GM: Matthew Fisher
Players: Sarah Terman, Sam Tillis, Dylan Arena, Mindy Braasch, and Sean Nittner
System: Renraku Royale (FitD)
We were skipping a session of Masks due to scheduling conflicts, but Matt offered to run a game instead. I’ve heard of Matt’s legendry one-shot games full of secrets, discoveries, and surprises but I was still blow away by the game we got!
Since this is a game full of secrets that Matt will run again, I’m keeping this report as spoiler free as possible. A few things may be gleaned if you study the clocks enough, but if you’re planning on playing it just don’t do that and we’ll all be happy.
Before
10 days before the game, Matt sent out a ruleset, inspired by Blades in the Dark and Old World of Darkness. It was a single page doc that covered all the mechanics we would need to play.
He also sent a shared setting doc which detailed the backstory and current situation. Briefly summarized, we all had reason to break into the Renraku Archology, which was currently being controlled by an AI named AXIOM which, over the last year, had brought the city of Seattle it’s digital knees. This four page doc includes the story so far, the mission, and a short brief on each of the characters:
- Jade (Sarah) — A civilian working at the mall during Shutdown Day. Escaped with the help of a stolen device from the group attacking the Arco.
- Kenji (Sean) — A teenager who escaped the Arco. Now an elite decker, although his cyberdeck was damaged.
- Zander (Sam) — A medtech desperately trying to rescue his sister who he believes is comatose inside the Arco.
- Quinn (Mindy) — The Face of Blue Dawn, one of the premiere Shadowrunning teams in Seattle. Provides the gear and funding for the operation, although it comes with a lot of dangerous enemies.
- Hunter (Dylan) — One of the original programmers of AXIOM, went into hiding after the Cascade.
Finally, he sent individual character backgrounds, complete with full histories, motivations, and secrets! My bio (for Kenji) was six pages at first, but extended to seven once Matt answered all the follow up questions I had. In short, Matt sent a LOT of material to all of us, especially for a one shot.
The great news was that like a secrets and powers larp this gave me some time to prepare. I was a decker with a broken deck (and a backup). Not featured in the image was the usb cable I ran up my sleeve so that later in the game I would quite literally “jack” in!
The Start
Matt recapped the situation and we all introduced our characters. I played Kenji as a fanboy who was constantly vlogging as a would be Shadowrunner. That was not who he really was, but my level of deceit turned out to pale in comparison to his peers. In the words of Ally Carter “It is an occupational hazard that anyone who has spent her life learning how to lie eventually becomes bad at telling the truth.”
We were given a few options for how to get into the archology and start the score. Sneak in as part of delivery, come up through the sewers and cut our way into the building, or use one of Jade’s coveted software exploits to disable Axiom’s defenses. While the last option was the most surefire, it played a card that Jade wasn’t ready to use, not unless she had to.
We opted to cut our way in and at once were confronted with the buildings defenses and vulnerabilities. Which were manifold! We also found that each of us had a “secrets” clock that could be advanced either by our direct actions (to discover each other’s secrets) or a consequences for letting things slip!
Renraku Royale
The score was an absolute delighted, filled with surprises both planned (by Matt) and unexpected (from the players). We shifted allegiances so many times, it was hard to tell friend from enemy by the end.
Pièce de résistance
This is probably my best in-game pun ever. I’ll carry it with me always.
What rocked
- Each of the backstories seemed more diabolical than the last. I thought for sure I was the worst person at the table, only to find out that my motivations were pretty noble in comparison to the rest! Great stuff!
- I loved the tension between Zander and Kenji. I think it helped that Sam and I were sitting next to each other, but it would have blown up regardless!
- The secret clocks were delightful. It was also cool that when one filled you told the secret finder something without announcing it so even the secret haver didn’t know what they knew.
- The nearly comical deathtrap obstacle course in the Fabrication sector was a delight.
- It seemed like everyone was able to get several goals accomplished. I don’t think anyone walked away feeling like all their plans failed or that they didn’t have agency.
- I had fun doing some light cos-play!
- Really loved how there were visible signs to suspect we have secrets (how could this street rat kid have such incredible medical knowledge and acumen, etc).
- Everyone at the table was great! I honestly don’t think secrets and powers games work unless you have players that are invested in both having agency and being affected by what happens in the game and being willing to change. It felt like there were lots of both in this game and I credit that to the awesome all star cast of humans in the room!
- From Sam, balancing the between “fanatic” and “caregiver,” especially when it became increasingly clear that his patron was not as benevolent as it presented itself to be!
What could be improved:
- I found the chronology of Kenji’s background difficult to parse. That’s in part due to the character’s unique nature, but I shared a few ideas of how to delineate his history and mental state that are hopefully useful! (not sharing specifics here to prevent spoilers).
- There were several challenges that required technical skills, interface, or physical prowess (getting in, getting through the fab station, getting to med lab, etc) and I think the social interactions and threats could be amplified to match those.
