Project Freedom DVD Commentary (?)

[Davies]

So I was always baffled by Tuo-Fa who seemed to have no real interest in interacting with anybody.

In fairness, he did make one vague attempt at interacting with Toxic, but it was, yes, vague. I gave him all sorts of hints that this was when he should start asking questions, but he didn't take any. I remember him being much more participatory in Freedom Panic, but he was playing a very different character there, too.

I'm still mystified that Zane went straight to "I'll lobotomize you" over Robin pushing Phaethon out the window but made almost no mention of the insubordination and hair-trigger, mission jeopardizing temper. That exchange at the end was a hell of a lot of fun for me.

The part that made me laugh was that I forgot to mention that it was "with a drill". Which was always my intent.
So what was a horrible nasty real threat, due to his powers... was actually a very toothless threat considering how incredibly squeemish Zane actually was.

This one was really funny in hindsight. I think I wasn't the only one that misread the intent there.

<lifts hand> Wainwright definitely took the threat a lot more seriously than she would have "with a drill".

[DrunkenGrognard]

I wasn't fortunate enough to actually PLAY in project freedom, but I read through it at Jalinth's recommendation. (and given how bad I seem to be at tone and presentation and, well, everything in play by post, that's probably for the best. I swear I'm not near so shit at in-person or chat games) As someone who merely watched the chaos, this retrospective is absolutely fascinating and I'm quite enjoying reading it.

[Davies]

Thanks!

Chapter Eight

October 8, 2009 to November 7, 2009

This was the one I'd been planning for since the beginning, inserting your characters into the events also witnessed by the characters of Jalinth's "Joe Average" game. It was a risky business, and I ended up having to play the "don't do that or the space-time continuum will shatter" card at least once. But on the whole I think this alternate look at what was going on in a Freedom City under siege managed to work given your perspectives, which were naturally very different from a group of bystanders drawn into events.

Before that, though, events started off on a 'happy day off'' note. There was some progress on the Savant/Robin front, and the first time anyone (in this case Zalman) noted the developing Toxic/Zane front. We also had some good interaction between Donnie and Robin, and the scene with Andrea Atom, Charlie and Zane.

That of course led to the start of the process that revealed that Charlie was an Ultiman, something that Jalinth and ClassDunce had discussed before bringing it to me. I admit that I don't remember the precise details of the backstory that they suggested, as we never went into that much detail in-game. But Charlie's portrayal of her sudden uncertainty considering her physiology, the one thing that she'd always been able to rely upon, was top tier role-playing.

One thing that bothered me was having the 'pieces fall into place' moment of the first investigation scene entirely resulting from the knowledge of NPCs. It might have been better to require Streetwise rolls from those characters who had it -- Donnie being able to recognize the disguised blasters as sometimes found for sale by you-know-who -- and then provide the basic information to the PCs, with their reveal "sparking" further revelations from the NPCs.

The fight scene was a very tense one. If the most famous fight in this series was one arising from ambush, then it can at least be fairly said that you suffered as many ambushes as you benefited from. Unfortunately, even though you won, I couldn't give you a complete victory by allowing you to capture and question any of the VIPER headquarters staff, as that would -- again -- reveal more information about what VIPER was up to in the Joe Average game than was necessary.

I was also fairly pleased when Zane once again demonstrated that he was a better person than he often pretended to be in talking Wainwright out of executing the thugs ... and very impressed when he came up with the final bit after the final confusion about Zane passing out without closing his door.

[Shock]

I wasn't fortunate enough to actually PLAY in project freedom, but I read through it at Jalinth's recommendation. (and given how bad I seem to be at tone and presentation and, well, everything in play by post, that's probably for the best. I swear I'm not near so shit at in-person or chat games) As someone who merely watched the chaos, this retrospective is absolutely fascinating and I'm quite enjoying reading it.

Thanks! It's always nice to know someone else found us as fascinating as we found ourselves ;}

[Shock]

Chapter 8 had some really good character moments. All the stuff before the parade was great. There were the first hints that Savant didn't see Robin as much more than a tool. Wainwright dressed down. Zane and Charlie going to see the Atoms.

There were a lot of tense moments as we tried to figure out what VIPER was up to. Wainwright had to be talked down from executing bad guys. Then Charlie almost ripped a guy's throat out. There was lots of sciencing and magic going on. Just a really full adventure. And that's without mentioning the near disaster of the actual mission.

