My Life with Tony

[GB Steve]

This Thursday is general election day in the UK, and it's also my gaming night. So I'm planning a session of My Life with Tony.

The Master is Tony Blair, Bush poodle, war-mongerer and everybody's friend. The PCs will be members of the cabinet and the others will be the voters (or Dubya, haven't decided yet). I'm not quite sure what the village is at the moment but I suspect it will be Westminster.

The innocents are likely to be John Prescott and Charles Kennedy.

I've got a few ideas for scenes, such as fetching Euan (his teen son) from a night on the tiles, to taking Cherie shopping, to dealing with Liz (QEII).

I'll post back if it happens.

[Ron Edwards]

Steve, you know how we're always talking about the necessary player-reaction to the Master? I don't think you're gonna have any trouble at all with this one.

Best,
Ron

[joshua neff]

Steve, you know how we're always talking about the necessary player-reaction to the Master? I don't think you're gonna have any trouble at all with this one.

Not according to the latest polls.

And let me just say, I love Yes, Minister and Yes, Prime Minister.

[Mike Holmes]

Hmm, wasn't there actually a short lived TV show called something like "My Life with Bush"?

Mike

[Doug Ruff]

Damn, I want to be in this game! Please post Actual Play so I can be jealous as hell...

The innocents are likely to be John Prescott and Charles Kennedy.

Aw, Prescott would be a great minion. More than/Less than Human abilities involving fisticuffs and Jags? Priceless.

[GB Steve]

So here's what happened. It may well be offensive to many people. Neither of my MLwM games run with my regular group have been serious, the other being My Life with Santa. Our first game was straight, and so have my Con games been too. But not tonight.

It turned out that the innocents where John Prescott and Jeffery Archer. Prescott because he's just a little boy at heart who can be kept happy with a quarter of aniseed balls and Archer because he really truely believes all his lies about how he won the Olympics and invented Al Gore.

Fear was 3 and Reason 2.

The characters were:
Peter Mandelson, Tony crony, confirmed bachelor with many Brazilian friends and now European Union Commissioner. Also known as Mandy by the press.

More than: Can persuade anyone when they are alone.
Less than: Can't refuse a bribe unless he's alone.

Connections: Jeffery Archer and Sebastien Coe (Lord, Olympic athlete and confirmed bachelor).

Ruth Kelly, secretary of state for education, youngest cabinet minister and member of Opus Dei(!).

More than: Has a direct line to the spirit of John Paul II who gives her infaluable advice except when she's had a drink.
Less than: Can only eat school food and suffers paralysis if she has any other.

Connections: Archbishop of Westminster, Jamie Oliver (celebrity chef who has just got more money spent on school dinners)

Gordon Brown, Chanceller of the Exchequor and would-be prime minister.

More than: Fiscal restraint, can stop things from happening by examining their costs, unless they involve Scotland.
Less than: nobody notices him ubless he's drinking whisky

Connections: Jeremy Paxman (vicious TV interviewer), David Beckham.

Round 1
Ruth: Euan (Tony's son, 21) has been spotted drunk in Leicster Sq cavorting with a girl. Ruth is despatched to stop this and finds him in congress with Larissa, daughter of Michael Howard. Ruth tries to use her scourge to put a stop to this but is blinded by a photographer's flash and the pair escape in a taxi. Headline in the Standard "That'll Learn 'Em".
[a tie - no change]
Peter: Deal with the fall out in the papers from Ruth's action. A swift call to the editor and the story is found to be about lookalikes.
[Success - SL+1]
Gordon: Oliver Letwin, oleaginous shadow chanceller is on Paxman's show Newsnight, counter his policies. When Gordon gets there, they just ignore him and play snap and battleships whilst waiting for him to turn up. Letwin gets the rules wrong and loses. Brown leaves an envelope of policies on the Paxman's desk which refutes the Tory policies and Letwin leaves with a trail of oil.
[Success - SL+1]

Round 2
Ruth: Goes to see Jamie Oliver in a Chelsea pub. Oliver tries to chat her up and they go into the gents together. Ruth saves him from the embarrasment of having sex with someone over 30 by telling him her age.
[L+1]
Mandy: Tries to support Seb Coe's Olympic bid but door slams. Coe thinks it's a starter pistol and runs off.
[tie, L+1. The rules are unclear but we're in a hurry]
Gordon:Has a drink with Paxman and chats about the economy. Paxman is impressed.
[L+1]

Round 3
Ruth:Tony asks Ruth to get an action plan to actualise the Euan recapture issue. She goes back to her ministry and finds Stephen Twigg dressed as a garden gnome by the pond in the DFES building, still grinning inanely about his victory over Portillo 8 years ago. She scourges him into sorting things out so he gets the advisory panel to devise a policy. It's a load of illiterate 14 year olds who throw magnetic poetry onto a white board which is then printed off as the new policy.
[SL+1]
Mandy:David Davies, shadow secretary of state and Tory bruiser is with Archer in the House bar preventing him from being an embarrasment by plying him with drinks. A call about asylum seekers gets him on the warpath and Mandy steals a kiss when Jeffery mistakes him for his wife Mary.
[L+1]
Gordon: Decides to visit Beckham who is being entertained by Roman Abramovitch at a Chelsea match. Beckham mistakes him for the Bolton manager and states than he "should be in charge" at Real Madrid. This gets into the papers as "Becks Backs Brown as Boss". Tony is not happy.
[L+1]

