Gary Harper
May 18, 2020 6:49 PM
Sonora Gaming Club, one last time... by Gary Harper
Gary emerged from the Aladren common room well enough ahead of schedule to make sure he was the first one at the table for the first meeting of the Sonoran Gaming Club this year. This was his last year running games for this group, it had become a nice constant in his life. He really enjoyed running games for his friends here and next year he wouldn't be able to. Well, at least not here anyway. Maybe they'd have some get togethers for old times sake, but it wouldn't quite be the same. It made him a little sad as he arranged his things at his usual place at the table.Traditionally this first meeting was to welcome in any new people and give him the chance to present his adventure idea for the term. Then they could all discuss it, talk about characters they wanted to play, and bring up any concerns they may have. The standard 'session zero' type of gathering. Then they'd have until the next session to get their characters made up and ready to go. He'd spend the time helping out whoever needed it during the course of the week and tweaking the first session stuff to match up better with the characters that were being made.
This year would be slightly different. If people wanted to keep playing next year, they were going to need to figure out who was going to be running the games. It was very difficult to play games without a gamemaster. Sure, there were games like that out there, and there were board games, but.... they just weren't the same. Maybe that is what the group would decide to do though, who knows. He wouldn't be a part of it, and he tried to convince himself that that allowed him to not care. But, he still did. They had such good times around this table, and they could keep on having them. He was not essential, but someone in this position was.
As the people began to arrive he smiled and welcomed them. Once it looked like everyone had arrived, he stood and got their attention. "Hi all, thanks for coming. For the newcomers, I am Gary your friendly neighborhood gamemaster. Welcome all to the 'first official meeting of the the last year of my reign of terror'", he grinned then sobered. "For those of you that are returning, this year will be different than previous years. You may have heard some of these plans already, but allow me to make them official." He looked over the group in front of him, "I have been running the games here since I was a second year student, and soon it will be time for me to move on. If you want to keep playing these kinds of games next year, you will need someone or someones to run said games."
"In order to allow you all to make an informed decision on that front," He continued, "This term anyone that wants to throw their hat into the ring as a potential gamemaster for next year, can plan and run a short adventure of their own. I'll get us started and maybe wrap things up at the end of the term but for the most part, I'll be taking a little break this year and just be playing the games, and helping people work on their adventures if they want me to. Also, I have RATS at the end of the year that will need some study time dedicated to them."
He paused for a moment, "I should probably back up a little for those of you who aren't familiar with the concept of role-playing games. Don't worry about all the stuff I just said to much. These games are a different than your traditional board games or other games. You are not trying to 'win' the game and the people playing with you are not your opposition. We are working together to tell a story, one person is the gamemaster, and they present the situation to the other players and describe how the world reacts to what those other players do. The other players each control a character that lives in the world that the gamemaster describes, and it is up to that player to decide what that character does within the bounds of the story being presented. There are some rules to follow for how things work out and dice to add an element of uncertainty." He smiled, "It'll probably make sense once you see it in action."
OOC: This thread will be a multithread thing so anyone that wants to post their character's game can do so, and people can interact with it at whatever level they want to. The first one will be the continuation of this opening session so things can happen now.
Subthreads: Session 0 Continued! by Gary Harper with Heinrich Hexenmeister , Valentine Duell
Session 1: Running with the Shadows by Gary Harper with Gabriel Wilson, Evelyn Stones, Heinrich Hexenmeister , Valentine Duell, Ness McLeod
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Gary Harper
Sonora Gaming Club, one last time...
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Gary Harper
May 18, 2020 6:51 PM
Session 0 Continued! by Gary Harper
"Now, I usually like to have an overarching story for the term so that the characters we create can have some continuity and progression from session to session." Gary began strolling around the table, just because he felt like it, "However, that is tricky if we have a bunch of different people running a bunch of different games. Especially if they all want to use different systems. Over the years we've played everything from Toklienesque high fantasy to robot space pirates, all of which have been great and I want to leave those options open for people to use." He'd made his way around the table and dropped back into his chair. "So I think we will do something along these lines...." His voice trailed off as he looked around at the table, trying to capture everyone's attention."It was a dark and stormy night." He began in his best gamemaster's voice, "The wind howled and the rain pelted down on the roof of Sonora Academy. Lightning flashed and the thunder boomed outside," a the lights seemed to flicker and a quiet peel of thunder rolled across the table with a subtle motion from Gary's wand, "Inside though everything was calm and dry. The teachers and students were going about their normal activities, it is a Friday evening and we find our heroes sitting around a table in the library. They seem to be playing some sort of game." He glanced around the table and smiles.
Before anyone could comment to much, he continued with gusto, "Suddenly there is a blinding flash of light and a tremendous boom! You're thrown into the air by magical energies that you've never experienced before. They toss you about, tearing at you for what seems like an eternity until you feel as though you've been torn asunder." Gary's voice calmed again, "The forces that had played about you cease and you fall, and fall, and fall... When you awaken you find yourself laying in a field of green grass. A cool breeze greets you as you sit up. You can see other figures around you, sitting up as well. Somehow, you know they are your friends from that table in the long gone library. They don't look like your friends anymore though, and glancing down, you don't look like you anymore either. Strange knowledge and memories flash through your brain, they don't belong to you but they are yours to use. Somewhere, off in the distance, you can sense another person that, like you, does not belong here."
