Going to Hammercon

Wow, after all that posting stuff about Mecha I've been pretty quite on this blog.  However no regrets and I'm sure that I'll have a bunch to post after I get back from HammerCon IV this weekend (cue some faint fan-fair - wooo wooo).  I've signed up to run a game of Civilization and a game of Galactic Emperor this year and I sincerely hope that I get a good turnout since some crazy administrative problems prevented my games from getting  posted for two weeks and thus missed pre-registration.

And it's Avalon Hill Civilization - not them new ones.  Old school - that game still rocks even if there are issues with length - I can still say that I've enjoyed every game.  I would have liked to run Twilight Imperium 3 again because it was a good time and I really enjoyed finally getting to take it for a spin, however I did say last year that if it went well I should run Civ next time since it's out of print and a lot of people have never got to check it out.  So here we are next year and I'm hoping to get a full on 7 player game going.  It's going to run from 11am - 7:30 pm which should be enough time but might scare off some players.  If it goes well maybe next year I can run Machiavelli...

Galactic Emperor is because I am not going to be playing TI3 this time.  It cover the same ground but is a little lighter fare.  I enjoyed it but I'm going to have to cram on the rules again just to be sure I can run it smoothly.  It's supposed to be a 90 minute game but I an see it taking 3 hours.  I'm going to supplement the 4 hour timeslot with some Zombies!!! or something.

So looking forward to some fun in The Hammer.

Mecha - Loose ends

Examining the traffic statistics, apparently this blog is the most popular with Russian adult sites, leading me to believe that Mecha means something else over there.  Anyway I realized that I hadn't posted the stats for the Jeanne D'Arc pilots and I really wanted to do that.  As I mentioned before - I would like to actually compile this whole lot into a PDF at some point but that might take a little time and at the very least I want it to be here and available.

So here are the pilots of the Jeanne D'Arc:

Gamma Squadron:

Squad Leader: Flight Lieutenant Sara La Touré Str: 2     Move: 4     Piloting: 3 Agl: 2    Def: 3         Combat: 3 Int: 2     Eng: 3         Other: 2 Will: 2   Att: 6		Wing Second:  Flight Officer Paul Chan Str: 2     Att: 3     Piloting: 4 Agl: 3    Mov: 3    Combat: 2 Int: 3     Eng: 4    Other: 2 Will: 2   Def: 3
Pilots:  Flight Officers Mai, Honzo and Chett Str: 2     Def: 3     Piloting: 2 Agl: 2     Mov: 4    Combat: 2 Int: 3     Eng: 4    Other: 1 Will: 3   Att: 5

Beta Squadron:

Squad Leader: Flight Lieutenant Lon Granger Str: 3     Eng: 4     Piloting: 4 Agl: 3    Mov: 5      Combat: 3 Int: 4     Att: 6         Other: 2 Will: 3   Def: 5		Wing Second:  Flight Lieutenant Kate Dorogaya Str: 2     Def: 3     Piloting: 3 Agl: 3    Att: 5    Combat: 3 Int: 4     Eng: 5    Other: 2 Will: 2   Mov: 4
Pilots:  Flight Officers Hiro, Ted, Vlad Str: 2     Att: 4     Piloting: 3 Agl: 2     Mov: 3    Combat: 2 Int: 3     Eng: 4    Other: 1 Will: 3   Def: 4

Alpha Squadron:

Squad Leader: Lt Commander Zev 238 Str: 3     Att: 5    Piloting: 4 Agl: 4    Mov: 6    Combat: 3 Int: 4     Def: 5      Other: 3 Will: 3   Eng: 4		Wing Second:  Flight Lieutenant Soren Lausen Str: 3     Def: 4     Piloting: 3 Agl: 3    Att: 5    Combat: 3 Int: 4     Eng: 5    Other: 2 Will: 2   Mov: 4
Pilots:  Flight Officers Victor, Claire, Seamus Str: 2     Def: 3     Piloting: 3 Agl: 3     Mov: 5    Combat: 3 Int: 3     Eng: 4    Other: 2 Will: 3   Att: 5

Mecha - summing up

I like it.  I think that Mecha is a interesting game and although I have some problems with it, I can see that there are solutions to be had as well.  I'm pretty interested seeing what's in the Mecha: Mercenaries book if it ever comes out, because I think the game can benefit from an infusion of some Battletech type mojo.  I wonder what the mercenaries book will have in it?  I hope that there are some simple but interesting rules for things like campaigning and resource management (like managing your crew's fuel and ammo).  In any case there's lots of opportunity for customizing this game in interesting ways.