Round 4
Ruth: Ruth declares a policy of easier sums to reduce innumeracy to Tony but he's not impressed and confiscates her scourge. He sends her to Chelsea to get rid of Beckham. She tries to send him back to Spain but Posh comes back from shopping and attacks her as a slag. Headline is "Ruthless blows".
[tie]
Mandy: Tony has promised Dubya to take some more missiles but Tony needs to hide them from the press. Mandy is keen to go on holiday to Morocco but Tony prevails and Mandy hides the missiles up the arse of the shadow defence minister Nicholas Soames. Headline is "Is that a missile in your pocket or are you just hiding something".
[SL+1]
Gordon:Tony is talking to Ed Balls, ex finance wiz and future MP. Gordon supplies Ed with amazing sums to impress Tony. In the meantime Davies has found Prescott and the two are fighting in the street outside 10 Downing St.
[L+1]

Round 5
Ruth: tries to get rid of Posh by getting Jamie Oliver to have sex with her but Posh is over 30 so he won't.
[L+1, SL+1]
Mandy: finds Coe and promises to put in a good word about the Olympics. One thing leads to another and he ends up putting in more than a word. Coe ends up well briefed and singing in the shower "Mandy, kiss me and stop me from shaking ..."
[L+1]
Gordon: goes to help Prescott with Davies and distracts him. Davies headbutts Prescott and leaves him crying on the floor. Gordon takes him into No. 10 and gives him some sweets.
[L+1]

Round 6
Ruth: is sent by Tony to get some money from Abramovitch for party funds. She promises Roman that Beckham will play for Chelsea and he gives her £4M. She has Beckham's passport stopped.
[SL+1]
Mandy: persuades Jeffery to come to 10 Downing St.
[SL+1 ->HR]
Gordon: calls up Paxman and creates a new show called "I'm a Prime Miniser get me out of here" to boost his popularity. Tony is furious.
[L+1]

Round 7
Ruth: is given back her scourge and sent to discipline the unruly Gordon. She loses the fight and Gordon takes the £4M as tax revenue and confiscates her scourge.
[W+1, would be captured if not for innocents in room]
Mandy: HR: The Marginal Labour Party boat is on a Thames cruise hosted by Bernie Ecclestone. Baroness Thatcher's funeral barge, pilotted by John Redwood is coming the other way and he decides to go out in glory and rams them. 80 Labour MPs go down leaving a big hole in the majority.
Gordon: gives the scourge to Prescott and sets him on Blair. Tony cannot call him off and the endgame starts.

All pile in on Tony who succumbs to a rain of blows. Gordon becomes a man of the people as he integrates into society, a true leader, not a master. Ruth seeks out a new master and becomes Posh's new age guru but the shame of having 3 tories in one night is all too much for Mandy and he throws himself off Big Ben.

It took about 3 hours from start to finish and was a big laugh thoughout. I'm not sure Paul would be proud, but we had a good time.

[Mike Holmes]

I dunno, do you feel that you abused the system? If not, and you had fun, I'd call that a victory for Paul.

Mike

[TonyLB]

How did Gordon get five Love overtures in a row?  Was that the result of an early successful Resist against Master, and a cascade effect (i.e. the more love makes it easier and easier to resist)?

[GB Steve]

Gordon's just a love machine, what can I say. Actually Tony did get pissed off with him and set Ruth on him but he fought her off. I also recall that he managed to resist one of Tony's order before he fulfilled the endgame conditions, or at least it was a draw. I forgot to put that in.

I think I might have been harsher if we'd had more time to play the game but we were aiming for twisted satire rather than gothic horror. As is common with most frothing, I guess you had to be there.

[Paul Czege]

Steve,

Mandy: HR: The Marginal Labour Party boat is on a Thames cruise hosted by Bernie Ecclestone. Baroness Thatcher's funeral barge, pilotted by John Redwood is coming the other way and he decides to go out in glory and rams them. 80 Labour MPs go down leaving a big hole in the majority.

Hilarious.

Paul

[GB Steve]

Hilarious.

I think that was the high point of the evening for all of us. Some of the jinks were quite amusing but I like that HR scenes can really step in and define the game.

They seem to play a similar role to "smoke" scenes from Nocotine Girls and although you can go through games without any HR, the game is poorer if you do.

[Larry L.]

Hmm, wasn't there actually a short lived TV show called something like "My Life with Bush"?

You're thinking of Matt Parker's and Trey Stone's That's My Bush that ran on Comedy Central. (And re-ran in a marathon the day we invaded Iraq.) It was actually a pretty loving homage to classic TV sitcoms like The Honeymooners. But, um, this doesn't have anything to do with this thread.