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The Neon Streets is an actual play podcast set in a cyberpunk dystopia using the FATE RPG system. We work hard to make the system and our show accessible to anyone, even those with no TTRPG experience! Join us three friends as we navigate our characters through the dangerous streets of The Big Gulp, battling corrupt mega-corporations and rival gangs in this high-stakes world. Whether you're a fan of FATE, DnD 5E, Pathfinder, or any other tabletop RPGs, there's something here for everyone. Our gameplay focuses heavily on comedic storytelling and immersive role-playing, going much lighter on number crunching/dice rolling. Listen in as our characters make tough decisions in a deep world with memorable stories. Our second series: BurgerCorp Blues is coming very soon!
The Neon Streets - Episode 0
The Neon Streets - Episode 0
Transcribed by a loving fan.
Ben Rollans: Hello everyone, welcome to episode zero of the Neon Streets podcast,
and this episode we're gonna be introducing the characters, the world, and then
talking a little bit about cyberpunk as a genre, and a little bit about Fate as a game
system. If you want to skip this episode and go on to episode one, this story's gonna
make perfect sense, you're not going to miss anything--if you prefer to hear a little
more about sort of the intricacies of the game, then listen on. Aaaaand hereee we
go...
Ben: Hello everyone, welcome to the Neon Streets podcast. It is a Fate actual-play
cyberpunk podcast set in a dystopian future where corporations oppress the
common man and make them buy all sorts of plastic stuff that goes into the ocean...
[Lee and Craig laugh]
Ben: Yes! So, I am joined here by my players Lee Zaharko and Craig Hole. And we're
gonna get a quick little character introduction. Lee, who are you playing?
Lee: Hi, I am playing Dizzy Ines. He's a pretty standard cyberpunk guy, he's a console
cowboy, he lives in the underworld and stays up all night to just... hack the
mainframe, and y'know... acquire the AI chip and that type of shit.
Ben: Of course! Tell me, what does Dizzy look like?
Lee: So he's got his cyberpunk Mall Goth duster on, he's got a tanktop under that.
He's got, y'know, significant bags under his eyes, he's got probably his .38 caliber
loose hanging in his duster pocket. And he's always got his [cyber]deck on him, his
PCD3, his means with interfacing with the Net basically.
Ben: Absolutely, absolutely. And Craig, who are you playing?
Craig: What's up, I'm playing Test Subject 405G, he is a genetic experiment, he's got
white hair, he's got some crazy eyes, blue forked tongue, wears gray coveralls--he's
basically property of one of the corporations, and has been tested on his whole life to
give him all kinds of reptilian features.
Ben: [Whoops]
Craig: That's right, they've spliced him with reptile DNA, so a number--
Ben: That is some exciting stuff.
Craig: A number of different reptiles.
Lee: Not amphibian.
Ben: No.
Craig: Not amphibian.
Ben: Talking about crazy eyes, how crazy are we talking?
Craig: Gold, sorta orange irises like the same way a lizard would, but he doesn't have
the little black line? Slit? It's more of a regular pupil but with orange-y gold irises.
Ben: Okay, and you will never hear anything else about that for the rest of the
podcast.
Craig: Never even know about it. In fact, if I hadn't told you now it would never come
up.
Ben: [Laughing] Okay, so--
Lee: [With a United States Southern accent]: Now one of you guys isn't a reptile
man, is you?
Lee: [Dropping the voice] Test Subject closes his eyes.
[Ben and Craig laugh]
Ben: Yeah, just walking around with one of those... Bird Box things on? What do you
call them, blindfolds?
Craig: Bird Box, yeah.
Lee: [Laughing] Yeah, I don't think there was a good name for it before Bird Box
came out.
Ben: [Laughing] I usually just call them--
Craig: Really established that blindfold thing as a thing.
Lee: This is a whole new trope here.
Ben: I've never heard of it. Okay, so I'm going to give a quick runthrough of how
characters are built in Fate and then we're going to hear a little bit more about Dizzy
and Test. So, I wanna talk a little bit about how characters are built in Fate, and they
are built around something called Aspects. Aspects are something true about your
character, and also can be Invoked for a mechanical effect. Or Compelled for
another kind of mechanical effect. So each character has 5 Aspects. They have a
High Concept, which is kind of the over-arching character trope; they have a
Trouble, which is a complicating factor, and then they have 3 other Aspects about
them. They could be personality traits, they could be significant relationships, they
could be connections through organizations, or they could be... did I say
possessions? Because they can be possessions. So--
Craig: You did now.
