SUN-01 Capes: Mousetrap's Masterstroke
Posted: August 27th, 2011, 3:42 pm
The heroes:
Captain Taffy, Shapeshifter / Crusader, played by John H.
Sergeant Major Bustem, Brick / Psychotic Loner, played by Mark L.
The villains:
Mousetrap, Gadgeteer / Puppet Master, played by Steven G.
Urban Druid, Master of Natural Forces / Sycophant, played by Wilson Z.
---
* Brainstorming character concepts
Steven describes Mousetrap's Rube-Goldberg-esque methods for building "elaborate plans to wreak havoc upon his enemies and/or take control to get the things he wants or needs... no, yeah, people _call_ it elaborate, but it's necessary! Everything has its place!" He also suggests that Urban Druid is Mousetrap's son, and that he got his powers "specifically because you stepped into a field I was generating during an experiment, I told you not to!"
Wilson establishes that "[Urban Druid's] personal agenda is that everyone should be polite and civil all the time... that's my big thing, and like most villains, I believe I'm a hero! You may have to break a few eggs to make the omelet, but..."
Mark establishes that Sergeant Major Bustem wears a Marine Corps uniform and has superhuman strength.
John establishes that Captain Taffy is "known as 'The Monkey Wrench' by the villains... he fights for the little guy, whoever he perceives that to be at the moment... in the same way that people will strap themselves to trees to save them from loggers, he has an uncanny ability to, moment to moment, be strapped to the right tree... he's always in the way, he is incredibly resilient and can take tremendous amounts of punishment, he foils plans by being inconvenient."
"Does he actually wear a pink leotard?"
"Yeah, it goes with his blue skin."
---
* Brainstorming interpersonal Conflicts
Steven: Maybe you want to be partnered with me, but absolutely not! You're my useless son!
Wilson: Actually, I kinda like the idea that I'm your biological son, but the accident also wiped my memory...
Steven: Oh, OK!
Wilson: So, to me, I really don't feel like I'm your son... but that's probably the only reason you don't treat me exactly as badly as your other minions... or maybe you treat me worse because I'm your son! I don't know, you can decide about that... I think the notion that I want to be equals is perfect... that's my agenda.
Exemplar Conflict: Mousetrap vs. Urban Druid, "A Minion No More"
John: I'm thinking for our conflict, that it offends me that I'm an actual superhero with real powers and a costume, yet all the women go for you! In fact, like, my third girlfriend in a row has left me for you! And I just want to actually find love without having to abandon you...
Mark: I like "Who's The Real Hero?"... because, you know, you just get in the way!
John: Neither of us is much of a hero...
Mark: I don't know about that, I've got these medals!
Exemplar Conflict: Captain Taffy vs. Sergeant Major Bustem, "Who's The Real Hero?"
Steven: [Captain Taffy's] body is perfect for one of the gadgets that I have in mind... the almost infinite stretchiness and resiliency is... I have a giant rubber band device envisioned that can hurl entire buildings across, uh...
John: So, you want to incorporate me into a gadget?
Steven: Yes.
John: OK!
Steven: And I've got one thing in mind, but there are so many other possibilities... I just need bits of your body... for some reason, you just are never willing to just let me cut you up into parts... the more of his body that I have available, the better... yeah, so "Mousetrap Captures Captain Taffy"... I see this as a long-running thing, he wouldn't be my nemesis so much as I'd probably be his nemesis...
Exemplar Conflict: Mousetrap vs. Captain Taffy, "Mousetrap Captures Captain Taffy"
Wilson: I certainly take offense at your style...
Mark: I do have Sarcastic... and Aggressive!
Seth: "The Sergeant Learns Manners"?
Wilson: Yes!
Mark: Absolutely!
Wilson: He's my pet project now... because he's not even polite with his own colleague! What's that about? That's no foundation for a relationship, you start with politeness and then you move on to intimacy at some level, but you can't do anything until you learn to be civil!
Mark: Yeah, yeah.
Wilson: Then we'll all get along and society will be wonderful!
Exemplar Conflict: Urban Druid vs. Sergeant Major Bustem, "SMB Learns Some Manners"
---
* Brainstorming the villainous plot and main Conflict
Steven: If [Urban Druid] had the information, due to your animal spies or whatever, then I will be able to come up with the plan to make that happen... I think the goal is money because I can use it to build a better lab and equipment and so forth, I always need more money so I can build better equipment.
John: It's a never-ending cycle.
Steven: It's kind of a mousetrap, in a sense.
Wilson: Well, at least as a starting point, I might actually have gotten ahold of the guy, the single administrator in the city who knows all the passwords for the routers and the electrical stuff and he's under my control right now, so we have all of the city's computer system passwords and all that kind of information.
Steven: And so... the obvious thing you'd do with that... is you get into the Boy Scout headquarters and cause the Boy Scout leaders to read the distribution from the national Boy Scout works to instruct their Boy Scouts to go home and build small devices which I provide the plans for... that will make their parents... it will be something that gets inserted into their cars and their parents will actually drive into a huge pileup in the center of the city, causing great havoc, the alarms will then go off and the alarms will shatter the windows of the gem stores where you can send all your critters to grab all the gems!
Conflict created:
"The Villains Escape With The Jewels"
---
* The Game
- Page 1
Mousetrap: I'm standing on a corner in the diamond district with a box with a big button on it and cackling somewhat gleefully... it's just an antenna and a big red button... looking around with my goggles... making sure that everything will be in place to send the message to the Boy Scouts... admittedly, it will take a while... but I know it's gonna go like clockwork... my minions are dressed in black, thug-looking and ready to move in when the glass shatters...
Sergeant Major Bustem: You're waiting, and after a while, your thugs are leaning on lampposts...
Urban Druid: You guys might also be tipped off by a lot of rats and roaches and pigeons, more and more of them coming right into the middle of the street, ready to lend support, so they're starting to come out and you guys are like, wait a minute...
SMB: Sounds like the Urban Druid!
UD: You know something's brewing...
Captain Taffy: I think I'm undercover... I'm in the Tiffany's...
MT: Let's make this worthwhile though, there's probably something like the Hope Diamond, something's coming in... maybe that's what it is, the crown jewels from Upper Slobovia that haven't been seen for generations are on special display, so you'd already be concerned anyway, but now...
CT: I'm set up, but I'm not in the right jewelry store due to his misinformation, I _think_ I'm in the right one, where the crown jewels are being delivered... and I've just seen the truck pull up down the block to deliver them to a totally different jewelry store... I spent a week setting up the identity and the store!
Wilson says that Urban Druid is very excited, he's usually totally confused by his dad's plans but today he's only half-confused.
Stephen says that Mousetrap always needs an admiring audience, "no one could understand it unless I explain it..."
SMB: We probably figured out about where this is centered... so I decide I need to stand guard... patrolling the diamond district.
Mousetrap pushes the button and we cut to a montage of Boy Scouts at home, dutifully building the devices.
Everyone rolls a die, the lowest gets the first Action.
- Urban Druid's Action
UD: You're swaggering down the street...
SMB: Marching down the street!
UD: Just kinda bumping into people?
SMB: Yeah exactly, I'm on a military operation so, you know, there's no need to apologize.
