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Message no. 1
From: "Steven A. Tinner" <bluewizard@*****.COM>
Subject: Oh the pain, the pain! - Part 2
Date: Mon, 7 Sep 1998 14:12:47 -0400
> I don't want to give anything away, since I'm sure Bull is sweating
buckets
> right now, but he doesn't know the half of his problems. ;-)

>What?! He has to fight Verjigorm the Great Dragon Slayer and that's
>not all of his problems?! Oh my gods... you're evil beyond
>comparison.

>I love it!! egmg >:>

I'm sure that Bull will post his summary of the game soon (He's probably
sleeping it off.)
Suffice it to say, NO, they did not have to fight V. Encounter, yes, fight,
NO.
None of my players are stupid enough to committ suicide.
Self sacrifice on the other hand ... ;-)

> This IS an EXTREMELY high powered campaign, using characters that have
been
> in play for many years.

>Soon that will probably read "used to be" [takes hat of in respect
>and orders some flowers for the poor runners]

Yeah. You're right on target.
I'm still resolving a few private things for a couple players.
The tally so far is

One PC (Codis) dead - sacrificed himself to save the world, and a friend,
redeemed himself for Tempter's corruption at the same time.
One PC (Dominic) semi dead - in perpetual slavery/servitude to Ysgarthe
(sic) removed from the material plane.
One PC (Sangre) alive - saved from death by Codis, and rescued from the
metaplanes by the combined might of the Loa.
One PC (Mac) alive? - wandering through the Crossroads of Worlds. Lost in
the metaplanes.
One PC (Bull) alive - wife needs treatment for mental breakdown. Son Michael
tried to kill him. Michael MIA. Partner Johnny 99 MIA.
One PC (Mr. White) alive - confused. Has no idea what happened to everyone
else. Just found his partner Sangre washed up on the shore of Louisianna.
One PC (Johnny 99) - MIA. Presumed dead. (Still resolving the players
actions.)

LOTS of dead NPC's.
LOTS of MIA NPC's, including Harlequin and Aina.

We played SR for 7 hours Friday, and for 13 hours Saturday.
We wound up a LOT of loose ends, and pretty much left all the PC's in a good
place to retire IMO.
I'm sure they'll all be back from time to time for cameo appearances, but
IMO it's time to move on to SR3 with new PC's, and a new direction for the
campaign.

Steven A. Tinner
bluewizard@*****.com
http://listen.to/Tinner
"Save the whales! Trade them for valuable prizes."
Message no. 2
From: Bull <chaos@*****.COM>
Subject: Re: Oh the pain, the pain! - Part 2
Date: Mon, 7 Sep 1998 18:02:57 -0400
A
>I'm sure that Bull will post his summary of the game soon (He's probably
>sleeping it off.)
>
That and busy...

OK, here's a more brief (I hope) summary of the last game... For once, I
wan't as involved as everyone else, for the most part...

Cast of Characters:

Bull -- Everyone's favorite ork decker
Michael -- Bull's 4 year old son, who's been genetically altered and
cybermanced so he's now a huge Ogre sammy, though he still acts 4,
most of the time.
Reba/Bill -- Twins who, when Reba was killed by an attack by the Horror
Artificer, merged with her borther Billy. They're now a Ranma 1/2 like
character with a split personality. The body changes to the body
of the mind in control.
Marie -- Bull's mundane wife.
Johnny 99 - Coyote Shaman and Bull's partner. Thought dead by the other
characters due to a war of jokes between Mr. White and Johnny.
Xuxa -- Johnny's live in "wife". Enchantress.
Becky -- Johnny's former other "wife" who lived with Xuxa and Johnny. Now
a Mantis, and still an ally.
Arimi -- Johnny's former ally spirit, now merged with his weapon focus
sword and free. One form looks like Xuxa.
Penthisil -- Combat mage. Died fighting bugs in Chicago, came back as a
free spirit/ghost. Cloned Johnny, and inhabited that body.
Mr. White -- Sammy, getting married to the daughter of the New Orleans nob.
Sangre -- Voudoun, White's Partner.
Mac -- Speed Samurai extrordinaire. My attemmpt to out munchkin the
munchkins.
Dominic -- Catholic Mage, general self serving, untrustworthy bastard (and
this was BEFORE the game)
Codis -- Former Sammy. Horror marked by Tempter.
Chaos -- Combat/Fire Mage. Was suicidal, but now mellowed out due to
several circumstances, avenging the murder of his fiancee, and
falling in love with his ally spirit, Cindy, whom he set free.
Cindy -- Chaos' former Fire Elemental, then Ally Spirit. Now free and in
love with Chaos.
Oni -- A former Renraku cyber project. Cybermanced Robot, more than
anything else.
Various others with bit parts or that I can;t remember the names of... :]

