carl rigney – Sean Nittner

Actual Play – Thora vs. the Ormson Brothers Three (9/28/2014)

GM: Carl Rigney
Players: Ben Chirlin, Jamil Valis-Walker, Sean Nittner
System: Sagas of the Icelanders

This felt a little nostalgic. Getting a chance to play a new game that I’d been excited about trying out for a while, with Carl, at EndGame. This has happened many times in the past….Dogs in the Vineyard, Don’t Rest Your Head, Apocalypse World, Agon, Monsterhearts, Levearge, Smallville… but as you can tell from the dates of those games, it’s been a while.

The game itself was serendipitous, I didn’t think that I could make it to the EndGame Square One Game Day until just a day or two before the event and by then all the games were booked. I decided to show up anyway and see if there were any openings. Fortune smiled on me. Carl’s game was full but two of the players didn’t show up so not only did I get to play Sagas but I also filled the 3rd player spot that meant there were enough players for the game to run! Huzzah!

Our Icelanders

Thora Sigriddottir – A fierce Shield-Maiden who had gone out Viking once in the past and killed a man with a fine Spanish sword, which she now wielded to the envy of many.

Jorund Bardson – The Man, father of Thora, but now remarried after Sigrid passed. Employer of Ari, the son of his good friend Hrolf. Jorund’s relationships were the ties that kept us all together. Between Jorund’s daughter, huscarl, and greedy neighbors, his life would not be simple.

Ari Hrolfson – Huscarl to Jorund. Ari’s brother Hegg had taken over the homestead and tensions were high between them, and neither felt the distribution of their father’s wealth was fair. Hegg had all the property, Ari had the ship, but he also took his father’s sword, and the last Hegg believed to be his inheritance.

Our History

We built up some backstory to wind up the tension of the game and give us something to spring off of.

Jorund Bardson and Hrolf were good friends who came to Iceland together, founded neighboring homesteads, and traded the fruits of their bounty. Jorund had one daughter with his wife Sigrid (Thora) but the she passed and he remarried to Helga who already had two sons of her own (Bjorn and Bjarni) from her dead husband Olaf Sigurlson. With her he had two more daughters (Dalla and Osk).

Hrofl had two sons (Hegg and Ari) and a daughter (Ingrid the Seidkona). All of he children Thora, Hegg, Ari, Bjorn, and Bjarni grew up together, fought together, and eventually when a Viking together. Last summer Hrolf was injured while Viking and died during the winter chill. Hegg took the homestead, Ari his father’s boat. Both made claim on their father’s sword (Hegg because he was the oldest, Ari because he fought beside his father last) but in the end Ari just took it and would let the gods sort it out.

Both Hegg and Ari had affections for Thora, but neither had offered a bride price (dowry) yet.

Helga’s first husband (Olaf) had a brother Orm that was always the cheat and vagabond. Together with his three sons Valli the Peacock, Vandrid the Axe, and Vebjorn the Half-Bear, Orm brought hardship to the people and was a know cattle thief.

Our Story

Late at night, just as the sun was setting in early summer, three deep shadows were cast across the homestead of Jorund. In the dim light Ari (who was on the porch watching over the land) recognized the sons of Orm. He advanced to cut them off from Jorund’s cattle, but as it turns out it was he that they wanted.

The three brothers came to him wishing to be taken viking when his ship sailed later in the summer. His father was dead and his brother Hegg would not go, so naturally they should come. Ari began to dispute their claim to a place on his ship when Thora emerged and quickly escalated the confrontation by insulting the brothers by saying they were not brave or swift enough, and not worthy of going viking. Things escalated pretty fast from there. Valli insulted Thora. She challenged him. Valli dismissed her as a foolish girl. Ari boasted that not only could she defeat him, should could defeat all three of them! And a duel was arranged.

When Jorund, despite Helga’s admonitions, came outside it was already too late. The duel had been arranged and his daughter would face three warriors in single combat the next day.

We squeezed in lots of great scenes between the challenge and the duel itself.

Ari and Thora sparred by candle light. At one point Ari fell and Thora was upon him. Violence suddenly turned sexy.

They were interrupted by Jorund, however, who wished to bestow his daughter with words of wisdom.

In the night Ari hatched a plan. He took his mail shirt and oiled it well, wrapped it sound, and brought it to Thora as a gift, which she accepted gladly and the two of them wandered into the night and made tribute to Freyja, goddess of love and sexuality.

In the morning, Thora, who had been admonished by her step-mother Helga asked how she could gain her approval to marry Ari. Helga said that if Thora convinced Ari not to take her sons Bjorn and Bjarni out viking that she would embrace her as a daughter and support her. Thora agreed but soon forgot her promise.

Meanwhile Jorund and Ari talked about the battle to come and Ari asked if he would accept the Ari’s mail shirt as a bride price for Thora. Jorund protested that he would first have to refuse Ari in order to give Hegg the opportunity to propose as Hegg was the older brother. Ari countered that he would only have to allow Hegg to propose if he hadn’t denied three other suitors first. Since a father is only allowed to refuse three offers, after that, he would have to accept Ari’s offer, assuming Thora would take him. Jorund was perplexed but agreed that if three other suitors first approached and he denied them all, he would have no choice but to accept Ari’s proposal.

As people gathered to see the fight, Ari found his sister Ingrid and asked that she do a boon for him. Convince the Ormson brothers to each, in turn, propose to Thora before the duel. Ingrid said she would do this, but the price was that Ari would not draw his fathers sword form it’s scabbard until night had fallen. He agreed and she peace bound his sword with a single hair of hers and a prayer to the gods.

The Duel(s)

The Godi announced the duel, each man would be fought individually upon a small sandbar just a few feet from the shore. Stepping off the small island, having three shields broken, yielding, or dying would all signify losing.

Before the fight Bjorn offered Thora his helmet. Bjarni offered her his shield. They all embraced and boasted of her might.

Ari spoke with Hegg and kept him distracted with discussion of the homestead and sibling rivalry so that he could not approach Thora.

Before the duel was fought, Valli, son of Orm stood and said that their was no need to fight. He had three cattle that he would offer instead, as a bride price to marry Thora. All but Ari and Ingrid (who gave him a subtle and knowing smile) were surprised by this. Jorund, as he had agreed, refused this offer.

