Monday, March 24, 2031
Three companies of SAInt pilots inhabit the Arx Jericho, which hovers over what used to be Iowa in the United States. It's responsible for overseeing the primary Mayzor defense across the entire country - what remains of it anyway.
The PCs belong to the recently newly formed Charlie Company. They are, oldest to youngest, Rick Hunter (15), Sarah Werner (14), and Jason Reyes (13). The oldest SAInt pilot of the group, Billy Henderson (17), is also their team leader, while Alex 'Strudel' Struder (12), the youngest pilot of the group, seems like he might be the comical weakling of the bunch.
The episode begins with Rick going head to head with one of his classmates, Joanne Klein (14), at their after-school Kendo Club. Joanne's motivation is to succeed by any means necessary, and Rick, her rival, caught her playing dirty and spraining another classmate's ankle. Rick's despair is he can't see justice go unpunished, so Rick delivers justice to Joanne, avenging Stephanie Yuzuki (13), who leaves crying with her sprained ankle.
The club's classroom happens to be next door to the Gaming Guild's computer lab, separated by a removable wall. After his match, Rick goes next door to check on Sarah, who happens to be an avid video game enthusiast. It turns out her controller is broken, but, fortunately for her, Jason is there to fix it. Strudel is also in the room and looks amazed and impressed after seeing Jason fix the controller so effortlessly.
Sarah and Alex square off in a fighting video game that takes observational skill, and Serena Hunter (15), Rick's twin sister and friend to both Rick and Sarah, shows up to watch them play. Sarah wins the match and impresses Serena.
Serena begins talking and suddenly brings up news about an unscheduled, surprise, SAInt coordinations test after supper. Serena thinks it's just a team-building test pitting her company, Alpha Company, and Charlie Company.
Billy, Jason's rival, walks into the computer lab acting his usual, tough, overzealous self and began talking down to Jason, warning him not to screw up the coordinations test they have planned.
Once everyone leaves, Billy corners Jason alone in the hallway and begins bullying him (Jason's despair is "the idea of being alone and in pain terrifies me"). Rick and Sarah overhear the commotion and came back to help Jason out. They teamed up against Billy, and, not only do they stop him from picking on Jason, they completely humiliate him in the process.
Billy walks off with his confidence shattered, while Alex mentions he has other plans scheduled during the time of the test and seems stressed about it. He complains about needing to visit some secret location he has plans to explore. He walks back to his foster home with Jason, his roommate.
Rick and Sarah go back to their respective dorms, and Charlie Company reconvenes at the cafateria for supper, where Rick catches Joanne speaking to Captain Anastatia Kasherov (47), or AK-47, Captain of the Preservation Forces and one of their strict professors; the students nicknamed her AK-47 and call her that behind her back. Joanne looks like she's conspiring with AK-47, and probably lying, as they both turned to give Rick some harsh looks.
Alex is the first to leave the table and accidentally leaves his Linc behind, which Jason is kind enough to pick up before heading to the training facility for their simulation test.
When Jason, Rick, and Sarah arrive, Billy meets them but acts standoffish. All of Alpha Company is already there and ready to begin the simulation test. Above the rafters, behind the glass panels, Captain Kasherov stands next to Commander Toshi Yamasuka (35). AK-47's voice rings over the intercom, addressing the Chipmunks: "Where is your teammate, SAInt pilot Charlie Company, Alex Struder?" Indeed, Alex is MIA.
Billy started cursing out Alex aloud, calling him Strudel, and Jason decides to be more practical, as he opens up Alex's Linc to hack in and find out where he had been. It turns out that Alex set up a date with Ryoko (12), one of the youngest and shyest girls in their class. Jason smacks his forehead and calls Ryoko. She answers with some pep in her voice, the likes of which Jason had never heard before. When Jason tells Ryoko he's not Alex, she quickly hangs up.
Captain Kasherov, losing patience, tells Charlie Company to go find Alex and bring him back to the facility for testing. They have no more than 10 minutes. As Charlie Company bolts to find Alex, Alpha Company makes fun of them, calling them Chipmunks.
Billy, Rick, Sarah, and Jason finally find Alex en route to the secret spot he was going to meet Ryoko at. Alex took a small detour to pick flowers from a secluded, communal garden.
Rick takes Alex's Linc and slammed it in his hand, yelling, "Never go anywhere without your Linc again!"
