Describe your last RPG session in more than 5 words.

[John Dallman]

GURPS 4e Day After Ragnarok, in Australia:

Japanese mini-sub caught napping, captured.

To describe it from the victim's point of view:

You're the sole crewman on board the sub. The other three left two days ago to go onto land on an uninhabited island, light a fire, cook some of the penguins there and generally relax a bit. You've been living with them in this sub for several weeks, making preparations for setting up an intelligence-gathering base here, 50 kilometres north of Sydney. They have never been more than a few hours before, so you're getting worried.

There's someone knocking on the hull in morse code, using the international signal book, saying "Surface." This can't be your crew, they have a code to tell you to let them in, so you've been found by the enemy! You blow tanks, which works fine, and start the electric motor. That doesn't go so well: the propeller's making lots of noise and no thrust.

You arrive at the surface. You grab your SMG and go out through the airlock, wanting to take a few of the Emperor's enemies with you. There's a large armed launch with crew on deck, who start ducking as you spray them with fire. Then someone in the same kind of diving gear as your crew shows up behind you, grabs you and takes you into the sea. He can breathe underwater and you can't, so you lose that struggle and are captured.


We'd put metal bars through the guards on the propellers so they could not turn and the sub could not run or ram. The propeller blades broke off. He didn't hit anyone with the sub-machine gun, although he broke a couple of windows on the MTB. He didn't try to scuttle the sub, probably due to the psychological effects of exposure to Serpent venom.

 

[soviet]

How do all you guys know these sessions are going to be your last?

 

[Golden Bee]

White and Red and Read All Over

The police started sweeping the bar. Lancaster stood up, hoping to distract them and keep their cover.
“Ohmyword,” said the badge. “I never thought I’d actually meet you. Can you sign my 1934 Who’s Who in New York Business?”

Sometimes the sidetrack becomes the main track. This adventure started off with some straightforward scenes: Rafe justifying himself and his adventures to his board; Zelda remembering her 12th birthday, where her brother was kicked out of the house and she got her first pair of contraband western jeans; Aussie reporter Trudy attending an awards luncheon with her coworker Jake S.

The most involved had Gia CM, mob-associated magician, and mercenary Calvin Davino guarding an interrogation in a remote Atlantic City warehouse. The Nucky Thompson outfit wanted to see if they still had the stomach for what needed to be done.

Turns out they didn't. When the interrogator went to lunch, the duo talked to the tormented. Gia, natural confidante, found out that the stolen necklace couldn't have been taken by the woman getting worked over, because it was already stolen by Thaza O’Rourke. Gia didn't point the finger directly, but when Louie the Nose came back, she suggested that the stolen item was in New York City at an Irish bar. Satisfied, he let Calvin and Gia drive the woman to a hospital.
***
Elsewhere, the Melbourne Age was flying off newsstands. Trudy’s stories of globetrotting adventure were big. So were exposés on the dangerous General Saeki.

Trudy won Reporter of the Year, beating out her coworker Jake Sullivan. When the group visited (to check on the progress of ZSS Australia), she very quickly learned that the ace American reporter… was Zelda's ex.

Before this awkwardness could dissipate, there was even more tension. The anti-Japanese paper was entertaining a purchase agreement… From a Japanese conglomerate.

Rafe was flabbergasted. “Itonia Corporation? Wait… It ‘ony’ a corporation?”

Trudy reluctantly brought her friends to work. Zelda recognized "Mr. Uchida” as a spy she met during the adventure White Devils of the South Pacific, but kept quiet out of loyalty to her country. Uchida played humble, emphasizing international cooperation. He received minimal questioning from the party, because he was surrounded by a throng of journalists who wanted to know if they would be fired or not.

Zelda meant to dig deeper… Until she ran into Jake. Awkward.

During a tour of the office, Calvin flirted with Uchida, and Trudy’s keen senses noticed a bomb in the mail room before it could detonate. She threw out the window to an empty lot nearby… and that's when the adventure derailed.

While a newspaper being sent a bomb is one of the most realistic things that's ever happened in this game, it didn’t blow up all the evidence. So instead of a raid on a secret Japanese military facility, we had the players tracking down the heartbroken owner of a junkyard.

There was a really funny scene though, when Zelda, Calvin and Trudy went to break into the yard… with each member thinking the other two were the skilled burglars. (None of them had the skill, so during the interlude, all they did was hide from the police and keep some local kids from breaking in.)

The bomber was an ANZAC veteran who had had to break off his engagement to his Japanese fiancée due to social pressure. He blamed the newspaper for fomenting racial intolerance, and sent a bomb. Trudy, prioritizing her journalism over the reputation of the ZSS, decided to interview him and give him to the police.

The group finally got back on the main mission, as Rafe investigated the Age’s owner's reason for selling. (Owner Thorton was willing to sell a good newspaper if it meant also selling his distressed sheep farm and railroad interests.) That meant scuttling the sale made a lot more sense than buying the paper, and indirectly becoming Trudy’s boss… and Zelda ex’s boss.

