COUNTER/Weight 02: Soldier Game
Transcriber: Hannah
[RECAP]
[The Long Way Around playing]
AUSTIN: What sort of um, what sort of adjective are you looking to give there?
JACK: Umm...
AUSTIN: I guess we’ll see after, we’ll see if it’s sticky or whatever after this but have one in mind y’know?
JACK: Yeah, I, I, I think fleeting, I don’t know --Also this isn’t distracted, I think this is outfoxed...
AUSTIN: Oooh, Love it!
JACK: …’Cause I think that’s what you do when you [unintelligible], right?
AUSTIN: [overlapping Jack] Yeah, definitely, outfoxed --And are you doing this specifically to the guy who was shooting at you?
JACK: Yes, absolutely.
AUSTIN: [whilst Jack is talking] Okay, okay.
JACK: [slightly laughing] Because I think I’m angry with him.
[Jack and Austin crosstalk]
JACK: So I’m gonna go-
AUSTIN: So go ahead and give me --I think this is probably versus his detect, that sounds right to me, right?
JACK: [uncertainly] Okay, so this is operate plus thrusters plus [hesitating] rotor fans?
AUSTIN: [at the same time as Jack] Plus rotor fans yeah, yeah definitely.
JACK: Yep, okay so 3d6.
AUSTIN: No, wait what’s your operate?
JACK: [pauses] Oh! Sorry, 5d6.
AUSTIN: Yeah, I was gonna say: wait a second, I’m pretty sure your operate’s better than, than that yeah.
JACK: Sorry two uh 4d6.
AUSTIN: Okay.
JACK: [laughing] 4d6.
KEITH: [jokingly] Nearly got it both times.
AUSTIN: Discharge-
[Jack laughing]
AUSTIN: ...Are you sure you don’t want to use, you don’t want to use another bonus die there?
JACK: [thinking] Yeah, I’ll use --I will use coordinated.
AUSTIN: Okay good. So then discharge-
JACK: [interrupting] Oh no no no no sorry! No sorry, I’ll use tough because the deceleration would cause a human to black out.
AUSTIN: You could use both if you wanted to, but it would mean de-charging multiple dice y’know?
JACK: Nah-
AUSTIN: Okay
JACK: ..I’m just gonna go: operate, operate, tough, thrusters, rotors.
AUSTIN: Okay.
JACK: So that’s five. [thinking noise]
AUSTIN: So discharge those dice by just dragging them across into the other box-
JACK: Yep
AUSTIN: ...So I can see ‘em.
JACK: Oh I only have 4 dice.
AUSTIN: What do you mean?
KEITH: Oh the visual representation that’s only bonus dice.
AUSTIN: [at the same time as Keith] No no no no-- Yeah that’s only your push dice, those are only your bonus dice-
JACK: Ah.
AUSTIN: ...So you know, y’know in other words like even if you had no push dice you would, you would still have your base 2 operate dice, you know what I mean?
JACK: Uh, I don’t think I have dragging power on that last dice Austin [slightly laughing]
AUSTIN: Oh it’s because, right, right, it’s because we’re moving around. I’m just gonna give everyone control of all of the dice, that’s what’s gonna happen.
KEITH: There’d better not be any tricksters among us!
[Ali, Austin and Jack laughing]
ALI: Says the biggest trickster.
JACK: [pausing] Okay, uh so my highest value there is a 6.
AUSTIN: Okay and you have one 6, that’s, that is totally good enough, I don’t have any push dice to add to the defense here. So you’re using outfoxed? Okay, what are you, are you keeping it [pauses] fleeting or are you-
JACK: [interrupting] I think it’s fleeting.
AUSTIN: Okay.
JACK: I, I don’t quite know how a fleeting outfoxed works is that just a case of like [fake surprised voice] ‘Huh! We lost him’-
AUSTIN: [interrupting] Right and then, and then-
JACK: [overlapping Austin] ...and then like-
AUSTIN: ...they can spend a turn basically-
JACK: Yeah.
AUSTIN: ..to fix that, y’know?
JACK: Yeah, it's the ‘I thought I saw a rat’ of stealth game.
AUSTIN: Yes, exactly. That’s exactly it.
[Ali quietly laughing]
AUSTIN: Okay, with, with that one outfoxed Aria you have the opportunity to like do --To get in close and make a move.
ALI: Okay.
AUSTIN: You’re like now within kind of engagement range.
[Quiet pause]
ALI: This is exciting! Yeah so I guess I [hesitating] I guess I approach but I’m not really sure --So there’s two of them?
AUSTIN: There are three of them total-
ALI: [whilst Austin is talking] Okay.
AUSTIN: …and one of them --I think the, the one who got outfoxed has like fallen out of formation.
ALI: Okay.
AUSTIN: Y’know what I mean?
ALI: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
AUSTIN: In fact you can see that his thrusters like --He holds in place for a second and then lowers himself and is like going into --Your sensors pick up he’s in like active scan mode. Which makes him very visible to sensors but also it means that he’s like, he’s not gonna take a shot any time, any time soon until he switches back into attack mode. Y’know?
ALI: Okay.
KEITH: I have a, I have a quick question about these mechs: how good are they at like phy-, like, like like melee. Like, can you- like like melee stuff?
AUSTIN: Totally.
KEITH: Yeah.
AUSTIN: Some of them are totally very good yes.
[Ali and Austin crosstalk]
ALI: Oh yeah, no, Aria’s best move is.. kicking [laughing]
AUSTIN: Yeah Ali’s yeah exactly. Aria’s has a, has a beam sabre so.
KEITH: Oh!
ALI: [proudly] Yeah.
KEITH: [incredulously] Did I not know you had a beam sabre??
ALI: Yeah I guess you missed that.
AUSTIN: Uhuh.
[Ali, Austin and Jack laughing quietly]
ALI: But yeah I basically have like a melee robot. ‘Cause it’s not great with like range stuff and also its a dancing robot-
KEITH: Right, right
ALI: ...[laughing] so I can outfight anyone’s robot.
ART: Yeah everyone knows dancing robots are the best fighting robots, I mean come on guys.
ALI: [agreeing] Mhm
[Keith, Austin and Ali laughing]
KEITH: Well, hold on the dance was capoeira.
[Ali laughing]
AUSTIN: Oh, okay. That changes a lot actually, thats-
ART: [interrupting] Everyone in space is Brazillian.
[Ali and Austin laughing]
AUSTIN: Space Brazil, right. [wistfully] Man, if only.
ALI: [hesitantly] I dunno it’s tough because I’m hesitant to like try to engage them head on?
AUSTIN: Mhm, I will say as a GM that these are henchmen which means that they are not your equals.
ALI: Okay.
AUSTIN: They are below you. They’re not nothing, like they could still hit ya’-
ALI: Right.
AUSTIN: ...but like, they’re not --These aren’t the best. [pauses] And so, just so we know I’m just gonna let you guys know how, how hitting multiple targets works --Or, or affecting multiple targets. First you have to give me what adjective or tag lets you affect multiple characters. Quote [quoting from guide] ‘an adjective like fast might allow you to outrun a group of pursuers, while a tag like burst fire might allow you to spray a line of enemies with bullets. Any adjective or tag can be used as long as you can justify it in the current circumstances of the fiction’. And then second you have to discharge one push die to allow you to target multiple opponents. That’s, that’s kind of it. And then after that you, you just compare it individually to, to each individual reaction rating, y’know? [pauses] So yeah, you could totally try to affect both at once.
ALI: Okay [musical thinking noise]
AUSTIN: Are you trying to distract? Is that what you decided you wanted to do?
ALI: Yeah, I want to essentially like get their attention so AuDy could get away quicker, but then I would also just kind of jet off.
AUSTIN: It sounds like you could do that-
ALI: Yeah.
AUSTIN: ...if you, maybe if you used alluring? Alluring is-
ALI: [laughing] Yes.
AUSTIN: ..is certainly the sort of thing that’s --That would help.
ALI: Yeah, I-
AUSTIN: [interrupting] Give them distracted or another similar adjective.
ALI: Yeah, also [pausing] [thinking noise] yeah, okay that works. I was thinking ‘cause I have the like head vulcans(???) too so I don’t know if I should do burst fire with that?
[Austin and Ali crosstalk]
AUSTIN: Yeah that would totally work. Either one of those would work, yeah.
ALI: Just to kind of like --Yeah, just to kind of get both of their attention and then [uncertainly] also potentially weaken them.
AUSTIN: Sure! So then what’s your operate?
ALI: My operate is two.
AUSTIN: So that starts at two and then you’re going to use your, your head vulcans.
ALI: Okay.
AUSTIN: So that’s add one push die-
ALI: Mhm
AUSTIN: ...and then you’re going to use-
ALI: [interrupting] Alluring?
AUSTIN: ...alluring so add another --Here’s a thing that maybe the rules are not super clear about, I think that you can then use another push die if you want to also --So like using that push die to hit multiples doesn’t actually give you a bonus to the roll but you could use that remaining push die to then use alluring to give you a bonus also. Do you know what I mean? [silence from Ali] So like, it costs you a push die to hit multiple targets.
ALI: Ookay, okay so that’s one dice and then two other dice [unintelligible], okay.
AUSTIN: [overlapping Ali] But that, but that --And then two other dice to, to give you that bonus and then that would be four dice that you’re rolling. 4d6.
ALI: And then those just charge again once..? [trailing off]
AUSTIN: On your turn. So this is the, this is the other thing --Is that like before you do another action, if you spend it that means you don’t have it to use your adjectives in a defensive way when they attack you.
[Ali laughing nervously]
AUSTIN: So maybe you don’t wanna discharge all of them, you wanna keep one back so that you can use flexible or armour-
JACK: [interrupting, upset] Oh, rats [laughs]
AUSTIN: …you see what I mean?
ALI: Yeah.
AUSTIN: Jack I think you mis-, I think, I don’t think you were supposed to have rolled --I don’t think you were supposed to have discharged all of yours. I think you’ve discharged more than you were supposed to of.
JACK: Oh really?
AUSTIN: Because your operate is two, right?
JACK: Yeah.
AUSTIN: Which means you should still have one of these.
JACK: Ooh right, okay.
AUSTIN: So, so you’re good still. So yeah Ali one for, one for multiple targets for sure. Unless you only wanna distract one of them which is totally fine too.
ALI: Well no I’ll use one for multiple targets but I won’t use alluring-
AUSTIN: Okay
ALI: ...because I feel like shooting at them is distracting enough.
AUSTIN: Okay, as in yeah sure okay. So then-
ALI: [interrupting] So then I just use --I move two of these over?
AUSTIN: Yep.
ALI: Coool, and then I roll?
AUSTIN: And then 3d6? [pause, sound of keyboard tapping] Man, good rolls!
ALI: [happily] Ha ha!
AUSTIN: All sorts of good rolls today. I mean you guys haven’t been hurt yet, you don’t have any negative attribute --Negative things yet, which is, which is-
ALI: [quietly, whilst Austin is talking] Helps.
AUSTIN: ...good in some senses [happily] but but yeah it’ll get complicated as that happens. Alright so you --Let’s see what this is versus [muttering quietly] this guy and her [talking more loudly] okay! Yeah, they, they --You kind of fly at them and let loose with a barrage of, of cannon fire from your head-
[quiet laughing]
AUSTIN: ...and they like zip past you and like for like half a second you wonder like [impersonating Aria] ‘Uh oh! Did they decide to like say fuck you I’m just go after the ship?’, and they do like kind of like they cross eachother’s pa- --Like they loop back around and u-turn and come back behind you and both of them are now like chasing behind you and shots are flying all around you. But you, but you’re able to like stay in front of them at this point. [pauses] AuDy what are you doing? Are you just kind of make a, make a run for it?
JACK: Yeah, I mean --Do I have contact with Aria?
AUSTIN: Yeah.
JACK (as AuDy): Hey Aria-
AUSTIN: [interrupting] What’s it look like on your side? ‘Cause remember you don’t have like a brain-jack on your character you just have like --Is it a screen? Do you have like a, a view of the inside of her cockpit while she’s like zippin’ around?
JACK: I dunno, I --Part of me feels that that’s like Aria’s call as to what to install in the Kingdom Come.
AUSTIN: Yeah, totally.
ALI: I mean yeah we would probably have like --Yeah I mean if the Kingdom Come is my house I would be fine with you being able to locate me [laughing]
[Jack laughs]
ALI: So yeah, I dunno if it’s like a little scanner that you have on your thing that like shows me on a little map? And then also just like, we would have comms right?
JACK: [whilst Ali is talking] Yeah, okay.
AUSTIN: Yeah.
JACK: Yeah like, it’s just a radio I guess.
AUSTIN & ALI: [whilst Jack is talking]: Yeah.
[Ali laughing quietly]
JACK: [excited] Ah man, does AuDy have those ears that like the, the Chappie robots have those like those long antenni things at the top of their heads?
AUSTIN: I think so, I think that’s what I was kind of describing Jim as having, y’know?
JACK: Are we the same model?
AUSTIN: I think maybe at like a base level, y’know?
JACK: Yeah.
AUSTIN: I think that there’s lots of overlap in, in design. Probably because you and I both have the same [laughing] influences of robot design.
JACK: [laughing] Well, sure.
AUSTIN: They’re very similar, but they’ve, they’ve probably differentiated themselves a little bit more. I think, I think AuDy doesn’t have as much of a face as Jim does. Like, Jim has those cameras in his face, or in their face, so that there’s like the illusion of a person? You may have gotten rid of those at this point, y’know?
JACK: Yeah. Or its like um --Its just all --[sighs] in the same way that when you look at a security camera you can’t always see the lense, y’know?
AUSTIN: Right, right.
JACK: So yeah, I think that probably I don’t have a headset or anything I just have like one of those chappie rabbit hats(???).
KEITH: Am, am I making up that, that Jack you said that [incredulously] AuDy wears sunglasses?
