Thursday, August 18, 2005
The Adventure! Is Over
Tonight was our last session of Adventure!, as I'm heading back out to school on Saturday. Overall, it was pretty awesome - the last couple scenes really came together, and the whole game has been fun. We threw some PTA-inspired feedback rules into the mix, which worked out OK.
The one thing I want to mention was a moment that was basically pure Exploration. A couple of sessions ago one of the guys bought a pretty potent Gadget with his advancement currency, asking for a cool-ass gun with special kinds of ammo, that he would get somehow in the next session or so of play. It hadn't been brought into play yet, so I tossed it in before the climatic scene. During said scene, he declared that he threw a random round into the chamber and fired. I asked for ideas on cool ammo types, and they all tossed out ideas, some serious (acidy fire!) and some not (a can of paper snakes!). I took all the suggestions, gave them numbers, and had him roll a dice to see what round it was.
It was a really cool moment, for a lot of reasons. As I mentioned, it was pure Exploration - look at all this cool stuff that could happen! No matter what, it's going to get incorporated, and be advantageous for the characters - but there was real tension and excitement about what it was going to be. He rolls...a 2! Groan from him, a cheer from the player who suggested it - it was the bang flag on a stick! I narrated how a stick comes out of the barrel and unfurls a little flag that says "bang" - and then shoots out of the barrel like a firework with a loud-ass bang, and explodes on the chest of his opponent (he rolled to hit before seeing what ammo it was). Cool! Then he made a crappy damage roll, and it was kinda anti-climactic (damn storyteller system), but it was a nifty moment all around.
It was that same kind of feeling from when we would play D&D (2nd ed), and they'd kill the monster, and then I'd roll on all the treasure tables with the players looking on, all of us excited to see what would come up - gems? gold? a magic item? Just....exploring the available options, knowing that at worst you'd get something useless, at best something awesome, and if you don't get something good...well, its a random roll, who cares?
That, in my mind, is Sim.
The one thing I want to mention was a moment that was basically pure Exploration. A couple of sessions ago one of the guys bought a pretty potent Gadget with his advancement currency, asking for a cool-ass gun with special kinds of ammo, that he would get somehow in the next session or so of play. It hadn't been brought into play yet, so I tossed it in before the climatic scene. During said scene, he declared that he threw a random round into the chamber and fired. I asked for ideas on cool ammo types, and they all tossed out ideas, some serious (acidy fire!) and some not (a can of paper snakes!). I took all the suggestions, gave them numbers, and had him roll a dice to see what round it was.
It was a really cool moment, for a lot of reasons. As I mentioned, it was pure Exploration - look at all this cool stuff that could happen! No matter what, it's going to get incorporated, and be advantageous for the characters - but there was real tension and excitement about what it was going to be. He rolls...a 2! Groan from him, a cheer from the player who suggested it - it was the bang flag on a stick! I narrated how a stick comes out of the barrel and unfurls a little flag that says "bang" - and then shoots out of the barrel like a firework with a loud-ass bang, and explodes on the chest of his opponent (he rolled to hit before seeing what ammo it was). Cool! Then he made a crappy damage roll, and it was kinda anti-climactic (damn storyteller system), but it was a nifty moment all around.
It was that same kind of feeling from when we would play D&D (2nd ed), and they'd kill the monster, and then I'd roll on all the treasure tables with the players looking on, all of us excited to see what would come up - gems? gold? a magic item? Just....exploring the available options, knowing that at worst you'd get something useless, at best something awesome, and if you don't get something good...well, its a random roll, who cares?
That, in my mind, is Sim.
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