[ClassDunce]

This was one of my favorite chapters. It was hands down one of our best chapters when it came to Player Character interaction. There was probably more substantive deep conversations in this chapter than any other. It also has my single favorite bit of conversation between Charlie and Robin. It starts here and runs until about the end of the page.

Charlie and Robin are flying around town setting up sensor buoys for Zane's machine and they're talking about some important shit. It runs the gamut from Robin's problems with Zane, which Charlie tries to help her understand by comparing Zane to the Ocean, all the way to Charlie's issue with Thunder. Which Charlie summed up like this.

Charlie nodded, “Yeah.” She stayed quiet for a few minutes, “I’m sporting a huge crush on a woman that wants to snap my neck and I know that’s not healthy.”

She activated her last sensor and took off from the roof, “She uhm… she beat me a few months back. She tricked me into a sparring with her and I was the only one of the two of us really sparring. But I’m still attracted to her and I can’t help that.”

“I don’t know why she hates me, I’m nothing but nice to her and I don’t think it’s just because she’s afraid I’m going to take lightning. I don’t expect her to wake up tomorrow and start to like me, I’m not stupid. It’s just a crush.”

[Arkrite]

Chinchilla. Chinchilla. Chinchilla.

There was some progress on the Savant/Robin front, and the first time anyone (in this case Zalman) noted the developing Toxic/Zane front.

With Zane completely unaware of her interest in him, or Commander's interest in her.
Brilliant technical mind, completely unaware of his surroundings.

Interesting. I never picked up on that. I could tell that he cared about the people on the team, even those he didn't like. But when he was lecturing someone, it was always "MY team" and "MY orders."

Well I never said he wasn't an asshat ;~)

Then Zane freaked out at Charlie for jumping out of the building. Then she had to learn how to fly out of pure stubbornness.

Nothing like being able to inspire greatness by being an unlikable cuss!

The fight scene was a very tense one. If the most famous fight in this series was one arising from ambush, then it can at least be fairly said that you suffered as many ambushes as you benefited from.

All because Robin had to talk about the plan. What a troublemaker. ;~)

My biggest memory was after the fight was over and Toxic making her reappearance and having to admit, okay, yup, their relationship has really changed.

But boy, that fight was quite the thing. Not the worst fight we'd be in, but at the time I didn't like our odds.

and very impressed when he came up with the final bit after the final confusion about Zane passing out without closing his door.

Truth time: I only planned for Zane to pass out, wake up on the floor the next morning feeling like crap.
I did not expect the situation to explode quite the way it did, or the drama it caused, but I'm very fond of how it turned out in the end.

[Davies]

CThere were the first hints that Savant didn't see Robin as much more than a tool.

Savant: I don't understand why people keep repeating that as a negative. It's a vast upgrade from how I view most people.

Chinchilla. Chinchilla. Chinchilla.

Trivia point: the word Charlie was only able to remember as that was one I made up combining "vril" and a German word for "particles". Imagine if I'd just had Andrea say "Vril particles?!"

[Shock]

In fairness, he did make one vague attempt at interacting with Toxic, but it was, yes, vague. I gave him all sorts of hints that this was when he should start asking questions, but he didn't take any. I remember him being much more participatory in Freedom Panic, but he was playing a very different character there, too.

He also took his turn at telling Robin she was just a kid and she should let him handle the adult stuff (killing in that case). It went about as well as you'd expect.

Charlie and Robin are flying around town setting up sensor buoys for Zane's machine and they're talking about some important shit. It runs the gamut from Robin's problems with Zane, which Charlie tries to help her understand by comparing Zane to the Ocean, all the way to Charlie's issue with Thunder. Which Charlie summed up like this.

That was one of the other (other) great things about Charlie. Every woman we met was a potential fling and her first instinct was always to flirt. But the great part was that she found something positive to be attracted to about all of them. I actually felt bad about how the conversation moved to Thunder because Charlie said something Robin didn't like and Robin proceeded to sulk for a bit and then came back with the low blow about Thunder.

[Davies]

Chapter Nine

November 9, 2009 to December 10, 2009

This was intended to be the "breath-er-no-it's-not" chapter following the tension of the previous one. After some recovery -- which had good scenes between Toxic and Zane as well as Charlie and the Commander -- you were all sent out on missions that weren't supposed to involve combat but investigation and role-playing. So, yes, Zane's panic over the idea of Ember burning the school to the ground was baseless. On the other hand, he did sway her opinion of him enough to make the other Psions more interested in him in the future. (A mixed benefit, to be sure.) Over on Charlie's side, there was some hinting at the bigger picture of the VIPER attack on the city, and seeing whether I could create an NPC cloyingly 'helpful' enough to make you hostile in the form of good ol' Randy (who was partially inspired by the good ol' Gil character from The Simpsons). I also took the opportunity to do some world-building by creating Sonic's rogues gallery as well as developing the fates of the R.I.O.T.

