octaNe: From Shangri-LA to Lost Vegas in 3.4 seconds

[Steve Dustin]

So we played octaNe last night. I have two words to say.

Kick. Ass.

Ok, I few more words than that.

Prep

My prep was burning this disk. All the songs had a reason to be there, whether it was ridiculous (Kyuss's Big Bikes chorus: "I want some pussy from a bad bitch on a big bike."), too cool for school (surf rock courtesy of Man or Astro-man?, The Lively Ones and Dick Dale and the Del-Tones), or hard-charging drag-racing rock (Barracuda, Dragula, Queens of the Stone Age, or L7's Shirley, a song about Shirley Muldownie, drag-racing queen: "What's a beautiful girl like you doing in a place like this?" "Winning.")

So, I put a lot of effort in the soundtrack. I took the Rule of Rock very seriously. And that's my prep.

Day Of...

The group of us watched a couple movies to get us in the mood. First up The Omega Man with Charleton Heston, at a theatre that serves beer (the Laurelhurst for those of you in Portland). Heston's the Last Man on Earth, being chased down by pasty-faced Satanists at night who want to kill him. Whoo-boy, what a bad movie. Next up: Six-String Samurai on DVD, a movie shot entirely in Slo-Mo. I felt like I shoulda been sitting there smoking a big fat doobie. Bizarro with a capital P.

Ze Game

So, it was late, we'd been drinking a lot, and we decide to play octaNe anyway. We decided to play in the Psychotronic mode, but I think we broke some of the rules (hey, rules are meant to be broken, Bay-Bee). We had 5 players:

Jacques McCool -- Repo-Man
Gigolo Bob -- Disco Robot Gigolo
Phil -- the Helljacked
John Wayne Miazaki -- Japanese Super Hero
Billy -- Plucky Kid

We start at the drag-races, where Phil's up against Pinkie Bustadero and her gang of bubble-gum chewing hot-rod babes with oh. so. tight. pink sweaters on, and high heel pumps. Pinkie's ready to school Phil and hand him his ass on the track. Phil doesn't know how to drive.

Jacques McCool comes up with this Ingenious Plan (TM), where Gigolo Bob diverts Pinkie's attention, John Wayne Miazaki magically charges Pinkie's car to think Pinkie's driving, and Billy cons one of Pinkie's girls into the driver's seat. Billy's in the passenger seat.

The race commences, and Pinkie's replacement flips her car. Billy flies the car with magic, and Jacques drives his Repo-trailer beneath it, allowing it to make a perfect landing. Jacques is after that car to re-energize his Repo-Magic. Phil steals Pinkie from Gigolo Bob, and goes to buy her a drink.

At this moment a gang of Mexican Wrestlers on Fat Cat motorbikes (you know, the ones with the six-inch wide wheels) come barreling down the drag strip, demanding to know where Pinkie's at. Turns out, they want her car, because they need it to get to Lost Vegas, and receive the SUPER MOJO MOJO, which is being dispensed to the first person to make it to Ceasar's Palace.

These fat masked wrestlers start twisting people into pretzels. Phil tries to drive over the leader, El Greco -- but Greco stops his car "Cannonball Guy" style (you know, the guy who stopped the cannonball--in Slo-Mo--with his massive gut. I know you've seen this). Phil: "That was cool." Greco: "Yeah, I know," and he walks into oblivion. The other wrestlers surround Pinkie's car. Billy, still in the passenger seat, starts hitting buttons on the dash, and fires off two rockets that jet-propel the car out into the flat lakebed away from the hub-bub.

Gigolo Bob gets the Tower to play "Kung Fu Fighting" from the PA. Everyone starts line-dancing, then fights break out as everyone is now trying to prove "they're not gay." Jacques races over and gets Gigolo Bob and John Wayne Miazaki. Pinkie races over to her car, and tells Billy move over -- she gonna get that SUPER MOJO MOJO. Phil takes off in his car, driving it into a dimensional portal and takes the shortest route to Lost Vegas -- through Hell.

