Session 1: Running with the Shadows on Library

Gary Harper

May 18, 2020 6:49 PM

Sonora Gaming Club, one last time... by Gary Harper

Gary emerged from the Aladren common room well enough ahead of schedule to make sure he was the first one at the table for the first meeting of the Sonoran Gaming Club this year. This was his last year running games for this group, it had become a nice constant in his life. He really enjoyed running games for his friends here and next year he wouldn't be able to. Well, at least not here anyway. Maybe they'd have some get togethers for old times sake, but it wouldn't quite be the same. It made him a little sad as he arranged his things at his usual place at the table.

Traditionally this first meeting was to welcome in any new people and give him the chance to present his adventure idea for the term. Then they could all discuss it, talk about characters they wanted to play, and bring up any concerns they may have. The standard 'session zero' type of gathering. Then they'd have until the next session to get their characters made up and ready to go. He'd spend the time helping out whoever needed it during the course of the week and tweaking the first session stuff to match up better with the characters that were being made.

This year would be slightly different. If people wanted to keep playing next year, they were going to need to figure out who was going to be running the games. It was very difficult to play games without a gamemaster. Sure, there were games like that out there, and there were board games, but.... they just weren't the same. Maybe that is what the group would decide to do though, who knows. He wouldn't be a part of it, and he tried to convince himself that that allowed him to not care. But, he still did. They had such good times around this table, and they could keep on having them. He was not essential, but someone in this position was.

As the people began to arrive he smiled and welcomed them. Once it looked like everyone had arrived, he stood and got their attention. "Hi all, thanks for coming. For the newcomers, I am Gary your friendly neighborhood gamemaster. Welcome all to the 'first official meeting of the the last year of my reign of terror'", he grinned then sobered. "For those of you that are returning, this year will be different than previous years. You may have heard some of these plans already, but allow me to make them official." He looked over the group in front of him, "I have been running the games here since I was a second year student, and soon it will be time for me to move on. If you want to keep playing these kinds of games next year, you will need someone or someones to run said games."

"In order to allow you all to make an informed decision on that front," He continued, "This term anyone that wants to throw their hat into the ring as a potential gamemaster for next year, can plan and run a short adventure of their own. I'll get us started and maybe wrap things up at the end of the term but for the most part, I'll be taking a little break this year and just be playing the games, and helping people work on their adventures if they want me to. Also, I have RATS at the end of the year that will need some study time dedicated to them."

He paused for a moment, "I should probably back up a little for those of you who aren't familiar with the concept of role-playing games. Don't worry about all the stuff I just said to much. These games are a different than your traditional board games or other games. You are not trying to 'win' the game and the people playing with you are not your opposition. We are working together to tell a story, one person is the gamemaster, and they present the situation to the other players and describe how the world reacts to what those other players do. The other players each control a character that lives in the world that the gamemaster describes, and it is up to that player to decide what that character does within the bounds of the story being presented. There are some rules to follow for how things work out and dice to add an element of uncertainty." He smiled, "It'll probably make sense once you see it in action."

OOC: This thread will be a multithread thing so anyone that wants to post their character's game can do so, and people can interact with it at whatever level they want to. The first one will be the continuation of this opening session so things can happen now.

Subthreads:

Session 0 Continued! by Gary Harper with Heinrich Hexenmeister , Valentine Duell

Session 1: Running with the Shadows by Gary Harper with Gabriel Wilson, Evelyn Stones, Heinrich Hexenmeister , Valentine Duell, Ness McLeod

2 Gary Harper Sonora Gaming Club, one last time... 1404 1 5

Gary Harper

May 18, 2020 6:51 PM

Session 0 Continued! by Gary Harper

"Now, I usually like to have an overarching story for the term so that the characters we create can have some continuity and progression from session to session." Gary began strolling around the table, just because he felt like it, "However, that is tricky if we have a bunch of different people running a bunch of different games. Especially if they all want to use different systems. Over the years we've played everything from Toklienesque high fantasy to robot space pirates, all of which have been great and I want to leave those options open for people to use." He'd made his way around the table and dropped back into his chair. "So I think we will do something along these lines...." His voice trailed off as he looked around at the table, trying to capture everyone's attention.

"It was a dark and stormy night." He began in his best gamemaster's voice, "The wind howled and the rain pelted down on the roof of Sonora Academy. Lightning flashed and the thunder boomed outside," a the lights seemed to flicker and a quiet peel of thunder rolled across the table with a subtle motion from Gary's wand, "Inside though everything was calm and dry. The teachers and students were going about their normal activities, it is a Friday evening and we find our heroes sitting around a table in the library. They seem to be playing some sort of game." He glanced around the table and smiles.

