2021.01.12 Last Fleet Episode One

WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.080 --> 00:00:03.480 Hey everybody, and welcome to just played. This is the podcast where I 2 00:00:03.520 --> 00:00:09.240 recap the TIPTOP RPG's I've recently participated in as player or game master. I'm 3 00:00:09.320 --> 00:00:15.519 Jim Crocker and today I will be talking about last fleet. This is a 4 00:00:15.599 --> 00:00:19.679 quarterly game that we were playing on the gauntlet and we played our first episode 5 00:00:19.879 --> 00:00:24.239 after our session zero last week. This is sort of an homage to Battlestar 6 00:00:24.359 --> 00:00:27.800 Galactica, love letter to that show, if you will. is about a 7 00:00:27.800 --> 00:00:33.880 fleet of ships escaping from an implacable alien foe. So date for this play 8 00:00:33.960 --> 00:00:38.560 is January twelve. We played it on the Gauntlet gaming community. Last fleet 9 00:00:38.640 --> 00:00:41.960 is a powered by the apocalypse system. It is a pretty dense powered by 10 00:00:41.960 --> 00:00:44.960 the apocalypse game and they have a little to say about that later, but 11 00:00:45.039 --> 00:00:48.679 this is our first quarterly episode of what should be a dozen or so once 12 00:00:48.719 --> 00:00:52.840 we run them out over the next couple of months. I facilitated this particular 13 00:00:52.880 --> 00:00:56.439 game. I was the MC for it. I had four really great players 14 00:00:56.439 --> 00:01:00.840 in last week. The playbooks all correspond to the Zodiac signs, so there 15 00:01:00.880 --> 00:01:03.480 are a dozen or so of them and each of them is meant to embody 16 00:01:03.840 --> 00:01:11.640 the characteristics the traits that you might associate with that Zodiac sign. So every 17 00:01:11.640 --> 00:01:15.560 player picks a playbook that corresponds to a Zodiac sign and then, once they've 18 00:01:15.599 --> 00:01:19.200 established that, they also choose some roles. So you might have like a 19 00:01:19.280 --> 00:01:25.519 Sagittarius pilot or a Leo investigator, and through those combinations that's how we end 20 00:01:25.560 --> 00:01:30.200 up with a unique characters. So we had patrick playing is cosmo Asimov's sort 21 00:01:30.239 --> 00:01:36.040 of Space Elon Musk, like a trillionaire industrialist who had managed to escape the 22 00:01:36.040 --> 00:01:38.599 destruction of earth because he happened to be on his orbital research station when the 23 00:01:38.640 --> 00:01:44.239 attack broke out. He is using the Sagittarius playbook. Lole is playing as 24 00:01:44.280 --> 00:01:49.640 Tyurini Zimmern, a military and civilian counselor using the libre playbook. Brandon is 25 00:01:49.799 --> 00:01:53.959 Lieutenant Commander Laness Hart, a military staff officer, and he's using the capricorn 26 00:01:55.040 --> 00:02:00.319 playbook, and Joe is playing as gunner resergeant Marcus Colt, a marine who's 27 00:02:00.400 --> 00:02:04.120 using the virgo playbook. In this case, our starting session is this is 28 00:02:04.120 --> 00:02:07.080 our first game, so we had established the parameters of the fleet itself and 29 00:02:07.120 --> 00:02:12.280 some of the important characters last time in our zero session. So we opened 30 00:02:12.360 --> 00:02:16.159 this episode with some questions to develop the crisis the fleet had just survived, 31 00:02:16.159 --> 00:02:21.520 which turns out to have been a communications failure during an ambush by the aliens 32 00:02:21.560 --> 00:02:25.400 that led to a civilian fleet vessel being destroyed, along with a squad of 33 00:02:25.439 --> 00:02:30.560 Colts Marines who were there to repel any aliens that might have boarded during the 34 00:02:30.599 --> 00:02:34.240 attack. So everyone in the fleet is dealing with that loss right now and 35 00:02:34.280 --> 00:02:38.479 there's some accusations in blame flying around as to whose fault it was, and 36 00:02:38.560 --> 00:02:40.439 so that's the messy situation that we dropped everybody into a the start of the 37 00:02:40.479 --> 00:02:45.639 game. Plot Synopsis For this time around. We opened with a Tyurini and 38 00:02:45.680 --> 00:02:52.360 Marcus at one of their evaluations. Marcus is required to visit Turini occasionally to 39 00:02:52.400 --> 00:02:57.360 make sure that he is still fit for duty, and we established that Turny 40 00:02:57.439 --> 00:03:00.919 is just kind of been passing him, not worrying too too much or asking 41 00:03:00.960 --> 00:03:02.960 too many questions, of prying too deeply, giving him the stins that he 42 00:03:04.000 --> 00:03:07.759 needs to stay awake, just sort of signing off on everything. So Marcus 43 00:03:07.800 --> 00:03:10.919 told her about his frustrations regarding the recent attack and she cleared him for duty, 44 00:03:10.960 --> 00:03:15.520 just like she always has. So cosmo and Lenas met for a drink 45 00:03:15.599 --> 00:03:20.400 at the bar on a luxury liner that is currently housing refugees, and he 46 00:03:20.439 --> 00:03:24.800 asked her for some classified military codes for comms project that he was working on. 47 00:03:24.960 --> 00:03:30.439 He's got codes from everybody else to create this communications network for the fleet, 48 00:03:30.439 --> 00:03:35.039 but the military hasn't agreed, so he is asking her to get them 49 00:03:35.080 --> 00:03:38.520 for him, and she agreed to try and track them down, provided that 50 00:03:38.560 --> 00:03:42.080 he is very careful with how he uses them. So after that we followed 51 00:03:42.120 --> 00:03:46.319 cosmo back to his research vessel, where his security chief informed him that a 52 00:03:46.400 --> 00:03:52.039 hack of the fleets coms that happened during the recent ambush came from his own 53 00:03:52.039 --> 00:03:55.439 ship. So he tasked her with finding the part is responsible, and she 54 00:03:55.599 --> 00:04:01.240 cracked her knuckles and set off to go do just that. Tarini was confronted, 55 00:04:01.360 --> 00:04:06.840 after her shift ended, by Marcus's girlfriend, who demanded that she stopped 56 00:04:06.879 --> 00:04:13.800 prescribing the stems for him and stormed off after Tuerini told her to go talk 57 00:04:13.879 --> 00:04:15.519 to Marcus about it, that it wasn't her problem. She should be talking 58 00:04:15.560 --> 00:04:19.199 to her boyfriend and not her boyfriend's doctor, because, of course, Dr 59 00:04:19.240 --> 00:04:26.079 Patient confidentiality, which she didn't think too much of. Meanwhile, Marcus and 60 00:04:26.240 --> 00:04:30.360 Lanse were tasked by the admiral who is in charge of the fleet, with 61 00:04:30.399 --> 00:04:33.800 a classified mission to try and communicate with a captive alien being held in the 62 00:04:33.800 --> 00:04:40.040 bowels of the ANDROMEDA. Marcus got assigned to this because he is the only 63 00:04:40.079 --> 00:04:44.439 marine who has ever had contact with these aliens and lived to talk about it. 64 00:04:44.519 --> 00:04:47.079 So he's really the only one that's ever had any first hand experience with 65 00:04:47.360 --> 00:04:51.959 seeing them operate or gearing them communicate with each other, and so the admiral's 66 00:04:53.040 --> 00:04:58.480 assigned him to be on this project, with Lannesse overseeing it as the executive 67 00:04:58.560 --> 00:05:03.279 officer. So the andromeda is our arch Angel Class dreadnought and that is the 68 00:05:03.279 --> 00:05:06.759 focus of the fleet. That's the great big Battlestar type ship that the fleet 69 00:05:06.879 --> 00:05:11.360 orbits around, and we're going to certainly see a lot more of that as 70 00:05:11.439 --> 00:05:15.920 