Convention Overview
Our little micro-con had next to no build-up and took place in a very small town on a glorious summer Saturday from 10AM-7PM. The community Center had minimal signage. My expectations were very low.
First session of H&H: (sound of chirping crickets)
We had less than 15 visitors from 10AM-2PM. A six-player Pathfinder game ensued, as did several board games. We left-over participants waited until 11:30, flipped over our signs and began a two-table game of Talisman plus expansions. Money was generated through sales of snacks, Burgers and Hot Dogs were available 1:00-4:30 PM, and the snacks and drinks were available all day long. Further monies were raised through the encouragement of "Cheating" by donation of monies for various in-game advantages-up and including "Give me $100 and i'll declare you the winner!"
...sadly, that was not considered a 'fun' Cheat, but monies were generated and fun was had.
Second session of H&H: THERE WAS ONE!
At roughly 4PM another 35 or so people showed up-several of the younger crowd called up their pals via the miracle of 5G and let them know that fun was going on! Four Boardgame tables filled up, the Pathfinder GM had no takers this time so he donated his table to a Warhammer four-way Demo/battle. Two guys looking for a D&D/5E game -along with the Pathfinder GM -sidled over to my table, eyed my Gangbusters City map and asked..."Whatcha Got?"
"Old School D&D meets the Golden Age of Comic Books!" I replied nonchalantly. (why yes I had rehearsed that blurb!)
And so everybody sat down, I explained how Karma worked (and that it was a House Rule for Tournament play only) everybody bought 5 Karma for $1 and Play began:
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Dramatis Personae
V-Man (Joe Mcready) immediately generated 2 extra Karma by inventing his 'support team' (brother and sister Maintenance crew-Jerri and Jackson Cord-he met during his time in the Army Air Core, they way they constantly nag him over every loose stitch or hint of carbon build-up in his turbines, and the battered, barely-running old Bakery truck they use as a Mobile HQ,) and we Role-played their "Permits? What permits?" guerilla-style V-suit testing within city limits...
Mister NoOne (Stan Miklos) asked me why his land-lady was crying over a baby young enough to be her grand-child (New SCM, 1 Karma) and the Widow Kasmatos explained that officer Todd Mcginnis (5th Precinct)had brought the baby to her-covered in blood!- as a temporary shelter until the Orphanage could be contacted. The cop would tell her no more, but was pale as a corpse and shaking like a leaf! Stan Immediately decided that Todd was a former fellow student at Lakefront Academy (1 Karma) He went to see if he could be of service...
The First Response-(Jack Griffith) follows the example of the other Players and plays through a drill with fellow EMTs Jim Forbeck and Matt Langley (2 Karma) on how to maximize the miracle man's heightened speed and new powers as part of Trauma Team One. It is decided for now that Jack will be treated as a deploy-able sub-unit of the ambulance team for now, and a small bay is made available for the mini-rickshaw. Off Duty shift in a hour, the Team take a long-delayed lunch...
V-man's test is spotted by a numbers-runner from the O'Rourke Mob and a quiet convo is had that costs a $15 bribe to 'look the other way'. During the convo Ewan Deshawn remarks about how on edge everyone is today after two enforcers from Tolino territory were caught over on 5th and Bright. Observers saw them flip a coin-then one of them put a noose around his own neck and the other started lifting him up the lamp post-both grinning like they were in the middle of the funniest joke ever...when some of O'Rourke's boys tried to intervene both of the grinning loons drew knives and fought like Grizzlies-and after two Irish bodies fall bleeding to the ground three others made a rough circle and filled the Italians with lead. A hasty denial from the Tolino side of things (and an affirmation that "those two morons deserved it") and the Truce still holds...
