We skipped gaming this past week to make sure we did the best job possible with our segment for episode 50.  I’m sad we didn’t game, but happy that we took extra care in nailing a good 50th episode.

Next Thursday we will tackle this sucker.  And yes, I will post my PC before then.

The following AP was originally posted on www.story-games.com under the thread “Lacuna: Falconer Chronicles”

We began a week after the last mission. Due to her injuries in Blue City, Purcell (and therefore the team) was taken out of the rotation. Agent Falconer was cajoled by Draper into playing some basketball with four other Nasrudin employees. The game was at the company gym, a small half-court adjacent to a small collection of treadmills and other workout equipment. The game was relatively laid back. The player admitted he did not see Falconer as being at all athletic, so he ended up matched against the other Green, a pudgy pencil pusher. The Green knew Falconer from his days as a Green and peppered him with questions about being a Mystery agent, heaping on praise and admiration, telling him how most of the department considered him a bit of a celebrity. The Green also asked Falconer what he thought about the death of Agent Key on the slab. Falconer said he hadn’t heard, so the Green piped in that it was the first agent death in months, quite a surprise.

Falconer played it off and kept it superficial. The two took a break between matches and rested while the other four players waited around. When the game began again, teams were switched up and Draper (who was an athlete in college and the best player on the court) was switched to the other team while Agent Thatcher (a female in her twenties who was also a great athlete and rumors were that she worked for the CIA before Nasrudin) was switched to play on Falconer’s team. The new team played for a while until Draper ended up driving for the basket when Falconer was in the paint. I asked the player if he wanted to try and stop Draper from scoring and with a twinkle in his eye, he said “yes”. Instead of the flat target number, I decided both characters would roll Forces and compare. Falconer stopped Draper’s drive, and he backed off, smiling in appreciation, as if he’d planned to push Falconer to see how he responded.

A few more days passed, and Falconer did some research on the Nasrudin institute. He started with official Company documents which were filled with little of use. So, Falconer tried doing some internet searches at a local internet cafe (he was afraid to do it at his own house). During his research, he found some public records on one of the recently retired founding members (who recently died of a heart attack). Before his time with the company, he’d been arrested for embezzlement and during the investigation and trial process, his accomplice (an accountant who covered his tracks) died and he was convicted for both embezzlement and murder. No records existed after that time.

The next scene took place during the mission briefing. Special Agent Baxter, the mentor for the team, instructed the team that they were to give the Lacuna treatment to a Recurring Personality within Blue City who had gone rogue. Baxter revealed the name of the target was Ikuzus (Ee-Koo-zuse), a bellhop in the Broken Hotel. Purcell’s eyes widened in surprise and she cut in that Ikuzus was one of her Informants and he in now way had “gone bad”, that the intel was wrong. Baxter calmly explained that she had several reports of his activity and the order came from “on high” so she expected the team to carry it out. Falconer interrupted Purcell and assured Baxter that they’d take care of it.

Purcell went to the bathroom in a huff and Draper and Falconer walked out of Baxter’s office. Draper informed Falconer that he was concerned about what he saw as a potential relationship between he and Purcell and told him that he felt Purcell was too young and a bit dangerous. Falconer smiled and told Draper that he thought of Purcell more as a daughter than anything else and that everything was on the up and up.

The team entered Blue City. The player described Falconer entering at the same Coffee Shop where he’d first entered Blue City and he quickly saw Purcell as she came from the back. Purcell walked quickly up to Falconer and told him she thought this mission was bunk, that someone was after Ikuzus because he had been helping her, that he was one of the sources who helped her. Falconer calmed her down and told her that if they didn’t do it, someone else would, that they had to carry out this mission to keep rising up and find out what’s really happening.

As Purcell relented, Draper hit them up on the comm and met up with them. The three walked a few blocks to reach the Broken Hotel. The Hotel was the same place where Blue City Falls happened. Falconer never saw an elevator then. They entered through a different entrance than Falconer had used before and came into a section of the hotel that had previously had a small department store. I liberally stole from the XBox 360 game Condemned here for my descriptions of the mannequins strewn about the department store, trying to amp up the creep factor as Falconer made his way to the elevator. Once the team made their way in, I described the elevator as being archaic, with the floor numbers displayed above the elevator door and an arm like a clock hand moving up and down like an indiscator (don’t know the technical name for such things, but hopefully you get the gist). The elevator door was actually a gate, and the elevator car groaned as it came down to their floor.

