[pbp] Android: FATE of the Net (Now recruiting!)

InkSplat

What is this? A game of FATE set in the Android universe! for 3-5 PCs.

But first, an IMPORTANT note: This will be my first time running/playing FATE. So be prepared for some bumps. At the same time, I am completely open to suggestions on how to tweak the character creation rules I'm using, as well as just tips in general if you see me doing something in a way you think could be improved. This is a learning experience, but I'm aiming to make it as enjoyable as possible.

What is FATE? It is a very open roleplaying system that utilizies Fudge/Fate dice and things called Aspects to shape the conflict. You can download the book for free from HERE.

What is the Android universe?

It is a universe created by Fantasy Flight Games for their line of boardgames including Android, Android: Netrunner, and Android: Infiltration. It is a Cyberpunk/Noir setting of Megacorps and those trying to get by. You can find a handy wiki HERE if you'd like to check it out!

The setting is very tech-heavy, but with a Noir flair in terms of style and atmosphere in certain places. Basically, the fedora and trench coat are fashionable again among certain circles, they're just made from futuristic materials and are likely wired with crazy tech.

This game will be taking place in New Angeles, which is a city in the Ecuadorian jungle at the equator, where the Beanstalk (space elevator to the Moon) is located.

The 4 major corporations that span Earth and the colonies are:
Weyland Consortium, which deals with industry, private security, and banking.
Haas-Bioroid, who are the major manufacturers of Bioroids (robots with advanced AI).
Jinteki, who are on the cutting-edge of Clone technology.
and, lastly, NBN, the Net Broadcast Network, who are, as you might have guessed, the modern media.

Now, despite there being a few books and such written in the setting, we're going to keep things fluid. Not everything needs to match the lore, so long as we keep the spirit of things alive.

The FATE/Dungeon World principles of the players being able to create and shape the world will be fully in effect.

And lastly, we come to character creation.
Character Name
IDENTITY (This is just the High Concept)
TROUBLE
ASPECT 1 (Describe an major event/"adventure" that has happened to you, recently enough for another PC to have been involed, and then refine that down into a Aspect of your character. This could still end up being a "Multi-colored Cybernetic Arm", if that was important to the story.)
ASPECT 2 & 3 (These will be Aspects worked in to your interactions with other PCs stories. Feel free to come up with them before hand, but realize the wording may change a bit!)
REFRESH of 3
3 STUNTS, able to purchase at 4th and 5th at the cost of 1 Refresh each.

CREDITS

is an additional Stress track being used. Everyone begins with 2 Credits stress boxes, and for each Aspect you take associated with having credits, you gain an additional box (up to a max of +3). You can check off a Credits box to add an equivalent bonus to your roll in a situation where credits would help. Credits boxes are replenished by making money--they do not regenerate on their own. New Credit boxes can only be added by taking a new Aspect relating to wealth.

HARDWARE

If a cybeneretic implant or piece of equipment is important to your character, you can make it one of your Aspects. You may then also add an extra Limitation/Trouble Aspect to it in order to give it a Stunt.

SKILLS

We'll be using the standard Skill Pyramid, starting at Great (+4). The skill list is: Athletics, Criminal, Contacts, Creation, Deceive, Drive, Empathy, Fight, Investigate, Brain, Notice, Meat, Provoke, Rapport, Shoot, Stealth, Will, Net.

Meat is the equivalent of Physique. Named such just for the connection to ANR. Brain is Lore + basic computer skills if you don't have Net.

Net and Creation have special rules that play into Netrunning.

NETRUNNING & HARDWARE

Net is used while Netrunning, and creates a separate Skill Column that peaks at the level of Net, with the sub-skills being Killer, Decoder, Fracter, AI, and Link. As an example, if your Net is +4, you'd have one of the above skills at +4, one at +3, one at +2, and one at +1.

Link is how you defend against ICE attempting to Trace you, and governs the Link stress track, which is used during Netrunning. Everyone starts with 1 Link stress box, and for every 2 ranks of Link you gain an additional box.

Additionally, each of those skills other than Link gets an Icebreaker associated with it. Name the Icebreaker, assign it the skill, and describe the program's avatar, giving it an Avatar Aspect, as well as a Limitation Aspect.

For each rank in Creation, you can either create a piece of Hardware or a new Program (either a generic program, or an Icebreaker at +0), or give a piece of Hardware or a Program (including Icebreakers) a Stunt. Hardware is limited to a single Stunt. Hardware is laid out just like Icebreakers, with a Hardware Aspect, and a Limitation/Trouble Aspect.

Icebreakers interact with ICE in the following ways: Killer counters Sentry ICE, Decoder counters Codegate ICE, Fracter counters Barrier ICE, and AI can interact with all varieties of ICE, but can only utilize Aspects created by itself.

