I've begun adding players. Some have a question or two before I can include them, but it seems like a good group.

Go ahead and introduce yourselves here - as they would have known you in high school. If you decide you've kept in touch after that, you can share more.

Back in her teens, Mel came across as someone more likely to mock and belittle geeks than be friends with them. She was a cheerleader with a bad reputation, who seemed to almost relish being put in detention for breaking school rules. But Mel wouldn't be pigeonholed into a clique. She struck up an odd friendship with Bernie after sneaking in to see Batman Returns despite being several years underage, and was a fan of series like Batman: The Animated Series, Hercules: The Legendary Journeys (she was teased for having a crush on Kevin Sorbo), Xena: Warrior Princess, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

She didn't stay in touch with the others after leaving school, but some might have noticed her in minor film roles or as a minor model (mostly in magazine ads). After she married, she dropped out of sight.

[OOC: Happy to rework the last bit if someone wants to have kept in touch.]

Hi, everyone! My character's name is Caleb Rugger.

Caleb was one of those kids who always took his classes seriously. He was shy and awkward, quiet in class. Some people thought he was stuck up. People that knew Caleb better described him as kind and someone who cared about other people. Caleb often had his nose in a book, and Bernie introduced Caleb to Star Wars, Star Trek, and roleplaying games. Caleb's social life mainly extended to hanging out with Bernie and Bernie's friends, but outside of that, Caleb kept to himself most of the time.

You probably know that Caleb went off to college at the state university and moved away after graduation. You may even have him added as a friend on social media, though he mostly just posts quotations from books and almost never posts photos.

Jonathan first crossed path with Bernie in the local Blockbuster, where he told Jonathan that he should rent a japanese cartoon. The show amazed Jonathan, who started hounding Bernie once he found him at school, asking him for more shows like that. They spent a lot of time together after that, joining Bernie's circle of geek, and watching various shows both local and foreign, like Transformer, Ulysses 31, Grendizer, and Captain Harlock.

They stayed in contact when Jonathan went to college, but after moving away in hope of finding work in the video game industry, they quickly lost touch with one another.

Now, years later, Jonathan finds himself living in a cheap apartment, working nine to five entering data for some face-less corporation. His few social contacts are with a group of D&D players and game testers, and most of his evenings are filed with replays of old anime, thinking about what he dreamt of back in his youth.

David was a theater kid, one of the types who thought he was going to be a famous actor one day. He was a huge fan of 90s action stars like Schwarzenegger and Seagal, and thought he'd be the next big hero of the silver screen. He watched a lot of movies, of course, which is how he connected with Bernie, both of them being regular customers at the local Blockbuster. He also enjoyed himself the odd video game, with more than a few hours spent on Mortal Kombat, Street Fighter, and Doom. After graduation, David moved out to LA to finally make it big like he'd promised.

The last time any of you might have heard of him was when he started looking for old friends on Facebook, his pursuit of action stardom clearly not having panned out.

Margarita Lowenstine was an ugly duckling in high school. She was short and dumpy with frizzy "Jew-fro" hair and a less-than-clear complexion. She was a theatre-geek, though relegated to chorus and crew. She was also an avid game player, board, MMORPG, and especially tabletop RPGs. Bernie Robinson was a year older than Rita and her first Dungeon Master; you never forget your first. She even asked him to go to prom her Junior Year, but he declined, nicely.

In college, Rita bloomed. She grew four inches in height and a bit more in the bust. Her skin cleared up and she managed to tame her hair and colored it in various shades of red. She actually got some speaking roles in the drama club plays.

After college, she managed to get work in regional theatre and worked her way into an Equity card. She changed her name to Rita Lyons and got representation. She got a couple of appearances on Dawson's Creek (as its popularity sagged) and a semiregular gig on Felicity late in its run. Then she hit a couple of less-popular reality shows.

By 2010, her parents were aging badly and she came home to help them. Her career diminished to dinner theater gigs every couple of years and a local commercial and industrial film every so often. She's working on voice acting now, sending out audition tapes through her agent.

Mommy died in 2015 and she finally had to sell their home and put Pops in a memory unit two years ago. Rita supports herself with her occasional acting gigs and working at Avalon, that New Age/FLGS/head shop downtown, the one in the old Blockbuster location.

