[Ruby] Battles on Crimson

Started a game of Ruby last night with my regular group.

So there are four of us, three players plus me. This was going to be a bit of a one-shot of about 2.5 hours, just to see if the group liked the game. Ruby is mission based, so ideally suited to one-shot but always with the possibility of extending the campaign if it was a success.

Firstly I explained the background and the game mechanics. If you want to see what Ruby is all about, check out the website at www.fireruby.co.uk. You'll also find a summary of the rules (in the download section) which will explain the mechanics of the game. The players seemed happy with what I told them, as I had already discussed some of the background with them anyway - only one came to the game completely unaware and he seemed happy enough (in an 'errr, ok' sort of way).

So first things first we made up characters.

Character creation takes about ten minutes in Ruby. Assign some mental statistics to your Lucid Dreamer, select some Aptitudes, and define three short sentences to the Drives - a Love, a Hate and a Fear. The Drives were the trickiest part of the process, with the players needing a little help. I suggested thinking of a film hero they liked and imagining the Drives that might have influenced them, which seemed to help. As an example, we ended up with one character afraid of isolation, who hates seeing other suffer (iirc) and who loves helping their friends. Pretty good for a first shot.

I then explained that they were Lucid Dreamers, different from there peers, and that recently they had each individually been contacted by Unity who had asked them to form a team to perform some tasks for it. This was explained as 'helping NuManity', and they seemed quite happy to agree. It was also explained that up until this point they had only Cast to the training centres maintained in orbit around Ruby, they had not been to the other Red Worlds. They had also never met their prospective team-mates, who might come from anywhere on Ruby.

The first mission was to hunt down and 'free' an Obsessive Dreamer on Crimson. I chose this mission as it was relatively simplistic in goals and a good intro to the game. The Dreamer was sticking to the higher ground near where the Lucid team would awaken. No other info about Crimson was given, except that it was the place where normal Dreamers go to sate feelings of aggression and anger. The brief for the mission is given below - this is what I worked with.

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Mission 1 - Freeing an Obsessve Dreamer on Crimson
This is a fairly linear mission intended to last about two hours and be relatively straighforward.

Objective: To free an Obsessve Dreamer on Crimson that has destabilised the dynamic of the local region. This is done quite simply by destroying the Shell. Unity describes to the players that the creature has been destroying lots of other Dreamers and has stopped them from finding the release then need. It resides on the top of the nearby higher ground.

Immersion: The following events and descriptive elements will help to create the atmosphere of Crimson for the players.

1) Waking up in a clearing in a jungle amid constant drizzly rain. The clearing is on the lower slopes of a hill, dotted with clearings.

2) Describe the strange animal noises in the jungle, and the sound of running water. The rain is thick with microbes and decay is everywhere.

3) The players encounter some decaying forms; a Simian and a Drone, both showing advanced signs of decay/rust. The Drone has a weapon, a Singsword. If observed for more than a few hours the rapidity of decay becomes apparent.

4) Wildlife is everywhere, scampering animals, soaring bird-analogues, even Simians. Crimson is a vibrant world rich in the life and death struggles of a myriad of creatures.

Target: the Obsessive Dreamer occupies a large, aggressive Shell up on the higher ground. the creature hoots and brays as it kills, so it s easy to locate.

Action: The players need to climb to the top of the hill, following the occasional braying sounds until the Obsessive bursts out to attack them. The creature must be destroyed!

Stats and description of creature: It is a huge four-armed Simian with a small, baby-like head and deep blue eyes (cf. the flavour text in the Crimson section of the rule book). It is armed with a spear and a set of claws on one hand.

Bod: 5 Rea: 3 Grace: 3 Vit: 5 Opp: 3 Armour: 2

Instinct: To destroy! (3)

Melee (1) - Armed (2); Natural (2) - Claws (3)

Communication (1) - Persuade (2) - intimidate (3)

Physical (2) - Athletics (2)

Weapons: spear (2H) Melee, Dam 4, Gra att -1, def - 0; Claw Melee, Dam 3, Gra att - 0, def - 0

Complications: The players will encounter a group of Simian Dreamers in one of the clearings, and be challenged to fight. A camera will record all the events. The fight is to first blood, and the stats for typical Simian Shells on Crimson should be used for this party.

Conclusion: Once the Obsessve is destroyed, the players return to Ruby.

Rewards: As this was the first mission, the rewards were the skill checks the players gained and the promise from Unity to send them on other missions.

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Then we started playing!

