Toyin' Around Game Session Pics: October 6th, 2005 (Part 2 of 3)
Man I take forever with this crap! Okay, from now on, instead of putting text into all the pictures, I'm just going to upload them & put commentary underneith each pic. This way, I can FINALLY get some pictures up here that've been collecting virtual dust for years now. I'm not even kiddin' about the years part, it's been FOUR years since I took these pics.
This next batch of pics actually had text put into them, but I never got around to uploading them to photobucket & then starting an entry here for them. Soooo here we go with more Toyin' Around Game Session wackiness.
Quick re-cap for those who don't know:
Players & their Characters
Mike Cataro:
Character: "Py-Roh": A Xevoz Inferno Fury action figure. A living fire elemental basically that made many a NPC run away in terror or on fire. Mike played the character as a very calm, collected individual who didn't talk very much, but was always there for the group. Woe is he who messed with a friend/ally of Py'Roh, as while he might have been like a candle most of the time...when angry he was a blazing inferno. This character was one of my favorite's of Mikes in my games because he made the toy his own. Xevoz made action figures that had interchangable parts, so you could mix & match 'em. In addition to that, each figure was like a Storm Trooper; i.e. just 1 of many like it with no real personality. That allowed Mike to pretty much make the character his own, as he wasn't just a fire being, he was a fire being named Py-Roh with his own thoughts, feelings and personality.
Amanda:
Character: "Donny" A Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Storage Shell Donatello action figure. As Donatello is one of Amanda's favorite turtles, she wanted to play as him yeeears ago when I first started the game. Over time, he constantly had his mind swapped into the bodies of different Donatello action figures (partially because we kept finding better ones & also because the 1st toy she was using couldn't stand up on the table to save it's life) until he eventually ended up in this original TMNT toyline figure. As she's a Storage Shell turtle, he back opens up & acts like a bag of holding, so most of the group's loot got stored in there.
Nolan:
Character: "Kurt": A Marvel Legends Nightcrawler action figure. Nolan had wanted to play as a Marvel Legends Hawkeye figure due to a few reasons I can't recall, but 1 of them was the bow & arrow he had with a large compliment of specialty arrows. I agreed with his choice, as that figure also came with a Wundagore Mountain Atomic Steed, a flying one-man vehicle seen in many Marvel Comics over the years. So, he'd have a vehicle AND some really cool arrows to use. Unfortunately, Golden Memories (a nearby comic/collectible store) didn't have him for sale & we couldn't find it anywhere else. Nolan then settled on/chose to play as a Nightcrawler Marvel Legends figure instead. Simply called "Kurt" (as that was the character Nightcrawler's real name) by the other toys in his group, he added a certain randomness to everything. Many times Kurt would say, or do something that was not expected but oddly fit perfectly with the situation. Although a skilled acrobat & gymnist in the comic books, Nolan chose to play him without focusing on that aspect too much. He often used either a shrimp-skewer sword OR a small Magnum revolver pistol in combat. His teleportation ability helped him save friends from hungry zombies several times, as well as cover distances quickly. When they encountered a G.I. Joe Medic action figured named "Sideswipe", Kurt gave him the name "Riff Raff" instead, saying "I don't know why, but he just strikes me more as a 'Riff Raff' for some reason.".
OKAY, now that I did that, on to the pics!
Amanda has Don-Grrr (the hybrid name of the being made up of Donny's mind inside a brain-jar on the body of Ty'Grrr, their Xevoz Razorclaw friend) attack the Predacons while they're distracted..
....but that plan didn't work just right. We (me and the players) determined that Py-Roh, being made of fire, was able to regenerate himself and re-form his flame body and could return to the game. The energy blast from Leatherback's weapon just dispersed his flames enough that he needed a few turns to draw himself back together again. Now, as that was happening, Don-Grr was just blasted and de-animated by the Predacon known as Snapper. In the background, Nolan is seen reading one of my Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe books which contains an entry on Nightcrawler (which is why the book was downstairs during game). As Nolan's character was also just de-animated, I didn't bust his chops about not paying attention...THIS time.
Here we see my hand giving Py-Roh a hand (ha HA! I'm hilarious). This was more of a behind-the-scenes type of picture, just showing what went on inbetween photographs.
As Py-Roh is outnumbered & out-gunned, he opts for a strategical retreat. Grabbing Donny's Brain-Jar off of Ty-Grrr's body, he tosses it on his back & takes to the sky. The Predacons aren't fast enough to shoot him down & he ducks into the Swamp Zone where the Predacons will be forced into their less powerful beast modes should they choose to follow him. He flies with determination & heads back to a place in the zone that they fought a battle at very recently (see previous posts)....
Py-Roh lands outside Dragon Mountain, specifically next to the de-animated bodies of the Tomb Wraith (left) & Ebony Grappler monster (right). Placing Donny's Brain-Jar in a nearby tree, he sets to work on his idea.
Donny's brain-jar can attach to any Xevoz toy body...and as the Tomb Wraith was a Xevoz toy, he can use THAT body until they can heal Ty-Grrr's. Py-Roh attaches the head & waits...
Success! It worked! Donny now has a body once more...although a bit more skinny then his previous one. This whole Brain-Jar thing was a bit of creativity on my part to allow Amanda to still play in the game while her character was de-animated, cause without players there isn't a game to play. So, since her character is an inventive genius, we came up with the Brain-Jar idea. So, now she could continue to play even without her actual character being around. Neat 'eh?
