After some weeks of planning (and last minute frenzied preparation) the TTRPG Programme at SMSTSP went forward yesterday, between 9am to just after 12pm. I had Irfan with me as photographer and videographer, and my facilitators were Mdm Syafawati and Mdm Yuziana.

After some time considering it, I had decided to run Mini Six for the students. (I will write another blog post about choosing systems to use with EFL learners some day.) Why not, as Mini Six was the first system I used with my own students back in 2016.

SMSTSP teachers Mdm Fatin to meet Mdm Umairah introduced us to 1 Itqan, a first form class at SMSTSP.

Enter The Students

I had already prepped a scenario, based on a question I posed to their teachers: what genre and setting are they familiar with? What movies do they like. The answer was superhero and wizard movies. I asked this in class and among the answers I received from the students were The Fast and the Furious movies, Harry Potter movies and Dr. Strange.

During my introduction, I noticed that most if not all of them had a good grasp of English language. Some were more confident in speaking it than others. The game would in theory be a good exercise for them to speak up, think critically and declare their actions collaboratively to solve problems and accomplish the mission.

Like my classes, I informed them that each character will be played by 3-4 students. I also house-ruled Mini Six a bit. I made pre-generated characters for them. There are no Perks and Complications. Everyone gets 4 Character Points and 2 Hero Points (as if they had been playing for several sessions.) After the student-groups selected their characters (first claim first serve) I gave them 15 minutes to name their characters, and think of their appearance.

After a break period, the group was ready to play. I also asked the students to name their organisation and their team:

Dramatis Personae

PHOENIX OF THE STORMFIRE

Team: King of Monarch

In alphabetical order:

• Haines Ace (Mentalist)
• Ivy Liv (Medic)
• Kevin Mitnick (Hacker) – obviously not the real one, just a code name
• Lanna (Scryer)
• Shrek (Soldier) – also probably a code name lol
• Sung Jin-Woo (Necromancer)
• Uchiha Itachi (Illusionist)

King of Monarch: The Secret Under the Eiffel Tower

A Night in Karachi

Team King of Monarchs are at the Phoenix of the Stormfire headquarters in Karachi, Pakistan. Phoenix of the Stormfire is an organisation that has magic using operatives specialising in neutralising magical threats in the world.

Their superior, Commander Brightsun, calls them to a meeting and assigns them a task. The team has to obtain a stolen object: a magical artefact that is able to open a magical door to another universe. The object was stolen by one Lord Louis, a dark sorcerer who has an organisation in Paris, France.

The team team needs to find a way to Paris. Haines Ace uses his streetwise skill in Karachi to find it. Haines finds an efreet. The efreet, who is bathed in green flame and gnawing on sheep carcass, tells them of a golden door in the abandoned marketplace which can open to any door in the world if you use magic about it. So they all ride their pink Humvee to the abandoned market. (They also chose their vehicle and its colour!) Shrek gets behind the wheel.

The Abandoned Marketplace

They reach the marketplace and see a double doors made of gold (strange no one has taken the doors). The doors are large enough to drive the Humvee through.

Sung Jin-Woo draws his darksword, his blade that can kill undead creatures, and tries to open the door. He casts a spell to open the door. The door opens up and it is not Paris on the other side.

Beyond the open doors is a dark forest at night and a giant spider was rushing at Jin-Woo. He freezes! Uchiha Itachi jumped out of the Humvee to save Jin-Woo. Ivy Liv also disembarked, took aim and fired her weapon. The bullet struck the spider, who fell on the ground two metres away from Jin-Woo, Haines used her ESP and sensed no humans in the dark forest, only vicious monsters.

Jin-Woo used his Darkvision and in the shadows under the trees, the Necromancer sees enormous trolls running for the door. This causes Haines to swiftly shut the doors, resetting them. Everyone is safe.

The Mentalist uses her magic powers on the doors and this time when they swing open, they see the Eiffel Tower framed by blue sky.

