Gay Beholder Super Adventure 6 (AAR)

30 Aug, 2026

This weekend, I ran Super Adventure 6: D-Day 2 -- You Can (Not) Redo for the Gay Beholder OSR Discord. "Super Adventures" are a quasi-monthly server event where someone runs a flailsnails one-shot -- anyone can bring a character from any campaign with the stipulation that if they die in the super-adventure, they die in their home game too.

I ran a modified version of Tom Mecredy's He Ain't Gonna Jump No More which I reviewed earlier this year. The pitch was as follows:

It's June 1944. A time-travelling saboteur just taught the entire 101st Airborne what "gooning" is and now their combat effectiveness is down to 17.3% of its previous level. Allied Supreme Command is growing desperate as the D-Day window looms. As a last resort, they've called up the sickest little freaks from around the multiverse to paradrop into Normandy and secure the bridges and chokepoints before the invasion force lands. Even worse: intelligence reports indicate that the enemy has some sick little multiverse freaks of their own...

I ran three 2-hour sessions, each one a separate paradrop (spaces such that the IRL timing roughly matched the in-game D-Day timeline).

Session 1

Players:

• Angie de Riva and the robots Dustie & Mollie (Shy Owl) -- Realm of Yolmi robot-maker
• Lt. Brick Chesthair (Jay_zer0) Stay Frosty space marine
• Sir Enok the Weaver Knight (Spuk) -- Mythic Bastionland
• Roy "Barber" Crist in OPERATING THEATER (Sticks) -- Lancer Swallowtail Mech
• Wend Wither (nobody)

The first contingent of Allied supersoldiers landed well past the intended drop zone, south of Pont L'Abbe. They were spared from flak damage thanks to Wend Wither's dust storm powers. After identifying their location, they decided to make for said bridge as it seemed the nearest objective.

On the way, they encountered some French partisans, who mistook them for germans. One was killed and the rest fled.

Upon reaching Pont L'Abbe, they saw that it was garrisoned by two infantry squads and two Large Robots (as in The Littlest Brown Book). Wend summoned a storm to reduce visibility and allow the troopers to sneak up close.

Sir Enok used his ability to magically swap similarly-sized objects to teleport a live grenade to one of the MG nests, instantly killing the gunner and feeder. The tactic was iterated to rout most of the remaining troops on the close side of the bridge, with help from Barber's mortar and machine gun.

The closer of the two robots moved to engage. Sir Enok took one end of a rope and rode circles around it on his horse, Peach, tripping it ATAT style,¹ with help from Wend's bolas.

Angie then leapt into action and started to reprogram the nazi automaton. After an initial setback they managed to replace its operating system with a new protocol, dubbed "Dollie".

Dollie was then freed, just in time to duke it out with the other nazi robot. After exchanging railgun shots, they closed in to melee, battling with there electro-whips. Sir Enok used his swap ability once again to replace the enemy bot's whip with a useless rope.

Wend Withers summoned a bull from a nearby field and ordered it to charge. The first pass missed, but the second hit the enemy bot head on, finally destroying it.

Barber's mech rapidly drove off the remaining german squad on the far side of the bridge.

Having secured the objective (and captured a robot to boot!), the troopers lit up some celebratory Big Rollem cigarettes and dug in to prepare for potential enemy counterattacks.

Session 1 Earns 84 Points!

• 50 for securing Pont L'Abbe bridge
• 10 for destroying a large robot
• 20 for reprogramming a large robot
• 5 for killing a German officer
• -1 for killing a French partisan

Session 2

Players:

• Gene Eriksson (Gourd Dwarf) -- OSE fighter
• Lady Pratt (msquixotic) -- a knight from a GLOG I think?
• Gerg the Caveman (HologramRose) -- Og: Unearthed
• Bertram (Bue) -- from The Shrike
• Tommy "Blood" (arkbrik) -- electrical engineer from 1983 LA

The troopers dropped in south of St. Mere Eglise. The church was visible, glowing with an eerie red light.

They immediately marched north and took out a squad of nazis in some outlying buildings after using stealth to approach. Bertram used a Duplicate spell to great effect, avoiding several bullets. Tommy "Blood" activated a singing sword, buffing his allies and blasting Wagner's Walkürenritt to the consternation of the nazids. In total, 11 nazis were killed securing the ouskirts, and several more routed.

They then moved on the church. Inside, huge humanoid forms were seen to be the source of the red light -- Balrogs. The troopers sprinted toward the church hoping to use surprise and grenades to clear it rapidly, but the Balrogs leapt through the ceiling on pillars of flame and landed in front of them. Thankfully, Bertram had Dispel Magic prepared and was able to banish them instantly. Killing and routing the remaining soldiers happened rapidly.