Before anyone could comment to much, he continued with gusto, "Suddenly there is a blinding flash of light and a tremendous boom! You're thrown into the air by magical energies that you've never experienced before. They toss you about, tearing at you for what seems like an eternity until you feel as though you've been torn asunder." Gary's voice calmed again, "The forces that had played about you cease and you fall, and fall, and fall... When you awaken you find yourself laying in a field of green grass. A cool breeze greets you as you sit up. You can see other figures around you, sitting up as well. Somehow, you know they are your friends from that table in the long gone library. They don't look like your friends anymore though, and glancing down, you don't look like you anymore either. Strange knowledge and memories flash through your brain, they don't belong to you but they are yours to use. Somewhere, off in the distance, you can sense another person that, like you, does not belong here."

Gary grinned, breaking the narrative, "It doesn't take you long to discover that there has been some very, very magical accident somewhere. You have been tossed from your comfortable little world of Earth into the multiverse of possible worlds. Some of the other residents of Sonora have been similarly tossed about, and it is up to you to find and rescue them. Doing so allows you to leave the world behind and sends you on to the next one. Hopefully, once they have all been recovered, home will be the last stop on this journey."

"In short," Gary broke the mood entirely, "You will be playing yourselves this time around. It's a good idea for new GMs to create characters for their adventure, so they know what sort of abilities and such they will need to deal with. As such, those characters will give you bodies and abilities for each world you visit, but you will still be you. As such, all the GM will need to worry about with the characters are the abilities and such. Names, gender, physical appearance can all be handled by the player who chooses that character." He shrugged, "It's not an ideal, but it sounded amusing in my head. Thoughts? Discussions? I've talked plenty, now it's your turn."

2 Gary Harper Session 0 Continued! 1404 0 5

Heinrich Hexenmeister

May 27, 2020 11:50 AM

Continuing by Heinrich Hexenmeister

Heinrich counted himself victorious over the English language when the only word in Gary's speech that he didn't understand was 'Tolkienesque'. He'd even followed 'eternity' and 'asunder'. Who knew playing Dungeons and Dragons would be so good for his English development? The plan for multiple DMs for this year was not exactly encouraging to him - he'd just gotten used to the way Gary talked - but he'd be lying if he wasn't a little bit relieved to leave the space pirates game behind them. Being a genderless robot space being had been fine. It was the pirate part he'd had trouble getting behind. He'd managed to play the part of the crew's voice of reason so they didn't do anything too outlandish that would get them all murdered by space authorities - which had been a bit of stretch after play Siegmund the Dragonborn who swung open doors to rooms full of evil goblins and wanted to smite all the bad guys without running away to rest and recover, but they'd gotten through the campaign without too badly ruffling his scruples.

At least with a series of mini-adventures, if he didn't like the premise of one, it would probably be over quicker.

He looked around the table. "You all look strange," he told his fellow players.

He looked back to Gary. "This sounds fine. I will not be running one," he added, in case Gary had been counting on him to provide an adventure. He'd only been playing these games for a year. He was definitely not comfortable with the idea of running one, even if English wasn't still a problem. English might not be - and he wasn't absolutely certain it wouldn't crop up as some kind of issue either because the new players had trouble with his accent, or just because his words were not as fluid and literary as Gary's usually were - but Heinrich did not count himself as particularly creative. Crafting a story that other people could play out just sounded very difficult and he had enough difficult things in his life right now without adding more unnecessarily.

1 Heinrich Hexenmeister Continuing 1414 0 5

Gary Harper

June 26, 2020 6:42 PM

Session 1: Running with the Shadows by Gary Harper

Gary liked holding the game club in the library. It made getting there early so much easier than if he would have to go the whole way out to the MARS rooms or somewhere else. That's not to say the MARS rooms wouldn't make a spectacular gaming space, but it wouldn't be the library. This is where it had started, and for him, this is where it would end. He had really fouled some things up this year, and he hoped he had at least started fixing some of it. The last thing he wanted was for him to leave this club behind with it crashing and burning in his wake.

Anyway, it was time to focus on tonight. He made his way over to their table and unpacked the evening's activities. He had a few simple things planned in case nobody actually wanted to run any games, which he desperately hoped wasn't the case. This one, wasn't one of them though. He knew he would have to run the first few weeks while the others got their games ready for the table. As such, he had planned this one out once he'd figure out the theme for the year. It would be something they hadn't tried yet, and hopefully it would go over well. Hopefully he had at least one or two players that were somewhat familiar with the muggle world. Parker was, Ness was somewhat, Heinrich and Evelyn never talked much about their families... Morgan was?

As the members of the group arrived, he welcomed them as he finished shuffling his papers around. He was happy to see some new faces at the table as well, apparently he hadn't scared them all off after the first meeting. Once everyone had arrived he began, "Welcome back, tonight we'll begin some actual gaming. I've got a short adventure to start us off, it will probably run two to three sessions. After that, if anyone is ready to run a game," he looked around the table trying to figure out who might be in that group, "the table will be yours. If not, I've got some smaller jobs that won't be all that great, but they'll do in a pinch. So, if anyone has anything they want to bring up, now is the time."

