So I started MC'ing a game for
OH Nerd's weekly meetup last night. The players really enjoyed it and we'll be continuing it in 2 weeks and for at least a few more sessions thereafter. I'm planning on probably running around 5-10 sessions within the current world with some players rotating in or out since our weekly attendance sometimes varies.
Here's the in character AP that I wrote after the session last night.
The Eerie Sprawl Log 1See now, that Eerie sprawl it wrap all up and around that big ole' lake like a lover who done gone and hugged the life outta their mate with one too many kink, if you know what I mean. It got everything a runner be needin' for whatev they got burnin' down, hear. You get real seedy you go down to the Hang, the overhang that is, down under where the Arcologies and upper levels have gone all Jesus and walked out on that water. Down der it's all shit and violence - da good stuff, hear.
What's that? Oh you can call me Smith. Nah, no need for first names. If you got the sort of personality that just can't let a thing rest you can call me Mr. Smith, hear.
Now round these parts we got a few big playa's, dem corporations... well organizations least, that be running the things. You got your REM, Ragnorak Entertainment Machines, you know dem they the ones that make the best in simutainment. Hell, you ain't nobody if you don't got a REM box of one type or another floating round your kip. That game they got, man that thing be all over! I know folk who ain't jacked out in years, whole industry sprung up to change out shit bags and IVs for them cast aways. Now we also got that SimSigh, oh that simsigh. A fella gotta be careful with them artificial feelings, you get carried away and forget what it's like to feel a real, hear. Seen many a runner fall down to a simsigh habit, those big O sims be everything and a bag of chips and without the mess! Worse yet you got them Kkangpae, them Korean toughs that control all of North Toledo. Those fellas you don't want to cross, I hear they drop more bodies in the algae than than the other corps combined. Now down under the water you got that Great Lakes - Atlantic Campus, bunch of egghead playas who don't much like minglin' with the common folk but ooo do they pay the cred when they want something from topside!
Anyway, you ain't come here to hear me wax all round the poetics about the Sprawl, you wanna know what the tick is with them runners, yeah?
Well, way I hear it three o' those baddies been holed up with them hippie dippy peaceniks down Toledo way. There's that reporter fella, Doc Liam Santiago, he got a real nose for the scoop. Good man to get when you need more than meets the eye, hear. MYSTIK be a crazy cowgirl ya know? She all up in that wire breaking past whatever ICE thrown her way. That Dancer fella, he bad times if you on his list. Hunt you down and sell you to the highest bidder for you even know you wanted.
One dem eggheads, prof named Beyonce, ask me to set these three up with a bit of work. She want a fella, Bailey, to fly the coop over at SimSigh. Ain't no easy task considering them fucks chip up their engineers to blow once they leave the SimSigh Arcology, figure dem big creds is worth a bit of plastique on the brain pan.
Well I know them fellas done snuck in guised as simheads raring to test out whatever SimSigh be handing out, seem like that worked out alright after a bit of wire trickery by that MYSTIK. Little birdie on the wire say they got up to the floor where that Bailey fella be holed up. Now how they gonna get that boy out without his brain a poppin' I got no tell. Figure they resourceful enough to make it happen though.?Overall the game ran quite smoothly. The Matrix rules were the thing I was most worried about because they've been so unwieldy in every other cyberpunk game I've ever played and I have to say they worked really well and didn't pull spotlight more than any other players moves. Admittedly I only threw up a few blue ICE to screw with the Hacker but it was the first session :) Red and Black will start to haunt him later on. I still don't think it will be an issue though, with the hold from Console Cowboy you end up with a really smooth methodology for dealing with the different routines in the matrix. The Hacker rolled really well on all his rolls as well so that certainly helped move things along. I'm interested to see what a more in depth run will play out like, should have one or two in the next couple of missions.
Initially the Report felt a little off to me, the whole story/noise clock felt like it was going to be a bit much but once we got rolling that added a wonderful amount of depth to the world. The report started piecing together a story about SimSigh covering up an REM funded study linking their Orgasm Sighs (sighs are a fake feeling drug) to neural overload and shutdown in lab animals. It adds a lot of flavor to that playbook and the player was really stoked, he considers his character an 'Action Ethnographer' down in the trenches studying street life - even if he is there by force thanks to getting kicked out of his University.
The player who ran the Hunter had never played a *world system so if anyone was going to have issues with things it should have been him but he was able to catch on really quickly and didn't seem to have any issue figuring out the moves once he got in his head what the different stats represented.
We should be rotating in a few other players over the next few weeks with some of the other playbooks and I'll keep the thread updated with any updates.
Overall great job Hamish!
Steve