[MLwM] Killing Puppies for Santa

[GB Steve]

I ran a mad game tonight and it was pretty brutal. We finished it in just over three hours with 3 1/2 players (one had to leave halfway through to go to Prague). I made a grid up to record each round for prosperity and it took about 8 rounds to play the whole game.

This was the set-up. I'll post more details after the weekend when I've had some sleep.

The poor elves have to make the presents before Xmas eve and Santa is
drunk again. There has been no snow for the Reindeer slipway and
things are looking pretty bleak. As Santa's little helpers, he expects you to make sure that everything is arranged in time for Xmas
and that the presents are delivered. If not, the Little Baby
Jesus will come down and kick some Santa butt.

Any Xmas character is acceptable except for Mrs Claus.

The characters were:
King Pinecone, Lord of the Elves
King Wenceslas, Senior Reindeer wrangler
Frosty the Snowman
The Christmas Spider (a German legend about where tinsel comes from)

The village was North Pole. This consisted of a building of some kind for each of the Twelve Days of Christmas plus Santa's Chalet with Stable, the Elf Grotto, The Toy Factory, a Butcher, a Greengrocer and the itinerant Coal Man. Jack Frost lives in the mountains,

The village is surrounded by Mountains on one side and a forest on the other. The Fountain of St Agnes, for those who know their carols, stands in the middle of the village. Snow lays on the ground, crisp and even but not deep. Global warming is responsible.

More to follow soon.

[ethan_greer]

Holy shit - you played My Life With Master with the master being SANTA CLAUS?  That's just sickeningly cool.

[Emily Care]

So how did the big red guy bite it? Huh? Huh?  

rotfl...


--Emily

[GB Steve]

So here goes. There will be anglicisms.

The characters were:
The Christamas Spider (Spider)
MTH: Able to wrap up people in thread except when near a Christmas Tree
LTH: Can't communicate, except when near a Christmas Tree
Connections:
Wolfgang the Goldsmith, who makes shiny things
Andreas the Butcher, who has food

King Pinecone (Pinecone)
MTH: Can order the elves around except when they have been drinking
LTH: Can only hurt people if they are holding toys that I made
Connections:
Mrs Claus, who is a bit of alright
The Elf Queen, who might come through if Mrs Claus doesn't

Frosty the Snowman (Frosty)
MTH: Can freeze anything except people
LTH: Can't do anything except in the cold
Connections:
Willy the greengrocer, who provides his nose
The Coalman, who provide his eyes and mouth, an intinerant.

Good King Wenceslas (King)
MTH: Kingly and commanding except when the Reindeer heckle.
LTH: Believes what the peasants tell him, except when the moon is hidden
Connections:
Mr Page, the orchard keeper, who used to be his servant
Andreas the butcher, who has uses for old reindeer.

I set Fear and Reason at 2 but gave no initial love. I hoped this allow us to finish the game in one session. As it turned out I needed to fudge this at the end, more of which later.

The locations in the village were mainly the 12 days of Xmas, although I didn't explicitly tell the players this. It took a few rounds to work this out:
The Orchard, kept by Mr Page,
The Dovecote, with Turtledoves
The Hen coop with French Hens, behind the greengrocer's.
The Aviary with Calling Birds
Wolfgang the Goldsmith
The Mill pond with Geese and Swans
The Dairy with Maids
The School for Posh Girls
The Town Hall, with Leap Club - first rule of Leap Club, everyone leaps.
The School for Rough Boys, run by Mr Piper.
The Barracks
The Elven Grotto
The Toy Factory
Santa's Chalet, with Santa in the living room and Mrs Claus baking cookies for the elves in the kitchen and stables for reindeer.

The Innocents were Rudloph the red-nosed reindeer and an orphaned bear cub in the forest.

At the start of the game, Santa is lying on the sofa in front of the fire. His beard is dotted with food and his red coat is a sort of grey colour. He's got a fag in one hand and a nukey brown (a beer) in the other. He is well pissed. He's not happy with the state of things and in a drunken drawl orders his minions about.

