Friday, June 26, 2015

Wordslingin'

An unexpected family reunion! When the rest of the PCs blindside Lukas into working with them to rescue a prisoner from the Bear, it’s time for some old-fashioned sleuthing in a game we like to call, “Find the webble.”


[We pick up with Lukas and Ken after the chaos of Al-Humein’s complex. Recall that they do not have any shared language.]
Georges the GM: “You decide to split up to double your chances of making it across the border.”
Brock: “I assume this plan is decided by Ken getting up and walking off?”
Georges the GM: “Yes.”

[Lukas waits for Lucian Jacobi’s boat to come in.]
Georges the GM: “You’ve been hanging out in town, wallowing in whatever emotions you’re feeling.”
Brock: “Could’ve been worse! I could be dead!”
Georges the GM: “So, wallowing in happiness, then.”

[Lukas meets with Lucian Jacobi to explain what happened.]
Lucian Jacobi: “What’s the bad news?”
Lukas: “Let me tell you the good news. The good news is I saved you a ton of money.”

[Lukas and Jacobi go over the agents lost at the complex.]
Lucian Jacobi: “The doctor’s loss is a serious blow to the Comptroller, though I can’t say I care personally.”
Lukas: “I must say he was particularly horrible.”

[Lukas and Jacobi discuss the plant in Jacobi’s organization, which Lukas proves was Roger.]
Lucian Jacobi: “Normally I would tell the Comptroller I’d excised the entire cancerous unit… which would include you.”

[Jacobi tells Lukas to lay low for a half-season or so until the dust settles. Until then, it turns out that Miranda Winters has specifically requested Lukas’ assistance in a job. This next exchange is funny because Jacobi is misinformed on as many as two separate levels.]
Lucian Jacobi: “You know this woman?”
Lukas: “I do.”
Lucian Jacobi: “And you know who she works for?”
Lukas: “I do.”
Lucian Jacobi: “So you know how significant this could be.”
Lukas: “I do.”
Lucian Jacobi: “Do you trust her?”
Lukas: “I do not.”
Lucian Jacobi: “Excellent. Then we understand each other.”

[Lukas is supposed to meet Winters in the tiny town that surrounds one of the towers dotting the northern border.]
Georges the GM: “This is the Humanist Alliance’s grimier parts.”
Julie: “Comparatively grimier.”

[Unbeknownst to Lukas, the rest of the PCs have arrived with Winters.]
Ariel: “It’s a surprise family reunion.”
Zac: “It’s an intervention.”

[Lukas meets Winters in one of the town’s two watering holes.]
Georges the GM: “The bar is a sad place. It’s not even violent enough to be interesting.”

[Lukas meets with Winters.]
Miranda Winters: “What’s your pay structure like with your current employer?”
Lukas: “…Generous.”
Miranda Winters: “That’s a shame. I was hoping you’d be disgruntled and I could hire you myself.”
Lukas: “Make me an offer.”

[More on the topic of money.]
Lukas: “What are you paying?”
Miranda Winters: “I’m paying your employer.”
Lukas: “Ah, so that’s how this is working.”

[Winters lets Lukas know she took the liberty of assembling a team to help him on the job. She takes him upstairs to vet them.]
Ariel: “What tips you off is the pillow fort in the corner.”

[Yes, the whole gang is back together! Lukas does not immediately bolt!]
Torgath: “Turns out he doesn’t have amnesia.”
Lukas: “Or I forgot I had it.”

[On the topic of how we all got into the Alliance in the first place.]
Georges the GM: “Your records have been expunged. When your hands are scanned, there’s no warrant.”
Zac: “So there’s only one peeved-off detective.”
Ariel: “With a box full of hard-copy records.”

[There are, of course, some lingering questions from the last time we all met each other, back in the ESE.]
Fennec: “I don’t know what your status with HIRA is now.”
Lukas: “I’m in the clear with them.”
Fennec: “So this is just recreational?”

[We fill Lukas in on the situation.]
Lukas: “When did they take Jonas?”
Ti Corovan: “Let’s try not to put it in terms of ‘a few days after you left us.’”

[Old rivalries resurface.]
Ti Corovan: “I want to know if you think I should trust you.”
Lukas: “If I were you, I wouldn’t trust me. I don’t trust you.”

[More of the same.]
Ti Corovan: “He just said not to trust him.”
Fennec: “If we really couldn’t trust him, would he still say that?”
Lyta: “Probably, yeah.”

[Ti tries to figure out who Lukas is working for.]
Lukas: “If I tell you anything, you’ll use it.”
Fennec: “But it would sure be handy if you weren’t in a transport we were gonna blow up, or a building we were sabotaging, for instance. This seems like it could be mutually beneficial.”

