Awesome Adventures: In the Player's Seat

[Willow]

I don't often get the chance to play Awesome Adventures, so when Brendan said he wanted to run it, I was quite keen to join in.  Our setting was 1950s inspired pulp/noir, Earth-based, with some sci-fi elements thrown in.  The Time of Troubles for our setting was WWII.

My character was Miss Scarlet, a gorgeous femme fatale private eye with a ray-gun, who had grown up as an amateur child sleuth in the vein of Encyclopedia Brown or Nancy Drew, and her adventures were later serialized as an adult.  During WWII, she worked as a codebreaker stateside in Detroit, the "jewel of the American north," center of technological advancement.  In her novel, "Miss Scarlet and the Red Menace," she intrigued against communist spies trying to find an ancient Martian ruin beneath the city, and fought a giant giant robot.  Superb skill was Charm, Great were Perception and Burglary, Good were Engineering, Contacts, and Guns.

Tim played a Martian warrior who came to Earth, discovered Mexican wrestling, and took up the way of the Luchador.  He joined with the allies in the Pacific theater during WWII.  In his novel, "The Thin Green Line," he helped rescue POWs in the Phillipines.  He also had a flying custom corvette that matched his Luchador outfit.  Tim's apex skill was Fighting.

Len played 'Prometheus,' a Russian expatriate who emigrated to Detroit after inventing a powerful battlesuit.  He was drafted into the American military, and worked closely with the airforce.  In his novel, "Prometheus and the Yellow Man," he fought his Japanese counterpart Dreadnought over the skies of recently freed China.  His apex skill was Resolve.  He also had Drive at Great, which he used quite a bit for piloting and using his battlesuit.

Brendan tried something new and quite interesting: he made the session's villain alongside the heroes.  Johnny Turn, "The Face," was a mystery man turned from good to evil.  During childhood, he was a close friend of Sara Scarlet and a member of the Crimebusting Club.  In WWII though, he was left for dead by Prometheus, and horribly burned and disfigured.  Tim's Martian warrior crafted a synthetic mask for him, but the good was drained out of him.

The session started with a posh gala at Bell Tower in Detroit, where Prometheus's sister was giving a talk about a strange transmission received from Mars.  But Johnny Turn was there, and hijacked the building for his own purposes, kidnapping the sister and brainwashing her.  Meanwhile hordes of caterers and ninjabots delayed an interfered with our heroes.  Scarlet pickpocketed a business card with key information scrawled on it, narrowly escaped a bomb by throwing it down an elevator shaft, and collapsed the radio tower to help refugees escape onto another rooftop.  The Martian and Prometheus fought many a ninjabot and flew after captives, Johnny, and other bots in car/battlesuit.  Scarlet fell from the tower and had to be saved by the others.  Eventually, Johnny Turn got away to Turn Tower, but our heroes had regrouped.

After a short scene involving checking the sister's house for clues, we regrouped with some allied Martians, learned that another Colossus Robot was headed for Earth bent on destroying it and was controlled by Johnny, and we cracked the signal and found a potential override code.  But Turn Tower had turned into a giant rocket, and we had to take the flying car into space!  Miss Scarlet fainted, but they managed to get her to safety before air completely ran out.  Then a tense showdown of Martians vs. samuraibots and Johnny Turn wearing the powerarmor of the Dreadnought, facing off against Prometheus in a cool powerarmor fight.  Scarlet snuck to the computer command center, where Prometheus's sister was mindcontrolled by a Martian relic, and Scarlet tried to stop the activation of the giant robot.

After defeating Johnny, it turned out that the Mask was attuned to the giant martian robot and was controlling Johnny.  In trying to get the Mask of Johnny, Scarlett accidentally was taken over by the it.  It was a lot of fun playing the pawn of the mask.  I got a compel for laughing maniacally after activating the giant robot.  However, I got a Resolve roll to work against it, and got a Charm assist from the action "I try to keep myself talking"- let the alien influence continue to monologue, while I exert some control on the keyboard.  With a good roll and a aspect tag from earlier, the deactivation codes are sent, and disaster is averted!

The Mask was wrenched off of Scarlet and tossed into space.  Unfortunately, Prometheus's sister was still controlled by the artifact and got away.  Our heroes climbed into a sturdy elevator, rocketed back towards Earth, and reentered the atmosphere.

This was a lot of fun.  I had a great time making a character; I usually supervise this activity.  I hope Brendan posts some info from the character sheets; my text for the phases was very pulp-copy text.  Brendan did a good job bringing in aspects.  For example, Scarlet had the aspect "Time is Running Out!" so there were lots of deadlines and ticking down clocks.  I got a compel for suggesting she spend 12 minutes climbing many stairs in heels when a key event was 15 minutes away.

Many thanks to Brendan for running this game.

[Wordmaker]

Sounds awesome. I love the FATE system, and it's really cool seeing different games use it.

[Joshua A.C. Newman]

...who had grown up as an amateur child sleuth in the vein of Encyclopedia Brown or Nancy Drew, and her adventures were later serialized as an adult.

This is so fucking good. This seems ripe for a flashback system.