Inside the car was a portly man that Purcell addressed as Ikuzus. Ikuzus smile, opened the gate and once everyone entered, the elevator began moving. Ikuzus asked if the team wanted to know more about the death of Agent Key. When Purcell asked what he knew, he said that Jimmy saw a guy who knew what happened. Draper and Purcell nodded as if they knew who this Jimmy was. Purcell informed Ikuzus that they weren’t there for information, and Ikuzus began to get nervous. Draper ordered Falconer to “get it over with” and Falconer took out his Lacuna device and moved to slap it on Ikuzus. Ikuzus jumped back and took his hand off the elevator controls. The elevator began moving rapidly, and the bottom of the car began to swing back and forth as if it shared the fear of its operator. Falconer hit his target and reached around to grab the elevator control. )it took him a couple tries and this built Static) As Ikuzus winked out in curls of black smoke, Falconer brought the car to a stop.

Falconer started moving the elevator back down to the ground floor so the team could exit. The car had reached the 14th floor before the deed had been completed. As the car descended to the ground floor, I described that the light from the elevator spilled out onto the floors as they passed. The team got a glimpse of the contents of each floor. Each floor of the hotel was mostly hollow in the center so if you stood in the lobby at ground level, you could look up to the penthouse level. Everything was barren and dust-covered until they hit the sixth. On the sixth floor, Falconer, who was watching each floor pass, while Purcell was staring blankly and lost in thought and Draper was busying himself with something in the back of the elevator. Falconer saw an individual on the sixth floor, standing with its arms folded behind its back. It was wearing a military uniform not unlike a Russian officer, but the symbols on the lapel were foreign. And the head of this thing had mandibles and six beady black eyes!

By the time Falconer got Purcell’s attention to look, they had moved down to the next floor. Falconer stopped the elevator, and started back up to the sixth floor and explained what he saw to Draper and Purcell. Draper exclaimed, “You just saw a Spiderman?!?” and began quickly drawing a pair of pistols. Purcell shrieked, “Hey wait, why are we going back?” Then the team reached the sixth floor to see nothing. Falconer thre open the gate and rushed out to where he’d seen the Spiderman (keep in mind, the player has only read the first section which says NOTHING about Spidermen). Draper began trying to contact Control, and Purcell came up behind Falconer to tell him that it sounded like he saw a Spiderman and that these guys are really dangerous. She told Falconer that every agent who’d ever seen one either woke up screaming or never woke up again. Falconer replied, “What’s the big deal about waking up screaming?” with a smile and began looking around the floor.

I described that he saw a pair of boot prints in the dust where he’d seen the Spiderman standing, but he saw no prints in the dust heading either way. The player simply said, “I look up.” He saw the Spiderman’s boots as he was floating up the floors in the center of the hotel. As the Spiderman reached the penthouse level, he “stepped off” into the penthouse floor.

The team headed up the stairs to the penthouse level and came out. The penthouse floor had four rooms, one in the center of each wall at compass points. The Western wall, the one facing the Falls, was ajar. falconer crept along the wall and peered in. He saw a small hallway and a wall inside the room. On the wall was what look like a map of Blue City, something that shouldn’t exist because Blue City is always shifting and changing. So was the map.

The player said, “Falconer walks in the room.” So ended the game.

I’m so excited about next week!  The CP Crew (that’s Norwood, Perrin, Mick Bradley and myself) have decided to play some Spirit of the Century for a month.  We’re moving the setting to the late 1800s and setting it in Victorian England with steampunk.

I stumbled into the idea of a Steampunk Iron Man, and Mick suggested we try to make a Steampunk Avengers (or nearly so).  Mick jumped on with a crazy idea for a Steampunk Daredevil (which is awesome).  Norwood started off with a Steampunk Dr. Strange, but decided the Sorceror Supreme wasn’t Steampunky enough, so he is reworking it.  Norwood did decide his PC is Mycroft Holmes, older brother of Sherlock… so cool I’m giddy.

Next week we will finish the PCs and do the novels (that’s where we work each other’s PCs into our character’s backstory).  As you probably can tell, Perrin is the GM for the game. Yay, I’m a player.

If I get some time, I’ll type up my notes on Steampunk Iron Man on the blog later.

Rich

I have been mulling over the idea of moving the future AP posts to its own feed.  I really don’t like having to pickles AP and I really really don’t like having Explicit content on the main CP feed, either.  Plus, it would give us an outlet for non-show recordings, longer unedited interviews and some non-RPG content (yay, video games… yay, sci-fi movies and TV!).

Here’s what I’m thinking.  We set up two feeds on feedburner.

Canon Puncture Show – this would use the current feed as it is; however, we change feedburner to look to the canonpuncture.blogspot site and only post episodes on that blogspot going forward.  So iTunes will point to feedburner and feedburner points to blogspot.  New CPS episodes show up on this feed.

