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William Hostman
United States
Eagle River
Alaska
Gaming in Greater Anchorage area, Alaska since 1978. Looking for Indy-willing RPG players in Eagle River (or willing to drive to Eagle River). Geekmail me if interested.
Yes, this really is what I looked like when I uploaded that avatar. Not that it's quite current anymore.
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Due to prior complaints, anything specific game terms will be in italics. Most of them are mentioned in the materials Jared Sorenson posted in the files; I'm not defining them here. As an FYI, preorders are scheduled to start March of 2010...
player swap out: my daughter decided not to play; instead Jerry joined in, playing Professor Marvin. (Peter is playing Detective Dan, and Steph Elise the Mobber.)
Peter and Steph each get to convert one of their Long Term memories to a new level of an experience.
Looked at their long term memory entries; noted Pre-modern computer, University, Mr Johnson, Bob the Thug, Secure Data Chip, bad interface, extraction, parts. For setup, I picked Mr. Johnson, Bob the Thug, bad interface, university; These were the elements worked into the setup for session.
Session opens with Mr. Johnson, now a happy customer, coming in and offering a deal... with a hitch.
The deal: Find Bob the Thug, and fix his malfunctioning interface, in exchange for 6 points of data.
Explained what I'd done wrong prior session. They were skeptical about the cooperation rules.... more on that later.
The info they were given: he's somewhere in the university area of the station. He's homicidal due to the bad interface. That's part of why Bob deathed Detective Dan a couple days ago.
From here, it runs as a sandbox...
They get to the university, just in time to hear a scream from a classroom. They go in, to find a student screaming over a dead body. Jerry wants the girl to go away, Peter wants to interrogate her. A bit of interaction, then Jerry throws out the challenge, social engineering to make her leave the room. She sets the flow at 1 (she's not invested in staying, but doesn't want to leave; jerry antes up the 1 flow, and so does she. using a few card flips, per the section on quick NPCs, she has only one relevant trait: Geneline 2. Her name is Jenza. Jerry proceeds to win, getting a total of 3 points more than her on the tasks, as they argue back and forth. He spends 1 on the effect level, and 2 on rebate level, which provides him back 50% of the flow spent (25% per point is the rule); that rounds up to 1 back... essentially, no cost. He gets what he wants, but has to provide her a gift or some other consideration; he promises her a keg of beer, and they agree it's a contract. (I forgot to charge him a flow for the contract. Ooops!) She leaves, as does Detective Dan.
Dan talks with her outside. He finds out Bob's her boyfriend. She tells Det. Dan to let bob know she's headed to Chateau de Fonds, and to send the beer to Dirty Bastards MRCZ.
They contact Bob via the Key system; essentially telepathy, but it works via radio link to the comm grid. Bob's MRCZ is level 6, so Bob's flow is 68, but he's currently frownied, so I reduce it by 3...
They chat a bit, and then Bob tries to social engineer jerry into making a target of himself. This is a Targeted Challenge, and Jerry's character Professor Marvin is the target, so Jerry gets to set the flow cost. Jerry sets it at 3. Steph and Peter both opt to join in... each anteing up 3 flow, and Bob casually does so. Bob has 1 Geneline, no relevant experience, no relevant tech, and no relevant interface. Jerry isn't much better; geneline 3 with the a relevant tag. THey proceed to rack up a rather large margin in score on Bob, so bob fails, but they also do this by making use of some clarifications I had made... burning tech with relevant tags lets you recover the burned levels after the conflict... and they too advantage of this to cost Bob several cards that scored, so his score dropped. When you're the target, but win, you get your flow back... but the exact wording is a 100% rebate. In group challenges, the rebate is based not upon how much YOU spent to join, but the total flow spent by all on your side of the challenge. So each of them got 100% of 9 flow as a rebate on a 3 flow defense. In short, they spent 0, and gained 6 flow on top, each. However, amongst them, they were showing 9 hazard cards... so Bob got 9 Bug Chips.
