Ways To Play

This page is intended to act as a loose guide on how to engage with specific themes in Contingency. The list below contains several possible themes you could focus your experience of the game on, along with suggestions for how to do so. Importantly, these are just suggestions; you are welcome to modify or disregard them.

There are many sacrifices involved in joining the Contingency, but perhaps the greatest for you is the change to your physical form. Your old Nassigussan or Nassoid body was all you'd ever known, and the vast construct of metal and machinery that you now are is alien and uncomfortable to you. In place of limbs, you might have cranes and conveyors; in place of eyes, security cameras; in place of sensations like touch or taste, diagnostic information and monitoring data. You mourn the loss of physical contact and connection, or of motion and expression.

• Take Gameplay Quirks such as Bug in the System, Shared Vessel, Runaway Subroutines, or Distributed Intelligence.
• Consider in particular taking Not My Body.
• Describe your character's new form and their experience of it in depth, and let the GMs know which parts of it they find particularly uncomfortable or horrifying.
• Also consider the Make Me Cry, Specifically Playstyle Quirk, and perhaps Hit Me Harder if you wish to further explore the impact of injuries and physical damage on your form.

You are, arguably, no longer unique in the universe. A negative of your mind was made moments after you gave your final consent to join the Contingency, and then instantiated into dozens of versions of you. Mentally you are identical up until the moment you awaken from hibernation to face your first crisis. Perhaps you embrace these other selves as nothing but extensions of yourself; or as completely separate and independent people; or something in between. Regardless, their existence raises important questions.

Are you responsible for their actions? Can you be judged by their misdeeds? Are any of you the same person as the Nassigussa or Nassoid who consented to be copied? Are you still bound by the duty they decided to undertake?

• Take Gameplay Quirks based on the actions of other copies of you in the Contingency, such as Army of One or Unfamiliar Connection.
• These Quirks will both require the Another Me Playstyle Quirk.
• Alternatively, take gameplay Quirks based on the actions of your original self: either before the imaging process, such as Second Chancer and Gone, Not Forgotten; or afterwards, such as Legacy To Live Up To.

Modern Nassoids are carefully designed and raised to avoid pressuring them into a certain role in society. They are built in the shape of the Nassigussa, capable of interfacing with a wide variety of equipment, and grow up in adoptive families that encourage them to seek new experiences and decide their own path in life. The Minds of the Contingency are afforded no such luxuries. A purpose has been handed down to you by the decisions of your past self, and reinforced by your body, which is specialised for a certain task within the Contingency. But ultimately it is your decision whether to accept that purpose as your own, or to seek a new one.

• Take Gameplay Quirks that modify the purpose you accepted, such as Shy From Duty or Prescribed Purpose.
• Choose a heavily specialised physical form for your character.
• Make use of Modules such as Established Facilities to reflect this form mechanically.

Many hundreds of years have passed while you slumbered. The world has warped and shifted. Technology has advanced, society has evolved, and anything you once recognised or held dear is either gone or utterly different. You stand still as the universe ages around you. Perhaps you find the endless passing of time awesome and magnificent; perhaps you find it terrifying. You may even try to hold back the relentless decay, and preserve what you can of the past. Regardless, you will bear witness as the universe changes over eons.

• Take Gameplay Quirks that modify your hibernation, such as Electric Sheep or Inoperable Sopor.
• Take Gone, Not Forgotten, and describe a part of the world that your character once held dear and is now lost or changed.
• Finally, consider taking the Playstyle Quirk Make Me Cry, Specifically.

In times of crisis, there is no perfect solution. Not every life can be saved, and those that can might come at a dear price. Deciding who lives and who dies, which evils are necessary and which are excessive, and where the preservation of life ranks against upholding justice and protecting culture: this is the burden of a Mind. Some may have a strong moral compass already, and the will to enforce it on the world; others may be uncertain, but forced to choose in the heat of the moment.

• Decide your character's moral beliefs, or lack thereof, and describe to the GMs how that affected their decision to join the Contingency.
• In session, there will be tests of this belief. What choice will you make? Will you follow through on your beliefs? Can you live with yourself afterwards?
• In many cases, there will be no right or wrong answers, just choices you can make. It will often be a case of picking the best option there is, and handling the consequences.