Suddenly, alarms resonate throughout the Arx, warning alarms of a Mayzor raid happening, and the Preservation Forces blare on the intercom and instruct all SAInt pilots to report for deployment immediately. Charlie Company gets all suited up in their SAInts and are briefed on their first, official deployment mission, which will take them to just outside New York City. Meanwhile, Alpha Company and Bravo Company are being sent to Chicago to eliminate another, larger, Mayzor raid occuring there. A Magnas had already appeared in Chicago, reports say.
The SAInts of Charlie Company are launched and arrive in Brooklyn, New York in just under an hour. Captain Kasherov remains in constant communication with them via the MetaTron. A Wormwood had appeared in northwest Brooklyn, and a group of Locusts are heading for the Brooklyn Bridge in attempt to destroy it. Mayzor swarms are going after civilians evacuating Brooklyn via the Brooklyn Bridge and by running south toward Brighton Beach.
Charlie Company's objectives were simple: prevent the Locusts from destroying the Brooklyn Bridge, protect evacuating civilians (alongside the military's help), and destroy the Locusts. They're looking at 9 total Locusts: 4 Soldiers, 3 Brawlers, and 2 Archers.
Sarah gets the ball rolling after destroying the first Locust Soldier in FA range. Jason successfully snipes the first Archer by the Wormwood and takes cover behind a tall building. AK-47 praises them for their successes, and even Billy is impressed with Jason's work. He remains close by to cover his back, while Jason takes cover to reload his rifle. Billy helps protect him from an attack from the other Archer. Rick moves into CQ range to eliminate one of the Soldiers, and Alex moves in to help Rick. Meanwhile, the Brawlers begin advancing on the SAInts, however, after Sarah destroys a third Soldier with her Giant Killer, the Brawlers began to retreat, as does the last Soldier. The Swarms all begin retreating as well, and Rick and Alex tag team the last Locust Soldier, obliterating it completely with their FA weapons. Rick's Levic Flechette works wonders.
It seems like fortune is smiling down on Charlie Company, however that's all about to change, when Captain Kasherov alerts the SAInt Pilots that there's another threat approaching, a greater threat.
Lightning strikes down near the Wormwood. Looking up at the sky, Rick, Jason, Sarah, and all of Charlie Company see the Principal Magnas, Belial, descending from the skies. He lands behind the Wormwood, which is now being closely guarded by the Brawlers, and his many, demonic voices echo ominous, agonizing cries.
To be continued.
Sarah and Alex square off in a fighting video game that takes observational skill, and Serena Hunter (15), Rick's twin sister and friend to both Rick and Sarah, shows up to watch them play. Sarah wins the match and impresses Serena.
Serena begins talking and suddenly brings up news about an unscheduled, surprise, SAInt coordinations test after supper. Serena thinks it's just a team-building test pitting her company, Alpha Company, and Charlie Company.
Billy, Jason's rival, walks into the computer lab acting his usual, tough, overzealous self and began talking down to Jason, warning him not to screw up the coordinations test they have planned.
Once everyone leaves, Billy corners Jason alone in the hallway and begins bullying him (Jason's despair is "the idea of being alone and in pain terrifies me"). Rick and Sarah overhear the commotion and came back to help Jason out. They teamed up against Billy, and, not only do they stop him from picking on Jason, they completely humiliate him in the process.
Billy walks off with his confidence shattered, while Alex mentions he has other plans scheduled during the time of the test and seems stressed about it. He complains about needing to visit some secret location he has plans to explore. He walks back to his foster home with Jason, his roommate.
Rick and Sarah go back to their respective dorms, and Charlie Company reconvenes at the cafateria for supper, where Rick catches Joanne speaking to Captain Anastatia Kasherov (47), or AK-47, Captain of the Preservation Forces and one of their strict professors; the students nicknamed her AK-47 and call her that behind her back. Joanne looks like she's conspiring with AK-47, and probably lying, as they both turned to give Rick some harsh looks.
Alex is the first to leave the table and accidentally leaves his Linc behind, which Jason is kind enough to pick up before heading to the training facility for their simulation test.
When Jason, Rick, and Sarah arrive, Billy meets them but acts standoffish. All of Alpha Company is already there and ready to begin the simulation test. Above the rafters, behind the glass panels, Captain Kasherov stands next to Commander Toshi Yamasuka (35). AK-47's voice rings over the intercom, addressing the Chipmunks: "Where is your teammate, SAInt pilot Charlie Company, Alex Struder?" Indeed, Alex is MIA.