Ben: I did now. So, there's Aspects, there are Skills, which are just like any other RPG
you've played where you add the skill modifier to your roll to determine if you
succeed an action or not. You also have Stunts, which are like your characters'
special abilities. They modify rolls in certain ways, they let you use Skills in new ways,
you can do all sorts of cool stuff--they give you unique features that bring your
characters to life. So. What I want to know is, Lee! What are your Aspects?
Lee: Yeah, okay, so Dizzy--his High Concept is Unhinged Console Cowboy, pretty self
explanatory, gives you a good mental image of what he's like. His trouble is the Corp
mycotoxin, so basically he got captured by a corporation trying to pull a job against
him, they injected him with this mycotoxin in exchange for him being allowed to
keep his life. But he has to come back to them for the antidote regularly. So they
basically control his life. Uh, his next Aspect is his Weakness for the Stims, he's a
hacking guy, he stays up all hours of the night, constantly using stims. Next Aspect
is a possession, which is his hardcore PCD3, his personal computer. It's how he
interfaces with the Net– it’s [cyber]deck, he loves it. And then his final Aspect is his
Underworld Reputation. He's been a criminal for his whole life basically, so that
comes up in various ways.
Ben: Absolutely, I imagine you have to defend your reputation sometimes.
Lee: Sometimes you have to. Sometimes it hurts you!
Ben: Absolutely, might have to fix your reputation, people coming after you... So
that's great, do you want to run us quickly through your Stunts?
Lee: Yeah, absolutely. His first Stunt is called Stim Hack, which is: I can succeed at--
Dizzy can succeed at any hack, but at the cost of a Moderate Consequence, which
we'll get into more in the mechanics of Fate. His next Stunt is called Just Because
You're Paranoid, it Doesn't Mean They're Not Watching You. Which is a 2 plus to
Notice Checks to determine if I'm being followed or surveilled. That's like a pretty
standard format for a Fate Stunt. And the last one is called L33TSP34K [read:
leetspeak] which is--I can use my Decking skill instead of my Rapport skill when I'm
trying to persuade and schmooze up to other hacking type people.
Ben: That's cool, 'cuz you guys both do that cool thing where--
Lee: The L33TSPEAK, yeah...
Ben: Where you put the numbers in. That's sick, man.
Lee: [Referencing a meme written in L33TSPE4K] If you can read this...
Ben: Wow. I'm out. I'm out.
Lee: ...you're a real nerd.
Ben: I can't do it.
[Craig laughs]
Ben: Uh... Craig, do you want to run us through the Aspects for Test?
Craig: Absolutely, yeah. So, High Concept--again, pretty straightforward. Gene Mod
Test Subject – Reptile DNA babyyyyy.... So, pretty straightforward.
Ben: Yeah, does it say "baby" on your sheet?
Craig: Uh--no, that was a little bit of adlibbin' that I was doing there--
Ben: That was really good. I'm really impressed, man. You've come a long way.
Lee: [sounds like a combination of "Good job" and "Congrats", thus making
"Goodgrats"]
Craig: Yeah, it's improv, uh... my specialty, so...
Ben: Yeah, yeah!
Lee: Baby DNA?
Ben: Craig--Craig is actually one of Emettson’s Premiere Improvisors.
Craig: Okay, well that's not true.
[Ben laughs]
Craig: Reptile DNA though, just means basically he's got a number of attributes to
him that are tied to a number of different reptiles, and it's pretty straightforward. Uh,
his Trouble? Social Outcast, man. Life is solitude, he does not know how to interact
appropriately with people! Maybe not appropriately--But, like, normally.
Lee: Not unlike yourself.
Ben: Yeah, just yelling in the mic there, eh?
Craig: It's a lot of just not picking up on what people are putting down in a very
normal--like, when normal people are talking. So. Uh, my next Aspect is Love My
Lizard, basically he has a chameleon companion that he takes with him everywhere.
Unbreakable bond, best friends--his name is Leon.
[Ben and Lee both "ooh" loudly. Kind of like when your friend drops a sick burn.]
