A gaming report in three sections: Mechanics and Story interlaced, followed by Integration (wherein I realize, only as I continue to fit pieces together in my mind, how cool the session actually was). This is going to be long, I'm afraid, but it's because such really cool stuff happened.

Coming off of last session I had more Story Tokens than the other two players put together. That essentially means that I need to drive the story toward something I really want, and do my best to make it happen. So I figured that what I wanted was for my villain, Vanessa Faust, to take over the time-travel station that they all operate out of, by any means necessary. This is the big coup that's been foreshadowed since the first session.

Sydney introduced a scene of Young Vanessa, apparently already time-travelling. Sydney was at only 3 Story Tokens, so pretty desperate to drag some high-debt characters in to beat on him. It didn't work. We beat on him with a Victorian Governess and a persistent suitor, neither of whom had Debt. We quickly established that flash-back-young Vanessa was only using the simulator technology of her advanced culture to pretend to time travel (and perhaps to dream), and furthermore that she was now being forced into a loveless marriage with aforementioned persistent suitor. She is a free spirit utterly hemmed in by the unfairness and hypocrisy of her time. Scene ends.

I establish a scene where Vanessa is arguing that Ransom (Eric's character and our team leader) should be removed from command, because he really screwed up last session. Eric brilliantly brings in a council of Victorian busy-bodies (in charge of the time-travel station) as a character under his control. The conflict starts out with both Vanessa and Ransom goring each other verbally (he doomed the population of a planet, she tried to destroy the station). As Vanessa realizes that she cannot win this discussion by words, she calls in her demonic guard (which has, in a complicated but inevitable series of events, been guarding the very station she tried to destroy).

Having lost some and won some, I up the ante with "Goal: Kill enough Victorians that the rest fall into line." The coup goes from diplomatic to military with remarkable speed. People start dying. I was starting to realize, just then, how Sydney's short, previous scene had changed my entire outlook on Vanessa. These Victorians were her enemy and always had been, even though (because!) she was one of them. She wanted them... not dead, dead was merely a means to an end. She wanted to wipe that smug sense of virtue off of them. She wanted to prove that their virtue was a sham. I got to use a wonderful line: "I believed in people like you once... that's why I'm a widow." And both Sydney and Eric immediately got the implication: You forced me to marry that jerk, so what could I do except kill him?

I also brought in the conflict that Ransom and Vanessa had been worrying over from day one: Goal: Somebody takes on the authority of the vanished Tempus. This was clearly it. This was going to resolve in that room. Power debt got staked on "Kill Victorians", and Despair debt on "Sieze Tempus's Authority." Eric countered with Love debt on "Sieze Authority." Vanessa made it very clear: Join her or die. She had the power, defeat was inevitable, it was time to give in. Ransom made his position equally clear: She could kill and maim and they could not stop her, but she could never break the bonds of fellowship and goodness that the people of Chrysalis share. This was the moment when I was absolutely sure that I was going to win this conflict. I have heard this claim "Goodness and unity will win out over badness and lots of fire-arms" so often. It's just words, happy little words for happy little roleplayers. Easy to say. What I've realized in the hours since the session ended is that for the past several months I have not believed that the other players meant it.

Sydney brought in Minerva, who had departed under really wrong circumstances. And she staked two points of Love Debt on Ransom's side of "Sieze Tempus's Authority". Because Sydney is entirely ingenious that way. Minerva, the lonely little girl who never belonged, returns in Ransom's darkest hour... because he has touched her heart, in his way, and she repays her debts. Vanessa sneers at such a show of naivete and keeps fighting. I was still utterly convinced I was going to win. Which is provocative, because any objective look at the system would show me clearly that I was doomed as of that moment. But, remember, I did not believe they meant their words.

The two of them quickly ran their five-die total up to twenty-three. I had three six-sided dice. I would not give up. I ran my dice quickly up to their maximum of eighteen, and then started painstakingly trying to whittle down the opposing dice. I used everything I had... and got them down to nineteen. One point shy of what I needed. Only when there was, literally, nothing left that I could possibly do did I concede defeat. Vanessa fought like a wild-cat, holding nothing back. The Victorians stood proud, even while being slaughtered, showing that you can gore their bodies but never can you kill their beliefs. Vanessa's response? "Kill more of them... they'll crack." And she did... and they didn't. And that broke her. She called off her forces, and accepted the appointment of Ransom to head Chrysalis. Eric has had an ongoing issue that Ransom does not want to be in charge of things. I think it's about Ransom's self-doubt, particularly compared with Tempus (who never doubted himself). He really shone in this scene: acknowledging that he wasn't perfect, but also saying very firmly that he was going to try, that his doubts about himself were not going to hold him back. Sydney has had an ongoing issue that Minerva does not care about things. I think it's about Minerva's fear. She really shone in this scene: acknowledging that things don't work out for the best, but there, fighting, anyway.

Seriously? Ransom became a leader that I want to follow, right there in that scene. And, also, Eric became a leader that I want to follow, right there at that table. I want to give him power over me and see what happens. I trust him.

Minerva became a girl I want to help to happiness, right there in that scene. And, also, Sydney became a player whose story I want to support as well as challenge, right there at that table. I want to give him the challenges he needs to tell this character, but I want to be on her side as she faces them. It's important to me that she wins. Even if (as Sydney often says) she is "made to suffer", I want to be with her through it.

Vanessa is an indictment against all of the roleplayers who've ever told me "We're going to be heroes" and then caved. I subconsciously believed that I was still playing with such people, because I've been burned so often. That wouldn't have been a problem... I don't require my friends to be personally heroic, even in the context of roleplaying. But... damn... to fully put them to the test and to find out that they are heroic, in even this small way? That they really mean what they say and that, when push comes to shove, they'll fight and sacrifice to achieve it? That makes me feel very blessed.

I now had a ton of Story Tokens and a ton of Debt. Lots of power on hand, but no plan for how to use it. Off the top of my head I added "Goal: Vanessa is appointed as Ransom's second-in-command." Despite the slaughter and carnage, Ransom has to think about how to return Chrysalis to peace. One look at Vanessa (plus a wordless but involved conflict) is enough to show him that she cannot be shuffled off to one side. He appoints her as his second in command. What I didn't realize until this morning is that Vanessa isn't doing this for her own personal power. She's doing this because it keeps her close to Ransom. He has achieved a strange power over her, one that she doesn't want to resist. He's the person that her parents pretended to be as their hypocrisy ruined her life. He's the genuine article.

So I emailed the other players this morning to tell them that I was restructuring Vanessa's character sheet. I was removing the Power Drive ("The world is ruled by those with the strength to rule it") and the conflict it had attached about Tempus's Authority and replacing it with a Love Drive ("How you connect with people in this world is important") and a relationship-building Goal with Ransom.

I have no idea how that will turn out. Will it be love, friendship, wary respect, a thwarted connection? I just don't know. But I really, really want to have the other players tell me. I am more fascinated by their characters than I have ever been by any other characters I've played with. Because I know that these characters aren't fake... they are, on at least some level, connected to real stuff that's really present in the people sitting around the table with me. I don't have to take it on faith (always with that niggling doubt). I have tested their resolve, and it did not break.