Round 1 (Frosty goes last because he turns up late)
King is ordered to get more snow for the reindeer slipway. He goes into the village and finds Frosty (who at this point was an NPC). Frosty's coal mouth is missing so King draws him a new one. Some schoolboys throw snowballs and frighten King away. (a tie)

I can't read my notes of what the Spider did but it apparently invovles some Bad Kids (Sl+1)

Santa tells Pinecone that Mrs Claus is upset with him and he needs a good present for her. He makes Mrs Claus some porcelain Russian Dolls of Santa and gives her a hammer. She is very pleased and gives him a cookie (L+1)

Frosty (now a PC) is told to get more beer for Santa. He goes to see the CoalMan but Santa's slate is full so he makes some icecream and swaps this for the beer. (SL+1 -> HR)

Round 2 (Frosty goes 2nd because of where he is sitting)
King goes to see Mr Page and finds him trying to chase a partridge from the orchard. King tries to shoo off the bird but kills it. (SL+1 L+1 -> HR, his SL started out greater than L+R)

The Horror Revealed: A big machine turns up in the village, chewing through the snow and leaving a trail of grass and flowers. It is covered with rabbits in 20's gear with guns: the Easter Bunny is muscling in on Santa's turf. They lob a grenade into the Goldsmith's killing poor Wolfgang.

Spider persuades Andreas the Butcher to hide in the forest cave where he will be safe from trouble. He kills a few rabbits on the way. (L+1)

Pinecone is sent down by Santa to deal with the Easter Bunny but can't persuade them to leave. They set up a Chocolate Shop in the Butcher's. (a tie)

Round 3
The Horror Revealed: The 2 doves, 3 hens, 4 calling birds, 6 geese, 7 swans and 13 ravens storm up into the sky, and start to circle round, terrible cries ring out and they swoop down to attack anyone in the open. Several more bunnies die. The go to perch ominously at the edge of the Forest, watching the town with their beedy eyes.

Frosty is sent by Santa to get rid of the birds. He goes to see the reindeer. They are smoking and playing poker, Rudolph is in the corner decorating the stables, his nose so bright and shiny. He is not allowed to play join in with their reindeer games. Frosty asks the reindeer to kill the birds but they don't want to leave their game with so much money in the pot. Frosty freezes all the cards and the reindeer get their shotguns and Santa's beer and go shooting. (SL+1, Rudolf an innocent is nearby so no HR).

Santa's TV is playing up and he wants to watch Morecambe and Wise (70's variety show) so he orders Pinecone to fix it. Pinecone finds some elves: Elrond, Galadriel and Morgoth. They've had a hard time finding work since the end of LoTR and Santa's workshop was all that was available. They start singing songs so Pinecone hits them and orders them up on the roof. Galadriel falls off and starts making snow angels. Santa is screaming up the chimney but they can't get seem to it sorted. (a tie)

Round 4
King takes the partridge round to the town hall for dinner. Here he finds and joins leap club. (L+1)

Pinecone is proving so inept at making the TV work that Santa starts to shove Frosty up the chimney. He persuades Spider to make tinsel enough to make a better aerial and Santa is please (SL+1 -> HR).

Spider also makes tinsel for Rudolph and they decorate the stables together. (L+1)

Pinecone gets the elves to make Rudolph a present: Rudolfina, a robot reindeer companion. (L+1)

Round 5
Santa is watching the Morecambe and Wise show with Angela Ripon (a 70s news anchor) dancing. He wants to renact this so he orders Wenceslas to get Galadriel in and they have a bit of a dance. Santa is starting to get pretty frisky and Galdriel is not enjoying this. (SL+1 -> HR)

HR: Jack Frost up in the mountains is annoyed at all the disturbances in the valley below so he cooks up a big batch of snow. The reindeers are still shooting away and this brings the whole lot down in an avalanche. The reindeer and buried as are the Goldsmiths the Millpond and the Girl's school (random d12 rolls). Frosty himself is also caught up in the avalanche and grows to 90' tall but cannot move anymore, a big looming statue on the edge of town (the player had to leave).