UD: Yeah, so I'd like to kick off into starting some action... you're patrolling and you cut off this woman and sort of just brush into her and walk right by her and she turns, and I see that, so I leap into the fray from a second story building... dramatically, you know, I have a cloak and a cape, they sort of morph a little bit with the city... so he leaps down... and says, "Excuse me, excuse me everyone, excuse me! Sergeant Major Bustem! That was extremely rude! If I may stop you for a moment! Ma'am, he will apologize to you! You will apologize to this woman! Right now!"
SMB (gravelly voice): "I've never apologized for anything!"
UD: "Ah, that's your problem, isn't it! That's what just makes me so mad!"
SMB: "Maybe I'll apologize for this! 'Excuse me!!!'" [rears back to punch]
UD: "Oh, well, I was _gonna_ strike first but of course, you're so rude, you can't even... I mean, I was the one who started it! I'm supposed to get the first attack! I came down here to initiate this! You just can't follow protocol! The hero always waits and defends!" ... So, I will throw a Hail of Trash... trash is gathering around and trying to envelope his fist ...
UD rolls the die on the villains' side of "Villains Escape" and gets a 6!
UD: So, the chewing gum and the trash all just smooshes around your fist, it's all sticking to the ground for the moment...
S: Nobody can React to that...
MT: (to SMB) You're stunned... I'm pissed off and stunned... (to UD) "You were supposed to be waiting!"
UD: "You're welcome, young lady!"
S (falsetto): "My hero! (to SMB) He's so right, you know! You're so rude!"
- Mousetrap's Action, but he has no options (he can't roll up the villains' die (it's already a 6), doesn't have enough Debt to Split it, and can't roll down the heroes' die (a 1)). We vote for an Exemplar Conflict to bring in, and "A Minion No More" wins.
MT: I probably don't call you Urban Druid, what's your first name?
UD: Um... Joey.
S: Joey Mousetrap?
MT: I don't think my name is actually Mousetrap... it's Musstrapf! (sp?)... I'm Hans Musstrapf and you're Josef... "Joey, you idiot! You're interfering with the plan again! If the people see what's going on, they're going to be distracted... and the drivers might not come to the exact center at the exact right moment... get back up there right now!"
UD: "Well, I didn't really hear a 'please' in there, if you don't mind..."
MT: "Here's your 'please'!!!" And I use my Repulsor Beams to blast you back up there!
MT rolls the die on his side of "A Minion No More" and gets a 4.
We see another montage of Boy Scouts, now installing the strange devices into their parents' cars.
CT: So, I have a talent for Reaching Inaccessible Places, and I'm thinking that... as I saw this conflict unfolding outside the jewelry store, with two villains and garbage flying everywhere, right as you fire the repulsor beam, it was actually me that you hit with your repulsor beam instead of your son, thereby mitigating the impact... and that's my Reach Inaccessible Places... so, with [Steven's] permission, I'm the one who was hit by the beam... I saw two villains and stepped in, "Villains! Oof!!!"
Stephen demonstrates how Mousetrap must bang his elbows together in front of him over and over to activate the Repulsor Beam, which is emitted from his knees.
CT rolls MT's die down to a 3.
MT: And Then... you get knocked past, into him! And you both go flying...
SMB holds his Reaction for now.
UD: I've got Apologize at 4... so I say, "I'm really sorry! I just wanted to help out, Sergeant Major Bustem victimized me! But I do want to take a moment and tell you I'm really sorry, I really didn't mean to, I really respect you... and I look forward to when we get back and we work together to resolve our issues and really, I'm sorry."
S: So, are you like flying in mid-air, and this huge word balloon is trailing out of you?
UD: Yeah.
UD rolls MT's die down to a 2.
MT: And Then... you land flat on your back on the roof with Captain Taffy on top of you!
SMB: I break out [of the gum and trash] and say, "You're gonna have to do better than that, young man!" ... using my Invulnerability to break out... I want to show him up [in front of his dad]...
SMB rolls MT's die up to a 6!
- Captain Taffy's Action
MT: We see the various mothers and fathers getting into their cars unknowingly and starting to drive...
CT uses his Inspiration ("Escaped from Mousetrap") to change the heroes' side of "Villains Escape" from a 1 to a 2, then Stakes two Debt to Split it into two dice, each at a 1.
CT: I escaped from Mousetrap's earlier attempts to pull off parts of my body, but in the process I learned just how elastic I could be, because he stretched me quite some distance... now I know I have that capability, so now I'm stretching out to grab all the thugs' ankles! So, I'll turn it to a 2 now and split it... This time it's personal! The whole thing that makes me superhuman is my body and you want to take my body away!
S: And now you're gonna take what he wants away!
CT: Right!
S: Those jewels!
CT: Right!
CT: So... little tendrils of my body are creeping out as I stand there, I guess they remain attached to me, but bits of me are sort of oozing around to the various thugs scattered around the street and grabbing their ankles... one of my eyes is also going out in a little tendril...
CT uses Surround An Area to roll one of the heroes' dice on "Villains Escape" up to a 4.
UD: I'm trying to get out from under you while you're doing that, and say, "Excuse me, excuse me, you need to stop this! We have a plan and we're gonna have to kill you, or something bad, so you really should stop now! This is your warning! And after this, I cannot continue to give you warnings! You understand that, right? Do you understand that? Sir?"
CT: "Were you talking to me?"
SMB: I think we need some massive property damage in here somehow... I see what Captain Taffy's doing and see the Urban Druid, he's starting to interfere... so I jump, I super-leap up there and land with both of my combat boots hard on the building right where he is and they come down hard, doing Massive Property Damage, and I say, "It's time for you to give up, boy!"... cracking the building almost right down to the foundation, just put a nice big ol' crack in it...
UD: "I knew you were a villain! People built this nice building!"
SMB rolls it up to a 5, now it's tied 6-6.
UD: I'll pull in Acid Rainfall on him... so yeah, just a whole bunch of rain, actually on both of them... I barely extricated myself... maybe there's parts of you on me? There's probably part of you still clinging to me, so the acid rain... it's a corrosive concentrated chemical rain...
S: So, there's like clouds forming suddenly and...
UD: Yeah.
MT: "If your mother could see you now!"
UD tries to roll their 5 down, no change.
MT: So, conveniently... I have allowed the possibility of your interference, I'm using my Sensor Systems... I had to set up various lasers... and so as the tendrils come out, the beams are interfered with in such a way that when they're reflected by the various mirrors... they come together and then spread out again in a mirror and then form the word "JUMP" in front of each of the thugs... and so they see that at the right moment... and they're well trained! They know to jump and thus avoid getting trapped...
MT rolls their die down.
CT: So, they've been told to jump... now they see my hands suddenly grabbing at them... tendrils from my body... my eyes kind of following along to monitor their progress... there's little bits of Captain Taffy all over the place, trying to run after them, the thugs are in motion now, the plans are a little disrupted because the thugs aren't waiting patiently at their places, they're now kind of helter skelter...
S: Yeah, screaming in terror!
CT: I do this with... yeah, Change My Physical State, so I think that maybe the little tendrils actually have little kinda like metal, uh, metal teeth on them, kind of calcified and you can hear the little, like, "ting ting ting ting"...
UD: "I'm sickened by all you people!"
CT rolls, no help.
- Sergeant Major Bustem's Action
SMB uses his Inspiration ("Captain Taffy Saved SMB") to turn one of the heroes' dice on "Villains Escape" up to a 4, then Splits it three times, into a 2 and two 1's.
