David is a fucking pro, and he whipped me, my three friends, and a father and his two teenaged sons through chargen lickety split, having us all roll not only for our death match vehicles (oh, did I mention this was a game of wanton vehicular slaughter?!), but also for the unique traits and backgrounds of our death pilots. When one of the kids rolled that his heavy mecha pilot (who inexplicably had guns for arms and then, with another random roll, ALSO legs) was a marketing rep for a large gun company, everyone at the table made extra rolls for new weapons.
https://imgur.com/f8ywpu5
My buddy James took on the role of a cult of ascended born killer-monks–sort of like murderous Mormons, he saw it–piloting a dune buggy. Cord controlled a set of cyborgs in another buggy who believed they were in a VR sim. Eric’s crew was made up of desperate priests who’d lashed a horrific demon into the engine compartment of his caddy dragster to contain it (and it would free itself if his vehicle was destroyed). The dad got another mecha pilot who also believed he was in a VR sim, while the younger son played a team of gun-addicted madmen riding in a kitted out ice cream truck of death.
When I rolled my random background for the four pilots of my heavily armored pickup truck, David’s face lit up. “This one is really dark,” he warned. Apparently I would be running a family of four who’d been horrifically mangled in an airplane crash, been rebuilt as cyborgs, and forced to compete in these deathmatches as an unending hell of bloodsport torment. Jeeeeesus.
So, of course, Ted and Marie, plus Teddy Jr. and Little Sally strapped on their SMGs, boarded the pickup, and rolled into the arena. Where they were promptly burnt to crispy ashes by Cord’s flamethrower-toting cyborgs. They respawned at the edge of the arena, made their way cautiously back to the idling pickup, and reboarded, with Ted Sr. declaring that this family vacation had become a family BBQ as they strapped themselves in atop the burnt out remnants of their former selves and dove back into the fray.
What followed was three hours of over-the-top gratuitious hyperviolence, horrible gun puns, and surprising last minute alliances and betrayals (after Ted Sr. got sniped by the driver of the ice cream truck, a resurrected mecha pilot was welcomed by the family as their new father figure who piloted them toward 3rd place). James quickly cottoned onto the fact that unseating drivers and stealing their rides earned as many points as killing drivers or destroying vehicles, so he swooped all around the arena, having his characters leap from whatever flaming pile of wreckage they’d last stolen to grab another. At one point, Eric’s driver-priests lost control of the demon in their dragster, and it raised itself into reality fully, sucking them into its grotesque biotech body, before it was plowed into by no fewer than two cars and re-banished.
In the end, James emerged victorious, doubling second-place Cord’s point total, and everyone agreed that David Coppoletti was a glorious madman whose games they would always play in forevermore.
