Friday, September 20, 2013

Wordslingin'

Plan, plan, plan, that's all we do. This week's session comes to us courtesy of Operation: Oxford DA Offices. Which isn't an impossibility on the level of, say, rescuing Christina Katchelli from the CEF diamond mines, but it's certainly not the easiest thing we've ever done either.


[Georges the GM lays out the operational requirements.]
Ariel: "The more I look at this, the more I feel a bag of cats would be useful."

[Sometimes our sense of priorities are not exactly in sync.]
Lyta: "So, the infiltration is through a woods? Grizz can pretend to be a bush or something."
Lukas: "We'll talk infiltration later."
Lyta: "Okay, where's our exfiltration point?"
Lukas: "We'll talk about that after we talk about infiltration."
Lyta: "No, I think we should talk about that first."

[You know it's gonna be a stupid plan when it starts like this.]
Torgath: "What I'm think is -- and this is a bad idea, but humor me..."

[We contemplate going in disguised as plumbers or other maintenance workers. Sadly, the thing about the Department of Administration is that they control all the plumbers and maintenance workers in the Humanist Alliance.]
Okran Radsley: "I'm not trying to shoot you down. I'm just trying to give you a sense of the magnitude..."
Lyta: "Oh, so that's why Gabriel had a nervous breakdown."

[First step of the operation will obviously be to cut the hard lines to the outside world.]
Fennec: "What does cutting the hard line do?"
Lukas: "It stops them from calling for help."
Fennec: "If things go wrong."
Lyta: "Of course things will go wrong."

[The second step, after cutting the hard line, is to access the main security offices, where there will no doubt be a number of Public Order Protectors.]
Lukas: "Fighting the Protectors is not going to be a problem."
Georges the GM: *laughs*

[Some of our team will do our usual sneaking to get into the security offices. Others will pose as HIRA agents bringing in a drunk and disorderly Badlander to use the DA office's secure holding area.]
Ariel: "None of us has the theatrics to pull off a drunkard except the guy we need to be a guard."

[Radsley comments on the thought that almost all our operatives will be starting out in the security office.]
Okran Rasley: "Aren't all our eggs are in one basket with this plan?"
Lukas: "This isn't the eggs -- this is the basket."

[Among the complicating factors in the Oxford DA office are about fifty wheeled, autonomous drones on a separate security system from the human guards.]
Lukas: "We want to avoid fighting the drones. Ideally we'd like to just wander through the drone/security firefights."
Okran Radsley: "...True."

[As we try to figure out what to do about the drones...]
Brock: "This is either going to be our salvation or our doom."

[More thinking on the drones.]
Fennec: "If these things turn on us, how big a threat would it be?"
Lukas: "Big threat. No point in having drones if they weren't."

[And yet more.]
Georges the GM: "If you shoot a drone, they'll be alerted."
Julie: "If the drones are engaging with us, they've already been alerted."

[Other complications: ceiling-mounted defence pods. We plan to reprogram after we take over the security office to neutralize any remaining POPs.]
Fennec: "You think these ceiling pods can take out two Protectors?"
Lukas: "Absolutely."
Fennec: "What do you think they have?"
Lukas: "The strongest sfika weapons you can mount on a ceiling."
Zac: "I've just upgraded my estimation of this drone system from ceiling bubbles with pea shooters to howitzers."

[We contemplate what to do with the human guards.]
Okran Rasley: "I don't want casualties."
Torgath: "That's because you're brainwashed. Casualties make everything more fun."

[As we plan, we realize this job may be too much for four operatives to handle.]
Okran Radsley: "If you need more bodies, I can recommend two."
Lyta: "With better improvisation skills than Gabriel's?"
Okran Radsley: "...No. In fact, I'd say exactly the same as Gabriel's."

[It is now 9:30. The game has been going on for about two and a half hours.]
Lukas: "Okay. I'm ready to talk about exfiltration at this point."

[We talk exfiltration.]
Lukas: "How do we get out?"
Lyta: "How do we get out?"