OK, when last we left our hero (<grin>), Bull, Johnny, and co. were talking
with a stunned and worried Harlequin and Ania, wondering what to do.

The next day, Whitey has his wedding, with everyone invited. Everyone who
is anyone in New Orleans is there, as well as a lot of Mafia Bigwigs, wince
White will probably be taking over the New Orleans mafia due to this.
Bull's whole company shows up, saying nothing about the night before...

During the wedding, right after the priest pronounces Whitey and Mafia
Princess man and wife, a Crap Load of Oni clones shows up. (This was a
reoccurring plotline for our various games, the Oni's... Though the
original Oni has since retired to Chiba where he's, of all things, a Movie
Producer.).

Michael pops his cyber spurs and buries them in Bull's back, then attacks
Johnny, who was masquerading as a second Penthisil for a while. Then a
half dozen Oni's show up and open fire with fragging firelance lasers
(Don't ask me). We take a beating, though we finally defeat them, though a
LOT of the NPCs at the party bite the big one...

After that, we don;t know WHAT to do... Bull remembers what happened the
night before after the fight. Harlequin had cast a spell to make Bull
forget, then shows up and grabs most of teh mages and shamans (all the
NPC's and people who weren't present for the game).

After that things went wonky... A 300 meter shape was seen in the
Mississippi river. Went went to Atzlan to confront Aguilar, since we
suspected he was behind the blood spirits, only to find most of the Azzie
blood mages dead, along with Aguilar. We then headed to the Bermuda
Triangle, a place we had been once before when we prevented the minions of
Cthulhu (go figure) from setting off a Neutron bomb, after a ritual magic
pointed us in this direction. We show up in time to have Cthulhu rise from
the depths and do a Godzilla move, with my boat on it's head...

We abandoned the boat, and made our way back to base. There Bull proceeded
to get drunk for the second time in his life.

Ysgarath showed up and made us an offer. Power, in order to help him stay.
We also finally kinda found out what was happening. There was a hole in
the metaplanes... It was big enough to let the Horrors get through partly,
though they weren;t across completely. The mana could only sustain one of
them, so they were fighting to see who stayed. And Ysgarath was trying to
get us to help make sure it was him. Mr. White showed good common sense
and proceeded zap all of us with a stun gun, because with Bull drunk and
the Horror offering to fix his kids, he was definately willing (Bull
doesn't handle drunk well). Dominic was also willing, beiung the greedy
bastard he is. The only ones who stayed conscious were Sangre (Who had
some help from Ghede to avoid temptation) and Codis (who had help from
elsewhere :)).

The Harley and Ania showed up and chased them off...

Harley had a plan. Trvel physically into the metaplanes, and patch the
whole, though we would probably need to sacrifice ourselves to do so. So
then we had to make a choice. Do we go, knowing we may never return?

(Bull, Mac, and Chaos were all my characters)

Bull went to talk with Marie... and decided against going, marie was fast
approachinga total nervous breakdown, and Bull simply decided he couldn;t
leave her.

Chaos, who justa couple months ago would have gone in a heartbeat, decided
against it now. For the first time in his life, he had something to live for.

