Mom finally tried playing by herself

I got an SMS from my mom. Seems she's trying to play ME2 herself! She's having trouble with the controls it seems, but still very cool!

Going to call her during the weekend and hear if she tried again ;)

Starting Mass Effect 2

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Yes, I admit it, I'm terrible at blogging, but here's the next installment :P

So we started playing ME2, but this time I wasn't driving :P So the first part of the game is a lot of "How to use multiple keys and the mouse at the same time". I won't lie, its kinda funny to watch, but at the same time I realize I've had a few years of experience with hand-eye coordination and PC gaming.

There was a lot of running into walls and struggling with the camera view, but eventually we got all the way to meeting TIM for the first time.

We even got around to Freedom's Progress. Took a bit of time to kill all the mechs, but my mom felt pretty good about killing that YMIR mech ;)

My mom did ask Tali to come back to the Normandy, but at the same time she decided to give Veetor over to Cerberus. Not sure what will happen because of this, since I only gave them the data.

She was happy to see Joker again.

Next up we landed on Omega to find the scientist salarian who will help with the agent to counteract the Collector Swarm effects :)

There is also a lady called Aria who insists we go see her ;)

Finishing Mass Effect 1 with Mom

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So we had a public holiday this past Thursday and my mom and I managed to finish Mass Effect 1!

We started on Wednesday evening. We got Wrex's family armour, helped Tali with her pilgrimage and went to deal wirh Dr Saleon for Garrus. After that we went to Virmire.

Virmire was exiting. She managed to calm Wrex down and enjoyed Captain Kirrahe's speech. Ashley went with Captain Kirrahe.

The conversation with Sovereign blew her mind. We set the bomb and went to give Ashley backup when she was faced with the choice to save her or Kaiden. She chose Ashley.

Thursday morning we went to Ilos to stop Saren from reaching the conduit. The conversation with Vigil was also very interesting and she was very surprised about the Keepers.

She enjoyed the fight in the Citadel, especially the part where we walked up the side of the Council Tower. We talked to Saren and he shot himself after trying to convince him that he's wrong. She chose the "Focus on Sovereign" option and the Council and Destiny Ascension got destroyed. She almost cried when it looked like Shepard got killed at the end.

She also chose Anderson to serve on the Citadel Council since she really dislikes Udina.

So loved playing through the story! I'm really happy about that and I'm looking forward to seeing what she'll do with the rest of the games.

She also ordered a computer screen so she can play the game when other people want to watch TV. She will be buying the Trilogy for herself and I need to bring the next novel over when I go visit again since she's finished with the first one.
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Mom on Noveria

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(NOTE: My blog contains spoilers, so if you haven't played Mass Effect 1, you have been warned!)

This would be a combination of a few days we played including some time over a holiday.

We managed to get the garage pass and went on our way to peak 15. We had a hilarious encounter where I tried to run over a geth trooper with the Mako. The geth model got stuck sort of inside the Mako model and it kept jumping around. It was hilarious.

We eventually managed to clear peak 15, killed Benezia (which was sad) and freed the Rachni Queen (Wrex was very unimpressed). She usually likes taking Wrex along and then cycles through the other party members.

We also managed to complete Feros over the holiday. After that we did a lot of assignments and talked to everyone on the ship. We've gotten Wrex, Garrus and Tali's missions and will be doing them before we go to Virmire.

My mom is finally starting to warm up to Garrus a little (which is great since she didn't trust him at all).

I also got my mom to read the first Mass Effect novel (Revelation). She's really enjoying it. I never thought I'd see her read a sci-fi book ever.

She wanted to take the second one home, but she has to finish the first game before I'll give it to her :P

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Mom & Liara

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I know I've been neglecting my blog a little, sorry about that guys! Life sometimes dishes up a lot of stuff to do at the same time and you only have so many hours!

So another Thursday came by where I was going to go visit my parents (I'm really excited about playing Mass Effect with my mom), but we ended up going out for dinner. So no gaming but we did discuss a holiday we'll be going on in March. My mom asked me if we can bring the game with on holiday o.O I found this funny because this is usually a no-no and the time is meant to be spent with family. Since we are playing this together, its not the same thing though :P

So eventually we did get to playing some more. I like to do a bit of a recap at the start of each session, since my mom might struggle to remember some details. Though she was quick to remind me that we need to go save that other lady (Liara). So we set off in the Normandy. My mom liked the space "flight" cinematic. Back on the Citadel she was disappointed with the Rapid Transit System because she was expecting to fly, but was given a loading screen instead. I'm renaming this to the Rapid Disappointment System (if you heard how my mom reacted you would agree)

I did take the time to show her what Assignments were compared to missions. I also showed her the Mako :) She's starting to at least recall the controls I'm using to drive stuff :)

We eventually went on the mission to go save Liara. Nothing really amusing happened other than her saying that the Krogan Battlemaster looked like a yellow frog. ("Geel padda")

After the mission we had a chat with Liara (my mom likes investigating) and found out about Benezia and Liara's dad. My mom is adamant to go to Noveria and find Benezia, so I guess we're skipping Feros for now.

