Chapter 14

The next morning after we got up and took showers, we went back to the other room where Pete and Keith had coffee made, and a box of doughnuts on the table. I poured us each a cup of coffee and we each grabbed one as we started talking about the day.

“Well, feel free to roam the convention until around 12:30. The presentation is a half hour after that, and I need to let them know if you want to take part.” Shawna was thrilled that she was being given a chance to do a public game with my brother, and said of course she would. And the way she looked at me, I looked into her eyes and gave a nod.

And I had to admit, the setting sounded fascinating. I had of course played Fallout and Fallout 2, and asked him if it was going to have the same humor. But Pete shook his head. “Oh, there may be some. You know me, but nothing like that. No Enterprise shuttlecraft, no real pop culture references other than those subtle ones I sometimes do. I forgot to ask, do you know GURPS, Shawna?”

She admitted she was familiar with it, and I said I would help her out if need be. Pete then opened his briefcase and pulled out a folder. And after looking through it, he handed us each a sheet of paper.

OK, he knew me well enough that I got the meat tank. High strength and constitution, who fought with a spiked baseball bat and a shotgun. She was handed a thinker, with high intelligence. And a high charisma, which had her grin at him.

“OK, so you want us to play these two?”

“Only if you want to. I want to make sure you get characters that are in your style of play. In fact, when I hand these two out, I will give each of you the other sheet. When I do that as the party decides who the leader is you can change sheets or positions. Go ahead and use that time to swap, and move closer or farther away as you wish.”

“Should we admit we know each other?”

“Well, that is up to you and George. But do not be afraid if you want to act as you do, you should know if you go to enough of these you will meet others you know. Either from game stores, or other conventions.”

We had another doughnut each, then headed on out to the floor. We talked as we walked around, and Shawna decided that we should not hide we knew each other but not give away our relationship. I told her that was fine, and a bit later we saw a game of GURPS starting up. She looked at me and I shook my head, saying others might remember if I played a game with her before the test. “But go ahead, I will just wander the floor a bit.” She kissed my cheek and moved to the table, which was doing a Wild West themed game.

I went to the sales floor and saw Becky, so joined her and we started talking. She admitted she was a bit surprised to see I had a girlfriend already, but said she was also not surprised. “And I take it she is your age, George?”

I chuckled and nodded, saying she was also 18, and a Freshman at CSUN also. “Computer Science major, she is actually the one that got me to start playing again.”

“Well, trust me when I say that Pete loves that you are here. He told me that when he called you he only expected to see you one or two days during this trip. Your being here is special for him. So, are you two an actual item?”

“Hmm, maybe? It looks to be going that way, we will see. But we both like each other a lot, and enjoy spending time together.” We talked a bit more, and just before lunch Shawna joined us.

“I’ve been looking everywhere, I should have known I should have come here first.” I asked her how the game was, and she said it was alright. “The guy was a bit of a dick, and made the play a bit racist as he kept insisting my bar girl role was really prostitution. And did not like that I insisted I wore only an ankle length dress that showed no cleavage.”

Becky clucked her tongue, and said that was a shame. “Well, it was the 1870s, and he tried to say when I took the character I had to have been a former slave so I should be used to that. I think I surprised him when I said I was from Michigan. Attended Hillsdale College, in Michigan and was a teacher. And was only working in a bar as I could not find a teaching job.”

Becky actually hugged her as she laughed, and said that was the way to do it. Shawna asked her if she ever had those problems, and she shook her head. “No, because almost any time I ever played, it was Pete running the game or one of our friends like Mike. And they would never do shit like that. Tell me, have you ever seen the ‘Out of the Darkness’ tape?”

“Oh yes! At one of my first conventions they were playing it, I came in about half way through in the media room. I could not stop watching it, it was amazing!” Becky agreed, and said she had been playing in the band during that performance. “Jacki was a former lover of Pete’s, and he actually made that for her. She loved playing Elves, and hated they were all white. So he made that to show she was wrong, as was anybody else that thought like that. I talked to her a lot that week, she is an amazing lady. My characters were often me, just changed and he never had a problem with that. Hell, once I actually made a ‘Mexican Gnome Illusionist’, she was a riot! I used a thick stereotype accent and everything.”

