[Traveller] Writing Myself into the Back-Story

[Bill Cook]

I just had a euphoric gaming session. This continues from I'm Just Here for the Celery, and what a contrast! People were literally jumping up and down and clapping. Some players were too excited to sit down or even stand still . . . for hours. It was truly electric.

I had resolved between sessions to ask Jason (our GM) directly: what's the procedure to affect the SIS? At the start of last night's session, I patiently listened to recounts of joy over advancement awards from last session: ship upgrades, promotions, monetary awards, etc. (Yawn.) Things started out fairly clock-bound, i.e. ship's crew functional. There was an exciting first contact with the alien race that had been foreshadowed from last session. Then, on a lark, I started rambling in response to the question, what does your guy do? Without thinking about it, I just started front-loading a situation for my character as though I were running Sorcerer and my guy was one of my player's PC's that I needed to bring to a point of relevant choice. I introduced plot elements left and right, interjected character relationships and wrote in new NPC's, local settings and applications of theme. I went on like that for about two to three minutes, after which, Jason adjusted his GM screen and said, "Have you been looking at my notes? (Pause.) Ok, I accept all that."

I named Luke (Zazielsrephraim) as my contact to the East Hope Gov't and left Nick (Mantis) with a wrist watch that would GPS my position for 15 minutes if I cracked open a false molar. Upon receiving the signal, his orders were to find and kill me if rescue were not feasible. (I wrote that Felix had received an assignment to collect traffic data centered around a mysterious facility in Downtown West Hope.) Everyone's thread suddenly took direction by its relation to mine. Luke picked up on the weaving trick and wrote Poe (another player) as the driver for delivery of a warhead shell to swap with a sample an NPC named Dag was to obtain at Felix's request. (Here, Jason ran with the writing of relationships I was flinging about, revealling this character in a fluid manner that seemed to simply arise. Also, Dag's influence led to the above shift in objective regarding the facility, which turned out to be a weapons factory.)

Jason let the dice speak. Our screw ups just made things twist out better. Dag was caught trying to photograph sensitive documents. Felix was discovered trying to swap warheads, though he escaped. He was captured trying to escape the factory after a second break-in; this led to the biggest moral dilemma of the story. Felix immediately bit into his molar after surrendering; he was taken to an adjacent building within the complex, suspected of being a staging ground for terrorist activities against East Hope.

(Previously, while transferring a data feed from within the factory boardroom, Felix realized that the weapons made there contained biological agents and deduced that if East Hope went ahead with a strike on the building, it would kill nearly everyone in West Hope. Naturally, he called in a request to abort. His contact (Luke) manipulated the intelligence to influence the Governor against proceeding with the strike as planned; instead, the target was moved to the suspected staging site.)

(Before these events, during the recovery of a sunken alien vessel that had been shot down at the end of the previous session, Felix had hauled his captain (played by Cory (Ingenious)) across a grappling line and staunched his maimed leg stump, saving his life.)

Now the captain had to decide: could he follow orders to level the building where the ship's engineer that had saved his life was being held hostage?

* * *

Jason handled framing scenes and crossing threads like a pro. As one thread would pick up, so would the intensity with which the others were involved; as it resolved, another grew to climax.

It amazed me how concept consistently trumped skill list. A number of players commented how their skills, ability levels or background didn't really match their initial concept, but it didn't seem to matter so long as they remained commited to their vision for play.

Editing and inserts were unusually flexible. My character became known for saying, "Do you know how to use this?" and then handing some NPC a gun or a camera or whatever. After Felix escaped his captors in the confusion created by missile strikes on the building, he dove through a window in the outer hallway. I asked Jason, "Wouldn't it be cool if Phil (Felix's West Hope contact) pulled up in a ground car and yelled, 'Get in!'" Jason gave me this constipated look, and in that silence, Luke said, "We've got something even better: the ship passes low and ejects the ATV." We all clapped and said, "Yeah!"

Leave it to Nick to provide the best color of the night. He'd been dropping comments about the alien 'nades (i.e. grenades) he'd picked up from the salvage at the start of the session. At the heighth of his thread, he led a ground force to storm West Hope Governor Trevor's mansion and came upon two aliens, pinning the Governor to the wall like a butterfly under glass. Someone threw a grenade, and bodies started burning and crumpling, horribly. Then Nick said, "I walk over to the crumpled alien and say, 'What kind of freakin' 'nade is that to make, you sick fucks!'" That brought the house down.

[ScottM]

It sounds like ampping up your contribution was just the first of many.  Did it look like others were also thinking along those lines already-- or were your fellow players just so adept that your "shove" was added to the toolkit immediately?

I was very impressed by Jason's "(Pause.) Ok, I accept all that."  Was it dramatically different from his norm?

Sounds like a great group.
Scott

[Bill Cook]

My shove was the kickoff. I think it went viral because of how I wrote everone in. Plus, we're fresh from multi-threaded, scene-banging Sorcerer play. (1st ed. AD&D seems so far behind us now . . .) The first two sessions of that campaign were like boot camp, but now everyone is so much more graceful and connected in yielding the lead.

Jason has this hilarious way of making understated reactions. I assume he was so agreeable because I postulated into the middle of his prep.

Thx.