SGA Gaming Night Archive

Seattle Gamers Assemble! (SGA) is a loose community of role-players centered around Seattle, Washington. The club started aggregating in the late 1990s, and eventually solidified in 2000 when its mailing list was transferred to Yahoo! Groups.

SGA holds weekly meeting where members take turns running one-off or short-run games in indie, oldie, or oddball systems. This wiki provides a place to keep some notes on the games we've played.

2006

Crisis on the Island of Forgotten Toys!

Game System

The Zantabulous Zorcerer of Zo

Pitch

There has been a coup on the Island of Forgotten Toys! King Moonchaser has been overthrown by a cabal of action figures and their army of Devil Ducks. Can the heroes - all Forgotten Toys - restore King Moonchaser to the throne?

Game Master

Edmund Metheny

Players

7

Date

December 18, 2006

Technical Notes

All characters were pregens, based on Dollar Store toys and gift-wrapped.

Recaps

See the Actual Play thread on RPG.net.

Player Thoughts

See the Actual Play thread on RPG.net.

Additional GM Thoughts

See the Actual Play thread on RPG.net.

The Voyage of the Olympic

Game System

Space: 1889

Pitch

The adventure will take place on a ship called the S.S. Olympic, a massive cruise liner making its way to Mars. The Olympic is swinging high above the ecliptic to make the very first close-range observation of Rackham's Comet. This shall be a Triumph of British Spacemanship and result in all kinds of juicy advances in Science.

My original concept was 1889 + Aliens + Deep Impact + Fred Saberhagen.

Game Master

Johnzo

Players

6

Characters

Edmund: MAJOR KENTEGERN TROUBLEFIELD, VC, CMG, DSO, SPDR, a soldier en route to his post on Mars.

Kev: DOCTOR ALFRED MOUSER, an expert British zoologist and a bit of a tippler.

Sophie: DOCTOR KORNELJA BREZINSKA, a Polish doctor and scientist, now residing in France.

Laura: MISS GEORGINA FINCH, a photographer from America.

Kerri: MRS. MADDIE STOCKTON WEST, a rich widow from America.

Mark: CAPTAIN SIR NIGEL S. S. WENTWORTH III, M.V.O, Master of the /Olympic./

Date

November 27 and December 4, 2006

This game was scheduled for two nights so that in the first night, the characters could break something, and the second night, they could try to put it right. I figured this would be a good way to drive emotional investment. I'm still trying to figure out how do a good single-session game.

Technical Notes

Streamlined version of the system; the rules for Invention were not used. All characters were pregens, based on players' requests.

The 1889 rules were tough to read and understand, and it didn't seem like a worthwhile use of our time to explore, so I used only one rule in the game: the roll-1d6-under-your-score-to-succeed. We freeformed off those results. I tried to remember to set stakes in advance of the roll but often failed to do so.

The first session was mostly traditional and simulationist, with a fixed scenario presented by the GM, although the "whatever sounds good" solution to the worm infestation was No Myth, as I understand that.

Recaps

FIRST SESSION

The PC's were passengers aboard the Olympic, except for Mark, who was the ship's captain of the ship. All were seated at the Captain's table for the close approach to the comet.

The player characters were the only interesting people on board. Everyone else was an ineffectual aristocrat or an untested spacer. I've been on a no-NPC kick for awhile, and this was part of that.

The approach revealed something unexpected, though -- a series of artificial installations built into the ice of the comet, and a small crashed Earth ship not far from them.

The Olympic investigated, sending the PCs down aboard her auxiliary, the Ajax.

Everyone at the table had a good reason to join the expedition, and Mark brought them all along. I hate those things in Star Trek where people wind up split between the ship and the surface, so this was nice.

They discovered an unconscious Persian, apparently concussed, aboard the derelict ship. In the pockets of his spacesuit, they found two long, extruded hexagons of pure ruby. These piqued interest.

The Persian became delirious and had seizures. The crew restrained him, left him in Maddie's care and went on to explore the other installations.

The comet contained an observation viewer showing a perfect, real-time high-resolution view of London and other Earth cities. Other installations contained perfectly preserved dinosaur and mammal specimens from the Late Triassic era. A great wide shaft led into the core, where the characters found a difference engine as big as a palace.

