Better Angels: Back to Hell

Very quick end to the Better Angels game yesterday. Some thoughts first.

I like the premise of the game: You're possessed by a demon and you can make concessions to it by being a supervillain, doing stupid evil things rather than actually evil things, and wind up either fighting against your demon without doing so overtly, living the life of a supervillain without really wanting to.

My players kinda didn't do that. Three of them whole-heartedly embraced the notion of being evil, and didn't so much act like supervillains as people possessed by demons reveling in doing evil things. There was some token resistance early on to what their demons wanted, but they pretty quickly got over that and starting killing and manipulating people in terrible ways. The fourth player was playing a little kid who was possessed, and gradually figured out that the monster in her head was asking her to do bad things.

All in all, I think if I were going to do this game again, I'd do a lot of things differently:

• Establish the goddamn setting. The book doesn't really do that very well (and owns up to that, so that's not a negative), but I really needed to firmly establish that it's a four-color setting with a specific genesis for supers. We should have had colorful costumes and nicknames and so forth. 
• Disallow the kid. Children having bad things happen to them in RPGs make me super uncomfortable. Being possessed by a demon is a bad thing. I liked the concept in theory, I was less than happy about it in execution (but see below).
• Use one of the pre-written scenarios. There are a whole bunch of them, and I think that had I read one and used it, it would have gotten closer to the game as intended. 

Learning the system was helpful, but I tend to learn systems best by using them, and that takes a few sessions, so I can't really complain about that. All in all, I like the game and I was happy with the way it went, and I think it was fun. I'll be glad, however, to move on to something else. 

Anyway, last time, we ended with Keys, the angel-bearer, walking into the police station where Willa had just played the golden fiddle and shunted Mammon out of Gary and into a cop. Arvo followed the angel, carefully, not wanting to get hurt. 

The cop, now demonized (claws and wings out, thanks to Mammon) wheeled on Gary and shot him down with his own Dominator Strike. Gary fell dead, his chest caving in. (Yeah, that's how this game started.) 

Willa tried to sneak out of the evidence room unnoticed, but the angel was there. He ordered the cops to run, but the possessed cop stayed, horrified. The angel ordered Willa to send Mammon back to Hell. She refused, so he punched her in the head a couple of times, and then ordered her again. She played the fiddle and sent Mammon upstairs into a prisoner, which the angel seemed not to notice. 

The angel-bearer and Willa argued a bit; the angel wanted her to play the fiddle and exile Baal, and Willa was trying to stall for time, knowing that she couldn't beat the angel physically. Eventually they went back upstairs, with cops watching, and Willa told Baal to save her once he could. She sent Baal into a cop, and the angel took the fiddle and gave it to one of the nearby cops. I rolled a die to see if it was the one possessed by Baal...but it wasn't.

The cop played the fiddle, and sent Baal, Mammon, and Nidhogg (Arvo was sitting outside) back to Hell. Willa and Arvo were arrested for multiple counts of murder. We figured that Arvo would eventually be deported back to Iceland (since making the charges stick would be hard, since he was invisible most of the time) and Willa's would be a very interesting trial - most of her crimes were committed using Dead Ringer, but there was also an angel-bearer willing to testify against her. 

But that night, the cop showed up at Livi's house, and played her demon out. Livi's parents ran over and hugged her - they'd known what was happening, since Stella told them, but they didn't let on too much, for fear of upsetting the demon. 

"But now I'm just like everyone else," complained Livi.

"Never," her mother replied. And that's about as close to a happy ending as I think we're getting. 

Better Angels!

Saturday was Better Angels, so I'd better do the write-up. Ha-ha!

Heh. Yeah.

Anyway, last time, the characters were at the hospital, and the three adults had decided to try and swipe Livi away from her parents because they're horrible people (the PCs, not her parents). Willa used Dead Ringer to impersonate Stella, the social worker, while Avro and Gary distracted the real Stella and Livi's mother (Sandy). Impersonating Stella took a Master Die from Baal, who only agreed to it after Willa agreed to go into the maternity ward and switch some bracelets on new babies (told you, they're awful people).

Willa went to talk to Livi's dad (Bob) and Livi, but Livi saw through the disguise and refused to go off with Stella. Instead, she went here Willa and her dad to the lobby, whereupon Willa, seeing real-Stella, turned into a security guard while they weren't looking and vanished into the crowd.

Avro and Gary, meanwhile, had tried to convince Sandy and Stella that Livi had been hanging out with some demented old lady (giving credence to a story Livi had told a few sessions ago), and Stella got on her phone, ostensibly to report or check up on that. Once they saw Bob and Livi coming, though, the Hellbinders faded back. Livi, they realized, was kind of lost to them, at least for the moment. Her family was taking her home.

They decided to keep looking for the fiddle. They looked at the various addresses on their list, and came up with a police station in Decatur. Figuring that would be a good place to keep something under lock and key, they decided to steal an ambulance. Willa went into the locker room and found a paramedic just getting off shift. She pretty much blew the doors off her Insightful Corruption roll to know what made him tick, and was able to call up Cloven Hooves (after convincing Baal to let her do it). She swore a pact with the guy, and sent him to steal an ambulance, take it downtown, and call in a bomb threat. Then the characters stole another ambulance, and headed to the police station.

