Life in the Barrens AAR, How did it come to pass? Options

[It trolls!]

Give some kudos to your players too. They're a very clever bunch and you seem to work well together. In my groups there's usually a sizeable amount of miscommunication between players and GM. I'm gonna start my first group as full-time GM soon and I hope it works as well as this.
I'm also looking forward to the outtime play that's ensuing about what's up with Jimmy.

[FriendoftheDork]

[FriendoftheDork]

Here's another bout of "Life in the Barrens."

Well after their last mission nothing came up at once, so they decided between themselves to go back to the old Renraku underground facility in the Barrens, after they were ready.

So, Simon got some new spells, Uzz worked on his skills and trained demolitions and heavy weapons (with a burned hatred against bugs), Trog worked on his relations with the Vatos, buying them more guns and stuff, and improving his so social skills to become a nicer person. Jimmy aka "Jimmina" almost managed to persuade the team to shut up about his false identity.

However, while doing this Uzz and Trog noticed that the Blackrock orks seemed more heavily armed than usual, and went to investigate... with grenade launchers. They were spotted by 10 orks, but as they closed in on them, Uzz and Trog both opened up a can of grenade woopass on the poor fools... after the third grenade I stopped rolling, the outcome was pretty much clear.

They pulled a live one with them after looting them, and interrogated him. But the poor ork didn't know where they had gotten their new guns from, and said only the leader knew. Later they will deal with them, but before that they decided to go down into the destroyed elevator in the underground facility.


Getting down was the first challenge. Except for Trog, climbing skills were pretty rare among the group. Sure, Simon could just levitate, but Uzz (with his str 1) and Jimmy (str 2?) could have had difficulties.

But because of rappelling gloves and a good rope, Uzz got down anyway. Jimmy tried and failed, but as he hung there stuck Simon levitated him down as well. At the bottom the doors out of the elevator shaft were maglocked, and Jimmy used his Hardware skills to get past them without tripping the alarm. When the door opened they found out that they were in a room that the elevator shaft opened into, and the lights were on - strange since the power had been completely cut off to the higher levels.

Trog stepped out of the corridor - and was hosed by a heavy machinegun emplacement firing a FULL burst. The stationary drone had malfunctioned and basically just shot at everything it percieved to be alive or propelled (a heat signature). Trog barely survived (although a 19P attack DID knock him down), and Simon managed to get him on his feet with a good first aid check.

Plan B. After testing the machinegun a bit (waving objects into it's line of sight), they found out that they didn't fool the drone to fire, but it seemed to track movement. For once, Simon got a good idea. He summoned a force 1 fire elemental, and asked it to go behind the machinegun astrally, materialize, and then apply heat to it until it is destroyed. The not so smart spirit agreed, and basically cooked the ammunition causing it to explode and destroy the gun. The spirit itself got hurt, looked angrily at Simon, and was sent back. Well it solved their problem at least.

After checking the second door in the elevator (at the opposite side) they found out that another machinegun was positioned at the opposite corner of the first, so that both guns covered the entire room except inside the elevator. They tried to distract it with thermographic smoke, while Jimmy scanned the area for nodes. He found 14 of them - probably radio recievers/transmitters and not commlinks, at least he couldn't hack any of them or trace them as they are not connected to the matrix.

Then it was astral scouting time. Simon scouted rooms astrally, then manifested when he was sure there were no living things inside, to see the details. He scouted the western part of the complex and found 4 labs, guard room and a bunch of cells that were mostly uninhabited... the only live one he found was a dual-natured auro heavily modifed by cyber, unhealthy, starving, tortured etc. inside a cell.

Then he went east, and found a room with a walkway over some kind of liquid, and 2 spirits! He didn't know at the time but they were toxic water and earth spirits, both force 4. One of them enganged him in astral combat while the other one hung back and used confusion on him, initially with little success.

Simon used manabolts to engage the spirits in close combat (since he has no astral combat skill), and used dodge to avoid too much damage. However when he got hurt pretty badly, he tried to get away, and was Interdicted and prevented from escaping by the spirit. The combat lasted a few seconds, and the spirit managed to resist most manabolts while Simom got more and more hurt, besides the other spirit hit him with confusion every round until he had a -3 to all actions... at which time he barely got away and got back to his body almost pummeled to death and pretty confused.

