Category Archives: Games

Vignettes and Implied Setting

Posted on July 29, 2011 by Tim Hall

I’m posting most of my RPG-related posts over on the RPG blog, but I thought I’d post one here. It’s an introductory vignette/teaser I wrote for a playtest PBeM a year or so ago. I think it gives a lot of flavour of the both the setting, and the specific adventure.

Within the ancient stone walls of Ardryr House, the kandar overlord Zartheyn Tyr has summoned his chief of security.

“So, Valneth”, said Zartheyn, “It is six days since we last spoke. Please update me on the security situation”.

“The rebels attacked us again last night”, the knight replied.

“And?”, Zartheyn asked, “What damage this time?”.

“My militia gave a good account of themselves”, said Valneth.

“You have not answered my question”. Zartheyn tried to suppress his rising anger.

“They.. attacked the village at Gavius Hill”, the knight replied, “Set fire to the barns using flamelances. And some farm workers are missing. My men extinguished the fires, and saw the rebels off”.

“Flamelances again?”, said Zartheyn, “We’re not up against regular feral humans, are we? They sound like legion deserters to me. Or worse.

Zartheyn let out an audible sigh. Valneth was his half-brother, after all, and ties of blood within the clan are supposed to run strong. He’d be in trouble with the elders if he dismissed him without good cause. But Valneth was so clearly not up to the job.

And the rebels did have to attack Gavuis Hill, of all places. It was almost as if they *knew*.

“It is probably fortunate that I have persuaded the legion to step up their border patrols”, Zartheyn continued, “I am expecting reinforcements to arrive tomorrow, and expect your full co-operation”.

“Will there be humans in the patrols they send”, asked the knight.

“They’re from Calbeyn, so that is to be expected”, Zartheyn responded, “And don’t look so disgusted. They tell me they’re sending veterans from the Zughru wars, so they’re men, kandar and human, who know how to fight. And I’m summoning their commanding officer here as soon as he arrives so that you and I can brief then on the situation. Understood? Good?”

“Yes, brother”, Valneth replied, as he turned to leave.

- - - - - - - -

“So, what have we learned?”, Brogan asked his fellow across round the campfire, “Are the Academy of Life just growing bigger and better turnips, or is there something more sinister going on?”.

“Perhaps the turnips are the sinister goings on?”, asked Qeelu, the solidly-built woman who acted as his second-in command. “Perhaps those rumours really are true”.

Brogan laughed. “What? Turnips that render humans infertile?”

“Don’t dismiss it out of hand”, Qeelu responded, “We don’t really understand the magic of the Academy of Life. Our reconnaissance did pick up a lot of Academy of Life comings and goings to and from the village”

“And the barns we torched were full of turnips”, added Grodd, a small wiry man who acted as the scout for the group. “We all know how the kandar fear the rate at which we breed”.

“You’re both expecting me to believe this nonsense”, snorted Brogan, “Turnips are cover; they have something nastier in the works”.

“Which we’re not going to find out about unless we raid their research complex at Guvil Bridge, Grodd replied, “Which is too well defended, and will bring the legion down on our heads if try a fool stunt like that”.

“And I’m no fool”, Brogan stated firmly, “Guvil Bridge is off-limits; but I know enough about the Academy of Life to know their black projects are never based at their publicly known facilities. There’s something going on at or near Gavuis Hill, that needs a stop putting to. And I intend to find out what it is”

These things are quite fun to write, and seem to an effective means of communicating elements of the setting in a way that demonstrates how they can be used in an actual game, more so than the traditional sometimes dryish info-dump.

They don’t have the form and function of complete stories, because they don’t serve quite the same purpose - they’re intended to demonstrate the potential for the stories the players themselves will create in the game.

So, if anyone cares to comment, what does the above tell you about the setting? Or the scenario? And does it make you want to find out more?

