New Food Order (Tier 1)
Purpose: Eliminate food that isn’t made-to-order
Tags: Thin Slicing, Militant, Foodie
Needs: Customers, Patron, Public Relations
Flow: 13
Users
PepperoniTron 9000 (Elitist Pizza Evangelist)
Geneline: Little Caesar (Pretentious, Ambitious, Greasy)
Experiences: Flood/Bleeding 3, Thin Slicing 2
Interface: Laurel Wreath v5 (Ephemera, Noble, Stylish)
Technology: PT Delivery Drone (Negotiation, Pushy, Fragrant), Memory Hug (Flood/Bleeding, Huggable, Bear)
Long-Term Memories:
[ul]
[li]The first time I ever ate a custom-made pizza at my papa Nero’s pizzeria.
[/li][li]The last time I ever ate a non-bespoke food (a hot dog) at a disgusting street vendor’s stall, Hot Dogs are Real Food.
[/li][li]Yesterday, a small, pathetic man named Tony-47 dropped a slice of pizza I made for him on the ground. I cried.
[/li][li]
[/li][/ul]
Arable (Waste Dirt Farmer)
Geneline: Kent (Friendly, Honest, Hard-Working)
Experiences: Cultivation 1, Ghosting 1, Recycling 1, Wetwork 1
Interface: Tactical Sensory Deprivator (Recycling, Feelings, Anesthesia)
Technology: Spaceworm Jim (Cultivation, Recon, Consumption), Silent Self-Cleaning Boots (Ghosting, Kicking, Traversal), Pie in the Sky (Cultivation, Delicious, Emotional)
Long-Term Memories:
[ul]
[li]Spaceworm Jim ate my neighbor’s cat, Pippa.
[/li][li]Fex raised me in the cistern and taught me to manage waste…
[/li][li]The new trainee at work, Nack (a 2G kid). saw my secret farm in the waste plant.
[/li][/ul]
Hatshepsut Constable (Gastritizing Guerilla Chef)
Geneline: Che Ramsey (Sabotage, Gastronomy, Soaring Speeches)
Experiences: Printing 1, Recycling 1, Social Engineering 1
Interfaces: Gastritizer (Recycling, Zero-G Vacuum, Thorough), Edible Mass Ejector (Printing, 3D Food Printer, Artisan), Aggregate Vox Regulator (Ephemera, Speech Synthesizer, Sympathetic)
Technology: My Manufacturer’s Manifesto (Social Engineering, E-Book, Comprehensive)
Long-Term Memories:
[ul]
[li]Getting the Manufacturer’s Manifesto from Gaston
[/li][li]Urgot and Morgan: The Sequel’s joy after eating the first meal I ever made.
[/li][li]A couple going to the Calorie Avalanche vending machine and eating their food capsules without even looking back.
[/li][/ul]
Session 1
The Aggregate accepts the registration of a new MRCZ - “New Food Order”. New Food Order’s three members violently believe that food should be made to order and never mass-produced. Their interface pings with directions to their new MRCZ accommodations and they follow their holo-displays to a cargo container deep in the bowels of the station. As the three MRCZ members file into the container, they see a face peek out from behind a polka-dotted curtain the hides the back half of the space and quickly disappear.
Unsure of what to expect, Hatshepshut nervously introduces himself and the MRCZ. The curtain is drawn aside and three figures step out, noticeably covered in soot and all sporting singed eyebrows and scattered burns. They introduce themselves as “Memeburst”, a MRCZ dedicated to putting on fireworks displays commemorating the memes and trends that are burning up the station. The members of New Food Order quickly whisper to each other - they’re excited about possibly partnering with Memeburst to spread their militant foodie agenda. Arable asks for a demonstration and the Memeburst crew, Ozzy, Flash, and Eddie, happily agree.
Flash closes the doors of the container, excitedly adding that the smoke is the best part of the show. Flash sounds like he been breathing too much smoke as it is. Memeburst pulls out all kinds of mortars and New Food Order is treated to an incredible fireworks display of Arable’s Spaceworm Jim soaring through the sky. The MRCZ is so taken with the display that they don’t question how Memeburst knew about Spaceworm Jim before they arrived. The inside of the cargo container is soon so filled with smoke that it becomes nearly impossible to see anything. Coughing but suitably impressed, the New Food Order team offers to make a pizza for Memeburst and they eagerly agree.
