|
Dan Maruschak
United States
Eugene
Oregon
-
Michael, Erik, Simon, and I got together on Skype again on August 28, 2009 for our 2 hour and 47 minute first play session of Spirit of the Century (the character creation session is documented here, and has the characters' stats). Michael was the GM, Erik is playing Doc, Simon is playing Jack, and I am playing Art. From a technical perspective, the sound quality was good but we had more drops than last time. I'm working from memory and some notes that I took during the game, so the details will probably be a bit more focused on stuff that I was directly involved in.
Dateline February 2, 1922: In the San Francisco chapter house of the Century Club, Art Black (stage magician and supernatural debunker), "Doc" Tom Tombstone (wild west monster hunter), and Jonas "Jack" Reefton (heir of Captain Nemo) receive a letter telling them that there's something fishy about the murder of noted film director William Desmond Taylor. They all board the Nautilus and head for LA to investigate the scene of the crime. Jack orders the Nautilus to remain submerged offshore while we take a rented car to Taylor's house. The door is locked, of course, so Art confidently declares that he'll pick the lock (and I flub my roll, so it takes me ten in-game minutes to actually do that...). The police have already been through the place, but some Investigation rolls on our part reveal some unusual blood evidence: apparently Taylor was stabbed in the heart, but walked from his office to his front door and then back to his office before collapsing.
While pondering this, Art hears a quiet creak from behind them. One of the large bookcases on the office wall is actually a concealed door! Art opens it dramatically, revealing a strange Egyptian statue of the god Heka and a man dressed in black with a trident tattoo on his hand, the mark of the Atlantean Conspiracy! (which gives Jack a FATE point) The man pulls a knife and tries to stab Art, who dodges and pulls a knife of his own. Jack blocks the guy from escaping for a few rounds while Art tussles with him and Doc takes potshots, but Doc eventually puts an end to things by blasting the bookcase with his shotgun and burying the guy in books.
Art and Doc use a bit of good cop/bad cop (Art does an Empathy maneuver to declare an aspect of "terrified" on the guy, which Doc tags for a bonus to his Intimidation roll) to get the guy to spill the beans. His superiors in the Atlantean Conspiracy sent him to get a hold of the Black Pearl, but a rival group must have gotten it first. It seems that both the Atlantean Conspiracy and the other group are based on boats in the Santa Monica harbor. Jack orders the Nautilus to keep an eye on the Atlantean Conspiracy's boat while the three of us go check out this other group. Unfortunately, when we pull up in our rented car they're just pulling out with their four speedboats. Doc manages to disable one of the boats with his gun. Jack orders the Nautilus to give chase and hotwires another boat from the marina so that we can pick up the guys from the disabled boat and then rendezvous with the Nautilus. Another round of good cop/bad cop reveals that the other group are Frenchmen, and members of the cult of Heka, although recently their cult has been taken over by an outsider who ordered them to get the pearl. They reveal that the boats are on their way to the new boss's offshore hideout, a drinking and gambling ship anchored out in international waters.
We arrive at the ship just behind the other boats, who are pulling up to the bow so that the cultists can climb up a cargo net onto the ship. At least, that's what five of them are doing. The sixth one, presumably the lieutenant, takes off in a jet pack! Doc thinks that's the perfect opportunity to show off some trick shooting and blasts the jet pack (tagging a few aspects to actually get a good enough roll), dropping the guy into the drink. We pull the Nautilus in closer while Doc loads up his gun with buckshot and takes aim at the five minions climbing the cargo net. His first shot takes out three, but his second shot only hits one. Art whips out a throwing knife and offs the last one, joking that Doc should get them all next time. At the railing at the top of the net, however, someone is shaking his fist in anger... someone that Art recognizes as Juan Milmascos, the Spanish master of disguise! (which gives Art a FATE point).
Art leaps to the net to get to Milmascos (but I flubbed my roll a bit, so I tagged my "I'll get you, Milmascos!" aspect to bump up the results to make sure I'd get to the railing next round). Meanwhile, Jack notices that several figures have risen from the depths wearing strange rubberized suits, odd goggles, and mysterious packs on their backs. They are trying to grab the lieutenant that Doc shot down. Jack whacks one with a boat hook and Doc blasts the rest with his shotgun.
At the railing, Art (being a big fan of the dramatic entrance) vaults over the railing without checking what's there, which Milmascos wasn't expecting (he had been lined up to stab Art as he poked his head over). Milmascos attacks with his sword cane and gets a stress 2 hit on Art. Art pulls one of his knives and stabs at Milmascos, but Milmascos apparently has a much better Weapons skill than Art, and completely dodges the attack (I realized here that I was WAY outclassed in fighting, so figured I was going to have to do some maneuvers to stack some aspects on this guy before I could do any damage).