Posted in Games, Kalyr RPG, SF and Gaming | Leave a comment

Summer Stabcon 2011

Posted on July 9, 2011 by Tim Hall

I’ve been going to Stabcon for the best part of the decade now. Advertised by little more than word-of-mouth (it doesn’t even have a website), it’s a friendly board, card and roleplaying game convention, currently held twice a year at the Britannia Hotel in Stockport. With many of the same faces year after year, it had effectively become the nearest thing to my local gaming group. Except now I’ve moved down south, it’s a three-and-a-half hour train journey away.

Still, it’s great to meet up with old friends, play some great games, and of course drink beer. Beer has always been an important part of Stabcon – back in the days when it was held at Woolton Hall we always used to drink the bar dry by the end of the con. Nowadays the hotel stocks up on real ales for the occasion. I usually prefer to spend the Friday night playing boardgames, this year it was a Eurogame whose name I forget, and for which I never really got my head round the rules, and Runebound, which I cruelly and probably unfairly described as “Munchkin without the jokes”.

I really go to Stabcon for the roleplaying games, but some years I’ve spent a good part of Saturday playing board games because there weren’t enough RPGs I fancied playing that both had free slots and didn’t clash with other games. This time it worked well, with all the good the GMs sensibly choosing non-clashing slots, so I managed to get signed up for three games over the course of the day.

We started with a Battlestar Galactica run by Dr. Bob. The player characters were captains of a fleet of abandoned ships without functioning faster-than-light drives, but with a large number of refugees. We started to cobble together some working drives by cannibalising others, so at least some ships would be spaceworthy. After lengthy discussions about which ships to take, we jumped to the next system and found ourselves answering a distress call, where we found the last survivor of a research station where everyone else had been horribly murdered…

The afternoon session was the latest of Phil Masters’ GURPS Diskworld adventures. The PCs were special agents of Sto Lat, sent on a mission “To prevent a Story happening”. To say too much about the nature of the story would be a spoiler for anyone playing the same scenario at another convention, but let’s say that, in the true style of this sort of Diskworld scenario, no cliché was left unturned, and we dispatched the bad guy in the correct manner for the story in question.

The evening session was Kev Dearn’s Call of Cthulhu game, set during World War 2 at an archaeological dig in Alsace-Lorraine. It was the sequel to a game set in Roman times, with the dig being the site of the original game. As was to be expected, we encountered sanity-blasting Things Man Was Not Meant To Know so horrifying that they made the SS (the player characters!) look like the good guys.

Unusually for a Stabcon, there were two games on the Sunday. The first was a Terminator game using the Twilight 2000 2013 system, again run by Dr. Bob. The scenario was not dissimilar to the original Terminator film, except it was an entire team sent back into the past, and our mission was to save the physics professor who had discovered the secret of time travel. Once we heard news reports of “a naked gunman on the rampage” it was clear what the opposition was. We did survive a run-in with Arnie and lived to tell the tale.

The final game of the weekend, run by John Parr just after lunch, was very silly indeed, but extremely entertaining. Trumpton, the RPG is a (presumably) unauthorised fan-written system. What actually happened in the game is best summed-up by this quote: “All the scythe-bots are dealt with. We blew up two of the things in Trumpton town square, Captain Snort’s men dealt with one, one fell in the Chigley canal, and Windy Miller’s smoking a joint with the last one”. The game ended with us discovering which character from a completely different programme was responsible for mining the canal, and my character shooting down his Royal Mail helicopter with a rocket-propelled grenade.

And so ended another Stabcon, and hats off to organisers Michelle and Hammy for another great weekend. This time, instead of being home by tea-time, it would be three and a half hours on board an Arriva Cross-Country Voyager before I’d arrive home. At least I had time to read the whole of “Cthulhu Invictus” that I’d bought from Fan Boy Three.

Posted in Games, SF and Gaming | Tagged Call of Cthulhu, Diskworld, GURPS, Stabcon, Trumpton | 4 Comments

Summer Stabcon 2009

Posted on July 7, 2009 by Tim Hall

I’ve lost count of the number of Stabcon’s I’ve been to now.