SMB: Captain Taffy annoys me because he saved me, which I'm not gonna admit to him, of course... so I've determined that I'm going to stop these guys, on my own if I have to... I'm up on the building with the Urban Druid... there's a big water tower up here and I grab it by the base and break it off and swing it... I'm Hitting 'Em With The Scenery.
SMB rolls a 1 up to a 3.
UD: "My friends will protect me! Billboard 54382, can you please lend a hand, please?"... it's the billboard nearby, the two poles kinda just rip up out of the ground and it skates over quickly and it tries to intercept the water tower and blunt the force of it...
CT: What's on the billboard?
UD: It's an ad, it's a cigarette ad with, um, oh what's her name, Paris Hilton... I have no idea how that came into my head... that's my Animate Objects.
UD rolls the 3 down.
SMB: And Then... yeah, it kinda gets deflected a little bit... he's always had a bit of a crush on Paris Hilton... maybe it's starting to slow a little bit, and due to the momentum, some water comes crashing out of the roof...
MT holds his Reaction.
CT: ... so, I think that maybe the Paris billboard was walking across me because I'm kinda everywhere at this point... I'm going to Change Size, so I contract... and I'm so stretched out that it flips up the board... the billboard's gonna go flying up... I'm gonna act as a trampoline.
CT rolls it up to a 4.
MT: At the last moment, I'm looking up there and I just sigh, and I pull out another box with one button on it... and it triggers the magneto-water field... another water tank on another building pulls the two of them together...
MT rolls, no change.
SMB: And Then... I feel a tug but not enough to really stop me...
S: Or maybe it pulls the water out?
SMB: Yeah...
S: But that doesn't stop it.
SMB: Yeah, now there's water everywhere, and you lightened it up, so now it's moving even faster...
UD: So, yeah... I don't think I took the full brunt, but I did take some of it, some splinters get into me... it would be more interesting if I went flying off the building, so yeah, knocked off the building.
S: And all your little rat friends are coming to cushion your fall...
UD: Um, maybe the pigeons, maybe the pigeons.
- Page 2
MT: We start with the montage scene... the cars on First Street North coming in, and cars on First Street South coming in...
S: Oh, here they come...
MT: ... cars on A Street East coming in, and cars on A Street West coming in... a woman putting on her makeup in the mirror... they all look very relaxed because they don't realize...
S: They don't know that they are your lackeys.
MT: But meanwhile, we're losing, so... I'm so pleased with the brilliance of my plan... it's so foolproof that none of what these guys do, or even what Joey can do has any chance really of causing it to fail because everything is set up masterfully...
- Mousetrap's Action, he Stakes four Debt, Splitting the villains' 6 into two 2's and two 1's, then spends his Inspiration ("Mousetrap took credit for Urban Druid's plan") to increase one of them.
MT: So, the key point here is that... everything needs to be in the correct place, and for once, even Joey is doing the right thing, staying where he needs to be, well, he's sort of falling off a building...
UD: The pigeons are coming!
MT: But the pigeons are coming!
S: All according to plan... you knew he'd fall off a building at some point.
MT: I'm gonna Trust My Lackeys.
MT rolls up one of their 1's, "Villains Escape" is now tied 10-10.
MT, CT and SMB all hold their Reactions.
UD: I use my Animal Control, all the various urban animals... I call them and I say, "Will you please come to my aid, my friends, my pigeon friends!" Then I realize, wait, I can _blind_ you with my pigeons!"
S: Oh, horrible!
UD: Pigeons start converging around your eyes, both of you, so that you are blinded completely!
CT: ... I was worried it was going to be something else.
S: Me too.
UD rolls it up to a 6.
MT: I know when to Trust My Lackeys!
- Captain Taffy's Action
CT: I think that, as you're surrounding us with pigeons, maybe you're bragging to me a little bit about the plan, because you're kind of incensed that you came up with it...
UD: Yeah, in fact... well, my pigeons kind of raised me up so that I could come near both of you... and I start gloating, saying, "Well, I'm sorry your plan's not working out and ours is working out so well? So, I just want to apologize that this is going so poorly for you? But, you understand, we want to win? And I'm really sorry that you guys aren't very useful? Um, but, but that's OK!"... he's very... that's his style of gloating... "But if you'd like to give up now, we'll just let you go, it's no problem! Please, we don't want to hurt you! We'd just like you to leave!"
S: And I think we see some cars pulling onto this street...
UD: I even go on to say, "Yeah, when all these cars get here, then clearly it's over! We're almost done!"
MT: "Joey!"
UD: "We're almost done, so I'm sorry, but once they all crash into the intersection, it's over!"
S: You better warm up that Don't Trust Your Lackeys...
UD: "... and we worked hard on this plan together and I was able to contribute the idea that helped my colleague to be able to enact this, he did the execution, and a wonderful job too!"
CT: So, that activates my Determination... I'm stretching around in a giant elastic wall all over the intersection down below on the street... I've got garbage and crap all over me but it doesn't offend me, I'm not even aware of it... I'm going to create a buffer so that when these cars get here, they're just gonna kinda bounce around ineffectually, there won't be any car alarms, people can continue putting on their makeup...
CT rolls OK, but the heroes are still losing 12-14.
MT: And Then... I'm curious, how do you react to being broken apart? Can you come back together, or is that part gone?
CT: I actually can be broken apart, but the pieces sort of regrow, and the pieces that have broken off have a pretty short shelf life...
MT: So... you're stretched out but you're stretched a little too thin, and rather than functioning as bumpers, the cars are coming in and stretching you more, so you're not really holding them back...
CT: Right right, I'm overextending myself... one of my powers is Strengths of Current Form... yeah, you know, Saran Wrap isn't actually that strong but when you layer it, it can become incredibly powerful stuff... I'm kinda gritting my teeth and I realize the danger that I'm in here... and my eyebrow raises, you know, in some horrifying distorted fashion, like a squiggle that just lifts a little bit, and suddenly my body starts to spiral around into layers down on the ground, you know, I'm still on the second floor of the building, but like my layers are rippling around so that they're now a laminate, like a Saran Wrap laminate that's far stronger now...
CT rolls it up to a 4, but it's still 13-14.
SMB: I see all this happening and I can't let him show me up again, I need to contribute! I drop down, leap up in the air as high as I can, bring my combat boots down, and my fists, they almost look like they get larger... and I land right in the center of the intersection, and buckle the pavement so it actually causes barriers to come up [like the edge of a crater], the ground just buckles up with Massive Property Damage...
SMB rolls it up to a 5, now it's 14-14.
MT: What's your 5 again?
UD: My Hail of Trash... "All trash, please rise!"
S: You're even polite to the trash!
UD: And not just the typical trash, the garbage cans and things like that, but all these cars converging, all of the junk people have in their cars, all the ashtrays and all that stuff just starts pouring out... really more than anything, dust and dirt, and so it doesn't really stop them, they're driving and now we see the devices starting to kick in a bit, but it's not quite there yet... and so with all this trash and disarray... you're buried in a mound of trash... there's a crap storm all around, at this point visibility is low, because we don't need to see anymore, the plan will work and I say, "We're winning! Oh, we are so totally winning! I don't mean to, you know, overstate it! But that's what's happening!"
UD rolls it down to a 1!
