My Game -- Episode 2 -- Three Day Weekend!

Yesterday was the second gaming session -- second episode -- of my Students With Super Powers Game or as one of my players call it "Time To Change" (insert Brady Bunch song here). The title was Three Day Weekend. The teacher they saw killed by a classmate of theirs as he lost control of his powers caused the school to give the students Monday off -- hence Three Day Weekend. Since my players do like to roleplay out scenes, I decided to give them this episode they could play with their new found abilities and it had a very open ended feel to it. Until the end, of course, when I gave them a plot nugget.  Overall, I felt very pleased with how the session went even with the change of venue and kitty distractions.

All tuckered out

Where we last left our heroes, they realized they developed abilities previously only thought true in comic books and movies. Our episode starts with the Pretty One, Brock, using his illusion abilities to have a John Cusack reenact that famous scene from Say Anything outside the Wild One Joce's window.

This scene right here

This irritated Joce and the two had a back and forth. Brock eventually rolled away with Harujuku girls throwing flower petals at his car and an illusion Selena Gomez in the passenger's seat. Joce immediately began to plot with her partner in crime, Mateo -- who discovered he now has speedster capabilities-- on a way to get even .

The next scene involved the Quirk Ash believing her new Shadow abilities were just the ghost of the teacher they saw killed and ran to The Smart One Alan's house to ask for help. Meanwhile, Alan, who now had Density Control and woke up in the basement a la Kitty Pryde, appealed to Ash for help to get out of the basement as the "stairs stopped working."

While this went on, the Muscle Iggy decided to do some research on electricity so he could figure out how to get rid of the static cling. He ran into a mysterious cowboy who gave him an enigmatic warning.

In this episode, the role of the Cowboy was played by Matthew McConaughey

After Ash got a warning from her surrogate sister to not tell anyone about the "ghost" (spoiler, Ash told everyone anyway), my players took a break from their characters and played NPCs in Brock's band. From there, they orchestrated a battle plan on how they planned to win the Battle of the Bands at the casino at the nearby Native American reservation. Honestly, I wished I video taped it. It was hilarious.

The PC's met up later that night at the casino for Battle of the Bands for different motives. Brock was obviously there for obvious reasons. Iggy came to carry equipment. Ash went because she is the sole member of the Fungal Bloom fan club. Joce arrived with Mateo purely for the reason to sabotage Brock's performance for that morning. And Alan arrived because no one told him he wasn't in the band anymore.

After Brock had a brief confrontation with Sparrow Johanssen -- the front woman of Fungal Bloom's rival Band and Brock's volatile ex -- things went to hell extremely quickly. Fungal Bloom was up first and Joce and Mateo were ready for it. Joce used her new empathy for technology to cause the amps to squeak and Mateo used his speed to cause the amps to fall over in the process. Ash panicked and snuffed out all the light in the room. This caused both Sparrow (a pyro) and Iggy to use their abilities to see through the impenetrable darkness to no avail. Due to some unlucky roles, they set the stage on fire instead.

Everyone manages to make it out of the burning building alive. Sparrow and Brock hook up. Joce, Mateo, Iggy, Alan, and Ash begin to drive away. Alan, though, with his trust of authority, asks for all of them to talk to the cops. He and Joce have an argument and Alan wins it. They talk to the cops and Joce is brought down to the station for running her mouth. And so is DJ Brometheus -- NPC in Brock's band. Brock tries to take the fall for Joce with no such luck.

After all this insanity, everyone had to go talk to Mrs. Selnik, the school psychologist/guidance counselor. She saw each of them one by one in which she discussed their feelings and asked what they saw. As the GM, I brought each of them one by one into my bedroom and played out the scene with everyone else not knowing what happened behind closed doors. So I will not discuss what happened here and leave it up to the players to talk about what happened to each of them if they want to.

Mrs. Selnik in this episode was played by Tina Fey -- here is a picture direct from Brock's mind

The episode concluded with each person having their tag scene. Alan and Joce discussed their past as childhood friends and made up. I'm blanking on Ash's at the moment. Brock's player had a very interesting tag scene. One of the players was sick so Brock's player left a message on her "character's" voice mail which was really the player's. He talked about some school conspiracy and wondered where she was.That will segue into a side episode I plan to run with Anna's player.

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As I said above, I think the game very well. The players felt the whole episode flowed organically. Everyone reacted well in character and what unfolded was the incredible Battle of the Bands scene. I did not expect it to go into the direction it did. As I said before about one of the main rules of GMing, expect your players to ruin any plans you make. Although I don't consider them ruining those plans. They made it better. I really cannot emphasize enough that I have the greatest group of roleplayers. They kept me on my toes for the duration.

Another aspect of the game I felt went very well was the Mrs. Selnik scene. I wished I could have listened in on the roleplaying everyone did in the waiting room but oh well. The individual scenes itself played out in very interesting ways. There were some lucky rolls and not so lucky ones. My players indicated at the end that they liked the slow build of tension that the scene caused. It instills some paranoia and also dangles a plot hook for everyone.

On the negative side, I don't think many of us are familiar with the mechanics. As a GM I need to get my head out of the traditional mindset of gaming. Dramatic Cortex is about relationships. It is not so much focused on the how you do things but the why you do things. I made a crib sheet (correction: I stole it from Ed) that I forgot to hand out. I will next time.

Having said that, I think the Alan/Joce interaction is a great example of how the game mechanics are supposed to go. They confronted each other. They rolled against each other. Alan won and Joce gained a stress level. Later, Alan and Joce talked out the issues they had with each other which resolved the stress. Also, when Joce wanted to find Ash but she caught the attention of the police, rolling Ash's relationship -- because that motivated her -- is also how Dramatic Cortex is supposed to play out.

One of my players gave me a suggestion to incooporate into a future game -- Odd Couple Stuff. Toss characters together who don't have much interaction or have a low level relationship dice. I will have to remember that.

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I'm going to close with some memorable quotes from the game:

"Stairs Don't Work" - Alan

"Joce can't help with hauntings" "Joce can't help with much of anything." - Ash and Alan

"I don't think Bob Barker would do that to us." - Brock on why Bob Barker won't sue them for the "Mountain Climber Song"

"Bob Barker will have our legs broke." - STFU, member of Fungal Bloom

"I forgot I was here." - Ash

"Alan! You need to stop studying so much for Saturdays!" - Ash regarding Alan studying for the SATs.

"Hey Sbarro!" - Brock talking to Sparrow.

"*offers cop a blunt*" - DJ Brometheus, Fungal Bloom Member

"Your car fits me nicely!" "I can fit three of my siblings where you're sitting." - Iggy and Mateo

"You want me to get us some ice cream?" "Okay!" "Mateo! Get us some ice cream!" - Joce and Ash