We did go to the Noveria System, but got given a few assignments on the Citadel so we decided to stop off there first. We also got the mission with the escaped slave that you get when you take the Colonist background. I've never seen this and my mom and I both thought this was very sad but well done.

We eventually went back to Noveria and started the mission there. That's about how far we played.

My mom is still adamant about trying to play it herself, but she's experiencing a problem I used to have when I was a kid. Other people are using the TV :P

We hooked the computer up to my parents' television and we're playing it there. She was going to play today since she was home alone. I messaged her asking if she played, here's her reply:

"*sigh* I needed to go buy something. when I got back your sister was back and I couldn't play because she was watching TV. then I needed to make dinner"

She has the same problem when my dad is at home, but I expect her to play at some point.

Her opinion about the game so for "Dis so lekker!" (Its so fun!)
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Mom & The Citadel

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As predicted, my mom has been too busy to play the game herself because of work. She seemed a bit disappointed about this though :) An additional note, my friends who understand Afrikaans, imagine all the things my mom says in Afrikaans. hehehe

We did a quick recap since my mom sometimes has trouble remembering things (I'm thinking gaming will help with this). We need to find Septimus to have a chat to him, we need to find Harkin to find out where Garrus is and we need to find Fist so we can find the Quarian that has the data on Saren. We also have a few side quests still open.

Now, I haven't played Mass Effect 1 in ages and apparently I missed quite a few things, so I can't remember the Citadel very well. I just ran around trying to find stuff. My mom also remembers that if something has a blue circle we can interact with it. So we talked to a lot of NPCs and things. We were scanning the Keepers as well. I did explain to he that we don't need to talk to things if she doesn't want to. She said "How else are we supposed to learn things?" Side-quests galore. This play-through might take a while, though its a good thing, since we will be seeing

I forgot what was in the Med Clinic so we went in there to find Fist's men harassing people and Garrus trying to save them. We shot at people and kicked their asses. There was also a funny bit where the crate in the room fell on top of an enemy :P So now we got Garrus in the squad, but my mom doesn't seem to trust him very much. I hope it changes, because really, there is no Shepard without Vakarian :P

At some point we were in the area around Chora's Den. I thought, yay, we can go talk to the Genera-oh crap Fist's men are here! More ass-kicking :) and I explained to my mom what the red triangles on the mini-map were. We cornered Fist and he told us that he tricked the Quarian into meeting Saren's men. Wrex shot him after that and my chided him for killing someone who surrendered. Then we had to rush to safe the Quarian!

So we save Tali and then cut to the scene where we hear the audio file and learn about the Quarian pilgrimage. My mom likes her and the idea of the pilgrimage. So after that our squad consisted of Wrex and Tali :)

So we went back to Chora's Den. All the dancers and things are back now. We talked to the General and convinced him to shape up. We also agreed to help him out of the elcor diplomat. Then there were some random NPCs that you could interact with, but no, my mom wanted to go see the dancers, because they danced so nicely.

So we went to complete the quest with the Asari Consort. During this exchange she kind of flirts with you and offers you credits if you ask for compensation. She also offers you a gift of words. When I was at this part that was confusing but cool and I just chalked it up to asari being mystical. My mom also thinks they are quite spiritual and mystical, so she likes them a lot. My mom didn't think that much of the gift of words though and chose the "That's it?" option. I DIDN'T KNOW SHE HAS SEX WITH YOU IF YOU SAY THAT! Awkward moment #1. What surprised me is that my mom didn't think this was awkward at all and the feeling was on my side only. They don't show anything other than the hand on the side of the glass though, so maybe awkward moment will be more awkward later. (if she romances anyone)

With this not being so awkward for her and her liking asari I'm wondering about the romance options. It would be strange if it went that way.

At this point my mom was getting sleepy, so we decided to go speak with the council. She's now a Spectre :) We then spoke to Anderson and Udina. We can either go to Feros, Noveria or go to find Liara. I just told my mom that we need to do Noveria after finding Liara. Next session we're off to find Liara it seems :)

Edit: Forgot to mention that she jumps up and down when we get "points"(Paragon/Renegade) or credits.
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Terminus Tales: Session 1 Part 2

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So we continue with the second installment of the first session. Part 1 was a bit of an introduction to the characters and a bit of combat. I thought it would be a nice start to get to know each other and what they can do as well as an introduction to the Savage Worlds system for the ones that didn't know it.

