Thursday, February 15, 2018

Session Report – Butcher’s Bill – Session 1

[This session happened February 20th, 2017.  The Other GM was running.]

[So I was recovering from being ill the entire weekend and sat out in another room of the house for this game so I wouldn’t infect the other players.  As a result, I only heard what happened in this session a week later.  To say my notes are sparse is to grossly understate things.  Some of the action is more paraphrased than normal for this session, particularly the conflict at the end.  The next session I was in attendance and have notes to go by, so the quality of content will go up in the next posting.]


PCs
The Fin – female human con artist and gambler from India, by way of Russia, posh and elegant
Void – female night elf physical adept B&E specialist, a shadow that blends in easily
Sin – male human rigger, knows exactly the wrong thing to say and says it
Baelthor – male human mage with a loud mouth, preaching the anti-corporate word


NPC’d
Prometheus – male human street samurai, handy with any firearm


Monday, June 15, 2076
Afternoon
The Fin was contacted by Svetlana, her contact in the Vory, to discuss a business opportunity for the Pleiades Group.  The meeting was scheduled to be at the Russian Teahouse on the northern edge of Bellevue, where Svetlana regularly did business.  The Fin had a good relationship with Svetlana, but always brought a bodyguard of some sort with her when meeting the Vory to show a little strength and that she was part of an organization herself.  The Fin checked to see who was available and found Baelthor was to act as bodyguard and Sin was willing to remotely drive them to the meet.

The Fin and Baelthor arrived at the Russian Teahouse for the meeting.  Several Vory soldats were sitting at patio tables, drinking tea as usual, and The Fin nodded at them as she went inside.  Inside, Svetlana was sitting at her usual table in the back corner.  Svetlana’s bodyguards gave Baelthor a look, but made no move to impede The Fin as she walked up to Svetlana’s table.

Svetlana smiled and invited The Fin to sit.  They made some small talk about recent events while the waitress took The Fin’s order and then brought over tea.  Once the waitress was gone, Svetlana stated she had some work she would like the Pleiades Group to do.  Before she could go into any details, three ork gangers busted in through the front door, weapons drawn.  Their leader yelled out in Or’zet that he’s looking for the person who put a hit out on their gang.

[Apparently, several players threw down a BS flag on this play, but the Other GM got them to let the scene play out.]

After a quick, whispered conference with Svetlana, The Fin responded in Or’zet and offered to negotiate the deal.  The ork leader wasn’t having any of it and shot one of the people in the teahouse dead.  This made The Fin angry and she got into an argument with the ork [whose name turned out to be Dawg].  At some point the orks got the information they were looking for [it was a convincing lie told by The Fin], Baelthor took a bullet, the orks dropped a NeuroStun grenade [that Baelthor knocked out the door], and then the orks left the teahouse.  The Fin contacted Sin and told him to follow the orks who had just left the teahouse to see where they went.  She then called in Void and Prometheus for immediate backup.

Once the Orks were gone and her bodyguards reported the soldats outside were all dead, Svetlana said she had a different job for the Pleiades Group than the one she originally called them for…

End of Session

[Not much to say as I wasn’t there for this session.  The talking parts were more intricate than my summation and I apologize to the players for skimming here.]

[There was a lot of discussion between this session and the next about what happened here.  My wife and I were convinced that the Other GM didn’t know what he was doing and mis-played the Vory.  I later apologized to him about not giving him enough credit, once the rest of the scenario played out.  Spoilers!]



Session 2
Session 3 [Not written yet]
Session 4 [Not written yet]

Friday, February 9, 2018

Next Post Delayed - Busy Life

Work and life are mighty busy this week and I was not able to get the first session of Butcher's Bill typed up.  This weekend is also amazingly busy, so next Thursday (February 15th) is my target date for Session 1.

One of the things making this weekend busy is the next CCG Day at my place.  The players are looking forward to another round of OTE.  Switching to smaller groups worked well last time and we got 5-6 rounds of play in, so we'll be doing that again.

Also, worked past a writing block in my novel.  Very happy about that.

See you next week!

Thursday, February 1, 2018

Session Report – Under the Mountain – Session 7

[This session happened February 13th, 2017.  I forget why we skipped a week  The Other GM was running.]

[This is the second half of the actual run – getting to our safe house and the pay off.  This part (thankfully) went somewhat according to plan.]


PCs
Void – female night elf physical adept B&E specialist, a shadow that blends in easily
Moondance – male street samurai with an Ares fetish and a sniper specialization
Sin – male human rigger, knows exactly the wrong thing to say and says it
Prometheus – male human street samurai, handy with any firearm
Wasabi – young male human mage with more than a touch of ADHD
Ezekiel Tee – male human mage of the Zoroastrian tradition


NPC’d
Killroy – male human street samurai, specializes in hand-to-hand combat (and apparently machineguns)
The Fin – female human con artist and gambler from India, by way of Russia, posh and elegant
Bookie – male elf alcoholic hacker, favors whiskey with a whiskey chaser


Monday, June 2, 2076
Approximately 3:30 AM
Sin was jumped in to the getaway, driving the infiltration team, when both Void and Moondance called out a warning: Sniper!  [They both have the Combat Sense and Danger Sense Adept powers.]  Sin immediately threw the vehicle into evasive maneuvers [much to the annoyance of the handful of other drivers and GridGuide’s traffic algorithms on the I-5].  Sin was able to dodge the sniper’s shots until Moondance unlimbered a gun and shot the sniper with a double snapshot.  The sniper withdrew, bleeding heavily.