- Sergeant Major Bustem's Action
SMB: Alright, so I'm buried in trash, and I reach up, my arms come reaching straight up and you just see the tips of his fingers come up above the trash... and he pulls himself up... and he sees all these cars and he goes into traffic cop mode and says, "STOP!!!", with his great command sergeant voice... I'm using Great Leverage From Tiny Handholds...
SMB rolls a 1 up to a 4, now it's 13-15.
SMB: So, I just go and stand in the middle of those cars as they're starting to come in and they're hitting me, argh!, but not doing any damage because I'm Invulnerable... taking the hits myself...
SMB rolls, still a 4.
MT: And Then... there's just too many cars coming, there are a lot more coming, you're not being hurt but you haven't really stopped things necessarily...
S: Yeah, maybe he stops a couple of them but now the other ones are piling up behind them...
MT: Right!
UD: I'm supremely overconfident by now... I'm trying to think of something better than just pouring rain or trash or whatever, but that's what I have at a 4, so there are only so many options... the trash... the heavier pieces that have been picked up into the air and thrown up high will coalesce and come down and they will hit one of the explosive devices you have in your bag, and it creates this enormous bang... so what it'll do is deafen everyone for a time, and so no one in the cars will hear anything going on, you guys won't be able to communicate... in the meantime, I've requested all the cockroaches in my pockets to simply please, "fill my ears" so that I don't have to worry about that...
Everyone: EEEWWWW!!!
UD: They're my friends, they're fine!
S: So, big trash ball comes down, hits an explosive device...
UD: Yep, which he had planted?
S: Maybe that was part of the plan?
CT: The apple doesn't fall far from the tree!
MT: It's one of the contingency plans...
UD rolls, no help.
MT: So, in fact, you're actually causing problems because you're interfering with the potential soundwaves... I reach into my belt pouch, pull out the green-button box, and I press that, and as the cars kind of leap up over each other... the tires now spin in the other direction at a high pitched whine that counteracts the acoustic effect of the explosion... by the way, to be clear, in case it wasn't obvious, the crash augments and reinforces the soundwaves... it's not just one crash, it's a series of them in the right order with the right acoustics at this location, et cetera...
MT rolls it down.
CT: But I hear what's going on, it finally starts to dawn on me, I hear the wheels spinning and I notice the sound's kinda modulating in very consistent ways and I'm like, oh god, this isn't about the cars! I can see the windows pulsating with my eyes everywhere... I can feel it in my body, which is stretched across the entire neighborhood at this point, and so I spring into action and start pulsing my body to try to generate a, a, an anti-oscillation, a counterwave!
MT: "Always a wrench in my plans!!!"
CT: So, I'm Changing My Physical State...
CT rolls it up, "Villains Escape" is now tied 15-15.
- Urban Druid's Action, he spends his Inspiration to increase his side of "A Minion No More" from a 1 to a 2, then Stakes two Debt to Split the 2 into two 1's.
UD: "Mousetrap, sir... this is all over, we've won!"
CT: You're actually...
UD: We're tied right now... he turns to Mousetrap... "I mean this with all due respect, but we really need to renegotiate our terms now and move on to new things... I want to be a full partner..." and a lamppost nearby... how do you act as I'm saying that?
MT: I'm just staring, "Oh please! You're nothing but a boy! And you never will be anything, you'll never be a man! You're disgusting!"
UD: "That's really rude of you! And I'm just, I'm trying to negotiate, and that's not a very good way to enter into it, we need to..." and what happens is the lamppost near him starts to wrap around him, and I say, "oh, oh, oh, oh, Lampy, no! Please don't do that! I'm really, he's just my friend..."
UD rolls one of his 1's up to a 5, and "A Minion No More" is now tied 6-6.
MT: So, is it literally curving around?
UD: Yeah.
MT: OK, so, obviously, with my Technical Genius... [the lamppost] is willful and has kind of physical reactions to things, so I am aware that therefore it would react the way any living thing would to pain, and so it's wrapping around me and it's got wires going through it and I've got electricity and magnets up the wazoo... so I activate my Wazoo Field... and sparks start coming out, the lightbulb blows and sparks come out the other side and it immediately kinda uncoils and goes, "Yipe, yipe, yipe!"
S: Awww! Poor Lampy!
MT rolls it down.
UD: "That was a complete overreaction! That was terrible! You, you, I... Lampy was just, all he wanted was to restrain you, it was no big deal! I, I'm very disappointed in you!"
CT and SMB hold their Reactions.
UD: "In fact, I feel like you're sort of betraying me a little bit, you knew how that was going to hurt him! And wow! I just, it's almost like you're a bad guy! You know... you should see what it's like when people do things like that!" and the Acid Rain will just wash right at you...
UD rolls it back up to a 5, it's tied 6-6.
CT: So, I'm kinda all over the place at this point... an eyeball, a fully formed eyeball and a mouth pop up next to you... and I just comment, "you know, dude... sorry to interrupt your conversation, but actually, I saw the thing with Lampy and that was cold, man!"... it's a 5, so I have to use my Resilient Body... the Acid Rain is melting away at the mouth and the eyeball, but I seem unperturbed by it...
S: Unlike the reader! The reader of this comic is feeling nauseous...
CT rolls, no help.
UD: "Thank you, Captain Taffy! See, even Captain Taffy sees this!"
SMB passes his Reaction.
SMB: You know, I'm just gonna stay out of it!
- End of Page 2, and we're all out of time.
"The Villains Escape With The Jewels" is tied at 15-15.
"A Minion No More" is tied at 6-6.
CT: Everything's tied up!
S: Wow! That's the end of the page, so, yeah... hang on, there's a paragraph [in the rulebook] about deadlocked conflicts...
MT: Actually, it's kinda cool, everyone's gonna walk away pretty sulky...
UD: Maybe the plan doesn't go off with the cars, so we get away with some jewelry, but not the crown jewels...
S: Here's what the book says, "if a conflict is tied and no means is available in the rules to break the tie in future Pages", which is the case at the moment because there won't be any, "then it is deadlocked, players collaborate on narrating the resolution of deadlocked conflicts..."
CT: As the cars collide... the windows all shatter, but I've done my homework... I studied up on this one crown, this tiara, and so I actually shift my body into a replica of the tiara, and so you don't capture the crown jewels, you capture me! But you don't know you have me! And so the crown jewels have been saved, but you get some of the other jewels, and me, an infiltrator in your midst.
MT: I like that, that's very good... Thirty or forty thugs go into various stores and you probably knock half of them out.
SMB: Yeah, I was knocking thugs all over the place.
MT: But the real drama at this point with respect to the story... I've now got you captured... if I find out, I can wreak havoc...
S: I can just see this little tiara sort of sneaking away in the night to try to call you, like, "they're at the secret lair, it's at this location..."
SMB: Someone keeps moving the tiara and you don't know who it is... you put it down, you turn around, it's gone...
UD: "Joey! Were you messing around with that tiara again? Quit putting on the damn tiara!"
SMB: "You're not Miss America!"
MT: So... you basically stood up to me, attacked me, you didn't do a great job, but managed to summon up minions to work on your side, and [you're good at] manipulating people... basically I'm not gonna give you full partner status, but I am gonna show you some respect, like, "OK, that was devious and evil, I gotta give you credit for that, so I'm gonna give you a raise!"
UD: But I'm not satisfied because, you know, you hurt Lampy and you're still not taking me seriously, you still don't want to discuss it... so it's definitely not resolved for either of us, I'm not accepting that either, but that's the draw...
