Barf Forth Apocalyptica
barf forth apocalyptica => Apocalypse World => Topic started by: J. Walton on April 20, 2011, 03:30:43 PM
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Our new "near earth orbit" AW game starts tomorrow. Super excited! We've been trading poorly Photoshopped pictures of MIR and throwing around character concepts over email, but it'll be so much more exciting when we finally sit down and play.
The premise is that earth no longer supports life, so humanity is basically whatever remnants were up in space or could get themselves off-planet at the time of the apocalypse. It's a hodge-podge of jury-rigged space stations, transport pods, and military shuttles, a bunch of satellites that might be converted into living spaces, several moon bases, and maybe some folks way far away on Mars, nigh-unreachable. All the gear is getting tattered and worn-out, since most of it was salvaged or re-purposed in the first place, and the supply of chemical candles we've been burning for oxygen is getting dangerously low. One might even say "fundamentally scarce."
Here's the two custom moves I've written so far:
When you are out in space without a pressure suit, doing anything but waiting for your blood to boil is acting under fire. Also, you take 2 harm AP every few moments. Better do something fast!
When you are running low on oxygen, start a countdown clock. From 12:00 to 6:00, breathing is labored, it becomes hard to think straight after physical activity, nerves are on edge; take -1 ongoing. From 6:00 to 9:00, you really have to push yourself to keep from becoming distracted or falling asleep; act under fire to take significant physical or mental actions. 10:00, 11:00, and 12:00 come really fast, one after another, boom, boom, boom. For each one, take 1 harm AP. After 12:00, you lose consciousness (if you haven't already) and take 1 harm AP every few moments. Good luck!
I have a few ideas for threats, but I'm going to wait and run the first session like you're supposed to, asking a bunch of questions and seeing what emerges.
Sounds like the players are interested in trying out some of the new moves from the supplemental playbooks I've been trading around, so I'm looking forward to seeing those in play too.
More reports as things develop!
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I'm excited for this.
I'm strongly leaning towards playing a Faceless who perpetually wears a pressure suit with a one-way visor, though I'll wait until we sit down with the group for the session tomorrow to make a final decision about that.
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Lukas, I just finally saw Tron: Legacy and it reminds me a bit of Rinzler/Tron. Some total badass in a pressure suit, with reflective black glass for a face.
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Here's another move that Andy requested:
When you give yourself willingly to the black void of space, roll+weird. On a 10+, hold 3. On a 7-9, hold 2. On a failure, you're just dead and nobody's particularly bothered that you went crazy. In any event, after you're dead, spend your hold 1-for-1 to make someone doubt that anyone has a right to survive. Treat it as if you rolled a 10+ on seduce or manipulate, and tell them that something beautiful, valuable, or critical to human survival must be destroyed.
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This game is happening only a few miles away and I can already feel the heat of its awesomeness.
Lukas: Best Faceless evar.
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Ha! Just realized that Rinzler is the Vader to Emperor Clu. Why is everything old always new again? Still, Vader makes a pretty good Faceless too, yeah?
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Cool!
Space makes AW seem like a picnic.
Manuring in orbit even with computer assistance requires an intuitive grasp of orbital mechanics - i.e. you're working fairly complex and counter intuitive formula in your head. Plus you need a couple kinds of radar and a telescope, because everything is far. The Driver playbook becomes much, much more important. Fucking up means orbital decay, lethal collisions or bingo propellant.
Propellant becomes more important than oxygen. Ion thrusters solve this problem in some ways, by trading power for efficiency. If you want to move fast it'll come at high costs in terms of propellant.
I assume that that most folks have basically nuclear subs in space, mutatis mutadis. With a nuke, you can recycle CO2, water and oxygen pretty much indefinitely. The fissile materials are either slowly running down or coming from the moon. That, and maintaining a reactor isn't exactly easy or free.
Everyone is vulnerable to everyone else in orbit because you can just put a small hunk of whatever in an intersecting orbit and wait for the two collide as high speeds. Tracking every bit of stuff up there becomes a vital task.
Food would be scarce. Oddly enough, water and oxygen are likely to be in relative abundance.
Radiation is a big problem. Even with 'shielding.' (Like you dragged anything that dense into orbit. You're probably using water to shield yourself because that mass does double duty - mostly as a coolant for the reactor.) As are the effects of micro-gravity on just about every aspect of biology. It's conceivable that one's lifespan in orbit, barring radical germline genetic engineering or significant advances in material sciences, is maybe ten years. Cancer and immune diseases would be very common.
A note on the asphyxiation move: once you stop breathing, you have maybe five minutes before you start taking any serious brain damage. Usually more like three. After that you're toast.
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Awesome stuff, Nathan. I'll definitely be stealing from that. Some aspects of our orbital apocalypse may be like Vincent's "always enough fuel and bullets" setting rule in AW, where we hand-wave away stuff that doesn't interest us, but it should be real enough to feel right, definitely.
The asphyxiation rule, right now, assumes that the oxygen will get thinner and thinner instead of just being cut off entirely. I'm drawing on cinematic inspiration like Sunshine and that Firefly episode. And the AP harm you keep taking after you lose consciousness is the brain damage coming on. Not a pretty way to go.