John Wayne Miazaki calls his "Japanese Style Giant Western Robot," that lands in spectacular dynamo action, then falls over with smoke pouring out its ear. He calls his mechanics from Japan. The mechanics find the problem, then jump back into their jet-car, hurrying back to Tokyo, currently being attacked by Godzilla.

Jacques is now racing his Repo-Van down a tight desert canyon with the Mexican Wrestlers in hot pursuit. The wrestlers leap onto the Repo-Van Mad Max style, one of them shattering the van's windshield with a collapsible chair. Another opens the door on the passenger side, and grabs Gigolo Bob by the throat. Bob shoots the wrestler dead. Player: "I roll a 4. I shoot the wrestler dead." Me: "And his grip tightens with rigor mortis, pulling you out of the van as he falls off."

Gigolo Bob dusts himself off, and hitches a ride with a "hot blonde babe" in a suped up GTO.

Pinkie is now racing up behind. She hits her Nitro, and spins around the Van, launches over the chasm coming up in the road. Jacques leaps the Repo-Van over the chasm, and he's gonna make it, gonna make it, gonna make it, not gonna make, not gonna make it, not gonna make it. Jacques ejects with a Repo-Hang-Glider, right when "hot blonde babe" and Gigolo Bob are leaping the chasm. Jacques hooks onto their car, as the Repo-Van explodes in a low budget puff of smoke.

Meanwhile, in Hell, Phil gets stopped by some toothy mawed horrible looking demons. He asks if they wanna go to Vegas. They shrug their shoulders and say, "Sure."

Jacques climbs into "hot blonde babe's" car, onto Gigolo Bob's lap. He reaches over to turn Gigolo Bob off, but instead turns him -- well, let's just say, Jacques rises three inches and bumps his head on the ceiling of the car.

John Wayne Miazaki transforms his Giant Robot into flying mode -- a Giant Flying Cowboy Hat. He races off to Lost Vegas in a rainbow colored trail of over-exposed celluloid. As he streaks across the sky over "hot blonde babe's" car, Jacques uses one of his grappling ropes to hitch a ride on the Cowboy Hat in the Sky. John Wayne Miazaki uses a tractor beam to pull everyone into the hangar inside the Hat.

Meanwhile, Pinkie is leaving everyone in the dust. Billy has summoned Terence, his magical raccoon buddy, into the backseat of Pinkie's car. Pinkie, a little unnerved about Terence, starts telling Billy they're gonna get the SUPER MOJO MOJO, and Billy must be some sort of good-luck charm or something. Too bad she wasn't watching the road, because they ran smack dab into a giant radioactive armadillo with a mutant lizardman on its back.

Phil, still in Hell, manuevers his way "Mario Bros-style" over some chasms with massive fireballs leaping out of them.

Pinkie and Billy are about to be sacrificed to the Lizardmen's Volcano God, when Terence shows up and with a massive display of "Tail-Fu" starts wasting Lizardmen left and right. He unties Pinkie and Billy, then transforms into a "flying raccoon," and flies his way to Lost Vegas.

Gigolo Bob almost has a falling out with "hot blonde babe," until he reads her name off her driver's license stuck to her windshield visor: Kitten. Somehow, Jacques gets to the ground, for the life of me, I can't remember how. As John Wayne Miazaki approaches Lost Vegas, Kitten and Gigolo Bob drive out of the hangar. Kitten hits the wrong button on her dash, and starts rocketing toward the ground.

Phil is reaching toward the portal out of Hell when a Giant Two-Legged Turtle leaps down before him. The demons cry out, "It's the Big Boss!"  Phil chants, "The Power of Evil compels you!" to his car, and it leaps out of Hell using the Big Boss's flat head as a ramp.

Gigolo Bob quickly hits the glider button on Kitten's car, and they start gliding into Lost Vegas. At this point, Satan shows up, and places a big invisible barrier into Lost Vegas, until he can figure out where his minions went. Apparently, they're skipping their job at Hell's Dentist Office. Kitten's car gets stuck on the force field in mid-air.