Canon Puncture After Dark (working title)- I would set up a new feedburner account for this feed and point it to a new blogspot as well.  All Actual Play recordings, longer unedited interviews and non tabletop RPG recordings can go on this feed.  Also, all of the previous AP and all future AP would be posted here and I would submit a new iTunes feed.  We can link both on the CP site.

We would load all the files onto the current Libsyn account and since we can use Libsyn to set up an Explicit tag, anyone who points to canonpuncture.libsyn.com would be all the episodes.

This also means that the numbering of episodes of CPS would only be for CPS.

What do you think?

The following AP was originally posted on www.story-games.com under the thread “Lacuna: Falconer Chronicles”

In game four, the players were sent after a woman who had poisoned her last three husbands. They tracked her down at The Cafe and Falconer asked Control for a limo and a nice suit. He had Purcell hide in the back and Draper act as the driver. Falconer drove up to The Cafe, hopped out and grabbed a table. He ordered a bottle of wine to send to the target and waited for her to smile at him. He then walked over, chatted her up and asked her to take a ride. She smiled and quickly agreed. Once she got close to the limo, Falconer shoved her in and they drove off. During the struggle, Purcell slapped a Lacuna device on her while Falconer looked back at The Cafe to see if anyone saw them. Then he spotted the same target walking out of a building to The Cafe. As the first target disappeared with a wail when the Lacuna activated, Falconer had Draper turn back around and head to The Cafe. The “second” target ran away from them and around a corner down the street. She ducked into an apartment building. They park and dash in. As Purcell opened the door to the lobby, a huge snake bit into her shoulder and threw her down. Draper and Falconer pursued the giant snake into the pitch black lobby to corner the beast. Falconer lost his Lacuna device and Draper attached his to the snake, but didn’t activate it. The snake tail whipped Draper and Falconer dove at the snake and set off the Lacuna device. As the device activated and the snake disappeared, the world seemed to swim for a second and the light from the open door slid across to another wall. Falconer helped Draper out of the lobby to the stoop where Purcell was lying, barely conscious. He then realized that something changed. Their car wasn’t out front and they weren’t on the same street. Falconer helped Purcell up and mostly carried her while also supporting Draper. The three stumbled through the streets of Blue City until Falconer reached a landline and helped them eject.

Back at The Company, Falconer’s mentor was waiting for him when they awoke on the slab. She informed the team that they have done well and will receive a small commendation and recommended that they clean up. All three agents were sweat-soaked and agreed. That’s when Falconer realized that everything is unisex, including the lockers. Draper headed straight into the showers. After some hesitation, Purcell entered as well, a towel covering her completely. She was obviously bashful around Falconer. Falconer played around in the locker room, not sure if he should enter the showers, but is cajoled into it by Draper who reminds him that they needs to hurry.

(This was my attempt to push some sexual tension between the two and to see how the player would react. He bit at the oddness of the situation, especially so soon after having almost watch her die. It was a fun RP moment.)

A small group of fellow employees had gathered for the team and Falconer’s mentor handed them small medals in appreciation for their efforts. Thus ended game four.

——————————

Here are some thoughts about running the game.

* I found it hard to always have it raining. The rooftop scene felt like it should be just after a rain with this kind of hazy fog. The Cafe scene felt like it should take place just after a rain with the sun peeking out of the clouds. I kept these images in my head and neglected to describe the weather, but it was a mental challenge to keep it raining all the time.

* I completely forgot to use Static during the first game session. Heart rate was enough of a threat to keep the player in check since he was still learning the system. With a group of aggressive gamers, this could have been a problem. But that wasn’t the text, that was just me learning while running.

* I found myself fascinated with the idea that Lacuna just “makes people better”. I took the game to a conspiracy bent. The player also got the same vibe early on. When Purcell first explained that she felt something was wrong, the player rolled with it, telling the NPC she needs to keep quiet because they are watching. The diea that the upper management of The Company are all ex-cons cured by the Lacuna experience and now they’re proscribing the same treatment for every major criminal is fascinating Body Snatcher-type stuff.

* The interplay with Control was something I found interesting during the read of the book, but I rarely used it. I enjoyed the exploratory aspect of the game, having Control divorced form the agents for the majority of the game but always watching.

* I haven’t even hinted at the Spidermen, The War or “The Girl”. It hasn’t been necessary to add to the plot as is. In fact, Static hasn’t been necessary to limit or push the player. I’ve only used it once: when I had the room with the snake move about. It was a sufficient weird thing to have happen when the agents were down and almost out.

