Metagaming Bastards (One-Shot)

**The Metagaming Bastards One-Shot** was a One-Shot that took place in Pristville in 424 A.U., and concerned the growth of the newly-established Cult of the Uberpantheon.

## Characters

### Important Non-Player Characters

 Captain Lukas Krause | Head of the Pristville Police Department.

## Summary

We open with a flashback at the Pristville School for Advancement (a university set up by Doge Bareth to focus on matters of governance/history/policy). Sebastien is a researcher who is questioning reality. Miracles happen too often. Catastrophic failures happen too often. Sebastien's conspiracy theory is that there is a new pantheon of gods out there, a collection of "players" controlling the lives of specific individuals.

End of flashback. We are all students at the school who are in our final year. We all believe in this theory of an "uberpantheon". Everyone rolls stats and social details and makes characters.

We all meet for our chapter meeting at Sebastien's house. Sebastien has a mission for us. We're going to spend the next week or so spreading the word of the Cult of the Uberpantheon beyond just the staff and students of the school.

Ken Bucket decides it might be promising to go to the local Lidenia Academy Satellite Center's macroeconomics department with the uberpantheon's promise of a simple, coherent model of economics (and everything else). Sunny Hardboiledson joins.

Puddles Brown and Rango Norman want to head to the casino, and hopefully reach some of the gamblers there.

Bootstrap wants to head to the local soup kitchen with a large keg of beer.

Byron Jacobs and Lou Bagel are going to do [something with etherics? i wasn't paying attention sorry]. To essentially show how we're actually basically in a video game(?)

Stu Dent wants to do [some sort of logic puzzle thing that proves we're in a simulation based on Lux's quirk of being unable to ask out-of-character questions]. At the school, with Ken and Sunny, apparently.

At the school, Sunny searches for anyone in the academy's faculty who can be blackmailed. He then tries to intimidate some TAs into joining the cult. Ken risks some sanity damage in order to metagame a convincing argument out of the DM. {Puddles goes to the bathroom to pee.}

Puddles and Rango head to Casinoville. They decide to give a speech to convince a bunch of drunk casino-goers. (Puddles gives the speech, Rango is an audience plant). Puddles does ok with his speech about how the whole universe is a simulation and they've been created purely to suffer for the sake of RPG plot. Rango, unfortunately, deviates from the plan a bit and starts to argue that the only rational thing to do is for the whole crowd to mass-suicide. They do recover a bit, and manage to convince a handful of people to join them.

Byron and Lou Bagel are going to stream Rocket League apparently [that's the etherics thing that I zoned out for the first time people were talking, i guess(?)] at the Pristville Ethernet Relay Center (which is still in the process of being completed). They're gonna hack the TV signals somehow. Lou gets some borrowed police equipment and gets permission to fiddle with the relay hub. They spend some time preparing a streaming setup.

Stu Dent is gonna set up a demonstration (with Byron's help) to show how Stu can know impossible knowledge, through the power of metagaming. Byron will say something (in character and also out of character as Tom) and Stu (as Lux) will know what was said, despite not being able to hear it. (People point out that this sort of knowledge would also be possible in-universe through psionics. But psionics are super rare, so maybe it'll convince people anyway?)

Bootstrap buys a bunch of cheap beer. He, Ken, and Sunny take it to the soup kitchen. They get set up behind the soup kitchen. Sunny plays some old Pelvis Resley music. Bootstrap and Ken manage to borrow some LSD, though convincing bluffery and diplomancy. Bootstrap drops acid in the soup kitchen parking lot. And then spikes all the free beer they're giving away. Several people stick around. Apparently all of us students maxed out our Oratory skill? Ken and Sunny give moving speeches about how the washed up naval vets hanging around the soup kitchen can reclaim their sad lives if only they learn to recognize that they're living in a simulation game. They recruit ten new followers.

Ken and Sunny give their presentation to a combination of academics and planetary natsec people. Ken shows how in-universe statistics is actually kind of broken, and is more consistent with if the whole universe was being simulated as a ttrpg. Sunny uses Kens arguments to show how the universe being simulated by a bunch of loser tabletop gamers is something that should be considered as both an academic point of study and a national security concern.

Lou Bagel uses his high social standing and his relations with the police to get approval for him, Byron, and Rango to mess around with the Ethernet relay center during the big upcoming soccer match (the Pristville Pistons are playing Shelby). Byron is good with etherics and does the technical work. And also convinces the people at the relay center that he knows what he's doing. {Puddles goes to the bathroom to pee.} Rango is going to do the sports commentary. Lou is too. Apparently they're just adding their own sports commentary to the soccer game, not streaming Rocket League? [I don't understand how this is supposed to get people to join the cult but I also don't want to interrupt the zoom chat to be like "hi sorry i havent been paying attention"] [ok nevermind apparently the plan is they're just gonna talk about soccer BUT ALSO work in some commentary about how the universe is a like a video game if you really think about it, and people should come hang out with the cultists if they want to find out more]. Shelby wins the soccer game. Lou and Rango argue on stream that if you're fed up with life being shitty you should join their cult. They gain some cultists.

After the match, Stu Dent and Byron head to a local pub ("Barnaby's Pristville") and set up their magic \*not-psionic\* mind-reading demonstration. Byron goes on stage, Stu goes into a back room with their ears plugged. Byron/Tom asks what the airspeed of an unladen swallow is, and Stu/Lux in the back room magically knows what was said and repeats it. They continue, with Bryon/Tom now taking audience questions. They screw up the act a little bit, but it does still look like they're doing significantly better than random chance.

Bootstrap forms a support group for the people he drugged. And makes two more of them into diehard cultists.

Natsec people show up after Ken and Sunny's presentation, and quietly arrest Ken for further questioning.

Word of the antics at the soup kitchen makes it back to the local Kirvan church, and the Kirvans start agitating against the new cult.

We meet up with Sebastien again at the end of the week. We have a conversation about who did the best recruiting job (who won the one-shot). Bootstrap/Karl is chosen as the winner and promoted to a leadership role within the cult. Karl also wins Seth's out-of-universe prize. The prize is that Seth outsources the legwork of brainstorming his Grand Strategy campaign character to whoever won the one-shot. Everyone tells Seth his prize is lame. The End.