We also found out that someone has it in for the Ironfist Battalion!

The Tale

Once the Detuun docks at Omega and the group disembarks, the elcor Captain thanks them.
"Relieved: Thank you for your assistance. We will be making use of the Ironfist Battalion again."

Vinicious contacts the group over the comms to meet him at HQ for a debrief.

[The wiki lists a few districts on Omega. You can read up on them or you would have seen them in Mass Effect 2 and the Omega DLC]

The group head off to the Ironfist Battalion HQ located in the Tuhi district, a commercial district. When they get there the entry-way is a rather large meeting area with a few chairs and displays on the walls showing vids in the background. The area also has a large desk off to one side with a rather busy-looking volus working at it. There are three hallways leading away from the main area. The one to the right is labelled as "Mess Hall" and the middle passage was much wider than the others.

After Vinicious finishes doing something on a datapad, he'll look up and greet the group. "Good job you lot. We got a good review from the elcor. Now, tell me how it went on the ship?"

The group reported on the pirate attack. They also relayed the information about the salarian and the message that they found on the one pirate, making their concerns known.

"Well that's troublesome.It'll take more than their meddling to stop us though." The group inquire further and Vinicious suggest that they go and look up a small merc band called the Crimson Thunder. They met with some difficulties shortly before the job from the elcor and had to bail. The Ironfist Battalion picked up the opportunity since getting into the market escorting ships from Thunawanuro was quite lucrative. They might find them in one of the bars in the Tuhi district. Try The Ugly Bastard, Knuckles or Snooks.

Vinicious reminds them to pick up their credits for the job at Esseno's desk (the volus).

As they mill about the HQ the vids show the news.
[I thought this is a nice addition and tool for a futuristic world that's alive. It also feels more like the games where you hear news reports as you walk around.]
News items that scroll by:

• Bullets fly as the Blue Suns and Blood Pack clash over territory in the Kenzo district. Residents are advised to stay indoors until given the all clear.
• Omega Clinic saves turian merchant riddled with bullets.
• Ironfist Battalion foil pirates’ attempt to steal an elcor ship.
• Aria T’Loak makes an example of a Talon mercenary who thought it was a good idea to leave their tag on one of her walls. More sensitive viewers are advised to avoid the area until clean-up crews are done.
• Clear Springs Pharmaceutical signs a trade agreement with the Turian military.
• Bekk Had-dah opens new shipyard.
• Human colony in the terminus systems sends first batch of criminals to Purgatory.

Min does a couple of searches on the Extranet on some of the news items. [When he asks, I'm able to provide answers :) He didn't really share what he learned, so I'm not going to go into all of it. He did share some info with Pax on the turian merchant. The turian merchant got shot about a week ago.]

The group decided to split up for the day. Pax and Min went to Afterlife for a drink. Wrahm and Nat went off to The Ugly Bastard to "investigate" the other mercs (they went drinking), Boneis went of to the Kenzo district, Pentus went back to the barracks as well as Narro.

Narro did some searches on info on the Crimson Thunder. He found a couple of Extranet articles on a group of Crimson Thunder mercs doing escort duty on Omega. They apparently got ambushed about a week ago. There was only one surviving krogan that made its way to Omega Clinic. Narro shares this info with the group.

Nat and Wrahm find out from the people in the bar that they saw some Crimson Thunder guys at the Knuckles bar. They eventually head that way.

Boneis lands in a bar in the Kenzo district called The Hole. He places some bets on varren fights and makes a couple of extra credits. He finds out from Narro where the Crimson Thunder HQ is and heads there after the bar.

Pax and Min head off to the Omega Clinic, thinking that the turian merchant might have been involved in the Crimson Thunder's shooting. They arrive at the reception area of the clinic where a salarian is quite busy. They ask him if they can see patient information for the turian that got shot not too long ago. The salarian claims that he wouldn't feel comfortable giving them information like that, but that he would go get one of the doctors that they could speak to.

