[Bliss Stage] Edinburgh Cell

[Per Fischer]

Incoming transmission...

We met last week to finish prep for our BS game, sadly missing a player from when playing the  intro scenario, as she has moved to another city in the meantime. We are down to Pooka, his wife Louise and their old friend Liz as players, and me as the GM.

We met briefly once before this session to talk about background and "look" of the game, where we came up with this:
Game is set in Edinburgh, of course, and I immediately thought of my friend Malcolm, who besides being a game designer also delves into urban exploration. A while ago he visited an derelict cold war underground bunker near where I live, and I suggested the bunker as the group's headquarter, which everyone liked. Malcolm shot some really creepy, evocative images from inside the place, which were great as well. Basically it's a three-level underground ROTOR radar bunker of which the top level was a WWII fighter control bunker. There's some info and pictures here:
http://www.28dayslater.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=16446

The dreamworld is a mono-colour toned deserted landscape with strange physics and dimensions, scattered with great mausoleums and huge mud flats. There are scaffoldings with containers filled with people. Sometimes the dream loops over and over again. The aliens are tall and two-dimensional, looking like black and white projections of news reels from earth's history.

Our group of survivors is a resourceful one, and they have made great use of the location, by even getting an old generator running on alcohol made from potatoes, and broadcasting to other survivors via their own pirate radio station.

Their grown-up leader is Elspeth McClaverty, a former farmer and land owner with brain damage from a riding accident. Elspeth is a little uncool, old and with a fucked up short-term memory.

Pilots
Elijah, played by Pooka, 17-year-old angry seasoned veteran who recently lost his little brother.
Fay, played by Louise, also 17. An innocent sweetheart, sweet, friendly and prone to problems.
Oscar, played by Liz, 15, narcissistic bisexual carefree hedonist.

Anchors
Tony, a likeable, techie radio guy. Tony is kind.
Maria, 15, a well-read, super intellingent, loud, big girl. Maria is savvy.
Michael Anderson, 16, a wanna-be pilot who couldn't cope with piloting. Michael Anderson is experienced.

Secondary characters
Grizzly, 10, who defected from "the cannibals", another surviving group in Edinburgh.
Gwyn, 15. Former Judi champion, risk taker. She was involved in Elijah's brother's disappearance.
Clint, 17. The farm hand, the loner, the isolated practical guy.

The Edinburgh cell's hopes are...
...that we can make a better civilization
...that we win a decisive battle

Character generation in BS is a great collaborative effort, where everyone is bouncing ideas of each other, constantly. All these teenagers grew out of a discussion and then somebody said "Oh, he must be a pilot! She's totally an Anchor!" etc. It wasn't until towards the end of the session we decided who were actually going to play which character. We all liked this process very much. Liz did arrived in a bad mood, and it turned out that she was fearing that she was going to endure a classic old-school chargen session where you have to come up with exciting things and details about the character you are going to play, and then never use them ever again in actual play. Needless to say, she was in a much better mood afterwards.

...end of transmission

[TomTitTot]

Hello everyone!

I'm Pooka, a player in this game of Bliss Stage. I have the recording of last night's session in Part 1 and Part 2, entitled "This Is Not A Drill". I want to thank Per for facilitating a very cool gaming experience - I know everyone is looking forward to the next session, based on conversation after the game.

Hope I'm not jumping the gun here, Per, but I just uploaded the files and wanted to post it everywhere it needs postin' before I run off to work.

[Nev the Deranged]

Awesome, Pooka. I am definitely adding these to my next chunk of webcasts to listen to. Thanks!

D.

[Per Fischer]

Thanks, Pooka.

Glad you guys felt good about it and want more!

I think the too long breaks we had between setting creation, then character creation and then the first mission session did dampen this a bit and forced us to focus too much on the mechanics rather than evoking the setting and characters. But the potential is certainly here.

I felt it was a nervous start, at least on my part.

Per