[Ali giggling]
ART: Sort of.
JACK: You might be making that up but I think I can see where that came from maybe?
[laughter]
AUSTIN: So, what we decided on was that [laughs] --So, so you wanted to get --We were talking about whether or not you would have specs, which are the things that let you connect to the internet-
JACK: [interrupting, excited] Oh, yeah!
AUSTIN: ...and you were like [impersonating Jack] ‘No let’s not do that, let’s have no way to get onto the internet. But what if AuDy just had sunglasses?’, and we all laughed and then, and then I was like ‘well what if you just wore them on the clip-on thing on your chest’-
JACK: [interrupting, laughing] That’s what it was, yes.
AUSTIN: Like, you just have a baton, you have an extendable baton on your vest, what if you also just had a pair of sunglasses tucked in there? [laughing]
[Ali laughing]
KEITH: [laughing] Okay.
AUSTIN: That’s what pilots-
JACK: [interrupting] I don’t think that they can wear them?
AUSTIN: No.
JACK: I don’t think they can wear the sunglasses, ‘cause I don’t think they have ears to like prop them over.
AUSTIN: Right, but it is like-
JACK: [interrupting]: But I think they’re just like [being AuDy] ‘that’s what, what goes on a vest so y’know’.
AUSTIN: Yeah, yeah exactly.
KEITH: [laughing] You don’t have like maybe those little magnets and then when things get serious you put on the sunglasses?
JACK: That’s not really AuDy’s style I don’t think, I dunno.
ALI: [laughing] You are a detective.
[unintelligible whispering]
JACK: They don’t have eyes.
AUSTIN: Yeah.
[Ali laughing]
JACK: Yeah, that is true --no! They’re not even a detective they’re a pilot who hangs around with detectives I think [laughing]
AUSTIN: Yes. So good, so good.
[Ali laughing]
JACK: Alright, so.
JACK (as AuDy): Aria?
ALI (as Aria): Yeah, hi!
JACK (as AuDy): Shall we go?
ALI (as Aria): Yeah!
JACK: Alright, okay, so I guess I just gun it. [laughs]
AUSTIN: I think you’re gunning it and at this point you are free to get away. We’ll come back to Aria who will have to-
ALI: Do some stuff, yeah.
AUSTIN: ...roll for that in the future. But, but yeah the Kingdom Come zips away into the distance flummoxing the-
JACK: [interrupting] I think I’m flying as low as I can.
AUSTIN: Yeah, yeah I love it. In fact like there’s a, there’s definitely a mag-lev train --You like, go --the scanner of, of the model that was like chas-, that was like trying to locate you is just almost there and then you dip the Kingdom Come behind a mag-lev train that’s passing the other way, and then like just in time for another one coming at you swin-, you know you swing back into the other lane.
JACK: Austin! Is this just the chase at the end of the first episode of Cowboy BeBop.
ALI: [whilst Jack is talking] Yes.
AUSTIN: Well, except that its the, its the whole BeBop instead of being just the little ship.
JACK: [laughing] Right, yeah.
AUSTIN: Do you know what I mean? It’s not just-
JACK: [interrupting] Yeah.
AUSTIN: So, so yeah.
[Ali laughing]
AUSTIN: And also at this point you’ve lost them. So! Meanwhile, in the, in the Rethall-Addax spaceport you’ve found the elevator you’ve, you’ve managed to get into the elevator and, and you’ve gone down into the bowels of the spaceport to a lower level. There are --This is one of those situations where it’s like [pauses] you get the feeling that you’re right on this dude’s tail and like every few seconds he sneaks-, he like, he like turns the corner a second before you get there, y’know?
ART: Sure, which is saying something considering we were twenty minutes behind him. Like we, we’re doing great.
AUSTIN: [disagreeing] Ehh, he was --He had other stuff going on, y’know?
[laughter]
AUSTIN: And also, he’s just here, like he’s just --This is where he is. [pauses] Eventually, you find your way to [hesitates] --I think you just find your way to the, to the hanger. That’s the other thing is like, you’re able to just kind of follow the signage until you get to where like mechs would be kept. Like [impersonating Cass] ‘Oh well, I’m not going towards the, the y’know the fish delivery area. I’m not going to the area where the robots get repaired’ like ‘I’m going to the dock where mechs would be able to be worked on’. [hesitantly] and you find, you find the dock that has a ship that’s like a little bit bigger than your model. Like, let’s say more than a little bit bigger than your model, like twice the size of your model.
ART: Alright, I mean mine’s large so-
AUSTIN: [overlapping Art] But not like --I mean the spaceship, the, the one that, that, that AuDy’s piloting currently.
[Austin and Art crosstalk]
ART: Oh the spaceship not the mech.
AUSTIN: Not your individual mech. Yeah yeah the mech, the mechs that you also see are about the size of yours.
ART: Alright.
AUSTIN: But the ship is bigger, but it’s not like a different mili-, it wouldn’t be like a different class of vessel, do you know what I mean? Like it’s not like the upgrade from like a patrol boat to a battle ship its just like a better, it’s just like a slightly bigger ship in the same general class of transport.
ART: Sure.
AUSTIN: And [pauses] you see up on, you see two modified rooks in the, in the hanger and there are a bunch of drones flying around one like doing some like welding and like zipping and zapping stuff. And there’s a guy up on a kind of a platform that’s that’s hovering next to it, and he’s like inspecting some wiring. It is a base model Rook but instead of being that, that kind of tan and blue, its like a shining gold and blue. And there is another one nearby that is like a silver, a silver and black.
ART: Do they mark --Do they, beside colouring do they have markings? Do they, is there an insignia?
AUSTIN: Yes, there are chesspieces. One of them is, the golden one is a queen, the silver one is a king. The thing that you notice is that the, the queen one has like super advanced like jumpjet style stuff. Like, like on top of the things that let them fly there are also extra boosters on like the waist and the sides and the knees-
ART: Huh.
AUSTIN: ...that you know as a pilot it’s all about manoeuvrability.
ART: Sure.
AUSTIN: And then you notice that the, on the drones that are flying around, those also have the king model, the king symbol on them. Giving you the impression that those are tied to the king rook.
ART: Sure.
KEITH: Guys, quick one second. I was having audio troubles, can we re-
AUSTIN: Sure.
KEITH: ...quick, what are we noticing?
AUSTIN: There are, there are big robots?
KEITH: Okay.
AUSTIN: One of them is gold and blue, one of them is silver and black.
KEITH: Okay.
AUSTIN: The gold one is a queen and its super maneuverable. The, the silver one is a king and that has like some drones attached to it.
KEITH: Okay, okay. And we’re back on, we’re back on Art and I through the elevator?
ART: [whilst Keith is talking] It has pods.
AUSTIN: [whilst Keith is talking, agreeing] It has pods. Woah wait, is that how far back you were?
KEITH: I don’t know, uh yeah [kind of laughing]
AUSTIN: [laughing] Yeah yeah yeah, you’ve gone through the elevator and are now at the hanger where you followed this guy, yeah.
KEITH: Okay yeah, I, I dropped at like probably what I think was right at the end of, of Ali and Jack.
AUSTIN: Okay.
KEITH: Yeah.
AUSTIN: So that was a while ago, okay. So yes you found this place you found the hanger.
KEITH: Okay.
[Art and Austin crosstalk]
ART: [at the same time] But like, but like these are-
AUSTIN: [at the same time] And the guy is there on a-
[both pause]
AUSTIN: Go ahead.
ART: These are what kings and queens are? Do we? Or like?
AUSTIN: No, these are specific models, these are, these are not what kings and queens are. At least-
ART: [interrupting] Are these, are these Fairchild mechs?
AUSTIN: These are not Fairchild mechs, these are Minerva.
ART: Okay.
AUSTIN: Which is the company that made, makes, the rook.
ART: Alright.
AUSTIN: But they are, but they are [pausing] they are like --You again, you would have seen these in news stories-
KEITH: Okay.
AUSTIN: ...during the war, y’know?
KEITH: And, and we see Sh-
ART: [interrupting] Okay, so they’re, they’re not, they’re not brand new?
KEITH: Right.
AUSTIN: No. Correct.
KEITH: Okay. And we see Shell, do we see anyone else?
AUSTIN: That --He’s the only one you see.
KEITH: Okay. [thinking noise]
AUSTIN: And he is currently working on the queen.
[Keith and Art crosstalk]
KEITH: [at the same time] Okay, I’m gonna go, I wanna-
ART: [at the same time] I wonder if he knows what I look like?
[laughing]
AUSTIN: [uncertainly]: Pro-
ART: Well, we’ll find out [laughing]
AUSTIN: We’ll find out!
KEITH: Alright! Well lets find out. I’m gonna --Let’s --I wanna walk up, I’m walking up to him.
[silent pause then Austin making a thinking noise]
KEITH: [sneakily] I’m gonna prowl up to him!
AUSTIN: Okay, there you go. What are you, what are you trying to do? What are you trying to give him?
KEITH: I think that I’m gonna, I think that I want to sneak up and just fucking grab him.
AUSTIN: [surprised] Okay, so woah uh you missed this bit-
KEITH: Oh.
AUSTIN: He’s on like a hover, he’s on like a hover-scaffold.
KEITH: [thinking noise] Oh! Can I lower the scaffold?
AUSTIN: [like he isn’t sure] Suuure.
[pained noise from Art]
KEITH: Can I hack the scaffold and lower it?
AUSTIN: What’s up Art?
ART: I’d rather shoot it.
[silent pause]
AUSTIN: Okay.
ART: I wanna like, I wanna, I wanna, I want this moment to start. Like, I don’t want --I like, know we can’t like, I know I’m not expecting we’re gonna like beat this guy up but like that feels like an intimidation factor I wanna have.
AUSTIN: [overlapping Art] I think we can do both of these things.
KEITH: [disappointed] Oh no, I wanted to beat this guy up. I thought we were gonna beat this guy up together.
AUSTIN: [sneakily] Let’s do both of these things!
KEITH: Alright.
AUSTIN: Keith, you successfully, Mako successfully hacks into the thing [making-up-hacking-nonsense voice] and like you feel like you’ve like gone through a bunch of the gates, you’ve gone through like a bunch of the, the past the black ice-
KEITH: Yeah.
AUSTIN: ... and you’ve snuck, y’know, behind the back-up routine-
KEITH: Mhm.
AUSTIN: ...and you, you’ve overcome all of the, the, y’know, nano-walls and then you’re like ‘oh’ and you hit like the the down button and it starts to lower just a little bit and you’ve put, you’ve put like a lot of effort into this. And then and then Cass what is your weapon? [laughing] What gun are you using?
ART: Its a barker-
AUSTIN: Which is-
ART: ... so it is loud and powerful.
AUSTIN: Yeah.
[Art and Austin crosstalk]
AUSTIN: [at the same time] I’m imagining it as being like-
ART: [at the same time] Loud is what I really want here.
AUSTIN: Yeah. I imaging these like the pistol that, that Deckard has-
ART: Yeah.
AUSTIN: ...in Bladerunner is definitely what’s in my mind.
KEITH: [as Austin is speaking] Yeah, yeah. Real-quick catch-up I have, I have the double-barrel-
[Austin laughs quietly]
KEITH: [happily] ...I have both guns in one gun.
AUSTIN: [sounding defeated] I forgot about that. You’re the worst.
[Ali and Art laughing]
KEITH: [defensively] I paid money for it!
AUSTIN: [accusatively] I know. I know what you did!
[laughter]
KEITH: [fake upset] Okay, wait why are you so mad about my gun?
AUSTIN: [laughing] It’s just silly, it’s great. Art, [uncertainly] you’re trying to intimidate him? Is that what your goal is?
ART: Yeah.
KEITH: I just wanna say like, just ‘cause this is the only person we see doesn’t mean that you doing this isn’t gonna start some shit.
ART: I-
AUSTIN: [Interrupting] No I think he wants to start some shit.
ART: I’m prepared to start some shit, and honestly I’m prepared to get my ass kicked right now but like [trails off]
AUSTIN: Right, but its time to go.
KEITH: Fine. Fine, fine, fine, fine, fine.
ART: Alright yeah.
AUSTIN: Alright, give me the, give me a shoot roll.
ART: Alright.
AUSTIN: Shoot plus, it sounds like loud and powerful to me from barker
ART: Yeah.
AUSTIN: So your shoot is two and at least, at least one of those. [muttering quietly] Discharge some push die.
ART: Hold on, I’ve put everything up in front of the dice thing and now its a problem.
AUSTIN: And, and your goal here is intimidation not-
[Keith and Art at the same time]
KEITH: Murder.
ART: Not damage right.
AUSTIN: Okay, so let’s see what you, lets see what you do.
KEITH: Can-
ART: [Interrupting, uncertainly] I think I’m just gonna take loud.
AUSTIN: Okay. Save those, save that extra push die?
ART: Save that extra pu- --Y’know shit might go down I might have to shoot someone for hurting.
AUSTIN: Well, that’s totally true.
KEITH: [uncertainly] Can I --Like do I have to react to-
AUSTIN: [whilst Keith is talking] Let him finish this first.
KEITH: ...I’m not trying to stop you by the way, that’s not what I’m [trails off]
AUSTIN: Yeah, yeah, yeah. What, what are you?
KEITH: I just wanna use like, like --Notice that he’s like, ‘oh we’re doing guns, great’ and then use that as an opportunity to just get closer.
AUSTIN: [overlapping Keith] You get to do that, you get to do that after he shoots.
KEITH: Yeah, sure.
AUSTIN: ‘Cause you’re getting, you’re trying to hack the thing. Like this is, you’re about to hit the down button, it starts to descend-
KEITH: Right.