Stabcon is the twice-yearly games convention now held at the Britannia Hotel in Stockport. It’s small enough that I recognise all the regulars year after year; in that respect it’s almost like a Mostly Autumn gig. Come to think of it, it’s a very similar demographic…

Although the emphasis is on board games, there are also plenty of RPG sessions over the weekend. The organisation is very informal, with nothing booked in advance. GMs put prospective games up on the notice board, players sign up to them on a first-come-first-served basis. This does mean that popular games tend to fill up by the Friday night, but there does seem some form of self-balancing between players and GMs over the weekend. I see very few games fail to run for lack of players, and additional games always seem to appear on the board whenever all the other games are full. This year I ended up playing four RPG sessions over the weekend, more than I have done in many conventions.

Friday night’s game was GURPS Reign of Steel. The setting was a Terminator-style near-future; the robots had won, and the survivors of humanity are either fighting a guerilla war, or just lying low and hoping the robots ignore them. The plot had the PCs as members of the SAS, the last surviving military unit serving the last surviving government in Europe, and involved Frenchmen stealing Britain’s last remaining nukes, the Channel Tunnel rail link, and this exchange:

GM: The robot manages to dodge the combine harvester.
Me: I’ll turn and try to ram it again - I guess it will take a couple of rounds to circle round.
GM: It’s a cinematic game!
Me: OK them, make that a handbrake turn…

Saturday, after a few card games, was another GURPS game, this time a Diskworld dungeon adventure, run by Phil Masters. I played the stereotypical Hubland barbarian, as we hacked and slashed our way through sewer-slugs and skeletons. The last fight seemed to go on for ages as we had yet another example of my appallingly bad convention die rolling, although my biggest criticism of GURPS nowadays is that fights sometimes go on for too long.

By the evening, things started to get very silly, with InSpectres, which is basically Ghostbusters with the serial numbers filed off. I’ve played this game at Stabcon before; a very rules-lite system designed to encourage player creativity, and played strictly for laughs, of which there were many; when we had player characters with combat origami, our ghost containment device was a wet paper bag, and our vehicle was a mutant hybrid of a Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost armoured car and a bendy-bus. You get the idea? We had to deal with a demonically-possessed teddy bear, four escaped tigers (due to an accident with the rocket launcher), and how to dispose of a dead elephant stuck half-way up the stairs.

Paranoia on Sunday was the only way to top that. Paranoia is one of those games I’ve always wanted to play, but up until now nobody had ever run at a con I’d been to. The Computer is your friend! Denounce your comrades as Commie Mutant Traitors! You do not have security clearance to eat blue M&Ms! And are you questioning the skills of R&D with the L-shaped gun for shooting round corners? Report now for termination!

The next Stabcon will be the first weekend in January 2010. I’m already paid and signed up.

Posted in Games, SF and Gaming | Tagged Game Conventions | 3 Comments

More actual play - An interrogation

Posted on March 15, 2009 by Tim Hall

Another of those ‘actual play’ threads from the Dreamlyrics forum.

This scene covers the interrogation of the major villain, Guruinath Zalyn before his superior and the acting commander of the Legion. The two PCs are Kolath, a relatively junior kandar Legion officer, and Hollis, a powerful if unstable human psychokinetic who’s been, who are major witnesses to his wrongdoings.

[GM]

The prisoner sits in a wooden chair, constrained by leather straps. There’s an ugly bruise across his face that wasn’t there when Hollis saw him last. His face is twisted to an ugly snarl. He’s accompanied by two immense Legionnaires, both human, who Kolath recognises as as two of the guards from the Legion’s military prison.

Apart from Guruinath’s chair, the chamber is empty. Everyone else will have to stand.

Lavuyl, the senior Karazthani, takes a small spherical device from his pocket, and places in the floor a few paces from Guruinath.

“Recording eye”, he says, “Everything that happens in this room will be on record. This will form part of the official investigation”.

“This is an imposition!”, says Gurinath.

“Shut up”, says Nir-Urileyr Kavarluis, “You are not to speak except to answer questions”.

“I demand independent representation!”, says Guruinath.