Aboard Ajax, while Maddie watched, the Persian's head detached, grew spider legs from its stump, and ran for the ship's head. Maddie took a shot at him and missed. The crew barricaded him into the ship's head. He chewed his way out through the toilet gasket and disappeared onto the surface of the comet, where he skittered away.

Down in the shaft, Troublefield, Wentworth, and Brezinska explored the interior of the difference engine -- it had gaps large enough to float around in. They found the ruby-rod hopper and an engraving machine and deduced that this was some kind of data storage system.

A peculiar species of inchworm floated in the zero gravity of the cometary interior. These worms were attracted to the carbide mining lanterns of the spacers. The spacers didn't take any notice of these worms until they snuffed out the lanterns.

Then a worm got into Troublefield's air tube and from there into his helmet. As he flailed in his helmet, it chewed a hole in his cheek. He bit it in half and swallowed bits of it.

I was hoping someone would be infected with the worm, and Ed was the lucky recipient.

As they retreated, the Persian's head scuttled past them into the depths of the difference engine. It had observed enough of the Terran's technology to decide to trigger the comet's berserker protocol. The characters, too freaked out by their worm encounter, and without their carbide lights, did not pursue it.

The comet's thrusters fired up as the Ajax was egressing. Ajax was slammed into the side of the shaft.

The ship emerged from the comet to discover that the comet's thrust had knocked the Olympic spinning off into space, and that the comet was now on a collision course with Earth!

SECOND SESSION

When I prepped this, I didn't have a concrete plan at all for session two, just for session one. We'd put enoughterrain into play in the first session; I was confident that people would do interesting things with it. Also, there was no Kerri for this session so her character faded into the background.

The Ajax five reboarded Olympic and commenced damage control. The ship was in bad shape; her boiler was unable to hold pressure, her interplanetary heliograph was destroyed, and her first officer was dead, leaving the inexperienced second officer in command.

The scientists remained in quarantine aboard /Ajax/ with their experimental subjects -- Troublefield, the headless Persian, and worms they'd picked off their suits. Troublefield's temperature and blood pressure were both abnormally high. The scientists suspect he's infected.

Men sent out to patch up the Oly's boiler were brought under rifle fire from some unknown sharpshooter. Wentworth brought his men in just as a night-black pirate ship swooped between them and the sun, revealing itself. This was the Persian's mothership.

Between sessions, I prepped the encounter with the Persian pirates. They were not part of my original planning, but were added after Mark asserted that the smaller ship could not have possibly made the journey from Earth to the comet. I like to play off character assertions like that.

The ship scattered English leaflets in its wake, demanding that Olympic turn over the six most wealthy passengers on board, for ransom.

The pirate leafleting was something I planned to draw Maddie in. If Kerri had made the second session, she would have needed to take point on any of the pirate negotiations. She spoke Farsi, and the pirates would not have spoken English at all -- they hired an English speaker to print the leaflets on Earth. But since Kerri wasn't there and the Captain had to negotiate with the pirates, they spoke English, and the leafletting was just an oddity.

There was a great deal of debate about what to do about this. In the end, Major Troublefield was released from quarantine, and he and the Captain and Miss Finch journeyed to the Persian ship, intending to cripple it.

I was hoping the Captain would consider trading the six proposed hostages. I'd prepped all of them heavily. They were a diverse bunch--a noble, a woman, a child, an elderly man, a foreigner, and a clergyman. I was hoping to get a discussion going on who it was okay to trade, and who it was not okay to trade. But the Captain wasn't willing to compromise on that and went for the total win instead of the compromised win.

They succeeded with some daring zero-gee sabotage of the Persian ship's guns by Major Troublefield, which included an untethered leap across space and a standoff with pistols pointed at an ammunition hopper.

The ammunition hopper standoff -- next time I do something like that, I'm going to use the Riddle of Steel red die / white die initiative rule.

Crippled, the Persian ship moved off, and repairs on Olympic proceeded.

The scientists aboard Ajax determined that a shock of electricity would cure the worm infestation.

I knew the scientist players -- Sophie and Kevin -- would come up with a fun and genre-appropriate way to treat the infestation. I was waiting for them to do so before I triggered Ed's hallucinations.