Phil drives over and charms his way past Satan. "Hey, Satan, let me through." "Ok." (Hey, Satan had a Hazard Rating of 3, but the player spent 2 plot points and rolled 4 6's!)

The barrier comes down. It's a race to Ceasar's Palace.

John Wayne Miazaki transforms "Japanese Style Giant Western Robot" from a Hat into a Giant Robot with a flaming sword, with the help of the special effects guys making etching marks in the film. He leaps toward the Palace, but the neon Cowboy sign (with the arm that waves back-n-forth with thumb out for a ride) jettisons him back to land on top of the Luxor.

Terence dive bombs with Pinkie and Billy on his back, but anti-terrorist surface-to-air missiles strike him, sending the trio in a big flaming fireball into the lagoon in front of Treasure Island, while a pirate show is going on. The ship in the lagoon sinks.

Phil reaches his tentacles out to Ceasar's, and pulls it toward him, but Ceasar's gets snagged on New York, New York. He then attempts to pull himself toward Ceasar's but instead breaks off a pillar that smacks him upside the head.

Gigolo Bob rushes up for his prize, but finds the doors to Ceasar's are locked. Kitten, disgusted, disses him for not being "cool" and blows this popsicle stand.

Jacques, more interested in the Repo-Magic in Pinkie's car, makes a magical call, and the car drives its way to Lost Vegas. Jacques gets in, heading back to Shangri-LA to collect his Repo-pay check.

Meanwhile, the Mexican Wrestlers and the army of Mutant Lizardmen show up.        Satan, once again, stops everyone at the doorstep, but then realizes he's missing his tea party, and teleports back to Hell. Phil is almost through the door, but Pinkie tackles him. He convinces her that they'll share the SUPER MOJO MOJO, and rush, neck and neck with Gigolo Bob and John Wayne Miazaki, into Ceasar's.

At this moment, Jacques returns in Pinkie's car which is gored on the horn of a mutant armadillo. It flings him over the crowd, into Ceasar's right in front of everyone. He gets the SUPER MOJO MOJO, but since he only wanted the car, gives it over to Gigolo Bob.

All of this in an hour and half of game play.

THE END.

SOME COMMENTS

Let me repeat. Kick. Ass. octaNe especially passes the "can I play this drunk?" test. My suggestion is you should play it drunk. Seriously. Not too drunk, but drunk enough to be loose and regret your behavior the next morning.

As far as rules go, I found a snag on the player-against-player rules. When everyone is out of plot points, no one can really play "the antagonist." Also, if everyone rolls Daring, who goes first? This became a big issue for the final race into Ceasar's, and we finally adjucated by everyone rolling Daring, the race going to the highest roll.

I'm not so sure I agree with Ron Edward's assessment that octaNe is "not a roleplaying game." I've played the Pool and I've play Sorceror, and octaNe doesn't feel appreciably different from either. If anything, the major difference is player author stance -- octaNe has a lot, the Pool has quite a bit, and Sorceror has not so much. While octaNe and Sorceror are quite different, the difference between the Pool and octaNe are minimal at best. I'll go back to re-read Ron's assessment, but in my opinion octaNe and the Pool are practically the same game.

Authorship issue also really highlights Hazard Ratings. With the judicious application of HR's, the GM can dictate the level of control he's got over the author stance. If I played an Arthouse or Mythic Storytelling mode, I'd utilize lots of HR's, so the players can feel the grit in their teeth. Relaxed HR's in Psychotronic or Grindhouse mode gives the players the floor  most of the time, allowing them to crank up the story to 11.  

Finally, I skipped skills for the game, because I didn't quite understand them. If you're doing something that's NOT a skill it costs plot points? Is that right? Seemed too limiting to me. Maybe I didn't read that right. Also, the octaNe rules are really scattered too much through out the book. I would think that rules of a feather should be lumped together, but that wasn't the case. And now I see I missed the rule of Might & Magic requiring the use of plot points to use. Boy, that would have made a difference in my game. Whoops.

