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New EP Actual Play (RPPR)

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Fri, 2011-09-02 19:22

CodeBreaker CodeBreaker's picture

New EP Actual Play (RPPR)

http://actualplay.roleplayingpublicradio.com/2011/09/genre/horror/eclips... Thought some people might enjoy this, I always tend to. This time around the RPPR crew play one of our very own Arenamontanus' fantastic scenarios. Caleb GMs this time around, which is always fun. I am fairly sure this is the first of a series of EP actual plays, so keep your eyes peeled.

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Fri, 2011-09-02 20:05

Covariant

Re: New EP Actual Play (RPPR)

Shit. Scooped. This should be fun to listen to. Isn't "Think Before Asking" the very Inception-like one?

Sat, 2011-09-03 19:03

Arenamontanus Arenamontanus's picture

Re: New EP Actual Play (RPPR)

Wow! That was FUN to listen to! :-) OK, I am seriously biased as the author of the adventure. But it really showed me things about it I didn't know - I seriously need to reduce the infodumps in the mission briefing, and of course I was subconsciously thinking of the Last Question when writing it. This is the third time I encounter the scenario. Besides the playtest/première I also ran it for some other friends, where it turned out to be a simulation based on the earlier events that Firewall was testing on their new recruits. And now this one. They are all somewhat different: my second run breezed through the second part quickly (mostly because the players didn't figure things out) while this took a lot of time to really build up the ickyness of it and got a magnificent if cerebral reveal of what was going on. I feel inspired to write some kind of sequel about the further adventures of Dr Driscoll-Toyoda...

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Sat, 2011-09-03 19:43

Cthuluzord Cthuluzord's picture

Re: New EP Actual Play (RPPR)

Hey! I'm Caleb, the GM for that actual play. I just wanted to publicly state that I think all your adventures are amazing. POST MORE! Or at least have the EP guys throw some money your way and start making PDF's; I'd pay five dollars for your scenarios in a heartbeat. I've been a long-time forum lurker, and I'm totally psyched you got to hear us play the game. "Think Before Asking" was a great introduction to the system for me and got me inspired enough to start my first campaign. We are in the midst of running it at RPPR now, and it should be posted up there soon. While nowhere near as good as your stuff, I occasionally rip-off characters from your other scenarios (credit given, of course), so it should have at least a few high points. So yeah, I just wanted to gush about how much I dig your writing. If you ever want another group to playtest something you've written, shoot me an email and we'll get the game posted tout de sweet.

Sun, 2011-09-04 04:15

MirrorField MirrorField's picture

Re: New EP Actual Play (RPPR)

My Evaluation: With little tuning, expansion (eg. more detail on Ship and it's personality) and some filler details this could easily make for a commercial-grade adventure for official sale. Niche adventure due to cerebral and diamond-hard SF nature of the whole thing, but that's Eclipse Phase which is a niche product as whole. Non-stereotype characters with extremely blurred morality gradient are a fine point; Dr. Driscoll-Toyoda is a wonderful NPC. Major extra points for not including an obvious villain like eg. Burke from Aliens. Personally I'd limit Oracle's potential danger to local disasters (ie. Belt). Someone eg. asking it to calculate last digit of Pi would get detailed mathematical proof of the impossibility of the answer burned to his mind with nastiness equal to The Report in ego implant form. But that's just my opinion. All in all, an extremely tasty adventure.

Sun, 2011-09-04 21:49

Covariant

Re: New EP Actual Play (RPPR)

Just typing out loud here as I try to puzzle this episode out: If I'm getting the plot of the story correctly, we have the players sent by Firewatch to chase up on a sensor trace of a passing antimatter warhead, whereupon they find a black research lab. The researchers were attempting to answer the question "is it possible to build an Oracle-ai that is completely safe?" using the only tool that can answer the question: another Oracle-ai. How could that go wrong? I really liked the story, listening to the session play out was great, and now I want to see it animated. I've been inundated with modern-day hypercorp buzzwords which leads me to ask who would like to organize a weekend art slam to make a five minute video for it? I'm sure The Eye would love any art that derives from the effort.

Mon, 2011-09-05 19:10

Arenamontanus Arenamontanus's picture

Re: New EP Actual Play (RPPR)

(The Oracle is by no means omnipotent, it is just very, very, very smart and has access to some postsingularity tech. It can probably be stopped by the major players if it gets loose. But the stopping will be nasty.)

Covariant wrote:
How could that go wrong?

Whenever someone says that in the EPverse, Firewall nukes the site from orbit :-) To his credit, Dr Toyoda did think deeply about it and took some pretty extreme precautions. It didn't help... but think of all the science that got done! Huge success!

Quote:
who would like to organize a weekend art slam to make a five minute video for it? I'm sure The Eye would love any art that derives from the effort.

Now that would be fun! I am seriously thinking about how to make some kind of sequel involving the Dr Toyoda 1.0 and maybe 2.0... the combination of guilt and mad science is irrepressible.

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