I told the team how they awoke in a rain soaked clearing in a jungle, with thick vegetation all around cast into shades of red by the boiling crimson clouds high above. They immediately checked out the Shells I had randomly given them - a small, squat combat Drone, a poweful aggressive Simian and another small, lithe Simian built to scout. They were all armed with hand weapons. They discovered they could talk and introduced themselves, and then immediately secured the area, with the scout climbing a nearby tree. They discovered that they were in an apparently unnatural clearing in a dense jungle on the side of a rough hill. At that point, a strange braying sounded in the distance from the top of the hill. After a brief discussion they set off up the hill.

The next thing they came upon was another clearing, which one of the characters suggested was an arena. The scout checked ahead and found two bodies, a Drone and a Simian. Once they had ascertained that the figures were dead/inactive, they moved in. As the darkness gathered at the end of the day they took a blunt sword with an 'on/off' switch off the Drone. Just then a noise alerted them to an incoming machine. The scampered away and watched a machine collect the fallen Drone and whisk it off. A few experiments showed that the sword was some kind of energy weapon, with a blurry vibrating edge that though noisy was very sharp. It had a logo on it, and the name 'Silicom Associates', which meant nothing to the characters or the players!

By this point, the players were really gettig into the game. They seemed to be enjoying the utter mystery of the place they found themselves, and I was very happy with how the session was going.

They waited through the short night (days and nights are short on Crimson) and then set off up the hill, following the further braying sounds. Before they went they noticed that the dead Simian had decayed heavily overnight, and that the Drone character was beginning to rust! Unsettling stuff.

The next encounter was with a group of Shells under the control of 'normal' NuMen Dreamers. Spoiling for a fight they burst out of the jungle on the characters, and treated them to a threat display. The leader they challenged the biggest character to a fight. 'Fighting enemies' was the instinct of that character's Shell, but making a quick Volition roll they managed to avoid losing control of their Shell. One of the other characters then turned on the energy sword, and the simian packleader demanded the sword. At this point the big character who was no longer the focus of attention attacked the packleader! The rest of the Simian pack held down the two remaining characters while the big character and the packleader slugged it out. One of the restrained characters who had a Drive that involved 'protecting friends' or something similar lost control and went into a frenzy of aggression (failed a Volition test), not that they could do much to help!

The other restrained character maintained control long enough to see a what he guessed was a floating camera filming the action. The fight came to an end when the character managed the injure the packleader, who promptly ran off with the rest of the pack. Picking themselves up, the characters moved on.

This scene played out quite well. The loss of control by the players of their character's actions was an interesting insight into how Shells and Lucids interact. The session was drawing to a close however, so I brought on the big finale.

Climbing further up the hill the players suddenly heard the braying nearby and what they guessed was the Obsessive Dreamer approaching. Quickly two of them hid while one sat down in a clearing, feigning serious injury. When the creature, a huge, rhino-plated simian with large blue eyes, a wide slash of a mouth and four arms crashed into the scene, the character on the ground managed to dodge the incoming spear attack and took the creature on. The two characters in hiding then burst out on the scene, both getting bonus dice from their Instincts ('protect comrades' and 'attack from ambush'). The fight was a bloody affair, with the big beast wounding a few of the characters as they cut it up, the energy sword singing in a keening, high pitched squeal. Just before it died the beast skewered the Drone character, deactivating it. As the remaining two characters rested from the fight, they saw another of the cameras filming the action.

We wrapped up then. All the characters awoke on Ruby in the sleep centres. The character with the dead Shell made the prerquisite Reason and Ego tests to see if they had suffered any mental damaged from the trauma of Shell death - they passed with flying colours. The other two characters survived intact, and Unity thanked them all for their help before telling them that it would need them for further missions and that they should name their team.

Afterwards, all the players said they really enjoyed the session. They liked the mystery and the (for want of a better word) weirdness of the setting. Knowing that they might Cast someplace utterly different next time, and into completely different Shells was also something they enjoyed. They all agreed to play again, putting our ongoing WHFRP on hold (in fairness we had been playing it for quite a while!). They also like the game mechanics, with the 'gamble' of taking re-rolls where there is always the possibility that the re-roll will end up worse than the original result.

Personally, I had a good time GM'ing the session. The fact that the players and characters no nothing of the destination of the Cast means I got free rein to do what I fancied, and introuce any scenes I liked that might increase the tension/fun (I scripted the whole session on a side of A4 paper in half an hour). The mechanics worked fairly well, even though I forgot my own rules! I do tend to be 'fast and loose' with rules anyway, as the drama of the scene requires.

All in all very enjoyable. I hope our next session is as fun!