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| Next up, on Erratic Episodes... |
Tuesday, September 18, 2012
Saturday, September 8, 2012
Episode 2: Robobugs and Cybervoyers
After a DEPLORABLE five month gap, we dove back into the Mass Effect universe this week for the second session of what started as a mysterious [Classified Sci-Fi Adventure]. The gap's been so significant that I forgot to take any pictures, so I'll be illustrating this post with handouts from the game--but I'll get into that later. Otherwise, the interim months have been rather kind in regards to new tools to run this specific game.
The first, flashiest, and freest is the Mass Effect Datapad app for the iPad, a sleek app that utilizes Mass Effect's in-game menu treatments to present the series's hundreds of fantastic recorded and written codex entries--among other inconsequential options. As I've told each of the game's players that he has an omitool with access to an encyclopedic galactic database, this app manifests that resource at the game table with both the perfect info and aesthetic. Those features, combined with the iPad's already futuristic flair, makes this easily the highest tech player handout I've ever used in a game. The only down side is that the adventure itself is far enough off the beaten path and we have enough people familiar with the Mass Effect universe that there hasn't been overly much reason to consult the datapad. When we do, though, it's @#$%in' cool!
The other, far less free tool is the Bose Soundlink Wireless Mobile Speaker. I picked this treasure up a few months ago after Erik got one as a birthday present and totally raved about it--and rightly so. If you don't have one of these or haven't played with one, you are missing out on one of the perks of living in the future. This light, unassuming rectangle easily connects to any Bluetooth device and pumps out room rattling sound. I'm all about using music and soundtracks in my RPGs, especially for this game since Mass Effect has such great (and readily available) music. But for my last few games its meant toting about a defunct computer's speakers and sub-woofer and shackling them to my iPhone or laptop to get the sound I want. No more! The Soundlink magically connects to my iPhone, makes flipping through songs a matter of a thumb flick, and has the power to drown our conference room game space in sound. GMs take note, the technology to conduct your game's behind the scenes orchestra is finally, unobtrusively here.
Okay, so that's what's new from before the game even got started. Here's what's new from the game itself. I forgot to take any photos, so instead I'm going to post every clue, data point, and virtual handout the party has collect thus far. If anyone has any interested in running this game themselves down the line, I'll post my complete adventure notes and the rest of the handouts once the game wraps up...
Oh yeah. So I'm breaking my established structure with my second game: I'm running a third session of this. After two players came to me asking when we can play again and a third noted on his Facebook that we have one session left, it seems like the interest to wrap this one up is totally there. I definitely wrote more than two sessions of adventure for this one, so I'll have to watch that in the future if I'm going to keep to my totally arbitrary two-session structure. So, expect a recap of a third Mass Effect session, hopefully by the end of the month even (doubly so as I'm really getting amped up for the next thing... but more on that in due time).
Mass Effect Session 2 Highlights!
Captain Eiger, Human Gunslinger (James Jacobs)
* Why's there a weasel on my character sheet? A leech weasel?
* Seeing all the hidden pictures* in the schematics--the one-armed frog, the Batman rooms, the sad robot, etc. (*hidden pictures may or may not be an actual thing.)
* Lots of great theories based on hacked e-mails and handouts. Cerberus might NOT be nice people.
* Raiding the liquor cabinet.
* "LANAAAAAAA!"
Sathar Vrusk, Turian Monk-Zen Archer (Rob McCreary)
* Breathing in a hot lung-load of "The Smoke." Following that up with a deep bleaching of his insides to clean out any potential/probable invaders
* Showing real concern for that sick chain letter girl.
* Getting fed up with all the computering and charging down the middle corridor, guns drawn.
* Totally getting the hivemind robo-corpses' attention, both with a flung keycard and bullets.
* Shooting the gooey gray filling out of the corpse-ooze remains of the station's crew.
Cerise 7, Asari Bard (Erik Mona)
* Coming out of no where with serious science know-how--picked up lots of clues with this (especially in the nano-engineer's chalkboard room and with the homemade V.I.).
* Formulated the theory that the base's first floor is totally a sham. Gathered significant support for the theory.
* Conversing with a pile of 30 not-so-dead station staffers.
* Out performing a robocorpse chorus.
* Opening the door for that nice dead krogan.
