Chris, Alex, and I played MetroFinal, a game taking place in the metro system of San Antonio which is actually a transition area between our world, which has just been ended, and the next . Each player plays one (or more) of eight Bodhisattvas (effectively a pre-Buddha) in human form whose job it is to choose eight people from the dead world to bring into the next world and become Bodhisattvas in their stead. Player controls one or more subway stations including all the things that occur in it. The people from the past world don't know it has ended. The longer a Bodhisattva stays in a station the more physical metaphors change into bizarre and fantastical places/people/things eventually culminating in choosing the person to carry on to the new world.

Our characters were The Virgin: Me, The Kitemaker: Chris, The Assassin: Alex.
I would like to share how Alex and I selected our people for the next world. The Virgin started believing that one child in the station would be the one, and peeled back the tiles on the wall to travel to a traditional Japanese house. The girl painted a dragon that came out into the real world and breathed flames on people. The Virgin tried to guide her to the path of temperance while the girl led her army to battle. The world flipped a page to a blank landscape so the girl could practice creating a world from scratch. The Kitemaker stepped in and presented multiple other possible worlds. The Kitemaker and the Virgin argued about how to teach the girl, but eventually she learned there must be a balance between light and dark, creation and awesome-...I'm mean destruction, and became a Bodhisattva as the Virgin faded into nothingness.

The Assassin went searching with The Kitemaker in Del Sol station. He quickly jumped to the supernatural by dissecting a book of all those who have ever died and pulling out an egg of a tiny dragon of death. The dragon insisted he was meant for the next world, somehow knowing what was up. The dragon killed a little girl in the station, but the Assassin popped her balloon and a white dragon of life appeared and brought the girl back to life. Stepping up the surrealism level several notches, they got on a giant kite to space and different realms of existence, eventually to land at the realm of asuras (warrior demons). The Assassin couldn't decide between the girl who couldn't die and the two dragons, so he combined the white and black dragons into a yin-yang and merged it with her. She became the second chosen one, representing the balance of life and death.

All this time The Kitemaker had a talking dog.... yup. Eventually the dog became the embodiment of loyalty, and was chosen for the next world... because they need pets I suppose.

Okay, next time I am going to write a shorter post. I would like to play this game again with more people to see a different dynamic.
-Andy

Great writeup! I'm always tempted* to make mine super long and writing up Metrofinale is quite a task, but you managed it very concisely. I'm glad you guys seemed to enjoy my first time facilitating this game, it was a little touch-and-go but I think it ended up working out, especially given that breaking the rules is kind of already in the rules! Playing this game with so few people was a pretty interesting experience, much less downtime compared to the six-odd players I've played with before, which was actually pretty refreshing, it kept us nice and focused. Lots of great details like the Kitemaker giving the girl her many-colored cloak, and I have to say "I expect to see a gigantic epic battle!" was a prompt I was more than happy to answer! All in all an excellent time.

--Alex

*and by "tempted to" I mean "utterly succumb to the temptation to".