Action Movie World, Session Two: "Denk the Space Savage vs. the Sorcerer Popes"

Herein lies the rundown of our second session of Action Movie World: First Blood. This session was run by my friend Bill, and was entitled Denk the Space Savage versus the Sorcerer Popes, (Part II of the Legend of the Mystical Huubajuub.) It was intended as a 1980 space opera knock-off, probably Italian, still using the Barbarian template. Think Flash Gordon, Starcrash, and so on. By the way, if you have never seen Starcrash, stop reading this and go watch it immediately. 

You're about to meet some real royalty!

The cast lineup: 

Scott McCheddar as Reverend Slo Wing Chun, 23rd Master of Tae Kwon Fu. He was a Pugilist monk whose monastery was attacked by the Sorcerer Popes. Since Scott McCheddar is basically Christopher Lambert, this was pretty much ironic racism, though it didn't really extend beyond him having a name that in no way fit him. The player changed accents every two minutes, which I thought was probably not deliberate, but still funny. 

Javier Simpson as Amherst Grey, Former Governor of Division 6. He was an alcoholic stellar bureaucrat who incurred ever-increasing gambling debts to cover his administrative misdeeds, and was eventually forced to flee and become a space pirate. 

I played Flynn Buchleitner as Denkos Mass, aka "Denk," the Lead. Denk was a young colony farmer with oiled pecs whose farm was wiped out by the Sorcerer Pope's soldiers. He was hidden in a nearby cave by his uncle where he found the Infinity Blade. He thereafter vowed to wander the galaxy shirtless until he avenged his village. I straight up stole all this from Beastmaster. I was straight up a space barbarian and had a chicken leg and oiled pecs in every scene. 

What is any heroic origin story without a good village wiping-outing?

Gina played Anna Citizen as Sonya Starwind, aka "Windy," secret space princess posing as a scullery maid. Slo Wing Chun was her bodyguard, as they were survivors of the explosion of Ceti 6, which the Sorcerer Popes imploded.

During character creation, we decided that although this was the third film in a series, all our characters were being played by different actors than previous installments, and there were huge continuity errors in everyone's relationships. So Denk and Sonya had a romantic relationship in the previous movie but frequently didn't remember as much.

We started aboard the Nebula Schooner Arcadia, which the Director decided was just a sailing ship that operated in deep space. No, literally, it was a sailing ship, with sails, that flew in space. The plot mostly consisted of us walking into one trap after another or mowing down endless waves of goons as we tried to get to the Sorcerer Pope, who wanted the Infinity Blade and the Amulet of Huubajuub (which was in the hands of the princess).

The Director added two henchmen, whom he distinguished from one another by putting on different hats, which was pretty amazing in practice. Then one of the players (the Smartass) decided he would sneak into the enemy lair impersonating one of the henchman, and he had to wear the hat. If you'd have asked me if using hats as a major roleplaying prop would work in the abstract, I'd say no, but this was brilliant. 

Mechanical Notes

1) Supporting characters died in this episode, and it was beautiful. Slo Wing Chun was impaled trying to save his buddy. The player, who generally does not like taking damage in combat, yelled "I'M TRYING TO DIE HERE" and the Director obligingly killed him. The action cut to the Lead cradling him in a "Pieta" style scene to set up the Vengeance move. (The best part was, they had no real relationship in the movie, but we agreed this was humorously ridiculous.) Later, Amherst was killed when Denk became mind-controlled by the Infinity Blade gone berserk. 

2) The Assistant Director mechanic works even better than advertised. Having someone whose job it is to just sit around thinking of ways to pump up the fights and add tons of color to the action takes even more load off the Director. It also just raises the bar for the action scenes. 

3) The Smartass player said this was rapidly becoming one of his favorite games and said "I have never had so much fun losing." 

Overall, the session was brilliant and I had a complete blast. I wanted to play a sequel -- even more, I wanted this hunk of glorious sci-fi trash to be a real movie I could watch. I could not give much higher praise to a game than that. Action Movie World, you win at genre emulation.