Then Vandrid, second son of Orm, stood forward with bags full of coin and offered also proposed. Jorund refused, but by now many were beyond surprise, they were either confounded or outraged. Hegg stood forward and said “This is nonsense, you cannot be hearing these proposals. If everyone is going to propose to Thora, then so will I=”

It wasn’t perfect. Ari had hoped to hold Hegg at bay just a bit longer, but he had to make do. He shouted an interruption “You cannot brother, for I already have. The mail shirt she wears to do battle today is my bride price. Jorund, let me marry your daughter!”

AWKWARD. Hegg protested. He should be the one to be able to propose. Thora called out that he had not gone viking last year, that he was a coward and not a man at all…

FOUR DUELS IN ONE DAY!

As each duel was fought Jorund beseeched Orm to call off his sons but it was to no avail. The old man’s pride was too great.

Hitting Game Mechanics here for a second. Thora had a Youth stat of +3, She was given +1 on all her rolls from Ari’s boasting the night before. She was also given +1 on all her rolls from her father’s counsel and training the night before. When you have +5 on a roll, success is a sure thing, and in this case, Thora never got less than a 10+. Every Ormson brother died and lead Orm alone in the world with no sons to bring firewood to keep his hearth warm. Without a slave to attend to him and with no friends, he would likely not live through the winter.

Oathbreaker or Kinslayer

While this violence occurred Ari spoke to his brother Hegg and ask that he not fight this duel. Ari loved Thora and did not want to see her harmed. But he also loved his brother, despite their differences, and did not want his blood spilled for pride. Hegg thought on this and agreed that he would not Harm Thora if Ari gave him their father’s sword. Ari tried to explain to him the oath he had made to the gods and to Ingrid. He promised the sword and sundown, but Hegg would not hear it. The choice was to let Hegg fight and die, thus loosing his brother, or to give Hegg his sword, pray that he did not draw it from it’s sheath, and put his fate in the hands of the gods. Potential god wrath it was!

When Hegg stepped onto the island to face the now blood soaked Thora he did so ready to die but also ready to speak sense with her if she could here it. The duel was for nothing. She had insulted him but she could simply surrender and thus take back the insult. None would question her prowess with the blade. Hegg held his hand on Hrolf’s sword hilt. Ready to draw should the Valkyrie of death advance on him.

There was this tipping moment where nobody could tell what would happen. Thora would advance and kill Hegg, or one of them would step back into the water and admit defeat. Ari could not see the purpose in his brother eyes and before the sword was drawn he ran through the water to tackle his brother and stop him from fighting Thora. It was moot however, Thora had already stepped back into the water, admitting defeat and restoring Hegg’s honor.

This did not however, stop the two brothers from the wrestling in the water just as they had in their youth.

A Funeral and a Wedding

After the duel the brother were all carried up onto Orms property where they were buried under giant piles of stone (the one thing that was not scarce on the island). Everyone helped carry stones. Many till their own hands were bleeding. Children and the elderly alike. All helped while Orm wept at the loss of his sons.

That night Thora and Ari were married. The walked onto the beach again and consummated the marriage before returning to the feast where Ari boasted that they would go viking this summer and bring back the greatest treasures anyone on Iceland had ever seen. Yay, boasting!

A viking

We were running short on time, so we handled the viking using the Huscarl move of the same name. Fate was tempted and they stayed out longer than they should but they came back with plunder a plenty. (I supposed two handfuls of silver plus one handful for Thora, Bjorn, and Bjarni each).

Jorund also did well. He expanded and built a new barn for his cattle to keep them safe and protect them from the cold.

A forgotten promise

What about Thora’s promise to Helga that Bjorn and Bjarni wouldn’t go a-viking? Whoops, I guess that is for the gods to sort out.

Thoughts on this game

Ben had never played a roleplaying game before. He was a champ! He took right to being the beleaguered father with mischief making young ones. He did everything he could to keep his house in order and protect his family, but much of that was out of his hands. I think it was a great introduction to gaming for him!

There is a labor & food resources mini game that we got to see a little bit of in play. I didn’t see the moves so I was only getting part of it, but it seemed like a cool way to mechanize at least one “front”. Family disputes, sickness, the dangers of going viking would still come from play, but this ensured a constant challenge of just keeping everyone fed.

I love, love, love, the advancement mechanics. Pick four people to have relationships with. Advance after you’ve made a move involving each of them. I think at this moment this is my favorite advancement system. It forces the game to focus inward, which is exactly the direction you want it to go anyway. Fucking brilliant.

I don’t often feel clever in games, but in this game I felt more like Br’er Rabbit (or perhaps more aptly in this case Loki) than I ever have. Ari first made something of a blunder by challenging all three of the Ormson brothers to fight Thora, but later turned that to his advantage by giving her his mail shirt as a bridal gift and convincing the brothers to each propose to her before they fought, so once Jorund refused them all, he could not refuse Ari, and thus wouldn’t lose face by allowing Ari to marry her instead of Hegg. It didn’t work out that way, but it was close enough, I still was pretty tickled.

Deciding between breaking a vow to the god and being a kinslayer was pretty god damn awesome.

I think it would have been a stronger choice if Thora and Ari weren’t smitten with each other from the start. Yes, Hegg posed an obstacle, but as an NPC there was only so much interference he could run. I think it would have been stronger if Ari was perusing Thora, but she sought Hegg, or that she loved only battle and wanted no man.

The man and woman moves really gave me food for thought. It reminded me a lot of the Day/Night moves from Night Witches. If you weren’t in a certain circumstance (in this case being of one gender or the other) there were some things you just couldn’t do. It’s a very different vibe from Apocalypse World where the basic moves cover everything one might try to do and the playbook moves just create more potent effects or shortcuts to simplify things. An AW character is fundamentally never at a loss for something to try. A woman’s honor was never in question. A man could not goad a man into action.

The shield-maiden was the one character that could break this rule (she got one male move) and I was really glad that in our game, the woman being the kick ass hero that can sleep with whoever she pleases, gets the glory, and is all kinds of bad ass was totally normal. None of the characters, except the small-minded and churlish Ormson brothers thought anything of it.

I super loved the currency as well. A few bits copper, a handfull of silver. Fucking awesome.

There was a great tender moment when it was clear though his look that Hegg was not angry at Ari for their father’s death, he was angry with himself. It was the kind of thing they couldn’t communicate to each other with words, but when the wrestled in the water, both half drowning, I like to think they understood one another and forgave one another.

