SPOILERS: THERE IS A WERESHARK IN THE NEXT EPISODE

I explained a lot of stuff in this one.  There’s not a lot else I can say.

I suppose I could point out that there are different kinds of weresharks, for different breeds of shark.  Hammerhead Rokea (like Zygaena is) are different from Great White Rokea, who are different from Tiger Shark Rokea.  Like I said, all weresharks are born sharks (unlike werewolves, who are mostly born human, but in the past were mostly born wolves), and the different breeds of sharks generate different breeds of Rokea.

In general, they are all weresharks, and are the same species (though Rokea mothers eat any children born of Rokea fathers), and they consider themselves the same people, though they tend not to associate much with each other anyway, given the relative locations of their native species’ hunting grounds.

Eastern sueprnaturals have a less antagonistic relationship than Western ones.  Werewolves hate Vampires, Mages hate Vampires, Changelings hate Vampries, and Vampires view all as dangerous but sometimes desirable prey.  Eastern supernaturals – be they vampire, mage, werecreature (werewolves are rather rare in the East, outside Japan) or what have you, they tend to work at common purposes to bolster the supernatural world against the predation of human progress.  They still fight – hengeyokai (it means “changing monster”) view mages as greedy oathbreakers and Kuei-Jin as soulless corpses – but are far more willing to work together against common threats, like hunters, than are their Western kin.

All that leads up to this point: Ming-Xiao told us where Zygaena was because she hoped he would kill us for her.

I’m really not sure what Exetera expects out of voice-acting.  For me, it exists to give personality and depth to a character.  You can tell a lot about a person by how they speak; speech is perhaps the one thing that most separates humans from animals, more than any other aspect of our physiology.  Even our colour sense (which is pretty dense compared to a lot of other mammals) is outshone by many other animals, but – at least as far as we know – no animal communicates as much as intricately as humans do.

So a crazy old man who talks slow, making you cringe and wish he would hurry the hell up is actually <i>good</i> voice acting; if you don’t believe me, visit your local senior centre and ask for a few stories.  They won’t speak quickly.

In addition to sending you around with magical (and “magical”) talismans, Mr. Ox, when questioned, will talk a lot about things that could, with the right knowledge, be considered allusions to the mystical world as viewed by Mages.  He talks about threads of fate – a common way for Mages to view Entropy, one of their Magickal Spheres – and pathways in the ether, and other vague concepts that could or could not be references to the World of Darkness multiverse.

Even the “everyone gets what they deserve” wording he uses sounds an awful lot like how Akhasic Order of Mages views Time and Entropy.

A little-known (and never mentioned in this game) fact is that, in the Masquerade setting, vampire fangs are retractable.  While most vampires (those who do not have extremely high Humanity) cannot fully retract them and thus they appear somewhat elongated, they become much longer when feeding; even the canines we can see in several vampire’s mouths in this game wouldn’t really be long enough to cause sufficient bleeding for a vampire to effectively feed.

I apologise to the next-of-kin of any viewers who were playing the drinking game alongside this episode.

If it wasn’t already obvious, we had severe technical (and gameplay) difficulties in this recording session. We did indeed run through the Mandarin’s gauntlet three times to get the run you see on camera.  Looking at what’s here, I think we must have lost at least a half hour.

Chinatown is not nearly as much of a maze as Exetera makes it seem.  It’s mostly a bunch of alleys that loop around on themselves, with a more-or-less straight-forward path to the one part of Chinatown that’s separated from the rest.  Then again, I’ve always done excellently on spatial-relation tests, so maybe I’m a bad advocate.

I do make a reference to something I never really explain; vampires are generally cold-blooded creatures, whose body temperature is generally whatever the ambient temperature is, but for an hour or two after feeding, they’re much closer to body temperature thanks to the fresh blood in their bodies.

I still have no idea what song Exetera is referencing.  If anyone has an idea, please let me know.

So my new job blocks krellen.net, but not wordpress.com (so I can actually access my blog through the back door).  It also blocks a lot of game-news sites, but not YouTube.  It really doesn’t make a lot of sense.

