The Senior Staff of Tesladyne's Colorado Spring Field Station

Tesladyne Colorado Springs, Fair (+2) Resources, Great (+4) Intel
Mission Statement: Tesladyne’s Quietest Branch Office… Or Else

Director Tony Sinclair, Fair (+2) Bureaucrat, Great (+3) Computer Science
Aspects: Former Top Director of Cyber Security; Getting Too Old for These Science Shenanigans

Benedict Blue, Average (+1) Intrigue, Fair (+2) Science, Good (+3) Action
Aspects: Painfully Earnest Servant of His Duty; Top Marks in the Manly Arts at Eton; Not Very Secret Agent; Those Who Forget History Will Get a Recap by Me; British, eh Wot?

Dr. Cornell Afterthought, Average (+1) Telepath, Fair (+2) Psychokinesis, Good (+3) Science
Aspects: Would-Be Action Linguist; I’ve Studied That! Theoretically; The Power of Positive Thinking; Neuro-Linguistic Hacker; Useful for Narrow Definitions of “Useful”

Hope, Average (+1) Science, Fair (+2) Action, Good (+3) Thievery
Aspects: Second Story Woman - Retired Consultant; Why Science When You Can Steal?; Violence is a Last Resort; Give Me the Doohickey; Mummy & Daddy Don’t Approve of Burglary or Science

Kane, Average (+1) Intrigue, Fair (+2) Banter, Good (+3) Action
Aspects: Wandering Gentlefolk Adventurer; Not Past my Prime; Have I Got a Story (Lie) for You; Friends in High Place; Homeward Bound (Eventually)

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Great Session Zero from last night, everyone. Figured I would make my notes public, just the make sure everyone is on the same page. If I misunderstood or misconstrued anything, don’t hesitate to correct me.

Tesladyne Colorado Springs
I came up with the Mission Statement aspect on my own. It certainly gets over how Director Sinclair would try to run the office, but I also want to make sure folks are good with the idea (as with all aspects, these can both be changed before and during the game).

Benedict Blue
Would it be Dr. Benedict Blue? Doctor of History is totally a thing.

Going to make sure I find a good midway point between pushing Benedicts loyalties to the Crown and their loyalties to the team. Going to require a deft hand (which hopefully I will have).

Aspects look good. Painfully Earnest Servant of His Duty is not explicitly clear to what his duties are, but Concept Aspects are intentionally meant to be broad and his backstory clears up a lot of ambiguity. Merely calling out that it might be an aspect where I trip up on Compelling it during the game.

Initially I thought British, eh Wot? would be difficult to bring up in game, but the more I thought about it the more I realized it had quiet a few uses. It could easily be Invoked on rolls to put people at ease or gain their confidence by affecting the stereotype of a British gentleman, but also could be Compelled to make Benedict stand out anywhere that isn’t Great Britain. Just took a bit of brainpower.

Stunts look fine, none of them do anything wild. Definitely leans towards fighting with three separate stunts focused on Combat. Not a bad thing, just calling this out to make sure there are scenes of good old fisticuff action.

Dr. Cornell Afterthought
Just love this character concept. So weird but also fitting into the setting.

Useful for Narrow Definitions of Useful is another concept where I had to think about it to wrap my head around its uses.

I was thinking you were mostly going to focus on Hallucinations from the Telepath weird mode, but I see you’ve focused more on Psychokinesis from the Psychokinesis weird mode. I saw the reasoning in the Dr. Cornell thread this morning and it made sense for the character, so why not.

Stunts look fine. No Mega-Stunts, so no extra Fate Points in the GM pool. Borrowed Knowledge is going to be a fun one to see in play.

Hope
Ahh, the fox in the hen house character. Going to be interesting to see how Hope reacts when I put some forbidden shinies in front of her.

Second Story Woman - Retired Consultant doesn’t have the poetic flow of other aspects, but definitely gets the point across. Perhaps Retired Second Story Woman, Now Consultant instead?

The other aspects all pretty good, I have a good idea of how they could be Invoked or Compelled in game. Mummy & Daddy Don’t Approve of Burglary or Science seems a bit over narrow, though. Perhaps just Mummy & Daddy Wouldn’t Approve so that instead of just Burglary and Science-related misadventures, it’s anything that could be considered “not-proper.” Again, both this and previous one are suggestions so use or ignore them as you wish.

Still need stunts, but that’s something that can be held off until later. Hell, you can add stunts in game as needed. Of anyone, I could see Hope having a piece of Personal Equipment that she keeps on hand (perhaps something she stole previously from either Tesladyne or another science group). For more info, see pages 74-75 of the Atomic Robo book. Also Helen McAlister on pg. 268 might have some stunts that could work for Hope.

Kane
Definitely interested to see how this character fleshes out during the course of the game.

For aspects, most look good though I am not certain how I would Compel (or you would Invoke) Homeward Bound (Eventually). Might be me not wrapping my head around it or could need some punching up.

The same thing I said about adding stunts with Hope also apply here. Too bad the Real Science Adventures book (focusing on Nikola Tesla’s Centurions of Science) never got made, because I feel like some things from that book could apply to Kane. Given some things you said about the character, perhaps take a look at the Healing Factor stunt associated with the Mutant weird mode on page 88.

Final Notes
Looking at the characters, I know I need to focus the adventures on action (since we have two characters with Great Action modes), events where linguistics will be useful, and weird devices (that can be sabotaged or stolen). Investigation can either be a focus or glossed over as the players want (since the Branch Office’s Great Intel can cover a multitude of issues).

A high society function (like a gala) would be fun to play with since Benedict Blue would fit right in, would likely make Hope uncomfortable, Dr. Afterthought would not fit in at all, and Kane would be a bit of a wild card.

My mode selection was pretty tactical. I wanted someone who wasn’t useless in combat (he’s kind of a glass cannon with low Physical stress, but his to-hit with PK is +6…) and someone who had this power but wasn’t great with the face-type skills. Skill-wise he’s where I want him to be: monstrous Will, a versatile psychic power, good Rapport and Empathy to talk with people, but pretty useless for the cloak-and-dagger style of interacting with folks. He’ll save his Fate points for Borrowed Knowledge when he needs to do something else.

The gag here is that action linguistics isn’t really a thing, nobody believes it’s a thing, and he’s going to do his best to change the world’s mind. He should struggle to find ways to apply his pet project to situations the team encounters, rather than run into a bunch of situations where he’s the guy for the job, if that makes sense.

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