SGA 2007 Archive

The following SGA games took place or are planned in 2007:

Calico Jack and the crew of the Rapacious

Game System

Savage Worlds

Pitch

Join Captain Calico Jack, the infamous pirate of the early 18th century on a mission of danger, murder, excitement, and BOOTY!

Play Calico Jack, his girlfriend and fierce pirate Anne Bonny, their companion Mary Read, or any other able-bodied free-booting member of Jack's crew on his dread pirate ship Rapacious.

Game Master

Mark Walters

Players

Characters

Date

March 5th or 12th, 2007

Technical Notes

Game World:

Savage Worlds with appropriate skills and weapons for early 1700s pirates. Characters pregenned.

This would be a highly fictionalized (and therefore fun) version of John Rackham aka Calico Jack and his crew. So fictionalized, in fact, that only some of the crew names and Calico Jack's crossed swords Jolly Roger flag are retained. The rest will be wonderful Hollywood movie pirate bunk, in the vein of Pirates of the Caribbean with a little Errol Flynn tossed in for good measure.

Magic:

The characters will certainly be larger than life, but not magical. However, who knows what you'll find? Maybe a voodoo princess, cursed Mayan gold, mermaids... or something completely different.

Recaps

Player Thoughts

Additional GM Thoughts

HeroQuest

Game System

HeroQuest

Pitch

Game Master

Johnzo

Players

4

Characters

Date

February 26 & March 5, 2007

Technical Notes

Johnzo: I'd like to run a HeroQuest experiment. The "experiment" part of it is to try to run a zero-prep player-driven game. D&S and 1889 were both heavy prep GM-driven games, so I want an exact change-up from that.

I'm going to make up / steal some mechanics for shared setting and situation creation and moderation and then use them on the 19th, then get a start at play on the 19th and finish things off on the 26th.

My instinct for this is to keep the number of players low by SGA standards so that we'll have a shot at coming out with something coherent. I'd like to cap it at just four players.

This is running simultaneously with Faery's Tale, so it'll be a good test of that dual-SGA game thing we've been talking about.

If the HeroQuest experiment fails on the 19th, we can refine & retry it on the 26th or fall back to Dungeons & Savages.

Finally, if anyone knows of good collaborative worldbuilding rules, please lemme know about them. I know of PTA's pitch generation and Burning Empires world-burning and ... whatever the hell it was that Aria Worlds tried to do but didn't.

And if anyone's ever done anything like this before, please also chime in. I am especially interested in how to code conflict into the situation.

Recaps

Player Thoughts

Additional GM Thoughts

The Mute Minstrel

Game System

Faery's Tale

Pitch

Game Master

Cain Young

Players

Characters

Date

February 19 & 26, 2007

Technical Notes

Recaps

Player Thoughts

Additional GM Thoughts

Roanoke

Game System

Wushu: Roanoke

Pitch

1587: A small group of English colonists establish a settlement on Roanoke Island

1590: The colony is found completely abandoned with no trace of the colonists.

What happened? Find out!

Game Master

Edmund Metheny

Players

Characters

Reverend Ezekiel Parris, Fire-and-Brimstone Preacher (Cain)

Lady Charity de Warwick, Pirate Hunter (Sophie)

Haunce Walters, Devious deck hand and opportunist (Mark)

Miss Emme Merrimoth, Dorset Farmgirl (Laura)

Date

February 5 & 12, 2007

Technical Notes

Recaps

Player Thoughts

Additional GM Thoughts

Savage Lorax

Game System

Savage Worlds

Pitch

In the land of the Lorax
Where the Truffula grows
Sits the greedy old Once-ler
And his band of fellows

His business is the Thneed
A right ridiculous thing
It makes him so wealthy
He's nigh near a king!

But the Thneeds are a problem
For the Truffula woods
Because they waste all the Truffula tufts
For the sake of consumer goods!

But that's not all
The old Once-ler perpetrates
No, he's a right robber baron
Who's put us in dire straits!