AUSTIN: You do, in fact you do manage to hack into it, you hit the descend button. It like jitters for a second and Shell like turns and looks over his shoulder at you, and then like what he sees is, is Cass pointing a gun at him and pulling the trigger and it hitting the side of the, the hover-thing the, the hover-scaffold, and it like flips out and like slams him to, down to the ground-
KEITH: Okay.
AUSTIN: ...like very easily. What’re you, you’re giving him intimidated?
KEITH: Yeah.
AUSTIN: Art-
ART: [interrupting] Or scared? I don’t --Intimidated’s fine.
AUSTIN: Give me what --Say what you want, scared is fine too.
[Austin and Art crosstalk]
ART: [at the same time] No I think, I th-
AUSTIN: [at the same time] Scared is different than intimidated, right?.
ART: [agreeing] Scared is different than intimidated.
KEITH: I think-
ART: Intimidated is what I originally said. That’s probably more [unintelligible]
KEITH: [overlapping Art] I think I feel like intimidated more.
AUSTIN: Okay. Are you, is that fleeting? [pauses] Or are you sticky-ing it?
ART: I think it’s, I think it’s fine to be fleeting.
AUSTIN: Okay.
ART: I don’t think we’ll need --I, yeah. Fuck this guy.
AUSTIN: Okay.
[Keith laughing]
ART: If he turns out to be a bigger bad guy than I think he is this might be a problem, but like right now just [trails off]
AUSTIN: Right.
ART: And so like I’m walking --He falls down, I walk over to where he is and like i kinda like [pauses] y’know?-
AUSTIN: Yeah.
ART: ...pick him up out of the wreckage
AUSTIN: Well you’re, as you’re walking over he’s, yeah he’s in the wreckage and he’s like trying to, he’s trying to like get out of the of the wreckage-
KEITH: Mhm.
ART: Sure.
AUSTIN: ..and [pauses] [haltingly] you see the hand of the queen clench into a fist.
ART: [pauses] Oh he’s got one of those things.
AUSTIN: [disagreeing] Well… maybe.
KEITH: Or there’s someone else in the thing.
ART: Right, yeah.
AUSTIN: [long thinking pause] [muttering quietly] What sh-, whats hap-, what’s the queen? What happens with this? [thinking noise] [speaking more loudly] Okay, it pulls away from like, there's like it, it’s kind of all connected to stuff, and it’s like trying to get into active position basically. But you guys can still do a thing before, before the queen gets to move.So yeah you want to pull him up out of the wreckage?
ART: Yeah.
AUSTIN: He is still, he is still terrified. He is still intimidated. What do you do?
ART (as Cass): Where’s Cene?
AUSTIN (as Shell): [intimidated] I uh, listen, listen what we’re doing is, is for the best of, of Oricon, its for the best of society. You just, you don’t know what you’re messing with.
AUSTIN: I think you, I think you’ll need to coax him to get anything out of him.
ART: [thinking noise] Alright, I’m willing to do that.
AUSTIN: Give me a, give me a roll.
ART: Sure I’m tryna’ figure out if I have any, if I have any holds here. [pauses, thinking noise] Can I, and I call on his --How does his hurt work?
AUSTIN: His hurt I think lowers his, let me just double check that this is true. [thinking noise] One second. [thinking noise] [muttering] next section, this is a thing I should know off the top of my head. I think it lowers their, his, his reaction, is what I’m pretty sure it does.
KEITH: Wasn’t it, isn’t it where it cancels out a die?
AUSTIN: [overlapping Keith] Oh! Well no ‘cause, we no ‘cause he isn’t rolling-
KEITH: Oh okay.
AUSTIN: ...he’s, he’s reacting, y’know?
KEITH: Right.
AUSTIN: [thinking noise, muttering] negative adjectives, okay here we go! I apologise, like I said this is all still --I haven’t run this game in a hot minute. No I don’t think the negative reaction hurts the resistance I think it only hurts [pauses] it only hurts the, the --Any sort of active ability that it would be doing-
KEITH: Mhm.
ART: Okay.
AUSTIN: …and it, and it, it sets up, it sets up vectors which are a thing I haven’t talked to you about because this is just how we play games together as a group anyway, where it’s just like ‘yeah you have a vector to do this thing’. For instance like, if he wasn’t intimidated you might not be able to now coax out information, y’know?-
ART: Sure.
AUSTIN: ...but you have intimidated him so it’s now given him that ability to do that.
ART: Alright. [long pause, keyboard noises] I have a five.
[Austin and Art crosstalk]
AUSTIN: You can to-
ART (as Cass): Y’know where I’m from we don’t do, we don’t, y’know..?
AUSTIN: [whilst Art is talking] Okay, I see.
ART (as Cass): Where I come from we don’t consider blowing up huge sections of, of the planet for the greater good.
AUSTIN: [pauses] He is, what’re you giving him now?
ART: Co-operative?
AUSTIN: I like that a lot also, that’s also really good.
[Ali and Jack slightly laughing]
AUSTIN: [pauses] I’m just making 100% sure that there’s nothing I’m missing with this. Yeah, it doesn’t look like it. Okay, I will give him co-operative. Also fleeting?
ART: [pauses] Well I didn’t use, I didn’t use a push die on this.
AUSTIN: Oh, you didn’t use a push die. So you should get these back then. Whenever you take a, whenever you do --Oops, that’s Ali’s sheet, sorry, sorry, Ali take that push die back --Any time you do a roll, at the start of the roll you recover your push die-
ART: Okay.
AUSTIN: …you recharge them. Yeah okay so he gets co-operative and he says, he says:
AUSTIN (as Shell): Snowtrack. We took him to Snowtrack.
AUSTIN: And at that point, Keith and Art what is your [thinking noise, muttering] how do you want to respond to this, I guess what is your prowl score? [speaking more loudly] here’s what’s happening: missiles are coming-
ART: Yeah.
ALI: Oh!
AUSTIN: How’re you responding to those missiles? What is your reaction to get the fuck out of the way? Is it like I’m gonna hide behind a thing? Or is it like..?
KEITH: Can I hack into the computer to the mech’s targeting system and alter the course of the missiles?
AUSTIN: Sure! Give me, give me a --So yeah, you notice that it’s about to happen, so give me a hack-
KEITH: Okay.
AUSTIN: This is going to be versus [thinking noise] probably against-
ART: [interrupting] That’s good because my action is going to be: read the rules for dying.
[Ali, Keith, Jack and Austin laughing]
AUSTIN: That’s a choice, that’s a choice.
KEITH: [pauses] I’m gonna use, I’m gonna use another die for quick.
AUSTIN: Okay.
KEITH: I’m gonna roll 5d6 ‘cause my hack is four.
AUSTIN: Okay. So you have a 6. And what are you giving, what are you trying to give this --Okay so you’re probably trying to like disable the..
KEITH: Yeah, yeah disable. Or scrambled.
AUSTIN: [overlapping Keith] Or, or --Okay. Scrambled would, I would say is fleeting-
KEITH: Okay.
AUSTIN: ..disabled would be, would be sticky-
KEITH: [overlapping Austin] Okay then I’ll, I’ll disable the --Yeah.
AUSTIN: Okay. Suspend the-
KEITH: Okay.
AUSTIN: Oh, I’m taking this from you. [muttering] Okay, and I will disable that, that --one second. [more loudly] Disabled. There’s lots of typing in this game for me. [pause, typing noises] And yeah, so the missiles go flying off in like really cool arcs across the hanger-
KEITH: Yeah.
AUSTIN: ...and like slam into the far wall.
KEITH: I’m seeing like a long shot, like a long shot in an anime of the, the, them like spiralling around eachother just hitting a fucking wall.
AUSTIN: [whilst Keith is talking] Mhm, Yes! Yeah exactly! And, and they probably hit some fuel canisters and there’s fire down the, down in the hanger now-
KEITH: [excitedly] Yeah!
AUSTIN: ...automated, automated sprinkler system is now on in the hanger and the rain is like the-
KEITH: [interrupting] Crybots.
AUSTIN: Yes! Exactly. Everything is like its all, it’s crybots flying around to put out the, to put out the fire, and there is water coming from the sprinkler, the automatic sprinkler system. And now Shell is like, you’re holding Shell by, by your, your hand Art, Cass is holding him up-
ART: Sure.
AUSTIN: ..and just like water dripping down both of your faces, what do you do?
ART: [pauses] We should probably, we should probably, we should probably bounce right? We should probably get out of this hanger [sightly laughing]
AUSTIN: [laughing] Yeah. I would, I would definitely say that since the queen is now lowering, like --Its like opening up like direct fire weapons instead of missile launchers.
KEITH: Right.
ART: Yeah.
[Art, Keith and Jack crosstalk]
ART: [at the same time] I guess I tighten my grip on his collar and-
JACK: So, how close-
KEITH: [at the same time] Can we take Shell?
AUSTIN: Yeah, are you?
ART: Yeah, we could try to take him, he’s co-operative right?
AUSTIN: Ah well he’s, yeah he is co-operative [thinking noise] he’s co-operative, she is going to use a turn to try to clear the, the, that co-operative thing from him. Which is, which is another thing you can do on your turn. So like, on your turn you can apply a negative adjective to somebody else, you can try to recover an adjective for yourself or recover someone else’s. I think that’s a, that’s probably a coax roll, also. Which she is not actually super good at. OKay, she has some, she has, she has – I’m gonna say veteran and inspiring probably help her. I’ll use inspiring because I only have one push die.
ART: [overlapping Austin] Inspiring, probably yeah.
AUSTIN: Yeah. [pause, typing noises] and I’m gonna say this is probably versus his coax. [pause] Which she beats. Oop, I --In fact, I have another dice. I’ll actually just roll it. Okay, wow okay, thats a good roll. We’re rolling lots of sixes today!
KEITH: Yeah, lot’s of sixes!
ART: Yeah.
AUSTIN: I rolled a six, two, six. Alright so, so you start to drag him away and then, and then over like a loudspeaker from, from the queen a pretty domineering voice says:
AUSTIN (as ‘Queen’): Shell, you’re better than this. Don’t let them take you.
AUSTIN: And and he like jolts up out of out of his cooperation and like pushes back on you and gets some distance, He’s still scared of you, he’s still intimidated but he’s like, he’s like trying to like --he’s about to turn and run to his mech.
KEITH: Is he close to where I am?
AUSTIN: Yeah you’re all within, you’re all within like ten, twenty feet of each other at this point.
KEITH: Okay. Can I... tackle him?
AUSTIN: [pauses to think] Yeah.
KEITH: Alright.
AUSTIN: That would probably be a fight? I would say.
KEITH: Okay. I only have one for fight but I also have quick. So, getting to him, would that help?
AUSTIN: Yep, totally.
KEITH: Alright. [muttering] Oh, did I just take this die from you? Where did this die come from?
AUSTIN: No that’s yours.
KEITH: Okay, I thought I had one less than that. So-
AUSTIN: [interrupting] Um, wait, maybe you did? [suspiciously] Wait a second.. No, no that’s right-
KEITH: Okay.
AUSTIN: ...I think that’s right.
KEITH: Cause you only had the one die.
AUSTIN: I only had the one.
KEITH: Which is --Yeah okay, so this is mine.
AUSTIN: Yes. Yeah.
[pause]
KEITH: Another six!
AUSTIN: Another six, that’s definitely good enough to, to break his --Any yeah --His counter. So what are you giving him, tackled or?
KEITH: I was gonna, I mean I was gonna get restrained.
AUSTIN: Restrained is good.
KEITH: Yeah.
AUSTIN: But again, it’s fleeting which means the second that you change positions it goes away.
KEITH: [uncertainly] Can I make it sticky then?
AUSTIN: You can, which would --How would you make it sticky, are you like tying him up or something?
KEITH: [sighs] Um.
AUSTIN: You giving him like a quick --What do they call that what they do with cattle? Are you hog-tying him?
KEITH: I’m not I guess I’m not gonna hog tie. I don’t think --I’m deciding now that my, my die is worth more than this last minute should we get this guy, so I-
AUSTIN: [overlapping Keith] That’s not really what I [unintelligible]. Sure. That’s fair. Yeah, okay. But he’s restrained right this second for sure.
KEITH: Right.
AUSTIN: [thinking noise, sigh] At this point shes in a tough predicament, because she can’t shoot at you, Keith-
KEITH: Right, yeah.
AUSTIN: ...without hitting him, which is actually a really nice bit. She.. Oh I know what she does! She charges up --There’s a, a shoulder cannon comes down-
KEITH: Yeah.
AUSTIN: ...which is like a big plasma cannon. And she just turns and looks at the king unit and shoots it and it falls over and explodes. And then she just jets out the side of the, the hanger and leaves.
KEITH: That’s a good move.
[Ali laughing]
ART: That’s a --I mean it sounds like that was an expensive move.
AUSTIN: [noncommittally] Yeah, yeah. And she flies away. Let’s go back to Aria.
ALI: Hi!
AUSTIN: How’s it goin’? There are, there’s two mechs are on your tail-
ALI: Mhm.
AUSTIN: ...two rooks. I’m gonna, I’m gonna say that one of them takes a shot at you. Which one takes a shot at you? There’s one --Okay so here’s the, here’s what’s left at this point. I’m trying to account for everything. The one that was on the ground and was shooting at you, the one that was shooting at the ship at, at AuDy and the Kingdom Come was Bishop. That was the one with like the weird obelisk head, right?
ALI: Mhm.
AUSTIN: Then the one, the two that are left are [pauses] they are, sorry. They are Knight and, who was the one that I’m missing, I’m missing one. Oh! Knight and Rook, [laughing] right. There is one that is just in a base rook model-
[sympathetic noise from Ali]
AUSTIN: Which y’know it happens even if you’re in an elite unit, turns out you just have the rook model sometimes. The, the knight model is this like really interesting thing that, that it feels a lot like yours in that it’s a lot for show. For instance, up close you realise that it has a weird cape on it-
ALI: [laughing] Oh, wonderful.
