AP: The Factory

We started a game on Wednesday: Terry, Saif, Donna, John and me. TSDJ looks like a myers-briggs type, doesn't it? Anyway, what was my point...?

The world, it's kinda like with that map I thought of before. Everyone seemed to dig the idea of a semi-flooded world with the ruins of skyscrapers sticking up out of the water that used to be shoreline.

John is Uncle: the fat pre-op woman hardholder. Hardholders are a cool pick. The hold really provided a springboard for the setting and character relationships. It's called the Factory, an old processing plant -- probably for fish or some such. Now it's a big walled compound with the means to make medicine.

The holding's gang is 60 fucking hyenas. John decided that he likes that term and that's what Uncle calls them. Also, the holding's population is decadent and perverse. Savagery up to here, you know? We figured that some of the so-called medicine is probably recreational drugs.

There's a big tent city that's sprung up outside the holding's walls, with a hospital and who knows what the fuck else. I wonder... what the fuck else.

They get most of their food via fishing. Like the farming gig is one kind of fishing, and hunting is maybe another kind of fishing.

Oh, and there's a big marketplace, too. You gotta figure a place that has medicine is going to eventually build up a marketplace.

Donna is Fifi the gunlugger. Her job, it seems, is to be Uncle's problem solver. So far that involves camping out up in the tower with her 4-harm ap silenced sniper rifle. Not to be fucked with and all blood crazed and stuff. Damn.

Terry is Brick the Driver. Terry spent some time detailing Brick's outfit, which is like a dirty white PVC jumpsuit with a fishtail parka over that, and orange ski gloves. Brick has a compact speedboat called Skinny Bitch, an off-road ambulance (I know, awesome, right?) called Florence, and a big noisy miltary surplus looking hovercraft.

Saif is Kobe the Operator. I ask, like Bryant? He says, no, like beef. His obligation gig, which I'm excited about, is protecting Fauna, who works in the hospital outside the nice safe hardhold walls. He listed Brick as one of his crew, which I think is cool.

Lots of stuff to wonder about, huh? So here's me, working on fronts. Stay tuned.

Nice. Farming could be like kelp farming or penned in areas of fish as opposed to wild fishing or shark hunting.

Dammit, Wilson.  The Seattle crew was just talking about starting a new AW game set in a semi-flooded world.

Your game sounds way hot, tho.

JW, google around for maps that reflect melted icecaps. That's what got me going. Some estimates say sea level could rise by 50-70 meters.

You mean like old Rifts maps? :)

I blame that swamp game at GenCon for poisoning people's minds with wetpocalypses.

Oh man, my player also picked 60 hyenas and a savage and decadent hardhold. The hell? I guess they figure out the best picks quickly. :)

I absolutely agree, hardholders are awesome. I love it how your hardhold is a big old processing plant - Brilliant! I get vibes from the river levels of Half-Life 2, am I any close? :)

Medicine gig + no Angel = recreational drugs for sures. This is going to be fun to watch :)

I blame that swamp game at GenCon for poisoning people's minds with wetpocalypses.

I think Wetpocalypses have been a natural alternative to a default "Mad Max" type setting from the get-go:

http://direstraits.wikidot.com/

;)

I agree this game sounds very hot.  The characters look cool, 'specially Uncle and Brick from what you've written.

Well now, last night was our first real full frontal session.

This is the first non-D&D-ish kind of game I've GM'ed in a long long time, but I had fun. As the MC I was pleasantly surprised by the direction the game took. I created fronts and followed up on a few additional things from the first session, and the game just took off on its own.

In session 1, Uncle got a mixed result on his wealth roll and chose "savagery" from his gang, "the Hyenas." They got a little bloodthirsty and started wandering around with their machetes and clubs looking for people to savage-ify. Oops, there's Brick, down at the docks. Brick says he wants to humiliate them so they won't attack her, by spraying water from the boat motor. I figure that making them feel uncool is a cool move, like acting under fire. Right? He has to keep his own cool. So Brick gets a 7-9. I decide that a bystander laughs at them, successfully diverting their attention.