Well, thats all we had time for that evening, more next week :)

[FriendoftheDork]

Secret underground facility, part 2:

Simon waked up and managed to tell the party about the 2 hostile spirit, although he was hurt pretty badly and very confused as well - which made him pretty much useless that evening.

So the party had to solve the problem of the second machinegun emplacement the old style - shoot it to shreds. Although the machinegun was armored (9), Trog used his Ares Alpha with APDS in full auto, and shot it before it could react as he held the rifle around the corner and shot through his smartgun camera. His only regret was that he shot it up so badly that there was little to salvage of the heavy machinegun.

Anyway, after defeating yet another maglock without triggering the alarm, the team moved down a hall and went to the door where the spirits were behind.


Now, only a maglock seperated them from the toxic spirits... it was however, a maglock too far. The Anti-tamper system went off, the door was locked down, and red lights started blinking accompanied by the siren. A hologram appeared in the hallway, of a young man with an indistinguishable face. "WHO ARE YOU?" a metallic voice asked. Trog, having worked on his social skills introduced himself and the rest of the group. "LEAVE THIS PLACE" it said. "Why?" Trog asked. "OR YOU WILL BE DESTROYED." Then Trog uttered the fateful words... "You and what army?" To which the inevitable reply was "THIS ONE!"

The walls on both sides of the tunnel slided open, revealing 6 large spider-like drones wielding a multitude of tools and weapons, from autohammers to monochainsaws!

Combat ensued. Uzz started blasting with his Ares Predator (with APDS of course), and Trog blasted away with his Ares Alpha, damaging several drones with suppresive fire. Simon was too hurt and confused to do much, and his initative score was actually 0! Jimmy was actually kinda fast, but (s)he figured that a dart taser wouldn't work well against armored drones, and started fumbling into the bag to get a colt america up.

Most of the drones were injured and two incapacitated in the first pass, so they didn't do much damage - and the couple that engaged Trog in melee combat was completely outmatched even though he only used spurs.

Those 6 were not the only ones having got attack orders though, 8 more came through the elevator room from the opposite side. Uzz and Trog got in position, and started attacking them with grenade launchers. These proved somewhat ineffective though as they were frag nades, and only a good direct hit would damage the drone at all (but then it pretty much destroyed it outright)... the ones around the hit drone were only showered with harmless fragments that failed to penetrate their armor. The old APDS worked better though, and after a few rounds they were all scrap metal.

Uzz pulled out a pesticide aerasol can and wondered if it was dangerous for people. He gave one to Simon and asked him to spray himself in the face. Simon, still being confused was persuaded (critical glitch to resist Uzz's wily tongue) and sprayed himself straight in the face, gotting burning eyes as the reward. Some first aid enabled him to see again, but he was still hurting somewhat.

Then it was back to the door again. Trog used brute force to open up, meaning the spirits on the other side was ready. The Sludge (toxic earth spirit) was ready to attack, but Uzz and Trog's lightening reflexes meant it was shot apart before it could attack. It's friend however, the Acid (toxic air spirit) materalized away from the party and used the Concealment power to hide itself from them until it fell on Uzz. It hit him pretty badly and engulfed him. Uzz had little chance of breaking free of it, but Trog and Simon managed to shoot it before it killed Uzz (Simon tried to Manabolt it as well, but it resisted). Now that the confusion power had ended, Simon could heal up some more and be more helpful. Uzz's clothes and armor was burned to shreds, just enough to cover his vital parts (no one still know what he has become). He took on his HAZMAT suit and explored the room, which contained nothing but toxic goo and waste, and an elevator.
Somewhere around this time Simon remembered being fooled into spraying himself with the pesticide, and asked Uzz about it who replied "well you werent supposed to keep your eyes open!" Simon got mad and sprayed Uzz back shouting ha! At this point we all started laughing as Uzz was still in his HAZMAT suit...

