Editing SGA 2006 Archive (section)

=To the North Pole - and BEYOND!=
; Game System
: [http://www.exilegames.com/ Hollow Earth Expedition]
; Pitch
: The year is 1936! Dateline: Washington. The National Geographic Society has announced that it is funding an expedition to the North Pole in hopes of discovering the fate of famed polar explorer Roald Amundsen, who vanished without trace eight years ago. Though Society spokesmen concede that there is little hope for finding Amundsen alive after so long in the frozen arctic wastes, the society hopes to honor his illustrious, if contentious, career by following in his footsteps and discovering, for good or ill, his whereabouts. 
; Game Master
: Edmund Metheny
; Players
: 5
; Characters
<blockquote>
Explorer (Expedition Leader) - Laura<br>
Reporter (To photograph/write the story) - Meg<br>
Adventurer (Second in command) - Taylor<br>
Hunter (Guide and supplier of food) - John Reiher<br>
Investigator (to determine what happened to Amundsen) - Sophie
</blockquote>
; Date
: November 13, 2006
; Technical Notes
: Playtest for Edmund's official publisher-sponsored demo game to be run at [[Emerald City Gamefest]] 2006.
; Recaps
:Unbeknownst to the rest of the group, the investigator was actually a member of U.S. Army Intelligence, and the entire expedition was being put together because Army Intelligence had gotten wind that the Thule Society was poking around up at the north pole. Unable to confront the Germans directly (since the U.S. and Germany were at peace) a civilian expedition was hastily prepared and sent off to keep an eye on the Germans.

:My game started off in Spitzbergen, Norway, where the expedition was supplying before setting off to the pole. In the dead of night one member of the expedition spotted the sharklike form of a German U-Boat docked in the harbor. This gave the party the chance to meet up with von Wortenberg and exchange some banter. Soon thereafter the U-Boat (ostensibly assisting the Norwegian government in mapping the fjords) headed out to sea. The next day the party's dirigible arrived and they headed North.

:Never let a big game hunter within shooting distance of nazis. The first time I ran the game I almost had a major firefight erupt in the streets of Spitzbergen, and was able to deter it only by reminding everyone of how distressed the National Geographic Society would be to learn that they had declared war on Germany. One player disguised himself as a Norwegian dock worker and tried to sneak aboard the U-Boat, but got caught and backhanded by Von Wortenberg for his troubles. Nobody believed that the Germans were helping map the Norwegian fjords, and the germans sailed out of the harbor to much scowling from the PCs.

:Next day the dirigible showed up and loaded up supplies and PCs, then headed north - only to get lost and eventually wind up blundering into the Hollow Earth. PCs were very content to go along with the dirigible captain, who was one of those gung-ho navy types, and they eventually found themselves in the interior of the earth trying to figure out how to deal with Triceratops and T-Rexes. One problem I had here was that the players just did not want to go very far from the dirigible (which, when you think about it, is a sensible precaution). Eventurally they were persuaded to follow the trail blazed in the forest and eventually came to Amundsen and his tribe.

:From there is was off to the lost city and a confrontation with the nazi raiders who were stealing stuff from the Atlantean tower. One of the players, in a fit of ingenuity, decided to swim out to the U-Boat, get on board, and steal the navigational charts in the hope that this would help the party find its way back out of the Hollow Earth. There were a couple of big battles, the charts were stolen, the nazis were beaten up, and the artifact destroyed. The Hunter played a dangerous game of Cat and Mouse through the jungle with Von Wortenburg, and was eventually able to kick him off a cliff (the classic "nobody could survive that!" maneuver) Triumphant the group returned to discover that the dririgible was gone! Oh no!

:A good time was had by all, and everyone got a kick out of the dice rolling mechanics. Two players used pennies to roll, and others just grabbed handfuls of random polyhedrals for their rolls. 
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; Player Thoughts
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; Additional GM Thoughts
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