Friday, February 4, 2011

Wordslingin'

Tonight's Heavy Gear game was a lovely little session in which the characters return home to Khayr-ad Din to see long-lost friends... and a few ex-lovers. Also, Kain revealed a Super Secret Mission (tm) of global scale. Naturally, this led to excessive amounts of quotes. It must be time for Wordslingin'!

[Sam is trying to explain to Maia some of the group's past adventures. He has a rather unique explanation style.]
Sam: "Gade found a box... and then we had a casino."
Maia: "You realize that makes no sense."
Sam: "It didn't make much sense at the time."

[Josh the GM watches Ariel, as Sam, try to explain the history of the game.]
Josh the GM: "It's like a 4-year-old telling our campaign."

[More of the Sam/Maia conversation.]
Sam: "And then there's Gade. I shot him once."
Maia: "On purpose?"
Sam: "I think I was trying to trick people."
Maia: "...Well, he clearly recovered."
Sam: "That's debatable."

[Sam explaining to Maia the group's criminal connections.]
Sam: "Then there's the people we work with sometimes. There's the smuggly people--"
Josh the GM: "Smuggly?"

[Oh, conflict. How we love you.]
Ariel: "I'm trying to think if there's anything I can say that I'm not supposed to say, which would cause amusement."

[Sam tries to explain his philosophy behind zen gunslinging.]
Maia: "I expect if you're shooting, you're shooting at something."
Sam: "That's a common mistake to make."

[There's laws, and then there's laws.]
Sam: "In the Badlands, we don't really have those laws [of physics]. I've bent bullets."

[More on the previous topic.]
Maia: "You can't break the laws of physics!"
Sam: "That sounds like a challenge."

[Sometimes it's hard to tell whether Sam's being cryptic or obtuse.]
Sam: "And then he made there be underground houses."
Maia: "You mean bunkers?"
Sam: (annoyed) "No, houses. I know what bunkers are. Jesus!"

[This can never be a good sign.]
Brock: "Kain is even worse than the Doc thought!"

[Maia relates some of Sam's stories to the Doc, trying to get them in plain Anglic.]
Maia: "There was a box?"
Doc: "I need context. I can't translate without context."

[A man called The Spider runs most of Khayr-ad Din.]
Sam: "Why do they call him The Spider if he doesn't look like a spider?"
Kain: "He's at the center of a criminal web."
Sam: "He's criminal?"
Kain: "...Yes."

[Some ideas should stay buried.]
Kain: "We should definitely start a midget Gear dueling league. I can't believe we've never thought of that!"

[Returning to a previous theme.]
Kain: "I assure you, if you ever fail to follow the laws of physics, you will be arrested by the physics police. You'll know when it happens."

[Khayr-ad Din is Terra Nova's garbage dump.]
Ariel: "Is this where Maia says, 'What a wonderful new smell you've discovered'?"

[One man's garbage heap is another man's golden opportunity.]
Maia: "I imagine there's a brisk trade in pomanders. And if there isn't, there's about to be."

[Brock may have gone a bit overboard in reconnecting with his dawg Menace.]
Kain: "Menace, heel! Down! Kill!"
Josh the GM: "...Okay."
Brock: "I was kidding."

[Menace tackles Kain. It's like love, only different.]
Josh the GM: "You get drool on you. It's corrosive."
Brock: "Yes. Yes, I believe it is."
Doc (to Maia): "You were wondering how he got all those scars..."

[Kain looks around for someone to get his dawg off him.]
Brock: "I'd like to think we have someone guarding this facility!"
Josh the GM: "Well, there's a fence. And a dawg."
Brock: "...That's true."

[Upon meeting some of the caravanners the PCs haven't seen in a while.]
Ariel: "Do we have a secret handshake?"
Georges: "Did you spend xp?"
Ariel: "Did you spend xp on a secret handshake?"
Georges: "You bet I did!"

[Maia meets some other members of the team.]
Peter: "We've gotta welcome Maia into the cult."
Georges: "Kult with a K. The Kult of Kain."

[The Doc introduces Maia to some of the team members.]
Doc: "Don't judge Maia by her wife. Her wife's actually quite nice."

[Reporting back on the action in Peace River.]
Kain: "No one got killed... on our side."

[Somehow, I don't think Prabal gets the concept of compliments. Or humility.]
Maia: "I hear you're an utterly phenomenal computer genius."
Prabal: "Oh, I'm better than utterly phenomenal."

[Makes me wonder what Gade looks like.]
Josh the GM: "You meet Gade's kid. He definitely looks like his mother."
Georges and Brock, in perfect unison: "Thank God!"

[Maia sees her wife Celina for the first time in a few weeks.]
Maia: "We can talk about everything later. Full disclosure, I promise."
Brock: "Liar!"

[At the welcome home party, Maia's getting more of the NPCs' backstories.]
Ellen Cranby: "I met them all in Peace River about 16 cycles ago. I was a paralegal there."
Maia: "You followed them?"
Ellen Cranby (to Sam): "You can tell them."
Kain: "Sam latched onto her like a parasite."

[At the welcome home party, things get a bit tense.]
Doc: "If I want abuse, I'll go see my family!"

[Characters Maia has not met, and probably never will.]
Ariel: "Didn't we decide she set herself on fire? 'Torch' is both her name and her occupation."
Georges: "And her character flaw."

[The Doc got Maia's wife Celina her job in Khayr-ad Din.]
Celina (to the Doc): "I don't know whether I should thank you or sue you."

[Maia discovers there's a hierarchy to the Doc and Kain's organization.]
Maia: "Does working my way up involve taking more bullets for you?"

[Kain assembles the PCs to reveal super-secret information about his mission.]
Sam: "I'm trusted? That's unusual!"
Doc: "You're required. There's a difference."

[Some might question the advisability of revealing secret information to Sam. Others...]
Kain: "We trust in your inability to coherently explain to anyone what's going on."

[We all get our conversation licks sometimes. I'm just glad Kain was gunning at someone other than me.]
Kain: "All of this has contributed to a larger mission than enriching the Doc and his ego, though that has been a welcome byproduct."

[Sam doesn't understand the concept of 'too many guns.']
Josh the GM: "You really don't need the silenced guns in this town."
Ariel: "Yeah... but I've got them!"

[The vista of options is vast indeed.]
Maia: "If you like, I won't mention this mission to Celina."
Kain: "Say anything you want except the truth."

[Maia's daughter Tanya is being sent to the local school.]
Celina: "It's a little doctrine-heavy."
Georges: "She has no idea. I bet she doesn't even know about the hypno-sessions."

[Maia is explaining her history with the PCs to Celina, including the assault on Thoras' fortress.]
Maia: "I know how to para-glide now."
Brock: "The falling part is easy."

[Maia reveals her role in Thoras' assassination.]
Celina: "So the people of Okavango have you to thank for their freedom?"
Brock: "At least 15% of their thanks!"

[Kain has never quibbled about his motivations.]
Brock: "Kain is not humanitarian in the strictest sense."
Georges: "Not even in the loose sense."

[Carmichael, a crotchety NPC, is giving Maia a hard time.]
Maia: "Are you saying you want me to leave?"
Brock: "He won't be able to kick your ass if you leave."

[Maia reveals that, like Carmichael, her leg was amputated and never regrown. Carmichael immediately warms to her.]
Brock: "Stump solidarity!"

[Discussing the earlier conversation between the Doc and Kain.]
Georges: "Trying to convince Kain that there's such a thing as going over the line is like staring at Cthulu."

And that's it for this week. Join us in two weeks when -- to Ariel's pleasure -- we will resume shooting things.

5 comments :

Certain Betrayal said...

Here are some imperfect extracts from the Kain and Doc conversation. Most is paraphrased for lack of paper and pen at hand but for the most part it is fairly accurate to the spirit of the dialogue.

Kain: “If you were bothered by what I did - disturbed even - repulsed, revolted, shocked, scandalized even a little; then it worked.”

Kain “I don’t want to look like a monster, if I had the luxury of time I would asked Kessler to leave the room before I tore his throat out in order to protect her delicate sensibilities.”

Kain: “Forgive me Doctor, but when just moments before my supposedly heinous act you stuck your finger into a gunshot victim’s gut hole to extract information, I find your objections less than compelling.”

Kain: “When a nuclear meltdown is in effect and time a factor, I would like to know what you wouldn’t do to avert a crisis?”

Doc: “If you’re wife was still alive, would you have done that in front of her?”
Kain: “That was a low blow even for you Doctor, but if my wife was alive she would understand, she was a soldier.”
Doc: “What you did was not soldiering, it was barbaric.”

Kain: “We’ve done this sort of thing countless times, terrorising one enemy in order to facilitate the extraction of information from another. I find your sudden change of sensibilities troubling and more than a little hypocritical.”
Doc: “I don’t have a problem with torturing people or even killing them, and that is a reflection of my own problems, but we aren’t talking about me.”
Kain: “On the contrary, I think you’re the one with a problem here.”

Doc: “You’re a leader Kain, which means unless you want to continue on your one man mission you have to recognise that what you do and how you do it will affect the moral of those under your leadership. Disgusting them with your violence is hardly inspiring. How do you think the Regulators would have reacted to what you did?”
Kain: “I trained those people Doctor, I know they would have done the same thing.”
Doc: “And I disagree and I guess that’s where this conversation ends.”

Kain: “Maybe you could draft me up a list of things you don’t want me to do, a nice little aluminium score card I could keep in my wallet for reference would be handy.”

Kain: “Why don’t you give Maia a recording of this conversation and save me the trouble of repeating myself. Better yet, why don’t you get her to man-up and come talk to me herself the next time she has a problem.”

Julie said...

With regards to that last one on Georges' list: Oh, burn!

Actually, Maia was perfectly willing to be part of the conversation, or talk to Kain herself. The Doc assured her that "he would handle it." Sigh.

Julie said...

Also, the Doc had a remarkably similar "Yes... but we're not talking about me" line from his private conversation with Maia before the game started.

Somehow, I get the sense that he's avoiding certain topics. Like himself. *grin*

Father Tork said...

I'll have you know Gade is a handsome, handsome man. Think Lou Diamond Phillips after small pox.

Game Thug said...

The Carmichael quote wasn't about him kicking ass, it was about looking at it.


 
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