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ShortQuests -- individual adventure modules! An all-new collection of digest-sized D&D adventures designed to plug in to your game.

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 9880373" data-attributes="member: 42582">Mobile Frame Zero - FirebrandsWith three players, the rules required one character from each faction: the on-world Bantreash nobles, the off-worlders trying to assert ownership of the world's resources, and the labouring underclass revolutionaries. I went first, and chose the latter-most faction. Like Apocalypse World and similar games, we all chose some features for our PCs from a list: my PC, Soni, was dashing, devoted and resolute; and on her mobile frame - an old labouring model, for lifting crates in warehouses and starports - was stencilled the silhouette of a raised fist.Players take turns to initiate "games", which are really categories of scene, each with its own framework for resolution - mostly based around asking and answering questions, but also with coin tosses involved in some of them. Everyone starts by playing a "solitaire" game, which basically sets up a bit of context/backstory for their PC, and then other games are played. My initial solitaire established that You’ve been raiding Bantraesh plants and warehouses for materiel… …And there are a dozen crates of munitions in your home, right now, visible to any who happen to look. As a result, anyone with sensors - like, say, on a military mobile frame - would notice that I was covered in explosive residue; and lots of people had heard that there were a tone of crates of dubious origin in my house.The table gave me the first scene to frame, and I established an "animated disagreement" with Sir Gilroy, [USER=6696971]@Manbearcat[/USER]'s PC and a noble, about whether or not he would publicly denounce his family and join with the revolutionaries (this starting point flowed from his opening "solitaire" game). The argument took place in a hospital, where he was being treated for some sort of wasting condition (the details of which never really came out in play). As per the rules, the third player - [USER=7044566]@thefutilist[/USER] - had to decide who swayed more of the audience, based on "who you think gave the best answer". I argued for immediate, public denunciation, and the argument went my way.The following scene didn't involve me - the other two PCs were dancing together at a rave, and (at least from Sir Gilroy's perspective) very much not sorting out their baggage from a past relationship (or dalliance - it seemed that Sir Gilroy might have mistaken a one-night-stand for something more). While that was going on, I did a little solitaire: You’ve been quietly building support among the people of the region… …And you had a close run-in with a Bantraesh counterintelligence agent.The next scene was framed by [USER=6696971]@Manbearcat[/USER]: a conversation over food between me (Soni) and Sir Gilroy. As a result of my solitaire, he could see that I was super-anxious and worried; and everyone has heard that the nobility were getting ready to strike, just as Sir Gilroy had warned a few months ago in the hospital. Sir Gilroy wanted transit off-world where he could be properly treated, and if the rebels could arrange that, he would then publicly denounce his family. But I wanted better leverage, and so had arranged for my people to kidnap him - with a bit of connivance also from his own courier, Jeremiah (the only NPC to appear in multiple scenes).My turn came up next. I had gone into the session a little wary of the "Stealing Time Together" game, which seemed to me a bit on the touchy-feelings-romance side of things for a game of mecha-vs-mecha action. But after the previous two scenes between Soni and Sir Gilroy, it seemed that that was the right sort of scene to frame. It was probably more tender on Soni's part than Sir Gilroy's - but I did take a lock of his hair, to be tested by my (NPC) chemist, Ngatha, to try and work out what was wrong with him. This moment of (near-)intimacy was taking place in the hangar that the revolutionaries had taken him to, and so (as per the rules for this particular game) there was a chance that we would be interrupted. We were, and so the scene-framing passed to [USER=7044566]@thefutilist[/USER]. His PC - a mercenary squadron leader, Captain Carda, employed by the off-worlders - was leading a raid on the hangar (having seen the munitions in my house, and tracking us down). In terms of system, this was a "free-for-all" game, and it was pretty interesting. Carda badly damaged the bottom half of my mecha with fire from the chain guns on her combat mecha; but I was able to close and throw her to the ground - grabbing things so they can't escape is one thing a labour mecha is good for! In the fight, Sir Gilroy was able to fly off.