S: So, you're still a minion, but you're a higher paid minion.
UD: Yeah.
Captain Taffy, Shapeshifter / Crusader, played by John H.
Sergeant Major Bustem, Brick / Psychotic Loner, played by Mark L.
The villains:
Mousetrap, Gadgeteer / Puppet Master, played by Steven G.
Urban Druid, Master of Natural Forces / Sycophant, played by Wilson Z.
---
* Brainstorming character concepts
Steven describes Mousetrap's Rube-Goldberg-esque methods for building "elaborate plans to wreak havoc upon his enemies and/or take control to get the things he wants or needs... no, yeah, people _call_ it elaborate, but it's necessary! Everything has its place!" He also suggests that Urban Druid is Mousetrap's son, and that he got his powers "specifically because you stepped into a field I was generating during an experiment, I told you not to!"
Wilson establishes that "[Urban Druid's] personal agenda is that everyone should be polite and civil all the time... that's my big thing, and like most villains, I believe I'm a hero! You may have to break a few eggs to make the omelet, but..."
Mark establishes that Sergeant Major Bustem wears a Marine Corps uniform and has superhuman strength.
John establishes that Captain Taffy is "known as 'The Monkey Wrench' by the villains... he fights for the little guy, whoever he perceives that to be at the moment... in the same way that people will strap themselves to trees to save them from loggers, he has an uncanny ability to, moment to moment, be strapped to the right tree... he's always in the way, he is incredibly resilient and can take tremendous amounts of punishment, he foils plans by being inconvenient."
"Does he actually wear a pink leotard?"
"Yeah, it goes with his blue skin."
---
* Brainstorming interpersonal Conflicts
Steven: Maybe you want to be partnered with me, but absolutely not! You're my useless son!
Wilson: Actually, I kinda like the idea that I'm your biological son, but the accident also wiped my memory...
Steven: Oh, OK!
Wilson: So, to me, I really don't feel like I'm your son... but that's probably the only reason you don't treat me exactly as badly as your other minions... or maybe you treat me worse because I'm your son! I don't know, you can decide about that... I think the notion that I want to be equals is perfect... that's my agenda.
Exemplar Conflict: Mousetrap vs. Urban Druid, "A Minion No More"
John: I'm thinking for our conflict, that it offends me that I'm an actual superhero with real powers and a costume, yet all the women go for you! In fact, like, my third girlfriend in a row has left me for you! And I just want to actually find love without having to abandon you...
Mark: I like "Who's The Real Hero?"... because, you know, you just get in the way!
John: Neither of us is much of a hero...
Mark: I don't know about that, I've got these medals!
Exemplar Conflict: Captain Taffy vs. Sergeant Major Bustem, "Who's The Real Hero?"
Steven: [Captain Taffy's] body is perfect for one of the gadgets that I have in mind... the almost infinite stretchiness and resiliency is... I have a giant rubber band device envisioned that can hurl entire buildings across, uh...
John: So, you want to incorporate me into a gadget?
Steven: Yes.
John: OK!
Steven: And I've got one thing in mind, but there are so many other possibilities... I just need bits of your body... for some reason, you just are never willing to just let me cut you up into parts... the more of his body that I have available, the better... yeah, so "Mousetrap Captures Captain Taffy"... I see this as a long-running thing, he wouldn't be my nemesis so much as I'd probably be his nemesis...
Exemplar Conflict: Mousetrap vs. Captain Taffy, "Mousetrap Captures Captain Taffy"
Wilson: I certainly take offense at your style...
Mark: I do have Sarcastic... and Aggressive!
Seth: "The Sergeant Learns Manners"?
Wilson: Yes!
Mark: Absolutely!
Wilson: He's my pet project now... because he's not even polite with his own colleague! What's that about? That's no foundation for a relationship, you start with politeness and then you move on to intimacy at some level, but you can't do anything until you learn to be civil!
Mark: Yeah, yeah.
Wilson: Then we'll all get along and society will be wonderful!
Exemplar Conflict: Urban Druid vs. Sergeant Major Bustem, "SMB Learns Some Manners"
---
* Brainstorming the villainous plot and main Conflict
Steven: If [Urban Druid] had the information, due to your animal spies or whatever, then I will be able to come up with the plan to make that happen... I think the goal is money because I can use it to build a better lab and equipment and so forth, I always need more money so I can build better equipment.
John: It's a never-ending cycle.
Steven: It's kind of a mousetrap, in a sense.
Wilson: Well, at least as a starting point, I might actually have gotten ahold of the guy, the single administrator in the city who knows all the passwords for the routers and the electrical stuff and he's under my control right now, so we have all of the city's computer system passwords and all that kind of information.
Steven: And so... the obvious thing you'd do with that... is you get into the Boy Scout headquarters and cause the Boy Scout leaders to read the distribution from the national Boy Scout works to instruct their Boy Scouts to go home and build small devices which I provide the plans for... that will make their parents... it will be something that gets inserted into their cars and their parents will actually drive into a huge pileup in the center of the city, causing great havoc, the alarms will then go off and the alarms will shatter the windows of the gem stores where you can send all your critters to grab all the gems!
Conflict created:
"The Villains Escape With The Jewels"
---
* The Game
- Page 1
Mousetrap: I'm standing on a corner in the diamond district with a box with a big button on it and cackling somewhat gleefully... it's just an antenna and a big red button... looking around with my goggles... making sure that everything will be in place to send the message to the Boy Scouts... admittedly, it will take a while... but I know it's gonna go like clockwork... my minions are dressed in black, thug-looking and ready to move in when the glass shatters...
Sergeant Major Bustem: You're waiting, and after a while, your thugs are leaning on lampposts...
Urban Druid: You guys might also be tipped off by a lot of rats and roaches and pigeons, more and more of them coming right into the middle of the street, ready to lend support, so they're starting to come out and you guys are like, wait a minute...
SMB: Sounds like the Urban Druid!
UD: You know something's brewing...
Captain Taffy: I think I'm undercover... I'm in the Tiffany's...
MT: Let's make this worthwhile though, there's probably something like the Hope Diamond, something's coming in... maybe that's what it is, the crown jewels from Upper Slobovia that haven't been seen for generations are on special display, so you'd already be concerned anyway, but now...
CT: I'm set up, but I'm not in the right jewelry store due to his misinformation, I _think_ I'm in the right one, where the crown jewels are being delivered... and I've just seen the truck pull up down the block to deliver them to a totally different jewelry store... I spent a week setting up the identity and the store!
Wilson says that Urban Druid is very excited, he's usually totally confused by his dad's plans but today he's only half-confused.
Stephen says that Mousetrap always needs an admiring audience, "no one could understand it unless I explain it..."
SMB: We probably figured out about where this is centered... so I decide I need to stand guard... patrolling the diamond district.
Mousetrap pushes the button and we cut to a montage of Boy Scouts at home, dutifully building the devices.
Everyone rolls a die, the lowest gets the first Action.
- Urban Druid's Action
UD: You're swaggering down the street...
SMB: Marching down the street!
UD: Just kinda bumping into people?
SMB: Yeah exactly, I'm on a military operation so, you know, there's no need to apologize.