Once the gaming discussion had slowed down he pulled everyone's focus back. "Okay, now let's get started." He pulled out some papers, character sheets, and fanned them out in the center of the table. "Tonight, you all find yourselves in new bodies once again. It's nighttime and you're all sitting or standing around a metal barrel that contains a fire. That fire is giving light and heat to a cold, and rainy night. You're in what looks like an abandoned warehouse that has seen better days. The windows are broken as are some of the walls. There is a bitter chemical smell in the air. Outside you hear gunfire in the distance, and a screaming siren traversing some road in the same direction. Welcome to Seattle, 2075 Shadowrunners.

Gary paused and gestured to the sheets on the table. "This adventure takes place using the Shadowrun system. The world is an alternate Earth where magic levels rise and fall over the course of a thousand years. The world had been purely muggle until about 50ish years ago, at that point the rising level of magic in the environment raised to the point where it awoke the great dragons and intruded itself rudely upon the mundane world. Muggle science and technology exists here, far beyond anything we have currently but along side of that magic also thrives. It's a fused world where elves and dwarves fight along side of orcs and trolls with guns, magic, swords and robots."

"What do they fight?" He asked before anyone could, "The megacorps!" He answered with a snarl while pounding the table and glaring at each one of them. "Companies that have grown and transcended the law and even the government," he practically spat out. "They are nations unto themselves with no one to oversee them anymore. They draw in the masses, put them to work, and pay them with money that is only good at the company store. These poor wageslaves make up the majority of the population. People trying to eek out a meager existence while clinging to the promises of comfort and safety told to them by their uncaring corporate overlords."

He straightened up again, "You are not one of those poor creatures. You are of another class, with a different and useful set of skills. You are shadowrunners. Shadowrunners are the people that live outside that system, they move between the megacorps in the shadows. They come to you with jobs, they use you as deniable assets to strike at one another. You are smart, strong, and highly skilled.... otherwise you would be dead by now." He paused just a moment, "You also have the skills necessary to help those who need it, to strike at the corps when you want."

The sheets in the middle of the table contained an assortment of humans, dwarves, elves, orcs, and trolls ranging from magic users, cybernetically enhanced soldiers, mystic martial artists, hackers, con artists and get-away drivers/drone pilots.

Once everyone had chosen a character with any necessary clarification, and described themselves Gary resumed, "As you begin to get used to these bodies, you can sense your quarry. The person that you need to find from the school seems to be maybe a few miles away to the northwest. However, before you can act upon that information, you clearly hear the sound of a single set of footsteps walking your direction. A lone man appears through a door that leads out of the large room you are in. He is about 5' 8" tall with short cut brown hair combed very neatly. He is wearing a very nice suit and his shiny shoes click neatly on the concrete floor. He stops and regards you through his designer sunglasses.

"'Good', the man says 'You've come. Time is of the essence.' He tosses a computer storage device to whomever is standing the closest to him." Gary described the man's actions, and tossed a small grey object to Ness. It's about 1"x1"x4" and slides apart to reveal a rolled up piece of paper.

"'That contains the details,' the man continues nodding toward the device, 'but your target is one 'Onofre Brighid'. He was captured four hours ago and is being transported to Ares' complex in Bellevue. I would suggest you intercept them before they get out of the barrens. Half of the payment is in the account noted in there' he nods once more to the device, 'the other half will be payed when Mr. Brighid is safely in our care. You will find my contact information along with the account number. Do not use it until the job is done.' He nods a farewell and turns to leave." Gary looked around at the group, "What do you do?"

The rolled up papers in the container have a bank name, an account number and a rather large amount of currency indicated. Below is a string of numbers next to 'Mr. Johnson'. The second bit of paper has a map the Redmond Barrens and Bellevue districts of Seattle with a red line presumably showing the transport route, and a red dot labeled 'You are Here' what looks like a few miles to the southeast of the route's origin.

2 Gary Harper Session 1: Running with the Shadows 1404 Gary Harper 0 5

Valentine Duell

June 26, 2020 8:07 PM

People and Games! by Valentine Duell

Valentine was in! Ness was awesome! The first year made her way to the library giddy with excitement, there was a games club and she was invited! She was going to have to tell Mama and Papa all about this in her next letter home. As she entered the library, only a few minutes early for the meeting, she quickly spotted what must be the group. There was a bunch of people of all different ages sitting around one of the bigger tables in the corner. Ness must have pulled some strings for her, there were a bunch of people here, maybe they had multiple games running.