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Yeah, I was spit balling ideas for scarcities, threats and fronts. Make it real, right? Use whatever you want.
I deleted part of my post about low oxygen sickness / passing out.
The thing is with space suits is that it wouldn't pump the CO2 back into the suit, it'd store it for O2 recovery. Once oxygen/nitrogen mix is in the black you pass out and die in about five minutes. Before that, you're fine. Nervous and panicked, but still conscious. That move would work well in, say, the larger space of a ship but in a space suit it's a kind of all or nothing situation. The question becomes making last long by either turning down the O2 in the mix or breathing slower and moving less.
So, for a space suit I'd do this:
12:00-3:00 : Green
3:00-6:00 : Yellow
6:00-9:00 : Red. At this point your friends should be coming for a heroic rescue.
9:00-10:00 : One action, under fire and the fire is passing out.
10:00-11:00: Unconscious + Mark a debility.
But like you said, if you want the death spiral, it's your game. Just MHO.
Fires in space are super dangerous.
Decompression isn't usually explosive. In the way that cars don't blow up when you shoot at them. If you're going for the cinematic thing, then maybe when it happens it's really dramatic. Most, it's a small hole that you can't find that's slowly leaking atmosphere. Atmosphere that you'll never get back. Big holes are worse but no one is likely to be 'sucked out.'
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"You and your passengers may have suffered some slight bone loss..."
I was thinking broodmother ... then fallen ... now I'm thinking savvyhead because he'll be so god-damned useful, who else is going to keep our control rods controlled. CAN'T DECIDE! BRAIN ANEURYSM!
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Nathan: Nice. I really like the idea of the old chemical oxygen candles that the Soviets used, so I think the station should start with a stash of those that's almost blown through. If they want to try to capture a nuclear satellite or find another way to get a reactor, we should probably tackle that in play. Too much fun!
Jamie: Well, you better rack up that XP fast and get a second character! I'm just looking forward to making a hard-assed station boss and their thugs when none of you cats decides to play the Hardholder.
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Super Sweet situation!
Some of the playbooks have awesome appeal in this AW - I really like the idea of Savvyheads in the near earth Orbit. More Shtick then ever!
Oh and the questions! The first session has all these 'extra' twists to the standard start-up provacation...
Where's your digs? Describe 'em.
How do you get all the fundamental scarcities?
Is earth really uninhabitable? How do you know?
How do you punish folks who do bad things?
Oh, how my mind is spinning with the possibilities! I think I may be able to run an impromptu Easter game which was going to be DW and have now been inspired to pitch it 'Under the sea'. A la the Abyss, or Jules Verne, or Oceanspace by Allen Steele. Thanks Everyone!
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Nathan,
Can you explain why oxygen and water would not be scarce? Is it because they're easier to recycle, or what?
What's the science or rationale behind this statement?
Thanks!
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Basically with a reactor you can purify and electrolyze all the water and oxygen you need, and run a regenerative carbon dioxide removal system on top of that. The RCRS requires a ten hour 400 degree baking cycle. Since if you're running around with a nuke that won't be a problem. Water can act as radiation shielding. You can use it as a coolant if you're using something like a CANDU reactor. So, you probably brought a lot of it up with you because as mass, water is more flexible than lead. Nuclear submarines rely on the fact that there's an abundance of sea water around but it's conceivable that one could implement a fairly sustainable system, if you brought enough up with you.
The problem is that CO2 scrubbers aren't really all that sustainable for long periods. That's the real issue: you're eventually going to run out of sorbent before you run out of water and thus oxygen.
Sorry, I haven't really answered you question: Yes, they're easy to recycle. With electrolysis you can turn water in to H and O. You then use the H and O for fuel cell batteries (which would then produce water vapor), and the O for breathing. Central problem, again, is the CO2 produced by breathing. I'm not sure if there is a process by which you could recover the the O from that. Algae?
Yeah, water would be scarce eventually as these cycles aren't 100% efficient. But you'd starve or die from CO2 poisoning first. Suppose you had a way of dealing with that or you brought a lot of sorbent to soak up all that CO2. Food becomes the next biggest problem.
I guess they could grow it on the moon?
I was just looking this up and the lunar crust is made up of 15% lime, and recent surveys have pretty much said that there are large ice sheets on the north pole of Luna. A common sorbent for CO2 scrubbing is slake lime, aka lime and water.
Shit, that's where they get their sorbent and water from: the moon!
With only oxygen candles and CO2 scrubbers, the PCs are gonna have to make a move real soon.
It's not that water and oxygen wouldn't be scarcities; it's that they're not first on the list.
The list as far as I see it is:
Health (radiation and the effects of micro-gravity)
Food
Electrical power
Sorbent
Water
Propellant
Oxygen
Depending on how you solve for some of these, that'd change the nature of the others.
Like with the nuclear reactor, you'd need to think about coolant and shielding. Water is a nice solution but you'd need a lot of it. But it would also solve some of your being irradiated, your oxygen and your power problems. The primary scarcities become sorbent and propellant.
