GM: Em Hubbard
Players: Cris Viana, Sophie Lagacé, Fred Hicks, Sean Nittner
System: Rocket Club
We’re playtesting Rocket Club after some revisions with Em. Here’s the kids we created:
Racine Quest (she/her)
Rocket Specialty: Jet Pack
Reputation: New Kid (just moved from Sackets Harbor alongside the great lakes)
Traits:
- Design: 0
- Propulsion: 1
- Grace: 2
- Impact: 0
Rules:
- I won’t ever let myself feel at home here
- I’ll make sure I’m noticed at every opportunity
Moves:
- Culture Shock – This town is strange. They don’t do things the way you do. During the game, the GM will use “Town Moves” which can impact the player characters negatively or positively. You can take an extra reroll resisting any Town Moves, because you just aren’t as easily affected.
- Loyal Friend – You have an animal as your one constant companion. This can be a pet who’s traveled here with you, a local stray, or even a wild creature that’s taken a liking to you. Your animal friend doesn’t always do exactly what you want, but it is absolutely loyal. – Loyal Friend is Peloton the not-domesticated but strangely intelligent Rat I met on the train here.
Racine (she/her), the New Kid from Sackets Harbor. She’s just passing through like she always does. She’s not lonely or missing having friends at all…not at all…that’s why she always gets in trouble, because if it’s going to happen anyway, you might as well get in trouble on your own terms. She flies a jet pack (wosh, wosh) and knows how to get around most obstacles, be they physical or parental. On the train from SH she met a rat she has named Peleton who has been traveling with her. Her parents think it’s disgusting and won’t let it inside, but Racine has been feeding it and talking to it…strangely Peloton seems to understand her. I wonder what’s up with that?
Cora Wingfield (she/her)
Rocket Specialty: Leg rockets
Reputation: Magpie (inexhaustible source of questions… and opinions)
Traits:
- Design: 2
- Propulsion: 1
- Grace: 0
- Impact: 0
Rules:
- I will always ask questions
- I will never keep my opinion to myself
Moves:
- Gift of Gab – You know how to explain things and talk people through tough situations. Any time you Help another player by talking, you can take one Tension to give them an extra reroll or take two Tension to give them two extra rerolls.
- Silver Tongue – The way you weave words together is artistry, or possibly magic. People tend to believe whatever you say whether it’s true or not. Any time you attempt to convince someone to act, tell a credible lie, or fast-talk your way through a situation, you can take one extra reroll.
Cora may not get top grades in her classes, but she’s the one who asks the most questions — or rather, the one who asks most of the questions. Her current passion is for rocketry, although she can get distracted at any point with another topic. Rocket Club is the one place she can hang out with other kids who also share at least some of her boundless curiosity for how things work.
Her best friend used to be Diana Peck, Apollo’s younger sister, and Cora was very disappointed that Diana did not join the Rocket Club. She hardly sees Diana anymore, and wonders if she’s said something to push her friend away. After all, everyone keeps telling Cora that she talks too much. But it’s so hard to hold her tongue when there is so much to wonder about!
Cora has built herself a set of leg rockets, which she accompanies with a modified bike helmet and a weird little shoulder pack that provides control surfaces. She is always tinkering and trying new features.
Lila [Miss Delilah Channing] (she/her)
Rocket Specialty: Chemistry
Reputation: Royalty
Traits:
- Design: 1
- Propulsion: 0
- Grace: 2
- Impact: 0
Rules:
- Rule 1 I will protect my image at all costs.
- Rule 2 I will use my privilege to protect people.
Moves:
- Came to Slay – Stylish is an understatement. You are a fashion icon. Once per game session, at the start of a scene, describe your incredible outfit and choose one of the following:
- Stunned Admirers – take an extra reroll on any social action in the scene.
- All Eyes on Me – you draw attention to yourself. Any other player trying to do something sneaky during the scene will have 1 extra reroll and a lower level of danger.
- Shut your Face – for the remainder of the scene, a single group or individual Rival who is
- present is outclassed and stymied. The GM cannot use the “Taunt” Rival move.