Ben: I thought it might be Cam, but you went with Leon.
Lee: There's only 2 good options.
Craig: Only, yeah.
Ben: Eli.
Lee: Amy, maybe??
Ben: Eli??
Lee: If it's a female chameleon?
Ben: Cam-ee-leon, Eli-on?
Craig: Eli-on is what I wanted to do, but--
Lee: Ean? Like, Ian with an E? Yeah, that's a name. [Ean????]
Ben: There's actually a lot of names that make up the word "chameleon."
Craig: Either way, I chose--
Lee: Ham?
Ben: [Laughter] Isn't that a biblical name?
Lee: HAM?
Ben: Isn't there a Book of Ham or something?
Lee: I don't believe it is, I don't believe it is.
Ben: I am not a very good religious person.
Craig: Well, regardless, I chose to go with Leon because it's my character. [Laughs]
Ben: Well, that's great. Let's go to the next one, then.
Craig: I--yeah, I only have 4 Aspects, and the final one is: Property of GenetiCorp.
Which, as it implies, I'm still a test subject for GenetiCorp and they kind of own me.
They're done with the test, but I'm still their property, so. That could imply a number
of different things.
Ben: You know what? On that note, I want to mention to the listeners that both of
our characters have ties to GenetiCorp because we are starting the campaign where
they are going to be essentially slaves to the Corporation. Dizzy's being coerced with
his mycotoxins, and Test has been effectively brainwashed as a test subject. So
they're both being controlled, and that's gonna be where we start our campaign out.
Let's hear about Test's Stunts, please!
Craig: You bet. First Stunt is Chameleon DNA. You got a number of different reptiles
infused into his body and intertwined into his DNA so he gets a number of different
features that represent those reptiles. The first one is Chameleon DNA, he can
vanish at the cost of a Fate point in front of everyone, using his camouflage.
Lee: [Appreciatively] Yeah...
Ben: Holy shit that's cool.
Lee: That is how DNA works, yeah...?
[Ben and Craig laugh]
Ben: We're all scientists here.
Craig: I did a lot of research for this, actually...
Ben: We fact-checked everything.
Craig: Found out that none of my character could ever work, but that's fine.
Ben: Wow. [Wheezes] Now you know.
Craig: Boa Constrictor DNA, it's a plus 2 to create an Advantage on Grapple. So
anytime that I'm like, getting down and wrestling with a guy, I can create a sick
advantage 'cuz of my boa constrictor muscles.
Ben: Is that something you're going to be doing a lot?
Craig: 'Course.
Ben: [Wheezes] Guess you got a Stunt for it. Kay!
Craig: Okay, I got Blue Tongue Skink DNA baby, that's where the blue forked tongue
comes into play. It's a plus 2 to Notice/Investigate involving scents and taste.
Ben: Oooh.
Craig: Yeah. I got Gecko DNA; I got Sticky Fingers. I can climb up walls and I can,
uh--I guess how--what we wanted to do, like--create an Advantage for it? Or just,
better at climbing?
Ben: We'll see, man. We'll see.
Craig: Roll Athletics for climbing? Something like that?
Ben: I would say we're gonna talk in just a second about the 4 Actions of Fate, but
uh... yeah, it could be versatile, we could figure it out as we go.
Craig: Basically I'm gonna be skittering around on walls at all times.
Ben: Ooooooooh.
Craig: Yeah, final one is: Ambush Predator. If I go into hiding and I wait it out, and I
wait for some prey to come near me, I get a little bit of an Advantage when I go in to
fight.
Ben: Oh, like a little sneak attack.
Lee[?]: Little sneak attack.
Craig: I like it, yeah.
Ben: Okay! So there we have Dizzy Ines, the Decker. Test, the...Test Subject... It's
easy to remember. Uh, so what we're going to talk about now is a little bit about the
mechanics of Fate. So people who have never played it, never heard of it, know a
little bit about what it is--so we've talked about Aspects. Aspects are at the core of
Fate. Characters have aspects. Scenarios have Aspects. Locations have Aspects.
Objects have Aspects. I have Aspects. You have Aspects. There's Aspects
everywhere. [Transcriber's note: The word "Aspects" looks like gibberish to me now.]
