Latest / Session Zero Heroes | TTRPG Actual Play Adventures & Improv Storytelling / Escape from Dino Island One-Shot: Episode 0 - Meet the DinoSquad
Transcript
- 0:02>> Speaker A: In the aftermath of the Dino Quest park
- 0:04catastrophe, a, mysterious message found its
- 0:07way to four individuals, each a
- 0:10specialist in their field. This message
- 0:13outlined a dangerous mission of
- 0:15unimaginable reward, which would send each of
- 0:18these agents to the abandoned island
- 0:20overrun with the ancient reptiles for which it
- 0:23got its name. Their goal? Reach the
- 0:26dinoQuest headquarters at the center of the island
- 0:29and safely abscond with the coveted
- 0:31dinosaur DNA from its forsaken
- 0:34laboratory. As the echoes of this
- 0:37journey reverberates through our intrepid
- 0:39team, one fact remains true.
- 0:43We are all about to take our
- 0:46first steps onto
- 0:48Dino island.
- 0:55>> Speaker B: Welcome, everybody, to a very special one shot
- 0:58series for session Zero heroes, which
- 1:01is the escape from Dino island.
- 1:04One shot. it's a powered by the apocalypse game.
- 1:07It was written by Sam Tongue and Sam
- 1:09Roberts. It was meant to be a one shot, and that's how
- 1:12we're gonna play it, with the basic premise of how do
- 1:15we take Jurassic park and we turn it into a tabletop role
- 1:18playing game. And so this is basically what it is. So
- 1:21welcome to that. We're gonna kick things off of kind of an episode zero, go through
- 1:24who the players are, who they're playing, and, then talk a little bit
- 1:27about the premise for the story and how the game
- 1:30works, and then you can jump over to episode one where
- 1:33things will begin. So, first off, powered by the
- 1:35apocalypse, it's a very narratively driven, system.
- 1:38I know, Nate, you're a big fan of powered by the apocalypse stuff.
- 1:41Cameron, you've run a few, like, monster of the week and even
- 1:44masks, I think we've done a little bit with. So lots of fun
- 1:47there. basically, the concept of it, again,
- 1:50it's very narratively driven, so there's a lot less focus on
- 1:52over, you know, too many stats. All this other stuff, it's
- 1:55a system. So everybody, no matter what it
- 1:58is that they're doing, will roll two, d, six, and that
- 2:01number will be added to whatever the relevant skill is based on the
- 2:04move that they're using, and then that'll determine how well
- 2:07or not well that they succeed at whatever it is that they're trying to do.
- 2:10So, moves, speaking of those, a very
- 2:13simple system, so everybody has a set of basic
- 2:16moves that they get to use. those can be either
- 2:19peril or safety. So peril is
- 2:22if something is actively happening, that's putting a lot of pressure
- 2:25on you while you're trying to do something. Those are the moves that you're going to use
- 2:28in that situation, whereas safety moves are let's say
- 2:31I'm just kind of hanging out. There's no dinosaurs attacking me. I'm
- 2:34not in a lot of danger. I'm not almost falling off a cliff. These are
- 2:36all things that you can do, such as, like getting the lay of the land or
- 2:39scavenging things along those lines. So stuff that's not going to
- 2:42be so intense and
- 2:45imperative that you succeed or. Yeah,
- 2:47succeed on. So that's a basic gist of how the game's gonna
- 2:50work, as well as the fact that each player is
- 2:53playing a different, what's called a playbook. So it's kind of like your class in
- 2:56dungeons and dragons, right? It is kind, of representative
- 2:59of your background, who you are, what you do, and
- 3:02what your specialty is. So each one of those is gonna have a different move,
- 3:05which we'll go over as we go through all the players, which we can jump to
- 3:08now. So starting on my right,
- 3:11Nate, who are you and who are you
- 3:13playing?
- 3:14>> Nate Baggart: I'm Nate Baggart. on the board for city
- 3:17tabletop gamers, along with Skyler.
