Session Recap: Planet Mages Session 3

Not glorifying violence, kiddos, just
this is the first good search result.

The heroes follow the trail to a nightclub, there is a fight, trusty post-combat shakes pays dividends.

Cast

• Players
• Henry Poe (Myself) - A shapeshifting wannabe actor who does stunt work. Has big confidence issues holding him back.
• Sasha Ivanova - an ex member of a coven. She rejected the groups traditions when her mentor died, and took on a cowboy persona.
• Nathaniel Stone - Born around the turn of the century, an incident during World War II turned him nigh immortal. The events he in which he participated in said war have sparked a long running deadly feud with a wicked man similarly gifted.
• NPCS
• Sergeant Johnson - Someone from another dimension who is leading the party to finding Nicolas Cage
• Nicolas Cage - The actor, he is apparently a person with a special gift.
• Tanya - Nicolas Cage's manager

Summary

Approximately 18:00

Sasha recalls that the Wild Horse is a local nightclub, and Mr. Stone drives us there, I just follow along because, what else can I really do? Of course, when we get there, the two thugs realize they can't just walk in carrying an entire armory with them, so they leave them in the car. When we finally get inside around 19:00, of course, the club is pretty low-key, it's too early for that stuff. We discern that Mr. Cage is in the VIP area, which we aren't sure how to get in. Mr. Stone brute forces his way in and the bouncers just let him in because he mentions Xiao Zhu, the man Mr. Cage spoke to over e-mail.

Sasha and I, however don't make it through, even though she tries mentioning some name of someone.

[During this time Nate Stone, Nick Cage, and Xiao Zhu have a bit of disposition. They are revealed to be power users, and a conspiracy involving Nazis from a parallel universe is brought up. They agree to meet up near midnight around red square to discuss this in more detail as they get interrupted.]

As Sasha and I leave the bar some giant of a man enters the lobby, whatever. Sasha tells me to follow her, and fine, I guess, I'll go follow her, not doing much on my lonesome otherwise, and then she.... magicks us up the building to the roof somehow? She find a door to an attic and goes in, and I follow after her.

When we go inside there's not much useful here but a stairway which we take to a room with a pc, a door and not much else. She orders me to guard the door while she downloads stuff off the computer. I mutter to myself about my thoughts about whether we are doing the wrong thing, and she says something snappy like it being some moral gray area, like breaking into a backroom and downloading everything they have isn't crooked as h*ck. I decide to disguise myself as a random russian, some non-descript blonde guy. If we are doing crooked stuff, I don't need my face in the papers.

When she finishes that we just head back up to the roof.

[At this time, the foreshadowing on the tall man who entered bears fruit, as he enters the VIP lounge violently, knocking one bouncer cold and waltzing past the other. Nate recognizes him as his arch-rival Onyx, and they begin to fight as panic breaks out. Nate begins a transformation into a partially stone form]

Sasha, using clairvoyance to look into the room below notices the kerfuffle and lets me in on it. Somehow she throws me a gun and tells me we need to go run in and do something.

[Xiao Zhu and Nate Stone fight Onyx while we race down, it is a very intense fight as the two have the same superhuman powers. Xiao Zhu is moderately injured, and backs off, just as Onyx's transformation is complete.]

Sasha suddenly freezes up as we come in through the front door. She's doing fine hacking a computer, but big ol' bad Sasha has a fear of crowds and gets icked out. [Acquiring a quirk.] I say hi to Nick as we pass by, and he responds... did... he recognize me?

Sasha gets ahead of me and opens the door. I see the passed out bouncer and heal him thinking a few minutes pain is better than being out cold. Sasha aims for the two brutes fighting and pulls the trigger, somehow messing up her gun or something? [rolled an 18 for her shot.] I am moving across the room to get a clear shot because I don't want to hurt anyone while the two giants grapple and pummel each other. When the opportunity presents itself I shoot for the hand... but apparently, the bullet does nothing to that monster. Useless with a gun, and Sasha holding a useless gun, I pass it over. [I feel like this is the one neato maneuver that went well, badly enough. We were able to successfully throw and catch a gun! yay.] who masterfully unloads a few more into him, but no dice, the bullets are worthless against the stone body.

Finally Mr. Stone stops him, and jams a piece of wood into his body for some reason? Says it keeps him from moving. 

The fight ends and my jitters set in... I shot a gun at a human being for the first time in my life, I'm mortified. [I acquire a quirk level reluctant killer.]

The session ends with Sasha calling a fence expert to pawn some stuff, Mr. Stone burying Onyx's body, which is revealed to be immortal, and us having a few hours to spare before a midnight rendezvous.

Thoughts and Self Reflection

• Things I did Well
• I think even though I jumped the gun a lot, I was good at not stalling the action. Better to make interesting mistakes than to hem and haw in a game I think.
• Things I could have done better
• I think overall, I did pretty good this session, but I think saying Henry is wishy-washy is a bad defense mechanism. I think I need to start taking more charge, if not literally, somehow passively indicating it. Henry might not be confrontational, but he has easy to read, so I could for example narrate as "Although Henry says he is fine with the plan, his body language is totally saying he thinks this is nuts."
• Things I need to do eventually.
• I have 11 points, my first goal is to get Luck at least to the 15 point level.
• bought!
• After that, Brawling and Wrestling at DX+2 for the sweet bonuses
• After that, need to start buying off backlashes for my beneficial afflictions. The drawbacks on regeneration are pretty bad.
• The combat shakes at CR 6 is pretty disruptive, I probably want to get that to at least a 12, and I probably want to remove Bad Self-Image altogether eventually, but I'm hoping to buy it off after some "character growth."
• Things That the group did well
• The GM was well prepared
• The other players played their characters well.
• Things that could go better
• I think the fight seemed slow mostly because there was a lot of downtime between turns. Not sure if this is a normal artifact of online tabletops, but some turns seemed to take minutes.