Redshirt, Game Session I

And so the game itself began. Sorry, I said to Marty and Jonny, I'd like to do a sandbox-style campaign, but for this session I'm going to have to railroad you because I came all sorts of unprepared.

Which is true. And I would, normally, love to do a West-Marches open-ended style of campaign. But see, those campaigns take preparation. Quite a lot of it on the part of the GM. Which is something that I simply didn't have. Preparation, I mean. Completely unprepared, and if the reader will remember from the last post, I had exactly four lines written on a sheet of paper: Rusty Vaginas; Coldstream; Grayhair; and Security. The security line wasn't even accurate. It turned out to be more of a bounty-hunting, scalp them all kind of thing. But whatever.

Guys, I said at one point before the game started, I need a gang name.

Rusty Vaginas, said Jonny.

Sweet, said I, and walked away.

Then followed some minor investigation, a big combat, and a suspenseful twist at the end. And repercussions. Oh man are there going to be consequences for the characters' actions. For instance, I had put forward a go-to guy for them to seek out for their information. Look for Frank, I told them, at Frank's Place. He knows everything. That's a quote. He knows everything. A little bit later Frank is lying on the floor of his home bloodied and bruised and tortured for information. I guess Frank-Who-Knows-Everything isn't going to be a regular supporter of the cause. In fact, I'd say he downright despises the PCs at this point.

And then, in the course of bagging-and-tagging the Rusty Vaginas (a gang) for the bounties that the local PD had put on their heads, the PCs beat the ever-living crap out of a family that just happens to live next door to the Bonsai, the local dive that the gang hangs out at.

Eventually the PCs do manage to get into the bar, by taking down the three sentries standing at the door (and not doing it at all quietly) and then rushing into the bar from two directions, the front and the back. In the process of which one of Jonny's midgets took a crossbow bolt to the chest and stumbled back into the street from the doorway, knocked out of the fight. That was the only time the crossbow-wielding greyhair hit anything, even though he rolled something like four or five times. Which is good for Marty and Jonny, because man that crossbow puts out some damage.

So there were 7 PCs vs. 7 RVs. Granted, one PC (Marty's noble) stayed outside and didn't do anything. And I thought that the fight should have been hard, but it turns out it wasn't really, and two of Marty's characters went and held their own even though they were fighting with crutches (yes, you read that right. Crutches. They had gone and thrown their weapons, see, and couldn't get them back, and so were left with the only thing they had on hand: the beggar's crutches). Just when the PCs were about to triumph, in rush 8 more people, who demand the fighting to stop and everybody throw down their weapons. Jonny at this point groaned and said, You're trying to kill us, aren't you? But the PCs joined forces with the RVs and fought the newcomers, who within a couple of turns were routed and running away.

The end result of the fight? Another of Jonny's midgets went down. 7 RVs dead or dying, 2 RVs and 1 RV lieutenant surrendered, 4 Coldstream employees dead or dying, and 1 Coldstream employee surrendered (the rest of the Coldstream employees ran like little sissy-boys). Total loot tally, after bounty payment: 12gp, 10 Shortswords, 4 Longswords, and a single winch-action crossbow.

Now what to do with the two employees who went down? I decided, rather than simply have them as dead, that we really need a Death & Dismemberment Table. Who knows? Maybe they don't die. Maybe one of them gets a nasty scar instead, or loses an eye. All I know is it'll be fun. And random. Because random is, by definition, fun.

Tally of potential consequences: Frank despises them. Beat up an innocent family and potentially killed 1 member. Coldstream is now aware of a competing company (and is probably pissed about losing money/people on a job because of them). The Rusty Vaginas will probably be pissed that their best bar was raided (come on. Any decent gang has to have more than 10 members. Methinks this is not the last that the Company will hear from them).

So, all in all, a good game. Especially considering how woefully unprepared I was, and that I right away made mistakes (leaving out the social combat that I was looking forward to in this system and just having the players make a simple die-roll).