Stan finds Todd in the basement filling out forms and trying not to weep-he had requested Desk duties for few days to 'try and get his head back on'. The perp was Kathy Gale, a pleasantly-feisty single mom from the Garment district. She was well-liked and respected, and when she got into the usual haggling session with local butcher Jim Murray it was a normal event-right up until she grabbed a cleaver and struck the man's head nearly off...and still smiling. Murray's niece thought fast, pushed a huge wrapped package into Gale's arms and bid her 'a nice day'-and the mother left, her toddler trailing behind. When Todd had found her (and her kid thirty feet behind her unable to keep up) Kathy had brandished the cleaver, her face a mask of rage, and screamed :WHAT'S THE MAGIC WORD BUDDY?
"Please," Todd had answered on sheer reflex-and Kathy Gale tossed the cleaver lightly into traffic, grabbed Officer McGuinnes around the shoulders and treated him like her new best buddy all the way into a holding cell. Where she promptly took a nap-and never woke up....as Todd wraps up his story a Full Response alarm goes off-there's an apartment fire on 31th and Merchant, every cop needed for crowd control...
Jack and his team were given an Emergency status update over lunch-three bodies in the morgue, two dead from bullet wounds and one dead from cardiac arrest, all gently smiling in repose...the circumstances were suspicious, the police were in a low-grade panic, the Press had been informed and were sitting on the story for two days. Toxicology was treating these bodies as the first and only thing on their list...and if it turned out to be some new form of Rabies then large portions of Lakefront City might face Quarantine...
And then sirens blared, a full Medical Response was needed at 31st and Merchant...
Joe sees smoke from the top of the McCellan building on 14th and Bright...two V-jumps to the earth and a battered bakery van is headed to a fire while Joe and Jerri clean excess carbon from the outflow valves...
REEL ONE shuts down as we all take a snack break.
REEL TWO begins.
With Jack Griffith at the wheel of the ambulance (6 on Skill Check, 7 with Background) they beat the actual Fire Department there by six minutes! The four-story building was ablaze, fire shooting out of doors and windows. Jack grabs his Fire Extinguisher and tries to find a way in-but all of the Fire Escapes are blocked by flame...in the end, Jack plunges up the Fire Escape of the building next door, reaches the roof, hits his full running speed and leaps to the other roof (Athletics Check is 6-he spent some Karma on that!). The roof entrance is locked, but a Wrecking Roll explodes the door from its hinges and opens up part of the 4th Floor.
Joe pops up out of the old bakery truck, sees a fellow Lodge Member on the roof and pops up in two jumps for a quick meeting. It is agreed that V-Man will take passengers two and three at a time from the roof to the Second Floor fire escape where they may safely egress. The First Response heads to the Third Floor to suppress enough flame so that the residents can make it out.
The fire trucks have deployed. two sets of Second Floor windows crash open under the ladders and the residents are evacuated-there is some question about the 'Moon Man' with the jet pack but he seems to be working with Trauma Team One so they let things be-besides, they have worse issues, the hydrants are dry...
Stan parks his Model T well past the Police line and saunters past like he belongs there (+1 Hide +Karma+1D6=7="I'm not even here") and I roll two Encounters for him-Bloodthirsty Hoodlum and Half-pint. Using Editor prerogative I activate Stan's Hangup(+1 Karma), and instead of the Half-Pint the mystic is confronted by a badly burned, nearly carbonized creature beckoning towards him. He reverses his coat and lowers his cheesecloth mask-Mister NoOne is in uniform at last-and grips his amulet, prepared to lay this unquiet spirit to rest...but instead the specter falls to her knees and points down a dark alley, beseeching as she fades.Days later, Stan Miklos would find out that Myrna Ledger, 86, had died quietly of smoke inhalation in her sleep that day, and lingered just a few precious minutes....
At the end of the alleyway is a broad-shouldered man singing to himself and opening fire hydrants with a wrench. NoOne takes no chances and casts Charm Person before he is even noticed. "Buddy!" screams the man as he turns around,"Take this other wrench and get the one at Bleeker, we can't let them kill my beautiful blaze! This entire eyesore is going down, Bleecker all the way to Kent!"
"I am not helping you do this." NoOne says simply.
