#RPGaDay2018: Day 26 - Your gaming ambition for the next year

It's pretty exciting. We're returning to Pathfinder to finish the storylines there. I've really missed playing Svetlana and am looking forward to reaching her promised "happily ever after".

I mentioned yesterday that I'm now playing some First Age Exalted, with the plan to head back to Aberrant, and from there, back to the other Exalted, the one with Taji and Kito, and then back to the Mage game that's just gone on break, with the idea that we'll alternate between these games to their natural conclusions, playing each for a few months at a time rather than years like we have been. I'm really looking forward to getting into this First Age Exalted game properly, and as for where we are in Aberrant, well, there's so much happening! I really want to know if Adam's "hallucination" means Benedict is alive, which would be really interesting. I'm also looking forward to the fallout of Adam's decision to leave his family in someone else's care while he's in prison, especially with Chrissie's trust issues, and out of character knowing Adam's thinking of leaving his family anyway - that's going to be interesting to deal with! We'll have a new player, too; the other player from the First Age game. I'm looking forward to seeing what character he comes up with and how he'll fit in.

But my biggest ambition for the next year is to carry on as normally as possible once this little parasite's arrived.

What're your gaming ambitions for the next 12 months? Let me know below!

#RPGaDay2018: Day 15 - Describe a tricky RPG experience that you enjoyed

Two episodes came to mind for this. The first is a Deadlands session I'll be writing up soon, with fear and phobia and great interaction between Solomon, Carson and Tesla. I shan't say too much, except to remind you Solomon's "worst nightmare" is that she's a were-puma and, in that form, slaughters innocent people (this being far away from her pacifistic nature), and that in Deadlands, your worst nightmare, your biggest fear, has a habit of finding you...

The second was a single scene in Aberrant, recounted here (when I was still writing the game in third person). Chrissie's relationship with her parents had never been particularly good: they never showed her much affection, growing up, and she rebelled against their materialism, their plans for her, their lack of interest in her, and this was the first time she'd seen them since her Eruption.

They started out simply ignoring her, but her attempts to talk to her mother ended up with her mother denying their very relationship. It cut my character deeply - I really felt it. The atmosphere in the room was intense as we played the scene.

Afterwards, my GM apologised to me, for being so mean, but I loved it.

What about you? What tricky experience have you had? Mine were emotional, but perhaps you have something more practical. Let me know below!

#RPGaDay2018: Day 13 - Describe how your play has evolved

When I first saw this question, my firstthought was "my play hasn't changed that much" - the first games I played in were immersive, ongoing campaigns where I was complimented for my commitment to the world and the layers I brought to the character. I love acting and storytelling, but am not very good at taking on a character written by someone else or at editing a story by myself, so roleplay suits me.

There have been changes: uni was the peak of my roleplay experience in terms of number of games: as well as long term campaigns, I played in one-off games and short campaigns, and had the time, energy and opportunity to be playing in multiple sessions a week. It was amazing and I miss it. These days, I play weekly most of the time, alternating between 2 groups each alternating between a range of long term campaigns. It's pretty good, but inevitably sessions are cancelled from time to time as real life gets in the way, and when you're effectively playing that game fortnightly, it can feel a little sad (don't get me wrong: the biggest reason I'm not playing more frequently across a week is that circus is going really well and I love that. I guess I wish I and my gaming buddies had longer weekends).

Other changes have been the amount of notes I take - I used to take very few, able to rely on my memory with pretty good accuracy. As I've got older (and the fibro fog more persistent) this hasn't been possible, and I've needed to take notes. I used to be in awe of the players who could detailed notes while still fully engaged in the game: now I am that player: that's where most of the detail for my game write-ups posted here comes from. Blogging the games is new too, and something I really enjoy (even if it takes me a while to get started).