All Aspects are short little descriptors that are always true in the game and they
could also be used for mechanical purposes. So Aspects can be Invoked or
Compelled using Fate Points. So what that is, is you get a certain pool of Fate points
at the beginning of every session that can be spent to get bonuses to your rolls by
Invoking an Aspect... or you can get more Fate Points by taking a Compel on
Aspects. So, when something bad happens to you because of your Aspect, you get a
Fate Point back.
Ben: So let's take a quick example: Craig, why don't you hit me with one of your
Aspects and we'll just ffffffffffffffffff--we'll make an example.
Craig: We'll just--okay. [Laughs] Probably the easiest one to do is the Gene Mod Test
Subject, man. Show some reptile DNA.
Ben: Okay, so that's a great example. So any time you are doing something that can
conceivably be related to your reptile DNA--let's say you attack somebody and you've
got reptile claws. You can Invoke that to say "I swipe at him with my reptile claws to
get a plus 2 to Fight.” Spend a Fate Point, that's it.
Craig: So it's always at the cost of a Fate Point. Unless...
Ben: When you're Invoking Aspects, yes. There is one exception. And I wish you
hadn't brought that up.
Craig: I'm sorry. [Laughs] I threw you off.
Ben: We'll come back to it.
[Ben and Craig laugh]
Ben: You can also take a Compel. So if you're talking about the Gene Mod Test
Subject aspect, the Compel could be something like--oh, you walk into a store, and
the store owner sees your little tongue come out, and he's kind of creeped out, and
he doesn't want to serve you anymore.
Craig: Suspicious...
Ben: You would get a Fate Point in that situation.
Craig: Dope. Dope.
Ben: Because it has complicated your life in a way, and it made the adventure harder
for you in some way. But it also, of course, makes it interesting. If you're sitting at
home like: [In a rough, mucus-y voice] "What? I don't like the sound of that. I just
wanted to have a smooooth ride..."
Craig: Which is exactly what you would sound like.
Lee: That is exactly what you sound like at home, too.
Ben: That's what I sound like, yeah. That's my home voice. I'm at Craig's house right
now. This is my "Craig's house" voice. Uh... so, if you're thinking that, well, then you
don't understand how work 'cuz stories have problems and problems are tied to
characters and that is what Fate is alll about, yeah, that's what I'm talking about.
Okay, so we've got Fate Points. We've got Aspects. We've got Stunts, which I've
talked about and I don't think we need to say anything more about Stunts.
Craig: Just a way to augment your abilities, basically, and just do something a little
different, man!
Ben: I think we've even talked about Skills.
Lee: Well, the one thing I'd say about Stunts, too, is how you were saying like, "Oh, is
that going to come up that much?" Stunts are like, very narrow, or they come at a
cost, it really carves out what your character is like, you know.
Ben: I would say, furthermore, that, you should always play towards your Stunts, you
know. Like your stunts should be defining how your character operates. If the Stunts
aren't being used regularly, change the Stunt up. Do something else. That's totally
allowed. I will talk now about Skills.
Ben: Skills are very simple in this game, you got a number of Skills. They just
augment your roles, so you got some plus 4 Skills, plus 3 Skills, plus 2 Skills, plus 1
Skills... And they can grow as the game goes on. You just add that modifier to your
roll, whatever you're rolling, and that's the outcome. Uh.... there's also... for instead of
Hit Points, we have a bit more of a complicated system, but it's actually pretty cool.
Ben: You've got two different kinds of health essentially, you've got Stress and you've
got Consequences. Stress represents very temporary damage to your character, or it
can even represent something kind of a little bit more... oooooh, uh, what's--I'm
doing a thing with my hands where I'm like uh ooooooh....
Craig: Little more abstract? Is the word you're looking for? [Transcriber's note: thank
you, Craig.]
Ben: Sure, absolutely, yeah. So it could be something like luck, and it just represents
how your character can avoid significant damage. Maybe the blow glanced off their
chin without really connecting. Maybe they were able to just dodge the bullet in the
nick of time. So that's Stress. You can knock off 1 Stress box every time you get hit,
and then you have to take a Consequence. So if you're taking a big hit, you're going
to be taking lots of consequences. That's the way it is.
Ben: Consequences are a more permanent damage. What they are, are Aspects that
are very, very negative. So you have a Mild Consequence, a Moderate Consequence,
and a Severe Consequence. They can soak up those extra Shifts of damage, those
extra hits of damage, but you have a really negative consequence as a result, and it
comes with a free Invoke! You don't have to spend a Fate Point to Invoke it the first
time. So, that means--
Craig: That's bad. Against you, yeah.