* The dream sequence where Purcell first talked to Falconer, revealed her name and some of the history of the Nasrudin Institute was this odd piece I threw in. I never explained how Purcell got into Falconer’s dream and he hasn’t pursued it yet. I plan on bringing this back into play. What if Purcell is The Girl? Hrm… maybe.

Last night, the CP crew and our new gaming buddy Mick Bradley (of The Game That May Be and The Game Master Show podcasts) completed a pitch session for a game of Primetime Adventures (PTA).  A pitch session is where the entire playgroup, players the GM (called the Producer) sit down and discuss the TV show they want to play (PTA is an RPG where the goal is to emulate a television show).

I wanted to be the Producer for the show and previously asked if it was cool.  We’d already pitched a show previously, but since time had passed and Mick wasn’t part of the original pitch, we scrapped the original pitch and started clean.

I decided to hang back during the initial stages of the the pitch to let the players make a show that grabbed them.  Interestingly enough, the group started off with sci-fi space opera like we did before, but this time I sat back and let them work through it.  The players moved on to other ideas, but kept thinking sci-fi during all but one (that other one was a supernatural modern take).  We went through five different show ideas with a few permutations on each. 

Mick and I were pushing for a Reece Cup show (his idea, my monicker): somethign where two different ideas are combined that you don’t normally see together.  An example is Firefly the TV show: Old West in space. 

The end result is pretty exciting:

• The setting is a kind of DMZ between a group of dfferent aliens that are on the brink of war between each other; space travel is common for these races and they all have territory nearby
• This DMZ was once a very important stop in a major trade route, but over time, a new faster route was devised that made this place a non-factor (imagine Route 66 in space)
• Due to changes in the importance of the DMZ, resources have been pulled back by each of the separate alien races and only a skeleton crew is left behind to manage the place
• Due to the decreased resources and the still viable route, lesser desirable traffic still comes through the DMZ
• The player characters are all diplomatic representatives of different races that are technically enemies of each other outside the DMZ
• They are charged with administrating the DMZ and while they aren’t police officers toting guns, they are responsible for making sure peace is kept
• The PCs have become friendly over their years and while they send back reports speaking ill of each other, it is actually an onging game they play to keep up appearances
• There is a desire by the entire group for the tension between the races to affect the DMZ

So yeah, I’m more hyped about this show than the food show, honestly.  During the character generation (which we didn’t quite complete during the meetup), I was able to create an opening sequence that I’m pretty interested in.  I can’t wait to see the players flesh out their PCs and to play next week.

The following AP was originally posted on www.storygames.com under the thread “Lacuna: Falconer Chronicles”.
In game three, Falconer began the game after a mission had ended. He went to meet Purcell in Blue City, a place she called The Blue City Falls. Falconer had entered an old and pitted stone building and climbed the rotting stairs to the 14th floor. Exiting an open window and creeping along the ledge, he heard a thunderous roar, not unlike Niagara Falls, but somehow different. He came around the corner of the building to find that the eastern side of building was “the falls”. He saw hundreds of people falling from somewhere above the building and down the side right in front of him. The people sometimes winked out of existence in mid fall and sometimes continued down into the maw in the street below, disappearing into the darkness. Purcell explained that The Company believes that if you dream that you are falling, this is the place where you fall. Falconer asked what happened if you didn’t wake up. Purcell told him, “Well, we think you die.”(The player was really intrigued by this concept and made a point of not making eye contact with anyone falling after he locked eyes with an old lady before she winked out. I decided this has to be a regular meeting place for the two conspirators)

After talking about the box they’d been sent to retrieve from a recurring personality and what could be in it, Purcell admitted that she’s not sure if she can keep this up. Falconer reminded her that they have to work hard and work their way up in the ranks to be able to get enough information on what’s really going on. The two leave The Falls when Draper reaches them on a comm. link. They find a landline and eject from Blue City.

Falconer awakes on the slab with the box in his hand. His mentor takes him back to her office and asks for the box. He hands it over, and she turns it towards her and opens it. Whatever is inside glows blue and she looks slightly amazed by it. Falconer asks his mentor what is inside the box and she explains that it’s a piece of Blue City. Shocked, Falconer asks if this is a wise thing to do. His mentor assures him that they believe strongly that such a small piece of Blue City should not affect the whole and it would give them an opportunity to study it further in the real world.

She then changes the subject to Purcell. She asks Falconer how she is performing and express concern. She reveals that not only is she the youngest Mystery Agent, Purcell is the daughter of one of the original test subjects. With a hint of sorrow, his mentor further reveals that Purcell’s father died on the slab, and she’s concerned that Purcell could be under a great deal of stress and asks Falconer to keep an eye on her and report back if she is at risk. Falconer agreed to watch her.