Both Bull and Chaos would have gone if necessary. However, it ended up not
being necessary.

Mac on the other hand, who up till this point had been my most selfsih
character ever, decided to go. This was for two reasons. A) He's
pratical enough to know that if they don;t succeed, the world ends and
well, what good does money and skill mean then? Plus, he was arrogant
enough to believe he wasnecessary for success. (Yeah, right). B) He also
knows that he's never actually had a purpose to his life, and this just may
be his chance to redeem himself,,,

So in the end, it ends up being Dominic (Going for his own selfsih reasons.
Dom also has it in for Mac. Dom is a vindictive prick), Mac, Sangre,
Codis, Johnny, harley, and Ania. According to harley, tehre are also other
groups going...

We go down and fight a bunch of Horror minions, and at one point we have to
cross music bridge, choosing betrween two symbolic things. Choose the
right oen, and we can cross... Choose the wrong, and we die. We all chose
right, but Mac was the last one across... hafway there, Dominic opens up
with a fireball on Mac, which he barely survives (Mac had a Karma Pool of
about 15 before this game started. He BURNED 10 of those during the course
of the game). Codis, though, realizes that Dom was casting a SPell WAY too
powerful, and Tempter also see what happens, and they figure out that
Domicnic has given in to Ysgarath. Codis boots him off the edge of the
cliff while he's casting his spell, and Dom falls to his (presumed) death.

Along the way, Johnny got swallowed by a "Land Shark" (A nice way to take
him out of the game since Rusty wasn't there), Harley and Ania "froze"
(They became statues... No clue what happened), and then we found our
target... A huge blue cube at the end of a tall cliff overlooking
nothingness... Mac entered, and vanished... Codis and Sangre entered, and
saw that there were 6 portals leading... well, somewhere... 4 were
patched over, 2 were left.

They were trying to figure out something to do, and Tempter ofered to patch
one, if Codis would kill sangre to patch the other... So Tempter created
one patch (I didn't trust that, but I wasn;t there), and right before
sangre could fill the other, Codis stepped forward, thus redeeming himself
for several years of pure evil... :]

Afetrwards, things ended liek Tinner said... Mac was left at he Crossroads
of Time (Old Hulk comic book reference)... Bull has a wife going through a
mental breakdown, and a son MIA... a nd lots of people that no one knows
what happened too...

And the world that was ravaged by lots of Godzilla style monsters...

Fun...

So what's next? WHo knows... But personally think Tinner was way too nice
to everyone :] Considering how many people he was supposed to kill off
with this...

Bull


--
Bull -- The Best Ork Decker You Never Met
chaos@*****.com ===== bull22@***********.com
http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Cavern/3604

=======================================================
= =
= Order is Illusion! Chaos is Bliss! Got any Fours? =
= =
=======================================================

"Can the Gummi Worms really live in peace with the Marshmallow Chicks?"
-- Pinky, "Pinky and the Brain"
Message no. 3
From: "Steven A. Tinner" <bluewizard@*****.COM>
Subject: Re: Oh the pain, the pain! - Part 2
Date: Mon, 7 Sep 1998 20:20:30 -0400
>After that things went wonky... A 300 meter shape was seen in the
>Mississippi river.

For those of you with the ED Horrors book. This was Ubyr.

>Went went to Atzlan to confront Aguilar, since we
>suspected he was behind the blood spirits, only to find most of the Azzie
>blood mages dead, along with Aguilar. We then headed to the Bermuda
>Triangle, a place we had been once before when we prevented the minions of
>Cthulhu (go figure) from setting off a Neutron bomb, after a ritual magic
>pointed us in this direction. We show up in time to have Cthulhu rise from
>the depths and do a Godzilla move, with my boat on it's head...

