Unknown Armies: A-Hunting We Will Go
my first introduction to the game a) since publication and b) as a player, rather than a GM.
Playtesters see the worst of a game. I do not simply mean silly rules that are changed; I'm also referring to a ToC-less, Index-less ever-changing mess. UA was better than most, but the finished product was still haunted by the ghost of the playtest version.
Todd dispelled this with the right kind of GM prep. His character sheets had a summary of the rules on the back, and Todd went through the summary quickly, concisely, and clearly. It helped that I was approaching the game as a player, not a GM. I didn't have to worry about the fiddly bits.
The scenario had nothing to do with the Invisible Clergy, NWI, or the Occult Underground. The PCs were all ordinary shmucks. Well, mostly. One was an adept, but none of the PCs knew this, and he only used his powers once, I believe. The PCs all worked for a tabloid that periodically laid them off so that it could afford legal council for the latest lawsuit. This was one such period, and the PCs decided to spend their vacation at a friend's secluded cabin. He wasn't going to be there, but they were welcome to use the cabin in his absence and had taken advantage of the open invitation in the past.
The PCs were:
Sean Davis -- played by me. Good looking, vain star reporter
Jake Reynolds -- the only adept (mage), photographer, methodical, incapable of multi-tasking
Shadow Pirelli -- the ultimate gopher,
Catherine Burns -- secretary
Mr. Hu -- 300 pound Chinese driver who's never been known to need a map.
Wilson -- played by Julie Hoverson, from Serendipity's Circle, a gaming magazine devoted to horror rpgs
Everyone arrived at the secluded cabin, and 30 seconds after they left the car, Shadow had cleaned up all their trash.
Soon, everyone relaxed, and the only sound to be heard was Wilson typing on his laptop, winning some transistor tubes or something from an auction on e-bay. The typing stopped momentarily, and it was a relief when it started again.
It was a pleasant evening, and everyone went to sleep. A couple of hours later, Catherine woke up, hearing rats, which I'd guess was her Fear. The player chose the flee reaction, and Todd ruled that she wound up standing on top of the kitchen table, screaming.
This woke the others. Catherine insisted that there were rats under the house. Sean took a flashlight and went to check. He turned on the flashlight. He saw the gleam of many pairs of red eyes. He turned off the flashlight and went quickly back into the house.
Sean: Yup, they're there, all right.
He gradually coaxed Catherine off the table while Wilson and Shadow whipped up a bowl of rat-poison porridge. This was left outside, and the next day, I think the bowl was half empty. I also recall some talk of rat statues, perhaps made from rats caught in the plaster-like porridge, but I don't remember the details.
Sean, Catherine, and Shadow took a rowboat out onto the lake to do fishing. Wilson and Jake stayed inside, while Mr. Hiu took a walk. He was trying to be at one with nature. Unfortunately, he encountered a skunk. Given the way Todd described this, I got the impression that Mr. Hiu had no idea what a skunk was, and wondered, out of character, if he might be a robot or an alien. I don't think that was the case.
On the lake, Shadow worried about a very large mosquito bite on his arm. Kind of like a hive. Sean suggested calomine lotion, and Shadow pulled some out. I think the player used the Denman method of getting more stuff, but it fit the concept of the Ultimate Gopher. He never pulled out anything that cracked my suspension of disbelief.
Sean kept losing his fish. There'd be a nibble, then nothing when he reeled it in. Finally, he pulled in -- half a fish. The bottom half had been eaten by something. And, gee, there weren't any other boats on the lake, like there usually were this time of year. Mind checks all around.
Mind checks were failed a lot in this game, and Sean and Shadow blew theirs. I chose Flee for Sean, and he told Shadow to get the boat back to shore. Shadow's player chose Freeze. Todd said that the next thing either knew, Sean had rowed the boat to shore, and Shadow was still standing, frozen in shock.
The incident seemed funny from the safety of the shore, though, and Sean suggested Jake get a picture of the boat crew posing with the half a fish, to be captioned "The One That Got Away". Everyone ate lunch.
Jake and Mr. Hiu decided to take a walk, and they found a very unusual beaver dam, one suggesting far too much intelligence on the part of the beavers. Then there was this odd pattern of ripples in the water. Jake's player made his Mind check and was fascinated. Mr. Hiu's blew the Mind check and chose the flee option. Mr. Hiu melted into the woods, insofar as someone his size could. Jake was disgruntled.
Jake: Mr. Hiu! Mr. Hiu! Well, phooey on you.
Jake took pictures and went back to the house. When Mr. Hiu stopped Fleeing, he discovered that he was actually lost, something that almost never happens. Trying to get his bearings, he ran across some army men. At some point, for reasons I don't recall, they shot him with a tranquilizer dart or two. He fell unconscious as Something attacked. I believe we thought it was a giant beaver.
Mr. Hiu woke up in the creature's cave and quickly left, noting skulls and other bones. He stumbled across the bodies of dead army men, I think, and got back to the cabin, covered with their blood.
I blew another mind check for Sean when Mr. Hiu returned, covered in blood. Sean soiled his pants, but no one noticed, as Catherine and Wilson were staring at Mr. Hiu, while Shadow and Jake were studying some fascinating photos in the shack.
Sean went inside and got cleaned up while Wilson and Catherine helped Mr. Hiu do likewise. I think this was when Wilson went out. I forget the details, but he saw a squirrel standing utterly still on a branch. Closer examination revealed that it was dead, having been utterly drained of blood. Wilson returned with the army jeep and the tranquilizer gun.