He vanishes for a brief period of time before returning with an asari.
"Hi, I'm Doctor Selene D'Thuun. How may I be of assistance?"
Pax looks surprised and introduces himself as Pax D'Thuun.
The doctor is also surprised "What an odd name for a drell."
They find out that they have the same mom, or in Pax's case, step-mom. [Hehe, he wasn't expecting to find a sister :P To explain to the readers, Pax's biological mom passed away when he was very young, but his dad bonded with an asari after that. So they are family but not by blood.]
They agree to meet up after her shift at the clinic to get to know each other before coming back to business. They find out that the turian merchant, Lucius Durio, was just at the wrong place at the wrong time and got caught in the crossfire between the Blood Pack and Blue Suns.
They find out that the krogan did come in here all bloody and broken and that he was patched up. Krogan being krogan, he left when he felt he was well enough, even though the doctors didn't agree. He probably went off to one of the bars in the Tuhi district to drink.
[After this there was a particularly confused conversation between Min and Pax about him being an offspring of an asari that I won't be able to repeat. Min has the Clueless hindrance and the player is playing it very well. Its hilarious.]

Nat and Wrahm find the mercs at the Knuckles bar. The krogan was having a drink with some of other Crimson Thunder guys that were not part of the squad that got shot. They simply let the others know "We've found them."  No extra information. Narro sends them a message asking for more information. Which they ignore for a time until Wragm complains about his omni-tool constantly blinking and that he doesn't remember what button to press to make the blinking go away. Nat will send the others more information.

The krogan told them that they were doing a standard security escort for some rich merchant. They were supposed to escort him to the Tuhi District Storage section. All went well until they got got ambushed. Mechs started crawling out from everywhere and started shooting at them. These things kinda looked like klixen, but with metal and guns instead of flesh and fire. They killed everyone except the krogan, even the merchant.

Boneis finds the Crimson Thunder HQ. The windows are already broken and its dark inside. He slips into the building and searches it. He finds information on the last job that the group had. It seemed like a standard job. He also finds information on where exactly the storage unit was that they were heading to. He relays this information to the others.

They decide to meet there. Pentus provides sniper cover from a nice vantage point while the rest approach the storage area. There are gunshots and fire damage on the outside and inside of the storage unit. Its mostly empty except for the blood and one empty crate. At the bottom of the crate is what appears to be some red dust. Pax suggests that Nat try some of the stuff at the bottom. Nat knows enough not to be tricked into trying Red Sand. They notice a bit of scrap metal behind the crate with a logo on it. Narro manages to do an Extranet search on the logo that points to a nearby Mech Shop.

The sign outside the shop says they buy, sell and repair mechs. Pentus decides to stay by the large front door as the rest enter. Behind a big desk sits a salarian. He's covered in oil and grease and some sections of his apron are scorched. He's busy fiddling with bits and bobs. He doesn't notice the party until someone cleared their throat. The storage bay contains many different mechanical parts. Some of the party investigating the heaps or metal and parts would see some four legged mechs sticking out.

"Oh sorry about that." He puts things away "How can I help you today?" 

The party inquires about recent purchases and mechs. The salarian dodges the questions until they present the bit of scrap metal with his shop's logo on it and mention the group of Crimson Thunder getting attacked by mechs. The salarian starts to shift around nervously, but still claims he doesn't know what they were talking about. As the group inches a bit closer to prevent the salarian from bolting when Wrahm mentions "I like salarian. They eyes make a good popping sound when you squish their heads."

At that point the salarian panics presses a button on the underside of his desk and ducks underneath it in fright. 

[I found a cool pic of spider-like mechs to show them here :) ]

Mechs start activating in the rubble as the group tenses. The nearest activated mech with red armour spews fire onto the closely gathered group. Being battle-ready mercenaries, they managed to roll out of the way of the initial attack.

The grey mechs fire shots at the party whilst the white mechs at the back of the shop snipe at them. Avoiding most of the initial rain of bullets the group take out the closer mechs. Taking cover behind workbenches and with sniper fire from the door, they eventually manage to take out the last of the reactivated mechs.

They manage to drag the frightened salarian out from under his workbench. "Ok, ok, I'll talk! Just don't kill me! A batarian came in here last week looking for some good mechs with lots of firepower. He has scars over his right eyes. He called himself Bran. I don't know more than that I swear! Just don't let the krogan hurt me!" He's shivering with fright and the party can't get any other information out of him. The last mech they took down was still in goodish condition and Narro asked if he can take it. "Yes! Just take it I don't care!"

They try to find some information on Bran on the Extranet, but other than just being mentioned there's no solid leads. They decide to ask some of the older mercs at HQ the next day. Most of the group retire for the evening. Narro spends time until the wee hours of the morning working on the mech he got(which he will regret later). Boneis vanishes off on his own business on Omega and Pax goes to have a lovely dinner with his sister.

Tips from Session 1 Part 2:

• We're all good friends that love to game together and we love talking geek. Sometimes people chat during roleplaying and this can be a bit distracting from the game. Remember to bring people back to the game. 
• I find that knowing the setting very well before the first session helped me a lot when I had to fill in gaps. If you are playing in a well-known setting, do read up a bit, though you don't need to know everything ;)

How was the first session for me?

