Egress: Act 1, Act 1, Scene 6
[[This is a point where I use the Three-Act Framework to add structure. (I’ll try to keep all the different uses of the word Act as clear as possible.) To close A1A1, I roll up an Enemy whom the players will try to overcome. The Enemy is made of Formidable Conditions that will have to be overcome if the teens want to succeed; the balance of Formidable Conditions and Score Dice informs how things shake out for everyone in the end.
The Enemy for A1 is Egress itself, the world-eating game. Calypso recommends that I let “what the Enemy wants” flow from what they do, and from what happens as I play. IE, I’ll play to find out exactly what its end goal is. I just give the Enemy three Conditions for now. The first (from a generic d6 Strengths table) is Hidden Allies 1, representing people and other entities that the teens don’t realize are working against them yet. I roll up the next two from a more involved Custom Conditions table that prompts you with several broad categories to generate something specific. The second (Circumstances + Overt/Flashy + Utility) is Gamification 1, representing Egress’ self-referential ability to incorporate any challenges back into Egress itself, bringing in the menu and music to turn dissent into a boss battle. The third (Mind + Focused + Utility) is Normalization 1, the clouding quality that makes non-players (NPCs if you will) ignore Egress game constructs and find it unremarkable when kids battle with cookware over grist orbs in the parking lot. These are supernatural qualities that work much better because of the ways that this society has primed itself for something like Egress to exist.
Scene 5 was framed in this system around a rolled Catalyst: a direct threat erupts, pushing the protagonists out of their status quo. A looming glitchstep meteor will do that. In the scene following the Catalyst, a Lock-In Goal is declared by the protagonists, and then I make a drama move as an immediate threat.
So I roll a Lock-In Goal. Now that the table is set, what do the protagonists want to do about it? I roll find a cure or remedy, and I’m happy about it. That’s a good one! (Other options would have been things like save themselves from a threat or find out why this is all happening, which might motivate other Egress players they encounter.) Let’s play it out. I roll a scene-setting motif: nourish.]]
It’s Thursday evening, April 13, and Ruby Goslyn has washed the dishes, said goodnight to her Grandma, and finally been able to go to her room, where her stylishly haunty Macboo awaits. Convoke is back online at last, and the bunny icon is excitedly binkying with unread messages. stringedMaven’s the one she’s been dying to talk to, though.
They’ve never called over video or voice. They’ve shared photos they’ve taken, but never of themselves; no more than fingertips in the frame. It’s the same with mindsetAmbassador. They know each other through text and what they choose to present. It makes more sense this way.
They all met on this board called Salt Catalog. It used to mainly be about making people really mad online, and there’s still a crust of that – it’s called Salt Catalog, not Smile Catalog — but people post about all kinds of stuff there: video games, gardening, tax evasion. Mostly video games. And lots of really horrible stuff, too.
There’s a line in every user profile on Salt Catalog with three options:
This user claims to be a male | female | squid.
stringedMaven, timelostPlayboy, and mindsetAmbassador all picked squid.
Sometime last year, mindsetAmbassador posted that ze’d just baked cookies, stringedMaven asked zir to mail him some, and they started talking. Then timelostPlayboy and mindsetAmbassador had a ten-page back-and-forth about knitting, and as a masterstroke timelostPlayboy sent zir some terrible socks. Later, timelostPlayboy posted an ask for new music, and stringedMaven made a recording of some cello arrangements and sent it to her. By the eve of the Winterlights 201X gift exchange, the three of them had swapped Convoke cognomens and become friends off the forum.
Then, like a month ago, timelostPlayboy and mindsetAmbassador had a falling out. Pony doesn’t find it hard to imagine them clashing, but he’s worried that they haven’t made up yet. They all signed up for an Egress 2.0 beta key on the form that was going around their circles. Will they not be able to play together?
Compulsively working his abacus at his bedroom desk, Pony puts it together. The teacup he sent into the ether became fungible data, a digital commodity to be transformed and instantiated elsewhere. Egress is reading the data being fed to it and reincorporating it into the game. The Magentimps had papercraft armor because Ruby showed Egress a paper crane. The Yellions had binocular eyes because Axel captured binoculars. The Cyants had doorknobs because Pony is a huge dumbass.
No no no, Pony repeats as he rubs his temples. He isn’t going to choose between them. He’s not going to judge. He won’t lose either or any or both of his friends. That’s catastrophic thinking. He’s just going to have to work a little harder and help both of them succeed.
Pony hits his Key of the Malleable, Ruby hits her Key of the Loyal, Axel hits zir Key of the Player. They each take +1 DD.
The system clock on Pony’s PC has just rolled over from 9:45 to 9:46 PM, and the same unsigned text is appearing in two of his chat windows at once.
This felt like the moment for the drama move for an immediate threat: someone takes notice.
Oracle: Is it related to 💹?
Yes, and: it’s something big, roll motifs to find out more.
Emperor. Authority (Tyranny). A crumbling throne, a dying line, a final heir.
Skill, Strategy, Society * Intellect.
The Exaltation of the Mind. Smirking Mercury, unkind missive in hand.
I will: tacere, be silent. I use: devotion to great work. I use: unchastity, lust.
That’s silence as in lies of omission and saying not a word more than what or when was intended, and lust like the White Witch and Turkish delight. Playing on short-term wants to tempt people into what this entity wants, along with promising to help them win the game.
Conditions: Silent-3, Authoritative-2, Tempter-2
The truth is, I’ve known ?Who this is since before I touched any dice. She was already here, just waiting for the right random roll to emerge.
This character gets two theme songs; she’s greedy.
Pony puts the chats side by side. Playboy and Ambassador both think they’re alone. He’s dazed.
Oracle: Does Pony accept the offer?
No: He does not. Pony is Conformist and doesn’t like to do things that feel Wrong.
Pony and Ruby raise Rueful Rolemodel and Passive Protege respectively from 1 to 2 for both rejecting the offer. Ruby is Envious and might have accepted if Pony did in front of her, but he didn’t. Axel, who’s Ambitious and Dangerous, grows distant from Pony but may have a reward in zir future. The three of them have each decided to play the game and gain resources to stop its epiphenomena from spinning out of hand and causing wider disaster. And there’s a whole alter world of adventure to explore . . . !
