Friday, August 1, 2014

Wordslingin'

The trial of the century! Or, at the very least, of the cycle. Old actions come back to haunt us, with perhaps fewer consequences than we might have expected.

[Georges the GM starts off the session.]
Georges the GM: “You guys have…”
Brock: “Escaped from jail! Yay!”

[We have our first breakfast in a Humanist jail.]
Zac: “Gourmet coffee! Ahhh…”
Brock: “In an edible cup. That’s the breakfast part. They’re efficient in the Humanist Alliance.”
Georges the GM: “Drink quickly before it dissolves.”

[We are brought to the courtroom. Georges the GM has a bit of difficulty describing the décor.]
Zac: “Like an understated ‘60s living room…”

[There are no lawyers per se. The case is being presented by Detective Gorash, and we will be defending ourselves.]
Brock: “Do we have access to the facts of the case?”
Georges the GM: “It’s assumed you have all the facts, being the perpetrators of the crime.”

[Detective Gorash reads out a long list of charges.]
Brock: “Thankfully murder isn’t on the list.”
Zac: (sarcasticly) “Gee, aren’t we lucky.”

[The Honorable Batanel Dakany is presiding over the court.]
Batanel Dakany: “Do you understand the nature of this proceeding?”
Brock: “Do I see any value in saying no?”

[Detective Gorash calls Torgath to the stand as the first Potential Deviant Personality to be questioned.]
Ariel: “What am I told specifically not to say?”
Brock: “Anything.”

[We start simply. Sorta.]
Detective Gorash: “For the purposes of identification, would you please tell me when you were born.”
Toragath: “…I don’t remember?”
Detective Gorash: “Well, very few people remember the time of their birth. But surely someone has told you when it happened.”

[Torgath is questioned by Detective Gorash.]
Ariel: “I don’t have any theatrics.”
Brock: “No time like the present – when failing could get you the mind probes.”

[Gorash has put together that Torgath was in the Alliance before our ‘official’ entry date, under his Badlands alias.]
Georges the GM: “I’m using your aliases interchangeably, as you guys have.”
Brock: “Plus, I must remind you that ‘Doc Grim’ isn’t your real name.”
Ariel: “Wait, what?”

[Torgath uses his usual ‘talk in book anecdotes until his questioner is confused’ tactic on Detective Gorash.]
Zac: “I think of all of us, Torgath would most benefit from the treatment for deviancy.”

[Detective Gorash has found evidence of more than just our TDI job.]
Detective Gorash: “Ms. St. Clair claims you threatened serious bodily harm with a knife.”
Torgath: “That sounds really mean!”

[More of Torgath’s usual conversational techniques.]
Detective Gorash: “So, just to be clear, you deny all of this—“
Torgath: “I did?”
Detective Gorash: “—and your only defense is you have an evil twin.”

[Next up: Fennec.]
Detective Gorash: “You met the rest of the PDPs in Oxford two seasons ago?”
Fennec: “Yeah, that seems right.”
Detective Gorash: “Really? Because according to my records, you only entered the Alliance on 27 Winter.”

[We remind the players of some useful facts.]
Zac: “How did I enter?”
Brock: “Illegally.”
Zac: “In that case, let me backpedal…”

[Detective Gorash tries to poke holes in our story.]
Detective Gorash: “You’ve truly developed a wonderful facility with Intralingua in the six weeks you’ve been here.”

[More of the same.]
Detective Gorash: “Typically they hire a fourth member with technical skills.”
Lukas: “Unsubstantiated.”
Detective Gorash: “Sorry, Your Honor. I was talking to myself.”

[Fennec defends her role on the team.]
Fennec: “Anyone will tell you Marybeth Kolbec knows how to fix machines.”
Torgath: “Marybeth Kolbec knows how to fix machines!”

[Detective Gorash pulls up footage of the TDI job.]
Detective Gorash: “In this frame, you disappear behind Mr. Jax.”
Fennec: “Well, that’s because he’s always in the way!”

[Detective Gorash also shows footage from the story that Zac and I co-wrote back in September.]
Detective Gorash: “It’s dark, but the voice recognition patterns match yours, and I think you’ll find this red hair is quite distinctive.”
Zac: (to Julie) “This was your idea!”

[Fennec tries to weasel her way out of the footage just played.]
Fennec: “Ain’t train tunnels public spaces?”
Detective Gorash: “Perhaps you can see the signs here, ‘Authorized access only. No biological entities.’”