Carl, after the game, shared this little snippet about arraignment from http://www.vikinganswerlady.com/wedding.shtml

All of the family sagas agree that courtship “was the single
most deadly pastime for the young Icelandic male”.
The most important, unwritten rule of courtship was that
the less a hopeful groom saw of his intended bride before
entering into formal marriage negotiations with her family,
the better his chances were of staying alive.

Also, love poetry was punishable by outlawry or death!

Actual Play – Tiend High School (4/14/2012)

GM: Carl Rigney
Players: Morgan Ellis, Lisa Marcus, Karen Twelves, and Sean Nittner
System: Monsterhearts

For any buried under a rock like me, Monsterhearts is Joe Mcdaldno game of sexy teenage monsters and all their collective angst. It’s built on the Apocalypse World engine, but it is well enough developed that I don’t think of it as a hack. Rather another creation using many of the same first principals that Vincent employed.

When I signed up for this game, I misread the title. Which is incredibly odd since I was in charge of the scheduling for the minicon, so I probably only looked at the game title about fifty times. But like so many things, first impressions matter most, and when I first read “Trend” High School, I got images of Treandstone from Bourne and though we were going to be in a school for the “would be abducted and trained against their will secret agents”. Interestingly, I wasn’t completely wrong. There were students at the school against their will, but the moment Carl said “Tiend” I realized I had misread and misunderstood. Replace agent with “Fey” and origination they are indentured to with “Hell” and I was set!

The premise, was however that every seven years seven fey were sent to hell to abide by some pact between the Fey and the Infernal. Hell of course, was high school, and we were the attendees.

Our characters were a distant vampire, a curious witch, a desperately trying to be human Hollow, and a love struck Infernal. One important NPC (beside the fey) was also created. Monsieur Voltaire was our french teacher that insisted students always speak (even when he was teaching Homeroom) in French. He was also the devil and the power that fueled my infernal.

We did Vampire Diaries/True Blood/Buffy-esk drama throughout the game. Our characters all longed for something, and, as fitting the game, someone else had to lose something for us to get it.

Thoughts on this game

There were some mechanical bits that I really like and I’m going to consider steeling for Apocalypse Glalatica.

Conditions: A mechanical effect to cover all the wacky “conditions” that effect our the characters. We ended up with “In Trouble”, “Terrified” and “Fatigued” though I can imagine many more. For Galactica, I’d might use these to represent problems with the Fleet/Battlestar: Insubordinate, Paranoid, Afraid, Hungry, etc. Worth much musing.
Joe replaced Hx with Strings. Strings are built in some of the same ways bonds/Hx are in that you start with some strings on each other based off descriptors at the start. My character (the infernal) was in love with the vampire, so I gave him two strings at start. Instructions for how to do this are in the playbooks and many of the moves create ore remove strings. Strings are then spent to affect the other person: aiding, hindering, or manipulating them. I like the idea of having strings on people for all kinds of reasons (healthy and un): because they care about you, because you are friends, because you have blackmail on them, because you seduced them, because of a lie, etc. It seems like there are a lot of moves in AW that allow you do affect people in different ways, Strings consolidates those in a pretty cool way. I’m down for it.

My character was, story/character development speaking, a total one trick pony. She was in love with the vampire the entire game and all she did was plot to make him love her too. It was lame. Really, really lame. First off, she never changed (that was bad). Second, she didn’t escalate or change tactics (which was worse). I’m not sure exactly why I did this except that I was myself stuck in a rut. I wasn’t thinking of any creative alternatives and so, just kept trying the same thing. In different contexts, of course, but it always led to me getting a string on Morgan’s character and then using it to offer him XP to have sex with me. The major problem with this is that Vampires sex move specifically benefits them if they turn down another’s advances. So… mechanically and in the fiction, his best option was to keep blocking. Now, in the real world, people keep trying the same thing over and over hoping one day it will work (how many of us play the lotto). But in a game if you do the same thing twice without changing, it’s already old. I was very disappointed with my performance in this game.

Despite the repetitive behavior in game, I felt like I added are really awesome element to the story before game. Monsieur Voltaire was awesome. Not only because he made my “dark power” someone that every could (and had to) interact with, but he also insisted everyone speak in French… which was a killer affectation for an NPC.

Karen’s Hollow had this awesome move at the very end. Her darkest self was exposed and she needed others to understand the isolation she felt. So she took my character and trapped her in a locker and laughed while I screamed in terror. It was pretty bad ass. I realize that I could have made the game much better if that moment of terror changed my character and instead of chasing after the vampire (again), I turned to her, addressed the horror she just inflected on me and said “hey, that was pretty awful. I’ve done some awful stuff too. Want to be friends?” In fact, I like that ending so much more Carl suggested I just say that’s how it was. A better story for sure.

Bad ass cool moments:

Morgan’s vampire sucking a Fey dry and tasting Sunlight
Karen’s hollow “hunting” with the vampire but accidentally killing the fey, and it’s blood tasting like ashes in the vampire’s mouth.
Lisa’s witch casting “wither” on the hollow to stop her from tormenting the infernal and our horrible descriptiion of that hex.
Really fun conversation in French with the Fey. “You have parents? Is that what most people have?”

I’m very impressed with this game and I want to play it A LOT more.

Actual Play – Don’t Push Your Luck (1/28/2012)

GM: Carl Rigney
Players: Karen Twelves, Duane O’ Brian, Chris Bennett, Sean Nittner
System: Don’t Rest Your Head
Hack: Don’t Push Your Luck

Carl wrote this hack of DRYH to emulate the setting from the movie Push. I haven’t seen the movie but I got the gist of it from his description. People with powers + Evil organizations trying to control those powers = Thriller!

Note. There are apparently a lot of movies called Push. I mean this Push. Not Push, Push, or Push. Not even of these other NINETEEN MOVIES named Push!

The premise was good and the game was fun, but there were several things that did not work for me, some of them my fault, some of them the setting/situation/system, some of them the player dynamics.

To introduce the troubles I’m going to start with the cast, so there is some frame of reference:

Cast

Karen – Eva Jorgenson – A pusher who was saving up for her retirement fund. I couldn’t tell if she was a “one last job” or and “anything for a buck” kind of mercenary. Not being to answer that question, even by the end of the game, was troubling for me.

Chris – A changer who was running from her past. Despite her ability to mimic other people, there were people hunting her, which constantly drove her to more and more desperate attempts to be free of them.

Duane – A combat field medic. I forget what the power is called but he could heal people. His character was an adrenaline junkie disillusioned with the “Man”, in this his and my employer Division.