Gene Eriksson stayed behind to secure the church against possible counterattacks.

The others advanced toward the bridge at La Fiere. They donned nazi uniforms and took two motorcycles with sidecar MG-42s captured at the church. This allowed them to approach quite close to the La Fiere garrison, mostly holed up in a manor house by the bridge. A silver UFO rested atop the manor.

Lady Pratt used her magic spear to teleport atop the UFO and rapidly killed the three pilots. Gerg the Caveman threw a "Geballte Ladung" composite hand grenade, but it missed. In any case, the Allied troopers rapidly killed the garrison of 10 nazis and 9 Greys and secured both the Manor and UFO.

At this point, the road from St. Mere Eglise to Pont L'Abbe was fully secured.

Session 2 Scores 92.5 points!

• 12.5 for capturing St. Mere Eglise after 6:00 AM
• 20 for banishing 2 Balrogs
• 20 for capturing a Grey Alien saucer (10 x 2 for capturing)
• 25 for securing the bridge at La Fiere
• 15 for killing 3 officers

Session 3

Players:

• Pvt. Tintenfisch Sr. & Pvt. Tintenfisch Jr. (Spuk) -- Octopods
• Pvt. Thick Hardpeck & Pvt. Thick Thickfist (Jay_zer0) -- Stay Frosty space marines
• Orangeberry (Shy Owl) -- bunny from Bunnies & Burrows
• Rhonda McDaniels & Sgt. Major Emil Akselssen (Mistuh) -- OD&D character & combat medic from 1981
• Chaplain Dorothea (sticks) -- Shadow of The Demon Lord

The final contingent dropped at 15:00 at this point, the Allied troops had advanced along the east-west axis prepared by sessions 1 and 2 in a salient extending as far as Pont L'Abbe (the red line below).

On the way down, Pvt Tintenfisch Sr. got hit by flak and died, but thankfully his son Pvt. Tintenfisch Jr. was ready to fill his father's eight shoes. Most characters experienced a hard landing as they splashed down in a flooded field northwest of Carentan.

After getting their bearings, the troopers used Thick Hardpeck's sniper scope to surveil the defenses around Carentan. They spotted hardened defenses to the north and west, a UFO hovering over the church, and eerie red lights inside the church. They considered having Pvt. Tintenfisch Jr. swim up the canal to investigate the defenses more but decided that the bridge objective a mile north of the town was a better target.

The bridge was defended by four squads of elite fallschirmjägers, a team operating a 8.8cm flak cannon, and an SS officer clad in peaked cap and a long cape decorated with occult symbols. Pvt. Tintenfisch Jr. swam up beneath it and saw that the nazis had already rigged it with explosives as a defensive measure. Accordingly, Tintenfisch took the initiative and hurled a satchel charge, blowing the entire bridge.

A vigilant fallschirmjäger saw the charge leave the water and opened fire, but the octopod's camouflage protected it. The other troopers now opened fire, targeting the SS zauberei. Dorothea scored a hit, but not before the warlock cast Fireball, incinerating Rhonda & Pvt. Thick.

At this point, Dorothea cast Darkness so that she, Orangeberry, and Pvt. Tintenfisch could escape and rendezvous with two stragglers: Thick Thickfist (another space marine) and Emil Akselssen

They debated what to do next -- most objectives were far, save for Carentan, but the town was well defended. They opted to circle south to see if there was a more favorable approach.

Along the road to the south, they ran into a minefield and a company of regular troops in an entrenched fighting position. After a moment spent planning, Thick and Dorothea rode Dorothea's broomstick for a grenade bombing run (referred to by someone in the chat as "Kiki's Ordnance Delivery Service"). To create a distraction, Orangeberry hopped around the field, using their armor to start grass fires. Tintenfisch prepared to swim up a canal into town.

The bombing run was a smashing success, killing something like 40 enemy soldiers and routing the rest. However, Orangeberry was shot while creating the distraction.

At that point, I had to end the session.

Session 3 Scores 79 points!

• 50 points for destroying the bridge north of Carentan
• 10 points for breaking two railway lines
• 10 points for slaying a nazi warlock
• 5 points for killing an officer (via a broomstick bombing run)
• 1 point for Rhonda McDaniels' Bronze Star
• 1 point for Thick Hardpeck's Bronze Star
• 2 points for Orangeberry's Silver Star
• 1 point for Pvt. Tintenfisch I's Bronze Star

Aftermath

Orangeberry died!? Not Orangeberry! This is terrible!