Billy started cursing out Alex aloud, calling him Strudel, and Jason decides to be more practical, as he opens up Alex's Linc to hack in and find out where he had been. It turns out that Alex set up a date with Ryoko (12), one of the youngest and shyest girls in their class. Jason smacks his forehead and calls Ryoko. She answers with some pep in her voice, the likes of which Jason had never heard before. When Jason tells Ryoko he's not Alex, she quickly hangs up.
Captain Kasherov, losing patience, tells Charlie Company to go find Alex and bring him back to the facility for testing. They have no more than 10 minutes. As Charlie Company bolts to find Alex, Alpha Company makes fun of them, calling them Chipmunks.
Billy, Rick, Sarah, and Jason finally find Alex en route to the secret spot he was going to meet Ryoko at. Alex took a small detour to pick flowers from a secluded, communal garden.
Rick takes Alex's Linc and slammed it in his hand, yelling, "Never go anywhere without your Linc again!"
Suddenly, alarms resonate throughout the Arx, warning alarms of a Mayzor raid happening, and the Preservation Forces blare on the intercom and instruct all SAInt pilots to report for deployment immediately. Charlie Company gets all suited up in their SAInts and are briefed on their first, official deployment mission, which will take them to just outside New York City. Meanwhile, Alpha Company and Bravo Company are being sent to Chicago to eliminate another, larger, Mayzor raid occuring there. A Magnas had already appeared in Chicago, reports say.
The SAInts of Charlie Company are launched and arrive in Brooklyn, New York in just under an hour. Captain Kasherov remains in constant communication with them via the MetaTron. A Wormwood had appeared in northwest Brooklyn, and a group of Locusts are heading for the Brooklyn Bridge in attempt to destroy it. Mayzor swarms are going after civilians evacuating Brooklyn via the Brooklyn Bridge and by running south toward Brighton Beach.
Charlie Company's objectives were simple: prevent the Locusts from destroying the Brooklyn Bridge, protect evacuating civilians (alongside the military's help), and destroy the Locusts. They're looking at 9 total Locusts: 4 Soldiers, 3 Brawlers, and 2 Archers.
Sarah gets the ball rolling after destroying the first Locust Soldier in FA range. Jason successfully snipes the first Archer by the Wormwood and takes cover behind a tall building. AK-47 praises them for their successes, and even Billy is impressed with Jason's work. He remains close by to cover his back, while Jason takes cover to reload his rifle. Billy helps protect him from an attack from the other Archer. Rick moves into CQ range to eliminate one of the Soldiers, and Alex moves in to help Rick. Meanwhile, the Brawlers begin advancing on the SAInts, however, after Sarah destroys a third Soldier with her Giant Killer, the Brawlers began to retreat, as does the last Soldier. The Swarms all begin retreating as well, and Rick and Alex tag team the last Locust Soldier, obliterating it completely with their FA weapons. Rick's Levic Flechette works wonders.
It seems like fortune is smiling down on Charlie Company, however that's all about to change, when Captain Kasherov alerts the SAInt Pilots that there's another threat approaching, a greater threat.
Lightning strikes down near the Wormwood. Looking up at the sky, Rick, Jason, Sarah, and all of Charlie Company see the Principal Magnas, Belial, descending from the skies. He lands behind the Wormwood, which is now being closely guarded by the Brawlers, and his many, demonic voices echo ominous, agonizing cries.
To be continued.
END OF EPISODE 01
Director Commentary
I actually didn't read ToaM until I received my Kickstarter reward in the mail. Soon after, I hopped onto the ToaM Community and asked if anybody wanted to playtest it and was extremely fortunate in recruiting three players for a playtest. Suddenly, the pressure was on!
After we coordinated dates for our first game session, I spent a couple weeks re-reading the entire rulebook, trying to memorize everything. It was a noble venture, but for me, it takes several sessions of actually playing the game to get all the rules down. I remember we spent a good majority of the first episode looking up rules, and I felt like I dropped the ball and should have had them down better. They aren't that difficult or different from other RPGs, but they do take a little getting used to. A few examples are: character stats and skills which are renamed as Talents and Proficiencies, Benefits and Boosts when rolling, most Trials are about getting an opponent's Resolve to zero, and challenge ratings often come from other characters reacting or being present. One thing I like how 'actions' taken by the pilots don't just have to be a swing of a fist; a quick exchange of blows against a bully can constitute as an action as much as running behind a building and taking cover from a Magnas while reloading. It means you aren't rolling for every single, little thing and spend more time describing, conversing, and telling a story.