the game progresses. Our final scene saw lanes, after all this was over, 71 00:05:15.079 --> 00:05:19.600 going to the COMMS officer on the Andromeda to try and get ahold of 72 00:05:19.639 --> 00:05:26.240 those codes that cosmo needed, only to be confronted with an intercepted broadcast right 73 00:05:26.279 --> 00:05:30.279 now being blocked from rest the fleet by the Andromeda that showed her presumed dead 74 00:05:30.279 --> 00:05:36.480 twin sister, supposedly lost in the attack on Earth, broadcasting alien propaganda meant 75 00:05:36.480 --> 00:05:41.759 to demoralize the fleet. As far as our ending fictional state for this episode 76 00:05:41.800 --> 00:05:44.800 goes, I let everybody do a little epilog to kind of show at the 77 00:05:44.879 --> 00:05:47.879 end of the episode where all these characters were. Marcus was standing and staring 78 00:05:47.879 --> 00:05:51.079 at the crippled alien and having no idea what to do next. It's kind 79 00:05:51.120 --> 00:05:57.199 of outside of his regular remit as a ground pounding marine. Lynette was telling 80 00:05:57.199 --> 00:06:00.079 the COMMS officer that she was headed to the admiral directly to get ahead of 81 00:06:00.079 --> 00:06:04.399 this before somebody else told the admiral about it, and that comes officer looked 82 00:06:04.439 --> 00:06:09.920 relieve that it wasn't her that had to bring that news. COSMO was standing 83 00:06:10.000 --> 00:06:15.360 there and looking at a grainy, silent image of that same broadcast that his 84 00:06:15.439 --> 00:06:19.439 text had managed to grab, despite the military jamming it. So he has 85 00:06:19.519 --> 00:06:25.720 only a grainy picture that looks very much like his friend Linesse delivering this message 86 00:06:25.800 --> 00:06:29.040 without any sound because they're doing their best to try and get through the military 87 00:06:29.120 --> 00:06:31.800 jamming it. And finally, Uterini, sitting at her desk issuing the order 88 00:06:31.800 --> 00:06:39.279 for Marcus to start detoxing off of the stem. So apparently his girlfriend did 89 00:06:39.279 --> 00:06:43.000 actually get through to her after all. My favorite player moment from this particular 90 00:06:43.040 --> 00:06:46.199 session was the great stuff all the way through. It's just for fantastic players 91 00:06:46.240 --> 00:06:50.000 I'm really happy to be sharing this game with, but in particular the opening 92 00:06:50.000 --> 00:06:58.199 exchange between Lulls Terni and Joe's Marcus really set the emotional stakes of the whole 93 00:06:58.199 --> 00:07:03.399 series and also established this therapeutic relationship that's going to be really cool to develop 94 00:07:03.439 --> 00:07:05.920 and put pressure on. So as far as I could tell, they're not 95 00:07:05.959 --> 00:07:10.959 friends, but they respect each other and it's going to be an interesting relationship 96 00:07:11.040 --> 00:07:16.680 to see build and what direction it goes on, given the professional obligations and 97 00:07:16.720 --> 00:07:21.079 the fact that they have to spend time with each other, but other pressures 98 00:07:21.079 --> 00:07:26.240 may mean that they're not actually friends, so looking forward to seeing how all 99 00:07:26.279 --> 00:07:30.600 that rattles out. My favorite chaming moment for me was getting to create and 100 00:07:30.639 --> 00:07:36.639 portray cosmos hard ass security chief. Corporate security guns are like the worst people 101 00:07:36.680 --> 00:07:41.920 in the world. There's so much fun in role playing games and I already 102 00:07:42.000 --> 00:07:46.959 hate her, which is great for a major GMC like that and I'm thrilled 103 00:07:46.040 --> 00:07:48.920 to see how much of a pain in the ass she turns out to be, 104 00:07:49.000 --> 00:07:54.800 just for everybody, especially