Playtest Report - Session 2
This will be a report about a magical session.
After emerging from the burrow with a good haul, the Players decide their next step, make allies, and find quests and questions.
The region in use here is an evolved version of the example made in cramOS. Someone familiar might notice many similarities, but also changes.
BACK TO THE SURFACE
We open where we stopped last session, as the Scavengers emerge from the Burrow (B4 on the map) full of Scrap and some new Parts.
I present the directions with clock orientation, and tell them: I will not share a map.
The unknown settlement on the edge (S2 on the map) of the Plateau in their 2oclock, in a gentle slope down.
The canyon (B4-B1 line) that separates both settlements of the Region, going from left to right at 3oclock.
The known settlement of Highest Eyes (S1) on 4oclock, on a flat plain back to where the group came to this burrow from (this was not played, but simply handwaived at the start of session 1).
A series of pipes going along a steep ridge to a probable another burrow in 6oclock (B3).
A sattelite dish and cables pointing to 8oclock, down a bunch of broken plateau plates, going down to another burrow (B5).
Before you read further: of the four Players, who do you think decided to map the map, and how many Players have to decide it's fun to make a map for me to consider not giving them one a successful decision?
The answer is: Kronk, Odicell and L4 all made their own. The only one that didn't was Helios, but admitedly, the Player is already the prolific notetaker.
Hitting the map correctly to traverse and make correct notes on how hard or easy it was to travel became part of the game experience.
Can't get better than this.
After some back and forth of resting on the road - and having to pay 1 extra Scrap - or going back to the settlement, they decide for the clearly easier way down the slope to World's Edge.
Helios also decide to carry with them the half body of the dead Bot from inside, give them proper rites (remember this, it will be important later).
But before they go, I remember: it's the start of a session, time to pay a Scrap to entropy.
Their average of 6 Scraps scavenged from the burrow suddenly felt so little.
One Player wanted to proceed to another burrow, while most felt the need to stop, install new Parts, find their bearings...
And so they chose World's Edge as their next destination.
Here started the first of many perfect interactions related to Scrap management.
The Scrap tax to Rest outside of settlements immediately made it so expensive.
They also became abundatly self aware about both the easier path forward, but also how easy it was to expend Scrap all around. One Scrap just to play, another to travel to the next place?
Soon they meet a group of travelers going away from the settlement: two Vigils and another Bot, leaving the chaos and overpopulated encampment. Informations are traded - the Party learns about the Highest Eyes' orthodox Vigils exiling the moderates, about the landslides, and both parties move on.
A CAMP OF MANY BOTS
World's Edge is immediately overwhelming.
Robots sitting in metal plates outside the gates, a full maintenance - usually a private or minimally protected procedure - happening out in the open.
It's a lively camp; they come across dances and fighting pit, with immediate questions on why would they do that if scrap is so important?
"Well, do we, us humans, only do things that are good for our longevity?
"But scrap is limited."
"So is our time, and yet we also waste it."
The Scavengers find their way inside the camp, which is nothing more than a gigantic tent: a metal plate diagonally stabbed into the earth, making a triangular cover.
Looking for a NPC to converse, they meet Andy, Dandy and Mandy: three Statues - Bots that gave up moving in order to last longer per Scrap - buried to the waist in the sandy soil, laughing and talking among themselves like three old friends slowing living the rest of their days on a porch.
Players are themselves fascinated and even tempted by the Statues' philosophy of life.
Robots that stop moving in order to extract more time out of scraps has been a concept for me from the start.
This interaction was so successful it convinced me to add them as a decentralized "faction"; here and there you find Bots laying still, keeping their entropy to a minimum.
Ultimately, they laugh their minds off and make three friends. Helios even pulled off an excellent trade: with a good use of their Emotion Simulator to sell it, they convinced one of the trio to swap his after all unused leg Part for "4 scraps and a favor".
Dandy thinks of something they actually want: rumors of strange anomalies on the east have circulated for many scraps, and they are indeed very curious to hear about it firsthand.
The Players agree, and Kronk offers one better: to replicate it through their Projector Torso (an amazing use of their Part).
The Players seek the Doctor to extract the leg, as Andy, Dandy, Mandy said they could help with maintenance.
L4 remembers: the full maintenance happening on the outside. And right they were; it was the Doc.
All the Players go through a round of a professional maintenance; they all install their new Parts (L4 got the Hook Leg, Kronk got the Autobalancing Legs, and Helios installed his new bargained Part, a Kinetic Storing Leg).
