Games Night Catch-Up (Part 2)

How did we get to be planning a smuggling operation that takes place during a charity DJing gig? This will see the three of us jump out of a plane - while one of us spins his decks - all so that we can hopefully hide in plain sight the fact that we are smuggling anything at all.

The previous plan was looking like it was going to involve a lot of really crazy legwork and sneakiness - either persuade someone else to act as a mule, or else sneak the materials on to an official who wouldn't be likely to be searched at customs, and then steal them back from them after they have got back in to Liverpool. And all of this while we are possibly under surveillance for previous "crimes". Yikes.

It dawned on us though that all of our plans had been based on the idea that we would be moving the goods by ship. What if they flew? What if it was a private plane, a little less likely to be searched to begin with, but then there was still the matter of getting it past customs at the other end... Then it hit: what if we were to parachute the contraband out of the plane?

And then it really hit: D's character, the East German Rockerboy DJ extraordinaire has been at the heart of every plan that we've made which has gone at least a little well. WHAT IF: Gustav smuggled the goods whilst DJing, jumping out of a plane, DJing in freefall and then after his parachute has opened?

It will take preparation: but really, what was wrong with the plan? How could it possibly go wrong?

I'm sure we'll find out over the coming weeks... More on this after this Thursday's games night!

Games Night Catch-Up (Part 1)

The four of us in our gaming group, including the GM, have lots of things going on lately. This has meant that it has been difficult to keep Tuesday as our night. Take tonight for instance: switched to Thursday.

The good thing is that this gives me the chance to catch up on what we've actually been doing in our Cyberpunk game.

There are several big plot threads running through what we have been trying to accomplish. One is the fact that P's main character owes the company that he works for 20,000 euros: and they've given him a deadline to pay up or else. So we're aiming for several big scores to try and give him the chance to raise the cash.

One of these big scores has sort of paid off: we successfully pulled off an abduction of someone connected with a group that our mysterious overseers wanted investigating. It involved quite a bit of planning, and there is nothing that directly ties P and D's characters to the abduction apart from circumstance. My character, Davey Smith, the Fixer, was the person who actually abducted the person, after staging a car-jacking. The police have called on P and D, but not on me. And we keep rolling Awareness but coming up empty. Are we being followed or are we being paranoid? Are the two mutually exclusive?

D's character, a Rockerboy, actually has a good career. We joke quite a lot about maybe just role-playing being hangers-on and helpers for D's day-job, but actually it would probably be much less risky and much more profitable.

Nearly every plan we come up with lately somehow centres around D's character, a charismatic East German House DJ who is on the rise (and yet somehow finds the time to work these schemes with us). Previously, D was DJing a big club night, which gave us the excuse to invite this person that we abducted. Now we are planning perhaps the most audacious scheme ever: smuggling contraband from the Isle of Man to Liverpool by means of a charity gig that will see the three of us board a plane and skydive into Liverpool, all the while having the contraband secreted about our persons.

Hiding in plain sight, the three of us having never jumped out of a plane ever: what could go wrong?

More on this later, and how we came to this most incredible and so-crazy-it-can't-fail scheme...

GAMES NIGHT!

Looking forward to this evening: we're hurtling back to Soviet Cyberpool and I get the feeling that something big is going to happen. I don't see how it can't. We have been building up to this for weeks. And after finishing the final Joe Pitt book, I am quite prepared to follow my comrades down the rabbit hole and see what we find in the murky underbelly.

Maybe we'll go after the assassination; maybe we'll go for the kidnapping; maybe (please God no, it can't work, it won't work) we'll go through with the smuggling out of the Isle of Man, past the all-seeing gaze of the customs officers. I've been a bit reluctant to follow through on some of these plans before, because they seem doomed to end up with us nursing multiple bullet holes in our skulls: no more. Let's go for it.

The story goes on and on.

Missing Games Night (leads to strange thoughts)

I had to go away for work this week; the workshop was good, great to get back into the groove after a month of working from home, but it did mean that I was away for two nights - and ultimately meant that a weekly games night was cancelled. So who knows what has been happening in Soviet Cyberpool? Which mission will our characters go on? Will our team's leader see reason (and not send us to the Isle of Man)?

(probably not) (if you read this, just kidding P.!) ;)

During my last OU course I really loved the term "Magic Circle" to denote the space/place/time in which the game exists and matters. For a game like the one we are playing, what that magic circle is, and where it comes from is quite fascinating to me. Because if one of the players steps away to get a drink, the magic circle still potentially exists. If we all get up for the mid-session break then it feels like the magic circle is being left at the table. But I don't think that the circle is bound in the dice and character sheets, which are left at the table.

And who knows if magic circles even apply to tabletop RPGs; I'll have to try and find a link, but there are certainly some ludologists who believe that they don't quite qualify as games in the first place...