Avro found a nearby transformer substation and blew the power in the area, while Gary and Willa, disguised as paramedics, went in just as the chaos started. Some clever rolls later, and they were searching the place, looking for an area that made them queasy. They found it - the evidence locked.

Gary tried to get closer, but the old cop in the locker waved him off and told him to follow procedure. Willa used Dead Ringer on one of the cops in the station and went back down, and the old cop seemed to buy it...but then touched Willa's hand and her flesh burned. He slammed the shutters to the evidence room, and realizing they were made, Gary woke up Mammon to get his Claws going. He ripped the shutters off and get a shotgun blast for his trouble. Mammon opened up his Wings, too, just for the fun of it.

Meanwhile, outside, Avro stole a police car and moved it over by the ambulance, hoping to find some cool shit in the trunk. Listening to the scanner, he heard about a bomb threat downtown...and that a bomb squad was en route for another suspicious ambulance in Decatur. He got out of the immediate area...and the police scanner started talking about a guy with wings.

In the basement, the cop shot Gary a couple more times, and Mammon agreed to give him Master Dice if he maimed the guy. The dice finally started falling against me, and Gary killed the old cop with his claws. Willa distracted the rest of the police and frantically searched the evidence room...and found the fiddle.

Outside, an angel arrived. Avro recognized the angelic man - a black man with a mask, but wearing a ring of gold keys on his hip - as Peter, the locksmith who'd nearly killed him earlier. Avro tried to steal a gun from a cop, but Peter intercepted, and knocked Avro back. He told Avro that he still had a choice, and that he wasn't beyond help, and Avro backed down. Peter turned, and walked into the building.

Willa picked the fiddle, grabbed the bow (which she was still carrying), and played it. Her demon and Mammon responded, and she pulled Mammon out of Gary and sent him into one of the cops, who immediately grew claws and wings.

And there's an angel on the way down to them.

Meanwhile, Livi and her family and Stella sit down to talk about exorcism. Stella pitches it as best she can, but Livi doesn't want to hurt anyone, including her demon. She goes to the bathroom and calls up Glasya-Labolas, and asks if he's ever been hurt. He says that he fell once, and that hurt.

Livi decides she's OK with the "praying" part, but doesn't want to fight her demon or have anyone fight it on her behalf. We end with her mom reading her a book, while Stella reads quietly from a different book, focused on Livi.

Next month: The exciting conclusion!

Better Angels Prep

I need to clean my freaking table, too, which also counts as Better Angels prep, but I can't do that by typing. Wait, I should try. Um. And then the jars of dry-roasted peanuts were suddenly IN THE PANTRY!

POW!

Nope. Ah, well.

Better Angels: Steps to Redemption

So what kind of game do you have when three of the four characters turn out to be the bad guys, and one of them has a chance to redeem her little self? Hmm.

Last time, three of the characters wound up crashing in a currently-uninhabited mansion. Livi, however, had gone home.

Next morning, the three in the mansion starting poring over the list of coded locations they'd stolen from the church. Gary took the mansion owner's Escalade and went driving around, photographing these locations. Most were churches, but there was a locksmith, an antique shop, and a couple of private residences as well. Gary stopped by one of the houses and posed as a gas man. He poked around a little, but the women wouldn't let him in, and his Psychic Object generated ID wasn't enough. He left.

Livi woke up and found the social worker, Stella, making breakfast. They talked, and Stella coaxed a little more goodness back into Livi (shifting a dot from Devious to Insightful). Livi started to feel bad about the people she'd hurt, and less interested in seeing the other Hellbinders again. Stella promised to take her for lunch and then to see her parents.

The other Hellbinders, however, had their own plans. They showed up at Livi's house, and Avro turned Invisible and sneaked up to the house. He tapped on the window and lured Stella out to get next to Livi, and told her to come with them. She wasn't interested, but also wasn't very adept at concealing her conversation with an invisible dude from Stella, who seemed to suspect something. She made a phone call (Avro heard her say "we'll be right there"), and they got into her car. Avro sneaked into the back seat.

They arrived at a hot dog place which was, surprisingly, across the street from the locksmith place on the list. Livi was, again, having conversations with both Avro and Glasya-Labolas, her demon, and Stella waved to someone across the way. A man started walking over, and Willa approached and tried to offer assistance, but Stella brushed her off. The man, Peter, arrived, and talked to Livi, who was wary of him. They talked a bit, but Livi was weirded out by now and wanted to see her parents. Stella agreed to take her; Willa offered to go along (claiming that she knew Livi from around the neighborhood) but Stella wasn't buying it and told Willa she could follow them if she wanted.

Avro, meanwhile, had gone across the street to check out the shop. He Withered the lock, which set off a very loud alarm. He cased the place, quickly, and found a safe behind a key rack, which held two shotguns, two pistols, and slots for a third pistol, a rectangular object, and a round object.

