Game Wish 100: The Last Great War Story

All good things must come to an end. The 100th and final Game WISH asks us:

Tell me your favorite war story. Why is it your favorite? What does it show about your character or the game/campaign you were playing? What does it exemplify about why you like gaming?

The game was a one-shot convention game played at a Sashcon, a private convention at a hotel in Leicester about five years ago. The system was Unknown Armies, with the PCs as 'normals', volunteers at a centre treating sleep disorders. My character was a hacker with no social skills, but with a high skill in rollerblading (which she never got to use). Another player remarked early on out of character that "because the players know it's a horror game we're all acting paranoid, when the characters have no reason to".

Still, it wasn't long before weird things started happening; it became more and more apparent that the 'sleep disorder treatment' was a front for something much more sinister. Not only that, half the PCs had Dark Secrets.

What makes the game memorable is the ending. My PC plus one other ended up hanging upside down above a pit full of grey dust. One other surviving PC tried to rescue us, made two critical failures and fell into the grey dust. Then he just dissolved. Then the final surviving PC battled his way into the chamber. "He's come to rescue us!", we thought. But no! He was from the New Inquisition, and shot us both, "to save our souls".

I can't restrict this to just one. I have to mention the grand finale of the In Nomine game at GenCon UK 2000, in Manchester, GMed by Jo Hart. I was playing a servitor of Vapula, Demon Prince of Technology. "I'll take a raygun", I said. "Bright green, looks like a child's toy". Entirely up the GM what, if anything, it actually did.

The climax of the adventure took place at a village fete in Devon, attended by Tony Blair. It ended up with a firefight against Tony Blair's bodyguards, who turned out to be Malakim (think DnD Paladins in a modern-day setting and you get the idea). My raygun turned out to make a loud "RRRRRR" sound, and paralysed the target. I remember that, having been paralysed, one of the Malakim then died at the hands of a the Lilim in a portable toilet. A horrible way to go? Of course, after two uses, the gun overloaded and melted, leaving my character with a molten green mess stuck to his hand.