“This is not your trial”, says Lavuyl, “This is your interrogation. You will just make things harder for yourself if you you do not co-operate”.

[Kolath's player]

The tall, thin Kandar legionnaire nodded as Lavuyl placed the recording device on the floor and activated it, relieved that the interrogation would be recorded.

“Requests would possibly be considered, Guruinath, but your demands no longer impress us overmuch.”

[GM]

“Don’t listen to him”, snaps Guruinath, “Can’t you see that human wizard is mind-controlling him? She’s making fools of you all. Known terrorist, she is. You know her brother is in the cells, don’t you? Accessory to murder. Don’t try to deny it woman, you know it’s true”.

[Hollis' Player]

“Let anyone ask the questions,” Hollis said, maintaining a steely demeanor despite the spike of fear this revelation engendered. How much did he know? How much could he know?

“If you fear me so much, I will leave the room and let anyone ask the questions. Besides, if I could mind control anyone, why not just mind control you into admitting your complicity in treason?

“I suppose they could bring in someone from the Academy, who could check for my presence in their minds. Face it, Guruinath; You’re whining is so transparent. You are a traitor who’s been caught, and you are trying to blow enough smoke to conceal your treason and confuse your interrogators. You are so used to bullying everyone to get your way, you keep trying it even when the truth would clearly be best. Who’s in prison has nothing to do with your guilt or innocence.”

[Kolath's player]

His expression did not change much, but he did wonder about the brother statement. Now was not the time to delve into that subject, however; Hollis was right.

Kolath cocked his head slightly to one side and looked at his associate and, yes, friend and he nodded before turning his attention back to Guruinath.

This is a scene where powerful NPCs are in opposition to each other, but I have to remember it’s got to be about the PCs. So I’m treating the it as a conflict between Guriunath, who’s currently down but not out, and the two PCs. The stakes are simple, it’s who’s story Kavarluis and Lavuyl, the two high-level NPCs believe.

So far, we’re just scene-setting, and I have yet to roll any dice.

Posted in Games, Kalyr RPG, SF and Gaming | Leave a comment

Some Kalyr RPG progress

Posted on March 14, 2009 by Tim Hall

If you’re not interested in the Kalyr RPG or the Fudge system, stop reading here. The rest of this post will not make any sense.

I’ve finally had a few hours to spare to work on the Kalyr RPG. I’ve been working on the Gifts section of the character generation chapter, one of the sections I’ve never really been happy with.

The end result is quite crunchy - I think the gifts I’ve ended up with are reasonably balanced. The big change is that I’ve eliminated Talents as a separate type of Gifts. Previously talents were a crude way to trade gifts for skills, in that each one gave an extra level in four different skills. What I’ve done now is turned most of those talents into specific gifts, and they no longer all work the same way. Some still give extra skill levels at character creation time, others give a +1 bonus in play in particular situations, or let you substitute one skill for three or four others.

I’ve cut-and-pasted the whole draft to The Fudge Forum to try and get some feedback and comments.

Posted in Games, Kalyr RPG | Leave a comment

RPG plotting by Prog!

Posted on February 12, 2009 by Tim Hall

My online game, KLR has reached a point where I need to introduce some new plot elements. We’ve just seen a major villain taken down in a battle with exploding airships and artillery duels across the city. While there’s some mileage in dealing with the aftermath and fallout of this, the game needs a but more than that to keep the game going.

So, to try and get the creative juices flowing, I decided to select half-a-dozen random songs, and seek inspiration from the lyrics. Since I haven’t ripped most of my CD collection onto my PC, I selected the songs by rolling assorted oddly-shaped dice to determine shelf, CD on shelf and track within CD.

This gave me the following six songs:

Rush - Red Lenses

Here we have a lot of imagery associated with the colour red; sunsets, blood, dancing shoes, the Soviet Union. The nearest analogue to the Soviet Union in Kalyr is probably the Konaic Empire. They are the morally unambiguous villains of the setting.

