Show notes, Night City Secrets Episode 8

Game Session 5, Part 3 – It’s Dark In This Hole I’ve Dug

Cover Art for the podcast from “Cyberpunk madness,” by the artist Eddie Del Rio.  

Intro and closing music is from Amoebacrew, called simply "Cyberpunk royalty free music.”  It is available on Youtube:

Background ambient music is from RoyaltyFreeSounds, called “Soundscape Ambient, Cyberpunk Music. Royalty Free.”

It is on Youtube:

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

REF = The Referee

Antigone = Corporate.  Director of Public Relations for the Paupau Collective (PPC in Night City.  PPC is a family autonomous corporation floating out on ships in the Pacific Ocean.  Half-Greek half-Polynesian.

Arianna Papadopoulos-Paupau = (NPC) Corporate.  Antigone’s older sister, the Executive VP of Marketing for the PPC.  They have a good relationship.

“Chewie”= (NPC) Medtech.  Officially, Consuela Jarillo, a Costa Rican doctor currently dating Han.  She is played by the REF. She’s also a pilot.

Eric Genter = (NPC) Corporate.  Senior Director for Petrochem in Night City.  He absolutely hates Antigone for losing face to her a few years ago.  Antigone simply ignores him, but he has it out for her badly. Apparently, he’s now running Petrochem’s Black Ops team.

Hako = Fixer.  Aohako is also Hawaiian, but not related to Han or Antigone. He grew up in Night City and has connections all over the city.  He and Antigone met through their common mentor, Derek Trammel, a former Night City Police Department detective, now a private investigator.

Han = Solo. Full name is “Hanakahi Lonoehu.”  The team Solo and pilot, bioscultped to look like Harrison Ford, though he also has spiky short hair. Native Hawaiian, half-Polynesian, cousin to Antigone.

“Kat” Katrina = (NPC) A Solo merc-for-hire contracted by Eric Genter to kidnap Antigone and take her to a Petrochem warehouse.

Marcella Lemieux = (NPC) A cop working on the Night City Police Department.  She has known Hako for many years and actively is concerned for his safety, so she is willing to help him out.

Mikael Papadopoulos-Paupau = (NPC)  Medtech. Antigone’s younger brother, the Director of Research and Development for the PPC.  He admires his older sister.

Rico = (NPC) A second Solo merc-for-hire who is working with Kat to abduct ‘Tig.

Stahl = (NPC) A pilot for hire, short but very capable Japanese Solo and former fighter pilot.  Used to do odd jobs with Han. Frequently hired by Petrochem.

Surány = Netrunner.  A young and nerdy Czech fame-seeker. Raised in Night City, and went to high school with Chewie. Attained some fame for his “March of the Ents” program: he names all his programs after people, places, and events in the Tolkien Mythos, and has been trying to grow a Gandalf beard.

Tatiana = (NPC) A former employee of Han, a dangerous Solo currently working for the Willow Sisterhood - a Poser Gang who bioscult themselves to look like famous women from media and pop culture who played the roles of bad-asses. Tatiana is currently sporting the look of Scarlet Johansen from the Ghost in the Shell movie adaptation.  Tried to kill Han once when he tried to come onto her.

TOC and Timestamps:

** Introduction  @00:26

** Play begins:  @1:13

The team is deliberating on what the hell to do next.

** The team decides that Hako should call Tak, to see whether we think he is the one who burned us: @10:04

** Surány tries to see if he can do anything with the Petrochem encryption box:  @19.45

** Antigone tries to convince Surány and Chewie that she needs to vanish: @21:34

** The team decides to stick together: @29:00

** They decide what to do next, based on what we know so far:  @31:45

** Closing of Session:  @37:00

** Post Session discussion:  @37:30

** End of discussion: @49:36

** Closing Comments:  @50.01

INTRODUCTION TEXT:

Welcome back to Night City Secrets.

The podcast of five gaming friends playing the tabletop RPG Cyberpunk 2020.  

This is episode 8, part three of three of our fifth gaming session.

Antigone is in a pretty dark place - pretty sure she’s brought a corporate war onto the streets of Night City.

The team tries to lift her up and produce a counter-plan.  

This episode features a fair bit of discussion, trying to piece together the past and battle-plan the future, as well as some static between the REF and me.  In the terms of the Joseph Campbell monomyth, this might be right around the “Death & Rebirth” stage of the Hero’s Journey.

CLOSING NOTES:

So after this game session concluded, the REF actually reached out to me the next day, and he was like, “Dude…. it seems like you took that a little personally.  Are you ok?”

If you’ve listened to these episodes from the beginning, you’ll know that I’m the newbie role-player here.  Although I always wanted to try it, it wasn’t until we started playing Cyberpunk 2020 together that I really got to experience it.  

It was a very interesting experience — I could tell that, upon reflection, I was feeling perhaps too invested in my character.  But I tried to explain to the REF that what upset me was I felt that I failed to communicate effectively to the team that I was trying my best to avoid bringing attention on us.  And clearly I felt a sense of personal failure that I didn’t lead effectively.  

The way I resolved this was when I came to explain this by saying that I let Han loose — and Adrian, who plays Han, is always a loose cannon in our gaming circle – and when Han rolled that critical success in his out-of-game activities, he went hog wild and ended up being so successful that we drew the attention of Petrochem and their Black Ops response team.

So, basically, it was Han’s fault.  It is usually Han’s fault. Fricking Adrian….