The whole inspiration for the Bermuda Triangle/Cthulu/Godzilla/Voudoun
thingy is from the third book in he Dream Park series - The California
Voodoo Game.
Supposedly the main home of the voudoun loa is "The City Beneath the Sea"
which I combined with the legend of Atlantis, as well as the fact that
Lovecraft mentions that Cthulu slumbers beneath the city beneath the sea.
In this setting, the loa are the second dwellers in the CBtS. The first were
the Deep Ones/Fishman/Nommo, who were actually etradimensional/aliens/horror
constructs worshipping Cthulu/Verjigorm. ;-)

We had a lot of fun with this premise before, and I thought it was high time
for the "Big C" to make an appearance.

>So what's next? WHo knows... But personally think Tinner was way too nice
>to everyone :] Considering how many people he was supposed to kill off
>with this...

But I never said I was going to kill off anyone? ;-)
I merely said that you guys would have to play smart to succeed. And once
again, my players proved their merit, and plyed things very intelligently.

However, lest you all think I'm going soft.
Consider the following ...

Mr. White - Is now married to the mob. A stressful position to say the
least. Also, he basically chickened out when Harley and Aina asked for
volunteers. He has to live with that forever. Since the player already
called me today, I can assure you that this cowardice is something that's
gonna eat at him for a long time to come.

Sangre - Has had some major revelations about the loa, and his relationship
to them. Technically, he should have been stranded along with Mac at the
Crossroads of Worlds, however the loa, led by Ghede, Agwe, and Erzulie
managed to bring him across. Why? Why do all the older voudouns in New
Orleans call this young upstart "Destroyer"? ;-)

Bull - His best friend is MIA. His wife is losing her grip on reality. His
son is MIA, and even if he returns, his last action was to try to kill
daddy. His other two kids are so messed up it's not funny. (OK, it's a
little funny ... ;-))

Codis - Is dead. Completely dead. No coming back for this guy. However the
player is still pissed that Codis never acheived his goal of finding his
long lost fiance before he died, and he also has a sneaking suspicion that
Codis was a reincarnated soul of an Obsidiman. He will never know.

Dominic - Is Ysgarath's little bitch. He is smoking a turd in Hell even as
we speak. ;-) He threw his lot in with the losing side, and now has an
immortal eternity to ponder his mistake. PC is now an NPC.

Steven A. Tinner
bluewizard@*****.com
http://listen.to/Tinner
"Save the whales! Trade them for valuable prizes."
Message no. 4
From: Mike Bobroff <Airwasp@***.COM>
Subject: Re: Oh the pain, the pain! - Part 2
Date: Tue, 8 Sep 1998 08:25:57 EDT
In a message dated 9/7/98 1:10:28 PM US Eastern Standard Time,
bluewizard@*****.COM writes:

> LOTS of dead NPC's.
> LOTS of MIA NPC's, including Harlequin and Aina.
>
> We played SR for 7 hours Friday, and for 13 hours Saturday.
> We wound up a LOT of loose ends, and pretty much left all the PC's in a
good
> place to retire IMO.
> I'm sure they'll all be back from time to time for cameo appearances, but
> IMO it's time to move on to SR3 with new PC's, and a new direction for the
> campaign.

You know, if K were still here with us, it's nice to see that someone else
also has a high-powered role-playing oriented group, just like my own. It
would be nice to game with you one day Tinner, unfortunately now everyone else
is going to call you a munchkin like they have called me too ever since I have
been on the RN list.

-Herc
------- The Best Mechanic you can ever have.
Message no. 5
From: Martin Steffens <chimerae@***.IE>
Subject: Re: Oh the pain, the pain! - Part 2
Date: Tue, 8 Sep 1998 15:08:19 +0000
and thus did Steven A. Tinner speak on 7 Sep 98 at 20:20:

[snip story]

I love it! Everybody is either dead or so messed up they might be
better off dead :>. Great finale of sorts.

I wouldn't mind seeing more of these kind of stories on the list.

