[Shab al-Hiri Roach] First time

[Isbo]

This weekend I finally managed to get my regular group (3.5 D&D gamers) to try out an Indie game--The Shab al-Hiri Roach. It was actually one of the last sessions with one of our members (Patrick, the louse, is daring to move to Minnesota where he can actually live with his partner) and the DM for the session canceled at the last minute. Clearly, we were still going to play something--Katie suggested we try this 'Roach game' I have been talking about.

And it was wonderful, a great last gaming session with Patrick--everyone had fun (read: stepped up and embraced the debauchery) and had some good spotlight action. While I had definitely did a lot to help people negotiate stakes, the players took to it well.  Some of my favorite things (of many):

Much of the drama ended up being over whether the Foreign Language department (Patrick's asst. prof Anton von Lombardy II) could take over the larger Theater building, exiling them (and Tom's character, Jack E.(gregious) Wilson) to a much smaller building. The chancellor was roached by one faction then poisoned and buried in place of a student who had committed suicide. The student's body then became a point of contest between the crazy physicist (Stan's Asst. prof. Alfred Einstein of physics) and roach-possessed botanist for reanimation.

Regina became the source of a running mutilation gag--she lost her leg in the swamp and the Drama professor (Jack Wilson) arranged to have her hand bitten off by the same alligator so she could fill the role he had envisioned for her in the Pirates of Penzance.

Said dead student (Jenny Biggs) was reanimated by the roached Botanist (Katie's Full professor Miranda Talley, dissolute daughter of the Reverend) in an unholy and vile ancient Sumerian ritual so she could serve as the 'perfect blank slate' for the will of the Roach.

Which led to the Homecoming Queen race between a Roached Regina (peg leg and hook hand) and Jenny Biggs (still a little puffy from her swamp suicide). All the players took sides and went to great lengths to slander their rivals and use all manner of unseemly bribes to get their way. It's hard to describe how wonderful it was. 

[Lesson I learned from DM-ing these folks that I continue to find applicable: do not to dismiss a player's idea out of turn because it seems off-color or breaks some tacit theme I have in mind--I was tempted to suggest a veto for the whole raising people from the dead bit, but resisted, and instead hopped on the corpse hijinks train.  It was much more fun that way.]

And that doesn't even mention my character's (asst. prof of experimental psychology Annabelle O'Connor) foiling of Wilson's selfish plot to roach the students with his own eggs at the Pirates' reception. I got to use my roach command (eat until you burst) to devour his roach tainted food. It was beautiful--Jack tried to have sex with O'Connor (using his roach die--copulate with this person) to stop me, but ended up in a fist fight with Anton instead. So, the audience came into the reception to find Annabelle binging and purging while Jack and Anton scuffled in the middle of the floor. Needless to say, they had no appetite for the food.

And, appropriately enough, Patrick won the game after managing to dislodge his roach before the last event.

--Ian