[Ruby] Battles on Crimson

[gds]

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!

[Ron Edwards]

Hi there,

I liked the visit to your website and I'll look forward to getting a copy of the game. I'm a big fan of weirdness like this.

Here are a couple of points from your account that interest me.

1) I'd like to see what happens when you really do stick with the dice and the system, even in a complex situation or especially in a social conflict (as you do have rules for that).

2) I don't see much of a connection between the characters' experience - they show up, beat up some monsters - and their mission for the Unity. Can you explain that a bit more, or at least explain a bit about how the players perceived it?

If you like to look back over older games that have ventured into stuff a bit like this, then I suggest Shattered Dreams (which I've played and enjoyed) and Khaotic (which I haven't yet). SD is a lot like the movie Dreamscape with a team approach and a distinct twist toward the horrific, and Khaotic concerns a team of player-characters whose minds are all projected into a single monstrous critter (or shell in your terms).

Best, Ron

[gds]

Hi Ron,

Cheers for the kind comments! The website has been really nicely done by my friend Owen Williams, so much thanks to him for his hard work! Now to answer your coments...

1) Next session I'm going to really make sure I keep everything rolling along and stick to the rules! This time around I was more worried about the players perception of the game and 'let things slide' a little, but (hopefully) next session I can concentrate on the system a little more. Overall though, I though things went well in terms of how the game mechanics ran. One interesting thing occurred when I didn't tell the players what result was needed for a test. It ended up with them rolling the dice and trying to gauge if they had enough successes based on what they thought the difficulty should be, because using Aptitudes always offers the possibility of getting a negative result and actually making the overall test result worse. I liked this slight gambling element - it meant that the players were always thinking about their rolls. Anyway, I'll post after this the next mission I have lined up, which will involve a lot more of the social mechanic.

2) This mission I deliberately chose to be really very straightforward. Unity wants you the free this Obsessive Dreamer, and on Crimson (the Fervour world of aggression) you can do that by killing him (essentially making him experience in the most intimate way the anger and pain that he feels inside back on Ruby). Unity told them this before they Cast. The players seemed to catch on to that idea very quickly, and were happy with the situation. As you'll see in the next mission however, the idea is that more often than not things aren't so clear cut. In the case of Obsessive Dreamers, what Unity wants is to free them by giving them a massive emotional jolt. However, in the mission I'll post the players aren't even sure who the Obsessive is. As you'll (hopefully) see, some of the Dreamers involved in that mission only get the release they crave by being crapped on by the players and the wolrd around them. It's not a question of right or wrong - it's the release that's important. I anticipate that this will lead to some interesting situations, with the players perception of morality being a key issue.

I'll check out those older games, thanks for the heads-up - I've certainly heard the Dreamscape reference before (never seen it though).

Cheers,

Greg

[gds]

This is the outline I have in place for the player's next game of Ruby - we haven't played it yet, so I'll let you all know how it goes later!

Greg

Mission 2 - Free an Obsessive Dreamer on Opal

Objective
The object of this mission is to free an obsessive Dreamer on the G-moon Opal. Unity has discovered from various other Lucid teams on the moon that a Dreamer has been unbalancing the cycle of Dreaming. The target has been narrowed down to one of three individuals. The Lucid team must Cast to Opal into Shells already involved with the individuals concerned in order to identify and release the Obsessive. They have one week to do this. Note that unlike many games, the purpose of this mission isn't to 'do the right thing' or 'stop the bad guy'. It is to free an Obsessive Dreamer, which might not necessarily mean the same thing.

Immersion
Opal is a place of fear and paranoia. The Lucid team Casts to Harmony, one of the three cities of Opal. I plan to portray this as a futuristic Russia with a mentality similar to that during the height of the cold war. The Lucids occupy Gamma Shells who work for the 'Peace Beureau', an organisation within the 'Guides to Harmony' (police force) charged with rooting out infiltrators from Placid and Serene, two rival cities that compete for wealth on the moon. They will soon find when they arrive that their Shells and their previous occupants were working on the case of a Placid spy who was identified and gunned down two cycles previously. As a way of invoking the atmosphere of the G-moons, the Gamma Shells all have names consisting of three letters and a serial number, the Alphas have richer sounding names and the Betas have more 'alien' sounding names.

As they move about Harmony, I'm going to use following two situations to introduce the Lucids to the character of Opal:

A) Conflict bets
As the Lucids move through one of the cramped plazas of the city, they come across a huge screen projector surrounded by a mass of people. On the screen, a Simian and an Artificial fight amid a rain soaked jungle (Crimson). After the fight ends (the Simian dies), the Lucids notice the populace collecting money (Opals) from machines dotted about the plaza, having apparently bet on the correct outcome of the fight.

B) Crack-down
As the Lucids pass an apartment block they are knocked into by a running Delta Shell. This is pursued by three Gammas marked with the logos of the 'Guides to Harmony'. The Simian has been part of a syndicate that has lost heavily in the betting over the last few days that has been accused of deliberately losing to boost the success of a rival city. The Lucids can get involved to either apprehend the Delta or help him, as they see fit.

Generally, a feeling of paranoia, fear and distrust should hang over the Lucid's time in Harmony.