Shawna laughed at that, and said she could see that. “So you play your character however you want. Unless it is one like Kaos and premade with specific behaviors, nobody has a right to tell you how to play your character.”

We went ahead and grabbed an early lunch, and met Pete in the waiting room next to the stage at 12:30. He was on the phone with Mandy, and waved to us as we talked to Keith. I asked him if he was going to play, but he just shook his head. “I never could get into GURPS, but it is almost like old times just being at one of these and not being in the band.”

A few minutes before they were to open the doors Shawna and I kissed softly, then separated and made our way out to the crowd in front. And at the right time they opened the doors and I headed in. And the start was as I expected. I filled out a card and put it in the drum, then took a seat near the back. Shawna’s name was the second one called, and she did seem excited when she went to the stage and signed the release form. I looked around and did not see Gloria, but there were three guys with cameras filming it all.

I was the last name called, so I went up and took the seat at the end of the table. And after giving the briefing on the game background that was not much different than he had told us before we were handed our sheets and told we could change characters or move if we wanted.

I moved to a few players who did not want to change, then to Shawna. She smiled at me and nodded, and by that time somebody else had taken my seat so I found myself sitting next to her. And I have to admit, I was surprised. The game started with us as a group that had been sent out from a future town called “Stockyard”, that I think was supposed to have been Stockton. It was a farming and cattle community, and we had been getting raided from the mountains to the east.

We had to avoid several radiation areas, and fight some robots that were part of an old military complex before the meteor swarm impacted. And while I was a bit surprised that Shawna was flirting with me in character, I flirted right back. Then when we got to the raider outpost, they were mutants. We tried to sneak in, but got caught and a fight broke out.

And as typical, when we killed most of the raiders we discovered the last had withdrawn to a cave. And when we approached, we could hear crying inside. There were over twenty women and children inside, hiding from us. And the remaining men had taken up defensive positions in front of them.

Thankfully Shawna stepped up then, and talked down our leader who wanted to keep killing. And we arranged a truce as she went into the cave alone. But I also said I would sit just inside the entrance with my bat at my feet. And that if anybody harmed Shawna I would come in swinging. And once in there she managed to make an agreement with them. They were not really raiders, but their crops had failed two years in a row and the animals were dying off so they were starving.

So with some trepidation we set off to home together. And even fought alongside each other when more robots came. And shortly before we got home they found an area in an abandoned farming community that they asked if they could settle there.

And with a promise to send them some food and supplies for the first two years we parted on good terms and headed home. And there was a lot of applause when Pete turned down the screen, the sign that the adventure was over.

He then pulled out a sheet and read it, saying that it took time and there were still some hard feelings between us and our new neighbors. And while never fully part of each other’s community, we had trade and would help each other if threatened in future decades.

He then thanked each of us for playing, and it seems like he had another hit. We moved off of the stage where Shawna gave me a big hug, and he then spent some time answering questions from the audience.

And I was not surprised when he was asked, and he admitted we got one of the better endings, but not the best. “Anybody that plays one of my games by now should know there is no one way to finish. They could have wiped them out and gotten a good ending. Well, good for them at least. They also could have just left once they destroyed most of the fighters, and that would have been good for them also. Remember, they were fighting to save their village, as were the ones in the mountain. Each was just doing what they thought they needed to do to survive.”

When they put the game on sale Shawna and I along with the rest of the players were at the front of the line. Pete thanked each of us and said something about how well we played our character as he signed a copy and handed it to us. And I have to admit, this being the first time I had experienced such a presentation as a player and not a spectator I could see why they loved him.

I was heading to the door with Shawna when I saw Keith nodding upstairs, so I waved. I told Shawna we should head up to the room and she agreed. When we got there Shawna excused herself to use the bathroom as Keith told me to take a seat. And I was not surprised when she came back in Shawna sat in my lap.

And she was so excited! “I can’t believe I took part in a Pete Culver game! That was like a dream of mine for as long as I can remember. It was not really D&D, but it could have been if you had replaced mutants with say orcs.”

