Will: Okay. The UFO has exploded. What to all of you do?
Nate (ooc): Other than stare at the sky like slack-jawed yokels as our minds try to include UFOs in our extremely limited understanding of the way the Universe works?
Will: Is that what Lindley is doing?
Nate: No. "We will do well to have a tactical advantage. Annabelle and Taetia, go to the far side of the anticipated landing zone and wait for my signal to attack - assuming, of course, that it becomes necessary to do so."
Ed: "Sounds like fun."
Oliver: "I'll humor you, this time, but only because that's what I had already intended to do."
Nate: "Sardis and Saelic, take up a position at the edge of the landing zone and stay out of sight until I give the signal. I will attempt to reason with the aliens."
Ed (ooc): "Reason with the aliens." Why is every movie and book in which humans make contact with an invading alien force suddenly leaping to mind? Independence Day. V. Ender's Game. The War of the Worlds. Titan AE...
Greenleaf (ooc): It could be more like First Contact.
Nate (ooc): We're in a roleplaying game. The purpose the arrival of aliens serves is never to better humanity. At best, they're here to kill us all. At worst, they're refugees from a planet whose inhabitants are even more advanced than they are and who are relentlessly pursuing the poor bastards to our planet - even more poor bastards - where they intend to assimilate everyone and everything into the Borg collective.
Greenleaf (ooc): You seem awfully pessimistic.
Nate (ooc): Let's just say I have a pretty firm grasp of human nature.
Henry: "Do you have any linguistic skills that would make you suited to making first contact with any hypothetical survivors of this crash?"
Nate: "It is not my forte, no."
Greenleaf: "I speak seven different languages."
Henry: "And what if these aliens speak none of those?"
Nate: "How many languages do you speak, Saelic? You aren't exactly the person I want to be the first impression of Centerland these aliens encounter."
Henry: "Who better to discourage alien foolishness than a man with the power to summon flames with a few sharp words?"
Poe (ooc): Magic is indistinguishable from highly advanced technology.
Nate: "Your position is indefensible, Saelic. Answer the question."
Henry: "I speak all tongues - known and unknown. Clearly, I am the one best-suited to make first contact."
Nate: "Over my dead body."
Henry: "Those who will not serve me in life will serve me in death."
Greenleaf: "We don't have much time to reach a decision. Perhaps I can help make this decision. (passes a note to Will - Activating augury. Will the person among us who makes first contact with these aliens fare well?)
Will rolls and then passes a note back - Woe! In fact, the omen is cybershouting at you.
Greenleaf: "Lindley, while all of us trust in your diplomatic skills, having read the signs, I must insist that Saelic represent us to this new and advanced civilization."
Nate: "Sardis, though your ways are mysterious and ungodly, I will abide by your decision, but only because we do not have enough time to debate this. All of you will still only attack at my signal."
Henry: "This is acceptable to me, at least in this specific scenario."
Nate: Lindley takes up position on the right edge of the expected landing zone, dismounting Adrian and staying hidden in the underbrush.
Will: As you approach the landing zone, you pass a mile marker with the number 51 carved into it.
Nate sighs.
Greenleaf: Sardis will take up a position opposite Lindley, also remaining hidden. (He passes a note to Will - manifesting natural armor.)
Oliver: We take up our positions on the far side of the landing zone, moving along the perimeter to prevent ourselves from being spotted from above.
Ed: Or crushed by the wreckage.
Oliver: That, too.
Henry passes a note to Will - casting comprehend languages, mage armor (extended), endure elements (fire), protection from arrows, and fly. When I think it's about two rounds before they land, I cast minor globe of invulnerability and stoneskin.
Nate (ooc): So, what signs did Sardis read, exactly?
Greenleaf (ooc): That's between me, God, and the DM.
Will: First, a fat man wearing a blue jumpsuit and carrying a small, metallic animal of some sort in one arm materializes at the center of the clearing. You have just enough time to note the bullhorn on a strap over his shoulder and the strange bracelet and belt he is wearing before a bespeckled human in a yellow jumpsuit falls on him, crushing them both into masses of shattered bone and shredded sinew.
Oliver (ooc): Funny. The Catgirl's Almanac didn't say anything about flurries of morons...
Will: A full minute later, three other aliens land in more or less the same idiom. One is wearing mirror shades and packing what looks like a crossbow with neither cross piece nor bolt. He also has some strange device fastened to his head. The second is wearing protective goggles and looks to have pieces of metal concealed under his skin. The third is dressed in yellow scrubs and is carrying what appears to be a clipboard. All of them land in a heap of destroyed flesh.