Kuei-Jin powers are based, by-and-large, off Eastern mythology.  So among other weird powers they have, many have the power to detach their heads and become Penanggalan.  True-to-myth, they are forced to keep their entrails with them when they do so.

The Kuei-Jin’s “Presence-like” power is a soul-bonding, which allows them to influence emotions and, at higher levels and with deeper bonds, create something akin to the Kindred’s Blood Bond.  It’s likely this is the sort of influence Ming-Xiao has over Wong Ho, who is smart enough to connect the coincidence of Ming-Xiao’s arrival and the resurgence of the Tong, but completely unwilling to put the pieces together and accept that Ming-Xiao is, in fact, responsible (which she is.)

Our bad audio is just one of the many technical difficulties we regularly deal with.  Something about Skype and the systems Exetera uses to record just cause all sorts of weirdness.  On our end, it tends to manifest as Exetera’s audio sounding buzzy and garbled (like mine in the recording), which usually means we need to take a break and reboot everything to clear it up.

I didn’t notice the background music in the Golden Temple during the recording (we usually keep the game audio low on our ends so we can hear each other better), but now that I do hear it I can comment that it is not there in the vanilla game and was clearly added in by Exetera’s patch (drink!)

I really do try to keep Exetera from skipping dialogue, and also to get him to pause long enough for Cloud and I to catch up (mostly so Cloud can give some input on dialogue to get some “new player” input), but it’s really hard.  The stream introduces about a five-second delay, which is a long time for a player to sit and wait (long enough that generally you’ll assume there’s no input coming).

Skype needs to get push-to-talk, though push-to-talk does cut down a bit on the audible reactions (laughter and such), but it’s probably worth it to cut down a bit on the ancillary noises we get in our audio (inhaling, smacking, etc.)  Alternatively, I suppose Exetera could just turn down the master on our audio a bit.

LaCroix, unlike Ming-Xiao, actually develops genuine respect for a respectful PC.  He fully intends to share power with the PC should the PC side with him (outside circumstances still thwart him, however), whereas siding with Ming-Xiao ends in a sudden, yet inevitable, betrayal.  She actually mocks you for thinking she had any place for the PC in her plans, though “spares” the PC’s unlife in deference for the aid given the Kuei-Jin.  Instead of killing you, she has you chained to the Ankaran Sarcophagus and sunk to the bottom of the sea.

I’ll probably talk about the Kuei-Jin ending of the game on camera at some point, but you readers now get a sneak-peak.   Spoilers!

The Nosferatu haven is in the Downtown sewers (little surprise), in the form of a somewhat-unbelievable large open space behind a convenient door that is unlocked after you free Barabus for Gary.   It’s possibly not larger than the Downtown haven (which is one of the two-story apartments in that TARDIS building Exetera pointed out a long while back), but most of that haven’s space is wasted by being in the air and inaccessible, while the Nosferatu haven is a single story (actually, it’s sort of a studio apartment, with a shattered hole in the wall that leads to a bathroom that exists for some reason.)

Like with the Tremere (and Downtown) haven, Heather mysteriously knows she’s supposed to move into the sewers when you acquire the Nosferatu haven.

Exetera pointing out that VV giving you a poster (and an autographed photo) of herself is “egotistical” doesn’t really make the case he wants to make.  She is a Toreador, after all.  Egotistical is sort of their Raison d’être.

And Exetera proves something I said earlier wrong: there is an inventory limit, though it is extremely large and if Exetera would visit stores and sell stuff once in a while, he probably never would have hit it.

Gary’s poster of Ming Xiao is actually a pretty good springboard for talking about the differences between vampires and Kuei-Jin (although Xiao will get into a lot of this when we talk to her later).  They still need to feed off humans, though they subsist on their nebulous chi, not their blood per se.  Young, inexperienced Kuei-Jin feed on chi through the vessel of their blood, and thus still resemble vampires in that respect, but as they age and find their place, they learn techniques to draw out chi through other fluids, or through the breath itself, and thus need no longer drink blood to survive.