Troublefield started hallucinating, seeing his Brigadier interrogating him about the capabilities of Britain's Royal Space Navy. He refused to answer and volunteered for shock treatment. The worms' motives remain curious...

I was hoping to create a situation where Ed had to choose between curing his problem or communicating with the aliens. This didn't seem to be a very hard choice for him.  :) In retrospect, I would've liked to move the halluncinations to the standoff scene with the Persian. C'est la vie.

Repairs are completed. Olympic overtakes the comet. The plan is this: while the other auxilliary, Achilles, draws off the cloud of worms with carbide heliograph lanterns, Troublefield and Brezinska and Wentworth will attempt to disable the difference engine. They do this by triggering another massive thrust burst, but before this operation is completed, the Achilles founders as the worms chew through her rubber seals.

The comet trembles. Its reactors fire up. Steam starts pouring from its surface. Within the comet, superheated rods start heating the ice.

Ajax pauses in the retreat to try to tow Achilles out of the comet.

Mark and I rolled off. His d6 indicated how quickly he could bring Achilles under tow; my roll showed how long before the comet underwent catastrophic acceleration. I won that roll, and the comet rocketed away, out of the ecliptic and into deep space with the Ajax five still aboard her...

Everyone got medals, pothsumously.

This TPK was an improvisation, and a dangerous one. It could have screwed up the entire adventure, but no one seemed to mind.

Player Thoughts

High Noon on the Warworld of Alshain

Game System

Terran Trade Authority

Pitch

Forty-two light years from Earth, and the TTA, the crew of the Epsilon Tiger find a world ravaged by an ancient war. Did everyone die in one massive apocalypse or are there survivors somewhere on this devastated world of Alshain V? But beyond that, this world is rich with alien technology, something that the crew of the Epsilon Tiger could turn around and sell at Proxima, or one of the other less than legal ports. Care to find out what awaits you on the Warworld of Alshain?

Game Master

John Reiher

Players

6

Date

November 20, 2006

Technical Notes

Playtest for John's official publisher-sponsored demo game to be run at Emerald City Gamefest 2006.

Recaps

Player Thoughts

Additional GM Thoughts

To the North Pole - and BEYOND!

Game System

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

6

Date

November 13, 2006

Technical Notes

Playtest for Edmund's official publisher-sponsored demo game to be run at Emerald City Gamefest 2006.

Recaps

Player Thoughts

Additional GM Thoughts

The Saga of the Dinner Cart Banditos

Game System

Low Life (Savage Worlds engine)

Pitch

Come join in the fun and mayhem! Keep your goosin' peepers peeled for the next announced Low Life game and then drag your quivering keister down to the game! Pregen characters are available!

Game Master

Edmund Metheny

Players

3-7

Date

February 27, March 6 & 20, April 17, May 8 & 15, June 5, 12 & 26, October 16 & 23, November 6, 2006

Technical Notes

See the official site.

Recaps

Player Thoughts

Additional GM Thoughts

Halloween Falkenstein

Game System

Castle Falkenstein

Pitch

Game Master

Laura Mortensen

Players

5

Date

October 30, 2006

Technical Notes

Recaps

Fourth episode in a long-term mini-series.

Player Thoughts

Additional GM Thoughts

NEXTWAVE! Part 2: Cosmic Schmosnic

Game System

Truth & Justice

Pitch

Ptero-Men, M.O.D.O.K., AIM-Brocs, Awesome Andy, the Mad Thinker, GAL (Galactus' retarded clone), and his cosmic herald Hellcow!!

Game Master

Kevin Perrine

Players

5

Date

September 25 & October 9, 2006

Technical Notes

Recaps

Player Thoughts

Additional GM Thoughts

Wushu Noir

Game System

Wushu

Pitch

Come try Wushu, the game where you bring the action! If you ever felt limited by a game sysetem, then this is the night for you! Character creation takes seconds, and the game will be set in a homebrew noir/wuxia setting.

Game Master

Cain Young

Players

5

Date

October 2, 2006

Technical Notes

Recaps

Player Thoughts

Additional GM Thoughts

NEXTWAVE!