He catches the Swomee-Swans
And bakes them with honey
He skins the brown Bar-ba-loots
And tans their hides for money

He fries up the Humming-fish
And serves them will dill
There is no creature, that for a few coins
He will not cheerfully kill

He chops down the trees
The woods he will exhaust
Until the landscape becomes
A de-Truffula'd holocaust

Will you do something about it?
Will you fight for our cause?
Will you help the Lorax
Undo Once-ler's faux pas?

Will you help stop his factories?
Will you help stop his axes?
Will you gum up his operations
Tap his whisper-ma-phone? Read his faxes?

Make no delay!
Now you've heard the pitch!
Turn right at Weehawken!
Sharp left at North Nitch!

Together we can stop him!
We must act today!
For if we don't, my friends
The Lorax will be lifted away!

And then it will be too late.

...

I've been playing around with the Savage Worlds book (Thanks Ed & Sophie), and I'd like make a Savage Worlds Lorax game, for two nights in January, if anyone's up to it.

The setting:

Truffula Woods near the headquarters of Once-ler, Inc. Old Once-ler is busy chopping down Truffula Trees for their tufts to make the latest consumer product fad: The Thneed. "You need a Thneed"

The problem:

Between the industrial smog, the toxic sludge and cutting down the trees, he's killing off the critters that live there: Brown Bar-ba-loots, Swommee Swans, and Humming Fish. And to make matters worse, he's catching the critters, skinning and cooking them, and selling them for profit!

The solution:

The Lorax, who speaks for the trees (for the trees have no tongues), is taking matters into his own hands. He's recruiting a band of brave heroes to go toe-to-stocking with Once-ler and his cronies, and put an end to his nefarious practices once and for all!

Game Master

Mark Walters

Players

8

Characters

Cara Pace - Yertle (Laura)

Marvin MacMalapert - Star-bellied-sneech (Ed)

Frolicia Fay O'Friskle - Brown Bar-ba-loot (Sophie)

Sam I Am - Who (Cain)

Pequod Picaroon the Pirate - Humming Fish (Kevin)

Fokker McScud - Swomee Swan (Meg)

Cindy Lou Who - Who (Taylor)

Once-ler traitor (John Reiher)

Date

January 22 & 29, 2007

Technical Notes

Players will be able to choose a race to play, either Bar-ba-loot, Humming Fish, Swommee Swan, Star-Bellied-Sneech, Who, or Yertle.

Recaps

Player Thoughts

Additional GM Thoughts

The Terror of the Polywampus

Game System

Homebrew

Pitch

Gather round young'uns and listen to me tale, the tale of mutants and science gone wrong. Up the river from here is the Hanford Nuclear Plant, where they made the atomic bomb and other devices of nuclear devastation!

In the early days of Hanford, they were nay concerned with the toxic waste they created and much of it was dumped into a leach pond. Into this pond some ducks settled, but most died horribly from the radiation.

But two of these ducks survived and mated. They laid a clutch of eggs, eggs that glowed at night. All but one of these eggs failed, but the last one, it hatched an abomination. It hatched the monster known as the…

Polywampus!

This foul beast was nay a duck, but a throwback to great beasts that once roamed the Earth's prehistory! It was born hungry and it et it's parents, then anything else it could corner: Jack rabbits, coyotes, and other critters. It grew and grew to an enormous size, bigger than a Clydesdale! It's bill is lined with sharp pointed teeth, and it's body is covered with green and brown feathers.

It can chase you into the Columbia river and hunt you down, it can climb the sides of the valley snap your legs off! It can run faster than you can, and it will eat you whole! The only warning you'll get is it's cry:

Wauuugh! Wauuugh!

You hear that lads, it's too late…

Wauuugh!

What's that? Did you make that noise?

Wauuugh! **Thoom** **Thoom**

It canna be!

WAUUGH!

It's the Polywampus! Run! Run! Aieeee!

**CRUNCH**

You're a Boy Scout or a Girl Scout, and a giant, mutant Duck Monster just ate your Scout Leader. Can you defeat the Polywampus?

