Don't Rest Your Anything

I ran my first game of Don't Rest Your Head last night. I've never played or run it before.

The characters are:

• Tom, an adrenaline junkie/meth head with the ability to jinx things.
• Henry, a construction worker on disability with the ability to break things. 
• Ami, a schizophrenic dog walker with telepathic powers. 

They're all recently awakened and don't know a whole lot about the Mad City.

As we started the game, the drug dealers that Tom stiffed showed up at his apartment looking for their money while some clockwork lieutenants came through the closet and tried to arrest him for murder of someone he's never heard of.

Henry's insurance was denied at the pharmacy, and without his medication he was starting to lose it. A splitting headache made it clear he had to let the "break" our of his head before it broke him.

Ami was caring for several neighboring animals when 2 giant, angry cats came out of her closet and started attacking her charges.

Tom leaped out of his 3rd floor apartment window and hit the fire escape. Unfortunately his shoe got stuck and he couldn't escape.

Henry released some of the pressure in his brain by breaking a car as it nearly hit him in the middle of the street. He noticed Tom and went to help.

Ami beat one of the giant cats back into the closet and locked it in there.

Tom freed his foot and leaped into a dumpster to get away from his trouble. Gunshots rang out above him in his apartment.

Henry came over to check on Tom and was surprised to see him not dead from the 3 story fall.

Meanwhile, the other giant cat grabbed Mr. Ruff, a chihuahua that Ami was caring for, and tossed him out the window. Ami leaped out the window to save him, but missed with pain dominant. However, Tom was able to vault out of the dumpster and catch Mr. Ruff like a football. Ami smashed into the concrete and bloodied herself pretty badly.

The large cat leaped out the window after Ami, but Henry shattered it into glitter. At about that time, one of the clockwork lieutenants ventured out onto the fire escape and shouted to his comrades that the "other two" were here with Tom and they were all under arrest. Tom used his madness power to collapse the fire escape and take out the lieutenant. They all them hopped into Tom's car and drove away.

They stopped at a convenience store and Tom got out for snacks. Henry and Ami debated who should drive  from now on (Tom wasn't in the running anymore) when a cop car pulled up next to them and asked if everything was ok and if Ami needed an ambulance. Tom recognized the cops and knew they didn't like him, so he hid in the store. As the cops put the pressure on Henry and Ami, Henry slid into the driver's seat and assured the cops they were going to the hospital now. Tom killed their radio as the cops tried to report in, and then killed the cop car when the cops tried to radio in that way. Henry and Ami pulled away, leaving Tom to fend for himself.

The cops headed into the store to use the phone there when they noticed Tom trying to sneak out. Tom ran, so they perused because they're bullies.

Henry pulled around back to wait for Tom, then traded seats with Ami (who was going to drive, even though she doesn't have a license anymore.) Tom circled the block before heading behind the store. He Bo Duke'd it over the hood and hopped into the passenger seat. He then smashed his foot on the gas. Ami lost the contest for control over the car, so she let go of the wheel and covered Mr. Ruff's eyes as they hit the two cops.

Tom stopped the car and got out to make sure the cops were ok. But as the cops got up, they pulled their guns. Ami crawled into the back seat with Henry. Tom jinxed their guns before they could shoot, but then 2 more cop cars of reinforcements showed up. Henry broke the car in front as Tom jumped into the driver's seat of his car. As they fled, the cops shot out both his back tired.

As only working cop car pursued, Henry tried to break it. But pain dominated and the cop car accelerated out of control. It bumped Tom's car into a spin and then headed straight for a playground full of kids. Ami tried to use her madness power to get the kids to flee, but madness dominated. She chose flight as her response, shut her eyes really tight, and hugged Mr. Ruff so hard he didn't make it. Henry tried to break the road to cause a sinkhole in front of the cop car and madness dominated again. He blew a wave of destruction down the street which created a sinkhole and also ruptured a gas main. The cop car was blasted 100' into the air and the cops weren't going to give Tom any problems any more. Fortunately, the kids were ok.

The group the fled into the Mad City and ended up in the Air Fort. They took a seat in an airplane where all the passengers were dead, but the flight attendants were just starting to serve dinner.

That session got really dark really crazy really quickly. Next session will be interesting.

Big, Big Universe

So, I'm running this epic, sci-fi, space faring mash up game for the Tuesday group. It's a game where all of the sci-fi universes exist together. I've got Star Wars, Star Trek, Stargate, Dune, Predators, Aliens, Firefly, and Battlestar Galactica all there right now.

I'm trying to keep it relatively serious, so I've excluded stuff from MIB, Mars Attacks, etc. I've also specifically excluded time travel, 'cause that's just too much of a headache. Sorry Whovians. 

I've also got a list of various alien encounters that don't have established universes, like the glowy aliens from cocoon, war of the worlds aliens, body snatchers, the bugs from starship troopers, etc. 

 

I ran the first session of the sci-fi mash up tuesday night. I'm doing it as a hex crawl, but I don't have an over all theme or plot yet. In the mean time, I figured I'd just do a sort of "day in the life" session to kick things off.

The PCs started in the Kobol system and had access to 3 different jobs - deliver food, diplomats, or building materials. The chose the diplomats and the building materials because they were close and fuel is a limited resource.

Each job comes with a complication, but the PCs don't know what it is to start (or if there is one.)

For the building materials, they picked up a stowaway - a bug, a la Starship Troopers. Between the Predator and the Jedi, they finished that off pretty quickly.

For the diplomats (a group of 4 Predators), the complication was they had no intention of paying. They raised a stink when the bug was found (they didn't get a single attack in), they continually complained about everything (there was nothing to hunt and they were very bored), and the Jedi, in his attempt to placate them, accidentally tried to mate with their female (it was an honest mistake).

When they arrived at their destination (a Predator city) they were met by a contingent of 6 other Predators. The "diplomats" made it clear they weren't paying. The captain created an electrical field blocking the door (splitting the Predators to 4 inside and 6 outside), and everyone drew weapons. Magnetic locks engaged to ground the ship. The Jedi attempted to use his mind trick to convince them to pay and leave. But he only got half of them (the female wasn't one of them), and got 2 complications on the roll (which is pretty severe). A quick roll on my part showed that the female knows what Jedi are and recognized the mind trick.

So we stopped in a tense situation that's about to get worse. I just have to figure out how. Do I slaughter the party with 10 Predators? Do I send in more reinforcements? Do I cripple the ship? The PCs (specifically the captain) don't really seem to be willing to leave without their fare. But they're not getting paid, unless it's in blood.

This may be a very short campaign...