aving gotten rid of the wife for the Holiday and the New Years while not having to work on either Christmas Eve or the following day, I figured I was safe. Safe to indulge in my favorite "Seasonal Movies" and Civ III. Alas a knock came at the front door about 6pm (eastern). Peeking out the window, I see that it was my bud LumberingJack and his wife, come from all the way from Erie, PA. to my doorstep-- apparently Jack's family was a bit more tiresome than usual. So I put on some pants and opened the door. I even brought in the mail from the day before.
I was really hoping Jack and wife was just visiting for moments and soon be on their way within minutes, maybe an hour. But sitting back with some beer, the three of us were having a ball catching up. Almost 90 minutes later, Jack looked at his watch, and I heard Civ III call my name. But cruel fate was just teasing me.
"Want to go see Avatar?" he asked.
When I declined, the man didn't look at his watch and inform SeaShelly, his wife, of how long they had. No the two then asked if I could run a game then. Shelly only games infrequently so I couldn't refuse. I offered to develope a character and play in anything that Jack, or even Shelly, wanted to run; but they were seriously ad-libbing their later half of Christmas day, so neither had anything.
I almost offered to run a Tunnels and Trolls ditty, as it always comes natural to me. But I had been working on T&T game supplements since 7pm the night before, so was feeling a little tired of my lingua franca. Call of Cthulhu, a group favorite, was decidedly a little unseasonal and morbid for X-Mas, we all decided.
SeaShelly suddenly smiled, "Let's do a Christmas movie!"
While she mentioned BRP as a rules system, I went ahead and did my own WHAP!, as it is essentially T&T reworked. This really saved a lot of time on character generation. So by 8pm, I ran Santa Claus Vs. the Martians. And though I had just watched the movie hours earlier, I cannot say the plot we role-played had much to do with anything from it.
First off, my Santa Claus was Jean Claud Van Damme with a trimmed beard and white hair dye. And our two heroes, Billy and Betty Smith, of Cleftburg, Pa., were Delta Force candidates. The martians featured Kal Vilmer, the leader; Wruce Brillus, the war-monger; and Dr. Anchovy, the human nut-job who was sucking up to Mars to be their key lackey. Plenty of martial art scenes to be had and the flying saucer never pulled off of Santa's ice berg (he's gone mobile, don't you know).
By 11:25 or so, Jack and Shelly were ready to head to late showing of Avatar, still asking me to come, offering to pay even, but I really do not want to see the flik, no really. Hugs were exchanged and I finally got the company back out the door. I enjoyed myself and it was glad to see Peryton's and my one-time local "gaming couple," and more than a little flattering to see how role-playing is akin to other culture's oral tradition in our clique's milieu. I suppose I should thank Jack's sister for being a bit more than over-bearing and nit-picky whenever her brother is around.
Well that's my year's end gaming tale. Totally on accident and not planned. Now get the hell out of my lawn!!!
