There's only one Gil Gerard, Browder, and it ain't you!

My good friend Chronoglide is a big fan of Farscape. Personally I have always thought of it as "Buck Rogers meets the Muppets", only with truckloads of added tedium, as Buck Rogers and the Muppets together in reality would be brilliant. But he likes it. Bless. So it was inevitable that at some point he was going to want to game it on the tabletop. As I had yet again failed to provide anything for us to play, I reluctantly agreed to this misguided scheme. So that's what we did.

Here he is setting up his little show, while in the background Wakey fills himself full of Caffeine in order to stay awake. He's obviously seen Farscape before!

Chrono's rules set of choice for the evening was something called 5150, which I had heard Sci-Fi nerds on TMP jabbering on about in the past, but I was totally unfamiliar with it myself.

We were to have only one character each. Ooh, very RPG. This type of thing is all the rage these days, what with .45 Adventure, Gloire and all that. Thankfully, neither the preposterous Wookee Klingon nor any of the Muppets would be taking part in this adventure. But three of the heroes of the show were to land on a lawless planet in order to procure much-needed spare parts to repair their damaged mother ship, Moya.

(That shuttle pod of theirs looks familiar. If it is a consular ship, then where is the ambassador, eh?)

A picture of Moya, just so we know what we're all fighting for. At least I think that's the right Moya. I wasn't sure so I used Google Images.

Hmm. Is that right? Tell you what, why not check for yourself?

So, the characters involved: As I said, it wasn't the complete cast, just enough for us to have one each. Sickers played pale Buck Rogers imitation, Crichton, human astronaut suddenly propelled into a frightening new Muppet-filled galaxy, or something. In our gang it is the law to refer to him as Gil Gerard, or just Gil, though this really does a great disservice to that truly great actor from the 80s.

Wakey was playing Chiana, a sort of light grey alien lass with Halle Berry's cast-off hair from X-Men.

While I played sultry ex-Peacekeeper turned renegade, Aeryn Sun. I can tell you want me. Stop staring at my right boob, you lecherous dogs!

So there we were, newly-arrived on planet Numberwang, in search of a second-hand de-nobbulator or Gayon-frottage-attachment or something. So we set off for the market district, but unfortunately fell foul of the local culture. Apparently there are very strict rules of behavior between the various guilds, gangs and other factions here, and the locals police themselves without recourse to any official law enforcement. But unfortunately for us anything goes as far as outsiders are concerned.

So we were soon set upon by the local riff-raff.

So the dice were soon rolling, and laser blasts (or whatever they call them in Farscape) were flying about all over the place.

Here's me, shooting a hoodlum, and blowing most of the special effects budget in one go.

After a brisk firefight, we had dealt with the delinquents. All either dead, retired hurt or run off. A few polite enquiries told us that we needed to speak to a trader known as Honest Jangwed who had a warehouse full of Moya bits on the other side of town.

So off we went. Here's a part of the game that was rather cool. We immediately stepped into the next episode, all ready set up on another part of the table. Having a game made up of several small vignette encounters like this is something new to me, and I like it. You tend not to get bored so like with a big old fight dragging on all night all across the big table (that's a terrible indictment of our attention-spans these days, ain't it?). This kind of thing would fit in sweetly with .45 Adventure and Gloire I reckon. Don't know if it is part of the whole 5150 thing, or if Chrono made it up himself, but it is a refreshing new thing to me. I like refreshing new things.

Later, on the other side of town: We found the area of Jangwed's warehouse, but unfortunately there were lots of unfriendly-looking security types around.

It was decided that I would approach them openly, and try to negotiate an audience with Jangwed. In case things went awry, the others would sneak around the side, ready to launch into action at a moment's notice...

Predictably, things did go awry, almost immediately. Aeryn is used to getting her own way, and the guards, thinking she was a Peacekeeper, weren't really in the mood to cooperate. This combined to create an atmosphere of tension and mistrust. Talks broke down, and they ordered her to drop her weapon and lie down on the ground.