Ben: It's bad. And you're going to be taking more damage because of it. That's
Stress and Consequences. I want to talk now about the Four Actions of Fate. We
have Overcome, we have Create an Advantage, we have Attack, and we have
Defend. Overcome sort ofthe catch-all thing you're going to use. Any time you're not
doing damage or you're not trying to help yourself out exactly, you’re just trying to get
past an obstacle, you're going to use the Overcome action. It'll come up quite a bit.
Anytime, we’ll say, picking a lock, breaking into a security system, that's Overcome.
Ben: Next we have Create an Advantage, which is sort of the signature kind of roll
for Fate. So Create an Advantage is what you use to create new Aspects in the
game, or to add free Invokes to Aspects that are already on the table. So, I could
create an Aspect using my Shoot Skill for example,something like, Lining Up the
Shot, and that's gonna give me a free Invoke the next time I roll, or I can Invoke that
for a plus 2 to my roll, and get a big ollllllllll' bullet heading right for your brain.
Craig: Boom.
Ben: Get 'em. I can also create Aspects on [laughs] Craig--
Lee: Now that's a Severe Consequence.
Ben: Yeah. [Laughs] Absolutely. So you can also create free Invokes on Aspects that
already exist. So if there's an Aspect on the table that says Big Table in the Middle of
the Room--
[Ben and Craig laugh]
Ben: I... I dunno how I come up with this stuff. You can create a free Invoke on that
saying, like, "I'm gonna lift up the table so when the guy walks by I'm going to flip it
over on his head!" Okay, so then next turn you'd use your Physique roll to attack the
guy or whatever, and you flip the table up and try to get him, and you get plus 2 to
your roll. That's a terrible, terrible example... then we have Attack and Defend which
are pretty straightforward. Certain skills can be used to Attack and certain skills can
be used to Defend. In this game, Shoot and Fight are used generally to deal physical
damage, with some exceptions. And Athletics is going to be used to Defend.
Ben: When we're talking about mental attacks, we can use Provoke...
Craig: Will...?
Ben: Provoke to Attack, and Will to Defend. I'm really happy that you know that after
playing months and months of this game. That's really impressive. Amazing.
Craig: Sweet. I know.
Lee: The other thing, too, is if we're gonna bring in Decking Stunts and Deck
Defense Stunts, those are probably going to be attacking--
Ben: Oh.
Lee: And defending, I would think, as well.
Ben: That's a good point. So in this game there will be some things done in
cyberspace by Dizzy in particular, he's a decker. So the way we gonna work in this
game is that there's a skill called Decking, and there's another Skill called Net D for
Net Defense. And these are going to be the two Skills that you use to do damage in
the Net, and to defend against damage in the Net. As well, the way it's gonna work
inside the Net in this game, is gonna be that you can use all your Skills in the Net.
However, they're capped by your Decking Skill. So if you don't have appropriate
Decking, then you can't use Stealth very well, you can't use Physique--I don't know
why I used Physique but you know what I'm trying to say.
Lee: Yeah...
Ben: Rapport, Investigate--so if you had a 2 for Decking and a 3 for Rapport, then
your Rapport online is gonna be a 2 because your Decking is not that high. So Test, I
think, has some pretty shitty Decking.
Craig: I don't have any, 'cuz it wouldn't make any sense for me to have any access to
it.
Ben: Well, there you go. You're not gonna be spending a lot of time in the Net.
[Ben, Craig, and Lee laugh]
Craig: Well that's the thing, 'cuz like in the physical world I think Test is gonna have a
big advantage, and then in the Net world, that's where Dizzy has a big advantage.
We're the perfect team for that reason alone!
Ben: I think it's actually great! I actually really like that little dynamic you guys have, I
think it's perfect, we're gonna have some really fun missions. Right? Thinking Molly
and Case from Neuromancer? Right?
Lee: That's exactly what it's like.
Ben: That's super cool.
Lee: Definitely the same sexual tension!
Ben: Yeah! At the table, too.
Lee: Not... not untrue.
Ben: Palpable. Absolutely. So uh, I think we have covered everything we want to
cover.
