[OOC] [Hard Wired Island] Space is the Place

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > The Game Room > [OOC] [Hard Wired Island] Space is the Place

Ettin: Oct 2, 2010

Space Town is a colourful shopping district and a major pop culture hub. It's the best place for games, CDs, comics, cosplay, collectibles, and computer parts this side of the cylinder. To some nerds it's practically sacred.

The district is also well-known for its robots. Here you can get smart appliances, robot pets, and robotic workplace assistants�or just check out one of the weekly robot-fighting events. For androids, it oﬀers cosmetic augments and old-school parts they don't make any more.

Space Town might seem a little weird the first time you visit, but everybody's a little bit weird. Here, they own it.

---

Hey folks! This is a game of Hard Wired Island, that game I made with Freyja recently. It's cyberpunk/maybe post-cyberpunk set on an O'Neill Cylinder orbiting Earth in an alternate 2020. I have a scenario that I want to test out, so I'm running a oneshot. Recruit will run until Sunday or whenever I feel like I've got enough apps, whichever comes first.

Tone/Players
This scenario is set in Space Town (p. 182), one of the station's pop-culture/nerd hubs. Characters can be anyone, as long as they have a reason to hang out in Space Akiba a lot and a reason they'd accept a job from a local who couldn't get help from the police. (This includes totally normal people or Law Zero androids or whatever, I don't care.) There will be some serious/political stuff, but since the scenario is set in Nerd Land it will be light-ish overall. Lots of talking to colourful characters and running weird sidequests. Think some of the side-stories in Ghost in the Shell/Cowboy Bebop, or consider the fact that I have been playing Disco Elysium lately.

I will be using the Community rules. The community will be Space Town but we can pick residents when the game starts.

I'm borrowing Atlatl's template for folks who need it:

quote:

Name:
Handle:
Pronouns:

Origin:
Occupation:
Burden:
App (if any):

Cool:
Clever:
Tough:
Quick:

Traits:

Talents:

Specialties:

Assets:

Augments:

# ¿ May 5, 2021 03:40

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# ¿ Apr 26, 2024 18:01

Ettin: Oct 2, 2010

Extra Bits

A few bits and pieces of rules that never made it into the core book (or were planned for a scenario thing). I'm supplying these in case anyone wants to use them, but they have not been tested, so use at your peril.

quote:

New Trait: Electric Druid
Grand Cross has many robotic animals, from the fake birds in the park districts to the botdega cats in the commercial areas. Somehow, the algorithm-driven neural networks behind these creatures have identified you as a friend. Once per mission, you can spend a point of Prep to have one of these creatures come to your aid. This works like a flashback, but instead you explain what creature was nearby and what simple task it can perform to aid you.

quote:

New App: VTuber
You don't need to take this to play a VTuber, but here's an option to do it with your App slot if you're interested. It comes in two flavours, depending on whether you're indie or signed on with an agency.

Indie: You get +1 Cash at the beginning of every session, unless you suffered Economic Shock. If you roll a critical on your Economic Shock�succeed or fail�gain an additional +1 Cash. However, your VTuber schedule means that when you get to roll for Prep, you must spend at least 1 day doing VTuber stuff instead of taking a Prep action.

Little Miss Company Hire: As Indie, but you get +1d3 Cash at the beginning of every session, and you get it even if you suffer Economic Shock. However, you cannot say anything that might cheese off your corporate bosses, and you may be screwed if your identity is discovered.

Ettin fucked around with this message at 04:20 on May 5, 2021

# ¿ May 5, 2021 03:41

Ettin: Oct 2, 2010

Aesculus posted:

Definitely interested, will probably throw up a hacker here. What format are we running in?

I'm just gonna run it here in the Game Room! I'm testing out some things and this way it's easier for me to access later.

# ¿ May 5, 2021 07:29

Ettin: Oct 2, 2010

Aesculus posted:

Question: Does the "For each rank of the Drone Specialty you have, the drone has an additional tag chosen by you." bit under Personal Drone let you break the usual 3 tags limit for drones?

Yep! Benefits of being an Operator.

# ¿ May 5, 2021 11:20

Ettin: Oct 2, 2010

Alright, doesn't look like I'll get too many more so I'm gonna make picks in a day from now :toot:

# ¿ May 8, 2021 12:44

Ettin: Oct 2, 2010

Alright! After some thought I have decided to take a page from Atlatl's book and see if we can make six work in a play-by-post.