But if you're up in Mir with plenty of oxygen candles, sorbent, food and solar cells but really low on water then, yeah, water is gonna be your biggest problem.
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Hmm... the ratio of Science to Space Facelesses in this thread is reaching unstable proportions. I will help.
(http://pics.livejournal.com/amnesiack/pic/00025q6d/s640x480)
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Every good space station has a hatchet. According to science.
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Duh. I mean what are you gonna murder you're crewmates with when they turn on you? A gun? And risk a hull breach?
Seriously.
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If it's Mir, a Hammer and/or Sickle.
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Watch the anime PlanetES. One of the best ever and all about a fairly realistic portrayal of living in space. Not apocalyptic space but I'm sure it will have some gems of inspiration.
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This campaign concept is splendid.
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What a great idea for a campaign! And just in time for it, MIT Press just published Nicholas de Monchaux's Spacesuit: Fashioning Apollo (http://www.amazon.com/dp/026201520X) on how Playtex seamstresses sewed the 21-layer Apollo spacesuits, and other fascinating tidbits.
Axes we already know well and love wisely.
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The first session was rad! Lots of interesting things came up immediately because both our Quarantine and our Skinner-with-Followers (we all started with one advance) tanked their start-of-session rolls!
Playing the Faceless is way fun; mine is a quietly crazy hybrid of Sam from Moon (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1182345/) and a Big Daddy from BioShock (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BioShock).
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Andy's work got busy at the last minute, so we roped in Cy, who'd played in the only other AW game I ran, a one-shot at PAX last year. I'm aiming it for it to be a game that's easy to wander in and out of, modeled a bit on John's "Iron Coast" game. So maybe Andy (or Eric, who runs Gamma Ray games) will show up next week.
Character creation was fun. We ended up with:
Trench, Lukas' gender-concealed faceless, who had been originally sent up to conduct experiments on a fancy new pressure suit but then, due to the apocalypse, abandoned on a small orbital lab for 20 years before being found by the space station Legacy. Trench has the "Norman" move, in the form of the lab computer that he spent 20 years talking to and apparently still talks to sometimes (though nobody else can hear it). Also, he never takes the suit off. Ever.
Specialist Vladimir Gregoryan, a Russian quarantine whose stasis pod has only been recently recovered from space. He's only been out for a few days and his brain was completely overwhelmed by the psychic maelstrom. Specialist Anna Tamaskovitch (riffing off "Tammy") lost her mind when she emerged from stasis and Trench tied her up and locked her in his old lab (now incorperated into the station) so she wouldn't harm herself.
Grace, the skinner-with-followers (we decided to start out with 1 advance, since we'd all played some before) who is functionally in charge of Legacy and runs the breeding program that's produced roughly a dozen healthy children. Like Trench, Grace is also an "original" (born on earth) and is just over 50 (the apocalypse taking place roughly 30 years ago). Trench doesn't participate in the breeding program but stays partially because he loves the children.
We kicked it off with the session moves and they were fun. Two failures.
First, Grace's followers got +disease and +judgment. I narrated one of the children, a 7yo girl named Newton, getting sick at breakfast. When Trench took her to the infirmary, Newton's mother, Rice (an original) was on duty and quickly went to confront Grace about the food -- grown hydroponically on the station -- being poison. Rice demanded, kinda out of nowhere, that they try to make it to the moon. Grace hypnotized her (skinner move) with her calm, quiet, compassionate leadership but promised to do something about it.
Then, I asked Vladimir what they tried that failed (past move). He said that they'd built underground bunkers to try to shield people from the beginnings of the psychic maelstrom and that he was in charge of them when they failed and everyone fell into madness and violence. So he was remembering that when he woke up and went to talk to Specialist Tamaskovitch.
Vladimir hacked his way past Trench's electronic lock (7-9 act under fire), but set off a silent alarm that sent a signal to Trench's suit. Anna was mumbling semi-coherently about being in the wrong place and wanting to leave, so Vladamir read a person (success) but also was required -- as a quarantine who failed his initial psychic maelstrom roll -- to open his brain (failure). He saw what Anna was seeing, a jet-black storm rolling across the surface of the planet far below, beneath the poisoned atmosphere. The storm ripped two questions from his mind: 1) what do you plan on doing now (return to earth to complete his mission), 2) was going into space voluntary or were you ordered to (he felt compelled to do it). As MC, my move was "inflict harm" (as established), so Vladimir took s-harm and passed out, floating there next to Anna with the door now unlocked and open. Later, on the bus home, I smacked myself for not making it psi-harm, but I forgot all about that in the moment. Next time.
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Forgot to mention: Vladimir's successful reading of Anna let him figure out that she would stop harming herself or freaking out if he promised he was going to take her away from the station. That's important later.
While that was happening, Grace and Trench went to talk with Millions, Grace's eldest son (22), who was in charge of the converted hydroponics garden. Millions tried to insist that everything was fine, that the plants were all doing well, but Trench read a person and wasn't buying his bullshit. When pressed, Millions admitted that at least half the food was of low quality and quickly deteriorating. The seeds that he harvested from each subsequent batch of plants had gradually gotten weaker and weaker. Unless they could get fresh seeds from somewhere, the food supply was in trouble. He'd known about this for a while, but gambled that the deterioration was slow enough that he could stop it. Too late now.
