Death is the New Pink - Actual Play -

Some time ago, I played in a game of Death is the New Pink with Max V as the GM. 

It was fast, brutal and fun!

Max presented us a premise of his own and asked us a bunch of questions to define more his premise and to setup the game. 

Our characters were from a tribe of survivors who lived near the acid ocean. The water of the bay near our village is full of pink micro organisms that neutralize it acidity but also dye everything in pink. We call the sea "Betty". Our tribe make a local sacred elixir made of Coca Cola and LSD that we give as a offering to the Nasty Tribe. Oh and we craft nearly everything with giant crabs shells.

"Giant crabs shells are the basis of our civilization," -Sonny

Jellyfish (my character) pass her time on the beach with her little brother, fishing and scavenging ship wrecks. She worship more Betty than the sacred brew. Her feet and hands are dyed pink due to the micro organisms.

The other meat bags were:

• Sonny: a sacred brewer apprentice who dont believe anymore in the magical virtues of the sacred brew (because he know it mundane origins).
• Cleet: our tribe champion who once defeated a long horse with a grenade!
• Pinky: a laborer covered in Tattoos of crude tidal charts. He strongly believe in the Sacred Brew cult.

A big cruise ship drifted in our bay, guided by Sonny, we decided to explore the ship wreck in hope of finding more Coca Cola for the sacred brew.

We explored the shipwreck like in a dungeon crawl, there was a lot of weird stuff inside. Two characters mutated when they explored a strange escape pod.

Jellyfish decapitated a cyborg with a uppercut and finished a rude psionic squid with a punch through it eye. Constant optimism is the best trait.

She escaped alive with her little brother and a shitload of coca syrup and drugs. We lost one character during the expedition to a gatling laser gun (Pinky) but the character was quickly replaced.

Death is the New Pink
Meatbag name: Jellyfish
Badassery (BAD): 13
Dodging Some Shit (DSS): 8
Moxy (MOXY): 14
HP: 5
Gold bits: 132
Gear: flashlight, camping equipment, matches, a flare, and rations.
Finely made sword (katana) d8, flashlight boy (Puffy), constant optimist, fists of fury d6

Puffy (Flashlight Boy) (Jellyfish's little brother)
BAD 3, HP 3, flashlight, knife, Puffer fish hat. Cries at the first sign of a freaky creature; may wet pants. Whines about going home to mommy.

Satareh, my level 02 character (LL campaign with Ben L)

Mutant Year Zero - Actual Play

Where I go from totally not engaged to super on board with the game.

Session 01

I just wanted to roll a character to explore the wasteland. During character creation I did not want to care about who in the Ark hate or like my character or about his relationships with the other characters. I don't really know what I want to do with this character, I just want him to exist and survive for a while but the structure of the game ask us to do a lot of stuff I don't really care about right now.

Anyway I created a Fixer named Fillix of ambiguous gender (I did not know what I wanted to play). I choose all of his relationship options from the suggestions in the Fixer role. I opted for a social focused character since I always have fun while making and gaming relationships during the game. But when I created my character I was not in the mindset to come up with all kind of stuff (who I hate, who I like, what is my big dream, etc). So I just choose a bunch of stuff and I felt lost.

During the session we decided to form a hunting party to start getting more food for the Ark. There was some roleplaying with some of the NPC but I did not really care about them. Exploring the zone was interesting. I did not do much with my character except securing a lot of grub with my Wheeler-Dealer trait.

But to be fair I was not in a super positive mood when I arrived at the game table. But still a lot of stuff in the game seem neat and promising enough to keep me interested. Maybe I just need to get into a better mood.

The player characters:

• Fillix the mutant Fixer with the parasitic power. 
• Otiak the mutant Enforcer with the rot eating power. 
• Clarissa the Gene Lab Alpha Cat Stalker.
• Brando the Gene Lab Alpha Bear Warrior. 

Session 02

The game is good and well designed, but I think I am getting tired of procedural games.

I don't think that procedural games are bad its just that everyone have to be in the right mindset to care about the procedures and the set-up stuff. I prefer to encounters things first, then to see how things are going and then to decide what relationships or goals I want to build or to explore.

We voted for 3 new projects for the ark: some defenses, a fighting arena and a temple. We talked to some NPCs and we explored the zone, had a big fight and we had to deal with some more NPCs on our return.

