Actual Play – “Kill the Blue Crimes Unit” (6/14/2012)

Actual Play – “Kill the Blue Crimes Unit” (6/14/2012)

Director: Leonard Balsera
Cast: Rich Rogers, Scott White, and Sean Nittner
System: Prime Time Adventures
Show: Blue Gene

To be clear, the Blue Crimes Unit, or the BCU, is the very small unit of LAPD in charge of solving Blue Gene Sequencing Crimes… in other words, us guys!

Some really cool and interesting things happened in this game.  And, motherfucking all of them were because of us collaborating as a group, including a retcon that REALLY saved a scene. I love it.

Act 3 – Scene 0

Lenny showed us a scientist observing mass manufacturing with a lot of machinery that ended in a substance that looked just like syrup one would pour onto a…

Cut to a father and son delightfully looking at a snow cone as it was being prepared for them. Menacing!

Actual Play – Breaking Morality (6/13/2012)

Actual Play – Breaking Morality (6/13/2012)

GM: Shaun Hayworth
Players: Sean Nittner, Justin Dhiel, and Noam Rosen
System: Burning Wheel
Setting: Burning Theorsa

This has been brewing for a while. In the fiction, for nearly a year, in game for 17 sessions. Baldric, a young knight whose moral code and has been challenged and found wanting, is out if his mind infatuated with Moya, his war wizard companion. Besides the fact that they have very different outlooks on life, scream at each other all the time, and often despise one another, there is one major hitch in their would be romance. Their siblings. Or at least half-siblings, but it’s still close enough.

For ages that was enough to keep them apart. Baldric didn’t know Moya was his sister, and so he pursued her relentlessly. Moya cast him away over and over. It was their routine. They also fought. A LOT. So that kept things from getting boring, and from feeling like skeezy sexual harassment. Generally speaking Baldric would make an advance, be spurned, something (unrelated) would come up that they fought like cats and dogs about, and they would part furious with each other.  The would both kick ass to overcome their trials, growing closer to each other in the process and… repeat.

Baldric has even found out Moya was his sister. Twice! But the Dragon Magic (she gave away her family name) keeps robbing him of that knowledge. Every night he forgets and wonders what revelation he had but like a dream was forgotten.

And of course there was even more than all that…

Actual Play – Changes (6/6/2012)

Actual Play – Changes (6/6/2012)

GM: Shaun Hayworth
Players: Sean Nittner, Justin Dhiel, and Noam Rosen
System: Burning Wheel
Setting: Burning Theorsa

This session of Burning Theorsa can be viewed online here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?…

This session was definitely one of characters changing. Shaun had some specific prompts for us, things to set our characters off, but also their dynamics changed with each other. A lot of that, of course had to do with beliefs:

The visitors will be leaving Redvale soon; I will pledge my enduring fealty to the Duke so that I might have an opportunity beyond this village. – Ayernand
Baldric’s praise is mocking and self-serving. I will make sure all men understand the true meaning of war by telling them of my sacrifice. – Ayernand

Ayernand is a symbol, but to be loved by the people he must embrace it. I’ll convince him to speak at the feast, to embolden the troops as he accepts the mantle “Troll Slayer.” – Baldric
Afon speaks incessantly of his prowess at killing nobility. Since we cannot get to the king through Andon, perhaps Afon can do it. I’ll convince him to infiltrate the kings men and deliver our message to him. – Baldric

Baldric clearly thinks very little of my magic, and believes me to be an immoral monster. I don’t need family who feels that way about me, I will convince Aziz to let me head his personal guard. I will begin by sending him a letter by raven. – Moya

Ayernand – Baldric. Noam is just setting himself up for mold breaker. He wants to swear fealty to Roderick, he wants to put Baldric in his place. Will he have to choose between those two?

Baldric – Ayernand: Baldric can be remarkably callous with regard to how people feel about things. He’s seen men dying from being burned to death, he’s committed horrible atrocities. After that, hurting someone’s feelings just doesn’t register with him.  He was determined that Ayernand would accept the mantle of Troll Slayer, regardless of whether or not he believed in it.

Baldric – Afon: By the gods, what have I done? Sent Afon off to kill the king!

Moya – Baldric: We made sure Baldric saw the letter. Fires burn hot between these two.