Can the Superfriends survive an endless maze of 100’x100′ rooms? Will they be thwarted by someone who’s a little too attached to her sniper rifle? Who is the mysterious “Fifth Yellowjacket”?
Find out in the epic conclusion of this great three-part novel! It may be an imaginary story, but all of it happened just like this….
At the lair, the lead ST told us the National Guard was in place. One of the NPC players interrupted, and told him that they were supposed to be gone. The lead looked flustered, then said something about more Resources being necessary. Ross and I put up our OOC hand-signals and headed over to talk to him- but not before reminding the rest our party to do an “Activate!” at the first sign of trouble.
And walking over towards the ST was when we got stopped by the Gun Lady. I don’t know exactly what her character’s deal was. Earlier, she had kept shouting how she had guns if anybody needed them. She was some kind of Austin vampire expert/cop thingy.
Gun Lady: “You can’t go over there.”
Me: “We just need to talk to Rob.”
Gun Lady (realizing she’s dealing with newbies): “They’re someplace else. Although this is a Live Action game, some parts of the room represent different locations in the wor–”
Me (interrupting): “I know. We’re OOC.”
Gun Lady: “But they’re someplace else.”1
Me (gesturing more emphatically with my crossed OOC fingers): “We’re out of character.”
Gun Lady: “Fine. I was just trying to help, so this doesn’t turn into a big mess.”
By the time we got away from Gun Lady, Rob was very busy, so we left him alone. The Sabbat had already scared away the Guard by that point, anyway.
So, the ALJ sat down and waited. At this point, the game wasn’t live action anymore- we were around waiting for STs to get to us. Which they rarely did, because our initiative sucked, and they were busy enough as is.
One of the NPC players got up to explain what was going on:
“Okay, so we’re all standing in a stone corridor. The Sabbat are in front, with the Camarilla melee fighters behind them, protecting the Tremere. In the meanti– fuck it. The fighters are in the front. Behind them are the Cam fighters, and the rangers. In the middle, we have the magic users. And behind them, there’s another group of fighters and rangers.”
This particular cutting of the bullshit was met with well-deserved laughter. Unfortunately, it only made what the ST said next more painful.
ST: “You’re halfway down the corridor. Glass cases line the wall, containing grotesque living Tarot cards. At the end of the hallway are about 35 cultists, chanting. Behind them is the Nictuku.”
Gun Lady (shouting): “I have a sniper rifle! I can hit the Nictuku!”
From there, it was very unclear what was going on. STs would shuttle back and forth, and there would be occasional shouted updates. One of them was this:
ST: “Finally, you reach the organ pit. The organs and charnel smell vanish as the pit turns into water. Above the pit is a nude woman, spread-eagled, in chains. (Gesturing to Mary the Black’s player**) That’s her right there.”
Gun Lady: “Can I hit anything with my sniper rifle?”
And then more chaos. Mary the Black was cut down from her chains, but one of the Sabbat people cast an illusion that made her appear to still be there. Then one of the Camarilla tried to claim credit. Only she wasn’t Camarilla, she was some kind of a part-demon oracle. Who was hanging with the Camarilla.
I was getting hungry. Melissa the Malk was getting impatient. Gun Lady kept yelling at all of us to move so that our characters were where we were, even though, by this point, nearly all live action stuff had stopped. It had become a huge and disorganized tabletop game, basically.
Somewhere in there, the Justicar died. Another player came up OOC to deliver the news:
Random Player: “The Justicar’s dead!”
Wayne: “Whoa. What happened?”
Gun Lady (as if speaking to a small child): “Well, we’re in a ‘Baali’ lair. ‘Baali’ are vampires who worshi–”
Wayne: “I ST Werewolf, damn it. I’ve played Vampire. I know what the fucking Baali are.”
Gun Lady: “Oh, well, I didn’t know you knew that. So, anyway, our mission is to defeat the Baali. We were given this miss–”
Mel the Malk: “Just let us hear how the Justicar died.”
Gun Lady (obviously hurt): “I’m sorry. I know I have a tendency to be overbearing. I’m just trying to help out the STs…”
Me (to the rest of the ALJ, under my breath): “Oh, go cuddle your sniper rifle.”
Sigh. So, combat dragged on. Someone with True Faith was on our side, but that bugged some of us. Not Mr. Wayne, of course. He didn’t have much Humanity, you see, owing to his tragical past.
The ALJ made overblown, heroic speeches to each other, and exchanged e-mail addresses. Gun Lady walked around complaining OOC that someone had one of her guns. It was apparently a pretty valuable index card or something. I hope it wasn’t the sniper rifle.
Eventually, we ended up having an OOC awards ceremony. The Cam officials said nice things about everybody, and even invited our group up to the front and complimented not only our costumes, but our figuring out who we were supposed to be.
(We were actually remembered in 2005, too- we got the band back together and, when we were given an award for, uhm, torching half the LARP, one of the STs brought up the Justice League. That’s another story, though.)
I was in a game with one of the STs later, and it turns out that everybody with pregens had a theme group. There were the Sugar Babies (90210), the Rebels With a Cause (Teen Titans), and various others.
The only other player who had figured out who his character was based on was the troublemaker from the Yellowjackets.
Poor guy was Yoko.
- She was wrong about this. Actually, the people the ST was talking to were right in front of us. ↩
I have wonderful memories of that game. Just wonderful 🙂