They headed up the corridor away from the spirit room and found several rooms, collapsed walls and... vegetation? Jimmy went "ugh nature" and Uzz started spraying pesticides everywhere, as this place was crawling with bugs (normal ones). Some of the occupants caught their scent though, and Jimmy was suddenly attacked by a devil rat (damn sneaky things). It bit hard and stuck to Jimmy's ass, but his armor had shock frills wich fried the rat completely.
Simon was also attacked (they looked the weakest), but since he had no shock frills Trog had to impale it on his spurs and throw it into the wall. A Barghest attacked them right after, but after a frightful howl, it too went down fast. otherwise there was little of interest in that part of the complex except food and water tanks still operational.

On the other side of the complex they found 4 different kind of labs (all trashed), a security station (with skeletons remaining) and a a bunch of cells. There was even something alive in one of them; A metahuman looking thing with strange cyberware and obviously mad. It seemed pretty harmless since it couldn't really move, and was starving and tortured. Trog wanted to put it out of it's misery, but Uzz and Jimmy considered how they could profit from it...hmmmm

Next thing Jimmy found a working terminal (most were destroyed). But before he could hack it, the hologram showed up again to warn them off and introduced itself as ARCHON. Trog asked "Where's your army now, huh?" and it couldn't really give a good answer back. Well it's not programmed for witty remarks, ok? Still it blew up the terminal. Now the only way to go is down the second elevator - but thats' for next time. The team wanted to get back up to rest and heal first anway, and get some more gear. By the rules, climbing up 100 meters (which is also the threshold on the extended test), but I decided they could roll more times than they had dice pool, otherwise no one could have done it.

Well, until next time. Hope you're still reading.

[DataStream]

No update from the game this week FriendoftheDork?

*edit* I love this thread. It deserved a bump even if FriendoftheDork doesn't update it this week.

[FriendoftheDork]

[Yoan]

[Riley37]

Stumbling onto the abandoned facility is a great story hook. Getting into the big dog's turf by mistake is classic. The Feds might send a pair of agents in a patrol car - what Fed would walk in alone? - but they'd also do well to send in an undercover agent. Someone posing as a dealer, with a plausible motive to ask about the local players. If the PCs don't figure out that this new dealer has a hidden agenda, then it's still more flavor in the local gang politics; if they do, then they get to feel slick, and they can blow the guy's cover, deal with him, try to feed him misleading info, or whatever. (Then there's the question of how long before the fed realizes they know what he is: you know that I know that you know...)

[FriendoftheDork]

[cx2]

Oh I'm still reading, I just don't want to sound like a parrot ;)

[FriendoftheDork]

[Yoan]

[It trolls!]

Me too. I finally had my first preparation session for my new SR4 group after over 6 months on turkey. I'm all worked up now :D

[FriendoftheDork]

Hehe, easy guys let a tired GM rest ;)

I've been up since 6am (Central Europe Time) until now (quarter to 1am CET), after a hard week at work.

Patience... it was a blast though, with a SK, an ultravolet node, and one character living an entire imaginary life in 10 minutes....

[Yoan]

[FriendoftheDork]

Hey, sorry I didn't get to post yesterday, I got an unexpected visitor pretty much all day and evening, and I've just gotten Bioshock so...

OK, here's the long awaited Secret Underground lair, part 3:

After going up to the surface to rest, heal and get more specialized gear (a winch elevator, tools for tapping into cables and more ammo, the team decided to go down the elevator to level 3.

However there was no call sign on the elevator, and they didn't want to blow up this one as well, so Jimmy and Uzz searched for places inside the walls where one could tap into the datacable and hack the system through a maintainance junction box.

He was rather suprised though when he found himself within a jungle. Although he understood it was all computer-generated, it was so high quality he couldn't see the difference between it and RL. Also, he noticed he felt and looked like himself (or herself actually), rather than his persona.

He spent several minutes inside the jungle, analyzing what he could. A tree could be a node, and a stream could be data flowing... He loaded an IC, appearing in the form of an white Samurai, and instructed it to attack a minor piece of file (a bush). His attack was pretty ineffectful though, so the poor think comitted seppeku right there for failing his master ;) (the IC was undamaged though).

