#astroprisma

Any good tabletop game deserves a session 0. It's good to get your bearings, prep up what you need, get a idea of what everyone is looking for, lines and veils, and typically character gen. It's feels slightly weird to put that logic to a solo ttrpg like this one but I feel like it's better to do it then not. I'm journal-ing all of this for two reasons. The first is so other people can see and explore these kinds of spaces for themselves. A lot of the time people want to see something in action so they themselves can get a idea if they want to do it to. Plus it's a great way to practice writing and story telling so all the more reason to. The second reason is because I need a distraction from the world. Everything is on fire as is and being able to just dive into a game to take my mind off things is nice. Plus if it's a big public thing I feel like I'm more likely to keep up with it. So lets get into it! Starting off with the game of choice. Astroprisma!

So whats the deal with Astroprisma? It's meant to be a solo adventure based game. The story goes you're in a ship in space exploring a 'post-apocalyptic retro futuristic' solar systems. Doing everything you can to survive and live to see your next location. There are different factions that can either help or hinder you depending on your luck and rolls. Space pirates that could come and scrap you and your ship. And a variety of worlds, space stations, or events that could leave you in ruin or riches. I'm a sucker for this kind of vapor wave 80's/90's anime aesthetic. It's got such a good feel to it. If i'm understanding it properly you have a couple ways to play. The end goal, is to explore the whole system and help one of the factions reach their 'final event'. I guess there's where the re-playable value is. There are 5 factions so 5 events you can try to achieve.

Which given the size of the map certainly sounds doable on paper. But we're going to see how it goes. There are a couple modes of play you can choose from. Standard Mode, which is for quicker styles of play where you want to focus on the action and the results. From how it reads this feels like a choose your own adventure style route. But I still think it'd take you some time to get through the whole system. The next mode, and the one I'm going to be using for this little...whatever this is. Is the Journal Mode. Take everything from Standard Mode and now add narratives, which can range from the good to the bad, to your characters last words. If you're asking yourself 'but I'm the narrator how can my character die?' well there are a lot of different tables you can roll on, and your character still has a sheet. Which includes HP. So yes you can absolutely fudge the rolls if you want. This is a solo game and you get the final say, but wheres the fun in that? We have two other rolls that go along with the normal two mentioned above. We've got campaign mode, which takes you to multiple systems. And multiplayer mode....which....just turns this entire thing into one big normal ttrpg...huh. If you like the concept and want to get your friends together I guess that's a thing you can do. Which is awesome in my opinion. Let's get down to character creation to see what we got going on.

There are no form editable sheets as of right now, so I've got a physical copy prepped. I've got two full sets of dice. Some standard note taking stuff. With all this combined I think we're ready to build a character. Maybe. Probably. We're doin in blind y'all. To start off the character building journey we have to pick a Origin. Which I believe is a mix of background and class. At least that's how I'm reading it. Glitchblade reads like the stealth option, Desperado gives me Cowboy Bebop vibes, Wirehead is your tech junky with drones and robots, Chromeskin is your 'typical' cyberpunk 2077/Edge character. Astromancer has the vibes of a wizard. And the Ecoterrorist is...I think they're suppose to be your survivalist? Its got the protagonist backstory. For the sake of this play through lets go Astromancer. What better way to get into a system then go full bore into their spell list. Let's see...armor, stats, start with 20 HP and 20 Energy...you only regen Energy when you're at max health. Good to know. I start with 2 Health Packs, 2 Energy Packs (From my Origin), 2 Hacks (From my Origin), and 2 Star Ship Parts. Neat. Exp is used to get upgrades for myself and my ship. Speaking of I need to build my ship. Let's look at that next.

.....Uuuuh...oh they mean that literally.

On the one hand? That is super awesome. But I am the verbally inclined not the artistically inclined. Game I honestly need a little help here. cltr-f save me! Oh thank funk. They do have prebuilt ships that you can 'purchase' later in the game. But 4 of them are perfect stock for game start.

I keep forgetting to actually share this properly here but. The other Advent Calendar thing I'm doing this year is a story for the soon-to-be-released Solo TTRPG Astroprisma. It's a full mini storyline, about 3/4 of the way through now.

Worked on stressful thing, so of course my answer to calm down is to sketch a character who is just a little unhinged. Meet Davos, major antagonist from my first Astroprisma run. The arm isn’t quite right, but I love how the expression came out in this sketch.

