Monsters and Other Childish Things: Alien Agents

Sunday, 10 am: Monsters and Other Childish Things: Alien Agents

GM: Benjamin Baugh

Daniel: Briget, Young Lady. The player got the body language down perfectly. It was easy to believe I was talking to a girl, and a top-of-the-social-pecking-order girl, at that.

Me: Digby, smart, but gullible boy. This is the sort of role I can play well, even when punch drunk with fatigue poisons on a Sunday morning at GenCon. At least twice, someone taking advantage of Digby's gullibility broke character to say, "I feel so wrong doing this!" This included when Klaus tried to show Digby how to smoke, something he was convinced the girls found cool.

Joshua Banner: Spike (Agatha), bad girl

Richard Storr (who played Buster in Grim War): Mitchell Jack, friendly jock

Player (to me): You're not going to kill me again, are you?

Me: I don't think so!

Jeff: June, goth / emo

Jae Walker: Klaus, Conestina exchange student. Actually, he was from some perfectly normal place out in Iowa (I think), and just made up everything about being from Conestina, all of the county's special customs (all of which Digby completely believed in) and the accent. He was trying to look cool.

On a Saturday morning, six kids from Middle School, 12-13 years of age, were doing detention by working as part of the Northwoods Park Crew.

GM: Roll on the Mischief Table to find out why you are on the crew.

Digby stole the principal's favorite golf trophy because he was hallucinating.

Digby: Somebody gave me this pill and said it was a jelly bean, and I believed them.

Klaus stole records. Spike burned teacher's boat for reasons which have been sealed by a judge. Mitchell pawned coach's citron -- but was totally framed, man! Briget obliterated the bishop's golf trophy -- but was, like, totally framed! June destroyed the principal's favorite toilet, convinced there were vampires.

Klaus: That's a great excuse. I've got to use that excuse.

Digby: W- wait! There are vampires??

Meanwhile, there was a web of relationships among the PCs, semi-random. So, Digby's relationships were:

Long-Suffering Mother +1
Emotionally Distant Father +1
Dr. Blinker, his therapist +1
Really admires (look across from you) +1: Briget
Really Dislikes (look to your right) +1: Spike / Agatha
Really Envies (look to your left) +1: Klaus

Not everyone had the same secret relationship.

Briget: And I secretly like someone.

Someone: Is it me?

Briget: Nope. But it might be you, if you do enough nice things for me.

Digby: What do I have to do?

Mr. Fishe was in charge of the kids. He gave eat of them:

• A Vest
• A Stick
• Trashbags (3)

And, he explained that the trashbags must be filled by 2pm. Then, he spilled his coffee.

Me: I take the spilled coffee cup and put it into the bag.

Briget was absolutely horrified and humiliated to be stuck with these losers in the park.

Briget: My girl scout troop and I cleaned up park in one day -- one day!

Mr. Fishe: Yeah, well, I don't see your girl scout troop.

Briget pulled out her phone. Alas, no helpful scout troop supplemented the PCs' numbers.

The PCs moved out, with greater or lesser dedication to duty. They found a lot of trash, including a filthy mattress. They also found squirrels. Very angry squirrels -- no doubt contaminated with rabies! Or something! And the squirrels attacked the terrified kids!

Mitchell: I don't have to outrun a squirrel.

Briget: I just have to outrun Digby!

I think Digby may have pointed out that the squirrels hadn't yet been proven murderous. I may be mistaken, but my notes have the following exchange:

GM: So, you're being chased by murderous squirrels, hypothetically.

Digby: So, I want to be cool like Klaus and protect Briget. And I have a stick!

Mitchell: Pointy end out, Digby.

June: I'm gonna scream out we shouldn't hurt the squirrels -- we're in their forest. And then I hide behind a tree.

Jae (after a particularly bad roll on my part): Digby has more dice, but he still rolls like Digby.

I have a note about "1 die poo squirrels", which I think meant that the squirrels flung poo, but only got to roll one die for it. I also had a note about the cell phone getting used.

June freaked out, and became her alter ego, Bug. Nope, I didn't know she had an alter ego either.

Someone managed to kill a squirrel.

Me: Digby goes to town on the already dead squirrel.

Someone: Grab your trashbag and run! And don't drop your stick!

GM (as Briget's player says that Briget starts texting): Texting on the hoof? I... have to allow it. Because if you fail, you're going to run right into a tree!

He decided that if one had a roll of 5 or more in height (e.g., a set of at least 2d10 showing a matching value of at least 5), the PC kept the trashbags. Taking Guts damage meant that the PC's vest was ripped off!

Predictably, Digby lost bags and stick and had his vest ripped off. Klaus id his best to keep an eye out for Digby, feeling protective of the kid, and yanked him along.

The PCs came across a dying alien, Agent Izar of Izar. He deputized them all as probationary space agents, refusing their offer of medical aid.

Agent Izar: Your primitive earth medicine will have no effect on my advanced physiology.

He explained that they needed to stop alien criminals.

Someone: Can you release hunter killerbots and stop them?

Agent Izar: They destroyed my hunter killers.

The criminals worked for a mastermind. The PCs agreed to help. Agent Izar did something that marked them as probationary agents, though not in an obvious way, and died.

The kids went to meet the alien criminals, pretending to be totally ignorant and totally welcoming of the aliens.

Briget (making the Vulcan sign): Live long and prosper.

The aliens totally bought it. Then, the kids attacked! Somehow, each managed to absorb their target alien into a sort of techie tattoo. Yes, even Digby, who was too slow to catch one of the five visible aliens.

Digby: I _know_ there's one more. Klaus told me!

Jae: And -- Klaus forgot his accent!

Digby: I don't notice.

Digby jumped up, capturing the alien about to drop on the group from above in his forehead tattoo (or whatever the thing was).

The Monsters and their kids:

The alien warthog, Frostbite -- absorbed by Kurt
The alien bat, Moonbat -- absorbed by Digby
The alien crab, Fiddler -- absorbed by Spike
The Pile of Goo, Goop -- absorbed by Mitchell
The alien Monkey, Gearhead -- absorbed by June
The alien made of Electricity, Bolt -- absorbed by Briget

The kids tried to explain what their new responsibilities were to Mr. Fishe. He did not quite understand the seriousness of the situation.

Someone: Let's not do that. Not in public.

Mr. Fishe: Who _They_ are you talking about?

Eventually, the PCs basically informed him that they were done, telling him about the aliens. I forget whether some proof conveniently showed up around then.

The kids invaded the alien ship, but at this point, we were nearing the end of the session and our physical endurance, it having been a long, hot, but fun, GenCon. There was an abbreviated confrontation with the big bad that ran the alien ship but was not much, physically speaking.

Alien mastermind: Aaaah! I am betrayed!

GM: I think I just killed my voice.

My notes also have this:

Briget: Never place tiny alien AIs on a Sunday morning (?)

I have no idea what that means.

Bruce was not as smooth as Greg, which meant I got to see some of the bones of the system in action. We pretty much always spent a few seconds calculating what we were going to roll, but none of that significantly slowed play down.

It would have been nice if we'd had another hour or two for the game, but so it goes. I still want more time playing ORE, any flavor. I'd hoped to get it at DragonCon, but it turned out that the ORE games were all canceled. (The economics just didn't work out for ArcDream to attend, which I understand.)