TEXT: 1
  REVENGe IS A DISH
  BEST SERVED...
  Credits
  Author 
  Greg Stolze
  Designer 
  Daniel Solis
  Photography 
  Hubble Site, STScl
   
  http://hubblesite.org/
  
  2
  Intro
  Downloader, meet the ...in Spaaace! demo I ran a couple times at 
  GenCon.  ...iS! demo, meet your downloader.
  What’s Going On?
  If you’ve read ...in Spaaace! you know that it’s not exactly a prep-
  intensive rules-fest.  The bulk of this demo is an oddball clique united 
  only by the desire to ﬁnd a robot supervillain named NV.  The charac-
  ters are built with character rules.  As the GM, you need to build 
  challenges appropriate to the number of players with characters.
  Typically, I threw up about three challenges.  If no one took Gigobot 
  5000, one challenge was “No Way to Get There,” which prompted 
  one group to buy travel tickets out of a guy’s raincoat.  That guy 
  turned out to be front for a group of white slavers taking the charac-
  ters off to mine astro dust until they dropped.  This led to a PC revolt, 
  with the monkey getting shot by a gigantic redneck preying-mantis, 
  prompting the Sloth Machine to dump some Doc Inna Box on him 
  but, being too lazy to read the label, he used mantis-speciﬁc medicine 
  which caused the monkey to grow chitin and respond favorably to his 
  shooter’s pheremones.
  When Gigobot 5000 was in play, I just had NV steal his ﬂy space-ride.  
  (In the stunning conclusion, Gigobot also found out NV was copying 
  his wardrobe).   
  One group of characters ran into a gigantic, planet-wide party in the 
  system where they were hunting for clues.  Another got entangled 
  with Pat’s whiny, telepathic ex-girlfriend while they were trying to lure 
  NV with an exquisitely enviable artifact called something like “The 
  Jeweled Balls of Tharzidak.”
  NV himself was the ultimate challenge, though he really only inter-
  acted with the characters in one demo.  It worked well for me to 
  present him as (of course) pathologically jealous of the Sloth Machine.  
  (“...and while Gr33d and I were out robbing banks and kidnapping 
  beauty queens, you got to stay at home on the sofa eating pizza and 
  watching TV!  All because dad felt it was thematically appropriate!”  
  “Sometimes, dad let me taste beer.”  “He did not!”)
  In short, wing it.  I typically spent less than ﬁve minutes on prep each 
  time, and it worked ﬁne.
  A Possible Problem, Unless it Isn’t
  I found that by the end of the game, I usually had most of the tokens 
  and could readily ﬁat that someone else was already killing NV when 
  the PCs arrived (which I did) or simply send three-quarters of the 
  party to a ﬁery, cataclysmic doom (which I also did).  It didn’t seem 
  to impinge on anyone’s fun, to be honest — lines like “The transdi-
  mensional hillbillies are now using your former head as a spittoon” 
  and “I’ma reprogram your courtesy unit with my ball bat!” seemed to 
  make character death seem like a small price to pay.  
  Nevertheless, I recognize that some groups may be reluctant to 
  submit to the sadistic whims of a GM with a ﬁst full of tokens, so I’ll 
  propose some alternatives for the players.
  Play the Counter-Gathering Game
  ...in Spaaace! is really two games being played at the same time.  One 
  is the game of controlling the plot, and the other is the game of 
  gathering the tokens.  Naturally, success at one typically means failure 
  at the other.  Players who concentrate on picking losses carefully can 
  probably fend off the GM in the endgame.
  When You Win, Don’t Be Gracious
  When a player wins narrative control, there’s no reason to simply 
  survive being dumped out the airlock when you can narrate 
  something that puts your character at an advantage.  It can’t be 
  a huge plot insertion, but try something like “I ﬁnd an emergency 
  space suit on the outside of the ship, get into it rapidly (because it’s 
  designed for this very contingency) and then sneak around to ambush 
  the pirates who assume I’ve walked the plank into the starry void.”  
  Put the ball back in the GM’s court to get full value of the token you 
  exchanged.
  Impose House-Rule Limits
  Depending on how much you want to alter the playing ﬁeld, you can 
  make two very simple tweaks to the rules for ...iS! and radically alter 
  the GM’s ability to play an aggressive token-sweeping game.  
  Option number one is to limit how high the Challenge rating can go 
  for a single plot point.  The best limit is to say no single Challenge 
  can be greater than the highest single Trait of any character.  If you 
  use this with the demo, no Challenge can be greater than 3, because 
  no character has a Trait above 3.
  Option number two is to simply start the GM out with a number of 
  points to spend on Challenges that’s equal to the points each player 
  gets to build a character.  This really levels the playing ﬁeld – possibly 
  to the point that the players wind up ﬁghting each other, rather than 
  curb-stomping the GM’s story authority.  But hey, whatever works for 
  your group.  Some GMs may even secretly like it.
  On That Edifying Note...
  Here are the characters.  Go nuts.
  