Sean – Allen (last name unknown) – A Wiper (memory eraser) who had wholes in his own memory that he didn’t know where they came from. Did Division do this, or did he do it to himself. He was driven to find out. On the surface he was a reliable “Company Man” but secretly he was working a deal with Eva to steal Division secrets and sell them to a rival Power Organization (Harmonious Jade Society I think).

My beef with the situation

As per the normal convention of DRYH, each of our characters was asked “what just happened?” That is a starting point for the character that is supposed to build momentum. It’s a “Kicker” from Sorcerer.

I’ve got two problems with this question. One, it has very little in the way of lead in. It doesn’t tie to the other questions necessarily, it just asks us “what something exciting, dangerous, etc that just happened” but I find myself struggling with it, trying to figure out how far I should narrate, how much I should write down and how much I should leave to find out what happens in play. I also feel that the question can be very disjointed from the other things that matter to the character.

Eva’s answer for instance was that a deal just went wrong and she was in the hot seat. Very cool, very bond, but very much not about her character’s motivations. I mean, Carl and Karen are both pros, so they wove it into something but that deal going south really didn’t have lasting consequences in the game, other than to create a threat. The deal itself didn’t even really matter. I think we did some revisionist history later to say that deal was related to something else that came up, but it still didn’t seem significant and more importantly it didn’t really drive the character. She knew she didn’t want to stay in that room, but otherwise the situation didn’t giver her direction.

My second problem with the question is that it inherently sets up one plotline per character. In a long term game I think that would be cool, but in a four hour con slot, I think that leads towards several solo games that are largely unimportant to the players not involved. It takes active effort of the players and the GM to bring those stories together and I often feel like it’s a real suspension of disbelief.

In this case Bennett was really off on his own. Though our characters intersected we couldn’t find a way to keep them together. Bennett has done this before though in a game. In Scott White’s Iron Road, he totally had his own story that didn’t effect the rest of us. So many that was just Bennett being a lone ranger. Maybe it was the story not giving him opportunities. I did talk to him afterwards and he wanted to have our stories intersect but didn’t know how to do it.

The setting has a baddie to draw players together: Division. Questions like this would serve the game better: How did you call come to be in Divisions cross-hairs? Or why is division interested in you? Or why did Division put you together with these people? Hmm… none of those create the kind of urgency that “What just happened?” does but I think something along those lines would be better for a con game.

My beef with the system/setting/hack

My power pissed me off. For reference I was a wiper. First off it seemed in all ways inferior to pushers. Pushers could make people remember things differently, or not remember them at all, so my ability to make people forget was totally superfluous to that. Also the effect of pushers was ostensibly permanent, while my memory wiping wore off.

That last one was the real pisser for me. I haven’t seen the movie, but it just makes no sense to me that I would ever erase someone’s memory. What good would it do? They would just remember in a couple hours or days. I mean sure, it could get me out of a bind or help in court case, but it seemed useless long term. Like at the end of the game when I switched sides they wanted to see me make an act of loyalty by wiping another Division agent. What the hell would be the point of that? He’d just remember in a few days. To make my power fun for me I decided to pretend that it was permanent. We were playing a four hour session that took place over one day, so for all intents and purposes the power lasted all game, but it still grated on me that I couldn’t believe in my own character.

Mechanics wise, Carl was mirroring DRYH but parts of the reskin didn’t do it for me:

Good Example: Madness. When the madness equivalent dominated (I think it was Powers or Supernatural, can’t remember) we had options of “Hurt ourself” or “Hurt others” (instead of Fight or Flight). That was a concrete choice we made and informed the narrative directly. I really liked it.

Bad Example: Exhaustion. When Pushing dominated (the Exhaustion dominated) we were supposed to narrate the situation getting more tense, more out of control. But sadly that felt nearly identical to when pain dominated. Ambiguity in things like “take the narrative in this direction” kills me.

My beef with the character interaction

As mentioned above, Bennett ended up in a different story from us. That sucked.

Eva and Allen had some deal going. She betrayed him, stole his stuff and then went to the airport and flew away. He didn’t even realize she betrayed him and it never came up in the game. That was some serious lose ends there where there should have been tension and drama but wasn’t. I was way frustrated with a particular roll when I spend all my mojo to try and keep her in a scene so that drama could unfold, failed the roll and ended up never knowing the better (as a result of her Push).

My character and Wayne’s had this never quite developed relationship. I felt like I was cock blocking him all game. Like whenever he would learn something about me I didn’t like, I would erase (or try to erase) it from him. That made me the lame lone ranger. My bad. I think our characters could have had something, but instead I pushed him to the outside of the story. LAME.

My beef with the story

Division didn’t scare me. It should have but it didn’t. In a setting where it’s supposed to be a huge threat, I should have felt it and I didn’t.

I got poisoned and nothing happened. I knew I was poisoned, even played it up (I started narrating myself walking woozy) but that was it. Maybe that’s a mechanics thing. How do you represent someone being poisoned. I guess by throwing more pain dice at them. Ah, I would have liked that to do something.

My beef with me

For this supposedly conflicted character who might or might not have been erasing my own memories. I never, EVER, erased my own memories. We talked about it, how it would be a blissful reprieve, but I never did it. And there was a perfect time when I SHOULD have: Right after the first scene, when I was caught trying to steel files from Division, I got shot (in fact Carl asked if I wanted to get shot and because I really wanted to see Duane’s power in effect I said “yeah, I want that to happen”) and then after Duane healed me I tried to make him forget it happened. What would have been WAY cooler is if I had erased my own memories just before meeting up with him so that when he said “How did you get shot?” I could have legitimately said “I have no idea.” That would have been much more fun.

Also, I cock blocked Duane. Bad form. Bad Sean.

Thoughts on the game.

I had fun. I like the players. I like Carl’s games, but this one had some things I wasn’t hot on. See above.

Actual Play – Days of Future Past (2/19/2012)

GM: Carl Rigney
Players: Sean Nittner, Karen Twelves, Eric K Lytle
System: Psi*Run
Setting: Days of Future Past (X-men)

This is what I know. Psi*Run is a game about amnesiac psychics on the run. This is what we played: amnesiac mutants on the run. Yep, I’m down with this hack.