The chi Kuei-jin subsist on can be balanced either towards Yin – death or Yang – life.  Kuei-Jin who feed heavily on Yin chi greatly resemble vampires, with pallid skin, cold blood, and inhuman features (such as fangs).  Kuei-Jin fed heavily on Yang, on the other hand, are largely indistinguishable from humans, having pulses, natural skin tones, functioning organs (to the point that fully-Yang-infused Kuei-Jin are fertile with humans, able to sire or carry children to term), and other such aspects.  They’re also quite Manic, highly irritable and easily distracted (Yin-imbalance has its own drawbacks), so most Kuei-Jin try to keep their Yin and Yang levels more or less equal.

Gary’s poster of Xiao is of her taking a bath (in a natural-like hot spring, not a tub).  From this and her appearance in game, it’s easy to deduce she is a largely-Yang-infused Kuei-Jin.

Exetera fumbling around the Chinese Theatre looking for the video tape for Gary should have been substantially easier.  Perception and Scholarship combine to create the “Investigation” ability, which should cause objects to “sparkle” when you are near them.  Exetera should have enough of that for the tape to have sparkled – I am once again suspecting the patch he runs (though I suppose he could have been just under the threshold to get it.)

I’m not sure we’ve ever talked about Elysium, the concept of a vampire “safe zone”.  Weapons and Disciplines are not allowed inside Elysium – in the Bloodlines game, mechanically, but in the tabletop setting it’s just a matter of social convention (as with all vampire laws, the only penalty is death.)  Elysium is usually the domain of a powerful vampire, who has some ability to enforce such rules themselves. It’s entirely possible that Strauss’s Elysium is enforced through Thaumaturgical means, making his a bit more inviolate than others.

Areas that are Elysium in the game are Mercutio’s apartment building, the Asylum club, LaCroix’s penthouse, the Last Round, Strauss’s mansion, Isaac’s office, Vesuvius (VV’s club), the Nosferatu warrens, and the Kuei-Jin temple, which does much to let you know who the truly powerful vampires in Los Angeles are.  (The fact that both Isaac and VV can enforce Elysium is a large part of why I believe VV isn’t an Anarch – well, that and the kiss she blows Strauss in the opening.)

We shall violate Elysium twice by the end of the game.

So I’m going to set out to prove them wrong.  Not only is To the Moon (and similar games, such as Telltale’s The Walking Dead) perfectly fine as a game, a game is in fact the only suitable medium through which its particular story could be told.

Let’s just start off discussing its length.  Playing through To the Moon takes about four or five hours.  That length immediately rules out film as a suitable medium; it has been long determined that ninety minutes or so is the “optimum” length for a film, being about the average person’s maximum tolerance for passive viewing.  Truly epic, involved and complex affairs might be able to stretch that to three or four hours, but not even the Lord of the Rings could pull off five.  These experiences are much too long to be presented on film, regardless of how much their interactivity plays a role in the experience.

Yet that length is insufficient for any other medium.  A television series could not be made out a mere five hours of content, and no producer would approve a single-season series in this country anyway.   It is too short for a novel; at best one might be a novella out of it, and even then the repetitive nature of the gameplay elements would make for a rather boring story.  There’s only so many ways an author can describe uncovering a character’s past through metaphysical constructs in a mental landscape before it loses its steam.

This segues nicely into the next point: interactivity.  A large part of To the Moon is discovering the past of Johnny, the client who has asked to have his dying wish fulfilled in his final memories.  This process of discovery is one the player shares with the doctors tasked with it in-game; as they discover his past, so do we.  Some of this experience could easily be conveyed in prose or acting; it is entirely possible to share a voyage of discovery with a protagonist without controlling them.

And yet, when you yourself are in control of the experience, there’s an even deeper connection to it.  There is a moment late in the game, after the client’s memories have first been successfully reset to allow him to live out his new life in his memory, that could not play out the same way without the player in control.  There is a tension, a tangible sense of anticipation, that plays out as you guide the characters through the memories, and it is a tension that would lose some of its pang without being the one in control yourself.  Knowing that you are in the driver’s seat, that the unveil depends on you – and your pacing – makes it all the greater an experience.  Without that control, an aspect of the anticipation is lost; you still feel it, but knowing it’s beyond your control saps it, just a bit, of its immediacy.