My first session was a bucket of fun. I had some nervous jitters as we started, but that soon subsided into just enjoying the story and combat.

Love the characters so far. A Jerry-Atrick krogan with massive corrective lenses is such an awesome idea.

The histories that my players came up with for their characters are fantastic and I am looking forward to telling the story for them.

My hard work into the news items and presentation paid off since the players loved it! We usually have like 4 hour session for games, but we started playing at 4 pm and went on until 1:30AM! I offered that we stop at 10PM because it was getting late, but they wanted to go on. Makes me so happy :)

I'm also pleased that I could think on my feet. I had some doubts about that, but it worked out in the end!

The game could not have been epic without my awesome players. Thanks you guys!

Stay tuned for the next session of the Terminus Tales :)

Terminus Tales: Session 1 Part 1

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(Mass Effect is owned by BioWare, I'm only a fan creating a bit of a story in an awesome setting.)
(Also also, there is a bit of an intro)

First off I'd like to say that I am a MASSIVE Mass Effect fan. Love it to bits. So when I started making notes about the campaign I want to run I keep getting nice ideas for visual aids. So I started looking for pics on Google and Deviantart. I NEVER claim I create these master-pieces on account of my drawing skill being horrific. I only use them to bring the world to life in a table-top game. (Please don't sue me, I don't have a lot of money)

I'm a newby GM, so this is also me blogging about how I learn to run a game. I also think I suck at giving things names, so brace yourselves.

Due to this game still running my posts won't be explaining why I mention specific bits of information, just know that that I have a plan. <evil laugh/>

Hope you enjoy my retelling. (To the players, I can't remember your exact words or all the dialogue or all the details 100%, so forgive me and feel free to correct me via email if you like and I'll update it). I'm going to try and blog this soon after the sessions post session 2, since I get a bit fuzzy on some details.

Equipment

I went into this armed with my laptop, extra computer screen, dice, pencil, home-made battle grid, electronic rulebooks, whiteboard markers, the Mass Effect OST and a few of my Iron Kingdoms and Warhammer 40k models for use as miniatures.

My laptop had my presentation on it that was displayed on the screen turned to the players. My notes were on a Microsoft Word document.

The Tale

[I started off with a pick of the Galaxy Map shown in ME3 multiplayer to give players info on where the Terminus Systems are. Then I moved over to a pic showing the Batalla system. These are available on the Mass Effect Wiki.]

The group are on an Ironfist Battalion frigate called the Varius. The ship seemed to have design elements from many different races.

[Found a cool pick of a starship that I used here. I didn't use any of the standard frigates in the game, since I wanted this one to look like an independent creation made by a collection of races. I thought it would suit the feeling of being in the Terminus more.]

They were gathered in the cargo bay, ready to receive a briefing from their gunnery chief Vinicius. He is a turian of average height. He wears well maintained combat armour and a sniper rifles on his back. He always has this pissed off look on his face for some reason. His facial tattoos are grey and seem to cover most of his face-plates.

"All right, I threw you lot together to see if you work well as a squad. For this mission you will be tasked with on-board security for an elcor cargo freighter bound for Omega. While you lot are on-board, we'll be right next to the ship on the Varius. If any stupid or desperate pirates show up, we'll blow 'em into space dust. We got this job because the previous merc group backed out. Don’t mess this up; we want to keep this business. Any questions?”

One pipes up "Are we expecting any trouble?"
Vinicius: "No, though investors can never be too careful in the Terminus."
Vinicius looks at the rest, waiting for more questions before continuing ”We still have a few minutes before dropping out of FTL, so get to know each other." He then turns and heads to the bridge.

Boneis is the first to introduce himself. He has pale, copper coloured skin. Slightly taller than most salarians. His left horn is a ruined, jagged, scarred mess and a scar reaches over top left quarter of his face. Remaining horn’s tip curls slightly outwards. He has reddish purple eyes. He wears a nice heavy pistol at his side.

Pax also introduces himself. He is a blue-skinned male drell with a few small piercings on his face but nowhere else. He's about 5"10 - 5"11, weighing in at about 75kg. Lithe, graceful, and deceptively strong.

Mirinias simply introduces  himself as 'Min'. A little bit shorter for the average Turian (5'11"), but of a more stockier frame, and a small, pink scar on his left mandible near his mouth. He has dark blue tattoo markings that start from his upper eyelids, thick lines that converge at mid-forehead into three smaller lines that bisect the top of his head.

