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Vrock_Summoner
2017-06-03, 07:58 AM
Hello and salutations to you, my friends of the Internet! I'm running a new campaign with a bunch of returning players and one newbie, and decided to share it with the Internet as it happens because it's looking to be a whole hell of a lot of fun. As the title states, the campaign is going to be taking place in (a somewhat modified and with none of the original cast version of) the Neon Genesis Evangelion world, using the technically-beta-but-production-has-stopped-anyway version of the 3rd Edition of Adeptus Evangelion, which are available to download for free here (http://www.mediafire.com/file/o69miv64p6ifc0i/Adeptus+Evangelion+Beta+Draft+005.rar).

For those of you who don't know what Neon Genesis Evangelion is... First of all, WATCH IT! It's really good, despite a couple of core issues (mostly pacing and low budget). The gist of the story is that the world is being attacked by Angels, terrifying eldritch abominations who are impervious to conventional weaponry, and the only forces humanity can muster with the strength to stop them are the Evangelions, giant humanoid mechs that can only be piloted by 14 year old children, most of whom have psychological problems (this is a core facet of the show). In the midst of it all are world-altering conspiracies, some of the most well thought-out world metaphysics in anime, and some admittedly less well thought-out religious symbolism. And did I mention psychological problems. So many.



Those of you who frequent the No-Context Quotes threads may have a chance of recognizing four of my five players here, since all of them were in my previous Mutants & Masterminds campaign as well. It's not really for anyone's benefit but the maybe four of you that applies to, but just for the hell of it, I'll note who those four were playing each in that campaign. On that note, here's player introductions and character sheets!

The game is going to start simple, and then we're going to ramp up the plot as the players get more comfortable with the system and their characters. To begin with, we're going to have the characters settling into their lives, getting to know each other, and fighting Angels at home, getting used to the consequences of the damage done during fights, all that. Riveting, I know, but I really want to set the tone and establish common ground for the overall game, and it's hopefully going to be a long one.

First I'll talk a little about the player as a person and my initial expectations of what they'll contribute to the game going in, and then I'll spoiler a brief overview of their character and link the character sheets. All players have written their own pieces on their backstories and NPC relationships in the sheets themselves, so I'll keep my part brief.

Our first player is Cecilia (former character: Aurora). She has a tendency to play characters totally out of their depth - Aurora was the only human in a party full of cosmic-scale entities, for instance - and the world of Neon Genesis Evangelion is more than happy to service her. She's studying for a child psychology degree, and has always been one of the most nuanced and engaging roleplayers I've gamed with, which both elates and terrifies me - she's probably going to play an already-broken 14 year old in psychologically trying circumstances (to say the least) a little TOO well. Still, I'm excited to see what we've got to work with going forward.
Character Sheet (http://docdro.id/k6Twx8K)
The moe, I guess. Woke up without memories or any seeming life experience at the age of eight in NERVE facilities and has been struggling to catch up in mental development ever since. She has little sense of independence, relying heavily on others to lead her and struggling to take initiative. She also has a frankly absurd level of connection with her Evangelion and took part in the initial development of Synchronization tech, making her one of NERVE's most important assets alongside being well-liked. She already has one of the highest possible starting values in Synchronization, and her build focuses on making it climb rapidly at cost to herself, so she can use her AT Field to greater effect.

Her Evangelion is part of the Sefira series, but what that means, Aoma can only speculate at.

Our second player is Lexis (former character: Shae). She's an intelligent but supremely reserved person, and gaming with her is always a bit of a mixed bag - she's simultaneously incredibly fun and incredibly engaged while roleplaying, but she doesn't really speak out of character except to ask about rules and facts (and that applies when we aren't gaming too - it's not unheard-of for her to spend a few days without speaking a complete sentence to anyone in our friend group). So you may notice me never, ever talking about what she says out-of-character, because it'll probably be nothing. She always finds herself playing incredibly competent people with a lot of prior baggage and craves in-game agency, which actually makes me kind of worried about how she'll take playing a semi-normal 14 year-old person, but I've been told she's a huge fan of the series and she really liked my last game, so I'm going to do my best to make everything work out.
Character Sheet (http://docdro.id/GQtO94E)
Smart AND popular? Oh boy. She's the science and research guru of the group, as much as you can be at 14 years old. She's working towards a scanner build that jacks up damage and number of attacks while using pistols at melee range, and I have no idea whether that's focusing on too many things at once or if it's going to come together to be as scarily effective as it sounds.