- 3:20like Skyler said, I do have a history of playing this. I'm a huge fan
- 3:23of anything powered by the apocalypse. but yeah, I'm playing,
- 3:26James Jimmy Jones.
- 3:27>> Speaker B: James Jimmy Jones.
- 3:29>> Nate Baggart: Or should I say Jimmy the jet.
- 3:32>> Speaker B: I'm ten years old.
- 3:34>> Nate Baggart: love dinosaurs. Obsessed with dinosaurs.
- 3:36And I, don't know why I'm here quite
- 3:39yet. We're gonna find out. Yeah, we're gonna find that out.
- 3:41>> Speaker B: That's gonna be. It's gonna be something interesting. So awesome. What, as
- 3:44the kid, what is the kind of the special move that comes with your
- 3:47playbook?
- 3:47>> Nate Baggart: You know, the kid? well, first of all, as a kid,
- 3:50you can generally just do things that kids can do without
- 3:53rolling. And that's kind of at the discretion of the
- 3:56DM. in addition to that, I also, I get
- 3:59something called, I know this. When, nobody else has a critical,
- 4:02crucial skill, I can reveal that you, in fact, have the skill
- 4:05because you're just a precocious kid. using the
- 4:08skill always requires you to roll. Just do it. Which is one of
- 4:11the peril moves.
- 4:12>> Speaker B: Okay.
- 4:12>> Nate Baggart: and then I also have, ah. Whenever I cry out to another
- 4:15hero for help, they must answer my call.
- 4:17>> Speaker B: You guys, I'm a kid, you're a kid. We got a protective
- 4:20kid. Unless you're a heartless monster.
- 4:27>> Nate Baggart: Assuming, if we do advance as characters, I
- 4:30will choose one of the special moves, one of which can be
- 4:33that if a, you know, a hero comes and helps me.
- 4:36>> Speaker B: They.
- 4:37>> Nate Baggart: Any rule they make is then improved by one level. So if they fail, it's
- 4:40actually a, mixed success. If it's a mixed success, it's actually
- 4:44a full success.
- 4:45>> Speaker B: So you have, like, a higher chance in general of
- 4:47things working out.
- 4:48>> Nate Baggart: Yeah, assuming the character advances. Anytime someone
- 4:51saves me, they actually can't truly fail.
- 4:54>> Speaker B: Right. Which I do plan on having everybody advance probably
- 4:57twice. So you'll definitely have that option, which will
- 5:00be interesting to see, for sure. So, awesome.
- 5:02Awesome. So that's Nate. He's playing the kid. Little,
- 5:05Jimmy. Little Jimmy. okay.
- 5:08And then, so an added component that I kind of put forth,
- 5:11and I know a lot of people do it with, honestly, a lot of the power by the apocalypse
- 5:14games is adding in kind of a secret,
- 5:17sort of side mission. So we'll get to what the kind of,
- 5:20like, primary quest or the primary, plan is as
- 5:23far as why you guys are on the island. But on the
- 5:26other hand, you each kind of have your own little, like, secret
- 5:29agenda that you're gonna accomplish. So everybody else,
- 5:32plug your ears and try not to listen.
- 5:35It's not the end of the world if you kind of hear it, but still. All right,
- 5:38so, Jimmy, what is your secret objective?
- 5:40>> Nate Baggart: I just really want a dinosaur. I want my own
- 5:43dinosaur.
- 5:44>> Speaker B: You want your own dinosaur? So somehow your goal is gonna be to
- 5:47get your own dinosaurs?
- 5:48>> Nate Baggart: If it's young, yes.
- 5:50>> Speaker B: Matches your age. Okay, we're good. We're good. All right, so that's
- 5:52yours. we'll move on to the next person here. Aaron.
- 5:55Aaron, brand new to the show. I guess Nate was, too. but
- 5:58Aaron, also brand new to the show. Aaron,
- 6:01who are you and who are you playing?
- 6:03>> Aaron: All right, be patient with me. This is my first time playing
- 6:06up with the apocalypse, so, yeah, I quickly made up
- 6:09my name. His name is Sergeant Tim
- 6:11McMahon.