The biggest way my play has evolved is in the type of characters I play. While I've always played occasionally outside it, especially when I was at uni I settled into a comfortable habit of playing kind characters, often healers, who wear their innocence like a kind of mental shield and are generally insatiably curious. Kella of the Final Fantasy-inspired game, Kirri from the uni LARP ('Aberddu Adventures'), Plays from Werewolf, Svetlana from Pathfinder and most recently Ragna from Mage are key examples of this archetype. Compassion over conviction, to look at it from an Exalted point of view (although Kella, at least, had very strong conviction). They're young - generally late-teens, certainly not more than human-equivalent early 20's - they're kind, they often have a little magic and a slight trickster side them (Plays was technically a Theurge, but we decided it must have been a very thin crescent to explain her Ragabash tendencies), but their biggest feature is that child-like nature. They can all, with varying degrees of success, be mature and serious, but they at least come across as very innocent. It's a true part of their nature, but for Kella and Svetlana in particular it is more of a shield than the extent of them, and Ragna's learning to apply the same. For Plays and Kirri, they didn't have as strong a mature side and were dominated by their innocence.

I deliberately moved away from this with Chrissie, as mentioned the other day on "how gaming has changed you", and worked to play someone firmer, someone who doesn't pry (however innocently) into the lives of others; someone who's a clear leader. That flowed into Taji - she regained a lot of the curiosity (what can I say? I enjoy playing curious characters. It's a good way to explore the game world), but lost some of the kindness (I'm hoping to start building it into her; the game's at a point where I think she has enough people around her who matter enough to her who are kind and compassionate to justify it), and is definitely not innocent (well, until it comes to love and sex, at least). I'm enjoying playing these characters, and have found I enjoy playing that maturity more frequently more than I expected. It's given me more confidence to explore different character traits, though I also draw from experience of characters that didn't work so well, or characters that I haven't enjoyed playing alongside: I will always, now, try to play a character who can be a good team player (though not necessarily making that their defining feature, anymore), but I'm also quite happy to take the lead. I enjoy mothering other characters - I can see this being my next progression!

What about you? Don't forget to add a link to your response below.