Peter, hearing the alarm, went running across the street to his shop. Avro's demon, Nidhogg, activated Flame-Wreathed and torched the place, and then went out the back. Peter intercepted, holding a pistol and a round, golden disc that made Avro very uncomfortable, and said, "In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, I command you to...get behind me." (Not really what he meant, but it was a tense situation.)

Avro started moving, and Peter shot him. Avro charged, grappled, and Withered him, but Peter pulled free and trained the gun on him. Avro told him, "Just leave it alone. Walk away."

Peter replied, "You leave her alone. Stay away from her." Avro laughed, and Peter shot him, badly enough to strip a dot of Open. Badly wound, Avro slunk away. Nidhogg was not happy.

Willa and Gary had followed Livi and Stella to the hospital. Willa used Dead Ringer to turn into a reporter she'd seen at the park (way back when this started), and asked a doctor for help finding the Stevens; he refused. Gary made himself a janitor's badge and started snooping. Livi went to her parents' room, and found them patched up and ready to go home. She went with her father to the cafeteria while Stella talked with her mother.

Avro stole antibiotics from the pharmacy, to treat his gunshot wound (healing in Better Angels is kinda hand-wavy; basically you're hurt until you manage to slide enough dots around to be healed, which means you have to sin to get better) and then rejoined Gary and Willa.

They saw Stella and Livi's mom exit the elevator, talking about Livi. Listening in, Avro (still Invisible) realized they were talking about an exorcism. It wouldn't hurt, they said. They just needed to get the demon out.

This, the Hellbinders decided, was unacceptable. They'd need to get Livi first.

Better Angels, Torture and Regret

More one than the other.

So, last time, the adult characters left Livi's house with Creature in the trunk. They stopped at Rally's to get burgers and discuss their options. They decided to take her to Arvo's garage and interrogate her there.

They dragged her to the garage, and decided that Livi would be the scariest thing they could put in front of Creature. So Arvo went back to get the little girl out of her house, and did so by turning invisible and waking her up (and promising her more pop and a pair of pink sunglasses). Meanwhile, Creature tried to bargain with Willa into letting her go, but it wasn't happening.

Creature managed, however, to get Livi to soften by apologizing for what she'd done to Livi's parents, basically blaming her demon. Livi wasn't thrilled, but understood, and the characters agreed to let Creature take them to the fiddle. Mammon, meanwhile, convinced Gary to try and steal one of Arvo's trophies. He tried, but Arvo noticed. Mammon kicked on Claws and Nidhogg kicked on Flame-Wreathed, but they both backed down with no violence.

Arvo chained up Creature's legs, and they took a car (not Willa's, which had blood in it) to the same church where Livi had seen guys taking the fiddle before.

Willa went inside and broke into the office. She discovered a filing cabinet with some scrapes in front of it, so she pulled it out and discovered a hollow behind it. The hollow contained a fiddle case that burned her flesh when she touched it (there was angelic script on it, which Baal identified). She opened it using her hoodie as a hot pad, and found a bow with a gold string and a folded piece of paper. The paper turned out to be a list of Bible verses, in no particular order, and with no particular theme - probably a code. The bow, though, was made of what Baal called "Stygian steel," forged in Hell. It made Baal very happy, but made Willa slightly uncomfortable.

Someone's coming! Willa hid under the desk a couple of men looked in. They discovered the missing case, but also mentioned the list - clearly it was a code for locations. They went outside to look for the thief (one of them carrying a gun), and found the car. Livi asked to use the bathroom, and Gary went with her, while Arvo stayed with Creature.

Creature asked to be let go, since she had no further information to give them. Arvo agreed, and warned her to stay out of their way. She left on foot.

Meanwhile, inside, Livi used the bathroom and Gary made awkward small talk. Willa, now that the guys were distracted, left the office, but was spotted. She tried to sneak by them, but at that point the men had apparently recognized them or realized what they were. Livi's demon, Glasya-Labolas, decided to remove ambiguity and turned on Flame-Wreathed.

The men fell back toward the office, and the demons, in a rare show of "let's not fucking murder everyone," left.

They went back to the garage and tried to figure out the cipher. Livi realized that the numbers in the first verse corresponded to the address of the church. Gary did some computer-ing and figured out that a few more were churches, but not all of them. And then the adults' phones went off - Amber Alert. For Livi.

Arvo drove her home (but got her ice cream first), and dropped her in her neighborhood. She was picked up almost immediately and taken to the hospital, where police asked her questions about where she got the ice cream. She was eventually taken to her parents, but she lied to them, too, claiming it was an old lady (her demon, of course, coached her). She made some reference to biting people, too, and that got some attention. By the end of the interrogation, her Deceit was down to nothing and her Honesty was up. One more roll and Strategies would have been at risk, but she decided she was tired and that got the cops off her.

Meanwhile, the others realized they were probably made. Gary went for a walk and saw cops at the nearby gas station where Arvo had bought the ice cream. He went back and they took the car they'd use earlier to a chop shop, and then went up into the ritzy area of town and broke into the mansion of a well-known urbanite kid who was in rehab.

Now living high on the hog, they're planning their next move. Willa, thus far, has told no one about the bow. But why would a golden fiddle of God have an Infernal bow? And where is the fiddle, indeed?