The krogan simply introduces himself as 'Wrahm'. Jorgal Wrahm is a large krogan. His impressive hump seems to bend his whole body down and his armour seems to stretch tight about him. Especially his belly. Wrahm is beginning to show his age. His teeth looked broken and blakened and his scaled skin is loose and wrinkled. He has an impressive array of scars, only those on his face and arms are usually visible. His head plate is a dull brownish orange. He also has large orb-like corrective lenses strapped around his head.

Pentus gives a short introduction. Pentus seems scrawny for a turian. He is of below average height and his recon armour's adjustments betray his lack of physique. His face markings are an asymmetric mess of black whorls and lines, but they do little to mask the scars he has accumulated through his past exploits

Narro introduces himself. The rest can year that he's a male quarian. He's wearing an environmental suit that is shaded dark blue on black with white highlights. When he is accessing his omni-tool you could see that its highly customized.

[I'll insert a description for the other 1 later.  Nat(human male) ]

There is a little turbulence as the Varius drops out of FTL. It slowly makes its way to dock with the Detuun. The party board the vessel and are greeted by an elcor with a rather large krogan standing next to him. Though the krogan is armed, he does not have his weapon drawn.

"Pleasantly: Welcome aboard the Detuun. I am Janan, the Captain. This is Gatatog Daghar, “, he gestures to the krogan. “Explanatory: He is part of the permanent security on my ship. Wryly: Hopefully we won’t need your help, but we’d rather pay for it than lose all our goods. Impatiently: let’s get going.” He turns and continues deeper into the ship. “Explanatory: The stern of the ship contains the crew’s quarters, mess hall, engine room and bridge. The rest of it is cargo hold up to the bow. Sternly: You can go about patrols in the ship, but don't open any containers. My crew and I will be on the bridge if you have anything to ask or report.”

Narro enquires if they may have the ship schematics and access to the ships systems.

Janan "Annoyed: You may not have access, but you may have some schematics." He signals to Daghar and Daghar sends them some schemtics via his omni-tool.

[Here I showed then a pic of a cargo ship I found online. The schematics show two docking points, one on the stern of the ship and one on the bow. The length of the ship is 80% cargo hold with the stern containing the bridge, crews quarters etc as the Captain said.]

The cargo hold is filled with many containers. Some stacked high above the floor and some no higher than your chest.

Pentus surveyd his options and clambored onto some high containers on the port side of the stern. He lay down with his sniper rifle at the ready incase there is trouble.

Wrahm walks to the crews quarters in search of something soft to sit on. He finds a datapad on a bench and reads it. He then decides to have a nap on one of the bunks.

The rest were either patrolling or positioning themselves in the ship for good coverage of the entrances.

During the trip a few of the squad spots a salarian wearing the elcor mining insignia on his uniform darting inbetween the containers on his way to the bow of the ship. Pax and a few others try to persue, calling to him to stop. The salarian ignores them and tries to continue in the opposite direction until he's eventually cornered.

"Oh, hey sorry, I'm in a bit of a hurry." the salarian stammers and tries to step past, but his path is blocked by Min.
"In a hurry to do what?" Pax question him.
"Eh, to look at readings and status reports." he stammers nervously.
Narro pipes up "What readings? The ship seems fine and your Captain said as much."

Those close enough and paying attention, notice that there seems to be a strange patch of raw, scabby skin on the salarian's neck. Some remember hearing or reading that mercenaries usually remove their faction tattoos with an exfoliating acid wash to hide their affiliation. They would usually get the tattoo redone after the mission.

Pax pushes him against one of the containers "You know something, so talk! Who are you working for!?"

Salarian "Hey I get paid to keep my mouth shut and even more if I keep it shut."

Pax "You won't get paid if you're dead!"

The elcor pilot's voice is heard over the intercom. “Alarmed: I've lost control of ship propulsion. We are dropping out of FTL."

The salarian laughs at this.

Pilot "Concerned: We've dropped out of FTL and sensors indicate an approaching ship. Scared: Controls have been hacked and docking sequence has been engaged."

"Engage onboard defence turrets you stupid pyjak." Daghar yells over the comms.
Pilot "Hopelessly: I can't bypass the hack."

[I might miss things in the retelling of combat and I want to make it shorter, so there might only be highlights]

The noise from Daghar yelling wakes Wrahm up and most of the squad take up defensive positions as the boarding attempt is occurring at the bow of the ship. Pax knocks the salarian unconsious with a biotic punch and ties him up. He leaves him behind one of the containers. Narro heads off to the nearest ship's terminal and manages to hack past the ship's systems and bypass the defence turret hack. He remembers to double check the friend or foe settings. The turret activates and scans for hostiles as the docking doors at the bow hiss open and smoke grenades come flying out.

