InSpectres: the Case of the Missing Investors

[Drastic]

Some actual play for InSpectres:

Prep time consisted of a couple minutes printing out the pdf at the office the night before--after that, I didn't even think about it until skimming over the book a couple hours before the third player arrived.  A few minutes going over basic mechanics and concepts of the game.

The characters ended up as:
Enid -- think female Egon, but also with a food obsession--her talent was "food".  I figured, why not? and said sure.
Irving -- former convenience store worker, comic book and rpg geek who primarily joined the franchise in order to legally carry weaponry around.  Talent of "rpg geekery".
Steve -- occult expert.  Of all the players, his was the most dubious, but warmed up as things sped along.

The opening interview just wasn't working, and was the only place I ended up wishing I'd prepped for--they were being interviewed by the tv show host, and I think the questions off the top of my head were a bit too open-ended for players a little unfamiliar with freeing narrative control from GM-only hands.  So I cut it short and moved straight on to a client calling in--the director of affairs at the new convention center finishing construction downtown.  Something he didn't want to discuss on the phone, but it involved a disappearance of some sort.

Then, preliminary investigation and gearing up, and now things began to click.  Steve wanted to find out things about the property; rolled a 6.  "So what do I find out?" he asked; I explained again about director control passing.  "So it was an Indian buril ground if I want it to be?" and something dawned in his eyes.  The neighborhood ended up formerly residential--the former housing had been built on former Indian burial grounds, and there was a rash of disappearances and such before the neighborhood was bought out, razed, and the mega convention center built.  (Indians, I thought.  I can work with ghost Indians.)

Leaving all research to Steve, Enid and Irving concentrated on kitting out.  Irving's primary concern was to look cool.  "Cool" in this instance meant he was going for the dark-clothes-trenchcoat-big-gun feel.  He rolled a 3, if memory serves--I described the bit of the show showing him leaving and re-entering the bathroom in different outfits until finally emerging in the one deemed most cool--but with a length of toilet paper stuck to his shoe.

Enid was all over gearing up.  Backpack particle accelerator, goggles with excessive LEDs flickering on the outside, various meter thingies.  Then the issue of transportation came up--she rolled very well on the Tech roll.  A bit of group discussion ensued, and the InSpectres official vehicle was born.  An ice cream van in its former life, it had been reborn.  Its chilled interior now housed cramped computer equipment (ice cream bars and such still sandwiched between); the only seating was the drivers seat itself, the rest of the team just hanging on as best they could.  The crowning touch was that Irving had rewired the bells to blare (or rather, tinkle merrily) out 80's hair metal.  Enid gained her first Cool point from smugly outmaneuvering a traffic jam to arrive just in time for their first appointment in weeks, as the van tinkled out the melody to "we're not gonna take it."

A group of potential investors, it turned out, had disappeared during the sales pitch.  Last place they'd been seen was a large auditorium below for a multimedia presentation.  Various other strange phenomenon.

Enid crawled under the contact's desk while chasing paranormal readings on her gizmos, rolled poorly.  She sat up suddenly at a sudden spike in reading (establishing the auditorium being directly beneath his office), and shattered his glass desk in so doing.  A good start.

Down to auditorium, where the erstwhile franchisers eyed the closed doors suspiciously.  Enid's player was very much into the groove of the game, and was playing with her ectogoggles, to see a sudden face looming at them from the door.  She fumbled to fire, but the particle accelerator wouldn't work.  Boldly, Irving strode forward, lifted his foot (toilet paper still dangling) and kicked in the door with a mighty blow.

Inside, quickly established strange things with the screen.  Spiral pattern visible through the Enid ectogoggles, then visible to all when it went through the 3...2...movie countdown.  Desert landscape onscreen, then clouds on horizon, from the whooping Indian warband charging directly towards the screen from "the other side."  Various things happened at once:

*  Somehow or other, a carrot got hurled at the screen and embedded halfway through; this split the ground on the other side into a large chasm, into which much of the charging Indian warband fell.  Enid gained Cool during this again.

* Irving, on the other hand, got the "total thermonuclear meltdown" Cool fumble and began firing wildly.  He'd picked a cool gun far too large for him to handle--a custom .75 caliber handcannon which recoil knocked out of his hand and across the room, where it fired again upon landing.

* as the Indians got closer to screenfront, Enid began hosing down the screen with the backpack particle accelerator, panicking at all the gunfire, reducing it to a swirl of shreds...

