The Forge Archives

I thought I'd contribute a few snippets of game from the long-term Icar campaign I am running. Icar is of my own design and as such, many things occur to me at a time - improvements and additions. I use the GM system as laid out in the Strings (GM manual). If you are family with the Event-Plotline-Timeline system of the Icarian model, then skip the next paragraph.

To make more sense of how the game is constructed, one should note that Icar is played by having a number of dependent plotlines running simultaneously. A plotline contains a series of events, which the PC team may or may not encounter. These events are added to a Timeline, which is also used to record the actions of players (part of PC Team tracking). If the PCs do not do anything, then the plotlines continue and all the events are fired. If the players work to some goal, then this may have the effect of changing the events or removing them altogether.

I am running the Scavenger Setting (once a week, for  13 months) as given on the website (new version being proof-read) but the players have now far surpassed the setting and are working for an illegal syndicate but in the same region of space. There are two main groups fighting for control - House Tacquent (run by a chap called Tacquent, who uses less than subtle scare-tactics) and House Granger (who use economic pressures to take control of systems). The illegal syndicate, the Technomages, work on both sides - wherever there is money. The Imperium (a benevolent organisation) isn't big in this part of space - yet. The player's self-determined job in the syndicate is to make sure none of the techi people are creating experiments that could lead to the end of a planet/system/the universe. They also help out in a charity way and are the militant wing.

The player characters are set up as follows:
(PC / Player / description)
Morden / Fish / The Captain - a tough cookie who believes in discipline. Cold, merciless and very hard working.
Benson / Dwain / The human resources manager - a liar with the gift of a gab. Would sell his grandmother to canibals.
Toby / Byrn / The hacker. Nice enough until you wind him up - is likely to lose is rag and do something quite stupid.
Mike / Gainesy / The group conscience. Doesn't like fighting, likes beer.
Jim / Steve / The heavy. Brain inversely proportional to his immense bulk. Handle with care.
Aemanon / Iain / A fresh-faced late teen who thinks space travel is just like in the movies. Likes guns.

A brief synopsis of everything so far:
They finish Scavenging on the Botchery Clipper (the scenario starting point) - they had to, it was destroyed. They get a ship. They do some scavenging. They find a ship that belongs to Tacquent that he seems to have lost - they hide it. They steal some metal crates from Tacquent that they know to be dangerous. Tacquent not pleased - tries to have them killed. Fails. They open ones of these crates to find a star being born inside. The crate detonates (into a new star) and they only just get out the way. Their patterns are corrupted - they are bleached white and they only have 6 months to live. They give the rest of the crates (but one) to the Imperium.

They decide to help a Technomage get his planet back to a nice terra-like one by replacing a missing atmosphere generator. They steal an atmosphere generator from Tacquent. He tries to have them killed. It fails, destroying their ship instead. They decide they need a new ship. They do a job for another Technomage in exchange for a really nice craft. The job is to kill a girl. They do it. They find out it was one of Tacquent's daughters. Tacquent doesn't know it was them. Yet. They do some other minor jobs - make lots of contacts. One of these contacts is Brent Tacquent (Tacquent's son) in disguise. They feed him lots of information about their activities.

They locate the Technomage that was making huge bombs for Tacquent. They go to Tacquent's home system and kill him while evacuating loads of other Technomages. They get captured. They get told that they are naughty and that theyy must stop, or suffer the consequences. They all nod while keeping their fingers crossed behind their backs.

They leave and decide to stop some terrorism on a nearby planet. They know the terrorism is funded by Tacquent, but they go anyway. Also on the planet is Brent Tacquent (they don't know who he is) and they kill him for double-crossing them. Tacquent loses his second child. They steal the supply space craft, leaving the terrorists dead in the water. Tacqunt finds out and is less than happy. He searches for them and finds the stolen ship parked next to theirs. One of his advisers asked them to surrender but they run for it - they don't run fast enough. A space battle ensues (one which thy're not really equipped for). Their ship is destroyed so they steal the attacker's ship. More craft turn up and it all gets messy, so they leave, setting off a star-in-a-box in their wake. They hope Tacquent think their dead.

They are now 'safe' with the Granger family, which views them with suspicion (and awe).

I will add more here, as and when it happens.

The player team have a penchant for playing silly buggers. This is essentially spending an evening irritating people. It happens every so often and they do enjoy it, even though little it done...

They discuss their current situation. Their bodies are all dying off from energy pattern corruption. Tacquent probably thinks their dead. They need some more work. They are introduced to a man very high up in the Technomages (acually, the military wing) who gives them advice (which will later be incoporated into the Player's Terrorist Handbook). He tell them that they need to be more mobile, relying on a ship is too dangerous. Also, they should be prepared to walk away from any kit, rather than greedily keeping hold of it. The PCs nod a lot, but after he's gone they all think he doesn't know what he's talking about.

