Friday, February 1, 2013

Wordslingin'

Last night's game asked the question, "Why can things never go smooth?" See, not only were our target cases being guarded by our friend Tatsugoro and his company, not only were they backed up by several squads of NGIS plainclothes officers, but another team was after the same cases. A team with better resources, more men, and absolutely no qualms about conducting a terrorist operation aboard a TNTR train for the first time in 150 cycles. Because if you're going to do something right, you might as well go all out.

[As Lyta and Torgath are preparing to put their plan into action, the lights on the train go out.]
Torgath: (to Mads) "Thanks."
Lyta: "You were supposed to wait on that!"
Jimmy Croyden: "...I'm afraid that wasn't us."

[Jimmy Croyden, ever the resourceful sort, puts Mads on the job immediately.]
Jimmy Croyden: "We need to find out if someone else is hacking this. So... do what you do and tell me if someone is messing with our shite."

[The plan is going into action somewhat earlier than anticipated.]
Lyta: "Mads, start slowing down the train."
Torgath: "It's too early!"
Lyta: "How much time do you think we have here?!"

[Meanwhile, Mads is hacking into the system at a distance. It's rather complicated, and involves a fair amount of diagramming by Georges the GM.]
Brock: "Georges is gonna have to come up with two maps from now on: the tactical map and the Matrix."

[As always, things don't go smooth. Unexpectedly, but inevitably.]
Julie: "There was no reason for us to expect a rival team, tonight, on the same job as us."
Brock: "Using the exact same plan as us. In fact, if this is anyone's fault, it's
Jimmy's."

[We reflect on the fact that the lights on the train car are out. We all, thankfully, have night-vision goggles... except for Lukas, who has been busy distracting Tatsugoro. We consider who else might have eyes in the dark.]
Julie: "Anyone whose plan is to cut the lights would be wearing night-vision goggles."
Brock: "Unless they're complete amateurs."
Julie: "Our luck is not that good."
Brock: "No. If this is any indication, our luck is actually... bad."

[Lukas has dived behind the bar with Tatsugoro and is making use of his limited resources to fight the hostiles.]
Brock: "I make the molotov cocktail of molotov cocktails."
Julie: "Yeah, but can you throw it at them?"
Brock: "I have a point of throw."
Julie: "Yes, but no night-vision goggles."

[Keep in mind that he is fighting in the middle of a crowded lounge.]
Tatsugoro: "Quinn, don't shoot anyone!"
Ariel: "He didn't say anything about molotov cocktails."

[Ignoring Tatsugoro, Lukas throws his molotov cocktail in the general direction of where he thinks the hostiles are. He does not roll terribly well.]
Georges the GM: "Lucky, lucky, lucky..."
Julie: "For us or them?"
Ariel: "It went toward the civilians?"
Georges the GM: "It went toward the wall they're standing next to."

[Naturally, we can't let the new guy get away without impressing on him how important he is. And how much he's failing us at his job.]
Brock: (to Joe) "We would have done this better... if only someone were faster at their job!"

[Buoyed by Brock's ribbing, Joe starts rolling better.]
Brock: "Good hacking!"
Julie: "That's what we want!"
George the GM: "You now have surveillance on the train."
Julie: "...Except we want more useful than that."

[Mads gets to work on something more useful.]
Mads: "I'll start slowing the train down to 250 over the next five minutes. It'll probably be noticeable."
Lyta: "I think things are pretty noticeable already."

[Sadly, Joe started the session with no dots of combat sense, and even though he boosted it up to 1 by the middle of the session, he was still rolling quite a few botches, which meant that many turns, he was doing nothing. To his great frustration.]
Ariel: (to Georges the GM) "As a GM, how can you let a character not have combat sense?"
Brock: "'Cause he's a kid in a wheelchair."

[Speaking of combat senses...]
Julie: "'Go first.' That might be a useful specialization."
Brock: "Unless we meet someone else who has it."
Julie: "I don't think we've met anyone who does. Mostly because we just came up with it right now."

[Billy has joined Lukas and Tatsugoro behind the bar, still in the darkness of the train.]
Tatsugoro: "Quinn, is this friend or foe?"
Lukas: "Friend."
Tatsugoro: "You have friends out there?"
Lukas: (lying) "Just one."

[Keep in mind that because Lukas is with Tatsugoro, he can't issue instructions like he normally would.]
Lukas: (loudly, into comms) "You know, Tatsugoro, it would be handy if you could detach this car from the one in front of it."
Tatsugoro: "Why do you think I can do this?"
Jimmy Croyden: (on comms) "...Right! Working on it!"

[Lukas tries to figure out what to do next. Given that nominally this is Tatsugoro's job, as least as far as Tatsugoro is aware, Lukas takes his lead from him.]
Billy Croyden: "What are we doing?"
Tatsugoro: "RIght now, we're bait. We are doing very well."

[Meanwhile, Lyta and Torgath are realizing that there are many more hostiles in the train car than originally anticipated.]
Torgath: "You need to go back and get the SAW."
Lyta: "I can't use a SAW."
Torgath: "Learn."

[There are quite a few more bad guys on the train than anticipated. So many, in fact, that they start engaging each other.]
Julie: "How many of us are there?!"

[Brock sums up the plan.]
Brock: "The one thing you know is wherever there's gunfire, that's where you want to be."
Julie: "That seems counterintuitive."
Brock: "Only if you're a civilian."

[Having dealt with everyone in the lounge, Tatsugoro and Lukas start running towards the sound of the gunfire... right past the empty room Lyta is fighting some hostiles. She hasn't found the cases, but she has found an access panel in the floor that looks like it's been used recently.]
Lyta: "Don't let Tatsugoro shoot me."
Lukas: "Get down the hole, then!"
Lyta: "I'm busy with something right now!" *kicks bad guy*

[Lukas and Tatsugoro rush towards the room Lyta is in.]
Brock: "I'm right behind him, getting ready to dart him in the back."