Iommi/Hughes - Don’t You Tell Me

Am I a sacrifice?
Am I too blind to see?
I’m not a vagabond
I know what is, is meant to be
There is a better way
There comes a time I do believe
There’s a price to pay
I know where you’ve been

Don’t you tell me you don’t know

Seems to be about a betrayal, the exact nature of which isn’t specified. There’s definitely some plot potential there.

Marillion - Easter

The original song, written in 1989, is about the troubles in Northern Ireland. Made more general, a pointless death in a long-running conflict which needs to be resolved.

Pink Floyd - Another Brick in the Wall, Part 2

OK, so I can’t really fit teachers and education very well, but ‘We don’t need no thought control’ works in a setting where telepathy and mind control are common powers.

Breathing Space - Shades of Grey

There’s no need to pretend now
We all come in different shades of grey

Moral ambiguity - the protagonists of the story arc aren’t flawless, and the bad guys aren’t necessarily irredeemably bad either. But when I’ve got Nicki Jett as a player character, the first bit of that goes without saying, really.

And finally:
Uriah Heep - Time to Live (from Salisbury)

Well I spent twenty long years
In a dirty old prison cell
I never saw the light of day
…
They say I killed a man
But I never told them why
So you can guess what I’ve been through
So for twenty long years
I’ve been thinking of that other man
What I saw him do to you

There’s definitely an NPC with a significant back-story in that song.

Let’s see what I can come up with with that lot. To go into any more detail would be entering into spoiler territory!

Posted in Games, Kalyr RPG, Music | Leave a comment

Make Your Own Bus Slogan

Posted on February 4, 2009 by Tim Hall

A web-based bus slogan generator to make your own version of the infamous “atheist buses” you can see in the UK. Unfortunately the full lyrics of Marillion’s “This is the 21st Century” don’t fit.

We’ll start with the rather obvious H.P.Lovecraft version

One for this Saturday’s gig in Lowdham

And finally, the obligatory gamer one:

Posted in Games, Music, Railways, SF | 2 Comments

PBeM Players Wanted!

Posted on August 31, 2008 by Tim Hall

Within the ancient stone walls of Ardryr House, the kandar overlord Zartheyn Tyr has summoned his chief of security.

“So, Valneth”, said Zartheyn, “It is six days since we last spoke. Please update me on the security situation”.

“The rebels attacked us again last night”, the knight replied.

“And?”, Zartheyn asked, “What damage this time?”.

“My militia gave a good account of themselves”, said Valneth.

“You have not answered my question”. Zartheyn tried to suppress his rising anger.

“Flamelances again?”, said Zartheyn, “We’re not up against regular feral humans, are we? They sound like legion deserters to me. Or worse”.

And the rebels did have to attack Gavuis Hill, of all places. It was almost as if they *knew*.

“Will there be humans in the patrols they send”, asked the knight.

“They’re from Calbeyn, so that is to be expected”, Zartheyn responded, “And don’t look so disgusted. They tell me they’re sending veterans from the Zughru wars, so they’re men, kandar and human, who know how to fight. And I’m summoning their commanding officer her as soon as he arrives so that you and I can brief then on the situation. Understood? Good?”

“Yes, brother”, Valneth replied, as he turned to leave.

“Perhaps the turnips are the sinister goings on?”, asked Qeelu, the solidly-built woman who acted as his second-in command. “Perhaps those rumours really are true”.

Brogan laughed. “What? Turnips that render humans infertile?”

“And the barns we torched were full of turnips”, added Grodd, a small wiry man who acted as the scout for the group. “We all know how the kandar fear the rate at which we breed”.

“You’re both expecting me to believe this nonsense”, snorted Brogan, “Turnips are cover; they have something nastier in the works”.

I could do with a few new players for Kalyr PBeM. As some regular readers will know, it’s set in my own science fantasy setting that owes a lot to the writings of Jack Vance, amongst others.At the moment it’s running on the mailing list at The Phoenyx, but may move to a web forum running on the same site in the future.Anyone interested leave a reply here, or contact me at tim (at) kalyr.com, and I’ll send you a up-to-date .pdf of the Fudge build I’m using, including the character generation rules and an overview of the setting.I’m looking for people who can write well, and are prepared to engage with the setting.