AUSTIN: ...on it’s designs. And that is a thing that it uses because it is trying to drop off of your sensors. That cloak, that like cape that it uses, can disable sensors. So it is going to try to give you.. What should it give you? [thinking noise] any suggestions here? the basic idea is like that it wants to vanish from Ali’s sensors and like make her --I think maybe confused? I think it wants to confuse you.
ALI: Okay.
AUSTIN: What is your --What would this be versus? This is an operate for, for them, and for you I’m gonna say its a detect. What’s your detect score?
ALI: One.
AUSTIN: [pauses] Okay, that’s, that’s pretty low. So I think it’s just gonna make the role as a pure operate roll. [muttering] So four, not gonna spend this dice [pauses]. Ok, it, it beats you. Another six! Have we not rolled six? Yet?-
[Ali laughing]
AUSTIN: ...yeah we have, there are some rolls without sixes but like mostly it's sixes.
KEITH: I know that I have not yet rolled and not gotten a six.
AUSTIN: Right.
KEITH: But I’m also rolling four dice at once-
ALI: Yeah that’s a lot.
AUSTIN: Mhm.
KEITH: ...dices? Four dices at once for the most part.
AUSTIN: Ali you now have the negative, the negative adjective fleeting, or negative adjective confused rather.
ALI: Okay.
AUSTIN [thinking noise] The other one is kind of keeping track with you, so you’ve lost the knight but the rook is still somewhere nearby.
ALI: Okay.
KEITH: [quietly in the background] Stab that ship in the face.
AUSTIN: What do you do? [pauses] You could stab that ship in the face.
ALI: So I’m still like a moving and it’s still chasing me?
AUSTIN: Oh yeah, yeah-
ALI: Okay.
AUSTIN: ...you guys are like now doing like a cool fly-chase situation.
ALI: Okay. [thinking noise, laughs] So I think that I turn to face it and like pull out my sabre as i’m turning and then like brake suddenly?
AUSTIN: Okay.
ALIS: I guess the hope is that it would sort of just fly into my sword? [laughing]
AUSTIN: Yup! I love it-
[Ali and Jack laughing]
AUSTIN: ...I love it so much!
ALI: Oh and do I get my dice back?
AUSTIN: Yep. Any time you do a roll you --Yep, you re-charge your, your dice.
ALI: Okay, cool.
AUSTIN: Your push dice.
ALI: Yeah.
AUSTIN: Yeah. [pauses] So that sounds like operate, and probably again versus operate.
ALI: Yeah so that would be operate aaa[trailing off] --I guess that’s it --Oh wait, the sabre obviously.
AUSTIN: [whilst Ali is talking] And then you could use the sabre. Yeah, yeah.
ALI: And then I don’t know [pauses] If i have anything else that would.. --I don’t think flexible would work. Its-
AUSTIN: [interrupting, uncertainly] Probably not, the thing that you described to me just now sounds like maybe you could use, you could use like the jet-pack. Y’know what I mean?-
ALI: Okay, yeah.
AUSTIN: ...like, you’re kind of --If you wanted to but again it means that you won’t have that push die for whatever, for defense y’know?
ALI: Yeah.
AUSTIN: Which is fine. Oh also because you have confused you’re going to --after this roll, you have to roll a hurt die which could cancel out a score. Just so you remember that.
ALI: Okay, Yeah. So I can just use the the two, I’m just rolling two dice?
AUSTIN: You’re rolling your, your operate score, which I think is two-
ALI: Yeah.
AUSTIN: ...and then your plus one for-
ALI: Okay,
AUSTIN: ...your beam sabre. So a three. [long pause] So a six and then give me another, now give me your 1d6 to represent the fact that you’re confused. [long pause] Okay! So you’re good. So again, just to give you the clar- --So you rolled five, six, one on your positive and then you rolled a two on your hurt die. The thing that you would have to be afraid of here is if you had rolled a six on your hurt die it would have cancelled out your six.
ALI: Ookay, okay.
AUSTIN: Lower --That’s how this works, it hasn’t happened yet, so we haven’t had to have a --We haven’t had an actual example of it happening yet.
ALI: Okay.
AUSTIN: Okay so your your blade goes into the rook. Whatever you, whatever you’re going to aim for its going to instead use it’s armour to to protect it. Are you, are you looking to disable something or hurt it or are you just trying to give a different sort of adjective here actually? It sounds like you’re just trying to actually hurt.
ALI: Yeah.
AUSTIN: Right? So that means you have to discharge the die, or you have to spend the die, to make it, to make it sticky. Sticky either disabled or destroyed, or I guess disabled ‘cause there’s only one that you can, that you can discard here. So I’m gonna take this and then its going to disable it’s one armour unit.
ALI: Okay.
AUSTIN: This is the thing that’s neat about the mech stuff here is that it lets you trade dice back and forth without causing the people inside damage immediately.
ALI: Oh, yeah.
AUSTIN: Do you know what I mean? Like, you were hurt because you’ve been confused but like your ship is still pretty good and like you’re not physically hurt. They’d have to blow up your ship to give you like, y’know, wounded or something?
ALI: Okay, yeah.
AUSTIN: So, Jack?
JACK: Yes.
AUSTIN: The Kingdom Come is now within range of the the kind of docking bay when you see a beautiful golden mech shoot out the side of one of the hangers. At, like, from --Its actually, its actually not from a hanger its from like a --Out a little bit away from the domes in the spaceport, there’s like a hole in the ground opens up where rockets normally launch out of and and a golden mech shoots up from there and begins to head towards where [hesitates] where Aria is.
ALI: [worriedly] Oh no.
JACK: Alright.
AUSTIN: In that general direction, there’s a distance here, there’s like quite a bit of distance but you could call ahead and let Aria know.
JACK: [at the same time as Ali] Yeah.
ALI: [at the same time as Jack] Yeah.
JACK (as AuDy): Aria? You’ve got something inbound, a large golden mech. Looks like a sort of a rook class?
ALI (as Aria): Oh jeez [laughing]
AUSTIN: [sympathetically] Oh, Aria.
JACK (as AuDy): Do you want me to try and intercept it? Wait a second hang on I’ll add, I’ll add Mako to the call.
[Ali and Art(?) laughing]
KEITH (as Mako): Hey, what’s up buddy?
JACK (as AuDy): Hey, Aria’s here.
ALI (as Aria): Hi!
KEITH (as Mako): Oh hey Aria, what’s up?
ALI (as Aria): Nothin’ good!
[Austin laughing]
KEITH (as Mako): Oh! Us here, here too. What’s goin’ on?
AUSTIN: [laughingly] Mako you’re holding man like in a Nels-, like a full Nelson whilst having this call.
KEITH: Yeah yeah yeah yeah, yeah.
JACK (as AuDy): Alright, Mako?
KEITH (as Mako): Yeah?
AUSTIN: Also wait, why is-
JACK (as AuDy): [interrupting] How’re things with you, do you need pick-up?
KEITH (as Mako): I’m --I’ve got a man here.
[Ali laughing]
AUSTIN: [sounding defeated] Okay.
[Jack laughing]
AUSTIN: Good!
JACK (as AuDy): Is he a friendly?
KEITH: Nooo. No.
[Jack laughing]
JACK (as AuDy): How’s Cass? Just give me, hand me over to Cass.
KEITH (as Mako): Oh sure, here.
[Austin and Ali laughing]
JACK (as AuDy): Cass-
[Ali laughing]
ART: [interrupting, incredulous] Wait, this is a physical phone??
[Ali laughing]
KEITH: Nah, I patched him[1], I patched him in. I patched him in!
[Ali wheezing]
JACK (as AuDy): Do you need pick-up?
KEITH (as Mako): We would love that.
ART (as Cass): Yeah that’d be really, that’d be really great actually.
AUSTIN: Water streaming from their faces-
[Jack laughing]
AUSTIN: ...firefighting bots in the background putting out fires.
KEITH (as Mako): How, how, how --When should we expect you?
JACK (as AuDy): We [sighs], we got a gold mech heading towards Aria. Is that something to do with you?
KEITH (as Mako): Ah, we blew up-
ART (as Cass): [interrupting] Oh yeah, we know that mech.
KEITH (as Mako): Yeah, we.. met.. her.
JACK (as AuDy): Shall we let Aria handle it?
[Austin laughing, Ali making a concerned noise]
KEITH (as Mako): Yeah.
ART (as Cass): If you could-
[Another concerned noise from Ali]
ART (as Cass): ...if you could get here and have the Megalophile online we could do the whole thing.
ALI (as Aria): I’m, I’m fighting four guys [laughing]
KEITH (as Mako): Ah, no yeah come get us.
[Ali, Jack and Austin laughing]
JACK: Is my quadcopter remote Austin?
AUSTIN: Yeah!
JACK: Or do I, do I have to pilot it and the Kingdom Come simultaneously?
AUSTIN: You would have to pilot both but you can also put it into like some like autonomous like macros, do you know what I mean?
KEITH: Yeah.
JACK: How mu- --How expensive is it?
AUSTIN: It was one. It cost one.
JACK: Okay. Oh right! Oh fantastic, okay. Can I just deploy the quadcopter to chase the-
AUSTIN: Yeah!
JACK: ...the, the gold mech-
AUSTIN: Mhm.
JACK: ...with the, with --To to --In an attempt to apply the adjective irritate, or irritated.
AUSTIN: Okay. Oh I see what you’re saying. Yeah, totally. That sounds like an operate thing to me.
JACK: Yeah I think so. [blowing out air] So this would be two operate dice-
AUSTIN: Yeah.
JACK: ...probably one for co-ordinated ‘cause I’m flying the Kingdom Come at the same time-
AUSTIN: Yep.
JACK: ...and one for quadcopter?
AUSTIN: Yep.
JACK: So that’s four.
AUSTIN: So you just bring two of those over, because you already have a base two.
JACK: Mhm.
AUSTIN: Yep.
JACK: Yep. [upset] Oh god. Picking up multiple dice.
AUSTIN: You can do --Yeah, yeah, you got it.
JACK: And then I’ll roll [hesitates] 4d6 [pauses] Ten!
AUSTIN: Well, three-
JACK: Okay, both-
AUSTIN: Four, four.
JACK: Okay, yeah, four.
AUSTIN: Four is what you’ve rolled here.
[Jack laughing]
AUSTIN: I think this is-
JACK: Alright.
AUSTIN: [sighs] I’m trying to decide what this is against. This feels like this is against [hesitates]
JACK: Like, composu- [laughs] --Like, it would be like the closest thing to composure right? Or something, like-
AUSTIN: [overlapping Jack] Right. Which I think is coax in this case. And, yeah you, you get it. You give her the fleeting, unless you --Are you sticky-ing it or are you keeping it fleeting?
JACK: [thinking noises] Aria, do you think fleeting is long enough for you?
KEITH: [whilst Jack is talking] Irritated for the rest of the day.
ALI: What’s that?
JACK: Do you think fleeting is long enough for you to have this quadcopter just buzzing around this mech’s head?
ALI: [laughing nervously] I mean how long would it take you to [hesitating] get to Keith?
JACK: [at the same time as Austin] We’re pretty close.
AUSTIN: [at the same time as Jack] They’re pretty close, you’re a few-
KEITH: [interrupting] We’ll be pretty quick about it.
JACK: Yeah, I think fleeting will be fine.
KEITH: Yeah.
ALI: Yeah.
AUSTIN: Okay. Leave it fleeting. Okay. [pauses] Okay ins-
JACK: [interrupting] Can I-
AUSTIN: Go ahead.
JACK: Can I fit the Kingdom Come through the hole in the wall?
AUSTIN: [whilst Jack is talking] Yeah, yeah, yes.
JACK: Yep. Good [laughing]
AUSTIN: You can, you can, you can sw- --You’re gonna start flying down that way. Ali give me --Or tell me what your [thinking noises] God, there --This might be, this might be bad. What is your, I guess operate, again?
[Ali makes a thinking noise]
AUSTIN: Your-
ALI: [interrupting, very uncertainly] I have two?
AUSTIN: [overlapping Ali] Or prep? Okay, and then you still have, you still have two dice charged?
ALI: Yeah.
AUSTIN: Did you keep those charged?
ALI: Yes.
AUSTIN: You kept those charged. Okay. You see it quickly, and and recognise it immediately. You know --You recognise it because you had like a, a kind of cheap version of it when you were in --When you were still at the JoyPark your [pauses] --The plasma blade that the, the knight draws is Jace’s white blade-
[Ali concerned laughing]
AUSTIN: ...which is like a searing hot, white, like plasma blade. And its --You know that’s it. That’s the one that Jace had.
[Ali gasps]
AUSTIN: For sure. Like, there is nothing else with that searing heat.
JACK: Wait, who has this blade? Just one of the attacking mechs?
AUSTIN: [overlapping Jack] The knight, the knight, the knight does.
JACK: The knight.
AUSTIN: Yeah.
JACK: Who has the cape. The weird cape.
AUSTIN: [overlapping Jack] Who, who is now --Who just appears in front of you with that flash of light. And [pauses], it’s not even attacking you yet, but it is --It’s lifted the the blade right into your like sensor, your eye sensor, your cam sensor? In an attempt to give you blinded.
ALI: [unenthusiastically] Oh boy.
AUSTIN: Which is [trailing off, thinking noises]. [muttering] It’s probably op --So operate, let’s say, and plus one for the knight, or for the blade itself. [pause, typing noises] Those are not great rolls, but-
[Ali laughing]
AUSTIN: ...it actually --Well, it’s a mix. It’s three ones and two sixes. The ones don’t matter. The sixes do. [sympathetically] You’re in a bad place Ali. What’s your --How would you avoid this?
ALI: [musical thinking noise] I should make an argument-
AUSTIN: [interrupting] So you see the blade start to be pulled out, y’know what I mean?
ALI: Well, [sneakily] so my move score is pretty high [laughs].