Nat is caught in the smoke as he is crouched behind some containers near the entrance. He hears running and sees vague shapes move past him. Wrahm, coming down the starboard side of the ship, sees Vorcha move out of the smoke. They are armed with assault rifles and wear the colours of one of the many pirate gangs in the Terminus.

Another figure scrambles up the set of containers near the smoke. When he reaches the top you can see that he's turian, before he drops prone in a sniping position, much like Pentus. A fire fight ensues.

The pirate sniper fires at Pentus, but the shot glances off his shield. Pentus returns in kind and the blue glow of the pirate's shield shatters with the impact. Pax, noticing this and seeing the sniper's position sends a biotic throw towards the sniper, arching it up to avoid the containers  The force of the attack knocks the sniper off the containers and into hull of the ship before he falls to the floor.

Wrahm fires at the vorcha infront of him, but misses. He hits his gun complaining about buttons that he thought he presses. A krogan also comes running out of the smoke from behind the Vorcha. The krogan is covered in orange glowing armour and fires at Wrahm, past the Vorcha.

Other vorcha and another krogan flank along the bow of the ship. Boneis throws a grenade at the group on the far side, but doesn't quite manage to be on target. The on-board defence turret fires at the vorcha causing some of them to become shaken.

The smoke clears and some of the closer squad-mates can see all the pirates except for the turian. Wrahm tries firing at the vorcha in front of him again, this time riddling it with bullets. The vorcha slumps to the floor, dead. Wrahm laughs "Muuuch better."

Nat moves to engage the krogan near Wrahm and lands himself in between the krogan and the sniper. The sniper shakes off the stun from the fall and puts his sights on Nat. Steadying his sniper rifle he fires a shot at Nat. Both of Nat's shield layers shatter under the impact and his own tech armour can't stop the impact completely as it wounds him. [I rolled so many aces and I thought I was going to kill a character at the first session T_T Luckily I managed to hit the tank with this shot. ]

A vorcha runs around most of the furthest containers from the entrance and finds the salarian unconscious and tied up. "Stupid lizard got caught." it laughs and Pax sees it put a bullet through the salarian's head.

Min takes out the furthest krogan's shield and Boneis pulls of a remarkable pistol shot that takes off the krogan's head. Vorcha numbers dwindle while Nat and Wrahm take out the other krogan. Finally the turian dies last and the elcor pilot can be heard over the comms.

"Relieved: The pirate ship is disengaging. Cheering: They are running away." As the pirate ship disengages, the Varius drops out of FTL and manages to blow the pirate vessel into space dust.

While Pax says a prayer over the body of the salarian, the others search the corpses of the pirates. They find a few thermal clips and credits in addition to an interesting datapad with a message on the attack.

The rest of the trip to Omega is uneventful.

Tips from Session 1 Part 1:

• Printing out powers for you and the players is useful for encounters. Its easier to reference than the electronic version.
• I had the enemy stats on my session notes on Word. Its a bit awkward finding stats while they are in between my notes and wastes a bit of time. I'm going to try printing the enemies out in a nice format for easy reference in session 2.

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Mom & Mass Effect Reboot

So this past Saturday I went to my parent's house to do an errand. After that my mom and I sat down for our second session.

Now that she knows what's going on, she's more comfortable with making the choices while I play. So we created a new game. Same choices, Colonist, Sole Survivor, Sentinel.

My mom isn't really good at finding out how to do new things on the PC on her own (yet, this experiment is going to change this I'm sure :) ), so while I was playing I was explaining to her what keys I was pressing and what I was doing with the mouse. She made notes of most things so I'm really hopeful that she will be playing this herself at some point :)

She really got into "her story" and she said something along the lines of "It's addictive. We're going to spend hours on this." Now she knows why I spend hours on stuff like this :P

I explained to her how save games work. We also made one save game at the start of Eden Prime so she can go back and practice the fighting and then jump forward to where we are now.

I did explain to her what happens when you click "Investigate" in the dialog options, but that she has to tell me if she wants to talk to people more. She usually investigates what people say :) I'll have to see if she keeps on doing this, but I have high hopes.

I also explained to her what she needs to do in the menu when you press Escape. I explained what the journal, squad menu, etc does including what the codex menu item is for. Her response to this was along the lines of "Oh, so this is how you know so much of the background." Since we had limited time (I had to go at 4 PM), she asked me "Can I go look at these myself later on?" I gave her an affirmative on this. I'm rather ecstatic that she's interested enough to go listen to the codex entries in her own time.