The hack is based on the 1980s X-men storyline of the same name. From Wikipedia:

“Days of Future Past” is a popular storyline in the Marvel Comics comic book The Uncanny X-Men issues #141 and #142, published in 1981. It deals with a dystopian alternative future in which mutants are incarcerated in internment camps. An older Kitty Pryde transfers her mind into the younger, present-day Kitty Pryde, who brings the X-Men to prevent a fatal moment in history which triggers anti-mutant hysteria.

We were each given a Mutant ID sheet (character sheet) and filled in these questions:

I don’t know who I am! But when I look in the mirror, I see: An “M” is carved into my face and…

What powers do you want? Be vague. Keep a very loose idea of who you are. It make change. Other players may get to help define who you are.

So we started answering those questions. I went for a young black man with electrokenisis. I wanted lightning powers and the ability to “talk” to machines via electricity. Karen was a young woman who had been badly beaten up (still covered in bruises) and could steal powers. Eric had crazy 80’s x-men green hair and the power to duplicate himself.

This power became incredibly… complicated. More on that later.

Carl explained some of the game, the dice and scene mechanics an we stated playing. The first thing I noticed was that to do something we were rolling dice, rolling dice created all kinds of narrative outcomes (being caught, getting hurt, powers going wild), which led to situations that we needed to do something, which meant rolling dice.

We did a lot of narrating coolness, and a lot of dice rolling, but not much player interaction or role-playing. Part of this was due to the frantic chase mechanics in the game. Unless the highest dice are allocated avoiding the chase, the chasers (in this case Sentinels) would catch us. Further, most of our actions were dangerous, so we were getting beat up all over the place. The general experience was quite rushed. And I’m sure that’s intentional, but it did mean it took us a while to actually start “playing” our characters.

The story we told was one of four mutants with a plan to take down the Sentinels. They had been caught, their memories erased and sent off to Xavier knows where to keep them out of trouble. One of the mutants that sent them away was actually the same mutant, thanks to his own duplicating power… and speaking of which, lets talk duplicates.

It turns out the “Roach” (I got to name him with one of my questions) could make as many of himself as he wanted, but each duplicate was fully sentient, self-aware and self-interested. This meant that his copies weren’t always very helpful. There was a major question of “am the original or just another copy” which we answered, but by the very end, the question seemed moot, as eventually the original and the copy became indistinguishable. As an interesting twist, when a copy died, all of it’s memories came back to the creator…unless the creator was dead. Then, well, the math started getting strange.

At one point in the game there were an army of Roaches fighting, predictably, an army of Roaches!

Karen’s character has the ability to steal powers, which I wonder if that was frustrating as we only met two other mutants besides us. In the span of the game she did get everyone’s powers, but I’m still not sure if that was enough. Though her having the duplication power, and being terrified to use it, was pretty hilarious.

Eric gladly took the role of the traitor, but sadly by the end I even got confused on who he was double crossing, two many different Roaches with too many different loyalties.

For my part I enjoyed playing “Lightning Bug” learning he was the son of one of the scientists that designed the Sentinels, and then was put in an internment camp when it was revealed he was a mutant. But when his powers manifested he understood their programming, and could use it against them. Unbeknownst to me, I ended up programming Sentinels to do the exact same thing that happened in the comics, which was fly into the sun!

Thoughts on the game

As I mentioned, the space for “play” seemed very narrow. We were constantly running. I’m sure that is part of the design goals, but I think there needs to be a built in function to make some space for the characters to grow and interact. I’d suggest a flashback mechanic, but as they are all amnesiacs, that wouldn’t work. I’d say using a confessional, but what I really want is relationship building, plus a confessional makes it seem like the event is being staged, so that’s no good. Still thinking on this.

Good times as usual with Carl. He was very dedicated to running the game exactly as directed by the rules, a critical component when play testing a game.

The scenario is a good one, it reminds of Lady Blackbird. You’ve just broken free, your on the run and once you’ve had two seconds to catch your breath you find out it is worse than you could have possibly imagined.

Actual Play – The Winnebago Job (4/6/2011)

GM: Carl Rigney
Players: Noam, Karen, Nina, Brian and Sean
System: Leverage

This was a real last minute surprise for me. (Or was it my plan all along?) Finn, who was scheduled to be in the game couldn’t make it and I had the free time (sorry Evil Hatters for missing the call, but this was worth it) so it all just clicked together.

I’m running Leverage at Kublacon, so I justified the trip out to Oakland as research. In truth it was that plus a whole lot of fun.

Our Cast

Nina – Max – The androgynous Eurasian hitter with a mysterious mentor.
Karen – Stella – The heartbreaking grifter with a gambling problem.
Sean – Cortez – The Mastermind, a “retired” CIA agent with old enemies still hunting him down.
Brian – Alonzo – The Julliard musician turned thief – “Nobody steals pianos!”
Noam – Sheldon “Shell” – The high school nerd hacker with an ID claiming he’s 43.

Character Creation… continued (AKA, the Prom Job)

Leverage has a pretty nifty system for extended character creation. After picking the major roles your character plays (grifter, hitter, etc.) you then perform a job, only in this recruitment job, all we see are the highlights, or the moments of our characters acting awesome and finishing it off.

Carl got pretty enamored with Shell’s story about being the high school nerd and having a crush on the prom queen. Classic for a reason! So we decided that in the little suburb of Meadowvale in the California Central Valley, the municipal city funds had all been depleted by a water recycling expert named James Bishop. Most people thought James was an environmentalist doing what he could for the area but was sadly unable to save it however the client Nancy Dixon suspected something else was going on. James was getting richer while the poor town of Meadowvale was holding it’s last prom. After this year the school would be shut down. Tell me a bleeding heart that wouldn’t fall for that story.

So, How to Do It

In this opening montage everyone has a scene where they look cool and then pass the action off to someone else to help out in one of their non-primary ways. So as a mastermind I got to do some hitting (which I failed pretty poorly at), the thief got to hack, etc. And of course each of these was framed to be part of the job which we compiled at the end into a big finish, outing the mark and bringing the money back to the client (or in this case the city).

There were some fun bits with the thief assuming the files were in a safe but having to get them off a computer instead and not having anything to download them to, he installed iTunes on the machine so he could drop the files onto his iPhone, and all the while the hitter Max was fending off goons with pipes.

The other thing we get in these scenes are the monochrome character flashbacks, which show how the characters became who they are. As the job came to a close and Cortez and Stella watched Shell blush when trying to talk to the prom queen, Cortez asked if Stella remembered her prom // flashback to Make-out Point with the silhouette of a woman slapping a man. // “I didn’t make it. You?” // flashback to Cortez roller-dancing under a disco ball to “Staying Alive.” // “I don’t want to talk about it. Good times.

