Dave Chalker is running the second playtest of his 4e hack for Marvel Heroic Roleplaying (it’s delicious!) late Saturday night at PAX East 2012. Everything is off-the-cuff, tongue-in-cheek, but still mostly sincere fantasy adventure. Dave runs a tight improv ship, despite his protestations countering it.
Our party is in the heart of the dungeon. A beholder emerges. He’s going to enslave us all and make us work for the BBEG. Because cowards live longer, I guess, my halfling cleric pipes up:
“You know, we could just work for you. But we are going to need proper healthcare benefits first!”
So, there are a couple of ways to deal with this. We can get our chuckles on and then fight or we could fight over enslavement vs employment.
Or, we could turn the conflict into a parallel fight/healthcare battle. Eyebeam intimidation and laissez faire politics opposing a divine power and a desire for positive social change.
The dice were not on my side. Not only did we not get healthcare benefits, the beholder took the notion of work-for-hire completely off the table and went with the enslavement plan altogether.
But I appreciate that Dave not only let my silliness take form, he engaged it and made the scene even funnier.
Hell yeah.
