Actual Play – Professor Claudius Lightstep: Taken! (8/17/2013)

Anima Prime CoverGM: Sean Nittner
Players: Will Robot, and three other fine folk!
System: Anima Prime

I got really excited about Anima Prime when I played it up at Go Play North West. The system was light enough to encourage the high-flying steambot megasword Final Fantasy, Avatar the Last Airbender action that the setting presents, and it has just the right ruleset to back that up and make choices feel meaningful in the game. If you haven’t checked out Anima Prime do it now. The game is free (I know, awesome) but if you’re like me you’ll want a physical copy in your hands as well. http://www.animaprimerpg.com/main/

I figured the best way to run the game was with the demo adventure, so I downloaded it (also free off the website) and read it during the flight to Gencon. I liked the characters, the situation, and even the bad guys. Win, win, win. It even starts (and this seemed like a theme for me at Gencon) on a train!

GM on Demand

I wasn’t slotted to run games on Saturday. In fact I had only signed up to run for a couple of slot on Sunday because I wanted to have the freedom to run all over the con… but I instantly regretted it. I knew that I would have a lot of fun running games and that I wouldn’t have to worry about signs ups. I could just sit and wait for players to ask for something. So, on Saturday as I was looking over the offerings I just asked one of the hosts “hey is it okay if I run a game this slot?”. Since there were tables free they pulled out my menu (the Games on Demand menus look great this year) and game me a table.

20 minutes later I was running Anima Prime for four eager players. Woot!

Anima-prime-GoDThe play is the thing

As per the adventure scenario I started off with a brief opening about the setting and situation, we introduced the characters and their relationships, and then jumped right into a character scene. The players were new to each other, and their characters were set up to have sort of gruff attitudes towards each other, so the chemistry wasn’t tight at first. As they played though, I felt the table warming it and just as the character interaction was reaching a crescendo, I played the Final Fantasy 7 Fight Scene music. Or at least I told them to envision it in their head!

The players took very well to the combat mechanics. They were excited about achievements and had really awesome descriptions of bad-assery.  After the fight we were nearly out of time, but with the few minutes he had left, got in one more character scene and saw them flying off to find Professor Lightstep, with their newly liberated MechaniFlyer!

Thoughts on this game

Many thanks to Christian for support and advice running the game. I gained a lot by playing in his game first. Both in understanding the rules and in my confidence with the setting and system.

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