Lee: Do you want to talk about cyberpunk world?
Ben: Yeah.
Lee: Like what cyberpunk is a little bit?
Ben: So we're gonna just talk a little bit about cyberpunk as a genre in case you're
not familiar with it. I think maybe the best way to talk about it is to just use some
examples, so--The Matrix is probably the most well-known example of a cyberpunk
story. It has all the tropes that are classic in cyberpunk. Well, you have a Matrix– you
have a cyberspace world--you have an extremely powerful entity, in this case, you
know, it's the computer itself. In our game, it's gonna be the corporations. And then
you have a sort of a force that's fighting against that power, that's the "punk" part of
cyberpunk. You kind of stick it to the man. Other excellent examples would be things
like Neuromancer, the show... cy-...
Lee: Altered Carbon?
Ben: Altered Carbon, which is a great book too actually.
Lee: Um, what else?
Craig: There's plenty.
Lee: Even the game, Netrunner, Netrunner is like a perfect example, if you've ever
heard of Netrunner.
Craig: Also the game Cyberpunk 2077, probably falls under that genre.
[Ben snorts quietly]
Ben: It does, it does. So those are some very good examples of cyberpunk, kind of
gives you an idea of what you're looking at. Other examples, aesthetically, would be
like, Blade Runner, you have that rainy neon thing, uh....what else...
Craig: That's definitely part of it. Rainy and Neon.
Ben: Oh, yeah. Essentially if I don't say it's raining in the podcast, it's a-drizzlin'.
[They all laugh]
Ben: The main tropes of cyberpunk are the fight against oppression, it's a fight
against monolithic power that holds you down--that's the "punk" part. That's the
"punk" ethos. The other part is the:
[All of them together]: Cyberrrr.
Ben: --part. Yeah. So that's about being on the Net, being in the grid, in the
cyberspace, in the Matrix, doing your thing online. And also having cybernetic
modifications. So those come up, you know, eyeballs that are like, terminator-y, got
like a red light. You got, maybe you know, an arm that's made out of metal. Maybe
you've got ears that have little satellite dishes poking out of them that swivel around.
Maybe you've got cyber hair because you're like me and your hairline is receding and
you're a little bit self-conscious.
Craig: No!
Lee: One other thing, too, about like, cyberpunk I think is that, uh, it's like the 80's
version of the future. Rather than the actual future. So I'm gonna be talking a lot
about, like, hacking the mainframe, where green text is showing up on the screen.
'Cus I don't know a lot about computers, but that's true to cyberpunk I think.
Ben: That is very true.
Lee: It's paying lip service to actual science, you know.
Ben: Yeah. No, it's like the idea that like, yeah--yeah computers exist, but uh, we
don't care about what they actually do because this is what they do in our game.
Lee: Exactly, yeah, yeah.
Craig: It's not a non-fiction series by any means.
Lee: It's not true to life.
Ben: No, it's uh...
Craig: Not the future of tech.
Ben: No, the only thing that's true about this story is that Craig is actually very
socially awkward, just like his Trouble Aspect implies.
Craig: Yeah.
Lee: And, all the Aspects.
Craig: It's very true, actually. It's good to get that out early so when it does happen,
people don't have to just shut off the podcast and be confused.
Ben: Yeah, no, they'll expect it. They-- [trails off]
Craig: Yeah.
Ben: I was gonna say "Come to appreciate it over time," but you don't.
Craig and Lee: No.
Craig: No, it usually makes everything worse.
Lee: You come to tolerate it over time.
Craig: Yeah, I [fades out]
Ben, voiceover: Well, here we are. The end of the podcast. We are so happy that you
listened. If you enjoyed it, please go on to episodes 1, 2, and 3, which should already
be uploaded. If you enjoy those, please give us a 5-star review on iTunes. Please
please please. Also, you can find us on twitter @theneonstreets. Give us a little
shout, say "What up, Ben? What up, Craig? ...What up, Lee? I didn't forget about
Lee. Uh, anyway, thank you so much for listening and I hope you enjoy the rest of the
show!
[Transcriber’s note: This transcription was 100% human-listened, written, and edited
by Kaius Samson and a friend that wishes to be unnamed. If you have any questions
or concerns, please contact him at kaius.e.samson@gmail.com. Any hate emails will
be printed and chopped up for artistic use.]