Henry (ooc): At least the negotiations were short, and they pretty much had the result I had expected.
Greenleaf (ooc): Why would he describe characters who weren't important?
Oliver (ooc): To mess with our heads?
Ed: Annabelle develops a sudden, firm belief in the God of Carnivores as a direct result of this miracle of food from heaven. "Lector be praised!"
Will: A minute later, a sixth alien parachutes into the area. This one at least looks reasonably alien. In essence, he looks like the ugly guy from Goonies dressed in a yellow jumpsuit and carrying a ten foot, hollow pole over his shoulder.
Ed (ooc): I think you mean Sloth.
Will (ooc): Yes. Forgot his name.
Henry: Saelic walks forward.
Will: At that moment, all the dead aliens' flesh reassembles itself, and the aliens stand up. The one in scrubs gives each of them a pill. They wander in the opposite direction, not seeming to notice Saelic, for the moment. It is a bit after nightfall, after all. One of them produces a beam of light that is quickly blocked by a swarm of black moths. The metallic one mutters something and then points his hands in your general direction. A cone of flames washes toward you. Make a reflex save, DC 13.
Henry (ooc): Don't I get to roll initiative? And what about my protection spells?
Will: Fine. Don't roll a reflex save. You are fortunate enough to be standing behind the Area 51 marker, and your defenses absorb the rest of the damage. The one with the device on his head says quite a few things you can't make out, though you can tell they're a language you now understand.
Henry: Saelic walks calmly forward through the flames.
Will: The alien-looking alien speaks, "What manner of man are you that can survive plasma without tank armor or asbestos?"
Henry: "Your crude technology cannot harm me. I am a wizard. I rule this planet, and while I welcome offerings of tribute, you would do well to obey me while you are my guests."
Nate hits himself in the head repeatedly with the Player's Handbook.
Will: The aliens shuffle around a bit, clearly not understanding your words, though the one with spectacles is poking furiously at a small box.
Nate (ooc): You lied to us.
Henry (ooc): Relax. If they're an advanced species, they'll have a way to speak to us, or at least to understand our pleas for mercy so they can ignore them.
Will: After a moment, the brainy guy types something into the box and the box speaks in Common. "Good morning, gentleman. All your base are belong to us. My hate of d02 know no limit. You are educated stupid. The truth is Timecube."
Henry: Is he saying it as he types it? Because I should still be able to understand him.
Will: Nope, and since their translator is obviously malfunctioning, you can't.
Henry: "Me Saelic. My scapegoats Annabelle, Lindley, Taetia, and Sardis. Guys? Now would be a good time to make use of the element of surprise. They should be positioning themselves to kill you all. Unfortunately, they're not very artistic, so your deaths will probably be swift and painless. Your translator might be crap, but I'm sure we'll find something of value on your corpses. Hells, for all I know, you're the ancient evil. We'd better kill you just to be sure.
Will: The bullhorn guy suddenly shimmers.
Oliver: Taetia is sneaking up on the guy with the plasma blasters.
Ed: Annabelle will go invisible and walk over to the shimmering guy.
Nate sighs.
Will: Roll initiative.
Ed: 7.
Nate: 12.
Henry: 10.
Greenleaf: 15.
Oliver: 19.
Will: Taetia, you can get close to the metallic alien, this round, but you'll have to wait until next round to attack.
Oliver: Okay.
Will: Sardis, what are you doing?
Greenleaf: Sardis will stay out of sight for a little while longer and see what happens.
Will: Lindley?
Nate: Drawing her sword and moving to the last possible place of cover before entering the smoldering clearing, but also waiting.
Will: The Sloth alien suddenly grows metal claws a la Wolverine and takes a swipe at Saelic.
Nate (ooc): Well, that answers that question.
Will: AC 28. Take 10 damage.
Henry: What about my defenses. Are they magic claws?
Will: No. So you don't take any. The one with the device on his head readies his crossless crossbow and waits. Henry?
Henry: I trust I am too close to use fireball safely?
Ed (ooc): Given that the rest of us are going to be within the radius of said fireball, I'm going to say yes.
Henry (ooc): Safe for me. Saelic doesn't care what happens to you.
Will: Yes.
Henry: Saelic is going to flee a few feet away before using his empowered fireball spell on the lot of them. Eat 12 dice of flaming death, suckers!
Will: Hold on. As you flee, devicehead uses his readied attack to shoot you in the back.
Henry (ooc): Ha! I have protection from arrows and stoneskin. He can't hurt me.