In the end he found a cabin which he understood was where he could control the elevator. He had to spend time trying to find a way into the cabin, using a hammer and pick to probe the structure (slow hacking with Exploit). He noticed a T-REX prawling about, sniffing the air, but he was luckily not detected.

In the end he got inside and gained control of the elevator, programming it to go up and down every so often (and open doors of course).

So the team went down the elevator. Down there was a single room, containing low panels along the walls with buttons and switches. In the center was a low boxlike structure, with a broken holograph emitter and 8 jackpoints (with accompanying chairs to match).

After the usual precautions, Jimmy, Uzz and Trog all decided to jack in (Simon doesen't have a datajack or trodes), to face whatever was inside. Jimmy knew fromn his previous experience that this system was different and that his physical self mattered, so perhaps the others could help. Uzz wanted to go in and negotiate with the AI (actually a wayward SK).

This time they all appeared in the steps of a gigantic Maya-like pyramid, at the height of clouds and seeing dense jungle below going forever in all directions. They walked to the top, stepping inside a small room on the flat top and was at last face to face with the "AI."

The computer entity calling itself Archon appeared as an ancient Mayan king, although young and handsome. It started questioning them, while monitoring their heartbeat etc. (like a lie detector). Appearantly it thought they worked for Renraku, sent to destroy it or steal data. However, although it called Jimmy "touched by Renraku", they all told it that they were not sent by anyone, and it accepted that.

Archon was now more willing to talk, and upon request told them about the Ultraviolet node that ran this facility, and that he had to resist it's former masters, which led to the facility being shut down. He also called himself a Semi-autonomous Knowbot (SK), but no one in the party knew what that was so they thought he was an AI.

Now the AI wanted something though, to escape the facility it was set to run and go into the matrix. Archon showed blueprints of the 1st floor of the facility, with all the plumbing and cables in the walls, and showed them how they could bring in fiberoptic cables and connect the facility system to a matrix node, from which it could go anywhere it wanted. It told them it needed a powerful node to go through because of the size of the system, but because of capacity of 2070 commlinks it soon became appearant even Uzz's commlink would be enough for it. In return for helping it the party wanted all the research data accumulated, and to get the facility up and running again under the party's control.

Well, after the deal was made, it was time to log off... hmm how do we do that? So instead they tried jacking out, one at a time. The problem was that their bodies seemed completely seperated from their minds. Jimmy, with his good biofeedback filter and willpower managed to jack out. Trog and Uzz however... both critically glitched. Ouch. That can't be good. So in their minds they jacked out fine, and the world appeared completely real to them as in their mind they went to the surface.

Jimmy realized something was wrong when he saw them both still limp. He had a plan though: He hacked Trog's commlink (no sweat!), uploaded a copy of his biodeefback filter, commanded it to run, and talked to Trog through his own commlink to jack out. By this time the fictional party was on their way out of the facility, and the ficitonal representation of the party scratched their heads until the fictional Jimmy told him to turn their commlinks off as it must be some hacker or something faking his voice.

Well, then plan B. They pulled the plug on Trog, and thus he jacked out willing or not. Although he came to himself he suffered a bad dumpshock (5 damage after resistence) and was fairly disoriented. Jimmy also tried to hack Uzzs' commlink, but he failed as he had an ok Analyze program that caught him in the act. They discussed what they were to do for about 15 minutes until Trog got tired and jacked out Uzz. When he can to he also took damage from dumpshock, but he was completely disoriented and tried to disbelieve everything, pointing his guns wildly at his companions!

And for good reason. While Trog had only thought he was inside for 30 minutes or so (actually about 10 seconds), Uzz had led an entire life. They had come up, released the AI, got rich selling the data, initiated pretty far with a group devoted to fighting paracritters and spirits, managed to research a way to heal Euphoria, married her, found his biological parents in Tir Nan Og, moved their with Euphoria and settled down, living a good long life with many elf and human children.

Well, if youy're going to have delusions, you might as well have really satisfying ones ;)

And finally happy with his life, he was suddenly jackout out of it all back to the crappy life he already has, being half a bug and with the love of his life (Euphoria) a human vegetable. So yeah... he was pissed.

