Describe your last RPG session in more than 5 words.

[John Dallman]

GURPS 4e in Alfred the Great's England:

Fistfights as friendship rituals - Danes!

It's August of the year 875. The party is in Lundenwic ("London Port") which is around the mouth of the River Fleet, about a mile upstream of Roman Lundinium. Our mission for Alfred is to find out where the Great Heathen Army is, who is leading it, and where it plans to attack this summer.

We are Eadric, a Thegn from Wessex, Gunhild, a Danish woman warrior who serves in Alfred's bodyguard and might be considered a renegade by the Danes, and William, a skilled doctor from Winchester Minster. This is quite a low-point campaign; the characters were built on 120 points but strongly advised to keep 5 points in reserve for the "only a flesh wound" rule, and/or buying yourself out of a death (the GM used to run Honor & Intrigue).

We've just had lunch, on our first full day in the city. We spent the morning buying jewellery and furs for Gunhild in the market to raise her apparent status to 3, equal to Eadric. While doing that, she met a Danish furrier who knew her when she was a child in Jorvik (Danish-ruled York). He told her that her parents are alive, well, and prospering there; she has not seen them for over a decade (there's a lot of back-story there).

Our first priority was to settle on our story about why we are venturing into Danish-conquered territory. It is that Gunhild is considering marrying Eadric, and wants to take him to meet her parents in Jorvik. It had been going to be searching for her parents, but now she knows where they are, and that the furrier will likely reach Jorvik by sea before we do overland, it can be simplified. As an excuse for being off the direct route, Eadric wishes to look up distant (fictional) relatives in Lincoln.

With that settled, Gunhild set off for the Danish garrison, where we already knew Haesten Flokisson rules the city (and collects taxes) on behalf of Guthrum, a Danish leader who styles himself King of East Anglia. They are not being heavy-handed on the city, because it yields lots of tax revenue and they don't wish to spoil that. They have left the churches in operation, and allow people to come and go freely.

Gunhild arrives at the garrison to ask for news from the route to York up Ermine Street. The guards don't take her very seriously. They tell her that she will need to ask Haesten for news, and that he likes gifts, especially silver, pretty women (she isn't), and arm-wrestling.

Meanwhile, William writes a report on our travels so far, to be sent back to Winchester via a church messenger from the Bishop of London to the Bishop of Winchester. The Danes are almost all pagans, and the Anglo-Saxons Christians, so the church is quite willing to help; the party is staying in a house in the cathedral grounds.

Eadric goes out to gather rumours in the ale-houses. He doesn't learn much, except about the local brewers.

Gunhild decides to spend the afternoon talking to Danes in the ale-houses. In one of those, she tells a Danish warrior to leave the serving wench alone (he's trying to take her clothes off, against serious resistance, which is going a bit far). He gets annoyed by that, and after a little posturing, they go outside for a fight. He's Sigurd. He recites his ancestry and feats, drawing a crowd and his companions, Ulf and Revna, start taking bets. Gunhild and Sigurd agree on a fistfight without armour. She gets lucky and beats him.

He's greatly amused by this, and all three of those Danes invite Gunhild to drink with them. They are part of Haesten Flokisson's group at the garrison. She explains what she was after there, and they recommend bringing mead, or other sweet stuff, which Haesten likes. Haesten and some of his group were part of the Great Heathen Army until assigned here. Ulf, Revna and Sigurd came to Jorvik by ship from Denmark, then by ship to Lundenwic to join up. They’ve heard rumours the GHA is coming south, but there are also rumours of some of it going North, both groups starting at Jorvik.

Gunhild got mead, and went with them to the garrison as evening approached. There are about 50 warriors there, a couple of ship-loads. She is introduced to Haesten, who is is much entertained by her beating Sigurd, who is very fond of fighting. He tells her that one group of the GHA is heading north to Durham, under Halfdan. Guthrum is coming south, likely to get more of Mercia. He was nearly ready to leave when Haesten and company left Jorvik a few weeks ago.

Gunhild stays a while longer and then returns to the cathedral close, loosing her coin-purse to a pickpocket on the way. She tells William everything that she can remember, and he writes an addendum to the report. The messenger has not left yet, so both parts will go together.

We consider if we've accomplished our mission, and we think not. This is only rumours - from good sources, but not solid information.

