A Splinter in Your Mind - Matrix Quest

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◉ 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.​
 
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beleester said:
2. Play it casual, walk past the door cops and get to a better location, then go through a window or something.
3. It's a server room, it's going to have a drop ceiling or raised floor for cabling, or maybe cinematically huge air ducts for cooling. Sneak out without using the door.
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One of these seems the basis for a good plan A.

But don't go for a window, don't go for the ground floor. Go to the roof then escape from up there. LIke how Neo tried to do in the original Matrix film but noped out of it and was captured by Agents. The Cops and Agents aren't going to expect the team going up instead of going down before escaping. And with them as actual trained people running around The Matrix instead of a Neo from before he was freed? Go up, then maybe do some matrix style jump shit or something.

(It's also a good call back to that scene in the original Matrix, so it's also fun for non Watsonian reasons.)
 
The chief told us to guard the back entrance, so... let's just tell them that now the servers are shut down we're following orders and reinforcing the back entrance? Gets us through the whole building. Still probably have to fight the ones on guard there to get away, but that'll be a lot easier. And if anyone spots us as we're going then at least we got part of the way!
 
It's a server room, right? Would there be a large enough ventilation shaft to escape through?
 
It would be very funny if we ended up somehow lucking into the 100% Stealth Pacifist Run version of this mission. Anyway, I think we don't need to overthink this? The back entrance is apparently more lightly guarded than the front, so why don't we try to use our Bullshit-No-Jutsu again to get through there, and fighting our way out if that does not work? The closer we are to an exit, the easier it will be when SHTF, so I'd prefer we were at least partway towards the exit before we need to start shooting.

We're probably going to want to make a Run.exe here at some point, but we don't know how many dice that would need... Alternately we could KISS leave any Run.exe for the next vote and just have a plan to try and talk and do a Fight.exe if it doesn't work. Yeah actually, let's try that.

[X] Plan Just Walk Out
-[X] Grin to Cache and Prompt.exe [2]: "You know, I almost didn't expect that to work."
-[X] Calmly walk to the back entrance, and if stopped say the Captain told us he needs more guys on the back door.
-[X] The Captain told us to lock down the gas main outside, the terrorists have been using them to set explosions!"
-[X] If that doesn't work, it's time to Fight.exe [6, 5, 4] our way out!
--[X] Charge.exe

"Gas Main" was the best fake excuse I could think of, if anyone has anything better than this or "I am the Wallet Inspector", then let me know... Also I fought the urge to throw in a Prompt.exe here, even though I really want to get rid of that two.



Relatedly, @open_sketch, we've played this one quite talky and sneaky, do you think a dedicated move would for that would be a good idea? Or is it thematically not what you're going for?

I could see something based on the idea of "Social Engineering" from hacking parlance, but I think you'd want to build in tradeoffs and make it a bit uncomfortable; basically hammer home the conceit that as long as you're playing by the system's rules, even to cheat it, there's limits on what you can do even if you're clever and sneaky. Then again it could be a good Move to give Path of Truth players a bit more utility if you gave them some synergies - right now I think their playbook lags slightly compared to Resistance or Enlightenment.
 
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i want this system to primarily do cool-ass matrix fights and for problems to be solved with fists. a social engineering move is a good idea, but primarily because i want it to make fights happen instead of being avoidable, like, "on a 4-5 the fight breaks out once you are there, on a 6 the fight breaks out after you got done what you are there for"

i don't want this game to reward risk aversion; i want to see some sick slow mo martial arts!
 
[X] Plan Try to Bullshit your way through the situation.
-[X] Attempt to pull more bullshit with the situation, then an actual trained IT technician who understands this shit who was called in appears. Everyone looks at us and what's been going on.
-[X] Time to Fight.exe [6, 5, 4] our way out!

That better, @open_sketch?
 
[X] Plan: Knock
-[X] Prompt Cache to make sure it's okay to do incredible extreme levels of violence to cops, since you have a cool idea (use all dice save for 6, 5 and 4)
-[X] Spend 6 to walk to the local power fuse box, rip it open, then jam an electrical cable into it to cause every light in the building to explode at once and draw people running in and you sling a power supply into their temple. As they collapse, yank the gun from their holster (Fight)
-[X] Spend 5+1 from the disarm to shoot the second (Fight 2: The Return)
-[X] spend 4+2 detatchment to shoot the last with the rest of the magazine (Fight 3: Revengence)
-[X] Charge
 
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open_sketch said:
i want this system to primarily do cool-ass matrix fights and for problems to be solved with fists. a social engineering move is a good idea, but primarily because i want it to make fights happen instead of being avoidable, like, "on a 4-5 the fight breaks out once you are there, on a 6 the fight breaks out after you got done what you are there for"

i don't want this game to reward risk aversion; i want to see some sick slow mo martial arts!
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I think something like that would be ideal, yeah. Fundamentally you can't go forward if you aren't willing to break the rules, in the same way the Resistance can't make progress until there's someone willing to square up to Agents.