AUSTIN: Okay. Are you just tryna like zip out of range before it can-
ALI: [interrupting] Yeah, I think I can spend probably move and flexible to like kind of manoeuvre myself away from that.
AUSTIN: [overlapping Ali] What is --Your move is only three though, right
ALI: [whilst Austin is talking] Yeah.
AUSTIN: You don’t have enough push die-
ALI: Okay.
AUSTIN: ...to --Because you only have two push die left?
ALI: Mm.
AUSTIN: Which means you could only get it up to five. In fact I think you’re just fucked.
[Ali laughs]
AUSTIN: Because, because he rolled two sixes? Which means he has a s- --Because he has mul- --When you get multiples of something you kind of get a, a little added boost? So, if you roll two sixes you get 6.1, if you roll two fives you get 5.1. Which means that you beat the tie, do you know what I mean?
KEITH: [whilst Austin is talking] Oh, cool.
ALI: Oh, okay.
AUSTIN: So ties go to defenders unless the attacker has rolled multiples. So, take the hurt, the hurt --Or, the negative adjective blinded.
ALI: Do I lose confused?
AUSTIN: No you are also confused.
ALI: [laughing] Okay.
AUSTIN: You’re both confused and blinded now. But you get a hurt die back!
[Ali laughing nervously]
JACK: Ah man we may have made a mistake [laughs].
AUSTIN: Maybe! [uncertainly] I don’t know, you’re in a, you’re in an interesting situation right now. [pauses] So, let’s see what the situation is. The blade is like right in front of you Ali, but, but I think you --You’re probably smart enough to just like get the fuck away for a second?
ALI: Mhm.
AUSTIN: So I, I kind of imagine you pulling --Get blinded and then like you just jump up, and you fly up into the air and, and the blade slashes past or like under you, y’know?
ALI: Yeah.
AUSTIN: Back in the hanger the Kingdom Come arrives.
JACK: [pauses] I don’t think it’s quite big enough to fit through the hole [laughs].
AUSTIN: No, of course not! It just, it like scrapes across the sides. And, and --Or, you know what, it probably is, if you knew the protocols to open it up all the way?
[Jack laughing]
AUSTIN: ‘Cause they put their much bigger ship inside of here-
JACK: Oh yeah!
AUSTIN: ...but like, you did not --You’re not that [laughs]. So you get --You land in the, the rain and the weird cryo-fog and, and there they are!
JACK (as AuDy): Okay, everybody onboard!
KEITH (as Mako): [overlapping Jack] I’m in, I’m in!
JACK (as AuDy): Quick, quick!
ART: Alright, I’m, I’m going for my front pod.
AUSTIN: Okay, you’re go- --You’re heading to the pod, you turn the Kingdom Come around. Do you even --Does it even stop, or does it just kind of like --Do you do like a little U-turn and then hover while they hop in, and then take off to get away?
JACK: [overlapping Austin] Yeah, I think it hovers and drops like a, like a, like a gangplank.
AUSTIN: Yeah.
JACK: What’re they called on ships?
KEITH: Ladder.
JACK: One of those.
[Austin laughs]
JACK: No! Like, a big one.
KEITH: Oh, okay.
AUSTIN: A BigRamp. A BigRamp, yeah.
JACK: Yeah, you know, a BigRamp.
AUSTIN: And they, they hop on, they, they --Cass goes running for his, for his mech. And as you’re flying out the other side, like through the hanger exit, you notice that ‘hey like, I’m actually fitting a little bit easier out this time. Not only because I banged around in here, but also because it’s actually opening up’. And behind you their bigger ship is beginning to take off and head in your direction.
JACK: [laughing] Oh, god.
AUSTIN: As, as you zip up out through the, through the exit and across the ground across the, y’know, the ground of Counterweight towards where Aria is.
KEITH: [quietly] Okay.
KEITH (as Mako): AuDy hey um-
KEITH: Can I --Oh, so for I guess I should clarify, how big is a quadcopter?
JACK (as AuDy): [whilst Keith is talking] Hi.
JACK: It is, I imagine, so..
AUSTIN: [overlapping Jack] What, what you said to me last session when you made it, was about as big as our real-life quadcopter drones. Like, the kind you can just buy on the internet, y’know?
KEITH: Oh okay, nevermind then.
AUSTIN: Unless you wanna retcon that, which is totally fine.
[Jack and Keith crosstalk]
JACK: [at the same time as Keith] I mean, I think I’d probably ret-
KEITH: [at the same time as Jack] I wanted to hang on, and, and fucking hack shit from riding on the quadcopter.
JACK: Well, so like here’s the thing. I think I’d probably retcon it to be like the size of, I dunno maybe like a, like a medium-sized kitchen table? Maybe?
AUSTIN: Okay.
JACK: Y’know like, [sighs] like a very, very, very, very small car.
AUSTIN: Right.
KEITH: Can it carry me around while I hack shit or should I get into --Do we have a turret on the ship which --What is my..
JACK: We do not. We had a turret on the ship but it like, it’s piloted from the cockpit I think. You could like --The quadcopter is out, it’s gone, it’s buzzing around.
KEITH: Yeah, I mean, you could bring it back.
AUSTIN: You could. It would clear that, it would clear that negative trait.
KEITH: [overlapping Austin] It would clear irritated?
AUSTIN: Yep. Mhm.
JACK: I mean, so like in theory, yeah I think you super could. It would be hella wobbly, but yeah.
AUSTIN: It would be --You could totally do it. Again, this is --We’re in some anime bullshit. You could, you could get close enough and then try to move or something, onto it. Your move score is very [unintelligible]
JACK: Yeah.
KEITH: [overlapping Austin and Jack] I could ride on, I could ride on Art’s back and jump onto it.
AUSTIN: [exasperated whispering] Oh Jesus Christ.
[Ali laughing]
AUSTIN: The rules for death in this game are real rough.
KEITH(?): Okay.
AUSTIN: We’re good, we’re good.
ART: Wait, what keeps you alive in the vacuum of space?
[Austin and Keith crosstalk]
AUSTIN: [at the same time as Keith] We’re not in space.
KEITH: [at the same time as Austin] There’s an atmosphere.
AUSTIN: They’re in, they’re in Counterweight.
ART: Oh there’s an atmosphere?
AUSTIN: Yeah.
ART: Oh I guess-
AUSTIN: [interrupting] All this is, in atmosphere.
ART: Space-ports are weird, aren’t they?
AUSTIN: Its --But, but remember --Yeah, yeah. But remember, the atmosphere here is bad, so you would need like some sort of-
KEITH: [interrupting] Mask?
ART: Sure.
AUSTIN: Yeah. Some sort of mask gear-stuff yeah.
JACK: I’d like to go on record that [pauses] AuDy does not approve of this plan.
[Ali laughing]
AUSTIN: Okay. Good. I’m glad that’s on record.
KEITH: [loudly] I’m a fucking renegade, AuDy.
[Austin and Ali laughing]
JACK: [laughing] Alright, okay. Alright so, I guess, I mean this is like --We’re just gonna assume I’ll be able to pilot it right? This is Keith’s roll. I mean, I could roll to [pauses] get to the right position.
AUSTIN: [overlapping Jack] You’re --You could roll to --One, you could roll to give him a positive adjective-
KEITH: [interrupting] I mean, I could just stay on Art’s back but that sounds dangerous with like [vague voice] missiles and guns and stuff.
AUSTIN: [incredulously] All of this is super dangerous.
ALI: Yeah, don’t [unintelligible] [laughs]
KEITH: [overlapping Ali] Well yeah, all of this is dangerous but it's not much more dangerous than it already is.
[Austin making a disagreeing noise]
JACK: I don’t have any internal organs and I am the safest character right now.
[Ali and Austin laughing]
AUSTIN: [sighing] God…
JACK: And like [sighs]-
KEITH: Alright, I-
JACK: Alright, I mean, I’ll lower the ramp and you can try and jump onto my quadcopter [laughing]
KEITH: I mean, we could just, we could, we could like --If we’re going back into the fight, Jack, [sounding disappointed] I guess I could just do it from inside the ship, and I don’t have to hang on a little buzzing-
AUSTIN: [interrupting, relieved] Yes! That is true, yes. [pauses] You’re not wrong.
KEITH: Yeah.
JACK: Wait, where is [laughs], where is Shell?
AUSTIN: [mischievously] Yeah, where is Shell?? Good question!
KEITH: Oh I have Shell.
AUSTIN: Okay, what’re you doing with Shell? [laughs]
JACK: Are you planning on taking him back to the quadcopter? [laughs]
KEITH: [overlapping Jack] We’ve got a brig.
AUSTIN: Do you?? I don’t think you do.
JACK: No, we don’t!
KEITH: [overlapping Jack] We have a room that we can use as a brig.
[Jack makes a nervous sound]
KEITH (as Mako): AuDy where’s the temporary brig?
[Austin sighs]
JACK: And I just point, just to like a chair.
[Ali and Austin laughing]
KEITH: Okay, I tie him to the chair [laughing]
AUSTIN: Good. Okay. That’s --Okay I’m just going to let you assert that the adjective, the adjective-
JACK: Oh no [laughing]
AUSTIN: ...the adjective’s still restrained and its still fleeting but it --He is restrained still.
KEITH: Okay.
JACK: We’ve been playing for one session and we’re already doing some Just Cause shit here.
[Ali laughing]
AUSTIN: Yup. It’s true!
KEITH: It’s, is it [long pause]
AUSTIN: Uh huh?
KEITH: How, how can --Is there something that I can do to like --Okay we’re [pauses] --There’s not really a conflict happening between Shell and I right now.
AUSTIN: [whilst Keith is talking] No, no.
KEITH: Can I --Without like rolling is there any way to make it so that he just can’t get up or is that a-
AUSTIN: [interrupting] I mean yeah, I’m gonna --I’m honouring the fiction of him being tied up-
KEITH: Okay.
AUSTIN: ...Like, I’m not gonna ‘now he’s free’. But. He does only have the restrained fleeting adjective which means that like from a narrative standpoint you are --Its possible that that could come up in the, in the conflict, do y’know what I mean?
KEITH: [overlapping Austin] Okay. Yeah yeah yeah. Well then-
AUSTIN: Which is good ‘cause it’s interesting.
KEITH: ...just for, just for the m-, just for one last measure of safety I’m going to tell him that:
KEITH (as Mako): [He’d] better not fucking move I swear to god!
[Austin laughs]
AUSTIN (as Shell): [sighing] Okay, okay.
AUSTIN: He says.
JACK: [laughs] Can he see AuDy from where he’s sitting?
AUSTIN: Yeah no, he’s like sitting --I think he’s just just in the co-pilot chair, next to you.
[Keith laughing]
JACK: Ah, okay so I guess AuDy just looks over to him and --What the opposite of retracts?
ART: Extends?
AUSTIN: I was gonna say extracts but that’s not it, yeah its extends, extends.
[Ali laughing]
JACK: I guess, well then I guess AuDy’s right arm just peels open and there’s a duster shotgun inside and he[2] just sort of like looks over at, at this person and then goes back to [very skeptical voice] attempting to maneuver the ship so Keith can jump on top a quadcopter.
KEITH: [overlapping Jack] No, no, no. I’m gonna do it from inside the ship. Yeah, yeah yeah.
JACK: Okay.
AUSTIN: That’s good.
JACK: Alright.
KEITH: [sulking voice] I was convinced by [pauses]-
[Jack laughing]
AUSTIN: [sighing] Christ.
KEITH: [sulking voice] ...the fact that everybody seemed to not want me to fucking [excited voice] hang from a quadcopter and hack robots with my brain!
ALI: Yeah, don’t, don’t be just a [laughs]-
AUSTIN: [interrupting] Aria, what’re you doing? Aria.
ALI: Oh, I have a lot.
AUSTIN: Other than being surrounded by robots.
ALI: Other than that?
ART: [half in-character, muffled] I’m coming!
ALI: [laughs] So I was blinded fleeting or was it..?
AUSTIN: No blinded is, is sticky.
ALI: Oh right okay. But then I still have confused, okay [thinking noise]
AUSTIN: Yeah. No-one’s failed anything yet, right?
ALI: Mmm, no?
AUSTIN: An attack or anything? I don’t think that’s true.
ALI: No.
AUSTIN: Okay, we’re good. Keep goin’.
ALI: [laughing] So where’s everyone else, I like shot up higher right?
AUSTIN: Yeah you’re still like --You’re higher but like it’s you’re-
ALI: But not like s- --Yeah.
AUSTIN: ...still in the general vicinity, yeah you’re not like leaving the atmosphere or anything like that.
ALI: So I have the knight in front of me?
AUSTIN: The knight is now like chasing you up into the sky.
ALI: Okay.
AUSTIN: The queen is, is, probably is a few turns away. The bishop is probably about to re-, re-enter the fight and the rook is wounded but still in the fight also.
ALI: Okay. [pauses]
AUSTIN: [whispering] You’re in a place right now.
ALI: [overlapping Austin, upset] I am in a place, oooh fuck. I [sighs], I don’t know what our options-
AUSTIN: [interrupting] And the per- whoever, whoever is piloting the knight is using Jace Rethal’s blade.
ALI: [fake casually] Yeah. Well, so-
JACK: [laughing] Oh god, yeah.
ALI: …[quietly] Oh god. [more loudly] I don’t have a ton of options to like engage ‘cause I can’t see him? But can I [pauses]-
AUSTIN: What’re your-
ALI: I feel like I’m really curious about who that guy is [laughs]-
AUSTIN: Yeah.
ALI: ...so can I like open up comms?
AUSTIN: Sure.
ALI: [nervously] Well, okay.
AUSTIN: What’re you, what’re you doing or saying?
ALI: I don’t know. [laughs] I [trails off]
AUSTIN: Or what’re you --What’s your intention in not just in terms of what you’re doing or saying-
ALI: Right.
