GenCon 1997

Saturday, Part Two

“Thundarr Rides Again!”

The second scenario that night was “Thundarr Rides Again!” Now the Thundarr cartoon was one of my favorites (Princess Ariel especially) and I was glad to be in an event featuring it. However, out of the three events that I did like participating in, this was the one I was the least impressed with.

I did get to play Thundarr, after Ariel and Ookla were already taken. The other characters were mutants. The game system was based on Metamorphosis Alpha, which was an early TSR game set on a multi-generational colony starship that had suffered an accident. The mixture of savagery, superscience, and sorcery fit in well with the game system in the beginning.

However, when we got into playing, I found the game system to be woefully inadequate to represent the cinematic flavor of the animated series. For example, when I tried to attack a robot who was kidnapping some children, I was captured but was able to cut my free with the Sunsword. Unfortunately I was twenty feet in the air and climbing. In the series, Thundarr would have grabbed onto something and swung to safety, or bounced off a hut roof or something and landed on his feet. Here, all that happened was that I fell to the ground without even being allowed to do anything else after getting
free, and getting knocked out by the fall to boot.

That said, it was an interesting scenario. The villain was a cyborg who thought that he was Macbeth. As I was fighting him, he said “You are a man born of woman, are you not?” which went right over Thundarr’s head and mine, until someone explained that the prediction was that Macbeth would die of a man “not born of woman” or by Caeserian section (Duncan.) We also used tree branches to sneak into his hideout, as his sensors identified everyone carrying the branches as trees and didn’t attack (the Dunsinore woods).

Once inside his stronghold, we discovered that we were on the Alpha, and not on the future Earth of the animated series. That was a little bit of a surprise, and I’m still debating with myself whether it was a good idea, as the GM could have used Gamma World (post nuclear holocaust) for the same effect. ‘Macbeth’ was cast into space when the viewport was shattered behind him, and that’s where the scenario ended. I suspect there may be a sequel next year, but I doubt I’ll play in it.

Share
The short URL of the present article is: http://www.terryobrien.me/Vlx2Y

Page 7 of 9
First | Prev | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | Next | Last
View All