Workin' on Sunday, part one: Better Angels

Played Better Angels yesterday, so I'm gonna do that write-up. I must say, I have a hard time wrapping my brain around this system. Maybe I'll start a thread over on RPG.Net and see if folks have thoughts.

Anyway, last time, the characters killed a bunch of cops, and Arvo met up with the woman who'd taken the amulet of Davros, formerly owned by John Calhoun, aka Ravenous.

So this time, we open in the morning. Arvo calls up Willa and tells her about that encounter. Livi, at home with her parents after her somewhat traumatic day of turning into a giant Komodo dragon and killing a guy, is watching the news and eating breakfast. She learns that the true identity of the Radiant, the angel-bearer that the characters killed in Olympic Park, is Frank Vittorio, and he was a mechanic in Atlanta. Livi borrows her dad's phone and calls Willa, and they conspire for Willa to come pick Livi up, posing as the aunt of a friend of hers, for a play date. Willa calls Gary and Arvo, and they all reunite, figuring to go check out Vittori's garage.

There's a city-wide manhunt going on for the people who killed four cops yesterday, of course, so the Hellbinders have to be careful. They get to the garage, and find that there are two undercover policemen in a car across the street, watching the garage. Gary and Livi go into a convenience store to get Livi a drink (he buys her a Monster, because all of these people are horrible), while Arvo and Willa scout the garage. Avro wakes up his demon, Nidhogg, and gets him to turn on Invisibility. He then sneaks into the garage and pokes around.

He finds a notebook that looks like it's written in decidedly different hand than the other invoices and so on that Frank had written. This one describes a plan to fly above the city and play a tune that would cause all of the demons to vacate their hosts. Arvo steals the notebook, and flips the switch that opens the door to the garage.

Livi, meanwhile, is fairly convinced she can drive, and her demon, Glasya-Labolas, agrees. It activates Giant (but just enough) and Livi takes the cops' car and tries to drive off. She fails, however, and his a light pole. The cops see her, and she gets out. They draw down, and start to call for backup, but Willa (having gotten her Wings from Baal), swoops in and grabs a cop, and drops him in a tree. Arvo, invisible, tackles the other cop, grabs his gun, and shoots out the tires of the cop car. He tosses the empty gun back to the cop and taunts him, and the characters leave the two terrified and confused police behind (got some Espionage increases, there).

They drive around a bit, stop for ice cream, and figure that after yesterday's shenanigans, Willa's house might not be safe for long. So they go to her place and grab her stuff, and take it to Arvo's hotel room (he doesn't actually live in Atlanta).

When they get there, they find the door open and the place is being tossed - by the woman Arvo met yesterday. She calls herself "Creature" and has grow claws and thick fur. She refuses to give the characters her real name, and mocks them for being so overt in their activities. She is looking for the fiddle, and claims she wants to destroy it. She knows about a cult dedicated to the angels, and knows they meet somewhere near the park. Livi mentions that she saw the men loading the fiddle into the car, but can't remember the name of the church. Creature takes Willa's number and leaves, promising to contact the characters if she learns anything. The characters, needless to say, do not trust her.

They take Livi home later on, and again find the door ajar - this time the frame splintered. Gary goes in and finds Livi's mother, alive but hurt, on the floor, and the characters see Creature with Livi's father pinned to the island in the kitchen. They get there in time to hear him blurt out "Greater Vine Baptist Church", and then she snarls and jumps through the glass sliding door, into the back yard.

But Livi is already there, and she's pissed. She assumes giant flaming Komodo dragon form, and attacks. Creature scores some hits on her, but between the fire and the strength, Creature is slashes and bitten into submission fairly quickly (an Enervating blast from Gary and a few Withers from Arvo don't hurt. Rather, they do). Creature surrenders and claims that she knows where the fiddle is. Willa tells Livi that she can always eat Creature later, once they have the fiddle, and Livi finally acquiesces, changes back to human form, and climbs up into the tree house just as the police arrive. Willa, Gary, and Arvo leave, taking Creature with them, and slip out of the neighborhood in a flurry of lights.

Next time: Strenuous negotiation!

Actually Playing Better Angels (ep. 2)

Yesterday was Better Angels, so +Sarah Dyer brought little candies to use for the dots on the sheet and away we went!

Last session, which was a while ago, the characters fought an angel-bearer (killed him, really) and saw a magic gold fiddle vanish. We pick up here in the direct aftermath. Livi is on her way home, walking with her parents. Gary is taking the car he stole to a chop shop. Arvo and Willa are hanging around the park, watching the police work and looking for evidence of what happened. See, a Hellbinder died, too, but when a Hellbinder dies, the demon cooks down into an amulet.

Willa uses Dead Ringer to turn into an EMT and goes to check the body. No amulet; she does steal the guy's wallet, though. She wakes up Baal and the demon looks about, but doesn't sense anything - other than Nidhogg, hiding out in Avro's body. Willa goes to talk to him, and they flirt/threaten a little before coming to the conclusion that both the amulet and the fiddle are valuable assets and they should maybe work together.

