Angry Bob
2011-09-21, 07:43 AM
I went to the first meeting of my college's nerd club and brought some index cards, some mechanical pencils, and as many six-siders as I could dig up.
There were about eleven players in total, many more than I had guess would actually attend, and more importantly, far more than basic Risus is balanced to handle.
I didn't know how well it would go, but it turned out that I only had to provide a skeleton of a setting and plot, and with so many players, they ended up carrying the story. Keep in mind all of the below occurred in a session that was over in less than an hour.
The session began with all of the characters at a high school reunion, probably their twentieth, probably sometime in the 2010's. The guy that had been class president then was now president of the United States and had gotten the class this cool cliffside resort for it. I should mention at this point that the among the characters were:
- A 40k style inquisitor/killer bunny/pokemon trainer
- A gruff space admiral/crazy cat lady/guy that dies at the end
- A cyborg/pulp archaeologist/plucky comic relief
- A mecha pilot/corporate sellout
- A hipster/gunslinger/illegal immigrant worker
- A pirate/Male porn star
- A Disney channel protagonist/mustache-twirling villain(Named Barbara Whittingham)
- A William Shatner/sassy gay man
The party was on the pavilion socializing when they start hearing screams from the direction of the house. Everyone decides to go back through the woods to the house and see what's going on, and more importantly, recover their tools of the trade. En route, they are accosted by fast zombies, which are summarily dealt with by a combination of having walked into the tall grass(the pokemon trainer) and the mustache-twirling villain causing a wild sawmill to appear, and just cutting them in half.
Having dealt with those zombies, they return to the house and find ther equipment and the dismembered remains of their classmates. They're about to announce their next course of action when the Disney channel protagonist attempts to cause the room they're in to only have three walls. She fails by a little, causing the fourth wall to crack a little. Which is actually fortunate, because on the other side of the wall is another mob of fast zombies.
Fortunately, the sassy gay man chastises them about their personal hygiene(backed up by the corporate sellout recommending a brand of shampoo), making them all awkwardly wander away.
Those zombies out of the way, the pulp archaeologist decides to search the house for something, anything. Everyone else pitches in, with varying degrees of success. The William Shatner has a redshirt scan with a tricorder, only to have it explode, killing the redshirt and revealing nothing.
The party eventually locates a secret door in the bottom of the wine cellar. Before pulling it open, the Disney child star rolls twice: once to make whatever they find nonthreatening and inconsequential, and once to make whatever they find down there turn out to be her father. She fails the first and succeeds on the second.
When a certain bottle is removed, the cellar opens up into the interior of a secret nazi airbase. In one corner, there's a cage containing the kinds of zombies they've been encountering so far, and on another side there's a bank of cloning cylinders.
The gruff space admiral decides to intimidate the technicians scurrying around. She succeeds impressively, and orders them to start everything up. It turns out the entire cliff is a facade for an actual floating base, and it starts taking off. The William Shatner rolls to make everyone stumble around awkwardly as it lifts off, and fails, making only himself do so.
At this point the party is searching the place. They wander into the armory, where everyone finds some special equipment for a certain cliche, such as a book that the author forgot he wrote for the hipster, a mech-sized t-shirt decorated with logos for the corporate sellout, a nyan bazooka for the crazy cat lady, and so forth.
They're bringing this stuff back to the central chamber when Super Saiyan Robot Zombie Ninja Hitler appears. Now, ordinarily, this would be a tough fight. However, the Disney child star's player points out that that particular boss is weak against suicide. Citing that a) Hitler killed himself, b) robots are vulnerable to logical paradoxes, c) zombies are already dead(not sure how this works, but I rolled with it) and d) ninjas are required to kill themselves if their honor is tarnished. So the party starts planning their attack. The William Shatner will shout logical paradoxes, and so on. Then it speaks:
"Barbara Whittingham: I am your father."
Surprising no one. Needless to say, they quickly turned it to their advantage:
"No, you're my step-father, and I'm pregnant!"
<beat>
"And one of these guys might be the father!" Indicates the male porn star and the illegal immigrant worker.
Needless to say, the SSRZNH explodes, destroying that side of the airbase.
And that's where the session ended.
I didn't have the rulebook with me, so I kind of played fast and loose with the rules I didn't quite remember, but I'm fairly sure everyone had a good time regardless.
