But before we find out Ash's fate, where was Anna during the events in last episode? Our little power leeching investigator decided to follow her mother into work (her mother cleans houses) to do some snooping. What she ended up uncovering were secret rooms that you needed a code to get into. Anna did not have the code but she did get caught by Dr. Selnik's middle daughter, Tatiana.
After calling her mother, Tatiana asked Anna to stay for dinner and up until then asked Anna to clean her room and do other various chores. She even gave Anna a makeover.
While Tatiana tortured Anna, Male Cheerleader/Doormat/Earth Bender Randy Palmer had picked up Anna's homework for her and prepared to drop it off at the Selniks where Anna said she was. On his way there, as he carried his bass (violin) on his back, he thought he saw Dr. Selnik and Ash in the car drive past him. He waved... but no one saw. When he dropped off the homework, he saw a sleepy Ash being escorted into Dr. Selnik's office.
As he left, he began to walk home to only run into Joss, Iggy, and Mateo who just arrived looking for Ash. Randy explained what he saw and Joss saw the opportunity to make a new minion. The quartet drove to Mateo's house and plotted what to do next. Joss made Randy go back to the Selniks' and describe what he saw. He did so, after doubling back to return an earring to Tatiana that he accidentally had the earth swallow up.
Joss forces Mateo to go and do some spying to figure where Ash and Anna were. He doesn't come back. After waiting a while Joss, Iggy, and Randy low crawl to the Selnik's yard. They hear Mateo crying for help from inside the ground. Before they could investigate further, they hear the sip as if from a juice box. On the porch watching them is the Selniks' 14 year old son, Cody.
Joss bargains with him to get him to show where Mateo is. A few joints and a couple hundred dollars later, Cody shows them the basement where there is a prototype trap in development. While Cody is showing where Mateo fell, Mr. Selnik comes home and locks all of them, even his own son, in the underground prison "for their own good".
Meanwhile, Dr. Selnik let Ash go and Ash, who still felt foggy about everything that happened goes to Joss's house who is for obvious reasons, is not home. Joss's mother is and she brings Ash inside and feeds her and gives her hot cocoa.
 |
| Destroying things and hot cocoa are just a thing with this group |
Back at the Selnik's, Anna is forced into Dr. Selnik's office in which everything feels hazy and funny. She comes out of the office with a whole new view on life -- or so Dr. Selnik thinks because she Is So That Good At Her Job. Anna joins Tatiana at dinner as Dr. Selnik and Mr. Selnik talk in hushened whispers in the other room.
Transitional Phrase back into the hole, Joss, Iggy, Randy, Mateo, and now Cody try to figure their way out of the hole. After a bit of team work and collective use of their powers, they manage to escape. This sets off an alarm in the house and the parent Selniks quickly rush to the backyard. The fence around the house began to grow taller to prevent escape. Joss managed to use some quick thinking and stop it from expanding and further. And sprinklers began to spew sleepy gas into the air. Randy managed to use his earth power to cover the sprinklers, some of them at least.
Mr. Selnik went all ninja and took out a net launcher from... somewhere and shot it towards the kids. Randy did a perfect round-off to get out of the way but no one saw because Iggy grabbed the net and sent the electric current back at Mr. Selnik which sent him backwards through the window causing a loud explosion. He was out for the count.
Dr. Selnik was on her cellphone calling someone when Anna touched her causing her to fall to the ground. The one they came to save saved them.
As Ash enjoyed food that was not frozen, she heard the ruckus and heard Joss's mom on the phone. She leaves and heads to Galileo Street.
Just as the gang exits the Selnik residence, a series of unmarked cars began to swarm around. Randy created a hole which allowed them to get away. The cowboy drove up with a van and they all jumped in as they drove into the evening.
---
This session, I invited a friend of mine to play. He travels a lot for work but I decided to figure a way to work him in. I felt he successfully dived right into our crazy group and blended right in. Randy was a hit with his eager to please ways and Joss easily began to boss him around.
There are parts of this episode that makes me internally cringe. It wasn't a bad roleplaying session but I actually forgot a couple of things I meant to do but it's at a point I can't go back. I also realized a missed opportunity to poke one of the characters further along. I'm slightly angry at myself for that one. I also feel awful that Ash had a very small part in this session (although it is interesting how much she remains the soul of the team even when she has a smaller role). I always want to give each player something to do a session. This is the missed opportunity I am speaking of. I realized afterwards that I could have done a lot more with Ash than I did. So I blame myself for that.
However, I think we're all our worst critic. This session had a lot of laughter and my players had a lot of fun. This episode was a bit off the wall admittedly in someways but the reason why we all laughed was not because we were making in-jokes or peanut gallery comments (although that contributed a bit). We laughed because the situation was hilarious-- a nice break after last week in which the tone was pretty heavy.
This time, it was a comedy of errors. Everyone goes to rescue Ash and Anna. Ash ends up being let go (her brainwashing complete) and spends the rest of the episode drinking hot cocoa with Joss's mom. Anna ends up saving them after many ridiculous screw ups (and horrible rolls on all our parts). In reality, this session played like a game of Fiasco. I very much liked it story-wise, especially when you cut from the intense hole problem with Joss, Iggy, and Randy to Anna being bossed around and berated by Tatiana a la Mean Girls to Ash just being happy little Ash drinking her hot cocoa and swinging her legs.
I think if this session was an actual TV episode, it probably would have been a big hit with the fans because of the multilayers of it.
Although one last criticism of myself -- I need to reread my Watcher Sheet again. I am sure I will eventually get the hang of it. I just keep forgetting things and still use one of my players who is familiar with the system as a crutch.
---
There is no quotes of the session mostly because I was so busy laughing so hard I didn't take any. And there will be no NPC of the session mainly because I'm trying to push this out and go back to Nanowrimo. Apologies for this entry seeming rushed!
No comments:
Post a Comment