Lights of Hoover 4: Short and Sweet

We got in a little less than an hour of gaming tonight but we're going to try and do some more tomorrow.

They chatted a bit about Hoover.  Doc wants to start up the hospital.  Cybelle read her via Violation Glove and knows shit about the Engineer-in-Chief but won't disclose it, not wanting to talk about strange shit.

When they pulled up to Cocktail, there was a military grade humvee parked out front and a guy playing solitaire on the hood.  The humvee was from Vegas, a drug-running posse out to make their rim deliveries.

Cybelle uses her violation glove on practically everyone she meets now.  She brushes Humbolt (everyone just calls him Hum since he drivers the humvee) and learns that he wants forgiveness for running over a kid in R.V. during a hijacked delivery that went bad.

She used the glove again, giving the head of the delivery gang, Eureka, a massage.  He regrets that his job causes one of the worst parts of the old world to continue but he's gotta eat, ya know?

"Damn, girl, that massage is just what I need, no wonder Pio is in love with ya."

"What?!"

"You didn't know?  I thought everyone on the Rim knew..."

She massaged Bar, who was upstairs, dressed sexy, waiting for Doc to come for a visit.

Bar craves forgiveness to all of the working girls and boys she puts in harm's way every damned night.

Sarah wrote all of this down.

Meanwhile, Doc is downstairs, talking to Eureka while Harlan is gambling with Eureka's hired guns, his bacon on the table against their vials of crystal meth.  He lost.  He picked up on the most dangerous of their hired guns during a sitch-read, a bad-ass named Pima.

Eureka wants Doc to visit; they have some boys who are shot up.

And then we ended, a bunch of house stuff came up but we're going to continue tomorrow.  I wanted Harlan to be offered a job driving something other than Croaker.  I wanted Ma, still stuck in Cybelle's head, to talk to her about her Violation Glove usage and I wanted Doc to eff Bar.   We all really like Bar.

Lots of sitch and person reading tonight but it just wasn't enough game.  It felt like the set-up of a bunch of things.  But more tomorrow.

While Harlan was losing his bacon at cards and Doc was talking to Eureka at the finest table in Cocktail in walks Rum, owing the Chemist money.

Doc walks out with Eureka and his posse, urging them not to hurt Rum in any way that he can't fix up.  They shot Rum in the knee and left him in Doc's care.

Doc doesn't waste any med-kits on Rum but he's stable.  But where to put him?  Bar's still waiting for a night with the Doc.  He goes up to see her, hoping to seduce her into letting him stow Rum here while he heals (failed roll).  They have a nice night and in the morning she kisses him on the head and says, "This ain't a hospital; get your junkie out of my joint."

They still don't know shit about Wheelyard, another town on the Rim.  They head out that way to find a town/junkyard run by Gila.  Gila's son, Corbette, greets him; doc recognizes the kid has Downs Syndrome.  Corbette has an Irish Wolfhound, an old guy, blind, who follows him around.

I effed with Cybelle a bit.  Gila called her New Ma, having heard about her time in R.V. and it tweaked her out.  Ma, still hitch-hiking in her noggin, was giving her some shit about using her Violation Glove so often.  She went off by herself to gather her head.  She went into the Maelstrom and immediately noticed Corbette's dog.  It approached her and while in the Maelstrom, talked to her.

The dog had a number tattooed on it, said something about her being a runaway from Area 51, something about the Colonel who fed him and how he used to chase down runaways, like her.

Doc cut a deal to keep Rum there and Gila serves them all lunch, talks to them about the politics of the Rim, how he'd love to see the Doc set up in his own Rim town but the Engineer-in-Chief wouldn't like that.

"If you were to get yourself a town, I know we'd all chip in to help you out.  We'd rally around you."

Doc said, "I'm not looking to rally anyone.  I just want to help people."

Doc's avoidance of local politics amuses the shit out of me.

Last drove into Wheelyard with his cycle all bent to hell.  Last is the guy who shot Fuse over cards in the first game.  He said there was an accident with a car.

They flipped on the sirens and went to it.

There was an accident with some bikes and a humvee.  Yeah, there were bullet casings.  Last got a gang together and tried to rob the Chemist's humvee and it went poorly.  One of them was showing gray matter.  All they could do was give him some chloroform and leave him to die peacefully.  The other two were run over.

Doc healed them up.  They left them with a wanna-be-doc in Hoover.  Doc said he'd train him to be a legit doctor if he saw to it that these two didn't die.

They slept in the Croaker just outside of Hoover.

At this point, Anthony looked over the Doc's character sheet and noticed that he was running short on meds and had a job on his moonlighting that we hadn't done up yet.  We decided the second job, termed Technical work, was surgery.

They were woken up by Eureka...the Chemist's kid was suffering due to appendicitis.  They ran into Vegas and meet Graham, the Chemist.  I picture him as the main character from Breaking Bad, a guy with a bad mustache and a comb-over holding his daughter's hand.  

Doc saved her.

Graham seemed real reasonable for the fella who sold drugs.  

He offered to set up Doc with his own town on the Rim.

Cybelle tried to open herself up to the Maelstrom and failed miserably.  I figured this meant that she was made.  The Chemist made her for a Brainer right off.