[USER=6696971]@Manbearcat[/USER] established the next scene as a mecha-vs-mecha duel, "Meeting Sword to Sword", between Sir Gilroy and Carda. We agreed this was some time later, in the fallback rebel base in the semi-arid hills. While they were duelling, I did another round of Solitaire for Soni: You’ve been conducting surveillance of the offworlders’ transit shipments and troop movements… And you expect a lightly-escorted materiel transport tonight. I was getting ready to tell the others that I look hopeful and that You’ve heard I’m trying to bargain for an offworld transit for a Bantreash noble - but before I could do any such thing, the duel resolved with Carda killing Sir Gilroy. Which rather dashed my hopes!My turn was next: I declared a Chase: Soni in pursuit of Carda. The chase resolution has a fair bit of coin tossing to determine the outcome. Initially I was losing, as Carda scrambled up a steep incline, and then ran along a perilous ledge (in the fiction: the bottom half of my mobile frame had been repaired, but the repairs weren't all that good and my hydraulics were failing). But then Carda hesitated at a dangerous leap, and I caught up to her: and then when she made the leap, I followed and had her with her frame - built for military agility rather than long-haul endurance - unable to keep running.[USER=7044566]@thefutilist[/USER] then called for another duel Sword to Sword: the plasma claws in Carda's mecha vs my crowbar and little plasma sheet-metal cutter. Here's how the questions unfolded:Carda: I touch you, cutting you along the rib or across the arm. Do you withdraw and run, or do you rejoin the fight? Soni rejoined the fight. Soni: I launch a sustained attack with my weight behind it. Do you give ground readily or grudgingly? My recollection is that Carda gave ground readily, as she didn't want a repeat of the close combat outcome from the hangar. Carda: I thrust and you barely turn it; a fraction slower and you’d been cut through. Does it exhilarate you or chill you? It didn't take me too long to decide that this was exhilarating. Soni was truly caught up in this duel. Soni: I overreach slightly and you have an opportunity to slip in a dirty little cut. Do you take it? I (the player, pemerton, and the PC, Soni), was surprised when Carda did not take the opportunity. She was starting to respect Soni as a soldier. Carda: I seize momentum and initiative and drive you backward. If you stand, throw. On heads, you hold me back; on tails, I cut you through, killing you. Do you stand, or do you allow yourself to be driven? [USER=6696971]@Manbearcat[/USER] was kibbitzing during this scene, and at this point described Soni backed up against a cliff. Naturaly, Soni tried to stand - but lost the coin toss.The rules for Meeting Sword to Sword do say that "If you’re in your mobile frames, being “killed” can mean that your mobile frame is destroyed but you’ve survived, or that you’ve indeed been killed. Decide with your partner." I pointed to this clause, and we agreed that Carda had pushed Soni back over the cliff, but her mobile frame had protected her from outright death. She was lying at the bottom, trapped in her broken frame.[USER=6696971]@Manbearcat[/USER] would have had the next scene-framing rights, but opted to go to denouement. Soni remained committed to the revolution, with Jeremiah's loyalties now being quite overt. Carda didn't want anything more to do with this sorry situation, and travelled out of the system to find work elsewhere. As a nice touch, [USER=7044566]@thefutilist[/USER] told us that she was now wearing the bracelet that Sir Gilroy had once given her - after having not been wearing it on any of the earlier occasions when Sir Gilroy had looked to see if she was. Carda was sentimental only after the event!********The characters in this game were interesting. [USER=6696971]@Manbearcat[/USER] commented that it would have helped to have an earlier scene between Soni and Carda, to give the climax a bit more weight. I could see where he was coming from; but at least as I experienced, there was a nice ambiguity (or duality) in the final scenes, as Soni was both fighting against the person who'd robbed the revolution of its leverage; but it also seemed that she might be fighting for revenge against the killer of Sir Gilroy.I found that I got drawn into the feelings/romance aspect of the game more easily than I had anticipated.The strength - or at least, one strength - of the approach to scene-framing, and asking and answering questions (AW-style), is that things happen that probably wouldn't in a more conventional "declare action, resolve action" approach to resolution.</blockquote>

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