Gary grinned, breaking the narrative, "It doesn't take you long to discover that there has been some very, very magical accident somewhere. You have been tossed from your comfortable little world of Earth into the multiverse of possible worlds. Some of the other residents of Sonora have been similarly tossed about, and it is up to you to find and rescue them. Doing so allows you to leave the world behind and sends you on to the next one. Hopefully, once they have all been recovered, home will be the last stop on this journey."
"In short," Gary broke the mood entirely, "You will be playing yourselves this time around. It's a good idea for new GMs to create characters for their adventure, so they know what sort of abilities and such they will need to deal with. As such, those characters will give you bodies and abilities for each world you visit, but you will still be you. As such, all the GM will need to worry about with the characters are the abilities and such. Names, gender, physical appearance can all be handled by the player who chooses that character." He shrugged, "It's not an ideal, but it sounded amusing in my head. Thoughts? Discussions? I've talked plenty, now it's your turn."
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Gary Harper
Session 0 Continued!
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Heinrich Hexenmeister
May 27, 2020 11:50 AM
Continuing by Heinrich Hexenmeister
Heinrich counted himself victorious over the English language when the only word in Gary's speech that he didn't understand was 'Tolkienesque'. He'd even followed 'eternity' and 'asunder'. Who knew playing Dungeons and Dragons would be so good for his English development? The plan for multiple DMs for this year was not exactly encouraging to him - he'd just gotten used to the way Gary talked - but he'd be lying if he wasn't a little bit relieved to leave the space pirates game behind them. Being a genderless robot space being had been fine. It was the pirate part he'd had trouble getting behind. He'd managed to play the part of the crew's voice of reason so they didn't do anything too outlandish that would get them all murdered by space authorities - which had been a bit of stretch after play Siegmund the Dragonborn who swung open doors to rooms full of evil goblins and wanted to smite all the bad guys without running away to rest and recover, but they'd gotten through the campaign without too badly ruffling his scruples.At least with a series of mini-adventures, if he didn't like the premise of one, it would probably be over quicker.
He looked around the table. "You all look strange," he told his fellow players.
He looked back to Gary. "This sounds fine. I will not be running one," he added, in case Gary had been counting on him to provide an adventure. He'd only been playing these games for a year. He was definitely not comfortable with the idea of running one, even if English wasn't still a problem. English might not be - and he wasn't absolutely certain it wouldn't crop up as some kind of issue either because the new players had trouble with his accent, or just because his words were not as fluid and literary as Gary's usually were - but Heinrich did not count himself as particularly creative. Crafting a story that other people could play out just sounded very difficult and he had enough difficult things in his life right now without adding more unnecessarily.
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Heinrich Hexenmeister
Continuing
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Valentine Duell
June 26, 2020 8:07 PM
People and Games! by Valentine Duell
Valentine was in! Ness was awesome! The first year made her way to the library giddy with excitement, there was a games club and she was invited! She was going to have to tell Mama and Papa all about this in her next letter home. As she entered the library, only a few minutes early for the meeting, she quickly spotted what must be the group. There was a bunch of people of all different ages sitting around one of the bigger tables in the corner. Ness must have pulled some strings for her, there were a bunch of people here, maybe they had multiple games running.She grinned wide and moved closer, she spotted Ness and gave her friend a wave. It was odd though, Ness didn't look particularly happy. A thought struck Val as she found an empty seat at the table. Had her invitation cost someone else a seat? Did one of Ness' other friends not get to play now? She'd have to talk to Ness after this and find out. Val wanted to be in the group and have fun playing games, but she did not want to be the one that prevented someone else from having that experience.
One of the older boys stood up and started talking then. He was the one in charge of the group, Gary. He seemed nice enough... and he was graduating after this year? She looked around at the table as Gary talked about his plans for the club. This didn't sound very good. Had he been the only one running the games for the club? The way he talked, it didn't sound like the rest of the players had much experience with running games.
She had some, but not a lot. He started to talk about what role-playing games are as her mind drifted off to possibilities. Could she run a game for all these older students? Ness would, right? Ness was an experienced player. There wasn't much to lose in the attempt, at worst her game fails. What if everyone's does? What if no one wants to play again because it was all terrible? No, she was going to have to try. She was going to have to make her best game ever so all these people could keep having fun hanging out together.
Gary had gotten up and was wandering around the table now. Oh, he had some level of story at least. That was good. Then he began to narrate. This could be fun, so she needed an adventure to rescue someone from the school that wasn't sitting at the table. An idea began to take root in her mind, it could be a fun idea.
When the gamemaster asked if anyone had any thoughts or ideas another of the older boys spoke up. He had a bit of a German accent, and declared up front that he wasn't going to run an adventure. Val's eyes darted around the table, would others follow suit now? She wasn't going to say anything yet. If her idea didn't pan out, then she just wouldn't have a game either. Maybe she would find Gary and talk to him later. In the meantime she wanted to know what this group was like, so she sat quietly and listened and planned.
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Valentine Duell
People and Games!
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