This is the home of the online role-playing game SpyMasters of Tennis, dedicated to the fantasy of players on the Masters of Tennis exhibition circuit getting caught up in spy adventures.
We always welcome new members so feel free to join in.
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Archives
Date 5/5/07
[CONTINUED]
GM: You drop down out of the ventilation shaft in time to see the man starting to activate the remote-control radio device. As the airshaft grille clatters to the floor he whirls and points a gun at you
BJORN B: I say, 'Stop in the name of the International Tennis Masters Federation' and backhand his gun aside with my racket.
IVAN: And I, Ivan Lendl, will volley a tennis ball at his head
GM: You don't have your tennis rackets with you
BJORN B: Why not? We were practising when the adventure started
GM: You couldn't have got through the ventilation shaft with them
BJORN B: You didn't tell us
GM: I'm telling you now. You don't have your rackets with you. I suppose you might have a ball in your pocket
BJORN B: OK I throw mine at his head
IVAN: And I, Ivan Lendl, will throw mine to knock the radio detonator over
GM: You both miss.
BJORN B: Damn it, did you even roll?
GM: I don't use dice. I evaluate the probabilities
BJORN B: OK I leap across the room and throw myself on him
IVAN: I, Ivan Lendl, will try to seize his gun arm.
BJORN B: Dude, why do you always say, 'I, Ivan Lendl'?
IVAN: I'm getting into character
GM: OK you tussle with the man but with a few swift moves he overcomes you. Quickly he produces ropes and ties your hands behind your backs
BJORN B: This is crap. Every adventure we have we get caught and tied up very quickly
GM: It's plausible. In real life Masters of Tennis wouldn't have many spy skills
BJORN B: We would have reflexes and athletic training
GM: Do you want to quibble or do you want to get on with the adventure?
IVAN: I, Ivan Lendl, will struggle against my bonds
GM: You fail to break them. You are both hit on the back of the head and fall unconscious
BJORN B: Here we go. Lowered into the vat of oil again I bet
GM: You come to in a deserted warehouse. You are tied to a hook at the end of a pulley hanging from the ceiling. Beneath you is a vat of heated oil
BJORN B: I knew it
GM: (Bjorn, technically you couldn't know it as you were different characters in previous adventures)
BJORN B: I could take a wild guess
GM: What do you want to do?
IVAN LENDL: I, Ivan Lendl, will shout for help
BJORN B: And I, Bjorn Borg, will resign myself to being dipped in the fucking oil with Swedish phlegm
GM: Ivan, no help comes
GM: Bjorn, you compose yourself to the ordeal with Scandinavian fortitude
GM: The spy appears on a gantry and cackles malevolently. He activates a switch. The pulley starts to lower
BJORN B: You know what I think? I think you have a fetish for ex-tennis stars being dipped into vats of warm oil
GM: I don't! What a thing to say
GM: Your athletic sinews tensing, you struggle against your bonds to no avail. You are dipped into the warm engine oil up to your necks and then pulled out again. the gleaming golden oil clings to every clearly defined muscle on your nude torsos and drips down your muscular calves
BJORN B: You didn't tell us we were nude
GM: I'm telling you now. You are naked apart from your wristbands and sports socks
BJORN B: Jesus
IVAN: I, Ivan Lendl, will feel the humiliation keenly
Tim1990: Hey
Tim1990: Newby here, can I join in
IVAN: Hi tim. Feel free
BJORN B: Yes. Come on in, the lube oil's fine
GM: Um
GM: I guess
GM: You know we're playing SpyMasters of Tennis?
Tim1990: Yeah I've been lurking the last few minutes, I read the faq it sounds a blast
Tim1990: how do I start?
GM: Which master of tennis do you want to be?
Tim1990: Jimmy Connors?
GM: fine, you want to change your handle
*Tim1990 is now JIMMY-C
JIMMY-C: test
GM: OK Jimmy. You start on a practise court at the Tennis Club in Milan
JIMMY-C: OK. Do I see anything suspicious?
GM: No
GM: John McEnroe comes on court and nods to you
JIMMY-C: I ask him if he wants a knockaround
JIMMY-C: Oh, wait, do I have to say 'I, Jimmy Connors, ask him'?
BJORN B: NO
GM: No
GM: He agrees. He takes the serve
JIMMY-C: I return it
GM: He hits it back to you
JIMMY-C: I hit it back to him
GM: He hits it back to you. He's working closer to the net
JIMMY-C: I'll lob it over his head into the far corner
GM: You try to lob it over his head, but he leaps up and smashes it back. It's zooming towards the baseline far to your right
JIMMY-C: I'll make a flying leap to get it
GM: You're not going to make it
JIMMY-C: I'll throw my racket at it
GM: Um. OK
GM: Despairingly you throw your racket towards the ball and manage to connect
GM: It hits the net
JIMMY-C: I say, 'Great rally, hey?'
JIMMY-C: I say, 'Hey, do you know where Bjorn and Ivan have gone today?'
GM: He says, 'No.'
BJORN: Jesus
GM: Bjorn and Ivan, sorry to neglect you
GM: You are still being dipped in and out of a vat of warm engine oil
GM: It gleams on your torsos and hangs in tiny golden droplets on the hair of your forearms
IVAN: I, Ivan Lendl, have a plan
IVAN: I shout to the spy, 'You won't get away with this. I, Ivan Lendl, left a full dossier on your suspicious activities with my friend Jimmy Connors.'
