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Whatever Happened to Ahmir Sektioui?

So, in part two of the Eclipse Phase quickstart demo scenario, Ahmir discovers that his knowledge on Mars - or anywhere other than the Outer Planers, the Kuiper Belt and the Oort Cloud - is worth zero.

Ahmir's player - me - discovers that his Gamescience dice is trying to kill him.

Early on, I took these photos of the Tachikoma figure we used to represent Ahmir after he was resleeved following the previous episode's nuke encounter. I forgot to snap more because the encounters were exciting. Action movie exciting.

Also, they were somewhat hilarious thanks to some hilariously bad dice rolls. Kinetic weapons jamming. Beam weapons overheating. Parkour attempts that were... less than stellar.  But there were some spectacular heroic acts as well, such as Zora shooting a bad guy through the neck to destroy his cortical stack embedded at his cervical vertebrae*.

We finished the adventure with a 20-kilometre radius, devastating anti-matter explosion that scooped out a whole lot of dirt - as well as deadly TITAN artifacts and bad guys' corpses - off the Martian landscape.

Thanks to Ivan the GM, Ivan the player, Keh Win and Kai for a great game. And Doug and Adrian for their input and chuckles from the peanut gallery.

* In hindsight, I believe that to shoot a person's C1 "Atlas" vertebra successfully from the front and at a high angle, you have to shoot him through the face with an AP round instead of the neck.

I Rolled an 99 and Lived

Sunday was gaming day with GOKL and this time Ivan ran Eclipse Phase, the science fiction role-playing game with intriguing and extensive post-singularity and transhumanist ideas. Even running through the demo scenario in the free quick-start pdf, a lot of these high concepts shone through to us newbie players of the game, making the game even a more unique experience. (To be fair, I haven't played GURPS Transhuman Space before to make a proper comparison, and the technology application in Eclipse Phase is much more high-concept than Shadowrun or Cyberpunk 2020.)

A Dwarf, An Elf and a Human Walk Into Mage Cafe

This afternoon I had the pleasure of gaming at Mage Cafe with the GOKL gang. Ivan was gamemastering Warhammer Fantasty Role Playing 3rd Edition, using the introductory adventure Fantasy Flight Games put up on their website, A Day Late, A Shilling Short. Here is a close up of the dice we used: red Reckless dice, green Conservative dice, white Fortune dice and black Misfortune dice. The Characteristic dice and the Expertise dice and the Challenge dice (blue, yellow and purple respectively) are located just away from the camera's POV:

You roll the Dice Pool based on your character's stats and tally them up. Some dice cancel other dice out, like Fudge dice. Then you determine the outcome with the remaining dice.

Hunting Pirates - Bad Example, Episode 2 Part 2

Episode 2: Crab Meat Beach Party

IV

Continued from Part 1

Ever the diplomat and unable to shoot from the back of the column, Hunter climbed up the nearest tree to get a clear shot as well as yell, "Don't shoot! It might be friendly." Annie brandished her talons and attempted to perform an acrobatic leap over Weapon-X and Ssssawar to get to Aden. Unfortunately, she slipped and fell facedown in the dirt.

Weapon-X was still trying to bear his blaster rifle on the creature, but Aden's military skills prevailed. His DC-15 rifle was up and he fired, but the bolt slightly grazed the side of the creature's head.

Shooting Zebras - Bad Example, Episode 2 Part 1

I ran the second episode of Star Wars: A Bad Example In The Spacelanes last weekend with the GOKL crew. Without Adrian, Tickley the Jawa Jedi would be relegated to behind-the-scenes NPC while the rest of the crew did their thing.

In Bad Example In The Spacelanes Episode 1: Pilot, Or Lack Thereof, some stuff happened which you can read here.

Here follows the story of the game that was ran:

Episode 2: Crab Meat Beach Party

Long time ago in a galaxy far, far away...

The shipping line to the mining community of Port Barrow on the planet Sriluur was under constant raid from pirates. Because Port Barrow was being developed and industrialized by the outlander human Tam Gromer, it was relatively shunned by the rest of the planet. However, after the arrival of the crew of the yacht Bad Example, three pirate YT-1760 freighters had been taken out of commission. Two had been captured and one destroyed.

Fearing a retaliation from the Five Skulls Pirates, the crew of the Bad Example planned take down the pirates at their base.

I

The drum-beat strains of the night remain in the rhythm of the newborn day. The captured pirate YT-1760, still stinking of garbage, and the battered Luxury 3000 yacht Bad Example sat side-by-side upon Port Barrow's landing field. Several kilometres into the city a column of smoke drifted upwards from the town's junk yard since the previous afternoon where the other YT-1760 crashed. The junk yard owners had been celebrating all night for their glorious bounty that had literally fallen from of the sky.

A Bad Example In The Spacelanes, Part 2

Continuing the adventures of the crew of the Bad Example on Sriluur...

III

Meanwhile, Aden, Ssssawar and Annie crossed a bridge over the river that led to the waterfall only several metres due west. Their destination, Spacer's Bistro, was on the other side of the river. Port Barrow had the expected large percentage of Weequay population in the streets, they saw. But there were also other species, including humans, several Rodians here, a few Duros over there. The Bistro was a domed building overlooking the cliff. There was a large window pane which allowed for spectacular view of the canyon and other mountains in the range.

It was still early, so there were not many patrons in the Bistro. A green and black clad human was drinking alone in a table. There was a Weequay passed out, presumably drunk at another table. A Rodian was at a table near the window downing shots of some kind of drink. The crewmates were largely ignored by the bartender who continued cleaning his glasses without skipping a beat when they walked through the door.

A Bad Example In The Spacelanes, Part 1

Last Sunday I ran my first face-to-face, over-the-table Star Wars RPG game since 1999, with the GoKL crew. It was a tramp freighter campaign, set in the Rebellion Era, using classic D6 rules. I was quite anxious about it seeing it's been a while since I was in practice - discounting the IRC chat-based Sabredart and Chronicles of the Wild Gundark campaigns I had several years ago.

There were seven of us. I was gamemaster and there were six players. We rolled 6-sided dice to detemine the outcome of our actions, and the players decided what to do based on the scenarios and encounters I described to them over the game. It was fantastic collaborative storytelling.

Ultimately, this was the story that came out at the end of the game:

Episode 1: Pilot, or Lack Thereof

Long time ago in a galaxy far, far away... the galaxy is in turmoil. An Empire tightens its iron grip upon a million worlds. A rebellion arises to topple the corrupt government. But for quadrillions of beings, life goes on as usual. Demand exists. Supply is required.

With their cargo of machine parts, the crew of the Bad Example, a converted star yacht, arrives at its destination: The planet Sriluur and the township of Port Barrow.