[Fennec and Torgath are getting increasingly upset – real or feigned – at Detective Gorash referring to our ‘deivancy.’]
Batanel Dakany: “In order to assuage your delicate Badlands sensibilities, please replace ‘deviancy’ in your mind with ‘crime.’”
Fennec: “Well, that makes a lot more sense than ‘lizardfucker’!”

[Fennec steps down from the witness box.]
Ariel: “If they know everything we did, why don’t they just execute us?”
Julie: “That is the question.”

[Next up: Lyta. Detective Gorash opens with a shot of her doing kuritra/B’ti running through Oxford.]
Detective Gorash: “I have to admit I’m a bit of a fan.”
Zac: “It’s all up-skirt shots of you climbing.”

[Detective Gorash tries to show that trouble follows us everywhere.]
Detective Gorash: “The average number of calls for the VDSS in Oxford is 1.5 per cycle. In the season that you were there, there were three calls for them.”
Lyta: “Wow, we chose the wrong time to visit Oxford!”

[Detective Gorash notes that Theresa Vendar has accused us of being the ones who kidnapped her.]
Lukas: “It seems like she has an incentive to…”
Batanel Dakany: “To be better? Of course.”
Lukas: “To find an answer to please the POP.”

[Detective Gorash has evidence that Lyta entered the Alliance as a child using her real name. Lukas tries to explain that she has officially changed her name in the intervening cycles.]
Batanel Dakany: “Very well. Simply provide the official documents that register her name change, and they will be duly entered.”
Brock: “I give the name of a Badlands town I know was destroyed during the war.”

[Next up: Lukas.]
Detective Gorash: “On 36 Spring, a ‘be on the lookout’ was issued for someone roughly matching your description.”
Lukas: “Tall, well-dressed, devilishly good-looking?”

[Lukas is better at this game than the rest of us.]
Detective Gorash: “What do you know about WestEx?”
Lukas: “It has six letters in it? Starts with W, ends with X?”

[The PCs react to the footage that Detective Gorash has been showing.]
Ariel: “75% of the footage is us fighting terrorists.”
Zac: “Doing their job for them!”

[More of the same.]
Zac: “Technically superheroes are deviants.”

[Lukas is good at shifting blame.]
Detective Gorash: “Remember, this is your last chance to change your story.”
Lukas: “Really, Detective? I thought this was your last chance to string together a coherent narrative.”

[Lukas tries to weasel out of the ‘false ID’ charge.]
Lukas: “There’s nothing at Border Patrol that says you need to report if you entered the country previously under a different name.”
Batanel Dakany: *boggles*

[Last line of defense…]
Lukas: “Your Honor, the facts that I stipulated to…”
Batanel Dakany: “That you eventually stipulated to.”

[We are escorted from the courtroom. Instead of being taken back to our cells, we are brought to a subbasement and left alone.]
Georges the GM: “The guards leave. The door shuts behind them.”
Brock: “Wait for it…”

[We find ourselves in a room with Radsley, Miranada Winters, and a woman we have never met before but whom the players can assume from the blog is Lorelei Nanda .]
Fennec: (to Radsley) “D’ja have your hearing?”
Okran Radsley: “Well…”
Lukas: “Let me guess: ‘exceptional circumstances’?”

[We realize we never got Nanda’s name.]
Lukas: “So… who are you?”
Lorelei Nanda: “I am the person who can do you favors. Or do you harm.”

[Nanda reveals that it was Mentor, the central computer system in Oxford, that put out the BOLO on us.]
Zac: “This is the mole that got us arrested, not the one that nearly got us killed. Keep ‘em straight.”

[Nanda reveals that we have two choices: go back to our sentencing, or work for her.]
Fennec: “Well, getting out of this one is gonna look real good on our CV.”

[Lorelei Nanda passes out pictures of people we care about.]
Lukas: “So that’s the stick. Let’s talk carrot. Incentivize me to come back.”

[We talk about the job.]
Lukas: “We do this, you facilitate…”
Lorelei Nanda: “I allow you to continue your lucrative enterprise with Mr. Radsley.”

[Nanda has arranged for us to get out of the Alliance and back to the Badlands.]
Lorelei Nanda: “The vehicle should be able to get out past the Emirati border.”
Lukas: *shudders*

[The session wraps up.]
Brock: “Who the fuck is she?”
Zac: “You really wanna shoot her in the face, don’t you?”





Heavy Gear Roleplaying Game

0 comments :


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