Violent City - Session 3
I missed session 2 but Nathan summarised it here.
Essentially the gang went south, killed a harpy in control of these derelict buildings called Harpy Towers, and took over, renaming it Delicious Towers (after Madonna Delicious, who did the deed).
This session was mostly us separating and going after the needfuls of a party - drugs, drinks, delicious digestible delights, and delectable damsels - and it was sick as hell. Molars met his teacher who loved circular arguments, Leaper (me) met her old class and emergent crushes as well as the brother of the guy we killed, Zero and Madonna went south and met Mad Gears and underwater welders on land and construction workers with white dreads, it was a hoot and a half.
This session was very interesting. We basically split in 3 (Zero and Madonna went one way, me and Molars went the other but then we split too) and Nathan very deftly jumped from one to the other in a way that left no one wanting, which was cool to see.
Last time I brought up how the tone was hard for me to grasp but this time around I didn't, so I think the issue with that session was mostly me not quite knowing how to portray my character and also still getting a feel for how the other characters interacted. Still, I think there is some difference to how I play, enough that Nobody mentioned as a joke:
every Leaper section is in a different animation style from the rest of the game
But I don't think that's a bad thing, it hasn't become a problem, I just decided to stick to the tone I want the game to have and go with it.
Something which I didn't mention either in my previous report or the Devil World Heroes retrospective is that you can actually take absurd shit seriously. This might seem like it goes a bit against what I said before (it doesn't, because I was referring to the entire group), but I think something people have trouble with Nathan's games (and others too) is that he often puts absurd things which are meant to be funny, and people assume that they're not meant to be taken seriously. This is not the case. Something can be both funny and absurd and emotional and heartfelt, these things aren't opposed.
Sometimes people talk about arcade games to mean his and Mr. Mann's games, usually having not played in them or having played but not quite groked this, and they make it sound like Nathan doesn't have tenderness in his games or it's all a big joke. If that were the case, I wouldn't want to play with him! I think it's a misinterpretation of seeing something that you wouldn't normally treat seriously and assuming it's not meant to be taken that way. I think it's perfectly possible to laugh when something happens without laughing at it.
Anyway, Leaper now has been established as having a toxic relationship in the past, not taking her girlfriend with her when she left the safety of Bunker-88, and as someone very reluctant (though not opposed) to using threats to get her way. The party will likely be a complete shitshow because we have silly plans, I intend to take better notes in the future like I did for Gold Horizon so we might have more accurate info on Violent City.