A Splinter in Your Mind - Matrix Quest

Reader mode


◉ CODA ◉​

Alice Lovelace
​
Resolve
3/3​
Detachment
2​
Skill
6​
Gear
6/10​

Paths​
Path of Resistance
Level 1
When you Fight.exe.
When you gratuitously blow something up as an act of resistance.
The first time in a session you tell an authority to go fuck itself.
XP: ◉◉◉◉◎
You may spend Resistance XP to add or subtract Harm you give or take, 1-1.​
Path of Truth
Level 1
When you Prompt.exe.
When you follow your curiosity in a way that doesn't advance the mission.
The first time in a session you discover something new about the Matrix.
XP: ◉◉◉◎◎
You may spend Truth XP to reroll dice when you Charge or Refresh, 1-1d6.​
Path of Enlightenment
Level 1
When you Disconnect.exe.
When you refuse to back down or run away from impossible odds.
The first time you run out of Resolve in a session.
XP: ◉◉◎◎◎
You may spend Enlightenment XP as if they were Detachment, 1-1.​
Moves
Beginning to Believe: You gain +1 Detachment the first time you Charge.
Stop Trying to Hit Me: You take -1 Harm when on the Defensive in Fights.
Mine Now: Spend a Full Hit in Fight to disarm an enemy of their weapon. If you then shoot them with it, take +1.
Try Again: When you attempt a Disconnect you failed before and have not yet succeeded at, you may input one 6 as a True Hit.
Bit of Help: When you spend Detachment on any move other than Disconnect, you get two +1s. They can be applied to the same die or different ones.

Stunts
Jump Impossible Distances Lvl 2*
Hit with Implausible Force Lvl 1
Dodge Implausible Ways Lvl 1
Act with Implausible Slight of Hand Lvl 1

​


CW: Very 90s.

Also, this is going to be a seriously fucked up quest. I'm going to be doing my damndest to channel an appropriately edgy, teen-rage vibe. Expect violence, drugs, sex, etc.

There's also going to be some Pretty Uncomfortable Dysphoria-ing, trans readers be warned.​
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Well, I was thinking that you're not dodging bullets, just swerving the car away from the barrel. people make other people miss them all the time by moving erratically in real life?
 
DragonCobolt said:
Well, I was thinking that you're not dodging bullets, just swerving the car away from the barrel. people make other people miss them all the time by moving erratically in real life?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Ah! I'd misinterpreted that part. Yeah, I can absolutely see how we might do that. Objection withdrawn. Though I'm still doubtful about the car flip, we will see.
 
[X] Plan: Leap of Faith
-[X] Cache slams the breaks, causing the shotgun blast to miss again (5)
-[X] Using our Path Move, spend 1 XP and 3 Detachment (2x 5->7) to Leap Impossible Distances through the windshield of the cop car.
-[X] The cops get the drop on us due to momentary windshield-induced disorientation, but ultimately we manage to knock out the passenger and toss the driver, taking the car for ourselves. (2x 5s, 2 Harm)
-[X] Charge

Roll 6d6 to charge and I'll get writing!
 
3.4 - Believe it or Not
  • Threadmarks
    • You threw the empty pistols off the back of the car as the shotgun fired, nowhere near you as the two cars bounced along the road. There was something happening on the other side of the armoured truck, but you couldn't make out the details. You were out of guns, and relying on them in this circumstance seemed kind of pointless anyway.

    "Stop swerving," you instructed, and the car straightened out as the cop with the shotgun lined back up.

    "This better be a good idea," Cache exclaimed, eyeing the cop car as it got larger in the mirror, the shotgun looming closer.

    "Nope."

    And you stepped up onto the seat, ran over the truck, and jumped.

    In the second and a half you hung in the air, you felt as though you could see everything that was happening around you. The shotgun firing, pellets exiting the barrel on a wave of fire and missing you by inches. The driver, shocked, pulling the wheel around into a turn which wouldn't even start by the time you made it there. A bullet, fired from events on the other side of the truck, tumbling through the metal of the police car's roof, skipping off the roll bar and smashes through the blue siren light in a hail of sparks.

    You twisted your body so your boots were going first and crashed through their windshield in one motion, sprawling back between the seats and crashing hard against the metal cage separated the front and back of the police car. You were rattled, off-kilter, but you'd done it. There were a million reasons that shouldn't have worked and none of them could touch you.