And that brings us to pacing.  In any other medium, you are being told a story by a single person.  You are at that person’s mercy regarding the pacing of the story; if things are too intense, if you need a break from the action, or tragedy, or levity, or anything else, you’d better hope that your storyteller realises that and gives you the break you need, because you won’t get it otherwise.  Sure, maybe you’re at home and can pause the movie, put down the book, or whatever, but then you are not only getting a break from the emotion, you’re getting a break from the story and its world as well.  In order to avoid being overwhelmed by the moment, you have to pause the entire experience.

With a game, if you need that break, you can just step away – in game – from whatever sequence is pushing you on the emotional roller-coaster and spend some time poking around at the world otherwise.  The game might be urging you onward, but if you want to just stop and smell the virtual roses, you can do that; the game will wait for you without forcing you out of the experience altogether.  Even the most linear of games will let you do this; if there’s a tale in the game, it’s got a degree of freedom in player actions within it.  Even the most gamey of games – titles like Tetris or Breakout, for instance – give you a chance for a break, by the break in levels (or the relatively low barrier of failure resulting from a “game over”).  And if you just want to get on with it, you can do that as well, pressing forward as quickly as your reflexes allow, without having to wait for your authorial dictator to decide it’s time to move to the next section.

All of this assumes a game wherein the gameplay itself is not part of the narrative, which it often is.  Even when it seems like your only interaction with a game is clicking “the next thing” to move the story along, a game can still be a perfectly valid medium for storytelling – and, in fact, many times is in fact the perfect medium for it.

And now this whole thing feels like a lame college essay.  Sorry about that.

Now, a normal person might take those games, make them into a story, write that story, and create a novel (or novella, or series of short stories, or a screenplay, or otherwise channel them into some other creative outlet).  The problem for me is that I am largely an improvisational GM, not a “storyteller” per se.  While some of the stories have firmer frameworks than others (some are little more than a playground), all of them have an innate flexibility intended to allow players room to exercise their own will.  Without players, there is no story to tell: they are co-creators, not subordinates.

This makes these tales very hard to serialise alone.

Since I have no outlet for them at the moment, I’ve decided that I’d just outline a few of them here, and open the floor up for discussion.  It’s highly likely, should Shamus actually decide to launch some forums, I would run some or all of these as play-by-post games there.  Until then, however, this will have to do.

Cortex

Cortex – or sometimes Core Techs – is the international leader in high technology.  While few around the world know the company by its name, the subsidiaries that it works through are household names.  Capital Labs, Carrot, and many other companies who produce the modern marvels of everyday life are all owned by Cortex, who are constantly pushing the boundaries of science and technology.

But virtually no one knows just how far those boundaries have been pushed.  Cortex research laboratories routinely employ near-fantastical technology in their day-to-day activities; optical computers are common, quantum tunnelling is employed for quick travel (and security), and their biometric scanners operate flawlessly.  Deep within these labs, Cortex creates vat-grown humans, indistinguishable from the womb-born with many capabilities far beyond those understood by conventional science.  Cybernetics are not uncommon among the executives and managers of the company, and many of their field operatives enjoy the benefits as well.

Most fantastical of all, however, are the Cortex Deep Space facilities.  The ISS is like a child’s toy compared to the wonders of Cortex’s Enlightened Science, which include fully functional colonies on the dark side of the moon and the surface of Mars, as well as orbital stations around the Galilean moons of Jupiter and trans-Neptunian observation platforms.  Deep Space operates fully functional battle cruisers, which are often deployed to protect humanity from extrasolar threats – which are all too real.

The players in the Cortex campaign operate under Directive Six: Shepherd the Masses. Protect them from themselves and others.  While not officially sanctioned by any world government, the power that Cortex wields allows their agents a great deal of latitude when operating on Earth – and obviously, no other organisation exists to police the depths of space.  Directive Six is a covert operation; the less people know of the supernatural, the less power the supernatural possesses, and the easier things go for Cortex.

Essentially, Cortex is a Technocracy campaign in the Mage: the Ascension setting.  In presentation, it is a bit different from other campaigns, in that it has a fairly firm framework; I have written it as a television series, with “episodes” strung together into “seasons” – 20 episodes in total, divided into 4 5-episode seasons.  Each episode itself is only a rough outline of a plot, however, allowing players a lot of latitude, especially in terms of character development.  Some episodes are “metaplot” episodes, tying into the arc of the season and series whole, while other are “filler” episodes, basically just monster-of-the-week affairs.  Hopefully, I’d be able to mix-and-match the metaplot and filler episodes to create a good ebb and flow of rising action and downtime.