UD: Yeah, so I'd like to kick off into starting some action... you're patrolling and you cut off this woman and sort of just brush into her and walk right by her and she turns, and I see that, so I leap into the fray from a second story building... dramatically, you know, I have a cloak and a cape, they sort of morph a little bit with the city... so he leaps down... and says, "Excuse me, excuse me everyone, excuse me! Sergeant Major Bustem! That was extremely rude! If I may stop you for a moment! Ma'am, he will apologize to you! You will apologize to this woman! Right now!"
SMB (gravelly voice): "I've never apologized for anything!"
UD: "Ah, that's your problem, isn't it! That's what just makes me so mad!"
SMB: "Maybe I'll apologize for this! 'Excuse me!!!'" [rears back to punch]
UD: "Oh, well, I was _gonna_ strike first but of course, you're so rude, you can't even... I mean, I was the one who started it! I'm supposed to get the first attack! I came down here to initiate this! You just can't follow protocol! The hero always waits and defends!" ... So, I will throw a Hail of Trash... trash is gathering around and trying to envelope his fist ...
UD rolls the die on the villains' side of "Villains Escape" and gets a 6!
UD: So, the chewing gum and the trash all just smooshes around your fist, it's all sticking to the ground for the moment...
S: Nobody can React to that...
MT: (to SMB) You're stunned... I'm pissed off and stunned... (to UD) "You were supposed to be waiting!"
UD: "You're welcome, young lady!"
S (falsetto): "My hero! (to SMB) He's so right, you know! You're so rude!"
- Mousetrap's Action, but he has no options (he can't roll up the villains' die (it's already a 6), doesn't have enough Debt to Split it, and can't roll down the heroes' die (a 1)). We vote for an Exemplar Conflict to bring in, and "A Minion No More" wins.
MT: I probably don't call you Urban Druid, what's your first name?
UD: Um... Joey.
S: Joey Mousetrap?
MT: I don't think my name is actually Mousetrap... it's Musstrapf! (sp?)... I'm Hans Musstrapf and you're Josef... "Joey, you idiot! You're interfering with the plan again! If the people see what's going on, they're going to be distracted... and the drivers might not come to the exact center at the exact right moment... get back up there right now!"
UD: "Well, I didn't really hear a 'please' in there, if you don't mind..."
MT: "Here's your 'please'!!!" And I use my Repulsor Beams to blast you back up there!
MT rolls the die on his side of "A Minion No More" and gets a 4.
We see another montage of Boy Scouts, now installing the strange devices into their parents' cars.
CT: So, I have a talent for Reaching Inaccessible Places, and I'm thinking that... as I saw this conflict unfolding outside the jewelry store, with two villains and garbage flying everywhere, right as you fire the repulsor beam, it was actually me that you hit with your repulsor beam instead of your son, thereby mitigating the impact... and that's my Reach Inaccessible Places... so, with [Steven's] permission, I'm the one who was hit by the beam... I saw two villains and stepped in, "Villains! Oof!!!"
Stephen demonstrates how Mousetrap must bang his elbows together in front of him over and over to activate the Repulsor Beam, which is emitted from his knees.
CT rolls MT's die down to a 3.
MT: And Then... you get knocked past, into him! And you both go flying...
SMB holds his Reaction for now.
UD: I've got Apologize at 4... so I say, "I'm really sorry! I just wanted to help out, Sergeant Major Bustem victimized me! But I do want to take a moment and tell you I'm really sorry, I really didn't mean to, I really respect you... and I look forward to when we get back and we work together to resolve our issues and really, I'm sorry."
S: So, are you like flying in mid-air, and this huge word balloon is trailing out of you?
UD: Yeah.
UD rolls MT's die down to a 2.
MT: And Then... you land flat on your back on the roof with Captain Taffy on top of you!
SMB: I break out [of the gum and trash] and say, "You're gonna have to do better than that, young man!" ... using my Invulnerability to break out... I want to show him up [in front of his dad]...
SMB rolls MT's die up to a 6!
- Captain Taffy's Action
MT: We see the various mothers and fathers getting into their cars unknowingly and starting to drive...
CT uses his Inspiration ("Escaped from Mousetrap") to change the heroes' side of "Villains Escape" from a 1 to a 2, then Stakes two Debt to Split it into two dice, each at a 1.
CT: I escaped from Mousetrap's earlier attempts to pull off parts of my body, but in the process I learned just how elastic I could be, because he stretched me quite some distance... now I know I have that capability, so now I'm stretching out to grab all the thugs' ankles! So, I'll turn it to a 2 now and split it... This time it's personal! The whole thing that makes me superhuman is my body and you want to take my body away!
S: And now you're gonna take what he wants away!
CT: Right!
S: Those jewels!
CT: Right!
CT: So... little tendrils of my body are creeping out as I stand there, I guess they remain attached to me, but bits of me are sort of oozing around to the various thugs scattered around the street and grabbing their ankles... one of my eyes is also going out in a little tendril...
CT uses Surround An Area to roll one of the heroes' dice on "Villains Escape" up to a 4.
UD: I'm trying to get out from under you while you're doing that, and say, "Excuse me, excuse me, you need to stop this! We have a plan and we're gonna have to kill you, or something bad, so you really should stop now! This is your warning! And after this, I cannot continue to give you warnings! You understand that, right? Do you understand that? Sir?"
CT: "Were you talking to me?"
SMB: I think we need some massive property damage in here somehow... I see what Captain Taffy's doing and see the Urban Druid, he's starting to interfere... so I jump, I super-leap up there and land with both of my combat boots hard on the building right where he is and they come down hard, doing Massive Property Damage, and I say, "It's time for you to give up, boy!"... cracking the building almost right down to the foundation, just put a nice big ol' crack in it...
UD: "I knew you were a villain! People built this nice building!"
SMB rolls it up to a 5, now it's tied 6-6.
UD: I'll pull in Acid Rainfall on him... so yeah, just a whole bunch of rain, actually on both of them... I barely extricated myself... maybe there's parts of you on me? There's probably part of you still clinging to me, so the acid rain... it's a corrosive concentrated chemical rain...
S: So, there's like clouds forming suddenly and...
UD: Yeah.
MT: "If your mother could see you now!"
UD tries to roll their 5 down, no change.
MT: So, conveniently... I have allowed the possibility of your interference, I'm using my Sensor Systems... I had to set up various lasers... and so as the tendrils come out, the beams are interfered with in such a way that when they're reflected by the various mirrors... they come together and then spread out again in a mirror and then form the word "JUMP" in front of each of the thugs... and so they see that at the right moment... and they're well trained! They know to jump and thus avoid getting trapped...
MT rolls their die down.
CT: So, they've been told to jump... now they see my hands suddenly grabbing at them... tendrils from my body... my eyes kind of following along to monitor their progress... there's little bits of Captain Taffy all over the place, trying to run after them, the thugs are in motion now, the plans are a little disrupted because the thugs aren't waiting patiently at their places, they're now kind of helter skelter...
S: Yeah, screaming in terror!
CT: I do this with... yeah, Change My Physical State, so I think that maybe the little tendrils actually have little kinda like metal, uh, metal teeth on them, kind of calcified and you can hear the little, like, "ting ting ting ting"...
UD: "I'm sickened by all you people!"
CT rolls, no help.
- Sergeant Major Bustem's Action
SMB uses his Inspiration ("Captain Taffy Saved SMB") to turn one of the heroes' dice on "Villains Escape" up to a 4, then Splits it three times, into a 2 and two 1's.
