Game Report - Dystopian Universe Beta Playtest - Sessions 0 and 1
The Creation of La Resisténce and the first mission - and first problems!
- GM: Fábio Emilio Costa
- Players:
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We had two sessions in one: Session 0 for creating La Resistence and The Government and setting first secrets (as they created their characters by their own), and Session 1 (a try the waters simple adventure).
First of all, we created La Resistence. As Paulo’s characters hates the VR by some backstory, the players setted the Manifesto to From Le Treillis to L’Apoogée, we’ll bring people back to Reality, so they want to disrupt totally the society stratification and the isolation that the Le Treillis provokes into people from reality.
To the Weakness, they chosed Very few, very apart, many agendas to see that, at least from the start, there’s not exactly one great Resistence, but groups that are scattered and set apart, each one trying to push their own agenda aside La Resistance’s one… and even about them.
For the starting Advancements, they chose (one each) Hijacked Shipments and Hearts and Minds. This was fun for me as GM.
Then, we got for The Government, and then they chose as Slogan For a safer Paris Nouveau. And then we came for the Scandal, where I take a page from William Shatner’s Tekwar, thanks by Paulo, with her character introducting the idea of VR being a kind of disease, even an addiction, like a drug (think also on Dune’s Semuta addiction). So, we put the Scandal as AR/VR: an real addiction, and a very lucrative one
Then, we came to the Government’s Advancements and the PCs chose Surveillance Optimization, and I had forgot it totally in the first Session, or else I would turn PCs life hell. And I’ve took Infrastructure Investiment, so I can cash things in the Bank so I can milk it later in the campaign.
We had some difficult in next step, setting Secrets, as there was just two players and we had to put some extra secrets so the secrets could be not deductables, but using Google Hangouts had worked okay. We’re using Roll20 (for maps and rolls), Hangouts (for chat, recording - via Youtube Live - and screen sharing), Google Spaces (for information exchaging) and Classeur (for notetaking, adventure controls and so), so they’ll creating the secret details via Classeur and share with me.
As we got fast into Session 0 (as they had read the playtest documents - after signed the pledge), we got into Warehouse Raid. They had to go into Georges Méliès’s tomb at Pere-Lachaise’s Cemetery to get for their first mission for La Resistance, each one getting by themselves. Then, Jean-Jacques had compelled himself into the La Resistence’s Weakness to be wary on Remy, and I’ve compelled Remy as Cityoen, as they treat Naturals like Jean-Jacques, and they had some clash on talking about trust and so, until I put the NPCs to talk them about the mission: Said, an Armiger tripodded guy from Arab ascendance with a GLaDOS-like voice and his “sidekick” somewhat, Leandra Vazaios, an Natural that, although being a little more than a child, is respected by La Resistence and is The last humanity link for Said.
Leandra made the presentations and talked about the mission. Also, to describe Said I compared it to the people near Cyberpunk 2020’s cyber-psychosis. And she presented the mission and talked about their loyalties. To turn things even worse, I mentioned indirectly to Jean-Jacques’s secret. They are accusing each other on mistrust, but Jean-Jacques asks about the warehouse, and Leandra presented a Blood-soaked, dirty, scrawled Installation Map. As they tried to analyse the map in secret, Said put them In Target, just in case they run. The Map also had some information about AR/VR connection and information for Remy as Hacker to use to invade and try to do things to mess with the AR/VR in the place.
They accept the mission, after a menace exchange between Jean-Jacques and Leandra, including Leandra giving Said’s Last humanity link with her. And so they went for the prep scene.
Remy had created a set of fake matedata that could be useful to spoof security systems and so, while Jean-Jacques studied the Schedules and Methods of Sun Systems Biotech’s warehouse. And then they had gone for the mission.
La Resistance provided a Van with fake metadata so they could enter the warehouse easily. And Remy had spoofed her metadata to get undetected so she could hack the security systems. They had lots of good rolls and they had took lots of boosts on rolls, and so I had few blowback to use against them. They had entered and a Group of Disguised Naturals from La Resistence came to turn things more correctly.