- 6:12>> Speaker B: Tim McMahon.
- 6:14>> Aaron: So he is a ice
- 6:17cold soldier guy.
- 6:19>> Speaker B: Oh, yeah. I mean, yeah, that's a basic good
- 6:22start. because, I mean, all things considered, when we start this, I mean,
- 6:25you guys don't really know each other super well, so there will be a lot
- 6:28of opportunity to kind of, like, figure out who the heck
- 6:30sergeant Tim McMahon is. so what is
- 6:33that move that you start with there at the
- 6:36top?
- 6:36>> Aaron: Right up here?
- 6:37>> Speaker B: Yes. I love this move.
- 6:39>> Aaron: Kill or be killed. when you open
- 6:42fire on a dinosaur, a group of dinosaurs
- 6:44roll, plus steady. And then on a
- 6:47hit, you gun them down on a seven to
- 6:50nine, you use too much ammo, so
- 6:53you're empty. Uh-huh, and on a miss, you get
- 6:56mole, then immediately make the
- 6:58casualty.
- 7:00>> Speaker B: So it's a really 50 50
- 7:03move. So basically, if you succeed, awesome. You
- 7:06take care of the problem at hand, but if you fail,
- 7:09you pretty much die.
- 7:11>> Aaron: That's great.
- 7:13>> Speaker B: There's technically. So, and I'll jump over. So the basic
- 7:15moves includes the casualty. So casualty is almost a move in and of
- 7:18itself, but it's a move that's done to you. Right. So if
- 7:21you ever receive, an injury and then receiving
- 7:24a second injury, you are considered in a casualty
- 7:27state. Also, there are times like in your
- 7:30explicit move where a casualty state just
- 7:32happens in that moment. Right. So the casualty state,
- 7:35basically what that says is that you're grievously hurt, you're in
- 7:38bad shape. You tell someone your darkest secret or
- 7:41unfulfilled hope, and then you choose one of the
- 7:44following. Right? So, those following are,
- 7:47either you get one final heroic act
- 7:50at the DM's discretion, and then you die.
- 7:52The other one is you're just out of commission, you're unable to do
- 7:55anything, but your character will survive
- 7:58and the others can get you off the island, potentially, but
- 8:01for the moment, you're down for the count. So you took some sort of, like,
- 8:04grievous injury. You're either
- 8:06unconscious, maybe bleeding out a bit. You
- 8:09lost a leg or an arm or something, just something real
- 8:12bad. That's basically going to kind of pull you out of the scene. Doesn't mean you can't come
- 8:15back. I think that's always going to be an option. So if you
- 8:18feel like, you know, I'm not ready for my character to die just yet,
- 8:21you can take that as one of the options. That way we don't lose
- 8:24you.
- 8:24>> Aaron: We're talking about. I always go out in a blaze.
- 8:27>> Speaker B: You do. That is true.
- 8:30Awesome. All right. And then if everybody can plug
- 8:33their ears and we'll talk about what Aaron's.
- 8:36Aaron's secret objective, is. So what is
- 8:39your, as the soldier, what is your secret objective?
- 8:41>> Aaron: So, my soldier, my objective
- 8:44is to make sure that the information stays
- 8:47secretive and that no one else
- 8:50finds out what the real intentions of this island
- 8:53was supposed to be.
- 8:54>> Speaker B: Perfect. You've got a little bit more insight into
- 8:57what's going on in the behind the scenes, so.
- 8:59>> Aaron: That's right. I don't want that stuff to get out.
- 9:02>> Speaker B: That's right. That's right. And you're getting paid a little extra to ensure
- 9:05that. So. Awesome. All right, perfect. awesome. All
- 9:08right, everybody, we're good. Next up, we've got Cameron.
- 9:10Cameron, you've been on the podcast. Pretty much any
- 9:13time the podcast has been doing something, you've pretty much been on
- 9:16it, which we joked about recently.
- 9:19>> Cameron: And recorded in the last one shot. I said, skyler, you got
- 9:22to start finding other people.
