Fall of the Pyramid (July 31)
Remember Tomorrow
Players: Ben, Jason, Sylvia

We had four heroes with something to prove:

• A corporate courier looking to find out who's been "disappearing" the poor
  
• A 31337 teen haX0r trying to prove his sk1llz by taking down a megacorp
  
• A ronin tough out for vengeance on whoever sold out the rest of his team
  
• A junior scientist working to blow the whistle on shadowy experiments at her employer
  

We had four evil - or at least deeply amoral - corporate factions:

• Pyramid Biotech, with offices all over the globe and sinister research practices
  
• Three Dragons Security, with its suited, sword-carrying goons and its information network
  
• Red Ring Smugglers, engaged in good-old-fashioned piracy on the high seas with heavy arms
  
• Transcorp, sensitive courier service with a bad habit of "retiring" couriers who know too much
  

And we had play! We managed to introduce a character and a faction during play, and got a nicely tangled web of intrigue and shifting loyalties, including a PC-vs-PC standoffs. At the end of the session, two of the characters even managed to get out, as the hacker and the courier both achieved their goals and shredded Pyramid's power to nothing in the process.

I liked how Transcorp got introduced as a bunch of chummy and hip couriers, but then slid into desperate antagonism, because hey, they're a faction.

re Remember Tomorrow in general, in hindsight I think it's a bad plan to set mysteries as story goals. You're better off having the players know what the answers are or where it's going, and playing out the characters getting to the truth, instead of starting with critical holes that we all know need to be filled at some point.

I think that bit both me and Sylvia a little: I didn't say who betrayed my guy, and going forward there was no clear way for another player to know whether they had the authority to answer that mystery for me. The mechanics aren't set up to debate game world truths (compared to something like Shock, where that's one of the key reasons to have a conflict). Same with Sylvia and the disappearing people: it became pretty clear it was Pyramid, but if someone else had said "hey, no, it's these other guys" there isn't a mechanical way to resolve disagreements.

I don't think it's really a flaw with Remember Tomorrow, so much as recognizing the intended style of play. I had a really good time, but I think my character would have worked better if right off the bat I had introduced a faction that had betrayed my guy (or just said who it was), so we'd all be on the same page about where it was going. (This same "blind man's bluff plot" issue came up in an earlier version of Microscope, which is why I'm so aware of it)

Meant to add: that's one of the reasons I switched to the doctor, because I looking for a way to get at the dark secrets of Pyramid that we were alluding to but not able to really tackle.