[The Infected] Giggly Manicacs on the Space Station Playtest

[gte910h]

We played the infected after reading the rules from: http://www.geocities.com/rpgjunkie74/the_Infected.pdf

I don't know if that was the correct resource, but it was enough to get going...

We set the movie in a futuristic, paternalistic future space station (inspired by Star Trek, The Next Generation). The infection was a case of giggly glee that first manifested as laughing at things that aren't funny, especially horrible things. The full blown infection was a malicious, ferocious glee that caused sadistic mayhem.

The players chose several goals from what they had: we had a feminist, a scary photographer, a control freak doctor, a somewhat order desiring bartender,  and a lonely child who wanted solitude.

In the first act, the movie started in the space station bar. The first mate (the feminist freak) was talking about the apparent issues going on in the prison ward with the doctor (the control freak). The small girl scout (the solitude desirer), kept trying to order a drink at the bar, and it was revealed that the creepy photographer was her mother (who'd since undergone a sex change). The bartender lost a couple conflicts trying to paternalistically denying the child her gin and tonics. He also opened up a box of do-si-dos that happened to be animated and alive in this world. The first mate won a conflict about her feminist desire to not let the paternalistic men on this ship tell her what to do. The scene ended as people wandered off out of the bar one by one.

The next scene was a "shoot on the move" scene while all the characters are collected in the night, responding to the prison break klaxon. It was revealed the transsexual had sex with the doctor at night and that the child had a crush on a "sexy male nurse" NPC and thusly followed him around all the time. They ended up  next to the prison at the end of act one. The scene closed with the child shooting open the prison door with a blaster.

We bridged into the lights going out and the blast doors going down.

Act two sent the characters into the prison. They were attacked by a maniacal prisoner who was far along with the infection. The doctor (who'd since been infected) armed herself with a ripped out bar. Then the character's wondered off breaking into a scene break. The small girl then hears a toilet flush followed by a giggle, and then immediate 7 toilet flushes followed by 7 giggles. This drew the girl into a nearby bathroom, followed by the transsexual (somewhat creepily).  The next scene finds the little girl's girl scout troop, obviously infected, tying prophylactics to a dead/dying man in the bathroom.  The photographer took a picture of this horrific scene. One of the other characters came in and tried to blow away one of the girls with a lighter and can of spray paint. This charred and cracked the face of the girlscout who giggled with glee as her face sloughed off. The rest of the troop then tore her limb from limb and skipped off with her body parts.  The scene ends with a SWAT team gassing the prison.

Act three, opens with the whole group waking up in the medical bay.  The infection spreads quickly with most of the group becoming monstrous and the remaining few escaping through the ventilation system.  After escaping the rest of the PCs, a small group, lead the feminist first mate, headed for the bridge.  They were attacked by a monstrous man with a machette, leaving everyone dead but the first mate who had now succumbed to the infection.  The act ends with the first mate reaching the bridge and initiating a self destruct sequence while laughing madly.

Issues: We couldn't really figure out the math of how the acts should end. The rule about how infected dice transfer doesn't make sense.

Secondly, we need more guidelines as to how the GM uses his dice. How many normal dice does he have? When is it appropriate to use infected dice, etc. I'd happily go through the rules with the creator to help clear up the understanding, and I can probably wrangle out another playtest, as my group had a blast, even though everyone went crazy.

     --Michael

[Eric Provost]

Michael,

Wow.  Thanks for playtesting the Infected.  Sounds like your group had a good time of it.

I have to apologize though.  See, the rules on my website are pretty old.  I think I've gone through as many as a dozen significant changes to the system since I posted those PDFs.  If your crew is really interested in giving it another chance, drop me a line at eric at ericsrpgs.com and I'll hook you up with something more recent.  Something a little more playable.