The Gaming Thread: Roll for Initiative

[robkelk]

If we're doing a TTRPG thread, I might as well post one of my old favorite stories from the old OLD board's posting that I saved... Jesus it must be nearly a decade or more ago.

Anyway, credit to  User Epsilon for posting something that I so appreciated, that I saved it at school and emailed it to my old Hotmail account (and somehow didn't loose in the intervening years.)

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So this is why I feel that it is safe to basically go into most of my roleplaying sessions as a GM without preparing much in the way of stuff beforehand. Because my players are so insane they'll do all my work for me.

An example:

In tonight's session I was running Adventure!, or as we call it "The League of Extraordinary Victorian Bastards". I didn't have much of a plan. But after the players began to do a bit of invesitgation they realised that they had to get from London to the Isle of Man in order to have a big showdown with the mad inventor who had taken over England with his army of clockwork automatons.

So I basically asked "How do you get there?" then sat back and watched the fireworks.

Well, obviously they needed to take a train. It was quick and efficient and give the evil scientist the least time to respond. Perfect.

Problem one; there are several PCs with huge reputations at this point and just boarding a train seems like a Bad Idea. Okay, the obvious solution to this is they plan to steal a train.

Yes, steal a train.

They decide that stealing an actual moving train with passengers on it is too dangerous (?!), so they decide to break into the Royal Trainyard in the middle of the night and make off with a train. Okay, I'm thinking. Sure.

Then the Mad Scientist in the party points out that instead of stopping and catching a boat to the Isle of Man he can convert the train INTO a boat. While its in motion under full steam. Okay, I'm thinking. Sure.

Just two nights ago the PCs had managed to invade the Tower of London in a daring raid, so security was extra tight. They sneak up to the trainyard and notice that there is a nice footthick wooden fence all around it and pairs of clockwork automaton patrolling outside leaving only a two minute interval between groups.

The sneak specialist player say to the others "I'm the only player with ranks in Drive anyway, so I'll sneak into the trainyard, steal a train and meet you outside." Seems a reasonable plan. So the sneak specialist walks up to the fence and... flubs his Stealth roll. Oops.

I ask for a Perception check. The sneak specialist flubs that roll, too. Oop, again. Two automatons walk up behind her and get free shots. Two solid blows. Whap and whap. Ouch. The PC is now down two health levels (and in a system with only seven health levels and increasing wound penalties, this is bad).

At this point the sneak specialist freaks out and draws her sword, making a lunge for one of the automatons. I should note that the only way to destroy these things is to hit the master cog in their forehead. So the player rolls a melee attack and... flubs. Oops.

The party gunbunny runs in, being all heroic. But they reccommend that he not shoot, since there is still a chance of being sneaky (since the automaton can't yell out, see). So the PC wades in with his non-existant melee skill to use his rifle as a club and... flubs his roll. Oops.

(Beginning to notice a pattern here?)

The other PCs rush in to save both their friends. The melee monster steps in and takes down the automatons with two swings of her sword. Bam. Bam. Looking cool and competent now! Must have just been a run of bad luck.

Then the healer walks in. Obviously the driver can't be injured. So he decides to use his special power to heal those wounds. This requires a Medicine roll. Now, I should explain the dice system here. In Adventure you roll a dice pool of ten sided dice. Every die that comes up seven or higher is a success. The more successes you roll, the better you do. If you roll NO successes and any die comes up a one, you botch. If you roll multiple ones, you botch worse. Suffice it to say that the way the statistics work out the likeihood of botching on any dicepool over three are very, very low.

So of course the healer rolls a triple botch on the sneak specialist. Oops. I rule the sneaky girl is unconscious as the medic accidentally sucks out her vital energy instead of restoring it.

This means they are down their driver. Now, any sensible group would call that a night and try something else. But not this group. Oh no, not this group.

The party brick decides now is no longer the time for subtelty. He smashes through the fence, tearing it apart with his barehands. Haha! The alarms go off! He sneers and charges in, with the others following behind.

(I should mention here that the brick had fought about fifty automatons just last session, during the Tower of London raid. In the process he'd been battered around so much that he had one health level left. However, he has a power that means he can ignore all injury short of unconsciousness. I don't feel the need to point out to the PC that he is still at one health level at this point...)

The party spots a train on the tracks and makes a run for it. Shouts and cries start going out. A large army of automatons starts shamble-jerking its way towards them. Soliders start breaking out rifles. Things are going to get hot in a few seconds.

The healer tries to use a piece of wood as a travois for the downed party member. Of course he has Strength of 1, so uh... not happening. Meanwhile the gunbunny rides his horse straight at the train. A dozen clockwork men step between him and it. He bears down, and spends a plot point to double his riding dicepool and makes a legendary roll, leaping up and over the grasping metal pinchers and straight into the open backdoor of the train (yes, horse and all).