As Cortex itself has five major Divisions, the ideal group would probably be five (possibly six) players representing each Division. However, there’s no hard-and-fast rule on this; excluding one or more Divisions wouldn’t ruin the story in any way (and could even lead to interesting tension within Cortex itself.)

At the moment, Cortex is probably the game I most want to run.

Ashes of the Angels

2004 was a year of turmoil.  Rumours abounded of the rising of the ancients, of unrest across the world, of doom and destruction in areas both remote and urbane.  Los Angeles became the focal point for much of this, ending in a dramatic Night of Fire, whose capstone was the second terrorist attack upon the Venture tower downtown, which resulted in the complete destruction of much of the building, including the offices of the LaCroix foundation, which had funded the building’s construction less than a decade before.

Whispers abound of what caused these attacks, but the city’s vampires know the truth: it was the result of a building war between the city’s sects, a slow-boiling that exploded when the catalyst of a single powerful vampire was added to the mix.  Instead of destroying the errant Childe, she was spared, and set off the powder-keg that was Los Angeles.

The Sabbat have been destroyed utterly, while both Camarilla and Kuei-Jin have been left reeling from the death of their leaders.  While the Anarchs still enjoy what small semblance of leadership they once held, their position is just as tenuous as it was during the truce; already nursing near-mortal wounds from wars against the Camarilla and Kuei-Jin, the Night of Fire re-opened that wound, with many an Anarch counted among the night’s casualties.   Though nominally once again an Anarch Free-State, Los Angeles’s position is no stronger than it was, and many new vampires have come to the city – or been Embraced – seeking to fill the power vacuum left in the errant Childe’s wake.

If you hadn’t already figured it out, Ashes of the Angels is a campaign about the aftermath of the Bloodlines video game I’ve been Let’s Playing.  It has no real story; the point of the campaign is to explore the world left behind the story of Bloodlines, allowing players to plot and scheme as they will (as befits the vampires they would be playing!)

The game follows the Inconnu (“Wild Card”) ending of Bloodlines, with the role of the player character being taken by a Malkavian named Frenchie.  Frenchie remains in Los Angeles, with her own powerbase, but plays no part in the ongoing politics of the city – she supports neither Camarilla nor Anarch, and in general exists as naught but a mysterious boogeyman for both sides.

Ashes of the Angels is an example of an RPG without a story – just a series of vignettes to be experienced (or created) – which is something I’m sure can truly thrive but requires especially involved players who have their own goals and desires; there will be no central plotline to drag reticent players forward.

The Mandalorian Wars

The name pretty much gives this one away.  The Mandalorian Wars is my prequel to Knights of the Old Republic, detailing the rise of Revan and the untold story of the wars that divided the Jedi Order and broke the Republic.  Players would be Jedi, soldiers and civilians who got drawn into the Wars, either swayed by the words of Revan, hired by Malak, or drafted by the General (who would later be known as the Exile).

I ran this game once before, but didn’t have enough players truly interested in it to stick to it.  It should be noted that Revan would exist largely in the background, for her tale is truly told by KotOR; Malak and the General are the key figures from the PC’s point of view, and their story (and the war itself) would be the driving plots of the game.

This one I could probably do without players if need be, but it’s nice to have players sticking their fingers in your tale, forcing you to think on the fly.

Fallout: New Mexico

Factions in New Mexico in the year 2281.

Personal Holorecord of Elder Ron Maxson,
Holloman Brotherhood; April 19, 2281

War. War never changes.

It only took two hours for the world to end.

New Mexico was especially hard hit; the oil fields of Farmington, the underground stockpiles in the Sandias, not even the research lab at Los Alamos that was the birthplace of nuclear power was spared the cleansing flash of nuclear fire.

Humanity survived by taking refuge in underground vaults. One vault – Vault 66 – grew to establish a flourishing community built upon the ruins of the old world. They ventured forth from their underground shelter, a century after the world ended, and rebuilt it anew.