- Makeover – instead of describing your own outfit, describe how you’ve made over one of the other PC’s. That Player can choose one Royalty Move to use for the remainder of the game session.
- In-Crowd – You are part of an influential group. It could be your wealthy family, a popular clique, a sports team, or something else. You can call on them for help, but they likely won’t be friendly to other player characters.
Miss Delilah Channing is the only child of the Channing Family, a lineage that comes from the town founders and owners of a mining company that is literally the Jewel of Coyote Creek.
Everyone knows the Channing’s and they are loved by all and obviously hated by many.
Delilah was born like this precious, perfect, shiny, polished jewel… and she hates it.
She seems to be everything her parents dreamed: polite, intelligent, dedicated, impeccable. But it is all a facade that she sustains at high costs. She can’t handle the pain she would cause in her family if they knew the real her, specially her father.
When Lila was born, Edmund Channing decided to have a smaller role in the company and dedicate himself to taking care of Lila while her mother kept her place as CEO. He took care of Lila with all his heart and loves every minute of being a father. [A parent who indulges your every whim]
Everyone who looks at the Channing family sees this perfect family, and the only crack on this perfection is the Astor Family. Also a town founder family, they have been rivals since their great grandparents had some fight in the past. And because of that, Lila is constantly being annoyed by Danny Astor, and she can’t even recall when this started, but now, every time they cross each other in the school corridor, everyone can feel the tension. [A local celebrity who barely tolerates you]
Lately, she found a way to relieve some of her teen steam with a group of troublemakers… the only places she feels like herself, that she feels free, is making rockets, though she keeps it a secret from everyone but her new friends. And managing this double life is getting messier as she starts to have special feelings for someone, for the first time.
Apollo Peck (he/him)
Rocket Specialty: Rocket Glove (Impact/Grace)
Reputation: Trouble (the Pecks have a multi-generational reputation for being the ‘bad kids’ in town, deservedly or not!)
Traits:
- Design: +0
- Propulsion: +0
- Grace: +0
- Impact: +3
Rules:
- I will never bow down to an authority figure
- I will take what I feel I’m owed
Moves:
- Defiant: There’s nothing you hate more than being bossed around. Resistance comes naturally to you. Add one extra reroll to any action that involves resisting or defying authority.
- Lie Detector: You’re no stranger to bending the truth, but more than that, you can spot someone else’s tell from a mile away. You always know when someone’s lying to you.
Rocket Move:
- Push: Any time you succeed on a roll to strike at a problem with brute force, you can choose to send your opponent reeling backward. Instead of pushing backward, the GM may opt to add extra damage or substitute a similar effect.
Meet Apollo Peck.
Yeah, sorry, folks — it’s one of the Peck kids.
The Pecks have been in town for a few generations now and it always seems they end up regarded as “the bad kids”. Granddad (“Papa Herk”) was a bit of an anarchist — main thing said about him is “he was always playing with dynamite out in the desert.” He’s been gone since Apollo was small. Dad (Atlas Peck) owns the town junkyard and has a bit of a gambling problem, the latter of which got him tangled up with a rough crowd and landed him in jail for an assortment of minor felonies, mainly thefts and forgeries; he’s still locked up. Mom (Maia Peck) works at the diner to make up for what Dad did to our bank account, and relies on the kids — Apollo, his older brother Aries (high school dropout), and his younger-by-one-year sister Diana (the Peck most likely to make it out of this dump of a town, once she graduates) — to do the basics of keeping the junkyard running, which is just enough of a trickle of income to keep itself afloat and occasionally put a meal on the table.
Apollo has a pair of rocket gloves that look like they were built in a junkyard because they were. Folks who know about those sometimes wonder if it was Diana who built them. She’s smart enough to build them, but likes to fly under the radar, better if folks don’t notice her because then they might notice her surname, so there’s no way she’d use them. Aries looks to be following in Dad’s footsteps but minus the gambling addiction as the reason for his illicit activities; folks are sure he’s a thief, but he hasn’t been caught — it’s just that the cops always try to pin him down when something’s been stolen. Truth is, Aries knows he’s never really escaping this junkyard, and he’s set his sights on getting Diana out of here and off to college and a “real life”, by any means necessary, and he expects Apollo to fall in line there.