(After seeing how the player took to the spying, I decided to push him into a double agent role. He smiles when he realized his mentor was asking him to spy on Purcell and even called his mentor on it. She advised him this was unofficial and that she was merely concerned.)

It wasn’t as easy as it sounded on the Sons of Kryos recording of a PTA session for Life on Mars, but we completed a pitch session for our upcoming PTA game.

We began with an idea for a space opera setting, but previousy, Norwood had made a statement about wanting to play something not based on combat (not necessarily non-violent).  I also wanted to push our limits a little, so I shot the idea down.  It was a weird feeling, just saying no.  I’m often big on saying “yes” or “yes, but” and trying to rework my ideas to facilitate the desires of players.  But on space opera, I just said no, let’s try something else.

The end result is pretty interesting and definitely a stretch for us.  The show is a next food network star-type show where the PCs are the leading competitors.  I plan on starting a few episodes into the season to give a feeling of action, plus I love in media res.

I hope this game cooks half as good as the SW PTA game from GenCon ‘07.  I hope I’m half as exciting as Judd as a Producer (aka GM) for PTA.

The Canon Pucnture crew finished the S7S beta and turned in our feedback.  We had some scheduling problems (due to Rich – me) and ended up switching game nights, but we had fun in our three game sessions.  Much love to Josh Hoade for his guest playing.  He is a great guy.

Next we will tackle another game.  Primetime Adventures (PTA) is on the schedule.

The following AP was originally posted on www.storygames.com under the thread “Lacuna: Falconer Chronicles”.

I don’t know many gamers locally since I moved to FL. One guy I befriended said he used to play D&D and then Legend of the Five Rings 1st edition but hadn’t played in several years. It turned out we both have Wednesdays off, so I asked if he’d like to play a game. He agreed and chose Lacuna from the few options I offered (Inspectres, Lacuna and Dead Inside).

So, in my Lone Wolf Lacuna game, the PC used to work in Green before he became a Mystery Agent. The player rolled an older man (in his forties) and the name of Agent Falconer. He decided Falconer enjoyed working for The Company because he doesn’t dream when he sleeps. He also told me that Falconer is a bit of a bore and spends his time off watching movies listed in a Movie Review book he’d bought.

In game one, we began with his first dive into Blue City. He was sent with an experienced lead agent (Draper) and a young agent who seemed to have been in Blue City before (Purcell). They were sent after a suspected rapist. Control directed them to The Park and they found him hiding in a copse of trees. Falconer asked Purcell to distract the target while Draper and Falconer snuck up on him. Once they got up to the chubby fellow and attacked, a serpentine skeletal monster ripped out of him and attacked back. Since the player had only read the first section, he was freaked. He managed to slap the Lacuna device on the target and activated it. Target disappeared in a whiff of black smoke and the mission was over.

In game two, I started in media res. The same team (Falconer, Draper and Purcell) were chasing an ape-like monster across the rooftops of Blue City. Purcell was on the streets riding a scooter and moved into the office building where the ape had entered from the roof. Falconer entered the building and after searching a few floors, he came into a room where the ape was talking to Purcell… and she was listening. He overheard a bit of the conversation. The ape was berating Purcell, asking her if she thought she was doing any good, if she ever thought about what the Lacuna device really does. Falconer tried to sneak in, but the ape heard him. The two got into a scuffle and Falconer hit him with the Lacuna device, activated it, and the mission was over. Falconer began asking Purcell if she was okay. He asked her what they were talking about. Purcell put on a pair of shades, said it was nothing, and winked out (ejected).

(This was the first time I used Purcell’s youth as a tool to see what the player saw in her. His concern for her was this odd mix of fatherly concern based on their age difference, and a bit of a different kind of compassion. I quickly decided to push this from time to time.)

A few nights later, Falconer found himself riding in the back of a Model T Ford driving in the countryside. He looked at the driver and realized it was Purcell. He greeted Purcell and she corrected him, telling him her name was really Jane. Falconer blinked, thought for a moment, and told her his name was Jeff. Jane-Purcell started asking Jeff-Falconer if he’d ever thought about what happens to people “treated” by the Lacuna device, how they disappeared and came out “cured”, placid and happy. She revealed that the Nasrudin Institute used convicts for their Blue City tests and that these same convicts were “cured” and now they run The Company. Jeff-Falconer advised Jane-Purcell that she needed to keep this quiet so they could look into it further.

(This was an interesting response from the player. Instead of rallying with Purcell or trying to talk her out of it, he immediately agreed with her and moved to control the situation. Since this was our first few games together, I was surprised by this reaction.)