Without warning, PepperoniTron 9000 lunges forward and touches Ozzy’s face, trying to bleed a memory from him. Ozzy fights back but is ultimately too distracted by Hatshepshut giving a rousing speech about pizza to fend off the attempt completely. PepperoniTron 9000 finds a memory about a time that Ozzy blew himself to pieces and bleeds Ozzy’s fear from that memory into a point of data. Zealous about wanting to create the ultimate personal pizza, the New Food Order team discusses how they could incorporate Ozzy’s memory into the pizza. Meanwhile, Flash and Eddie drag Ozzy back to their side of the cargo container with fear in their eyes. “I thought you were going to make us a pizza!” they cry as they rub blasting powder under Ozzy’s nose to rouse him. He frownies PepperoniTron 9000 when he comes to and tries to convince Flash and Eddie to do the same.
Hatshepshut heads over the to printer and sets out to create something that can turn data from memories into edible ingredients. With help from Arable and PepperoniTron 9000, they create the Flavor Tsunami (Ephemera, Converter, Flavoring), though PepperoniTron 9000 has to burn out his Laurel Wreath v5 to ensure that the Tech’s output is edible. The MRCZ are pretty serious about actually cooking the pizza and not printing it so they also need an oven of some kind. Hatshepshut comes up with the idea of stealing a “Calorie Avalanche” vending machine and recycling it with the Flavor Tsunami.
Luckily, Calorie Avalanche machines are all over FreeMarket. The MRCZ drags one back to the cargo container and Arable starts to combine the tech. He accidentally nicks a coolant line inside the Calorie Avalanche machine and the liquid eats away at all the tubing getting calorie goop everywhere. Arable sets Spaceworm Jim to work eating the calorie goop and Hatshepsut uses his Gastritizer to help clean the electronics. With PepperoniTron 9000 and Hatshepshut’s help, they create the Pie in the Sky (Cultivation, Emotional, Delicious). Finally in the possession of all the tech they need, PepperoniTron 9000 feeds the data he bled from Ozzy into the Pie in the Sky and creates a Bomb Pizza (Ephemera, Explosive, Nostalgic). PepperoniTron 9000 gifts the pizza to Memeburst and they quickly accept. The pizza is so good that Ozzy grudgingly rescinds his frownie! The MRCZ quickly ping Ozzy, Flash, and Eddie with friend requests and they are accepted after a brief discussion among the Memeburst crew.
New Food Order’s members have gained a good amount of flow and their MRCZ is now up to 13 flow; just shy of a Tier Challenge.
GM Notes
I used the memory mashup to come up with two situations:
[ul]
[li]PepperoniTron’s papa, Nero, is seen at the Calorie Avalanche machine getting food capsules for himself and his cap, Pippa.
[/li][li]Nack is seen reading a copy of My Manufacturer’s Manifesto outside Hot Dogs are Real Food.
[/li][/ul]
I tossed one of them out to the players by having one of the Memeburst guys tell Hatshepshut that he recognized My Manufacturer’s Manifesto because he saw Nack reading it. Hatshepshut was worried, but ultimately the group was more interested in making a memory pizza than chasing that lead down.
We ran through a lot of challenges this session! The biggest thing I learned is that I have to be much stricter about what users can help with in group challenges. I was pretty flexible in letting them help each other and the result was pretty one-sided challenges that the MRCZ won with lots of margin of victory. I’m definitely going to require much more relevant Geneline tags next time in order for users to get into group challenges.
Overall, this game was a blast. I loved the whole process of coming up with names and tags for the insane things the MRCZ made. I was worried that the game’s lack of guardrails would slow these guys down or leave them confused about what to do, but that wasn’t an issue at all. They’ve done just fine at making their own trouble so far!
I think the next session might involve the MRCZ that makes the Calorie Avalanche machines stirring up trouble while they look for their stolen machine. Maybe Hot Dogs are Real Food will get into the pizza game too since they apparently have a copy of the My Manufacturer’s Manifesto…