I nodded, and said that was a common theme of his. “He likes to take those who should be enemies, and see if they can find a way to work together.”

Keith agreed, and said he had long been doing that. “But if you had not done that and just wiped them all out, he would not have treated you badly. No punishment for killing women and children, or if you had abandoned them to die. To Pete, it is your story to tell. He just makes the scenario and then moderates it. You all are really the ones that write the story.”

I agreed, saying it was a strong belief of his. “My brother likes to say that good and evil is just points of view. That you can even take Hitler and make him a good guy, from a certain point of view. Not that he was not an evil bastard.”

And I was surprised when Keith nodded. “He rescued the German economy, made them a proud, growing, and thriving nation again. If he was not an anti-Semitic bastard that killed millions because they were Jews, he likely would have been remembered as one of the greatest leaders of the twentieth century. But like George said, he was an evil bastard, so is remembered as one of the ultimate evils in history.”

We talked until it was almost time for dinner, then Pete arrived. I asked what we should do, and he said to just grab something from room service. “I’m wiped out, and just want to stay here.” He did look tired, and I asked him if he was alright.

“Yeah, you know these always take a lot out of me. A bad presentation can hurt sales, so a lot is riding on me that I make a good one, and show that it can be pulled off and that the game system works.”

So we got the room service menu and called in the order as he went to take a shower. He got back shortly before the food and we dug in. Shawna asked if our killing them all would have harmed the presentation, and he shook his head.

“No, none of that is really on you at all. If you had killed them all, then the threat to your village was eliminated. In fact, I thought you all were heading to the best ending, until that one guy failed a role and was discovered. And that was after making all the rolls on the approach so you were inside the camp before you were finally spotted. If you had been spotted at the approach, it would have gone differently.”

He then ran her through several of the endings he had scripted. Including a peaceful conclusion without a fight at all. With us threatening them if they returned, down to us sending them supplies so long as they stop the raids. He actually ran through about eight of them, and I could tell Shawna was impressed.

“Do you really do that most times?”

“Sure do, I hate the black and white ‘kill them all, take all the treasure’ missions. They are predictable, two dimensional, and are essentially all the same. Beat the orc, take the sword. With no real options for the players. In most of mine, the players have a lot of options. And if this was a campaign, it could be used to start future quests.”

“So, is this one going to be sold also?”

Pete swallowed his bite, then laughed. “Oh, no. You see, you got the boxed set, the adventure is included as is the core GURPS rulebook and my rule expansion. That was something I arranged with Steve. That way, only those that want to run a campaign need to consider that one. Players only need the core rule book.”

As she had finished eating she pulled it open and looked inside, and saw that there were three books inside. The GURPS book itself, a book telling the setting and giving the world rules, as well as more enemies and items. And finally the adventure, “Stockyard Crisis”. We chatted a bit more, then Shawna gave him a hug before we went back to the convention.

And I was not surprised that a few were playing through the game, making things up as they went along. A few recognized us, and one couple invited us to join in. This was lighter and more silly, and I saw the girlfriend of the guy running it look over as we were holding hands as we played.

This was set at Disneyland, and it was kinda fun trying to deal with the rides and attractions as if some could kill us. And when it was done, she grinned and asked if we had been in on it from the start.

“I mean, Pete is famous for putting friends into the game but not telling anybody about it. Like Kaos and a lot of the others. You two seem to be a real couple, and not like you had just met on stage a few hours ago.”

Shawna laughed and nodded. “Yes, George and I came together.” She then looked at me and softly said I was her boyfriend. I squeezed her hand and pulled it up to kiss the back of it as I admitted that was true. Then of course she asked how we knew him.

She at first guessed that Shawna was the younger sister of Jacki, and we both laughed at that. “Naw, Pete’s my brother. I go to CSUN, and he invited us along when he took the gig. I am just lucky enough to have a girlfriend that is into games also.”

“Well, being his brother I imagine that would be important to you.” I saw Shawna wink at me and I winked back, saying we were also playing in a game in Northridge each week. Finally we all parted, and Shawna suggested we take a walk.