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ravensmuse
First, some background (long, put behind a cut)

[ Spoiler ]


Woo. Enough backstory for you?

The players didn't know each other yet, each being a gang hopeful contacted by a strange man named Cal. They all meet up at the Oasis, where all the freaks have come out to play - including a strange little blonde elf girl with a third eye. She leads each and every one of them to a round table in the back, while a human - the only one in the whole bar who doesn't have some obvious Changeling trait to him - plays a guitar on stage. As they get themselves settled and order booze, they introduce themselves.

The first is named Roz Muff (random name generator for the win!), basically a half-troll. Why do I say that? Because she's metatypically dwarven, but has the dermal deposits, horns, and ears of a troll. She played the Face template.

The second is a loud talking birdman that just likes to call himself Scratches - and talk in third person. Think Clamps from Futurama. He played this way the whole time, not falling out of character, and it was amazing. He played the Street Ganger template.

The third didn't say her name until a good hour into the game (Maxine Payne), but she was a sort of bird / fish person troll with a bit of an attitude, using the Enforcer template.

Cal finishes his solo with a triumphant flourish - headbanging his way through a solo, throwing up the horns, and then throwing his guitar off-stage to the little three eyed elven girl and getting his medieval sword in return. He comes over and introduces himself to the group, and offers them refreshments.

Cal is a very forward, very motivated, and very passionate person, and the players hate him for it. They literally told me that he threw them off so bad. But irregardless of individual feelings, they accepted the job they were given (go out and cause some havoc on the streets of Denver - for the freaks!!!! - while racing another team out to cause as much destruction) and semi-willingly participated in the ritual at the beginning, signaling the start of their little competion.

This was the fun part - where the other members of the gang threw them each their jackets. Out of the jackets came a high explosive grenade, a series of stimpatches, and one mini-welder - which went to Scratches. Then they were lead outside into their borrowed vans. Roz took the driver's seat, and the group discussed their plans just before the stroke of midnight came. These plans included a small plea from the troll to just "run Cal over already, and let's get the eff out of here" which went unfollowed.

Midnight struck, and the teams took off.

The first job, they decided, would be to rescue the little changeling girl from the nasty pimps at the local black market. My players surprised me by being very sympathetic to her plight (I may have let slip she was the little three eye'd elf girl's sister) and decided that she needed to be handled first.

Upon arrival at the black market and asking around, they were eventually directed towards Jimmy the Chin and his cohort, Johnny (I didn't notice the other dwarven boxer's name until we were already full well into combat; oops) out on the back loading docks. When they arrived, Maxine quickly took charge of the situation by grabbing Jimmy by the neck and demanding he release the little girl. Meanwhile, Scratches, for all of his bluster, ended up being something of a coward (thanks Combat Paralysis!) and ended up getting abused by Johnny the whole time. Which was amazing, because despite Johnny's high dice pools to hit folks, Scratches continued to roll amazingly well on his defense rolls, and not a single scratch was borne. Amazing.

As things got more intense, and Maxine started to literally choke the little dwarven man, a random ork came out from behind one of the curtains with one of the girls, and started complaining about the noise. Roz managed to get him to go back behind the counter and "enjoy his woman" (I think this was the term she used) while Max destroyed the dwarf's windpipe, making him give up. She took the little elf girl and rummaged through Jimmy's pockets, finding $200 in credsticks and a set of keys. Johnny - though worried about his brother - tearfully told the group about their "pimp" ride nearby, and how they could have it - they could have it! - if they just left the two of them alone.

Scratches seized both the new "pimp" van (which I stated had every cosmetic upgrade you could think of - spinners, undercarriage lights, pimp sound system, the works) and one of the other prostitutes - she was his woman now. (Again, please imagine that this player was referring to his character in the third person in the most obnoxious, fake confident voice you can picture.)

That task completed, the group decided that their next stop would be the Humanis hangout at the edge of changeling territory. This was about the time the players decided that they had been recording this whole thing, like some bad episode of Jackass / Viva La Bam, with Scratches doing running commentary. It was also about this time that we all just started laughing our asses off every time he opened his mouth.

