2019.07.07 The Fleet (At DexCon 2019)

WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.080 --> 00:00:03.839 Hey everybody, and welcome to just played. This is the podcast where I 2 00:00:03.839 --> 00:00:09.080 recap the tabletop RPG's I've recently participated in as a player or Gim master. 3 00:00:09.160 --> 00:00:14.119 I'm Jim Crocker and today I'll be talking about the fleet, which is a 4 00:00:14.119 --> 00:00:23.079 PBTA hack for a Battlestar GALACTICA flavored game of space fighters in desperate combat trying 5 00:00:23.120 --> 00:00:28.320 to save the last fleet of humanity as it flees through space from an implacable 6 00:00:28.359 --> 00:00:33.240 foe. I played this at the dex Con Gaming Convention, which is a 7 00:00:33.240 --> 00:00:38.000 really wonderful summer con that happens every year on the fourth of July weekend in 8 00:00:38.039 --> 00:00:43.920 Morristown, New Jersey. It's put on by double exposure and I will include 9 00:00:43.920 --> 00:00:48.520 a link to information on double exposure and where to find out more about x 10 00:00:48.640 --> 00:00:52.520 con in the show notes here. So date I played was July seventh, 11 00:00:52.679 --> 00:00:56.320 over the weekend. This was a one shot play test. The game is 12 00:00:56.359 --> 00:01:00.960 still in development. The designer, Dexter Duckworth, was the person who facilitated 13 00:01:00.039 --> 00:01:03.319 it and I think he's talking about trying to kick start it maybe later in 14 00:01:03.359 --> 00:01:07.079 the year, but it is definitely pretty polished and in pretty good shape. 15 00:01:07.200 --> 00:01:11.439 So I had a lot of fun playing with it. This is not the 16 00:01:11.480 --> 00:01:14.159 kind of thing I necessarily would have signed up for on my own. The 17 00:01:14.159 --> 00:01:18.120 military SF thing is not necessarily my wheelhouse all the time, but a couple 18 00:01:18.120 --> 00:01:21.079 of friends of mine were playing it and I had a helper for Sunday morning, 19 00:01:21.079 --> 00:01:23.799 so decided I would jump in and give it a shot. So, 20 00:01:23.840 --> 00:01:26.920 as far as players and characters go, Jim, that's another gym, not 21 00:01:26.959 --> 00:01:33.799 me. Jim Played Call Sign Echo Alexei, who you will remember from our 22 00:01:33.799 --> 00:01:36.760 fall of magic episode and several other Games that I've played on the gauntlet. 23 00:01:36.799 --> 00:01:40.000 I really enjoy playing with x Alexei. He's one of the reasons that I 24 00:01:40.040 --> 00:01:45.280 set up for this game. Alexei played call sign gearhead. Leah Played Call 25 00:01:45.439 --> 00:01:48.640 Sign Rook. We had a player who played gunner. Unfortunately I did not 26 00:01:48.719 --> 00:01:51.480 catch his name when I was there at the table. I'll see if I 27 00:01:51.480 --> 00:01:55.200 can go back and get that. And I played call sign kingpin. So 28 00:01:55.239 --> 00:01:59.040 these are the nicknames that we use for each other when we're on missions. 29 00:01:59.079 --> 00:02:04.040 As you might expect, echo is kind of a stealth character who specializes in 30 00:02:04.359 --> 00:02:07.159 getting in and out of place so unnoticed. GEARHEAD is our mechanic and general, 31 00:02:07.159 --> 00:02:10.280 Grease Monkey. Rook, just like you might expect, is the rookie, 32 00:02:10.319 --> 00:02:15.759 the brand new pilot without a lot of experience. Gunner is our Gung 33 00:02:15.840 --> 00:02:21.039 Ho combat monster, and I was kingpin, which meant I was the EXO, 34 00:02:21.159 --> 00:02:24.280 the commanding officer who got to decide what missions we went on. So, 35 00:02:24.400 --> 00:02:28.919 as far as session starting state goes, we played a session zero, 36 00:02:28.960 --> 00:02:31.599 where we started out by creating some fiction about our starbase, which in this 37 00:02:31.599 --> 00:02:36.759 case was called Cyrus, and what the deal with our enemies was. Character 38 00:02:36.800 --> 00:02:40.639 creation is pretty much straight out of apocalypse world. We distributed stats, picked 39 00:02:40.639 --> 00:02:45.520 a move out of a list