Remy plugged herself into the local systems network to spoof things and counter the security systems without problems. She had a good result, and spoofed the Security Systems to avoid detection and to use it for them. I tried to launch a clue on something I called Project ET-01 that the hakcer discovered on the warehouse inventory. Jean-Jacques asked for a cargo manifest that could be used to clean things up, and Remy was very succesful to create the manifest.
They filled the van and then Jean-Jacques got near the Security Commander, Guard Captain Rodriguez, and they used a boost for a reroll. With a Sucess with Style, he humiliated himself to Rodriguez for he to sign the fake cargo manifest, and he was successful on this. Jean-Jacques discovered that Rodriguez was the one who need to sign the manifesto so they can get out without problems. Jean-Jacques used the Schedules and Methods and the Cargo Manifest boosts to ease things to get for Rodriguez. This was the moment I thought things was so easy.
Jean-Jacques had entered the room and Rodriguez did a snob look, but Jean-Jacques stayed on his cool. Although he was very agressive, he signed the manifest. They looked for a safe and Remy captured a photo of it via the hacked security system. Jean-Jacques get out with the signed manifest, and they got out the warehouse…
It was too easy, so I compelled on a Jean-Jacques’ Being Human is More Important than live Aspect and was negated. But Remy suggested for an compel on her Aspect The Plague Doctor (her fame in the Datasphere) to make her left a message and they were detected after. They had crossed with a Corvid Economics convoy (my idea was to put them into the Convoy Ambush mission, although it had happened somewhat). They tried to detract the van, either in real life and into AR/VR.
They decided, in the end, to empty the van and bring the supplies to La Cave, and to forfeit the van. While emptying the van, they had a Success into a Minor Cost, so I chose to make them left A Way Opened to La Cave, but they left the van into neutral and had a Success into Style to made the van get into the Siene. The Way Opened to La Cave was left unscatched, but I considered the Gerdame didn’t wanted to get with more problems (like I’ve Conceded the Convoy Ambush, with a total 4 Fate Points for the Bank). And this was the mission ending, going to debrief.
As I’ve not used the FPs for the mission, and so I received 2 FP for the Bank (by the Investing in Infrastructure Advance). As receive 6 Advancement Points for the Mission (they were spotted and the alarm was called). Then I started the debrief, with Leandra being a little uneasy with them, and Remy accused Leandra of double-crossing them, and Leandra accused Remy of intentionally marked the AR/VR to alert the government, with Jean-Jacques also supporting her into a tration accusation.
I put them the options for Remy: clean her name, getting double or sacrifice. Remy’s player had chose to clean her name, revealing she did this because she fell in love for Said (didn’t choose if this will be mutual). Then Remy explained she tried to impress Said. Jean-Jacques lost all his Advancement and I received an automatic advance.
They had took 10 Resistance Advancement Points, so they took an extra Advance, and they learned their lesson by choosing Training Archive Access to ease for themselves next missions.
For myself, I took an extra Government Advance (by Remy’s cleaning her name) and put her Secret Attraction back the Secrets Deck and Remy’s player took for a new secret. He took it and them we ended the session.
I think the worst was to manage all the pools involved: Advancement Points for Resistance/Government, Blowback, Bank, etc… But I think this was because it was a first time, and in next session I’ll be better on this. I also had problem to obtain blowback to escalate things, but chose to save them for next missions.
Unfortunately I can’t pass on more about PCs and so, because we’re using things in Portuguese… But if they want some extra info, I can always put them for you into for resource links if you want, things like gameplay video, character sheet and so.
Anyway, it was fun and people understood the idea on cyberpunk and also so on. Hope to play more adventures. It was incredible, albeit the difficults. The player liked the idea that everything is growing: La Resistence, The Government, the players, everything. The system was fast and funny and left space to guide things up easily.