Juuust to be safe, the Ebony Grappler's body is pushed into Dragon Mountain, and the large metal gate is closed down behind to lock it inside. Ebony Grapplers are dangerous cloth creatures, created during the 80's by some evil toys. Since then, they've been duplicated by numerous evil toys and they roam houses all over the country preying on any toys they come in contact with.
The Tree Stump Goblin is a magical toy and he could be a great help in re-animating their friends. Normally, Sideswipe (aka"Riff Raff") would re-animate anyone in their party...but with him currently de-animated, they need another option- FAST.
What could these swamp monsters actually be? Hopefully not the Predacons again...I don't think Py-Roh & "Donny" could handle a fight with them right now. The Swamp Zone was the setting for the majority of our game sessions back in 2005 as it was easy to keep the PC's powerful weapons & items in check due to the Anti-Technology spell cast on the place. Plus it also added a nice ambiance and let the group feel there were in a toy swamp.
This "eerie" tree had a toy wizard held prisoner inside a metal cage. The tree has a large face on it, as well as several smaller faces peering through the bark of the tree.
Apparently this tree was a very powerful being that had absorbed the "souls" of several dozen toys that had passed by it over the years. Casting a "fear" spell on Py-Roh & Donny proved only to be half useful...
Amanda failed a check and thus her character became frozen in fear unable to move anywhere until the effects wore off.
Py-Roh is sickened by this tree's behavior and the fire builds up inside him. The tree was burned to a cinder, and once de-animated Py-Roh & Donny went to release the trapped wizard toy. Once opened, the figure fell to the ground lifelessly...the wizard was the tree's last victim, at least they had avenged it's death though.
Another shot of "Donny" afraid, this time you can see Py-Roh's player, Mike, in the background.
A spooky old toy well is a few inches away from the charred body of the evil tree, once the lock is picked & the bars opened, a small evil-looking toy goblin is seen inside. What killed this toy goblin & put it inside the well??
Here we see Amanda, Donny's player, in the background while in the foreground we have 2 Resident Evil Chimera monsters eating some toys. Having a gigantic toy collection makes playing this game so much more in-depth, as you can REALLY show off a lot of different stuff. This still all takes place within the Swamp Zone, but to replicate the effect of the player characters moving I had to re-create table-length spots each time they moved to a new area. If you notice the time stamp on the bottom right, it was 3:26am when I took this picture. Game often went from about 5-6pm until 3am or even 4am most nights. As only Amanda & I were working at the time AND both had work at night the following day, gaming this late was never really an issue. Another reason why this particular group at that particular time worked so well.
The picture was a little blurry, so I tried to clean it up with Photoshop...but it didn't work exactly as I'd have liked so it was still a bit fuzzy.
Playmobil is a toyline that I truely love for numerous reasons, but as a toy game master they provide nearly 80% of my weapons, misc. items & NPCs. If I ever won a decent amount of money in the lottery, I'd use it to order many misc. pieces to use when I run my toy games.
I'd only had this camera for a short time, maybe a year at most, so my skills were kinda so-so. For example, I'd taken a shot of Amanda's hands in the background instead of the toys in the foreground; a problem I'd have a few times when taking photos. These monsters are from the Resident Evil series and served as excellent NPC's to throw against the players...althought I don't see them lasting long against Py-Roh..
I seem to recall that, Py-Roh just went "Boo." to the Chimeras & the sight of a man of living fire approaching them, scared them off. I mean, if I was a mutated genetic experiment I'd not waste my time fighting a guy made out of fire. Unfortunately the two Playmobil knights that were guarding the Tree Stump Goblin's friends were de-animated & eaten by the Chimeras. Now though, the TSG's friends were freed! I took this time to introduce one of my favorite obscure Marvel characters: the macabre Man-Thing! I was very excited when they released that figure in Marvel Legends & was eager to put it into the toy game as a random encounter monster. Surprisingly, Py-Roh & Donny didn't freak out when seeing it, and the thing sorta just followed them around like a lost puppy while they were in the Swamp Zone. But more on that next time...
In closing: I first started up this campaign in mid-to-late September of 2005, but only started photographing the sessions starting with the one on 9-21-05. In total there were about 8-or-9 different sessions done with Nolan, Mike & Amanda, and they were the most fun I think we've all had together while gaming. As far as I know, this was the first time Nolan played in an RPG and I'm glad he had such a good time with it as he was always (well...at least 85-90% of the time) taking part in what was going on. As we stopped playing Toyin' Around & moved over to the Palladium TMNT & Other Strangeness RPG, Nolan wasn't as "into it" I noticed. He played a few sessions, and then when the characters ended up in the land of OZ (don't ask, LONG story LoL), he decided his character was going to retire there. He still came over every week to hang out/listen to us play, but he never participated after that. Still, that 1st group of mine was by far the most unique. I'd love to get a game started up with them again, but things are not the same for any of us. It would actually be cool to mix some of the different groups I gamed for together, maybe see how Janet would be in the group with Nolan, Mike & Amanda. I laugh to myself at the thought of how one of Janet's characters (who are more often then not, very chaotic) would have interacted with Nolan's character Kurt, the Nightcrawler action figure. Hmmm..is it still considered fan fic if it's based off of something I made up?
Stay tuned as I upload the last few pics of the October 6th Toyin' Around game session & then eventually move onto the October 13th session that took place after that. *whew* I'll get all this pics up one of these days!
-Boglin
(P.S.): OH, and incase you all would like to look at early posts from this session, check out these previous entries:
theboglin.livejournal.com/25117.html