Isn't it wonderful when plots converge?

[zornwil]

Okay, so there's one thread in my game that is dangling that I want to get rid of, but I know it has to be a "good" ending because the PC is royally pissed at the offending party (Fox Force Five!!!!).

 

On the other hand, well...other stuff is going on.

 

So suddenly it all came to me today, in the wee wee hours, a beautiful combination of this thread and another! MWA HAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!!!

 

It's a wonderful thing. I can't give details yet because lemming is here, and others may lurk. So for now I can just tease.

 

But feel free, please to tell of when you married 2 threads together into a beautiful intertwined whole!

[lemming]

Re: Isn't it wonderful when plots converge?

 

Originally posted by zornwil

It's a wonderful thing. I can't give details yet because lemming is here, and others may lurk. So for now I can just tease.

Oh the agony! Coolness though on the resolving threads. I'm looking forward to it. Not sure about Spectrum, but she'll deal.

[zornwil]

Re: Re: Isn't it wonderful when plots converge?

 

Originally posted by lemming

Oh the agony! Coolness though on the resolving threads. I'm looking forward to it. Not sure about Spectrum, but she'll deal.

 

i will go ahead and reveal she's probably unaffected, pretty much, on this one. Wel, no, not really, but let me rephrase - she's unaffected beyond getting sucked into rescuing Sammy and Laughton, but you knew that'd happen anyway, given last session they broke into ABC Laboratories' secret base and this session you're joining back in.

[pinecone]

Yes..my altime champion loose string tie up was in Dudracon I ran a multi round champs tourney and one of the player was playing a Time lord who was hunted by chesire cat and had unluck...He goes to the hospital to interview a Super who was injurured by unknown attackers, he goes alone I roll unluck (it's a milk run so unluck aplies) and I hit him with a unidentified MA who whips his butt, the adventure continues....The next year I run a follow on Multi round tourney at Origins and the adventure is set 4 hours after the previous years...the new team dosn't dither and "catches up "to team one...A MA/phsychic detective goes to the hospital to interview the wounded super and meets up with Traveler (the time lord) sees him and hides...." you see some one in strange futuristic clothing moving towards Earth Childs room ...looking a little furative..."I attack him from suprise!" me..."So Thats who whiped Travelers Butt! " truely a thing of wonder......

[Insaniac99]

how long till you can spill the beans?

[Lupus]

In my game: Had two characters who I merged into one. Fantasy game. One PC, the Paladin, had a father who died 15 years ago in a big uprising thingy. Had started a revolution in a city of evil type stuff, but then the guy he put on the throne went evil and had all the paladins attacked and mostly killed. This dude bought families and survivors enough time to get out of the city, at the cost of his own life. The other guy was still alive, a paladin who survived and was now serving as the PC's mentor. By weaving the two characters together, I decided that the dead father in fact just barely survived, had his lifeforce entwined with his killer (a bad dude verging on demigod status), and thus held the secret to defeating him. However, first he had to face up to his past, and then had to sacrifice his life - again. This all ended up getting revealed to the PC just as his dad was dying. Very teary moment (helped by use of music from the B5 finale). The player was distraught, but later was heard to describe it as the best session ever. Player loves her angst.

 

From a friend's game: Star Wars game. Not quite so much tying two plot threads together in GM planning, but rather having a difficult problem solved through player action serendipity - the player was pushing forward his own plot thread, which meshed with the GM's. It was a prequel game, played before any of the prequel movies came out, describing the clone wars and the rise of the empire. The thing is, there were PCs taking part in political maneuverings. They had real power, and could have blocked any 'Palpatine' getting into power. That's metagaming, sure, but people being people, it's hard to allow something like that to happen.

 

So, the GM had a fairly unassuming senator from a remote planet. He had a reputation for being fairly smart, but ultimately 'not real leadership material.' The GM, Ben, had to figure out how to get him into power. He had no idea. But then the player with the most political influence decided he was going to get his house to sponsor a candidate for the position of President. A fairly tractable guy, but still respected. So he chose this dude.

 

At that point, Ben called a break to the session, went into the toilet, and proceeded to quietly whoop in victory. He related this story months later when the players watched in horror as the unassuming candidate married into the Palapatine family... then went on to declare himself Emperor.

 

The player of the character who got him into power elected, after the game, to have his character tortured to death on board a star destroyer, because it was what he felt his character deserved.

 

That story has become legend in our little gaming group.

[zornwil]

Originally posted by Insaniac99

how long till you can spill the beans?