Grace tried to read Millions and failed. My MC move was "tell them the possible consequences and ask," so Millions begged Grace not to blame him for this or tell the children that he'd been feeding them food that wasn't good for them. He wasn't sure if he could take that. Grace said that he had to take responsibility in front of the adults of the station, but didn't say anything specifically about the children. She agreed that he could present the situation at an upcoming "council meeting."
Trench then went to find out what was happening in his lab, arriving to find Vladimir unconscious in Anna's "cell" and Anna nowhere to be found. He slapped Vladimir awake and opened his brain (asking his lab computer) where Anna was. She was in the airlock, clearly, trying to get away. Trench used his magnetic boots to run in that direction, with Vladimir floating through the station, pulling himself along, trying to keep up.
Anna had already closed the inner door and was randomly pushing buttons on the control panel inside. Vladimir, having already proved his ability to hack electronic doors, went to work on this one (7-9 act under fire, again), but got help from Trench ripping the panel cover open. As MC, I said that they got the inner door open, but that Anna had finally found a correct button sequence and the outer door was preparing to open, threatening to space at least half the station. We noted with a grin that this wasn't exposing Trench to harm, retribution, or cost (as he'd succeeded in his helping roll), since he was already in a pressure suit. While Vladimir promised he would take Anna back to earth with him, which she responded well to, Trench went aggro on the airlock controls with his axe (10+), which did what he wanted and stopped their sequence.
[Later, on the bus home, Lukas and I chatted a bit about going aggro on inanimate objects and the difference between them doing what you wanted and sucking up your harm, but I venture that it worked pretty well in practice.]
Finally, Grace went to talk to "the person she had to worry about most" if this 'go to the moon' movement ever found its footing. I decided this was Rice's husband, Peppering, an original and the father of Millions (with Grace). Peppering was not a scientist but a corporate spouse -- working for the sci-tech company financing the station -- who'd finagled his way onto the original mission as an administrator. We decided he wasn't actually part of Grace's followers, considering the breeding program her business and beneath him. He liked to think he was in charge, even though Grace was the real power. Peppering had always been disappointed that Millions was only amounting to being a "farmer" and would never be a real leader.
Grace told Peppering that maybe they should go salvage for more seeds, making it sound like this was Millions idea and that he should be involved in the mission in some leadership capacity. Peppering warmed to this, under hypnosis, but implied that Millions was a bit soft and he'd feel better if Trench accompanied them. Actually, he suggested (giving Grace something he thought she wanted), if they could convince the "new guy" (Vladimir) to go too, then Peppering could use his background in the military-industrial sector to break both himself and Grace into Vladimir's stasis and see what was of use to the station.
And, on that note, setting up the next session in a couple different ways, we wrapped.
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It's really great. The faceless talking to his spacesuit computer but really tapping into the maelstrom (and his crazy) is great. I'm assuming he's male but there's always the possibility of a Samus reveal.
For me, it's like watching a really good science fiction show - the audience rapidly becomes aware that there's a whole ton of crazy going on. The juxtaposition of hard sublight-speed science and the psychic maelstrom makes it both real and transcendent at the same time.
There are so many science fiction movies and shows that start out great and then turn crappy (Sunshine, Dante-13, Event Horizon, Battlestar Galactica) ... but I have confidence we'll hold it together. I know the psychic maelstrom isn't going to turn out to be a metaphor for hell or anything religious - it's just the psychic maelstrom, yo.
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I also love how Grace seems really nice, reasonable, and willing to talk out any problems that anyone has, but she's really hypnotizing the fuck out of anyone who she thinks might be endangering the station or challenging her authority. Rad and scary.
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Forgot to mention. When Millions first showed up, I suggested off-hand that he was probably named, like Abraham, to be the father of a great nation, repopulating humanity. He was both the firstborn and one of the few males, since Grace's breeding program intentionally tries for female babies (though it probably took a few to get that right). In retrospect, the name "Millions" was probably Peppering's idea, rather than Grace's, which explains so much!
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Awesome. So much great stuff!
And yeah, no, don't roll to go aggro on stuff. You just do it, or act under fire if there is any.
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AW in space sounds awesome! I love taking a premise, and upping the weird of it, putting the world in a place alien but where the humanity is still familiar.
The Faceless with the astronaut visor is so cool. And the Russian Quarantine, or the Skinner with followers. All the characters sound particularly creative and super fun to play.
The custom moves are amazing - I particularly like giving yourself over to the black void - inducing space madness in a way more specific than the opening up to the Maelstrom.
Other playbooks I could see working - the Chopper with his gang of thrust-sleds, all done up in pressure suits; the Hardholder with a hydroponic ship; The Hoarder stowaway.
Well done guys.
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Whoa. So cool! Gonna steal this idea - can't stop thinking about cannibals storaging their food in the void.
(https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/_2rP4P1w_mwE/TbSEHGEDE6I/AAAAAAAAAI8/fY11s0TguLE/s640/astronauts-caa.jpeg)
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And, just in time for me to make some Fronts...