To interact with a variety of ICE that you do not have the appropriate breaker for, you treat your skill as +0 and cannot invoke any Aspects or Stunts.

And I think that covers everything! Again, if anyone has any suggestions for tweaking chargen, don't be shy, as I'm more than willing to change things. If you have any questions, please ask, as some things might not be worded as clearly as they need to be!

InkSplat

Reserved!

Grunt's Ghosts

Could you go into what Brain and Meat are? I'm guessing they do something with mental/physical health but then you have mental/physical health boxes so...

Otherwise, I'm down and will make something up soon.

InkSplat

Grunt's Ghosts wrote: »

Could you go into what Brain and Meat are? I'm guessing they do something with mental/physical health but then you have mental/physical health boxes so...

Otherwise, I'm down and will make something up soon.

Meat is the equivalent of Physique, so more Meat will = more Physical Stress, same way as in normal Fate Core. Brain is basically Lore, with a bit of basic computer skills and such rolled in. I'll go ahead and add that to the OP.

OptimusZed

They look like setting-specific replacements for Physique and Lore to me.

I might be down for this. I don't know much about Android specifically, but I do know cyberpunk in a general sense.

InkSplat

OptimusZed wrote: »

They look like setting-specific replacements for Physique and Lore to me.

I might be down for this. I don't know much about Android specifically, but I do know cyberpunk in a general sense.

No specific knowledge needed, really. I'm not sticking to the books or anything. The important things will be the 4 Corps overall identities, because any character would know that. Besides that, if you have a question regarding a certain aspect your character might be involved in, just let me know, and I can give you the relevant setting info if you want to be more based in it. But if you just want to be your average hacker out to stick it to the man (Anarch if you've ever looked at the LCG), then that's absolutely an option.

OptimusZed

I'm kind of feeling like a cybered up former soldier with an axe to grind against one or more of the corps. I didn't really envision much hacking skill, though.

InkSplat

OptimusZed wrote: »

I'm kind of feeling like a cybered up former soldier with an axe to grind against one or more of the corps. I didn't really envision much hacking skill, though.

That can definitely work. There was a long-lasting civil war on Mars, in which the Weyland Consortium would have likely been involved some. Mars is a group of tribal-like colonies that want to be independent, while Weyland wants to control everything outside of Earth's orbit, so Martians don't tend to like them. A lot of Martian refugees ended up back on Earth after the war ended to do their domes being destroyed and such.

That, or you could be an ex-Private Security soldier from Weyland's employ, and they screwed you over. Basically, Weyland likes to operate in war-torn areas anyway, so you could go ahead and just make up a war, and that'd be fine.

NBN could also be your target due to some sort of smear coverage of an old squad or something, or maybe giving out intel that got your friends killed.

InkSplat

And just a note, if there doesn't end up being enough interest in Android, the other setting I'd be interested in running is Destiny.

Farangu

Interesting. Have no familiarity with Fate, but I'll look around and see what just pops in there.

I'll totes be some corp employee, though, unless it really goes against the grain of what you want to do, ink.. Can't have too much runner sympathies in here.

InkSplat

We can certainly make it work. I mean, the corps hate each other enough that having a corp employee working with Runners wouldn't be that far-fetched.

Farangu

Here's a start, Ink. Might need some help with defining stunts and aspects, but otherwise, tell me what you think:

Mechkin, age 24

High Concept: Lowborn Techie with friends in high places
Trouble: My Word is my Bond

Aspect One: I was born with an innate sense and understanding of the network. I was able to use my skills to make some easy, if illegal, credits, until my friend Thomas Haas got me a legit job at Haas-Bioroid. (Either "I owe Thomas Haas everything" or "I have a bankroll set up"?)
If I read correctly, the other players would define other aspects, so I'll leave them blank for now.

+4: Net
+3: Creation, Contacts
+2: Stealth, Will, Investigate
+1: Drive, Criminal, Empathy, Fight

Net tree -
+4: Killer
+3: AI
+2: Link
+1: Decoder

Icebreakers:
Killer Program - "Triglav", named for the Slavic god of War, Limitation of Not Subtle
Decoder Program - "Morana", named for the goddess of witchcraft, limitation of QUID PRO QUO, DOCTOR
AI Program - "Svetovid", named for the god of fertility and abundance, limitation of Mem Hog

Creation:
Hardware Console - "Molnija" - Aspect is Battle-Tested, Trouble is Out of Date
Generic Program - "Sherlock" - Aspect is Keen as Ever!, Trouble is Talks your Ear off
Sherlock - Gain an extra invocation when using Sherlock to discover Aspects of Servers and ICE.

Stunts:
Mechkin gains an extra invocation of an advantage gained from HB resources
+2 to Link when a backdoor is found and used
+2 to Svetovid interacting with Barrier ICE when two of Mechkin's Mental Stress boxes are filled.