Game System

Truth & Justice

Pitch

It's like Shakespeare
But with lots more punching
It's like Goethe
But with lots more crunching
Like Titanic
But the boat's still floating
No it's not!
The mother(honk)ing boat is exploding!
NEXTWAVE!

Game Master

Edmund Metheny

Players

5

Date

September 18 & 25, 2006

Technical Notes

Game author Chad Underkoffler helped Edmund design the characters.

Recaps

Player Thoughts

Additional GM Thoughts

The Devil's Race

Game System

octaNe

Pitch

octaNe -- inspired by movies like the Mad Max trilogy, in a weird post-Apocalypse, post-modern America where you play road warriors and six-string samurai.

Game Master

Sophie Lagacé

Players

6

Date

August 14 & 21, 2006

Technical Notes

Recaps

Player Thoughts

Additional GM Thoughts

Cavemen Conundrums

Game System

Land of Og (2nd ed.)

Pitch

Game Master

Kevin Perrine

Players

6

Date

August 7, 2006

Technical Notes

Recaps

Player Thoughts

Additional GM Thoughts

Capes!

Game System

Capes!

Pitch

[... smoke-covered barren wasteland, the burnt wreckage of d20 ships seen dimly through the haze, the shattered remains of O.G.L. units cast around the landscape, a small hidden hatch flips open and a figure with frizzy hair and large black hat peers out. "Another d20 flamewar. I've seen worse." ... ]
CAPES!
Super-powers are super-nifty. But do you deserve to have yours? And more importantly, can you make the other guy sweat bullets to prove they deserve theirs?

Game Master

Ed Freeman

Players

8

Date

July 24 & 31, 2006

Technical Notes

Recaps

Player Thoughts

Additional GM Thoughts

The Band of STEEL

Game System

Necessary Evil (Savage Worlds)

Pitch

When all the super heroes of the world are blown to kingdom come by an army of invading aliens who will save the day? Evil... The only forces left to take on the alien menace are the crafty and self serving super villains!

Game Master

Karl Hubbs

Players

7

Date

February 6, 13, & 20, 2006

Technical Notes

PCs were upgraded from Novice to Seasoned between the second and third games.

Recaps

In the first episode, the overbearing Dr. Destruction and his sidekick, the chick with no name, organized a jail break-out from the V'sori School for Gifted but Ethically Challenged Earthlings (all right, not its real name.) Dr. D made it pretty clear that Boneyard, Carnivore, Doctor Steel, Madame Shade, Noise and Warcry were crunchies but gave them the task of freeing some important villain from the back cells. In their fetching prison suits, the improvised Band of Steel managed to free the V.I.P. ("Alive is all we need, he didn't say unharmed!") Many were wounded, but thanks to Madame Shade and Doctor Steel, they were healed -- except for Boneyard, on account of him being, y'know, dead already.

Since then, about a few days had passed. The overbearing Dr. D had provided a lair of sorts in Star City, and even Boneyard was back to, um, normal. Doctor Steel had been experimenting in the makeshift lab, complaining about the facilities. The overbearing Dr. D made an appearance, demanding that the Band of Steel go to the mainland and free some super-scientist guy from a V'sori base. He would supply a small boat and arrange for the communications at the base to be jammed for a two-hour window. The base was situated overlooking a bluff above the sea, and used to be a super-villain's lair before the alien invaders took over. Dr. D gave crude schematics and left the Band of Steel to plot.

The resourceful villains soon came up with a plan that they hoped would give them the advantage of surprise. Doctor Steel would build a submarine equipped with a giant drill that would not only take them unnoticed from the island of Star City to the mainland, but allow them to tunnel in through the cliff side to the underground laboratory. Madame Shade would use her magic powers to weaken the concrete foundations, making it possible to break through, and Noise would use his sonic powers to keep the operation silent. [Alas, the GM later declared that you could not keep breaking through concrete silent, regardless of Noise's power radius.] Carnivore would accompany the brave submarinodrillonauts to provide fighting abilities; rounding the submarine crew was Madame Shade's zombi, Joe. Meanwhile, Boneyard would use his powers to move through the earth and Warcry her flight abilities to attack the above-ground installations and create a diversion, thus drawing some of the enemy forces out and away from the real operation. Madame Shade used her voodoo magic to keep a mental link with Warcry and coordinate the attack with the break-through to the underground lair.

