Forum

[Hobo]

Yeah, I'm startin up another Story Hour. "But Mr. Joshua Dyal, why don't you just finish one of your old ones?" I'm sure you're saying. Why indeed?

This particular story hour is more like a story minute. On November 15th, there was the infamous Chicago ENWorld Gameday, and I drove over from Detroit to join the fun. I ended up running two scenarios, the "Duchess' Tea Party" and "Exit 23" which is a Dark•Matter module converted up into d20 Modern. Because of the nature of the two games, it will be much easier for me to write a story hour of the second rather than the first, so this thread will have me posting chunks of Dark•Matter while I think about a good way to write up the other game.

Because I'm not one of those kinds of "memory people", I don't recall a lot of the dialogue or even the exact sequence of events, even though this only took place a few days ago. So, this story hour is a reasonable approximation of the game, not the game as it actually played. It's close to the game that actually played, but not exact.

I gave all the PCs pregens; in fact, I used the characters from the Dark•Matter book and "converted" them into d20 Modern. Conversion is a term I use fairly loosely, what I actually did was read the character summary paragraph and use simply that. Dark•Matter split the characters fairly equally in terms of gender, but two of the players had female pregens that they subsequently changed the gender of. Here's a quick summary of the dramatis personae.

• Jane McDermott: Jane McDermott grew up in Boise, Idano. After attending a local community college for two years, she took the Idaho State Trooper exam and plassed with flying colors. She's been out of the academy for about a year and a half now, which is long enough that her peers don't call her "rookie" anymore unless they're trying to get under her skin. In fact, her fellow officers made a point of giving her a necklace with a silver bullet on it to commemorate the time she saved a man from a rabid coyote that attacked him while he was changing his tire on the roadside.
  
  Officer McDermott is tall and athletic. She has always enjoyed physical challanges, and she spends a lot of her off-duty time rock climbing and working on her tae kwon do. She's very stubborn and self-reliant, and strongly inclined to handle situations by herself instead of calling in help if it's at all possible. That might get her into trouble someday...
  
  Player: William Ronald
  
  d20 Modern Conversion: 3rd level Strong Hero
  
  
• Will Wheeler: Will Wheeler is a native of Moscow, Idaho. He joined the Army right out of high school and served for a four-year enlistment before coming back home to work on his father's ranch. When the ranch failed and tax collectors confiscated his family's land, Will decided that he didn't need to support the government with his tax dollars anymore. He's drifted through a couple of militia groups and his currnelty living in an isolated "free haven" run by a group calling itself the Liberty Church. Will's also a little bit wanted by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, but they haven't posted an APB on him yet.
  
  Will is a short, broad-shouldered man built like a baby bull. He dresses in camo pants, Army boots, and T-shirts, and he wears his hair shoulder-length. He's paranoid and angry, and he's got a lot of guns. But he honestly believes that America could be a better place, and he's willing to do anything to make it all happen.
  
  Player: jalea
  
  d20 Modern Conversion: 3rd level Tough Hero.
  
  
• Dr. Ned Neary (formery Nadine Neary): Dr. Neary lives in Rochester, Minnesota, where he works at the Mayo Clinic. His specialty is infectious diseses, and he often consults with the CDC -- the Centers for Disease Control. He grew up in Iowa and attended Iowa State on an athletic scholarship before he went to medical school; he's still in good shape, and he likes to exercise to get his mind off his work. Dr. Neary is currently headed for Seattle, where he is scheduled to speak at a microbiology conference.
  
  Ned Neary is a small, slender man with short-cropped hair and a friendly, open manner. He has a knack for putting people at ease.
  
  Player: shadowlight
  
  d20 Modern Conversion: 3rd level Dedicated Hero.
  
  
• Don Truitt (formerly Donna Truitt): Don Truitt is a professional burglar. He specializes in coroporate espionage and similar high-security break-ins, stealing research data, account information, and similar materials on a contract basis. He was recruited and trained by the CIA out of college, but he left the Agency several years ago to pursue a freelance career. While he's very capable of defending himself if discovered, Don is very careful to avoid hurting people; he even refuses to work for people who might use the material he recovers to harm innocent people. Don currently resides in Seattle, since many of his jobs take him to various high-tech corridors around the Pacific Rim.
  
  Don is a physically fit man with dark hair and a disarming smile. He's very cynical and suspicious of people representing business or government interests. He usually tells people that he works as a security consultant.
  
  Player: Hoog
  
  d20 Modern Conversion: 3rd level Fast Hero
  
  
• Dr. Phillip Akens: Dr. Akens has been studying paranormal activity for more than twenty years. He started out by investigating alleged haunted houses and psychic phenomena as a graduate student, and he's become one of hte foremost experts on ghosts, hauntings, and occult traditions in the Midwest. Most academics don't take him seriously, of course, but Dr. Akens is one of the more reputable specialists in his field. He teaches anthropology and linguistics and Marquette University in Milwaukee in order to maintain some credibility with the college administration and to fund his occult investigations.
  
  Dr. Akens is a tall, dignified man forty years of age, with a thoughtful manner and a deep, pleasant voice. He always takes people at their word and assumes that they're telling the truth about their experiences until hard evidence proves otherwise.
  
  Dr. Akens ia currently travelling to Portland to look into a reported haunted house. He's accompanied by Doug Nichols, a photojournalist.
  
  Player: Trevalon Moonleirion
  
  d20 Modern Conversion: 3rd level Smart Hero.
  
  
• Doug Nichols: Ever since he was a kid, Doug Nichols has loved cameras and journalism. He worked on his school paper, served a tour in the Navy as a journalism specialist, and started freelancing as a photographer as soon as he got out of the service. He's been all over the world, specializing in archeology shoots and nature documentaries. Documentary work pays the bills, but Nichols has another hobby -- ghost-hunting. When he can find the time, he tries his hand a paranormal investigation, hoping to catch an image of something that's never been photographed before.
  
  Nichols is a rangy, big-boned man in his late twenties. He has a laid-back manner, and he enjoys outdoor sports of all kinds. He's currently travling with Dr. Phillip Akens, a paranormal investigator who intends to check out a reported haunting in Portland. But after that, Nichols hopes to get in some mountaineering, extreme skiing, and hiking around the southern Cascades before heading home.
  
  Player: cdsaint
  
  d20 Modern Conversion: 3rd level Charismatic Hero.

As the story progresses, I intend to write it up in "story format"; that is, not as a play session or play log, but rather as if it were a short story (or novella, as it will more likely turn out to be.) When I do make OOC DM comments, I'll highlight the comments like so.