Had a fun mini-session (around an hour and a half) with a couple of players yesterday, wrote up a short Play Report.
Setting: Shadowrun-esque Dystopian City
8X – Cyborg Assassin (Programmed Augmented Clandestine)
Geomar – Rebel Miner (Impoverished Industrial Fanatic)
While trying to meet with a contact, the two ended up in a bar-room brawl. 8X saw their contact get pickpocketed by a young hive-ganger under the cover of a general brawl and intercepted her, while Geomar dealt with a belligerent orc who was furious/terrified of Geomar’s vague-but-seemingly-personal relations with the orc’s sister (and the social consequences for their family, fraternizing with a known terrorist).
The hive-ganger passed off her holomusic audition disc as “the thing she stole” and fled 8X with the actual prize; a data rod she was hired to steal.
Geomar took a heavy iron barstool to the side of the head, was tossed over the bar, and brawled with the orc woman before he was able to retreat to the parking lot.
Using the holomusic disc, the two used the surface SectorNet to track the hive-ganger girl who stole the data rod, and discovered a revolting history of abuse and desperation in the process. They tracked her to a youth hostel in an ash-covered ore processing district. 8X set up a sniper position from Geomar’s beat up pickup truck, while Geomar assessed the possible escape routes if the girl got away.
Instead he stumbled on the girl herself just as she was handing over the data rod to her employer, an almost invisible woman in a stealth suit. The hive-ganger was promptly executed by her treacherous employer, leaving Geomar at the scene of the murder, desperately hunting an invisible foe as the hostel workers found him with the murdered hive-ganger.
That’s a wonderful messed-up setting and situation. I hope you all can get back together at some time and finish the mission/story.
I’ve made it a mission to do a weekly game with this group, with the following understandings:
– If at least 2 of the 4 players are available, we play.
– We play even if we only have an hour-ish to do so. Better short sessions than no sessions.
Basically I’m toddler-proofing my games (one of the players and I both have young kids who can run interference like champs). If I keep holding off until I have a full group and 3-4 hours I won’t get to play until my kid is in highschool.
(chuckle) Been there, survived that.
2 hour sessions after the kid goes to bed is my jam. Your kid is sleeping through the night now, right?
Sean Gomes that social contract works wonders, kids or no! Even if people are tired from a long day at work, just play a quick halfer
Aaron Griffin Mostly, though he usually wakes up at 1:30am like clockwork, and needs to be rocked/soothed back to sleep. No idea why either.
As the other parent-of-little(s) in the group, I am loving #1 this approach to the session structure, and #2 this story. I didn’t even get to snipe anyone yet and I still feel like it’s a win.
Although you better believe I WISH I’d sniped the employer. Won’t make that mistake again lol
She was wearing a stealth suit so that Geomar couldn’t see more than an outline, even though he was in the same alleyway behind the Youth Hostel. 8X certainly couldn’t have taken a shot.
That sounds distinctly like “I lacked fictional positioning,” which is the mistake I will not be making again. 😀