Game Master

John Reiher, AKA Kedamono

Players

6

Characters

Date

January 27, 2007

Technical Notes

This is also a playtest of John's new RPG rules, the Pulp RPG System, so it's double the fun and double the pleasure. There's room for 6 players of all ages, and you'll be creating your characters at the game, just remember, they are kids, between 10 and 15 years old, out in the great outdoors!

Recaps

Player Thoughts

Additional GM Thoughts

Dungeon & Savages: Against the Lord of Blood

Aaron, Longrinn, and Fat Bastard attacking the Lord of Blood

Game System

Savage Worlds

Pitch

Your party is now approaching the Village of Hommlet, having ridden up from lands of the Wild Coast. All you have is what you wear and wield, plus the few coins that are hidden in purses and pockets. What you do possess in quantity, though, is daring and desire to become wealthy and famous. Thus your group comes to Hommlet to learn. Is this indeed a place for adventurers to seek their fortunes? You all hope, of course, to gain riches and make names for yourselves. The outcome of this is uncertain, but your skill and daring, along with a good measure of luck, will be the main ingredients of what follows, be it for weal or woe!

The dusty, rutted road is lined with closely-grown hedges of brambles and shrubs. Here and there it cuts through a copse or crosses a rivulet. To either hand, forest and meadow have given way to field and orchard. A small herd of kine graze nearby, and a distant hill is dotted with the wand stone chimneys with thin plumes of blue smoke rising from them. A road angles west into the hill country, and to either side of the road ahead are barns and buildings — Hommlet at last!

But who is this? You hear a cry for help from the direction of the mountain road. Investigating, you walk up the mountain road to the next hillock, where you discover a man crumpled in the rise between the wheel ruts. You judge him a villager, by his simple, sturdy clothes. And, by the bloodstains on that garb, and by the cuts on the sturdy staff that lies next to him, you also judge that he has recently seen a fight...

Game Master

Johnzo

Players

8

Characters - "The Five Swell Gals"

Longrinn the human paladin (Mark Walters)

Mykk the half-Orc fighter (Edmund Metheny)

Aaron the half-Elf ranger (Laura)

Lyle the Elf bard (Taylor)

Sianica the human thief (Kayobi - first episode)

Fat Bastard the Dwarf Cleric (Kristian)

Petunia the Halfling druid (Sophie) and her dog Martha

Sammy Topbottom the Gnome thief/magic user (Meg)

Date

January 8 & 15, 2007

Technical Notes

Power stunting rule: Make a raise and you can narrate your result.

Recaps

Part 1:

Mechante Anemone: With five female players, the ladies had a majority and successfully voted in the name "The Five Swell Gals" for the party (after all, the Five Swell Guys weren't all guys.) Yes, we did notice there were more than five of us -- how about the Seven Sentinels who were really nine? Yeah, I read way too many Alan Moore comics. :)

So the Five Swell Gals found the aforementioned pesant who had been badly beaten, and decided to take him to nearby Hommlet to get some care. They soon learned that he was the only survivor of a party of fifteen villagers who had ventured up in the mountains to retrieve young Horace, a 12-year old boy who had been somehow lured to a little-known monastery.

Apparently, Young Horace was a quiet boy, his widowed father's only child and support. Old Horace (the father) was legless, and relied on his helpful son to get around and take care of his modest farm. But a few weeks before, a two-headed calf had been born to one of their cows. Young Horace took it to the local druid so that she would read the omen, but when she decreed that the calf must be sacrificed, the boy had refused and instead hidden the calf in the forest. Then Young Horace had suddenly started developping an interest in the abbey in the mountains, declaring that he wanted to join the monastery. Eventually, the boy had run away to the abbey. His father was upset and when a group of villagers went to demand that he be returned, they discovered that the monks had hired a band of Orcs, the Twisted Tooth, as mercenaries to defend the monastery.