Her response?

... Predictably violent.

Chiana chimed in, too. She might as well, as she hadn't done much up to now.

This resulted in one guard taken out, and another one grovelling in a puddle of his own wee. More guards turned up, but they weren't up to much, and eventually scarpered, leaving their boss in our clutches. We held him upside down and shook him until the shock absorbers or brake pads for Moya fell out.

Back to the landing pod then. But what's this?

Bad guys, hanging around outside our ship?

Oh no! Peacekeepers! Led by a PVC-clad lady Peacekeeper armed with a dangerously low-cut top and fully-loaded cleavage! This isn't good. We'd been fighting cowardly nobodies up to now. These baddies were the real deal. And they were after us! I had totally forgotten that we were wanted renegades! How could that slip my mind?

As they advanced, Gil Gerard, hero that he is, hid in a tent. Chiana hid behind a tent, only Aeryn (that's me remember) was brave enough to face these fearsome soldiers.

Or stupid enough. Aeryn was promptly shot, and went down in a heap.

The lady peacekeeper came over to gloat and then... A-ha! Aeryn had been shamming!

The very last of the special effects money went on this shot, as you can probably tell. Aeryn brought the chief baddy down, and she wasn't shamming. She was, though, still alive.

With their leader gone, most of the rest ran off, the remainder were ruthlessly gunned down. So our heroes made it back to Moya, complete with a sexy prisoner, who Aeryn took charge of.

So what happened next?

Well, this year Moya made it to the Quarter Finals of Roland Garros before losing to Rafael Nadal, Gil continued his regular guest spot on Sesame Street: The Next Generation, while Chiana had to give Storm her hair back in time for X-Men: The Last Stand. And as for Aeryn and the Peacekeeper chick? What of them?

In the immortal words of Stu and Rich ... And then they Lez Up.

****

In some ways the game was a triumph (which is odd, as Chronoglide was running it), short bursts of excitement make for a good gaming experience and we all took to 5150 pretty well. It's a nice system, all the reaction checks are lots of fun, and I certainly wouldn't mind playing it again.

But this is exactly where it all fell down as a simulation of Farscape. Where was the headache-inducing tedium, eh? (Seriously, Farscape almost always gives me a headache). Where was the despair, irritation, the turning over halfway through to see what's happening in (God forbid) Hollyoaks?

So in short, the experiment was a complete failure. If we are to try and do any more Farscape gaming in future, may I suggest we use a game system that is known not to produce fun, such as DBM or Phoenix Command?

More Slightly-Gay Star Wars Nonsense, Courtesy of Chronoglide

(Admiral Allahu Ackbar! Quite clearly a terrorist, with a name like that. Clicking on pics makes them bigger)

Don't worry about the "Slightly-Gay" part of the title, I'm just baiting Chronoglide.

So, Friday night Chrono turned up with more of his childish space-opera junk. Star Wars again, this time a space battle. Following the destruction of their base on Hoth, the scattered Rebel fleet is making its way to a new rendevous. One small convoy of transports, protected by cruisers, is sheltering in an asteroid field near a gas giant, while preparations are made for their next hyperspace jump. At this point an Imperial Squadron shows up to teach the rebel scum a lesson.

The playing area: A gas giant surrounded by nasty asteroid belts. The rules we used were the Mongoose Babylon 5 set. I had played them before and enjoyed the game, but this was the first time we had used the Star Wars mod.

I really like Chrono's groovy home-made gas giant. Far out, man.

The transports and their fighter escort (the red counters) prepare to leave the asteroid field. To the right the watchful eyes of the Mon Calamari cruisers are there to keep them safe.

Mon Calamari??!! What a stupid name. Phoned that one in from the Greek restaurant did we, George? What's next? Terror of the Scampi Men? Invasion of the Moules Marinieres?