Sean: Whose jeep is that?
Wilson: Mine.
Sean had no urge to challenge him on that score. From what he was able to piece together about three dead men and dangerous beavers, he decided that everyone should leave. Now.
He banged on the door of the shed, trying to get Jake and Shadow moving. They were too interested in their discovery and wouldn't come out or unlock the door.
Sean: We have to get out of here! There's three dead guys and killer beavers!
Jake (to Shadow): Ignore him. He's just pulling your leg.
Eventually, they came out with the photos and notes. It seemed that the government had cleared everyone out preparatory to doing some kind of experiments. This accounted for the utter solitude. But wouldn't someone have stopped them from driving into the area? If they'd taken major roads, probably, but, as Todd reminded us, Mr. Hiu used obscure dirt roads. This was all quite fascinating, government agents experimenting on beavers, but everyone agreed that they should leave first and write the story later.
Catherine started packing, opened a drawer, saw a rat, and screamed. Sean came over, and saw that the rat was actually sculpted from the rat-poisoned porridge. I think I'm forgetting some details here.
Holding the plaster rat, he demanded to know who'd done it. It wasn't funny. As everyone protested their innocence, he noticed paw prints on the fake rat. He screamed and dropped it, thus destroying the evidence of his claim that a sentient beaver who had placed it, just like the one who had stolen his fish. Had Stolen His Fish!
Did I mention that Sean's Rage stimulus is someone trying to steal credit from him?
I think I rolled a critical failure on a mind check about now, choosing Frenzy. Todd decreed that when Sean next knew what was happening, he had opened the gun cabinet, and was loading a rifle or shotgun. About now, Mr. Hiu, looking at a picture of his friend, the cabin owner, with his crooked tooth, realized that one of the skulls in the cave had the same crooked tooth. He joined Sean at the gun cabinet. I think someone commented on testosterone poison, and this may have been when Mr. Hiu told the others that the beaver had killed their friend.
Sean: This means war.
Hiu's player: I just nod and keep loading the gun.
(Naturally, both trigger happy males were played by women.)
Around then, what looked like a man in a fur coat, but proved to be more like a bear, but with teeth like a shark's, knocked a tree down onto one of the two cars. I think a branch went through a window in the cabin and one of the windows of the uncrushed car was shattered as well.
The creature either knocked the trash over or started rooting through it. Shadow lost it then.
Shadow: I forgot to bring in the trash! I told myself and told myself to bring in the trash! Stupid! Stupid!
Have I mentioned that Shadow's Rage stimulus is forgetting to take care of one of the details?
Shadow was easily restrained, as I recall. But folks still had the problem of getting to the remaining car, which was now missing a door, as the creature had ripped it off its hinges. Jake said he could distract the creature with a camera. No, really, it was just a trick thing that works, he'd done it once before, there was absolutely no danger. Honest, guys.
I wasn't sure how skeptical to play Sean, who didn't know about real magic and hadn't seen that Jake's character sheet had an extra page. But I didn't want to slow things down too much or to make Sean a better person than he seemed to me. I had him start convinced Jake was spinning a yarn, but when Jake kept insisting that the trick worked, Sean figured that if Jake was that confident about it, he was on to something. Jake did something with his camera, and the creature stood still. Sean and Mr. Hiu fired at it.
Todd asked if either PC had a firearms skill. Naturally, they did not. This meant that they'd hit what they were aiming for only on a roll of 01 on d100. Mr. Hiu missed, but I rolled an 01 for Sean. I guess he must have really wanted to kill that fish-stealing beaver.
The creature died instantly. Catherine hugged Sean and kissed him. Everyone headed for the car, putting Sean in front because he was the sharpshooter. The creature was dragged away, and Wilson tossed something over the blood-stained seats. Mr. Hiu started the car.
That was when folks saw a thick cloud. And one two foot long mosquito in the vanguard that looked like a hotdog on wings. Remember Shadow's bugbite? What would a whole bunch of them do? Remember the squirrel drained of blood?
And the car had not only a broken window, as Julie thought, but also a missing door. What we needed was mosquito repellant. Shadow sprayed everyone with it, and may have sprayed some out at the mosquitoes, or maybe we had something else we sprayed at them en masse.
Meanwhile, Mr. Hiu's player made a lousy Drive roll. But, as Todd pointed out, in UA, a roll can be flip-flopped, a failing 72 becoming a successful 27, if the situaition calling for the roll triggers one of the PC's stimuli: Rage, Fear, or Nobility. All of us were eager to help the player, but she didn't need it. She got Todd to explain the concept, and figured out exactly what to do.
Mr. Hiu's Player (pointing to the Noble stimulus on the sheet): I want to help others be at one with nature. I've been watching these guys since we got here and they are -not- at one with nature!
Todd allowed this, and, to my utter astonishment, the PCs escaped with no casualties. The players then asked what had been going on.
I had the simplistic idea that the government had created mutant beavers. Actually, it had released something that would mutate -all- the animal wild life. Sean had shot a mutated bear, and his fish had been stolen by a frog, not a beaver.
Jake did some kind of photography or time dilation magic; I don't remember which. All of the PCs were, I think, PCs from Todd's gaming group, but the session was free of any attempt to import the author's home campaign if you see what I mean.
