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« on: October 18, 2010, 07:18:31 PM »
I ran DFRPG for my group last weekend. It was our first time with the system. We'd had about a month to bandy about High Concepts and the general idea of the game - a roving biker gang of monster hunters, like Supernatural meets Sons of Anarchy. As such, I decided to skip city creation for now and we just did characters. I did explain setting Themes and Threats, and we'll add them in as they jump out at us.
Without further ado, here's the characters and the events (HC = high concept; T = trouble):
Bill Stockburn
Supernatural Scholar on the Prowl (HC)
Former Host of Pantagruel (T)
Sweet Ride
Living Occult Encyclopedia
Knows a Guy Who Can Get That
Denarians on My Trail
Bad Eyes, Good Shotgun
Carter Mews
Arcane Acquisitions Expert (HC)
Why Buy When You Can Steal (T)
Rodger’s Ring of Remarkable Recall
Cain and Abel
Good, Bad, I’m the Guy With the Goods
It Wasn’t Me, It Was the One-Armed Man
I Love It When a Plan Comes Together
Scott Specter
Mean Motherbleeping Servant of God (HC)
On a Mission From God (T)
Outlaws to the End
Path of the Righteous Ex-Con
Driven By Redemption
Occult of Personality
By the Skin of My Teeth
Clayton Haycock James
Marine Recon Biker (HC)
Wrecked as a Soldier (T)
Fights Like an Engine
Been Through the Wringer
Knock Me Down But Never Out
Where Did You Come By That?
Renegade
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Bobby Mackey’s Music World - Wilder, KY
Bill and the gang heard about a horrific murder at Music World in Kentucky: one of the Ghost Hunter Academy cadets heard a voice interact directly with her, left her partner and the cameraman at a dead sprint, and was decapitated by something that then stole her head, all before the other TAPS crew could get to the scene. Bill’s friend Walton (played by Patrick Swayze) was running the road house while the Mackeys were on vacation in Europe, so Bill had a personal linterest in getting to the bottom of things, despite the fact that the incident was going to be a media circus. Scott couldn’t ignore the call either; he knew at a deep level that there was Wrong in that place that needed to be put Right. I compelled both PCs, both to illustrate how compels work as well as showing them how their backgrounds could tie directly into adventures. Sure, on a metagame level they would go along anyway, but that’s technically a self-compel too. They also didn’t have a whole lot of FATE to start with, and I wanted them to see early on how useful FP could be, and wanted to get them enough in hand so they wouldn’t hoard them.
When the gang reached Music World just before dawn, the place was crawling with press vans, TAPS trucks, a couple sherriff’s department cars, and a smattering of diehard TAPS fans who were holding a little vigil. Bill found an opening to talk to Walton; the bemulleted master bouncer was glad Bill was there and mentioned that maybe there is something weird going on. He warned Bill to step lightly; the sherriff, JR Keamey (played by R Lee Ermey), doesn't take kindly to strangers poking around in his town's business, and he was already on edge from the TAPS people and all their hangers-on. This was a group-wide compel of my only setting Aspect thus far, and made it clear that running things up the flagpole wouldn't pan out. My game is a road trip game. We don't have a city, and because of time constraints and tainted pizza, we were lucky to have gotten through character creation the previous session. The one Aspect we have as a setting Theme so far is "You're On Your Own", and refers to the biker gang being on the fringes of society. Authorities will be suspicious, unhelpful, unbelieving, or sometimes outright hostile. Furthermore, the various supernatural powers aren't as organized in my game as the default Dresdenverse. It's more like Supernatural, with little terror cells of hunters and one-off or small groups of monsters.
Meanwhile, Clay stuck with Bill and assessed that Walton was clearly the pin holding the road house staff together (discovered Walton's Natural Leader aspect). Carter snuck around back and declared an Open 2nd Story Window with Burglary; he then snuck in with ease. Because it's a crime scene, the TAPS equipment was still set up, and Carter made off with the DV tapes. He covered his tracks with a Deceit block, leaving some empty beer bottles around the equipment and shuffling some stuff around to deflect suspicion. He DID however accept a Compel on his Why Buy When You Can Steal trouble, and nicked some petty cash and a smartphone someone left out to charge. Scott, on the other hand, started Rapporting with the vigil crowd. He was looking for the background on the place, why the Ghost Hunters were there, and then silently pieced valuable bits together.