-- General Dwight D. Eisenhower, Allied Supreme Commander

Thanks to the bravery of the multiversal paratroopers, the allied forces were able to establish a functional beachhead along the Utah Beach -- Point L'Abbe axis and then outflank the Germans in subsequent operations to the west. The raid on the outskirts of Carentan weakened the defenses there, and the severed rail lines prevented the arrival of reinforcements.

However, the "Besondere Einrichtungen" were successfully evacuated, creating the conditions for intense fighting in northern France and beyond. Worst of all, the revenant of Kaiser Friedrich Barbarossa and his legion of undead crusaders managed to escape and would go on to harass allied forces in the Ardennes forest during the Battle of The Bulge.

Reflections

My reflections can be roughly divided into those concerning the module (now that I've run four separate drops) and those concerning super-adventures.

More Thoughts on HAGJNM

As noted from my previous review, HAGJNM moves slowly, especially if you run the procedures properly. Two hours is just enough time to do one objective.

I sped up combat by not bothering with ricochets and overpenetration except in specific circumstances (e.g. overpen during close-quarters fighting in S2). In general, the players were bringing in higher powered characters than the game was designed for, so the enemy soldiers were mostly grunts to clear away (though Kar 98 hits did do some damage!) whereas the bigger challengers were the larger monsters scattered around.

As I mentioned last time, precise positioning is important for this kind of scenario, but tough to improvise on the fly. I used QGIS to grab irl aerial photos at one point in order to know where the hedgerows are and stuff. This was a good move, it really helped things feel more concrete. In s2 they were in St. Mere Eglise, so I relied more on the handout maps and made-up sketches of city streets, which was less effective (but worked well enough to get by).

If I run this like a normal scenario again, I'm going to make a QGIS atlas with aerial photos from each hex, and pre-roll a garrison or point of interest for each hex. Though I'm not averse to improvisation, the latter is a good example of legwork that I wish the author had done for me.

The strongest part of the module is the first 15 minutes, where you resolve all the paradrop risks (including injury and death), use landmarks to figure out where you are, and then make a plan to complete an objective. The overall "drop into a random location on a high-res hexmap" structure is extremely cool and I'd like to see more tournament-style modules do it.²

It was also rewarding to run the same scenario for multiple groups over the day -- having the second group choose an objective based on what the first group had achieved was insanely cool.

Super Adventures

Prep: I was a lazy bastard. I took a pen to my home-printed copy of the scenario and just tacked on something stupid to each garrison ("3 Large Robots", "10 Grey Aliens", "2 Balrogs", "SS Warlock", "Undead Kaiser Friedrich Barbarossa (as Death Knight) w/ +3 sword & 300 skeletal crusaders" etc, and similarly extended the d20 encounter table to a d30.³ I also just plunked Mikes Dungeons, Mishmash Dungeon and the Caves of Chaos into random empty hexes). This worked fine, though most of the extra fun bits went undiscovered.⁴

I could have made it tougher, with more enemy artillery and such. The slowness of the combat encounters takes the random encounter system offline and leaves things feeling oddly static. In the future, it's worth tracking combat such that every 5ish rounds incurs a random encounter roll, just for the chance of some extra chaos. But there were four casualties in session 3, so lethality was very dependent on chance.

I ran HAGJNM fast & loose, and tried to just "run the fiction", assigning x-in-6 probabilities on the fly and making rulings left and right. Some rulings were bad, some were good, but I tried my best to keep the game moving forward. It felt mostly ok, and I'm grateful that all the players were trusting and willing to accept my rulings while also communicating with me when I misunderstood a character's capabilities.

Session 3 was kind of rough. I attended a protest in the afternoon which was pretty tiring. I had caffeinated too much for the first two sessions and was crashing. Toward the end, my computer was lagging a lot (I think from too many high-res images on TLDraw (?)) -- it definitely added to the cognitive load of an already demanding game, people were patient but it was frustrating. And, they dropped next to Carentan, the least-detailed part of the scenario.

HAGJNM is a very combat-focused scenario, but that was perfect for a Super Adventure insofar as everyone got to find creative ways to use their wacky character abilities and magic items to kill more nazis. I particularly enjoyed the Mythic Bastionland knight magically swapping live and inert grenades, the Realm of Yolmi character reprogramming the robot, the singing sword, the use of the Octopod to scout along the canals, and the broomstick bombing run.

I had a great time running this and am grateful to everyone who showed up, especially those with whom I haven't gamed before. The Super Adventures are a very cool community tradition and if you haven't run one before, I recommend it.

#session-report