It would also work very well as a method of like, controlling and gating what is going on and when fight scenes start, sort of like the Engage move in Flying Circus, and avoiding the decision paralysis you sometimes get at the start of a fight. Riffing on the idea of Engage actually, the Path of Truth could even have a few moves that let you nab a contextual advantage or +1 forward or something for the fight scene.

SemiSaneAuthor said:
That better, @open_sketch?
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I don't think sketch was saying the plan wasn't kosher; she was talking about the move suggestion? Like we're almost certainly fighting our way out at the back door: the gas main excuse is just a framing device for something Coda or Cache might make up on the fly. It'd be hilarious if it works but I don't think it will, especially since we want a fight scene.

We can definitely choose to start shooting right now, but it does mean we're doing so whilst inside a police station containing at least one Agent, rather than near or at the back door. Our chances of getting Cache out alive are probably directly proportionate to how close to an exist we are when shit hits the fan.

DragonCobolt said:
[X] Plan: Knock
-[X] Spend 6 to walk to the local power fuse box, rip it open, then jam an electrical cable into it to cause every light in the building to explode at once and draw people running in and you sling a power supply into their temple. As they collapse, yank the gun from their holster (Fight)
-[X] Spend 5+1 from the disarm to shoot the second (Fight 2: The Return)
-[X] spend 4+2 detatchment to shoot the last with the rest of the magazine (Fight 3: Revengence)
-[X] Refresh
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I like the idea of killing the lights but I'm not sure who we're fighting here or why. The guys in the hallway? Two Detachment is also a lot to spend on fighting Bluepills; we might want to save that in case we run into an Agent.

All that being said, I'm glad we're making and voting on plans now.
 
DragonCobolt said:
we get more deatchment when we charge!
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Yeah but we're Refreshing. We aren't getting rid of that pesky "2", and you have to get rid of all the dice to Charge.

...Unless we modify the plan to include us quipping like Spider Man and getting one of the SWAT goons to monologue, which to be fair, would be hilarious.

EDIT: Actually neutral on Detachment too, I forgot that Bit of Help doubles them.
 
We should have put some pocket fentanyl in our equipment, would have made dealing with the building full of cops easier 🤷‍♂️
 
[X] Plan Just Walk Out
I appreciate the desire to get in cool fights, but I'm reluctant to do so while we're inside a building full of people who are champing at the bit to turn into Agents. Once we're at the doors we can see if we have the leeway to kick some ass on the way out.

Skippy said:
"Gas Main" was the best fake excuse I could think of, if anyone has anything better than this or "I am the Wallet Inspector", then let me know... Also I fought the urge to throw in a Prompt.exe here, even though I really want to get rid of that two.
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Is there any particular reason not to do a Prompt.exe? That seems like a pretty productive urge here.
 
[X] Plan: Knock
I like this because cops bad, and having to talk with them made me feel bad, so fighting them is obviously good
 
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[X] Plan Just Walk Out

I know that there is a desire for more cool fights, but there is something to be said for balance. We had our moment of triumph against an agent, and against a sentinel - for one mission, we can have just a tense escape against odds that are too great to fight against. I feel like it gives the story more flavour that way.
 
...speaking of Plan: Knock, I wonder if being in the dark makes it easier to do "impossible" things in the Matrix. If no one can actually see what's happening, then their imaginations can run wild (see: checking behind the shower curtain when you use the bathroom at night) or they can simply be unsure enough that it's easier to enforce our reality over their own. Maybe it wouldn't make it easier to do extremely superhuman feats like punching through a wall, but I can definitely see where it might be more possible to "fudge the details". I can even imagine that you might be able to punch (what should be) air and both you and whoever you're punching finds that the hit connected if you believe it's going to hit, even if post-hoc reconstruction would make that make no sense where both of y'all were standing.

I wouldn't be surprised if this kind of thing happened with even bluepills fighting in the dark, and it would be even easier for us to do so.
 
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