Action Movie World, Session Four: "Razorfist: A.D. 1995"

"The story opens on a terrifying hellscape of ruined Detroit."
"So, basically just Detroit."

It’s time for the recap of our latest AMW session, Razorfist: A.D. 1995! This was a birthday game for a friend, who requested the Fighting Tournament playbook. He theorized we would never use the Fighting Tournament playbook unless someone requested it. He’s probably right. Here’s the narrated “trailer” I put together:

In the last days of the 20th century, the melting of the polar ice caps has left the world in ruins.[a shitty computer graphic of the East and West coast of the U.S. disappearing]Torn by war, racked by starvation, what's left of humanity hides behind walls.[Some establishing shots of watery, rainy Detroit, grubby humanity packed in like sardines]The only way out – off the planet![Two young people watch from a rooftop as a starship achieves escape velocity in the distance]And some will do anything for a chance at salvation.[Splash screen of movie title in stain-less steel “futuristic” font]RAZORFIST! A deadly battle of fighting prowess in which the winner takes all... and the loser loses everything.[montage of fighters battling in a neon-lined arena, cigarette smoke thick in the air, disaffected Asian men in suits giving hooded gazes over cigars as they watch the brutality]Now, one man must do what it takes to survive – or die trying![a silhouetted figure finds themselves cornered in a dark, blue-lit alley as the only exit is blocked off by a vehicle. Voice-over: “Don't you get it? The game's rigged! None of us are getting out alive!”][Cut to disaffected Asian man in white suit with cigar: “Now… finish it.”]RAZORFIST! Rated R!

This was not going to be a complicated game. The characters would get into the illegal fighting tournament, beat the crap out of some NPCs, then each other, and then the villain (the evil businessman who created the tournament). We got down to character generation. We had a full crew of the usual suspects, plus one new player (Naomi). The cast was as follows: 

Berkeley Blower as Gipper Frost, an American football star banished from the United States for “fighting his way into the White House” and attacking the President for socialism. (So right away, we set a certain tone.) Berkeley was the Lead, and his player described him as “Brian Blessed, constantly sweating and out of breath.” He was a rival of...

Scott McCheddar as Arnaud “Toronto Terror” Gaultier, a French-Canadian fighting champion who always had a drink and a cigarette in his hand and disdained everything that wasn’t Canadian.

Javier Simpson as Ernie “Calcutta” van Evenhoeven, an ill-educated Ultimate Fighting participant who paid opponents to throw matches and then bet on himself. He was caught and had every bone in his body broken by Arnaud. Video of the beating became famous worldwide. He was childhood friends with...

Anna Citizen as Brandy Daniels, a holovid producer out to expose the corruption in Razorfist and get a great story in order to promote her career.

Benjamin Baird as Ken Wu, a three-time Chinese gold medalist turned journalist, hired to go undercover in Razorfist. To my delight, Wu’s player told me to completely ignore the journalism subplot once it was introduced and put it on the cutting room floor. He was the unlikely brother of Gipper Frost.

And introducing Sami Fin as Luci Adieux, a fighter whose brother was killed by the reigning Razorfist champion, Crusher Liu (Bolo Yeung), and is now out for revenge. She chose the Smooth Operator playbook and modeled herself after Geena Davis.

Act One

I tried to get the characters together as quickly as possible. “Cal” and Brandy, being old childhood friends, met on the plane into Detroit. Cal recognized Gipper from his famous attack on the White House and fannishly bulldozed his way into Gipper’s life. They drove to the hotel in preparation for getting into Razorfist, and Cal’s player drove up the Camaraderie with some one-liners about the tournament and its participants (“more crooked than a Cambodian highway.”) 

"Imagine Brian Blessed in the red diaper from Zardoz."

Meanwhile, Ken Wu and Luci Adieux got the attention of Razorfist officials by charging into a pit fight in a downtown venue. Luci, being a Smooth Operator, didn’t have huge fighting skills, so she mostly set up stunts for Ken. Together, they defeated both opponents and got the attention of Crusher Liu. They also “met” Arnaud when Ken was thrown out of the ring and smashed Arnaud's table during a fight, upsetting his drink. They agreed they would meet up at the tournament later.

The play group suggested one more fight on the way to Razorfist, on the “hydro-train” to the arena. Some punks showed up on the train, started causing trouble, and were promptly given a savage beating. (I mentioned that the thugs had just wandered over from the Satan’s Game set and were dressed exactly like them, which seemed to be a big hit.) I liked that one of the players said “no, we need an inconsequential action scene in between the two acts” and then we just made that happen.

Act Two

Finally, we got down to the real business of the session: making the PCs fight each other! I got out a printable bracket and had the players sign their names on it. At the end, I gave the Lead discretion on which opponent he got to fight first. He chose Cal (the Smartass). Before the fight, there was some dramatic scenery-chewing between the PCs and the Villain, Mister Tokunaga. (For whatever reason, keeping his name straight became a huge problem throughout the game, and it became a running joke of supposed continuity errors.) 

I based one of the NPC fighters, "Slade," on Ray Jackson from Bloodsport, because of course I did.

Tokunaga, who had forced Gipper Frost into the fight in the first place, secretly instructed Arnaud to kill Frost during the fight in order to drive the ratings up. Tokunaga also revealed that he planed to make huge profits by simulcasting the illegal tournament worldwide and “going public” with Razorfist. The villain gave a speech about Darwinism and declining civilizations, like you do when you’re a heavy in a vaguely post-apocalyptic game. Frost’s player brought the house down with a one-liner that went something like: “Tonight, it’s not going to be morning in America... it’s going to be mourning all over the world.” The player was wearing a hat that said RONALD REAGAN when he did this. He then rolled a 12 on the one-liner and raised Camaraderie to 3. 