Rita had a huge, unexpressed crush on David and would have given anything to be Melanie.

BTW she has changed so much--taller, shapelier, red hair, etc--that no one is likely to recognize her as someone they knew in high school. It's possible Melanie and her husband saw her in a dinner theater production (No Sex Please We're British?) but she'd be billed as Rita Lyons in the program, so not even name recognition.

I haven't strictly defined where you all went to school - I'll leave it as a vague midwestern American suburb of a major metropolitan city unless you guys want to agree on something more specific.

Where life took you after that is up to you. Scattered to the four winds, going to university, pursuing dreams and careers. You have a life. You have ties that bind you to this life, if not in your Aspects than as soft RP elements. No drifters, nobody with no obligations.

The game proper will start at the reading of Bernie's will in Taos, New Mexico. It's currently June 21st, 2021... sunny weather with a day's high of 95°F, an evening low in the 50s.

I'll get a play thread up over the weekend, hopefully ready to go Monday, but you guys should talk out what your relationships were like in high school.

In reply to Margarita Lowenstine (msg # 7):

I can work with this. I don't think David was strictly oblivious to it, but he was reasonably popular so he tended to stick with the cheerleaders and other similarly popular girls when he was looking for someone to date. And now that they're reuniting, things are probably gonna be a bit awkward, to say the least.

@Melanie: Speaking of, if you're okay with it, perhaps our characters dated for a time. Nothing particularly serious- David wasn't really into the whole "commitment" thing back then- but enough that there's a bit of history there.
This message was last edited by the player at 17:13, Fri 01 Oct 2021.

Heartbreak!

I love it!

It was such a long time ago and so much has happened to all of us since then.
This message was last edited by the player at 18:28, Fri 01 Oct 2021.

In reply to David Richardson (msg # 9):

I like it! Mel also wasn't big on commitment back then.

Would anyone have been a fan of Twin Peaks? Part of Mel's backstory is that her parents didn't let her watch it, so she watched what episodes she could round a friend's house.

Bernie would have been a fan.

Jonathan would have spent a lot of time with you around the gaming table, and he would cross path with David at the Blockbuster. But he didn't really keep contact with anyone after leaving for another city, and has barely any presence on social media.

He would likely cross path with Rita before going to the opening of the will, simply because he'd go take a look at the old Blockbuster, and visit her store out of curiosity. I doubt he'd recognize her, but despite his early gray hair, she would easily recognize him.

Dibs on the DnD stuff, Caleb!

What? And give up Bernie’s copies of Tomb of Horrors and Blackmoor, signed by Gygax and Arneson? You wound me, Rita!

Only if I can get his Dreamcast collection. That stuff's hard to find, you know, especially in good working order.

I'm from the UK in real life, but I spent a few weeks in Albuquerque several years ago. Never made it to Taos, though.

Couple of things I found while researching Melanie's arrival...

• Handy site for real-world weather: https://weatherspark.com/h/d/3...#Figures-Temperature
• New Mexico's pandemic status was labelled Turquoise (aka "We're running out of color names" :)), which meant few restrictions.

I've seen some crazy Transformer collections on Reddit! Maybe not worth 300k, but there are some serious collectors out there!

Here's a recent one I saw: https://www.reddit.com/r/trans..._maybe_transformers/

Edit: The person's Instgram post (though Instagram is still down right now): https://www.instagram.com/p/CU...m_medium=share_sheet

And this person apparently likes He-Man as well: https://www.instagram.com/p/CU...m_medium=share_sheet
This message was last edited by the player at 20:27, Mon 04 Oct 2021.

A copy of Super Mario 64 sold at auction for a million and a half USD a few months ago.

In reply to GM (msg # 19):

Yeah, I was thinking about how much things like vintage USS Flags go for (around $3,000). Pop culture collectibles can be worth quite a bit.

Add in collectables, one-offs, prototypes, signed merch... you can hit $300k pretty quick.