* unfortunately, at the same moment that Irving had rallied, charged forward, and seized the carrot to pull it back--so he was caught in Enid's electrical stream of deep hurting.  Stress roll ended with yet another 1.  At this point, we had our first Confessional, with Irving explaining that the viewers shouldn't be misled, that he viewed himself much like the Punisher (only for ghosts), and that what he was really doing was playing possum to draw them out.

Out they came, only since the movie screen was mostly in confetti shreds at this point, they emerged at roughly an inch tall.  Gamely, they still swarmed over Enid's feet; she aced another Cool test, and buried some under an avalanche of skittles; meanwhile, Steve performed some oratory that convinced the angry Indian ghosts that he was a god--look at the size difference, after all.

The chief declared that--o mighty puissant fishbelly-white giant godspirit!--they had not actually come to attack from the other side, but to fight an evil rising from below.  Enid engaged ectogoggles, rolled well, and considered narrative control again--the missing investors were all tied up together in a storage room underneath the auditorium, but the x-ray mode she saw them through the floor with rendered them as glowing skeletons in a mass, reaching upwards (their wrists were tied, see).  She leapt to the obvious conclusion of "ZOMBIES!!!!" and turned the particle accelerator on the floor.

The floor more or less disintegrated under everyone.  The embattled Irving rolled well for the first time, landing nimbly in the room below with a "cool" pose.  Steve landed okay.  Enid got hung up on the ragged edges of the hole, dangled there briefly, then fell out of the shoulder straps on the particle accelerator--while it was still active, mind you.  So the business end was swinging as an erratic pendulum, spraying the hostage room with electric death.

Irving took his bowie knife between his teeth and leaped to save the hostage investors--and leapt right through the swinging beam.  But he succeeded in knocking the tied-together investors back out of the danger area.  Enid leapt up to grab at the swinging electric nozzle, and managed to shut it off in the process of being knocked unconscious.  Steve avoided all this, to untie the hostages when the danger had passed.

Unexplained was where all the Indian ghosts had gotten off to, and just why the "missing" investors were simply tied up in a storage room--but then again, the contract was satisfied by returning them.

All in all, a really satisfying experience to run--it developed organically and unpredictably.  I would have liked to have seen more confessional use, and perhaps didn't convey the range of uses of them effectively enough.  The team had 14 franchise points earned extremely quickly, probably by the halfway point of the above recap, and only touched their franchise funds once--I think perhaps I should have started them quite a bit higher than merely 5 to encourage this, along with more stress checks in general.

[Jared A. Sorensen]

Sounds like a good time was had by all. As I've said before, the big "GM balancing act" lies in doling out Stress rolls (when to roll 'em and how many Stress dice they have to roll).

Sounds like your players "got" it -- I'd love to see a second game (same characters, same franchise with references to this past game)...I think the game will be even better. :)

[Dr. Velocity]

I must admit, I'm a big ghostbusters fan so that sounds really interesting - your players though - they're like prodigal. I have nothing CLOSE to a group who could grasp that concept. =/ Oh well it was at least neat reading about it! Thumbs up and good luck.

[Valamir]

Doc, I wouldn't be so quick to write your group off.  I've been very surprised by how seemingly hidebound groups have taken to more off center games.  You may just be projecting your own doubts.

The key is don't oversell it.  Don't present it as a replacement, or a "better" alternative to what you normally play.  Just position it to them like a fun lark to try perhaps one session where you're not completely prepared for your regular game.

Then you'll know for sure.

[Ron Edwards]

Whee-hee-hoo! I love InSpectres play threads.

Here's my immediate reaction to this one, and Dr. V, it's relevant to your point.

#1. The GM had never before played InSpectres and merely affixed the basic mechanics and concept into his mind (very well, apparently). The players had never played it either, nor had they any experience with "weird games" of this sort.

#2. The session not only produced a fine set-piece, but also was crammed chock-full of amazing moments. Review that first post and see how many great bits appeared, none of which were programmed in using standard "advantages/disadvantages" or Feat-type abilities on the character sheets.

The point? The players weren't prodigal. They recognized, utilized, and enjoyed the fine workings of one of the best game systems available. The GM was another player (with a different role), and he did that too. Result? Wonderful role-playing.

InSpectres is my #1 pick for "Gee, let's try a new game," merely because it works.

Best,
Ron

[Dr. Velocity]

Hmm. I ought to check it out and see what interesting I can get with my players - we've all been out of rpgs recently, maybe it would be a good 'reintroduction' for everyone.