Sunday, November 4, 2012

Wordslingin'

Pop quiz: you're dealing with an enemy that has more guns, more men, and a superior entrenched position. What do you do? (What. do. you. do?)

Well, if you're Our Heroes (tm), you storm the front gate. They'll never see it coming!

[Sometimes there's a miscommunication between GM and players. Sometimes you just want to know where to assign blame.]
Brock: "We've been scouting for a while, so Torgath is in the best position he's found. Where is that?"
Georges the GM: "That's up to him to tell me."
Brock: "We all know how that'll turn out."

[Lukas gets back on the radio with the men in the supposedly-abandoned homestead and begins to prepare our cover story.]
Northerner: "Ja, what can we do for you?"
Lukas: "You can get out of our goddam house!"

[Lukas offers the Northerners a chance to escape to the south. Instead, they start heading to the outbuilding where Lyta has incapacitated three of their comrades. Torgath fires a warning shot, shooting one of the men's guns out of his hands.]
Northerner: "One of our guys was shot!"
Lukas: "One of your guy's weapons was shot."
Northerner: "Same thing."
Lukas: "Oh, I think you can appreciate the difference."

[Torgath is taking cover in a barn. Which is great for things like rifle fire, but not quite so good when the hostiles reveal that they have a chain gun.]
Georges the GM: "You're pretty well covered, but..."
Ariel: "Not for long!"

[Torgath's barn is taking heavy chain gun fire.]
Ariel: "Do I think it's possible to shoot the chain gun?"
Josh: "Anything's possible with the power of imagination."
Julie: "And Torgath's got a huge imagination!"

[Meanwhile, in Torgath's barn are four antelopes, two of which have their own chain guns. There could, maybe, be a reverse of fortune.]
Brock: "How's your heavy weapons?"
Ariel: "Not great."
Brock: "Do you have any?"
Ariel: "...No."

[Meanwhile, Lukas and Lyta are rushing to the scene. From very, very far away.]
Georges the GM: "You guys can be there in 5-6 minutes. So... 100 combat rounds?
Julie: "Only 50-60!"
Brock: "...Only."

[Torgath is still facing down the chain gun, solo. It has also been joined by someone with, apparently, an automatic grenade launcher.]
Torgath: "This isn't gonna go well for me."
Lukas: "What are you talking about?"
Lyta: "You're winning!"

[Josh reflects on the situation.]
Josh: "The story of this campaign: 'We come in peace. Shoot to kill.'"

[Recall that this whole bodyguarding job was supposed to be in the urban environment of Port Arthur, not an isolated, abandoned homestead. So, trying to be inconspicuous, we did not wear our medium flak. Everyone except Ennik, who apparently did.]
Brock: "You may have your regular load, but we don't have our lockers full of weapons. Which I'm kind of regretting right now."

[Ennik uses our wagoneer to pick up Lyta and Lukas and drive towards the building where our enemy is entrenched. There's only one problem.]
Alain Vulpei: "You are driving me into the combat zone! This is not typical bodyguarding behavior."
Ennik: "He does have a point."
Lukas: "Just push him out the back."

[Lyta and Lukas mount the wagoneer.]
Brock: "Are there running boards? 'Cause if there are, I look awesome!"

[Georges the GM starts another round of combat between Torgath and the hostiles.]
Georges the GM: *rolls attack* "Oh, good lord!"
Ariel: "Am I okay?"
Georges the GM: "We're about to find out!"

[Meanwhile, I continue to take notes on the session, as well as lines of the night.]
Julie: "My official notes are: Torgath takes more 'splody grenades. 'Splody. It's a technical term."

[Georges the GM sums up the situation for Ariel.]
Georges the GM: "You're alone against an ensconced, entrenched..."
Julie: "But sleepy!"
Georges the GM: "No, they've napped."

[Josh provides some levity as the rest of Our Heroes (tm) approach the scene.]
Josh: (singing) "The mercs on the bus, they lock and load, lock and load, lock and load..."

[At about this time, Our Sandrider Heroes (tm) notice a huge sandstorm incoming. And us without our desert survival cloaks or respirators...]
Brock: "You know what would be nice? If we were operating in the environment for which we'd prepared. Just for once."

[More of the same.]
Brock: "How long 'till it hits?"
Georges the GM: "Thirty minutes."
Brock: "That's like 3,000 rounds!"
Josh: "300."
Brock: "I'm doing Georges math."

[We prepare to drive up to the main building.]
Ennik: "I don't want to bring the principle in range of the grenade launcher."
Lukas: "Nothing for it."
Ennik: "No, really there is!"

[Ennik leaves Vulpei with Dawn outside the range of the grenades, while the rest of us move in.]
Ennik: "Dawn, stay with the principle. Barb and I are gonna do this."
Dawn: (perky) "Okee dokee!"
Barb: (taciturn) "...Right."

[A gas grenade goes off near Torgath. Ariel tries to make the case, unsuccessfully, that he has his gas mask.]
Brock: "I would lean towards no, myself."
Ariel: "Okay, well, he's the one who dresses me in the morning..."

[The situation evolves as Our Heroes (tm) drive in.]
Torgath: "There are three prone guys between the buildings."
Lukas: (to Ennik) "You can just run over them on your way in."

[Ariel bemoans the fact that he's been by himself in combat for quite some time.]
Brock: "This is what you want! You like action; this is action! It's a target-rich environment!"

[Torgath is taking a lot of grenade fire.]
Ariel: "Can we keep the grenade guy alive so I can eviscerate him?"

[Of course, there's always a bright side to every fight.]
Brock: "You know what the best part of this is gonna be?"
Josh: "The loot?"
Brock: "Four chain guns."
Josh: "And a full auto grenade launcher."

