Entering: Asteroid Blues (the original saloon that the rest of the station was built off of). It uses Gentleman’s Club from New Beginnings. (Pop 4 for PEFs, L2 for resolution... its night time in a seedy club, not the nicer part of the station). There is 1 Enemy Point in this encounter...
Dolan Popeo-Merc- Rep 5 Fit 4 Pep 2 Sav 3 Sci 0. Ballistic Vest/MP. Resilient.
Asteroid Blues is now a fairly large wheeled space station that mostly uses spin gravity. Originally it was merely an asteroid cargo drone with a jury rigged habitat spinning around it on a tug’s cable. While the habitat remains as Asteroid Blues, the original saloon, the rest of the station that grew around it is considerably larger. Still, Asteroid Blues forms the central core, and Bubba has retained power over the station both through owning all rights to attaching a station segment and also refusing to let any rival bars open.
Time to get those kidnappers and slave traders.
Resolves an automatic PEF in the entrance:
Barney “Bubba Blue” Bhargava- Dropout- Rep 5 Fit 3 Pep 4 Sav 5 Sci 0. BAP/Shotgun. Initiative
Bubba Blue, a middle aged ex-asteroid miner and founder of Asteroid Blues, greeted the crew of Beowulf as they came through the airlock. Wearing a large grey cowboy hat, longcoat, and a dull purple helmetless spacesuit beneath, he stood behind a counter with a security scanner, cash register, and a revolver. The butt of an old shotgun was sticking out from under his coat. His eyes came up from the security scanner’s screen to see Beowulf’s well armed crew.
“I don’t need a scanner to see that battlesuit, son.” he said to Alex Dempson.
Sam took out a Ceres-issued warrant. “We’re on official business. You’re technically harboring a fugitive.”
“If you don’t want any trouble you’ll let us pass, weapons included.” Yosi added.
“Hey now, I’m just a small business owner. I don’t want any trouble with fugitives or”- he gestured at Yosi Par- “hit squads and”- he pointed at Sam-”overpaid cowboys... but this institution has a simple rule: you want in, you don’t get to carry any long arms or wear anything heavier than a light vacc suit.”
“Hey now, I’m just a small business owner. I don’t want any trouble with fugitives or”- he gestured at Yosi Par- “hit squads and”- he pointed at Sam-”overpaid cowboys... but this institution has a simple rule: you want in, you don’t get to carry any long arms or wear anything heavier than a light vacc suit.”
Sam put his hands up in a show of defeat. “Alright, we don’t got no right to infringe on your saloon, ‘s’long as you promise to make sure that these fugitives are held in the brig until Ceres picks them up.”
“Fair deal, I don’t want to anger any law abiding customers.”
“Yosi, Alex, Sera, lose the rifles.”
Alex took of his helmet after putting his assault rifle in a locker. “Suit off, too?”
Bubba Blue nodded. “I’m afraid I have to be sure that Old Betsy”- he tapped his shotgun-” and I can handle any disagreements on the dance floor.” Alex looked at Sam. Sam nodded as well. Alex removed his suit.
Sam took a photograph out of his pocket and showed it to Bubba Blue. “This is the lone good photograph we have of a face. Recognize him?”
Bubba immediately nodded. “Yep, he’s upstairs in a private room with some buddies. You can get there through the elevator that way (he pointed to the door leaning into the dance hall, behind his counter) or up the stairs to the left.
“Much appreciated.”
(Resolving the PEF now as we know about them from Bubba Blue).They’re Criminals There are 6:
Ben Cho Ganger Rep 3 Fit 3 Pep 2 Sav 0 Sci 0 Pistol Cruel (surrendered)
Ken Cho Ganger Rep 5 Fit 5 Pep 4 Sav 3 Sci 0 Machine Pistol Brawler (Fights)
Tony Dodge Ganger Rep 5 Fit 5 Pep 3 Sav 4 Sci 0 Pistol Slow to React (fights)
Grenda Waters Ganger Rep 4 Fit 4 Pep 3 Sav 2 Sci 0 Pistol Poser (surrendered)
Boris Yitsar Ganger Rep 3 Fit 3 Pep 2 Sav 1 Sci 0 Pistol Attractive (Fights)
Denny Kraza Dropout/Pilot Rep 3 Fit 1 Pep 2 Sav 4 Sci 0 Pistol Lucky Bastard (fights)
PEFs move.
Alex turned to face the rest of the crew. “Alright, we’ve got two points of entry but we have to time this properly. Sam and I will wait in the elevator. Yosi, Brian, and Sarah will head up the stairs and wait outside the private room. We’ll go in at the same time for optimal surprise.”
The crew head through the door into the dancehall. Two couples dance to some mid-tempo rockabilly blues fusion song. Tonight didn’t have a live show. Two spacers sat at a table to the right, and two more at a table to the left, with a set of stairs running up just next to their table. Ahead was a door into the kitchen area. Trying to get to their target quickly, the crew cuts their way through the dancers; one group to the stairs, one group to the door to the right of the kitchen that should lead to the elevator.
Alex spoke to Yosi over comms. “keep moving quickly, we’re going to call the elevator.”
Yosi, Brian, and Sarah made their way up the stairs, past a lonely looking Viatsi woman with her helmet off but still in her space suit and onto a retractable little stage; when Asteroid Blues had live performers, they’d bring the stage down so that the dance hall would still have room for dancers but they could pull it up when they didn’t need it. Alex and Sam made sure their weapons were loaded as the elevator descended to them.
Yosi, Brian, and Sarah made their way up the stairs, past a lonely looking Viatsi woman with her helmet off but still in her space suit and onto a retractable little stage; when Asteroid Blues had live performers, they’d bring the stage down so that the dance hall would still have room for dancers but they could pull it up when they didn’t need it. Alex and Sam made sure their weapons were loaded as the elevator descended to them.