Note that almost the whole session consisted of solo scenes, mostly Gunhild. An espionage campaign tends to be like that.

 

[Golden Bee]

Only a Scheme in Rio
Tá de sacanagem? Que isso?
New readers ask: Who are you people?!

A dreary February in New Orleans. The place to be is the Astor Home for Sun-Kissed Girls, where all day, the party prepares a party. JP Diamond puts in long hours running background checks on every last caterer. Lawyer Tácito Uriel Velasco makes sure the police aren't going to shut down the shindig (and is surprised when they send not only a security detail but a donation). Detective Zelda Saeki helps decorate, butler Aldous Bingen handles parking and logistics, and actress Lala Santinella casts herself as the goddess Columbia in the orphans’ play. (She spends plenty of time running lines with her adopted daughter Devika, who plays the evil Mr. Plutarch.)

The play goes merely fine (which frustrates theatre impresario Brooks Belasco, who wrote it and did the lights). The ZSSers hobnob warily, but their suspicions are for naught: the night goes off without a hitch. There is an odd donation envelope though: two invitations, one in Japanese, one in Italian, to Carnivale in Rio.

Tácito suspects the invites are a ploy by Edwina Sharpe, gorgeous personal lawyer of the Sinister Skull. He's right: she confirms it during a "not a date" at the Café Du Mond. As a stickler for justice, he also refuses a sizable cash donation from her "mysterious employer."

JP and Zelda head to the pool at the Young Men’s Christian Association, paying off local stoolpigeon Jinx Jenkins. JP barely avoids falling in (thanks to Zelda's quick rescue), but she's not allowed where Jinx wants to flap gums: the men's locker room. Instead, she's cornered by flirty faux-airhead Lorna Geary; Lorna confirms Zelda’s hunch that the Skull wants them to play spoiler to a potential Fascist collaboration. JP tells puts word out that if the ZSS does it, The Skull will have his full attention, and the gangster’d better pull up stakes and head to another city. Ballsy.

Elsewhere, Lala calls her travel agent and, at her daughter Devi’s insistence, splurges for the penthouse at the Copacabana Palace Hotel. (Lala notes that the cost is slightly more than the fundraiser raised!)

The adventurous six head to Brazil, roughing it through local flights to avoid being detected by whoever they're supposed to surveil. Butler Aldous is a master of discretion, and is so organized that he's aided by the Copa Palace’s manager, Mr. Nogalez! Nogalez doesn't know much about espionage, but he does run a tight ship, reminding our group that hanky-panky and horseplay are are -strictly- forbidden.

The group doesn't have much time to enjoy the sunny city before getting down to business.

Lala and Aldous use their Hollywood expertise to craft top-notch disguises covered in jewels and feathers. JP Diamond is relieved he's finally in a place where having a parrot on his shoulder is considered unremarkable!

His efforts to suss out the conspiracy lead nowhere. Seems that every lobby has someone suspiciously reading a newspaper, or a group of people whispering behind their hands, people rushing into telephone booths…Aldous tries to blend into the workings of the hotel, when he runs smack dab into Yoji Sanada, General Saeki’s personal bodyguard!

“My apologies.” “No, my apologies”. “Well, my apologies as well.”

(Loyal readers will remember that the Sinister Skull’s top henchmen, Mr. Black and Mr. Blue, died due to the actions of his rival, General Saeki. The scarred menace, formerly a member of Japanese intelligence, swore revenge!)

While Mr. Bingen is an excellent judge of character, he's not a good liar, and lets slip that Zelda, Yoji’s fiancée, is in town as well…

The group tries to counter surveillance by splitting up. Lala, Devi and Aldous head to the marina, where they run into Lala's childhood friend, Stefanie Nardozi. Which wouldn't be a problem, except she’s still a spy working for OVRA, the Italian secret police. She's accompanied by a man, at least 7 feet tall, in a fuzzy wolf costume. Strange. Giulia and Stefi try to catch up, but it’s frigid; espionage comes before friendship.

JP and Tácito investigate the hotel, finding a familiar handbill: Zita and Dr. Freund, past life regressionists! The lawyer recalls their previous encounter, where the father-daughter charlatans revealed his ancient love affair with the ancient (and undying) queen Nitocris. Unwilling to wait in line, JP&TUV spread the rumor that Rita Hayworth was spotted at the pool. The line dissipates. One quick bribe later, they find out what the fraudsters know: there's an Italian agent going around with a wolf who speaks in a German accent. JP, who's read his case files, has a cold sweat.