"You are no fun anymore!," snarls the fireman-for NoOne has noticed a Ninth Precinct pin on his lapel-and strides off to do it himself. The mystic clouts him over the head from behind and the fireman goes out like a light.Slowly No-One grits his teeth and secures the hydrant, and then another one...
Three people left on the 3rd Floor and The First Response is out of foam. He screams his need and another extinguisher is swung over via rope. The hoses are beginning to fill at last-some madman had opened three hydrants nearby-and Second Floor was clear. Not nearly enough foam to do the job, but a Save vs Science for half damage (2 points) and Lakefront City's Living Ambulance has his three charges on terra firma...and the fire escape collapses.
V-man is on an increasingly unstable roof with two medium-sized men and a young lady. Joe does the math-frowns-ignores the math...he locks the lady's arms around his waist like they are dating, demands each man place a two-handed Death Grip on each bicep. He adjusts the nozzles for maximum output, times a six second burn-and falls. Twin turbines scream as they overheat, ballistic cloth begins to smolder-the four figures hit HARD-
(Editor-Okay, Save vs Science for half damage.)
(Player- I refuse the Save. I brace and take it all so my passengers land safely)
(Editor-Daaaaaaaang. Take 5 Damage and a Karma Point, Hero Boy!)
V-Man does the opposite of his training, goes rigid as he lands and takes the full weight and speed on his feet, his knees, his aching back and tearing shoulders and bites off his screams...and all three bodies hit the ground softly, one broken high heel and one skinned knee between them. V-Man jets quickly into a nearest alley to scream in peace-but another Lodger is there with a dying fireman, so Joe overtaxes his hot jets again over the falling debris, and now Trauma Team One is applying a breathing funnel and a shot of liquid cocaine and the fireman has a thready pulse....V-Man feathers his jets back to the nearby bakery truck howling in pain and Mister NoOne turns Invisible and wanders off. (3 Good Deeds Karma apiece for everbody!)
It is 8PM in the White Lodge, and everybody brought coffee and sandwiches. Jack is already slathered in aloe and feeling pretty good, he bought a First Aid kit for Joe, injects liquid aspirin into the tears and bruises, wraps his torso in wet bandages to cool his muscles (heal 2 points due to Medical background) and then everybody tucks into sandwiches and gossip. A few hours later the Lodge decides to delve into its Library-Stan forgoes replenishing his Spells in favor of determining a possible Occult reason for the Madness. He spends a point of Karma for a perfect 6, and realizes that only a Named Demon could so persuade a human soul so completely contrary to its deepest-held beliefs...and that if a Named One were loose he would have already received a call from the Vatican's Inner Circle...
Jack researches the Medical archives, with Joe assisting with skimming titles...and came to the conclusion that there were no precedents for this type of spreading Madness. So Jack called Toxicology for a 3AM update, and Lisa Woodruff never sleeps while there's a Medical mystery(1 Karma). Bad news? Fire Chief Tom Andreysson woke from his coma-and tried to hang himself with a knotted sheet. He's under heavy sedation and can't be questioned. Good News. A swab from inside the fireman's throat matches blood work from three corpses-an unknown but powerful chemical compound. It is not, therefore, a contagious disease.
The Lodge makes a plan, sets an alarm clock and takes a 4 hour nap.
In the morning, the gang awake, eat bread and cold coffee, pool their cash and 'purchase' three Field Radios from storage. These Walky-Talkies are the size of a human forearm, powered by 6 D-cells and have a three-mile reach. Jack can jog faster than some horses, Joe has his Team on the truck and Stan has his Model T-they will begin a patrol and see if the Madness has begun to escalate. Before they begin, Jack calls a guy he knows from the Tolino Mob, who he got off morphine a few years back (1 Karma),tells him that the Madness is an orally-taken drug of some kind...and that since these fits of Crazy have been breaking out all over Lakefront the dealer is probably an Outsider. Word gets out.