AUSTIN ...but what’s the effect that you’d like to be having?
ALI: Okay, yeah, right.
AUSTIN: If that’s easier-
ALI: Right.
AUSTIN: ...to think about.
ALI: Ideally I would wanna like have a conversation with him to either figure out who he is or like hopefully make him stand down?
AUSTIN: Right.
ALI: What’s the opposite of defensive? [laughs]
KEITH: Offensive.
ALI: [laughing] No. The good opposite of defensive.
JACK: Extract. No, wait..
[Austin and Ali laughing]
AUSTIN: You mean like, like, like to be, not to be defensive-
ALI: Like, passive.
AUSTIN: ...but instead to be kind of open-minded or passive or?
ALI: Yeah.
ART: Assertive?
KEITH: Oh, okay.
[Ali laughs]
AUSTIN: Opposites are weird-
ALI: [laughing] Yeah.
AUSTIN: ...that’s what we’ve figured out. Passive. Passive would be, would be one.
ALI: Okay.
AUSTIN: This is --I don’t-
ALI: This might-
AUSTIN: ...open, you can open --Okay. You can open comms and [sighs] it’s not Jace.
ALI: Dang.
AUSTIN: What do you say?
[Ali makes a thinking noise]
AUSTIN: Do she straight-up say like ‘is that you Jace?’, or is it like she’s --Is she a little bit more canny than that?
ALI: Well, I’m still confused so I actually think that she says that, yeah.
AUSTIN: She does say ‘is that you Jace?’?
ALI: [laughing] Or at least like, like a sort of harsh like:
ALI (as Aria): Who are you?
AUSTIN: Right, yeah, ‘who are you’ is good.
ALI: Yeah.
AUSTIN: And it a g-, its, its [pauses] a guy who is like a million times too much of an asshole to be Jace. Like, he sounds like Falco from Starfox? He’s just like
AUSTIN (as ‘Knight’): [electronically altered Falco voice] None of your business!
[Ali and Keith laughing]
ALI: It’s almost like a 90s rude, that like wears sunglasses and a [unintelligible], sort of .
[Keith and Austin making generic rude person noises whilst Ali is talking]
AUSTIN: [whilst Ali is talking] Yeah, yes. Like, his attitude is positive-
KEITH: [interrupting] He sticks his tongue out and pulls one eyelid down.
[Ali laughing]
AUSTIN: His permanent adjective right now is snarky, I’m changing it to rude. He is in fact rude now that I have a better understanding of who this character is. [pauses] And, you get to take an action. That adjective, or that action, can be a bunch of different things. Again, it can be it can be applying an adjective to somebody else, it can be applying a fleeting adjective of your own…
KEITH: Apply the sticky adjective buttmunch.
[Ali and Austin laughing, Ali making thinking noise]
AUSTIN: And it can be to anyone-
ALI: Right.
AUSTIN: ...it doesn’t have to be to just be to this knight-
ALI: Yeah yeah yeah.
AUSTIN: ...Like there --Everyone is pretty much within engagement range right now-
ALI: Okay.
AUSTIN: ...except for, except for the queen. And I will remind you that the [pauses] that the rook has its armour disabled which means its in a bad place and the [pauses] that’s about it that’s the only thing I will remind you of.
ALI: [laughing] Okay.
AUSTIN: You are blinded which makes this, which makes basically anything you do tough.
ALI: [overlapping Austin] Right, I’m thinking --Yeah, I’m thinking like practically like how --What, what sort of options do I really have like? [laughs]
AUSTIN: At this point you might be like to apply adjectives either on yourself or on them that make you easier to defend, or easier to survive, y’know?
ALI: Yeah, I guess that --So the original plan here was like to engage with them and then to get the fuck out-
AUSTIN: Right.
ALI: ...and I should definitely be trying to get the fuck out especially if Cass is on his way and just gonna kind of come in.
AUSTIN: Mhm. [laughs]
ALI: And they’d find these two, four dudes instead of me. It’s great.
AUSTIN: Right, exactly you just tagged him. It’s great.
ALI: [laughs, sighs] So what would be a good adjective? [pauses]
AUSTIN: There --I, I have a suggestion-
ALI: [dubiously] Okay. [laughs]
AUSTIN: You could like, you could --Thinking about the stuff that’s on your ship, or on you mech, again. Do you still have like the audi- --Yeah, you still have the audio kit. You could like distract them or so --Not distract them, or surprise them? Shock them? By like, blaring out an old hit of yours-
[Jack and Ali laughing]
AUSTIN: ..an old song of yours that just like disorients them. [pauses] Or something.
ALI: I will do that but I will actually do that a different way-
AUSTIN: Okay.
ALI: …’cause the the head vulcans also have fireworks built in?
AUSTIN: Good. Perfect. Good.
ALI: So I will just launch those and then sort of jet away-
AUSTIN: Okay.
ALI: ...cause it like is a loud thing, they probably think they’re getting attacked-
AUSTIN: Mhm.
ALI: ...and it's just like sparklers?
AUSTIN: Okay. Are you just doing this with the knight or are you doing this with all of the remaining group?
ALI: Well like sort of over the field so I guess it would be all of them, yeah.
AUSTIN: [whilst Ali is talking] Okay. Yeah, so make sure you discharge a die for, for multiple targets-
ALI: Yeah.
AUSTIN: ...and then one for the head vulcans. I can’t decide if this is operate or shoot. This might be shoot. [thinking noises] You’re not actually trying to hit anything, let’s just, let’s just call it operate.
ALI: Okay. [pauses] So that would be three?
AUSTIN: Or, now I’m thinking maybe it’s coax. I think it’s coax. ‘Cause like how good of a, of a, of a fireworks arrangement is it?-
[Ali laughing]
AUSTIN: ...That’s the --You’re trying to affect their, their-
KEITH: [interrupting] Well, it’s an entire fucking planet that’s an amusement park, they’ve got a fireworks budget.
ART: Right, they know.
AUSTIN: So let’s call that coax.
ALI: [laughing] Okay.
[Jack laughing quietly]
ALI: So my coax is three-
AUSTIN: Uhuh.
ALI: ...and then plus the two dice?
AUSTIN: Plus, plus one from from-
ALI: Oh, one from the vulcans and then-
AUSTIN: Right, and then you’re also discharging one to make it multiple times-
ALI: Yes, okay.
AUSTIN: ...but you don’t get the bonus from that. So that’d be four.
ALI: Okay. I can’t move my dice so...
AUSTIN: Oh, thats cause we’ve moved them around. I need to just make them all everybody’s dice. I’ll do that, I will also do that. But until now I will continue discharging the dice as necessary.
ALI: So I’m rolling 4d6?
AUSTIN: That’s correct!
ALI: Okay. [pauses] And I got...
AUSTIN: And you got a six!
ALI: Okay!
AUSTIN: So that is higher than any --Their coaxes are all very low, they’re very easy to distract.
KEITH: [sarcastically] Are you saying these aren’t very, these aren’t very manipulative people?
[Ali laughing]
AUSTIN: Yeah, no. Not so much. And what’re we giving them --Whats the actual thing? [pauses] Did we say disoriented? Is that what we said?
ALI: Yeah.
AUSTIN: It’s what I suggested but I didn’t..
ALI: Yeah no, I feel like that’s --It would be something more powerful than like distracted.
AUSTIN: Right, yeah. So do you wanna make that sticky?
ALI: [uncertainly] Yes?
AUSTIN: Okay. So that means spend one of --It means I get to take one of these back, yeah.
ALI: Yeah, I mean I’m getting away from the action so I don’t --Yeah, okay.
AUSTIN: Yeah, yeah. So let’s say in fact it does more than just, just disorient. It does more than just distract them, it literally makes their --It like overwhelms their sensors. Do y’know what I mean?
ALI: [overlapping Austin] Right, ‘cause its like flashing lights too.
AUSTIN: Yeah, yeah exactly. Is there a song playing?
ALI: Yeah, sure [laughs]
[the song Soldier Game starts playing in the background]
AUSTIN: What’s the song like? What sort of song is it?
ALI: I would describe a Love Live song but you guys don’t know them.
AUSTIN: Nope! No, sorry.
ALI: But just like..
AUSTIN: What Love Live song is it like?
[vocals start in Soldier Game in background]
ALI: [laughs] The one that I associate with Aria that much is Soldier Game, ‘cause I think that she would sing a song called Soldier Game at an amusement park dedicated to Jace.
AUSTIN: Uhuh.
ALI: It’s just like K-pop, just like really standard like --Do you know Gee from Girls Generation?
AUSTIN: Mhm. Right. Sure.
ALI: Just something really bouncy and fun.
AUSTIN: Sorry, I’m now listening to Soldier Game.
[Ali laughing, Soldier Game still playing in the background]
JACK: Oh, are we --Is that --Are we allowed to do that? Is that on the cards.
AUSTIN: I mean it’s on the OBS file but it not on the, on-
KEITH: It will be.
AUSTIN: We’re gonna get sued!
KEITH: No we will not!
ALI: No, they’re not gonna find us.
AUSTIN: [laughing] Your, your counter-argument was ‘no, no we will not’.
[firework sound effects start playing over the top of Soldier Game]
KEITH: No we will absolutely not get sued. I know how much of a song I can use!
[Ali laughing]
AUSTIN: Good, good.
KEITH: And..
[Soldier Game stops playing abruptly]
KEITH: That much. Done.
[Ali, Austin and Jack laughing loudly]
AUSTIN: It’s a good song! This is a good song. ]pauses] Okay while that’s playing --Wait, why did I close that? I’m gonna keep that going, that’s really good [laughs].
[Ali laughing]
AUSTIN: [sadly] Come back Love Live song.
ALI: [still laughing] It is a very good song!
JACK [overlapping Ali] Oh this is a very good song!
AUSTIN: It’s a very good song! So while this is happening --I advise everyone to have gone back and started playing this song while listening to this podcast. I know that’s what --Most people can just do that, right? Most people can just listen to songs while listening to podcasts. And just listen along while we describe what remains of the, the segment.
ALI: I mean-
JACK: Oh god.
AUSTIN: Art what do you --What does Cass say when Cass launches?
ART: I’ve been, I’ve been thinking about it a little bit and honestly struggling with it, but I think it’s:
ART (as Cass): Cassander. Mark.
ALI: Oooh.
AUSTIN: Good. Yes. Perfect!
KEITH: That is really good! That’s super good.
JACK: [overlapping Keith] I’m giving a thumbs-up to the mic.
AUSTIN: Alright. So you’ve launched and are now --There’s, there’s kind of like a [pauses] a visual --I kind of see this almost like a --In my mind it’s like a timeline? Where it’s just like it’s a line that’s been, that has a bunch of different like dots on it, or like lines in it. Do you know what I mean? Where like there’s the group way off to the right which is the, Aria and the four mechs that are out there, or three mechs that’re out there. Then it’s the golden queen, then behind her further to the left are you guys. And Art you’re a new dot on the line and are like zipping right out of the Kingdom Come towards the, the queen and everyone else. What’s the --What’s your mech like? What’s it called again?
ART: The Megalophile? [pronouncing it ‘Megalofile’]
AUSTIN: The Megalophile [pronouncing it ‘Megalofile’]. What’s that --Does that mean big buddy? Did we decide that it means-
ART: That does, it’s big buddy in Greek maybe.
[Austin & Ali laughing]
ART: It could be.
AUSTIN: It could be.
ART: Prove(?) that it isn’t. It’s probably phile [pronouncing it fee-lay] though right?
AUSTIN: It’s phile [pronouncing it fee-lay]. It’s definitely Megalophile [pronouncing it ‘Megalofee-lay’].
ART: Megalophile.
AUSTIN: Yeah.
ART: And it’s probably big buddy in Greek, but maybe it isn’t.
AUSTIN: [overlapping Art] It could also be big pal.
ART: Yeah.
AUSTIN: It could also be like large friend.
ART: Yeah [laughs].
[Jack laughing]
ART: It’s like, it’s like a word for big and then a word for someone you like, probably.
KEITH: [overlapping Art] Giant compadre.
AUSTIN: Mhm.
ALI: Who’s that large friend??
AUSTIN: And this is [laughs], this is designed --This is one of the Apostolos mechs, right?
ART: Right. I think, I think we decided it was like, like military surplus isn’t the right word for this because it’s a giant war machine-
[Austin laughs]
ART: ...it’s not like a, a crate of pants.
AUSTIN: Right.
ART: But like the war was over-
AUSTIN: Right.
ART: ... and they were kinda getting rid of their surplus heir y’know-
AUSTIN: Mhm.
ART: ...they kind of gave him some money and what he did was bought a war machine and taught himself how to fly it-
AUSTIN: Good.
ART: ...and that’s sort of been his life since then.
AUSTIN: It’s a choice.
ART: I imagine it is, it is not painted in the colours it would have been during the war-
AUSTIN: Sure.
ART: ...because that’s a good way to get an army to show up.
AUSTIN: Mhm.
ART: If they’re just like ‘hey wait a minute we fought you guys for a long time, you can’t have that here!’
AUSTIN: That’s true.
ART: But I imagine that like the, the sea-foam green that’s like on the, the royal crest of the empire still is like the trim?
AUSTIN: Uhuh.
ART: It’s like the the seams and the and the-
AUSTIN: Yeah! I love it.
ART: ...the joints or whatever, whatever, you know?
AUSTIN: Mhm.
ART: Colour three in your mech colour choice palette.
[Jack and Austin laughing]
AUSTIN: Right. And it has a bunch of armour on it, plus like a missile battery and a rail cannon? It’s like a big, fuck-off, strong mech, right?
ART: Right. It also has --It is also strong, yeah.
AUSTIN: [overlapping Art] And you --Yeah, yeah.
ART: Yeah it’s big, it’s armoured, and it’s, and it’s long-range. Which might, which might help right now.
AUSTIN: Yeah! So what’re you doin’?
