Background: Homebrew system. Campaign starting in 2282. Players, "Pre-War natives", wake up after more than 200 years in cryostasis in Vault 41 after having fallen unconscious during their 'VaultLife Induction' in Phoenix, Arizona in autumn of 2077.

On the off-chance that this was you last night, please stop reading as spoilers await within.

Jordan the psych student, Fyodor the Serborussian sleeper agent and Krates the explosives obsessed junkie, awoke to the sounds of a pre-recorded VaultTech message. They sat in large glass cryostasis pods which had begin to deactivate, allowing them to slowly regain control of their previously freezing limbs. They each wore green 41C labelled jumpsuits.

The VaultTech message informed them that it was the year 2282, that each had been given a neural implant and that their vault had supplies only for roughly a week. In addition, their vault was in fact one of 13 and that 11 of the 12 others were like theirs, the final subcomplex containing supplies for decades.

Unfortunately, in order to open the 13th subcomplex they'd need to ensure that the only active neural chips sent off the same signal. How to do this, they were given no advice.

Their first thought was murder, but after gathering that their own vault (dedicated to users, dealers and researchers of 'Chemicals') had some 50 people in it decided that a peaceful solution might be better. They forced 12 people of their vault, evidently suffering withdrawal symptoms, back into cryosleep before investigating their vault further.

They looted it thoroughly for useful medicines, tools and weapons before discovering a room with copious amounts of drug baggies of white powder labelled A,B,C, D or E, adjacent to a terminal detailing user experiences and, after hacking, dosage data of the drugs. They formed some pills and some aerosol solutions, but couldn't suss how to use 3 of the drugs so merely kept the bags. They left little for their vault-mates, fearing drug abuse.

Before leaving, Fyodor managed to cook up some contact explosive with looted chemicals such as ammonia and they also took rations arguably more than was their due for the week.

They then confronted their Vault overseer after forcing their way into his office, who they quickly identified as being the man in some of the 'user experience' logs. Threatening his life, they extracted information on the point of the Vault, allegedly an experiment on "who most deserves to inherit the wasteland."

During their extortion they heard gunshots and, dragging the overseer Charlie with them, they loaded up on guns, ammunition and explosives from the entrance way-armory before departing the vault into a series of caverns half man-carved and half natural, lit by highly phosphorescent lichen.

Quickly they came across dead bodies, four of which they found had red '41R' jumpsuits and one '41E' in blue, on a thick suit suitable for artic-circle warfare.

Leaving the bodies behind they continued to find a vault labelled with a yellow 41T, the occupants of which were skeptical but permitted them inside after they stored their weapons in the entrace-way armory. Inside they found that the vault was dedicated to Technology and Krates, somewhat of a technological savant, managed to active a Gutsy through jury-rigging batteries for it... and immediately programmed it to identify him as its primary commander and follow his orders.

The 41T people explained what they knew of the neural chips they had, but that they could only do so much without sample chips. The party agreed to haul back some of the corpses they had found before. Fyodor dissected them, extracting a chip from both 41R and 41E before handing them to the techies, who were to investigate how the chips worked.

Next the players broke into a secret room whilst their gutsy was attacked by members of 41R, one of whom they prompty killed and the second of which they took back to 41T for interrogation. 41R, they learned, was for 'Rehabilitation' and was lead by overseer Dave, who had been their Prison Warden on the surface. They executed their captive before moving east, where they found Vault 41W which agreed to cooperate with changing their signal but would not allow them inside.

Next they had a conversation with some Vault 41R members, who promptly ambushed them but were mutilated by a combination of good rolls, the player's Gutsy and the timely arrival of some vault 41E members, who quickly agreed to an alliance in taking down 41R and recruiting the other vaults to change their neural chip signals, if such a thing was possible.

The players then investigated the caverns, finding vaults 41F (a hostile Fission-based vault), 41A who specialised in armour, and M who were primarily doctors of medicine, who offered them some Fixer to help those of their vault who had withdrawal symptoms.

Next they found those of 41S (after stumbling across more corpses from 41R, 41E and 41A), who shot at them. After talking down the shooters, they learned that they had apparently been convinced that the year was still 2077 and that they had been sleeping for just a handful of weeks. They had been lied to in detail, and thought they were a part of a training exercise. When they learned otherwise, most collapsed into despair, whilst the players offered a handful of their injured help in getting to vault 41M, aided by a lift built into the cavern wall that they'd discovered with aid of their Gutsy.

Such was the end of Session 1. Since this session was mostly about waking up, forging a party and learning the game system we didn't get a massive amount of big stuff done, but I'm fairly confident the party will reach the surface by the end of next session.

And boy, that'll be fun. Because what waits above is the Grand Canyon, deep in Caesar's Legion territory just days after the Battle of Hoover Dam... and the death of both Caesar and Lanius.

Thus far I've been impressed by the party's chemistry and their complete lack of murder-hoboism. They haven't fired a single shot unprovoked, and even when assaulted by 41F members didn't press the issue but instead agreed to leave them until they knew how to resolve the problem of their neural-chip signals.

Anywho, feedback, questions and thoughts appreciated. I'm also happy to go over the system I've conjured up if anyone cares to know.