Almost killed a character Saturday night, "Well, you're the one that wanted to play with grenades." Options Track this topic Email this topic Print this topic Download this topic Subscribe to this forum Display Modes Outline Switch to: Standard Switch to: Linear+

[ravensmuse]

I ran my players through parts of Chicago on Saturday and yeah, almost killed one of 'em.

Brief interlude: Feral Cities - specifically Chicago, though I will not speak ill of the rest of the book - is amazing. It is chock full of little tidbits that really add nothing more than pure flavor to the setting, enabling me to come up with all sorts of plots, locations, NPCs, the like. It is exactly what a location book should be - detailed, character oriented, with lots of plothooks that are spelled out but with lots of inconsistencies you can use to tailor interesting rumors to your needs. Just an all around awesome book.

Denver needs a good update like this. I know it'll be focused on some with the upcoming Spy Games line and all of that but frankly - and if you know me - that's not really on my radar. I'm thinking I'm going to have to do it, and it makes me sad. *sigh* I have the quick writeup Bishop and the Missions crew wrote up a few years back, and all of the Denver missions themselves, but...Denver could really use a nice slick writeup like Chicago. Oh well.

Anyway, my group is based out of Denver, working for the Big White Wyrm (whom they initiated a relationship with themselves), and they've been doing some...recruitment for him. This trip to Chicago is not only to add to the dragon's burgeoning roster of top tier spiritual researchers, but also their ticket into the big times with him.

They were sent out to find a research facility within the CZ called the Butterfly House and extract one of the researchers to bring home. Though my players were hesitant, the offer of writing their own check for payment and getting well within the dragon's good graces sweetened the pot. Though initially the most hesitant, my wife (who play the most trigger happy troll I think I've ever seen played), the idea of pretty much getting to do whatever she'd like in town was too tempting to pass up as well.

(Fun side story: we think our new neighbors downstairs brought roaches with them. I wrote this all up about two weeks ago, right before we discovered our lone roach. My wife, who's been going crazy trying to keep this place clean, was not amused when I brought up what lurks within the CZ.)

Anyway. So the group goes to Chicago, does some legwork, and ends up figuring out the location of the Butterfly House, which they then head out to. They get themselves in and they find themselves their researcher, but said researcher doesn't want to leave. See, they do all sorts of bug research here, and they just discovered this nymph...

While the players are trying to convince her what a bad idea it is to be playing around with bugs like that, the building rumbles as buggies show up to do what buggies do best (set to Hostile Abduction, a great little remix from the great Super Metroid remix album; seriously, go listen to that playlist). The players panic and run for their guns (having been relieved of them previously) when the buggies and them lock segmented eyes on each other. Awesome.

There's a little bit of a firefight, and my wife is tossing grenades left right and center. There's one big ol' true form and a bunch of humies that they can't see thanks to smoke from the explosions. As they're continuing on, a grenade lands in-between one of the character's legs...and he crit glitches. Thank you, GM'ing gods. I had been looking for a way to wrap up the night, and they just handed it to me on a silver platter.

With an obvious grin on my face I say, "the grenade goes off, and the structure goes down, down, down." The looks on the player's faces were priceless.

When next they roused - my wife and another player - they had dug themselves out of the wreckage of the building and found themselves minus one researcher. When they found the character that had glitched, they found her critically injured, with ruined legs. Now they have two problems: fixing the character, and finding the researcher.

The player isn't upset - "I get to be a real street sammy now!" was what he said when he realized that he could get a pair of cyber-legs - and they know that they can get the character medical aid as soon as they leave the CZ. However, doing so puts the researcher at risk, and thus the job at risk, as the White Wyrm pretty much spelled out that they can kiss the reward goodbye if she's killed...or worse.

So the current plan is to send the hurt character off with some people making for the Corridor while they go off looking for the researcher. The player of the broken character will make a new character (one of the folks that actually brought them into the CZ) and go along with them.

And later that night, I left on his Facebook, "Well, you're the one that wanted to play with grenades..."