Lots of news stories regarding Tacquent blaming a local system (Tao) for funding and harbouring terrorists. The PC team dig a little further and find some more juicy facts. Being anti-Tacquent, they all decide that he has been organising these terrorist attacks on his own systems such that he has an excuse to invade this other little system at a later date. The gather evidence for this, but end with nothing concrete.

They also discuss the relative merits of having bionics. Bionics are quite common when the game matures, but the area of human space they're in is appaulling for finding these sorts of resources. Also, they do not have nearly enough cash to all get good 'suits'. They try and find a way through the Technomages - a very good idea. This yields a Technomage cell that produce custom (and excellent) bionics. As the PC team have next to no funds, they will take jobs in return - some of them being rather dangerous and involve capturing one of Tacquent's Police-Soldiers alive. Something of a tricky task.

The debate about bionics continues, hopefully they will use the forums to discuss this before the next game - allowing us to move on. Only time will tell!

The team began the session with incredible freedom.  Their main enemy (Tacquent) presumes they are dead and they were harboured safely with an ally. They chose the task of finding a method of getting hold of bionics - better to do it now when the heat is off, rather than trying to disappear when they are being chased all over the place. The bionics they want are 'expeditionary grade'. These are essentially designed for combat. They contacted their Technomage boss and he had already been looking into it. The Technomages who had expertise in this area wanted four things in return for equipping the whole team.

1. 40 miniature energy wells (a rare item). Only available from House Granger (an ally).
2. A bioweave machine. Very expensive. Only available from House Granger (an ally).
3. The plans to a new Cyberware suit from Tacquent (an ally).
4. A live Metropol Borg (very dangerous bionic human).

The first two would mean stealing from an ally. The third they could get through a contact (owing him a big favour later). The final one would be a problem.

For the first two, they looked for where they might be used. Using extensive searching, they found an old, abandoned colony that had a remarkable amount of activity. They twigged that this would be a new colony for House Granger. They then used their Granger contact to offer a blackmail - give us these items or we'll release the location of your hidden system. They lost their largest ally doing this and they still don't know if their old ally will comply.

For the fourth, they contacted many people and found out a large amount of information, used some brains and prior knowledge to settle on a location where research into the dangerous Borg takes place. They headed there in a chartered space craft.

The Event
En route their, automaton (robot), who had recently been given a new body and was rehabilitating, came back online. The automaton punched one of the team (Benson) - to prove a point that his programming to not hurt humans had broken. The leader of the team, Morden, went over to Benson and hit him too. Thinking this was funny, some of the other team members lined up - in jest initially. Benson drew his chain gun (to fire at the other team mates). In the chain gun was loaded mini-missile ammo and this would have killed the team out-right had he fired. A struggle ensued. Another team member stepped in, in the aid of Benson. Benson was disarmed and there was a stand off.

It was time to get off the ship - they had arrived. Benson refused to go. Time grew short. They tied him and dragged him on board. They went information finding. They met another mercenary, who had spotted them before. They talked. They then found the Borg base and the session ended.

Post Session thoughts
It was not right for the team to gang up on Benson, but he certainly should not have gone for his gun. That would have ended everything. I think the player over-reacted. When he noted this on the boards, he won't admit that he over-reacted. Even when a diplomatic player returns comment. Then he stabs out saying that what annoyed him was the manner in which the team explored the base at the end of the session. He then said that he didn't have much fun. I had to step in at this point. When asked why, he said the game was moving towards the previous campaign. I try and find out how they are too similar and what was wrong with the last one and he has yet to respond.

It seemed to me that he just didn't like being victimised and then realised that he responded in an incorrect way. I hope that this is not a sign that the group will not function any longer - the character of Benson was always an obstructive one, as is the player often. If it is a sign of the group ending, then I will end it, better to try something new rather than flog a dying horse.

Our session begins with a recap of last week's events. Little was said about the incident with Benson. No one dwelled to much on it and it was generally taken with good humour.

They decided to have a change of leadership over to Benson (the recently victimised). The driving force behind this was that Benson was coming up with all the ideas and the motivation. The leadership challenge was begun with discussion on the online forums, which are proving a godsend. A place to organise downtime and sort out OOC issues before the game begins. Everyone seems happy with their new leader.

They end the last session staring at a medical slab with what they thought was a clone of one of their team. Not only that, but a clone that had all manner of nasty droid implants. They kept Aemanon (the team member who resembled the slab occupant) busy doing other things. Aemanon was NPC'd that night due to the player being on holiday. I had been briefed by the player how to react to stuff. The slab victim turned out to be Aemanon's brother. Aemanon is in shock and stands staring. They soon find out that Aemanon's brother is alive but is difficult to move without killing him. The three cowering medics are frank and terrified.

