GAMING NEWS: Captain Bob's Serenity! (13 January 2007)

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A view of Serenity with her assembled crew.

Hi Everyone,

Well, Saturday evening has come and gone and what a time it was! Captain Bob came down all the way from sunny San Luis Obispo. Captain Bob put on an amazing show... gamemastering, providing game props for each player, a cool gameboard, prizes, and more.

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Here's who played and a basic plotline:

- CAPTAIN MALCOLM REYNOLDS:
Player: Phil, Prop: sixgun.

Captain Mal Reynolds AKA Phil looking "all high and mighty."

- ZOE WARREN, first mate:
Player: Gale, Prop: sixgun.

Zoe AKA Gale, who in this episode, loved her grub. Nice lady!

- KAYLEE FRYE, engineer:
Player: Annie, Prop: wrench (...or was that wench?).

Kaylee AKA Annie, who wore a great costume and was a delighful gamer... Good company! She's also an avid RPG player and a member of the local D&D Meet-up Group.

- JAYNE COBB, soldier:
Player: Richard, Prop: toy rifle & automatic pistol.

Jayne AKA Richard, showing one of his best sides... the other one!
Fun guy. He also plays board games around town.

- DR. SIMON TAM, doctor:
Player: Aaron, Props: stethescope & medical kit bag.

- RIVER TAM, loveable teenage psycho:
Player: Steph, Prop: chopsticks of death.

River AKA Steph, with the chopsticks of death move abundantly obvious.

- JERRY LEE 'WASH' WARREN, pilot:
Player: Steffan, Prop: bag of plastic toy dinosaurs.

Wash AKA Steffan, the pilot with all the best dinosaur toys!

- SHEPHERD BOOK, reverend:
Player: Maksim-Smelchak. Prop: nice signed hardbound edition of RPG gamebook.

- INARA SERRA, passenger:
Player: Off-ship (unplayed).

- All Non-Player Characters (NPCs):
Player: Captain Bob, Props: assorted.

- SERENITY, starship extraordinaire:

A three-level beauty over a fine genuine nagahide black leather tablecloth representing SPACE!

Mighty Serenity, three decks of finely-engineered glory.

- Character Minatures & Other Props:

The better part of an Indian Jones playset, a goofy Dollar Store set of plastic soldiers, some hydrostone crates in the cargo bay, a few 28mm miniatures of Victorian ladies in dresses, and who knows what other gobbledigook.

- MEAL OF THE EVENING:
A delicious spread with plenty for all from Panda... Chinese, of course!

Mmmm, mmmm, Panda for dinner!

BASIC PLOTLINE:
- The crew of the Serenity, Firefly class tramp frieghter, led by Captain Mal Reynolds is hired on fringe planet, "Murphy's Luck," to transport of valuable consignment of "luxury meat" with no questions asked by a certain Mrs. Zayan O'Malley, a petite asian woman of prim and proper dress. Local "fixer" "Badger," sets up a contract for a reasonable price, the crew loads on the "mystery meat" in two large refridgerated units, gets Mrs. O'Malley settled into guest quarters and off the Serenity heads into space with a core planet destination.

Mrs. O'Malley acts very strangely during the voyage, taking meals in her quarters and rarely venturing out for so much as a word. Simon and River notice a strange symbol on a bright red silk bedspread in Mrs. O'Malley's passenger room while bringing her meals. Shepherd Book notices that Mrs. O'Malley sneaks out in the dead of the night to check on the refrigerated units every evening by the clock without exception. Even Jayne senses something amiss inbetween gun cleaning sessions. Meanwhile, Kaylee discovers a number of minor problems with the ship that "just ain't right." And Wash notices that a strange ship seems to be following just out of sensor range, barely flickering onto the screens. All the while, Mal and Zoe have their hands full trying to keep the crew from going stir-crazy.

One evening at supper, the crew gathers for a chat session and begins discussing the situation. They barely get finished announcing that the strange symbol on Mrs. O'Malley's bedspread is the gang symbol of "The Black Dragons," an underworld mafia group... WHEN all of a sudden things on the ship "go bonkers"... life supports fails, artificial gravity begins malfunctioning and a darn fine dinner is disrupted. Simon and River are downstairs delivering a meal to Mrs. O'Malley when the strangeness hits... Mal heads up to assist Wash in the cockpit, Kaylee heads back to the engine room, Shepherd Book and Jayne head down to the cargo bay and... Zoe continues eating... nothing is going to "damn well disturb her fine eat'in."

Captain Bob and Gale, his lovely companion.

