It was a good thing I had started some game prep: the GM from the previous game dropped out suddenly and let us know Sunday night. We play Monday nights. Fortunately I had enough to get the ball rolling. The players accepted the McGuffin of a power crystal that could power a German war plane to the Americas from Germany. This must be stopped! I created actually 3 maps as per this post. Wish we were at a real table as I would have printed them out. I do love me game props! The maps lead to an ancient temple where the crystal is rumored to be. It is also the location of "the crater of Yocul of Sneffels" which is why one of the characters is actually here. I was reading Journey to the Center of the Earth, and yes, that is an option for the game after this particular goal of getting the crystal first could go. I like to plan ahead.
I am using most of the background material from the core (and only) book. And interestingly enough, our characters did meet up in a bar, well, actually a night club. However, 3 of the players had an assumed background together a bit. We pulled in the idea of Steve Trevor's small group from the first Wonder Woman movie: Ace (the pilot and adventurer) and Archimedes (the gadgeteer) were already a bit of a duo as working in Apex, giving scenic rides about the island in his trusty sky yacht. Isla, our German raider working at the German station to the south had used them before for some clandestine trips and "sight seeing". While they were pouring over their map, the last player's character, an excitable academic, saw their map and immediately jumped into the conversation, waving about his maps and stating how he loved maps (a character after my own heart!).
During this in-character introduction, a cigarette girl came buy. Ilsa is apparently quite the smoker. Unbeknown to our characters, Charlene is in fact an informant for the Germans, keeping an eye on the patrons of Billie and Louis's High Society GetAway. Ace, being the sole American and apparently a tail chaser, to so speak, watched as she meandered back and went behind the bar. Wandering to the bar, he asked about her, got her name from the friendly barkeep, but she did not come back.
Plans were made at the table to fly down to Hafen Zweite. the port town on the map at the base of a river that leads to the volcanic mountains. Leaving the club, they encountered Leanhard Euler, an officer who knows Lt. Isla from the German fort Wissenschaftliche Kreidstation. There was a bit of a stand-off, but she has both a high charisma and an exceptional beauty trait, so won the charisma roll-off between them. They concluded that they would meet to discuss what the maps were for in the morning at the Bosque Cretaceo Cafe. This excited our academic who has a fondness not only of maps but of brunch.
Ace and Archimedes normally slept in the boat plane dock, a small boathouse where his plane is docked. Several Gilligan and Skipper memes showed up in the chat side of the game...
Professor Tong and Isla had rooms at the Guest House, and Ace was doggedly chasing after Isla to little affect. The group though stayed together at the guest house, expecting possible problems. Nothing untoward happened (much to Ace's apparent disappointment), and they got up earlier than a brunch would suggest to get to the plane. Professor Tong was worried about missing brunch. Noticing several of the Germans from the previous evening were following, we used the game's chase mechanic and they managed to elude pursuit though it was a very close thing. They got to the plane and this is where the first session concluded.
Some things of note. Charlene was an entirely random thing I thought of during the initial meeting. The players were talking a good bit as characters, and there was a bit of a lull so I introduced the cigarette girl, pulled a name out of the blue, and then decided she as also watching for the Nazis. And of course our German professor is a heavy smoker and there was a lot of discussion (and more memes) about that. I am also having some ideas as to why Charlene is spy for them: it may or may not be by choice. The meeting with Leanhard did not go particularly well. I fortunately did get a random list of German names in my game cheat sheet so at least I had a good set of names to draw from. But as to why he was there (other than needing some tension and conflict) and what forces he can manage are yet to be determined. And I am still horrible at NPC interaction. Getting a small bit better hopefully, but this is why we practice. But I do need to expand out Leanhard's background to give me something more to go on and help me play him better. He will be a low level NPC antagonist, but there must be a BBEG (Big Bad Evil Guy) eventually for the players to interact with, or at least be pulling the strings of the NPCs.
Finally, we did go through a chase scene but I really should have embellished it a bit more. The mechanics are pretty simple, and I think I may tweak them. Essentially, there is a target number to reach. If you are chasing someone down, this is the number to be able to catch them. If trying to escape, this is the number to achieve. Each turn a die is rolled and the higher rolling die wins a point. Whoever gets to the target first, wins. My tweaks would be to let more character agency play through, though this has to be weighed carefully if the entire group is chasing or getting chased and is on foot. If in a vehicle, though there are no direct driving skills or traits, some classes would be better at driving and I would give a bonus then.
We had no combat, though we worked through how the weapons worked. At initial glance, the ranges are pretty wonky, but then reading through that (so glad two other players have the rules!) we concluded that the range was for a +2 to hit, double that range for +1, and triple the range for regular attack rolls. It was clear in the rules if you read the notes below the lists. There is not a maximum range given but my players are willing to help me out there as I've no real world experience in weapons (or heck, a lot of things, but hey, I do play a lot of games. I just suck at tactics so lose usually, which is why I got into RPGs)
Finally, I am hoping for a river trip up the yet to be named river. My GM map has yet to determine the size of the hexes, but it is sort of a hex crawl in a fashion. I plan on having potential encounters in various hexes depending on how they travel. One of the things that came up while doing some more research was the African Queen. That was exactly the sort of boat that will be available to the group. I just need to see about a skipper NPC or if Ace will pilot it, and a few of those details. To be worked out this weekend before the game Monday. And hopefully we're going to actually see the movie - it is showing in town this weekend!
WIP GM Map - no real secrets from the players
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