Monster of the Week - Session report

Last night I played the "Monster of the Week" RPG via Google Hangout and it was a great experience. It never ceases to amaze me how wonderful the internet and instant communication around the world is. Of course you youngsters won't appreciate that as you've grown up with it. Yet, when I was a kid we were limited to maybe sending a letter and waiting weeks for a reply! Last night I played with a group that was spread across Europe... England, Norway and Finland. Wow.

Anyway the game was really fun and exciting. In short the five players were playing monster-fighting heroes working for a secret government organisation and in the business of destroying any monstrous or super natural threats to humanity.

We were led to a remote village in Norway by an ancient prophesy. We were short on detail but it was summed up as "Ooh spooky end of the world thingy. Stop it." Not a lot to go on, as you'll appreciate.

From there we trooped into town, booked a room in the local pub, visited the local church where our suspicions were raised. Never the less the party bedded down for the night in the pub, planning to rise in the early hours and mount an investigative raid on the church.

Alas for the bad guys they beat us to the punch and raided our room! Let's just say there was screaming, clashing steel, puncture wounds, blood and ended with two dead cultists wearing robes. We nicked their outfits and knives, then discovered that there were more bad guys in the street waiting for us. We tried to sneak out the back, but sadly had to behead another cultist we found on the stairs.

Eventually breaking out the back door, we did a runner through the moonlit nights and over a few garden walls, generally making our towards the church. When we got to the church, it was in time to see a parade of villagers leading their willing victims off into the woods. We took the opportunity to scout around the church, find their secret lair, and torch the place. "Q" the flaming church of doom.

One of our number donned some cultist robes and slipped in with the bad guys, and the rest of us slipped through the woods. We were somewhat daunted to discover we were outnumbered by about 10 to 1. As you can imagine, things promptly got interesting. My character led about 10 of them off on a chase through the woods while the rest of the party set to with the bad guys. The chief bad guy with a scarey mask was chanting for all he was worth trying to raise the big bad to doom the world.

My compatriots handled it pretty well. One zapped the masked priest so he couldn't complete the incantation, our disguised party member leapt at him with naked steel and the rest took that for a good idea. Hack, slash, poke, choppy chop and it was all over, the world was saved and the cultists woke from the magic spell that was over them.

The black helicopters turned up and the good guys went home to nurse their wounds.

Playing this game was a fantastic fun experience. The rules worked really well, and suited a pretty narrative style that I enjoyed immensely.

The Hangout experience on Google+ was awesome. It's not just a video chat, but it's also built-in die roller, chat, and document sharing. I'll be looking to play more games this way.