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Rita

Rita plays Andrew Howard, the earnest, alien-believing leader of the task force. For part of The Walkers in Skin she secretly played a duplicate of him in front of the other players. She also plays Mirabeth in the non-canon one-shot.
Role Player
Characters Andrew Howard; Andrew Howard (duplicate); Mirabeth (one-shot)
Sessions All 37 recorded canon sessions and the one-shot
First session Radford Horror 01

Characters played

Andrew Howard

Rita has played Andrew in every recorded canon session. He begins as an agent who is "34 and had no expectations of being a field agent," raised in a church that teaches about benevolent alien Masters, and put in charge of three men who all know the job better than he does. Asked by a guest whether Andrew is a cleric, Rita sums up the concept: "No. I'm an alien cultist." (Radford Horror 01, Radford Horror 07)

The character has changed more than any other. He started as a Divine, with healing hands and a satchel that holds whatever he needs. He died in a school gym in Utah and came back as something else: faster, stronger, hard to hurt and in need of blood. Rita rebuilt him on a new playbook, the Monstrous, and describes the result the same way she described the old one: "I'm just a beefy boy." (Walkers 08, Roulet Estate 01)

The duplicate

Rita played the real Andrew through the gym fight in Walkers 07, a scene Andre ran with the other three players out of the call. At the end of it he told her: "you are not in Andrew Howard's body. You are in a replica." She played the copy from then on, through all of Walkers 08 and the unrecorded session after it and into Walkers 09, behaving as the real Andrew would while quietly serving the copy's side. After Walkers 08 she listed some of what she had been doing "subtly": "I'm the one that stole the sugar from the break room." She also said she had tried "not to sabotage them too hard, because I don't think they'd enjoy that." The reveal came mid-scene in the finale, when Andre said, "Now that the game is up, Rita, let's swap back who we're controlling." (Walkers 07, Walkers 08, Walkers 09)

Mirabeth

In Philosopher's Fist 3.J/2: Unchainable Rita plays Mirabeth, a vain, scheming 72-year-old would-be mentor of heroes with godlike beauty and a talent for lying. Andre asked for an anime dub voice; Rita had only her one "old person voice" and used that. With Dante playing a character who could not count past ten, the thinking in that session fell to her. (Philosopher's Fist)

Play style

Sincere and awkward

Rita plays Andrew without irony. He shakes hands, says "sir" and "ma'am," tells strangers about spiritual frequencies, and cannot hide that he is a federal agent in any outfit, including a Bigfoot T-shirt. His Charm is negative and she leans on it: "It's just you can always tell there's something wrong with me." The rest of the table builds on what she gives them, with jokes about his striped pajamas, his three first names and his feminine looks, and she plays him as self-conscious about all of it ("Guys, I'm handsome, right?"). (Radford Horror 03, Appalachia 06, Appalachia 07, Appalachia 02, Walkers 03)

The UFO file

Andrew's expertise is real because Rita's research is. Andre noticed in the first arc: "I like that Rita clearly has a list of UFO shapes." She has Andrew mutter about "the similarities to the Levelland case that happened in the '50s" and hold firm opinions about the Greys, and in the Utah finale she goes looking for a list of real cigar-shaped UFO sightings mid-session. (Radford Horror 04, Walkers 03, Roulet Estate 02, Walkers 09)

She is just as clear about where his knowledge ends: "I can't play a guy that knows cryptids 'cause I don't know any cryptids." (Appalachia 03)

Knowing the rules

Rita is the regular who knows the rulebook best. She pointed out in the second session that a 12-or-better result was an advanced move she had not unlocked yet ("That's an advanced move. I gotta unlock that"), and explains her own harm-negating moves to the table. She announces Andrew's upgrades herself: "I got another upgrade, so I reduce all damage by two now." (Radford Horror 02, Radford Horror 05, Roulet Estate 01, Appalachia 08)

Playing the dreams straight

A good deal of Andrew's story comes to Rita as private or solo material: dreams of grey visitors, a father who may be an alien and keeps trying to kiss him, a note left in his bed. She plays the fallout in character, with Andrew keeping the dreams from the team, and lets the table turn the alien-dad kiss into a running gag ("I wish my dad tulpa wouldn't try to kiss me so often"). (Summer Service 03, Walkers 06, Walkers 07, Radford Horrors 03)

Signature moments

  • Peeing in the sink. In the first session Andrew does this at headquarters on the grounds that "it's better to be assertive." (Radford Horror 01)
  • Laying on hands. Andrew's healing works for the first time on a burned Kurt, at the cost of a nosebleed that lasts into the next day. Rita plays him as "riding a spiritual high that I have never once experienced before, because that shit has never worked." (Radford Horror 03, Radford Horror 04)
  • The 2. A roll of 2 on Act Under Pressure sends Andrew's holy weapon, a spray of "nothingness," through Kurt's hand. (Summer Service 05)
  • The decisive shot. In the Marblehead finale, after two failed rolls stuck in the mud, Rita's 8 with the flashlight weapon is the hit that counts. (Summer Service 06)
  • "Thank you for your time." Cornered by a news crew, Andrew says it, walks away, then turns round "very sweatily" to say it again. The clip is replayed on the news. (Appalachia 08)
  • Severing Big Bob's arm. Andrew drops to the back of the line to shield Huell, takes the hit, stands up and cuts through Big Bob's arm with his pepper spray. He keeps the hand. (Appalachia 09)
  • The d100 spud. Faced with the Spud Hut menu, Rita "rolled a d100" and had to work out "which one number twenty-nine was." (Appalachia 02)
  • The gym. Having banished something from an intruder with Cast Out Evil on a 12 earlier in the session, Andrew goes alone to a late-night meeting at the school gym, uses the move again in a panic on a 14, and does not come back. (Walkers 07)
  • Waking Wilbur. Andrew lays a hand on the catatonic Wilbur Whateley and brings him round. (Radford Horrors 04)
  • The wedgie. Near the end of the most recent recorded session Andrew lifts Kurt one-handed by the belt. Dante: "It's a hell of a wedgie, but I'm interrogation resistant, so it's okay." (Radford Horrors 04)

Dice

Rita's rolls are steadier than most (9, 10, 12 in Appalachia 03; a 12 in Appalachia 06), with a knack for the badly timed low one: the 2 in Summer Service 05, a 4 on a Help Out in Appalachia 09, and in Walkers 08 a 3 in the firefight, when the Andrew at the table was not the real one. In Walkers 07 she rerolled a cocked die and got a 13. (Appalachia 03, Appalachia 06, Summer Service 05, Appalachia 09, Walkers 08, Walkers 07)

Attendance

Rita is heard in every recorded canon session, Radford Horror 01 through Radford Horrors 04, and for the one-shot.

See also