She grinned wide and moved closer, she spotted Ness and gave her friend a wave. It was odd though, Ness didn't look particularly happy. A thought struck Val as she found an empty seat at the table. Had her invitation cost someone else a seat? Did one of Ness' other friends not get to play now? She'd have to talk to Ness after this and find out. Val wanted to be in the group and have fun playing games, but she did not want to be the one that prevented someone else from having that experience.

One of the older boys stood up and started talking then. He was the one in charge of the group, Gary. He seemed nice enough... and he was graduating after this year? She looked around at the table as Gary talked about his plans for the club. This didn't sound very good. Had he been the only one running the games for the club? The way he talked, it didn't sound like the rest of the players had much experience with running games.

She had some, but not a lot. He started to talk about what role-playing games are as her mind drifted off to possibilities. Could she run a game for all these older students? Ness would, right? Ness was an experienced player. There wasn't much to lose in the attempt, at worst her game fails. What if everyone's does? What if no one wants to play again because it was all terrible? No, she was going to have to try. She was going to have to make her best game ever so all these people could keep having fun hanging out together.

Gary had gotten up and was wandering around the table now. Oh, he had some level of story at least. That was good. Then he began to narrate. This could be fun, so she needed an adventure to rescue someone from the school that wasn't sitting at the table. An idea began to take root in her mind, it could be a fun idea.

When the gamemaster asked if anyone had any thoughts or ideas another of the older boys spoke up. He had a bit of a German accent, and declared up front that he wasn't going to run an adventure. Val's eyes darted around the table, would others follow suit now? She wasn't going to say anything yet. If her idea didn't pan out, then she just wouldn't have a game either. Maybe she would find Gary and talk to him later. In the meantime she wanted to know what this group was like, so she sat quietly and listened and planned.

2 Valentine Duell People and Games! 1490 0 5

Gabriel Wilson

June 27, 2020 6:37 PM

Huh? by Gabriel Wilson

Gabriel spent most of his time in the library because it was where all the books (and the entrance to his common room) were. And he just loved books so much! They had so many interesting facts in them. Like that apples actually gave you more energy than coffee or that lots of fruits such as raspberries and strawberries were actually members of the rose family.

This also meant that he was privvy to lots of things that went on in the library, although a lot of the time he was engaged in reading obviously. Like one of the older Aladrens constantly skulking around the restricted section or people, including Morgan, who were playing some game. Gabriel had actually noticed that everyone playing was older than his classmate and him and had considered joining so she wouldn't be alone with a bunch of older kids. The second year sort of knew what it was like to be around so many older people because most of his cousins were adults. Of course, he also had Lavender, Stanley and Wally around but most of his cousins had grown up together while he was so much younger. Even Vlad who was the next youngest was a good five years older than Gabriel.

So, he sort of wanted to join in so Morgan had someone closer to her age playing as well, the way having Lavender, Wally and Stanley made things better for him. Plus, it would give Gabriel a chance to know his year and housemate better. Last year, he had spent more time with books than his classmates. After all, Sonora had this fabulous library with books that were different than their library at home which was rather extensive. His mother had also been an Aladren and she too loved to read, though she wasn't as into learning random trivia as Gabriel was.

Besides, he had thought that the game might be fun so he decided to give it a try. The first session had intrigued him enough to attend a second one. Although some stuff was weird and contradictory to the way that Gabriel knew life to be. Such as the way magic worked and what elves were. Apparently in DnD, elves did not exist to serve wizards. He supposed this stuff was what made it fantasy. Besides, Muggles getting magic stuff wrong was a good thing.

Apparently, they were going to doing an adventure that would only last two to three sessions and then others were going to try their hand at leading the game. Gabriel was not going to do so considering he was so new to do this and barely knew what he was doing in the first place. Which made him feel a bit odd and uneasy. He was used to knowing things.

This feeling only got worse when Gary started mentioning a bunch of words that Gabriel didn't understand like 'gunfire' He knew what fire was but not the gun part. He also didn't quite get the part about sirens screaming. After all, sirens were type of merfolk. Not to mention the part about muggle science and technology, which he wasn't familiar with and really hoped he wouldn't have to use.

The rest of this situation sounded....awful. Which was probably the point. "Before we go much further, um, I have questions." Gabriel spoke up. The older Aladren kept using words that the second year didn't know and he couldn't play if he didn't understand. Computers and guns were as foreign to him as it would have been if Gary had been speaking Portuguese. "What are guns and computers?"

OOC-Older Aladren skulking around is Topaz who is mine as well.

11 Gabriel Wilson Huh? 1481 0 5

Gary Harper

June 27, 2020 7:30 PM

Not a problem by Gary Harper

Gabriel spoke up, he had questions. That was good, and Gary kicked himself mentally for not addressing this beforehand. "Excellent question, and sorry about that." He was glad that Gabriel had joined in the club, he was a bright kid and would probably pick things up pretty fast. Gary picked up a book and began flipping through pages while he continued to talk. "Guns are a muggle weapon, they are the closest things muggles have to wands I guess, but they can only cast one 'spell'."