Spider tries to persuade Rudolf to come with him to the cave for safety but Rudolf doesn't like the idea of meeting the butcher (L+1, SL+1)

Pinecone is told to deal with Wencelas who is touching up his bird, Galadriel in a corner. Wenceslas beats him up (W+1)


Round 6
HR: Now the mountain is snowfree, it is revealed as Mount Doom and promptly errupts. Lava pours down the slopes killing three reindeer and burying three random buildings: the Aviary, the Goldsmiths and the Millpond.

Captured! (I think the player must have misrecorded things on the previous round and I missed this, oh well) Santa is annoyed at the lack of Xmas decorations and decides to make Spider into a Christmas Garland. He hangs him up with a burning candle attached to each arm.

Captured! Santa is a bit confused by the beer, the TV and the candles and mistakes Pinecone for Galadriel. Stripping off to reveal his wobbling bulk he throws himself on Pinecone and passes out. Pinecone is trapped beneath the unconcious Santa on the sofa.


Round 7
Wenceslas decides to renew his acquaintance with the Butcher and collects the dead birds that the reindeer killed. He finds the butcher in the cave with a cute little orphan bear cub that they both feed. (L+1)

Spider collects the dead reindeer in a large ball of web and rolls them to the cave where he presents them to the butcher. Unfortunately the little bear becomes caught up in the webs and the butcher is sad (L+1, SL+1)

Pinecone gets Galadriel to tip Santa off him. He goes through Santa's pockets and finds a whistle. Santa comes round and is still randy but can't get it up and demands viagra. Pinecone has no money so instead he gets the elves to build a coal-fired steam-powered suck-o-matic. He orders Galadriel to give him her magic ring that he trades to the Coalman for coal. Unfortunately the ring has lost its powers and so is worthless (-).


Round 8
Wenceslas tries to free the bear from the webs but gets caught up himself. (-)

Spider manages to free the bear and Wenceslas from the webs and takes the bear to see Rudolf (L+1)

Pinecone finds some coal in Santa's chalet and fires up the machine. Santa can now get it up and is overjoyed. He orders Pinecone to find who has his whistle and to stuff them in the suck-o-matic that is running low on coal. He refuses (the player had forgotten that he had the whistle) but then admits he has the whistle. He resists the command and blows the whistle instead, summoning the reindeer to distribute the presents. In the cave the dead reindeer rise up and attack King and the Butcher. (-)


Round 9
Wenceslas defends the Butcher from the undead Reindeer but they are still trapped in the cave (a tie).

Spider arrives at the Chalet and introduces the bear to Rudolf who is overjoyed (L+1) At this point it was getting late so I ruled that having both innocents in the room lowered Fear by one.

Santa orders Pinecone to stuff the useless bloody reindeer into the suck-o-matic but again he resists (-)


Round 10
Wenceslas manages to get the Butcher out of the cave and arrives at the Chalet (L+1)

Santa is a bit dispirited by all the mess and asks Spider to tidy up (Spider can move to endgame so Santa's doesn't order him to kill anyone thus avoiding desperation or sincerity dice), but Spider resists anyway (Endgame)

Endgame
Spider throws his web over Santa as Pinecone opens fire with a nerf gun. King derides Santa and he is trussed up and stuck on top of the Christmas tree (The end)

Epilogue:
Wenceslas takes on his new role in the town as King
Spider becomes a weaver
Pinecone becomes Mrs Santa's bitch as she delivers the presents on time.
Poor Frosty melted when the volcano errupted.

Phew!

[Bob McNamee]

I'm in awe!

Wiping tears out of eyes!

So funny!

[Luke]

brilliant.

I have never heard of a more sinister machine than a coal powered Suck-o-matic and never heard such an evil act as to order the bodies of innocents to be fed to such a machine so santa could get it up.

By far the most brilliant use of MLwM that I have come across.