Our third player is Mimi (former character: Gambi). She's the silly and obnoxious player, and usually plays similar characters. She's the one I'm most worried about getting in tune with the game, actually - the last campaign played well with her generally carefree, straightforward, unaffected demeanor, but Neon Genesis Evangelion thrives off of nuance and characters who can't entirely handle what they've been thrown into. I'm not sure how much Steven Universe I can handle in a NGE game before it clashes with the mood. I've talked to her about it, and she said she'll do her best to twist her usual silliness into something more fitting, so I'm trying to be optimistic.
Character Sheet (http://docdro.id/t7Spc5B)
Hiroka was blessed with major celebrity parents and a way with words, but not much else. Despite being the one who's technically got the widest variety of AT Field options, Hiroka has a lower Synchronization score than most characters would be able to get even with the lowest possible stat rolls, and combined with his style-over-substance, substandard-quality (i.e. American) Evangelion unit he's pretty much got the largest hurdles to clear to match up to what's expected of him in fighting Angels as a pilot. In fact, the expectation that he won't add up is one of his greatest sources of distress. But he's about as eloquent as can be, and he's American, which has to count for something. He's pretty directionless in terms of building towards combat at this point - from what I gather, Mimi's just seeing what everyone else is doing before risking committing to a strategy where she'll be in competition with another pilot.

Our fourth player is Darien (former character: Dante). He's my wild card. He definitely cares about matching tone, and I think he'll work well with this in particular since he's already a black-comedy nihilist with a deep interest in characters with psychological disorders (though he's surprisingly rather uncomfortable with the idea of playing a child). More than that, though, he loves pushing boundaries and exploiting every situation he can get in to max out drama and personal success. He's the pitcher who hears "it's really important that you knock this batter out of the game" and instead of going up to the plate and throwing a curve ball, he sends the batter a text about his wife being in the hospital. I have no idea what to expect from him except that he's definitely going to find a way to derail my plans.
Character Sheet (http://docdro.id/tdz3E45)
Go to hell, Darien. *clears throat* So Yotomi is the worst. He's a near-sociopathic, manipulative prick off the streets who knows too much and whose entire build appears to be based around going where he's not allowed and then avoiding any sort of consequence. He also fights like a jerk, being a pure sniper with AT abilities focused around stealth. Who pilots a giant robot just to cower at long range!? Yotomi, that's who. He even gets to eject from his plug to run away for free where everyone else has to pay, and that was rolled randomly! So not only is this guy going to be a thorn in every plan, but he's probably the most likely to be scuttling around the entire campaign. Guh.

(I'm half-kidding. I expect Darien to take this character in some fascinating directions, at least.)

For our fifth and final player, please welcome Gregori (nickname "Gori"). She didn't play in my previous campaign, and in fact hasn't played a tabletop RPG before! However, she watched a few sessions of our last campaign and is an excellent improv actor, so I'm not too worried about her not being able to keep up once she gets the hang of it. She binged NGE over two days to see if she'd be into that tone and only became infinitely more interested in joining the game, so I was more than happy to welcome her in, but I do hope we can get most of the mechanical struggles done fairly early on so they don't eat up a lot of session time - Adeptus Evangelion doesn't take a lot of shortcuts with how many rolls go into providing an accurate simulation of the source material, and I hope remembering them doesn't become a major source of frustration.
Character Sheet (http://docdro.id/NZzSRMC)
(Her last name is one word, but the forum censors didn't like it.)
Kiki's probably my personal favorite character out of the lineup, actually. Headstrong, straightforward, physically remarkable (Between 42 Physique, Second Wind, and the onboard medical systems on her Eva, she can handle around 10 Fatigue per session where everyone else is hovering around 3, making her over three times as durable), has a fun out-of-Eva niche in doing MMA that translates over well to how she fights in the Eva, but between the Civilian and Weakest Link drawbacks, she's still clearly emphasizing that her character isn't just a cardboard cutout badass, but rather a terrified kid who struggles to cope with the terror and responsibility she thrust herself into. Mechanically, she's planning on sticking to soft damage/debuff approaches like unarmed strikes and wrestling maneuvers, which is thematic but also potentially worrisome since she isn't really progressing any means to finish her enemies off, just continually whittle them down. It's fine for helping when everyone's there, but if she ever finds herself in the position of last one standing or something...