So, we played through Eden Prime and eventually reached the Citadel. We talked to many NPCs, some of which mentioned the Consort (the Elcor diplomat who has a problem, the Alliance marines who wanted to go visit her). I did run around quite a bit, since I wanted to show her the concept of exploration and that you can talk to other people. We eventually reached the Consort's place of business and we talked to the receptionist. Somewhere in the conversation where the assistant explains what the consort and her acolytes do, my mom said "Is this a whore house?". I did awkwardly laugh a little at that, but tried to explain that consorts usually offer a variety of services including just talking to people. Eventually it boiled down to "Its a classy whore house." She laughed when you pass by the salarian that says something like "Even humans find the Consort appealing."

We eventually spoke to the Council and could either look for Harkin, Garrus or go talk to Barla Von. My mom also reminded me that we need to go talk to the drunk turian General in the bar. (Guys, my mom is reminding me about side quests, awesome). So since Barla Von was nearby, we went to talk to him and found out about Wrex. So we went to go get him first.

Through most conversation my mom sometimes makes paragon, sometimes neutral and sometimes renegade choices. We'll have to see how it goes.

So we ended the session, walking around and talking to people with Wrex and Alenko in the squad.

**Next update might take a bit of time, as my mom has a lot of work to do atm. I'm hoping to go visit again on Thursday, though I did tell her to SMS me if she decides to play it herself ;)
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Experiment: Playing Mass Effect with my mom

So, I found an awesome blog whilst doing some reading on Mass Effect after my first Campaign session: Mass Effect According to Mom

It was an epic read and it occurred to me that a reason my parents don't really get my gaming hobby is because they haven't really seen me play.

My mom loves movies though, and I thought she would love the story in Mass Effect. The only problem is that she is a bit of a technophobe and freaks out when she has to do anything new on her computer.

So I suggested that we try the following: I play the game (use the mouse and keyboard) while she makes decisions and if she likes it, she can play it herself.

So, I got a hard drive for my old PC, installed Windows 7 and Mass Effect on it and took it to my parents place. In the process of hooking it up to their TV I informed my mom that they could watch movies from my PC on the TV as well. I opened a movie called War Horse just to show her. She was very excited about this part :P

So we started off, me using the mouse and keyboard, mom trying to follow the story and what I was doing with the keyboard and mouse and my dad just watching.

She chose Colonist -> Lone Survivor, which if I remember correctly is the same as what Reg's mom chose(Think I was incorrect here), but she did pick Sentinel instead of Infiltrator. Funnily enough, my mom is a dentist and 56, so that relation is also kind of funny :P

So we started the game and all too soon realised that my mom was having trouble following the story because she was focussing on what I was doing with the keyboard and mouse too much. So we decided to backtrack and start over. This time just watching me play so my mom can follow what is going on on screen. My dad picked up what was going on on screen rather quickly.

At some point we had a break to eat dinner and my mom asked "What is this game called again? War Mass?". I don't know how, but she managed to mix up War Horse and Mass Effect's names.

Another interesting bit, when I talked to Chakwas and she mentioned how Alenko gets migraines due to the L2 implant he has, she immediate identified with this due to her chronic cluster headaches. I'm wondering if this will eventually influence her choice between Ashley and Kaiden. We shall see :)

We played until 10pm and she really enjoyed it :) Next time we'll try making her choose dialogue options again :)

Terminus Tales:Prelude

Prelude to this undertaking

So, after playing Leviathan and Omega at the end of last year, I became super-excited about Mass Effect again.

I considered running a Mass Effect campaign in the past and didn't really get around to it. This time I decided to get off my lazy ass and just run it.

So I started planning and got our usual rp group + 2 together and asked them to draw up characters and send me some histories.

I decided today that I would try this blogging thing and share the experience with the interwebs. Hope you enjoy :)

Also, don't judge too harshly, I'm a newbie GM, so I'm still learning.

Campaign Setting

The year is 2169 CE, 14 years prior to the start of ME1

You are employed by a mercenary company called the Ironfist Battalion. They are a mercenary company that have a small presence on Omega. They do odd jobs, mostly security services.

You are currently assigned to a mission on board the elcor cargo ship Detuun. You were assigned to be the on board security in case of pirate attack.

Detuun is carrying a shipment of thorium from the planet Thunawanuro (Batalla System in the Omega Nebula). The pirates of the Terminus systems rarely try anything with the mercenaries guarding the elcor ships. This elcor planet is well known for paying the mercenaries well to protect their shipments.

Chosen Rules System

Savage Worlds

ME Ascension Conversion

Character

Mirinias Elkarin - Turian Vanguard

Pax D’Thuun - Drell Adept

Pentus Necronix - Turian Infiltrator

Boneis - Salarian Soldier

Narro'Xen nar Karrosne - Quarian Infiltrator

Nathaniel Cooper - Human Sentinel

Wrahm - Krogan Soldier

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