Down, Out and Bleeding in Las Vegas

So at Conception I got the chance to run ‘Contenders’ for the first time. I had played in it before but had not been given the chance to see it from the outside.

Setup
I explained to the 4 players that I was going facilitate the game, i.e. I would show them how to play but take little part myself apart from the occasional NPC role.

I started from scratch and we quickly decided to just go for Las Vegas as our setting. I then took them through character creation and we ended up with the following. I didn’t take down their starting stats but I will give their connection and a little behind them.

Alf ‘Clubber’ Johnson

Just out of the Navy, expelled for fighting. Has come to Las Vegas to try and make a name for himself on the boxing circuit.

Connection: Sister Suzie Johnson
Hope: To get her off the cocaine
Fear: She will turn to prostitution to feed her habit

Hardman Higgins

Was part of a sports business, with his mate Matt, that went tits up and now needs to box for funds.

Connection: Business partner, crippled ex-boxer called Matt.
Hope: That he can help Matt achieve business success.
Fear: That despair will drive Matt to suicide.

Gripper Jones

Fresh out of prison this guy is trying to go straight and hold down a kitchen job. He has an ex-wife who wants nothing to do with him and needs money to get to see his estranged daughter and get himself back on track.

Connection: Estranged daughter, 5 year old Angie
Hope: Be allowed back into her life
Fear: That he will not be able to keep himself out of jail and never see his daughter again.

Bill Smith

Family man desperate for cash that just want to give his family the life they deserve.

Connection: Family
Hope: to get them out of a bad neighbourhood
Fear: Losing his wife because she disapproves of his boxing.

So there we go. Once the characters were created we just got into it.

Running the Game
So I had never run the game before but I managed to get the players into pretty quickly. I would take on the role of NPCs when appropriate, usually playing the female characters because the guys I was playing with seemed a little uncomfortable doing so. They were a little wary of the game at first but boy did they end up with a fantastic session.

We started off with some training for Clubber, and then into a work scene with Gripper trying his hand at flipping some burgers. He failed abysmally, getting thrown out on his first shift. He also drew a joker and it turned out that Bill had also gone for that job and they had a scuffle outside, a brawl scene. This was the start of a rivalry that lasted the whole game. In the meantime Hardman was visiting Matt and trying to bring a little hope into his otherwise pointless life.

After this first round the lights came on for everyone and they just went for it. I wont, basically because I can’t, relate everything scene by scene but I will try and give a decent overview of the rest of the game.

Clubber and Hardman started getting along quite well, he coached him in a couple of matches, to the point where Hardman started dating Clubber’s sister. As Clubber tried to get her off the drugs, Hardman kept ‘enabling’ her and even ‘rented’ her out to his mate Matt to try and give him a really good night. Yes one of the player’s turned another player’s sister into, quite literally, a crack whore.

Hardman was doing well in the ring though and despite hardman trying to sabotage his attempts to keep his sister clean, managed a good run of fights and started to build a really good rep. He could see a decent end was in sight.

Meanwhile, Gripper was fighting and taking on illegal jobs left right and centre to try and get enough money to give his daughter some gifts as well as a really nice birthday. He did alright, but accumulated a lot of pain along the way. When the day finally came for the birthday he didn’t quite get things his way. Sure his daughter liked the gifts, but his wife was moving to New York with another man.

Bill, poor bloke that he was, kept plugging away in the ring, raking on the odd job and ended up on the sofa most nights with a black eye or two, mainly from the missus. He just couldn’t seem to get an even break and things went from bad to worse when he agreed to help out on a robbery only to find his old rival Gripper, a crossover scene, was the driver. One more scuffle later and it was time for a showdown in the ring.

The final round saw Clubber and Hardman throwing their friendship aside, and quite rightly so, for a grudge match and Gripper and Bill doing the same.

Epilogue
As the curtain came down on the game only Clubber came out, relatively, unscathed. His sister was back in rehab, she dumped that loser Hardman and got herself a job a local diner. Things were looking good for his boxing career on the vegas circuit.

The others did not fair so well. Hardman was given the fingers by Matt, who went off to try and find someone who would actually help him out. He descended into drugs and alcohol and died two months later. Gripper lost his wife and little girl and ended up broken and destitute. Bill’s wife threw him out and he ended up alone and broken.

Cheery!

It was a fantastic game, and apart from me forgetting a couple of rules at the start, was a brilliant experience. All the players enjoyed it and one of them even bought a copy!

Cheers

Iain