Just as all is going smoothly, the bad guys turn up. This Destroyer-thingy comes with a special plot widget, that somehow stops the good guys from making the jump to hyperspace. Something like that, I wasn't really listening.

You have to have such a plot device, or there wouldn't be a game. Ah, the twists and turns of plotting that we have to make once we start making daft shit like this up. Tuh! Science Fiction, eh?

To win, the rebels would have to either defeat the Imperial Squadron in combat, or destroy the Hyperspace-blocking doohickey and then make their escape. The Imperials needed to capture or burn as much of the convoy as possible.

Here come more bad guys. Four Imperial Frigates, bristling with home-grown nastyness and rented malevolence. I was in command of three of them: The Imperial Vessels Useless, Useful Junk and Alien Artifact. They were so named because Chrono had provided no way to distinguish them, so I used some counters I had lying around from Doctor Who: Invasion Earth, which happened to have those words printed on them. Actually, I think they make good ship names.

The Imperial Squadron closes in.

The transports turned and fled back into the cover of the asteroid field, while the Mon Calamari cruisers turned in a wide circle to attack the baddies. Fire was exchanged, mostly just knocking out shields to begin with.

Most of the Frigates pursued the transports into the asteroids, while zillions of little fighters buzzed around the big ships, doing surprisingly little harm and generally just blowing up.

Unfortunately, the inept crew of Useless had not been concentrating. Realising they were about to fly headlong into a very dense patch of asteroids, the emergency order of "All Stop!" had to be issued. She would then have to spend another turn laboriously bringing herself about so as to move around the space-rocks.

As the other Frigates were now out of sight, this meant Useless had the full attention of the Mon Calamari cruisers. They pummelled her stupid, until a massive and catastrophic fire engulfed the stricken vessel. Almost the entire crew were instantly fried, and the ship was left as a charred, floating barbeque briquette.

Oh, the humanity! All my own stupid fault, of course. Hmm, any volunteers to inform Lord Vader? Anybody? Come on, what's the worst that can happen?

But the rebels weren't exactly showing themselves to be master navigators, either, with numerous close-calls and brushes with danger. No damage to speak of, though.

Unfortunately, just as two Frigates were overhauling one of the transports, it became clear that we had run out of time. Fun as it had been, Chrono's scenario had been too big to really fit into the time we had. It had all taken a bit too long, what with all those ships. A shame, really, as it was a good game, and the rules are pretty enjoyable.

Typical Chronoglide. You didn't think it through, did you, you big fool?

Still, I wouldn't mind playing another game of this some time.

By the way, is it just me, or is George Lucas growing to look more and more like Rolf Harris? What do you think? Personally, I think they should've got Rolf to direct the prequels. They certainly could hardly have been any worse...

George Lucas.

Rolf Harris.

Uncanny, eh?

Tie me Bantha down, Han, man,
Tie me Bantha down, Han.
Altogether now...

Sand People ... Dozens of 'em!

Captain's log, stardate THX 1138... No, hang on a minute. That ain't it.

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away... Some time after the destruction of the first Death Star, Han, Luke and Chewie were on some kind of routine mission drumming up support for the Rebellion, visiting outlying moisture farms on Tatooine and trying to persuade the occupants to turn against the Empire (I think they were portraying the whole rebellion thing like some kind of galactic version of the Countryside Alliance).

Anyway, while visiting a particular farm, who should sweep by but a patrol of the Imperial Army*, searching for rebel sympathisers. Our heroes decided to hide in order to avoid a conflict that might harm the farmers. Oh, there were some stinky Jawa scrap-merchants there, too. I think they were trying to convince the farmers that their drive needed tarmacking or something.

It was at this dramatic juncture, with the farmers nervously showing the patrol round the farm, the rebels hiding in bins, and the Jawas stealing anything not nailed down, that the tell-tale signs of an approaching sand storm began.