Oh, and he had a smartphone, so he looked it up on the Internet as well. There's a bunch of hauntings and activity at Bobby Mackey's Music World, but the one I was keying in on this adventure was the decapitation of Pearl Bryan by Scott Jackson and Alonzo Walling in 1896. Scott put together some clues and the gang rendezvoused at their bikes. Bill and Clay headed to the coroners. Bill invoked his I Know a Guy Who Can Get That on top of an insane Contacts roll, and I agree that Walton has a good friend who's a medical examiner - she's patched Walton up in the past a few times when he couldn't go to the hospital proper. The coroner let Bill and Clay in to see the dead woman, but I compelled Clay's Been Through the Wringer. The corpse reminded him too much of his rising conflict, where he saw the terrible remains of his unit in Afghanistan, so he left the building (and thus couldn't place a maneuver to assist Bill's Lore roll). It doesn't matter in the end, because Bill knocked Lore out of the park and picked up a faint whiff of evaporating ectoplasm from the neck stump. The medical examiner told them it was a sharp instrument with incredible force behind it - taking someone's head off in a single stroke is NOT easy.
Clay helped Carter break into a Radio Shack - Carter stole the DV tapes but they still need stuff to watch them on. He bought out of a Compel on his Why Buy When You Can Steal trouble Aspect (they didn't want a police chase or other involvement right now), and the group met back at a motel room they rented. I explained that ghosts typically act like echoes in this game; there's always something that interferes with the spirit or gives it a reason to be more dangerous or manifest. It could be ritual, or some astronomical conjunction, or a summoning, or it might not even be a ghost. It could be a demon even, or a tulpa. The group put their heads together, assessed Aspects and made manuevers using the various stuff they already stole and learned, and Bill knocked a Lore roll into orbit with an 8-shift success. They figured out that Pearl Bryan - the victim - is the famous ghost, not so much her killers. The killer wasn't a tulpa, then, due to lack of public belief. And it wasn't Pearl herself, it didn't fit the clues or the history of the establishment. The method of death - decapitation with a surgically sharp instrument - matched up nicely with Scott Jackson, who killed Pearl Bryan with a dissecting knife. Someone could have made a deal with that spirit, that could explain the activity, but who? Bill had a terrible revelation. Bill's player asked me how Music World was doing before Walton showed up way back when. I explain that it wasn't much to look at, the location is poor, and it was on the verge of going under. It's exactly the kind of place that would hire Walton, given his reputation. Walton turned the place around, and the hauntings and tourism that brought in were what helped keep the place on an even keel through some rough times. Walton made a deal with a spirit; the spirit haunts the road house, brings in tourism, and in return Walton helps smooth over anything the spirit might do. For reward, Walton could finally stop drifting and settle down. He'd get a home out of the arrangement, a community, friends. He hadn't had the chance to clean up after the spook this time, because there was a camera crew there and it ballooned out of his hands.
The gang started gearing up to ask Walton some questions when there was a knock at the motel door. It was the sherriff and at least 2 deputies. The complications from Carter stealing that smartphone (with a GPS, naturally) were coming home to roost, and the local cops suspected the gang of the DV tapes' theft as well as possibly the Radio Shack burglary. Carter, Bill, and Scott started out the bathroom window while Clay stalled the cops. I handed out a bunch of compels in short order; Scott urged them out the window but left the stolen merch, which prompted Sherriff Keamey to bear down on Clay; Clay didn't respond well to overbearing authority figures, burst out the door, and started punching cops; Bill's a used-up Denarian host and couldn't wriggle out the narrow bathroom window. He'd have to come out the front with Clay and the police.
This scene was our first FATE fight, and it went pretty well. The cops all had Fair fighting skills, Average Athletics and Driving, and Mediocre everything else. Clay hit Sherriff Keamey off the bat with a mild consequence "Got My Bell Rung" while Bill blasted deputy Cletus with rock salt, taking him directly out and leaving him gasping for breath on the parking lot asphalt. Carter and Scott beat feet around the back, thinking they might have to steal a police car, but Clay's was handling Keamey and Deputy Enos all by himself. Clay had a ton of Endurance stunts and was basically Elliot from Leverage. Since there was only Deputy Roscoe left, Carter and Scott double-teamed him. Carter took some stress but they took the cop down with his own baton and knocked him out. Figuring this was a sizable percentage of the area's police, the gang slashed the squad car tires and sped back to Music World before word of their shenanigans spread too far.
I figured that they would either look for Scott Jackson's burial place and go directly for the spirit's remains, or accost Walton first. If they went for the grave, I would have Walton and some muscle show up and try to stop the gang directly, and the spook would be drawn there to protect itself. The gang went to Walton first, though. The police presence was gone - after all, they were unconscious and handcuffed at the motel. The press had gotten their early fill and had cleared out for the time being (a smart declaration by someone, Carter I think, with his I Love It When A Plan Comes Together).
