[Freemarket] X-Altar and the Arts of Memory and of Promotion
Erik Weissengruber:
On Thursday the 12 I and 3 friends started up a short run of Freemarket. I am scheduled to run it at an upcoming convention and wanted to get familiar with play procedures.
I hope to draw some conclusions from our 3 sessions of play. As of now, I haven't developed any noteworthy insights into the game. Our 1st session reminded me of some persistent habits that still get in the way of my gaming.
Character Creation
Pre game discussion had led to some pretty strong character concepts. Fixing the details took time though. Each step of character creation allows players to introduce Color elements about their PCs, Color which serves as cross-player inspiration for the next steps. Having everyone work out and then present each part of their character (general concept, genetic substrata, etc.) did'nt create major deviations from originally announced concepts but bolted the characters more closely together and to the setting.
The characters:
* Caecilia (played by S) is a mystical zen inventor
* Koruto Uesuton (played by R) is a military otaku/weapons manufacturer
* Ninja 12 (B) is a ninja delivery girl (vat grown, part of a 12-pak, gifted away by her father because she is too accident prone to work with the clan)
* Maqqam McConnel is a jazz musician linguist (and NPC created by myself so that I could get familiar with the character creation process. But my habit of trying to put pressure on player-side decisions made itself manifest. I wanted them to have a proficient Ephemerist even if it should have been them who decided if they needed one or not.
[McConnel was a tribute to recently departed Canadian jazz great Rob McConnel]
MRCZ Creation
An in-game "tribe" or "clan" or "corporation" or "pirate ship" that your characters form to carry out some collective goal or to provide a network that will allow you to realize your personal goals. From the tribes and herobands of Heroquest 1.0 to the pirate ships of Poison'd and the party of WHFRP3, the idea of a collective mega-PC is an interesting new trend that deserves further thought.
The players came up with the following MRCZ:
X-Altar (track its changes at http://donut.wikia.com/wiki/X-Alter):
Level: Tier 1 (starting level
Purpose:
* Provide intense, unique, and transformative adventure experiences
Background:
* X-Altar is a newly formed MRCZ.
Tags:
* Flooding/Bleeding
* Analog
* Carnival of Pain
Needs:
* Sexy specialist
* Tout
* Space
I believe I maintained proper tact here and let the players come up with the concept for their mini-corporation. I did put my foot down and rule out a name that would have been to unwieldy ("Exxxtreeeeeeeme!!!"). But they themselves came up with a MRCZ whose activities center on the creation/deletion/modification of individual memories (using a skill called Flooding/Bleeding) rather than on media communication (produced by the skill Ephemera). Some commentators worry that creating the intensely self-defined and self-modified PCs first and then forcing them to get together in a group would create chaos but ours worked really well.
Note: the group is not a bunch of ruthless min-maxers. They could have made all sorts of choices about character or MRCZ to make sure that they started off with a high in-game currency called "flow." They were more interested in creating concepts that jibed together.
Finishing Character Creation
After you create your character and your MRCZ you return to the character one more time. At this point you decide the characters' important memories. People who keep saying MRCZs should be designed first to prevent incoherence are missing the feedback loop to ensure that Color is consistent: character --> MRCZ --> character.
If you can't understand why your Yoga instructor is hooking up with designers of military-grade exoskelletons, memories of pre-game events are a great way to do it. And this all comes about by feeding off of each other's Colour.
These were the memories as they stood at the end of the game. The players uniformly turned in game experiences into short term memories.
Koruto Uesuton
Long Term
- As a boy, I watched a different war film every day in my parent's theatre
- Dr. Krauss, Martian War Veteran, taught me how to implant military grade mobs
- The Mechanical Baristas stole my flamethrower mob and turned it into a whipped cream dispenser
Caecilia
Long Term
- During my first acid trip with the Pink Chrysanthemum MRCZ at the Shu Temple, I realised I'm made of the same stuff as the universe and am the universe.
- I escaped the Saturn Orbiter Disaster with Tekla the Podiatrist
- I rejected the legendary seducer Maqqam
Ninja12
Long Term
- I was traded to Colt out my set by Master because I kept coming out left-handed
- Ryoshi told me I had a special walk and I shadowed him aroudn the station for a year
- Yesterday, a new immigrant gave me a package to deliver but left the station before giving instruction to whom
The System
Ohhboy did I make some gaffes.
1) No Love for McConnel
Firstly, I started off a Shaping challenge (body language) without actually having the skill. I had a piece of technology that could assist me in doing such a challenge. However, I had made the mistake of thinking that all items on my character sheet can serve as resources for the Intention, Initiation, or resolution of a conflict. That ain't the way it works in Freemarket. I either activate one of my experiences OR some aspect of my geneline to start the conflict. You can engage technology in a second phase of conflict resolution but you can't start that way. A neat bit of game design that feeds into the overall goal of a science fiction game that doesn't fetishize your gear list.
McConnel tried to seduce Caecilia to get over a recent bad break up. As this was just a "give the system a shake" session we hadn't really built up emotional stakes in the fictional world. So I dug into the values of one of the players. S is a self-described "queer nerdy girl" and so having a fictional male character engage her fictional female PC was a bit of mind-gamery on my part to get her to step on up and work at preventing an outcome that she as a player would find disappointing. A bit obnoxious? I still wonder. S bounced the ball back in my court by adding a stake during the hi-risk resolution of a tied resolution: McConnel stood to walk out of the conflict questioning his own sexuality. She won the contest by a sliver. Good play on S's part but I hope the mindgamery didn't overstep the bounds of friendship.
2) Ninja 12, Where are You?