Yoji Sanada has a briefcase handcuffed to his wrist, and Zelda intends to find out why. She looks up his fake name in the hotel registry, and knocks on the door. He looks at the keyhole and opens it, despite only wearing a towel. Zelda, shy and nerdy, tell him to get dressed, then appeals to his sense of patriotism to let her look in the briefcase. Sanada, having misread the situation, buckles and reveals what's for sale: Information on General Saeki's efforts to transform Chinese prisoners into animal soldiers.

The group reconvenes over dinner, with Devi zinging Zelda for

“Going to his room and not getting what you both wanted.”

Her mother shushes her. Tácito pores over tourism guides, and proves that the cash-for-docs trade will happen the next morning at the foot of the recently built Christ the Redeemer statue. The group vows to scuttle the exchange.
***
On the way up, JP catches a pickpocket and wrangles him into the group’s scheme. Using Lala's distractions, the party is able to switch out the materiel for old newspapers.

They set a position at the base of the statue, and wait as all the groups arrive: Nardozi and the wolf, the General and his Marines, and a squad of Brazilian nazis.

The betrayals come quickly. The wolf is actually mechanical super-nazi Klaus Adler.
The General has no plan of releasing his plans; he just wants the money. Everyone wants to kill everyone, except for Klaus, who specifically wants to kill JP. (Diamond’s wife, after blowing up a zeppelin factory and a base in the Hollow Earth, is Nazi enemy number one.) The WW1 vet tries to bumrush Klaus off the mountain, severely underestimating his foe’s mechanical strength.

Sanada berates Lala, causing her mental anguish as he points out all the ways that she is responsible for this situation. He takes out his katana, but he’s grabbed and held fast by his own shadow! Stefani might not have brought backup, but she didn't need to; her magic necklace is a lifeline against betrayal.

Klaus strangles Diamond, and then hurls him against the statue. Der uberman weighs nearly 1000 pounds, and he throws his weight around, pulverizing the ankles of the soapstone Savior.

General Saeki tries to slice up Bingen, and nearly punctures the former pentathlete. Zelda intercedes, and her father, furious at her insubordination, forbids her marrying he feckless Yoji, ever.

Klaus, a bully at heart, begins crushing Stefani’s larynx. She nearly dies before Lala tricks the Teuton into seeking cover from nonexistence OVRA reinforcements.

Unfortunately, by this time, Klaus’s destabilized the statue. Tácito, prison veteran, gives Stefani emergency care, so she can use her amulet to stop the statue from falling on everyone!

Yoji, pushed beyond the breaking point, turns his sword against the General, catching him with a slash across the shoulder! He stays close in melee, so the marines can't get a clean shot off on him. Instead, the Japanese detachment focuses fire and obliterates the local goose-steppers.

Aldous, a consummate chauffeur, prepares the railcar to descend the mountain. JP picks up Nardozi and runs her to the train. Zelda grabs Yoji and retreats as well.

Our heroes and their allies retreat, the trade scuttled. Once they reach the bottom of the mountain, there will be plenty of crowds to blend into…

***
At a nearby hospital, Stefi wakes up from surgery, but refuses Lala's suggestion that she betray Italy. She increases her morphine drip to send herself into unconsciousness instead of answering uncomfortable questions.
***
At the Copa Palace, Zita knocks on Tácito's door. This time, he's happy to fall under her spell…
***
Downstairs, Aldous addresses the hotel staff, giving them what he thinks is a heartfelt speech on the importance of a life in service. At the end, a bellboy asks why they should listen to him, he's Argentine.
***
In New Orleans, Josiah P Diamond is summoned into the back room of his favorite bar. Sitting in near darkness, elated, is his longtime nemesis, the Sinister Skull.

“His daughter and bodyguard betraying him, his plan failing in public… Mr. Diamond, you have a great future in espionage.”

The Skull is happy to decamp to Baton Rouge. Of course, it will take time to make sure his rackets aren’t just taken over by Two-Tone Brophy, or the O’Rourkes, or “Joey Five Angels” Pentagelo…
Diamond realizes he’s gotten himself out of the frying pan and made himself head chef.

