Saturday
Saturday morning (almost) everyone from the GEnie online Amber game at the convention met after Erick Wujcik’s Amber talk, in which I played the Chaos princess Morgaine. This was the largest collection of the players ever, and is not likely to be duplicated. We all got the chance to meet everyone else in person, as opposed to seeing what each other had typed in at the display screen. We were also given buttons with our character’s name on them, a gift from Mike Levay and Alan Grimes, which we were very thankful for.
Wild Card Hero
Later Saturday afternoon I played in a round of Champions “Wild Card Hero”. This was a scenario based loosely on the Wild Cards books: the Wild Card virus existed, but no one knew how or why. It was not really what I had expected, but I was willing to let the gamemaster set the story and have a good time anyways. I had thought it interesting that the gamemaster had a radio link, which was explained early on when three players were sent to another game session, where people in cyberpunk gear were talking about the same problem we were having! It turned out that both games revolved around the same secret, and both sessions eventually were combined when both teams decided to join forces.
The best scene in the whole game was when the player playing the cyberpunk team leader, Ms. Chen, stood up to give all of the Wild Card heroes the basic scenario. Another player, who played the ‘punker rock musician Firecat, stood behind him and mimicked his every move and word. The first player never even knew the other was behind him. (I did get a picture of the scene, however.) What made it even funnier was that someone sneaked up behind the second player and did the same thing to him!
The second best scene, and the one that got the player awarded the best Wild Cards roleplayer, was when both groups started arguing pointlessly; the character, who we had all thought was a “nat” or normal, revealed that he was the Wild Card Ace known as the Phantom by walking like a ghost through everyone arguing. Needless to say, it was most unexpected move and a threat to his secret identity, but the player felt it necessary and did it anyway.
The scenario continued in a fourth and final session Saturday evening, and I, based on the fun that I had had that afternoon, went to the registration desk and managed to obtain the last event ticket for the final session. The session picked up where the previous session left off, with both teams exploring options and deciding where to go next to find the source of the Wild Card infections. I was a part of the cyberpunk team, playing the teenaged computer hacker. (Sort of appropriate, considering my profession.) Since we eventually decided to go to the first infection site, a village in Mexico, fully armed and ready for anything, the gamemaster asked the player of the cyberpunk team’s mercenary for a weapons list. The player responded with an amazing array of assault weaponry and armor that included a 50 cal. machine gun! As the hacker, I (of course) was expected to arrange for supplies, which I did with some very good dice rolling. The firepower was needed later, when we discovered that the eventual villains of the piece were a group of eight-foot tall Tyrannosaurous Rexes. We faced them down using our greater firepower, they having only their teeth and claws (in other words, no distance weapons!) At one point, the mercenary gave a white phosphorous grenade to one of the Wild Cards people, a human-sized pterodactyl, telling her it was a flash grenade. (Well, it was, but it did a lot more, too.) She was not pleased at the result, having the Disadvantage Code vs. Killing. As a result, for having messed up the GM’s plans so thoroughly but in character, this player was awarded the best cyberpunk roleplayer in the game.
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