Just before they're able to hack this poor NPC apart, Fifi nails the hyena (Rum) with her silent AP sniper rifle. With one of her gunlugger moves, it does 4 harm. Damn. So Rum? Well, he dies. I look at Uncle. "Your gang is now 59 fucking hyenas."

Last night began in the middle of the night. Fifi wakes up in her bed in the tower to find 10 hyenas standing around the bed with their clubs. Sniper rifle is over in the corner, and they're saying shit like, "you think you can just kill us whenever you want? We're going to make sure you never do that again."

Fifi reads them and sees that Dog is the momentary leader of this particular group. She quietly and quickly reaches under her pillow, pulls out the 9mm and shoots Dog in the face (acting under fire). Dog doesn't die right away.

The rest of them step back, in horror. "Fifi's got a fucking gun! I thought she was sleeping?" This gives Fifi the opportunity to wave the gun around and say get the fuck out (aggro), which fuck yes they do. So there's Dog gurgling on the floor and Fifi says, "I don't want to further disturb Uncle, so I'll just club Dog to death."

What I particularly love about the above is that Fifi's player Donna is 7 months pregnant. I also tell Uncle that his gang of hyenas is now 58.

So, Uncle, he's all freaked out about these Hyenas being out of control, so he calls up Brick to go get Kobe and come back to the tower. He wants Kobe to help him suss out what the deal is and how he can get order. On the way there Brick passes by some very peaceful, happy types, out in the tent city. They smile and say "everything's going to be so great now. Clarion said so." They have big smiles like that guy in the Enzyte commercials.

While the group are all together talking, they hear screams coming from the hyena quarters. A few of the hyenas have rounded up two children from the tent city, and they're all shouting, "yay! Toys!"

Kobe tries to reason with them, and he just ends up pulled into the crowd as a third toy.

Then Uncle gets mad. He tells them goddamn he'll make them behave and unloads on them with his shotgun. It's seize control (vs this large gang, holy crap), which leaves him in firm control afterward, and them fucking terrified. Of course, he's lying in a pool of blood, mostly his own, with someone's knife sticking out of his shoulder, and I tell the others they better find medical attention for him really fucking quick. The gang of hyenas is now 57. A few of the survivors are hurt bad.

Brick races through the factory complex in the ambulance to get Uncle to safety, with no trouble. Their resident medical expert is Norvell, who looks like Malcolm McDowell. Of course he does, right? He tells Uncle how much it's going to cost him. Uncle tries to bargain with him but of course that goes South. Norvell says, look, you're in no position to negotiate with me, so I'm going to tell you how it's going to work out. You're going to pay me the barter I specified, and you're also going to find out what happened to my assistant Pierre who hasn't shown up for work in two days.

More in just a minute...

I'm going to forget some things. A lot happened.

Um, so it's morning. Kobe's out in the tent city, in the hospital with Fauna. The hospital he says is this old gymnasium. He's woken up by Bowdy, who's in charge of the fishing fleet. Bowdy says, "you've seen how Uncle is running things. We have to start thinking about ourselves. I have an idea I want you to back me on. It will make sure we have plenty of food for a long time." Kobe says he'll meet Bowdy down at the docks later to talk about it.

Brick is cleaning blood out of the back of his ambulance, when Beacon, his current main squeeze (also part of Kobe's crew) knocks on the door. She's all enzyte smiley and has two of those other people from the night before with him. "Hey Brick, everything's so great now. You should meet my new friends Foster and Mill. They extend their hands, and Brick is all get the fuck away from me. They start to try and climb into the ambulance with him, so he scrambles to close the back door. That works, but then he turns around to see them getting in the driver's seat. "Nobody touches my cars!" shouts Brick and tries to force Mill out. Mill just grabs Brick on the forearm, and next thing you know, Brick has his Brain open to the maelstrom, and something else is there.