Walton was there, waiting for them with two of his biggest bouncers. Walton didn't bother denying anything, but I compelled Scott's "Driven By Dedemption" and the ex-con preacher stopped Bill before he could gun down his old friend. Scott took over and we entered a brief social combat, Scott vs. Walton. Scott brough the terrible weight of the evil pact Walton had made down on him with a massive Intimidation roll. Walton ended up with a moderate "Lost My Nerve in Front of My Staff" consequence. He shot back, trying to act like he didn't know the spirit was THAT bloodthirsty, but Scott wasn't convinced. Scott dealt a mild consequence to Walton again - "Hounded by the Law" - convincing Walton that he would go down for the Ghost Hunter's murder in the end. I then compelled that aspect, ruling that Walton's two goons didn't want to be part of whatever was going down. They ran for it while Walton escalated to violence, drawing a silver knife across his palm and drawing the attention of the murderous spirit below. Carter won physical initiative after that, and went in with his stolen police baton but Walton, juiced up with a bunch of Fists stunts, sacrificed his next action to turn Carter's strike into a Wrist Locked maneuver that would set up a grapple. My plan was for Walton to use Carter as a human shield and run for it. I did NOT expect Scott to Soulgaze Walton.
Bobby Mackey's Music World's manager's office melted away and Scott stood looking at Walton. Bill's friend stood alone in a long, narrow dojo that went on forever to either side but still felt claustrophobic. The floors were black lacqured wood; cobwebs traced silken lines in the corners. The blank dojo walls were lit up like ephemeral projection TVs and showed glimpses of Walton's life. He was a born fighter. Flashes of Vietnamese jungle, countless scrapes in bars, formal training in Japan, the military, and elsewhere all flicker on the screen. Somewhere outside the dojo, Scott could hear echoing laughter, drinking songs, and clinking glass - the celebratory sounds Walton always heard but never was a part of. Inside it was all shouting and smashing bottles and flashing red and blue lights. Walton himself stood stock-still. Scars and welts and cuts crisscrossed his body, lit beneath by a firey light. Despite all Walton had seen and done, he was still a fighter. He would not give up, and he wanted desperately to belong. He wanted - needed - a place to call home, and once he found it he would do anything to keep it. Even call up evil ghosts to bring tourists to his road house.
As it turned out, however, Scott dealt way more mental stress than Walton could take. Walton could take a Severe consequence, which would take him out, or he could take the stress, which would take him out. Therefore, he just took the stress. Back in the real world, before Walton can finish his aikido magic on Carter and hold that silver knife to his throat, Walton pissed himself, dropped the knife, and fell over, catatonic. THEN the angry spirit of Scott Jackson rose through the basement up into the bar. It held a wickedly sharp dissecting knife and showed the gang exactly what it could do with it. Walton's two bouncer mooks who ran for the door met the evil spirit head on. Jackson showed it had the Wall of Death stunt, killing both mooks with a flurry of slashes. One bouncer's head bounced across the dance floor and the gang sprung into action.
Clay, Scott, and Carter engaged Jackson's ghost around the bar while Bill ran for the basement. He had a good idea about where Jackson's remains actually were - in a shallow well in Music World's basement, right around where the TAPS member was killed. The ghost doesn't last that long, but the fear of conaequences had been impressed upon my players enough that they liberally spent FATE to avoid being tagged for more than simple stress. Clay rubbed his hands in margarita salt and dealt a vicious Severe consequence to the ghost, "I Got My Face Punched Off". Scott used Holy Touch, a little motel Bible, and lots of applicable Aspects and dealt a Moderate, "Barely Holding Together". Carter, sad to say, mostly just got slashed up some. Clay came around with a salt shaker in each hand, tagged the ghosts, new consequence, and shattered the shakers inside the ghost's torso! The spirit went up with a ghastly howl... for now. Meanwhile, I was compelling Bill's age-related Aspect, slowing him down and keeping him from reaching the well too quickly, but with Jackson temporarily dispered, nothing could stop the gang from salting and burning the remains, which were indeed buried in that evil well underneath the road house.
In the end, Walton's dark pact would protect Music World for a while longer. The place's infamy would shoot through the roof in the near term - after all, a TV show person was killed there - but eventually without Jackson's spirit there to "goose" the place every now and then, the hauntings would stop and Music World would fade. As for Walton himself, we don't know. Nobody but him knows what he saw when he looked into Scott's soul, or whether it would help heal him or harm him further. Would Scott come to regret stopping Bill from killing his friend?
All in all, my group really liked the FATE system. We liked the compels, actually - getting a FATE point takes the edge off the complication, and we all trust each other not to be dicks. I tried to look out for them, and look harder for compels when I noticed their FATE stock running low. I know that from now on, I can play a little harder as GM. No PC took any consequences, and nobody ran out of FATE, but it was a great learning experience and it went as smooth as could be expected for a brand new system. They all liked the tactical options, especially how those options are consistent, not very numerous, yet applicable to a wide range of situations. Clay's player was an aspect-tagging machine, and Carter's player I think latched onto assessing and declaring. There weren't many declarations this time, but I think it'll happen as we play more. For next time, I'll work up some tougher bad guys and use multiples, so they can maneuver for each other and use spin and whatnot. I think since lethality is optional for the most part, I feel okay with playing hardball in conflicts and really make my players work together. I give DFRPG 4 / 4 epic wins.
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Any thoughts as to what would make a good question?