And finally there's me, the sadistic jerk who's going to wring their brains. Should be fun!

First session is happening tomorrow. Will be a good chance for me to see how long it takes for me to write up journal entries. Gonna try to convince my players to write in-character journal entries too. So... Yeah. Let's all have fun! And you audience people - feel free to ask questions, make random comments, criticize me and tell me I have ugly hair, I don't care! Too many game journals feel like solo experiences, I want responses, productive or otherwise. If anybody reads this in the first place, anyway.

Durkoala
2017-06-03, 06:00 PM
I hear and obey! I can't promise I'll stick around, as I have a bad habit of wandering into a thread, posting once and then never turning up again, but this sounds like it'll be interesting to watch.

Kantaki
2017-06-03, 06:49 PM
A Evangelion campaign?:smalleek:
Only watched the Rebuild movies, but judging by those this should be fun:smallamused:
I will definitely try to follow this.
And most likely curse you for the resulting nightmares...
No really, I already regret opening this thread.

Vrock_Summoner
2017-06-04, 04:47 AM
A Evangelion campaign?:smalleek:
Only watched the Rebuild movies, but judging by those this should be fun:smallamused:
I will definitely try to follow this.
And most likely curse you for the resulting nightmares...
No really, I already regret opening this thread.

Aw, c'mon, I'm sure it'll be a jolly time full of positivity, friendship, and heroism! :smallamused: What, don't you trust me?

Actually, I'm curious. Having not watched the series, what's your opinion on the Rebuild movies? I got the impression while watching them that they're really good for fans of the original series (gorgeous animation and a new, insidiously interesting plot, swoon) but might be really hard to follow for people who didn't have all the context the original series took the extra time to lay out. Were you able to understand what was happening at least enough to follow along?

dethkruzer
2017-06-04, 06:13 AM
aaah, Evangelion, there's a name I haven't heard in a while. Maybe I should dig out my manga, should have NGE in there somewhere.

This sounds interesting. Never really followed a campaign journal, but I think I'll make this a first.

Kantaki
2017-06-04, 06:31 AM
Aw, c'mon, I'm sure it'll be a jolly time full of positivity, friendship, and heroism! :smallamused: What, don't you trust me?

Actually, I'm curious. Having not watched the series, what's your opinion on the Rebuild movies? I got the impression while watching them that they're really good for fans of the original series (gorgeous animation and a new, insidiously interesting plot, swoon) but might be really hard to follow for people who didn't have all the context the original series took the extra time to lay out. Were you able to understand what was happening at least enough to follow along?

The first movie is easy enough to follow without previous knowledge.
2.22 is mostly understandable too.
Part three... well, at this point you really should at least start looking up some concepts if you haven't already, but even then I would say you can follow most of it without knowing much about the series.
But yeah, some things can be confusing, although I'm not sure watching the original would help with that.:smalltongue:

And yeah, I was kinda tongue-in-cheek about the sleepless nights thing- although I still expect things to go really, really bad. (But still somewhat manageable as long as no one tries to copy Shinji's stunt from 2.22)

Vrock_Summoner
2017-06-05, 07:17 PM
The first fight of the campaign was harder than I intended, but it otherwise worked out perfectly. This session flowed like a dream. I should have the play-by-play up in another handful of hours. Thank y'all for your patience.

I should probably edit a Table of Contents into the opening post since I was dumb and didn't reserve an extra post for that purpose.

Quiver
2017-06-07, 11:48 AM
Found the Adeptus Evangelion system a while ago, but haven't had a chance to play the game yet.

Will be very interested to see how this pans out.

Kantaki
2017-06-24, 02:38 PM
So, is there a Journal entry coming?
Just asking because this sounds interesting.
And because I need something to read...:smalltongue: