I you haven’t already read JeffLag 2012! (Part One) you don’t really HAVE to, but it contains more highlights and hilarity. I can’t go into a great deal of detail about GLITCH, the module I ran, since I’ll be running it again at RetCon, but rest assured that I have learned from the first run and NOBODY’S GETTING WEAPONS, NOT EVEN STUN GUNS, in the RetCon run. Believe it or not, I think it’ll make the module more tense.
The final module of JeffCon was part of a running story, though I think these particular PCs will (and should) be retired for a while. The module-specific setting was sort-of based on Downton Abbey (though I can’t really speak to that fact properly, as I’ve never seen that show.
I was playing a female General who had just re-conquered her country from invaders–and now she was looking to put a strong leader on the throne. While there were rumors, started by a man called Lord Blake, that the General wanted the throne for herself, she actually wanted to put a very different person on the throne–the rightful heir and last in line of the Royal Family, the Prince (previously all of the Royals had been assumed to have been killed).
The problem was the Prince refused to take the throne until he had a wife, so that the Royal line of succession was assured, and he and his wife could be a symbol of hope for the people. So, the General, the Prince, the Prince’s nurse (from when he was a boy, he was 30 now, and she was 60-something), and one of the General’s most trusted soldiers have to haul themselves out to a fairly well off Lord’s estate (henceforth called “Lord Father”) so the Prince could choose between one of Lord Father’s three daughters to marry. Mind you, The General, Prince, et. all are all in disguise. The Prince is pretending to be another random Lord, the Nurse his mother, the General his niece, and the soldier–whom the General is developing feelings for, but is dealing with them awkwardly–winds up playing the part of “Niece’s fiancee.” Everyone from the servants to the daughters, to Lord Blake, were all characters in the module. Some of the funniest moments included:
- The eldest of the thee daughters, who had been the “frontrunner” of the trio (at least, in the eyes of the Nurse) went a little crazy because she got nervous around the Prince’s “Mother,” and then people tried to drug her wine to calm her down (which backfired HORRIBLY).
- I (purposely OOC, accidentally IC) trip while trying to curtsey, which sets off one of my informants in the Lord Father’s manor into a peal of giggles, which infuriates the General, but she has to pretend like nothing is wrong.
- The middle sister had been cured of a madness she’d suffered from for years, so you’d think people would be concerned that she’d have a relapse, but no–she and the eldest managed to tag-team the youngest sister about being improper, including fixing her dress multiple times (the player was not actually wearing a dress . . . the pantomiming was priceless).
- At one point the Prince went missing (the player went to the bathroom; IC/OOC we didn’t realize this) and the General went into a panic. She had hidden “knives” (in reality, a pen) in a bag on her belt and went running around the manor with her hand on a knife in a bag calling out for her uncle. At one point the eldest sister (already agitated) and one of the servants looks at the General, looks at the hand she has stuffed in her bag, and they both look terrified. Having anticipated that possibly someone might look in her bag at some point, the General had also stowed some makeup in there. So, to try and reassure the eldest sister and the servant, she takes out some lipstick, puts it on her lips, and the offers it to the eldest sister. The eldest sister refuses, and the General shrugs and tries to walk away in a composed manner (she’s still panicking about the missing Prince). Once I’m out of sight the Eldest sister flips out, convinced that the lipstick was poisoned and the General had been trying to kill her. The servant then runs around trying to wipe off lipstick from the lips of the youngest and middle sister. The General is then repeatedly asked about her “poison lipstick” by members of her party, to which she replies “The lipstick is lipstick! I was using it to hide my KNIVES!”
- One of the players playing a servant would wave us away from noticing her. We couldn’t figure it out for the longest time; occasionally she’d help GM, so we figured that’s what she was doing. Later we found out she was actually pulling a “I’m invisible, you can’t see me!” because (as she said afterwards) “In Downtown Abbey, there’s not a SINGLE conversation that isn’t eavesdropped on!”
- At one point the General gets into a conversation with Lord Blake, the man who has been smearing her name by calling her a dictator-to-be. The two of them discuss how neither of them thinks the General should become ruler of this country. It was a completely honest conversation too–except for the fact that the General was lying about who she actually was. Hilariously, as I’m saying disparaging things about myself, Lord Blake starts defending the General as a “war hero.” I nearly died laughing. Ultimatly, the General came away from that conversation thinking “Hey, that guy’s actually not so bad–now if he would just get it through his thick skull that I don’t WANT to run the country . . . I really need to get the Prince a wife, ASAP.”
There’s a whole lot more that happened, but I’d like to instead take a moment to send some good vibes out to a stranger. Before the module, the players playing Lord Blake and his butler were out by the road near the house we were staying at, and a serious accident unfolded before them. A car flipped, a guy’s arm was pinned, and the ambulance had to be called. Most of us didn’t find out about this until later–Lord Blake and the Butler stuck around to see if they were needed to help (after they and five other people called 911), and when they were dismissed, they went back towards the house and entered the module as latecomers to the estate. Afterwards they told everyone about it; we were all pretty shocked. So, please send some good thoughts in the general direction of the poor guy who was in that accident–I hope his arm is all right and he recovers quickly.