SMB: Captain Taffy annoys me because he saved me, which I'm not gonna admit to him, of course... so I've determined that I'm going to stop these guys, on my own if I have to... I'm up on the building with the Urban Druid... there's a big water tower up here and I grab it by the base and break it off and swing it... I'm Hitting 'Em With The Scenery.
SMB rolls a 1 up to a 3.
UD: "My friends will protect me! Billboard 54382, can you please lend a hand, please?"... it's the billboard nearby, the two poles kinda just rip up out of the ground and it skates over quickly and it tries to intercept the water tower and blunt the force of it...
CT: What's on the billboard?
UD: It's an ad, it's a cigarette ad with, um, oh what's her name, Paris Hilton... I have no idea how that came into my head... that's my Animate Objects.
UD rolls the 3 down.
SMB: And Then... yeah, it kinda gets deflected a little bit... he's always had a bit of a crush on Paris Hilton... maybe it's starting to slow a little bit, and due to the momentum, some water comes crashing out of the roof...
MT holds his Reaction.
CT: ... so, I think that maybe the Paris billboard was walking across me because I'm kinda everywhere at this point... I'm going to Change Size, so I contract... and I'm so stretched out that it flips up the board... the billboard's gonna go flying up... I'm gonna act as a trampoline.
CT rolls it up to a 4.
MT: At the last moment, I'm looking up there and I just sigh, and I pull out another box with one button on it... and it triggers the magneto-water field... another water tank on another building pulls the two of them together...
MT rolls, no change.
SMB: And Then... I feel a tug but not enough to really stop me...
S: Or maybe it pulls the water out?
SMB: Yeah...
S: But that doesn't stop it.
SMB: Yeah, now there's water everywhere, and you lightened it up, so now it's moving even faster...
UD: So, yeah... I don't think I took the full brunt, but I did take some of it, some splinters get into me... it would be more interesting if I went flying off the building, so yeah, knocked off the building.
S: And all your little rat friends are coming to cushion your fall...
UD: Um, maybe the pigeons, maybe the pigeons.
- Page 2
MT: We start with the montage scene... the cars on First Street North coming in, and cars on First Street South coming in...
S: Oh, here they come...
MT: ... cars on A Street East coming in, and cars on A Street West coming in... a woman putting on her makeup in the mirror... they all look very relaxed because they don't realize...
S: They don't know that they are your lackeys.
MT: But meanwhile, we're losing, so... I'm so pleased with the brilliance of my plan... it's so foolproof that none of what these guys do, or even what Joey can do has any chance really of causing it to fail because everything is set up masterfully...
- Mousetrap's Action, he Stakes four Debt, Splitting the villains' 6 into two 2's and two 1's, then spends his Inspiration ("Mousetrap took credit for Urban Druid's plan") to increase one of them.
MT: So, the key point here is that... everything needs to be in the correct place, and for once, even Joey is doing the right thing, staying where he needs to be, well, he's sort of falling off a building...
UD: The pigeons are coming!
MT: But the pigeons are coming!
S: All according to plan... you knew he'd fall off a building at some point.
MT: I'm gonna Trust My Lackeys.
MT rolls up one of their 1's, "Villains Escape" is now tied 10-10.
MT, CT and SMB all hold their Reactions.
UD: I use my Animal Control, all the various urban animals... I call them and I say, "Will you please come to my aid, my friends, my pigeon friends!" Then I realize, wait, I can _blind_ you with my pigeons!"
S: Oh, horrible!
UD: Pigeons start converging around your eyes, both of you, so that you are blinded completely!
CT: ... I was worried it was going to be something else.
S: Me too.
UD rolls it up to a 6.
MT: I know when to Trust My Lackeys!
- Captain Taffy's Action
CT: I think that, as you're surrounding us with pigeons, maybe you're bragging to me a little bit about the plan, because you're kind of incensed that you came up with it...
UD: Yeah, in fact... well, my pigeons kind of raised me up so that I could come near both of you... and I start gloating, saying, "Well, I'm sorry your plan's not working out and ours is working out so well? So, I just want to apologize that this is going so poorly for you? But, you understand, we want to win? And I'm really sorry that you guys aren't very useful? Um, but, but that's OK!"... he's very... that's his style of gloating... "But if you'd like to give up now, we'll just let you go, it's no problem! Please, we don't want to hurt you! We'd just like you to leave!"
S: And I think we see some cars pulling onto this street...
UD: I even go on to say, "Yeah, when all these cars get here, then clearly it's over! We're almost done!"
MT: "Joey!"
UD: "We're almost done, so I'm sorry, but once they all crash into the intersection, it's over!"
S: You better warm up that Don't Trust Your Lackeys...
UD: "... and we worked hard on this plan together and I was able to contribute the idea that helped my colleague to be able to enact this, he did the execution, and a wonderful job too!"
CT: So, that activates my Determination... I'm stretching around in a giant elastic wall all over the intersection down below on the street... I've got garbage and crap all over me but it doesn't offend me, I'm not even aware of it... I'm going to create a buffer so that when these cars get here, they're just gonna kinda bounce around ineffectually, there won't be any car alarms, people can continue putting on their makeup...
CT rolls OK, but the heroes are still losing 12-14.
MT: And Then... I'm curious, how do you react to being broken apart? Can you come back together, or is that part gone?
CT: I actually can be broken apart, but the pieces sort of regrow, and the pieces that have broken off have a pretty short shelf life...
MT: So... you're stretched out but you're stretched a little too thin, and rather than functioning as bumpers, the cars are coming in and stretching you more, so you're not really holding them back...
CT: Right right, I'm overextending myself... one of my powers is Strengths of Current Form... yeah, you know, Saran Wrap isn't actually that strong but when you layer it, it can become incredibly powerful stuff... I'm kinda gritting my teeth and I realize the danger that I'm in here... and my eyebrow raises, you know, in some horrifying distorted fashion, like a squiggle that just lifts a little bit, and suddenly my body starts to spiral around into layers down on the ground, you know, I'm still on the second floor of the building, but like my layers are rippling around so that they're now a laminate, like a Saran Wrap laminate that's far stronger now...
CT rolls it up to a 4, but it's still 13-14.
SMB: I see all this happening and I can't let him show me up again, I need to contribute! I drop down, leap up in the air as high as I can, bring my combat boots down, and my fists, they almost look like they get larger... and I land right in the center of the intersection, and buckle the pavement so it actually causes barriers to come up [like the edge of a crater], the ground just buckles up with Massive Property Damage...
SMB rolls it up to a 5, now it's 14-14.
MT: What's your 5 again?
UD: My Hail of Trash... "All trash, please rise!"
S: You're even polite to the trash!
UD: And not just the typical trash, the garbage cans and things like that, but all these cars converging, all of the junk people have in their cars, all the ashtrays and all that stuff just starts pouring out... really more than anything, dust and dirt, and so it doesn't really stop them, they're driving and now we see the devices starting to kick in a bit, but it's not quite there yet... and so with all this trash and disarray... you're buried in a mound of trash... there's a crap storm all around, at this point visibility is low, because we don't need to see anymore, the plan will work and I say, "We're winning! Oh, we are so totally winning! I don't mean to, you know, overstate it! But that's what's happening!"
UD rolls it down to a 1!
- Sergeant Major Bustem's Action
SMB: Alright, so I'm buried in trash, and I reach up, my arms come reaching straight up and you just see the tips of his fingers come up above the trash... and he pulls himself up... and he sees all these cars and he goes into traffic cop mode and says, "STOP!!!", with his great command sergeant voice... I'm using Great Leverage From Tiny Handholds...
