Thursday, March 20, 2014

Wordslingin'

This week's session saw wacky hijinks on the open seas! If by "wacky hijinks" you mean "getting the POP to do our dirty work for us," and by "open seas" you mean "a ship sitting in the harbor." Close enough.


[In the middle of the night, our targets are visited by a nondescript woman. It's always important to know your tropes when you're doing counter-espionage.]
Georges the GM: "The only thing that points her out as being a spy is that she's wearing a trench coat."

[Torgath follows the woman back to her apartment and puts a portable camera in her hallway. The next day, he sees her leave with a waterproof duffel bag with some sort of logo on the side that he can't make out.]
Brock: (to Julie) "Add 'image enhancement software' to the list."
Julie: "It's Zac's list now."
Brock: (to Zac) "You're in procurement."
Zac: "I'll put it under 'buy murder drone.'"

[At breakfast, Torgath sees many people with similar duffels to the one that was chucked into the lake and the one he saw the woman carrying earlier that morning. He calls Lukas to find out what to do.]
Torgath: "They have a duffel, but everyone does. I think it's part of the race."
Lukas: "Why don't you ask one of them what it's for."
Torgath: "I'm scared. Can you?"
Lukas: "No. There's no one with a duffel in our hotel room."

[Torgath asks the desk clerk about the duffel bags. For certain values of 'ask.']
Lukas: "What do they need bags for?"
Torgath: "...For the race."
Lukas: "No, they need boats for the race."

[Meanwhile, while Torgath is failing to find out what the bags are for...]
Georges the GM: "Lukas gets a text from Morris."
Zac: "The text is, 'You have already failed.'"
Georges the GM: "To some extent."

[Lyta goes to check out the apartment of the woman who visited our targets. Apparently her name is Denise St. Clair. Sadly, Lyta doesn't get very long to find out more.]
Torgath: (on comms) "Incoming. Two Protectors and a plainclothes."
Brock: "This is the fight scene you were supposed to have last time."

[Lyta high-tails out of the apartment before being caught.]
Lyta: (via text) "Building monitored by security -- had to leave quickly."
Lukas: "Hack."

[It's the day of the big regatta race, where we know our targets will receive the hand-off we are supposed to intercept. The question is, how?]
Brock: "Have you done any scuba work?"
Zac: "Um... that has not been established in my backstory."

[Zac tries to figure out whether Fennec would know how to scuba dive.]
Georges the GM: "It would be about as likely for you to know how to swim as to know how to maneuver in zero-G."
Zac: "Slightly more likely."
Brock: "No, exactly as likely."
Zac: "Who goes to space?"
Brock: "The same number as Badlanders who go to water."

[More of the same.]
Georges the GM: "You can learn. You've been here a season. You're on a body of water."
Zac: "I jump in!"
Georges the GM: "You panic. Roll psyche."
Zac: "I drown."

[Given that Fennec probably won't be doing any scuba diving, she's on tailing duty. And also bomb-building duty. Let it never be said we have reasonable expectations for our team-mates.]
Fennec: "Do you want eyes-on or do you want a bomb?"
Lukas: "Both."

[Fennec manages to build a bomb out of common household items she scavenges while tailing the targets. The central core is a fire extinguisher.]
Brock: "In video games, fire extinguishers explode like bombs."
Georges the GM: "When shot."
Brock: "Exactly."

[The bomb Fennec makes is good, but even she has to work within the constraints given her.]
Georges the GM: "If you're thinking of taking out a boat, you'll have to be really judicious in where you place it. Like, next to a glass hull."

[Lukas buys some scuba gear, mostly by bluffing that he knows how to scuba dive.]
Brock: "Do they have a 'dummies guide to scuba' in the scuba shop?"
Georges the GM: "Yes."
Brock: "I'll buy it... for my nephew."

[Fennec has acquired a not-particularly-useful bomb. Lukas has acquired some scuba gear. There may be a solution in there somewhere.]
Brock: "What can you do with a scuba tank?"
Zac: "What can I do with a scuba tank?" *rolls 7*
Georges the GM: "Well, first on your list is you can scuba with it."

[There's a small problem Fennec hasn't quite anticipated.]
Georges the GM: "If any POP finds you, you're toast. You're in a crowded area with an anti-personnel bomb."

[Our targets board an observation ship.]
Georges the GM: "It's a private ship. And since you didn't do any of the networking last game..."
Brock: "We were doing surveillance!"

[We try to figure out how to get on the observation ship.]
Lyta: "Hey, Gabriel, can you get me a passenger list?"
Zac: "Oh, right! He's still here!"

[Gabriel helps Lyta in her plans to get on the ship.]
Georges the GM: "Gabriel keeps rolling 6s."
Julie: "Good for him, well done. I knew we kept him around for a reason."