Livi slips away from her parents ("I dropped my Ring Pop!") and goes scampering back. She gets turned away by the police as she approaches the body, but recognizes Willa and Avro and talks to them. She agrees that if they find the fiddle, they can share it, and she'll go first, but her big brother Toby doesn't get a turn (because fuck that guy). Livi's parents retrieve her and they start walking home again.

Meanwhile, Gary takes the stolen car to the chop shop. His fence tries to haggle him down, and Gary's attempts to resist are kind of fruitless, so he uses Psychic Object to produce a certification for the car that it's a custom job or one of a kind or something valuable in car-speak. The fence agrees and pays him, and Gary heads back to UGA, where he lives in a dorm.

Which is coincidental, because Willa has discovered that the dead ex-Hellbinder was an anthropology prof at UGA, named John Calhoun. She heads out there, and meets Gary walking across campus with a case of beer. Avro is following behind, remaining unobtrusive. Gary and Willa decide they'll try and get into Calhoun's office and see if he left anything of interest behind in his office.

Meanwhile, Livi is walking home with her parents. She passes by the Greater Vine Baptist Church, and sees four guys carrying a very heavy, but very small object out of the church to the trunk of a car. She figures this might be the gold fiddle, and wakes up her demon, Glasya-Labolas. He confirms that the object could indeed be the gold fiddle. She decides that she could take it, and the demon activates her Giant aspect (she initially fails in her attempt to take animal form, but succeeds on the second try, which is good, because her parents don't need to see her giant-ized). The dudes see the giant Komodo dragon and panic. Three get into the car and peel out, while one draws a gun and fires.

Livi, in dragon-form, stomps at the car trying to disable it, but misses. The guy shoots at her and screams to her parents (who are probably wondering if this thing just ate their daughter) to save themselves. Livi swipes at the guy, and then bites him a few times and drops him in the street, bloodied and injured, and wanders off home.

Back on campus, Willa and Gary go into the anthropology building. Gary talks a TA into opening Calhoun's office (using Psychic Object to produce a note), and then Willa uses Dead Ringer to impersonate the late professor and joins Gary in the office. They search a bit, and find some journal entries that Calhoun made when he first took on his demonic guest, a creature called Davros. He also has some sketches of his outfit as the villain "Ravenous." But nothing about the fiddle specifically. Gary finds an appointment he made at a business near the park; it stands to reason he might have been there when the craziness went down.

Avro, watching outside, sees three uniformed police officers and a detective approaching. Since he and Willa exchanged information, he calls her and warns her. Gary leaves the office, looking like a student. Willa, deciding she'd better not look like the dead professor, drops her guise and becomes herself.

The cops arrive, and question Willa. She tries to lie and say that she and the prof had a date, but the detective is suspicious, especially when the TA shows up again and says the prof was here a few seconds ago. The detective, realizing that they might have a metamorph on their hands, has a cop take Willa's ID and go try and see if she was at the park earlier. Willa talks the cop into letting her go to the bathroom, and then Dead Ringers into another woman, slips out, and tries to seduce the cop with her ID. It doesn't go especially well; the dice weren't cooperating at all. Finally she manages to make a deal with the cop (Cloven Hooves), and agree that he'll let her escape, but be a hero in the process. She changes back into herself, and they lead her out. Gary follows.

Outside, they take her to their cars. Arvo, now invisible, waits until they've put her in the back (the cop slips Willa the cuff keys and leaves the door slightly open), and then uses Wither to destroy the engines. The cops leap out, and the detective calls for backup.

Arvo, still invisible, shoves the detective to the ground. Gary, at this point, uses his Dominator Strike power and blasts three of the cops, injuring them and killing the detective. Willa slips out of the car and Baal uncases her Wings. She grabs at the cop's gun, but fails (again), and the cop shoots at Gary, using the Master Die he got from Willa. This, sadly, allows her to reduce his Open automatically, and Gary, now Winged himself, dive-bombs the cop (in an agreement with his demon, Mammon) and slices him up.

He looks up at Willa and says, "You said I'd be a hero." She replies, "Oh, you will be," and flies off.

Two cops remain. Willa grabs one up and drops him in traffic, and Gary body-checks the other into a car. Avro Withers his arm off, killing him in shock, and the demons fly away from the murder-scene.

(Obviously, we had some Cruelty increases.)

Livi, meantime, goes up to her treehouse. Her parents arrive, slightly injured (I like the collateral damage optional rule!) and check on her. She's got some blood around her mouth (from where she bit the dude), but she's otherwise OK.

Later, she sneaks her parents' phone and calls Willa, explaining what she saw. Willa figures she can find the church.

Avro goes back to the Olympic Park, and sees another Hellbinder hanging around, a hippie with dreads and a feral affect. She tells him that she's looking for the fiddle, but he doesn't have it. His demon recognizes this one as Davros, an animalistic, hungry thing. The new Hellbinder accepts his contact info, but then stalks off into the crowd, apparently not interested since Avro doesn't have the fiddle.

But who does have it, indeed?

Prepping for Better Angels

We actually played through the first session in December, but then there was weather in January, so here we are. I have some ideas, but I think I had more ideas back then. I should take notes after the damn sessions. Ah, well.