Martin
(who relishes in the Dark Side of the GM-ing)

Karina & Martin Steffens
chimerae@***.ie
Message no. 6
From: "Steven A. Tinner" <bluewizard@*****.COM>
Subject: Re: Oh the pain, the pain! - Part 2
Date: Tue, 8 Sep 1998 23:17:18 -0400
>You know, if K were still here with us, it's nice to see that someone else
>also has a high-powered role-playing oriented group, just like my own. It
>would be nice to game with you one day Tinner, unfortunately now everyone
else
>is going to call you a munchkin like they have called me too ever since I
have
>been on the RN list.

Actually that has happened to the best of my knowledge, only once or twice.
Both times the name calling was done by some lamer newbie that didn't know
SR from AD&D and had No idea what these PC's have been through to get this
far.

Sure if these PC's were brand new, or even made a year ago, then I'd have to
agree they were munchkins.
However these PC's are a minimum of 4 years old, and most are around 6-7
years old.
Furthermore, we play a LOT.
That 12 hour session I mentioned is NOT uncommon. And there was a period of
two years where we all were working slacker jobs and played 4-6 hours every
night of the week, and all weekend long.
That adds up to a LOT of karma.

Herc, if people call you a munchkin, no big deal, get over it.
Deep down, people know whether they are M's or not. If your character has
sweated and earned his power, then he's not a Munchkin.
If you tweaked the crap out of the PC, and made 1 million nuyen on your
first run, and are currently employed by Harlequin to kill Lofwyr, because
you already geeked Dunkelzahn and Ehran the Scribe ... c'mon ... who you
kidding? ;-)

And you know what if someone were to call me a munchkin, I'd take a good
hard look at who was doing the calling.
I HAVE been called a munchkin by a couple of 13 year old turds before, who
couldn't role play if their life depended on it. That doesn't bother me.
Always ask yourself. "Is this someone who knows a thing or two, and is
trying to give me advice?" or "Is this poster simply trying to show off his
ego/"expertise" by making me look bad?"

If a good GM/player questioned my game, I'd want to get their input on what
they thought I should change.
If it was just some twonk who read the first few chapters of SR3 and thinks
he knows everything? Screw him.
It's your game ultimately. Play it whatever way makes you happy, and keeps
the players interested.

Steven A. Tinner
bluewizard@*****.com
http://listen.to/Tinner
"Save the whales! Trade them for valuable prizes."
Message no. 7
From: "Shawn L. Stroud" <bird_man@*********.COM>
Subject: Re: Oh the pain, the pain! - Part 2
Date: Tue, 8 Sep 1998 22:55:06 -0500
Steven A. Tinner wrote:

> If a good GM/player questioned my game, I'd want to get their input on what
> they thought I should change.
> If it was just some twonk who read the first few chapters of SR3 and thinks
> he knows everything? Screw him.
> It's your game ultimately. Play it whatever way makes you happy, and keeps
> the players interested.
>

Hey Steve; I'm not questioning your game -- but I didn't catch your original
post. Could you send it my way and I'll give you my -cough!- opinion.
Personally, I agree with your last statement.

Ciao for niao,
Shawn L. Stroud
Message no. 8
From: Martin Steffens <chimerae@***.IE>
Subject: Re: Oh the pain, the pain! - Part 2
Date: Wed, 9 Sep 1998 18:07:29 +0000
and thus did Mike Bobroff speak on 8 Sep 98 at 8:25:

> You know, if K were still here with us, it's nice to see that someone else
> also has a high-powered role-playing oriented group, just like my own. It
> would be nice to game with you one day Tinner, unfortunately now everyone else
> is going to call you a munchkin like they have called me too ever since I have
> been on the RN list.

Herc, why should you care if someone call you a munchkin? People have
called me lots of things, but I only care if it comes from people who
I respect. Judging people's playing style is IMNSHO the one
of the more stupid things to do anyway, unless you're playing in
that group.

To everyone his or her's own, and I wouldn't mind seeing more
campaign reports, be it high powered or from poor starving runners
who fight over a bag of chips.

Karina & Martin Steffens
chimerae@***.ie

Further Reading

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