Unbeknownst to our heroes, One of the spacers downstairs stood up from his table, felt his holstered machine pistol, and headed for the stairs.
Yosi opened the door to an empty room with a table in it and a single door on the left. Through that door were the targets. “We’re waiting for you.”
“Just got in the elevator,” Sam responded.
Sarah and Yosi got behind the table and aimed their weapons towards the door while Brian slowly approached the door’s controls. Suddenly the door to their left opened , revealing a rough looking face and the barrel of a weapon it was aiming. “Yosi, you bastard, its time you done payed up!”
“What the-?” Sarah shouted. Almost instinctively, without aiming, she fired. The laser blasted a small hole in the wall just to the left of the spacer’s head. Within the same moment, the flinching spacer and Yosi fired at each other. The spacer’s bullets flew through the room and as he tried to hit all 3 of Beowulf’s crew, but they did nothing but damage the walls and the table.It was no wonder; in the same moment that the spacer started firing, Yosi’s first shot went through his head. The spacer fell dead, still firing, until his clip was empty.
There was a moment of shocked silence.
There was a moment of shocked silence.
Sera quickly whispered, uselessly, into the communicator. “Cover’s blown! We just got in a random gunfight right outside their door!”
“Yeah, we heard! What the Hell?” Sam shouted back into the comms. Just then the elevator door opened on the six shocked slave traders, all facing towards the gunfire... away from the elevator. Only Dempson, ex-Marine, was able to get to his senses quickly enough to fight.
“Surrender! Drop your weapons! NOW!” Two of the criminals threw down their weapons. Three more turned with guns drawn, and another started fumbling for his pistol. Alex started firing, as did the leader of the criminals. Both opened up with machine pistols. The ganger, in his surprise, had forgotten that his weapon wasn’t loaded. Alex sent a bullet into him and into the hardened pirate next to him. Though Sam was slow to react, the two criminals left standing were even slower. One was struggling to pull his gun from its holster while the other was still turning. Sam sent a large bullet into the gun arm of the the armed one who went down crying in pain while the clumsy one was shot right through the gut.
As the gut-wounded pirate kept trying to draw his weapon, Sam went up and stepped on his arm, aiming at his head. “Thats a nasty wound, feller. Best you let the prison infirmary heal you up.”
Sam proceeded to disarm the other wounded pirates while Yosi, Sarah, and Brian secured the surrendered criminals.
“Good work, everyone,” Sam said as he picked up a wounded ganger to be carried to the infirmary. “looks like we killed the leader but Ceres’ll be might happy with getting these slavers in prison. Maybe’ll find out where they’ve been taking the slaves. Send ‘em back home.”
“Nice thought.” Yosi said. “We get paid?”
“Soon enough,” Said Alex. “Sam, I could’ve sworn you were going to get shot again. It took you about ten seconds to realize we were in a gunfight.”
“Soon enough,” Said Alex. “Sam, I could’ve sworn you were going to get shot again. It took you about ten seconds to realize we were in a gunfight.”
“Again?” Sarah cut in, “Don’t you worry Sam, I’ll keep on patchin’ you up.”
“I just took down six slavers with my crew. Same as the only folks who don’t respect me after a kind thing like that, I reckon,” Sam laughed.
“Aren’t you all forgetting something?” Brian said irritably. “What was up with that gunman, Yosi? Who the Hell is after you?” There was agreement from the rest of the crew.
“Well,” Yosi said, “Thats a whole story in itself...”
(Mid Late January over, onto Late January).
(May add a few pics later but I only took one or two and my Khurasan indoor terrain is not painted yet).
Another great AAR and story.
ReplyDeleteIs a lot of this inferred from the dice rolls, or is there narrative built into the rules?
Like all THW its a bit of both. The Job system is very similar to New Beginnings (in fact it uses New Beginnings' Job system for most cases, with some exceptions for the new "quest" missions). So from that you get some info already... who is giving a job, who you are targeting, where they are, etc. PEF resolutions also help build up a narrative.
ReplyDeletePerhaps the most interesting part of this encounter (Yosi's "friend" showing up) was entirely driven by the narrative built into the rules; Yosi has the most Enemy Points from his character creation (he was a Criminal where others are ex-Military or, in the case of Dr. Sera, a Medical Doctor) and every time you have an encounter there is a chance (based on your enemy points) that something like this happens.
Enemy points are then spent on assets for the "enemy." That part is up to the player but it is usually driven by circumstances... if you're in a Space encounter you won't buy a Rep 5 Merc, you'll buy a small fighter squadron. If (due to the inter-character interaction rules) one of your crew is getting really upset with you maybe that character gets "bought" by the enemy and will betray you during the Encounter.
Due to the nature of this game some of these things have vague rules... when does the bought character betray you? There could be some simple table that determines one of a few ways he could betray you... but those results would need heavy interpretation and wouldn't be appropriate for all scenarios. Some thing are better left up to the player.
The game is full of stuff like that. The game is not unlike a sand box computer game... you have a world and you can go do what you want in it. But it also tries to include narrative elements that can be built upon by players if they want.
I really like that. I am very much looking forward to Fringe Space (I'm pretty sure it's the ruleset i've always wanted!) and will be playing both solo and co-op with my friend.
DeleteHaving those kind of "prompts" is perfect, since i'm playing to have a fun game and usually when things go off track/wrong is when the most fun is to be had!
Sounds like you have a real winner on your hands! The character generation system really sounds cool... very traveller-esque (which is one of my favorite!)
Thanks for your responses!