Aberrant - The Eruption

Told from the point of view of my character, Chrissie Walker aka Lisa 'The Phoenix' Moore, the Aberrant story index is here.

~~~  

Forget what you read in the news profiles and on Wikipedia, I promised you the true story of how Hyperdrive and I Erupted.

It was 23rd March 1998, not a few days later. I had the day off and my brother and I were working towards some form of reconciliation; I'd come to his office to meet him for lunch. His idea, but now I can feel Benedict's fingers all over it. Especially seeing as Adam showed up as I was waiting, with a package from Benedict for Pete.

As my brother came down the stairs, a group of masked, armed men burst through the doors. All of us in the lobby area were swiftly tied up and put in a room. More hostages were led in soon after. 

It didn't take Adam long to free himself and then me. We manage to take out the two guards by surprising them, and tied them securely before untying the other hostages. Adam took the guns, surprised I wasn't prepared to carry one. We snuck back into the lobby. Seeing a clear route, we hurried the hostages out of the room to hide them in the lift shafts: there was space for them all below where the lift would settle, and it seemed very unlikely they'd be found by the intruders - who we suspected to be part of a group known as EM Tek.

The package from Benedict was sheets of paper covered in gibberish writing, that served as cover for a useful toolkit. As Adam slung it across his back, I saw him rubbing his forehead as if nursing as headache as bad as the one that had been bothering me all day. Neither of us were going to back down, though: there were too many people in danger in the building. 

We left the hostages. Pete joined us as we carefully climbed the stairs, but after we were shot at and he was nearly hit, he admitted he couldn't cope, he was too afraid, so we took him back to the lift shaft to look after everyone there. The stairs seemed too dangerous, so we used rope and other items in the toolkit to allow us to navigate the lift shaft and ventilation shafts as we made our way around the building, doing our best John McClane impressions until we reached the top floor. A helicopter circled overhead: we found marker pens and wrote in as large font as we could manage, backwards, to get their attention. They circled closer, and we could make out a return message that, with a bit of pointing, we realised was a radio frequency. As luck would have it, there was a radio in the toolkit.

The helicopter was from MI5. They didn't know much more than we did, but were excited to have us inside and active, even as civilians. We continued to explore the building, running into the occasional patrol. We avoided those we could, but ended in a fight with one and Adam shot a man. I raced over as he fell, but there was nothing I could do for him. We hid the body and continued - Adam a little shaken (to be honest, I was a little shaken: I saw death regularly, as a nurse in A&E, but I'd never seen a friend cause the death, even though he hadn't meant to).

The building should have been a busy office block; the empty rooms were eerie.

We took water and snacks from vending machines back to the lift shafts. It didn't seem to matter how much I drank, my head still felt like it was splitting in two.

We eventually made our way to the server room, and this is where we found what the bad guys were up to, hacking the server. We knocked out the few people here, and (with the help of the MI5 guy on the radio) shut down what they'd been doing - which was when the rest of the bad guys stormed in, shooting. 

We fled, running awkwardly and in fear, the stresses of the day building to a crescendo, our heads pounding like we were about to give birth to Athena, and it was all too much when...

When something happened, like the universe arriving within. I felt myself rise as though bathed in phoenix fire - as though the heart of a phoenix as the flames flooded the building, green flames healing everyone, even the guy Adam had shot and we'd left for dead. Storm clouds gathered outside. Adam was going through something similar, his newfound power shoving foes backwards, away from us and crushing - imploding - the weapons held by bad guys throughout the building (as red flames flickered from me to melt them beyond recognition once he was done).

The release was phenomenol.

As I sank back to the floor, a man stepped from the shadows, introducing himself as Montgomery...

We awoke in a strange holding cell. Montgomery returned to us and explained it was now 15th April. He told us about the arrival of Novas and that we'd Erupted before the others, before the explosion of the space ship, but that we should keep that very quiet.

An uneasy truce arose between us.

His facilities were good, but we were prisoners there, and we never felt any regret for deserting and rejoining Benedict at the first opportunity (just some disappointment and minor betrayal when, years later, I learnt they were friends and Benedict had been behind our kidnapping). 

Aberrant - Chapter Two Conclusion

We'll be returning to Aberrant when we're at the end of the chapter for Mage so thought I should finish writing that up too!

Told from the point of view of my character, Chrissie Walker aka Lisa 'The Phoenix' Moore, the story index is here.

~~~  

The news continued to report on the devastation in London and the search for Hyperdrive as a suspect in the attacks on the churches across America. They mentioned they were all part of the Church of the Archangel Michael, and speculated he'd done it in vengeance against what had been done at the premiere. They pointed out there was no comment from us. That riled me: they hadn't approached us for any, and we hadn't had time.

I looked to Alastair to lead us, but he sat on the bench motionless and emotionless. I drew strength from the memory of Benedict, of his request that I lead the Initiative. I've made poor, young Alastair do this for far too long. Time for me to stand.

It was a daunting prospect nonetheless.

I phoned Dave, head of the nova-friendly network N! and long-term friend of ours. He would have a team with us shortly - would come himself to help us find the best things to say. He's human, but very good at what he does. I phoned Captain Montgomery, too: he had a team on the way and promised to make the remains of the St John mansion safe. The PR department of St John Enterprise was also set in motion, and I felt a little better. The strong, black coffee Remi brought me helped, and seeing Holly was safe even more so. Someone pointed out I need to let Jen's parents know she was hurt, maybe dead, and Alastair finally roused and said he would do this, but accepted my offer to come with him.

He took my hand to teleport us to their drive. As we walked to the door, each of his footfalls cracked the ground. This... I'd never seen this before. I touched his arm before he touched either of his grandparents - I could feel something rippling from him, but it seemed I could survive touching him. He told them what happened, that many men with many guns overwhelmed security at the mansion and shot Jen. I left him with his grandparents and their grief, and took mine with me.

