Redshirt: Dressed to Kill

Petty Officer 2nd Class Owlicious

This week's Stars Without Number adventure took the scouts their old stomping grounds, the 1950s planet of Tunguska.  They were just on a refueling mission, but they happened to notice a very high tech ship on the surface, and went off to investigate.

Crazy-Ass Tim and Adelaide's record of the adventure is at From the Ashes.  I recommend reading it, since it's good, and I won't be going over the particulars here.  Go ahead, I'll wait.

While I'm waiting, I'll point out the picture to the left.  The party was invited to a fancy dinner during the adventure.  Adelaide found a dress she wanted her character to wear online, so had the ship's clothes printer spit it out.  The original dress is over on Crazy-Ass Tim's page, so go over there if you haven't done so.  This is just my attempt at drawing a truly stunning dress.

Actually, all of the players went found clothes on their phones or laptops.  No, I don't have one of those phones.  I am happy with my decision to NOT have one of those phones.  But you know, it certainly adds an amazing dynamic to a tabletop game.

During the game, Adelaide even went and dug up pictures of what she thought the high tech spaceship looked like.  Heck.  They were perfect.  And while taking a gander, I saw a name on the web page that was sooo much better than the name I had created for the main NPC, that I changed it then and there.

Now, we've used people's phones to pull up a name we couldn't remember, or a picture of something I'm describing that someone just can't quite get.  but it does seem to be growing into a bigger part of our lives, even around my table, a place which normally has had, at it's height, a mechanical pencil for its technological apex.

The use of gaming technology on Wednesday culminated in a completely spontaneous full length  Bollywood dance routine by Crazy-Ass Tim's character Dr. Ramapudi and a blonde administrative assistant named Yvonne that he had become smitten with - including a dance track on the laptop and holographic backup dancers in the star ship.

It reminded my a heck of a lot of the Bollywood movie Marigold.  Yes, you probably don't have enough Bollywood in your life.  Marigold is a fine entry point for the uninitiated to start.

I'm still reeling from the fact that in my gritty, character chewing  horror show of a sci-fi game that a romantic music and dance production spring up out of thin air.  But really, I guess I shouldn't expect anything less. :)

I don't have to do anything to keep them amused at all.  In fact, they amuse me far more.

- Ark