Target
The case that the Peace Beureau Shells and their previous Dreamer occupants have been working on involves a moderately wealthy citizen (an Alpha called Ravel) that was killed two cycles previously. He was cornered at his home and killed without prejudice when (the Guides to Harmony state) he moved to draw a weapon. Afterward, documents which were found to be communiqués from Placid were uncovered at his home. The case is about to be closed when the players step in.

Apart from the dead Shell, there others are linked in some way to the case. One is a Peace Bureau head called Tilk334, a Gamma, who has been pressuring members of the Bureau below him to close the case. The other is local politician called Hile783, also a Gamma, who has been leading a particularly vociferous drive against Placid and has been working with Tilk334 to root out infiltrators. The last is an Alpha called Pusel, a friend and business partner of the dead Alpha. The players will be told by Unity that one of these three individuals is the Obsessive Dreamer, so hopefully they'll decide they need to check on this case they've dropped into to see if they can identify the Obsessive.

The Obsessive is Hile783. He has been growing his power by planting false information at the homes of rivals and then shopping them out to the Bureau before seizing their funds. Complicit in the crime is Tilk334, whom Hile783 is blackmailing. Tilk334 has been stealing the funds of convicted infiltrators for years and Hile783 has the evidence to prove it. Pusel is the key to the case - he saw Hile783's bodyguard, a Beta called K'llid leaving the dead Alpha's house just before the raid. Hile783 has done little to cover his tracks - Tilk334 is in charge of the case and Tilk334 is in his pocket, so no problem - that is until the players arrive.

The players have several ways to try to identify the Obsessive. If they question Pusel, he'll eventually reveal that he saw a Beta leaving Ravel's apartment just before the raid - Pusel had been about to call on Ravel when the raid began and saw the Beta leaving just before the police arrived. The Beta can be traced by the security card he used to open the door - it's registered in his name (this information can be found at the police headquarters). CCTV from the building also shows the Beta, an orange and white striped being in an environmental suit. Asking around with any of the police, or searching databases for Betas with that skin coloration will quickly reveal Hile783's sidekick as the only Beta of that appearance in Harmony.

A few days after the players start snooping around again, they'll get a visit from Tilk334 who'll warn them off the case. It's easy to see he's worried by their sudden interest. If they persist, then a day or so later they'll get a visit from Tilk334 and Hile783 complete with his Beta assistant. Hile783 will try to be more charming than Tilk334, but the message is the same - back off. Should that not work, Hile783 will send K'llid directly against the Lucids, and the Beta is quite willing to kill for his master.

Finally, should the players check the records via the Bureau's computing system, they will find that Ravel and Pusel ran a successful consortium and had in fact been attracting the attention of some of the higher-powered movers and shakers of Harmony, including some who originally had been favouring Hile783. Since the killing Ravel's money has been requisitioned by the police. Tracing the records will show that it actually has been paid to Hile783 via Tilk334's private account.

If they question Tilk334 about his involvement, he won't crack, but it's clear that he's nervous.

Action
The players have one week to identify Hile783 as the Obsessive. However, its quite possible that they either get the wrong man (I mean Dreamer) or even take the pragmatic view and try to move all of the three individuals involved some kind of conclusion on Opal, thereby freeing the Dreamers.

Hile783: Killing him solves nothing, as that isn't the release he requires. Exposing his crimes is the best way of freeing him, and this is possible with the help of Tilk334, assuming the characters can persuade him to take the risk. This would be easier if the Beta could be 'removed' from the situation. Another option that would work is to frame Hile783 in the same way that he's been framing others - Tilk334 and the characters have access to all the evidence they require to do this.

Tilk334: Exposure of his crime will free Tilk334 from his visit to the G-moons. He won't want this of course, but it would be relatively simple to perform with the correct amount of zeal and faked evidence from the police headquarters or from Hile783.

Pusel: Allowing the process of 'justice' on Opal to proceed will free Pusel, even though he's innocent. When he is executed, he's Dreamer will escape the world.

Complications
Complications in this mission come from two of the members involved. Both Hile783 and Tilk334 want the characters to drop the investigation. Tilk334 will threaten and cajole the characters from interfering; Hile783 will resort to more physical threats via his sidekick.

Conclusion
At the end of seven days (cycles are equivalent on Opal), the mission will conclude. Hopefully the players will have freed the Hile783, the Obsessive. Or maybe not, depending on how focussed they remain. Unity will not be able to say whether the mission has been a success until some time has passed back on Ruby.

Reward
The rewards from this mission are possible skill-based enhancements to the Lucid characters and experience of another of the Red Worlds. There should be no need for Blacknight drug unless things turn very violent.

Shells
The standard Shells for the G-moon beings as presented in the book can be used. The Lucids are all armed with a pistol-type weapon that fires slithers of a glassy substance with a popping sound (use the statistics for a pistol).

I hope this mission will prove starkly different to the first, and show the players that the Red System is not all as straightforward as they have seen so far! I expect this mission to last at least a couple of (2-3 hour) sessions, and I'm going to be as adaptable as possible to the players plans. Once I've played the first session (unfortunately I think it will be next week), I'll let you all know how it goes!

Cheers,

Greg