I collected Holly and Stef - whose only UK address had been the Hub - from what remained of the Hub and took them back to Cambridge with me, tried to make things as normal for Holly as I could with her dad missing and encouraged everyone else to spend a bit of time recovering. Alastair joined us after a few days to let me know he hadn't found Steve. I wanted to hold him close and mother him, but he had things he needed to sort out so I let him go.

At the end of the week, Adam sent me a very brief message: he was handing himself in, then silence on our link. I turned on the news and watched until I saw him being arrested. He was at his California home; the footage from the circling helicopters showed a huge burn mark, but I couldn't see Sam or Nicky. Pax took him in. I picked up my phone to call Pax to find out what would happen next when the doorbell rang. I opened it to... Steve.

Steve.

For the first time since Erupting, I wasn't sure how I felt, how I was going to react, so I listened as he talked. I'd assumed he'd never asked me to marry him because he knew, with my childhood, I wasn't ready for that, but now...

He'd Erupted shortly after me, while I was being held in the Outer Hebrides. His ex-wife - Holly's mother - is a Nova scientist who specialises in 'experimenting' on other Novas. Holly... Holly may have been born a Nova, he wasn't sure. At some point around 1995, she'd said or done something that changed Eleanor's attitude: she got a hungry look towards her own daughter. My stomach churned at that - I felt flushed with fear and anger and maternal protection. If Steve hadn't still been talking, I might have flown off to try to tear the woman limb from limb.

They left, changed their names, moved around, eventually settling in the flat below mine. It seems this was a genuine coincidence - very unusually where Benedict is concerned, but my mentor didn't take an interest until after my Eruption. When he found out, he taught Steve to control his powers and did ... something for Holly. Steve wasn't sure what - bound her or controlled her or something, tied in with the bracelet she wears. She has no idea of any of it, not least how dangerous she has the potential to be.

And then I took her with me to fight that fire in London, which was what started all of this. He saw her there, holding on tight as I flew in front of the cameras, so he raced over, that figure in ice - but of course her mother saw the footage too. My anger was tinged with frustration, because if he'd only told me the danger Holly was in, I'd never have taken her with me. I recognised that frustration as a mask for guilt and didn't reveal it.

"How dangerous is she?"

"I don't know."

"Vienna?"

"Maybe. I saw it once, apparently, but it was too dangerous for me to be allowed to remember. I don't know. She doesn't know any of this. She mustn't. Not just because she'd hate to be dangerous, but it's not safe for her to know."

I promised, then phoned Pax to learn Adam was in Bahrain. I asked about the burn mark, and he said he didn't know what had caused it but it looked recent, and Adam had been kneeling by a small cairn. I thanked him, checked in on Steve, Holly and Stef, and flew out to Adam's place.

Fans had left flowers and cards expressing disbelief, a sentiment I shared. Other people had come by and desecrated the scene. Inside, there was a grim quietness to the staff tending his vinyards. The cairn Pax had mentioned was marked 'Robin', and the cape Adam had made for his dog hung over it. I patted the name, sighed, and talked to the staff. The police had told them not to talk to anyone, but they knew me and told me they'd been attacked, three of them killed: crucified then burnt. Robin had been killed defending them. 

I ingratiated myself with the police officers patrolling the grounds. They couldn't tell me why this attack was being hushed up, and I didn't want to push them, but they did tell me the link between the Church of the Archangel Michael and the victims shouldn't have been leaked to the press. 

There was no sign of Sam or Nicky, and no one knew where they were. 

