And, just in time for me to make some Fronts...

WHAT HAPPENS TO IRRADIATED SEEDS

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

Yeah, Christopher basically has it right. Each one is a few extra moves and gear for an existing playbook, made to fit on a double-sided 4x6" notecard.

Getting there too late is pretty awesome, actually.  Maybe there's another one where you have to take a detour or recover yourself after a missed star.  It could be more like Act Under Fire / Eye on the Door too where the GM tells you the stakes and then you decide whether to accept them.

The two stats is an interesting idea, but I'm not 100% sure.  Seems like Inside could be replaced with a Hx-like stat and maybe Outside as well, based on your familiarity with different routes and places.  Hmm...