BJORN: Oh, great thinking dude!
GM: OK
GM: The man stares at you uncertainly for a moment while he thinks it over
IVAN: I, Ivan Lendl, will meet his gaze with a guileless innocence
BJORN: Please stop saying I Ivan lendl tho
GM: He cuts you down and drags the pair of you to a seedy office. He ties you to chairs but unties your hands
GM: He points a gun at you and orders you to write a note to Jimmy telling him to come here and to bring the dossier
GM: and that he's to come alone and not to tell the police or you'll be killed
IVAN: I (Lendl) will refuse and stonewall and eventually give in and write the note
BJORN: oh oh dude you could write it in Czech or something
IVAN: No need, the non-existent dossier and the threat will tell him all he needs to know
GM: OK. The man takes your note and then ties you back to the hook and lowers you into the engine oil again
BJORN: Fuck. If you mention gleaming torsos I'm leaving
GM: I'm just building up the atmosphere
GM: OK, Jimmy, you're in the showers lathering your fine taut body when you hear a thud
GM: A dagger quivers in the wall next to you with a note pinned to it
GM: You're in time to see a man in a black hat scooting out of the changing rooms
JIMMY-C: this is the coolest fucking game ever
JIMMY-C: OK I read the note
GM: It gives the address of a warehouse and blah blah, the rest as above
JIMMY-C: OKthis is what I'm going to do:
JIMMY-C: I get McEnroe and Edberg and a bunchof other guys and tell them our friends Bjorn and Ivan are in troubel
JIMMY-C: and Martina Navratilova and any female players I can find, especially dykes
GM: um, ok
JIMMY-C: No but here's the plan: we need weapons
JIMMY-C: so we get a bunch of those things that fire tennis balls for practise. We rip them off their stands so we can just carry them like machine-guns
JIMMY-C: and we put fucking rocks in them, big stones, ok?
GM: um...go on, I'll allow it
JIMMY-C: Cool. This is gonna rock
JIMMY-C: ok next, we tear down the tennis nets and turn them into, like nets that gladiators would cast? We'll weight them with something
GM: with what?
JIMMY-C: ok we go to a fishing shop and buy like hooks and lead weights and shit
GM: I'm not sure fishing weights will be heavy enough for your purpose
JIMMY-C: If we tied on a lot of them? well get the hooks anyway, and get smallish weights from a gym then
JIMMY-C: and we practise with them until we get proficient at whirling them around our heads and throwing them
JIMMY-C: meanwhile I get the poles that the tennis nets were hung from, and I sharpen them
GM: How?
JIMMY-C: I get a knife-grinder, OK? You can find them in Italy
IVAN: clever!
JIMMY-C: I arm Martina Natravilotova?> and th womens champs with them and get them practising at stabbing and throwing with them
JIMMY-C: I'm not finihsed. N4ext we get all our racket-cases and we fill them with concrete. we pour in liquid concrete and let it solidify and fill them
GM: Where are you going to get concrete?
JIMMY-C: We go to a building site and sign autographs and then tell them some sports stars are in trouble
GM: Hmm
GM: OK, the builders go along with it and fill your cases with concrete
JIMMY-C: Sweet. So they're like clubs now, right? You could break bones with them
JIMMY-C: Ready to fucking rumble!
IVAN: Go Jimmy
JIMMY-C: All right we go to the warehouse but listen:
JIMMY-C: I split the guys into two teams, half at the front and half at the back
JIMMY-C: and I send Martina and the girls up to the roof with instructions to get in through a skylight, or if not a top floor wndow via the fire-escape
JIMMY-C: I'll go in alone, with the dossier, and the rest are to burst in exactly sixty seconds later, sunchronized
JIMMY-C: shit, wait, I forgot, I made a fake dossier, ok?
GM: OK
JIMMY-C: I go in just carrying my concrete racket case, like I just came from practise
JIMMY-C: oh, wait, could I also be carrying a towel, with some of the lead weights sewn into it?
GM: too late to specify that, you're there now
JIMMY-C: ok
BJORN B: I, Bjorn Borg, predict none of this will do you a blind bit of good
GM: Jimmy, you enter the warehouse and see a shady looking man. He says, 'So you brought the dossier. Give it to me.'
JIMMY-C: I'll stall and say things like 'What guarantees do I have' and that I wanna see bjorn & Ivan until its time for the others to burst in. Then I drop the dossier on the floor and when he goes to pick it up whack him across the jaw with the concrete racket
GM: ok
GM: You miss
GM: The rest of the tennis stars burst in from three different directions and surround the spy. He cackles wildly and pulls a lever. Gas fills the warehouse. You hear the sound of former tennis stars bumping into each other and coughing.
GM: You fall unconscious
JIMMY-C: Damn!
GM: When you come to you are in the same room as Ivan and Bjorn. Indeed, all the players of the Masters of Tennis tournament that you recruited are there too. As far as the eye can see there are the nude taut bodies of former champion tennis players suspended from the ceiling. Every one of you is hanging from pulleys over vats of oil, naked apart from wristbands and socks. There is a clank of machinery and you are all lowered into the oil, which glistens like amber on your magnificently-defined musculatures as you are dipped in and out.
GM: What do you want to do now?
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Jul 14 08