Odicell grumbled. They were the only one without a new Part on this.
I remind them my own design goal with cramOS: this is a survival game. You need each other to survive, but keep taking the high road, and you will end up dead.
There was no specific reason for them to each take those pieces beyond just going there and taking them. Odicell pulled his weight as much as anyone.
They understood the message.
The Players count their coins; Helios had one Scrap left. Most of them didn't even dare to get their Attributes up, just fixing their HP from 0 to Max. Kronk, with their current 0/1 total HP didn't even heal theirs.
"And next session we will spend a new Scrap just to start". Yeah, L4, you will, and Helios hinces at that.
Suddenly, they wish to find a new Burrow to go again, but with the emergent story, B1 and B2 are now A1 and A2 in my map! The east holds only Anomalies, and the west is far and up away.
*What can I even say here? Shitty heals on purpose, Players realizing Scrap goes like the wind, and trying to find a neighboring Burrow - a hellish, demonic place for Bots, but full of Scrap?
Simply delicious. This is all by design, focused on creating hard decisions, and it is working.
The Party decides to check the Edge of the World before making a decision, tempted to go down into the Rockfall Coast as a solution to their new Scrap thirst.
A DIGRESSION
Everytime the Party moved inside the Camp, I rolled a D10, for a 9 or 10. On a hit, they would find the now fingerless robot from the last burrow, begging for a scrap to get fixed so they can find work.
Here was the moment they met them. The fingerless Bot didn't know the Party was their savior - nor that L4 was thawing them for phaging.
Kronk decides to share a Scrap with them, making a immediate ally. Helios, on the other hand, tells, "I brought your friend, and buried them at that spot; I think you should know".
This revealed the privileged information: they were the ones that saved them, but also the ones responsible for the fingerless problem.
The Bot asks L4 directly for Scrap - "since you were responsible after all.." - to which they responded an eloquently:
"No."
After some rationalization and counting their blessings, the Bot goes with the one gifted scrap to get fixed. A potential, but conflicted, ally.
THE EDGE OF THE WORLD
A beautiful deep red sunset gathers Bots sitting on all the Edges of the tall Plateau. The view is stunning, and many Dancers dance around in delight to their Twin Gods blessing them with this beautiful planet.
The Party finds the Dancers quite interesting: they don't mind their situation. Crimson Rock is their home, and even the Creators wanted to come here after all. Life is to be lived, not escaped.
They ask for what they see on the horizon, and I roll Mountains and Cracked Plains on the Regions table - quickly determined.
The trekking down the cliff towards the next region is treacherous and troublesome; albeit the Party is willing to go since the first stop is a Burrow, I warn them: coming back will be a hell of a climb on a bad trail up. If they go down, they might find themselves struggling to ever return to the Plateau.
And so that settles them on the path toward the Anomalies, then to the settlement of Highest Eyes to try and get some Scrap from the human relics they found in the Burrow.
The fact that only Burrows had Scrap made them wary to do anything else but find another. I had to remind them: maybe the settlement can find you some smaller amounts, or even the roads.
Not the anomalies, though, oh no.
An uneventful crawl towards the Anomaly and they see it:
A simulation of a human village, fully equipped with humans. In its center, a tall spyraling fountain, and a deep red sun floating atop, a small ball of energy.
The simulation was faulty; like someone trying to replicate a sidewalk piece, but trying to draw with concrete. Humans that felt like a a person drawn from memory after years without seeing one. Houses that grew from the ground up, but full of color.
I explain to the Players: legend says that a Bot that touches the sun can achieve great feats. It is powerful enough to generate the Anomaly.
A good place to end the game.
This idea for an Anomaly was the first one I had. A memory of a memory, a loose attempt of replication.
This idea eventually evolved into the current plan of making a table of Anomalies, and leaving the How to each table.
I made sure to also mention Solaris here, since it was my big Inspiration for the world of Crimson Rock, even if they are not that similar, but they got the idea.
FINAL THOUGHTS
I kept wondering, during the game, realizing the spark of something magical flashing before my eyes, if anyone would ever be able to replicate this experience. If my own knowledge of cramOS, of my sources and ideas, allows only me to make such game.
But that is for another post.
Overall, Players need better direction on what kind of lore is known from humans: do they have actual habits, or pure myth?
Upgrades were also impossible at current price. But should they be able to purchase one after a single measly Burrow? I would say no, although I was quite charitable in the Burrow's Scrap amount (I think it was the max loot).
And it is melting away. It's too soon to say it should be more plentiful. Let's see how it evolves.