Certain collectables only, which is what Melanie's thinking. The silly money goes on incredibly rare finds: pristine, unopened, still-in-their-original-wrapper games, or special edition games that never had many copies. She may be pleasantly surprised, but she's cynical :)

Yeah, that's the big issue. Yes, the first issue of Superman's comic book is worth a lot. The ton of 'first issues' the comic book churned out for investors is worth somewhere between the value of it's paper and nothing.

Of course, Bernie is supposed to be an expert geek, so he's more likely to have good stuff. If he didn't open them.

Is anyone else having difficulty with their Aspects? Being a "normal person" I'm not sure what Rita should be able to DO or BE. What kind of things are you all choosing, if you don't mind sharing? Or is there some sort of suggestions list someone can point me to?

It’s my first FATE game, and I’m still trying to figure things out. I’m playing Caleb according to his interests and personality, things like being awkward around women and having a good memory. We’ll see how it goes. I imagine Rita has good acting skills, for instance, so she would be good at pretending to be people she isn’t.

It can be tough. What I found helpful is to try writing a whole phrase to describe what you think your character should be able to do, before coming up with a few words summery. It helps to make things clearer.

As for what Rita could do, you did mentioned she knew a 'witch', so it would make sense that she'd know a bit about 'real world' magical belief, like how a pentagram should be drawn and why, or even obscure systems like gematria. It doesn't mean you can cast spells, just that you know how people thought magic worked.

Generally speaking as fairly ordinary people it makes sense that your Aspects are primarily geared towards the kind of challenges your life consists of... and not the kind of thing you'll be doing in the more adventurous parts of the game.

However, "advancement" in Aspect Only Fate comes in the form of swapping out those "ordinary" mundane Aspects for those more suited to adventure.

You may ask, wouldn't that make living my normal life more difficult? Yeah, probably. Feel free to roleplay the contrasts. This is why I wanted everyone to have a life, to have family and friends and social groups, so you could dance that balance and see where you end up.

TL;DR: Don't worry if it seems like you don't have "adventure useful" Aspects just yet.
This message was last edited by the GM at 22:39, Fri 08 Oct 2021.

Thanks for the advice, folks.

Just as an example, Rita, my character got into marketing after his acting career went nowhere. So he has the Motivation of A Man's Gotta Eat (because he knows what it's like to be a starving artist) and Smooth Talking Salesman (because he's spent a decade in marketing). The first would probably be used to locate food or other necessities, while the second would be for persuasion or fast-talking people.

In reply to David Richardson (msg # 29):

Or A Man’s Gotta Eat could motivate him to do something awful.

I have been reminded that there is a 4 player VS mode in Mario Kart 64. This doesn't change anything; you were in the karts as soon as somebody powered on the console.

Just realized I reserved 4 karts for 5 players... uh... whatever, there are 2 luigi karts. One's a Waluigi. They operate the same.
This message was last edited by the GM at 23:14, Mon 11 Oct 2021.

I don't think Waluigi was invented until the 2000s, but whatever, let's just roll with it.

Feel free to note incongruities like this in character, too. :D

Obviously if you can come up with a weird plan other than what I'm having you roll for, do that instead. This isn't like the game, you're not constrained to kart operation, you can do whatever someone who found themselves inside a kart could physically do. It doesn't feel as restrictive as the game.

I mean realistically in a race on a set track there's only so many options, but that's what makes Mario Kart a good "first trip" - there's a pretty obvious course of action before you and limited questions about what you SHOULD be doing... but don't feel constrained by that. If you want to try and test the limits of what's going on, nothing is (currently) preventing you from doing so.

Gonna give David another day to post; I'll update over the weekend if he doesn't.

Apologies for the delay, work's been hectic.

No worries.

Only appropriate: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpv1h3d7DQA

If you guys search the vault you'll find basically all nerd/geek/cult classics going back to Universal monster movies. Bernie wasn't just into what was contemporary in the 90s. And he didn't stop watching the same kind of stuff after you lost touch.

In general you can expect to find virtually any games, movies, and tv seasons released up until the early 2000s - provided I'm familiar enough to come up with a scenario based on it.

So if you guys want to come up with a few possibilities (as a group and in-character) and present them to me, I'll pick whichever I feel like has the most potential.

I was wondering about that, if you had a list of some kind.

So far I've heard Pokemon and The Goonies, both of which sound cool to me.