[Fennec manages to get her hands on Denise St. Clair's duffel bag.]
Georges the GM: "You find what looks like a remote trigger."
Brock: "What does it look like it does?"
Julie: "Triggers something?"

[St. Clair is part of the Zelanis Security regatta team. Fennec stashes her bomb in the bag and takes the remote trigger.]
Zac: "I'll leave the bag on the dock. If the authorities find it, Zelanis will have something to explain."

[St. Clair leaves to go find her bag. Instead, she finds Lukas and Torgath. Let the interrogation begin!]
Denise St. Clair: "What do you want?"
Lukas: "I think you know what I want."
Denise St. Clair: "I have no idea what you want."
Julie: "It seems all our interrogations start this way."

[It's always important to manage expectations.]
Denise St. Clair: "If this is true, you are preparing to kill me."
Lukas: "No, no. You won't be killed."
Torgath: *sighs disappointedly*

[More of the same.]
Lukas: "Perhaps you would like this interrogation to become... enhanced?"
Ariel: "You want me to take out my knife and play with it?"
Brock: "Not yet. We're being Humanists."

[Lukas has so far failed to correct Denise's impression that he's an undercover Humanist agent.]
Denise St. Clair: "I have no reason to think you will do anything against regulations or procedures."
Lukas: "Perhaps not, but my Emerati friend here might disagree. I'll just step outside a moment -- the sight of blood has always turned my stomach."

[Ms. St. Clair looks appropriately worried as Lukas steps out of the room. Perhaps.]
Georges the GM: "She'd be much more scared if she knew what Torgath was actually like."

[Let the enhanced interrogation begin!]
Ariel: "I'm gonna rub the blunt end of the knife up her spine and cut her forehead, if that's okay."
Brock: "I'm hoping she starts to tell us something as the knife rolls up her spine, so it sounds good to me."

[Torgath does exactly what Ariel set out, and Denise does indeed start panicking and agree to tell Lukas what he wants to know.]
Brock: "I wipe off the blood and flick it away."
Georges the GM: "Why not use the gag to wipe the blood?"
Brock: "But then I wouldn't get to do the gesture."
Georges the GM: "You also wouldn't be able to put the bloody gag back in her mouth."
Brock: "What am I, some kind of sicko?"

[Denise St. Clair comes clean on the entire plan, which includes the fact that she was going to detonate a bomb on another ship.]
Denise St. Clair: "In fact, I do not have the detonator anymore."
Ariel: "We don't tell her we have it."
Julie: "We certainly don't."

[The plan in a nutshell: the object is in the hull of a TDI ship. St. Clair's ship was going to collide with the TDI ship and "accidentally" sink both ships. In the aftermath, the three other members of her team were going to scuba off the private observation ship, retrieve the object, scuba back, change their identities, and ride the observation ship all the way to Perth and potentially the Southern Republic.]
Brock: "So this basically checked off all the boxes in how I'd do this."

[With Denise St. Clair tied up and lacking her detonator, there's no way for her to explode the TDI ship. And none of her crewmates on the Zelanis ship were in on the plan.]
Brock: "Now the test will be whether the TDI guys find a way to sink their own boat."

[Note that Fennec has used her cell phone as the detonator for her bomb. So when Lukas is done with the interrogation...]
Zac: "Can we get on the same page with the new information?"
Brock: "I'll call... no, wait, I can't call you."
Georges the GM: "I'd love to see you try."

[Lyta has meanwhile gotten aboard the private observation ship and is watching the other three targets. So Lukas' new plan of framing them for Fennec's bomb -- now on the Zelanis ship -- has a few potential drawbacks.]
Brock: "Obviously, if this goes horribly wrong, you will be the one to suffer."
Julie: "Thank you. I appreciate being your scapegoat."

[Lukas puts in the call to the POP, who arrest all our targets. He calls up our employer, Daniella Morris, to inform her of what's happened.]
Lukas: "It would appear we've satisfied all your requests... more or less."

[Morris wants to make sure that the WestRim employees, aka our targets, are made an example of.]
Daniella Morris: "You can't send a message if it's whispered."
Lukas: "The parties involved will feel it rather directly."

[Morris informs us that our contact for the Comptroller is Lucian Jacobi, who both owned the private observation ship and seemed to have some part in the WestRim/TDI deal.]
Daniella Morris: "The Comptroller does many things for many people. As far as I know, he doesn't keep sides. He just keeps track of what's owed him."

[Lukas asks Morris about the relationship between Zelanis and the Comptroller.]
Daniella Morris: "As far as I'm aware, there is no relationship between Zelanis and the Comptroller. But I shall certainly look into it."
Ariel: "So we've given her more information than she gave us."
Georges the GM: "Yes."
Brock: "Thereby making us look valuable and useful."





Heavy Gear Roleplaying Game

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