Atlatl posted:

Ok since everyone�s in, after much agonizing and sleeping on it, I�ve made my decision on the team and after consideration have taken one more than planned:

With that in mind:

Blake Armstrong, Hacker (Atlatl) - is it really Hard Wired Island without somebody hustling
R. Condor, Soldier (K Prime) - I just really want to see a Law Zero cosplayer
Ronan Elliott, Street Fighter (Mors Rattus) - no way this + Space Town won't be funny
Tsukino Faolan, Fixer (Tricky) - is it really Hard Wired Island without somebody hustling??
Hikaru, Influencer (Astus) - a cyber punk
Irma Isley, Thief (JesterOfAmerica) - VTuber and Space Town go together well

Apps were all good so ultimately I just picked stuff I think might interact with the scenario (or gently caress it up) in a fun way.

:megaman:

Game Things: :megaman:

Just to be clear, I'm testing out a scenario! It is not meant to be a time-sensitive thing, so feel free to gently caress around if you like. I might split it into two missions. No longer-term plans, we can see what happens later I guess. If people burn out or need to duck out I don't mind getting someone else to fill in.
I'm gonna try to post every day or two (there's a few days in my near future where I will be unable to do a post), so throw in a post when you can to let me know you're still engaged. If it's been a couple days and we're not waiting for a roll I'll assume you're waiting for me to move on or something.
I'm going to stick to the forums for this game, so this thread can serve as an OOC thread. You're free to message me on the Hard Wired Island discord though.
As with Atlatl's game, I'm gonna skip rolling Economic Shock the first time around (mostly because this is a short play-by-post game).

Player Things :psylon:

It's (very) late night here, so I'm going to sleep and make the post tomorrow. In the meantime, try to figure out:

Who knows who and why
If anyone is living together for story/Burden reasons
Any details on Regular Customer/Small Local Business and similar traits, if it feels relevant
If you want to make any sheet changes (Nobody currently has Stealth, for example)

I am using the Community rules (p. 58). The community will be Space Town (p. 182). With that in mind, everyone can name one resident. You can use an existing NPC or make one up, so long as they fit the area. If you're not sure, talk to me! You can also just leave this blank, I don't care.

And here's some specific questions, why not:

Blake: How did Blake end up on Grand Cross in the first place? Does he have any kind of fallback plan if this all doesn't work out? How many of these jobs does he actually enjoy?

R. Condor: How high-up is Condor in Law Zero? Is she aware of R. Daneel Olivaw (p. 259)'s secret plans? Either way, how does she reconcile Olivaw's stated dream of a better life for androids with Law Zero's dabbling in drug-soft and other crimes that gently caress androids over?

Ronan: Why does Ronan hang out in Space Town? Was he drawn here by something in his past, or did he just happen to set up his restaurant in Marukyu and find himself becoming accustomed to Space Town's weird bullshit? How well-known is his restaurant as a place you can get food if you need it?

Tsukino: How many offers of corporate (and similar) work has Tsukino turned down? How do her folks feel about that? Does she have any regular clients or does she just get by on taking on odd cases when they're offered?

Hikaru: Brain augments are rare in HWI, and generally they're experimental augments with unknown long-term effects. Does Hikaru worry about that, or does it mostly just bother her that she got screwed over by an anime company? Does she know where they got an experimental brain aug?

Irma: Did Irma's tiefling looks come with her full-body prosthetic or did she get those modded in later? Is her VTuber avatar also like this? Is she insistent on acting out a persona/maintaining kayfabe or do people just know who she is?

Ettin fucked around with this message at 17:44 on May 9, 2021

# ¿ May 9, 2021 17:40

Ettin: Oct 2, 2010

Alright! As I mentioned on Discord I made everyone nameplates. I grabbed the symbols off game-icons.net, so if you didn't already pick yours and you want to use another, let me know and I'll change it.

Ettin fucked around with this message at 12:37 on May 10, 2021

# ¿ May 10, 2021 03:34

Ettin: Oct 2, 2010

Thread's up! :siren:

# ¿ May 10, 2021 05:10

Ettin: Oct 2, 2010

So, I'm currently trying to decide when Prep should start. In theory we could do this three ways:

1) We do a bunch of ~roleplay~ for the information-gathering part, then when you've got a rough idea of where to go after you've finished with that, we do a mission;
2) We make the information-gathering phase part of the mission, and start Prepping now;
3) We do one mission for all this information gathering, then when you've got a rough idea of where to go afterward, another mission (maybe with some downtime first).

Any preference here? I think it mostly depends how much you want to interact with the mission/economic shock system.

# ¿ May 11, 2021 14:14

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# ¿ Apr 26, 2024 18:01

Ettin: Oct 2, 2010

Announcement! At the moment, personal Prep works like this:

If this is your first Prep roll of this mission, add one Prep to your character's personal pool.
For every 3 points you beat the Diﬀiculty by, add one additional Prep.

Freyja is changing the personal Prep action so now, in addition:

On a success, add one Prep to your personal pool.

Please calculate your personal Prep with this change in mind. :toot:

# ¿ May 12, 2021 16:52

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > The Game Room > [OOC] [Hard Wired Island] Space is the Place