Happy New Year! However you celebrate, I hope you and yours had a meaningful Planetfall and that 2024 brings a little more gaming into your life and a little more peace into the world.
Production Previews
I am super excited to share this month’s layout previews because the biggest section is a wholly new chapter that represents some of the best of what Recontact has to offer.
Campaign Archetypes - Over the history of Blue Planet, the only consistent criticism the game received was that it was such a big, open world, moderators didn’t know where to start - there was no default campaign structure. To address this, Recontact presents 12 different campaign archetypes by eight different authors spanning the breadth of the campaign possibilities the game best supports. From the classic Red Sky Charters Firefly-esque job-of-the-week to The Argonauts' take on Jules Vern and Chrome’s Incorporate intrigue to Night-Shift’s alien menace, First Responders' emergencies, and the military thriller Operation Polypod, there is something perfect for every gaming group. I hope you dig this new content as much as I do.
Alien Legacy – This chapter includes everything about the mysterious Nereids collected in one place. As always, I suggest that players refrain from reading this chapter as it's intended for moderators and presents information that I think is more fun to encounter in play than via text.
Beyond the Frontier – Though some may find this section too deep a technical dive for an RPG, as a former oceanography teacher, I have always found this chapter to be particularly useful given Blue Planet’s setting. It offers a valuable resource for those less familiar with the marine environment, so is of particular help to moderators.
Per usual, please watch for a backer’s-only preview following this one, where you can download these previews (and all the others to date).
Storm Surge Update
Despite the holiday season, which is traditionally hard on gaming schedules, we were able to get both our December playtest sessions in, and a lot happened.
We created characters for the third of the three campaign threads – operatives for the GEO's High Commission of Internal Security. In the first session, they were charged with developing a working relationship with the Baffin Island insurgents and establishing the secret training camp described in the original BP canon. They were particularly sly and discreet, operating through a dummy NGO from Earth. They took several in-game months to gain trust and get the camp up and running. Their clandestine approach was so cold and manipulative that it reeked convincingly of real-world regime-change tactics and political manipulation.
In the second session of the thread, they were charged with locating and recruiting the Songless (see page 42 of the Campaign Archetype chapter above). Much clever planning and a smidgin of alien body horror later, they have set things up to break one of the Songless they themselves captured out of the Fort Solitude brig in a bid to win his trust and be led to the troupe. What could go wrong?
The best parts of this latest arc are all the Easter eggs that I planted during the native and Incorporate security threads are finally being realized. From realizing these operators were the ones pulling GEO strings to help their native characters in the first arc, to being the source of the uncanny specimens their Incorporate security characters stole during the EMP heist, to having to deal with a depressurization emergency aboard GEO 1 when debris from Lesear Station (which those same characters destroyed) intersected its orbit, these call-backs, flashbacks and crossovers are giving the game an uncommon verisimilitude. As fun as this has been, I do worry I may not be able to capture the intent in the written product in a way others can effectively replicate. Fingers crossed.
OrcaCon
Just a reminder that I will be running both Blue Planet and Upwind at OrcaCon in Bellevue, WA, next weekend. When I last checked, there were still seats available in both games, so if you are local to the Seattle area and interested in playing, consider attending!