- 9:24>> Speaker B: Cameron's very accessible, which is very nice. So you probably
- 9:27recognize him from criminals, violent numus and banners and
- 9:29bruise, running our previous monster of the
- 9:32week.
- 9:32>> Nate Baggart: Yes.
- 9:33>> Speaker B: so very familiar with the power by the apocalypse system. So what
- 9:36character are you playing? Okay.
- 9:38>> Cameron: My character's name is Doctor Lazarus
- 9:41Thoreau.
- 9:41>> Speaker B: Okay.
- 9:43>> Cameron: he's a, he's
- 9:46a very lazy doctor.
- 9:48>> Speaker B: Okay. Not, a good trait for a doctor.
- 9:51No.
- 9:51>> Cameron: He will put off anything if he
- 9:54can. My inspiration for this character, actually, is if anyone's
- 9:57seen superstore, it is the pharmacist from superstore.
- 10:00>> Speaker B: Ah, yes. If you.
- 10:02>> Cameron: If you've seen it, you've already know the character.
- 10:04>> Speaker F: Right.
- 10:04>> Cameron: But I'm taking my own creative liberties away.
- 10:06>> Speaker B: Oh, yeah.
- 10:07>> Cameron: But the whole idea of this character, he's lazy,
- 10:09and if he can push his
- 10:12work onto someone else, he will do it in a heartbeat.
- 10:15>> Speaker B: So right on. As a. Yeah, so, which is funny.
- 10:18>> Cameron: So if it's a basic tourniquet, he'll just, like, go, look at
- 10:21the kid and be like, hey, you know, you can just hold
- 10:24pressure, right?
- 10:26>> Aaron: Here's one. Ibuprofen. You'll be fine with your
- 10:29arm.
- 10:30>> Speaker B: Chopped offendix out.
- 10:33>> Nate Baggart: really leaned in on the nurses doing a lot of stuff.
- 10:39>> Speaker B: Awesome, awesome. And then what is your special move as the
- 10:42doctor?
- 10:42>> Cameron: It's treat wounds. It's very simple. So
- 10:45I'll just summarize it. It's basically if someone gets
- 10:48injured, as an injury, I can just treat it,
- 10:51and then I just add conditions. If it's a
- 10:54perilous condition or if it's. If it's a perilous
- 10:57situation or if I have proper equipment or not.
- 10:59>> Speaker B: Okay.
- 10:59>> Cameron: So that just modifies it, but at the end, it's just, I treat a
- 11:02wound. If I'm successful, they remove an injury slot.
- 11:05>> Speaker B: And, I mean, you have equipment on you, and everybody has equipment
- 11:08that their character sort of starts with. So, I mean, there's definitely
- 11:10the opportunity. It's more like, if I lose the.
- 11:13>> Cameron: Equipment, or it's mostly gonna be, are we in? Am I
- 11:16rushing to kill someone? Is most likely gonna be.
- 11:19>> Speaker B: And that's gonna come into kind of those peril situations that we talked about
- 11:22before, so. Awesome, awesome, fantastic. All right,
- 11:24everybody, once again, plug your ears.
- 11:27Cameron, what is your doctor's secret
- 11:30objective?
- 11:31>> Cameron: He is obsessed with. He, thinks the only way to
- 11:34be a true doctor is to save people who are
- 11:37close to dying. So he, as being lazy, will just wait till
- 11:40the very last moment to save someone because he thinks that's really
- 11:43interesting.
- 11:44>> Speaker B: Sure. There's kind of a dark side to it. It's not just like I want to
- 11:47save somebody from the brink of death, it's I want to let them get
- 11:50there and then I want to save them just to see if I can.
- 11:52>> Cameron: Yeah. And so he took this job because it's dinosaur, so he
- 11:55figures a lot of people are going to be close to death, so it gives him more
- 11:58time to practice.
- 11:59>> Speaker B: Yeah, there you go. And that'll be really interesting, giving the, like, the
- 12:02soldiers special ability and everything. That'll be interesting to
- 12:05see if that comes into play.