The group uncovered Uchida’s perfidious behavior. They were convincing Trudy's editor when Uchida showed up with Thornton, check in hand. The spy fled, with only Calvin pursuing. And despite the merc's agility, he had a weakness.

Uchida kissed the mercenary on the lips and fled to a waiting car, leaving the Filipino sputtering his catchphrase, “hands off the merchandise”.

 

[AnotherGuy]

Kelemvor intercedes, ruins Halaster's fun​

HISTORY: Paladin of Kelemvor trapped in Undermountain where Halaster continually respawns him via the Clone spell for entertainment. Halaster has clones of almost the entire party (long story). In real-time the player has been playing an NPC, Maccath the Crimson, as their primary character now for around a year-and-a-half while their primary character has been trapped in Undermountain.

CURRENT SESSION: Kelemvor, god of death and the dead, finally interceded as after a while he could no longer abide watching a follower (and Chosen) of his, the paladin Locke Lamar being a spectacle and having his Domain (Death) ridiculed for entertainment/sport. So he set up a method whereby Locke could attempt to escape his torment from the Mad Mage, Halaster Blackcloak, by requiring the paladin to return to his core belief again and likely accept some sacrifice.

While in quiet contemplation between sessions of entertaining Halaster as he battled through Undermountain, Locke heard his inner voice say quite firmly Death is not a sport. Do you have what it takes?

He opened his eyes to find himself in some sort of cavern where myriads of upright mirrors reflected distinct versions of himself. He was acutely aware that each Locke was beckoning him and saying something but that he had to approach the mirrors to hear their message.
The mirrors, which were not positioned in any understood order, were all facing a skeletal arm bursting through the earth holding up empty scales (weight scales). This Locke recognized as the symbol of Kelemvor.

He approached each mirror and heard their repetitive messages, each Locke voiced a different message. The longer he stayed at each mirror the more animated and insistent the Mirror-Locke became.

The life of the dead is placed in the memory of the living.

I intend to live forever, or die trying

A single death is a tragedy

To the well-organized mind, death is but the next great adventure.

Death is not the opposite of life, but a part of it

The life of the dead is placed in the memory of the living.

I would rather die a meaningful death than to live a meaningless life

Death is but a sport (this was a clue)

Life and death are one thread, the same line viewed from different sides

I'm not afraid to die.

None of these messages truly resonated with Locke but nevertheless he liked I would rather die a meaningful death than to live a meaningless life. There was merit in it he thought. And so he reached out and touched the mirror which was indeed solid. At that moment, the mirror's Locke stopped repeating its message and instead said Break Me!
Without any sense of hesitation, Locke pulled out his weapon and smashed the mirror which shattered easily, revealing an inky black portal in its place - the animated Locke no longer.
The paladin stepped through the portal only to appear once more in the centre of the room near the symbol of Kelemvor with the facing mirrors.

Somewhat confused, Locke took a moment to determine what this all meant and he once more remembered his inner voice Death is not a sport. Do you have what it takes?
He moved to another mirror and shattered it, and then another, and then another until only inky black portals remained, no more Lockes beckoning with messages. He was lost and so he returned to his patron's symbol in the centre of this cavern, knelt and began to pray for guidance.

MECHANICS: I instructed the player to make d20 + Religion(Charisma) check. Due to his character's level and ability the modifier was +10.
The DC was set at 30 with +1 for every portal he had stepped through, therefore he had DC 31.
The portals were traps with the Mirror-Lockes providing death ideologies which countered/clashed that of Kelemvor's, but they were convincing due as a result of the time he had spent dying and re-cloning in Halaster's Undermountain.

However, the challenge was set-up with Success, Success at a Cost or Ulitimate Failure.

Result 1 - Success
Result 2 - Success at a Cost with a modifier (costs and modifiers being cumulative)

• Rank 1 - Bloodied and Temporary Condition (Dazed, Hungry, Stunned, Thirsty etc), +2 modifier
• Rank 2 - Exhaustion Levels = number of Ranks, +3 modifier
• Rank 3 - Permanent Condition (Blind, Deaf, Mute etc) and Resource Depleted, +4 modifier
• Rank 4 - Long Term Madness, +5 modifier
• Rank 5 - Unconscious and Dying (death saves), +6 modifier

Result 3 - Ultimate Failure, Locke is forever trapped in Halaster's game in Undermountain. Only with the help of the rest of the party can he escape.

Player rolled a 22 (including his modifier), so he required rank 3 (+9 to succeed)

RESULT: With the help of Kelemvor, Locke found himself back in his old room of the temple he was stationed at in the City of Splendors, Waterdeep, in the sacred alcove which had served as his sanctuary many times for Word of Recall. The room was different now, there seemed to be no trace of his belongings...he clutched his forehead, and extened an arm against the wall to steady himself.
He was bloodied, disorientated, exhausted and depleted of energy. He uttered words of thanks to Kelemvor for this mighty gift returning him back to his life away from the tortorous pleasures of the Mad Mage, but even as he spoke, he heard nothing...