By this point he had found the equipment section of the Shadowrun book and spun it around to show Gabriel, and the rest of the group the book's pictures of various firearms. "They are a mechanical device where you pull a lever called the trigger which triggers a small explosion to hurl a little chunk of metal called a bullet at a terrific speed into whatever they are pointed at. Getting shot by a gun in real life will usually kill you. In the game, they'll do various amounts of damage. Size-wise, they can range from fitting in your hand, to needing to be carried on your shoulder. Granted those big ones are usually designed to blow up vehicles or walls."

"Computers," Gary flipped through pages again, "Are electronic devices that muggles use to do math." He sighed and began flipping back and forth in the book, "And there aren't really and great pictures that I can find... at the moment." He shut the book, "Anyway, they are used to store or transfer information between people, analyze data, play games, calculate bullet trajectories for your gun.... they offload a lot of thinking to make life easier for Muggles."

"The Muggle end of things can get a little weird with all the science and tech.... and it's not real science and tech anyway so it's still fictional stuff for Muggles as well. Don't feel to bad if you you don't get it. If you don't want to deal with it, pick a mage, shaman or mystic adept character, they don't use it any more than they absolutely have to."

2 Gary Harper Not a problem 1404 Gary Harper 0 5

Evelyn Stones

June 29, 2020 6:21 PM

I have different kinds of questions. by Evelyn Stones

Watching Gary go from Gary to GM was very entertaining and by far one of Evelyn's favorite parts of the expository part of game nights. For one, there wasn't that big a shift. For two, if Gary was that confident and expressive all the time, he probably wouldn't run into some of the problems that he did. He had it in him to be confident and capable, but he didn't let that part out as often as might have benefited him. It was just as well. Gary was good just the way he was and Evelyn had developed surprisingly protective feelings towards her friend, despite his being older (by a little) than she was.

She glanced at the character sheets and selected one that she thought might be more confusing for folks who weren't used to muggle technology. Granted, most of the folks at the table were at least a little familiar with it, but Heinrich hadn't known what a movie was until fairly recently, so she was pretty sure he wasn't about to jump in and play hacker. That left a few others, but Evelyn wasn't worried. "I'm an elf," she said to the group at large when it was her turn. "And a hacker. But I'm no good with Mac," she read, laughing. She looked up at Gary and nodded. "That seems right." She paused to consider. "It sounds like we're in a hurry, but I think it would be good if we could get some more of that information. Do I have a laptop or anything with me that I can use to download the data from the flash drive thing?" she asked, gesturing at the thing that was not a flash drive that Ness was holding. "I want to do that. Do I have to roll anything for that? Is there a technology roll or something?"

22 Evelyn Stones I have different kinds of questions. 1422 0 5

Heinrich Hexenmeister

July 02, 2020 8:56 PM

I'm an investigator by Heinrich Hexenmeister

Heinrich looked through the available character sheets as Gary explained what computers were to Gabriel. He had a slightly better understanding of those sorts of things now than he had a year ago, thanks to both the Starfinder campaign last spring and the week watching movies at Evelyn's house this summer.

He was kind of hoping for a pilot so he could channel Luke Skywalker, but none of the options were quite right. There was a getaway driver, but it didn't have any mystical aspect to it, and the one that said 'pilot' on the top wasn't a pilot-pilot but a 'drone pilot' and seemed way more technologically complicated than he was willing to risk. He didn't feel he needed to avoid guns and computers completely, but he didn't want them to be his primary focus.

Oh, this one was interesting. Occult Investigator. It looked basically like an Auror as far as he could equate it to something he knew. The character knew how police operated, how to do forensics magically, had non-lethal weapons, and seemed to know some minor healing. Sounded good to him. He claimed that sheet as his own. The only thing he'd really change about it was - "Hey, Gary?" he asked when there was a brief lull in the conversation, "Can I change this to say I speak German instead of Spanish?"

Once that was settled, he introduced himself to the rest of the team. He looked down at himself, as if he just now noticing what he looked like. "Looks like I am still a human. The memories in my head that I don't recognize as mine say my name here is, um . . ." he struggled for a name, failed, and went with his original plan to base at least some of this character on Star Wars, "Luke, and I have ins with the police, and I'm a private investigator." True, the sheet said his PI licence was fake, and his ID was fake, and Impersonation was one of his best skills, but the team didn't need to know any of that unless it became important. Because Luke was apparently a big fat liar and it was catching. "I'm also good with alchemy."

"While our hacker friend," he nodded toward Evelyn, "does her thing with the computer, can I find out anything about Mr. Brighid?" He turned to the rest of the players, "Do we think he's our fellow student?"