Gippy Consuelo, Salarian (James Sutter)
* Discovered that fire and gray smoke are not friends. Flamethrowered a smoking corpse to contain its billowing ick--and did so without scorching any teammates!
* Found a hidden password by breaking open a bunch of sports memorabilia.
* Experimenting on the corpses and smoke with all sorts of biotic effects.
* Nice job squirting all over that one corpse.
* Distinguished between the wussy fire bombs and hardcore fire grenades
Talos, Quarian (Andrew Vallas)
* Continues to pretty much be the master of the "Tech Check."
* Avoided setting off something terrible in the chief tech's office.
* Hardly any locked or jury-rigged door has kept closed in the face of his hardcore hacking.
* Revealing the schematics for a ridiculously advanced nanomachine... too bad about 50 billion had all ready spooled off the nano-robot printer.
* Firebombs FTW. Especially the lob that took down the last zombie.
Note About Handouts
I've been displaying all of these handouts from my laptop using a projector (check out at the previous Mass Effect post
for a glimpse of how this looks in operation). On the technical side, I
wanted this to have a look suggestive of 80's sci-fi and Apple 2E
interfaces. I was able to get this using a bare bones, free word
processing program called WriteRoom
using its Terminal display setting and the Glass TTY VT220 font. If
you're interested in recreating what you're seeing here, use these. You can also download plain text versions for each of these messages and PNG files of the schematics from the following links (right click and "save as" to download): Schematic 1, Schematic 2, Partial Transmission, Blue Suns Drop Team Readout, Yvette Rodriguez's E-mail, Hui Napier's Transmission Log, Zioa Mashir's E-mail, Marshall Hutruger's E-mail.
We left off with the crew descending into the underground second level, facing off against a robotic corpse orgy, and then opening a door that brought them face-to-face with a charging, eyeless Krogan in shattered Blue Suns mercenary armor. Check back in a few weeks for the startling conclusion: "Blind Came the Krogan!" (Also known as: "Berth of Death!" or "Song of the Smokeasites!")
 |
| Mission Brief: Schematic 1 |
 |
| Mission Brief: Schematic 2 |
Okay, so that's what's new from before the game even got started. Here's what's new from the game itself. I forgot to take any photos, so instead I'm going to post every clue, data point, and virtual handout the party has collect thus far. If anyone has any interested in running this game themselves down the line, I'll post my complete adventure notes and the rest of the handouts once the game wraps up...
Oh yeah. So I'm breaking my established structure with my second game: I'm running a third session of this. After two players came to me asking when we can play again and a third noted on his Facebook that we have one session left, it seems like the interest to wrap this one up is totally there. I definitely wrote more than two sessions of adventure for this one, so I'll have to watch that in the future if I'm going to keep to my totally arbitrary two-session structure. So, expect a recap of a third Mass Effect session, hopefully by the end of the month even (doubly so as I'm really getting amped up for the next thing... but more on that in due time).
Mass Effect Session 2 Highlights!
Captain Eiger, Human Gunslinger (James Jacobs)
 |
| Mission Brief: Partial Transmission |
* Seeing all the hidden pictures* in the schematics--the one-armed frog, the Batman rooms, the sad robot, etc. (*hidden pictures may or may not be an actual thing.)
* Lots of great theories based on hacked e-mails and handouts. Cerberus might NOT be nice people.
* Raiding the liquor cabinet.
* "LANAAAAAAA!"
Sathar Vrusk, Turian Monk-Zen Archer (Rob McCreary)
 |
| Blue Suns Drop Team Readout |
* Showing real concern for that sick chain letter girl.
* Getting fed up with all the computering and charging down the middle corridor, guns drawn.
* Totally getting the hivemind robo-corpses' attention, both with a flung keycard and bullets.
* Shooting the gooey gray filling out of the corpse-ooze remains of the station's crew.
Cerise 7, Asari Bard (Erik Mona)
 | |
| E-mail: Yvette Rodriguez |
* Formulated the theory that the base's first floor is totally a sham. Gathered significant support for the theory.
* Conversing with a pile of 30 not-so-dead station staffers.
* Out performing a robocorpse chorus.
* Opening the door for that nice dead krogan.