Razorfist begins! I cued up the Spotify playlist of Eighties montage songs I'd put together and kept it going for the rest of the game. “The weenies at the front of the tournament bracket should fall like wheat before a scythe,” says the AMW rulebook, and that’s exactly what happened. The first three matches were against NPCs with goofy names (Kalimama, Slade, Johnny Cuidado), and they were quickly dispatched. Luci Adieux crushed Kalimama's throat with her boot to prove she was serious business.

Then Frost “The Cold Warrior” went up against Calcutta. Cal’s player did a spit-take when he found out he was battling Frost, which I think might have counted as a one-liner. The Frost / Calcutta battle was brutal and brief. Cal used his Smartass to taunt Frost into doing something stupid, but then botched his follow-up stunt. Liberal use of the “Not Tommy! NO!” script move was made here, earning both players some XP. Frost did a wrestling-style drop onto Cal, who took five harm and chose to "accidentally" die. Calcutta, shattered by the blow, expired in the arena, opening up the Vengeance move for Frost. Cal’s player became Fight Choreographer.

Meanwhile, Brandy Daniels stealthily made her way backstage to get dirt on Razorfist. She used her Thespian Soliloquy move to determine that Tokunaga was running a huge, fraudulent electronic gambling operation, and that he stood to rake in huge profits from Razorfist’s public debut. She succeeded at a cost, so her character was once again captured. I felt a little bad about that, since that’s what happened in “Satans’ Game” too, but it was the only move that made sense.

Then came the next battle in the bracket, Arnaud vs. Luci Adieux. This was probably the most challenging battle, mechanically speaking. I gave people the option to pick a new Pugilist playbook before we started, but no one did. A Pugilist fighting a Smooth Operator in a PvP battle was a bit of a mess. The Pugilist rarely mounted anything less than an 11 on his die rolls, meaning he dealt enormous harm with every move he made, but the Smooth Operator could use her move to just soak it for huge counteracting bonuses.

At first, it looked like this was just going to create table tension instead of an exciting fight. Then the players decided that Arnaud would take the fall in the match, and then they would team up to take down Crusher, kill Tokunaga, and destroy Razorfist. Okay then!

Act Three

The third act promptly descended into awesome mayhem. I thought we were going to go all the way with PCs fighting each other and the Lead fighting Crusher. That just goes to show, never assume anything where player characters are concerned. Brandy Daniels pulled off a one-time stunt to push Crusher Liu out the window of the VIP box onto the arena floor, and Ken Wu (the Gunslinger) got out his pistols and just shot him down. So much for a tense match with the Razorfist champion!

"Very good, but brick not hit back--" [hail of gunfire]

But things were grim -- Wu succeeded at a cost and was already suffering major harm from his battles in the arena, so he chose to die, gunned down by Tokunaga’s bodyguards. Adios, Ken Wu. His player became Pyrotechnics Expert. (Minutes later, all of downtown Detroit was on fire for no reason because of rioting.) Arnaud and Luci Adieux engaged in a massive brawl with the bodyguards while Tokunaga dragged Brandy up to the roof toward his waiting helicopter. There were a lot of success-at-cost rolls being made, so I was triggering the Villain moves of getting help from bodyguards, whipping out military hardware, etc. 

Frost’s player pulled off a Stunt and asked if he could break into a display case that contained a glove studded with razors -- aka the actual Razorfist -- and use it in battle. I said hell yes. Frost and Tokunaga confronted each other on the roof (villain move: villain reveals his secret fighting skills) while Brandy tried to commandeer the helicopter.

Long story short, Frost pulled off his Vengeance move, impaled Tokunaga on the Razorfist glove and threw him off the roof. Then the helicopter dropped onto him and exploded. “So there’s not gonna be a sequel,” said the Smartass. We ended on a freeze-frame of Frost throwing up his hands and yelling “YEAH!” and I cued up “Love is the Way” from Kickboxer. End credits!

Mechanical Notes

The AMW rulebook says “this is the sort of movie in which The Pugilist can really shine,” and that’s no joke. I’d say the Pugilist ends up eclipsing any other playbook type. When we tallied up Star Power at the end of the game, most players had two to four Star Power. The Lead had five. The Pugilist player had eleven. Between the Hands of Stone bonus, his existing moves, and the Training Montage, he missed one roll the entire game, only because he rolled snake eyes. I think if I were ever to use this Playbook again, I’d make “all Pugilists” a requirement. I knew things would shake out this way going in and was fine with it, so I don't consider it a flaw in the design.

Having players fight each other is fun, but something I’ll probably want to do in moderation in the future -- and again, the playbooks involved makes a huge difference. The Pugilist fighting the Smooth Operator in this game was like the irresistible force meeting the immovable object. This could be awesome or meh, depending on the context.

One thing I may house rule, or at least clarify, is the “you inflict harm, but are driven back” result from the Violence move. I’ve noticed it tends to get used (even by me, during the first session we played) as a cost that isn’t really a cost. “Driven back” is an abstract term that doesn’t necessarily create much in the way of a disadvantage unless it’s enforced. In the future, I think I’ll mandate that “driven back” means either being separated from the group in some way, or some other tangible drawback.

The Fighting Tournament script is also damned hard on Camaraderie. It kept resetting to zero when characters died. Our group doesn’t like to draw on Camaraderie; they prefer to hoard it to get that extra XP at the end of the game. So it would reset and suddenly people are scrambling to lay down zingers so they can get it back up to 3. That became a tough road once the Smartass died in the middle act.

Setting this game in the Dark Future was probably gilding the lily, but I don’t care. We already came up with a great name for the sequel starring Gipper Frost. RAZORFIST 2: COLD DAY IN HELL.