Posted in Games, Kalyr RPG | 3 Comments

Summer Stabcon 2008

Posted on July 12, 2008 by Tim Hall

I’ve lost count of the number of Stabcons I’ve been to now. I missed the first part of this one due to the charity concert in York, but managed to get there by about lunchtime to find a large room filled with a great many familar faces.

Getting there late meant that many games in which I’d liked to have played were already filled up - I noticed Mike Cule was running Vincent Baker’s “In A Wicked Age” on the Sunday, which would have been fun. Fortunately there was a slot in Mark Baker’s marathon Unknown Armies game running from 5pm until late on Saturday, so I signed up for that.

It turned out to involve time travel; what started as a tube journey early on a Sunday morning turned out as a trudge through the Fleet sewer, in which we emerged in 1829. Out attempts to get back home lead us to various times which increasingly diverged from our own timeline; at various points we killed the vampire Jack the Ripper and encountered Princess Elizabeth as a member of the British Resistance in the abandoned tube tunnels beneath Nazi-occupied London. Eventually we managed to fix the timeline, and get back to what would have been our own time but for some very bad dice rolling; everything was as it should have been except that both our London tube train and the Virgin Pendolinos at Euston appeared to be powered by Stirling Engines.

Sunday’s game was very different - Pete Crowther’s game of Toon. Which was very, very silly indeed. I wrote up a Toon version of Bug, from the Guardians of Dimension games from Gypsycon. Other characters included a 50′ high robot and a squirrel. The plot was probably impossible to summarise, but included live-action Space Invaders, a fight in a tea-room, aeroplanes getting coated in cottage pie, the Welsh village of Llandofmyfathers, and an arch-villains base in the volcanic crater in Mt Snowdon.

Next Stabcon is from the 2nd to 4th January - see you there!

Posted in Games | Tagged Game Conventions | Leave a comment

Fudge Points - An Actual Play Example

Posted on July 3, 2008 by Tim Hall

One of the things I’ve been wondering when running message games using FUDGE is what do you do about Fudge points. The platonic ideal of message gaming is not to make any out-of-character references to game mechanics. I’m trying to come up with some code phrases which can be invoked in-character to enable a player to say “I’m spending a Fudge Point on this action” without explicitly saying “I’m spending a Fudge Point”.

But sometimes it’s pretty clear. In this example, Hollis, a powerful psychokinetic, has been taken prisoner. This is completely unedited game transcript; Hollis’s words and actions are written by Nicki Jett, one of my best players, and the scene setting and Guruinath’s lines are mine.

Hollis aches all over; when she slowly comes round, she’s in a windowless room with featureless grey walls; if there’s a door, it must be somewhere behind her. She’s sitting in an uncomfortable wooden chair, and appears to be restrained by leather straps.

Facing her are three kandar males. Two of them look like standard-issue Karazthan security goons. The man standing between radiates an aura of being someone of importance, a handsome middle-aged kandar of aristocratic bearing, with piercing mauve eyes. The expression on his face cannot possibly be described as friendly.

“Human, you have some explaining to do”, he says, “You were captured while engaged in hostile acts against Karazthan security who were engaged in lawful activity”.

“You have now been positively identified as the human who attacked our security team on the West Side, causing serious injuries to one, and the death of a member of Guild of Victuallers”.

“Can you give an explanation of your actions. Starting with the most important question. Who are you working for?”

“Of course,” Hollis said. “I represent the Legion — actually, the Fifth Legion, and in particular Tavonoleyr Kolath Polyn d’n Miralath a’r Surene. I have been retained as an advisor on human affairs and a guide to the human quarter, and I also serve as an errand girl when needed. In that capacity, I go where he says -”

** well, not exclusively, but that is merely a semantic issue.**

“- I investigate what he wishes investigated, and I question those he suggests. However, when I am in the middle of one of these investigations, and some people *try to kill me,* like your victualler, I regretfully must defend myself.

