Today’s theme is “Triumph.”
This was almost another Surprise moment, but it was also an
impressive Triumph.
The system was Cartoon Action Hour and the setting was
something of my own creation. Psychic insectoid aliens had tried to invade a
magically empowered super-civilization several hundred years ago. They fought
each other to a standstill. Eventually, both sides lost the ability to rebuild
their forces and they settled into an uneasy peace. The campaign revolved
around thwarting the efforts of a general who had been sent from the alien
homeworld to reignite and ultimately win the war.
We decided that the final session would be a daring attack
on the general’s forces. Rather than do elaborate preparation, I let the
players take the lead on the narration. I described the flying saucers overhead
and one of my players, who was playing an insectoid, decided to climb aboard
and commandeer the vessel. It was guided and powered by the pilot’s psychic
powers, so he was the only one who could hope to do it.
I assumed that he would use the telekinetic force beams to
blow up some target on the ground, or against enemy saucers, but he did
something I absolutely did not expect. He flew the craft right into the
general, who was on the ground in the town square. My other players did not
expect it either. One of them was moving their character closer in order to
duel the general.
The real surprise came when I asked the player if their
character was bailing out of the saucer at the last moment. He said no. He
wanted the moment to be a Heroic Sacrifice. Even though I was running a game
that didn’t have mechanics for character death, and I was running that session
especially loosely, it wound up being the sessions that resulted in my first
character death.
In honor of his heroism, I played The Touch by Stan Bush
from the soundtrack for Transformers: The Movie.
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