The Christmas Game 2015: Memoirs of a Companion

Tuesday saw me running my final game for the year, the sixth annual "Christmas Game". It has become quite the tradition! And, as is also somewhat traditional, we once again played a "Firefly" one-shot. This time, the crew were that of Serenity, but updated for a decade of life after the events of the film of the same name. So, Mal was still recovering from his long incarceration on Perdition, Zoe had spent the decade raising her daughter Emma on Tombstone, and Jayne had become quite the big man - captain of his own vessel.

Unfortunately, as also seems to now be something of a tradition, we once again had a no-show for the event. I haven't had a chance to speak to the player involved, so it's entirely possible that there was a good reason for this absence; I simply don't know. This meant that we had four players instead of the hoped-for five, but that wasn't the worst thing in the world. The chosen characters were Mal, Simon, Jayne, and Kaylee.

The plot of the episode was fairly straightforward: Inara was dying, and the only sure place to get the medicines that she needed was from the Companion Guildhouse on Sihnon. And so the Crew had to plan and execute a heist. In doing so, they learned some more about the backstory of Inara, and some of the secrets of the Guild - some of them less than appealing.

The story was structured, as usual, with four distinct acts. The first act opened in Serenity's med-bay with Inara's collapse. It then proceeded with the journey to Sihnon, and the gathering of the Crew once more, as Serenity was joined by Jayne's Violet and Zoe's Mutt to form a little armada. The Crew then worked out the first details for their plan to break in.

The second act took in the peaceful facade of the Guildhouse exterior - the perfectly manicured gardens, the lovely pagodas where Companions are trained and where they meet their guests. The Crew chose a two-pronged approach: they sent Emma in to the Guild as a would-be Companion in training (much against Zoe's better judgement!), and they sent Jayne in to bid as a prospective Danna for a newly-minted Companion. Jayne was outbid by one of the villains of the piece.

The third act then saw the Crew sneak past the facade of the Guildhouse and into the underground facility where they keep their administration and catering facilities, their medical facility, and their blackmail material. Once there, they found the drugs they needed... but alas they had caused enough chaos that they were apprehended by security and the head of the House.

And so the fourth act saw the Crew improvising - they took the Guildmistress hostage for a moment, they turned the head of security, they ran off in several different directions (most of them wrong), and they even found time to deal with a sudden but inevitable betrayal by one of their own. In the end, they survived and even secured what they needed, but at a terrible cost: Jayne had to sacrifice his Violet to the Alliance. He even had to make a terrible choice: he could rescue his collection of guns or the money he had made in the last decade, but not both. In the end, he chose sentiment.

But the other thing I built into the session was five "interludes" - scenes taken from Inara's backstory that made up the Memoirs of the episode title. For each of these, except for the first, I passed Inara off to one of the players to have that player fill in on the young Inara's thoughts or choices. So we saw the young Inara joining the Guild for the first time and leaving behind her mother. Then we saw the aftermath of her completing her training and her first Danna (that same villain of the piece mentioned above). Then her meeting with a Guild doctor on Ariel while the rest of the Crew was busy infiltrating a hospital. And then her decision to finally break with the Guild, because Mal was imprisoned and she was needed to help free him.

The final scene of the game was the fifth and final interlude, which actually stepped back before the third. This was Inara's departure from the Guildhouse in order to travel the 'Verse for a while, by which point it was actually quite clear just why she needed to make that choice and just what she left behind her - and that despite it never quite being said.

I was extremely pleased with the way this episode all played out. Once again, we had a very strong group of players together, and they grabbed hold of their characters extremely quickly. It was a lot of fun, and it felt like something that might well appear on the show.

(I was also pleased with the "paths not taken" - I didn't know exactly what the Crew would do, but I'd prepared plenty of options. And so when they were discussing their plans, there wasn't any point at which I was completely off-book. Which is good. Basically, I managed to hit pretty much exactly the right amount of preparation. Though I do now have one or two ideas how to streamline things even more...)

And that was that - a very successful game to come to the end of the year. Hurrah!

Reminder to Self: Sometimes, You've Just Got to Go For It

I've been having a spot of existential doubt: in the last few months there have been a few game sessions that I've not really been happy with, to the extent that one session got postponed because I just didn't have the time to prepare well enough to be sure of doing a good job. And I've been having some difficulties getting the Christmas Game into any sort of a shape that I'm happy with.

But the first and most important prerequisite for running a good game is this: you first have to run a game.

That's really the core issue - if you don't run the game at all, it can't be a good game. But, sometimes, regardless of the initial signs, the magic can happen such that what might have been an uninspired session turns into a great story that is fondly remembered for years to come.

And so the crucial next step with the Christmas Game is not to write the perfect adventure, or the perfect set of characters to go with it... initially, it is just to write any version of the adventure. It can then be fixed in the edit.

Practically a New Person

This year's Christmas Game is another Firefly one-shot. It takes place thirteen years after the events of the movie "Serenity", and features the crew of that ship engaged in their usual mix of hijinks and desperate improvisation.

