[Metamorphosis Alpha] The House On The Hill - Print Version Released!
- Thread starter Morbius_of_Oz
- Start date
darjr
I crit!
I received a complimentary copy of the PDF of this for being a member of the Metamorphosis Alpha boards and I ran it early in October for Nuke Con.
I posted on the MA boards a short bit about the game here.
It seems that you'll have to have an account to read it so...
[sblock]First, my apologies, I'm not a professional writer by any means.
I registered the event early enough to get it into the printed and mailed out catalog. Usually I don't get registered until the last moment. One of my players probably wouldn't have seen the event if I hadn't.
Speaking of the players, I had two, an old hat at RPG's who never had a chance to play Metamorphosis Alpha and always wanted to, and a young man who hadn't played RPGS at all until that very convention. Both of them were very enthusiastic even at such a late hour, it was infectious and I credit them for us having such a great time.
I first played one of the tribe elders along with the soldiers escorting the players to the windswept plains of the known world. As part of their initiation into adulthood they had to journey into the unknown and survive, only then would they be accepted as adults in the tribe. They were warned about the house but the warning, filled with descriptions of bizare and wonderful things, only served to drive their curiosity, and so off they went, directly to the house.
After describing what the house looks like from afar they decided to cross the front grounds and go to the front door. Just before getting there the mutant player slunk off to the side of the building a bit to the porch, area 10, to try the first side door there. The human nocked on the front door and was immediately rebuffed by the robot in that front room. He tried several times and finally after a bit of frustration he just jumped into the room past the robot. In the mean time the mutant didn't stay quite long enough for the jawed plants to attack. One of the changes I made was to those plants, they would stalk the players and hunt them down, one by one if possible. The human was running around the front room getting sorely attacked and trying, unnsuccesfully, to convince the robot that they belonged there. That's when the mutant broke in via the side door. The robot started hollaring about him and his pet and how strangers pets were not allowed. I got a big chuckle out of that one. The robot got the upper hand with the human and dragged him out to the compost pile in the back. That's when he found the bones of previous 'visitors', and I could see their sense of dred on their faces. They both really played this part up.
They then proceded to go through the house room by room trying to stay ahead of the robots. It was really bad for them, they took a huge beating. I got to play the house a lot here, I liked playing the part when the house was trying to get ahold of the authorities and warn them that it wasn't going to be good for them when the police showed up. The back and forth in the bedroom was fun as well, the two of them didn't realize at first that the person in the bed was dead, but they decided not to push the issue with the house. I didn't tell them but I think they figured out on their own that the house wasn't quite right in the circuit boards. This whole part gets a bit blurry for me. They had a good time roaming the house and fidling with things until they could figure out what was what, and they enjoyed the 'videos' for a bit, watching kids shows and such.
Eventually they made it to the workout room. Again with the messing around with all kinds of fiddly bits to figure out what was what and what could be used later. Then I described the patio door to them. Then they went into the bathroom and came back out. Where I described the patio door to them again, this time it was covered in vines and weird flowers. The mutant player actually asked if it was the same door, when I said it was he got a suspicious look on his face and the two exchanged glances. After that every door they passed, if they happened to look back, somehow got a growth of vines and leaves. The plant on the porch, area 10, had broken into the house and was stalking them. Finally they turned on the plant and quickly found out it was to much for them. (Yes, I had dropped the paralyzation of the plant from the adventure). They were in a bit of a panic at this point, fighting a two front war, they needed to stop one of their opponents if they were going to survive. That's when they told the house about it's owners demise and I had a great time playing an enraged bat crazy AI and having the house go 'dead' while it reatreated to think about things. After that it would taunt them and threaten them in a crazy way while they slinked through the darkened house. They had to avoid the robots and the plant, both were stalking them, and the AI was playing games at this point.
Then the human player had an epiphany. The two of them conferred and began to work their way to the bedroom of the houses owner. when they got there the mutant distracted the AI and robots while the human removed the remains of the owner from the bed and hid them under the bed, then he got into the bed itself. when the mutant returned the human pretended to be the houses owner waking up from a long nap. Honestly I didn't know what to do then. I decided to reward what I thought was a crazy but cool move and had the house fall for it. That's what turned it around for them, with the houses help they defeated the plants and essentially won the day.
By this time it was really late and we were among the few left in the hall. I went into an exposition about how, in their characters later years they would use the house as a base of operations and that after returning as adults they would also become heroes. In their old age after exploring most of the ship they would discover another smaller ship 'docked' with the warden and begin another larger journey as they explored the galaxy.