Gippy Consuelo, Salarian (James Sutter)
 |
| Transmission Log: Hui Napier |
* Found a hidden password by breaking open a bunch of sports memorabilia.
* Experimenting on the corpses and smoke with all sorts of biotic effects.
* Nice job squirting all over that one corpse.
* Distinguished between the wussy fire bombs and hardcore fire grenades
Talos, Quarian (Andrew Vallas)
 |
| E-mail: Zioa Mashir |
* Avoided setting off something terrible in the chief tech's office.
* Hardly any locked or jury-rigged door has kept closed in the face of his hardcore hacking.
* Revealing the schematics for a ridiculously advanced nanomachine... too bad about 50 billion had all ready spooled off the nano-robot printer.
* Firebombs FTW. Especially the lob that took down the last zombie.
Note About Handouts
 |
| E-mail: Marshall Hutruger |
We left off with the crew descending into the underground second level, facing off against a robotic corpse orgy, and then opening a door that brought them face-to-face with a charging, eyeless Krogan in shattered Blue Suns mercenary armor. Check back in a few weeks for the startling conclusion: "Blind Came the Krogan!" (Also known as: "Berth of Death!" or "Song of the Smokeasites!")
Sunday, May 20, 2012
A Most Unusual Episode: Hyakumonogatari Kaidankai
I've been thinking about doing this for some time now, shopping for what I'd want to make it happen, imagining how I'd plan it, I've even mentioned it to a few of you. Getting caught in the rain during this morning's walk brought all of the pieces together, so now I'm putting it out there
-->—and there's no going back.
I'm hosting a Hyakumonogatari Kaidankai.
Some of you might recognize the word "kaidan" in there, Japanese for "ghost/horror story." That's at the root. The following text from Wikipedia explains:
But these won't be enough to get you through the night. Even with five guests, every participant will have to tell 20 stories if we're going to get through the full 100. Those remaining 15 or more are meant to come completely out of your head, created entirely at the event or developed from seeds you've had rattling around for a long time. In a way, these stories should be as much a surprise to you as they are for the listeners.
So far there's been a lot of rules, but rest assured, this is meant to be fun—but also memorable. First off, I plan to have this event catered. There will also be drinks, especially sake. Following with the tradition, there will be candles, and everyone will get to keep any candles they blow out. Additionally, at the end of the night—whether we get to 100 stories or not—the guests will choose which story they liked the best (no voting for your own). The teller of the story voted best gets to keep the blue andon lamp and the candle inside from which all of the night's other candles are lit.
There will also likely be more.
Who's invited? I've already sent out three invitations. If you've received one, you're someone I think will enjoy this and would be particularly well suited to this sort of impromptu storytelling. If you haven't received one, there's a chance I might want to talk to you in person about it, didn't realize you'd be interested, your invitation slipped my mind, (I don't know you personally), or whatever. If you're a friend or acquaintance of mine, particularly turned on by this idea, live in the Seattle area, have some flexibility in your schedule, and have stories to tell, give me a yell and we'll see if I have any spots left—no promises though. I love many of you dearly, but you are not all gothic storytellers. Also, I am purposefully trying to keep this small, both to keep the experience as rich as possible (in terms of food, drink, take homes, and—possibly—setting) and so not to detract from the mood.
When are we doing this? That's going to be left up to the spirits and the guests, in that order. It's supposed to rain for the next several days, and then we're headed into the Northwest's typically cheery summer months. Generally poor territory for terror. After this series of showers, I'm not going to set a date until the next time we get five consecutive days of rain. When we do, that's when we'll know its time for the Hyakumonogatari Kaidankai.
Okay. It's all out there now.
This is happening.
There's no going back.
I'm hosting a Hyakumonogatari Kaidankai.
Some of you might recognize the word "kaidan" in there, Japanese for "ghost/horror story." That's at the root. The following text from Wikipedia explains:
Hyakumonogatari Kaidankai (百物語怪談会, lit., A Gathering of One Hundred Supernatural Tales) was a popular didactic Buddhist-inspired parlour game during the Edo period in Japan.
The game was played as night fell upon the region using three separate rooms. In preparation, participants would light 100 andon in the third room and position a single mirror on the surface of a small table. When the sky was at its darkest, guests gathered in the first of the three rooms, taking turns orating tales of ghoulish encounters and reciting folkloric tales passed on by villagers who claimed to have experienced supernatural encounters. These tales soon became known as kaidan. Upon the end of each kaidan, the story-teller would enter the third room and extinguished one andon, look in the mirror and make their way back to the first room.