There's a sweet but malicious presence, and it says, "the Purpose needs you. Why don't you come join us." But Brick resists its temptation. He calls up Uncle and Fifi for help. When Uncle comes up to the ambulance, Mill gets out and touches Uncle. Uncle feels the will of the purpose telling him to come to the tent city and see Clarion. Uncle tries to resist what the Purpose says (act under fire) and fails miserably. I tell Uncle's player, just sit back for a minute or two and I'll tell you what you do.

Uncle starts peacefully walking out into the tent city, and Fifi, bewildered, follows him. He gets really deep into the place, and I tell Fifi that the tent city feels weird, like there's something out of the corner of your eye that you can't quite see. They come up to a large tent with two smiley enzyte guys standing outside, and Uncle is about to go in, so Fifi tackles him and drags him away. This causes a whole bunch of these smiley people to start coming out of the tent, slowly surrounding them.

Then this other guy comes out of the tent. He's all white hair and wiry, wearing a robe. His eyes are all pupil. He looks at Uncle and Fifi and says, "I'm so glad you could join us!"

TO BE CONTINUED

Last night was adventure-tastic. The characters kicked a lot of ass, and made it through at least one narrow escape.

this guy, with the all pupil eyes? There he was all in the crosshairs, and the characters let him go. It's fun being surprised by the players like that. So he takes this flock and tells Uncle they're off to the south to build their temple to bring about the cleansing. Note to self: golden platter filling up with nice opportunity for later.

Beacon, in Kobe's crew? She's all infected or what have you with this cult purpose. She wants to go and join the disciples and perform labor and build the temple. Brick, who's sweet on Beacon, says "I open my brain, I have to know what this is all about." She sees this vision of the laborers slowly killing themselves to build some kind of ziggurat, and then the sky opens up and there's this horrible firestorm (remember Sarah Connor's dream in Terminator 2? Like that) and everyone dies. So she thinks, I should keep Beacon from going there. With the help of everyone else, she subdues Beacon and they lock her up.

Kobe tells Uncle about Bowdy and how Bowdy seems to have some plan for insurrection. Uncle freaks out, but then Kobe argues that Uncle is kind of a shitty leader sometimes and that executing everyone who disagrees with you might not foster a sense of security and prosperity. Uncle gets on his PA system and announces to the hardhold that a bright future is in store, with great things to come, starting with the digging of a second shit pit. Everyone in the holding reacts with a cheer.

Uncle then advises Kobe and Brick to go with Bowdy out on the water, but to raise a signal when they get information out of him, at which point Fifi will waste him from the tower with her sniper rifle.

The above plan goes to shit.

Bowdy tells Brick to take her boat into the Rust Warrens, a series of ruined skyscrapers rising out of the water in the bay. They disappear from Fifi's scope. After a few twists and turns, they come upon some sort of fortified camp, which turns out to be run by Hammer, one of the former ruling junta. She's Bowdy's sister.

Hammer tells Kobe she needs his help to restore things to the way they were, to end Uncle's villainous rule. "I have these 20 armed warriors, but I need your help on the inside."

"Uncle may do a lousy job, but you were worse," says Kobe. "I lived out in the tent city, and you didn't give a shit about all of us. You let the raiders come and take what they wanted from us. You're a fucking bitch."

Hammer stares at him and says, "well, I seem to have made a mistake thinking you were on our side." She looks at her 20 armed men.

Kobe says, "I read her... what are her intentions?"

I say, "well, it's pretty clear to you that she plans to kill you, since now you're a hostile liability."

Kobe says, "I just marked my fifth box. How does this 'eye on the door' move work."

With a few hijinks, Kobe and Brick actually manage to get away from the gang. It helps when they clear the ruins in Brick's speedboat going full throttle, and Fifi starts sniping their pursuit.

Now Fifi has recruited an elite squad from the hyenas (over which she is pack alpha), and they're preparing the holding against a possible assault from Hammer.

Uncle gets on his PA system and announces to the hardhold that a bright future is in store, with great things to come, starting with the digging of a second shit pit. Everyone in the holding reacts with a cheer.

I'm crying tears over here.