The things I liked about the game were also the source of the biggest problems.  The combat system is a lot of fun and the Tactical Waypoint is a great mechanic - but pretty easy for the players to wreck a combat if they have a lot of tactical points.  I'd like to see more detailed rules on limiting how players use tactical points during setup or investigate some reasonable ways the GM could move the tactical waypoint mid combat to complicate the battle.  That might partly be my unfamiliarity with the combat rules however.  The other thing was the player scenes.  Most RPGs I've played have had the conflict resolution occur at the action level - meaning that players would take an action and then resolve the action with a mechanic.  In Mecha the player conflict resolution occurs at a higher level - the scene level.  This is pretty cool but means that players are doing a lot with those scenes and if the mechanical focus of the conflict resolution is for them to get points -they will focus on doing that over story development.

Id really like to figure out how to use player scenes to encourage the players to contribute to the story instead of optimizing their characters.  I understand that this can be managed by ensuring that the players understand how their scenes can drive the events, but I think that there needs to be a mechanic in place to offset the players having that total narrative control tied to a reward mechanic. I tired to tweak the system by making players use their traits to complicate their scenes in order to get advancement points, but I think that maybe instead some of the decision points in a scene need to be spread out among the whole group so that the vested interest of the group is in making the story work.  In Fiasco the players have a set of objects/locations/needs to interact with and they can choose to either narrate their scene or resolve it.  I think that aspects of those scene sharing mechanics could work here.  Perhaps a player could state their scene type and then each other player would get to add one story element into the scene that the player would have to incorporate.   So the acting player might say they are doing a Recovery scene to heal some damage and then the other players would add in turn: 

1. A workout session in the gym

2. Lon Granger (the cocky wing lead of Beta Squad)

3. It's Oktoberfest!

4. Player's trait of Proud 

The player would then incorporate these items into their scene like so: They are working through a physical therapy session in the ship's gym after getting hurt in the last fight with CTA forces.  Lon Granger comes in to limber up for his big mission in a few days.  Then Lon starts boasting how great his squadron is and how his guys would never have let that CTA pilot get a bead on him like that and the player can't ignore his goading any more. Oh yeah?  Yeah!  Some chest beating occurs and the PT trainer says to take it outside (which on the ship means stop right now since outside is deep space).  They head out into the corridor, still arguing and then they notice the loud singing coming from the mess hall.  It's the Oktoberfest party!  The player calls Lon a lightweight in from of the whole room and challenges Lon to a drinking contest in the mess and so the GM adds to the difficulty of the recovery roll (since he's now cutting PT and drinking a pile of beer).  He better make it or he's going to loose some face here!

I don't know exactly how this would work but I see some potential here.  I do like that Scene much more than having the player say I do a Recovery scene and my objective is to heal up me and Jimbo.  We read books for a bit - and I rolled two successes.  I think that by having each player add story elements to the scene it's more likely that these common elements will get reused or at least come from a shared design pool instead of players constantly incorporating new story elements from their internal designs to push their personal story along and having the common story get unfocused.  I have no proof that this is the case however.   It also changes the tone of player scenes by introducing an element of ad-libbing which some people might enjoy but others might not.

Anyway Mecha is cool and you should check it out.

Mecha - Episode 5 Escape Velocity

And so we come to the end of the story arc, Episode 5 should give the players a chance to fight with their new Mecha and win or loose - establish a setting and a number of plots for them to follow up on in the continuing saga of our pilots facing Alien invaders, CTA machinations, and day to day drama in the SRS: Coalition 2171.*

The players make it back to the Jeanne D'Arc as repairs are under way and preparations for battle are frantically being made.  They learn that the Jeanne D'Arc suffered a mysterious system breakdown exactly when the communications went down.  It's obvious but not proven that this was caused by the CTA as they pulled out - taking everything they could carry and possibly even detonating charges to seal off the rest.  The reason for this is that the INTRUDER changed course and greatly increased it's velocity - heading directly for 2060 Chiron.  The CTA ship Enterprise is fleeing the scene with the booty -  leaving the Jeanne D'Arc to face the INTRUDER.  What a bunch of dicks!