[Exfiltration Plan A is to get out the same way we came in.]
Lukas: "What's your Plan B?"
Okran Radsley: "Plan B is a little more ambitious."

[Radsley introduces Plan B.]
Okran Radsley: "I hesitate to mention this because you're Badlanders, and typically you don't like this sort of thing..."
Lyta: "Are you gonna say parachuting?"
Okran Radsley: "No... but nearly."

[In fact, Radsley's Plan B is to paraglide from the top of the building into the nearby Grand Canal.]
Lyta: "Oh. Swimming."
Okran Radsley: "Swimming."
Lyta: "That's nothing like parachuting!"

[Technically, the Lassander siblings are okay with swimming, given their experience in Junira Loresh. That doesn't mean they want to tip their hands. Or swim in the Grand Canal.]
Torgath: "What's the problem with swimming?"
Lyta: "The problem is we've got our gear, and our gear isn't waterproof."
Torgath: "Do we need to bring our gear out with us?"
Lyta: *boggles* "Yes!"

[Lukas listens to Radsley's Plan B, unimpressed.]
Lukas: "That's your Plan B?"
Okran Radsley: "Yes."
Lukas: "Okay, let me tell you my plan."

[The planning about as done as any of us are willing to do in one gaming session, we prepare to infiltrate. Part of that is disguising ourselves. Note that Lukas' disguises are now much more elaborate, involving first putting on fake scars and then covering them up. Lyta's starting to get suspicious.]
Zac: (as Lyta) "Is this a disembodied piece of face in our dishwasher?"

[The infiltration plan is for Lyta, Torgath, and Gabriel to sneak in first and cut the main hard line to the outside world. Lyta and Torgath are well experienced at this sort of thing. Gabriel, not so much.]
Julie: "Does Gabriel have stealth?"
Georges the GM: "Of course he doesn't!"

[And now, the direct consequence.]
Georges the GM: *rolls and cringes*
Brock: "How badly did Gabriel botch his stealth roll?"
Georges the GM: "Atrociously."
Zac: "Mission over."

[Meanwhile, Radsley and Lukas disguise themselves as HIRA agents and bring in a 'drunk and disorderly' Fennec.]
Zac: "I want to know what's happening so I don't suck in a lungful of gas."
Brock: "You're gonna suck in a lungful of gas."

[Bringing in Fennec needs to look believable.]
Zac: "Am I gonna be in unfastened binders?"
Brock: "Fastened binders."
Zac: "..."
Brock: "You can have the key."

[Lukas, Radsley, and Fennec reach the door.]
POP Guard: "Identify yourselves."
Okran Radsley: "This is HIRA Joe and HIRA Bob..."

[Meanwhile, Lyta and Torgath have climbed the side of the building to their infiltration point, a corner office. Which is sadly occupied.]
Georges the GM: (to Julie) "Your notice is good enough that you see a man in the corner office. Sadly, your stealth is low enough that you're fairly certain he's made you."
Julie: "On the flip side, if I can't get in, he can't get out."

[Lukas, Radsley, and Fennec have been taken up to the security offices. Sadly, Lyta and Torgath aren't inside yet.]
Brock: "Well, coordinating this part was always gonna be a disaster."

[Combat begins to ensue.]
Brock: "I spend xp--"
Georges the GM: "This is about to go horribly wrong."
Julie: "As was inevitable."
Georges the GM: "No, it wasn't. But now it is."

[Brock isn't quite clear on Georges the GM's pronouncement of inevitable wrongness.]
Brock: "I don't understand the confusion. This is the plan."
Georges the GM: "It's even going better than anticipated because they don't have masks on."

[Radsley and Lukas knock out a few of the POPs with their sfika poison flechettes. Sadly, this means that the remaining guards are alerted to the fact that something is wrong.]
Ariel: "Does he press the big red lockdown button?"
Georges the GM: "...He's starting to type. It's not actually a red button."


And that's where we leave things this week, right in the aftermath of combat! The mission continues on Tuesday!




Heavy Gear Roleplaying Game

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