Reavers : Serenity

2009
Reavers
Margaret Weis Productions' Serenity

It was September of 2009 when I received a request to run a Serenity game for the Open Gaming Meet.   My attempt to run BSG didn't pan out, so to my surprise this game gathered a LOT of players.

And I mean a LOT of players.  

Two players (a couple) had never gamed before and were not familiar with the show either but decided to play Mal and Inara. The father of the girl in the couple opted to play Jayne.   His youngest daughter, on the other hand, decided to go for River Tam.  To complete the ensemble, my dear friend Jovan took the role of her favorite character Kaylee (a role which she eventually will hold on to for games to come).  So yeah, this was a game with three totally new players (one couple and a young girl whose age was definitely lower than 18 years old), and a game that had a father and her two daughters in it.  Talk about a mixed group.

This was the game's other title, I believe.

The story was simple.  While handling a job in one of the less popular moons, after evading a group of Reavers, the Serenity crew found itself having to evade the vengeful presence of Nisska again.  The crew discovers Nisska was working on a trade with Blue Sun and were maneuvering what seems to be highly valued cargo.  The crew decide to take the cargo for themselves and discover it contains a fully-grown living clone of their long dead and dear friend Wash!  The Blue Hand Men show up try and tidy up the loose threads, forcing the crew to make their escape, but the Wash Clone realizes the Blue Sun corporation has better ships than Serenity, and so forces the crew to hide instead while he lures the enemy away with a different Firefly.

It was a session filled with both laughs and bitter-sweet regrets with many (both playing and listening in) commenting that the game could have been an unaired episode of the cancelled Josh Whedon show.   I extend my thanks to Margaret Weiss Productions for making a game system that truly captures the feel of the show.