#RPGaDay 6: Most Recent Game Played

At GenCon, I wanted to play an RPG on Sunday at Games on Demand, but didn’t get a chance. So, my last RPG was the one I ran at GoD, Saturday evening at 6.

This was my first time running at GoD, even though we’ve done it at Strategicon in LA. The room was huge, and busy and my table was waaaay in the back! I went in, plugged in my cell phone to charge, and set up my stuff to wait. I wasn’t sure if I’d even get any players, considering how many other awesome games were on offer!

After a while, a pair of young men came over to ask if this was where "magical girls" would be happening. Yes! Magical Fury by Ewen Cluny was one of my offerings, and I was so happy to run it! It’s the one hard copy book I’d been tempted to bring with me, but not being sure I’d run it, I’d left it at home in favor of the loaded kindle.

I was especially happy because it’s the one game I was offering that I had time to practice before leaving for GenCon. As my players settled in, it became clear that they were good friends already, and that one of them was a huge otaku… and the other one had seen Sailor Moon maybe once.

We got started, and used the d66 tables at the back of the book to great effect, generating characters and situations with a bunch of dice rolls. That worked great– the characters were a fire-fearing healer and a future-protective magneto-girl.

I started them with their first transformation sequences, blending humor with action. For example, one of them was in the kitchen, having just opened the fridge door to put a soda back on the shelf. The door opens onto empty space, and she sets the soda where the shelf is before realizing that there’s nothing but stars out there. Then her transformation sequence kicks in, and her magnetic hand now sticks to the door! She’s still standing in the kitchen when her friend, who is down the hall but able to see her, turns on the TV to watch something and is suddenly transformed, herself. Both girls turn and see each other in their overly-frilly costumes, startled… and then the rumbling from outside warns them of impending doom!

Their first challenge was against a kaiju outside the healer-girl’s house. Big and lizardy, it menaced them until they bent light poles to trap it. It dissipated, leaving mangled light poles and a confused policeman, who thought he must have run into the street lights!

So, they go to the library, where in the course of their investigations, they discover that there will be another "encounter" the next day at 2 (during a seminar one of the girls is leading), and that the magneto-girl is, in fact, the reincarnation of a despotic queen who crushed her opponents into oblivion. Not a great heritage for a girl who cares so much about the future!

They head to the mall to kill some time, where they flirt with a cute boy and accidentally tell him about the seminar. They’re at a seminar when a giant robot attacks! In this case, the room is full of civilians, including the cute boy! and the girls spend most of their actions protecting the innocents and letting the giant robot get away. Good for them, for prioritizing people over victory!

Finally, they step through a portal brought about by the robot, and are taken into a war-torn world, where they are greeted as the returning queen of the land and her healer! End scene (and my GoD shift).

In all, it was fast-paced, very silly-fun, with a lot of humor and action in just the right blend. It was more over-the-top than Madoka Magica, which was just the tone I wanted to hit with this one-shot.