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Author Topic: [Actual Play][Icar] Tortrac Heds Setting  (Read 557 times)

Rob Lang

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[Actual Play][Icar] Tortrac Heds Setting
« on: August 31, 2007, 07:36:49 AM »
The problem with writing your own game is that when you complete a campaign, you have to write another setting. There isn't quite enough in the Society document to run a game, in Icar, you need a Setting Document.

For anyone who has written a lot of settings along a similar line (like many GMs do for AD&D, I don't know of many who run the stock setting), you begin to feel like the settings get very samey and this won't be interesting to the players.

Icar is set up to run high-tech space operas and so most of the scenarios have ended up being just that. However, for this new campaign setting, I wanted to do something very different.

Drugged up lunatics
That was the feel I wanted for the setting. Icar didn't have any rules of illicit drugs, so I needed to create some. A character takes a drug, which enduces an emotion (partially random) for the player to play out and then this emotion gives a series of statistic bonuses. The campaign puts the players into the lives of a group of social drop outs. All the characters had dropped out of society for various different reasons. They live in the "Nearground" region of the main city (Torus City) of a planet (Utosia) geared for tourism. In Icar cities, the poor live near the ground, where there is less light and the rich live in the upper reaches.

It's important to note that I don't use drugs nor condone the use of them beyond medical purposes. Neither do any of my players (to my knowledge), it's just escapism to roleplay with them. You could argue that none of us drive flying cars or go on holiday in a spaceship either.

Pre Session
The campaigns I run are quite involved but as these characters are under the radar of normal society, I needed the players to provide me with a little back story. I created the setting document (which will appear on the Icar website as an Alpha version in due course) and sent this out 2 weeks before we were due to play. I'd included the character classes with descriptions and some questions they could answer to try and help them establish a character before the game began. I asked for descriptions Friday before the game was due to begin (following Tuesday) so I could add their characters into the backstory. Only one player (of 5) managed it. Another gave in on the same day which was good that he'd thought about it but too late for the timelines. In the end, it made little difference and I collected the answers from the players at the session. Unfortunately, the off-the-cuff answers probably weren't as good as if they'd been thought out, leaving the backgrounds a little bit bereft of hooks.

First Session
The first session of a campaign is always tricky as you want to get the characters made and have a bit of action/adversity to test them on. Normal character creation went ahead without anyone rolling anything particularly dire (stats are rolled randomly in Icar). I extended the character creation this time to include the creation of "ties".

Ties are a simple concept used elsewhere. It's a way of generating background that two characters can share. A tie between them. Go round the players one by one and each selects another player. I then roll on a list of events (one liner vague ideas) and the chosen player suggests an outline of how that event happened. The choosing player then firms up the story, making their character the focus of it. Once you go round the player twice, there is more than enough history.

After that, I auctioned off three of the 'spare' contacts. I did this by getting each player to explain why their character should have the NPC contact. The funniest/most stylish won.

Psychotheatrics were rolled up and they tended to fit in all but two cases. The only player to send me a description of the background rolled "Undercover Star Enforcer", so we're going to re-roll that. Another player rolled Psyonics and it was generally recognised that it would be nice to play a setting without any psyonics this time. This kind of group common sense and openess is good, you shouldn't be a slave to the rules.

The Characters
(In no particular order, with sex and character skeleton (class) in italics)
Charlie Female Boomer. A pyromaniac/explosives nut. Hates her old school and is vengeful about it. Has some ties with the life she left.

Twitch Male Boomer. Another pyromaniac/explosives nutter. Left society when he blew up his chemistry teacher.

Rat Male Meshrat. A peace-and-love hippy. Didn't really fit in with any society.

Vinnie Male Revolutionary. Very verbal and wants to bring down society. Pities people living normal lives.

The Start
This might not be entirely in order because, looking back, there was not a clear line of consciousness. They did things as they occurred to them and as events happened around them. That's what I was aiming for.

It was explained that the gang were recovering from a night out to the Nethershadow (a local nightclub in the Nearground) to see the band Refacto. It had been a good night and they didn't really have much memory of it. They had sobered up from any drugs they had been taking and were coming to terms with the real world and how rubbish it was.

An NPC they knew well but had not been told about (called Kappo) was missing. Kappo always followed people about, so it was odd that he wasn't around. Charlie found that she had "Jones" written on her arm in lipstick and "Choo Man Foo" on her back. They could all roughly remember themselves taking a job to kidnap someone but they had no idea who. Was it Jones or Choo Man Foo? Or was it someone else?

Charlie used the public Gaia terminal (a phone booth) to call a hacker to try and find out who Jones was. Aparently, the most likely Jones was a local tea shop owner on the strip. Rat took some drugs (got the emotion Apathy) and the gang headed down to the strip.