    The impact of your achievement nearly matched that of the shotgun butt slammed into your teeth.

    You sprawled against the driver, having just enough presence of mind to slap the barrel of the shotgun away as the cop reversed it. The driver, struggling against you, wrapped an arm around your throat.

    "Get him, Jerry, fucking get him!"

    "I'm trying, hold him- fuck, stop resisting!"

    You pulled your legs up between you and the passenger, trying to get the leverage to kick him. The driver pulled you farther back as the other cop went for his belt, pulling out a bulky plastic weapon you recognized as a TASER. He managed to muscle your leg aside just for a moment before pulling the trigger.

    Burning pain, more than you'd ever experienced, washed through you. Your limbs locked up and the whole world seemed collapse as every muscle in your body clenched. Not real, not real, it wasn't real, it can't hurt you its not real its not real-

    "Ahaha, got him! Hit him again, fry the fucker!"

    "It's not real-" you gasped aloud. "It's not-"

    "Believe it or not, you son of a bitch, you're still going to burn!"

    With agonising movements, you braced your leg against the side of the car and pushed hard against the driver, the car swerving out into oncoming traffic. You finally found space to kick for your assailant's face, snapping his head back out the open window. The car swerved back into lane as the driver fought against it and you planted your foot into the passenger's chest, using the chance now that his finger was off the trigger to try and pull the electrodes from your chest.

    There was a hideous thud outside the car as a sign whipped past, and the taser dropped into the footwell.

    "Jerry!"

    The pain fading, you elbowed the driver in the face, ducked out from his arm as you opened the door, and unlatched his seatbelt as you fell back against Jerry's limp body. Before he could react, you planted both boots into the driver's chest and he tumbled out of the car, and you took his place with your hands on the wheel as the slipstream pressed the door closed.

    Cache was staring at you from behind his sunglasses, slack-jawed. You waved, though every movement hurt.

    ---

    What do you do? Also: you just unlocked your first Enlightenment ability: you can select it now if you like one of three level 1 ones in the rules doc (its in Info) or sit on it until you need one. I also take suggestions!​
    ​
    ⚅⚄⚃⚃⚃​
     
    Last edited:
  • Threadmarks
    • Damn, I was kind of hoping getting another car would come with some dice. Still worth it though

    Also regarding our various numbers, I'm to understand that Charging would heal us back to 2/3 Resolve, and that there's at least a couple sources of XP from that chain of moves (one from the disconnect, one or two from the Harm depending on if multiple instances of harm from a single Fight action count separately) which would leave us net positive on XP rather than net zero. Does that track?

    Of the Enlightenment abilities listed I'm a big fan of "Beginning to Believe: You gain +1 Detachment the first time you Charge."
     
    Tetra said:
    Damn, I was kind of hoping getting another car would come with some dice. Still worth it though

    Also regarding our various numbers, I'm to understand that Charging would heal us back to 2/3 Resolve, and that there's at least a couple sources of XP from that chain of moves (one from the disconnect, one or two from the Harm depending on if multiple instances of harm from a single Fight action count separately) which would leave us net positive on XP rather than net zero. Does that track?

    Of the Enlightenment abilities listed I'm a big fan of "Beginning to Believe: You gain +1 Detachment the first time you Charge."
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    Oh wait, good point!

    Roll 4d6 for car as well!
     
    [X]Plan : Wreckfest
    -[X] You just got an expendable car. Speed up in front of the truck. Then break. (The 6 from the car for the ramming)
    -[X] Jump back to Cache to avoid the impact. (and the four from us for the jump. We don't attack them immediately so we shouldn't take a Harm from that if I understand the mechanics correctly.)

    Edited to account for the fact that I can't count.

    Edit 2: using a 4 instead of a five since it makes no mechanical difference, unless we use detachment, which we don't in this case.
     