So it's that. But I'm adding a few additional rules. I plan to invite three to five serious guests to this—additional critics, hecklers, and audience members will detract from the atmosphere, so storytellers only. Every guest is expected to have five stories in their repertoire prepared in advance and ready to tell right away. These can be folktales, dramatic summaries of short stories by your favorite authors (though the more obscure are preferred; we've all read "Murders at the Rue Morgue"), decades old plots from episodes of The Outer Limits, heck, even plots of old RPG adventures, anything you can tell without even thinking about it, but that won't necessarily be recognizable to the entire group. Each story should fill about 3 to 10 minutes.With each passing tale, the room slowly grew darker and darker as the participants reached the one hundredth tale, creating a safe haven for the evocation of spirits.However, as the game reached the ninety-ninth tale, many participants would stop, fearful of invoking the spirits they had been summoning.
But these won't be enough to get you through the night. Even with five guests, every participant will have to tell 20 stories if we're going to get through the full 100. Those remaining 15 or more are meant to come completely out of your head, created entirely at the event or developed from seeds you've had rattling around for a long time. In a way, these stories should be as much a surprise to you as they are for the listeners.So far there's been a lot of rules, but rest assured, this is meant to be fun—but also memorable. First off, I plan to have this event catered. There will also be drinks, especially sake. Following with the tradition, there will be candles, and everyone will get to keep any candles they blow out. Additionally, at the end of the night—whether we get to 100 stories or not—the guests will choose which story they liked the best (no voting for your own). The teller of the story voted best gets to keep the blue andon lamp and the candle inside from which all of the night's other candles are lit.
There will also likely be more.
Who's invited? I've already sent out three invitations. If you've received one, you're someone I think will enjoy this and would be particularly well suited to this sort of impromptu storytelling. If you haven't received one, there's a chance I might want to talk to you in person about it, didn't realize you'd be interested, your invitation slipped my mind, (I don't know you personally), or whatever. If you're a friend or acquaintance of mine, particularly turned on by this idea, live in the Seattle area, have some flexibility in your schedule, and have stories to tell, give me a yell and we'll see if I have any spots left—no promises though. I love many of you dearly, but you are not all gothic storytellers. Also, I am purposefully trying to keep this small, both to keep the experience as rich as possible (in terms of food, drink, take homes, and—possibly—setting) and so not to detract from the mood.
When are we doing this? That's going to be left up to the spirits and the guests, in that order. It's supposed to rain for the next several days, and then we're headed into the Northwest's typically cheery summer months. Generally poor territory for terror. After this series of showers, I'm not going to set a date until the next time we get five consecutive days of rain. When we do, that's when we'll know its time for the Hyakumonogatari Kaidankai.
Okay. It's all out there now.
This is happening.
There's no going back.
Saturday, March 10, 2012
Episode 2: Mass Effect Codex Entries
Since I couldn't get a lot of the audio codex entries to work at the game table, I've linked them here so any players interested can check them out before next session. Enjoy!Council Races: Asari, Salarian, Turian
Non-Council Races: Batarian, Geth, Krogan, Quarian
Humanity and the Systems Alliance: The state of humanity
The Citadel and Galactic Government: The Citadel, Citadel Council
Planets and Locations: 2175 Aeia
Organizations: Cerberus, Blue Suns
Technology: Biotics, A.I., V.I., Omnitool
Friday, March 9, 2012
Episode 2: Revealed
 |
| A: Turian, B: Salarian, C: Asari, D: Krogan, E: Quarian |
We played the first of two sessions last night of the formerly a mystery, sci-fi-skinned Pathfinder game set in the Mass Effect universe. I've been tinkering with this idea for a few months now and was delighted when we settled on this week (the week of the new game's release) for the first game. Folks showed up, characters made, got the reveal on the setting, and then dug into equipping, refining characters, and finding out more about the setting.
