[Battlestar Galactica RPG] A promising firat playtest

[Jason Petrasko]

Here is the reference document/rules for this playtest -> BSG RPG

Situation:
I've been working up a framework that does what I feel an RPG should do, no more and no less. I have really been looking for something that supports the following, and does so strongly:

- Enforce closure at the end (

or even in the middle of) a session. (Wrapping up issues and so on)
- Support direct method of allowing the player to communicate to the narrator what is important to them.
- Uses a more abstract and conceptual theme based play versus any attempt at simulating abilites.
- Attempts to keep the play on theme/track using rewards as a control.
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What I have in the BSG game, seems to do all those things well. I chose Battlestar Galactica because it has powerful themes easily evoked, and provided a colorful background for the test game. It isn't so much that I'm looking to produce a final BSG RPG, but it is a good stepping stone in the creation of the framework.

Introduction:
I has three of my five players available for this game session. These were: Nancy, John, and Jeff. After setting up the cards and passing 5 out face down to each of them, I encouraged them to create viper pilots. My thinking was that if they were all viper pilots, it would give them a reason to be together and tie them to each other nice. No one argued the point. When chargen was all said and done, here are the characters we ended up with.

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Johan, callsign: Bingo. A tall slender man with dark hair and gray eyes, who is confident and a risk taker. He is the Pegasus CAG, and therefore in charge of the missions which often include the other characters. The connection was played by a 5 of Diamonds representing: A loyalty and dedication to the colonial fleet that is returned from his commanders in full. His Badges were: Extensive combat experience, and Throwing his rank around. I should not that even with the badge of rank, exact ranks almost never entered play.
- Adam, callsign: Rat. He did not specify a physical description, but supplied the other 3 mandatory image details. I pictured him as a shady looking regular joe, something like a Ron Jeremy or something. Adam is a manipulative schemer the pretends to care only about making deals, but actually just wants to be needed. The connection played here was a 4 of Diamonds representing: He has extensive connections to the black market, making him a goto-guy for getting shit. This is the only reason anyone puts up with him. His Badges were: Extensive connections across the entire fleet, and He is secretly desperate for signifigance. One of these was double, but the player forgot about it and it never came into play (*makes sad puppy face*).
- Laura, callsign: Aretmis. A smaller attractive woman with brown straight hair who is a technical wizard, protective of others before all else. The connection was played by a 6 of Hearts representing: She is Adama's neice. Lee does not know of her because she is from a disowned part of Adama's family (they were political activists). She is the only other surviving member of Adama's family. Her Badges were: Viper engineer wiz, with her own custom modified Mark IIB model that has improved handling.
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After all this was settled, we discussed the creation of a dot. Here was probably my first mistake of the session, because I only created on dot (the session ended up going well but I felt it could have been fantastic- esp. with the cast of characters). This mistake presented as a missed step, because no player could connect the dots and link their connection into the action in a compelling way. I felt that this made it harder to get the characters really into the action in a way they felt (as players) was important. That aside, I wanted to make things a little easier on me as the GM and let the players pick an example dot from the book. They selected: A cyclon infiltrator has sabotaged Galactica, for which I played a 2 of Spades from my hand. This dot embraced 3 themes for +3 strength, making it a 5 strength dot. Once this was done, I took a minute long break and started the opening narration.