  3
  Junkie Monkey
  Motivation
  You got ripped off.  NV stole your stash.  You want it back.
  Backstory
  You’re a genetically enhanced orangutan trained in the arts of 
  mechanical repair.  At some point, tinkering with robot impellers and 
  star drive redundancy manifolds got boring, so you started smoking 
  pot.  Just like the commercials warned, it led to harder stuff – tailored 
  viruses of the pleasure centers in the brain, targeted spinal nerve 
  iontopharesis, and ﬁnally, the nadir of the drug experience: Psichosis.  
  A carefully designed nanospore, “psik” not only does the normal 
  drug schtick of making you feel smart, invulnerable and euphoric, it 
  temporarily activates usually-dormant regions of the brain responsible 
  for psychic powers.  Thus, the more people around you are high, the 
  higher you become.  
  You had amassed a big freaking pile of the stuff, enough for a 
  gigantic psik rave, and then this robot supervillain called NV came 
  along and swiped it.  
  Central Trait
  Bioengineered Grease Monkey (2 tokens).  As a modiﬁed primate, 
  you’re more intelligent than most humans (though clearly no wiser), 
  you’re stronger, and you’re a pretty darn good mechanic.  You can 
  also hold stuff with your feet and, if necessary, ﬂing poo.
  Side Trait
  Drug Addict (2 tokens).  You know how to score and slam, and you’re 
  also quite adept at taking advantage of any friends who have yet to 
  abandon you.
  Note
  You cannot talk.  You can only grunt, gesture, pantomime, and write 
  notes.
  RULES SUMMARY
  You start with seven tokens.
  Any time you laugh out loud, give a token to the person who 
  made you laugh.
  When an event is in doubt, you blindly bid for the right to 
  narrate the outcome.
  • If you bid fewer tokens, the GM narrates but has to give 
  you a token.
  • If you bid more tokens, you give the GM a token but get to 
  narrate.
  • If it’s a tie, you narrate but lose ALL the tokens you bid.
  Your traits act like free virtual tokens when you’re bidding.  If you 
  bid no actual tokens and win on the strength of a trait, you don’t 
  have to pay.
  You can propose completely random events.  The GM decides 
  how unlikely they are and sets an ante cost of 1-5 tokens.  
  Separate from the ante, you bid normally.  If you win the bid, you 
  give the GM the ante in addition to the single token the winner 
  always donates.  If you lose the bid, you keep the ante.  
  
  4
  Gigobot 5000
  Motivation
  NV stole your Barry White vocabulizer unit, and your business is 
  suffering.  You want it back.
  Backstory
  Gigolo robots have always been a controversial luxury item, and none 
  more so than those equipped with the nigh-irresistible simulated 
  voice of Barry White.  You were making serious money in the Amazon 
  Moon Belt when a robot supervillian named NV – one of the original 
  Seven Deadly Synthetics – snuck up behind you, knocked you out and 
  stole your voice unit.  They don’t make them any more – the closest 
  you’d be able to get is Mel Torme unless you go on the black market.  
  You can’t afford black market prices, and anyhow, why should you 
  pay to get a replacement for something that’s yours to begin with?  
  Central Trait
  Robot Gigolo (3 tokens).  As a robot, you’re stronger than a human 
  being, insensitive to pain, and immune to the lures of procreation.  As 
  a gigolo, you can lay down a smooth line of jive, boogie with perfect 
  rhythm, and please the ladies the way only a selﬂess engine with no 
  personal interest in sex can.
  Side Trait
  Starship Pilot (1 tokens).  Piloting a ship is like making love to a 
  woman.  You just mess ‘round with the controls and pay close atten-
  tion until things seem to be going well.  You own a ﬂy intergalactic 
  ride, and the payments are murder.  All the more reason to recover 
  your smooth.
  Note
  Until you recover your Barry White unit, you can only talk in a creepy, 
  rhythmless, metallic monotone – like the Cylons from the old 1980s 
  Battlestar Galactica.
  RULES SUMMARY
  You start with seven tokens.
  Any time you laugh out loud, give a token to the person who 
  made you laugh.
  When an event is in doubt, you blindly bid for the right to 
  narrate the outcome.
  • If you bid fewer tokens, the GM narrates but has to give 
  you a token.
  • If you bid more tokens, you give the GM a token but get to 
  narrate.
  • If it’s a tie, you narrate but lose ALL the tokens you bid.
  Your traits act like free virtual tokens when you’re bidding.  If you 
  bid no actual tokens and win on the strength of a trait, you don’t 
  have to pay.
  You can propose completely random events.  The GM decides 
  how unlikely they are and sets an ante cost of 1-5 tokens.  
  Separate from the ante, you bid normally.  If you win the bid, you 
  give the GM the ante in addition to the single token the winner 
  always donates.  If you lose the bid, you keep the ante.  
  
