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Message: <blockquote data-quote="HeapThaumaturgist" data-source="post: 1625784" data-attributes="member: 12332">Yea, I need to get to work writing up the rest of this episode, we finished the adventure months ago.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />I've been busy recently playing Alternity.  My new in-laws like gaming alot, and new systems, and none of them had played Alternity before.  I'd brought my D20Modern book and the Dark*Matter book, but we've been playing original Dark*Matter and Star*Drive.  Last night was the first D*M adventure and the first time I've ever run "Exit 23" ... didn't go as planned, didn't go TOO horribly, but I let the folks make their own PCs and one guy got a little too carried away with the Perks and Flaws arena ...  And now I'm off to run Raw Recuits.UPDATEWell, I ran Raw Recruits AND London Calling tonight ... Raw Recruits went very well, if VERY different from how most people seem to have run it.  It was a very quick adventure because the team went in to investigate what they were sent in to learn ... and little else.  To them, their cover was alot more important than, I quote:  "Going Mulder on these people and getting ourselves in the toilet with Patterson."  Some highlights:"Shhh, the kid's room has bugs all over it ... he's being watched by Masons." "Yea, the Coach had a Masonic ring ... and I bet the teacher is one of the 'Daughters of Lot'."  ((  For those of you that don't know about the Masons, there's an order for the girls (younger girls, anyway, and daughters of Masons) called "The Order of the Daughters of Job" ... in the bible Lot's daughters were the ones who got their dad drunk and slept with him.  ))Some things never came up in play:Every time I had them roll a Perception check to notice Amanda Jernigan (the teacher/Jerry's mother) ... IE, when she got in the SUV etc, everybody failed it ... then, after drawing the connection between Amanda and the "bugged" items, and me dropping the fact that she lived ACROSS THE STREET twice, nobody thought to go over there to check out her place.After being very sure to catch the whole "Poltergeist Strike" on tape ... nobody thinks to go back and review the tape at all.The gang very quickly figured out that Jerry was the source of the poltergeist activity around the house, which seemed to satisfy them.  They went to the game to tape Jerry and FINALLY spotted Amanda Jernigan and FINALLY spotted the MIBs for the very first time."As you're looking around the game, looking for anybody with a particular interest in Jerry, you notice two men in the upper bleachers ... white shirts, narrow black ties, hats, overcoats ... sunglasses at sundown ...""Ah.  I was wondering when they were going to show up."At the end of the game the three people in the group split up, one to follow the MIBs, one to follow Amanda, the last to try and corner Jerry after the game.  Jerry and Amanda get in his jeep and drive off with one of the group running behind trying to get his attention.  Amanda turns to scowl, but Jerry does not, even though that PC was the person he came to trust and had talked with about his "problem" earlier.The person with the van shows up and they set off to tail Jerry, but when he tries to lose them in traffic they decide that the case parameters were to find out WHY things were happening at the Desmond house, not chase down "Masonic Psychic Recruiters" and get in car accidents.  So they broke chase and headed back to Chicago with enough evidence to show that Jerry Desmond was a psychic talent and that Amanda Jernigan and The Coach were probably Masonic agents interested in his talent.Totally and utterly incorrect ... but it DID meet with what Patterson had sent them out there to do AND they never broke cover with the Desmond family AT ALL, so the party felt it was very much mission accomplished.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />One of the players had taken "Danger Sense" as a perk for his PC (Jenn, a female Physicist and UFO buff).  We'd discussed what this meant earlier (during Exit 23) and he'd decided that maybe Jenn was a latent ESP talent.  Which sounded good to me.  I told him she got headaches around the "Masonic bugs"   (nobody really put 2 and 2 together untill they decided formally and finally to break off and return to base, THEN somebody says "Hey, I bet these things do something wonky with psychic abilities.") and as they were heading off for Chicago she had an "episode" and a vision of a woman and a young man floating upward in a shaft of light.  To which the player replied:  "Hrmmm, now THAT'S interesting ... I take it there was just a LITTLE more to the teacher angle, then."  During the wrap-up the group was sent a memo several days after to the effect of that Amanda Jernigan and Jerry Desmond weren't seen again after the game and were reported as missing persons some time later.  Since it was still early, I said we could do quick housekeeping and move on to London Calling.  I started them at lvl 1 for Exit 23, and bounced them to 2 for Raw Recruits.  After "Raw Recruits" I bounced them to lvl 3.  Justin (Jenn's player) used the skill points to buy the ESP broad skill, then took the Wild Talent flaw and with those skill points bought Precognition.  Which works out really well for me, as now I have an Instant Plot Device ... which came in real handy during London Calling, as once again the group totally ignored one line of questioning while shooting right to a conclusion (though this time a right conclusion).  Actually, London Calling worked out so well I'd like to do a Story Hour write up of how it went ... although it isn't officially D20.  I have to say that was quite possibly THE BEST adventure I've ever run.My favorite bits of table talk from that session:"Do I need to make a roll or something to see if I can find a broom handle and some duct tape? ... Do they HAVE duct tape in England?"andPlayer 1:  "I surreptitiously pull the tranq gun from under the blanket in the trunk ..."Player 2:  "You're going to try and TRANQULIZE the demon ..."Player 1:  "Hrm.  Yea.  You have a point.  ... Should work pretty well on his little Voodoo Handler Dude though, shouldn't it?  Now ... do I have any idea which one of them is the demon ... ?"--fje</blockquote>

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