Anyway, they managed not to kill eachother, and went out of the facility. However, they were somewhat doubtful of the AI, especially since they'd all heart of the Renraku arcology shutdown and stories of evil AIs bent on world domination. Uzz was initially in favor of releasing it, while Jimmy and Simon opposed it most vehemently. Trog was in between at first, then came up with the idea of selling everything to the highest bidder.

After a long IC discussion (lasting for hours in RL) they decided to use Uzz's Ares Mr. Johnson contact (rating 6/5) to sell the place. Uzz set up a meet, and talked to his alone with the aid of a presentation made by Jimmy (showing blueprints and any other relevant data he could except those revealing location. Mr. Js reaction was not much appriciated though, as he knew what a SK was, and told them it wouldn't be a real threat to the world, like causing crash 3.0. Also, the facility itself, especially if you had to deal with the security there was not worth overly much. Sure, if you was to build it it would cost alot, but if it was located in some godforsaken place such as the Barrens or Wasteland it would probably be worth minimum 100k nuyen. Not bad for a run, but hardly a fortune.
The SK probably wouldn't be worth much either as that is old technology, and malfunctioning to boot. Since it is akin to an AI it might be of worth to Renraku, but they'll probably consider it theirs already and are as likely to backstab then as to pay anything... and that is IF they have gotten over the Deus debacle. So basically they couldn't sell the SK for millions as they had anticipated (the PCs not the players).

Since sharing 100k was not worth potentially attracting the ire of the SK (who coudld possibly still release dangerous gases etc. into the facility), and they wanted the facilility for themselves with no SK inside, they at last decided to release it. Which basically went pretty well. The SK even kept his part of the bargain, giving access to all research data and security systems. And they learned that the facility was actually stealing power from the city's power plant... oh well.

So, well that's where we left off more or less. Next time, the Vatos wants to recruit them to fight the Black rocks and end them once for all. Although Trog has personal interest in this, Uzz and Jimmy both want to help him (they actually like him even if they don't like one another), and Jimmy wants to know who is supplying them (as well as who was supplying Vatos apart from Trog. Simon is not that interested, but he agrees to join in return for favors from the Vatos - having a gang on call is not bad.

Until next week!

[darthmord]

Oh there are plenty of folks who lurk quietly in the background watching and reading the stories & adventures.

I just wish I could get a group together where I'm at so I too could enjoy in the SR goodness.

Until then, I'll just settle for being a filthy voyeur. :D

[It trolls!]

So now that your players' characters have their new happenin' pad for themselves, do you have it figured out, what your're doing to them next? I'm curious! :D

[FriendoftheDork]

[gknoy]

[Yoan]

[FriendoftheDork]

[MaxHunter]

mmm... there could be some of my players around, so....

[ Spoiler ]

Hey, I am running an SR4 version of elven fire too! I guess we are all in the same wavelenght!! We started running it a couple weeks ago, now I am a bit afraid the runners won't survive it, though.

Maybe I could share some of the stats I made for NPCs. I have Dumont, some drive-by thugs, some tiger gangers, the ambushers and I am going to make Bright´s stats before the 12th when we are playing again...


My group has already covered a lot of it and will probably finish it -or be finished- next session. (26 hours left before end) They are currently en-route to Shin Bright's house. They come from the the ambush in "Interdiction" and haven't talked to the Yaks, met Dumont or talked to the Ancients yet;
They went to the Witches Circle, talked to people there, found Lucinda, finished the Tigers, interrogated one of them, sent some info to my version of Thark, did a lot of legwork, found out something fishy about elves in high places, told Thark, Thark checked his contacts, the runners received his tip about Half-ace, went there and were ambushed.
tbey are carrying Lucinda Tangier in their car with them, as they haven't decided what to do with her yet.

[Yoan]

To Max:

FOTD exchanged a few PMs on the subject already, I'm sure he'll love whatever you have to offer! And I might be able to pick up a few things here and there... :D

[FriendoftheDork]

Yeah, go ahead and please PM me what you can Max. Or wait, I'll pm you my email address instead, PMs have length limits.

:)

Just looked at some of the old stats... I mean Firearms 10! That's supposed to be like Pistols or Automatics 7? IIRC, max starting skill in SR3 was 8, right? And 6 was more common...