  5
  THE SLOTH MACHINE
  Motivation
  Not much.  It would be cool to get the landlord off your back, 
  though.
  Backstory
  You were built by an evil genius as part of a robot supervillain 
  megateam, but you were never that into it.  Known as “the Seven 
  Deadly Synthetics,” you personally got included for symbolic value 
  more than anything else.  After LU5T and PR1D3 got junked, the 
  group split up over artistic differences.  Since then, you’ve just been, 
  you know, hanging out.  Now you hear some dudes are pretty mad at 
  your brother NV though, and you don’t blame them.  NV is a jerk.
  Central Trait
  Poorly Thought-out Robot Supervillain (2 tokens).  As a robot 
  supervillain, you’re stronger than most humans, you don’t feel much 
  pain, and you can ﬂy.  You used to have heat vision too, but you 
  hocked it to make rent last year.  
  Side Trait
  Stupiﬁcation (2 tokens).  You’ve got this screen on your chest that 
  you activate by pulling a big lever (like an old time slot machine 
  – your builder was into puns and stuff).  It disrupts the thought 
  processes of biological beings that can see the display, leaving them 
  distracted and apathetic.  Some of your process-servers and skip-
  chasers are getting wise to it, though.
  RULES SUMMARY
  You start with seven tokens.
  Any time you laugh out loud, give a token to the person who 
  made you laugh.
  When an event is in doubt, you blindly bid for the right to 
  narrate the outcome.
  • If you bid fewer tokens, the GM narrates but has to give 
  you a token.
  • If you bid more tokens, you give the GM a token but get to 
  narrate.
  • If it’s a tie, you narrate but lose ALL the tokens you bid.
  Your traits act like free virtual tokens when you’re bidding.  If you 
  bid no actual tokens and win on the strength of a trait, you don’t 
  have to pay.
  You can propose completely random events.  The GM decides 
  how unlikely they are and sets an ante cost of 1-5 tokens.  
  Separate from the ante, you bid normally.  If you win the bid, you 
  give the GM the ante in addition to the single token the winner 
  always donates.  If you lose the bid, you keep the ante.  
  
  6
  Pat L’Oiseau
  Motivation
  NV stole your lover.  You want to retrieve your paramour or, failing 
  that, to kick NV’s shiny metal ass.
  Backstory
   You grew up in Kansas on Earth, attended a small liberal arts college 
  in the Horsehead Nebula and were really just starting to ﬁnd your way 
  as an adult in the universe when you met Leslie.  Les was different 
  from your other relationships, not being a telepath or an empath.  
  (You’ve always been catnip to the psychically aware because of your 
  incandescently beautiful soul.)  It was really, really cool to go out 
  with someone who didn’t know what you were thinking all the time, 
  who didn’t know you were lying when you said, “Hey, that haircut 
  looks great!”… but then this smooth talking robot with a Barry White 
  voice got Leslie high, issued an invitation to come see his place in the 
  Asteroid Belt, and your beloved has been gone ever since.  You never 
  even said, “I love you” – not from shyness, but because those lousy 
  telepaths always knew. 
  Central Trait
  General Artistry (1 token).  In an attempt to cash in on your incan-
  descently beautiful soul, you’ve learned how to play the guitar, write 
  poetry and paint.  You can also talk your way into art shows, wear 
  ﬂouncy shirts, and smoke with a cigarette holder without looking 
  stupid. 
  Side Trait
  Incandescently Beautiful Soul (3 tokens).  It’s not that you’re a 
  better or kinder or more ethical person: But, from what mind readers 
  tell you, your soul is just… pretty.  Telepaths and empaths ﬁnd you 
  much less unpleasant to be around than most people, and even 
  normal people sometimes ﬁnd your more than usually charming. 
  RULES SUMMARY
  You start with seven tokens.
  Any time you laugh out loud, give a token to the person who 
  made you laugh.
  When an event is in doubt, you blindly bid for the right to 
  narrate the outcome.
  • If you bid fewer tokens, the GM narrates but has to give 
  you a token.
  • If you bid more tokens, you give the GM a token but get to 
  narrate.
  • If it’s a tie, you narrate but lose ALL the tokens you bid.
  Your traits act like free virtual tokens when you’re bidding.  If you 
  bid no actual tokens and win on the strength of a trait, you don’t 
  have to pay.
  You can propose completely random events.  The GM decides 
  how unlikely they are and sets an ante cost of 1-5 tokens.  
  Separate from the ante, you bid normally.  If you win the bid, you 
  give the GM the ante in addition to the single token the winner 
  always donates.  If you lose the bid, you keep the ante.  
  
SOURCE: textdata/thevault/In Spaaace/In Spaaace Revenge is a Dish Best Served.pdf