Cortez now and then…

The point of the flashback is to give your characters distinctions. Each character starts with one and gains two more during the course of the game. We had piratical ones like “retired” CIA agent, problematic ones like gambling problem and just quirky ones like androgynous. When distinctions are created in play however, they are decided by the other players, which is how you end up with things like “Nobody steals a piano”

The Winnebago Job

Client: Dr. Raymond Smith, concerned father
Mark: Alexander Chambers, cult leader

The skinny: In a tiny town in Washington, Chambers and his New Life Church has been recruiting members and buying up land, positioning to take over the area. Dr. Smith has not only lost his money through a swindle that he believes Chambers was part of, but also lost his daughter Cynthia, who has joined the church.

Objective: Get back his money, get back his daughter, chase Chambers out of town.

Once the job started, the speed of play picked up some. We all approached the town in different ways and all tried to pull different scams. While it was my job as the mastermind, it was really the group who as a whole harmonized all these seemingly disparate schemes to make them look like part of one big plan.

Here Were Our Three “Teams”

Max went in solo as a misguided youth who was looking for a cause to fight for. S/he was a shoe in, especially after saving Cynthia from a group of local ruffians. This gave Max a view of the security and the ability to redirect the guards as necessary.

Stella and Alonzo showed up as the power couple real estate agents looking to flip Dr. Smith’s property to Alex Chambers and insinuating that they have more property to offer. This got them inside his inner chambers.

Shell and Cortez showed up in a Winnebago trying to score some weed and bring the DEA (who had been investigating the pot farms in the area) into the scene. They performed surveillance and communications with the outside agencies (CIA and DEA in this case) whilst creating the distraction to draw Chambers and his assistant Li out of the compound, allowing Alonzo time to crack the safe open and get the incriminating evidence.

The final mastermind roll to put all the pieces together hinged on Alonzo planting hot diamonds on Chambers, Max having the showdown with his bodyguard Li to prove who’s kung fun was supreme, Stella sneaking out all the documents in a secret dress pocket, and Shell uploading those files to a file server where the federal agencies were sure to find them.

Conclusion

We triumphed gloriously. Li was defeated, Chambers was caught and arrested, Cynthia saw what kind of man Chambers really was, the money and property were returned to the people who had lost them (including Dr. Raymond Smith) and the team made off with a beach front house that had just slipped through the cracks.

Epilogue

Max had to break Cynthia’s heart as s/he did not love her back. Stella lost the bitchin’ Camaro she had previously won. Alonzo drove off in a moving van with a stolen piano in back. Shell was driving the said “bitchin’ Camaro” and Cortez turned on the radio to a 70’s station playing “Staying Alive.”

What rocked

Okay, this need to be prefaced with a major bias I have. I HATE PLANNING SCENES. I hate them with such a fiery passion that that every time I am subjected to one of them I feel like a little part of my soul dies. They kill me because they don’t present any interesting fiction, they take forever, and they are generally useless as the GM doesn’t care what plan you have, he or she just wants you do something. They also can drag on forever as people argue their different ideas and shoot each other’s down. It’s horrible.

Leverage has no planning scenes! Or at least the one we played didn’t. Because… Because. You don’t need them. The planning scenes are all built retroactively as needed. Need to know what kind of safe Chambers has? Sure, we researched that in a flashback. Who is the girl in trouble at the pool hall? Of course, it’s Dr. Smith’s daughter, we’ve got pictures of her. Finally, does Cortez have a plan at all or is he just going to get himself arrested? Absolutely, he was just playing his cards close to his vest in order to bring in the cavalry.

The traditional dangers of not planning are

a) you’re not ready for the obstacles you face and,
b) people work toward different ends (often getting in the way of each other).

Well, the research scenes take care of problem A and the masterminds ability to connect up the bits means that even if it LOOKS like the crew is chaotic and disorganized, they are actually all working towards some master plan.

So, I can’t say enough how much I like the fact that the Leverage gets rid of the planning scenes. It was awesome.

Building distinctions through the monochrome flashbacks was also killer. It reminds me of confessionals from InSpectres, and I love myself some confessionals.

The play itself was fun. We all had cool ideas and did a great job rolling with each other’s punches. I could tell several people had ideas they really dug (like constant piano references, gender confusion, etc.) and I thought we reincorporated them very well.

The spending of plot points as currency was much smoother than it was in Smallville. We all knew what we could spend them on and did so frequently. I was quite proud to end the game with none of my plot points left!

What could have been improved

The recruitment job had several rough spots.

a) It requires a lot of player expertise in how a “job” should go down. We all needed to think of cool and clever ways our role would be spotlighted in the crime and sometimes that was tough.

b) It was slow. There were five scenes, plus five secondary scenes plus three or four flashbacks. Then between scenes we arbitrated on distinctions as a group and how the scenes would fit together (they weren’t chronologically ordered).

c) I didn’t get the “and that’s how we pulled The Prom Job” feeling like I expected from the beginning of a Bond movie. It was more like “Here are the training wheels for the real game,” which is cool (I’m all down with teaching through doing) but not what I was expecting.

The game lacked “punch” in a way that I think may be crippling if exampled closely. Our experience was that after probably 40+ rolls in the night, Carl never got narration rights. Either we won the roll (a huge majority of the time) or we lost on the first roll and gave in (I think only 3 times in the game). Each time we gave in however, we took narration and were able to weave our failures into successes.

Examples: Max got beat up by the locals, but used that to gain Cynthia’s sympathy and gain admittance to the cult. Stella’s offer to sell the real estate got shut down but she narrated the failure as Chambers and Li being distracted by the exploded Winnebago out front, which granted her what she and Alonzo really wanted: access to the safe.

I think stories of any kind, need to show the characters grappling with failure. Usually in spy stories that means improvising – making a new plan or trying something previously deemed too risky. We never had that and therefore never really had to improvise or go off the schedule. To some degree this helped (in that we were improvising the plan all along) but in general I was disappointed at the ease of success.

The one critical place where the game needed more teeth is the twist. Every spy move, caper, etc. has a twist, where things suddenly go very wrong. I assumed this would result from a success from the Fixer but as he never got narration rights that didn’t show up. I think the twist needs to happen and it needs to hurt, like “Everyone give me a plot point, write down a debilitating complication and give me 10 pushups. THEN I’m going to tell you how your characters are getting squeezed!”