They then return the favor, deciding to try to social engineer Bob being at the restaurant (Chateau de Fonds) for them to meet up with him. Bob, having lots of flow, sets the cost at 10 flow. Checking for the other allowed experience, negotiation; it's not the right kind, so nope, he doesn't. They each ante up, and the rounds begin. Steph burns out some tech, but the tags don't fit, so she loses the levels, to kill 2 of his cards late in the challenge, which puts Bob down by 2 against peter, and 1 against jerry; Peter calls then, and they have 3 margin of victory to spend; they spend 1 margin on effect level, and 2 on rebate. They are, however, showing 6 hazard cards, and I forgot to spend any bug chips, so now I've got a whopping 15 bugs. THey get a 50% rebate on their side-total flow, and have to cut a deal but Bob will go. They get him to agree to let them fix the interface away from what it is.
Steph takes the next challenge to fix her interface. It's a quick challenge, and the others help, so more flow is gained, and I spend bug chips like water, but it was a cheap fix... between all the cards I got, and the lack of cards they got, they won, I got more bug chips, and she got back one level on that interface.
They meet Bob at the restaurant. They do a breaking challenge to change the tags on Bob's interface. Its resisted by the interface alone; it's hardened, but they manage to get the job done... with a total of 1 margin. That lets them change only one tag... they decide to change the tag from wetworking to ephemera... in short, it no longer helps him kill, it helps him perform artistic works...
Well, it's fixed, so they have fulfilled the contract, and call Mr. Johnson to conclude the deal. He sends them the data, and they share it, and they each get the flow points for fulfilling the contract.
They decide to try and provision themselves up a bit, as well. Jerry tries to print a new tech item for steph, but fails, losing 13 flow in the process, and making junk, but does earn a single bug chip. Steph tries real hard to mob jerry a new interface, but fails. He wanted a printing boon, but instead gets a new keysoft interface: Dianetics Online (Ephemera, Cult, Religion). Not happy with this, but playing it, jerry makes a few bad jokes, and Steph spends more flow to mob it again to change the tags... We discover the results table doesn't show the effects for changing tags, so we borrow the effects from breaking to change tags. She gets 3 margin, and uses it to change all three tags. It's now Dianetics Online Keysoft (Printing, Complex materials, Organics).
They end session there. Since they all went up in total flow over the session, each of them causes a 1 point rise in the flow of their MRCZ. I make a card flip, per the rules, for the member not in play this session; it's a freemarket card, so it goes up one for her, too. Their MRCZ's Flow is now 14.
Things Found:
1) Cooperation really does up the flow a LOT. It's almost too powerful...
2) Due to the limit on spending bug chips (one chip per action that draws cards), it's not overwhelming, but it does make it harder.
3) the missing effect level results for challenges with listed flow costs in re Mobbing.
Mistakes Made
I run from charts and tables; book closed as much as possible. I double check stuff after session, and then note it down for later. I discovered the tags for tech and interface are VERY structured, and I'd missed it because it was in Character Generation, rather than tech and interface, and I'd forgotten. So I need to update the character sheet to include the details on what tags are what.
I forgot to charge a flow for an agreed upon contract.
Other Observations
My players don't like the official sheet. They all preferred mine. But they also made suggestions for improvements. Time to adjust it. Luke Crane also asked for a couple changes. So... off to make it.
Also, session one (AP here), steph was goggling at the nature of both challenges and the setting. She was still tentative, but far less so this session. Jerry was goggling half the session, then caught on.
This is a game that you're gonna need several sessions to get right unless you are VERY careful. But it's also trippy and fun. I actually got to shuffle my deck in play.
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Gaming in Greater Anchorage area, Alaska since 1978. Looking for Indy-willing RPG players in Eagle River (or willing to drive to Eagle River). Geekmail me if interested.
