Josh, David and I (Cy) played a round of Remember Tomorrow at the Aug 5th meetup.

David's character was a a rough and tumble mob gopher with his memories missing, cut out of the base of his skull. I was playing a sentient FAA computer trying to get free, and Josh was playing a sister from the sticks trying to find her brother, stuck in some sort of online game. The main opposition ended up being the Living Asset Allocation Corporation, a kind of modern day slavery outfit with a sideline in weird medical technology. Backing them up were the corrupt cops of Atlanta, and a gang of chinese hackers trying to take over transportation infrastructure.

We started off with a few deals. I used LAAC to purchase a woman's body to control. Josh joined up with the cops to get word on his brother, while David made some deals with the chinese hackers to inspect the odd tech in his brain stem. I seduced David in my purloined body, when the LAAC attacked my apartment. David swooped in to the rescue, gunned a bunch of them down, and we rode off into the sunset. The cops tipped Josh off to the LAAC, and he tried to break into their computer records, finding some information about and FAA facility where her brother was being kept. Josh and David eventually teamed up from their hatred of the LAAC, found and infiltrated their facility. Where David recovered a chunk of brain with his name, and some data disks. And a disk and brain sample from his girlfriend as well. The chinese hackers tried to double cross him while replacing his brain, and he gunned them down to a man. Josh broke into the FAA facility, saw but couldn't get to her brother, and removed a computer (containing my AI programs) to try to find information. I, running the FAA facility, saw this and met up with her. We talked about family and what might be so important to drive someone to risk their lives, the law, and the lives of others. She ended up convincing me that human connection was important. I gave her all the access codes she needed to release her brother, but told her he was there of his own choice and could leave if he wanted to. She ended up deciding to respect his wishes.

This game ended up feeling more muddled than the last two. I was in a kind of a grey area between faction and PC, since I'd stolen David's brain/memories and used his body and was holding Josh's brother. So we ended up with a lot of PC-PC conflicts in scenes like the FAA breakin that would normally be PC-Faction. PC-PC conflicts don't pack as much punch. The normal outcome seems to be the winner gets a Goal Check, and the loser blows a PCon to get a Goal check. If the instigator happens to win, the loser also gets an NCon, but that's about the only downside. I think PC-PC conflict scenes are probably to be avoided or used very sparingly.

We also ran into more of the agency problem. I'd tried to introduce the chinese hackers as tension and opposition for the AI, but couldn't start a direct conflict, so that plot kind of got lost. I think David also wanted more organized crime/corrupt cops stuff. But we were prevented from driving our own PCs plots. I think creating a faction/plot to oppose one of the other PCs (rather than your own) is a good guideline. Then hopefully you're interested enough in what that faction's up to to drive them against their "main" target.

Writing it down, we actually got a pretty good story out of this. But at the time, it didn't feel quite as satisfying. It feels like the dice are driving decisions. I want just a little more feeling of accomplishment/ choice.