I think at the very least, the Fixer needed some ability to say “Yes, but” or “Yes, and,” possibly at the cost of a plot point, or maybe instead of the complications he got as from the players rolling 1s.

I never got the “opportunity” mechanic. Perhaps because I just didn’t have a talent that used them, but when the fixer rolled a 1 we all stared at it like Zoolander in front of a computer. We knew it was important but didn’t know what to do with it.

Actual Play – The Breakfast League (1/15/2011)

GM: Carl Rigney
Players: Sean Nittner, Karen Twelves, Dennis Jordan and Regina Joyner
System: Smallville

So first off props to Carl for running the Breakfast Club. I was a little surprised we didn’t start off in detention, but the game was still quite reminiscent. I know it is the nostalgia factor, but I still love that movie.

The plot isn’t surprising at all but that didn’t make it less awesome. Smallville take place in a tiny little town where the protagonist Clark is raised by good people that teach him to be an exceedingly moral character. Franklin (Frankville?) on the other hand is a dumpy little Kansas town that everyone is trying desperately to get out of! In this it reminded me quite a bit of Rock n’ Roll Dreams, a DiTV game that Carl ran a few times in 2008. In that game we were all trying to get out of town, but only the winner of the drag race would make it. In Breakfast League, we’ll we had a bit more leeway.

I don’t want to go into to many details because I can see Carl running this game several more times, and even though we didn’t see ALL the reveals, the ones we did were plenty revealing…

What I can talk about, because it was driven pretty much exclusively by the players was our interactions. Two boys, who ostensibly didn’t get along and two twin sisters who shared nothing but apathy for each other. Quickly however, events in the game catalyzed and explosive growth in both relationships. The boys became immersed in their own doubts and the wrongness of their lives, while the girls were having a blast experimenting with their powers and trying to figure out who else had them, and what they could do.

One particular interaction was captured in several mediums:

From a twitter account: “Let’s trick Jaime to stand in front of a train to see if he has super powers!” #minicon
From an email from Carl after the game: Also, if Chase asks “Hey, how invulnerable ARE you? Like, what would an atom bomb do?” do NOT go along with her plan. It will probably not end well.
From my memory of the game “Admit it Chase! You dumped me when I was UNDER A CAR THAT JUST HIT ME!”

All in all, we had a grand time.

What rocked

Dennis and I played the boys trying to muck through their messed up lives. Both of us got really “hurt” in the game (my stress levels were all over the place) because of the issues we tackled. Jamie (my character) went as far as trying to blow his brains out. It didn’t work, but it was a fun place to take the Lead. Woot! Teen angst!

The girls were hilarious. The raced across town using their super powers and went from totally apathetic to giddy with excitement.

As always, Carl delivers all the right goods. Where my game required me to distill down a tome of information, Carl summed up his settings in about 30 seconds. Where I started the game with larger than life conflicts, Carl executed teenage drama that started with a party by the quarry and snowballed into a Thelma and Louise style vigilante escape from the law and from our old lives.

What could have improved

As with my game, I felt Smallville lacked good instructions for how to end conflicts with stress. Giving is easy to understand, taking stress isn’t clear. Do you just add a beat in a different scene and come back to the conflict? That seems really drawn out. I’d like some examples.

Honestly, I know Smallville is the story of a hero’s beginning, but I wonder if it doesn’t actually “work” better for more established characters. The characters in Duneville ALWAYS knew who they were fighting for. In the Breakfast League we hit a couple times where figuring out “who” something was done for was kind of difficult. For instance: calling my dad to get him to do me a favor that would help me get recognized by a basketball scout. Who was this for, or against? For me but that doesn’t count. Against my dad perhaps, but I didn’t have him as a relationship. Eventually I said it was about impressing the coach, but even that felt a little week.

Actual Play – Kubla, The Khan of Cons

Kubla this year was my redemption for DDC. During all of DundraCon I was regretting not running a game… so what did I do for Kubla? Yep, run two. More on that later.
Friday 2PM – Check In

We arrived Friday afternoon with the kids in toe and check into the hotel. Without going into a rant here, though I love Kubla, I think that the Hyatt is the least hospitable hotel of any convention hotel I’ve ever been in. The building and rooms are beautiful but the staff, check-out process, and elevator/stairwells all exude irritation. If I ran a horror hotel game, it would definitely be set in the Burlingame Hyatt. We arrived around two and my game wasn’t until six but somehow the hours flew by. Between catching up with friends, eating, buying Dread (a game I’m very exited about) and doing all the normal registration business I barely made it to the game on time.

Friday 6PM – Exalted Unplugged

To be honest I was a little nervous about this game. The play-test had only been mediocre and had exposed several holes in the game that I wasn’t 100% sure I patched. Let’s face it I was trying to jam Exalted into a Wushu box and cover it all over with a thick glaze of the 1980’s LA Music scene. That meant two rules systems, two settings and trying to loop them all together with a common theme.

The premise in a nutshell was that the characters were a high school band (White Gold) in the 80’s in a battle of the bands. In the middle of the competition they, along with their rival band (Maidens of Mercy) were sucked through a dimensional portal (as we all know there were many in the 80s) into creation where they were revealed as the chosen ones (i.e. Solars) who had to save the south of creation. The game was positively perforated with ridiculous 80s references, such as the high priests pray “Woah, we’re have way there… woah… living on a prayer” and the leopard familiar that was hard of hearing, ending with the great weapon being found a top a Stairway to Heaven. Yes this game was designed to be cheese, with cheese on top and a side of cheese to go.

So how did it go? In a word, it was Def! According to Kevan Forbes I broke the geek-o-meter. I’m not sure if that was with the Cult of the Blue Oyster or with naming his Night Caste character the “Rhythm of the Night” but whatever it was, it was a great compliment. This was the first game I had ever received applause for at the end. My players were Alex D, Kevan F, Greg M, Jen M, Brendan and Justin E. They were great. They were better than great, Greg was the one who gave me the Stairway to Heaven, they were awesome. I’ll stop gushing now.

As for the critical breakdown of the game system, I used the Wushu system for the first portion of the game and then used the Exalted adaptation Wuxalted for their time in creation. The system did an excellent job of not getting in the way. Traditional Exalted allows for over the top action, but the game mechanics have a way of slowing down when things get to crazy. Wushu (and the wuxalted adaptation) both get behind wire-fu action and make it integral to the mechanic which I love. Further I found that a battling other bands in a Rock and Roll competition is surprising like fighting mooks in a battle, mechanically speaking at least. I was quite surprised to see Wushu do so when it was clearly social combat. My greatest accolade for the system would be to say that it did not impede the story or the player narration, and for me, that is really saying something.