1 Heinrich Hexenmeister I'm an investigator 1414 0 5

Valentine Duell

July 03, 2020 8:29 AM

Rawr! Imma Troll! by Valentine Duell

Shadowrun? Valentine hadn't played this game before, and it sounded exciting! Magical things, muggle things, and high tech things, this sounded like a game Papa would like. She wondered if he'd heard of it before, she'd have to ask in her next letter home. The world sounded terrible, but they could fix that, it was the point of the game!

She looked through the character sheets while Gary answered Gabriel's questions. There were a few in there that looked interesting. She put aside most of the ones that were magically inclined, having experience with the muggle world she decided to pick one of the more technical ones and leave the magic ones to the people that would have a more difficult time with the technology. In the end, she put one in front of her with a mischievous smile.

"I seem to be inhabiting the body of a Troll Smuggler," she said while pretending to examine her 'new' hands. "I can drive us anywhere we need to go and fix any of our vehicles that break." She looked back over he sheet, "I've got a GMC Bulldog?" She looked up at Gary inquiringly, "and a Harley-Davidson Scorpion. Is that a motorcycle? I've got a Harley!" Val grinned, "I'm a biker Troll girl!"

She nodded at Heinrich's question, "Probably, but if he isn't do we pursue Mr. Brighid or the student? Anyway, I'd better check on the vehicles if we're going to be moving out soon. Are they outside?"

2 Valentine Duell Rawr! Imma Troll! 1490 Valentine Duell 0 5

Gary Harper

July 03, 2020 12:28 PM

Gathering data and getting prepared, good things. by Gary Harper

Evelyn the Elven hacker, decker technically by Shadowrun slang, but that wasn't important. It sounded like a good choice, and she hit the ground running as well. "You do," He smiled and nodded, "You in fact have a Hermes Chariot cyberdeck, which is a fancy future term for a laptop computer made by the Hermes corporation. They're not one of the 'Big 10' Megacorps and their hardware isn't terrible." He gestured for her to take the 'not a flash drive' from Ness, "You can plug it into your system and download the data without a problem, no rolling is needed. It was all there for you to have. Mr. Johnson is paying you to succeed at this mission, and that's the information he wants you to have."

Turning to Heinrich then, "Yeah, absolutely, German is fine. I probably should have just left it blank or 'language of your choice'. If anyone else has that, feel free to swap it to whatever you want." Heinrich the Occult Investigator, this was going to be a fun game. "The name doesn't ring a bell for you off the top of your head," Gary responded to his question, "However you can use your comlink, fancy future word for smartphone, which is a small computer and telephone smashed together into one device, which is a muggle device that allows them to talk to each other from anywhere on the planet." Where had he been going with that sentence before it devolved away? Right. Comlink call, "You can call one of your contacts to see if they know anything while Evelyn checks out the data. You've got a Talismonger, someone that sells magical stuff. You've got a Police detective and a Bartender. The detective is the best connection you have, but you may have to work a little harder to get information out of them. It'll be a Negotiation roll to get any info from any of them."

Then there was Valentine. She was apparently Ness' discovery, and he was interested in see how this all played out. The image of the cute, little first-year girl suddenly inhabiting a massive body of a troll nearly made him laugh, but he restrained himself. "The GMC Bulldog," He replied to her questioning look, "Is a larger vehicle, essentially an armored delivery van. It can seat six people and hold a pile of equipment." He grinned and nodded, "Yup, the scorpion is a motorcyle. The vehicles are parked out on the street. Poking your head out, you can see a dirty urban environment and deserted street. The rain is still coming down trying to wash some of the grime from the streets and your vehicles that are parked outside of the building. Everything seems in order, but you can give me a perception check to see if anything is out of order."

2 Gary Harper Gathering data and getting prepared, good things. 1404 0 5

Gabriel Wilson

July 03, 2020 2:46 PM

I need more data! by Gabriel Wilson

Gabriel breathed a sigh of relief when Gary explained computers and guns and did so in a kind, non-condescending way. The second year was willing to learn these things, but people had to meet him halfway and understand that he had pretty much no experience with the Muggle world whatsoever.

And if that was the type of things they had, he wasn't sure he wanted to. Guns sounded awful. Yes, wands could kill you too but if you cast that particular spell, you'd go to prison and get your wand snapped. For people that Gabriel knew, that was almost as big a deterrent as the fact that killing was wrong. And wands did so much more that was helpful. Guns....only had one purpose "Why would Muggles create such a terrible thing that only is used to kill?" He blurted out. No wonder some magical people had such a dim view of them.

Computers sounded...well, less terrible than guns, but Gabriel couldn't understand why Muggles would want something to think for them. The Aladren loved thinking. After reading, it was his favorite thing in the world. But at least computers had more purposes than guns and,oh yeah, didn't kill people.

He breathed a sigh of relief when Gary said that Gabriel didn't have to use any of the Muggle stuff and that some of it wasn't even real things. Not that he'd know the difference. "Okay, I'll do that then. I'll be a mage." Being new to this, it was probably better to do something he was fairly familiar with and using magic was exactly that.