Players have little time to prepare before they must suit up and defend the meet the incoming Aliens. Things look grim, however they now have Babylonian super science on their side!  If the players haven't selected their new ship/mecha points and their configurations and associated traits yet, this should be done prior to the player scenes.

I'd also make sure that the players have at least one overdrive point each so they can use their new configurations.  Since they haven't been budgeting for this, if the players are tapped out either let them exchange some AP for Overdrive or have an additional player scene session where the players all have to do social scenes.

-- Player Scenes --

It's unfortunate I never got to play test this far, because I think that the overall story experience would have been better for the players.  Had they played their scenes I expect they would have focused on gathering Tactical points and Overdrive over Recovery scenes.  Maybe we would have even have done a follow up session where the players would start driving more of the story.  Even if this had just remained a one-shot session it would have been better to go out with a bang than the grind that Episode 4 turned into

-- Combat --

This combat has three Alien Aces and 6 base 3 mooks.  It's basically a rematch of the combat in Episode 3 but with the configuration mechanics on the table to balance the odds.

The Bullseye Battle map is set up as per the book, players choosing to start in Quadrants 1&2 and the Aliens in 3&4. The Tactical Way point here represents the players keeping the Alien forces occupied long enough for the Jeanne D'Arc to blast the Alien comet with her capitol ship laser batteries.  The way point is in Quadrant 4 sector 2.


Stats for the Alien Aces are as follows:

ATT: 6
DEF: 5
ENG: 4
MOV: 5
Piloting (Mech Combat): 4

Weapons:
4/Energy Bolt (Laser)
3/Energy Bolt (Laser)
1/Anti Matter Projectile (Antimatter)
0/Physical

Ace1 has the Boomer and Defender configs
Aces 2 and 3 have the Disruptor and Defender configs


If the players win, the Jeanne D'Arc will manage to deliver enough of a beating on their comet-like mother ship to destroy it, leaving their wreckage behind for the Coalition to study.  If the Aliens Win - the Jeanne D'Arc will retreat towards the Saturn colonies and the Aliens will blow up (or inhabit?) 2060 Chiron and then return to their inner planet trajectory.

That's the end of this story arc and the crew of the Jeanne D'Arc has a lot of directions to go in from here.  Do the aliens keep coming?  Who are they and what do they want?  What does the CTA do with the technology they acquired?  How has this incident impacted political relations and what about that joint forces team forming up to meet INTRUDER.  What's the Republic of China doing about all this?  And what about Lon Granger and Beta Squadron - what happens to them?  And most important - who's the real person behind that sexy voice on giving situation reports the comms?

Tune in next Episode to find out!


*or SRS: Coalition 2171 (Young Space Pilots in Love).

Mecha - Episode 4 2060 Chiron

After Episode 3, the players are going to be somewhere in trans-Neptune space and wondering just what it was that they fought - and why that thing is barrelling towards the inner planets at more than 1% the speed of light.  After the tragic destruction of the Gunnar Thorson and the loss of her crew,  dinner conversation on the Jeanne D'Arc is likely to oscillate wildly between shocked grief, intense scientific curiosity, and a military grade xenophobia.
Describing this situation and working it into the player scenes in a way that the players don't just take for granted is going to be pretty hard in an action orientated game like Mecha, and I wish I had had the resources to work up a bunch of multimedia or audio flies to play to set this scene properly without taking a long time describing it to the players and slowing down the game.  After this brief atmospheric description, the players will once more get a situation/operational briefing on their consoles.

This message is TOP SECRET

Coalition Space Forces Command & Operations has designated the object P/2170 VG as a Hostile Entity Codename INTRUDER.  INTRUDER is on a intercept orbit with Earth.  INTRUDER is travelling at a velocity of 1.4 PSOL and is expected to be within near Earth space in 43 days 20 hours.  CTA and Republic forces have been apprised of the situation and a multilateral force is currently being assembled to intercept INTRUDER.   

Coalition and CTA Listening posts have identified a unnatural and unidentified signal originating from trans-saturnine proto-comet 95P/Chiron also designated as 2060 Chiron.  The CTA has dispatched the Carrier Enterprise from Martian orbit to investigate the signal and to determine if it is in any way related to the appearance of INTRUDER.  The Jeanne D'Arc is the closest active carrier and is to proceed at best possible speed to 2060 Chiron and join the CTA in these operations.  Estimated travel time of the Enterprise is 20.4 days.  Estimated travel time for Jeanne D'Arc is 21 days assuming successful gravity slingshot. 