There was a pretty major hitch there, though. One of the major reasons I wanted to run this was because I always thought the codex entries (largely voice acted encyclopedia) in the various Mass Effect games (and some other Bioware games) were a rich way to present tons of in-world information. So I was very pleased to find that the Mass Effect Wiki included a significant volume of those codex recordings. With personal computers like omitools in the Mass Effect universe, giving any major player access to that database, I figured I could turned that whole site into a giant, awesome player handout. Adding in the projector we have at the office and my laptop full of displays, schematics, terminal interfaces, crew logs, etc, we had the set up for an appropriately high-tech game. One problem. I couldn't get an internet hookup in our meeting room. So after all of this, no access to the Mass Effect Wiki. Lame.
 |
| The set-up this time around |
All that said, once we got past the preamble the technical snafu largely faded into the background. Our team of Cereberus operatives revived their cryptic mission details, landed on 2175 Aeia and set to work infiltrating the research base there, one already compromised by Blue Suns mercenaries. From there, high jinx ensued--though I have to give them credit, the team was largely more commando about things than I'd anticipated.
Captain Eiger, Human Gunslinger (James Jacobs)
* Played a human! Humans get to be captain!
* Showed off his keen piloting skills, buzzing an alien jungle and making a feather soft landing.
* Sniped a sniper through the sniperscope with his darling sniper rifle "Lana."
* Manned the laptop/computer terminal multiple times, tinkering with files, schematics, and reading hacked e-mails.
* Contributed the rules for tech, weapons, armor, future gear, etc, from his massive and awesome Unspeakable Futures post-apocolyptic Lovecraftian horror game. Couldn't have had a game without these!
 |
| One of the Station Schematics |
* Instantly memorized the entry for turians and totally threw himself into the race's personality and mindset.
* The crew gun bunny, eager to help himself to the Blue Suns' Elanus Risk Control Services Banshee assault rifle.
* Immediately picked up on and made a beeline for the industrial power loader.
* Discovering the etymology of the Venus flytrap mid-game.
* Voted most likely to mutiny.
Cerise 7, Asari Bard (Erik Mona)
* Composed the team Cerberus theme song: "Three heads, are better than one..."
* Quickly got into the detective element of the story and picked up on quite a few of the more subtle clues hidden in the data and on the bodies recovered so far.
* Uncovered or solved such mysteries of the plasticized eyeless corpses, why the mercenary "Cat Man" got his call sign. Oh, and "No one clones a fatty."
* Always kept an eye on the heirloom family length of rope.
* Totally going for a Gender Equality in Gaming Award with his portrayal of his first-ever female character.
 |
| Debates... in Spaaaace! |
* Demolitions expert and total commando guy. In front, has a plan, and blows stuff up... even if that stuff is delicate manufacturing equipment.
* Sneaky lizard who also uses his biotic powers to punch in mercenary heads from a distance.
* Full of cagey ideas for setting off motion-detecting turrets (even if they're not there). The flashlight trick was pretty brilliant.
* The rich Latin accent is a nice touch. Makes me imagine that he's playing Rango.
* Commando lingo!
Talos, Quarian (Andrew Vallas)
* Utterly destroying nearly every hacking and tech check thrown his way. No passcode or security lock out stands in Talos's way.
* Attempting to rig the Blue Sun's dropship to remotely self destruct and Sathar's motion detector to not pick up machinery (so another innocent factory machine doesn't get firebombed).
* Figured out that the station is emitting a communications jamming screen.
* If it's been a clue and in a computer, he's found it.
* Giving tit for tat with our mouthy turian.
And the whole thing wrapped up with the PCs opening a secured door and coming face to face with a station receptionist or low tier coms officer... with no eyes!
So that was the first one. I'll put my notes for the adventure and the tons of handouts I generated for this up after the second, concluding session. I think I'll also put together a list of important links to the Mass Effect Wiki for any of my players who want to dig into a bit more with relevance to the adventure. But for now, its time to figure out when we're playing next, and to see if our lethal crew can survive the terror of the Planet of the Eyeless Receptionist!
Wednesday, March 7, 2012
Episode 2: The Crew
James Jacobs: Human sniper
Rob McCreary: [Mystery Race A] gun kata expert
Erik Mona: [Mystery Race C] bard
James Sutter: [Mystery Race B] sorcerer/tech
Andrew Vallas: [Mystery Race E] alchemist
There's a LOT of firepower in this crew. I think I might need to bump up a few CRs... or at least ad a few more targets.