Better Angels, episode one

Yesterday was our first session of Better Angels; we made characters back here.

So, mostly we just talked about the game and the system. I finally read through the rest of the game, and I'm getting a handle on it. We also got out some M&Ms and used them to shift dots around, because it happens often. Check it out:

After I explained sets and width and height and all, we talked about the characters' demons and what they wanted. We decided to set the game in Atlanta, and then someone mentioned "The Devil Came Down to Georgia," and I had my game idea.

We opened in Olympic Park, in the summer, fountains going. Livi is splashing in the fountain, and Arvo is walking around with the socks off, too, enjoying the water. Gary is getting a hot dog at a street vendor (and scoping the parking lot for cars to steal), and Willa is sitting on a park bench reading a book. As of now, Baal (Willa's demon) cannot see what's going on because her Open is higher than her Sly, but the rest of the demons are at least able to see what's going on, and they recognize each other.

And then, from atop a nearby building, a BOOM! Something comes hurtling toward the park, and a man's body smashes into the ground. The demons realize he's a Hellbinder (or at least, he was). Gary invokes his demon, Mammon. Livi, afraid, asks for help from her demon (Glasya-Labolas), and he activates her Giant Aspect. Willa invokes Baal, and he recognizes the demons...and then notes an angel incoming.

The superhero flying in toward them is The Radiant, a strong, beautiful being with a sword of light. Gary zips over to the body to loot it, and finds a golden fiddle underneath it. He tries to pick it up, but it burns his flesh. The Radiant sees this and tells him to unhand it, and swoops down...and realizes that he's a Hellbinder. Gary, now in his alter ego as The Jock, shows his claws and roars in defiance.

Baal, meanwhile, unleashes Willa's wings, and she takes to the air to get a better view. She flails as the Radiant goes by and damages him.

Arvo wakes up Nidhogg, and asks for help. Nidhogg agrees (Master Die), if Arvo scares a little boy on the way over. Arvo, assuming his villain persona of The Ice-Man, destroys a tree with Wither and points at the boy, who wets himself and flees.

Livi sees the fiddle, grabs it and tries to run. This upsets the Radiant, but the Radiant has other problems. He strikes the Jock, but the Jock hits back with claws and Ice-Man grapples the hero, using Wither on him. This destroys the hero, his body crumbling into nothing (Jock notes that the Radiant had existing wounds, so whoever the Hellbinder was that had the fiddle must have hurt him). But with his last bit of energy, the Radiant points at the fiddle...and it vanishes.

Willa swoops into the crowd and drops, using Dead Ringer to assume the form of a random stranger. Jock sprints across the street and grabs a guy out of his sports car, zooming off. Ice-Man asks Nidhogg for invisibility, and vanishes.

Livi, though, has trouble. She's afraid and confused. Glasya-Labolas cuts her Giant power, but she isn't sure what to do. She tries to assume her komodo dragon form, but fails, and finally just cries as people close in (she weeps and wails and convinces them that she's not really a villain, and runs off to find her mother).

But the demons inform their humans - that fiddle is just banished. It's somewhere in the city. And someone playing it can command a demon to do anything, including abandon a host.

The characters aren't the only ones who are going to be looking for it, of course.

Character Creation: Better Angels

I figure I'm going to run this game, I oughta make a character. Michelle is helping out (by which I mean, making a character as well).

The Game: Better Angels
The Publisher: Arc Dream
Degree of Familiarity: Not much. I backed the Kickstarter, played it once at GenCon, and my players made characters for a monthly game (but we haven't actually played yet). I have some experience with the one-roll engine, which it uses.
Books Required: Just the one.

 
Better Angels is a game in which you play a supervillain. The basic idea is that some people are possessed by demons, and in order to make the demon happy but not too happy, you indulge in eeeevil. That's different from actual evil. Eeevil is over-the-top, weird, and ultimately nonsensical, if you think about it. Evil is, well, evil. Efficient, cold, calculating.

Character creation is pretty quick, but it works best with a group, because the player to your left (of course) adds some things to your demon. So!

Step One has us spending 20 points on the human side of things. Now, the stats in this game are Strategies and Tactics, which are further split into good and evil (or heavenly and infernal, if you like). For instance, the sinister Tactics are Greed, Espionage, Cruelty, Cowardice, Corruption, and Deceit. You'd roll Cowardice when you're trying to get away or change a situation. The flipside of that is Endurance, which you'd roll when you're trying to survive, rather than escape, something. That's paired with a Strategy, which are also divided thus, so you'd roll Open Endurance to soak up an attack, but Sly Cowardice to dodge one.

Strategies cost 2, Tactics cost one, and Specialties (specialized areas of knowledge; they don't add to rolls, but you can't make a roll to do brain surgery unless you have the Brain Surgeon Specialty) cost 2. I need to think about concept some.

Well, I like dogs. I think my guy used to run a dog shelter. He didn't take cats (deathly allergic), but he had all kinds of mutts that people dropped off or that wandered in off the streets. And then a demon came along, possessing a dog, and traded up to human.