Anyone for tea?
The strip is an area of the Torus City Nearground where all the seedy shops, clubs, bars strip joints, drug dens and areas of general depravity are. There is a street market and a public performance area. They move through to the Tea Shop and pile in. Unlike most English tea shops, which are filled with old ladies commenting on the weather, this one was filled with outcasts of society: goths, geeks, nerds, drop outs, drunks recovering from last night and every other type of misfit in the Nearground. Drinking from porcelain cups and eating cakes from tiered, silver plated cake stands forced a air of decorum amongst the clientele and everyone was behaving.

Vinnie began handing out plastic fliers for the "revolution" he obsesses about while the others sat down and ordered some tea. Jones, the owner, soon turned up and ushered them into a back room with a barrage of foul language. The team vaguely recognised him. He wanted to know why they were in his shop and when they were going to kidnap Choo Man Foo. The penny dropped throughout the team. Choo Man Foo was the target. After some tomfoolery leaving the cafe, they decided to check for more information. Choo Man Foo was a planetball player, on planet as part of a large festival.

Sol, Kappo and Boom
Twitch headed off to meet a pyromaniac friend of his to source some more explosives and Rat was asked to check with Sol (the owner of the Nethershadow nightclub) if he had seen Kappo the night before. Rat had a short attention span (Psychotheatric) so was not the greatest person to have as the Sol contact. Fortunately, Sol was his friend and showed that Kappo left the club last night looking angry.

Sol also looked for Choo Man Foo, he was relaxing with four girls in the club after Refacto had finished playing. Vinnie and Twitch recognised them as as strippers from a club on The Strip.

Sol also wanted to know where 'his box' had gone. Aparently, Twitch and Rat had been given a box the night before to hide and he needed it back. This gave the gang a third objective: to find the box and return it to Sol.

A brainwave
In a moment of genius, someone (might have been Rat) mentioned that if Kappo was angry, then he might have got himself in trouble and it was worth visiting Raymond, the local Doctor, who doesn't often ask questions. They visted Raymond over Gaia and Kappo was there, breathing through tubes. Someone had shot him up and emblazoned the logo of Refacto (the band that had played) onto his forehead.

Hunting the box
The gang decided to try and retrace their steps and Rat thought about where he would have hid the box near to the club. While searching, a local gang turned up to watch the gang. They were armed, the gang wasn't. When Rat appeared with the box, they suddenly looked a lot more interested, so Twitch dropped one of the 'confusion' explosives he'd acquired the night before. He was expecting a flash-bang type device but got one laced with "Monster", one of the more powerful drugs. They rolled for emotions. Rat became paranoid and ran for it, as did most of the others. As Rat approached the Nethershadow, to return the box to its owner, he spotted a Star Enforcer Interdictor (police cruiser) and the paranoia took over.

The Nethershadow is described as a warren with lots of routes in and out. The gang (now joined up through the round-about away in which Rat got to the club), they headed for Sol's office. En route, they spotted Sol standing in the main concert hall, talking quietly to a man in a suit. Led by a series of different emotions (I seem to remember Charlie was running on the Optimistic emotion at the time), they started quietly arguing about whether they should wait and give Sol the box later. Sol and the suit (obviously a Star Enforcer) passed nearby, exchanged a few words to the nervous gang and moved on. The gang waited for the Star Enforcer to go before going up to the Nethershadow VIP lounge. They walked straight past the lounge guard, who was busy throttling someone.

Sol was talking to some dodgy looking types in his office. Charlie (being optimistic), Vinnie and Twitch headed straight for the office while the paranoid Rat stood and yelled warnings of impending disaster. Sol was talking about merchandise when they walked in. Sol refused to acknowledge ownership in front of the two men, who took some interest. Sol offered the gang a tab at the bar and they left.

Thoughts and Conclusions
There was some worry in the group that it might be very hard work to play drug-fuelled characters. It being a great departure from the norm. Rat's player and I had a good old chat about this issue beforehand but it was obvious that the emotion affects could be used to interesting and comical effect! I was surprised that the characters didn't take more drugs than they did. There is a desire to stay "focussed" such that the problems they face can be resolved without any emotional influence. It's not really in the spirit of the setting - loose, and cannoning out of control but we'll see how it pans out.

It's difficult to gauge exactly how well the setting will run from this early stage but I was glad to get a lot of the prep work complete. Plot hooks were provided thanks to the "big night out" they were recovering from and a missing team mate. Once these mini-plot lines run out I am not sure how well the players will insert themselves into a new one with their contacts. Having the contact cards does help but they need to be used effectively.