Saturday 8AM – Breakfast

Saturday morning came a little too soon for my tastes. Thankfully however, I was playing in a pickup game run by Justin Evans so the start time was flexible. I gave my seat in Rich Taylor’s Unhallowed Metropolis to Elizabeth the Rock Star (seriously, she’s probably 18 now and I’ve game with her at cons for the last three years, and she is amazing) and did the breakfast thing. $7.00 Mocha… Wow!

Saturday 9AM – Roanoke – Justin Evans

Mike B, Jessie S, Shaun H, Kristin S and I all meandered up to Justin’s room for a game or Roanoke. Before playing the game I knew nothing about the setting (except for that I thought it sounded vaguely Japanese, yeah… five moron points here) but did know it used the Wushu system and that Justin had added mechanics from other systems (such as the duel of wits from Burning Wheel) so I was really looking forward to seeing what this Roanoke was all about.

I had an ulterior motive here, I’ve got to admit. Justin has been in two of my games before (Office Waste last year at Kubla, and my previous night’s Exalted Unplugged) and both times he was awesome. The master of subtle humor, Justin has an amazing talent for grabbing onto a small morsel of hilarity and beating you to a giggling pulp with it. I guessed (and was correct) that he would also be a great GM but before begging him to join, I felt it obligatory to play in one of his games and see for myself. Man, am I glad that I did.

For those who know nothing about Roanoke, fear not. You are part of the majority. The setting is a small island in the Chesapeake Bay. From Wikipedia:

Roanoke Island was the site of the 16th century Roanoke Colony, the first English colony in the New World in what was then called Virginia, in honor of England’s ruling monarch, Queen Elizabeth I. There were two major groups of settlers who attempted to establish a permanent settlement at Roanoke Island, and each failed.

In 1587, the English again attempted to settle. John White left the colony to return to England for supplies that he felt would help the colonists to survive, expecting to return to Roanoke Island within three months. Instead, he found England at war with Spain, and all ships were confiscated for use of the war efforts. His return to Roanoke Island was delayed until 1590. When he finally returned, the colonists had disappeared. The only thing he found was the word “CROATOAN” carved into a nearby tree.

The game of Roanoke is the story of what happened to those colonists during those three years. I will not reveal the storyline as I believe Justin is going to run the game again, but suffice to say, Justin ran a great game. His depictions of characters, control of the pacing, and improvisations were great. In addition he (as I expected) added several mechanics to the game:

To represent the impending doom or Roanoke he used a doom counter system that determined the relative horror of the final outcome.
To handle out social combats he used the battle of wits from Burning Wheel.
To flesh out NPCs, which he handed to the characters to play he gave us aspect cards with descriptors similar to the decriptors you would find in Spirit of the Century.
To help flesh out our characters and connect them together he had us each contribute to each other’s character sheets elements like “fatal flaw” and “saving grace”. We also decided as a group why the head of the militia had chosen us to work together as his aids.
And one of the coolest bits, we drew the island, including adding all the elements like mysterious caves, mute water sellers, mud pots and the works
Finally, at the end to evoke real urgency, our characters got put on a timer to resolve the last scene. Using a chess clock we rallied back in forth (between players and GM) to describe our actions. In a game that is heavy on the narration, this was awesome

Were it just for Justin the game would have been great, but in addition we had an amazing group of players. Everyone in the room was so immersed in the game I could taste the salt water off the Chesapeake Bay!

Saturday 3:30 PM – Rock n’ Roll Dreams – Carl Rigney

We had to peal out of Justin’s game just after it ended, leaving no time for the normal game debriefing yack that I love to do… we had to run to make it to Carl Rigney’s Dogs in the Vineyard game. Jessie has never played Dogs before and I was very exited for her to get a chance to a) play Dogs, b) play a game that Carl runs and c) get to be a Rock n’ Roll legend. The con gods must have loved us because we both got in.

Carl’s games (which you can hear at length about over at 2d6feet are great, and this was no exception. He used a Dogs in the Vineyard adaptation to run this game:

Brand Robins’ “Jim Steinman: The RPG” comes to life using Dogs in the Vineyard mechanics in a rock n roll opera of desperately pretty rebels without a cause, 50’s ambiance with 80s hair and modern hyper-sexuality. It’s all about the Bat Out of Hell, Nowhere Fast, Streets of Fire, I Would Do Anything for Love over the top emo porn modern fairy tale, with nothing less than 3 true loves, 5 broken hearts, a fight with sledge hammers under the L train in a thunderstorm, a beautiful ‘57 Ford, and the blowing up of that beautiful ‘57 Ford. If you’d offer your throat to the hungry wolf with the red roses in the pale moonlight, this is the game you were born to play.

Yes, I drove that ’56 Ford and yes I did get in a sledge hammer fight with the biker gang leader, and yes in the end I did explode in an inferno of love, glory and teenage hyper-sexuality (oh.. not to mention fire and wreckage). Our race was to get out of town and Dean Able (my character) found one way out. Rarely have I been quite so satisfied with my character dying horribly.

Thanks Carl, that was awesome.

Sunday 9 AM – There Is no Spoon

Back for the second game I ran, again with the Wushu, I took six coppertops into the Matrix and gave them the chance to Free their Minds. If I said above that the Wushu system didn’t get in the way of the narrative for my Exalted game, it positively made that same narrative ROCK in the Matrix game. There is no single system that would have supported the Wire-Fu, strange Matrix philosophy, Bullet time and inevitable fight and flight from the Agents. I’m getting tired now, and these descriptions are getting shorter. Suffice to say, thank you Martin , Matt , Vicky , Joel , Jessica and one other who’s names escape me for an awesome time in the Matrix. That game was a blast.
Sunday 4 PM – Podcasting with thismoderndeath.com

My first podcast. Rock! Check it out at thismoderndeath.com

Thanks Shaun and Kristin, that rocked.

Sunday 8 PM – Board/Party Games

We played Amun Re and Time’s up in our room. Just a little bit of alcohol and Time’s up becomes a truly awesome game. Kevan Forbes and I OWN Michelle Pfeiffer.

Once again. Kubla was six kinds of awesome!