SMB rolls a 1 up to a 4, now it's 13-15.
SMB: So, I just go and stand in the middle of those cars as they're starting to come in and they're hitting me, argh!, but not doing any damage because I'm Invulnerable... taking the hits myself...
SMB rolls, still a 4.
MT: And Then... there's just too many cars coming, there are a lot more coming, you're not being hurt but you haven't really stopped things necessarily...
S: Yeah, maybe he stops a couple of them but now the other ones are piling up behind them...
MT: Right!
UD: I'm supremely overconfident by now... I'm trying to think of something better than just pouring rain or trash or whatever, but that's what I have at a 4, so there are only so many options... the trash... the heavier pieces that have been picked up into the air and thrown up high will coalesce and come down and they will hit one of the explosive devices you have in your bag, and it creates this enormous bang... so what it'll do is deafen everyone for a time, and so no one in the cars will hear anything going on, you guys won't be able to communicate... in the meantime, I've requested all the cockroaches in my pockets to simply please, "fill my ears" so that I don't have to worry about that...
Everyone: EEEWWWW!!!
UD: They're my friends, they're fine!
S: So, big trash ball comes down, hits an explosive device...
UD: Yep, which he had planted?
S: Maybe that was part of the plan?
CT: The apple doesn't fall far from the tree!
MT: It's one of the contingency plans...
UD rolls, no help.
MT: So, in fact, you're actually causing problems because you're interfering with the potential soundwaves... I reach into my belt pouch, pull out the green-button box, and I press that, and as the cars kind of leap up over each other... the tires now spin in the other direction at a high pitched whine that counteracts the acoustic effect of the explosion... by the way, to be clear, in case it wasn't obvious, the crash augments and reinforces the soundwaves... it's not just one crash, it's a series of them in the right order with the right acoustics at this location, et cetera...
MT rolls it down.
CT: But I hear what's going on, it finally starts to dawn on me, I hear the wheels spinning and I notice the sound's kinda modulating in very consistent ways and I'm like, oh god, this isn't about the cars! I can see the windows pulsating with my eyes everywhere... I can feel it in my body, which is stretched across the entire neighborhood at this point, and so I spring into action and start pulsing my body to try to generate a, a, an anti-oscillation, a counterwave!
MT: "Always a wrench in my plans!!!"
CT: So, I'm Changing My Physical State...
CT rolls it up, "Villains Escape" is now tied 15-15.
- Urban Druid's Action, he spends his Inspiration to increase his side of "A Minion No More" from a 1 to a 2, then Stakes two Debt to Split the 2 into two 1's.
UD: "Mousetrap, sir... this is all over, we've won!"
CT: You're actually...
UD: We're tied right now... he turns to Mousetrap... "I mean this with all due respect, but we really need to renegotiate our terms now and move on to new things... I want to be a full partner..." and a lamppost nearby... how do you act as I'm saying that?
MT: I'm just staring, "Oh please! You're nothing but a boy! And you never will be anything, you'll never be a man! You're disgusting!"
UD: "That's really rude of you! And I'm just, I'm trying to negotiate, and that's not a very good way to enter into it, we need to..." and what happens is the lamppost near him starts to wrap around him, and I say, "oh, oh, oh, oh, Lampy, no! Please don't do that! I'm really, he's just my friend..."
UD rolls one of his 1's up to a 5, and "A Minion No More" is now tied 6-6.
MT: So, is it literally curving around?
UD: Yeah.
MT: OK, so, obviously, with my Technical Genius... [the lamppost] is willful and has kind of physical reactions to things, so I am aware that therefore it would react the way any living thing would to pain, and so it's wrapping around me and it's got wires going through it and I've got electricity and magnets up the wazoo... so I activate my Wazoo Field... and sparks start coming out, the lightbulb blows and sparks come out the other side and it immediately kinda uncoils and goes, "Yipe, yipe, yipe!"
S: Awww! Poor Lampy!
MT rolls it down.
UD: "That was a complete overreaction! That was terrible! You, you, I... Lampy was just, all he wanted was to restrain you, it was no big deal! I, I'm very disappointed in you!"
CT and SMB hold their Reactions.
UD: "In fact, I feel like you're sort of betraying me a little bit, you knew how that was going to hurt him! And wow! I just, it's almost like you're a bad guy! You know... you should see what it's like when people do things like that!" and the Acid Rain will just wash right at you...
UD rolls it back up to a 5, it's tied 6-6.
CT: So, I'm kinda all over the place at this point... an eyeball, a fully formed eyeball and a mouth pop up next to you... and I just comment, "you know, dude... sorry to interrupt your conversation, but actually, I saw the thing with Lampy and that was cold, man!"... it's a 5, so I have to use my Resilient Body... the Acid Rain is melting away at the mouth and the eyeball, but I seem unperturbed by it...
S: Unlike the reader! The reader of this comic is feeling nauseous...
CT rolls, no help.
UD: "Thank you, Captain Taffy! See, even Captain Taffy sees this!"
SMB passes his Reaction.
SMB: You know, I'm just gonna stay out of it!
- End of Page 2, and we're all out of time.
"The Villains Escape With The Jewels" is tied at 15-15.
"A Minion No More" is tied at 6-6.
CT: Everything's tied up!
S: Wow! That's the end of the page, so, yeah... hang on, there's a paragraph [in the rulebook] about deadlocked conflicts...
MT: Actually, it's kinda cool, everyone's gonna walk away pretty sulky...
UD: Maybe the plan doesn't go off with the cars, so we get away with some jewelry, but not the crown jewels...
S: Here's what the book says, "if a conflict is tied and no means is available in the rules to break the tie in future Pages", which is the case at the moment because there won't be any, "then it is deadlocked, players collaborate on narrating the resolution of deadlocked conflicts..."
CT: As the cars collide... the windows all shatter, but I've done my homework... I studied up on this one crown, this tiara, and so I actually shift my body into a replica of the tiara, and so you don't capture the crown jewels, you capture me! But you don't know you have me! And so the crown jewels have been saved, but you get some of the other jewels, and me, an infiltrator in your midst.
MT: I like that, that's very good... Thirty or forty thugs go into various stores and you probably knock half of them out.
SMB: Yeah, I was knocking thugs all over the place.
MT: But the real drama at this point with respect to the story... I've now got you captured... if I find out, I can wreak havoc...
S: I can just see this little tiara sort of sneaking away in the night to try to call you, like, "they're at the secret lair, it's at this location..."
SMB: Someone keeps moving the tiara and you don't know who it is... you put it down, you turn around, it's gone...
UD: "Joey! Were you messing around with that tiara again? Quit putting on the damn tiara!"
SMB: "You're not Miss America!"
MT: So... you basically stood up to me, attacked me, you didn't do a great job, but managed to summon up minions to work on your side, and [you're good at] manipulating people... basically I'm not gonna give you full partner status, but I am gonna show you some respect, like, "OK, that was devious and evil, I gotta give you credit for that, so I'm gonna give you a raise!"
UD: But I'm not satisfied because, you know, you hurt Lampy and you're still not taking me seriously, you still don't want to discuss it... so it's definitely not resolved for either of us, I'm not accepting that either, but that's the draw...
S: So, you're still a minion, but you're a higher paid minion.
UD: Yeah.