Sunday, March 4, 2012
Episode 2: Character Creation
Go ahead and choose feats and skills as well--don't neglect skills like Knowledge (arcana), Knowledge (religion), Ride, Spellcraft, and Use Magic Device that seem like fantasy-only abilities, as with the sci-fi skin overlaying this game, these skills--respectively--will probably be things like, Knowledge (technology), Knowledge (sciences), Pilot, Tech (using tech as its meant to be used), and Improvised Mechanics (using tech as its not meant to be used). (While we're on this topic, think of Disable Device as "Hacking.")
With that, go ahead and mostly make up your characters, but don't spend any cash yet. We'll handle equipment second thing on Thursday. I'd like to have written in clay ideas of what everyone is playing by Wednesday night so I can post them here (and so I have some idea of what I'm in for). And, if you have any questions about any of this, come talk to me.
Some advice: I know a lot of you really want to have cool back stories and details for your characters so you can really get into their heads, details that are difficult to pin down when you don't even know of you have skin or feathers. In part, suck it up, adlibbing is definitely going to be a part of this game's gimmick. At the same time, look at the context clues you're getting. If you want to build a heavy hitter, use a race with a Strength bonus; if you want to build a shooter, go for an agile race; a dashing character, look at human with that heroic trait. Checking out the Advance Race Guide to translate the race descriptions' short hand will help. In general, pick a fun sci-fi concept and use your abilities, class, and race to build toward that. If you find out Thursday that your race doesn't fit perfectly with what you wanted, well, that can make for some really interesting characters (and you're only playing these characters twice, after all).
Also, try to name your character, with the understanding that there is a common language in this universe, so try for something pronounceable.
Thanks all and good luck!
Saturday, March 3, 2012
Episode 2: Race #6 - [Mystery Race E]
This is it! The last player race for this Thursday's mystery sci-fi game! This is a weird one, especially as it has a few unusual traits that will also remain a mystery until Thursday's game.
Race E
Type
Humanoid (half-construct) 7 RP
Size
Medium 0 RP
Base Speed
Normal 0 RP
Ability Score Modifiers
Specialized (–2 Con, +2 Int, +2 Wis) 1 RP
Language
Linguist 1 RP
Racial Traits
Defense Racial Traits
Bond to the Land ([Classified]) 2 RP
Feat and Skill Racial Traits
Scavenger 2 RP
Senses Racial Traits
Low-light vision 1 RP
Weakness
[Classified] –1 RP
Total 13 RP
That's all the races now, and all the hints you're going to get on what universe we're playing in. But guessing games aside, now it's time to seriously start talking characters. More on that tomorrow.
Friday, March 2, 2012
Episode 2: Race #5 - [Mystery Race D]
Another reptilian race, but this one's significantly less... squishy.
Race D
Type Humanoid (reptilian) 0
RP
Size
Medium 0
RP
Base Speed
Slow –1 RP
Ability Score
Modifiers
Paragon (+4 Str, –2 Int, –2 Wis, –2 Cha) 1
RP
Language
Standard 0
RP
Racial Traits
Defense Racial Traits
Natural armor 2
RP
Desert Runner 2
RP
“Race A” Immunities* 4
RP
Improved Natural Armor 1
RP
Offense Racial Traits
Ferocity 4
RP
Relentless 1
RP
Total 14 RP
*Same as duergar immunities
One more to go... and that's probably going to be the one that gives it away. But that's why I'm putting it up over the weekend--so you jackal's can't discuss it until Monday.
Thursday, March 1, 2012
Episode 2: Race #4 - [Mystery Race C]
Now, a little something for the ladies.
Type
Race C
Type Humanoid 0 RP
Size
Medium 0 RP
Base Speed
Normal 0 RP
Ability Score Modifiers
Flexible (+2 Int, +2 Cha) 2 RP
Languages
Linguist 1 RP
Defense Racial Traits
Stubborn 2 RP
Racial Traits
Feat and Skill Racial Traits
Gregarious 1 RP
Integrated 1 RP
Magical Racial Traits
Elven Magic 3 RP
Envoy 1 RP
Seducer 2 RP
Total 13 RP
Tomorrow, a little something not for the ladies. Unless you're into that sort of thing.
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