The Streets of Paris

They all climb into the pink humvee. Shrek drives through the doors and emerge from an old warehouse. The hacker, codenamed “Kevin Mitnick“, uses his satellite-connected internet laptop to locate Lord Louis, but fails. Shrek heads for the Eiffel Tower, but then the Scryer Lanna spots a drone shadowing them 50 metres behind and above them. Shrek trades seats with Haines to use his machine gun on the drone. But before it happens, Kevin hacks the drone controls and disables it, sending it crashing to the streets. Its unarmed missiles do not explode.

After that, Kevin discovers a number of companies registered to Lord Louis in the Eiffel Tower area. Looks like they are in the right place. Haines pulls over by the road, not too far from the tower.

Shrek is the first to jump out. Suddenly a Paris Police Officer appears from the street and asks them about the pink Humvee. Do they have permit for the car?

At first Shrek tries to persuade the police officer. He fails, so Lanna tries to Possess the officer’s body. She also fails, only getting the cop to feel a bad stomach ache. That was when Haines used her Paralysis power to stun the officer. Shrek quickly dumps the unconscious cop in the trunk of the Humvee.

Tower Approach

Meanwhile, Kevin.s laptop — at this close a range — is able to determine that Lord Louis is in the vicinity. Shrek and Jin-Woo is made to be invisible by Uchiha, the Illusionist. The duo approach the tower carefully. The others look out for danger.

Then Kevin locks on to an underground signal: There is a subterranean complex 300 metres under the Eiffel Tower. Lanna uses her ESP to sense for Lord Louis… and is successful! But Louis senses Lanna. Luckily she is able to block Louis’ mental attack on her before she drops her ESP power. The team informs the two scouts, and they head for one of the tower’s pillar base legs. There is an elevator there, but there is a keypad. They need a code to unlock the elevator door.

With amazing skill, Kevin is able to hack the keypad from afar and send the code to Shrek.

The Eye in Space

The elevator door is apparently a portal that leads to outer space. The winds blow Shrek into the dark vacuum of space, with a million stars surrounding him. Uchiha is unable to grab Shrek but Haines uses his Telekinetic power to draw the Soldier back through the door. Uchiha’s Darkvision senses a colossal eye of blackness, suspended in space, perhaps three kilometres in diameter. It reaches out with hundreds of tentacles at the open elevator door. Uchiha closes the door quickly, resetting the portal.

Underground Infiltration

Everyone gathers together in front of the elevator while Haines uses her magic to disable to portal security system. Then he uses the code again. The door opens and inside is a normal elevator.

King of Monarch descends. The door opens and there is an endless corridor with vertical strips of LED light every 5 metres on the wall. Kevin finds a computer terminal. He cracks the network security and retrieves a map of the underground base. Here is the command centre, here are the magical laboratories, here are the barracks, and at the bottom of the structure is a magical vault. That must be where the multiversal artefact is stored! What does he want with the artefact anyway?

Haines, also trying to hack the terminal, discovers something shocking Lord Louis’ full name is Louis Lacroix. He has a sister named Sarah Lacroix, and Sarah has two adult children: Alex and Dominique Lacroix.

From her photo in the file, Dominique Lacroix — Lord Louis’ niece — appears to be Commander Brightsun!

They try to call their base, but there is no signal 300 metres underground. While Haines take a photo of the screen with her phone, Lanna — all by herself — uses her ESP to determine where Lord Louis is. She discovers him at the magical vault in the lower levels. Louis also senses her mind probing and attacks her mentally. Lanna fends off the attack as well.

That was when the white LED strips turn red. A voice booms through the corridor from hidden speakers: INTRUDER ALERT! INTRUDER ALERT! ALL GUARDS TO THE TOP LEVEL!

The team prepares for combat.

TO BE CONTINUED! (Maybe?)

Notes:

• I chose Mini Six for this because D6s are common and ubiquitous. Also, it can play fast and smooth during action scenes and combat encounters.
• The first roll, the Streetwise skill check, was suggest by me just to get the ball rolling. The students understood the dice rolls better after that roll.
• The giant spider attack gave them their first exciting scene.
• The Dominique Lacroix revelation elicited an audible “PLOT TWIST” from the players.
• After the game, we asked self-reflection questions to the students.
• One of the things the players thought they would do differently is they should have co-opted the drone instead of disabling it.
• The students seem to want a continuation of the story. If we do continue, the blog post will be removed from the RPG One-Shots category.