One last note on Kinko's. For anyone going to get their octaNe book bound remember a few things.  1) You want a color cover. I'll be getting a glossy when I rebound my octaNe game.  2) You want a spiral or coil bound book, but definitely NOT a staplebound. I got 2 stapled booklets, and the damn things fell apart in a week. I would have loved to have a better books for the session, as it became difficult for me to flip through mine, with pages falling out of them. Also, make sure you bring enough copies of the cool character sheet. Everybody loved the character sheet, but I didn't have any to use, and the host's printer was down.

Anyway, wherever you go, there you are,

Steve Dustin

[Jared A. Sorensen]

Steve,

Holy fucking shit!

Now on to your comments:

As far as rules go, I found a snag on the player-against-player rules. When everyone is out of plot points, no one can really play "the antagonist." Also, if everyone rolls Daring, who goes first? This became a big issue for the final race into Ceasar's, and we finally adjucated by everyone rolling Daring, the race going to the highest roll.

I chalk the "who goes first?" rule as being a legacy from the simulationy first edition. So this is me kinda shrugging and saying, "Well..."

As for the player-antagonism needing Plot Points, you don't need PP's to be an antagonist...it's just that the other guy gets off easier with all three dice to roll. So odds are, he's gonna win.

Finally, I skipped skills for the game, because I didn't quite understand them. If you're doing something that's NOT a skill it costs plot points? Is that right? Seemed too limiting to me. Maybe I didn't read that right. Also, the octaNe rules are really scattered too much through out the book. I would think that rules of a feather should be lumped together, but that wasn't the case. And now I see I missed the rule of Might & Magic requiring the use of plot points to use. Boy, that would have made a difference in my game. Whoops.

Skills cost PP's to use if you don't have the skill in question. However, as long as you can justify it, you can gain a Skill by spending 1 PP.

Organization of the rules. I tried to make it easier by including everything at the back but I guess that didn't work. On the plus side, I think it's a lot more entertaining to read and it isn't meant to be a reference book ala most RPGs.

One last note on Kinko's. For anyone going to get their octaNe book bound remember a few things.  1) You want a color cover. I'll be getting a glossy when I rebound my octaNe game.  2) You want a spiral or coil bound book, but definitely NOT a staplebound. I got 2 stapled booklets, and the damn things fell apart in a week. I would have loved to have a better books for the session, as it became difficult for me to flip through mine, with pages falling out of them. Also, make sure you bring enough copies of the cool character sheet. Everybody loved the character sheet, but I didn't have any to use, and the host's printer was down.

Folks will be happy (?) to hear that octaNe is going to print this week and will be available on April Fool's Day (at the latest). No foolin'! It's a paperback with a coil binding and a color cover, natch. Oh, and that plastic sheet over the front and back cover to protectorize it (glossy is nice but it gets all smudgy with fingerprints).

Best news: if you've paid for the PDF, you get the print version for 1/2 off ($10!). And if you buy the print version ($20) from me online, you get the PDF version for free (!). So there, hah! I'll be selling octaNe at GenCon and plan to collect email addresses so convention customers can get the PDF as well.

- J

[Steve Dustin]

I chalk the "who goes first?" rule as being a legacy from the simulationy first edition. So this is me kinda shrugging and saying, "Well..."

It only became an issue when I had all five players making the last dash into Ceasar's. Majority of the time who goes first was never an issue. 90% of the time, the Hazard rating work around with the players worked great. But when I had 5 players rolling Daring, and whoever goes first determines "who wins," the rules left me in the dark.

In the future, I'm just gonna ditch the rankings of the Styles, and say, whenever the issue of who goes first comes up, I'll just compare the dice rolls of those involved.

Like I said, it only became an issue once in the entire session, but it was a big deal right then.

Anyway, Great game! Thanks,

Steve Dustin

[Ben Morgan]

It's always great to hear that people love the sheet.

-- Ben