Down in the water, Jack is fascinated by the scuba gear (in fact we realized this could be a compel of Jack's "look at all the nifty toys" aspect, which he accepted for a FATE point) and tries to pull the Atlantean Conspirators, as well as the shot-down lieutenant, over to the Nautilus. Unfortunately, all the commotion has attracted some sharks! Doc uses his shotgun to blast one of them, which puts enough blood into the water to start a feeding frenzy...
Back up on the ship, Milmascos uses a Weapons maneuver to back Art up against the railing. Being a stage magician, Art whips out some flash powder and sets it off in Milmascos's face (a Sleight of Hand maneuver), giving him a temporary aspect of Flash-Blinded. Milmascos attacks again (I think), wounding Art's 3 stress box. Art pulls some long ribbons from his sleeves and manages to tangle up Milmascos's hands (another Sleight of Hand maneuver). Milmascos tries to get rid of the ribbons and fails, so Art attacks with his knife. (I rolled a -2, and my Weapons skill is 3, so I had a 1. Milmascos was defending at a 4. The blindness was about to wear off, so I figured it was time to hit him for all I was worth. I took the free tags on Flash-Blinded and Hands Tangled In Ribbons, and also spent three FATE points to tag "I'll get you, Milmascos!", "I won't stand for phonies and charlatans", and "Misdirection has many uses". That puts my attack at 11, which causes 7 points of damage against his defense of 4.) He takes the hit as a moderate consequence "deep gash in right arm" as well as a hit to his third stress box.
Jack and Doc get things sorted down below without getting eaten by sharks, and then try to climb the net. With a good roll and a tag of "It was all according to plan", Jack makes good time, but Doc's low Athletics means it's slow going for him. Art uses his ribbon trick again, this time on Milmascos's feet. Jack and Art take a few rounds to attack Milmascos (I used the free tag on the consequence as well as the tangled feet in one of them) and fill up his stress track. Milmascos flees and Art gives chase. Unfortunately, Jack and Doc don't do very well with their athletics rolls. Instead, Jack uses his knowledge of ships (an Engineering roll) to figure out that he can get ahead of Milmascos by jumping into a big vent that leads to a lower deck.
Milmascos uses some strange pendant around his neck to cause some shadowy forms to move down the passage ahead of him and Art, and Art starts to hear screams from wherever the shadows went. Milmascos argues that Art can either fight him or go save the people that are screaming. Doc and Jack hear the screams, too. In fact, Doc picks out a familiar ghostly wail among the screams, giving him a FATE point for his "Hunting the Hunters" aspect. Art, not believing in magic, figures that there's a good chance this is all just a trick anyway, and decides the best solution is to just take out Milmascos. He attacks and scores a one point hit, which rolls all the way up to another consequence (a gash in his other arm). Since it was getting late in the session, Milmascos decided to concede -- we capture him. Naturally, he'll escape once we hand him over to the legitimate authorities who are no match for the tricky Milmascos. Plus, the mysterious shadowy things disappeared when Milmascos surrendered, which (in Art's mind) confirms that it was all just trickery anyway.
So, we've recovered the Black Pearl, but we still know nothing about it, or the bigger mystery that it's a part of. That's where we'll pick up next time! Since I spent the most FATE points during the game, our world aspects house rule let me either add a world aspect or change one of the ones we already had. I opted to change "there are things in the sea man was not meant to know" to "there are things in the sea man was not meant to know, but Milmascos knows them".
I had a blast. Art got to dramatically face off against his nemesis, Doc got to kick ass with his shotgun in combat, and Jack had boats, tech, and the Atlantean Conspiracy to deal with.
-
Michael Bowman
United States
Portland
Oregon
-
I had fun as well, but ran into a couple of issues which I hope to correct in future.
1. At 2 hours, 47 minutes we ran long, but it is still a fair bit shorter than I'm used to. I had wanted to do a speedboat chase to highlight Jack's piloting and show off the chase rules, but cut that for time. So pacing suffered, but that will improve as I get used to the shorter time slot.
2. I have my perennial problem of not moving enough Fate points to the players. In the heat of play I tend to overlook the PC's aspects, except for moments I'd thought of in advance (I used a combo of dynamic and aspected adventure creation).
To help deal with #2 I'm trying out a program when GMing (I pace back and forth in front of my iMac while talking on my iPhone using the Skype app). I'm using Evernote, a cloud-based note-taking program, with Web access, as well as Mac, Windows, iPhone, Palm Pre, Blackberry, and Windows Mobile clients, all free. I have a window open for each PC's write-up and major NPCs too, and another window open with every character's Alertness, Empathy, Resolve, and defense, so I can run conflicts more smoothly. I used it for the first time this way in our adventure and I think it will help.
-
|
|
|