WHAT HAPPENS TO IRRADIATED SEEDS (http://pruned.blogspot.com/2011/04/atomic-gardens.html)
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Huh. I just googled "irradiated seeds", and it actually seems like it's a pretty common process for producing new strains of a given plant. Interesting!
Of course, that's under controlled laboratory conditions...
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Question for more experienced MCs!
How do you approach making fronts and threats that haven't really been introduced in the game yet? Do you even try?
I went ahead and wrote up Legacy station as a front, with all the threats we've already seen: the failing hydroponic garden, the children, the council, Peppering, Anna, etc. But then when I went to make another Front or two for the threats that are off-station, I got a little stuck and feel like I have less to go on.
Basically, I want to ask the players a bunch of questions like "How often do you get attacked by raiders?" "Is there anybody on the station that is a refugee from the moon?" And I feel like, without those answers, it's harder for me to make up fronts and threats that'll feel real and "stuck in" as part of the shared setting.
My instinct is to stat up a threat or two that are out there, since most likely the PCs will be doing some off-station scavenging next session, but to leave the rest until we get a chance to explore a bit in play and I have a better grounding in what else is out there in orbit. Is that crazy or a fair call?
I also find myself, after I drafted all the Fronts and Threats out, tweaking them and shifting them around a bit, since it feels like I didn't quite nail them properly the first time. Now that I've done that, they look really good and I feel really confident about them. I'm interested if other folks do that too.
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Yes, think off-screen! That's great.
If you have a strong vision for a Front, run with it, of course. Go ahead and make that Moon front and idly think about what's up with it, time to time, as the on-screen stuff goes down at home. Hold on lightly until it actually gets on-screen, though. Be ready to revise, jettison, as needed.
If you don't have a strong vision for other Fronts yet, that's fine too. There's no rush. Ask questions, like you said, and see what sparks. The home front and the threats you already have will keep you plenty busy in the meantime.
If the PCs rush off to a "blank spot" on the map before you've prepped it, either scan the threats real quick and see what jumps out at you (that's what I do) or ask for a short break while you think it over. If you've been daydreaming your apocalyptica (I know you have) you probably have some unassigned imagery and personalities in your head that you can grab and run with in the moment.
And yes, I also revise threats all the time. Both to better reflect how I envisioned them to start, and in response to changes in play. Sometimes that revision happens only in my head and I never bother to actually change their write-up. But later, reflecting on it, I'm all, "Yeah, she totally turned into a grotesque there."
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Here's the love letters we kicked off the last session with. More AP once my head stops hurting from too much beer and $1 tacos.
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Hi Grace!
So… Millions presented the garden situation to the Breeders Council – composed of everyone who’s successfully procreated – and you had +judgment last time, yeah? That probably didn’t go very well for Millions. Or maybe it did, since you were there. Roll+hot. On a 10+, pick 2 things that DIDN’T happen, due to your smoothing things over; on a 7-9, pick 1. On a failure, all of these.
• Millions began crying hysterically, in front of Peppering too.
• The Breeders Council will reconvene later to decide on proper punishment.
• Millions has been ordered to space all the “poisonous” food and plants.
Hugs and Kisses,
Your MC.
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Hi Vladimir!
So… you and Grace had sex, right? Somewhere in the midst of the Maelstrom madness that hit when you emerged from your pod? But it hasn’t happened again and you’re not really talking about it, yeah? I wonder why. Pick one of these:
• It happened and was whatever it was. Both your sex moves trigger, retroactively.
• In the midst of it, the Maelstrom rushed through you and you both took psi-harm. Follow the instructions for that, but remember that this took place in the past, so whatever consequences have already happened, several days ago.
• You woke up this morning and, addition to whatever vision you get from your past, you suddenly remember your encounter with Grace, clear as day, when before it was kinda foggy. Grace’s sex move suddenly triggers, but not yours, because you were too out of it at the time.
Hugs and kisses,
Your MC
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Hi Trench!
You, Millions, and Corbett (one of the originals) are out in scavenger space looking for anything that might have live biological specimens in it. Ask Vladimir if he’s agreed to come along, because Peppering REALLY wants him to go.
You were hoping to meet up with a scavenger crew that occasionally spends time at the station – Pellet, Balls, and Jakabaka – and enlist their help to check out some interesting debris that Fuse has been pinging signals off of. Of course, it’s just not that easy.
Roll+cool. On a 10+, you find Pellet’s crew and nobody’s shooting at you yet. On a 7-9, you find Pellet and Balls, but Jakabaka’s missing and somebody’s shooting at you. On a failure, yup, you don’t know where Pellet and his crew are, but you’re hoping that’s them over there shooting at you. But it’s probably not. Are you in a ship of some kind, on jet scooters, or just floating out in space somewhere, having left your vehicle(s) nearby?
Hugs and kisses,
Your MC
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Jay,
I've generally used letters after a long time off the game when we need to re-connect quickly and get back into the groove. Any particular reason why you decided to go with letters the second game in?
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I don't know Jay's reason, but I also use love letters when I want to jump around in time, or when I have a relationship I want to examine, as well as when we haven't been able to play in a bit. Vincent recently ran a great game that started every weekly session with love letters. But that's me. What's your reason, Jay?
