Nigh two weeks overdue, here is the Actual Play report from the
Spirit of the Century game I ran at Ithaca, NY's Get-Your-Geek-On-A-Thon on Saturday, October 7. The characters played are illustrated
here, and described
here and
here. For those averse to clicking, we ended up with six PCs: Dynamo Jones, Prudence the Librarian, Kid Shadow, Jane "Flygirl" Justice, Brick Hauser, and the President of the United States of America.
The first 45 minutes of play were dedicated to putting the finishing touches on characters and explaining the rules. The pre-gens I'd made already had Skills, Stunts, and the first three Phases (with accompanying Aspects) completed. So, I used that as the jumping off point to explain Skills and die-rolling, what Aspects did, and what Stunts were for. Then everyone jotted their pulp novel titles onto index cards, and we rotated them around the room so folks could complete their final two Phases (and final four Aspects) on their own. This ended up working out very nicely, as it seemed to help the players get invested in what were still, basically, pregenerated characters.
The first scene was at a dinner party/gala* held in celebration of Professor Gustav's acquisition of what was, apparently, the
Spear of Destiny**. I pulled the
Feng Shui trick of asking the players why their characters were there, and it worked nicely (as usual): it gave us moments like Prudence using the opportunity to lobby the Prez for more funds for the library, Flygirl being the Professor's niece, and Kid Shadow going both mufti and incognito as a busboy to investigate the Professor (who'd been a one-time friend of Kid Shadow's father). Also present was Baron von Blood, former flying ace, seemingly immortal aristocrat, and patron of the Professor's expedition to find the Spear. There was some tense conversation, and then a bunch of gangsters with guns burst in to grab the Spear.
The players raced into action. Prudence used her Intimidation Stunts to force the gangster's leader, Nicky Beltbuckles, into a stare-down which eventually resulted in Nicky fleeing her cold glare and jumping out the window. Unfortunately for him, the President made a great Contacting check to call the police and set up a blockade around the hotel (which we handled as a blocking action). Kid Shadow and Flygirl used blocking actions to protect the guests, before turning on the now-leaderless gunmen (whom Dynamo Jones had been shellacking from the start). Brick made a run to protect the Spear, and was confronted by the dread assassin Poison Claw, who'd snuck in to steal the artifact during the commotion. Poison Claw's Superb Fists were matched against Brick's Superb Might, and a few great rolls and a lot of spent Fate Points later, the assassin was subdued. Meanwhile, Kid Shadow, Dynamo, Flygirl, and the Prez (with his secret Service Minions) had made short work of the remaining gangsters. Nicky Beltbuckles failed to get past the Prez's blocking action and ended up in police custody, and one compel of the Prez's "Do The Right Thing" Aspect found the Posion Claw turned over to the police with all the proper due process.
So, now the investigation phase began, on numerous fronts: Dynamo decided to turn stones at the hotel, trying to find out some background on the assassin or the gangsters; Prudence and Kid Shadow decided to interrogate Nicky Beltbuckles, while the Prez wanted to do the same to Poison Claw; Flygirl and Brick were going to accompany the Professor and the Baron back to their hotel, but a compel of Brick's "Man of Granite" Aspect left him behind, looking for transportation that would accommodate his massive stature.
Dynamo's snooping led to the discover that, while the assassin was a cipher, both his room reservation and the open door that allowed the gangsters access could be traced back to the entourage of Baron von Blood! This worked great: Dynamo's player exceeded the difficulty of the roll by three, so I asked him to provide three things he'd like to find out, and explained that I'd veto anything that'd be problematic (since he seemed reticent at first to add details whole cloth). He said he wanted proof that the Baron was behind it, I said no problem, and we riffed on the details from there.
The interrogation of Nicky Beltbuckles went similarly well. Under Prudence's cold glare and the anger of Kid Shadow, Nicky buckled, revealing not only that the Baron was behind the whole enterprise, but also that the bloody aristocrat was actually a
vampire!*** Furthermore, Nicky knew why the Baron wanted the Spear: "He said that the first time it was used, the sun was blotted out... he said that he could use to to do that
forever..."
At this point, the Prez's player decided to opt out of his interrogation of Poison Claw, as he felt like they had a pretty solid idea of what was going down. So he called the copes to get another blockade around the Baron and the Prof's hotel... but it wasn't there before their limousine. And in said limousine, the Baron had managed to hypnotize Flygirl, causing her to sleep until the final confrontation! (For this one, I chose the simpler "place an Aspect" power of the Enthrall Stunt; the Aspect was "Asleep", and the deal with the player was that nothing else would happen to Jane, and she'd wake up once things got exciting again.)
This led, naturally, to the final conflict between the intrepid heroes and the Baron and his vampiric minions, with
the fate of the world on the line! Kid Shadow snuck to the roof, and crashed in through the skylight leveling cover fire as the rest of the heroes kicked in the doors of the Baron's massive penthouse suite (except for Brick, who specifically went through the wall). Jane, who had been laid on an alter beside her uncle, awoke and kicked her jetpack to life, joining the melee! She, Brick, and Dynamo smashed vamps left and right, with the Prez leading his Secret Service against the sword-wielding Baron and his vampire minions! Prudence ran to the altar and secured the Spear, and the Baron -- knowing he'd lost this round -- turned into mist and fled, leaving his less powerful spawn to face just destruction.
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All in all, it went really well. We had six players and only four hours, and from the feedback I received it seemed like everyone felt like they had something to do. I was more comfortable with the system than I was last time I ran it, and we got to play with things like blocking actions, maneuvers, and social combat. Stunts also played a more significant role, due in part to being able to cut-n-paste the descriptions right from the .pdf and into Word .docs that I printed out and gave to the players. Everyone seemed to have a blast, and at least one person at the table preordered it immediately.
This game is awesome. Go
buy it.
* I always seem to start SotC sessions at a dinner party. My goal for next time is to come up with something badass and
in media res.
** Times like these reflect that my main pulp primers have always been Indiana Jones and the
Mummy movies. I love me my mystical stuff.
*** This was actually established in Flygirl's backstory, but it was cool how it also came out in play.
Linear Mode