Opening Narration:
I decided that we should get right to some action for each of the characters. I opened with Laura, callsign: Artemis in flight. She was flying patrol around Galactica with 5 other Vipers. During the flight she remembers some of the briefing session, flashbacks. She remembers being notified that the entire galactica viper squadron was down for extensive maitenance during this calm period and that the pegasus viper groups were doing patrols around both ships, which were moved together to make this easier to accomplish. After a routine pass with her wingman, she sees something on the hull but passed to fast to identify it. I asked her then what Artemis would do. She decided to break off from the flight plan and swing around again for closer inspection. Her viper whips around the ship and then she uses some piloting to turn and stop right in front of the object. Closer inspection reveals it to be a space suit, that is apparently stuck in some manner to the hull. She can't see who is in the suit, but radios to Galactica control informing them of it. Taking a good chance to include some prominent NPCs, I had Tigh vigorously complaining about the types of pilots in the fleet, ready to disregard flight plan at the first thing of interest. Nancy decides she wants to see who is in the suit, and that Artemis will 'nudge' the suit with her enhanced viper. My response was, yea- sure... Cue the mechanics theme: I throw, she does a soft catch and rolls a six which means a hit. She now gets to direct the outcome of the issue/action at hand in her way of choice, and earns one motion (motion = good, readies a character for an easy firm catch which is more powerful than a soft catch). She just wants to turn the suit about such that she can see the face without damaging it. I narrate that (simple enough here) and then she looks into the suit, seeing a young asian woman inside (who we all recognize as Sharon/Boomer). She calls control and informs them of the woman and that it needs picked up. Here I carefully narrate Bingo (played by Jeff) who is the current flights command and quite irrate with Artemis calling control before she informs him. He makes no objection, so I proceed with a 'Hell yes I'm mad." repsonse from the player. Cut to a mission briefing on the Pegasus, which is run by Bingo and describes the current situation and mission. The Galactica has been sabotaged with devices containing extensive electronic jamming/stealth(ECM) features. Since this will take one-two days to search all the systems of galactica, the pegasus viper group assembled here will jump to sector quite far away and retrieve some anti-ECM systems left aboard a ship stripped by the Pegasus under Admiral Cain. The systems where deemed unneeded at the time, where time was a factor. Once in flight, I cue the credits since all dots have been established in narration.

I'm running short for time right now, and I'll post the play highlights as a response tomorrow. Overall I was quite happy with how everything came together, and felt there was impressive potential even if some of the system remained untapped after the first session. I really look forward towards apply this play framework to my other games, including January's Frost :)

[Joshua A.C. Newman]

Pretty neat, Jason.

[Jason Petrasko]

Thanks for the kind words Joshua!

-continues post-

Ok, so now onto the highlights of play which will be followed by a short conclusion!

Highlights
(A plan develops)
For the rest of the game, I decided 2 things as the shadow. First, the basic theme I'd run with is betrayal. Second, I would do nothing to steer the play except try and provide 'tough' moments for the characters (and possibly the players) alla bangs from sorcerer. For the remainder of this summary I'll draw no distinction from what the character decides and the player decides, unless they are clearly not the same.
Before we get deep into the action, Bingo decides to amend the plan and requisitions 3 raptors for their sensory capabilites. His player earns another motion, because he throws his rank around once more during this process. So with a better (perhaps) modified plan in place, the vipers take flight with one additional raptor.

(A plan falls apart)
After the vipers jump, they quickly discover the plan has gone wrong. The first two vipers in are Bingo's and Artemis' and they see no ship, but all their systems are being jammed. Here Aretmis decides to reprogram her viper's system, desperate to cut through the jamming! One throw and soft catch later, she has done just that. (Nancy rolls poor then buys a success by paying motion, throws a minor foul and passes Jeff a card from her hand) At the edge of sensor range is a cylon basestar, which has launched 70+ raiders their way. It will take them about 10 mins to close, and it takes 20 for the FTL drives to become ready again. Bingo decides they will run full thrust away, trying to raise the close time. He extends the close time to 15, but that still leaves 5 minutes of engagement with many raiders. Artemis decides to break from Bingo and engage them early to give him time to escape (playing her Protective image concept to the hilt). Right after that, Rat jumps in off coordinates, almost colliding with Bingo's viper! Ok, so before I ramble on and into a play-by-play of the entire session, I'll cut to the chase. The highlights here include: Nancy deciding the Galactica will once more embrace its 'save our family' attitude and jump in to save the day. This results in a close after a soft catch (bad), causing me to decide that the Galactica suffers an explosion that damages their FTL drives. Interesting here was trying to explain why Nancy could direct the actions (or suggest direction) of Adama. The game needs to make it far clearer that anything touching the character re: story is in the scope of direction by that player. In fact you as a player, could play without having you character in the story itself at any given time if the action at hand was affecting them in some direct way. Throws never explicitly say that they occur in regards to only your player.
The outcome of the botched mission is that Artemis loses her modified Viper in combat (it gets back but is burned out) and Bingo looks like a hero helping her back. During this nastiness, there is some player authorship of dots. Nancy amends the dot to contain: Crewman specialist Mike is the infiltrator (aboard Galactica). Jeff spawns a new dot: Pegasus shipmate helped the infiltrator. With these new dots in play, and pilots back aboard the Pegasus, I can get to the afermath.