Meanwhile, the two heavy characters go to check out the other medical rooms. One is empty. They find a floating gurney (floating tables and the like are common in Icar), Morden climbs on with his gun ready and Jim puts a sheet over Morden and pushes him into the room at the end. The medics in the room look surprised at the Jim (who is huge) in a stretched lab coat. Morden sits up and shoots the four medics, blood and gore splattering everywhere.

Lying on the slab in this new room is a large combat-spec Borg with grafted droid parts. The borg is asleep. Morden has hi picture taken next to the sleeping death machine.

They hurry the still living medics into the room with the Combat Borg while Aemanon kills the twisted form that was his brother. The medics stand around the dead bodies of their colleagues. The team ask them about moving this combat borg. According to the medics, he's easier to move. They kill the medics, getting covered in blood in the process.

The put the Borg into a stasis tube - this should keep him asleep, fill up the crates with loads of medical equipment and then move off to clean themselves up. They couldn't possibly return to the ship covered in blood.

While washing, footsteps are heard outside, it's the teaboy. Jim follows and tries to kill him with knife throws - continually misses. The tea-boy escapes. They leave. En route to Corisk, they organise the sending of the blackmailled items to their contacts in Corisk. Everything seems to be going well.

They get back onto Corisk, deliver the combat Borg and then go out for rest, beer and hookers. When they awake they find out that the people who were going to give them bionics have been blown up. Clearly the crates coming from their blackmailee, arguably the most powerful group in the cluster were booby trapped.

They're still human and now with a load of enemies that know they're alive. They've also annoyed a lot of their own organisation who would have known people (or been in) the blast.

What do you see as the characters' long-term goals? Are they still dying? I didn't see anything that would indicate otherwise, though I'm not sure that I'm following it all that well. If they are dying, how long do they have? Is their mission to prevent "the end" by techies still part of their motives?

I'm really most interested in the "Benson Incident". I don't suppose that it would come as a surprise if I jumped to the conclusion that it was a GNS issue? If it is, then it may be something that might pop up again, despite it seeming to have washed over for the nonce.

A lot of what you have in these reports is "breathless and then" stuff. Not really much to comment on; I can't take the time to look up what Corisk is like, for example. If you skip the setting specific notes, and then focus a bit more on what the players are doing rather than what the characters are doing, I think you might engender a bit more response. Outside of that, all we have is a soap-opera digest of events to follow.

Or rather, what would you like to talk about with respect to the game?

Mike

Thanks for the enthusiasm, Mike! I was reporting so that when something did happen, the veil of confusion may be lifted. A running context, if you will.

The long-term goal of the team is to stay alive. They have 3 months game-time left to live. Realistically, they are never going to be able to play through that as they do not do 'time out'. The team set other long term goals given the moral stance of the leader. The leader's morals are often the best representative of what the team want to achieve (from a player perspective). At the moment, it is to get revenge against Tacquent.

The Benson incident was not a GNS problem. I see it as an over-reaction of a player. The team were performing a jolly-jape, to which he was the focus. These jokes happen so often they are not worth commenting on. This one triggered a tired player into a pointless and out-of-character retaliation. It's not about the players having a different standpoint with respect to GNS.

In future (we play again next Tuesday), I shall reflect on the manner in which the game plays and the team interacts, instead of just the story.

Cool.

What seem to be the high points of play? I mean, what sort of moments seem to get the players excited so far?

When you say "time out", what are you refering to? They don't reel forward in time ever? Is that what you're getting at? Certainly they must do this on the small scale - I mean, you don't play movement from home to the tram station in combat time, do you?

Mike

I refer to 'time out' as the PC team taking long, wholesale breaks to hide / build / whatever. As you noted, we do not play everything in real time, some things are jumped but only when absolutely neccessary.

Excitement seems to be generated in the following ways:

1. A good plan is pulled off. A good idea, normally generated by an argument is battered into the form of a plan - full of holes and requiring a lot of 'winging it'. Then when it comes to do the plan, it just happens to work (to everyone's surprise, often). They like that. Jubilation all round.

2. A big fight. Not neccessarily a long or dangerous fight, just a big one. Innocent people falling down all over the place, their enemies being gutted left, right and centre. It's always fun to have some character-mortality moments.

I remember a big fight where a PC, obsessed with cleaning and cleanliness decided to hit the corridor automated cleaning system in the middle of a gun battle. Foam seaped from the walls and turned everything into a slapstick-slippery fest. They enjoyed that. The PC got shot up a bit, too.

3. Outwitting an annoying NPC. If an NPC is really getting their goat, they quite often to hand out some retribution. They like that. They like the smugness of it.

I am playing tonight, so will post tomorrow.