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Vincent recently ran a great game that started every weekly session with love letters. But that's me. What's your reason, Jay?
Whoa! There are MCs that don't start every session with Love Letters!?
I try to have something for every PC, or a group of PCs, every session! Even if it's something as simple as "Dear Chopper, things are going smoooooth." They're often reminders of stuff that happened the previous session, long term goals PCs are trying to put in play, or unexpected options that come to mind after thinking about the session. I hadn't thought of not doing them each session!
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For me, it was about getting a chance to examine some loose ends or consequences left dangling or unexplored. It also served, in practice, to remind folks of what had happened and kick off the action this time around, especially for the characters without "session moves" like Fortunes or The Past. However, I did notice the love letter moves kinda overshadowed the session moves this time around, so I'm going to try to work better to integrate them next time.
Like, the Quarantine love letter (#2) probably should have been worded: "First, let's see what you remember from your past. Blah blah. THEN..." Likewise with the Skinner+followers love letter (#1).
I really like love letters as part of MC prep because they really get me to focus on a couple of things that I don't do as much, namely 1) cutting straight to the meat of things (like skipping the council meeting and skipping the journey out to scavenger space), and focusing on what's happening RIGHT NOW, rather than thinking too far ahead in the future. Both of those seem to be pretty critical aspects of MCing AW.
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I aced my love letter roll, which actually made me a little sad. I wanted to start the session with someone shooting at me!
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Yeah, I probably should have worded the 10+ result on your love letter more interestingly. Next time!
Plus, it's not like you didn't get shot up later, like taking that fist-sized slug between your shoulder blades.
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Should I stop reading this thread? Your talk about what your fronts are going to be ... I covered my eyes and said, "Better not spoil it for myself ... I might become aware of the names of the moves ..."
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It's up to you, Jamie. I'm not worried about it. I mean, every NPC is a threat (or part of one) until you get advanced moves and take some of them as allies, right? That's how the game works!
Honestly, it doesn't bother me if you know what my MC moves were after a session was over, but if that spoils the magic for you... it's your call.
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Since our next session is tomorrow, I guess I better get on with this AP! My MC love letters are a few posts up, so let's start with those.
Grace nailed her roll (10+), so she managed to avoid Millions bursting into tears or the Breeder's Council ordering him to space half the food supply for being contaminated. Instead, the Council will rule on appropriate punishment once Millions returns from a scavenging mission to look for fresh seeds.
Vlad's letter gave him a bunch of choices and he chose that sex with Grace happened, and "it was whatever it was." Both their specials trigger and they trade questions back and forth (interestingly, we find out that Vladimir plans on returning to earth to complete his mission, whatever it was, and that Grace doesn't really enjoy life that much anymore, being so focused on everyone's survival). Grace also gets "skinner hold" on Vlad, which would end up being critical later.
Trench was disappointed that he rolled a 10+ on his letter (since Lukas wanted to be in a fight), but he, Millions, and Corbett found Pellet's crew without too much trouble. When Lukas turned to ask Jamie if Vladimir was there, Jamie waffled a bit and said he'd like to play out being asked to join the scavenging trip, if that was cool. We all said sure and decided that Grace would be the one to ask him. Vladimir got a 7-9 on reading Grace (to see if she was lying about things) and Grace got a 10+ manipulate, so Vladimir marked XP and agreed to go scavenge, leaving his stasis pod locked but unattended.
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I describe a giant ark of a transport ship floating amidst a cloud of its own debris, the top decks of the ship having been apparently blown out from the inside. Pellet's crew have parked their modified commercial space plane upside down on the bottom of the ark's hull and are carving into it with a blowtorch to attempt to siphon its liquid or pressurized gas fuel into their own small ship.
We decide that the scavenger crew from Legacy Station, nominally led by Trench, are in some modified escape pod that doesn't really fly very well and only really has room for three people, so Trench has opted to instead strap himself to the outside of the pod and ride along EVA. Corbett mans the pod while Trench, Millions, and Vladimir float over to Pellet's crew and "offer assistance," mostly in the form of Trench going aggro on Pellet to enlist their help looking for seeds.
There's a brief lull here as the fuel siphoning commences, so I make my MC move (put someone in a spot) and ask if anyone wants to read a charged situation. Trench fails with a 6 and Vlad helps him to bump it up to a 7-9. "What should I be on the lookout for?" of course. Well, there's a dozen creepy dudes in scavenged metal armor fitted with samurai-style demon masks crawling down both sides of the ark's hull towards you, hooking onto things with razor sharp (maybe nano-sharp) finger claws and carrying space-modified rifles across their backs.
Trench points his axe at them and orders them to stop. Instead, they draw their guns and open fire. The battle begins. I suggest that, depending on what they want to do next, they may first have to act under fire.
Trench says he's just going to go right at them, no caring that they're shooting, and wants to know if he can seize a solid tactical position by force. Uh huh, sounds good to me. 10+, so he throws himself into the middle of them, decapitates one of them, takes no harm, fear-dismay-frightens them, and now they can't really shoot him effectively without risking shooting some of their own, as Trench is right in the middle.