So yeah, Risus. There's pretty much no reason except for lack of internet not to at least take a look at it, since it's free for download.
There were about eleven players in total, many more than I had guess would actually attend, and more importantly, far more than basic Risus is balanced to handle.
I didn't know how well it would go, but it turned out that I only had to provide a skeleton of a setting and plot, and with so many players, they ended up carrying the story. Keep in mind all of the below occurred in a session that was over in less than an hour.
The session began with all of the characters at a high school reunion, probably their twentieth, probably sometime in the 2010's. The guy that had been class president then was now president of the United States and had gotten the class this cool cliffside resort for it. I should mention at this point that the among the characters were:
- A 40k style inquisitor/killer bunny/pokemon trainer
- A gruff space admiral/crazy cat lady/guy that dies at the end
- A cyborg/pulp archaeologist/plucky comic relief
- A mecha pilot/corporate sellout
- A hipster/gunslinger/illegal immigrant worker
- A pirate/Male porn star
- A Disney channel protagonist/mustache-twirling villain(Named Barbara Whittingham)
- A William Shatner/sassy gay man
The party was on the pavilion socializing when they start hearing screams from the direction of the house. Everyone decides to go back through the woods to the house and see what's going on, and more importantly, recover their tools of the trade. En route, they are accosted by fast zombies, which are summarily dealt with by a combination of having walked into the tall grass(the pokemon trainer) and the mustache-twirling villain causing a wild sawmill to appear, and just cutting them in half.
Having dealt with those zombies, they return to the house and find ther equipment and the dismembered remains of their classmates. They're about to announce their next course of action when the Disney channel protagonist attempts to cause the room they're in to only have three walls. She fails by a little, causing the fourth wall to crack a little. Which is actually fortunate, because on the other side of the wall is another mob of fast zombies.
Fortunately, the sassy gay man chastises them about their personal hygiene(backed up by the corporate sellout recommending a brand of shampoo), making them all awkwardly wander away.
Those zombies out of the way, the pulp archaeologist decides to search the house for something, anything. Everyone else pitches in, with varying degrees of success. The William Shatner has a redshirt scan with a tricorder, only to have it explode, killing the redshirt and revealing nothing.
The party eventually locates a secret door in the bottom of the wine cellar. Before pulling it open, the Disney child star rolls twice: once to make whatever they find nonthreatening and inconsequential, and once to make whatever they find down there turn out to be her father. She fails the first and succeeds on the second.
When a certain bottle is removed, the cellar opens up into the interior of a secret nazi airbase. In one corner, there's a cage containing the kinds of zombies they've been encountering so far, and on another side there's a bank of cloning cylinders.
The gruff space admiral decides to intimidate the technicians scurrying around. She succeeds impressively, and orders them to start everything up. It turns out the entire cliff is a facade for an actual floating base, and it starts taking off. The William Shatner rolls to make everyone stumble around awkwardly as it lifts off, and fails, making only himself do so.
At this point the party is searching the place. They wander into the armory, where everyone finds some special equipment for a certain cliche, such as a book that the author forgot he wrote for the hipster, a mech-sized t-shirt decorated with logos for the corporate sellout, a nyan bazooka for the crazy cat lady, and so forth.
They're bringing this stuff back to the central chamber when Super Saiyan Robot Zombie Ninja Hitler appears. Now, ordinarily, this would be a tough fight. However, the Disney child star's player points out that that particular boss is weak against suicide. Citing that a) Hitler killed himself, b) robots are vulnerable to logical paradoxes, c) zombies are already dead(not sure how this works, but I rolled with it) and d) ninjas are required to kill themselves if their honor is tarnished. So the party starts planning their attack. The William Shatner will shout logical paradoxes, and so on. Then it speaks:
"Barbara Whittingham: I am your father."
Surprising no one. Needless to say, they quickly turned it to their advantage:
"No, you're my step-father, and I'm pregnant!"
<beat>
"And one of these guys might be the father!" Indicates the male porn star and the illegal immigrant worker.
Needless to say, the SSRZNH explodes, destroying that side of the airbase.
And that's where the session ended.
I didn't have the rulebook with me, so I kind of played fast and loose with the rules I didn't quite remember, but I'm fairly sure everyone had a good time regardless.
So yeah, Risus. There's pretty much no reason except for lack of internet not to at least take a look at it, since it's free for download.