As a consequence of some time having passed in the setting, and also due to some of the revised roles taken on by the characters, it had been my intention to modify the various characters slightly for use in the one-shot. Thus they would remain largely recognisable, but there would also be a clear sense of growth.

However, as I proceeded to make the relevant changes, I quickly found that this was a less-than-ideal approach. Some of the new Distinctions just don't align at all well with the character's skills, and in some cases (notably River), the skills assigned by default don't match her new role at all.

As a consequence, I'm now planning a more or less complete rebuild of the characters for this one-shot, effectively recreating them as a new person for this session.

Mal: The captain of Serenity has spent the better part of the last thirteen years in solitary confinement on Perdition. For most of that time, the one thing that kept him going was the knowledge that Zoe simply would not abandon him to his fate and that therefore he just had to wait for a rescue. In the end, he was rescued two years ago by a crew of mercenaries hired by Inara and Simon. Reunited with his crew, he has found that Zoe did indeed leave him to his fate, a matter that sticks in his craw rather.

Mal's revised Distinctions will be Ship's Captain (because he is), Unresolved Issues (or similar) to reflect his being left behind, and Lost a Step (or similar) to reflect his ordeal on Perdition.

Zoe: There was only one thing that could take Zoe from Mal's side, and that was the birth of her daughter Emma Washburne. Zoe has thus spent the last decade or so serving as the sheriff on the moon Tombstone, and for most of that time believed that Mal was dead. When news reached her that her captain had been freed, she immediately disentangled herself from her new life, and she and Emma headed back to the Black.

Zoe's revised Distinctions are Backwater Sheriff, Mama Bear, and Steady.

Jayne: When Serenity was identified as the most wanted boat in the 'Verse, and when the jobs dried up, Jayne decided the time had come for him to leave. He has spent the last decade bouncing around from job to job without any great direction. He's now captain of his own ship, with a hotshot mechanic, and a rotating crew of ne'er-do-wells. But word has reached him that an old friend is dying, and his conscience (Kaylee) has been nagging him, and so he's heading back for one last job.

Jayne is probably the least changed of the characters: his Distinctions of Crude, Mercenary, and Family Ties can all still apply.

Simon: No longer on the run, Simon spent some time considering whether simply to return home with River. But when Mal was captured, he found a new purpose: to become the saviour of the man who once saved him. He has spent a decade working closely with Inara, building up a network of contacts and becoming a veritable mastermind, all with the aim of bringing the captain home. Alas, this all came with a cost - Simon's relationship with Kaylee broke down very early on, driving the mechanic from the ship. Simon is therefore wracked with both guilt and loss as a result of this mistake.

Simon's new Distinctions are Ship's Doctor, Mastermind, and Family Ties.

River: Unlike Simon, River never had any intention of going home. Instead, she has found a new family on Serenity, and a new place behind the controls. She's been the pilot of that boat for some years now, and has developed quite a connection to the old girl.

River is probably the most changed of the characters, because as written she completely lacks any skills in Fight, Pilot, or Operate. These will need changed, and she should also have Serenity added as a Signature Asset. Her revised Distinctions will be Government Experiment, Ship's Pilot, and Reader.

Kaylee: Once upon a time, it seemed that no power in the 'Verse could stop Kaylee being cheerful, and certainly nothing could take her away from Serenity. But these were both proven wrong when Simon became obsessed with rescuing Mal Raynolds. He managed to deeply offend Kaylee and in fact drove her away from her home. Heartbroken, Kaylee went to work with Jayne, and has been serving as his conscience as well as his mechanic.

Like Jayne, Kaylee is largely unchanged: her Distinctions remain Ship's Mechanics, Sweet & Cheerful, and Everything's Shiny. Even her abiding love for Serenity, reflected in her Signature Asset, remains unchanged - while she cares for Jayne's ship, you never forget your first love.

Inara: The former Companion is dying, and serves an expository role in this game. As such, she won't be available as a PC.

Emma Washburne: The daughter of Wash and Zoe, Emma is being dragged across the 'Verse by her mother. She doesn't know it, but she was actually delivered by Simon and cared for by the crew of Serenity in her earliest days. But for the past years she has lived on Tombstone, and is less than pleased at being taken from the only home she remembers. Plus, her mother is way over-protective.

Emma has inherited more from her father than she knows: her Distinctions are Ship's Pilot, A Little Nervous, and Wet Behind the Ears.

Aki Ross: When Kaylee left, Serenity foud herself in need of a new mechanic. Inara therefore contracted Aki Ross, a no-nonsense gal with a list of recommendations longer than your arm. Aki barely talks, and never about her past, but she's a calming influence on the ship with much the same demeanour as the late Shepherd Book.

Aki's Distinctions are Ship's Mechanic, Mysterious Past, and Steady.

(With five players and nine members of the Crew - eight possible PCs - I don't know quite which set of PCs I'll end up with. I think my "ideal cast" would be Mal, Zoe, Emma, Simon, and Kaylee since that probably gives the maximum scope for intra-party strife. But it should work okay with most combinations - maybe not Jayne, Kaylee, River, Aki, and Emma, but I think that's unlikely.)