Will: It isn't an arrow or other physical missile.
Henry (ooc): I also have a minor globe of invulnerability and endure elements against fire.
Will: It isn't a spell, either, and while it is fire damage, after a fashion, it rips through you endure elements by inflicting 35 damage to you.
Henry (ooc): Crap. That puts me at -6.
Will: Annabelle?
Ed: Charging the shimmering guy. Raging.
Will: You'll reach him on your next turn.
Will: The rest of the aliens spend the round readying weapons. Taetia?
Oliver: Sneak attack. Natural 20. Threat. AC 19 adequate?
Will: Yes.
Oliver: 20 damage.
Will: You instantly kill him. The woman in the scrubs fires her laser pistol at Taetia. AC 20?
Oliver: Not even close.
Will: It goes wide. Sardis?
Greenleaf: Running to Saelic's aid. (He passes a note to Will - empathic wound transfer. 8 HP)
Will: Saelic heals 8 damage, restoring his consciousness. Lindley?
Nate: Lindley steps into the clearing. "That wasn't the signal! Stop this insubordination immediately!" She looks at the brainy guy. "Sir, could you tell your friends we come in peace?"
Will: He blinks in apparent confusion and then types something into the box. It says, "I am the utterly evil avatar of Chaos. Bow before me, or I will get a box of pencils and throw them at your ceiling."
Nate: Aw fuck it. Sword is on fire. I'm cutting off his head. Or do I have to wait until next round?
Will: Go ahead and do it now, but you only get one attack.
Nate: Okay. AC 22.
Will: Hit.
Nate: Wow. 17 damage.
Will: You cut off his head.
Nate: "Without order, there is chaos! Without ORDER, there is CHAOS!" She screams through her tears.
Will: Annabelle.
Ed: Excellent. Biting. Diverting +5 damage to Power Attack. I'm going to do a hideous amount of... Shit. Natural 1.
Will: You seem to be have a hard time chewing through the shimmering guy's forcefield. He casually attempts to shoot you in the head, but his laser pistol simply gives off sparks and smells like burning copper.
Nate (ooc): We would have joined each other in incompetence.
Will: Dragon's turn.
Henry (ooc): Ha ha. Like I've never heard that before.
Will: I'm not kidding. That red dragon is back, and he appears to be getting ready to breathe on the smoldering remains of the clearing. Next round. Taetia?
Oliver: I resent this unfair use of a draconic plot wagon, but Taetia will take cover.
Will: Sorry. We're running out of time. Sardis?
Greenleaf: I'll help Saelic to safety.
Will: Lindley?
Nate: Taking cover, again, but I'd like to point out that this never would have happened if we had followed my original plan.
Will: Saelic?
Henry: They're all out of the way of my fireball.
Ed clears his throat.
Henry: Well, everyone who matters is. Saelic is going to take a few steps with Sardis, yell at everyone to take cover, and then unleash his empowered fireball before the dragon steals our kill.
Oliver (ooc): This isn't Everquest. No one can steal your kills.
Henry (ooc): It's a matter of honor. And experience points.
Nate (ooc): It's a one-shot game. You don't get experience points.
Henry (ooc): Okay, so it just amuses me. Besides, it's what Saelic would do, and you wouldn't want me to break character, would you?
Will: Damage?
Henry: Could be better. 42. Reflex save DC 18 for half.
Will: Annabelle?
Ed: Nope. Annabelle wails over the loss of the first good meat she's seen in weeks as she flees into the woods to put herself out.
Will: The dragon breathes a few seconds after the fireball goes off, but not before Annabelle is out of its area of effect. It then drops on top of the remains of the aliens and looks determined not to move.
Ed (ooc): Thank you for having more mercy than my fellow player.
Will: You regroup a short distance west of the thrice-baked clearing.
Henry: Is the dragon still just sitting there?
Will: Yes, and it doesn't look like it has any intention of going anywhere anytime soon.
Oliver (ooc): Obviously, it wants to keep our rightfully earned loot to itself.
Henry (ooc): We're 9th level characters. We can probably kill it, if we plan this right.
Ed (ooc): Maybe Will just wants us to continue with the scenario before we run out of time.
Nate (ooc): Hold on. Maybe something the dragon is protecting is important to the scenario. We spent a month fooling around in the palace and another few weeks traveling. Whatever this reawakened evil is could have completely left the scope of the module, by now.
Oliver (ooc): But no good DM would punish us for playing the scenario intelligently, and we don't have enough real time left to kill the dragon, get the loot from the aliens, go to the mountains to figure out what ancient evil has reawakened, and then track it down to neutralize it.
