AP: The Factory

I hit a couple pacing issues last night, not quite framing as well as I ought to have, not getting moves in their faces at times. It was all right, but it dragged a little.

After the big episode at the hospital, Uncle, Fifi and Kobe talk about what needs to be done. Kobe talks to his converted spy about what Hammer intends: guerrilla warfare, since she can't take them on evenly in a fight. So she wants to hit the fishing fleets, sabotage the power, that sort of thing.

Uncle gets word that Norvell is looking for her, and Uncle finds out that Norvell is pissed, because the assistant (Pierre) that he asked Uncle to find a week ago is still missing, and Norvell is out of the chemicals he needs: to make the medicine and all that important stuff. So that's not good. Exit, the converted spy, says he's seen Pierre with Hammer.

Uncle decides to send Kobe and Fifi on an extraction mission, out across the water, to recover Pierre. At the right moment, Uncle will send the hyenas out in an apparent invasion. This diversion, they hope, might give Fifi a chance to hit Hammer with her sniper rifle, thereby breaking up the warband and scattering her followers.

Kobe asks Uncle to look after Fauna, because she doesn't feel safe out in the tent city, so Uncle brings her up into her tower, and bribes her into having sex, offering her valuable medical supplies for her hospital that she can't say no to...

After eluding a couple patrol boats, Fifi and Kobe get settled in a ruined building across from Hammer's fortress. Brick's player shows up right about now and says she's been following the two of them in her speedboat, and in order to avoid a patrol she loses sight of them, ends up on the far side of the fortress from them.

Right about now, Uncle hears shots ring out, and in the darkness and rain she can make out the muzzle flashes of a battle down by the power plant. She rushes down and orders her gang to take action. They pursue the saboteurs into the night but lose sight of them... because the saboteurs have actually doubled back, and there they come, seven or eight of them, charging into the factory, right at Uncle.

Uncle finds cover amid the pipes of the water filtration system, but as she's sneaking around to take one of them out, he sees poor Win, frozen in fear as the marauders charge toward her. So she fires blindly at them, shooting the pipes to get them to track back, and it works. And then she's on one of them fighting hand to hand, twists his wrist back, almost breaking it, pulling her shotgun up and blowing a hole through the poor thing's torso.

Fauna has fled Uncle's tower in the meantime, to who knows where.

Dawn comes, and Uncle is about to sound the attack...

TO BE CONTINUED

Seems like a shot-up water filtration system might not filter water so well. :)

So, last night, important lesson learned: attacking a hardhold is suicide unless you really have an ace up your sleeve. And "we have more guys" is not that ace.

Uncle's plan was to send out his hyenas as a diversion, getting Hammer to send her forces after the hyenas. But here's the thing. Hammer doesn't want slaughter. She wants the hardhold. So one of her gang says, "Uncle's whole force is out on the water in crappy rowboats," so she says "OMG attack the Factory!"  And they roar across in their powerboats.

Except Uncle still had Fifi's special pack of dingoes (15 of them, via the get a gang and pack alpha) move, and the Factory has +2 to defense because of the heavy fortifications. Combine that with Uncle's leadership and you have sad, sad slaughter. None of the dingoes was even so much as scuffed.

Meanwhile, Brick, Fifi and Kobe infiltrate Hammer's fortress and get into a pretty intense firefight. At the close of the episode, they've pretty much managed to secure the place (Hammer has escaped with 1-2 people on a boat), but they're each at 9:00.

It was kind of a brief session, but here's what's still unresolved: there's some crazy clouds forming over Mimi's people, to the south, and people are starting to have bad dreams about being consumed in some horrible firestorm. The filtration system has been shot up, and who knows if it's working properly? Pierre is somewhere in Hammer's fortress, probably prepared to run for his life, but he has the chemicals Norvell needs to create the medicine that makes their food edible.

I wanted to write up AP earlier, but I had a mac-tastrophe that cost me a hard drive and quite a few bucks. And maybe a lot of files. Wah.

The players are really catching on to how moves flow. They constantly read sitches, and they get into the language that triggers the moves they want to make. The improvement is really flying now. Maybe not quite as fast as I hear Vincent and John's groups improve, but better than it has in earlier sessions.

Because I love it when characters improve. I'm a fan, right? They get cool new moves that I get to watch them make. Yeah! Totally you do fuck this shit! Awesome. Roll!

Last week, they dealt with the traitor Pierre in a public execution and then continued to ignore the overwhelming badness spewing forth from down south where Clarion and his followers are building a fucking doomsday temple. That clock is gonna hit 12 if they don't do something soon.

Instead, they addressed a broken water filter, which sent them across the water to Flush, where a woman named Shazza said she'd help them but only if they helped her in return, and protected her from her enemies.

They convinced her to leave her bunker and travel with them, which got the attention of her enemies. Naturally a firefight ensued, and poor Shazza nearly died.

There's an MC insight. When the PCs get super powered and invulnerable, the NPCs don't. It makes for some interesting choices. I mean, maybe Shazza is the only one who could fix their water filter, but maybe not. Either way, the characters found her valuable and took big risks to keep her alive.

One thing that was fun was "fuck this shit" getting a 7-9. Fifi's player asks, can I bring Shazza with me when I roll this move? Sure you can. She hit a 7-9, so I told her that Shazza's blood-covered toolkit is still lying in the middle of the street. That prompted a move from a different player to go get it. Good stuff.