Back in the UK, I talked to Steve about the attack on the facility, and the handless lady I'd left in Morocco. I visited her, and she said her name was Gertrude and she'd gone to Switzerland for work as a guard. She didn't know much about the company, just that it was something to do with microchips. I helped sort out prosthetics for her hands (despite the potential in my Eruption and to my frustration, I'd still not demonstrated any healing power), and took her back to Switzerland. Steve said the microchips were new technology based on the Nova study by his Ex. I wanted to investigate more, but London needed rebuilding. 

On which note, Alastair wanted me to head up the quantum generator project to bring green power to London as part of the rebuild. With looking after the Initiative and Holly, Stef and Steve, and trying to find Sam and Nicky, and keeping on top of my research, I actually felt busy.

I dreamt we buried Jen next to the empty plot marked as Benedict's grave. A weird feeling crept from the pit of my stomach, filling me with a sense of wrongness. I missed them both. The feeling stayed with me after I woke. Maybe this is partly why I don't normally bother with sleep.

We didn't bury Jen. She survived. Very weak, recovery a long road, but she was alive. Alastair didn't tell us to begin with because he wasn't sure she'd make it. That boy takes on too much. 

Adam's court date was set for 6th June 2005. We found the best defense lawyer on the Nova Initiative books, and I started studying law in my spare time to assist - took about a month to get my degree sorted, but at least it was interesting. The PM raced my licence through. 

It meant I got to see Adam, but that didn't reassure me. He seemed unconcerned that I couldn't find his heavily pregnant wife or their young daughter, just saying the defense lawyer was investigating. When he slipped and called me Chrissie instead of Lisa, I raised an eyebrow and asked if he was ok, hoping anyone monitoring would assume he'd made a mistake. He twitched as he talked, describing something like sensory deprivation torture.

As it came near time for me to leave, he looked right at me, more lucid than any other point: "I'm scared for my sanity, back there in that room with no beginning and no end."

It frightened me, but he made me promise not to break him out.

I investigated the Church, hoping to find links to terrorist organisations to justify Adam's attacks: the lawyer told me he'd said he was guilty and hadn't been coerced. They had incited the attack on his film premier, but weren't normally involved in that sort of thing, and it didn't look like they'd been intending to become more involved. It looked like he had been manipulated into creating anti-Nova propaganda, though: all the incidents were captured on cameras with sufficient EMP-shielding to protect them even from Adam's power. The best we could hope for was that provocation and good behaviour would buy him a reduced sentence.

The trial was at The Hague; Pax must have pulled straws, because a trial in the USA could have led to the death penalty. It was difficult to go through: Adam was like a caged animal, and they showed footage of the attacks I hadn't seen - more brutal than I'd realised. The lawyer did his best, but it wasn't enough. 

We built the new Hub on an island, a unique place with a sprawling network of buildings that could only be reached from that one location. Workers would arrive from other offices, but could only go further if they had approval. It truly was a hub.

Remi and Mark had spent their time trying to track down the people behind the attack, but with no success. Alastair had an idea it was a Belgian former black ops soldier, Gaspard Reynard, who'd led the attack. He'd been an accomplished soldier and had no family we knew of. Alastair had no idea who'd instructed him, but he was a Nova now, with absolute mastery over the molecular structure of others. Project Utopia had picked him up early, at one of the clinics they ran to give a drug to suppress your powers while you learnt to control them (and, being Utopia, presumably made you infertile at the same time).

We had no leads at all on Sam and Nicky, and it was driving me to distraction. I was worried enough about Adam without having lost his family. 

Finally, I was allowed to see Adam, A doctor took me to him. There were so many small rooms in the facility, each housing a criminal (I presumed all Novae), and Adam was one of them. He was curled up in a small ball, rocking, repeating "He's here, he's here..."

~~~

And that was where we left the game. We actually played out this section differently, with Adam being acquitted, only at the end for the GM to give me a few changes to the year so it ran for Chrissie more or less like this, while what we played was in Adam's head.

The last note in my book is "(+10xp I forgot to note on character sheet)", which is the kind of note a player likes to find!