The ToaM book mentions that the players and Director should come up with their characters, supporting characters, relationship characters, and any extras in the first episode, but we decided to take care of that through a shared G+ post prior to the first Hangout session. While trying to focus on memorizing all the rules ahead of time, I didn't get to my homework of assigning stats to the supporting and relationship characters and had to take some time to that in our first Hangout as well.
When it finally came time for the actual episode to begin, I was actually very happy, aside from having to look up rules and ruin the flow, with how the session progressed. I pretty much did zero prep, plot-wise, for this first session. I took notes from Dungeon World, which I'd primarily been running and playing for sometime, and only jotted down a few, initial hooks to use. Then, I started the game off by asking a whole bunch of questions, as I did all week while the players were fleshing out their characters, and let those answers guide the story.
The Ego currency in ToaM is interesting and vaguely reminds me of Fate points in FATE. Players in ToaM can spend Ego to provide Benefits and Boosts to their pilots' action rolls in order to succeed. I tried giving the PCs a lot of opportunities to gain Ego by having relationship characters present and asking them if their actions played to their Hope or Despair. Perhaps it was due to the fact that the players had exceedingly good rolls, or we didn't fully grasp the concept of Ego, but two out of three characters reached five Ego points and not many were spent. The entire time, however, I kept asking the players what gaining Ego meant to their character and how that changed their emotional state and attitude.
Overall, the scenes flowed really well in this first episode, and the progression of the story seemed natural. While characters' relationships helped create interesting drama and story lines, right off the bat, having a fun, Mayzor invasion for the pilots to team up and fight against in the end is what really brought the excitement home, if nothing else. Not being as familiar with the rules did slow the pace down quite a bit, but we knew once we'd have them down, the game would go a lot more smoothly.
I actually didn't read ToaM until I received my Kickstarter reward in the mail. Soon after, I hopped onto the ToaM Community and asked if anybody wanted to playtest it and was extremely fortunate in recruiting three players for a playtest. Suddenly, the pressure was on!
After we coordinated dates for our first game session, I spent a couple weeks re-reading the entire rulebook, trying to memorize everything. It was a noble venture, but for me, it takes several sessions of actually playing the game to get all the rules down. I remember we spent a good majority of the first episode looking up rules, and I felt like I dropped the ball and should have had them down better. They aren't that difficult or different from other RPGs, but they do take a little getting used to. A few examples are: character stats and skills which are renamed as Talents and Proficiencies, Benefits and Boosts when rolling, most Trials are about getting an opponent's Resolve to zero, and challenge ratings often come from other characters reacting or being present. One thing I like how 'actions' taken by the pilots don't just have to be a swing of a fist; a quick exchange of blows against a bully can constitute as an action as much as running behind a building and taking cover from a Magnas while reloading. It means you aren't rolling for every single, little thing and spend more time describing, conversing, and telling a story.
The ToaM book mentions that the players and Director should come up with their characters, supporting characters, relationship characters, and any extras in the first episode, but we decided to take care of that through a shared G+ post prior to the first Hangout session. While trying to focus on memorizing all the rules ahead of time, I didn't get to my homework of assigning stats to the supporting and relationship characters and had to take some time to that in our first Hangout as well.
When it finally came time for the actual episode to begin, I was actually very happy, aside from having to look up rules and ruin the flow, with how the session progressed. I pretty much did zero prep, plot-wise, for this first session. I took notes from Dungeon World, which I'd primarily been running and playing for sometime, and only jotted down a few, initial hooks to use. Then, I started the game off by asking a whole bunch of questions, as I did all week while the players were fleshing out their characters, and let those answers guide the story.
The Ego currency in ToaM is interesting and vaguely reminds me of Fate points in FATE. Players in ToaM can spend Ego to provide Benefits and Boosts to their pilots' action rolls in order to succeed. I tried giving the PCs a lot of opportunities to gain Ego by having relationship characters present and asking them if their actions played to their Hope or Despair. Perhaps it was due to the fact that the players had exceedingly good rolls, or we didn't fully grasp the concept of Ego, but two out of three characters reached five Ego points and not many were spent. The entire time, however, I kept asking the players what gaining Ego meant to their character and how that changed their emotional state and attitude.
Overall, the scenes flowed really well in this first episode, and the progression of the story seemed natural. While characters' relationships helped create interesting drama and story lines, right off the bat, having a fun, Mayzor invasion for the pilots to team up and fight against in the end is what really brought the excitement home, if nothing else. Not being as familiar with the rules did slow the pace down quite a bit, but we knew once we'd have them down, the game would go a lot more smoothly.
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