The plan for the Humanis hide out was simple - drive up, toss the high explosive grenade into the house, and drive off like hell. In practice? Well, it didn't go quite as planned. Sure enough, Maxine ran up to toss the grenade in - but someone had heard them, and opened the front door to menacingly cock a shotgun at her. In theory that should have been enough to stop her, but Maxine had two things working for her: she was stubborn, and his gun jammed. She was able to get to the front door - cold cock the dude with the grenade - and launch him far enough backwards that he landed in the back room, right next to the gasoline generator.

Yes, Maxine got to run away from an explosion, and yes, she took a little singeing from it. It was still awesome.

Finally, knowing that they didn't have much time left, the group went after the delivery truck. What followed? More epicness.

Just as the players drove up alongside the delivery truck, the other team - unseen until now - got up along it too, and had one of their members jump out and climb onto the truck. Maxine would not tolerate this! She had Roz get as close to the truck as she could, while she and the enemy traded bullets. The player didn't want her to make an attempt at getting onto the truck though, because the character had no athletics skills and she was afraid she'd be crushed underneath the wheels. So - no cool Matrix fight for us, thank you.

Meanwhile, Scratches. Scratches, while narrating his own daring do assault on the van for the good of the audience, attempted to keep the other team's van off of them while Roz and Maxine took care of the truck. They had a deadly duel with each other, each vying for better positioning as they tried to ram each other into the truck, into each other, and off the road. Again, while Scratches narrated and his "woman" made comments like, "are we driving? I feel like I'm moving."

Finally, frustrated after stabbing the truck with her monofilament sword, Max convinced Roz to speed up in front of the truck, get in front of it, and then - Hollywood, John McClain style - jump over the hood and through the windshield. Success! She got in, and while the automated system told her she had no business being there, she ripped the wiring to pieces and took over the truck.

While still fighting the other van, the team pulled up at the Oasis again, to a stunned - and impressed - Cal and his lieutenant. After everyone settled, we had Scratches give everyone the full story of what had happened that night - this was amazing, seriously we should have recorded it - and the prizes were counted up. When it came to light that the team had succeeded, much hurrah was had, much food was consumed, and one lone woman went, "wait, where am I?".

I'll give my own out-of-character thoughts later on, when I'm not rushing out the door for work, but I just wanted to say: great adventure. Sure, I had to re-skin it to use for my games, but what use is a manual if you can't mess with it, right? smile.gif
Tymeaus Jalynsfein
That. Was. Awesome. smile.gif
Grinder
Great! rotfl.gif
ChromeZephyr
My coworkers are looking at me funny. Again. grinbig.gif Bravo.

Is the player who was Scratches like this all the time?
taeksosin
Scratches sounds like the guy at my table that gets very, very into character. Paraplegic ex-lawyer who, on one run, ended up impersonating a pimp and dubbed himself "A Pimp Named Limpd**k". Having him escort up the two "female" characters (one a glamoured ork, the other a male elf sniper in drag) to distract a security detachment on an assassination target was hilarious.
ravensmuse
I'm actually happy to report that I'm blessed with three people that actively get into character like I described with Scratches. It's just that Scratches' player decided to play a really extroverted, insecure character, and the one that's usually very extroverted played a very conniving, introverted character this time (Maxine). The third player is very new to roleplaying (we're her first ever group, though she has experience with WoW) so sometimes she has to be coached, but she's good when she starts going too.

They just bounce off of each other so well, it's hard to reel them in sometimes. The stated goal last night was "Grand Theft Auto through the Shadowrun lens," and I feel like I accomplished that goal. The players certainly had a lot of fun with each other, so I'm pretty happy.

For reference, this is what they've been playing in our Ghostwalker campaign -

Scratches: Westin, sneaky human spy and saboteur, charming as all hell.
Maxine: Maggie, elf adept gator wrestler extraordinair and part-time face.
Roz: Fetid, goth, gloomy, drug addicted troll bounty hunter.

So yeah. We're kind of a fun, easy going group smile.gif
Critias
QUOTE (ravensmuse @ Oct 31 2012, 06:22 AM) *
[snip awesomeness]

I'll give my own out-of-character thoughts later on, when I'm not rushing out the door for work, but I just wanted to say: great adventure. Sure, I had to re-skin it to use for my games, but what use is a manual if you can't mess with it, right? smile.gif

Fantastic! I'm glad y'all had a good time with it, and went along with the over-the-top spirit of the adventure! It sounds like everyone got to sling handfuls of dice, kick ass, and be awesome, and that's what the game's all about.
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