2005: Survival in Moscow

Long time since I wrote one of these now, sorry about that. Anyway, I'm not yet done with my anthology of past adventures, and since I for once have nothing particularly important to do, here goes another one...

With the disappearance of Drake and Bob, as they departed to faraway lands, the group underwent a major change. The only player left from last years' group was Kennedy, and since Luke had been playing with us during the summer, he jumped on board the group as well. That left me with two players, since Solomon and Alastair quit the group. However, during my first (very busy) year at the new school, I had been meeting a lot of new people, and as fate would have it, two of these would come to join the new group.

I will explain their identities shortly. But before I do so, it should be pointed out that 2005 was an interesting year for me personally, because it was a year of broadened horizons. I had been dabbling in some other games earlier, with previous groups - Mage: The Ascension, Aki, GURPS, and so forth - but this year would be marked as a year of experimentation. All in all, the new group of four players participated in four different games, using four different systems: Survival in Moscow, a Vampire game - Trigonometry Fandango, a spiritual sequel to Parallel Fandango, which was a rule-less free-form game - Winter Death, a highly unsuccessful AE game, and Angels, using a weird hybrid of d20 rules. Previously, I had always regarded the d20 system as the "default" system, the one I would always be coming back to - but this year, I started exploring the world of RPGs to discover the vast array of strange games that can be found out there. I was already familiar with the idea of playing games that deviate from their mechanics - of running political intrigues in systems chiefly designed for bashing in heads, of running mysteries in systems chiefly designed for bashing in heads, even of running romance stories in systems chiefly designed for bashing in heads - but I had never really reflected on the idea that a rules system could be designed around a particular style of play.

Let me address this point for a moment. Of course any kind of story can be told in any system (or with no system at all). But the existence of game systems explicitly designed for a given type of story allows, I believe, a much better venue for exploring that kind of story. A game system should never be more complicated than it has to be, yet at the same time, if it isn't complex enough in certain areas, you get a needless amount of gloss-over. It isn't very interesting to play a swashbuckling adventure in a game system where all the rules come down to "Roll dice. You rolled the highest. Therefore, you win." Of course, one can always elaborate using ones' imagination, but that takes away the exciting element of gambling and taking chances, which is - for me, anyway - one of the greater kicks in playing RPGs, as opposed to just writing a story. So, a game system needs to be complex in just the right places. This is why I obsess so over new game systems - because they encourage you to think in a certain fashion, which may be different from how you've been thinking before. If the game system makes combat very deadly, that will reflect upon the players' decisions. If the game system is geared towards social interactions, that will cause the GM to consider NPCs differently - if Joe has "resistance to Seduction" or "vulnerability to Flattery", what does that say about Joe?

Apologies for the brief essay there. Back to the topic at hand: The new group, and the new games.

Two new people joined my group this year, Dakota and Jason. They were friends from since before, and already had some experience playing RPGs together. Jason I didn't know very well when we started to game, as I had gotten to know him through the Japanese classes, but we quickly became friends. Dakota I had been having drama classes together with for over a year, so we were quite familiar.

As mentioned above, this group of four played in four separate games, with varying degrees of success. The one I spent the most effort on, and the one that (to me) stands out as the "main" game, was the Vampire: The Requiem game. Survival in Moscow revolved around a group of three vampires and a mage (Take a guess who played the mage), trying to, well, survive in Moscow. I don't remember the particularities of the plot very well, but chiefly it revolved around the Sheriff of the local vampires going insane and crucifying himself in a warehouse. This triggered a long chain of strange intrigue, made all the more complex when the Sheriff returned from the dead after three days. The game was spectacularly bloody, and although no player characters died, there was a lot of backstabbing and misery involved. In the end, Kennedy and Jasons characters had both lost everything they held dear, whereas Dakota and Luke managed to come out much more prosperous than they had been at the start. The game essentially ended because the group tore itself apart.

The other game of note, would be Trigonometry Fandango. It was a spiritual sequel to Parallel Fandango (and, as it turned out, an actual sequel as well), which I had been playing with Kennedy and Bob the year before, while Drake was in Spanish class. Both games were entirely free-form and ruleless, something I had been itching to try but never really done before these games. They took place in a Weird West-sort of setting, with cowboys, ninjas, and Arabic cities dropped smack-damn into the desert for no apparent reason. The first game revolved around the escort of a Japanese princess, the second about a hilariously complex scheme of techno-magicians who had been messing with every single player character in ridiculously convoluted ways. The two games were unrelated storywise, but there was a slight narrative connection as it turned out Jasons character in the latter game was actually the son of Kennedys character in the former - under a fake name.

This is getting really, really long now, so I'm going to wrap it up. The other two games were a brief AE game set in a forest, which ended because the PCs killed each other, and a hybrid game revolving around angels hanging around on Earth and trying to solve a mystery led by a villain who was invisible to God and all of the angels. A memorable chase scene involving a web camera and a mortal friend halfway across the world shouting instructions was involved.

Notable Characters: Remembering all these characters is a little blurry for me, but I should at least mention Kennedys' "Angel of the Internet" from the Angels game (he was the one responsible for the webcam stunt - his angelic power involved getting a flawless Internet connection, anywhere), Lukes Fat Black Ninja from Trigonometry Fandango (A ninja who behaved more like an overweight rapper) and Dakotas "Angel of Healing, Also of Missing Everything and Being Totally Maimed By Enemies". Seriously. She had the worst luck ever in that game.

Actually I think the Angels game may have had the most interesting characters overall, even though the story wasn't very interesting. I also fondly remember Jasons' "Angel of Pigeons and Weird-Ass Weaponry", which actually was a purview suggested by the corebook, although Jason sort of twisted it to his designs.

Crowning Moment of Awesome: The ending of Trigonometry Fandango was pretty massive, as every single character suddenly came to confront their past in the same place at the same time. It ended with Kennedy and Dakotas characters both reverting from monsters into humans, and recognizing each other as past lovers - which was a bit of a shocker - and it also involved Jasons character coming to terms with his daddy issues. And, of course, it's not over until the fat man sneaks.

Next Up: 2006: Arcana Evolved, in which I will discuss the main storyline of Arcana Evolved, and, if I have time, I'll also explore what Bob named the "Arcana Evolved Doujinshi", an epic tale taking place in the same world, but with radically different themes and characters.