The game asked the GM to cram so much stuff during the session, we barely had the time to play half of it. (Threat, projects, zone exploration, messing up with multiple relationships, working for your big dream, etc...)

We fought some cannibal mutants in the zone to save a group of elder-humans. During the fight Otiak mutated two time, growing up two extra arms and a crest just before dying with a spear stab through is heart. My character did not participate in the fight, but I have to admit that this was epic.

We saved the humans and this was a big thing for the Ark to see new elder-human, especially since they had a children with them (mutant can't have children). My fixer made some deals to get the human into the Ark and to keep them safe. Astrinaa, the boss of the chronicler was against their presence because she fear that the human would undermine the chroniclers authority.

The other players had a lot of fun. Personally I felt off, but I think I can adjust myself eventually. 

• Allia the mutant slave with insect wings is replacing Otiak.

Session 03

This time I had much more fun!

Once you choose goals about stuff that actually happened to your PC, things feel more real and engaging. My character is now dealing with the human refugee and the chroniclers lies and I am making moves against Astrinaa.

The session was also more focused. We played some intrigue in the ark, then we moved on to explore the zone. We made a lot of encounters. We avoided fights but we still had a lot fun. At the end of the session we arrived at the temple of the Laws of Lob, we need food, a big fight is coming...

I made a drawing of my character Fillix:

He/she is angry against the Elder and the chroniclers. His goal is to expose their filthy lies and to discover the truth about the mutants origins and the Eden. (Finding that elder-humans had to runaway from their home and that they are just miserable as the mutants rocked his world)

Session 04
The session started with a big fight in the food temple of Lob.
4 PC + 3 Healthy NPC + 8 starving NPC VS 9 ghouls.

We clearly outnumbered the ghouls so the fight was a formality and it was not super exciting. This is my third combat that I sit through because my fixer have no fighting skills. I have to find a way to enjoy this type of conflicts. I know that I can inflict doubt to NPCs but the ghouls leader rushed into melee and was quickly dispatched by our fighters.

For this session everybody took me as their buddy and I could have triggered some XP rewards by putting myself in danger but the occasion did not present itself.

After the fight we looted the food cache of the ghouls. During the night the starving mutants tried to run away with our grub but I managed to convince them that they will die alone in the zone if they dont follow us to the Ark. (They were runaways from a other ark)

We quickly back tracked through the explored tiles to regroup with the NPC gearhead that we had left behind to repair a mechanical chariot. We returned to the ark riding on the mechanical chariot fully loaded with food.

We were expecting a glorious return but instead we discovered that Johamed, one of the anti-mutant-animals bosses had taken over the Ark by sex-slaving the humans we had rescued from the zone. The Boss promised that by breeding with the humans that mutants could have babies and well things quickly degenerated from there...

The refugee mutant-animals from Gene-Lab Alpha are in hiding but they are also very upset about the treatment of the humans. I guess we can win them over.

Our cat stalker confronted one of the take-over boss but went feral and ripped him to shred. We now keep a low profile.

Meanwhile I managed to form new alliances to prepare a counter coup.

Next session: we have to make a big move against new Big Boss Johamed to free the humans and to put some pro-animals bosses in charge. We discovered two enemy factions in the zone and we have to prepare the Ark for when they will come for us. 


Session 05

A other good session. This time it was all about Ark politics and revolt!

So one of the boss took over the Ark and we had to deal with it. Fillix, my fixer made a lot of deals and pulled a lot of strings. I managed to get the rabbit seer to declare a bad prophecy about the usurper boss Johamed and I persuaded the chroniclers to issue a false declaration by the Elder that supported our claims. Meanwhile my companions armed our allies. There was also a lot of action about avoiding and fighting patrols. In the morning during the council, all of our rumor mongering exploded into a riot. Allia, the former slave of the usurper boss took care of his miserable life. Some mutants and animals died but we managed to calm everyone and to give back the power to the Ark council. Brando the bear is becoming a public hero (I want him to become a boss!). Boss Johamed's goons are now slaves and the slaves who supported the revolt will now have a chance to gain their freedom (by fighting in the Arena, but hey life is hard). New bosses will emerge, this is good, a fixer always need more bosses around.