So that’s his family and his gear. Apollo? Well, growing up around Dad meant that he got a lot of real-world experience in figuring out when somebody’s lying. Seems he always knows when they do. Seeing that sort of behavior out of one of his parents gave him a real problem with authority too; lying adults are the worst, and unfortunately for Apollo, he knows how often adults lie. Of the three kids, he’s the only one who ever punched his father, twice in fact, and Apollo is pretty sure one of those times he actually deserved it.
Apollo’s never met a problem he wasn’t willing to headbutt (metaphorically… usually). But, he stands up for his friends, because he knows how hard it is to stand next to a Peck in this town, and those who stand with him ain’t junk. He probably never would have ended up in Rocket Club — that’s more Diana’s vibe, but she thinks they’re “too loud” and besides, she needs to study — but an appreciation for explosive things helped, and free and clear access to a highly destructible environment for field-testing rocket designs and sourcing random salvage for their construction cinched it.
Background
We also built relationship questions, things about our club, our home base, in the Peck family junkyard.
Set in Coyote Creek, Nevada. Used to be prosperous but now declined. Lots of abandoned strip malls. A few wealthy families remain, but many have left. Suburban sprawl in the desert.
Recently: shot down the drone a month ago. Realized it was something mysteries. Since then there have been disappearances. Strange, but not that strange. It sometimes happens. Some talk about it, but nobody expects an alien invasion.
Diana is curious about the club. Knows about the alien probe because she’s snooped, but not because we’ve let her.
Racine arrived a month ago (the night the alien probe was shot down). She knows the rocket club but not really anyone else.
The play is the thing
Lunch. Apollo and Cora brought their lunch. Lily and Racine buy them (Racine with a free lunch card).
Describe our appearances. The uncool kids are describe their flannel and plaid and oversized army jackets and fringe interest pins.
Lila – Shut your face attire. New outfit, never worn before. From a movie super known by everyone. Cher Horowitz attire.
Doesn’t notice Danny Astor approaching, feels sad missing her friend. [Fail, Sadness, Look Foolish]
Racine is ignored by Danny but tells him to show apollo some respect. It works, mostly. [Mixed success, Hope, Crisis]
Cora spills katsup on his shoes [Success, Thill, You Look Cool]
Lila comes over to tease him but it backfires [Failure, Thill, Look Foolish]
Danny and Apollo (outside in the hall) talk about Delilah who isn’t at school today. She has his keys (but to what?)
After lunch, Apollo goes looking for Deliliah and Lily follows.
Cora and Racine goes to Diana’s locker and Racine picks it [Success, Sadness, Looks Foolish] Cora knows her combo so it isn’t necessary, which just makes Racine sad.
Apollo goes home and looks through Diana’s room but doesn’t find her [Failure, Sadness, Looks Foolish]. But does find that she’s taken some parts of the drone and some other parts.
We text and share info and eventually get out of class and then Cora call in sick for all of us [Success, Sadness, Extra].
Met up at the junkyard, compared notes. Lila figured out that the Astors own the Manchester Mall (closed down)
Outside the junkyard we see govt guys in cyber trucks.
Racine and Lily sneak out, but it takes a while, vibe is fuck the police [mixed success, anger, extra]. She does get their positions and relays it via text.
Apollo crashes his bike into the bumper and starts yelling at them [success, thrill, extra] what they didn’t notice is he slashed a tire. Clearing the way for Cora.
Cora finds a way to break into the mall but is scary [Success. Fear. Extra].
The rest of us arrive and go in. Dark. dusty. Full of disrepair. We go searching. Apollo and Racine take the basement floor, Cora and Lily take the ground floor. Racine and Apollo just start yelling for Diana. [Success. Anger. Extra] Because of the extra…we see the creatures coming.
Robot punching the machines to knock one back and run to the food court where they find Diana, surrounded by alien machines.