Above-ground, Boneyard and Warcry were met by a dozen guards armed with machine guns (which they soon switched to Herokiller rounds), a handful of wiredogs [Edmund thinks it was one, I think it was at least a couple -- does anyone else remember? anyway, wiredogs are, well, super-dogs wrapped in barbed wire. No, don't ask me, I don't know why!], a warsphere, and a drone [the latter two are contraptions that shoot ray gun attacks, which have, as I recall, 2 and 4 Armour Penetration, respectively. The warsphere is a Wild Card, of power comparable to a novice character for combat purposes.] Boneyard, being the stalwart good ol' dead Reb that he is, did a good deal of damage and, just as importantly, absorbed everything thrown at him without damage [I think.] Warcry, being a Blaster, was mostly an entertaining sight in the night sky, receiving the complete and undivided attention of the drone and the warsphere despite have caused naught but cosmetic damage to the compound.

Underground, the tunnelers broke in. After a rapid exploration of the initial contact area and some moderate resistance from the guards, they came face to face with another posse of guards, another wiredog, another warsphere [Wild Card] a jack-in-the-box/stretchy super [Novice rank Wild Card like them], a super armed with an energy glaive [Seasoned rank Wild Card, much more powerful than them], and a V'sori [power unknown but likely a Wild Card of moderate-to-high power]. Knowing that this was their all-or-nothing only chance, Carnivore and Doctor Steel, who were facing Glaive Guy, quickly agreed on tactics but alas, Glaive Guy got initiative and wounded both of them in a single action. Noise and Joe the zombi are the second line, and Madame Shade the third -- a fragile line. [Everyone in the party, both above and below, was long out of bennies.]

Up top, Warcry managed to dispatch the warsphere, but was hit in the same round by the drone, reducing her to -3 [one more hit and she's down for the count; she can't even fly away until she succeeds at a Spirit roll.] Will the Band of Steel melt in the forge, or will it break under the strain?

Player Thoughts

Mechante Anemone: I have to say this is the most fun group I've played with at the SGA Monday night games. Ever. People are awesome, funny, in character and out; they cooperate and work as a team, they're great. My very favourite sequence so far has been the planning of the attack, which included -- at Kevin's suggestion -- a montage of building the submarine. It was hilarious and it felt creative.

I was profoundly disappointed that, with all this cool planning, we had zero success. We learned at the end that with the radio jamming, the aliens and their quislings had decided to hide in the basement, leaving only the regular forces up top, so instead of a useful diversion all we did was split up our forces. The bad guys (the OTHER bad guys!) were completely taken by not-surprise. My two cents: I wish that we had been allowed to get partial success, some small benefit for a lot of neat planning and enthusiastic team work, not to mention the use of fully half of Doctor Steel's inventor pool.

As it is, there are three options at the beginning of next game: (1) the forces remain unaltered and we are all wiped out (mathematically certain); (2) more bad guys (no, the *OTHER* bad guys!) show up and for some reason they decide to capture us in order to gloat; (3) the overbearing Dr. D's forces come and save our butts so he can do the gloating himself. There is no possible way for us to get out with any success, our dignity, or (probably) our lives. :-(

Additional GM Thoughts

Chien Noir

Game System

Dogs in the Vineyard

Pitch

Who Killed the Black Dahlia?

Game Master

Ed Freeman

Players

3

Date

January 23 & 30, 2006

Technical Notes

Instead of the DitV default setting, used a noir detective agency setting in 1947.

Recaps

Player Thoughts

Additional GM Thoughts

The Case of the Irish Roses

Game System

Call of Cthulhu

Pitch

The characters, with the exception of Lady McFarland, all went to St. Joan's College in the tiny costal town of Elsinore, RI. St. Joan's is a former Women's University that went co-ed in the 1960s. You all met up again a couple years ago at the home of a college aquaintance. Now Father Drake has sent each of you a letter asking you to come to Ireland to help him invesitigate some strange events in and around Waterford City.

