Originally posted on YouTube on 6 October 2023.
Namaste Mother Nuggets!
You know that feeling when you’ve had a long, rotten day at work, you finally make it to your front door, and someone sticks a gun in your face? No? Lucky you. Orin Ryder knows it now, because that’s how his story kicks off.
Would you hand over your wallet or fight back? Tell me in the comments before you read on.
Welcome to New Hope City
If you missed the last couple of posts: I’m playing a solo campaign of 5150: New Beginnings from Two Hour Wargames. It’s a sci-fi, cyberpunk-ish solo RPG where you take one character (a “Star”) and try to drag them from nothing to a comfy retirement over ten in-game years. Every month you get encounters, the dice tell you who turns up, and the story builds itself out of the wreckage.
Our Star is Orin Ryder. He’s a Basic (that’s a human, in 5150-speak), an average Joe working the factory floor in manufacturing. Agile, but also Cruel, which means he’s not very nice to people he thinks are beneath him. He’s got a reputation of five, a cheap P1 pistol, a translator box, and not much else. His goal is simple: get out of the factory and into something cushier. Here’s how I set the scene at the table:
Welcome to the sprawling, neon-lit metropolis of New Hope City, the throbbing heart of Planet New Hope. In a city teeming with over two million beings from every corner of the galaxy, life moves at a relentless pace. Amidst this hive of activity our story begins with Orin Ryder, a working-class man whose dreams defy the monotony of his surroundings.
Orin toils away at Lucient Light Hardware and Manufacturing, a massive factory that turns out the essential goods that keep New Hope City running. With over 25,000 employees on the factory floor, it’s a no-nonsense operation where workers are merely cogs in a colossal machine. Injuries are commonplace, and those unfortunate enough to be hurt find themselves in the bread queue with a thin severance. The machines never stop, and the employees are just numbers.
He lives in Lower Gaia, a district that may not be the worst in town, but it’s certainly not far from it. His humble apartment is dangerous and far from luxurious, but it’s the only one he can afford, and it’s close to the factory where he slaves away. Orin, however, is different. While many of his fellow workers resign themselves to their lacklustre lives, Orin dares to dream of something beyond the cramped apartment and the endless factory floor.
As Orin approaches his home, he hears footsteps behind him. Who will it be?
The 9th of September, 5150
The campaign starts in September (because that’s the month it was when I filmed it, pretty straightforward), and before Orin gets to choose anything for himself, he gets an involuntary encounter. I rolled one D6 on the encounter table and… robbery. We literally got robbed to start with. Welcome to the neighbourhood.
The dice put it at Orin’s own apartment complex in Lower Gaia, at night, on the way home from work. And it’s not a sneaky pickpocket either. It’s a proper upfront robbery.
So who’s robbing him? Two Service Joes. Wait staff. A pair of waitresses, fresh off their shift, are mugging a factory worker at his own security gate. Rude. So rude.
On the table, Orin is played by a figure from Infinity, and the two waitresses are a HeroClix candy striper and a vampire lady who’s doing her best impression of a waitress at three in the morning in New Hope City. Use the minis you’ve got, right?
Hey Hot Stuff, Put ‘Em Up
Orin’s got his keys out, unlocking the gate that’s supposed to keep the criminal element out, when the leery one calls out “hey hot stuff, put ’em up”. She’s unarmed. Her mate is not: she has a pistol pointed right at him.
I rolled to see whether Orin carries his gun to work. He does. But it’s in his bag, not in his hand, because he’s busy with the keys. The robbers have their weapon drawn, which gives them the advantage.
Now, Orin could surrender. That’s an option. But he’s just finished a long shift at a job he hates, in a neighbourhood he hates, and he is not handing over his wallet to two waitresses. He fights back.
Squirrel Sidequest Time
The Aegis Fork
I should say: the real Arjade does not fight back. If someone mugs me, I give them the money. Except for that one time.
Years ago I lived in Macquarie Fields, back when it was a bit rougher than it is now. I was going to uni during the day and working night shifts at a service station. I’d also lost my licence for speeding (I was late for a group project, of all things), so after a night shift that finished at 7am, it was a bus, then a train, then a long walk home.
I’m about half a kilometre from my house, near the skate park, at 8:30 in the morning, absolutely exhausted, and there’s a sketchy guy hanging around. He says “hey, what’s up bro”, pulls out a knife, and tells me to hand over my wallet or get stabbed.
So I unzip my bag (it had Sonic on it, because of course it did) to get my wallet, and my hand touches the cold metal of the cutlery I used for dinner on shift. My sleep-deprived brain goes: let’s try this. I keep my other hand on the wallet, ready to chuck it at him if this goes badly, and I say “I think I have what you’re looking for”… and pull out a fork.
Luckily he had a sense of humour. He laughed his head off and told me to get out of there before he changed his mind.
That’s the one and only time I’ve been a smart-arse to a criminal, and that, friends, is the legend of the Aegis Fork.
Anyways…. that’s a thing that happened… where was I?
Right. Orin Ryder doesn’t have an Aegis Fork. He has a pistol.
The Shootout at the Security Gate
(Quick shout-out to Gohan, my cat and Chief Security Officer, who wandered in mid-recording to check who I was talking to. He always turns up when I’m making a video. Nobody, mate. I’m talking to nobody.)
Here’s what makes 5150 fun to play solo: you don’t decide what the robbers do, the tables do. Both sides roll against their reputation, and whoever passes more dice gets to act. The robbers had the advantage, but Orin passed more dice, so he acted first. Gun out, one shot, aimed straight at the waitress pointing a pistol at his head.
Hit. But not a great hit: she ducked back behind cover rather than going down. Both robbers passed their will-to-fight test, so they stuck around, and the armed one spent her turn recovering from ducking back.
Next round, Orin did the same again. Gun up, one shot, and this time she was out of the fight. That left her leery friend, unarmed, watching her mate drop. She took her will-to-fight test, failed it completely, and legged it. She ran off and left her friend lying there. Charming.
Has Anyone Called the Cops?
Shots fired in the street at night means someone’s calling the cops, and I love that the game actually checks for it. The police were called, and the dice gave Orin a couple of turns before they’d arrive. So he did what any sensible average Joe would do: he went inside and washed the blood off.
Mechanically, taking an enemy out of the fight earns an increasing rep D6 (basically XP), and Orin didn’t take any damage or need to burn any of his Star powers to survive. So he finishes his first-ever encounter one up. Happy days.
What’s Next for Orin?
That was September’s involuntary encounter: the stuff that happens to you. Next time it’s a voluntary encounter, where Orin gets to choose what he does, and he’s going chilling. (Not “bing chilling”. I still don’t really get that John Cena ice cream meme.)
Orin is not happy. He lives in a crappy part of town, he just got jumped on his own doorstep, and he wants to move up in the world. So he’s going to call some friends and see if anyone can help him find a way out of crime alley.
And while you’re down there in the comments: what do you reckon Orin actually builds in that factory? Funniest answer becomes canon.
Watch the full episode on YouTube
Ciao for now.
(Note: This post was created transcribing my youtube videos using tools which may include elements of artificial intelligence.)