of moves that were available in our playbook and 40 00:02:45.560 --> 00:02:49.879 created bonds that were basically the same as apocalypse world, H X or dungeon 41 00:02:49.879 --> 00:02:53.919 world bonds. I ended up pushing my bond with another pilot all the way 42 00:02:53.000 --> 00:02:55.919 up to plus five because of the way my choices went, and so I 43 00:02:57.000 --> 00:03:00.879 rolled over and got xp before we even started playing, which was kind of 44 00:03:00.879 --> 00:03:04.800 cool and interesting. Once everything was set up, we got a short list 45 00:03:04.800 --> 00:03:07.479 of missions, but there was one immediate and obvious choice, or at least 46 00:03:07.560 --> 00:03:12.520 that was my read on it. So we decided to go after a VIP 47 00:03:12.840 --> 00:03:17.479 trapped on Earth as the alien hive mind, Roboswarm, that were the enemies 48 00:03:17.520 --> 00:03:23.319 that we drew for this game, closed in on him in their implacable invasion 49 00:03:23.360 --> 00:03:27.599 and conversion of the earth. So PLOT SYNOPSIS OF OUR session. We, 50 00:03:27.919 --> 00:03:30.159 like I said, had to rescue a VIP and his family. So I 51 00:03:30.159 --> 00:03:35.639 elected to pilot a shuttle instead of my fighter craft, in part because we 52 00:03:35.639 --> 00:03:38.080 didn't have a hot shot pilot I could assigned to do it. There is 53 00:03:38.120 --> 00:03:40.719 a hot shot pilot playbook, but we didn't have that as part of our 54 00:03:40.759 --> 00:03:45.439 squad, so I decided that I would do it myself. Gunner, our 55 00:03:45.520 --> 00:03:49.360 marksman stayed topside to keep an eye out and clear our path. I was 56 00:03:49.400 --> 00:03:53.879 in the shuttle, engine on door open, ready to boost the second the 57 00:03:53.879 --> 00:03:59.199 passengers got on board. So we landed and gearhead, echo and rook got 58 00:03:59.240 --> 00:04:03.199 down to bypassing their security as. I radioed in and asked them to please 59 00:04:03.199 --> 00:04:08.840 not shoot my pilots when they got inside. So they breached the door and 60 00:04:08.879 --> 00:04:13.240 needed to spend some time convincing them to come with us, but ultimately made 61 00:04:13.240 --> 00:04:16.000 it clear that there was no other option. Everyone piled on board the shuttle 62 00:04:16.160 --> 00:04:21.279 as the swarm who seemed to be waiting for this opportunity dive down at us 63 00:04:21.399 --> 00:04:25.279 and we had to shoot our way out to the tune of a couple of 64 00:04:25.399 --> 00:04:29.839 damage spacecraft. Echo tried to decoy the swarm, but it's split in half 65 00:04:30.079 --> 00:04:33.199 and went after both of us, trapping him. Our orders were to land 66 00:04:33.279 --> 00:04:38.399 hot and immediately jump the fleet to somewhere else, because the swarm was right 67 00:04:38.480 --> 00:04:43.839 on our tail and that meant leaving echo behind. So rook disobeyed orders and 68 00:04:43.879 --> 00:04:47.519 scrubbed her approach to go assist him in getting home. They managed to come 69 00:04:47.680 --> 00:04:54.120 screaming in through the closing hangar doors, rook literally flying sideways so that it 70 00:04:54.160 --> 00:04:59.079 wouldn't close on her wings, and we jumped a few moments later after they 71 00:04:59.120 --> 00:05:03.480 came crashing into the hangar. So in the fleet there are downtime phases where 72 00:05:03.519 --> 00:05:10.720 you answer questions to refresh, change bonds and Arn xp so we did downtime 73 00:05:10.759 --> 00:05:15.360 upon arriving in our new destination. In this case it was a Nebula that 74 00:05:15.480 --> 00:05:19.759 was the site of this quasi religious science project by the HIVE mind, as 75 00:05:19.800 --> 00:05:25.600 well as a nest of human space pirates who had been there for years, 76 00:05:25.600 --> 00:05:30.199 squatting there using the Nebula's ability to confound electronics to hide from the UN so 77 00:05:30.240 --> 00:05:33.480 after we all spun out a bit more fiction, there's questions associated with finding 78 00:05:33.519 --> 00:05:38.040 a new place after you jump and with what the HIVE mind is up to 79 00:05:38.160 --> 00:05:42.560 there. We repaired our damage ships and then we drew a mission to rescue 80 00:05:42.720 --> 00:05:46.319 a UN official who was in danger of being kidnapped from one of the newly 81 00:05:46.399 --> 00:05:50.839 arrived ships in the fleet by another ship that may or may not have belonged 82 00:05:50.879 --> 00:05:55.279 to the pirates. It was hard to tell because we had no coms, 83 00:05:55.319 --> 00:05:58.399 so it could have just been a pirate ship that's snuck into our fleet. 