Oh and Fillix is now dating the telepath chronicler who was sent to mind probe her two sessions earlier. (Juna tried to mind probe Fillix, Fillix shooted at her and now they are friends with advantages). Sometime you do funny stuff when you need to refresh your stats. :P
(And I finally determined the gender of my character)

Also Fillix was able to see the Elder! OMG the Elder! Now that I have some strings with the chroniclers, I want to talk with him before he die! Since we have discovered the humans, Fillix felt lied to and hated the Elder (and the chroniclers) but I think she only felt abandoned by the only father figure the Ark had. And Fillix's big dream is to find the truth about the mutants and Eden, so I am getting closer to this (well at least some parts of it).

Next session: we work on the Ark's projects! (some defenses, a fighting arena and a temple, what could go wrong??) 

We are now focusing on less of elements of the game during each session and the sessions are getting more satisfying and less procedural. Now that we really care about our Ark, it will be more fun to develop it and to work on the Ark's projects.

My Numenera character

We are playing the Devil Spine, my character survived her first debilated condition so I permitted myself to drawn her. She is kind of a passionate roguish fire acrobat. 

The antenna tower attack was epic. Calla jumped on the tower with her jump belt, then she ran for the roof top on the surface of the tower with her magnetic boots. My plan was to quickly destroy the antenna, I managed to damage it but the two giant green goo spiders downed me. Luckily Calla's halo of fire and her vuechi spheres saved her life. 

Playing Stars Without Number

I am playing in my friend Dominic's campaign of Stars Without Number.

I enjoy the group, the game, the system and the campaign a lot. :)

The game's OSR system is neat, I like having only 3 classes, the simple skill system and all the other tweaks.

(check out the Grognardia review)

Creating your character is fun: you choose one of the 3 classes (expert, warrior or psychic), a background and a class training that both determine your starting skills.

Simple, quick and colorful.

My character is Danielle Ros, a biotech crew space marine.

So she is a spacer, she worked for a biotech corporation in a space emergency respond squad.

I established that the biotech corporation went bankrupt after a bio-contamination disaster or scandal. (Think Umbrella corporation). Her squad was disbanded and now she is a adventurer.

I was not super lucky with my attribute rolls, I only rolled a bonus in wisdom, and I got one in dexterity by placing a 14 in one of my class main attributes. But this is fine with me, I like playing characters who only have a few small edges that define them.

We started playing on Priam, a major world. Since we had no ship and we had to write a goal on our character sheet I ended up playing Danielle as a disgruntled marine hating being stuck on the ground and being ready to do anything to go back in space.

As I played her I discovered during our first session that she cared about people, I guess this come from her emergency aid background. During the second session I discovered she missed being in space so much that she now take pills of a drug that provide a zero gravity feeling. During our third session I discovered that she have a weak spot for the mysterious assassin Eliot and Indrani, a resourceful NPC. This is what she is for now.

Here, my friend D•Miranda made a drawing of my character taking her dose of Zero-G drug:

(check out his blog: Jaguar Combat :)

The group is composed of 6 players (2 female & 4 male players playing 2 female & 4 male characters):

- Drake the born noble commando.

- Danielle the biotech crew space marine.

- Eliot the security crew assassin.

- James Flanagan, adventurer and criminal

- Griff the technician pilot

- Constance the rogue psychic priestess

In 3 sessions we had two characters reduced to zero hit point, but we had no casualty thanks to the 6 rounds we have to stabilize them. With the XP we gained at the end of the third session all the characters will able to reach level two at the start of our next session.

This is the first time I have a great time playing in such a large group. The session are very packed, we often hesitate at the start as people figure out what they want to do, but once we choose the action move quickly and a lot of stuff happen. The referee never use "no" on failed skill tests, he always use "no but..." I like it, this work well for a 6 players group as it keep things moving. We play one session missions, which is great since we feel that we accomplish something each time we play. For now we miss a little bit of time at the end of the session to wrap things up. I wish we had the time to play a few follow up scene with NPC and other PC. But this is ok.

During session 2 we were able to steal a transport ship that a faction planned to sabotage. Now we have to find a way to repair it jump drive. Earning the ship was really fun. I admit that at first I was a little bit worried that it could take us a lot of time before we could able to buy our own ship to explore the space sand-box.

Doing missions on the starting planet is fun, but what really interest us all is exploring the sandbox and having galactic adventures. I din't read the whole SWN PDF, but I wonder if there is advice or guide lines about how to get the group in space to let them explore the starmap sandbox on their own. That said, I think it was well and fairly handled in our campaign.

Next session we are probably going to explore a derelict spaceship that crashed in the rock desert in hope of salvaging tech to repair our own ship.