 

[Golden Bee]

One of our rotating GMs ran a highly involved session and wrote up an incident report. Reformatting it would be a waste of time so I'm simply going to link to the PDF. I hope if you're reading this in a decade the link still works!

Enjoy!

 

[Golden Bee]

Night at El Morro
“If you don’t cooperate, Miss Midas, your government is prepared to revoke sunlight privileges.”
May 10, 1936.

After the disaster of the last mission, Devika assembled a massive team. Extra chairs had to be brought into the New York office; besides her normal employees and hangers on, she's hosting the very peeved Nizam of Hyderabad, an FBI representative, and a major from the British Air Force.

The hostages are held in an old Midas facility, war-torn Spain, or in the hideout of the recently rebooted Red Jasmine cult.

Aloria Midas is being held upstate. “Interrogate a millionaire” is all Captain Ivanova needs to hear before she volunteers. Her husband Josiah P Diamond volunteers to play good cop.

“87 seconds,” said the Russian, clicking her stopwatch.

The captain entered the interrogation room and told the prisoner that, without cooperation, she would be begging to clang a tin can in Alcatraz. When she didn’t get a rise out of the prisoner, she suspected something was wrong. She gestured to her husband who punched Aloria as hard as he could, opening a metal compartment in the robot's chest! The automaton tried to jump to the ceiling, but the captain intercepted it with her riding crop. (The COs then shot it full of holes.) A look through Aloria records and personal correspondence showed no big movement of materiel; the prisoners weren’t in America. How did she slip from prison? A blank envelope suggested Flatlantean magic.

In India, Zelda (with a truly ludicrous expense account) put up bounties for information regarding the resurgent cult. The Nizam was the Earth's richest man, and while his forces were able to crush a series of hideouts, the prisoners weren’t on the subcontinent either.

Trudy Truman used her reporting connections (and the ZSS’s long-distance plan) to find out about the situation in Spain. It was hard to get people to go on the record about a war zone. The RAF, grateful for past favors, shared aerial reconnaissance. It seemed likely that the prisoners were there.
Trudy sniffed — she had the keenest nose of any muckraker — and realized someone new had infiltrated the offices. The masked figure claims to be El Fantasma, but the Aussie kept him distracted with blather until Clara showed up. El Fantasma introduced himself again, which brought Rafe over to see what all the fuss was about. By the third time he had to explain his secret order of Spanish revolutionaries, he demanded that Trudy just write it down.

With the hostages located generally, it was time to plan. Tacito said that a small strike team would be the most judicious. (A few people argued that teenager Devika shouldn’t be invited, but that made her want to go more.) The position was offered to Captain Ivanova, but she had no interest in putting her neck on the line to rescue the daughter of the richest man on earth. She had already fought in a war to free Russia.

Penny An’te, Hawaiian gambler pistolero, was brought on instead. (The final team was Penny, Devi, Clara, JP, Tacito, and El Fantasma.)

Despite a panicking, plane-hating Clara, the group successfully parachuted into Spain. There, returning to the village of San Simeon, the group snuck… And sneaked… and used stealth… And kept a low profile. Luckily, [non-player character] El Fantasma was really good at this. The ZSS’s contribution to the plan (use a bunch of gunpowder to distract the soldiers of the fortress and draw them out) failed, so it was back to sneaking.

Finally, the group arrived at the base, where they also had to sneak, but it was easier. Devi easily opened the enemy vault, finding inside… The new leader of the Red Jasmine! He blasted her with a mental whammy, but before her eyes could even start to water, her lawyer hit the priest with a sucker punch left and a sucker punch right, then 22 consecutive sucker punch rights.

Elsewhere, Clara retrieved her rifle, sending its thief into retreat. As the group headed to the holding cells, they found an odd sight: Mercurio, Mexican demon lawyer! He tried to lie, but Penny was an extremely good judge of character. Then, after explaining that he had helped broker the deadly alliance, Mercurio tried to slip back to the underworld. Devi shoved a rolling chair towards the center of the room, confusing the Devil’s Advocate. Tacito, boxing champion, jumped off it and sent the demon back to hell with a few less teeth.

The group rescued the prisoners, then headed deep into the mountain. The villains were clearly excavating the rare Atlantean material that had made up so many of the artifacts.