[Billy Croyden and Torgath have found an identical access hatch in the floor of the next room, dropped down, and come across. Billy Croyden pulls down the bad guy in Lyta's room so that he's clinging to the opening while his body dangles down.]
Julie: "Boot to the head!"
Georges the GM: "His head makes the sound of an overripe melon hitting the sidewalk."
Julie: "...That was a harder boot to the head than I anticipated."

[The tactical situation as we've made it out so far.]
Jimmy Croyden: "So, there are primary baddies and secondary baddies."
Lyta: "But we still don't know where the targets are?"
Jimmy Croyden: "...No."

[The tactical situation sadly continued.]
Torgath: "If Tatsugoro said they were bait, does that mean the object is even here?"
Everyone Else: "..."

[And yet more bad news.]
Jimmy Croyden: "You're not gonna like this, but a couple of people got off the train in the confusion."
Lyta: "You tell us this after the car got locked down?!"

[Lukas summarized what it's like to have some hackers on our team, working remotely.]
Lukas: "I will say this op has proved the value of having someone looking down on us from up high. If only someone was doing that!"

[Torgath drops down into the second-floor, in an unused room. He is very stealthy.]
Brock: "You don't think you've been seen... by the nobody who was there."

[Meanwhile, in the first-floor cargo hold beneath the room Torgath is occupying, a fight is going on.]
Georges the GM: "It's a three-way fight."
Julie: "We're about to make it a four-way fight!"
Brock: "Are you kidding? Wait 'till it's a one-way fight, then make it a two-way fight!"

[Torgath tries to figure out what to do about the fight going on below him.]
Brock: "Grenades! Nothing says chaos like more chaos!"

[Lyta comes into the access hatch with Torgath and observes the fight.]
Torgath: "I feel like we should protect Tatsugoro's guys."
Lyta: "Yeah, I know."
Torgath: "Especially since we screwed them by taking out the firing pins on their assault weapons."
Lyta: "...Yeah, I know."

In the room that she and Torgath have just vacated, a new hostile has appeared, who takes out Billy Croyden in pretty quick measure.]
Torgath: "Is Billy still alive?"
Lyta/Julie: "Yeah, he's fine... I say in complete ignorance."

[Lukas enters the room to see Billy unconscious.]
Georges the GM: (to Brock) "The guy's bending over Billy's body."
Julie: "Probably taking his comms. That's what I'd do."
Brock: "Yes, yes you would. 'Cause that's our SOP."

[Lukas engages the guy, whose name -- we find out over their hacked comms -- is Virgil.]
Lukas: "Do you want to give up?"
Virgil: "Not especially, no."
Brock: "Then I shoot him."

[When it becomes clear that Virgil is better in hand-to-hand combat than Lukas, Lukas changes his strategy and throws a flash-bang grenade into the room.]
Brock: "How do you beat a guy who's better than you? Cheat!"

[Lyta and Torgath, meanwhile, are observing the fight in the cargo hold. We have just found out over the comms that both teams have reinforcements on the way.]
Jimmy Croyden: "Quinn, we think we can patch you through to the guys outside without letting the ones inside hear you, but it'll take a little time."
Lukas: "Well, you have until they break in. Then it's moot."

[Time is running short. There are two cases visible behind Tatsugoro's guys, and another two teams engaged in a firefight with each other. There is, however, a large loading bay in the side of the room.]
Lukas: (on comms, to Lyta) "Do you have your chute with you?"
Lyta: "Yes."
Lukas: "...How reckless are you feeling?"

[Lyta has dawning realization that Lukas wants her to grab the cases and jump out the side of a train moving hundreds of km an hour, barely 6 meters off the ground.]
Lyta: "This is the stupidest plan ever."
Lukas: "...I admit this one is bad."

[There's nothing for it. Lyta throws down a flash-bang into the firefight and jumps down after it, taking shelter behind Tatsugoro's incapacitated men.]
Dawn: "Halt!"
Georges the GM: "You recognize that voice."
Julie: "...I neglect to tell Torgath that it's Dawn."

[Lyta has to do some pretty fancy dodging after jumping down into the cargo hold.]
Ariel: "They all shot at Lyta? Fuck!"
Julie: "What did you expect when someone rushed for the package everyone wants?"

[Lyta jumps out of the side of the moving train.]
Brock: "At least there's nothing behind you, now that the baddies have uncoupled the last three cars."
Julie: "I'm just gonna land on the cold, hard ground."

[Something unexpected happens as Lyta deploys her parachute.]
Georges the GM: "You're body-slammed by Dawn."
Lyta: "...You're insane!"

[Dawn is holding on to Lyta for dear life, having failed to get her into a proper grapple.]
Georges the GM: "If you get out of the hold, you will kill her."
Julie: "She tried to kill my brother. I have no sympathy."

[Lyta has jumped off the train with two unopened cases. A third revealed itself to be full of nothing useful. The fourth is still MIA.]
Lukas: "Jimmy, any news of the last case? If not, we're leaving."
Jimmy Croyden: "I say we be happy with what we've got."

[Lukas and Tatsugoro, meanwhile, are not leaving, as they are posing as regular passengers. They take the still-unconscious Billy away from the fighting.]
Brock: "I go back to the bar."
Ariel: "What about the bomb they mentioned?"
Brock: "Oh, yeah. They did mention a bomb."
Bomb: *explodes*

And that's it for this time! Next time, we ask the eternal question, "What has it got in its pocketses?" I mean, cases. What has it got in its cases, precious?





Heavy Gear Roleplaying Game

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