I was in the mood for some extra gaming on Friday the 13 of March, so I roped together three friends on my Discord server for a game of my card-based, prompt driven game of Hunters seeking the lair of a Beast in order to end its reign of terror.
an old, abandoned summer camp (I think maybe some teenagers got killed there back in the 1970s?) The party consisted of:
- A property developer with a long-standing, family grudge against the Beast
- A public defender with huge debts that could be wiped away if he agreed to work for the Beast
- A lookalike of the Beast who was determined to end him by any means
- A park ranger who'd lost their job when the Beast bought out the land
We progressed through the wilderness, approaching the compound, disturbing the wildlife on the way, but the Beast knew we were coming and deployed his resources to whittle away at our resolve; he utterly destroyed the life of the property developer remotely, forcing him to retreat in shame. Then, as we reached the compound, our big reveal occurred: the lookalike and the Beast were twins and their mother was within the compound, ready to help us bring down her billionaire son!
The plan to stage the scene so that the lookalike could smoothly take the Beast's place, with their mother vouching for the 'good twin,' immediately went south when we saw what atrocities the Beast had perpetrated in his compound. There was a running thread about the exploitation of the genetic diversity of the wilderness to provide biotech breakthroughs, including increased human longevity: we never said exactly what we witnessed in the compound but it was enough to make the lookalike snap and wildly attack the Beast with the butt of a rifle!
Despite being bloodied and broken, the Beast rallied, grabbing some sharp edged ornament to 'fatally' (yes, another twist is coming) stab his twin brother, who had at least had the satisfaction of bloodying his evil twin. This gave our park ranger a window of opportunity to KO the Beast, allowing us to revert to the original plan... sort of.
The park ranger knew first hand how powerful the biotech breakthroughs were and wanted to share them with the world, but carefully: his first act was to revive the lookalike, allowing him to take the Beast's place, with the testimony of his mother to support his claim. The true Beast was painted as a disgruntled lunatic who had broken in with the intent to kill and was sent away for good; however, this big lie meant we were all compromised.
- The public defender accepted the offer from 'The Beast' to clear his debts, so it seemed to the world that he'd sold out and become another capitalist lackey
- The park ranger opened Pandora's Box and started on the slippery slope to exploiting the natural resources that he cherished
- The lookalike, now the New Beast, faced the temptation such absolute power can bring, as well as the burden of giving up almost every aspect of his old life to immerse himself in his new role
We had a good time with this and the new Act 2 rules in the Reviled Edition made for a much more tense and focused finale than the old version of the game. I need to run my own creations more often, I just always feel a little guilty when I run them, like an actor always insisting that his friends watch his own movies when his friends come around for pizza!