(I think I mentioned it, but SD Ivan was actually found by the people who were looking for him and put in the hospital to recover from what VIPER did to him. Keller actually met with him and Little Hawk while you were elsewhere, and developed an odd friendship with his old foes. They proved to be very helpful to him when he was ... well, let's not get ahead of ourselves.)

Anyway, that led into the ... situation in Belarus, which was hinted at as being another Terminus invasion. Again, this came from Jalinth's Joe Average campaign, though I took this in even further divergent directions than I had taken the attack on Freedom City. With the long trip overseas, we had the opportunity for some deep conversations between the characters, like Wainwright and Robin, later Donnie and Robin, and in particular the long-awaited (by me, anyway) confrontation between Savant and Zane.

It occurs to me that I've never really revealed why Savant hated Zane so much. (And we are talking "Black Manta hates Aquaman" levels here.) Savant was convinced -- and the "Kit-Kat bar" scene could be seen as evidence that he was right -- that Zane was unconsciously using telepathy all the time to plunder the minds of those around him, growing "fat" and thus more powerful on their psychic energies. Especially those of Savant, who had the superhuman ability to absorb and retain new information, and was forced to use it to the maximum simply to keep up with what was being 'stolen' from him. (Was he right? Who knows.) He also suspected Zane and Wainwright were working in conjunction with Dr. Ellis, of whose true nature he was somewhat aware.

Charlie and Savant's conversation, on the other hand, was pure fun on my part.

And so the interlude came to an end, and what would follow, followed ...

EDIT: Eesh, what a typo ..

[Shock]

This chapter was sort of a low point for Robin. I really felt bad for Donnie being stuck in the middle of it. Zane snapped at her almost right at the start and she just shut down. Then there was the awful (just awful) attempt at a joke that I regretted as soon as I hit Submit. I often wonder what would have happened if I'd managed to restrain myself there. Or gone with the far less loaded "AEGIS is never around when you need them." The plane trip didn't go much better.

The conversations on the plane were all riveting but as Davies said, Charlie vs Savant was a classic.

[Arkrite]

Interesting. I never picked up on that. I could tell that he cared about the people on the team, even those he didn't like. But when he was lecturing someone, it was always "MY team" and "MY orders."

I know I've already commented on this but I found a conversation between Zane and Donnie that kind of made me chuckle.
Zane basically admitting he had little to no control over the team, and that a lot of his choices were generally made to A) Mitigate issues and B) Allow people to do what they were going to do without his permission anyways.
Charlie wants to take an injured woman to the hospital, splitting up the team. Zane manages to delay, using the woman's fragile state as the reason why they couldn't move her. Once they knew that moving her wouldn't kill her Zane was left with two options: Let Charlie go, or watch Charlie go anyways.
So mitigate, send Curve with her as his cool head and flight powers made him good backup for her.

As for the MY team comments... well, they were the only people in the world he was invested it. He was possessive.

Trivia point: the word Charlie was only able to remember as that was one I made up combining "vril" and a German word for "particles". Imagine if I'd just had Andrea say "Vril particles?!"

I wouldn't still be giggling every time I hear Chinchilla to this day.

Every woman we met was a potential fling and her first instinct was always to flirt.

Always fun to watch, especally since Charlie was in "flirting mode" just long enough to see if there was a response then moved from "Tap that" to "Befriend that" ;~)

and in particular the long-awaited (by me, anyway) confrontation between Savant and Zane.

Savant was basically an arch nemesis for Zane. He was really designed to ferret out information, something Zane was trying to avoid, and generally got the better out of any of their confrontations.
Zane was somewhat confident he could have won a physical confrontation, but also confident that there wouldn't be any such thing as a fair fight between them, and thus such.

Not going to lie, was waiting for Savant to either reveal all of Zane's plans and lead to disaster... or for him to finally try to kill Zane.