ART: I guess I’m tryna figure out like, like tactically if Ali, or --Ali’s not okay, right?
AUSTIN: No.
ART: We can’t --I can’t f-, I can’t count on-
AUSTIN: [interrupting] Well, she’ll, she’ll make it back at this point. Probably. But, but she’ll have to get through the queen. That’s the thing.
ART: But I should shoot the queen and not the, and not, and not-
AUSTIN: [interrupting] Yeah, that’s what I think. Yes.
ART: Alright.
JACK: I mean, yeah, I also have guns, if it gets to the point where..
AUSTIN: [overlapping Jack] Well, you do --You’ll get in --You’re not in range yet because those guns are much more close-range. The queen is like ahead of you by quite a bit.
JACK: [overlapping Austin] Yeah, that’s the thing. Oh right. Cool.
ART: So I think I wanna shoot my rail cannon at the, at the queen.
AUSTIN: Okay. That’s a shoot roll.
ART: That is a shoot roll. And I --Do- --Can I, Can I use-
AUSTIN: Yep.
ART: ...a rail cannon isn’t an adjective, I can’t use that.
AUSTIN: No. But you can use --You can. Rail cannon you can use. You can use any, any adjective tag or item that you have.
ART: Okay.
AUSTIN: So yeah you can use that, you can also use the cam on your Megalophile. Because that’s like you’re zooming in on the camera or something, y’know.
ART: Okay yeah that actually does make sense because of, because of my, because of my intention here which is --The adjective I’m trying to apply is hobbled.
AUSTIN: Oooh, that’s a good one!
ART: So I’ll use, I’ll take two-
AUSTIN: Uhuh.
ART: ...one for the rail cannon and one for the camera. And then I’m rolling 4d6.
AUSTIN: Mhm.
ART: Which if , if anything is, if anything is gonna be four sixes. [pauses] I almost rolled 4d67 and that would have been something.
AUSTIN: [laughing] You got two sixes!
ART: Yeah.
AUSTIN: That’s real good. That means you’re gonna, you’re gonna win this one I think. I don’t think there’s any way --No, there’s no way that she can --[muttering] What’s her, what’s her operate score? [talking more loudly] Her operate score would need to be six. It is not six. So yeah you, you blast it. But she is going to --So you have to make it sticky so I get to take one of your, your die.
ART: Yep.
AUSTIN: But, she then needs to --She’s going to disable her, one of her armour instead.
ART: Oh, sure.
AUSTIN: So you, you --But you do, you do, you get --It’s a clean hit and it it knocks her amour, not off, but it does like, it dents it, y’know? Probably, I can even imagine it’s like, it’s specifically the armour covering up her extra thrusters that we talked about?
ART: Right, yeah.
AUSTIN: And she comes to a cl-, like a clean halt in the sky, like all of her --Again, like kinda like the wide shot with the red like plasma-trails behind her. And those like, all of her booster like flip forward in front of her to try to turn to an immediate stop and then she like loops up in the sky upside-down and then turns right side up and starts like flying right towards you. She again is in a modified rook, and, and kind of like Aria’s it’s been modified to be a lot, a little bit more angular? Or not, not necessarily more angular but like the roundness comes towards --It’s still round shapes but, but they come --They’re more oval than circle, y’know?
ART: Sure.
AUSTIN: And I think her, the, her like head-unit, like the actual head of the, of the mech is kind of a backwards-facing --Like, it, it, it juts backwards into, again, and oval shape behind her. So it kind of gives it the impression of, of momentum even when she’s standing still. But when she’s moving it’s like, man she is fuckin’ movin’. And is charging at [uncertainly] you and is going to [sighs, thinking noise, muttering] Her missile launcher is disabled. [talking more loudly] She is going to fire a blast from the plasma cannon at you, the shoulder-mounted plasma cannon. In and attempt to damage your, the, the gun that you just shot at her. The [pauses] --What was it? The rail cannon.
ART: The rail cannon, yeah.
AUSTIN: So you’re now blasting at each other from like quite some distance away. Her shoot is pretty fuckin’ good. [pauses, typing noises] She has 4d6 and then she is going to use [sighs, thinking noise] I don’t think she can --She’ll use plus one from it being --From actually using the, the weapon. So that’s a five. But then she’s going to have to roll a, hurt die because of the, the ‘copter that Jack sent at her earlier.
ART: Well I hope that’s a six. Hey!
KEITH: Nice!
AUSTIN: It is! It is so it cancels out the sixes so that drops to a five. So what what is your --How are you defending against that? [pauses] Against a plasma shot.
ART: I mean there’s, there’s it’s moving out of the way right? There’s, there’s --Like I’m just gonna [makes a vehicle swerving sound].
AUSTIN: Probably [laughs]. Yeah, yeah probably. Do you have --How many-
ART: [overlapping Austin] Oh yeah, and so I’m gonna try and dodge, and my operate is a three?
AUSTIN: Okay, that means you can only get it up to a four ‘cause you’ve already discharged your other push die.
ART: Right.
AUSTIN: So I think you have to take this hit, yeah.
[Keith making a worried noise]
ART: Right.
AUSTIN: But you can at this point disable your armour instead if you’d like.
ART: Well I, I have two armour. It just it, it disables one, correct?
AUSTIN: Yes. Yeah. And then you get this die back, so. [muttering] Make sure this is set to, yep.
ART: [overlapping Austin] Alright, I will, I will disable one armour.
AUSTIN: Awesome. So you guys are now in this like long-distance range fight thing. Jack you’re pulling in closer, so are you Keith. [pauses] Let’s go with Keith-
KEITH: Yep.
AUSTIN: …’cause I don’t think you’ve rolled dice in a little bit.
KEITH: Yeah.
AUSTIN: I’ll do Keith and then Jack and then, and then we’ll come back around to them. So Keith what’re you doing? Unless you guys want to do something together and in that case lets, let’s think about that.
JACK: Do you wanna do something together Keith?
KEITH: I, I mean the thing that we could do together that I, that I bet might work is that whichever robot seems like the biggest threat, or ship or whatever. I bet that I could try and disable it and give you a better shot.
JACK: Put it in the fog?
KEITH: I could put it in the fog, I could yeah I could put it in the fog.
AUSTIN: [overlapping Keith] Yeah, you could fog it. Yeah.
KEITH: Yeah.
JACK: Keith? Or rather:
JACK (as AuDy): Mako, if you fog a robot in mid-air.. does it just drop from the sky?
KEITH (as Mako): If I, If I disable the thing that keeps it in the sky then it falls to the ground.
AUSTIN: [overlapping Keith] You would --Yes. That’s right, if you, if you took care of like, her jetpack, that’s what would happen.
KEITH: Yeah.
AUSTIN: Yeah.
JACK: Ah okay.
JACK (as AuDy): Aria?
ALI (as Aria): Yes?
JACK (as AuDy): What is causing you the largest problem right now?
[Ali laughing nervously]
AUSTIN: You’re not in range of, of the stuff that she’s in, right now.
JACK: Ah, dammit.
AUSTIN: So again, it’s like, it’s like --I’ll just draw where you all are.
JACK: I’m in range of the queen?
AUSTIN: You’re in range of the queen. Yes.
KEITH: Okay.
JACK. Right, do we want to go for the queen?
AUSTIN: And you’re in range of the thing behind you. The big ship that behind you, that’s chasing after you and the queen. That they, that they have together.
[Jack sighing]
KEITH: So, so hitting multiple targets, that --You have to spend at least one push die to do that?
AUSTIN: Yes.
KEITH: But then you’re still rolling with that die? It’s not like a die that you have to spend but you’re not rolling?
AUSTIN: That --No, you’re spending it and not rolling it.
KEITH: Oh okay.
AUSTIN: Yeah.
KEITH: Art, how does the, how does the queen look in terms of how much you can --Can you take this thing? You can take this thing.
AUSTIN: [noise of disagreement] The queen’s real good, Art. You’ve hit it and it, it still has some armour left. And it is --It probably outguns you in a, in a fight. And you’re probably equally matched as pilots. So it’s, it’s, it could go either way.
KEITH: You know what? I’m going to, I’m going to, I’m going to fog the ship and the queen.
AUSTIN: Okay.
KEITH: Spend a hit die to-
AUSTIN: [interrupting] What’re you, what’re you using to, to..
KEITH: Well, I’m using hack, my hack which is four.
AUSTIN: Okay.
KEITH: And then on top of that I have my, my head-jack and that’s the last thing.
AUSTIN: [overlapping] Okay, and that’s what lets you do, that’s what lets you do the-
KEITH: Yeah.
AUSTIN: Yeah, okay.
KEITH: And, and we still haven’t come up with a name for it so that I don’t have to say head-jack?
AUSTIN: Yeah, we need to come up with a better name.
KEITH: Yep. Because it’s not a head-jack.
AUSTIN: Yep.
KEITH: So that, that would be hitting multiple targets using the head jack and then my four thing.
AUSTIN: Mhm.
KEITH: So I’ll be rolling 5d6-
AUSTIN: Okay.
KEITH: ...but using two die.
AUSTIN: Yeah.
KEITH: [unintelligible quiet muttering, long pause] I can’t drag my dice anymore.
AUSTIN: That’s because I haven’t made them all everybody’s dice.
[Jack laughing]
AUSTIN: That was, this was a mistake. I thought they would all stay in the same place. Woop, that --I just drew a big line by mistake. Lets get rid of that. Which one are you moving, just another one of these?
KEITH: All --Yeah, all yeah yeah.
AUSTIN: Are you --All of them? Are all of them moving?
KEITH: I used all of them ‘cause one of the other die I’m using to hit the targ-, yeah.
AUSTIN: [overlapping Keith] I see. Right, I got you. Boom. There we go. Wait a second, did you just get an extra die? Where’d this extra die come from?
KEITH: I don’t know.
AUSTIN: Wha- Uh? Wait, one, two.
JACK: Oh it’s, that’s ours now!
AUSTIN: Yeah it’s yours now I guess, yeah.
[Jack laughing]
KEITH: Alright, well then can I roll another thing and add another thing?
AUSTIN: Do you need --Yeah, sure. What’s the thing that you’re using though?
KEITH: I was going to --I guess I could use [thinking noise]
ALI: [uncertainly] Is that my dice? [laughs]
AUSTIN: That might be Ali’s dice.
[Jack laughing]
KEITH: Okay, it might be Ali’s then.
AUSTIN: Yeah.
KEITH: If it’s Ali’s then Ali can get it back.
[Ali laughing]
AUSTIN: There we go. I gave it back to Ali.
ART: You gave it to me.
[Ali laughing even more]
AUSTIN: No I didn’t? That’s up in Ali, it’s in Ali’s box.
ALI: Yeah.
ART: Oh, that’s in Ali’s box.
KEITH: Oh okay, okay.
AUSTIN: Yeah.
ALI: Sorry, Keith.
KEITH: No, that’s no problem.
AUSTIN: Continue.
KEITH: And I’m gonna try to disable their, their, their thrusters.
AUSTIN: Like the thrusters in both cases?
KEITH: Yep.
AUSTIN: Okay. And you rolled a what?
KEITH: A five.
AUSTIN: Okay, this is a counter-hack situation then. Or in fact it’s --Yeah so here’s what happens..
KEITH: Okay.
AUSTIN: [muttering] Three.. You rolled a five?
KEITH: Yeah.
AUSTIN: Okay. It- You get through on, you’re about to get through on the queen-
KEITH: Yeah.
AUSTIN ...when the ship, someone in the ship counters your hack-
KEITH: Okay.
AUSTIN: ...and blocks you out of both of them/
KEITH: Out of both of them?
AUSTIN: Yeah.
KEITH: Okay.
AUSTIN: You realise that the queen’s ship, the queen’s stuff is all routed through the ship. Like, do you know what I mean? Does that make sense?
KEITH: [overlapping Austin] Okay. I --Oh yeah, I do have one question.
AUSTIN: Sure.
KEITH: When I rolled was I supposed to get my spent die back?
AUSTIN: From before?
KEITH: Yeah.
AUSTIN: Yes, you always re-charge your dice. That’s the first thing you do.
KEITH: [overlapping Austin] Okay, I didn’t re-charge that one. If it will make any difference can I roll one more 6d?
AUSTIN: Roll --Yeah, roll one more, if you get a six it hits.
KEITH: Alright, alright.
[pause, typing noises]
JACK: Good luck Keith.
KEITH: Thankyou. Six! Bam!
AUSTIN: Boom!
JACK: [quietly] Yes!
AUSTIN: So you overcome it and and then you can then discharge it to --So, what’re you doing, you’re trying to disable the thrusters?
KEITH: I’m gonna disable the thrusters.
AUSTIN: Okay.
KEITH: Sticky.
AUSTIN: So that means I, that means I take one of these.
KEITH: Yeah.
AUSTIN: In fact I --Yeah, I think I just take one. I think. Let me, let me double-check that.
KEITH: Okay.
AUSTIN: Again, I apologise, we’re all learning the rules here still.
KEITH: No problem! I would like it to only be one.
AUSTIN: I mean yeah that would be, that would be great, right?
KEITH: Yeah! It would be really great, it would be great if it was only one.
AUSTIN: [thinking noise, muttering] So you discharged [unintelligible muttering], roll your action as normal.. resolves compared to each target it’s rating.. determined individually.. you apply the same negative adjective to any target whose rating you exceed.. [talking more loudly] You spend push die to increase the severity of each added adjective individually. Giving locked adjectives to each of three different characters would cost you six push die if you were, if you were locking it. So you --It, it costs per each so I get two of these.
KEITH: Okay.
AUSTIN: Leaving you with one, which is --That’s that’s --Well, you still have one.
KEITH: That’s fine, that was a g-, that’s a strong move.