 

I think we're playing Friday, I have to call one of the players to be sure. So late late Friday evening (like wee hours out East). But, hey, it's not THAT good or anything, well, it's decent, actually, it's kinda cutesy, because it even ties in a really really OLD reference to something - in fact that old reference will provide the tip to our outlandishly smart detective. But no, not great, so please nobody tune in early and complain, get it at your leisure.

[Lord Mhoram]

Here is mine, tying in a bunch of long running plot threads and old bits- all of this tied into the big huge plot at the end.

 

1) Golden Avenger goes rogue calling himself Vengence - swears an oath to destroy The Marshall - the person that took his place as head of the superagency that absorbed Primus.

2) Vengence having a years long running conflict with the "batman" in the group who stole his AP gauntlents the first time they fought.

3) The Marshall is one of the creators of Mechanon - he calls her Mommy.

4) the other creator of Mechanon is Dr Avery Allanis.

5) The Marshall before she was a superhero was like Henry Peter Gyrich and she and Dr Allanis ran a study camp of superheroes (the first supers were in 1990). After she got powers and was imprisoned she found that Dr Allanis was killing the people in the camp. Allanis wants to kill all supers.

6) Vengence is anti super not anti mutant (part of the reason he was forced out of office)

7) The money behind the PC team was Matt Ambruster from Normals unbound.

8) I ran the Knight sabers plot from Heroic adventures.. mind control machinery- ex US supersoldier program.

 

This all happens over the course of years - with the two players mentioned being the only ones there the whole time.

 

I run the Paranormal Registration Act. Senetor Jeremiah Relm dueling with Shanna Armbruster. The act looks like it will fail, is fillibustered. Rep Armbruster, the strongest anti RA congressperson, comes up for her time at the fillibuster and says "Lets just get this over with" and calls for a vote. She abstains. It passes.

Relm and others move to the Marshall's office to get her records on supers. She says no. She also has the support of the supereme court (yeah comic book politics so what), due to the team telepath and the team detective finding the old Knight Saber mind control machienery in DC, being used on elected officials to vote Relms way, and expose him as a the mastermind. Relm goes nuts.. his plans failing, and calls in help.

 

Relm - the Black king.

Vengence (Ex golden avenger) his bishop

Dr Avery Allanis - White King

Mechanon - The White Kings Bishop "Tried to help you out mother, but you were unresponsive, I'll try things dad's way".

And a number of Minuteman robots (whom Mechanon helped build).

 

Big Brouhaha in Washington DC.

 

So I had half the core of Genocide tied intimatly into the backgrounds of the characters, and they had no idea what was coming. I spent a year weaving the final plot from the dangling plot bits I left behind.

[lemming]

Originally posted by zornwil

But no, not great, so please nobody tune in early and complain, get it at your leisure.

We're leisurely waiting... So what happenned!?

 

yes, i was at the game... Despite getting Nemisis taken out, Spectrum respects her power & *bat*

[zornwil]

Sorry I didn't post earlier!

 

So, basically (long story turned short), here's the starting poitn: Magneto had convinced two of the Justice Squad members, Sammy and Laughton (AKA Rodin) to go along with two of his men into ABC, the evil company that held Sammy early on and has hunted him since. Laughton is along with the offer to learn more, as is his wont.

 

They go in, are jammed up in a big battle (including my NPC version of Nemesis) just when they cross over in to this other-dimension that ABC has its real secret stuff in. Magneto sends one of his agents to attract Spectrum's attention (she's in NY with her boyfriend, patrolling). When she learns of the trouble, she flies super-fast to Detroit, gets into ABC with guidance of what Mangeto knew before they went into the other dimension.

 

The Justice Squad faces daunting odds but they are successful in starting to winnow away the first line of defense, with high-powered agents and 2 supervillains. Still, its with great cost as Spectrum is down to 2 STUN, Laughton is at 1 STUN, and Sammy, though healthy, is (like Laughton) greatly reduced in power due to the odd power in h this strange base that stops characters from changing shape. So they take an offer from the AI (named DEXTER) running the base to leave with some unraceable but useful information - a compromise.

 

So, safe passage granted and with info in hand, the Justice Squad member Laughton places a cell call to Magneto to meet. It is during this call that Laughton, the world's smartest detective, realizes where he once heard Magneto's voice, long before they met - it was way buried in the background, in fact BARELY audible, of a phone call to Maddy Hates. In the background, a man in the middle of the night was talking to her, and Laughton could just make it out. You see, Maddy Hayes, whom Laughton once worked for, is now his main business opponent and her firm had been stealing a LOT of business unethically from him, forcing his business into debt.