Savant was convinced -- and the "Kit-Kat bar" scene could be seen as evidence that he was right -- that Zane was unconsciously using telepathy all the time to plunder the minds of those around him, growing "fat" and thus more powerful on their psychic energies. Especially those of Savant

Well, it's nice to see that Zane isn't the only one with a massive ego ;~)
Though to be fair, Zane blatantly admitted that his psychic power was always on, so there is that.

And it amuses me that if this was true, Zane's increasing success would only lead him to working with smarter people and becoming more and more powerful.



Fun sidenotes: I completely forgot that Zane bought Charlie a copy of the Lightning Thief on their trip to see the Atoms.
Lucky parallels in the story where a kid learns of their special heritage.

He also suspected Savant and Wainwright were working in conjunction with Dr. Ellis, of whose true nature he was somewhat aware.

It's nice to know that Savant wasn't as on the ball as he seemed to be.

[Davies]

Not going to lie, was waiting for Savant to either reveal all of Zane's plans and lead to disaster... or for him to finally try to kill Zane.

I don't think he would ever have done the latter, though Zane did come close to provoking him once. As for the former, he had no concrete proof and wasn't sure whether that general reveal would have turned people against Zane and Wainwright or -- as the later reveals to Charlie and Zalman did -- solidified their loyalties. And no, Savant could not deal with not knowing.

[Davies]

Chapter 10

December 10, 2009 to February 9, 2010

Another two month-long story, this time with the focus on "the big leagues", and what it meant for Project Freedom to be in such company. There was a lot of stuff going on behind the scenes in this scenario, the biggest example of which -- Eurostar's plan to use the situation to attack the Freedom League and the Russian Guard -- didn't become apparent until the finale. Unfortunately, you never discovered the clues that could have made that situation apparent to you, as you were distracted by the presence and activities of the Magical Girls Brigade. And even there, you were deceived quite a bit.

Each of the Legendary Angels you interacted with had their own agenda that they were pursuing. Of these, the simplest was Herald Proteus, who was simply following orders from Herald Midas and following her bliss in attacking and torturing a group of Americans. Herald Midas' goal in giving those orders was to find out whether her suspicions about Robin were true -- suspicions that were kindled by Robin's youth, as well as the nature of her powers* -- and, once she learned that they weren't, preserve her organization's dignity as much as possible. Unfortunately, Robin managed to anger Herald Mentor, who thus abandoned her plans to simply gather information in favor of doing whatever she could to disrupt Project Freedom. Finally, Herald Orion's goal of testing her strength and skill against any who would challenge them was also thwarted (by Donnie) leading her to advocate withdrawal. (You guys actually got one of the friendliest and least death-seeking members of the Brigade angry at you. That's something of an accomplishment.)

Along the way, I was able to bring Dermos back as an NPC, hopefully showing him as the same character Miner Cotren had shown with more of the character development he'd started. We also got to see Robin drawn back into Savant's scheming, Future!Trouble present undercover for the Majestic Twelve, my complete failure to do anything interesting with the fact that Wuxia had fought the Freedom League in the past, and Charlie meeting a woman she didn't even try to flirt with or befriend. And the introduction of Hercules -- in a version that took inspiration from the Eternals' Forgotten Hero (aka Gilgamesh.)

Lotta stuff went on in this one. Ultimately, though, the whole of it was intended as my complaint about "events" that are all about heroes fighting other heroes while there are in-setting humanitarian tragedies going on. I hope I made my point.

* The magitech that the Heralds use and are is much like nanotechnology, and is 'descended' from the use of suits much like Robin's. Looking at her is like looking at a chimpanzee to them -- something clearly recognizable as an ancestor.

[Shock]

There was a LOT going on in this chapter. The sheer amount of NPCs Davies had to handle was mind-boggling. It was awesome having so many big name heroes around. And with all the potential pitfalls, I thought we did rather well staying out of trouble, Magical Girls aside. The fight with Herald Proteus was harrowing, at least for me. Every meeting with them was an explosion waiting to happen. I was fooled into thinking Midas was innocent of the assassination attempt. About the only truth we got about the group was that Midas was in way over her head.

We got to go into Zane's disdain for Daedalus, which was barely mentioned previously. Robin danced on the edge of danger the whole time but mostly stayed out of trouble. She even had a nice conversation with Toxic. Hercules. Zalman went AWOL into space. Arkrite got a HP for stumping the GM. Lots of action in the showers. Zane was obnoxious most of the time but the team mostly got along. Charlie vs the military supply chain.

I'm stunned at the Eurostar revelation. I never picked up on that.