“In the case you cited most recently, I was concerned for my employer’s safety, and I was making an effort to reduce the tension without anyone getting killed in the process. I was trying to maintain a low profile and defuse what I saw as a volatile situation.”

She glanced around the room, taking in the nature of the restraints and the positioning of the interrogators, and noting the presence or absence of edged weapons. SHe is evaluating how quickly she could get them unbuckled mentally, or slice through them if she “borrowed” a blade from one of the interrogators, and how many times she would have to bash heads together to take them all out.

The proximity and security of the exit came under consideration as well.

As Hollis’ head clears, she realises the identity of her interrogator - it’s Guruinath Zadaz, the Karazthan head of security. The man Kolath believes to be a traitor to the city.

“Ah, Kolath d’n Miralath”, he says sarcastically, “The loose canon himself. Who’s never been quite right in the head since he had a nasty blow to the head. Probably leaving him vulnerable to mind-control from a human wizard with an agenda all her own”.

“Now, tell me who you’re *really* working for. We can do this the easy way, or the hard way”.

Hollis scans the room; the two Men in Black have lightning wands at their belts, but don’t appear to have any swords or knives on their person. Hollis senses that there’s a fourth person in the room somewhere behind her that she can’t see.

“Where’s my belt pack? I have some things in there for you to see that might make things clearer.”

“Answer my questions first”, says Guruinath.

Hollis considers her options. She probably has the mental strength to break the leather straps, but will probably injure her wrists in the process. She can’t loosen the straps without being able to see how they’re attached.

Seizing the lightning wands, then aiming and firing them would require a lot of finesse, and her forte is brute force.

She scans the part of the room she can see for any suitable objects to start throwing around. The only thing she can see is what looks like a waste bin in the corner - it’s made of basket-weave stuff rather than anything solid, so probably weighs next to nothing.

One thing she does notice is that the whole room does appear to be swaying slightly. This might just be Hollis’ still being a bit groggy.

Hollis decided that the wavery effect could also mean this was not real. MAybe it was a dream, or something similar. No reason to get too goofy. She could always bash two of them together, or seize the lightning rods and use them like clubs.

“Afraid there’s nothing left to say, since I an a simple girl and doing a simple job helping the Legion. IF you try to get rough, though, I am not going to sit still for it.”

“I like a girl with spirit”, he says, getting the timing sufficiently wrong that the joke falls rather flat. “Now, you really expect me to believe that. Kolath’s a flake, and you know it. You’re using him. Now tell me who you’re really working for, and we won’t need to start using Devices”.

The room is definitely swaying. Hollis is sure it’s not just her imagination.

“Be-HAVE,” Hollis said, shaing her head and opening and closing her eyes rapidly to try and diminish the swaying effect. “I’m not working for anybody else.

“And stand still and quit swaying, would you? You’re making me nauseous. Here, let me help … ”

She reached out with her mind and seized the two on each side of Guruinath, trying to smash their heads together at the place where Guruinath’s head was located.

It would be like smacking three melons together. Hard.

Leaving her with one to deal with, if things worked out …

Hollis concentrates….

…and nothing happens. Apart from what feels like someone driving red-hot nails into her skull.

“11.4!”, says a female voice from behind her. “Unit’s only rated for 14! She’s strong”.

Guruiniath gives the owner of the voice a black look.

Hollis made the immediate segué, being analyzed, being managed, being held down by a machine with a limit.

One she bet she could blow out the top.

She concentrated, tightened up her mind, put everything she had into defeating this thing and grabbing *someone* in the vicinity, preferably Guruiniath …

Emergency, threat to her brother, threat to Kolath, death of her parents, she used them all for motivation, to kick it up to a power level she’d never achieved before.

Let’s see what their machine could handle …

I think Hollis’ player is pretty unambiguously saying “I’m spending a Fudge Point here…

It’s scenes like this that make message game RPGing so worthwhile.

Posted in Games | Leave a comment