Part 2 of My job is done here

Sorry, I let this go so long.  It's been a rough couple of weeks between changes at home and changes in my pubescent daugther.

Anywho, to sum up:

We had several rounds of combat.  Doc Tangent hurled a guard into the abyss using telekinesis.  Singapore Sam discovered that his long-lost brother was a Planet X guard under the thrall of Princess Allura's secret captor - Marduk the Merciless!  Marduk played his hand when Damian teleported to his beloved's side to plead for leniency.  Mac Mercury's adventures were best summed up in JC Cohen's excellent summation on Story-games.com.

The threats just kept coming when it was established that there were bombs hidden around the perimeter of the palace.  At one point, Singapore Sam had a disaster and the player said to me: "Oh no! What next? Air sharks?" To which I replied, "There are now!"  With Planet X guards still attacking, the air sharks caused havoc.  Doc Tangent, showing the kind of thinking that made him a Doc, used his psychic powers to convince the sharks to attack the guards.

In one impassioned scene, Singapore Sam decided his imminent destruction would be the catalyst to break the mesmeric hold that Marduk had on Taiwan Tony.   While Tony struggled physically with the air shark, he struggled mentally with Marduk control.  When the player rolled a disaster, the scene played out like this:

Tony struggles desperately with the air shark, prying its hungry maw from snapping his favorite cranium in half.  BUT! There is a moment where we can see the hypnotic control of Marduk fail.  Tony's eyes clear.  He looks at his brother and says: "Sam?"  *CHOMP!*  The air shark takes of Tony's head in one bite.


At this moment, ALL of the players screamed, "OH NO!"  And we burst into laughter.  Anthony, the player running Sam, looked at me and said, "That must be worst scene I've ever experienced in all my years of gaming!"

I felt my job was done.

We continued to play and in the Alpha, the situation has an almost infinite possibility to escalate.  So, following the old "Generally speaking, things have gone about as far as they can possibly go, when things have gotten about as bad as they can reasonably get" school of thought, I had the final threat happen on board the ship as they tried to escape from Planet X.  The Action scene took 3 hours, but we still had fun.  I decided then to be more judicious with my threats.

My job here is done? A view of Danger Patrol: Planet X Blues.

I was told by a player during this game that I had created the worst scene he had ever experienced in all his years of gaming.  I felt pretty good about that.


I got a copy of the Beta for Danger Patrol from John Harper before we began this game, but my printer had died a while ago and I haven't picked up a new one yet.  Plus, it was only a couple of hours from game time, so I doubted I could get members of the group to print the Beta up before we sat down to the table.  Instead, we ran a modified Alpha version with some Beta rules thrown in for flavor and expediency.

PLANET X BLUES
I've tried to explain to people this should be read: Planet 10 Blues.  I like the name Planet 10 better and I like to represent it with the Roman numeral.  It gives it more of a Commando Cody feel.

The Players
Doc Tanget (Liz) - Psychic Professor with a sorted past, a dark secret, and a laid back attitude until the chips are down.
Singapore Sam (Anthony) - Two-Fisted Warrior of the New Shaolin Techniques.  A down-on-his-luck fighter until Danger Patrol enlisted him.  Will his past catch up to him?
Mac Mercury (JC) - Atomic Flyboy and one of the last surviving cyborgs to escape the Atomic Wars.   Legend has it that he dropped the bomb that ended the world.
Damian Dagger (Storn) - Mystic Detective whose burn notice from the Cosmic Intelligence Agency left him with little but his wits, his otherworldy contacts, and his sordid affairs.

-Things we learned in introductions -
Doc Tangent was a bomb maker on old Earth.  No one is sure what he was doing just before being hired by DP, but is older than he looks.
Singapore Sam had an affair that made him fall out of favor with his Sifu.  He became a marked man.
Mac Mercury was the pilot of the Enola Ray and actually did drop the bomb that ended the World.  DP hired him so he wouldn't be killed by angry citizens.
Damian Dagger refused to let his superiors at the CIA enslave a trans-dimensional race and was burned because of it.

The Teaser
A shadowy figure stands in the shadows of a hallway uttering the words: "... have been found to have committed high treason to our planet and to our crown..." the camera moves down the hallway to a balcony on which Princess Allura is addressing a crowd of Planet X citizens.  She finishes the sentence the shadowy figure began: "...and so we have no choice but to render the judgment of DEATH upon The Danger Patrol!"   Camera swings out to show our heros standing on malachite platforms over an abyss being menaced by Planet X guardsmen with electro-tridents.

Previously on...
Doc Tangent was working his way through the jungles of Planet X, searching ancient clues to what he considered to be a doomsday device.
Singapore Sam had come to Planet X looking for his long-lost brother Taiwan Tony.
Mac Mercury was threatening Princess Allura by stating: "I've blown up one world already, Princess.  I'm not afraid to stop there!"
And Damian Dagger was showing that he spoke the interplanetary language with Planet X's ruler as they kissed passionately.

-Stuff I do to make things go smoothly for me -
I go clockwise around the table
I try to keep people from other thinking the situation
I invited others to chime in whenever, but limited the number of dice this generated.

More on this soon!