Secure point-to-point communication protocols are now in effect for all military and private transmissions.  

This setup is a lot more clean than the one I actually provided to the players.  It also glosses over some setting established animosity that had been built between the Coalition and the CTA forces for player backstories.  The established back-story for one of my players is that the CTA had used a nuke on one of the Coalition's Martian colonies some 30-40 years in the past, and although the Martian colony 'war' was long resolved, that there was still a huge amount of resentment still there in the descendants of the surviving Coalition pioneers.

-- Player Scenes --

The players finally got to do a repair scene which was nice since one of them had focused on that skill set and so far had felt a little left out.  They also tried to recoup some tactical points and overdrive, however due to bad rolls whey didn't manage to recoup very many and realized that they were going into combat pretty empty handed. 

-- Combat --

After the player scenes, inform the players that they have arrived at 2060 Chiron and that the Enterprise is here already, station keeping and doing exploratory work.  The Enterprise is sharing their preliminary data and there a number of ground crews exploring some artificial caverns carved into the planetoid.  The players land their ships in a designated cavern and disembark to do some exploring.  They see large statues along the walls of the cavern and all sorts of hieroglyphics and stuff.  Excited researchers on CTA and Coalition com channels are discussing the similarities with Babylonian tablets and architectures.  It becomes very obvious that this is a human installation - however one from many thousands of years ago.
Then rocks fall and damage the ships in the makeshift cavern hanger.  The CTA communication channel cuts out and the last message the players hear is from the Jeanne D'Arc saying:

Bzzt -- INCOMING -- CTA is calling back their pilots --- Bzzzt Bzzzt --- Return.   and so on.

People begin running in all over and lasers start firing, CTA crews grabbing up artifacts and shooting at the Coalition crews.  The players notice that a group of CTA pilots are trying to make their way up a number of ramps that appear to lead behind and up into the back of the statues.  Sure enough the statues appear to be some type of escape pods or ships.  As the cavern rumbles around them the players must fight their way up to the statues.


Then it's into ground based combat.  On the CTA side there are 7 Base 2 mooks and one enemy Ace: Gus the platoon sergeant.


The battle board is set up with the following:

Quadrant 1 Sector 6; The PCs
Quadrant 2 Sector 1: 2 mooks
Quadrant 4, Sector 1: 2 mooks, Sector 2: 2 mooks
Quadrant 3, Sector 6, Gus and one mook
The Tatical Waypoint is in the center of the map.

If the players manage to capture the way-point they are the ones that climb into those statues and therefore are the ones who discover that these are actually ancient Babylonian mecha which will bond with their souls and which were created to fight the alien invaders they now face.  If they don't manage to win the combat the CTA will fly off in the mecha and the players will be in dire straits until they notice that some of the shattered tablets* and artifacts in the cavern wreckage have leaked some sort of glowing slime onto their fighters.  The fighters are invaded by a nano technology repairs them so the players can fly back to the Jeanne D'Arc but that also mutates the ships into a sort of proto-mecha, which over time will grow into full mecha powers and change the nature of Coalition technology forever.

Stats for the mecha are 2/2/2/2 with 3 points allocatable by the players (max of 4 per stat) when they bond with them.  They also pick 2 configurations and inherit the associated traits.  Their link stats are the same as they've been using for their fighters.

Stats for the proto-mecha are the players get to add 4 points to their ship stats (max of 4 per stat) and choose one configuration and it's associated trait.

This is where the game ground to a total halt and it was clear where I had screwed up.  Firstly I had made the class 2 mooks above as 2x2 'aces', not actually mooks - this had the effect of making them made them incredibly hard to take out.  Having that many enemies with stability to soak up damage turned this exciting battle into a grind as the players kept damaging them and they kept coming back to take the way-point.  It was a long and dispiriting drag as the players kept knocking the enemy out of the centre only to have them come back and slowly one by one take the players out.  Secondly, the players didn't have any tactical points and very little overdrive and they used that up mostly to soak damage on defence rolls and maintain their ground.  I think had I changed the enemy grunts into mooks this fight would have had a much different tone.  They still might have won however if they had saved even one tactical point from their first fight with the aliens.  