Vladimir decides to act under fire to avoid getting shot. 7-9, so I say that the siphoning hose for the space plane is right behind him. That's Pellet's problem! Vlad dives out of the way and the hose gets ripped to fuck. A green gaseous substance starts slowly forming an opaque cloud, pouring out the hole cut in the bottom of the ark. Pellet, Balls, and Jakabaka run for their plane.
Vladimir then panics that he doesn't have his own assault rifle (which hasn't been modified for space yet), but decides to go aggro on a demon-dude to get him to give up his gun. 6, but Grace inspires him with memories of her (skinner hold) and he gets a 7-9 instead. He takes a bullet to the chest-plate of his spacesuit and can feel the divot scraping against the fabric of his suit, threatening to tear it, but gets the gun.
Next, Millions tries to go after them in a similar fashion but, not used to fighting in space, tries to jump on top of one and misses, floating over the whole battle and threatening to just keep on drifting until he hits something solid.
Pellet and his crew are now aboard their space plane and prepare to blow this popsicle stand. Pellet sets himself up in the turret they've installed in the top of the plane and swings its big fuck off gun right through the crowd of demon-faces guys, not really paying attention to Trench standing in the middle of them. DOOF DOOF DOOF DOOF!! goes the fuck off gun, shooting slugs the size of fists.
Trench decides not to avoid the fuck off gun, but instead to act under fire to grab Millions before he drifts totally away. Success, but 7-9! Are you really going to take a fist-sized slug for Millions? Trench says bring it. I flip through the book and grab one of the vehicle guns from the driver's "My other car is a tank" move. And then, like the badass faceless he is, Trench takes 0 harm and totally aces his roll+harm suffered. Holy crap that guy is tough.
Vladimir declares he's provide cover fire for Trench, keeping the demon-faced dudes off his buddy. We decide that this is going aggro rather than the optional move for cover fire (since this is our first fight). 10+, but they decide to flee rather than do what he wants, so Vladimir lights them up with his newly acquired space-rifle. As a quarantine, he decides to do s-harm area, carefully shooting their air hoses, leaving them all gasping and struggling to fix their suits.
Victory! The demon-faced guys limp over the side of the ark and back down into the interior. Trench and Vladimir have a brief chat and decide to go after them. "Something valuable must be here, if it's worth guarding," Trench suggests. Millions is embarrassed by his performance in the fight, grabs one of the demon space-guns that's floating next to a dead guy, and looks ready to shoot some dudes this time around. They tether their pod to the side of the hull and tell Corbett to wait and Millions to guard the ship. He's not happy about it, but Trench tells him that the demon-faced dudes are likely to come back and he can shoot some of them then.
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Oh, man, crazy session last night. Need to catch up!
To quickly summarize the rest of the previous session:
- Trench ended up defeating the "grand vizier" of the demon-faced dudes, but being dragged down into the space hulk by sheer numbers
- Vladimir, Corbett, and Millions were left on their own
- Grace, Peppering, and our new touchstone, Sonya, broke into Vladimir's stasis pod while he was gone (with the now-insane Specialist Tamaskovitch's help)
- Peppering found the arms locker and Grace decided to attempt to freeze herself in one of the stasis pods
So, then, here were the love letters for the session last night:
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Hi Grace!
So you’re frozen in a stasis pod, cut off from the whispers of the psychic maelstrom for the first time since the apocalypse. Doesn’t that feel lonely?
In any case, without the maelstrom clouding your mind, visions and memories of the past come flooding back to you. Everything hasn’t been lost; it’s right here waiting for you, behind the veil. Roll+sharp as per the quarantine move Past, instead of rolling Fortunes. The surplus and want of your followers is beyond your comprehension right now.
Then I guess we need to get you out of there, huh? You got a 7-9 on your roll+hard against the freezing process, so here’s your choice:
- You’ve been frozen for a few days, only slightly longer than you intended, but have been quickly and inexpertly revived; follow the quarantine instructions for “when you emerged from stasis” to decide how the psychic maelstrom welcomes you back.
- You’ve been frozen for weeks, maybe months, but somebody is smart enough to take you to the psi-isolation rig and let you thaw out there. Hopefully it’s Vladimir
Hugs and kisses, Your MC.
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Hi Sonya!
So I guess you’re about the only reasonable person left on the station now that Grace is frozen. Let’s figure out how that went for you.
First, roll Fortunes for the time that Grace was out.
Next, Peppering’s making his play. If you’re going to stand up to him and Pellet, his new lieutenant, roll+hard. On a 10+, choose 3. On a 7-9, choose 2. On a failure, none.
- You get him to leave the children alone.
- You get him to leave Anna alone.
- You keep him from seizing control of all of the station… yet.
- You don’t let the fighting destroy any important parts of the station.
If you decide to take a more amiable stance, none of the above, but roll+cool, with the same conditions.
- You let him bring you into his inner circle.
- You let him put you in charge of something important.
- You convince him not to monitor where you go or who you talk to.
Hugs and kisses, Your MC.
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Hi Trench,
So it’s been at least several days since were dragged down into the bowels of a space hulk by a brood of demon-faced warriors. I wonder how that’s worked out.