- 12:06>> Speaker A: So awesome.
- 12:06>> Speaker B: All right, everybody, we're good. Fantastic. So that takes care of
- 12:09Cameron's doctor character. And then moving
- 12:12on to our last player, Mikayla, who is
- 12:15also familiar voice, to the podcast,
- 12:17having played micah from our benders and brews series,
- 12:21which actually, that's another powered by the apocalypse game, so there's
- 12:24that too. Yeah, so definitely
- 12:27familiar with that. Awesome. Mikayla, who are you
- 12:29playing?
- 12:30>> Mikayla: I am playing doctor Mackenzie sattler.
- 12:33I'm a paleontologist.
- 12:35That's about it.
- 12:37>> Speaker B: She's a paleo. She knows her dinosaurs.
- 12:40She's on this island because she knows
- 12:42dinosaurs. So, awesome. Now,
- 12:45as a paleontologist, what is your special
- 12:48move?
- 12:49>> Mikayla: Oh, I'm a dinosaur expert, obviously.
- 12:51>> Speaker B: Yeah. Okay, what does that mean?
- 12:52>> Mikayla: I've been drawing my knowledge to
- 12:55deal with real life dinosaur situations.
- 12:58As a paleontologist, I can generally do things,
- 13:01the kinds of things field researchers and academics do
- 13:04without a role.
- 13:05>> Speaker B: Oh, okay.
- 13:06>> Mikayla: I must just do it right.
- 13:08>> Speaker B: So basically, you know dinosaurs well enough that if
- 13:11anybody else was trying to do something, like
- 13:15trying to see, like, what some of these options.
- 13:18Yeah, name dinosaurs or try to get an idea of like,
- 13:21what that dinosaur is capable of. If it has any special
- 13:24abilities or something like that, you would just know off the top of your head
- 13:26because you, you know, dinosaurs. I don't have to make you roll
- 13:29for it or anything like that. Yeah. So awesome. Very
- 13:32cool. So very useful, very versatile skill there.
- 13:35Awesome. So all right, everybody, plug your ears. Okay, Mikhail,
- 13:38what is your secret objective for Doctor
- 13:41Mackenzie?
- 13:43>> Mikayla: I, my objective is to
- 13:46just live on the island.
- 13:47>> Speaker B: You, you love dinosaurs so much, and this awkward opportunity is
- 13:50just too big for you to not just
- 13:53stick around and find out more.
- 13:54>> Mikayla: I mean, who can say, you know, you can only learn so much from
- 13:57bones.
- 13:58>> Speaker B: Right? Right. No, that's totally fair. So your goal is gonna
- 14:01be to try to find some way that you could possibly stay on this
- 14:04island. You don't really care too much about the objective
- 14:06then the other players are after, but that's kind of the beauty
- 14:09of the secret objective, so. Awesome. All right, everybody, we're
- 14:12good. Awesome. All right, so that takes care of all the players
- 14:15officially this time. jumping over to the story. So the premise
- 14:18of the story is that a few years back, scientists
- 14:21revealed that they had discovered a way to bring back the dinosaurs.
- 14:24This is a very jurassic park. Right. And of course, because.
- 14:26Or, coming off of that, they decided,
- 14:29whoever the financiers behind this research
- 14:32were, decided to open up a park, which they
- 14:35titled DinoQuest. And Dino Quest was going to be
- 14:38this big resort and sort of vacation
- 14:40spot. It was going to kind of cater to the rich and
- 14:43famous for the most part. Not saying that, you know, the common person
- 14:46couldn't maybe put a. Put together the money
- 14:49and get to go to this island and check out everything that's there. but at
- 14:52the very least, the sort of soft opening was
- 14:55exclusively to sort of these influencers and wealthy
- 14:58and stuff like that. it featured a water park.
- 15:01It featured a, you know, dinosaurs were kind of
- 15:04in every facet of this whole thing. So obviously they were going to be living
- 15:07dinosaurs there. There's, a whole resort. There's kind of this
- 15:10cool volcano that features, some. Some
- 15:12hot springs. So there was kind of like a spa element to it.
