Friday, March 2, 2012

Wordslingin'

This week's session saw Our Heroes (tm) brainstorm about how to listen in on a super-secret meeting happening at the West Corp office. Plan A, "Impersonate the Caterers," fizzled out when it was revealed the caterers are a small-scale operation on a first-name basis with the owner. Plan B, "Drill up through the Floor," had mixed results. Thus it was time for Plan C, "The really complicated one." Luckily, the first phase of Plan C went off (mostly) without a hitch. Sadly, there are still several phases to go.

[Ti Corovan has figured out the factory codes for some of West Corp's security systems.]
Brock: "Underline 'factory codes.' I wouldn't have thought of that. That's not how I solve problems, but I like it!"

[Ti got the information from West Corp's insurance company by greasing a few palms. Torgath demonstrates that he remains socially oblivious.]
Torgath: "When you say 'greasing palms,' do you mean money or sexual favors?"

[Lukas suggests that we might gas the executives in the boardroom, to interrogate them at our leisure.]
Lyta: "That's a really stupid plan."
Lukas: "I admit I haven't worked out all the permutations."

[Ti suggests he might have an idea on how to listen in on the meeting.]
Torgath: "What was the idea you had?"
Ti Corovan: "Let's exhaust the other options first."
Lyta: "He doesn't like his plan."
Ti Corovan: "I don't like my plan."

[The end goal of Ti's fiendishly complex plan is to place a bug in a heavily secured display case. Sadly, we're not 100% sure that the display case is in the boardroom the meeting will be in. Lukas reaches the inevitable conclusion.]
Lukas: "What's the point of having a ridiculously expensive art piece if you're not going to show it off?"

[To figure out how to access the display case, we'll need to steal the same model and test its security measures. The bad news is there are only two other cases in the city. The good news is one of them is being transported tomorrow.]
Lukas: "There's no point in attacking an armored car unless we have an anti-materiel rifle... which actually we do."

[The two cases are in the possession of Marius Belose, a member of the Granis cartel, and Andrea St-Clair, governor of Prince Gable.]
Lyta: "So do we want to piss off organized crime or the actual authorities?"

[We decide we don't want to piss off the authorities.]
Lukas: "So... Belose. And this time, we get to use gas!"

[Justifying our choice of target, i.e. the art piece owned by Belose and not the porcelain doll owned by St-Clair.]
Torgath: "Is it because we don't want to mess with porcelain dolls?"
Lukas: "No, it's because organized crime is less likely to have ready access to gas masks."

[Torgath sets up an overwatch position on Belose's apartment.]
Brock: "Who watches the watcher? He does."

[Our target's apartment is a heavily secured oasis tower facing directly onto the Westridge Trench, about 12 storeys down.]
Georges the GM: "I'd be excited to see how we get into this place."
Julie: "Which means he has no idea how to do it."

[Sometimes it's good to know which are the critical aspects of a mission. In this case, it isn't stealth.]
Lyta: "What's the security like on the inside of the building?"
Lukas: "Probably high, but since we're going in with shaped charges, it doesn't really matter."

[We have two options for exfiltrating from the apartment: ascend up the ropes using a pulley system, or bungee jump down 400 meters to the bottom of the trench.]
Julie: "Using the pulleys to go back up is still Plan A, though?"
Brock: "Yes, but I'm strangely more excited about Plan B now."
Ariel: "It is cooler. Crazier and cooler."

[Georges the GM has a single map, which Brock jokes would have been the same regardless of which house we assaulted.]
Georges the GM: "I didn't expect you to assault two places in one night."
Brock: "That sounds like a challenge!"

[We make a game-stat-related discovery.]
Ariel (to Brock): "You're the only one who doesn't have tactics?"
Brock: "That's why I come up with these horribly improbable plans!"

[We finalize the details of our assault.]
Brock: "Is there anything we haven't thought of?"
Georges the GM: "Yes."

[I spent a lot of XP on mechanics last night. One of them was to reroll a particularly mediocre result to figure out how long the ropes we're going to rappel down need to be, and how to secure them to the van.]
Julie: "I could just not reroll and then we'd all plummet to our deaths."
Brock: "That's true. I'm counting on your enlightened self-interest."

[At least we have one thing going for us with this horribly last-minute plan.]
Brock: "On the plus side, there's no way they're expecting this!"

[With our plans made and the ropes secure to the van, we rappel down and use shaped charges to blast our way into the living room.]
Georges the GM: "There are a couple of guards on a couch watching TV."
Brock: "Surprise!"

[Torgath, meanwhile, has rappelled down to the bedroom, where Belose is in bed with a woman half his age. Torgath shoots him with a tranquilizer dart.]
Georges the GM: "He's instantly knocked out."
Brock: "Cue screaming girl."

[We're doing pretty well until a couple of guards come downstairs, armed with assault carbines. Lukas sneak-attacks one of them and accidentally rolls too well, shooting him squarely in the head.]
Brock: "Hmm... not what I intended."
Julie: "They're the ones that brought the carbines."
Brock: "True. They did bring a gun to a gunfight."


And that's it for this week! The end result of all this madness is that we did, in fact, steal the display case and its priceless treasure. Now we've got one day to figure out how it works, configure our bug to the case's precise frequencies, and use a 90-second window of opportunity to plant it in the West Corp boardroom. Ha! Child's play!



Heavy Gear Roleplaying Game

0 comments :


 
Hermes 72 - Heavy Gear RPG - Most artwork Copyright 2002 Dream Pod 9, Inc.