Nate (ooc): Right, so the dragon is obviously a way to bring the evil to us so we can defeat it at the end of a great, climactic battle.
Will sighs.
Ed (ooc): Unless it isn't. It could just be a red herring.
Henry (ooc): What it is is a slightly alive dragon that is about to have its permit to live revoked.
Oliver (ooc): We can't let it have our treasure.
Nate (ooc): And we certainly can't allow powerful alien technology to fall into the hands of a red dragon and whatever dark master it serves.
Will: What are you doing - investigating the area where you know the ancient evil was unearthed or picking a fight with the dragon over its horde of broken and/or malfunctioning alien devices?
Nate: Lindley holds her sword aloft. "Sardis, make us as whole as you can. We will make camp a short distance from here and take our rest. Then we will return at dawn to wrest these devices from the ancient evil that seeks to keep them from us."
Greenleaf: "As you wish." (He passes a seemingly interminable series of notes in which he repeatedly uses empathic transfer and lesser body adjustment to heal all the injured members of the party while minimizing the number of power points he spends. Just to add flavor, object reading to secretly find out about each of the other PCs' magic items.)
Nate: "Taetia, scout the area near the dragon for anything of tactical value to us."
Oliver: "I don't take orders from you, golden bra. I have better things to do tonight." Taetia quickly disappears into the woods. (He passes a note indicating that he intends to look for any villages or farmsteads beyond the forest's edge, since they're so close to the boundary of the Mirky Wood.)
Will: I'll get to you in a minute, Oliver.
Nate: "Come back here, you insubordinate furry!"
Ten minutes pass as the rest of the group tries to track down Taetia and fails miserably.
Nate: "Annabelle, see if you can find something nearby to eat."
Greenleaf (ooc): That's it, Nate. Encourage the cannibal...
Ed: Annabelle gives a steel-toothed grin. "Now that's an order I don't mind taking? Do you prefer white meat or dark meat?" (He passes Will a note indicating that Annabelle will leave the forest and look for a village or farmstead where there might be food.)
Nate: "Saelic, go..."
Henry: "You don't want to give me an order, Lindley. It's just you and me, now."
Greenleaf: Sardis murmurs, "And me."
Henry: "I do what I want how I want, and if you try to stop me, you will spend the rest of eternity as a disembodied soul in a jar in my collection of people who irritated me more than they ought to have. Is that what you want?"
Nate: Lindley grinds her teeth and resists the urge to smite him.
Henry: Saelic laughs dismissively and walks into the forest toward the dragon.
Nate: Lindley will rub Adrian down and wait for Annabelle to come back with food.
Greenleaf: Sardis will spend a great deal of time meditating over pretty gems.
Fifteen minutes pass as Annabelle finds a nearby village, breaks into a house, kills the inhabitants, cooks them in their own stewpot, steals half their pantry, and returns to the camp.
Thirty minutes pass as Taetia sneaks into the same village and sets out to steal every silver and gold coin in the entire community. Ten minutes pass as Greenleaf and Henry pass notes back and forth with Will.
By using a variety of divinations, Sardis finds out that the dragon is, in fact, a red herring. He learns that the ancient evil is a ring of power forged by a dark deity who will become almost unstoppable if he gets it back. Apparently, a halfling found it and has taken it all the way beyond the east side of the Mirky Wood, where he and his dwarven companions are trying to figure out how to protect their treasure from those who covet it. He also spies on Taetia, Annabelle, and Saelic and is perfectly aware of what they have done. He keeps all this information a secret.
Saelic, meanwhile, negotiates with the sitting dragon. He manages to convince it to stop killing him before Will speaks out.
Will: Look. We're already over on time. Can we just say you meet back at the camp, sleep, and run this combat? Brian Clevinger is going to be signing copies of Nuklear Age in half an hour, and I don't want to have to wait in line all afternoon.
Ed (ooc): But we haven't had dinner, yet, and after I went through all that trouble in that one-on-one, I want to do that.
Oliver (ooc): And I'm almost done with my thing.
Henry (ooc): I'm finally getting a chance to have a good conversation with an interesting NPC. We can't stop, now.
Greenleaf (ooc): I'm almost done. I promise.
Nate (ooc): I'd like to cut to the battle, but I'm not in a hurry. If you want, I'll wait in line for you. Besides, you still have some time before you have to be anywhere.
Ten minutes pass before Saelic agrees to betray his companions in exchange for a staff of power and dominion over a kingdom once the dragon's dark master comes to his full power.