That in mind, and knowing that putting points into the left-hand traits may come back to bite me, I'll dump all 20 points into my right-hand traits. I take two in Generosity, Patient, Knowledge, Open (actually I buy one, but I get one free), Insightful, Honesty, three in Endurance, and one in Nurture.

I don't bother with any Specialties; you don't really need them, and I'm not convinced that this guy would have them (maybe Dog Wrangler, but I don't see that as being so hyper-specialized that it would need a Specialty).

Of note: This game is not a physics emulator. The stats, and the rolls, are very much narrative; you roll what you roll based on what you're trying to accomplish and how, and there is no "average" stat. This would bug the hell out of a lot of players, and it does take some readjusting even for me.

Anyway, Step Two, I get to pick a primary Strategy, an Aspect, and a Power for my demon.

Well, for my primary Strategy, I feel like my demon is pretty animalistic, predatory, and vicious. I'll pick Cunning. I'll take Animal Form as my power (which means at some point I'll need a point of Espionage or two); my guy can turn into a black, slavering, Hellhound. And for my demonic Aspect, I'll pick Flame-Wreathed.

Now, Step Three, we switch character sheets. I now get to spend some points on Michelle's psychology grad student, Cherie. She studies psychoanalysis and dreams, and I know Michelle took Terror and Ghost-Form for her.

That in mind, I'll buy up her Devious to 2 (I can't buy it any higher because her Insightful is already 3, and there can only be 5 points between them), and Cruelty to 3. She consolidated her points pretty well, so I'll fill in the gaps: 1 in Greed, Cunning, Corruption, Deceit, and because I'm nice, one each in Endurance and Courage. And then 2 into Espionage and Cowardice. And I fill in the extra point she gets in Open, because I don't think she remembered to take it.

And now I just wait for her to finish with my guy so we can go on to the next step!

Right, here we go. Step Four, we pick a Power and an Aspect for the other player's demon. Well, her Cruelty and Espionage are (now) high enough to be worthwhile. I don't think she's thinking of this character as a powerhouse, so I'll give her Clairvoyance as the Power (which keys off of Espionage) and Horned (which doesn't necessarily mean horns, it just means some kind of natural attacky kind of thing, which she can figure out).

And now I just wait for her to pick my stuff. Sneaking a peak at my sheet, I see she upped my Cruelty, maxed out my Espionage at 3, bought my Cunning up to 2. Also Cowardice and Devious, and 1 point in Sly. And then she gives me Arrogance (which is a defensive power) and Darkness-Shrouded (I can call up darkness as well as fire all around me, which is pretty badass).

Now we just need names. Well, my mortal name is Henry Hanson. As a villain, let's just call him "Hellhound." It's not terribly imaginative, but Henry's not a flashy guy (I think that his best friend may have suggested "Baskerville" at first). Michelle informs me that my demon's name is Sirius. Makes sense.

And that's us done, then!

Better Angels!

Yesterday we (that is, the group that had, in the past, played Misspent Youth and Dresden Files) decided to start up a new game. We've been playing one-shots for a few months now; last one was A Tragedy in Five Acts, but I wanted to run something consistently, so here we are. We decided, after some consideration, on +Greg Stolze's demon-possessed supervillain game, Better Angels. I was a Kickstarter backer and I played in a sort of so-so game of it at GenCon (the "so-so" bit was in no way reflective of the game itself, I think), and the players were enthused by the premise, so we got to work.

All we did yesterday was make characters; I haven't read the book thoroughly, so I need to do that before I run it. The players were highly amused by the snippets I read them, the Cloven Hooves Aspect in particular. Here's what we came up with, character-wise:

• Gary Greer (no supervillain name yet), possessed by Mammon of Avarice. A former track and field star who sold himself out for wealth, fame, and so on. Powers: Dominator Strike and Psychic Object. Aspect: Wings and Horned. 
• Arvo Aulis Kurkinen, aka The Iceman, possessed by Nidhogg the Malice Striker. Finnish race car driver who was fired from his team and took up with the demon for revenge. His player has some ideas about doing Jigsaw-like things; giving people "tests" of their integrity or intelligence or something (but that are fairly stupid, not nearly on Jigsaw's level of GAH). Powers: Ineffable Defense, Wither. Aspect: Flame-Wreathed (blue and cold), Invisible. 
• Livi (no last name given), aka Amber Alert, possessed by Glasya-Labolas. Livi is a little girl who just wanted to be bigger and tougher than her brothers. She got her wish. Powers: Animal form (komodo dragon), Terror. Aspects: Flame-wreathed, Giant. 
• Willa Williams, aka Britannica, possessed by Baal. A fairly normal librarian who picked up the wrong book one day. Powers: Terror, Dead Ringer. Aspects: Cloven Hooves, Wings. 

So, one thing we noticed is that all of these people (except maybe Willa) accepted demonic possession, which changes the game just slightly. But I need to read the rest of it and get comfy with the mechanics, because the system for this game ties in with the themes of the game, rather than being a physics emulator (which is fine with me). I'm looking forward to it. Probably make my own character for the chargen project later today. 