"Would you like work?  A Brainer is so helpful to have around.  I had one in my employ but he was shot.  I could, of course, pay you."

And he dropped down a book on the table: SPEC OPS MANUAL 053: Psychic Warfare

She tried to shake his hand.

"Violation glove?" he asked.

She said she would think about the job offer.

They brought Harlan down to a sub-basement and showed him a cherry Nevada State Highway Interceptor.  They need him to run a job, a dangerous delivery that they knew was going to go bad.

That is where we ended it, with the players in a safe, air conditioned bank building, being offered solid deals by a family man, a very reasonable devil.

So, so cool Judd. I almost see your game as a serial on TV. I have my favourite characters and I just can't wait till the next episode to see what happens next! Trip out to psychic vault anyone?

Graham was inspired, especially with all the area 51 stuff and Cybelle's failed open roll. Did you have him up as a threat with an agenda already? or was he amorphous until the crew actually met him? EDIT: I just re-read your fronts and made the connection. Duh.

He's developed well, so well it was not the vision I had of him when I first read the fronts. Nice. I like the the way you've made your threats human. Not just by naming them, but having that great driving spark of a body part connected to a motive and then developing through play. Sweet MCing Judd.

Man, I love your game, thanks once again for sharing.

Thanks, Noofy, I'm flattered that you dig reading these.

It is funny that you mention serial TV because Pete and I were talking after last night's game about how much it reminds us of Firefly.  Inspired by this, we re-watched the two Mrs. Reynolds episodes last night.

I thought it might be time to look over the NPC list and just jot down notes on the named folk:

Shigusa: Doc's nurse, a quiet fella, Mox's husband.  I picture him as Saul Williams.

Mox: Doc's other nurse and also a dabbler in mechanical work.  Shigusa's wife.

The Dog: Cybelle's dog.  Harlan often talks about fattening it up in order to eat it later.

Fuse: biker gang leader, shot by Last and while he was convalescing in the Croaker, his ambitious second-in command, Mineral, shot him dead.

Last: gambler with a bad temper, kind of an asshole, really.

Mineral: Shot Fuse, Cybelle was wise to his ambitions due to her Brainer ways.  Harlan ran him over.

Esmerelda: New leader of Fuse's gang, was Fuse's Old Lady.  Feels she owes Doc for giving her a few more days with her man.  I picture her as Katey Seagal.

Bar: owns and runs Cocktail, killed the former owners because they were bastards who mistreated the working girls and boys.  Has a thing going with Doc.  She is a little gal, with some Asian and some Mexican blood.

Abondo: one of Cocktail's working boys, talked to Doc about learning medicine.

Ma: former psychic seer and wise woman of RV.  Died and is now hitch-hiking in Cybelle.

Pio: 17 years old, Mexican kid, sheriff of RV, in love with Cybelle

Phoenix: Engineer-in-Chief of Hoover.

Bisbee: an engineer the Croaker's crew have worked with.

Carson: a jackal (who?), is he one of the guys who tried to jack Harlan in Hoover?

Elko: a bone-setter, Doc left the two hurt shmucks with them, promising to teach him medicine.

Paz: dead guy whose ghost talked to Doc and Harlan...Gila's nephew

St. John: Sheriff of Gas but is traveling with Doc as his bodyguard, at the request of Phoenix.  I picture her with freckles, a big hat, a long skirt with a pistol on her hip.

Gila: head mechanic of Wheelyard, the junkyard town of the Rim.

Corbette: Gila's son, big boy with Downs Syndrome.  Has a blind Irish Wolfhound who follows him around.  The Wolfhound can talk in the Maelstrom.

Visage: mechanic out in Wheelyard, talked to the doc about the tumor the size of a softball on his face.  Doc was going to pull some teeth for him but had an emergency.

Graham: the Chemist, a family man with a wife and kids who is in charge of Vegas and runs drugs.  I picture the guy from Breaking Bad.

Eureka: the Chemist's right-hand man who leads delivery drops out on the Rim.

Pima: the best gun in Vegas, works for the Chemist

Humboldt: drives the humvee for the drug deliveries from Vegas, still feels shitty about running over a kid in RV during a delivery gone bad.

Rum: meth addict, salvager, in debt all over the Rim.

Wow, seeing them listed out like that. Just wow. The game is right there, the fronts just hold them together with countdowns.

So Judd, I know you mention that you write things down in a notebook as NPCs get named during play. So between sessions do you attatch these notes to the standard Front Sheet, or do you have extra special 'Judd Way' of organising your cast and props? I really like seeing these glimpses into other MC's prep. Like Margolette's sticky note relationship maps. Stolen that idea. I'm such a voyuer! ;)

Personally I like this simple list you've just collated, perhaps with the front / threat / impulse attatched to the end of the NPC's name, or grouped according to location. I may just do that  with a passport picture pasted next to each entry in our new found camping session game.

Neato Brother. Can't wait to read the next installement!

The Judd Way of dealing with NPC's and names and such is to write down names when we are playing along with some short details next to the name so I can remember who they are.

Sometimes I'll try to keep like names together, like, for example, keep names from people who tend towards the same Rim town.

I'd like to try having all of the info on index cards and keep them all in one of those nifty index card boxes but I haven't gotten that together for a game yet.

Perhaps next time.