:Otherscape In Action 2024

Hello everyone and welcome to our In Action showcase of :Otherscape, a mythic cyberpunk RPG from the makers of City of Mist. I’m your MC, Kevin Carpenter, and today I’m going to help you navigate the mean streets of the Megacity by showing you a small slice of how to play the game.

If you’ve been following us since the Kickstarter, you should know that :Otherscape’s ruleset went through an overhaul during its development. Please note that our previous :Otherscape In Action video is now outdated. :Otherscape now runs on a new game engine that carries the strengths of City of Mist but streamlines the process for faster cyberpunk action.

With that out of the way, let’s dig into the rules. In :Otherscape, players play as mercenaries taking on dangerous jobs, while the Master of Ceremonies–or MC–plays everything else. When playing any scene, the group follows a sequence of Establish >> Action >> Consequences.

• First, the MC establishes the scene. If there are Challenges in the scene, like enemies or obstacles, the MC can make a Threat with them. Then the MC gives the spotlight to one of the players, asking them “What do you do?”.
• The player in the spotlight takes action by describing what their character does and making a roll if needed. If the MC decides it’s a simple situation, it’s a quick outcome. If the MC wants to get into the gritty details, such as during a gunfight or a tense negotiation, it’s a tracked outcome, which can generate Effects to create story tags or statuses. 
• The MC then narrates the Consequences if the player’s action generated them or if they ignored a Threat. Consequences can be anything from story complications to harmful statuses. If it’s possible, the MC can let the player roll to mitigate the Consequences and defend themselves.

This sequence then repeats itself, with the MC re-establishing the scene and a different player getting the spotlight each time, as best fits the drama.

In this video, we’ll be running the scenario from the free :Otherscape demo. You can acquire this demo, along with the demos for City of Mist and Legend in the Mist, by going to cityofmist.co and signing up for updates.

In this demo, a strange anomaly has appeared in cyberspace. This virtual domain, known as the BNZ4I-10 Cyber Shrine, displays supernatural capacities to manipulate the flow of data, allowing its controller to obtain highly sensitive information from any network. A crew of frog-like Ogama marauders have taken it over. Your crew is hired to take it back.

We’ll be following the urban scavenger Unagi and the oni mercenary Wilson on this job. You can play these characters in the demo, and you can also get them in the :Otherscape character pack along with eight other characters. Each folio functions as a pregenerated character sheet and a stylish wall poster, so definitely check them out.

Now let’s establish the scene. Unagi and Wilson are entering cyberspace through a process called harnessing. Their avatars will now appear in the virtual world, and their actions in the virtual space of the cybershrine will translate into breaking through firewalls and accessing data stores.

Unagi and Wilson materialize just outside of the cyber shrine. Literal streams of data flow into and out of the anomaly. The only obvious way inside appears to be a front gate pagoda, which acts as the shrine’s firewall.

The scene is established, so now we move to Action. The MC gives the spotlight to any player that wants it. In this case, Unagi!

Unagi’s player looks over her character sheet to get ideas on what to do. Instead of stats like +1 Strength, characters in :Otherscape have descriptors called Tags, like Unagi’s deep delve scanner or her expertise as a scavenger. Using these tags is how your character affects the world.

Every action is resolved either narratively or through a single roll. With every roll, you count up the number of tags that directly help or hinder you. This total is called your Power. You then roll 2d6 and add your Power to the roll. Rolling 10+ is a strong hit with no Consequences. Rolling 6- is a failure with Consequences. And rolling 7, 8, or 9 is a mixed success where you succeed but also take Consequences.

No matter what your Power is, there’s always a possibility to succeed or fail. If you roll snake eyes, that’s always a miss. But if you roll boxcars, that’s always a strong hit. In the dystopian world of :Otherscape, luck is always a factor.

Unagi wants to do some recon and learn more about the anomaly. For this action, she’s attempting to Discover more about the area. Because she’s rolling for an Effect, this action will be a tracked outcome. If she succeeds, she’ll be able to spend 1 point of Power per detail she wants to uncover.

Unagi takes out her deep delve scanner and uses her expertise as a scavenger to search the area. These two tags give her a Power of 2. But as Unagi rolls a 4, her 2 Power only brings her up to 6. She fails, and the MC can now hit her with Consequences.

While Unagi is distracted searching the area, she ironically doesn’t notice the data stream ripple under her feet. Suddenly, a Kappa Guardian jumps out of the stream and tries to grab Unagi with its powerful arms! 

If Unagi does nothing, she’ll take the status restrained-2. However, players can attempt to mitigate the Consequences if they have a chance at escaping them or making them hurt less. They do this by rolling and, on a success, spending their Power to buy down the status. Keep in mind that you can not double dip tags that were used in an action when mitigating the Consequences of the same action. So even if Unagi’s deep delve scanner or scavenger tags could help her here, she can’t use them.

Thankfully, Unagi has been magically exposed to the mythos of Unagi Hime, the Eel Princess. This exposure to the eel princess gives her the boon of slippery skin, which will be perfect for slipping away from the Kappa Guardian’s grasp. With the 2 Power from these tags, Unagi rolls a 6 for a total of 8. When mitigating, 7 or above is a success! Unagi spends two points of Power to reduce restrained-2 by two tiers, mitigating it completely.

Unagi slips out of the Kappa Guardian’s grasp and the MC re-establishes the scene. The Kappa Guardian reveals itself as a cyberspace program attempting to delete the crew. To set up its Threats, let’s take a look at its Challenge Profile.

Challenge Profiles are the stat blocks for enemies, obstacles, and hostile environments. They’re usually made up of their challenge difficulty, name, description, Limits, starting tags & statuses, and their Threats and following Consequences. In this example, the MC would tell the crew that the Kappa Guardian has a story tag of a protective carapace, which will give -1 to any attempts to hurt it. 

The MC doesn’t tell them that its Limit is Hurt (Crash Program) 3, which means that if it takes 3 tiers of a hurtful status, the Kappa Guardian is defeated. Think of Limits like health bars, only they can also represent ongoing efforts like being bribed or magically banished. Player characters also have Limits. If they take 5 tiers of any status, like slashed-5, they’re incapacitated. And if they take 6 tiers, they’re dead or otherwise permanently transformed.

The MC now establishes one of the Kappa Guardian’s Threats. In this case, the MC narrates that it’s about to swing its iron-bound club as it cries with its monstrous beak. If the PCs don’t stop this, it’ll smash their limbs or a piece of their equipment.

Thankfully, Wilson has the perfect idea. He’s going to shoot this thing until it’s dead, because that’s what WIlson does best. Wilson uses his tags heavy railgun, projectiles too fast to dodge, short-range plasma pulse, and his military past. The Kappa Guardian’s protective carapace acts as a negative tag, so Wilson is rolling with a Power of 3.

Wilson rolls a 7 for a total of 10. A strong hit with no Consequences! Wilson spends his 3 Power on the Attack Effect to deal perforated-3. This overcomes the Kappa Guardian’s Hurt Limit! The Kappa Guardian screams in agony before dissolving into loose code.

The Kappa Guardian has been defeated, but there’s no telling what else awaits our crew within the cyber shrine. After all, they haven’t even gotten through the front gate yet!

But if you want to uncover the secrets within the B4NZ4I-10 Cyber Shrine, check out the :Otherscape demo by signing up at cityofmist.co. And while you’re there, consider picking up the :Otherscape PDF’s, along with pre-ordering the physical books due out at the end of the year!

We hope you enjoyed this brief preview of :Otherscape. Until next time, have fun!