Gaming on the Frontier

Weirdzone: The Adventures of the Whartson Hall Aethernauts, Episode 01

We join our erstwhile explorers when they find themselves facing off with scaly creatures from the dim reaches of the past! Join the the Whartson Hall Aethernauts in their further adventures in the Weirdzone!

http://www.rpgmp3.com/files/game_recordings/Whartson_Hall_Gamers/ForgottenFuturesV_01.mp3

Separated by many miles, yet brought together through remarkable advances in SCIENCE, the Whartson Hall Aethernauts embark on a voyage to wondrous futures past! 

Certainly not Richmond, possibly not 1893: The hapless visitors to the unexpectedly mobile house of Sir William Reynolds, brilliant but distinctly eccentric inventor, find their host gone along with their views of Surrey, replaced by a strangely lush landscape of fern-like plants and jungle. When a toothy, squamous head emerges from the greenery the guests find themselves unexpectedly hunted and horribly ill-equipped.

The Game: Forgotten Futures by Marcus L. Rowland. The adventure setting is adapted from Weirdzone by Richard Tucholka and Tri Tac Games.

Intro and outro musical excerpts are by that most splendid gentleman Professor Elemental, used with his kind permission.

The Whartson Hall Aethernauts play through the Google+ Hangouts facility rather than face-to-face in a room. Despite our frankly perfunctory efforts, listeners may find some reduction in sound quality as a result. We can assure you that this is despite using only the finest grade of wax cylinders in our phonographs.

The Players:

Amelia: Lady Lettie Parkhurst

Tim: Sir George Mathews

Riddles: John Bull

Jon: The GM

Weirdzone: The Adventures of the Whartson Hall Aethernauts, Episode 00

Across the pond, some canny Brits have started playing Weirdzone. The folks of RPGMP3.com have two sessions under their belts, and this is the first session.

http://www.rpgmp3.com/files/game_recordings/Whartson_Hall_Gamers/FFV_Weirdzone_00.mp3

Separated by many miles, yet brought together through remarkable advances in SCIENCE, the Whartson Hall Aethernauts embark on a voyage to wondrous futures past! 

Richmond, 1893. A surprising event has been announced, with the reclusive inventor Sir William Reynolds gathering select persons to witness the unveiling of his latest project, something he has never done before. Clearly it must be of the most singular importance, yet it is not the only surprise awaiting the guests on this outwardly ordinary evening. 

This introductory session involves character generation for about an hour, so skip ahead if that doesn't interest you. The idea is to play this adventure when scheduling issues mean that we don't have key players for our regular game, so it will likely be on an even less formal schedule than normal.

The Game: Forgotten Futures by Marcus L. Rowland. The adventure setting is adapted from Weirdzone by Richard Tucholka and Tri Tac Games.

Intro and outro musical excerpts are by that most splendid gentleman Professor Elemental, used with his kind permission.

The Players:

Amelia: Lady Lettie Parkhurst

Tim: Sir George Mathews

Riddles: John Bull

Jon: The GM

The Whartson Hall Aethernauts play through the Google+ Hangouts facility rather than face-to-face in a room. Despite our best efforts, listeners may find some reduction in sound quality as a result. We can assure you that this is despite using only the finest grade of wax cylinders in our phonographs.

Hard Wired Hinterland Actual Play 2014-08-05

Due to a computer failure I've not been able to record the sessions that followed this one.  So I will summarize the events that followed.

The Tinkerman Transport Company (TTC) flew to Six Gun Junction, the primary city of Little Texas.  

There they got in contact with Petrolux Oil Company that works the sole oil well in the Hinterlands to get some quality, high temperature oil as detailed in Tinkerman's notebook.  

They checked on the order for the finely tooled seat covers that the professor had left with Hempstead Fine Leather Goods and found it finished but warehoused, so they ordered it brought to the store for inspection.

They went to The Foundry to purchase some more weapons but found little to their liking since most weapons were designed to fit in well for the 1890's time period that Little Texas emulates.

A surprise visit from a stranger prompted Professor Silas to return to the Airport.  There he met the CEO of New Horizon's Construction Company who needed his expert assistance in developing a superior explosive to aid their bid for the first railroad that Little Texas has ever had. After seeing how much money this could be for TTC as well as a way to get NHCC to pay for the very expensive lubricants they wanted Petrolux to make for them, he agreed and travelled to their compound.  Turned out that they made their own explosives so the lab he needed was well equipped, but a number of workers seemed suspicious.  Silas confronted the head machinist Bingo and made an enemy for life.  That night someone tried to blow up Silas's hacienda.  Only the quick actions of his bodyguard Alpha saved his skin and allowed them to dispatch the assassin.  Sadly the Animal cat, Machen Meow, lost most of her litter of kittens, but she solaced herself by eating the eyeball she had ripped from the assassin's face during the battle.

Meanwhile the rest of the TTC had a wonderful evening at the Kickapoo casino.  Benjamin Reiher and Natasia made a little money at the black jack table.  Jason the Pig cleaned up at the poker tables.  Dan McCoy displayed his weapon prowess at the arcade and set up a special shootout exhibition for the next day.

The next morning as they were leaving their floor of the casino suites, they ran into two gunman.  Desperately trying to protect Jason, they ran to the fire escape but found a blaze of gunfire from the street right after they pushed Jason into the escape tube.  Throwing caution to the wind, Benjamin leaped down to the next floor and managed to grab Jason before he slid out of reach but suffered multiple gunshot wounds for his effort.  Dan and the casino guards arrived in time to chase off the kidnappers.  Dan pursued someone he thought was involved and almost caught him but only managed to grab his duster.  Fortunately the varmint's wallet was in the duster.  In the wallet was a decent amount of silver coin and a premium ticket for the Wild Bill Shootout Extravaganza that Dan had set up.  The ticket indicated that it was part of a group purchase.  Trouble at the shootout?

Dan hired a fast ride to Wild Bill's ranch and checked out the site for details on the competition and for possible ambush locations by the kidnappers.  The shootout was to take place in a ghost town set rife with clockwork mechanisms and pressure traps.  Wild Bill told him the competition against two of the greatest shooters Little Texas had ever known was the following:

1. Mechanized arcade bottle shootout

2. Dollar toss shoot (any dollars hit are kept by the shooter - dollars are worth $35 US - up to 200 targets were tossed at a time but practically only 12 could be hit).

3. Match Lighting - hit a number of Rube Goldberg contraptions that would ultimately light a match or light them directly with a bullet for extra points

4. Wooden Indian Cigar Shootout - knock the lighted ash from the cigars held by wooden indians - Kickapoo approved.

5. Ride by target shooting - hit targets that swing, jump, and bounce into view at a walk, canter, and then gallop down main street

-- second round side by side ride with opponent tied to each other with a leash as each fired at targets on opposing sides of the street.  Yanking on the leash was fair game.

6  Follow the leader last minute challenge by Dan McCoy as each contestant had to hit targets picked by the leader (Dan and the other two contestants rotated as leader).

7. Death Walk - can you survive the angry ghosts to get to the far end of Main Street

Until the final challenge, Dan was leading the competition, which gave him lots of crowd support.  Even his two competitors tipped their hats to him.

The death walk for Dan:

A ghastly undead bushwacker leaned over the edge of the general store and made Dan dance until Dan could hit him square between the eyes and put him to rest.

A rotting dance hall girl beckoned Dan to fire at a target inside the salon, when he did the entire brick top floor swung out periously over his body.  He could try to get where he would go through a glass window when it dropped or try to hit a small bullseye to stop it.  Dan tried for the target and missed.  Dan rolled back well enough that the bricks only bruised him under his undercover vest.

As he passed the cooper's shop, barrows smashed through the window and slammed right into him.  The crowd gasped because the barrows were supposed to fly right over Dan's head and give him a more targets to hit.  Mechanical error or foul play?  It had worked fine for the other two shooters who had already finished the Death Walk.  Dan suffered 3 wounds and was now missing targets that were worth a lot of points.

An electrical fence wire web rose up behind Dan and began to close.  Dan had to pick up his pace or get zapped like a heifer.  Just then a gauntlet of decaying and disintegrating townsfolk lined the street on both sides before him.  All looked lost, but Dan realized they were firing in a pattern that if solved would allow him to walk unscathed while shooting the targets on each one, time permitting since that electric threat closed every faster on Dan.  He rolled the dice and sussed the pattern, darting forward as slowly as he could to get the maximum number of targets.

At the end of the competitions it was:

Merry Burgess - 972

Dan McCoy - 1103

Cliff Levan - 1200

Cliff being the champion shooter of Little Texas was not surprised as his triumph, but everyone wondered what would have happened if there wasn't that tragic barrow accident that wounded Dan.  Beating Merry, a man of no little notoriety, was still unexpected,  Dan's sizable 2nd place purse would not be need to pay for drinks that night.

This campaign is now on hiatus due to work requirements.  Hopefully we will be back and recording in about a month.

If you've enjoyed this campaign, please Bruce Sheffer a message, flaming or otherwise, at our facebook groups, the tritac gamer's forum, the podcast site (tritacsystems.podbean.com) or just give the Tri Tac Podcast a glowing review on Itunes and mention our actual play episodes.

Thanks partners!

Hard Wired Hinterland Actual Play 2014-07-29

My computer crashed that had these files so I'm just now putting them out.  These are the continuing adventures of the Tinkerman Transport Company, currently in Little Texas in the Hard Wired Hinterland.

Fringeworthy Actual Play 2014-07-27

Sakura and Phillip hear many legends of the Great Dog of the Mountain and begin their search.  Too bad they almost burn down the mountain.

Hard Wired Hinterland Actual play 2014_07_21

The mystery man's identity is revealed.  Officer dan throws down with the head of the Lizard Woods institute.  The monster is unleashed.

Hard Wired Hinterland Actual play 2014_07_15

After a big welcome home party, they must decide their next steps.  What is to be done about the smart dinos, if anything.

Hard Wired Hinterland Actual play 2014_07_01

Battle royal against dinos and the team makes it home.

Fringeworthy Actual Play 2014-06-29

Sorry but we lost the episode between the last one.  But we get into Queen Lavanya's kingdom after a few false starts.

Hard Wired Hinterland Actual play 2014_06_24

A flaming, electrified, dino battle royale.

The combined group is forced to flee the outpost and make a forced march back to the Carnegie Mellon compound

They discover a very useful location and a lot more questions.