Death of a betabel! While Our Heroes (tm) are hunting for the identity of the Comptroller, our "B-team" have their sights set on a more personal target… Lucian Jacobi.
[We’ve played our “B-team” characters a few times, but not always with the same players present. For this session, Zac will be playing a character, Ken, previously controlled by Georges the GM.]
Zac: “Wow, this sounds epic! I wish I’d been there!”
[Georges the GM describes how we’ve been hunting down Lucian Jacobi, who set us up to take the fall for his supposed death, for the past half-cycle.]
Georges the GM: “Karima’s got good contacts, and some of you have the ability to beat people up as needed.”
[We meet our contact, Skid, to give us the low-down on Jacobi.]
Skid: “He officially died ten cycles ago.”
Karima: “So he’s officially dead, and unofficially dead, and unofficially alive?”
[Note that while Ken understands both Universal French and Larabic, he only deigns to speak in Mandanese, which none of the other PCs understand.]
Ken: (in Mandanese) “How much would it be worth for this guy to sell us up the river?”
Skid: “What’s he saying?”
Roxanne: “Nothing important – none of us understand him either.”
[Skid has informed us that Jacobi is apparently hiding out in a fishing village about 50 km away from our already-remote meeting place. We prepare to pay him a visit.]
Georges the GM: “Equipment requests?”
Julie: “All the weapons and medium flak.”
[We now know where Jacobi is. Some of us find that more valuable than others.]
Karima: “I wonder if there’s anyone we can sell this information to.”
Ken: “Sell it? We just paid a small fortune to get it!”
[We realize that the job may be slightly harder than anticipated.]
Julie: “We have extraordinarily powerful characters; they’re just not these characters.”
[Recall that our A-team believes that Jacobi is one of the initial group of the Bear’s “betabel” prototypes.]
Roxanne: “How many people do we really need? He may be slippery, but he dies like anyone else.”
Julie: “It’s funny, because we don’t know otherwise.”
[We try to decide how much equipment we need.]
Georges the GM: “As far as you know, this place is the end of the world, and you’ve just been told your destination is 50 km further on.”
[We arrive near the fishing village of Lost Cape, taking our equipment with us on ATVs, and set up an observation point nearby.]
Zac: “What’s the range on our rocket launcher?”
Georges the GM: “You guys are not Brock; you did not bring a rocket launcher.”
[We have determined that Jacobi’s mansion is up on a hill overlooking the village. We hike around to get a nearer observation point. Ken, our survival expert, is setting the pace of the hike. He also rolled the lowest survival check.]
Georges the GM: “Roxanne and Karima are trying to decide between, ‘Hmm, he’s being very cautious,” and, ‘Damn sexist thinks he has to go slow for the women.’ Meanwhile, Ken’s wheezing and looking for his oxygen.”
[We set up our closer observation point. Of course, there are certain limitations.]
Georges the GM: “You’ve got three days’ worth of food.”
Zac: “Until we need to start eating each other.”
[By the second day of observation, we realize that there are eight guards and four staff members at the mansion. We have yet to actually lay eyes on Jacobi.]
Zac: “A hopper with a Gatling gun would be useful at this point.”
Georges the GM: “It… would be. But you have a sneaking suspicion that the powers that be of this universe would make the glass 4” thick and bulletproof.”
[Karima is annoyed that all of her skills are not useful in a tiny fishing village.]
Karima: “There’s no underworld, no driving…”
Ken: “I agree – you’re useless.”
[When Karima and Ken are down in the village stealing some supplies, they take advantage of an unexpected opportunity to ambush two of Jacobi’s guards. Ken surprisingly fails both his sneak attack rolls, but succeeds in taking them out on the second round.]
Georges the GM: “Four bullets, two bodies, and they didn’t get to act. It’s almost like it went off without a hitch.”
Julie: (as Ken) “We will never speak of this to anyone.”
[Meanwhile, Roxanne has sniped a guard on the observation deck. So when Ken and Karima return to the manor and Karima gets into the cameras’ blind spot on the same observation deck…]
Georges the GM: “You look down and you’re like, ‘Huh. A body.’”
[The thing about taking advantage of surprise opportunities is that they come as a surprise to everyone, even us.]
Georges the GM: “You use the guard’s pass. The doors open.”
Zac: “If only we’d formulated a plan beyond this point.”
[Georges the GM reminds us of all we’ve accomplished so far.]
Georges the GM: “So, you have three dead bodies in a gondola…”
[We regroup and prepare to press inwards.]
Julie: “So, we all prepare to do the thing?”
Zac: “Just to be clear, by ‘the thing’, you mean ‘murder Jacobi’?”
Julie: “Yes.”
[We reach the door of what we think is Jacobi’s room.]
Georges the GM: “As soon as the door opens…”
Julie: “This is where it all goes horribly wrong.”
[It is indeed Jacobi’s room.]
Georges the GM: “The figure that rolls out of the bed is Jacobi.”
Zac: “It’s more Jacobi than the last Jacobi we saw?”
Georges the GM: “It’s close, but this one’s more animate.”
[Sometimes we make life difficult for our GM.]
Georges the GM: “He’d love to banter with you but he doesn’t know who you are.”
[Combat ensues, as was inevitable.]
Julie: “We’re all gonna die. He’s a betabel and we’re not prepared for that.”
Georges the GM: “The advantage you have is he’s only wearing underwear.”
[Ken and Roxanne each manage to inflict a deep wound on Jacobi as he takes cover behind his bar. Then Karima uses a flare to set the alcohol on fire.]
Zac: (as Humanist Detective) “Near as we can tell, he was smoking in bed and the doused himself in alcohol.”
Ariel: “Then fell on some bullets.”
[In the end, between the two deep wounds, being set on fire, and an expert shot from Roxanne dealing double-overkill damage, we manage to bring down Jacobi.]
Georges the GM: “So… let’s wrap this up, because everything after this is anticlimactic. You murderized Lucian Jacobi.”
Zac: “I think it’s safe to say that was the worst 18 seconds of his life.”
Heavy Gear Roleplaying Game
Friday, February 10, 2017
Wordslingin'
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