Ninja 12 used a bit of tech to help her find out the name of the person to whom she was supposed to deliver a package. I flubbed the narration of the result. She used a neat piece of hearing technology to pick at a high frequency hum on the device. I came up with a cockamamey explanation as to how she was able to decipher words from this hum. But in a game with super-sophisticated tech it is hard to set limits on what characters can and cannot do without coming across like you are trying to censor the fiction. A little more care next time.
3) Military Otaku Colt practices Cultivating (making or growing instead of asking the computer to print something out). He came up with some ninja throwing stars, with the tags: Wetwork, throwing stars, shiny (the GM got to add a 3rd tag). He gifted them to Ninja 12's father and earned a 10 point flow bonus.
Next session I will try to run some in-game challenges rather than rely on person-to-person mind gaming and -- now that I know the system -- will try to run some competitive conflicts.
More later.
Erik Weissengruber:
The "and the Arts of Memory and Promotion" refers to my agenda for the next few sessions.
I want to engage the game's fiction and mechanics for memories, especially in relationship to the game's fiction and mechanics for dealing with the spread of ideas.
Memories are singular. They originate in a character -- that character's player (the player "user" or the GM "superuser") describes either a long-term or short-term memory. Characters can carry about a maximum of 3 of each at any one time. At the start of a session a player may move a memory up into an "Experience" (the skills characters use). The Flooding/Bleeding Experience allows a use to manipulate the memories.
Our MRCZ isn't interested in producing Ephemera that effect a whole community. They want to enhance/change/remove the memories of individuals and gain a reputation for that. But they are attempting to build a public reputation for a private experience, and clients will (should? perhaps?) want exclusivity.
I will engage this fiction and the mechanics in a more focused fashion next session.
Erik Weissengruber:
The rules ask you to take a place, a person, and an object and combine them in a sentence that establishes a challenge for a user to face in an upcoming session. Then the person involved in the challenge should be given a motivation to interact with a user, that person should also be tied to a MRCZ, and any places should be turned into locations on the stages. The challenge can also represent a re-take on a previous memory.
Here is my mashup
_________________________
Caecilia (S) is a mystical zen inventor
- Place: Uesuton's old theatre
- Person: "Sa," the recipient of the lethal package from the mysterious immigrant
- Object: Flamethrower mob
- Challenge:
- Memory Being Entangled: "I rejected the legendary seducer McCaam"
Koruto Uesuton (R) is a military otaku/weapons manufacturer
- Place: Saturn
- Person: The Master Ninja
- Object: Saturn Orbiter
- Challenge:
- Memory Being Entangled: "Dr. Krauss, Martian War Veteran, taught me how to implant military grade mobs"
Ninja 12 (B) is a ninja delivery girl
- Place: Dr. Phybes's Clockwork Coffetorium
- Person: Ryoshi
- Object: Pink Chrysanthemum acid
- Challenge
- Memory Being Entangled: Ryoshi told me I had a special walk and I shadowed him around the station for a year
Actually, the challenges will need more thought. Any suggestions?
Erik Weissengruber:
Caecilia (S) is a mystical zen inventor
- Place: Uesuton's old theatre
- Person: "Sa," the recipient of the lethal package from the mysterious immigrant
- Object: Flamethrower mob
- Challenge: Sa was imperfectly deathed by the package delivered by Ninja 12. Sa is looking for revenge and wants to learn the name of the immigrant who sent it AND to deliver payback using the Flamethrower mob created by Koruto. He wants Caecilia's help in getting both. He picked Caecilia as the X-Altar member to approach because of the way she kept Maqqam in line. Sa's MRCZ, Sportsplex1 has the space X-Altar might need for a large-scale event.
- Memory Being Entangled: "I rejected the legendary seducer Maqqam"
Koruto Uesuton (R) is a military otaku/weapons manufacturer
- Place: Mars
- Person: Tekla the Podiatrist
- Object: Saturn Orbiter
- Challenge: Tekla barely survived a recent disaster with the Saturn Orbiter observatory pod. The SOjurners, the MRCZ whose project the Orbiter was, are recycling the residual tech. They need help in creating mobs to help them with their new Orbiter project, one that requires military-grade technology. A martian immigrant, Tekla knew of Krauss on Mars and figures that his pupil will be able to help her out. The analog nature of X-Altar's technology is of great interest to the SOjurners.
- Memory Being Entangled: "Dr. Krauss, Martian War Veteran, taught me how to implant military grade mobs"
Ninja 12 (B) is a ninja delivery girl
- Place: Dr. Phybes's Clockwork Coffetorium
- Person: Ryoshi
- Object: Pink Chrysanthemum acid
- Challenge: Ryoshi is back in Ninja 12's life. He has become a flat-liner, with no MRCZ to engage him. He is however, willing to trade some of his memories for a service: Ninja 12 has to break into the Shu temple and get him the Chrysanthemum acid, which the Temple reserves only for participants in its religious rites. Ryoshi has some odd memories about violence, disorientation, and danger that might be of interest to X-Altar.
- Memory Being Entangled: Ryoshi told me I had a special walk and I shadowed him around the station for a year
Looks like I still have some prep to do: stat out my superuser characters and their MRCZs.
I was going to kick off the session with my NPC McConnel engaging the MRCZ on some flooding/bleeding. But that is too "GM-side." The rules say build challenges out of the players' memories and follow the rules I shall, rather than relying on stock techniques acquired from other games.
Paul T:
Erik,
We played a hacked version of Lady Blackbird together about a month ago!
I enjoyed this Actual Play report, and it sounds like you and your friends are having a good time with Freemarket. I don't have enough experience with the game to add anything terribly intelligent, but I'm posting to say that I'm very pleasantly surprised to see a in-game tribute to Rob McConnell. Too many people don't know who he was!
Thanks.
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