- 15:15All of this amazing things that they had promoted
- 15:18leading up to the completion of this park.
- 15:21Unfortunately, at their soft opening
- 15:24with all of these celebrities and such there, something
- 15:27happened. Nobody's really sure what happened, but something
- 15:30happened that caused everything to fall apart. Shortly
- 15:33after they announced that the whole park and everything involved with
- 15:36it was closed, it wasn't going to happen. And
- 15:38everybody, of course, that set the media ablaze. Right?
- 15:41Everybody's trying to theorize everything that could have possibly
- 15:44happened. Supposedly, the wealthy and the celebrities that were
- 15:47over there are still trapped,
- 15:49allegedly. so anyways, all of that to say that
- 15:52you guys were on, you know, back in the US
- 15:55or wherever you were located at, not on the island, and
- 15:58you were approached by a mysterious figure who
- 16:01reached out to you and said, I want you, as a
- 16:04specialist within your field, to be a part of a team that I'm putting together
- 16:07to go to the island and steal dino
- 16:09DNA. So basically, like in Jurassic park. You had
- 16:12Dodson, and Wayne Knight's character, kind
- 16:15of like their whole situation where they were trying to rip off
- 16:18some of that dino DNA and sell it to the highest bidder or whatever.
- 16:21This guy wants Dino DNA. He wants to be able to make his own dinosaurs.
- 16:24He's sending you guys to the island to get it. Of course, you all have
- 16:27your own objectives as well, the secret objectives we talk about,
- 16:30but you've been promised a lot of money to do it.
- 16:32And he has convinced the government, he's used
- 16:35some connections and things along those lines to convince the local government, who
- 16:38has otherwise shut down the island. Nobody's supposed to be getting on or off.
- 16:41He said, hey, I've got this documentary film
- 16:44crew that's going to come to your island, and they're going to film a documentary, and
- 16:47you guys get full prior restraint on everything
- 16:50that they film and the final edit and everything. But,
- 16:53hey, it's going to help you guys out to get the media off your
- 16:56back, because again, the world is ablaze right
- 16:59now with discussion and theories about what's happening on this island or
- 17:01what happened. So the government
- 17:04agreed. they're going to send a, leading figure
- 17:07amongst their military. His name is Admiral Asman,
- 17:10and he's going to be along for the ride to make
- 17:13sure that you guys don't go anywhere that you're not supposed to
- 17:16or film anything that you're not supposed to, unless
- 17:19you're able to get past him on that kind of stuff. and he, of course,
- 17:22has also been instructed to. To reach back out to the
- 17:25mainland twice a day. He's got it like a walkie
- 17:28talkie radio type thing that'll reach that far. And if he
- 17:31doesn't, that's gonna be a problem, right? So anyway, that's your
- 17:34guys basic gist of what's going on. There will be a nice
- 17:36intro at the beginning of episode one for those of you that are
- 17:39listening. But whatever the case, hop on over to
- 17:42that, because it is time to begin.
- 17:45Escape from Dino island.
- 17:52>> Speaker F: Hey, everyone, thank you so much for listening to our
- 17:54escape from Dino island one shot. The escape from
- 17:57Dino island role playing game was created by Sam Tung
- 18:00and Sam Roberts and uses the power by the
- 18:03apocalypse system. If you'd like to purchase a copy of
- 18:06this amazing one shot, you can find it available
- 18:09on Samknight itch IO, so
- 18:11be sure to check it out there. If you're enjoying our
- 18:14playthrough of this rpg, we encourage you to check out
- 18:17our other content that we've created here at Session Zero Heroes as
- 18:20well, including our original benders and Brews
- 18:23series set in the world of the Last Airbender and
- 18:26using the Avatar Legends system through Magpie
- 18:28games or our Dungeons and Dragons series
- 18:31criminals, the violin, Numis, and so many
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- 19:00curious, stay heroic until we roll again.