Lions at the Gates, 3rd Session

[Judd]

This was the only game other than the pilot where it was no one spotlight episode.  I looked it at i on paper and was sure it would be a slow episode.  I was ignorant in how PTA works over the course of a season.

Bob's gunslinger, this episode just after his spotlight seems to have come into his own.  Bob changed his issue from violence to leadership and it was a brilliant change-up with startling changes in play.

Jeff (not that Jeff, a totally different cool Jeff) was playing the evil scientist wrestling with hubris whose spotlight episode is the next episode and he was revving his engine in awesome ways, his evil shining through.  I recall throwing a fan mail at him for being a bastard.

Storn's cards were finally coming up RED and I think his character finally won his first conflict and what a doozy, beating down the Mutant Psychics in their own court in order to make it back to the island of Manhattan and warn the tribe of the Mutant Hordes from the radioactive Pine Barren Wastelands of southern Jersey.  Nice.

And Bret, our Producer was on FIRE, on FIRE I tell you.  His scene framing was dead fucking on.  He was a scene framing sniper.  And, even cooler, was the way he narrowed down our stakes to make them both cooler to us and naturally, more closely linked to our issues.  He was never shoving shit down our throats, just making suggestions that made the game rock. 

It is telling that every time Bret framed a scene tons of fan mail was both thrown around to one another and put down on conflicts because we were all digging it.  Capes is good training for PTA, methinks.

And two of the four or so scenes I framed were slowdowns.  I had one scene, without a conflict about the farmers and fishermen on the island just talking about the political going's on on the island, talking about the cannibals who had taken up residence and the unspoken leadership of the gunslinger that had just been accepted without any vote or anything of the sort.

The other slowdown was a scene with my Cannibal Queen and some children, talking about their own society a bit.

The game's humming and we've got two weeks left, though we pause next week as Bob's out of town.

I can't wait.  It feels like in three weeks, when this campaign is done it will feel like we will have something tangible. 

Speaking of tangible, Storn sat down during our pre-game bullshitting session and drew up the Overlord of the Mutants, Lord Trenton.  I usually remember to give him fan mail for that but I forgot tonight.  Dammit.  I'll remember next week.  I can't tell ya how much cool it brings to the table to have his pictures around.  Nice.

[Storn]

Just wanted to toss my two cents in.

I thought last week was tops.  This week topped that.  We had conflicts where 20-30 cards were hitting the table as it would be 3-way and 4-way and at the end battle, 5-way. 

It was the first session where we used the entire budget.  Up to this point, we were down to 3 or 4, but we had surplus.

Just some cool scenes:

Ulysses, trying to stop Hecate from killing both mutant scouts (hoping to interrogate one of them), he brains her with a manhole cover telekinetically... first time he ever showed something like that.  Put her in a coma.

After facing down the mutant psi corp and a couple of scenes (re: days), Medea chastizes Ulysses and browbeats him into trying to heal Hecate with his Gifts.  Which he does, but I lose in the cards, and the negative bond rips a comatose Hecate from talking in the spirit realm with Khronos, her father.  She is not happy upon waking and punches Ulysses in the nose (which I narrated..hee...fun to watch Ulysses just flail around and fail a lot).

Rion and Prometheus go at in tong and hammer, until Rion pistol whips the scientist and puts him in a cage until Prometheus coughs up the cure for the disease he has inflcted on Medea and her Parami.

The aftermath of the climactic battle of the mutant attack on the library, where Bernard's bandits, farmers, 'slingers and Parami fought side by side... all armed with guns and flamers of Prometheus cache and invention.  Rion trying to show that one slinger is better than any mob of armed idiots... and failing... it is a new day.

Next Week on continues to Rock.  Next week is Prometheus's spot light.

Bret hits us with:  Huge tentacles erupting from the Hudson river, latching onto Prometheus's submarine lab.  Prometheus with goggles on, being rocked back and forth, desperately trying to load a torpedo.

Jeff:  Sub is damaged and overheating. Prometheus's face is melting.  (pow!)

Bob:  A new bar/tavern has sprung up where parami, bandits, farmers and parami all let down their hair.  But now, all are armed.  Cut to the outside of the bar and gunflashes and bangs erupt inside.

Judd:  Rion holds out guns to some unseen figure; "These belonged to Amanda Doogin (she died in the battle with the mutants), Now they belong to you."

and mine;  Hecate regarding her mother, Rion and Ulysses on the library steps; "I have missed my bloodtime of the month..."


And oh yeah, here is the pic of Lord Trenton, king of the mutants!
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y35/Storn/TrentonloRes.jpg