84 00:05:58.439 --> 00:06:00.560 But anyways, we knew that they to you. An official who, as 85 00:06:00.600 --> 00:06:04.639 it turned out, was actually the highest ranking living UN official, which would 86 00:06:04.639 --> 00:06:09.920 basically make her president, was in trouble and needed to be rescued. So 87 00:06:09.959 --> 00:06:15.079 we got to do this really cool infiltration rescue mission where we launched ourselves in 88 00:06:15.319 --> 00:06:20.240 Vac suits from the bases torpedo tubes and infiltrated the luxury cruise liner that the 89 00:06:20.279 --> 00:06:25.800 official was holed up on. We entered in our tactical formation and eventually we 90 00:06:25.879 --> 00:06:30.160 came upon some crewmen from the other ship who were ransacking the luxury cruiser and 91 00:06:30.240 --> 00:06:33.560 after a bit of a scuffle, we got them to surrender by threatening to 92 00:06:33.600 --> 00:06:38.160 blow out the observation window in the lounge where the fight was happening. That 93 00:06:38.240 --> 00:06:41.720 got them to calm down real quick because we had one of our crew had 94 00:06:41.759 --> 00:06:46.639 a great big old arm piercing snipper rifle. The very easily could have spaced 95 00:06:46.680 --> 00:06:49.160 everyone in the lounge. So that got them to lie down and put their 96 00:06:49.199 --> 00:06:56.079 hands on their head. So we eventually tracked down this official and of course, 97 00:06:56.240 --> 00:07:00.560 as the highest ranking officer, I gave her my own armor and Vac 98 00:07:00.680 --> 00:07:03.759 suit. So then we needed to retreat, for the pirates figured out that 99 00:07:03.800 --> 00:07:09.240 we had grabbed her gearhead. Managed to scrounge a breathing apparatus, but not 100 00:07:09.279 --> 00:07:14.000 a suit for me, so we launched back with me wrapped in a thermal 101 00:07:14.040 --> 00:07:18.480 blanket and rook clutching me close to get me home alive, which they did, 102 00:07:18.519 --> 00:07:23.439 with just some hypothermia and frostbite to show for it. And that was 103 00:07:23.560 --> 00:07:26.360 kind of where we ran out of time for the session. So, as 104 00:07:26.360 --> 00:07:30.439 far as the ending fictional state goes, with our mission successfully completed, we 105 00:07:30.480 --> 00:07:34.360 could have then leaped right into another mission or two more downtime, though. 106 00:07:34.399 --> 00:07:39.519 As you do more downtime, the clock for the swarm finding you starts to 107 00:07:39.519 --> 00:07:43.360 tick up and eventually they catch up and then you've got to jumps. My 108 00:07:43.360 --> 00:07:46.040 favorite other player moment. There was a ton of fun stuff by the other 109 00:07:46.040 --> 00:07:48.560 players. It actually turned out to be a really fun game. But it 110 00:07:48.639 --> 00:07:56.040 was definitely when Leah had rook scrub that landing to go get echo. But 111 00:07:56.560 --> 00:08:00.399 she flavored it in a really neat way. She explicitly said that it was 112 00:08:00.560 --> 00:08:05.120 less that she was worried about echo then that she was terrified of making that 113 00:08:05.199 --> 00:08:09.560 hot landing and wanted to put it off as long as possible. It was 114 00:08:09.600 --> 00:08:16.759 this great little character beat that really reinforced that this was her, no kidding, 115 00:08:16.920 --> 00:08:20.560 first combat flight mission and that she was not ready for it at all. 116 00:08:20.560 --> 00:08:24.920 So it was kind of NEAT. It took something that, in a 117 00:08:24.959 --> 00:08:28.560 