The holorecord shows scenes of the Dwellers emerging from their Vault, establishing the first outskirts of Sandia City, meeting with the gangs of Albuquerque and, finally, a long shot of the Sandias, dusk drowned out by the blazing lights of the sprawling city of the vault.

There were other vaults, of course. Vaults that brought forth the Kooks – Hubologists, with their strange religion and beliefs, Vaults that opened too early, or fell awry due unethical social experiments, loosing Ghouls, raiders, and other horrors upon the world.

The holorecord flashes slides, changing as they are named: Hubologists, in their purple robes, marching across the wasteland; Vault doors, successively opened, scorched, rent inwards, and completely missing; irradiated Ghouls, picking through fallout craters; raiders, screaming and guns blazing towards the viewer; and a massive claw belonging to an unidentified creature slamming down against the view, leaving it black.

One such vault, far west of here, gave birth to our order, the Brotherhood of Steel, built upon the remnants of a military research outpost at Mariposa. The Brotherhood guards and protects the technology and learning of the old world, so that we can ensure it never threatens the world again.

The holorecord shows an image of a Brotherhood Paladin, in full Power Armour, picking through the ruins of a settlement, then switches to an image of Paladins and Knights standing shoulder to shoulder, battling a foe not shown.

Our Chapter came to New Mexico about the same time the Sandias opened to release their prize. We pursued the Super Mutant remnants of the Master’s Army here, but when we discovered White Sands, we stopped. This was the first place ever touched by nuclear fire, the site of the Trinity tests that changed the world – and ultimately ended it. Here was the surest symbol of the old world, one that must forever remain buried. So we buried it.

The holorecord shows an image of a Brotherhood Elder, clad in the typical robe of the Elders, removing a signpost declaring the presence of the White Sands Missile Range, weathered by time and scorched by fire, but still legible.

We would not have survived if not for Keyes. He was the first to suggest we allow our Chapter to grow beyond the traditions. He was the one that discovered Holloman and the intact arsenal it contained. The Keyes have formed the backbone of our Chapter, and yet Julian was denied the mantle of Elder, simply because he was not a Maxson.

The holorecord shows an image of Julian Keyes, wearing the Power Armour of a Paladin with his helmet tucked under an arm.

The Keyes have kept us strong. They embrace the outsiders who pass the tests to join the Brotherhood, accepting them in ways other Brothers will not. They challenge us, testing the Codex, tempering the steel that make it strong, and shattering the dross that make it weak. But this comes not without sacrifice. The Keyes make us strong, yet they remain apart, distrusted by the rest of the Brotherhood for their unorthodox ways.

The holorecord shows an image of Julian Keyes, apart and separate from a crowd of Paladins with their backs to him (and the viewer), but Julian doesn’t seem to care; his interest is fixed upon a pre-War device in his hands.

They are our Keyestone Squad, equal – better, perhaps – to any of the Brotherhood, but apart, taking only Keyes, for only the Keyestone shall accept a Keyes.

The holorecord breaks into a live recording, broken images interspersed with radio chatter.

It starts with a Brotherhood Knight, bleeding from a gash on his forehead, rendered in the blue-and-black of low-fidelity holoimaging.

“- repeat, this is Knight Brother John Shepard, requesting backup! Operator number Alpha-Bravo-Niner-Delta-Three! Hot Springs Outpost is under attack, requesting -”

The image cuts off as the sound breaks into static.

A high-fidelity colour rendering plays next, sweeping over a hand-painted sign declaring it “Hot Springs Outpost”. Several Brotherhood Knights can be seen running about, dodging explosions and exchanging fire with a group unseen off-camera. A young man, clad not in Brotherhood armour but the loose and many-pocketed clothing of a vault city trader, is urged into cover by a larger, older man, clad in wasteland leathers studded in metal, while a Knight wearing glasses provides cover fire with a malfunctioning plasma rifle.