This wednesday will probably be the finale, since two of the players are about to have a baby.

We had the finale last night, although Terry couldn't make it. :(

As MC, I think my favorite thing is being a fan of the characters. In this game they've been an unstoppable team, sometimes bickering and at odds, but always getting each other's backs. I've had a great time watching them stomp all over trouble, and they've had a great time doing it.

That said, there's been a lot at stake. Lives on the line, including their own at times. As the MC/audience, I never saw them as invulnerable, just awesomely heroic and capable.

I was surprised at the start of the session to discover that Uncle was at 10:00 harm! She was in danger, but she did her paladin lay-on-hands healing touch and got herself stabilized again.

Once the crew dropped off Shazza to fix their water filter, they decided that it was time to address the creepy death cult in the south that was luring people away to labor on the ziggurat, filling others' minds with visions of death. The hardhold had maybe lost a third of its people to the influence of Clarion.

So they hit the market and blow their hard-earned barter on stuff. Armor, weapons. They rolled all badass and walked away like a swat team. Did I mention I love being a fan? Yeah, you guys rock.

So they load up the Dingos (with a little quick pack alpha encouragement) on the driver's new tank-boat and head south to finish this thing. When they get within sight of the now-finished ziggurat, Clarion gets inside all their heads (custom move) and learns about all their most painful memories (not unlike deep brain scan).

They find many people from the Factory waiting on the shore when they arrive, all smiling and vapid. Plus there's regular armed people watching them carefully, and Clarion is in their heads saying, it will be so good to have you with us.

And then they kick ass. Fifi snipes some guy on the machine gun, simple as that, and Kobe and Uncle charge into the holding, trying to make their way to the ziggurat as fast as they can. That's when the smiling laborers turn into psycho killing mob and swarm them. Yeah, there's Rolfball the merchant, and isn't that Ditch who worked the kelp farms? All trying to kill you with their bare hands, this huge mob. What do you do?

Again, I'm a fan, because they manage to fight off the armed guard while hardly anyone among the crazy zombie mob gets hurt. Probably was good that Fifi didn't actually use the grenade launcher, huh? The dingoes stay on the boat providing excellent cover fire. Seize + gang is something to fear when it goes well.

At one point Kobe stumbles, because there's his disappeared love interest, Fauna, among them, and she knocks him to the ground. Kobe says, I want to try and snap her out of this state she's in, because I know her and she knows me.

And holy shit of course he can do that, because that sounds so badass. Plus, if he succeeds, then he just has a new problem to worry about, right? And so he does. She almost runs into danger, but he puts himself in the way and takes the bullet for her.

Uncle gets up to the ziggurat and gets into a fierce shootout with two guys. Their bullets bounce off her new armor, but it distracts her (yeah harm move!). A pale hand strikes out from the shadowy interior of the ziggurat and grabs her by the throat. She can feel the voice of Clarion in her head: just drop that shotgun and come inside with me...

But she fights it off, and he stabs her with this wicked scary machete!

Kobe and Fifi get up to where Uncle is and open fire on Clarion, but he dives back into the inky darkness. Nobody wants to go in there, so Fifi tries to hose it down with her smg. Instead, Clarion reaches out from his strange dark protection and grabs her. She fights off his influence as well!

Then Uncle says enough is enough, drops the shotgun, draws her knife and jumps past Fifi, grappling with Clarion and plunging the knife up into his ribcage. He kind of gurgles a little, and Uncle whispers in his ear, "it's all over now."

Nobody has enough for a retirement improvement, so we do quick epilogues around the table. Uncle eventually secedes from being a hardholder and learns the ways of being a healer. Fifi buries her feelings and lives the rest of her life in violence. Kobe becomes something of a statesman, hoping to unite the surrounding hardholds in peace.

THE END

There's a thing that happens in play, and I really like it. I was thinking about it a lot after last night's game.

It reminds me of playing the Pool. Those of you who've played, probably you'll know what I mean. In the Pool, you can build up what looks like this unstoppable pile of dice, kicking ass left and right, no way you could possibly blow the roll.

OMG and then you do, and everyone at the table literally gasps. You go from unstoppable to oh-so-fragile in the blink of an eye.

AW can be like that. You get on this kick of 10+ rolls with your +3 stat, and then the snake eyes hit at the worst possible moment. It always seems like the worst moment, doesn't it? Everyone leans forward and says oh shit.

Thanks for running Matt! It was fun!

The last fight was neat and was especially enjoyable because we got to the point where no one was wrestling with the system. The fiction and rules intertwined nicely (even rolling+harm taken).

System wise, I like the dice odds, the moves, the difference between Go Aggro & Seize By Force, improvement, the character classes, and I'm sure much more.

There is a lot of subtle genius in how certain rules are worded that weren't clear at first. Like, Go Aggro can be better than Seize By Force but you need that fictional leverage / advantage but a Seize By Force weak hit can be more effective than a Go Aggro weak hit.

Great sounding game.

Maybe once our campaign is through you can MC for me and show me how it's done, Matt.

Great sounding game.

Maybe once our campaign is through you can MC for me and show me how it's done, Matt.

That doesn't sound like any kind of pressure at all.

I just do like 10 minutes of google chat with John Harper every day and do exactly what he says would be awesome. When it's not awesome I figure I did it wrong.