I will now continue with that I figure is going to be quite a few installments of RP moments—as the more I think of, the more I remember...
MISSION TO LIANNA
Not all of my RP memories revolve around the 'great plans' and victories of the characters. This one in particular...well, lets just say that things didn't go all that well. Oh, the mission started off good enough—travel to the planet Lianna, link up with rebels there, find out about an imperial cloaking device...right, good so far. And then...came the actual infiltration of the corporate tower where the plans were housed. I'm not sure that blame can go to any one character, or even any one skill roll. But things went south fast.
First of all, the group decided to try to fool the security cameras by taking pictures...then...taping those pictures over the lenses of the cameras. That...well, I gave them the benefit of the doubt, but put the guards on higher alert anyway (then sent someone to go check on the strange images they were getting). And then, the group finally made its way to the upper levels of the building, where they proceeded to gun down a secretary, who was trying to hold them at gunpoint. In the character's defense, she WAS armed. But...evidently, they thought she was some bad-ass security guard and pulled out all the stops—The two best gunman in the party proceeded to lay down suppressing fire (which hit and nearly killed her) then shoot her as she fell. I fudged the dice rolls to ensure she didn't just die immediately—and the PCs did pause to stabilize her. They then went on to complete the mission—sabotage the plans. By this time, security had been alerted (blasterfire in the executive suite seems to draw attention).
The players hadn't really come up with an exfiltration plan (they were pretty 'seat-of-the-pants' when it came to planning)... so when they got cut off by guards, the proceeded to cut their way out of the building...floor by floor...with lightsabers....down some 57 levels. Needless to say, that this took a while, allowing more guards to show up. The whole thing turned into a huge, running gun battle. I can't remember quite how the players got out of it, but it was messy and bloody. And...to make matters worse, the head of the company was actually sympathetic to the Rebellion—and had given the players their initial information, hoping they would 'discreetly' break in and sabotage the plans. After this mess? Well, the adventure didn't have a happy ending. The CEO basically told the players to 'get the hell off my planet—and stay off'.
Thankfully, this mission was later ret-conned when I merged the Vermillion campaign with my Florida campaign. So now? It is just a...shared bad dream about what could have been...
ESCAPE FROM THE GALAXY GUN
From abject failure to the heights of victory. The Galaxy Gun mission stands out as one of the more cinematically dramatic moments in the campaign. This came after the 'merging' of the Vermillion and Florida campaign—and timeline wise, it came after the Dark Empire comic book (I stole the Galaxy Gun idea from 'Dark Empire II', but didn't use the rest of that comic, because I thought it was stupid). Essentially, what it boiled down to was this: The Empire, floundering once more with the loss of the reborn clone Emperor, turned to one of his superweapon projects in yet another bid for galactic dominance. The gun itself was really a gigantic space-station that fired capital-ship-sized hyperspace-capable 'bullets' that could destroy planets (by starting earthquakes and the like).
The characters were sent to stop the gun. They managed to get onto the station and sabotage the whole thing, setting it to blow. During the chaos, Oman and Adren got separated from the group and trapped by guards—in the main control room for the gun. While Adren held them off, Oman managed to set the gun's barrel to fire a low power 'test' charge. As the guards swarmed in, the two of them leapt into the barrel of the gun and were fired out into space (both were in space-armor at this point). There, they got picked up by the rest of the group and everyone escaped as the gun went crashing down onto the planet.
It was just one of those moments where I went 'wow, yeah, that's really like something you'd see in a movie'.
ROGUE SQUADRON
No, this isn't about the actual Rogue Squadron. Rather, this is about the now famous incident where two of the group (Oman and Martel) decided they were going to break off from the main party and conduct their OWN investigations. This happened right in the middle of The Game Chambers of Questal module. The whole incident came about due to the RL mechanics of the gaming group. The group had been steadily growing, and as it had, people started getting less and less 'camera time'. As a GM, it was getting difficult for me to juggle things so that everyone had a moment to shine. And so it was that (understandably so) Oman and Martel just said: "No, we aren't going to follow the group. We're going to do our own thing." Essentially, I think they were feeling marginalized when compared to the leaders of the group—especially the Jedi (yeah, Jedi really can be show-stealers).
What was really memorable (and amusing) to me was the tactics that the 'rogues' used to ignore telepathic calls from Arianne trying to 'rein them in'. So Oman and Martel (in a speeder they had stolen from a local rich jerk) cranked up the volume of their stereo to see if it could 'jam' the transmission. It worked. Oh, it irked Arianne some, but...it worked.
The 'incident' did have the effect of doubling the amount of time it took to accomplish the mission, but it was also a kind of wake up call for me as a GM. I mean, I had a blast—and I know the players did—even the non-rogue group. Yeah, they had to take the back seat every once in a while, but...well, with a group that size, that's going to happen. From then on, I re-dedicated myself to try and give equal time to all the characters.
'LIL EXECUTOR
Yeah, it's something I've mentioned before (most of these stories probably are). But it still makes me giggle. The characters are on Hoth, in charge of the defense of one flank of Echo base. And then their own evacuation point is overrun. They're marooned. Or...are they? They'd seen a shuttle come down on top of the main base during the thick of the battle...that might still be there. Yes, it was all sound, in-character reasoning. But out of character? I recall Steve2 and Doyce looking at each other and stating in unison: "Vader's Shuttle!" after which they giggled like school-girls (okay, maybe not, but they were awfully gleeful in their chance to steal Vader's ship).
After stealing said ship, they (at some point) painted their own bumper-sticker on the back of it, saying "'lil Executor". It was a running joke in the campaign thereafter that whenever Vader asked his minions to bring him his shuttle, he would always add (irritably) "if you can FIND it."
"AGGRESSIVE SEDUCTION"
During one of Horatio's first missions with the team, he was sent to distract a female starport control room tech while the rest of the group did...something in the hangar below. Being Horatio, he naturally turned to his seduction skills. When things started happening in the Hangar, and his flirtations weren't enough to hold the tech's attention, he decided to 'accidently trip' and land on the tech's lips. "Oh no! We're fallingrmmm" As I recall, he actually utilized his 'brawl' roll. Succeeded. Then I had him do another seduction check. He rolled very well. Evidently, techie likes it 'aggressive'. Still makes me laugh.
No comments:
Post a Comment