AUSTIN: Yes. That was a strong move [laughing] because, that means the the queens thrusters --Again, because this gets, this gets around armour completely. So you’ve no hacked into, into the queen’s thrusters and those like putter out to a stop. And the ship switches from the thrusters, which allowed it to move forward, to being in kind of rotor fan mode itself. Or it has like a hover-jet instead of just the thrusters-
KEITH: Okay.
AUSTIN: ...and it can like hover in place and like kind of get it’s bearing a little bit. But both of those have been disabled now. Leaving the queen kind of wide open for, for AuDy, what’re you doin’?
JACK: I think there are time when you’re in a big spaceship to do clever stuff-
AUSTIN: Uhuh.
JACK: ...and I think there are times when you’re in a big spaceship to just fire a big gun at somebody?
AUSTIN: Uhuh [laughs]
JACK: And I think this is maybe a fire a large gun at somebody time.
AUSTIN: Mhm.
JACK: I, I dunno. Am I at risk of hitting Cass?
AUSTIN: No. No, because, because Cass is firing long-range stuff, y’know?
JACK: [overlapping Austin] Alright! So I would essentially be firing past Cass?
AUSTIN: Yes.
JACK: Okay! Sure. I’m just gonna --This is gonna be shoot, right?
AUSTIN: Yes.
JACK: I’m just going to shoot at the queen.
AUSTIN: Okay.
JACK: Which is two shoot plus, I guess, burst gun. I don’t --None of my adjectives, my personal adjectives really suit that I think.
AUSTIN: [overlapping Jack] Nah, not really. So I think it’s just the one for burst gun.
JACK: Yup, okay. So I roll..
AUSTIN: 3d6 I think?
JACK: Oh, hang on. Yep. I discharge one of these dice for the burst gun and I roll 3d6.
AUSTIN: Yep.
JACK: Come on.
ART: Yay!
[Jack laughs]
AUSTIN: Jesus, our six game is on point! He rolled two sixes and a five. Yeah so go ahead and, and you’re going to be able to dischar- --Or, I’ll be able to spend one of those dice. And, and I will take it and you can disable her other armour. The queens other armour thing there-
JACK: Yep.
AUSTIN: …’cause that’s --She’ll just soak it with the armour basically.
JACK: Sure.
AUSTIN: You really lay into her and, and as she’s like falling from the sky basically. Which is good! That’s, that’s good damage. That’s disabled now too and her jets are also disabled. Okay. The --They’re going to spend their turn --Whoops, I did not mean to launch Steam just now, let’s close that. They’re going to spend their turn --The, the person whose in the ship is going to spend their turn trying to recover those, the thrusters basically. And then try to go kind of, get in range of the queen to recover her before she.. dies [laughs]. ‘Cause she’s in a ba-, she’s in a rough place all of a sudden. So let’s get the recovery roll.
JACK: Is there a person in this mech, absolutely, definitely?
AUSTIN: Yes.
JACK: Alright, can mechs be piloted remotely in this world?
AUSTIN: Yes.
JACK: Okay, but we’re sure that this one is..
AUSTIN: [overlapping Jack] But, but no --Yeah, yeah you’re not sure that there’s a human in the mech but you’re sure, you can be sure.. --You the player is sure because I wouldn’t be making you roll against something that wasn’t being piloted, by, by a consciousness.
JACK: Right, yeah.
AUSTIN: In, in mechnoir, in technoir you don’t roll against doors, y’know? You open the door.
JACK: [laughing] Okay.
AUSTIN: You don’t roll against things that don’t have consciousness. You only roll against characters, because that’s, because you can’t apply --Because you’re applying adjectives to people, really. Y’know? And the things that people have.
JACK: Right. Yeah. That makes sense.
AUSTIN: [muttering] Okay, let me go to page 141 and make sure I’m doing this duration correctly. This was a sticky adjective, yeah okay. It’s definitely an opera- --Or, I think this is probably a hack roll right, Keith? ‘Cause you hacked it?
KEITH: Yeah.
AUSTIN: So I think this is like a counter-hack versus, versus --What would it be? [pauses] Here we go, okay. So it’s just a, it’s just a sticky so they need to get a four better to recover. And they’re also going to spend a, a die to be able to affect the queen also here.
KEITH: Okay.
AUSTIN: The same as they would normally. So this isn’t --No-one’s applying anything to you, I’m just checking to see if Tril, who is the person who is piloting the ship-
[Ali laughing]
AUSTIN: ...can actually counter the hack that you just gave them and re-activate the, the currently disabled thrusters. Tril’s personal adjective is honest, which is not helping, not helpin’ him at all. But the stuff on their ship is, is gonna give them a little bit of a bonus there. Their router thing. So that’s 4d6? [pause, typing noises] And they get, yeah, they’re good. Alright so, so the queen is like falling really quick, right towards the ground and kind of at the last minute her thrusters come back online and she starts zipping up into the air. Also, Jack your, your quadcopter is like following her down to the ground-
[Keith and Jack laughing]
AUSTIN: ...and it is like continuing to harass her there. She kind of does one of those manoeuvres where it’s like --She gives you all like, she considers everyone, looks out at the, the fireworks display in the distance-
[Jack laughs]
AUSTIN: ..and then flies up. In fact I think she, she shoots a, a blast into the sky and it explodes in like a huge explosion of, of, let’s say it is white. A white, like plasma explosion. It kind of lingers in the sky a bit longer than, than most explosions do like it crackles the way like --Almost like a Tesla thing, y’know what I mean? The way it like kind of it, there’s almost like an orb in the sky with little bits of electricity zipping back and forth inside of an orb. And, and then she zips towards a ship that’s behind you all and lands in it’s dock. And Aria you see now that the, the ones that you had kind of disoriented, once they get their bearings they begin heading back to the ship too. It looks like they’re retreating. The, the ship that was chasing you is now kind of like moving towards a parallel course, still generally in your direction but like where they will be able to disengage you once the other mechs have recovered and joined you, or, joined them, rather. At this point it looks like they’re ready to disengage and you could all re-group? Or you could keep pressing but it, it feels like you may have gotten what you wanted from this scene, y’know? It’s up to you.
ART: Wait, what does everyone think we got?
AUSTIN: You recovered Aria, who was maybe going to die?
[Ali laughing]
KEITH: We also got Shell.
AUSTIN: And you have Shell, who told you where he is,[3] where Cene is.
JACK: Ah yeah, where Cene is.
AUSTIN: Cene is with SnowTrack.
ART: Oh right, sure yeah. Then yes, I concur.
AUSTIN: [overlapping Art] So, it, it sounds like you’ve gotten what you wanted. To some degree at least.
KEITH: Yeah.
JACK: Mhm. Yeah, I’d agree.
AUSTIN: So we can, we can end that scene there I think, I think everyone gets back. The, the rigs are kind of damaged and there are lots of questions probably [laughing].
KEITH: Sure.
AUSTIN: We can advance here or we can, we can kind of wrap it here if you’d like. What do you think?
ART: We’ve been going for a little bit, I could..
AUSTIN: Yeah.
KEITH: Yeah.
AUSTIN: We could call it here, I could go eat dinner.
KEITH & ALI: [simultaneously] Mhm.
ART: Sure. We all have night meals we could be eating.
[Keith and Austin laughing]
AUSTIN: Yeah. Shell at this point deci- Like is, is gonna clam up and not gonna give you any more I think. You could, you could work on him in the next game to give you a little bit more.
KEITH: Yeah.
AUSTIN: But, I think that’s gonna be it-
[The Long Way Around starts to play in the background]
AUSTIN: ...I don’t think there’s anything else that I can leave you with. Let me think. Okay, I’ll leave you with this, this final scene for the episode which is, which is Cene in a pristine lab. Kind of, much more focussed than than his [sic] was, right? Like their lab was all like a mess of a billion different projects. The lab that Cene’s in now is, is like super focussed on one thing, which is a set of lines of code that are streaming down a billion different displays. And Cene is there sitting in a chair leaning forward looking at it and like trying to make sense of it. A guard comes in and leaves a tray of food, Cene shrinks as the guards comes in the room, and then when the guard leaves Cene, Cene nibbles at the food and then gets back to work. [pauses] And we’ll call it there.
[The Long Way Around continues to play]
AUSTIN: I’m Austin Walker you can find me at austin_walker on twitter, I am at GiantBomb.com where you can read the stuff that I write, and watch the quick looks we put up, and, and do all of that.
[The Long Way Around fades out]
AUSTIN: Thanks for joining me, new people who are listening. I know a lot of people have gone back to listen to the first season that we did of dungeon world and I really appreciate that. Everyone is really happy to have new listeners and, and to get new fans obviously. If this is your first time listening I, again, I apologise that we’re kind of like getting our feet wet with the new system, with the new characters. Give it, give it a couple episodes. Things will, as we get used to it we’ll be able to push it in interesting ways I think. I will also suggest, if you could it would really cool if you went and gave us a review on itunes, that’s how people find out about this mostly so, so that would be great. The people who, who are joining me, Keith, where can people find you?
KEITH: You can find me on twitter at keithjcarberry and you can find the letsplays that I do at RunButton.net or Youtube.com/runbutton
AUSTIN: Lots of people have probably never seen RunButton stuff, my adv- hm, god where do I advise, I think probably twenty years of sonic?
KEITH: Yeah.
AUSTIN: But it’s also really old, so.
KEITH: It is very old. I was very young when I started that. Keep that in mind if that’s where you’re going.
AUSTIN: Yeah, you said some things that you would not say anymore, is the thing I’ll say.
KEITH: [overlapping Austin] Yeah, yeah yeah. That’s true. It boggles my mind Austin that you were a fan of me before I knew who you were.
AUSTIN: I know, isn’t that weird?
KEITH: It’s super weird!
AUSTIN: It’s super weird. Life is weird.
KEITH: Mhm.
AUSTIN: The --Yeah, I’d say start there. Or you could subscribe to RunButton on Patreon and watch their Shenmue letsplay which is fantastic.
KEITH: [overlapping Austin] Oh god, please watch Shenmue. I know that it costs nine dollars a month which that’s a lot for a dumb video series from a guy you haven’t heard of, but man is our Shenmue stuff good.
AUSTIN: [laughing] Shenmue is the, one of the best things they’ve done. Ali, where can people find-
ART: [overlapping Austin] Shenmue’s hot right now.
[Ali laughing]
[Austin and Keith crosstalk]
KEITH: It is really hot right now. We started that.
AUSTIN: Shenmue’s hot right now! Hashtag shave Shenmue. Don’t do that. Don’t.
KEITH: Don’t shave Shenmue.
[Ali laughing]
AUSTIN: [laughing] Oh wait, so I said shave-
KEITH: Don’t shave Shenmue!
AUSTIN: [laughing] ...I meant to say-
KEITH: [interrupting] His subtle scruff is very good.
AUSTIN: Baby boy Rio does not need to be shaved.
KEITH: [laughing] Baby boy.
[Ali laughing]
AUSTIN: Ali, where can people find you?
ALI: You can find me at ali_west on twitter, I also stream games on StreamFriends, and if I had a recommendation, you should watch me and Janine Hawkin’s Sims 3 videos.
AUSTIN: That’s good yes, go watch those. Those are on StreamFriends.tv and are amazing. Art, where can people find you on the internet?
ART: They can find me on twitter at atebbel, they can read stuff I write at ComicMix.com. And if I’m giving out video recommendations I think the Alfpology stream on StreamFriends.tv is absolutely worth watching.
AUSTIN: [whilst Art is talking] Yeah.
KEITH: [whilst Art is talking] Ooh.
AUSTIN: Alf-
KEITH: As another member of that I would like to agree.
AUSTIN: Alfpology is, is tops. Give it like 30 minutes. It’s long but give it that.
KEITH: The beginning stuff is pretty good too, that whole bog thing is [untintelligible]
AUSTIN: [overlapping Keith] It is, it is, it’s fantastic
ART: If you’re gonna give up, don’t give up before you hear Alf.
[Keith laughing]
AUSTIN: Right. Wait at least until Alf. Jack where can people find you on the internet.
JACK: My name is Jack De Quidt. You can find me on twitter at notquitereal. If we’re all in the business of video recommendations [laughing]-
AUSTIN: Uhuh.
JACK: ...Austin and I did a stream of a game called Elegy for a Dead World a while ago-
AUSTIN: [overlapping Jack, enthusiastically] Oh that’s a good stream!
JACK: ...where we improvised a story about a ruined theme park planet actually.
AUSTIN: Yeah, we did, we did improvise a story about a ruined theme park planet, so. It’s within the realm of, of familiarity for this game.
JACK: Yeah, vaguely.
KEITH: If I’m gonna recommend something that I’m not in I think that people should check out the stream friends Rock of Ages stream?
JACK: [laughing] Oh god.
AUSTIN: I appreciate that. Yeah, I appreciate that. For people who think like ‘that Austin guy, he’s so serious all he can ever do is write about serious social issues’. You should, you should listen, watch the Rock of Ages stream.
[Ali laughing]
KEITH: Yeah, if I’m gonna recommend something of myself, my comedy podcast How Are You Today? is also on itunes.
AUSTIN: It is, and a number of us have been on it, so you should check that out.
KEITH: Yep. Yep. Third episodes coming I swear to god!
AUSTIN: I’m excited for that.
KEITH: I swear to all that is holy!
AUSTIN: How Are You Today? It’s a good podcast.
KEITH: Yeah.
AUSTIN: Okay, thanks for joining us everyone, thanks for listening to us plus all of our many, many, many things. Tune in next week it’ll be more of this for, for now. And then in a few weeks after we’ve done this kind of adventure, I will kick it over to another kind of side game that’s part of this game that’ll colour in some more of what’s happening in this, this little corner of the galaxy. So thanks for tuning in, see everyone next week.
[1] Apostolos’ non-binary gender system would be later elaborated in play.
[2] AuDy has been established as being genderless and using they/them pronouns.
[3] Cene uses they/them pronouns.