Since
the previous session, KBEX-TV had started a new run of classic horror
movies, and Gene had started to watch them with the idea of getting
inspiration for new plots. He'd honestly thought that he might have
accidentally self-destructed the 'Star Trek' campaign, and was
slightly surprised when it turned out that actually, no-one really
remembered the last session too much. This gave an odd twist to the
next batch of episodes, and he had to do some hasty conversion –
his plans for a horror campaign would have to be rapidly switched
around. Rushing to find inspiration, he was fortunate enough to get a
phone call from Bill. Apparently he was doing a term paper on 'Dr.
Jekyll and Mr. Hyde', and he wanted to really get 'into' the
character by playing it in the campaign.
Bingo.
What's more, the Spencer Tracy version of the book was playing the
night before. As it turned out, his pre-session preparation for what
would be called 'The Enemy Within' pretty much consisted
of...watching that movie. Not to worry, he threw in some stuff about
a wield alien civilisation with the power to divide men's souls,
principally to give George something to do – he figured that the
guy deserved to have a good story this session. Of course, that went
wrong after George announced half an hour in that he had to go
home...leaving that whole arc in the dust. Aside from George, Grace,
Bill, Len and De all managed to make it to the session; the latter
three had tremendous fun – though Gene wasn't particularly happy
when during the 'role-playing', Bill and Grace began to make out.
Once again, his plan to get laid through role-playing was working
well for someone else.
The
next session, 'Mudd's Women', Gene realised – diplomatically –
that he couldn't make. Fortunately, an old friend of his called Roger
volunteered to sit in as GM for a session; though his attendance was
slightly less popular with the group. His session ended up being
dominated by his GMPC, who spent his time cavorting with a trio of
chemically-enhanced beauties...and the worst part of the session
turned out to be when one of those 'beauties' attempted to romance
Bill's character, not a performance that was particularly appealing.
There was a group consensus that they would rather not have any guest
GM for the moment – better the devil they knew!
Then
came 'What Are Little Girls Made Of', written as a 'Majel' episode.
Gene had attempted to schedule the games to coincide with her amateur
dramatics group, but they didn't meet every week, and she was eager
to get back into a game. In an effort to distance her from Len this
time, he decided to beam her down to the planet, where he got to play
her 'lost love'. His hope and expectation was that she would end up
staying on the planet with him...in order to distract Bill, he
invited him to bring his current girlfriend of the hour, Sherry, who
actually dressed in character to the amazement of the rest of the
group. (De was later rather annoyed that he'd missed that session.)
Len got stuck on the ship with rather little to do except
gawp...though the opportunities for that were quite extensive. When
the session ended with Majel staying on the Enterprise, her lost love
shot by Sherry...he realised that he was probably stuck with her in
the group for a while.
The
next one was just a horror plot, loosely based on 'Lord of the Flies'
– what if all the adults were killed and the children went feral.
Looking back, this would be remembered as a pretty good episode;
Bill, Len, De and Grace got to mess around with some murderous
teenagers, and once they got the idea that they couldn't simply
phaser everything that moved, the session went pretty well. For once
they managed to light on the critical cue, a 'life prolongation'
disease that got out of hand. Much fun had by all.
And
then it turned out that Bill was the only one who could make the next
session. Which he announced by showing up when Gene had managed to
convince one of his girlfriends to come over, Majel believing that he
was 'gaming that night'. Annoyingly, Marianna leapt right into it,
throwing herself into the part Gene improvised for her as a
psychiatrist. (At the time, that was her major; she was able to throw
in some pretty convincing psychobabble.) She really got into her
scenes with Bill... to the point that when he went home, so did he.
For
the next session, Gene decided he was going to bring in a big
recurring enemy, and the whole gang showed up for 'The Corbomite
Manoeuvre'. By this point, he'd drawn up some proper floorplans for
the bridge, and even picked up a few 28mm figures to represent the
PCs, so to make use of them he decided to set almost the whole
episode on the bridge. The enemy was the 'First Federation', a race
of midgets with highly advanced technology, such that they could only
be defeated by great improvisation. The problem was that Gene had
been a bit vague on what organisation the PCs belonged to...and
somehow, they got the idea that they were working for the
'Federation'. The midgets did not go down well, generating rather too
much humour – by the end of it, he'd decided that he would go with
the flow, and that he needed to re-think his bad guys.
To
be continued...
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