*Imperial Army? Never heard of them. Chronoglide claims they are real, though. He would. What a Star Wars nerd.

(Click on pics for bigger version)

So the game began. Plynkes and Sickly controlled the rebels, Jawas and farmers, Wakey the Imperials, and Chronoglide was God of the Game (or the Midi-Chlorians of the game, I suppose) as the whole thing was his show. He had had the crazy idea of using Supersystem for this Star Wars scenario, which seemed at the time like a mad-brained trick to me.

Supersystem for Star Wars? Frankly I suspect he's been at the old Psilocybin again.

Here Chrono explains to a bemused Wakey what all the various pieces of farm machinery do in the Star Wars universe. He's got a Farmers Weekly: Galactic Empire sourcebook with it all in, I'm sure.

With the storm fast approaching, everyone took cover in the buildings, or behind the great rock walls that enclose the farm buildings. Dust and sand were everywhere.

But what's this? A garbled message from the Imperial shuttle's crew, followed by sounds of violence and screaming. Under cover of the storm, those cheeky rascals the Sand People were attacking!

Jiminy! With everyone distracted by the storm, the cunning devils had sneaked right the way up to the walls, and were scaling them! (Though why they didn't just come in through the open gateway I'm not quite sure)

More of them on the other side! They exchanged shots with the panicky Jawas, who then fled, and spent the rest of the game fleeing and cowering in the corner with soiled drawers. Han, Chewie and Luke, not feeling particularly heroic today, stayed in hiding for a bit to see what the Imperials would do.

Yikes! They're coming! At this point, the Imperial Captain showed his macho prowess by gunning down five Sand People in a single turn. What a hero. I forsee a great future for him in the Imperial Army.

'Ere, what's that funny symbol at the bottom of the picture, eh?

More Sand People popped up to replace the casualties, though. It seemed like there were rather a lot of the fellows in the vicinity.

Luckily, some backup arrived in the form of a squad of Stormtroopers. But they would prove of little use, and after being shot at by some Sand People would spend the rest of the game hiding among the rocks.

Now the Imperial Captain, faced with mounting numbers of Sand People, lost his nerve and decided to try and find a hiding place to sit out the fight. Unfortunately, he opened up the storage bay where Han and Chewie were hiding. After unsuccessfully trying to persuade him that they were DEFRA Health Inspectors here because of the Foot and Mouth outbreak, they shot him in the face. Dead. Oh dear. So much for his promising career.

And so much for any cooperation between the two sides against the common barbarian foe too (I think that was Chrono's plan when he wrote the scenario). From now on it would be every man (or Wookie) for himself.

And then... Hey? What gives? Oh yeah. That's what the little symbol means. The camera was out of battery power. No more pics. Sorry, folks...

Damn, that's a shame, as in the subsequent turns even more Sand People turned up. Dozens of them, turn by turn emerging from hiding places in the sand. And Banthas, too. About eight. Well, lots anway. It was really spectacular, honest. And no CGI was involved, either.

Well this is no bloody good. We'll just have to use some old stock footage for the final scenes and hope nobody notices. Here goes...

The massive horde of Sand People attack...

Han and Luke take charge, and plan their defence of the farmstead.

An artist's impression of the light-sabre fight Luke had with a Bantha late in the game. It was really good, as you can tell from the picture.

*

Well, by now it was late, and several of the participants had almost as little battery power left as the camera, so we called it a night with the issue still unresolved. A somewhat unsatisfactory drawn match. We made up some twaddle about the Sand People all buggering off for reasons of superstition, or taboo, or an eclipse, or something.

Anyway, it was fun, but we were all a bit too tired to play through to the end with much gusto. Pity really, as surprisingly Supersystem seemed quite versatile enough to cope with this departure from its usual jurisdiction. I think if we had teamed up against the common foe and fought our way to the shuttle and escape it would have been a better game. But it was really funny when Sickly just killed Wakey's main character without a thought.

Oh, how we laughed.