I'd dig some kind of superhero thing, like Batman the Animated Series or X-Men the Animated Series. Ducktales, Transformers, or G. I. Joe would be rad. Star Trek: TNG or DS9, Star Wars (but kind of hard to do a whole movie - maybe just a scene or two?). The Matrix, The Fifth Element. Ghost in the Shell. Legend of Zelda (A Link to the Past, Link's Awakening, Ocarina of Time, etc.). Final Fantasy VII, Chrono Trigger, or another FF game. Monkey Island. (Bernie didn't do this with comics, did he? An issue of Sandman would be wild!)

I'm up for anything!

Alas, the Sandman show has not yet been made. We could visit Discworld, though.

As for other cool places to visit, a trip to visit StarFox or Bucky O'Hare could be fun, as would visiting Tamriel or Azeroth. Oh, and let's not forget my favorite arcade game of all times: Dungeon & Dragon, Tower of Doom!

The tricky part is, as someone mentioned IC, you have no idea what context you'll find yourself in. At least, not until you've done this long enough to identify patterns!

Beginning to suspect that giving players infinite choice in a pbp game is not the greatest of design choices... much easier at a tabletop where the discussion can flow quickly.

If we can't come to a consensus I might have to retool the idea somewhat, make it a bit less sandboxy.

Live and learn, either way!

It can definitely be, but I think the issue here is more a question of 'who will open the door'. We're all pretty much waiting to see if someone has something to add, and wondering who will put in the tape.

Maybe the best thing to do would be to have a mini time skip where we have a meal, and return to where we gather in front of the tv again to start the next jump?

Yeah just let me know what your choice of media is, definitively and I'll set the scene.

Thank you for giving us choices! It can be difficult sometimes in asynchronistic play.

My choices:
1) Goonies
2) Pokémon (I really like Mudkip) =)
3) Star Trek (TOS/TNG/DS9)
4) Blade Runner
5) Final Fantasy VII
6) Legend of Zelda (OoT/LttP/LA)
This message was last edited by the player at 19:20, Sun 14 Nov 2021.

I'm fine with Goonies (I can see Melanie falling foul of the 'slick shoes'!), Star Trek (TOS: Melanie is not going to be happy with the uniform), or maybe Blade Runner.

She's currently worrying about worst-case scenarios, so taking the decision away from her would be a good thing.
This message was last edited by the player at 20:18, Sun 14 Nov 2021.

My main problem is the media I like most (FF VII, Blade Runner, Zelda) is also the stuff that's most potentially dangerous. And Akira is a big yikes for a lot of reasons.

If I had to do ranked choice, personally I think I'd like to go with:

1) Zelda
2) FFVII
3) Pokemon
4) Star Trek

Never actually seen the Goonies so I got no clue what it's actually like.

I’m a 60s kid IRL, so what I actually know about 90s pop culture is from my daughter and what I’ve gleaned from the info superhighway and byways.

I’ll string along with whatever.

So Goonies to start with, and we'll see where we go from there!

And David, the best way to describe the Goonies is the classic 'misfit kids go on a treasure hunt'. A good clean kids movie, with little danger. Well... relatively little danger.

...Does anyone know how to play piano?

Okay, just have someone pick the movie and pop it in IC. Make any other preparations you feel you need to make beforehand.

If everybody's good with Goonies I'll give you until Monday morning CST to get in reactions/preparations/etc and then post the thread for it.

For info, Melanie is wrong about the notes - modern notes look quite different to those of 1985: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Reserve_Note

You can more or less decide what level of pop culture awareness your characters have regarding the specifics of any given adventure.

If you want to "recall" the kinds of fact that most people would need to google to remember, I'll probably ask for a roll. This is a way that your character might remember more than you, the player.

Sorry for being out so long. Thanksgiving was kind of messy and I'm just getting back in the swing.

No worries.

Sorry for the delay - holiday stuff. Update soon.

Happy Holidays!

Merry holidays, all!

Well, it's a month since the GM has logged in to this game and longer since he posted.

Is that a wrap?

I hope they're okay, especially with Omicron lurking.

Same here, hope they're OK.

Hopefully, he just has post-holiday exhaustion. Though it looks like his other game is also frozen.