Waiting for them at the dig site was the ringleader: Esteban, the Silver Knight of the Silver Circle. The masked man claimed that he had expected the group days ago. Penny asked him who he was, and he responded that his family had survived for hundreds of years.

Devi scoffed at the megalomaniac.
“The only reason your family lasted centuries is that I was born twelve years ago.”

Esteban tried summoning minions, but Clara and Penny laid down a tide of bullets. JP and Devi were able to grapple him, but his face fell off… Revealing a completely metal one with a radio microphone! He pounded the Atlantean lode, causing a ringing earthquake. Before fleeing, Penny took the moment to read him to waste. Despite his strong willpower, she brought to bear every fault of his entire plan, from his physical absence, to his idiotic companions, to his inept base design and even his supposedly perfect family tree. Somewhere nearby, Esteban smashed his radio transceiver in fury.

The group fled, and having rescued smuggler Ivo along with the rest of the prisoners, were able to exfiltrate Spain with little incident. Back in New York, Clara put her rifle Betsy above her bed, retiring her last gift from her grandfather. She then began cleaning and reassembling her present from Penny and Devika: a factory new, military only M1 Garand.
Penny’s insults guaranteed retaliation, but it would be angry and off-balance. If you can’t avoid a fight, make your opponent extremely angry.

Penny:

 

[John Dallman]

GURPS 4e Day After Ragnarok:

Confined to casino, with casualty.
Pulp Reservoir Dogs in Macao.

The situation wasn't very good at the start of yesterday's session. We had the artifact we'd been sent to Macao to get, but the owner had been shot before handing it over to us. He's still alive, but badly wounded. There are multiple armed men outside the front and rear doors of the casino who want it. The sewers are not accessible, because the casino doesn't want to be robbed that way. We have the local agent, Mr Brown, on the way, with a car, but he can't be expected to get us out by himself against the people keeping us inside. He'll also have to use a payphone to tell us when he's close.

Then things began looking better. The artifact owner accepted the casino owner's offer of sanctuary. We don't know why Madam Roulette made the offer but we are happy not to have to move a wounded man around. It means he'll have to take the British Empire's offer for the artifact, but he mostly wants to get rid of it, because it's becoming sought by all sorts of violent people.

Johannes, our German (not Nazi) rune magician offered his new trick, using the runes of Protect and Body to duplicate the GURPS Magic spell Missile Shield. This is quite handy: it deflects missiles by the minimum amount needed to make them miss, so it is not immediately obvious. Doing it on the other two party members drained nearly all of his fatigue, it takes two minutes to cast and it only lasts one minute, but that's ages in GURPS combat time, with its one-second turns.

So we waited for Brown to call with the news that he was nearby, asked him to arrive in two minutes and thirty seconds, had the two-minute casting time and went out into the rear alley where we knew there were two goons in decent cover.

Striding out openly seems to have surprised them a bit. They ordered us back inside, which we ignored, and we told them to run as an Intimidation attempt, which made them pause very briefly. So we basically walked round their cover and shot them. There were actually three of them, Japanese Kempeitai secret police. Their shots all missed, and the last one tried to grapple, but was fended off and shot. We were in dinner-jackets, because that's the casino dress code, and that added to the incongruity.

Mr Brown arrived, and then the next wave of attackers came down off the roof-tops. These were Soviet mad science products, "man-apes" and they wanted the artifact too. They had pistols but had seen enough not to use them, and tried to grapple. They got shot too, which would have been a bit easier if we'd thought to reload after the Kempeitai. We did that straight after the man-apes, then got in Brown's car.

We'd asked him to get us a safe-house, at least partly as a bluff to anyone who might be tapping the phones, but we were now sure we wanted to get out of Macao. He'd said he could get us an aircraft on short notice, so we asked him to take us to the airport and make good on that claim. This he managed to do - a DC-3 and a bush pilot - and things were fine until just after take-off, when a truck crashed through the airport gates, stopped on the runway and three men in jetpacks took off from it.

Their intention was to board us, with the aid of grapnels on ropes, and then take the artifact. They managed the first part, but not at the same time, so they got individually shot and went overboard. The session closed with us on the plane to a destination the GM will retcon in when he's decided on it. But we have escaped from Macao.