As it turned out it wasn't the last game I played that night, but I wasn't very coherent after that. I had a lot of fun in that game and I think the players did to.[/sblock]
I posted on the MA boards a short bit about the game here.
It seems that you'll have to have an account to read it so...
[sblock]First, my apologies, I'm not a professional writer by any means.
I registered the event early enough to get it into the printed and mailed out catalog. Usually I don't get registered until the last moment. One of my players probably wouldn't have seen the event if I hadn't.
Speaking of the players, I had two, an old hat at RPG's who never had a chance to play Metamorphosis Alpha and always wanted to, and a young man who hadn't played RPGS at all until that very convention. Both of them were very enthusiastic even at such a late hour, it was infectious and I credit them for us having such a great time.
I first played one of the tribe elders along with the soldiers escorting the players to the windswept plains of the known world. As part of their initiation into adulthood they had to journey into the unknown and survive, only then would they be accepted as adults in the tribe. They were warned about the house but the warning, filled with descriptions of bizare and wonderful things, only served to drive their curiosity, and so off they went, directly to the house.
After describing what the house looks like from afar they decided to cross the front grounds and go to the front door. Just before getting there the mutant player slunk off to the side of the building a bit to the porch, area 10, to try the first side door there. The human nocked on the front door and was immediately rebuffed by the robot in that front room. He tried several times and finally after a bit of frustration he just jumped into the room past the robot. In the mean time the mutant didn't stay quite long enough for the jawed plants to attack. One of the changes I made was to those plants, they would stalk the players and hunt them down, one by one if possible. The human was running around the front room getting sorely attacked and trying, unnsuccesfully, to convince the robot that they belonged there. That's when the mutant broke in via the side door. The robot started hollaring about him and his pet and how strangers pets were not allowed. I got a big chuckle out of that one. The robot got the upper hand with the human and dragged him out to the compost pile in the back. That's when he found the bones of previous 'visitors', and I could see their sense of dred on their faces. They both really played this part up.
They then proceded to go through the house room by room trying to stay ahead of the robots. It was really bad for them, they took a huge beating. I got to play the house a lot here, I liked playing the part when the house was trying to get ahold of the authorities and warn them that it wasn't going to be good for them when the police showed up. The back and forth in the bedroom was fun as well, the two of them didn't realize at first that the person in the bed was dead, but they decided not to push the issue with the house. I didn't tell them but I think they figured out on their own that the house wasn't quite right in the circuit boards. This whole part gets a bit blurry for me. They had a good time roaming the house and fidling with things until they could figure out what was what, and they enjoyed the 'videos' for a bit, watching kids shows and such.
Eventually they made it to the workout room. Again with the messing around with all kinds of fiddly bits to figure out what was what and what could be used later. Then I described the patio door to them. Then they went into the bathroom and came back out. Where I described the patio door to them again, this time it was covered in vines and weird flowers. The mutant player actually asked if it was the same door, when I said it was he got a suspicious look on his face and the two exchanged glances. After that every door they passed, if they happened to look back, somehow got a growth of vines and leaves. The plant on the porch, area 10, had broken into the house and was stalking them. Finally they turned on the plant and quickly found out it was to much for them. (Yes, I had dropped the paralyzation of the plant from the adventure). They were in a bit of a panic at this point, fighting a two front war, they needed to stop one of their opponents if they were going to survive. That's when they told the house about it's owners demise and I had a great time playing an enraged bat crazy AI and having the house go 'dead' while it reatreated to think about things. After that it would taunt them and threaten them in a crazy way while they slinked through the darkened house. They had to avoid the robots and the plant, both were stalking them, and the AI was playing games at this point.
Then the human player had an epiphany. The two of them conferred and began to work their way to the bedroom of the houses owner. when they got there the mutant distracted the AI and robots while the human removed the remains of the owner from the bed and hid them under the bed, then he got into the bed itself. when the mutant returned the human pretended to be the houses owner waking up from a long nap. Honestly I didn't know what to do then. I decided to reward what I thought was a crazy but cool move and had the house fall for it. That's what turned it around for them, with the houses help they defeated the plants and essentially won the day.
By this time it was really late and we were among the few left in the hall. I went into an exposition about how, in their characters later years they would use the house as a base of operations and that after returning as adults they would also become heroes. In their old age after exploring most of the ship they would discover another smaller ship 'docked' with the warden and begin another larger journey as they explored the galaxy.
As it turned out it wasn't the last game I played that night, but I wasn't very coherent after that. I had a lot of fun in that game and I think the players did to.[/sblock]