Old Horace and the villagers pleaded with the Five Swell Gals to help -- and the rumour that the monks were sitting on a huge treasure trove didn't hurt either. Although a crabby Petunia complained that they should be doing a little more ground work first, the group charged up the mountain, with Longrinn and Mykk taking point.

When they reached the monastery in the crags, they indedd found it defended by Orcs. Sammy cast a spell to plunge the (previously damaged) gate area in darkness (Obscure). Erin and Sianica climbed over the walls, Petunia burrowed under the foundations, and the rest swarmed through the broken gate.

An epic fight ensued, where some of the highlights included:

• • Lyle the bard waded through the fray (using Mykk as cover) and took no damage, while Sammy scurried into a building to hide and was turned into a pincushion by archers.
  • Lyle used her Fear spells (singing heavy metal) to rout large mobs of monks and Orcs.
  • Longrinn the paladin had the worst luck with his dice, worse even that Aaron the ranger, and that takes a lot of effort.
  • Martha the dog managed to horribly maul an Orc on her first attack (and then never rolled anything higher than a 2).
  • Petunia burrowed under the Orc leader Hakka's feet and dragged him halfway into the ground as a "weasel attack."
  • Ganging up on Hakka allowed the group to chip at him effectively.
  • Speaking of effectiveness, Aaron (despite a series of disappointing rolls at one point) showed that he was just as effective with a bow as he was as the two-sword Cuisinart.
  • Mykk was a tank, as expected, and bagged Hakka after many blows.
  • Sianica was a true "death from above" ninja and also managed to claim credit on others' kills!
  • Fat Bastard would rather stay in the middle and risk taking Mykk's "friendly fire" than miss a fight.
  • Longrinn can take quantities of damage that would squish several of the other heroes, and barely notice -- which is good, 'cause he sure took a lot of blows.

Eventually the Orcs were annihilated and Longrinn and Mykk brushed off the monks who were trying to bar the way to the treasure chamber. An immense pile of gold was in the center of the large room; although Longrinn could feel serious evil vibes, they seemed to come from the room, not the gold.

Going gold-mad, Sammy threw herself face-first in the treasure, having gone to Gnome heaven. Swimming in gold, she reached for a single coin -- and as soon as she grabbed it, the room started filling with blood. Meanwhile, outside, Petunia found Young Horace in a cell. Gleeful, the boy was shouting: "He comes! The master comes!" A gigantic, shapeless tentacled monster emerged from the gold.

The monks wailed in despair. Longrinn managed to extract an explanation from them: the Lord of Blood had long ago been imprisoned here and for 3,000 years, the abbey's monks had been keeping him/it imprisonned by making sacrifice of all earthly pleasures and riches, denying themselves every comfort. But recent omens and a planetary alignment had allowed the Lord of Blood to contact a receptive victim and call to Young Horace. The monks had hoped to keep the boy locked up and prevent him from aiding the Lord of Blood; because of his age, they could not bring themselves to hurt Horace. But the first act of greed committed in the room had freed the Lord of Blood!

johnzo: Like The Voyage of the Olympic I'd planned this to be another "Pottery Barn" game where in the first session, the PCs would be induced to break something, and in subsequent sessions, they would have to deal with the fallout of that breakage. So I was very happy with the Lord of Blood's emergence in Session 1.

Part 2:

Mechante Anemone: A fierce battle broke out, as Longrinn, Fat Bastard, Mykk, Aaron and a bunch of angry monks tried to prevent the Lord of Blood from getting out of the treasure room. Sianica was grabbed by a tentacle and devoured by the LoB! (on account of player no-show.) Meanwhile, Sammy explored the abbey for something helpful, Lyle retreated to the library to find the book about the Lord of Blood, and Petunia talked to Young Horace.

Petunia had really meant to kill off Young Horace before he could help the LoB complete his ritual, but upon hearing that Young Horace was hoping to find a way to heal his old father through a bargain with the LoB, she didn't have the heart. Instead, she let him out and started trying to steer him out of the monastery, so she was too distracted to stop her dog Martha to run off and join the fray in the treasure room.