[Ti tries to work logistics with Lukas.]
Lukas: “You’re not my boss!”
Ti Corovan: “No, but you’re a rational person.”
Torgath: “Is he?”
Fennec: “He’s a man of principle.”

[Fennec tries to impress upon Lukas that even though we’re currently working for different organizations, we’re at least working for the same ends.]
Fennec: “Ultimately we’re all chasing the same tiger here. Or bear.”
Torgath: “Dragon?”
Fennec: “No, I’ll stick with bear.”

[The job before us is to follow Ensign Rick Ash, who will be receiving a webble from points further south in the Alliance and smuggling it outside the border. First step: figure out when Ensign Ash will be on duty. Sadly, this might involve breaking into the HAPF tower.]
Fennec: “This is a duty roster! It’s not like it’s state secrets!”
Lukas: “But they don’t have two computers.”

[Plan B: hang out in the bars and see if our target shows up.]
Zac: “I’m gonna go in and pretend I’m a gabby Badlander. …I think I am a gabby Badlander.”

[Lukas is in one bar, Fennec in the other.]
Julie: “How observant are you?”
Brock: “As observant as I am dishonest.”

[Fennec comes up with her cover story.]
Fennec: “You can get tech on the border that’s already devalued so there’s almost no tariffs, it’s dead cheap, but still way better than what you can get in the Badlands.”
Torgath: “You should do that as your real job!”
Fennec: “That was my real job.”

[Brock comes up with a clever plan. Sooner or later he’ll tell us the clever part.]
Lukas: “Did you bring a vehicle?”
Fennec: “Yes.”
Lukas: “Break it.”
Fennec: “Wanna elaborate on that?”
Lukas: “No.”

[The point of Lukas’ clever plan becomes clear: i.e. it gives us an excuse to stay in town longer.]
Fennec: “Yes, our antelope broke down because of that one particular part I broke that I know they’ll need to order. Don’t worry – I have a spare.”

[We try to figure out where Ash might spend time while off-duty.]
Brock: “If Karima were here, I could ask her about local hotspots.”
Zac: “Missing your old team already?”
Brock: “Yes! They never gave me a hard time like you do!”

[Because Ensign Ash is from Marigold, Lukas pretends to be from the same place. He does a little background reading.]
Georges the GM: “Population of Marigold is generally unfriendly and paranoid.”
Julie: “You’ll fit right in.”

[Lukas meets a random guy in the bar and chats him up.]
Georges the GM: “He gives you a whole bunch of shit you already know, and is making up a bunch of stuff you know is wrong.”

[While chatting up the random guy in the bar, whose name turns out to be Nedly.]
Nedly: “Say, is that a Marigold accent?”
Lukas: “You’ve got a good ear for it.”
Zac: “Actually he’s doing the most outlandish cartoon accent he can.”

[Meanwhile, Fennec thinks she’s made our target at the other bar.]
Georges the GM: “How close are you gonna be to them?”
Ariel: (as Fennec) “Hey, Rick, how’s your smuggling ring going?”
Zac: “And that’s how I blew the op.”

[Lukas comes over to the bar where Fennec and our target are.]
Brock: “I will painfully feign conversation with Fennec.”
Fennec: “Did you hear there’s gonna be a caravan coming through town?”
Lukas: “Yes, you heard it from me.”

[Lukas approaches the target, based ostensibly on a tip from Nedly.]
Rick Ash: “I didn’t catch your name.”
Lukas / Brock: “Yeah, I’m… I give a name.”

[After some investigating and creative thinking, we realize that the webble is in Ash’s pet dog.]
Zac: *rolls 6 on anial handling* “When the dog ordered his own drink, that’s when I knew.”

[We consider how we can track the webble, i.e. the dog.]
Brock: “The front end is a tracker. The back end is an aerial drone…”

[Ti has the best stats of anyone to actually insert a subdermal tracker into the dog.]
Brock: “Sure! I’m fully pleased to have one of you with me to get stabbed!”

[Fennec tries to build a subdermal tracker.]
Georges the GM: “This is the best you can come up with in a day with the tools you have on hand.”
Brock: “It’s the size of a mantle clock.”

[We realize that the webble emits a faint signal that Fennec was once able to pick up in her Chatterbox Gear.]
Zac: “Oh, Chatterbox stats… I’ll never use you again.”
Brock: “If you play your cards right. And weren’t so belligerent all the time.”

[Fennec is trying to figure out what she can do with the knowledge that the webble transmits a faint signal.]
Zac: *initially rolls 6, rerolls for a 7*
Brock: “You have a moment of extremely laborious genius.”




Heavy Gear Roleplaying Game

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