 

So Laughton first debriefs Magneto but without giving him the disc of information. When he's ready to really negotiate, he speaks privately with Magneto, saying, "I have two words for you: Maddy Hayes." Magneto looks mildly surprised, but still composed, smiling, replies, "And I have three words for you: Fox Force Five."

 

Now it turns out, as they talk, that Magneto is a sometimes-boyfriend to Maddy Hayes (which he takes as evidence he's not prejudiced, by the way); she complained to him how Laughton bothered her and his business drew business from her's. He was, through his long underground struggle, associated with Fox Force Five. With Justice Squad on his heavy "watch" list and wanting to find out more about them, he saw an opportunity: he told Maddy he could hook her up with FF5 (they are known to the rich, famous, and agents as the prime secret ops mercenary group in the world, all humans but super-duper-skilled). She could afford them - which Magneto and his organization could scarcely do. And since they were paid by Maddy to drive Laughton's business away anyway, Magneto could ask them to give him all the dirt they could get (again - they once did this for Kingpin, though per his instructions more ruthlessly) on the Justice Squad. In fact, this flow of info allowed Magneto to know how to approach and exploit Laughton's curiousity and Sammy's ill will to ABC, along with knowing to track Spectrum and Troll (Troll missing during this) to give more assistance to Laughton and Sammy if he thought they'd need it (he knew that Spectrum and Troll would NEVER go along with a plan to sneak into ABC unprovoked but that they'd have to rescue their cohorts - as they did for Laughton when he struck at the house-arrested Kingpin).

 

So this relieved Laughton's scheming mind, as he had been concentrating on trying to find the link between FF5 and Maddy's agency, Blue Moon. Magneto, in return for the info, indicated he would call off Fox Force Five, dealing with Maddy.

 

Mysteries and opponents solved!

 

This episode also led to a whole new direction for the campaign compared to what I'd planned - but I'll put that in another thread in this forum...

[BoloOfEarth]

Not multiple plots converging, really just a completion of some long-standing plots.

 

One campaign I ran, three of the five player characters decided they were hunted by Malachite, all for different reasons. One, Hybrid, is a brick type that nobody can seem to hurt. He has a DNPC, a female researcher interested in his mutant physiology. Another PC, Guardian Angel, is a beautiful telekinetic that Malachite wants to study and maybe make his bride.

 

Game goes on a few months, and the heroes discover a man with amnesia fighting his way out of a hidden lab of Dr. Draconis. They find no clues to his background, but figure out that Draconis was actually programming combat skills into his brain. Everybody he sees is overlaid with a template showing weak points (Find Weakness with any weapon, AE: Cone), plus information on equipment, known abilities, and vulnerabilities (lots of Knowledge Skills). He's a normal (all 20s on primary stats) who's a combat machine. They call him John Doe and make him a pseudo-member of the team (he stays at their base, sometimes helps them out, etc.).

 

Campaign continues a while, with the players really getting to like John Doe. Then, Hybrid's DNPC has a heart attack in front of him, and dies in the hospital while another PC (Mind's Eye, a mentalist) was there. Ever paranoid, the other players even told her try to scan the DNPC, but she doesn't detect anything.

 

After a few days, they discover that they were duped; she was drugged to have symptoms similar to a heart attack, and given another drug to slow respiration and heartbeat. The hospital equipment was rigged to both flatline and jam mental scanning. They figure out that she was taken to the Malachite Islands, and of course they sneak in (a great but long story I won't go into here) to find and retrieve her. John Doe goes along, too.

 

When they're in the final confrontation with Malachite, he smiles and said something none of them understood. Suddenly, John Doe turns and starts attacking Hybrid. You see, he was a clone created by Malachite and given a deeply hidden command to attack Hybrid if he heard the phrase Malachite said. He was sent to Draconis to be programmed and to keep the players from suspecting Malachite. During the months (maybe over a year) that John Doe was hanging out with the heroes, he was subconsciously watching Hybrid and cataloguing his abilities and (most important) his weak points.

 

The best part was that the player characters (who had been bloodthirsty at times in the past) actually refrained from hurting John Doe, instead restraining and talking to him until Mind's Eye could cancel the subconscious command.

 

It was one of those "long-term" background things that usually don't come to fruition in my campaigns, and I loved when it all came together.