Cliche, would have been I'm not leaving a man behind, but she actually 118 00:08:28.639 --> 00:08:31.200 turned it into that landing is way too scary for me. Here's an excuse 119 00:08:31.279 --> 00:08:35.759 for me not to do it. I really liked it. My favorite gimming 120 00:08:35.840 --> 00:08:39.360 moment. DEX Did a pretty good job of keeping things moving and certainly knew 121 00:08:39.399 --> 00:08:43.000 the system because it was his system. But my favorite bit of gimming was 122 00:08:43.039 --> 00:08:48.440 his portrayal of the Earth Vip, who it turned out was a scientist who 123 00:08:48.440 --> 00:08:52.960 had been dismissed as a crackpot for sounding the alarm about the swarm. He 124 00:08:52.000 --> 00:08:58.240 had learned enough that he hoped to camouflage his house and write out the invasion 125 00:08:58.320 --> 00:09:03.360 hiding underground. Dis Bite the obvious hopelessness of this approach, he played him 126 00:09:03.399 --> 00:09:07.519 as still being furious at us for breaking his security and we needed to really 127 00:09:07.519 --> 00:09:13.720 convince him to come with us because he had explicitly been hiding and now we 128 00:09:13.720 --> 00:09:16.159 were going to get him and his family killed by outing him. It was 129 00:09:16.200 --> 00:09:22.240 pretty intense and really fun to play out. Missed opportunity. It's always tough 130 00:09:22.240 --> 00:09:26.799 to get in everything you want in a four hour PBTA session. That includes 131 00:09:26.919 --> 00:09:31.200 character generation, so it's pretty much inevitable that we would miss some aspect of 132 00:09:31.279 --> 00:09:35.440 something that I saw in the sheet that I thought might have been fun, 133 00:09:35.559 --> 00:09:37.759 but we didn't really have a dog fight as such. That was the thing 134 00:09:37.799 --> 00:09:43.840 that I really was hoping to get into. The swarm was this massive distributed 135 00:09:43.960 --> 00:09:48.399 intelligence that came out us in waves, but we couldn't really fight it ship 136 00:09:48.440 --> 00:09:52.000 to ship. If you've seen the most recent season of Star Trek discovery and 137 00:09:52.080 --> 00:09:56.759 felt a lot more like that final episode battle against that huge cloud of drones 138 00:09:58.120 --> 00:10:03.559 than an episode of BSG or space above and beyond or any of those kind 139 00:10:03.559 --> 00:10:05.840 of shows. Next time I play I want to have an extended, no 140 00:10:07.039 --> 00:10:11.559 kidding, dog fight against other spacecraft to see if the narrative structure in the 141 00:10:11.559 --> 00:10:16.320 game translates to that tactical situation. So a thing I noticed. I know 142 00:10:16.440 --> 00:10:20.000 Jim from way back. He and I have attended these double exposure cons for 143 00:10:20.080 --> 00:10:24.960 quite a while. I played with him several times and we were discussing the 144 00:10:24.960 --> 00:10:28.240 game afterwards, chatting, and we both agreed that it was pretty well put 145 00:10:28.279 --> 00:10:31.759 together and did a good job of emulating the genre. But the main difficulty 146 00:10:31.799 --> 00:10:35.799 that he had, and I definitely saw this in play as it was happening, 147 00:10:37.039 --> 00:10:41.039 was that the echo playbook is a stealth specialist. It's mostly concerned with 148 00:10:41.080 --> 00:10:45.559 getting in and out of places undetected. It's got stuff you can take for 149 00:10:45.600 --> 00:10:48.720 your ship that lets it run silent and turn invisible and stuff like this. 150 00:10:50.039 --> 00:10:56.679 But in a game where Genre Convention means we're screaming around in starfighters and shooting 151 00:10:56.720 --> 00:11:01.559 up bulkheads on ships and making a lot of noise and getting into fights and 152 00:11:01.559 --> 00:11:07.360 stuff like that, like and Battlestar Galactica, like in my other touchstone show 153 00:11:07.399 --> 00:11:11.960 for this that I mentioned, for space above and beyond. It's an awkward 154 00:11:11.000 --> 00:11:18.080 fit. So in these shows there are spotlight episodes that might feature stealth tech 