[Spirit of the Century] The London Centurions in … Apes of Wrath!

[andrew_kenrick]

This was the second session we played in our new SotC game, but the first one was mostly spent getting used to the system and beating up giant cockroaches in London's sewers. One thing that did come out of it was a PTA style "next week on ..." where the group decided that next week they wanted it to be entitled "Apes of Wrath," so it duly was.

The group comprises of:

Rob, playing Dash Portals, Raygun Romancer, an Argentinian pitfighter given a futuristic raygun by Dr Nitro.

Sophie, playing Dr Barbara Nitro, an expert botanist and vaguely mad scientist.

Polis, playing Dallas Clayton, a one-legged archaeologist with a magical ankh and spirit guide in the form of Anubis.

Dave, playing Demarcus Dangerous, an explorer and master of the wild, who, along with his pet toucan Tooki-Tooki can communicate with all manner of birds.

Amy, playing Talulah Airways, a dashing heiress and daring pilot, whose eponymous plane has all manner of nifty improvements. She is also an expert at martial arts and has my second favourite aspect, "Head in the clouds, fist in your face."

And finally Ronnie, playing Cash Prize, an English gentleman spy. Cash Prize has loads of great aspects, my favourite being "To this moral question, violence is the answer."

The game started in Peruvania, in the Lesser Andes, where the group had come to find the fabled Ghost Tiger. They couldn't agree (IC and OOC) what they were looking for it for, so we left that question open for now. The group were leisurely walking into the mountains, their army of sherpas carrying all their stuff (including the plane, being dragged on wheels uphill).

They made camp and as they woke up the next day it was to the sound of attacking pygmies, hurling spears at them. The group didn't take long to finish them off, and whilst Talulah stayed behind to question one of them, the rest of them rushed on into the jungle as Demarcus had spotted a white tiger.

Of course they ran straight into a trap, and Dallas found himself hanging upside down from a tree, next to a big net full of ... pygmies. It was more than a little strange that the pygmies had been captured by their own net, but the party dismissed it and blundered onwards and straight into ...

... A giant white tiger. The tiger made ready to pounce but Dallas whipped out his ankh (a rare artefact) and used it to tame the tiger. The group gathered round the tiger to find it injured with a strange blade, which they determined was an Atlantean duelling sword, but deliberately oversized as though to fit ...

An ape! As the group posed for pictures, they were swept up in a giant net, tiger and all, and carried aloft by a rope attached to a zeppelin rising from the jungle. Huge apes began to descend the rope, blades in their teeth and ready for action.

Dallas had avoided being trapped so began to use his engineering skills to rig up a device to propel him up to the zeppelin, creating a rudimentary catapult in the end. Cash escaped the net and began to duel the apes whilst hanging from the rope, and Dash used his raygun to pick the other ape off.

The group ascended to the zeppelin where they fought several more apes, sending them variously sprawling off the side of the zeppelin, before busting open the cockpit to find none other than ...

... Gorilla Khan! The group had tangled with Khan before (in one of their novels ... I forget whose) and had a variety of ape related aspects, including Dash's specialty, "Ape Kung-Fu, the hidden technique." Khan gloated at how they had fallen into his trap, lured by the fake white tiger (it was paint) and now destined to be smashed to pieces as the zeppelin hurtled towards the mountainside.

His guards were easy to dispatch, but Khan proved to be a nastier foe, hurling Dash at the controls and nearly taking him out, throwing his weight around and hurling large heavy objects at the team. Dash and Demarcus decided to keep Khan occupied whilst Talulah and Cash took control of the zeppelin and Dallas and Barbara winched up the tiger, still swinging beneath the zeppelin in a net.

Talulah managed to wrestle control of the zeppelin, but in the process Cash damaged it with a bomb and it began to crash. Luckily Talulah's plane could fly by itself so she summoned it, the group trapping Khan in the cockpit as they leapt to safety and flew back to London to a hero's welcome, (fake) white tiger and all.

I love the streamlined and slick approach of Spirit of the Century, and feel it captures the spirit of the genre perfectly. The group don't really do rules, and are all fairly new to gaming (less than 1 year), but lap up story and narration and SotC seems to be a great fit.

Although we get through a fair wodge of fate chips, I do wonder if 10 is too many, especially as our games only last a couple of hours at a time. I've started experimenting with 5 apiece, and we haven't really ran out yet.

Oh, and of course we had a "next week on ..." at the end, this time properly embracing the PTA spirit and picking out some scenes and plots. So next time we have ninjas, crabs (possibly ninja crabs) and a trip to the World Trade Fair in Tokyo. Oh, and a request that Cash Prize's dead father, Bonus Prize, makes an appearance. I have a plot already!

[iago]

This is great stuff, Andrew.  Thanks for posting it!

Although we get through a fair wodge of fate chips, I do wonder if 10 is too many, especially as our games only last a couple of hours at a time. I've started experimenting with 5 apiece, and we haven't really ran out yet.

This is something that needs to be right-sized for the group.  I certainly know folks *can* burn through 10 fate points in a 2.5 hour session -- I'm currently playing in a Fate game (not SOTC's setting, but SOTC based) where we have 5, and it's rare that I don't run out of my fate points -- unless I'm getting some nice compels -- by the 3/4ths mark.

Oh, and of course we had a "next week on ..." at the end, this time properly embracing the PTA spirit and picking out some scenes and plots. So next time we have ninjas, crabs (possibly ninja crabs) and a trip to the World Trade Fair in Tokyo. Oh, and a request that Cash Prize's dead father, Bonus Prize, makes an appearance. I have a plot already!

Eeeexcellent!