However, when others began talking, it didn't really help matters. Evelyn wanted to be a hacker, which Gabriel could only assume meant that she wanted to chop things up. And she didn't get on with some guy named Mac. "Whose Mac?" Gabriel wanted to know, figuring this was relevant to the plot somehow for Evelyn to mention it. Was this one of the bad guys that the Pecari wanted to chop up? Apparently she had one of those computer things too, but Gary hadn't said anything about them being used to hack people up.

Val apparently had a pet bulldog and a pet scorpion.The Aladren knew about both these things. Scorpions gave birth to live young and had longer life spans than most arthropods. Bulldogs were actually bred to fight bulls and the strange way that they looked was because of this. However, Gabriel didn't know about the specific type Val mentioned. He had never heard of the Harley-Davidson breed of scorpions.

He was incredibly relieved to hear Gary clarify that for him unprompted. So the first year had some sort of Muggle vehicles rather animals. The second year had to admit that seemed more useful. Unless they were baiting bulls of course and a scorpion could be used to sting people though there were only twenty-five breeds that had venom lethal to humans. Of course, scorpion venom was also used medicinally and in Shandong, China they actually ate fried scorpion. Which sounded gross, but people in other countries ate all sorts of things that Americans wouldn't dream of. Like how Cambodians ate spiders and Mexicans made a soup from cow stomachs called menudo.

Knowing these random facts about scorpions gave Gabriel some comfort. He felt he was so out of his depth. The Aladren looked at his fellow players. Was he really the only one here who didn't know this stuff? Nobody else seemed confused. He was used to knowing things and now everyone knew more than him and he didn't like it one bit! Gabriel was glad that this was only going to be a few sessions. Hopefully next time they'd do something with a bit less Muggle things that he didn't understand. And none of those awful gun things.

11 Gabriel Wilson I need more data! 1481 Gabriel Wilson 0 5

Ness McLeod

July 07, 2020 5:18 AM

I'll give you data by Ness McLeod

Ness had… plans? Some plans. Planlettes were forming. It was hard to tell whether they were too many ideas or not enough. The answer to that was ‘yes.’ There were infinitely more possibilities than fitted into a single game, especially as some of them contradicted each other. Equally, in terms of mechanisms as to how things were happening, what baddies to throw into the mix, and what myriad ways the players could drag things off course and what Ness would do if they did… Those were still in development.

Ness had met with Gary, and bedtime reading was currently obsessively poring through the DnD manual. Ness felt like it wasn’t conceding a point in an argument to say it was complex. That had never been debated. What was on the table was whether Ness was biting off too much, but so far, it was just fun. It definitely helped having Gary around, and Ness was grateful to be able to ask for explanations or help. Ness had played the game plenty. Still, it was amazing how much had not just got absorbed by osmosis over the years. Ness had read the rulebook, which was the start of looking at it from the other side, but translating that text and distilling it down into a pile of playable documents and plans… It was good to have someone to help, although Ness was closely guarding any and every secret about the game contents. It would be fun for Gary to be surprised for once. Hopefully in a good way.

Today, Gary was giving them an intro to mini games. Ness was poised and ready not only to get gaming but also with a notebook whose clean brown paper cover had been decorated with the words ‘EVIL PLANS’ and several doodles of giant rats, twisty vines and a couple of attempts at D20s. Which turned out to be a pain to draw. Ness was not the most artistic of people, and these renderings were supplmented by little phrases in quotation marks such as ‘Gimme perception check,’ ‘roll dex save’ and of course, everyone’s favourite, ‘Everyone roll initiative.’

The game got going, and there was a scrabbling for sheets and also a necssity to explain what guns and computers were. Evelyn got the hacker, which was kind of a shame because Ness loved roles of ‘I do the tech thing, expertly and like a badass.’ Still, it looked like there were going to be plenty of those in this game, and it was all futuristic and Ness could make up and blag through pretending to technology like a pro.

Ness tried not to eyeroll at the new kid who had never even heard of a computer. It wasn’t like it was hard to read books with non-magical protagonists, or to go read some books about the non-magical world. They were in a library. And yeah, there were pockets of the magical community that were isolationist but he was at school now, with a chance to read whatever he wanted. Honestly, it was pretty much a willful choice to remain ignorant, if you asked Ness. Luckily, he’d asked Gary instead, who had much more patience.

“Nice,” Ness grinned, as Val declared herself a tiny kick ass biker troll girl. Val seemed like she’d been a good find, and Ness was looking forward to seeing how she played. Ness hesitated between the drone pilot and the cyborg soldier. It seemed like the latter was more the tank role, so even though 217 had technically been a constructed military device, they were definitely very different. Still, it sounded on the surface like it was slightly repetitive, and also Ness had never been particularly drawn to playing tanks. Maybe for one of the one shots… At least with this, they weren’t stuck with these roles for a whole term. It’d be a good chance to try a bit of everything. Just not this time.

