Alpha Blue session report: The Nuts on Zeta Minor

Want to make things happen?  Start small, do what you do (which is hopefully what you love), and keep at it, little by little.  Sustained effort.

That's how you build an audience, a player pool, a long-term campaign...

So, I ran five players through another 90 minute Alpha Blue session on Roll20.  To give you some idea, I've run probably a dozen sessions on Roll20, all Alpha Blue.  Once I had a single player and once I had three, the rest were all two-player games.

There's no way I can transcribe the chat log faithfully without it taking me hours and hours, so I'm just going to summarize, showcase bits here and there - the highlights!

The cast of characters...

• Miles Artemis (male) - human telepathic space pirate
• Dask Jorana (male) - human space pirate and mutant with ice powers and a love of brains (eating them)
• Saga Vortau (female) - human performer and prostitute who wants to be famous
• Lexina (female) - human gambler and mutant with snake DNA
• Katya Vosdil (female) - human medic who gets lucky when she needs it

Opening Crawl

All of you were contacted by a temp agency calling itself Universal Exploits.  They need a few expendable spacers to investigate troubles on the planet Zeta Minor.  Universal Exploits doesn't believe in specifics and they pay triple for dead teammates... that's all you need to know.

You're currently flying in a starship called The Nuts on route to Zeta Minor.  

It's going to take a couple hours before you're in planetary orbit.

Settling In & Small Talk

Dask:  Who is piloting The Nuts?

GM:  It's on autopilot.

Lexina:  Do we have a holo-deck or some entertainment center?

Katya:  I will be in whatever passes for a lounge on the ship, checking medical kit and making sure no one is a cop.

Miles:  I'll be greeting my fellow companions while drinking from my flask and offering a swig to each one I greet.

GM:  There is entertainment aboard The Nuts.  Three-dimensional chess, miniature holographic creature battles, and your own private lounge called Moonglow & Stardust (it came with the ship when you bought it).

The ship came with its own droid, too.  He looks like C3-PO, except he's shiny and sparkly blue.  The droid is unpacking a crate in the lounge, something he found in the cargo hold.  "One of Captain Urez's leftovers from his tour of duty in the clone war."

Saga:  I'm going over to take a closer look at the contents.

GM:  There's a thousand little styrofoam peanuts all over the place; underneath is some kind of sexbot.

Proximity Warning

The Nuts' crew talks amongst themselves about the sexbot, gambling debts, seeking adventure, and Zeta Minor (it's rich in blue crystal) when suddenly the ship is on alert - something approaches!

It's a klingon warship.

Since Lexina speaks Klingon, she does her best to persuade the klingons to back off.  Nope, they want to board The Nuts and make sure the crew is who they say they are (on a mission from some high-up klingon that Lexina remembers hearing about).

Long story short, The Nuts tries to get the hell out of there - but not before Lexina grabs the weapon controls and starts firing.  She rolls a 19 on the ship-to-ship combat table found in Girls Gone Rogue.  The klingon ship is heavily damaged and the crew are dead.  

Time to loot the warship!  Just as they find some nifty body armor, small noises are heard.  Something is rummaging around the debris.  Face huggers!

Almost all of the alien organisms are destroyed, but one hugs onto Dask's face.  Everyone who went aboard the klingon ship races back to The Nuts, which promptly lands on Zeta Minor.

Planet-Fall

Miles lands their ship, but his controls are jammed with raspberry.  A couple of rough looking spacers are coming up the landing gantry with laser rifles.  They want everyone out so they can steal the ship.

Meanwhile, the face hugger has fallen off Dask's face and his stomach isn't feeling too good.  What bursts out is, in fact, space herpes!  Dask just barely makes his saving throw, which means he survives but is unconscious for awhile.

There's a shootout with the spacers trying to steal The Nuts.  Katya deals out the most damage, eventually killing the space thieves.  

_________

That's about it.  Hope you enjoyed reading about the latest adventure in deep space!

There's a fine line between moving onto the next scene and wanting to preserve those little moments where characters are interacting with each other and the world.  

Squeeze too much and you're wasting time on spent fruit... squeeze too little and you may be throwing away the best parts.  Finding that balance is key.

VS

p.s.  Just lowered the price on Alpha Blue softcovers - fancy, thick cream-colored paper.  But it here for a better deal!

When gaming groups get too comfortable

"My Elf opens up the portal above the village of the Blue-Men, walks over to it, pulls down his pants, and attempts to poop on the head of a Blue-Man."  *

That was more or less an actual quote from the table at last Saturday's game.  If it had been just a funny comment, then I wouldn't have given it much thought.  But no, this was the Player Character's sincere desire.

When first confronted with the plan-of-action, I didn't know what to think.  Creative?  Yes.  Amusing?  Sure.  Consistent with the familiar tropes of sword & sorcery?  Not so much.

Sometimes, our gaming group has a new guy, occasionally there's a female present.  This particular session had neither of those.  It was just four dudes who have been friends for awhile.

Yes, our gaming group has gotten to that point.  Of course, not every session containing just the four of us is going to get silly and immature, but there's a chance... and last Saturday night I wondered if an imaginary line had been crossed.

One of the problems is this: it's infectious.  Later that night, I was not immune to lighthearted shenanigans.  As DM, I was using the whispered voice of a creepy Styx-like gondola driver NPC.  One of the characters persisted with questions.  He was being a little over-cautious, and seemingly slowing down the game.  After wading through a number of his questions, I responded with (using the same vocal tone), "Stop being such a pussy and get in the boat."

Everyone laughed.  It was a funny line delivered in an amusing way.  Upon which, the PCs hopped onto the gondola so the adventure proper could begin.  Did my joke detract from the seriousness of the game or the intensity with which our collaborative imaginations kept the game world alive?  I don't know.  Normally, I restrain myself from such things.  That time, in lieu of the portal pooping incident, I decided not to hold back.

GMs have to weigh those decisions carefully.  How far is too far?  Is a jokey atmosphere a good thing to be encouraged?  Actively discourage with a sobering word?  Should the GM join in with the players' hooting and hollering, or is unspoken suppression of juvenile levity a necessary evil?  Do the best GMs strike some kind of balance?

If your gaming group has ever experienced a disturbing level of comfort where anything can and usually will be said during a session, then comment.  I want to read about what happened, and if it became an issue at some point.

VS

*  "Oh, shit!  Venger's fantasy game.  There goes Carcosa."  ~  Not an actual line from Space Balls.