice how silent it was. Not seeing anyone they began to search the apartment and found the two other assistants were tied up in the lab. They say the Sung came to steal the Dragon Claw. The party runs to Malizma’a room to check where he hid The Ruby Claw. Don kept talking about how he hid it in his shoe. J The claw was stolen! DUH DA DUH!!!!!!! There was another letter from Sung talking about how easy it was to trick the group and calling them incompetent morons.
After this, they decided to head to bed since it has been a long day. Horatio volunteers to stay up and guard the place while they sleep, so they head to bed. BUT WAIT. Malizma remembered at the last second that they had left Liu Kang tied up in the trunk of the car. J If they had not remembered he would have been dead by dawn. They brought him into the apt, tied him up and went to sleep.
The next day the group discussed what to do. This is what they came up with:
Alex decided to go to her contacts to find out more about Kung Lao. Penelope decided to create three more communicators. The Darkness decides t “talk” to Liu Kang. Malizma works on his magic for a bit and then eventually joins The Darkness in the interrogation of Liu Kang.
The Darkness builds rapport and then intimidates Liu Kang. Henry got so many shifts on this that Liu Kang was in awe/hero worship of him. He also used his Mesmerist stunt to help with this since Liu was a very willing subject due to the previous rapport and intimidation rolls. Things of note that Liu Kang says if that he is pretty far down on the food chain in Tseng Snug’s network and that he receives message delivered to him when Sung needs him to do work. . Malizma asked the last time he had received a message and Kang said it was a few weeks back when he was told to murder someone that was a political figure.
Kang reports to So Kong Lu, whom is one of Sung’s highest ranking Lieutenants. Who recruited him and took him to Bangkok to train in the martial arts. Kung Lao was there to observe from time to time and Kang had no idea where he was in Bangkok since he was always blindfolded when he left wherever they trained.
Other items of note were the fact that Kung Lao also had rented some lockers at Yankee Stadium to use as a drop off location. Whenever Kang received a message for a job, he would go to the drop off and the details of this would be there. At this point Kang is begging for his life and tells the Darkness he wanted to change his ways and would do anything for him. This was due to how well Henry rolled while rolling Intimidate. I decided he could be a companion and he decided that Liu Kang would be his sidekick named the Ghost. So they are now The Ghost and the Darkness. J The last thing he told The Shadow and Malizma was that he did keep some records at his apt in East New York, Brooklyn, to protect himself.
Alex goes and speaks to her contact Chinatown Joe in Chinatown of all places. He points out it is very dangerous to talk to her right now since he has heard that Kung Lao would kill anyone that betrays him. Alex rolls rapport and does pretty well. Joe did not have too much information other than the fact that Kung Lao is trying to take over the city. He runs Chinatown and is looking to expand. He then clams up and is too afraid to say much more. Alex then decides to intimidate him and pulls her gun and tells him to give her more information or else! The informant laughs at her and walks away. Farrah rolls intimidation and failed pretty badly. I think I may also assign a minor consequence for this. At a loss for words may work. J Crestfallen, she heads back to the Headquarters.
Penelope starts trying to create three more communicators for the rest of the group. She succeeds! Dawn rolled an engineering roll and lowered the time it would take from a couple of days to 15 minutes. It was cool!
They head to Liu Kang's apartment to see what documents they have and find it burned and they decide to stake out the drop box at Yankee Stadium to see who shows up and possibly follow them back and see where they lead.
That is where we stopped. J
Overall, I should have probably not have ran something last night since I did not have their sheets and such in front of me. So trying to compel aspects and remember their skills and stunts was a bit of a mess. J The creation too much longer than I thought it would be everyone says they enjoyed it, which is what you want to hear I guess. The aspects kind of confused them at first, so when they were starting their characters, it was not until the novels where they really seemed to get into it. From what I have read online, this is not uncommon. But they were definitely enjoying themselves at this point. I really need to read the book again because there were some things I was confused about. J But that isn’t shocking since I ran it for the first time.
It was a great time and everyone said they had a blast. We play again in three weeks and that gives everyone times to really get their characters the way they like them and for me to get better acquainted to running the game. I am excited though!