Background:

There are many that will claim a high degree of control over the flow of the Network, an information super-highway so massive it produces an amount of data equivalent to the first five-thousand years of written words each day. There are some that can claim an expert's grasp. But anyone who ever saw Mechkin work would realize that he was something special. The most commonly-heard explanation for his prowess was a very beneficial reaction to drugs administered in-utero. Most chose not to believe that someone had gotten that good by mere practice. Regardless, before the boy was 10, he was exploring sights and sensations with a grasp on techniques beyond his years. If he had only had the better fortune to be born to parents that cared enough to keep him around.

It was tough, getting Net access at the Orphanage. And with no-one really present to explain to him the things he witnessed on the Net, it wasn't long before he left the home to strike out on his own. Making creds was easy enough, as the people he stole from never seemed to really care enough to adequately protect their accounts. It was almost as if they knew their shortfall would be covered. After years of saving up his gains, he finally found his golden goose: Thomas Haas, son of the chief executive of Haas-Bioroid. He could bleed Thomas over years, and with how turbulent his accounts were on the best of days, no-one would ever know.

After a few years of this, he entered the Net one day to find Thomas staring at his avatar, a grin on his face. It turned out that Thomas wasn't as dumb as everyone thought he was. But he also had his mischievous side, and offered Mechkin a deal: He would develop sudden amnesia as to the appropriation of all that money he had lost over the years if Mechkin would show him how he got in. His back against the wall, Mechkin obliged him. A fast friendship developed, as Mechkin learned that Thomas was something of a kindred spirit, although the real world had been much kinder to him.

On the latest of their sessions, Thomas had another proposition for Mechkin: Come and work for the family company. Earn a legal paycheck, and stop having to worry about constant paranoia of busts from the NAPD. He had come to trust in Thomas, and he let his friend do him another gigantic favor. And as he entered this brand new world, he knew that, sooner or later, these favors would be called on...

InkSplat

@Farangu‌ Oh man, there could be some fun with "I owe Thomas Haas everything". Makes HB a prime target for the team to go after, while also being a nice push to go after someone else as well if that fits better. Have to see how someone can fit into it, but I'm willing to relax the "Needs to be a singular event that other people can have taken part in" for a good Aspect/character.

Svetovid could have a Limitation of "MEM Hog" or something?

Your third Creation point could be used to give Sherlock a stunt of "Gain an extra invocation when using Sherlock to discover Aspects of Servers and ICE." What does Svetovid's Avatar look like? Could probably do a fun Stunt with that as well.

As for your own Stunts (which you can spend on your rig/programs as well if you want).

Maybe, "Gain +2 to Contacts when what you need could be acquired from within Haas-Bioroid." for one.
"You can use Net in place of Investigate when conferring with Sherlock." <- This one might seem a bit too good, but I figure you'd have to record information and then go back to base to be able to talk to Sherlock, so it couldn't help you when you don't have time to spare.
Or maybe "+2 to Link when you've established/found a back door."

And there could be some other ideas depending on what you want to do with your other Aspects.

Farangu

I like the Mem Hog limitation, and the +2 to Contacts stunt(although my Contacts is already pretty good)

My main question is I'm not quite sure yet what you mean when you say AI programs can only use their own aspects. Does this mean that I have to make one of my three be solely related to the AI program?

InkSplat

You could also do "extra invocation when Creating an Advantage with Contacts from HB."

As for what I mean with AI, it means you can't use an Aspect created by someone else, or created by another of your Programs. It's related to Create an Advantage. The way FATE works is that you can use your action to basically create an Aspect, and then get a free invocation of it. So you could use your Net skill to create an advantage like "I know your code!" and could then invoke it once for free on a different roll.

AI Icebreakers can't use those created Aspects unless you use their own skill to create them. So you couldn't roll with Net to set up an Advantage to use with Svetovid, or you couldn't use an Advantage created by another Runner, but you could use one created by Svetovid itself.

Basically a trade off for being able to interact with any ICE.

Farangu

Ok, I got some stunts up if you want to take a look and see how far off the mark I am.

InkSplat

That all works for me. Like I said, if you want to change that Contacts one to one extra invocation of any advantage created by tapping into HB resources, I'd allow that as well, if you don't want the +2.

Farangu

Yea, let's do that.

Farangu

...So, anyone else interested?

Maybe @InkSplat could post this in the gaming index?

Grunt's Ghosts

We had a death of a family friend and I've been busy helping with the funeral. I'll do something within the next day or two.

InkSplat

Android doesn't seem to be a big draw. Might have to try my hand at a setup for Destiny instead, if that sounds just as/more interesting to you guys.

Farangu

I would much prefer Android, personally. Destiny doesn't interest me.

If that's what other people want, I'll just step aside.