Mal and Wash find that the ship is now being closely followed by a strange pursuer and attempt to dodge the offensely-postured stranger by whipping into an asteroid field and attempting to lose him. Kalee discovers evidence of massive sabotage throughout the ship and begins repairs. Meanwhile down below, Mrs. O'Malley quickly grabs a heavy crystal paperweight with malice in her eyes and gives Simon a good "clocking" upside the head, but River is quicker than O'Malley and not only snatches the paperweight from her, but gives her a good knock with the paperweight and promptly knocks her unconscious. Shepherd Book strangley insists that River leave Simon to his care and head to the cargo bay to see her "imaginary friends," but she refuses to leave Simon's side so Jayne and Book decide to check out the strange noises coming from the cargo bay.

Shepherd Book and Jayne bust into a cargo bay that is ALREADY OCCUPIED by a strange armed man and an accomplice. The armed man opens fire and Jayne decides to bullrush the two men and succeeds in knocking them to the floor. BUT, there are two more armed assailants and they open fire wounding Jayne's shoulder. Shepherd Book dives into cover behind some crates. One of the strange men rushes wounded Jayne with a knife and Shepherd Book leaps out with some funky Kung Fu to incapacitate Jayne's attacker. Meanwhile a newly freed-up Jayne, thanks to the Shepherd, pulls out his weapons and cuts down the remaining two strange men with gunfire.

Above decks, River has scampered to the kitchen, gathered some food and prepared to take some more below to poor Simon for no discernable reason when the empty shuttle dock rattles open with more strange men who waste no time in opening fire. Mal joins her in the fight while Kaylee struggles to get the engine running again. Wash barely has time to slingshot around an asteroid avoiding the pursuing ship, BUT, just barely! Simon, downbelow decks, loses gravity and promptly finds himself flailing over the unconscious and abudantly buxom O'Malley. And... Zoe keeps on eating...

Mal manages to take out one of the above decks "baddies" when the other one is knocked aside by a huge Asian man in important-looking silk robes busting out the empy shuttle dock where his pursuing ship had docked and announces that he is the leader of "The White Dragons," a vigilante group determined to thwarting "The Black Dragons." He and his crew take the remaining Black Dragons into custody. Shepherd Book and Jayne discover that the "mystery meat" was indeed smuggled human beings, three of whom didn't survive thawing by the Black Dragons. One of the "mystery meat men" makes it and turns out to be the head of the Black Dragons. Mal and the crew don't get paid more than the half they took up front, but they do figure they can sell the luxury freezers for a pretty penny!

END OF STORY:

- There was much rejoicing! And that was the story of the evening of 13 January 2007 plus few years or so into the future aboard the good ship Serenity, nearly as I can remember it! If the game sounds more like a bad episode of Scooby Doo then I, and I alone, take responsibility for it. Captain Bob has more style than I can impart with mere words. Pesky kids!

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The right honorable Captain Bob.

Bob made sure that each of us left with a prize whether free admission tickets for one of his favorite gaming conventions, pencils, knick-knacks, t-shirts or more. To learn more about the gaming convention that Bob helps run, check out this URL:

http://www.polycon.org/

Captain Bob also runs pirate games (OF COURSE!) and is a great guy to game with.

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Here's what Stephanie wrote about the evening:

Thanks again everyone for coming and especially thanks to Bob & Gale for coming out and putting it on! I had a lot of fun and hope everyone else did too!

Bob, thanks for bringing out your impressive collection of ship set, props, music etc. It really sets the mood! Tony only got a couple early pics (I thought he got some more) so I have none with the props -- though he did get a good one of the ship.

Maks, thanks for helping me pick up the food & thanks for taking photos; did you end up with some good ones? I'm really hoping we end up with a shot that shows some of the great props (dinosaurs, miniatures, guns, etc.).

Perhaps you can E-mail me one or two, please?
--Steph
http://www.sacgames.org/
groups.yahoo.com/group/sacboardgames
boardgames.meetup.com/19
http://www.fantasticfrontiers.com/
www.sacramentogeeks.com

Steph, I did get a few good shots of the show. You can find all the photos here:

http://tinyurl.com/yegpq2

And in that photo folder, you can also find the two photos that Stephanie's boyfriend, Tony, took.

Three decks of Serenity-themed gaming goodness!

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I'm looking forward to playing with everyone again at ConQuest Sac, ConQuest SF and/or PolyCon!

Have a great Monday!

Shalom,
Maksim-Smelchak.

P.S.
If you're interested in learning more about the Serenity RPG game, please check out this link:

http://www.serenityrpg.com/

P.S.S.

Happy belated birthday, Phil!

Notes regarding photos / pictures: These are not all my images. I am using various images from around the web, mostly from public sources and/or private sources used with permission. I have tried to include only images under public domain, creative commons, or fair use. If I have inadvertently violated any copyrights, please inform me and I will remove your image/s (if it is indeed an infringement).