Exiting the freeway, they found a roadblock across the off-ramp in the form of a two armored vehicles.  Flanking the vehicles, with guns out, were four Aztechnology goons.  One of the goons was pulling up a loudspeaker to order the team to stop when Sin floored it!  Just before he reached the roadblock, instead of ramming it, he swerved to the side and up the concrete barrier to the side of the exit.  This forced the car up and over, into a barrel roll over the blockading vehicles, landing just past them and on top of two of the goons, pasting them on the concrete.  [Sin’s player declared he was trying a driving stunt and poured his eight Edge into it.  Many of the dice exploded and the GM let him describe the results.  Drop a comment if you think this is impossible – I have stories to tell about car wrecks in Houston.]

Elsewhere, Prometheus and Ezekiel Tee were leaving the area in their own vehicle and got pulled over by a random Knight errant cruiser.  The Knight Errant officer was either angling for a bribe or attempting to avoid responding to the call in Puyallup.  Prometheus decided he was not getting paid to kill a patrol officer nor get hassled and arrested by one.  He convinced the officer to let him call his lawyer and then called The Fin.  Prometheus explained he wanted his lawyer to explain to the Knight Errant officer why the traffic stop was just going to cause the officer nothing but trouble.  He then handed the commlink over to the officer and The Fin spent the next five minutes burning the officer’s ears off with exactly the right legalese.  [Prometheus cannot talk his way out of a wet paper bag, but he knows to call The Fin.]  By the time she was done, the officer was apologizing for interrupting her evening and sent Prometheus and Ezekiel Tee on their way.  He then hurried to answer the Aztechnology call as it now seemed safer than dealing with lawyers.

4:23 AM
Both teams arrived at the safe house and got inside.  Sin drove the cars away and ditched them in gang territory with the doors unlocked.  The warded mage bag holding the target was carefully edged into the ritual ward and the rest of the team stepped inside and rested.

Wasabi, Baelthor, and Ezekiel Tee took turns standing watch Astrally.  With two rating seven wards hiding the target, it would take a mighty big spirit to find her.  Even if Aztechnology had a material link to track her with, it would take them hours to summon a large enough spirit.  If Aztechnology had another way to magically locate her, the mages would notice and either raise the alarm or stop the effort.  Possibly both.

6:00 PM
After a tense day had passed, it was time to head to the drop off point.  The target was still alive and asleep in the mage bag and no spirits large enough to breech the wards had shown.  Sin brought in his GMC Bulldog and the team decamped from the safe house, taking care to ease the warded mage bag back out of the ritual ward.

6:45 PM
The team was at the drop-off point.  Prometheus set himself up on the roof of a nearby building to provide over watch.  Killroy and Moondance were in the GMC Bulldog with the target and most of their armory.  Sin had Susan and Sheila [his two Steel Lynx combat drones, and yes, that is a Red vs. Blue reference] active and ready in their travel bays inside the Bulldog.

7:00 PM
Another sniper climbed up onto the building to set up and paused when he saw Prometheus already in position.  Prometheus recognized the sniper as Magnus Fox, another shadowrunner he had worked with in the past.  Magnus recognized Prometheus and asked if he was here for a hit or a protection job.  “Protection,” Prometheus responded and Magnus relaxed.  “Me too,” he said and then started assembling his Ranger Arms SM–5 sniper rifle and setting up his gear to cover the exchange point.  [Professional courtesy is a valuable asset.]

8:00 PM
A Saeder-Krupp-Bentley Concordat rolled up to the exchange point and several bodyguards got out.  Moondance and Killroy exited the Bulldog with the mage bag.  Once the bodyguards felt certain the area was safe, Mr. Johnson got out of the Concordat.  He and the bodyguards started approaching Moondance and Killroy, who started walking forward as well.  After a brief exchange of words between Mr. Johnson and Moondance, Killroy handed off the mage bag to one of the bodyguards.  Mr. Johnson then handed across a gold and a platinum credstick and left with the mage bag.

End of Session

[There was a little more after that as the pay was split into shares and divided up among the team.  Prometheus suggested the mages get double shares as without the wards the job would have been a nightmare.  The rest of the team agreed.  It was also suggested that Prometheus covering the team’s escape and taking out the HRT vehicle and the spike strip was also vital and should get him a second share.  The rest of the team agreed and I wasn’t going to argue.  We also put one share to the Pleiades Group Fund, which covers the living expenses for the office and other incidentals so no one takes a pay hit.  It is also designed to pay for a rescue operation if the team ever gets in too deep and needs rescue.]

[The ending turned out to be almost anti-climactic, but I can live with that if my character walks away with a payday and not the enmity of a major megacorporation.]


Session 1
Sessions 2 and 3
Session 4
Session 5
Session 6