The melee twink grabs the unconscious PC and activates her leaping power, doubles her dicepool and makes a legendary success on her acrobatics check to run up and acorss the heads of the auomaton, safely getting them both inside the train!

The healer activates his telekinesis, grabs a timber of the broken fence and tries to pole vault over the horde... and flubs his roll. He lands right in the middle of the group.

And then it was the auomatons turn. Five attacks later the healer is lying in a pool of his own blood, thoroughly unconscious (and thankful that in this system that no more than five people can attack one target in hand-to-hand).

Thr brick, seeing this, grabs a piece of traintrack, rips it from the ground and charges into the group. He smashes into them like a scythe into wheat, scattering them like tenpins. He pauses only long enough to grab his comrade and leap aboard the train, a fraction of a second before the gunfire starts filling the yards. (Yet another plot point and legendary roll).

So the situation in round two of combat is that we have three heros (and one horse) awake inside a train car with a small army of mechanical men outside and dozens of soliders firing bullets into its side. Okay.

Nobody else has the Drive skill, but the melee bunny has the highest base stat, so runs up to the front to try and start up the train. She does a fantastic stunt, using her special flaming magic sword to stoke the furnace and... flubs her roll. The train lurches three feet and stops.

At this point the automatons start climbing onto the train. Uh oh. One of them breaks in the door. The gunbunny aims and fires, hitting it in the head and causing it to explode... and the fragments shatter outwad and hit the nearest three in the head, exploding them and so on, knocking them off the train. Wow, a really spectacular roll and attack. He's bought them another round! (And another plot point goes up in smoke.)

The brick, being the mad sceintist of the group, runs up front to try and help the melee twink. He rolls and... flubs. Okay, things are getting grim.

The next round dawns as more of the automatons begin to climb aboard. The heros all rush to the front and, using teamwork, manage to actually get the train moving! Yes! Of course now the automatons are breaking in the windows and climbing aboard. Thinking fast, the gunbunny orders his HORSE to grab the two fallen heros and drag them aboard the engine car while he uncouples it.

Yes, his horse. With no manipulators. But he spent points on a legendary horse. So I take out four dice and roll. Four successes. I blink. Okay, the horse somehow drags both bodies, at the same time, to the next car. Using its teeth.

The passenger cars are uncoupled and the automatons are just slow enough they can't catch up with the slowly moving train. But gunfire is still ricocheting off the side of the engine and coal tender (where they are keeping the horse). However three of the automatons make spectacular rolls and leap from the passenger car to the engine. A short melee later and they are dealt with. All the time the melee bunny is desperatly trying to get the engine to acclerate. Its moving slightly faster now...

Then they see the gate. A foot thick wooden gate. Closed and braced. Right in their path. Oh boy. The players scramble at the controls, and manage to get the engine up to half speed! I rule that there is going to be a quick contest, eight dice of structural strength for the door and eight dice for the train. The players spent one of their few remaining plot points (they had been draining them like water for all their spectacular near deaths so far) and double their pool...

And still fail. The train slams into the door and comes to a stop, the wheels churning but not pushing it faster. And the army of a hundred automatons is catching up fast!

The melee twink tries to put the car into reverse and... flubs the roll. The engine stops entirely.

The brick decides to leap out of the engine and tear the gate down with his barehands. He's the brick, he can take a fewl bullets and... what do you mean I only have one health level left? Oh. Oh.

Thinking fast the gunbunny pulls out his rifle and fires a single perfect shot. He pings a bullet off the head of a automaton, causing a flare of sparks that look like a muzzle flash. He's trying to convince the soldiers that the PCs are retreating through the ranks of the clockwork men so they will fire on them instead of peppering the brick when he runs out. He rolls, while the soliders roll their "detect bullshit" rolls...

Then the badguys finally botch.

One round later the brick is tearing down the gates with a single mightly blow. The melee twink somehow gets the engine started up again. The brick manages to, with his one die pool, not get run over and grab onto the train as it starts to, very slowly, pull out of the trainyard.

And thus ends perhaps the worlds most incompetent, but successful, train robbery.

You see, this is why I don't feel the need to prepare for adventures.

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Epsilon

If I recall correctly, I was playing the healer in that game. (An eastern mystic, to be exact, which is why he had TK - but still the best medic in the party. I do remember repeatedly answering Epsilon's "What do you do?" with "I bleed" after dropping early. Nobody took the hint to apply first aid - not that anybody had time to, mind you.)

So... no gaming story from me for now. Aaron always told them better than I could, anyway.