Have you replaced the royal commissar who you bested in personal combat and been bestowed with his staff and demon-mask to wear proudly across your chest? If so, just say so. This one’s free.
Have you been appointed prince-consort to the queen of this hive, the one enthroned in brass and gold on the solar throne? To do this you have to have at least pretended to embrace the beliefs and practices of their sun-cult. Also, if so, tell us about your relationship with the queen.
Have you been shown the sacred treasure that the Sun’s Children hold dearest of all? To do this you have to have ingested (or, perhaps, injected) the sacred liquor that is partaken as part of their daily ceremony. Also, tell us if you’ve taken it daily or just the once. It’s very nice indeed.
Hugs and kisses, Your MC.
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Hi Vladimir,
First, make your Past roll.
So it’s you, Millions, and Corbett now, huh? Out on a space hulk with a bunch of demon-masked dudes and no Trench.
Since there’s a bunch of different ways you could be spending your time, pick a few gigs from the operator playbook to represent that. Have you been “doing murders” to crawly silver demons, conducting “infiltration” of their hive, “scavenging” or “raiding” for food and supplies, or maybe going home and conducting “compound defense” against Peppering’s takeover?
Pick a few and roll as if you had 2 juggling. Rather than getting barter from your gigs, we’ll say success puts you closer to accomplishing whatever it is you’re trying to do.
Failure is as normal.
We’ll take it from there.
Hugs and kisses, Your MC
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So Jamie's been posting tidbits from our game over on SG's Bite-Sized AP threads, but I thought I'd try to catch this thread up a bit, since we've had 2 sessions since the last post.
The letters above, which sounded really good when I was writing them, ended up being a little bit awkward in practice, especially Sonya's. Skipping Peppering's takeover made it difficult for us to figure out what exactly had happened and who was in which half of the station, because Sonya chose to resist and picked all the options except for the last one. So I said that maybe she had gathered Anya and the children and taken them to the part of the station with the stasis and Trench's old pod, but that somebody had blown the station in half during the fighting.
In the end, I learned that Love Letters are not really a replacement for properly framing the starting situation to kick off a session. Sometimes you want to actually play that shit out instead of just having the letters simulate it. Important to learn.
Meanwhile, Trench decided to go all the way into his new role as Grand Vizier and Royal Consort, getting into a close but nonsexual relationship with the Queen (the person in the golden demon armor from the previous session). He also made contact with Vladamir after the quarantine failed his attempt at infiltration of the hive of the Sun Children and sent him back to check on the station.
Vlad returned to the station and docked on the half with his stasis and Trench's pod, helping Sonya get Grace into the psi-isolation chamber before she completely de-thawed, preventing the Psychic Maelstrom from overwhelming her again. Then, the three of them made contact with Peppering and agreed to a prisoner exchange where Corbett and Vladamir would be traded for some of the children and recent mothers who were still on Peppering's half.
Meanwhile, the Queen informed Trench that the time was approaching when she would resign her rule and depart for the Sun Chariot, a mythical space barge that they tracked on an apocalypse-era monitor (the treasure they kept secret). She asked Trench if he would escort her to the Chariot and then return and conduct the search for a new Queen (one of the jobs of the Grand Vizier). Trench agrees.
When the day comes, a giant 2001-style rotating, wheel-shaped station (with artificial gravity) comes into view. It is painted gold and covered in pseudo-Egyptian kitsch like it's the Luxor Casino. Trench pilots the Queen there on a converted cargo sled, wrapped in gold ribbons and fitted with statues of snakes, and then they go inside to find that it is, indeed, a space casino filled with just 20-30 people, most of them very old, despite the huge amount of space. They are ruled by a High Priest who has tried to preserve the faith in the gods despite declining religious fervor. Nevertheless, the Queen is happy there, though Trench leaves her as she is slowly recovering her strength, having lived her entire life (?) in zero gravity.
Back on Legacy station, the prisoner exchange goes poorly for Peppering as Vladamir shoots him in the face. Jamie wanted to know if he should roll Go Aggro for that, but I waved it aside and asked how much harm he did (3, to his face, so... dead). This was definitely one of those cases where the players have set it up and you just let it happen. With Peppering down, the struggle with Pellet and his gang was over pretty quick as Grace manipulated Pellet into calling a truce and Pellet got Jackabacka and Balls to stand down, though not before a hail of bullets went ricocheting around the inside of the station.
And that's how the third session ended.
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We played the fourth session this week.
Just a few days before the game, we learned that Cy (Grace's player) was going to be moving to another city, since his wife had just gotten a new job. So, over a terrific dinner of Chinese food with the other players (Cy had to bow out), I proposed that Grace was -- unbenownst to any of the other PCs -- hit by a ricocheting bullet during the fight and collapsed later that day. Due to the bullet being lodged near something important, Rice (Peppering's wife, coincidentally and the ship doctor) decides that they better refreeze her in a stasis pod until they can decide what to do, since they don't have the medical facilities here to deal with it. The other players agreed, since it would allow us to have a reunion game with Cy at GoPlay or PAX, since he's planning on coming back for those.
More in a bit.