I undid my straps when I saw the habitation rings rotating around the station.

A beam scanned my ship as I approached. Before I could even react, a landing clearance code was issued by a robotic voice over comms. The sequence identified the station as Medusa Sector. It even patched me through to hangar maintenance to schedule repairs.

I asked Hangar Maintenance if they thought any Medusa Agents would want to look over Everest; seemed like someone should look into why this guy went rampant.

"No, and we're limited on our waste facilities. Just space him before you get too close. I don’t want to deal with a fried cyborg."

Alright Everest, into the airlock. I ripped off the name tag from his flight suit before I sealed the door. One day you're a spacefarer crossing the system, the next day you're a rampaging cyborg trying to crush a ship that just came out of jump, and after that you get unceremoniously flushed out of an airlock.

-----

The Tradehub was busy here, and of course I got stuck behind the guy who wanted to haggle with the Weapons Broker. It was no wonder why the broker introduced themselves as Ink; covered with tattoos of plants and animals from some sylvanian planet I've never heard of; Orcus. They were cute though, maybe I'd take the extra time to try haggling too.

I wanted to sell off the counter guard I found on Everest. Ink wanted to trade me for a carbon dagger to defend myself with, commenting that it looked like I could use one. I tried to explain that in my hands, hacks are deadlier than any weapon. I don’t know if they believed me but they did give me directions to the wiredoc while the serum transfer was pending.

I quickly spent the serum I'd just gotten on some extra replacement parts for my ship. I figure if I take care of my ship, my ship will take care of me. Damn, I need a name for that old smuggler rig, every other ship out here has a cool name.

-----

The wiredoc was a young guy named Lirio. I totally unloaded about being attacked straight out of jump and then having someone teleport onto my ship, trying to kill me. He listened as he rebandaged some of my cuts and scanned for any internal damage. He even seemed to care about what I was letting out.

"Do you meditate, Jade? You should try it. We all ended up in this galactic dark age because the humans before us expanded too far, too fast, and lost their balance among the stars. They eventually tore themselves apart just trying to survive! The cyborg…"

"Everest"

"Yes, Everest. He lost his balance between man and machine. Not that cybernetics are evil, but the way you described it, I don’t think it was Everest in there trying to kill you. You need to find balance in here, or you're going to get sent spinning across the stars by everything you bump into out there."

He had tapped a gloved finger against my temple as he finished sharing his wisdom.

The proximity sensors beeped, they had picked up a another craft. Before I could check the readout to see how close it was the metal of the hull screamed as an impact sent my ship spinning. Ambushed straight out of my jump and this guy is dive bombing me? Does he want to kill both of us?

--CRITICAL CONDITION--

Now all the alarms and sirens were screaming at me, the stars were spinning outside the cockpit, and my first thought was to get this guy's name so I can add it to my list. He's going right at the top.

It took me a second to pull myself together and pull my ship out of the spin. I saw him turning to come after me again; no time to think, just time to do. The old smuggler speeder I'm flying has some moves. He only clipped me this time.

I was torn between turning to engage or dumping boost to escape. Honestly… In that moment I had totally forgotten I can just jam that button and jump out of a bad situation.

That’s when I noticed the other ship's pulse jets had stopped glowing.

Then I smelled electrical fire and burning flesh. I wheeled around in the cockpit to look; teleporting onto my ship was a raging cyborg. Well, he has been a cyborg but now he was something else. A vicious war over a body between man and machine. Machine was winning. The eyes of a man that used to be in control of his body stared at me, frightened and in pain. He looked so sorry for both me and himself. The cybernetic body started toward me, its movements erratic, and definitely hostile.

HACK_trojan

So at war between his two halves, he never stood a chance against my hack. I breached and went to work. The cyborg fought back, grabbing me and crushing my body. I didn’t slow down though, it would take more than that to stun me.

HACK_javelin

I was in and I tore through every bit I could. I didn’t stop. I could feel my body being crushed. But he was on my ship, he had me in his grip, it was a race to the bottom.

I won.

We had fallen to the ground when the man and his cybernetics died. I looked at him as I pushed my self away. He wore a flight suit like mine, like any spacefarer. Barely legible over the burnt and melted mess, I read his name tag. Everest. I didn’t add his name to the list.