(Aftermath)
Once aboard and debriefed things go wrong once more. Artemis learns her Viper is Frackn' slagged. Bingo brags to the commander about mission 'performance' (still laughing about that narration). Before I start, let me say that I'm partial to this part of the session cause I really got into John's character. I have something of a rpg fetish for messed up characters, and this is a good example of one that I find really interesting. Rat is summoned to a special meeting with the XO, and is placed in charge of an investigation to discover who tampered with the FTL coords that botched the mission and drinks on the way there (Rat was quite drunk before and during the mission). After accepting the mission, he heads back to his quarters with the data file. Once studied, he thinks about his list of enemies on the ship and picks the one at the top. John and I discuss a plan that involves Rat hitting up a contact for some software to place such that it links to and names the said enemy as the saboteur. Rat hits up his contact and gets the software. Then he passes to a crewman that owes him money for some questionable goods Rat had got for him. Important to note is the appearance of a mysterious tall black man as the contact for the software. Meanwhile Artemis works off some rage at losing her viper in a shooting range and Bingo gets the mission to head to galactica and flush out the infiltrator (posing as a new pilot since he is basically unknown to the ship at this point). Some mechanics later this is all taken care of, and then things really get interesting. The power systems of the Pegasus go down and it operates in emergency backup only. The commander issues out orders to remain secured, while they try and remove the cylon virus that has infiltrated their computer systems. We discover this virus was downloaded from a FTL drive programmer, and could it really be a coincidence that at the same time Rat was having such software installed? I think not!

Now there is a nice period of play where we have: Bingo off the ship already, headed over to the Galactica in a shuttle sitting next to the same mysterious tall black man that handed Rat the software; and Aretmis taking command of a group of colonial marines who are scouring the deck for anything suspicous and making sure all is well. Rat heads out of his quarters against orders and meets up with a group of Artemis' marines (who split up) and manipulates orders to allow them to head down off that deck and to the viper launch bay.

This all concludes with Rat and the marines entering the bay where a shoot-out has occured, killling all the crewman on deck. The one Rat had place the software was in the middle of doing so, and there he stands with a glaring link between himself (software/data) and the whole fiasco. As the marines scour for survivors and make a perimeter, he reprograms the data to complete the action (linking to the enemy) and then takes the software crystal and tosses it into a vat of cleaning solution. He has made it, and is scott-free for now!

(Ok, I left some of the linking of story to mechanics out, since I want to discuss that particularly in the conclusion. Next post tomorrow: Conclusion, which will contain the forced play wrap and the rules talk!)

[Jason Petrasko]

After a gruelling couple of days at work, I've finally managed the energy and cohesion to complete this AP post! *whew*

The Wrap
The never reached the end of future in the playtest (a problem I'm mending). This caused me to force a wrap when it got late in the evening. John never directed a dot, and was never in the running for the spotlight during the wrap. He had the opportunity after a firm catch, but elected not to. Like I told him, every story needs characters that support he story without eclipsing it and it was his choice anyway. Jeff had played a very strong card that spawned at strong dot, letting him dominate. He won the spotlight. First we had to close up the dots, and each player that owned them decided on how they were closed (wrapped up). Jeff owned the dot: Pegasus infiltrator helps Galactica infiltrator. He decides that the infiltrator aboard the Pegasus was killed in the shootout on the viper deck. Nancy owned the dot: A cyclon infiltrator has sabotaged Galactica, with the amended note: Crewman Specialist Mike is the infiltrator. She decides that Mike isn't the infiltrator after all, closing the dot but leaving the issue 'up in the air'. This has the interesting side-effect of sending Bingo on a wild goose-chase, since his mission is to befriend Mike and find his cylon sympathizor connections. After this is all done, Jeff gets to direct the conclusion of the episode. He has a few issues to handle, which I as narrator opened up just before the wrap:

- Artemis has been called over to the Galactica, where she meets Apollo (strange meeting ensues). Apollo asks her to look at a new viper design, code-named 'Destiny' they they just can't get working. He tells her if she can get is flying, it is her new fighter. Happily she dives into work.
- Bingo is sitting besides the mysterious tall black man who has given him is card, with just the name Jacob on it. The man is heading to Galactica to do some 'business'.
- Rat has retired to his quarters after successfully framing his top-enemy on ship, who has been just taken care of silently (spaced). He uses his contacts to order a hooker and opens another bottle of liquer.

All of these things need direction to close, and Jeff has the chair. He decides:

- Bingo throws the card from the man on the ground as they reach the check-in at Galactica. Bingo knows a few of the Galactica MPs, and he motions to the guard. He nods his head to the card on the ground, to the mysterious Jacob and then make the sieze hand motion. The man is arrested immediately, not asked any question and place into an interrogation where we see him getting beat without questions.
- Artemis gets Destiny's engines to work and she is flyable! Bingo shows up to greet her aboard Galactica, taking a moment out before heading to his assignment. He says "Thanks for fixing my new fighter." (Ouch!)
- Rat is nearing the bottom of his bottle and a knock at the door can be heard. He opens it, and we see the outline of a tall man in a suit who is most likely not the hooker he intended. Rat's face is confused...

That handles the wrap!

What Worked

- The soft and firm catches worked on a level I did not at first suspect. Since you risk a lot trying a firm catch with a low motion, you want your motion high before you do one. This means either bringing your badges into play or doing soft catches that you win or are closed by the narrator (the 2 exits from that path that increase motion). So this is almost an investment and pacing mechanic in addition to being a signal about what is important to you as a player.
- The dots kept me on track as narrator, and kept the story building when the players directed them. It provided a constructive way to take player input and direction without violating the themes and feel of the story. I did feel though that having only one hurt the players creativity somewhat, and will try with more dots in the second session.
- The image/badge/connection system created cool and defined character without any worry of what they could lift and so forth. It enabled thematic connections between the character and the game-story being formed by play. This too wasn't as exploited as I would have like to see, (no connections broken etc) but that might be something to do with having only a slight 'trust in the system' of the players.
- The wrap was natural and didn't cause any stutter in the players. No one sat quietly and stared across the table, and instead offered direction that closed the dots and wrapped up the situations. Some of which would lead into another session, and I enjoyed the idea of a lead from session to session greatly. That is something to think about rewarding mechanically.

What Didn't

- The flow of future into the fate/hands of the player and narrator was minimal. This needs to increase. I'm going to add automatic redraw of played cards to trump and see if that increases the flow properly.
- The fate cards were not ever used, because a firm catch was never lost. The players were very careful to make sure they could win every firm catch. This is something I need to discourage (maybe with lesser/changed risk in the fallout from a fumbled firm catch), but I think part of it was that the players weren't playing all out and to some degree neither was I.
- The contest of cards in the wrap didn't have enough wildness, and Jeff was able to easily control and dominate the wrap. I'm thinking to limit playing only 3 cards during the wrap from each player, making it harder to dominate the end this way.

Final Thoughts

This was the second actual run of the STP framework, and I'm impressed that it worked so well in only the second session. I think it has the potential to do all the points I outlined at the start, and offers the kind of play I'm looking for in a game. Any thoughts are welcomed, esp. those concerning what worked and didn't. The document is a few steps away from allowing others to playtest it, and that is something I'm currently working on correcting.