“Drone pilot,” Ness declared, not even fully knowing what one of those was, “That’s different enough to Val’s that we need both, right?” the Aladren asked, trying to lean over to compare stats and abilities. Pilots were also vehicle people.

“Our school curriculum includes a whole class learning to shield ourselves from physical attack, which I’m pretty sure non-magical school would consider pretty extreme, so you might want to get off your high horse,” Ness informed Gabriel when he declaimed non-magical people for inventing something violent. Ness was not a fan of violence, but equally pretending it was one culture’s problem was just disingenuous. The fifth year left Gary to field any remaining questions. Once that was done, Ness continued the introductions.

“I am Anders…” errrm, was that German or Swedish? Was were any German or Swedish surnames besides ‘Hexenmeister.’ Drat. “And that is all you need to know,” Ness said, with a very serious expression, “I go by a code-name because I used to work for the big tech and I don’t want them to know I’ve gone rogue. I am expert at drone piloting and surveillance,” and hang on, Ness had not just ‘gone rogue’ in backstory but had picked a rogue again, right? Oh well, at least it was familiar. Also Anders seemed to have a different bunch of tricks to 217 and to be in a very different world to a dank, bitey-tree filled dungeon.

The game was pretty exciting, as it got going with a prop, and it got thrown to Ness.

“That sounds like a good plan,” Ness nodded to Hacker Ev, “I will keep this safe,” Ness tucked the number of their contact into a pocket and handed the rest of the…. Thingumy to Ev. “You run that through the system.” Ness was pretty sure that was a phrase.

“I also vote looking for Brighid… Is that an anagram of anyone’s name?” Ness pondered. “Anyway, we can head towards him and see if we get any more clues either way.” It sounded like they could just… sort of sense the Sonora person (Ness was no way gonna be that kind when DMing) so presumably Gary had a mechanic figured out there but Ness had learnt - counter as it ran to every usual instinct - that sometimes waiting and seeing was more satisfying, and to trust that clues would unfold as they needed them.

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Gary Harper

July 07, 2020 7:44 PM

Data is good thing to have. by Gary Harper

Gary wasn't entirely sure how to answer Gabriel's question about muggle's rationale for their love of guns. It seemed safest to just shrug the comment off, it seemed like Gabriel was just asking it rhetorically. "Good choice," he told the boy. "The mage is mostly about knowing magical things and throwing spells around when needed. Pretty straight-forward."

Gabriel's 'Who's Mac?' question elicited another chuckle from Gary. "A Mac is a type of computer, it's short for Macintosh. Yeah, they named it after the apple. I'm not entirely sure why. Evelyn just prefers computers that aren't Macs to work with." He shrugged.

Ness had snagged a sheet by that time, and he gave his protege a grin at the announcement of 'Drone Pilot'. "Yeah," he answered her question. "Val's character mainly deals with the vehicles, yours deals with the robots. Yours is also a capable driver though, which is good because you won't all fit in the same car." He paused a moment, "Unless you go and rent or hijack a city bus. Which is something you could do if you wanted."

Then Ness got rude. His smile dropped away and he gave Ness a concerned look. Gabriel was new to this. That was not how you encouraged people to keep playing. They would need to talk after the session if Ness was going to be in charge once he was gone. He tried to make sure Ness caught a disapproving look before turning back to Gabriel.

"Muggles have guns because they don't have magic," He started, "That is what they used to hunt and defend themselves against aggressors. We've got wands and hexes that can be far worse than anything a bullet could do to someone. Given the two, I'd say the wand was the more dangerous weapon, which is why we get trained from early on how to use them properly. In the muggle world guns play a part, but unlike in this game, they aren't a normal part of everyday muggle life. Most muggles don't touch a gun for the majority of their lives, unlike us who always have our wands at hand." With a wordless gesture he summoned his wand into his hand.

"People are people, and they will use whatever tools are at their disposal to survive and accomplish their goals." He gestured back down to the book, waved his wand and some of the equipment images began to float up off the page and slowly drift around the table. "That is the root of this all. Wizards use their magic and wands to accomplish whatever tasks they need done. All of these muggle things are the the Muggle's ways of doing the same thing without magic. Where we have lumos, they have a flashlight. We have alohomora, they have lock picks. We have incendio, they have flamethrowers." He gave Gabriel a smile. "I'm sure you'll find many more comparisons once you delve into all of this. Keep your eyes open for them."

He was going to have to talk to Gabriel after the session as well. Just to make sure he's having fun and answer any big questions he's got about the game, the rules, and all the muggle stuff. There may be others as well, he'd have to keep his own eyes open for people that may have the same type of questions, but aren't asking them.

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