While the fight raged on, with the Five Swell Gals hacking at tentacles that kept growing back, Lyle found the Book of Eville and brought it out to the light, but could not decipher it. Sammy, tired of being pursued by an angry little monk belittling him for his part in allowing the Lord of Blood to break his bonds, decided to join the battle and attack the LoB with fire.

Longrinn stopped blow after blow from the Lord of Blood, his shield dented beyond recognition. Mykk fought hard, but was eventually captured by the LoB's tentacles and dragged toward the waiting maw. Mykk used this new-found closeness with divinity to go berserk and deal the LoB several painful blows. The combined efforts of all those fighting on the side of Good-and-Not-Being-Eaten, and particularly Mykk's berserker rage, caused the LoB several wounds. A little monk, full of admiration for Mykk's brave fighting, tried to pull him out but instead was pulled in with the Half-Orc to be devoured by the enemy.

Just as Mykk, still suspended in the air by tentacles, was being dropped in the LoB's gullet, Aaron of the Two-Sword Cuisinart dealt the LoB the mortal blows. The hellish creature shivered; Fat Bastard and Longrinn combined their powers to Turn it, and the LoB collapsed in a puddle of ichor and tentacle bits. But Martha the dog plunged into the puddle as it bubble away, and could not be found again afterwards.

Although the Lord of Blood was gone, Longrinn could still feel evil inside the treasure room, its very walls, and some of the gold. Then animals started arriving from the surrounding mountain forest, trooping inside the treasure chamber around the debris. Questioned by Sammy and Petunia, they kept saying the "Spring is coming."

The monks decided to disband since their task was over, except for the one who had been so impressed by Mykk and asked to become his apprentice. Fat Bastard and Sammy went down to Hommlet to take Young Horace back to his father and look for a scholar and a wizard to read the Book of Eville. Although the priest at the local Temple of St. Cuthbert was very happy to help sequester the tainted gold, no one could be found to read the book, not even at the viscount's castle.

But Aaron found the local druid dead, beyond a breech in a hastily thrown barrier of thorns; she appeared to have been gored by an animal, probably a boar. None of this did much to improve the sense that the Five Swell Gals had not succeeded as brilliantly as they had hoped. They elected to keep watch on the place while looking for someone to decipher the book and until "spring" came.

Lyle finally got impatient. She decided to walk into the erstwhile treasure room, where the animals were still waiting, and cut her hand, letting the blood fall to the floor. The resulting tremor alerted the rest of the group, who rushed to the treasure room with weapons drawn.

In the center stood Martha the dog. The animals started advancing toward her; when a squirrel reached her, she gave it a friendly lick — and it sprouted bat wings and flew off. A steer approach next, was licked, and had its antlers turn to serpents.

But Petunia, not the sharpest tool in the shed, ran in and, recognizing her companion, ran to embrace Martha. Though her features momentarily wavered when Martha licked her, she seemed unaffected. She brought Martha out of the treasure room — where Longrinn slew the dog on the spot, then the steer. But the squirrel could not be found...

Epilogue: Days later in Greyhawk, a large city with its generous share of vermin, pigeons and rats gathered around a bat-winged squirrel...

Some favourite quotes:

• • "You forgot to call me a fool this turn!" — Sammy to the angry little monk
  • "We're about to be the Four Swell Gals." — Lyle
  • GM: "These are the front tentacles..."
    Petunia: "And Longrinn's being attacked by the ass tentacles."
  • "I have him right where he wants me!" — Mykk, dragged to his (near) doom by the LoB
  • Lyle: "We must disperse this evil gold so it can't do any more harm."
    Longrinn: "Yeah, you'd like that."
  • Petunia: "The druid is a halfling, so she can hardly have been gored by something large like a steer."
    Mykk: "Maybe it was a dyk-dyk."
  • GM: "But how do you track a flying squirrel?"
    Longrinn: "First, you need a really large moose."

Johnzo: Against The Lord of Blood: The Photonovel.

Player Thoughts

Additional GM Thoughts

---

Return to SGA Gaming Night Archive