Fifteen minutes pass while Sardis peeks on random victims, including a pair of male orcs engaged in intimate acts, after which Greenleaf makes disgusted noises and stops passing notes. He refuses to tell anyone what he saw.
Twenty minutes pass while Taetia loots the small town, after which she returns to the camp, arriving shortly after Saelic.
After everyone is together again, ten minutes pass while Annabelle serves everyone soup with human fingers and eyeballs floating in it. Sardis merely focuses on the other food the halfling brought back and pontificates about how killing is wrong. Saelic chows down and seems abnormally cheerful. Taetia also eats the soup but critisizes the taste. A brief argument about the flavor breaks out.
Ed (ooc): With a 25 on my cooking roll, I could turn poop and puke into a delicacy. It's human meat, but it's still meat. How can Taetia even taste the differrence?
Lindley, however, freaks out and soon destroys all traces of Annabelle's soup. These hijinks eat up another thirty minutes.
Will (ooc): No, really. I have to go. Now.
Oliver (ooc): But the scenario isn't even done, yet.
Will: Okay. Let me sum up the ending, then.
Nate (ooc): No cinematic battle with a dragon?
Will: No. That would take up too much time. Okay. Night passes. The next day, Lindley creates the perfect battle plan. You ride out to do battle with the dragon.
Greenleaf (ooc): But isn't Lindley the only one with a horse?
Will: Taetia immediately sabotages the plan by not following orders. Lindley freaks out and yells at Taetia instead of changing her plans. Saelic picks that moment to betray all of you. But you're tough folks, so you manage to polish off him, the dragon, and his zombie squirrels.
Oliver (ooc): Zombie squirrels?
Henry (ooc): That's bullshit. I have fly. Saelic could take on all of you and win. The dragon is only a distraction.
Nate (ooc): So, we kill the dragon.
Oliver (ooc): And get the treasure.
Nate (ooc): Including the evil artifact, whatever it is.
Ed (ooc): Which we take back to the elven king to destroy. The end.
Will: No. All the alien technology is completely unsalvagable, and there is no reawakened ancient evil, here.
Greenleaf (ooc): I could have told them that.
Will: But you didn't.
Nate (ooc): What?
Will: So, foiled and low on magic item charges. Oh, the dragon kills Adrian during the battle.
Nate (ooc): Hey!
Will: As I was saying, thwarted, you head to the cave in the mountains where the ancient evil was reawakened. You use up most of the rest of your resources fighting the scads of orcs who live in the cave, but when you get to the bottom of it, you find a tiny, hidden cave with a small island at the center of a pond. A few buttons of halfling design litter the entrance.
Ed (ooc): Ah. So it really was a Tolkien ripoff...
Will: The ancient evil is two months away, now, since you decided to boost your stats when time was clearly of the essence.
Greenleaf (ooc): But Sardis can tell them where they should go next. Of course, he won't tell them how he knows. He's secretive, you understand.
Will: You spend the next two months chasing the halfling across Centerland, as he always seems one step ahead of you. On your way back through the Mirky Wood, the red dragon's dark master catches up with you. See, by killing one of his more powerful minions, you have proven that you are a threat to him. As he is a god and you are not, he makes short work of you before going south to his ancient fortress to plan the best way to get the ring back. The end.
Oliver (ooc): That sucked. We never had any choice. You were railroading us.
Henry (ooc): I still say Saelic and the dragon would have kicked your loser characters' asses.
Ed (ooc): Bullshit. We incapped you in a single round, the last time you got too ambitious.
Will stands up and starts to leave.
Greenleaf (ooc): Do all roleplaying games end like this?
Nate (ooc): Not at all. With one-shots, though, it's easy for the GM to try to do too much and for the players to get too sidetracked to get through the scenario.
Henry (ooc): Where do you think you're going? You're not leaving until you tell them that Saelic is now like Sarumen except with zombies instead of half-orcs.
Will: I've had enough. I need to go commiserate with someone who has to deal with a cast of characters whose party dynamic is only slightly less dysfunctional than this one has been.
Session ends.
William Cullen Bryant (Will) - DM
Edgar Allen Poe (Ed) plays Annabelle, an extremely carnivorous halfling barbarian.
Nathaniel Hawthorne (Nate) plays Lindley, an elven paladin.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (Henry) plays Saelic, a human necromancer.
John Greenleaf Whittier (Greenleaf) plays Sardis, a human psion (Egoist).
Oliver Wendell Holmes (Oliver) plays Taetia, a human fighter/rogue whom Oliver nevertheless insists looks like a humanoid cat.