    Last edited:
    MordredRaal said:
    [X]Plan : Wreckfest
    -[X] You just got an expendable car. Speed up and ram it into another cop. (The 6 from the car for the ramming)
    -[X] Jump onto the target truck before the impact. (and the five from us for the jump. We don't attack them immediately so we shouldn't take a Harm from that if I understand the mechanics correctly.)
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    I thought the cop car we just jacked was the last remaining? There were two, and we rocketed one at the start.
     
    open_sketch said:
    It was, but the truck is still there!
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    Right!
    I've interpreted the proposed plan as ramming the car we're in into another cop car (of which there are none) and then leaping to the truck (which is fine), hence my objection. I guess they could instead mean ram truck then jump to truck, which is permitted. (I don't think ramming either is worthwhile, but that's a very different flavor of objection.)

    While I have your ear, I'd like to suggest a level 1 Enlightenment Ability that specifically deals with Disconnects, since there are so many that deal with various non-Disconnect effects (and the generalist Beginning to Believe). Perhaps something like "When you spend one or more Detachment to Disconnect, you get an additional +1 to apply to one of those dice"? Weaker than Bit of Help, but still better than Beginning to Believe for someone aiming specifically for Disconnects.
     
    Tetra said:
    I've interpreted the proposed plan as ramming the car we're in into another cop car (of which there are none) and then leaping to the truck (which is fine), hence my objection. I guess they could instead mean ram truck then jump to truck, which is permitted.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    Yeah I somehow misremembered there being an additional cop car and an additional truck (hence me specifying the target truck). I've now corrected it to stopping the truck and jumping back into the original car (since it would be kind of hard to break the car and jump out the back window immediately after.)
     
    [X]Plan : Wreckfest
    -[X] You just got an expendable car. Speed up in front of the truck. Then break. (The 6 from the car for the ramming)
    -[X] Jump back to Cache to avoid the impact. (and the five from us for the jump. We don't attack them immediately so we shouldn't take a Harm from that if I understand the mechanics correctly.)

    After this, Cache is gonna probably try to sit us down and have a talk about our contempt for our own mortality basic physics
     
    Last edited:
    [X] Plan: Second Verse
    -[X] Make a hard turn with the car until you have a straight enough line to the truck
    -[X] Spend 1 Detachment to Jump Impossible Distances into the truck (Car's 6, Car's 5->6)
    -[X] Exchange blows with the driver until you can toss them too (4, 1 Harm).

    I mean, if it worked so well the first time... (Also helps that now we can do the Jump on pair 6s)
     
    [X] Plan: Second Verse
    -[X] Make a hard turn with the car until you have a straight enough line to the truck
    -[X] Spend 1 Detachment to Jump Impossible Distances into the truck (Car's 6, Car's 5->6)
    -[X] Exchange blows with the driver until you can toss them too (4, 1 Harm).
     
    [X] Plan: Second Verse
    -[X] Make a hard turn with the car until you have a straight enough line to the truck
    -[X] Spend 1 Detachment to Jump Impossible Distances into the truck (Car's 6, Car's 5->6)
    -[X] Exchange blows with the driver until you can toss them too (4, 1 Harm).
     
    [X]Plan : Wreckfest
    -[X] You just got an expendable car. Speed up in front of the truck. Then break. (The 6 from the car for the ramming)
    -[X] Jump back to Cache to avoid the impact. (and the five from us for the jump. We don't attack them immediately so we shouldn't take a Harm from that if I understand the mechanics correctly.)
     
    MordredRaal said:
    [X]Plan : Wreckfest
    -[X] You just got an expendable car. Speed up in front of the truck. Then break. (The 6 from the car for the ramming)
    -[X] Jump back to Cache to avoid the impact. (and the five from us for the jump. We don't attack them immediately so we shouldn't take a Harm from that if I understand the mechanics correctly.)

    Edited to account for the fact that I can't count.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    Do we use dice to move around like that (when we don't need a Disconnect to defy physics)? I'm not aware of anything like that in the rules. Maybe Run.exe I guess, though I'm to understand that's more about escaping from attacking hostiles than moving from point A to B.
    Ultimately unlike my last question it doesn't fundamentally alter the plan, we'll either have the 5 afterwards or not. Just asking to explicitly stick it on the list of things I'm hoping for clarification on from QM.

    Though now that I think about it, if I'm wrong and it does use a die why not use the car's 5 to leap instead of ours? Or our 4, which is a partial like the 5, but easier to bump up with Detachment, in case you're trying to burn dice to go for a Charge.
     
    Last edited:
    Reader mode
    You must login or register to reply here.
    Back
    Top