In any case the players lost the fight and I lost their interest since this battle ground through the remaining time we had to play.  They got the nanopaste and not the cool mecha.  They were more worried about grey goo scenarios than excited over choosing configurations.  I also finally told them what game they were playing.  In the pre battle setup I read to them from the Enûma Eliš which was all super cool in theory, but they had already checked out by that time. I think that the amount of information dumped on them in this scene was too much and they had too little impact from their scenes - they really felt that the story was out of their hands by this point since they had been playing scenes to gain points and advancement of their character and left all the narration to me.  I was dictating the direction of events more than you might in most Mecha games but I thought that this would be acceptable in a starter type scenario.  I think however that if they had been using the setting and NPCs in their scenes more, they might have had more investment in the story and the events would have seemed more organic to them.  I still think there needs to be a way to achieve this mechanically by splitting the scene narration and resolution up a bit between the players.




*These would be the Tablets of Destiny for you ancient Babylonian gods following along at home.  Obviously that's a nanotech delivery system if you understand the texts...

Mecha - Episode 3 The Gunnar Thorson

Episode 3 is where the training wheels come off.  It's important to let the players know that they are getting close to some active duty so that they can do their scenes and collect some Overdrive and Tactical Points for the upcoming fight.  The Jeanne D'Arc is doing her deceleration burn so that she can rendezvous with the Gunnar Thorson, the other CSF carrier assigned to the outer solar system.  The Gunnar Thorson is a slightly newer ship with a larger crew compliment, commanded by Captain Dallas.   Spirit on the ship is high as a number of the pilots now on the GT were pilots who recently served on the Jeanne D'Arc.

Players receive a mission update on their terminals from the Captain:

This message is TOP SECRET
August 27, 2171. 

We have received the following encoded message from CSF Command and Operations:

On NOVEMBER 14 Coalition Deep Space listening post registered an previously unidentified long period comet designated C/2170 VG entering the solar system from trans-Kuiper space.  While establishing a routine trajectory for C/2170 VG, the object's orbit was observed to become perturbed and it was reclassified as P/2170 VG, a short period comet.  After the object's trajectory was perturbed a second time into a very short period elliptical orbit, P/2170 VG was immediately classified as a object of high interest by Coalition researchers. 

The Gunnar Thorson was dispatched to intercept and undertake close range reconnaissance of P/2170 VG.  On August 3, the Gunnar Thorson sent a OMEGA level secure message to CSF CO detailing the results of long range scans which detected the presence of an unidentified low level energy signature on P/2170 VG. 

The Jeanne D'Arc was subsequently dispatched to make a routine rendezvous with the Gunnar Thorson.  Details of P/2170 VG and this mission have been CLASSIFIED to be provided to crew members on arrival.  

BETA level security has been assigned to this mission.  Only encrypted short range point to point communications protocols are sanctioned.

There really is no way to do this where the players won't suspect Aliens as soon as they hear this information.  That's fine - that's not the twist but let them believe it is.

-- Player Scenes --

The players still hadn't had to worry about repair or recovery and seemed to have the hang of using Overdrive and tactical points in combat.  Recognizing the values of these in combat, the players tried for some tactical points and to build up some of their overdrive they had spent in the previous combat.  As before I found that the player scenes were more utilitarian and they weren't moving the story along as much as working on character advancement.  Again I think that there needs to be some kind of game mechanic to counter this.

--Combat--

Immediately after the player scenes the Battle Stations alarm sounds and players are rushed into their ships.  As they suit up and do pre-flight checks the flight officer gives them a short panicked but professional situation report:

We have visual contact with the Gunnar Thorson.  Their birds are in the air.  Unidentified hostiles are engaging.  

 - and as they launch the sit rep continues:

We can't establish coms.  It looks bad people.  I don't even know what the hell those things are!  Wait.  OH MY GOD SHE'S DOWN!  SHE IS DOWN!  We have confirmation that the Thorson is breaking up!

- and as they form up

Hostiles have some sort of signal damper and we can't establish EM or laser com locks with the GT pilots. It looks like some of them are making a break for us.  ESCORT THOSE PEOPLE IN!