I'm crying tears over here.

Saif laughed so hard he was sore afterward. He had to get up and leave the room.

Here's something I'm enjoying: the game really starts to prep itself after the first couple sessions. I spend about ten minutes looking at the stuff going on in my notes, thinking about who cares about things going on, idly considering future fronts, and that's about it.

Tonight we played a short game because John wanted to introduce us to Castle Ravenloft, which was fun.

So we agreed to have some time pass, and everyone who was hurt got to heal some harm. Uncle got all his wealth just fine, and Kobe got a 9 on his juggling move. I asked which gig he wanted catastrophe on, and he said the infiltration one. He says, "For that, I would have asked the merchant (Tao) who I persuaded to switch sides to gather more information for me." Perfect, methinks.

Brick's girlfriend, who is also part of Kobe's crew, is still wiggy about that whole temple business, so Brick is in the marketplace looking for someone who has a way with the psychic maelstrom. Wouldn't you know it but Ik the traveling merchant knows of this chick named Iris, but she recently headed south to where Mimi's people live. Brick presses Ik for info, suggesting that he'd be a good customer, and Ik shares confidentially that Iris looked like she might be caught up in that weird cult stuff, and he's worried that the cult has spies everywhere.

Kobe's in the tent city waiting to hear what Brick finds out, and all of a sudden there's people staring and pointing toward the hospital, where Fauna, Kobe's ladyfriend (and obligation gig) works. He runs over to find a weird oily black smoky fire in an oil drum, and next to it there's Tao, the merchant, all dead and crucified. And there's three guys with guns, looks like Hammer's people, waiting for Kobe. And one of them has Fauna, and she's worse for wear, you know?

Kobe tries to keep cool, but eventually he persuades this thug (Dremmer) to trade Fauna for him. He drops his gun and walks over.

This is when Brick, seeing the smoke himself, shows up in the ambulance. He tries to roar over and cause a distraction, but he almost ends up running over some innocent bystander and has to slam on the brakes. Dude on the roof opens up on the ambulance with a rifle, and a guy with a pistol comes around on the side. Brick loses his cool and can't get the ambulance moving, and shots smash through the window, showering Brick in glass, and he's down on the floor.

Right then, Uncle and Fifi show up, and Fifi sees this dick shooting at the ambulance. The magnum roars, but she misses, and the guy on the roof responds to her immediate fucking armored tank threat. She takes a bullet in the shoulder, causing serious pain even through all that armor. Shaken, she loses track of the one near the ambulance.

Uncle says she's going to sneak around and get in the hospital through a side door. Thing about Uncle, she's not much for sneaking, so the guy with the pistol catches her off guard, slams her up against the wall, barrel dug into her neck. "Now ain't this a prize? How's about you drop that shotgun really quick?:

Kobe confronts his captor, says, look, you better run now and save yourself. Now's not the time to be fucking with me. Too bad for Kobe, that tactic works. Dremmer says, yeah, I guess I don't have time for this. So he stabs Kobe with the knife and ditches out the back while Kobe's on his knees doubled over. (I <3 the harm move)

Uncle, now, she's trying to convince this guy with the gun that he could switch sides, but she just doesn't have much bargaining power, right? Uncle's too big a prize. So Uncle says, "I'm tired of this bullshit, jerks around and wrestles the pistol out of this thug's hands. The action catches him off guard, because who the fuck would try it? The pistol goes off a second too late, searing uncle's face with powder burns and nicking her ear, getting shit in her eyes. But still she doesn't fucking flinch and gets this guy in a choke hold. He wets himself he's so scared.

Uncle says, "I think you're such a harmless, pathetic piece of shit, I'm even going to give you this gun back. What's your name? No, that's not your name. Your name is Dog now."

And that's about where we left off, with Uncle wanting to catch this bastard Dremmer, Fauna telling Kobe she doesn't feel safe.

Oh, and all this other problematic shit I didn't even get around to. I'll have to tell them about it next week.

Holy crap that was fun.

Beautimus!