Nothing strange happening in the morn, or the noon-but at 2PM V-Man spots a throng of bodies swarming in Ibara territory, calls in and the Lodge makes it there in record time, Stan picking up Jack along the way to give his feet a rest. They later find that a member of the Ibara mob found a pusher literally giving away product in a tavern-and called the cops on them. Now however, there are a dozen fanatics attacking a dozen cops-and half those cops are on the ground. But while Mister NoOne and The First Response deploy, V-Man(used to scanning UP) sees a figure two stories above the tavern, looking down with binoculars and writing in a notebook...and so V-Man takes to the sky.
The Response calculates carefully, aims...and an Electro-blast takes down three of the six Fanatics he aimed at. The other four now pay attention to him though...meanwhile, a Magic Missle takes out a Fanatic on the other side of the line...the six remaining cops fail a Morale check and drag their buddies off the field. Our Heroes are amazingly outnumbered.
V-Man spots the observer from two rooftops away-loses his temper and unleashes a Rocket into his face (1 Karma for playing to his Hang-up) The equivalent of an M-60 explodes in the mans face and sets his coat on fire-the lanky man ignores the flames, turns to look at his attacker and makes a little 'come hither' gesture...(low damage roll meets damage resistance).
A Comedy of Errors plays out below. NoOne is down to his Cure Light Wounds spell, and is swinging his blackthorn cane wildly into a mass of drug-fueled flesh-which grunt and snarl but refuse to fall. And yet-the Fanatics can't strike the magician either, it's like a momentary veil hides him from view( Half-pint Origin defense and nobody can make that Save vs Plot to even attack). Meanwhile, fast metal gloves strike unyielding flesh-but the madmen can't lay a glove on The First Response, he's just too fast! (lots of low rolls all around).
One rooftop away, the spidery man unlimbers a huge pistol and lets two bullets fly. One hits V-Man right in the face. (Klonk! Helmet test successful!
). The Aeronaut hot-charges both rockets on his left gauntlet(skill check) and lets both fly right into that ugly body, and the beast-man howls in pain and rage but doesn't fall. V-Man closes the final gap, aims a rocket-powered punch at the ugly mug but the rockets weren't meant to work that way and it goes spiraling off into the sky...
Mister NoOne disarms a woman of her knife and now his three enemies are unarmed-they retaliate but the Bone Kingdom of Mictlan will not let the wizard be harmed... meanwhile, the Response uses his superior speed to outrun his opponents while tossing bricks, and slowly whittles the numbers down.
The beast grabs V-Man in a headlock and empties his pistol right into V-Man's chest. Impact plates shudder beneath the barrage and a rib cracks (2HP damage). The high-flyer goes completely limp, playing dead. "Tell them in Hell," remarks the monster while employing a speed-loader, "That Nick Satter sent you there!"
"TELL THEM YOURSELF!" screams V-Man, and tackles the creature off the roof with a scream of twin turbines...
The Response and Mister NoOne flail and kick and punch and finally they are alone and gasping for breath...the last blow was NoOne's as he completely ruined his Field Radio by using it as a mace.
Two figures tumbled off the roof, one tumbling and pitching sideways and pinwheeling as he tried to line up twin turbines with the ground-the other just fell. One got back up screaming OWOWOWOWOWAAAAARRGOWWWWWwwww!(1HP left!) and the creature known as Nick Satter lay still-then some skinny little guy crawled out from under the large coat and legged it-and V-Man couldn't catch him.
But the Response could, and laid him out while Mister No-One used his last Spell on a grateful V-Man.
No one could ever say why a brilliant Alienist such as Armand Fusil had decided to unleash a Crazy Plague upon the City-and no one ever found out either-because one day after he was charged with over two dozen felonies, two men with FBI badges took Fusil into custody and left-and if there was a trial it never made the papers.
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So only one game-but it hit on all cylinders!
As far as our tiny little Micro-event went-we punched so far above our weight class that it wasn't funny. Our scarcely-advertised, one-day Community Center event generated enough funds to supply three months of tutoring for the local High School's 'Keep Up' program! Naturally, we are going to attempt a better-advertised one next May and see if we can gain some numbers...