The scene shifts again, this time showing a Brotherhood squad – a Paladin, several Knights, and a trio of Scribes – loading into a Vertibird. The Scribes cluster in the cockpit, the oldest taking the controls, the youngest slipping on a headset beside him in the co-pilot’s seat, and the last taking controls at the helmsman’s conn. The Paladin waves the Knights into the passenger bay before locking on her helmet and taking the door, swinging her gatling laser into its brace on the edge. An older Knight, a few years older than the pilot, stays behind, watching the crew depart. As the Vertibird vanishes out of sight, she turns to collect the gear left behind.

The image cuts back to Elder Maxson, who lowers his head.

The young go off to die, because of decisions made by old men. Because war? War never changes.

That’s how I started out this campaign last time I ran it, though the focus on the Brotherhood was not a requirement – the players themselves chose to play as mostly Brothers (with some playing traders and Vaulties from Sandia City), and in fact it was they that created the Keyestone Squad.

The central idea is to explore the Fallout world in a place not yet explored.  As the map shows, I outlined several factions, as well as their conflicts and alliances – each faction was primarily opposed to two other factions, and had loose ties to the remaining two.  I allowed players to choose where they wanted the focus, from among the following options:

Legion, Vaulties, Brotherhood – Tension: Brotherhood/Legion – Focus: Vaulties
Vaulties, Brotherhood, Ghouls – Tension: Ghouls/Vaulties – Focus: Brotherhood
Brotherhood, Ghouls, Kooks – Tension: Brotherhood/Kooks – Focus: Ghouls
Ghouls, Kooks, Legion – Tension: Ghouls/Legion – Focus: Kooks
Kooks, Legion, Vaulties – Tension: Kooks/Vaulties – Focus: Legion

The three listed factions would be the ones available as PCs; the Focus would be the central faction that tied the PCs together and the Tension would be potential intraparty conflicts that could be worked into the story.  I don’t have a solid set “story” for this game, but rather a series of conflicts outlined that would be explored further depending on which faction the players picked.

So for instance, a Vaultie focused setting would be primarily about the struggles of Sandia City, which openly trades with both the Brotherhood and the Legion (allowing some players to be from those factions if they wished) and is actively opposed by the Ghouls and Kooks (who would be thus major antagonists of the game).  Conflict between Legion-aligned and Brotherhood-aligned players would be the spice in the party makeup (should the players choose to make some).

I’ve always thought it somewhat criminal that New Mexico, birthplace of atomic power, has never featured in anything Fallout-related, so I have this setting as a solution to that.

This game might be the most work for me to run – given that I have to tailor the story to the players’ choice of faction – but I still really want to give it another go, if only to get the chance to write another “War, war never changes” speech.

The End

So that’s what’s bubbling in my mind for now.  Hopefully, there will be some interest in these, some interesting discussion below, and, ideally, some outlet to actually play sometime soon.

The first of our contemporary episodes, where I am not posting about a video Exetera has already had up for days or weeks.

I do a lot of not telling Brandon things, because, as I’ve said many times, this game does a lot of explaining things to you, which saves me a lot of time.  It’s one of my favourite parts of the game; I love seeing good world building in games, because exploring the world is a central aspect of almost every game.  Even simple games like Tetris are mostly about “exploring” the world – in this case, the different rules and permeations of the blocks.

A player can lock themselves out of the Camarilla (Strauss) ending by revealing to Isaac that Strauss made the Gargoyle (which is worth bonus experience for doing), or by just in general being a punk kid to Strauss.  Anything less than deference with Ming Zhao, particularly belittling her sense of Kuei-Jin superiority, locks you out of the Kuei-Jin ending.  Forcing LaCroix to Dominate you into doing his tasks (or less specifically, just refusing him too often) locks you out of the LaCroix ending.  I’m not sure it’s actually possible to lock oneself out of the Anarch ending, though I suppose telling Nines where to stuff it during your conversations with him might do that as well.

That leaves the Inconnu (or “Wild Card”) ending as the only one sure to be available to every character.  (Gameplay-wise, the Camarilla, Inconnu, and Anarch endings are identical, but have different cutscenes.)

We keep getting dragged into conversations about the endings, and I have some major points I want to touch on about that, but it’s still a bit early in the game to really delve into them, so I’ve been avoiding saying too much both in the videos and in these commentaries.  Hopefully we’ll get to the point where discussing the ending is a bit more topical soon.