155 00:11:18.320 --> 00:11:22.960 or infiltration. You even see this on Star Trek. But FOR MODERN SERIAL 156 00:11:24.080 --> 00:11:31.120 SF stealth tech is almost always portrayed as problematic. It's difficult to integrate with 157 00:11:31.120 --> 00:11:37.600 weapons or shields and generally not something the good guys mess with. You might 158 00:11:37.600 --> 00:11:41.039 see the bad guys lurking around invisibly, but we want to see our heroes, 159 00:11:41.039 --> 00:11:45.960 we want to see their ships in action, and so stealth tech as 160 00:11:46.039 --> 00:11:50.080 such is not something that we really see portrayed as something that the heroes are 161 00:11:50.200 --> 00:11:56.440 using. As it happened to play books buzz, who was a steam junkie 162 00:11:58.399 --> 00:12:03.519 danger addict playbook, and hot shot, which was the supremely talented technical pilot, 163 00:12:03.559 --> 00:12:07.879 those two playbooks went unclaimed. Assuming I got the chance to run this, 164 00:12:09.639 --> 00:12:15.000 I'd probably just drop the echo playbook all together or tweak it significantly. 165 00:12:15.120 --> 00:12:18.919 So that it's not so challenging to fit into that top gun style model that 166 00:12:18.960 --> 00:12:24.559 the game otherwise does a pretty good job of emulating. Maybe make it like 167 00:12:24.600 --> 00:12:30.279 a sensors analysis egghead type, like a really cerebral pilot who uses his brains 168 00:12:30.320 --> 00:12:35.639 to come up with unorthodox solutions to technical problems. That seems like it did 169 00:12:35.679 --> 00:12:39.080 fit well, and if we wanted to run a stealth mission, we could 170 00:12:39.120 --> 00:12:41.720 put that tech of the hands of the existing crew to see how they managed 171 00:12:41.759 --> 00:12:46.519 it, because different playbooks would use that tech differently. I am a pretty 172 00:12:46.559 --> 00:12:52.720 solid believer in niche protection in these sorts of adventure games. It helps reinforce 173 00:12:52.840 --> 00:12:56.399 genre and people often come into these things whining to play a particular kind of 174 00:12:56.440 --> 00:13:01.519 character, but the niches you're protecting need to make narrative sense and work for 175 00:13:01.559 --> 00:13:05.759 the genre that you're emulating. So a final note that is an appendix to 176 00:13:05.879 --> 00:13:09.679 a thing I noticed. This session was listed to Max out at four players, 177 00:13:09.679 --> 00:13:13.039 but DEX was cool enough to see our alternate, so we played with 178 00:13:13.080 --> 00:13:16.679 five instead. I can't say that was a mistake exactly. Everyone had fun 179 00:13:16.679 --> 00:13:20.000 and we did fine, but I'm eager to see this game played with for 180 00:13:20.720 --> 00:13:26.039 as intended. I am ninety percent certain that it'll really tighten things up significantly, 181 00:13:26.080 --> 00:13:31.559 make our roles feel more distinct and make the missions feel more risky. 182 00:13:31.759 --> 00:13:33.000 To that end, I'm going to hassle dex to see if feel a lone 183 00:13:33.000 --> 00:13:35.879 me the playtest docks to see if I can run this on the gauntlet. 184 00:13:37.000 --> 00:13:41.039 So Watch your six that's all for this episode. Thanks everybody for listening. 185 00:13:41.080 --> 00:13:45.279 If you enjoyed the show, please rate and review it wherever you found it. 186 00:13:45.320 --> 00:13:48.399 That really does help other people find the show. Check out the show 187 00:13:48.440 --> 00:13:52.159 notes for a notes on our session, including some information on DEXCON and double 188 00:13:52.200 --> 00:13:54.679 exposure. If you're interested in attending those shows. As always, you can 189 00:13:54.759 --> 00:13:58.240 follow me on twitter at Jim Likes Games, and Buy Games from me at 190 00:13:58.279 --> 00:14:03.240 my website, Jim Likes Gamescom or at a convention I attend as a vendor. 191 00:14:03.279 --> 00:14:07.679 That is absolutely the best way to support the show. Now, if 192 00:14:07.759 --> 00:14:09.519 you'll excuse me, I'm going to go play another game.