The Veil: Cyberpunk Roleplaying – Page 2 – Powered by the Apocalypse G+ Archives

Back again this time a question about The Denotation.

When I see they have an implement such as a pencil, or in my players case a paintbrush, often times my player will use their implement to create constructs within the overlay of the Veil in the hybrid space. Things like painting doorknobs on locked panels, or painting blindfolds over the sensors of a gun drone.

I’m enjoying this as a creative way for the player to produce solutions to obstacles, but upon reading the recommendations and examples of the playbook from Cascade, I don’t really see any examples of the moves being used this way (since most of them deal with the manipulation of data rather than the production of digital constructs which affect the veil).

For the most part, I’ve been having my player roll subvert when they wish to add something to the digital overlay of the hybrid space.

My question is, lacking examples of this sort of productive capacity of the implement in the book, is this something that is intended to be within the scope of the playbook? Is the Denotation intended to be able to produce new objects with their implement rather than just alter the intended meaning of existing iconography?

Thanks!

Are there any plans for where this community will migrate to once G+ shuts down?

Are there any plans for where this community will migrate to once G+ shuts down? I only really figured out what G+ was and how it works about a month or so ago, but this community seems really helpful to have around for people running or playing this game. Will this community migrate to a different platform like Reddit or Discord?

Hi!

Hi! I have a question about the Dying. What happens when a players fails on their Trigger move? Does it cause an MC move as usual? I was wondering because then bad things happen no matter what the player rolls (assuming that MC moves are mostly troublesome).

Also, on a 10+ symptoms manifest themselves. In addition, one of the two 10+-options allows chosing the “One of your symptoms manifest themselves in a big way” option from the 7-9 consequences. So, does that mean even more symptoms? Do these options stack? I find this a little confusing.

Thanks in advance, and also for the quick answer to my last question!

Antarctica, Tricity, Tempest Dome. Population 500 million.

Tricity has three massive domes, each supporting many hundreds of millions of people. This is the largest city in Antarctica. Known as Tricity for the three domes. The three domes are known by their ruling corporation names: Tempest Dome, Halligon Dome, and the DevOne Dome. Hyperloops interlink inside and in between the domes, whisking massive amounts of people from station to station. Rich people can move their personal sky craft onto a hyperloop train car to get to where they are going after they disembark the hyperloop. Poorer do not have personal sky craft and instead use massive automated sky buses, that can house a thousand, these buses intersect throughout the domes.

Ice farmers make a living outside of the domes in the harsh arctic environment providing water to the billions and ensuring it continues to be produced for posterity.

Tempest Dome has an internal digital sun that is projected large on the inside of the dome. It moves across the inside of the dome and marks each day. The rich live on the inside of the dome up above the ground level.

The Characters:

Loch the chief exec from War Dog inc. a subsidiary of LM Global. The War Dog board directs Loch’s actions and Priscilla is the governing board member. Loch has a direct connection with her because he owes an obligation to her. The War Dog HQ building hangs down from the dome. Loch has a sky limo, some security staff, and a couple of department leads that he deals with routinely.

Kal is a medical cybernetics specialist. He works by subcontract through Dr. Travez the head cybernetics doctor at the LM Global corporate hospital. His specialization has brought him in on several high level jobs. He owes Dr. Travez because of the incident that made him contract something that is killing Kal.

Verix is the lead cybernetics and software engineer employed by War Dog inc. He has come up with a concept for a portable node, that will fly in the face of Halligon Corporation’s monopoly on node technology. It will allow someone to log into the veil from anywhere and not require a traditional node hub.

Halliday is a digital wares purveyor who sells art, music, and movies in the veil. He uses a cyberbrain to illegally merge minds with others and pierce the heavy neurochip encryption to illicitly record people’s thoughts and feelings. He sells these to exclusive clientele, at a premium price. He has a digital shop that he can move from node realm to node realm through some inexplicable means.

If anyone is interested I wrote up our six sessions for this game. We finished after six sessions.

Hi!

Hi! I’ve got a question regarding flashbacks. Are they intended not only to explore a character’s background but to give players the opportunity to insert preparation that their characters would have done? For instance, suppose a player says, “Of course before getting into this fight, I actually hired a bunch of mercenaries as backup. Let’s do a flashback.” Is that sort of thing still within the range of the move?

Let me start by saying I’ve really been enjoying this game.

Let me start by saying I’ve really been enjoying this game. I’m a big PbtA fan in general, and the combination of tech/cyberpunk and emotional philosophical aesthetics makes this game very interesting to me.

That said I have a couple of mechanical questions.

For the empath, I’ve noticed it is entirely possible to have a character who at the end of character creation has no way to spend flow. Is this intentional? It seems that by default flow does nothing for the empath until they take either charge object or search your feelings.

Second, for the executive, im having trouble understanding how the contracts are created. The playbook has contracts divided into two segments: payed, and mandatory, but the move Quarterlies only suggests to pull from “mandatory” and says to the board gives the exec the funds up front, but the mandatory contracts have no listed cost. In addition, assigning 3 contacts each session seems that there will inevitably be a lengthy backlog of contracts, or contracts will frequently go unfinished, meaning either the game as a whole will focus on the executive fulfilling contracts at the exclusion of screen time for other characters, or the executive will be forced to roll TPS and frequently have the board PO’d, leaving the executive to feel incompetent at their chosen profession. How would you recommend balancing screen time in a game with an executive, where characters other than the executive get their share of narrative control?

I’m playing my first game tomorrow!

I’m playing my first game tomorrow! Question about the Executive: If you choose “Mysterious Secondary Interests” in the area titled the Board, do you start with +2 Capital? The playbook seems to say yes but the example in italics says that Rex starts with +1 Capital. From the description, it sounds like Rex selected “Mysterious Secondary Interests”. It also seems like +2 Capital at the start is pretty darn strong.