For some reason I remembered that as being Mike Mikesh, obviously not.
Probably the double-initials MM and HH, both from HIWG must have conflated
in my head. Paranoia and Toon were pretty big around then too, with some
connections.
Matrix my @$$. Mark Twain did it before that (better), Plato did it
(better), we all imagine it as kids (better). Matrix was an embarr@$$ment.
> I ran an adventure once where the PCs were captured early on without
> realizing it by an insane Hobbyist virus that had taken over an amusement
> park, and almost the entire rest of the adventure was spent by them in a
> lab in what amounted to a shared hallucination. In the hallucination,
> they continued to explore the amusement park, where they found things like
> battledress and FGMP15s fully functional, brand new and still in the
> crates, along with other goodies. They also encountered a number of
> robots which they dispatched with great glee. After a few hours or so of
> this I started making rolls periodically without tell them why. Since I
> roll dice periodically for no reason behind the referee screen, the
> players didn't think too much of it. However, in this case I was rolling
> against their Willpower. At first it was a Formidable task, and
> gradually got easier (the drugs they were given were slowly wearing
> off...). Whenever they had a success, there would be a "glitch" where
> they would have a flash of where they actually were. Handwritten notes
> were passed to explain what they thought they saw. For a while, they
> shrugged off the notes and continued. Eventually, the flashes became
> longer and they started talking amongst themselves. Eventually they
> rolled enough successes that one of them woke up. They found themselves
> in a robot repair facility in the amusement park, on a table. Nearby,
> previous results of "experiments" lay on the floor, humans that had been
> captured and died due to various causes including some that had been
> "disassembled" and studied after having spent a considerable time there.Â
>
> Once they realized where they were and what had happened, they freaked out
> a bit as all of their clothing, equipment and weapons were missing. So
> they went off in search of the weapons and found the battledress and
> fusion weapons they had found previously in the hallucination. They went
> to confront the robots. The FGMPs looked and sounded impressive and when
> they hit their target they did...nothing. Basically they were props.Â
> So was the battledress. Hilarity ensued. Eventually they found their
> real gear and weapons and escaped with their lives back to their ship.
> My inspiration was an old Star Trek episode. I eventually turned a
> version of the adventure into "Playland", which appeared in Challenge
> #76. The Matrix came out 5-6 years later I think. To this day, the
> original players talk about that adventure.
>
>
>
Probably the double-initials MM and HH, both from HIWG must have conflated
in my head. Paranoia and Toon were pretty big around then too, with some
connections.
Matrix my @$$. Mark Twain did it before that (better), Plato did it
(better), we all imagine it as kids (better). Matrix was an embarr@$$ment.
> I ran an adventure once where the PCs were captured early on without
> realizing it by an insane Hobbyist virus that had taken over an amusement
> park, and almost the entire rest of the adventure was spent by them in a
> lab in what amounted to a shared hallucination. In the hallucination,
> they continued to explore the amusement park, where they found things like
> battledress and FGMP15s fully functional, brand new and still in the
> crates, along with other goodies. They also encountered a number of
> robots which they dispatched with great glee. After a few hours or so of
> this I started making rolls periodically without tell them why. Since I
> roll dice periodically for no reason behind the referee screen, the
> players didn't think too much of it. However, in this case I was rolling
> against their Willpower. At first it was a Formidable task, and
> gradually got easier (the drugs they were given were slowly wearing
> off...). Whenever they had a success, there would be a "glitch" where
> they would have a flash of where they actually were. Handwritten notes
> were passed to explain what they thought they saw. For a while, they
> shrugged off the notes and continued. Eventually, the flashes became
> longer and they started talking amongst themselves. Eventually they
> rolled enough successes that one of them woke up. They found themselves
> in a robot repair facility in the amusement park, on a table. Nearby,
> previous results of "experiments" lay on the floor, humans that had been
> captured and died due to various causes including some that had been
> "disassembled" and studied after having spent a considerable time there.Â
>
> Once they realized where they were and what had happened, they freaked out
> a bit as all of their clothing, equipment and weapons were missing. So
> they went off in search of the weapons and found the battledress and
> fusion weapons they had found previously in the hallucination. They went
> to confront the robots. The FGMPs looked and sounded impressive and when
> they hit their target they did...nothing. Basically they were props.Â
> So was the battledress. Hilarity ensued. Eventually they found their
> real gear and weapons and escaped with their lives back to their ship.
> My inspiration was an old Star Trek episode. I eventually turned a
> version of the adventure into "Playland", which appeared in Challenge
> #76. The Matrix came out 5-6 years later I think. To this day, the
> original players talk about that adventure.
>
>
>