So then set up the battle board. The Aliens team has 6 Base 2 mooks and two 'Ace pilots' M1 and M2.  The Alien ships look more like rocks than ships and the Aces look like rocks with tentacles.  Deploy as follows:

1. Quadrant 3, Sector 6: 2 mooks
2. Quadrant 3, Sector 5: M2
3. Quadrant 4, Sector 1: 2 mooks and M1
4. Quadrant 2, Sector 1: 2 mooks, 
5. Quadrant 4, Sector 5: Tatical Waypoint (Friendly Pilot)
6. Quadrant 1, Sector 6: The PCs

Stats for the Alien Aces are as follows:

ATT: 6
DEF: 5
ENG: 4
MOV: 5
Piloting (Mech Combat): 4

Weapons:
4/Energy Bolt (Laser)
3/Energy Bolt (Laser)
1/Anti Matter Projectile (Antimater)
0/Physical 

M1 has the Boomer and Defender configuraitons
M2 has the Disrupter and Defender Config

This is the first real combat and the first time players will encounter configurations and physical combat between ships.  Remember you have not mentioned MECHA at this point, and so this should seem unfair and scare the players since they have neither of these capabilities.

If the Aliens win the combat then the Jeanne D'Arc will call back her pilots and will rescues no pilots from the GT and flee the scene.  If the Players win then they will rescue pilots and the Jeanne D'Arc will flee the scene. In either case P/2170 VG will continue on it's way towards the sun.

Lets just say this was supposed to be really tense and exciting combat.  However what happened was the players spent 3 Tactical Points to bring the waypoint into Q1:S4 and so won the combat before the aliens had a chance to close the distance or use their configurations.  Each side got off a couple shots and then it was over.  It was terrible for me but great for the players who thought that they were now the Kings of Space France.  Good for them.  They paid for it later.

Mecha - Episode 2 Welcome to the Jeanne D'Arc

Episode 2 follows pretty close from Episode 1, there were no real consequences from the battle that would impact things.  That's not the best but it's good for an introduction.  The real push for Episode 2 is introducing the ecosystem.  Hopefully this will create a toolbox for the PCs to play with.

The crew roster is a good mix of quality folks from the Coalition member states.  North American culture is still widely represented since both geographic California and New York are Coalition members, however I thought it pretty important to stress Japanese, UK, Russian and German as being predominant players in the coalition and to carry that flavour into the crew.  

The short crew roster is as follows:

Captain: Masaharu Homma (Japan)
Commander: John J. Adams (West American)
Doctor: Zachary Smith (??) and his assistant Penny (West American)
Flight Inspector: Wilheim Tarken (German)
Air Officer; Silvie Izenak (Basque)
Primary Flight Control: Jack Udachi (Russian)
Cook: Ruby L'Orange (French)
Fire Control Crew:  Al Franken and Tom Davis et al.
Ordinance Officer: Don West (West American)
Flight Mechanic: Claude Gagnon (French)

Since there are 63 crew on board, this leaves a lot of room for players to create NPCs.

The players receive notice on their terminals that the Jeanne D'Arc is now under-way.  The mission details state that they are moving to rendezvous with the CSF Carrier Gunnar Thorson and that this will take some 2 weeks travel.

-Player Scenes-

Players again worked on social scenes involving their goals and earned a couple AP by invoking their traits as a penalty.  They didn't latch onto any of the crew as story foils and I don't think that they caught any of the pop culture references.  I was a bit sad about this but it did make my job easier not having to try impersonating characters I half remembered from Lost In Space or trying to do a credible Russian or Japanese Accent.  I also noticed how quickly the player scenes had became functional instead of narrative.  Players would work at getting overdrive/TA points and achieving their goals to get AP points as efficiently as possible and not worry about developing the overall story or interacting with the NPCs except in the generic.  Partly I think that comes as baggage from GM run games where the story is the GM's responsibility. I hoped that players would play with 'the toys' more than they did. That's a logical player reaction I think and I don't know how you would offset this, perhaps some mechanic that allowed the other players opportunity to interact in or direct the scenes ala Fiasco would introduce more dynamics into the system.

-Combat-

The players are told to report to Major West and find themselves together in the ships gymnasium which has been cleared of equipment and readied for some low G combat exercises.  They are told to don flack vests and pistols. It's basically Laser tag in space so all damage is virtual again and not saved after the Episode.  Players are put into teams and must play king of the mountain - holding the flag point for the specified period of time.  The teams start on opposing quadrants and the tactical objective is in the centre.

The combat for this episode was personal combat to introduce that part of the game.  Because this was another introduction and there was no story consequence of the combat  I thought it would be a lot easier for me and a lot more fun to have the players wail on each other.  It turned out that this was very fun and they really threw themselves into the fight - chewing through most of their overdrive points in a meaningless but very fun battle.  They also remarked that this was not good strategy but that they were doing it anyway.  It was probably the most satisfying combat of the evening for them.