[Brock and Josh may have different opinions on the priorities of bodyguarding.]
Josh: "I'm so glad Vulpei's not on the bus."
Brock: "So what happens? He dies! How attached are we to this guy anyway?"

[The wagoneer finally reaches the main building.]
Lukas: (on radio) "How are things in there?"
Northerner: "Pretty good. We have marshmallows, very good chocolate... if we had graham crackers, we'd be making s'mores!"

[The radio conversation continues.]
Northerner: "Are you offering anything?"
Lukas: "Well, if you want to surrender..."
Northerner: *laughs and turns off radio*

[The problem with Torgath being in the building with the enemy antelopes is that Lyta has removed all their spark plugs, so he can't actually use them to get towards the main building.]
Lukas: (to Torgath) "You cover the window and Lyta will come over with the spark plugs."
Lyta: "So I'm running across the line of fire, am I? Great."

[Thinking more about the 'use the enemy vehicles against them' plan.]
Ariel: "When we checked out the vehicles, did they have ammunition?"
Georges the GM: "...No."
Brock: "Okay, we don't do that."
Georges the GM: (disappointed) "Aw..."

[Lyta, Lukas, Ennik, and Barb approach the main building. Like many homesteads, there's only a single floor above ground, with a large dome above it and a small cupola at the top.]
Torgath: "Something's coming out of the upper window."
Lukas: "Apple? Banana?"

[The 'something' was, naturally, a grenade. The PCs are fine. Barb... not so much.]
Brock: "S'alright. That just saved us 4,000 bucks."
Georges the GM: "I'd love to hear that in character, over open mics."

[Georges the GM takes in the knowledge that one of the semi-major NPCs is dead.]
Georges the GM: "Barb... all sorts of backstory you'll never know."

[Lyta climbs up to the cupola and prepares to throw a couple of grenades into the very small windows. Sadly, she can only throw one at a time, due to the necessity of holding on while doing so.]
Ariel: "Okay, we need to genetically modify Lyta so she has a tail."

[Meanwhile, Torgath has been checking out a storage building and discovers some useful stuff.]
Lukas: (on radio) "You'll never guess what we found in the barn."
Northerner: "Rusty nails?"
Lukas: "A bunch of gasoline."
Northerner: "So you can refill your bus and drive away?"
Lukas: "Well, that is one possibility..."

[The heat of battle might cause some people to lose track of their cover stories. But it's okay when you're an excellent liar.]
Lukas: (on radio) "The other option is you all retreat gracefully and I don't burn you alive."
Northerner: "You'd burn down your own house?"
Lukas: "I'm an angry sort of guy."

[The northerners reveal that they'll let us all leave if we hand over Vulpei.]
Lukas: "What do you want to do?"
Alain Vulpei: "I would like to not succumb to their well-laid plans."

[The hostiles use flash-bang grenades on Our Heroes (tm), giving some of them major penalties.]
Ariel: "We need to buy flash-bangs. They're apparently super-effective."
Brock: "What are you talking about? We use flash-bangs all the time to do this exact thing!"

[After a fair amount of planning, and with the sandstorm imminent, Our Heroes (tm) blow a hole in one of the storm windows, throw in two flash-bangs and a frag grenade, and make their way in through the breach.]
Georges the GM: "It looks like a frag grenade has just gone off."
Brock: (deadpan) "I wonder how that happened."

[We kill a few guys in the lower level and move forward to take the stairs and the upper level.]
Northerner: (on radio) "Listen, I'm thinking perhaps we should come to an agreement of some kind."
Lukas: "...Keep talking."

[Do you ever get the sense that you've forgotten something? Like, perhaps, a hostage who's been left for dead in the wagoneer with the sandstorm right on top of him?]
Northerner: "How about, as an act of goodwill, you hand us over our confederate?"
Lukas: "...So who wants to run out and get the guy?"

[Torgath runs out to the bus to get Frank Katz.]
Frank Katz: "What is the plan?"
Brock: (as Torgath) "Come with me if you want to live!"

[We rescue Frank Katz and bring him back into the main building.]
Lukas: "So, I figure we just saved your life."
Frank Katz: "After leaving me for dead, ja."

[We prepare to let Frank talk to his confederates.]
Lukas: "No tricky business, or I shove you out the window."
Frank Katz: "It would be simpler to just shoot me."
Lukas: "But less painful."

[Discussing with Vulpei what the northerners might want with him.]
Alain Vulpei: "I am much wanted. I mean, desired."

[We come to an agreement with the northerners whereby they stay upstairs and we stay downstairs until the end of the storm.]
Brock: "So the night passes uneventfully."
Georges the GM: "Does it?"

[Vulpei suggests storming the northerners while they're sleeping.]
Lukas: "We'd still have to attack up a stairwell, into the mouth of two chain guns."
Alain Vulpei: "That is a reasonable consideration."

[Lukas and Vulpei discuss their options.]
Alain Vulpei: "You are still keeping a civil tongue with me, because you are in my employ?"
Lukas: "Yes."
Alain Vulpei: "I look forward to seeing what you will say when I free you of your obligations."

[The night does, indeed, pass uneventfully. Mostly.]
Dawn: "By the way, the northerner is dead."
Lukas: "Well, that'll complicate things."

[After the session, we realize that most of us have burned through our XP down to the single digits, while Brock somehow has 42 XP left.]
Georges the GM: "He's more judicious in his use of attack."
Josh: "No, he gets us to do his dirty work."
Georges the GM: "And you do."

And that's it for this week. Next week, most likely, more combat! Yay!





Heavy Gear Roleplaying Game

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