COSMO. As far as missed opportunities this session, 105 00:07:54.879 --> 00:07:57.959 we are definitely still a little rocky on the rules. Last fleet, 106 00:07:58.000 --> 00:08:01.160 like I said before, is a very dense iteration of PBTA. There's a 107 00:08:01.199 --> 00:08:07.199 lot of subsystems, there's multiple currencies, sliders and clocks and stuff to keep 108 00:08:07.240 --> 00:08:11.040 track of and I definitely didn't have it down as well as I really would 109 00:08:11.079 --> 00:08:13.879 have liked to in this first session. Specifically, the thing that I really 110 00:08:13.879 --> 00:08:20.040 missed was that the relationship level that you have with other pcs allows you to 111 00:08:20.240 --> 00:08:24.240 substitute the number for your stat on certain moves. The stats in this game 112 00:08:24.279 --> 00:08:28.000 are extremely tight. There's a one to plus one range. You got to 113 00:08:28.079 --> 00:08:31.879 level up before you get anything up to plus two and the consequences for Mrs 114 00:08:31.879 --> 00:08:37.120 are pretty severe. But this is one of the ways that this game compensates 115 00:08:37.159 --> 00:08:39.879 for that and it's really important to have it there to balance out that tight 116 00:08:41.080 --> 00:08:45.000 stat range. So I'm a little disappointed in myself, but it's also a 117 00:08:45.120 --> 00:08:48.879 very dense game, so we didn't really touch on that aspect. To play 118 00:08:48.879 --> 00:08:52.080 when we played this evening and in fact we had someone asked about it and 119 00:08:52.279 --> 00:08:54.759 off the top of my head I couldn't tell them what the answer was. 120 00:08:54.799 --> 00:08:58.159 So look that up. And this is definitely something that's going to clearly be 121 00:08:58.200 --> 00:09:01.879 an important part of the game going forward that I wish I had paid more 122 00:09:01.879 --> 00:09:05.519 attention to first time out of the gate. So I definitely need another readthrough 123 00:09:05.559 --> 00:09:09.720 of the rules, to prefer next week, to be on top of everything 124 00:09:09.759 --> 00:09:13.399 as the action ramps up and we start bringing in some of those other rules 125 00:09:13.399 --> 00:09:16.679 I talked about, especially something like attrition, which is an abstract numerical measurement 126 00:09:16.720 --> 00:09:20.240 of the fleets resources and have banged up. It is, though, affect 127 00:09:20.279 --> 00:09:24.320 the fleet's ability to deal with threats, doom clocks, things like that that 128 00:09:24.399 --> 00:09:28.039 I want to make sure I'm fully versed on and familiar with before we get 129 00:09:28.159 --> 00:09:31.720 rolling again next week. So the thing I noticed with this session is that 130 00:09:31.759 --> 00:09:35.559 when I start a new campaign like this one, I generally just sort of 131 00:09:35.600 --> 00:09:41.519 brainstorm a bunch of ideas and hooks from character backgrounds and our world building that 132 00:09:41.639 --> 00:09:45.480 grabbed me that I think might be interesting, that just sort of spring into 133 00:09:45.559 --> 00:09:48.080 my head through the week as I'm going along to sort of turning the game 134 00:09:48.080 --> 00:09:54.080 over in my head and the world that we've created for ourselves. Explicitly banking 135 00:09:54.120 --> 00:09:58.799 these ideas to turn into hard moves for powered by the Apocalypse Games is something 136 00:09:58.840 --> 00:10:05.080 that I now realize I've been doing all along but never really consciously made a 137 00:10:05.080 --> 00:10:09.639 part of my prep for these games. I don't need much in the way 138 00:10:09.639 --> 00:10:15.799 of prep to run most PBTA Games, and especially something like masks, where 139 00:10:15.840 --> 00:10:18.519 the genre is second nature to me, and you know, I've