GenCon 2013! - GM Report Card

I'm a little late getting this one, and of course it's maybe a little funny I'm writing it while I'm at FanExpo (I've got some time before my first panel), but y'know, better to do it while I have a moment. So!

Early GenCon is as it often is: largely devoid of life (I mean, by comparison), and Cardhalla is still being built.

You only get a "before" picture this year because I wasn't around when it fell. 

But that isn't to say that thronging crowds of people were far off! I'm led to understand that attendance was up considerably this year.

Ah, throngs.

I wound up spending a good deal of time in the dealer's room, mostly on Sunday. But I did manage to photograph some strange and beautiful things, such as this freaking amazing cave thingie.

Admit it, you want to make a dwarf character now. 

Did some gaming, as well. I played in two games: Deadlands Noir and Better Angels. And now we get into the "GM Report Card" bit.

Deadlands Noir is, as the name suggests, the Deadlands setting but placed into a noir context, complete with detectives and grifters and femme fatales and so on. We were in New Orleans, and my character was one of the aforementioned grifters - somewhat like the hucksters of Deadlands Reloaded, but without the ability to deal with the Devil (which I missed, and would probably import if I run this). We also had an undead detective (Harrowed), a mad scientist (Michelle, talking fast) and a couple of other folks that I don't remember offhand - one was the femme fatale.

Basic plot: The Big Sleep. Maybe Chinatown, a little. Find the millionaire's missing daughter and wife. Things come to light; the wife was cheating and generally unpleasant, so maybe it's not such a big deal if she doesn't come home. Dude has a son that supposedly died in a flood on their old estate. We wound up at said estate, and the lost son had become an alligator-monster and tried to eat us.

All in all, this is fine and in-setting. The GM got into his NPCs, used a lot of different voices, and kept the names straight (which, given the number of secondary characters, is impressive)

The problem actually came with the system. Savage Worlds is a crunchy, minis-based game. It loses a lot, IMO, if you don't use it, including maps and tokens and so forth. And we just kind of winged positioning and movement during the fights, which means that some of us (the folks with spells and other wonky powers) kind of got shafted because we can't think tactically.

But the other issue is, the last fight involving the gator-dude just dragged out, because said gator-dude has a really high Vigor and armor and a high Parry, which means we can't hit him, and when we do we can't damage him. Which would be fine - we have to work for our hits - but then the GM spent bennies to soak and unshake, and now we're back to the grind. We got out by using some clever tactics, but it felt like the GM was really married to one moment and kind of shoved us into that. My grade: B+

Noir game, so kind of a dark picture. 

Food trucks! I love them, though the lines are long. But you do get to people-watch. Or rabbit-watch.

Hey, Rocky! Watch me pull a magician out of my hat!

Surrounded by severed legs. Art?

Ran afoul of a gorgon. 

Back to the dealer's room, we put some stuff up in the Cheese Weasel section. If you look carefully you'll see a copy of curse the darkness in there.

And in the dealer's room proper, you can see some of my favorite people!

Eloy's a saint. John and Kristen...aren't, but I love them both anyway. 

Friday night was the Ennies. curse the darkness was nominated for Best Electronic Product. It was really a contest for the Silver, because there was a Deadlands product in that category and I knew we wouldn't beat that, because of the way the voting is structured if nothing else (and I'm by no means upset about that - just means we need more visibility for Daedalus next year!).

The venue was really cool:

Waiting for a laser and big ball of popcorn. 

And we got to see Leonard Balsera sing "Take On Me" and completely rock it. So it was all good, even though we lost to Hobomancer and (as expected) Deadlands: The Last Sons.

Next morning (which I guess would have been Saturday), I had a game to run at Games on Demand. So!

Kira, stylin'. 

She's running Dresden Files. Note the awesome board for scene Aspects. 

I wound up running curse the darkness (it was that or Tragedy). I had three players, and they put us in Boston, following an earthquake, and were trying to get their doctor another doctor. None of them played Openers, and the Between was largely ignored. I never realized how great a source of Between Points having Openers really is; they went pretty much unnoticed by Them the whole time. The Removal Challenges came from aftershocks, and that worked just fine. 

Lined up on the wall, ready to die. 

 We finished up early, so I did a stint in the dealer's room.

Kristen, still not a saint. 

Topher and Renee, trying to fix a broken robot. 

And then it was time for Better Angels! This is a one-roll engine game in which you play supervillains possessed by demons. The demon in question (played by the person on your left) will help you out and activate your powers, but it'll ask you to do horrible things. If you're eeeeevil enough, you can avoid doing really terrible, actually evil things. It's a cool premise, and I backed the Kickstarter (and later picked up my copy).

The GM kinda got thrown into running at the last minute, and it sort of showed - pregens, but all handwritten. I personally think we should have made the characters, because the game's terms and systems aren't immediately intuitive and making characters might have helped with that. But the game was fun, the GM listened to us, and it went pretty well. My grade: A-

Also Michelle played a tennis-themed villain named "Zero Love."

And, finally, Sunday, official day of shopping.

Ballonthulhu! 

A Klingon, a Wookie, and a pirate playing in a band. I don't remember what song. 

Will, with his swag.