Game Master

Laura Mortensen

Players

5

Date

January 16, 2006

Technical Notes

Recaps

Player Thoughts

Additional GM Thoughts

Kung Fu Christmas

Game System

Feng Shui

Pitch

Teaser I:

BLACK SCREEN
Voiceover: "Some things are inevitable."
FADE IN: A deserted highway at night. Snow falls thickly. In the distance the headlights of a semi truck crest a hill.
FADE TO BLACK
Voiceover: "Like the changing of the seasons - the wheel turns."
FADE IN: Close up of the front wheel and part of the cab of a semi truck. A flash of lightning reveals a pig painted on the door.
FADE TO BLACK
Voiceover: "No matter where you start, your path is a circle."
FADE IN: medium shot of the semi truck turning off the highway onto an access road. Some sort of large factory complex is visible in the distance. As the truck turns the words "Pork Chop Express" are clearly visible on the side panel.
FADE TO BLACK
Voiceover: "And if you leave trouble, all that is certain..."
FADE IN: truck pulls up at a security gate, and is checked over by guards carrying submachineguns. Searchlights pan across the scene, and there is the sound of a helicopter passing overhead. Guards wave the truck through. As the truck pulls away from the kiosk the words "WALMART WELCOMES YOU" painted in yellow, friendly letters, are revealed on the side of the security station.
FADE TO BLACK
Voiceover: "...is that trouble will find you once again."
FADE IN: close up of the ground beside the truck. Sound of door opening and a pair of booted feet appear. Camera pans up and back to reveal JACK BURTON.
BURTON: "All right people, lets get those Roboraptors loaded - its a long way to Portland and the Pork Chop Express has a schedule to keep! Chop chop! And where can a real american get a decent cup of coffee around here?"
FADE TO BLACK
Voiceover: "When a champion is needed - he will appear."
Cue soundtrack "Mortal Combat"
CUT TO: Medium shot of GRACIE LAW and JACK BURTON standing on a catwalk, looking down.
GRACIE: "Jack, we've got to do something!"
CUT TO: dolly shot of Jack sneaking up on an elderly Walmart guard. Jack hits the guard over the head with a board. The guard turns and smiles at Jack.
GUARD: "May I help you?"
Guard punches Jack in the chest, sending him flying back off camera. CUT TO: shot of warehouse interior. Jack and Gracie run across frame closely followed by a dozen ninja dressed in Walmart blue. Cue sound effects of fight, and ninja come flying back to land unconscious on the ground.
Cut soundtrack.
BURTON (off camera): "Aw no! No no no no NO! Who the hell ARE you guys anyway?"
CUT TO: Medium shot of SANTA and ELF in kata poses, surrounded by unconscious ninja.
ELF: "Who do you think, numbnuts?"
SANTA: "Ho ho ho!"
Resume soundtrack. CUT TO BLACK

HE SAVED CHINATOWN - NOW CAN HE SAVE CHILDREN'S MOST BELOVED HOLIDAY?
JACK BURTON IN KUNG FU CHRISTMAS

Directed by John Carpenter

Starring
Kurt Russell - Jack Burton
Kim Cattrall - Gracie Law
Dennis Dun - Wang Chi
Bob Hoskins - Santa Claus
Jackie Chan - the Elf
Diane Salinger - the Spirit of Christmas

Sam Walton - as himself

Voiceover by Victor Wong

Teaser II: BILLBOARD ADVERTISEMENT

Shot of warehouse interior. Left foreeground of frame shows several metalic robot dinosaurs. All appear frozen and covered with ice, and icicles are dangling from their snouts and limbs. Right foreground is SANTA CLAUS, facing dinosaurs in Buddha's Palm stance.
Upper caption: :"HE KNOWS IF YOU'VE BEEN BAD OR GOOD"

Lower caption: "KUNG FU CHRISTMAS. DECEMBER 19"

Game Master

Edmund Metheny

Players

6

Date

January 9, 2006

Technical Notes

Recaps

Player Thoughts

Additional GM Thoughts

Everway

Game System

Everway

Pitch

Sometimes a Gate flares and the normal destination isn't reached. You all spill out of a gate in this fashion, pulled together by fate.

Game Master

John Poole

Players

4

Date

January 2, 2006

Technical Notes

Recaps

Player Thoughts

Additional GM Thoughts

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