been reading 140 00:10:18.720 --> 00:10:22.039 superhero comics since I was eight years old. So I don't need a ton 141 00:10:22.120 --> 00:10:26.320 of advance prep to just throw you know, comic book e Type Ideas He 142 00:10:26.399 --> 00:10:31.720 and as move softens and hard moves in a game like that. But for 143 00:10:31.799 --> 00:10:35.759 something like this, where I've got the one show as a touchstone but I'm 144 00:10:35.759 --> 00:10:41.360 not necessarily as familiar with this kind of military SF the nastiest herd move I 145 00:10:41.399 --> 00:10:46.919 made this session was available to me specifically because one of those ideas I put 146 00:10:46.960 --> 00:10:52.279 down just as I was brainstorming jumped right out at me from that session zero 147 00:10:52.399 --> 00:10:56.000 prep. It was something that one of the player characters included in their background 148 00:10:56.039 --> 00:11:01.000 and it's specifically that twin sister that was supposedly lost in the invasion. So 149 00:11:01.039 --> 00:11:07.120 the take home there is to use all that session zero stuff to preload like 150 00:11:07.159 --> 00:11:11.159 a double handful of potential hard moves and have them ready to go. You 151 00:11:11.200 --> 00:11:15.639 may never use them or the perfect time to introduce them may just pop up 152 00:11:15.720 --> 00:11:20.200 right away, but having them ready to go like that will help alleviate the 153 00:11:20.200 --> 00:11:22.519 problem that I know I run into sometimes in PBTA Games, and I'm sure 154 00:11:22.559 --> 00:11:28.200 it must be a thing the other MC's encounter, which is the challenge of 155 00:11:28.240 --> 00:11:31.720 creating them on the fly as specially if the dice are not falling the players 156 00:11:31.720 --> 00:11:33.679 way and you need to do several of them in a row. It's great 157 00:11:33.720 --> 00:11:37.360 to have that ready to go and to think of that session zero and everything 158 00:11:37.440 --> 00:11:43.879 spinning out of it as campaign prep as opposed to just prep for individual sessions 159 00:11:43.960 --> 00:11:46.080 that you might do an hour or two before the game starts. So just 160 00:11:46.120 --> 00:11:50.320 a little take home from this particular session. I think it's going to be 161 00:11:50.360 --> 00:11:52.600 helpful to me going forward. That's all for this episode. Thanks so much 162 00:11:52.679 --> 00:11:56.120 for listening. Really happy to be back. Hoping to do more regular episodes 163 00:11:56.200 --> 00:12:01.039 here with the new year, so stay tuned for more if you're enjoying the 164 00:12:01.039 --> 00:12:03.200 show, please do rate it and review it wherever you found it. That 165 00:12:03.240 --> 00:12:07.440 will always help other people find it. Check out the show notes for a 166 00:12:07.559 --> 00:12:09.480 video of this session, if one's available. We definitely did make one eye 167 00:12:09.519 --> 00:12:13.399 uploaded it to youtube, so that'll be there in the show notes and also 168 00:12:13.440 --> 00:12:16.240 be a linked to where you can get your own copy of last fleet. 169 00:12:16.279 --> 00:12:20.639 As always, you can follow me on twitter at Jim Likes Games, and 170 00:12:20.679 --> 00:12:24.519 I'm now back on Facebook as Jim Likes Games, Crocker Cro C K are. 171 00:12:26.080 --> 00:12:30.639 I would love to get enough youtube followers to customize my youtube channel Url 172 00:12:30.679 --> 00:12:33.600 so you can find me there. On Youtube as Jim Likes Games, where 173 00:12:33.639 --> 00:12:37.120 you can watch the videos of a whole lot of stuff I'm playing, in 174 00:12:37.159 --> 00:12:43.559 addition to the episodes of talk about on just played. So I guess that's 175 00:12:43.600 --> 00:12:46.559 it. If you'll excuse me, I'm going to go play another game.