I ran my second session of The Sprawl. You can see my first session posted here back in November. (https://plus.google.com/114542622904709662559/posts/Ws6EJc78the)
The overall campaign sees my players jumping around the globe running various missions. This game went even smoother than the first.
Some of the events and characters in this AP tie back to the first session of course. I’ve included an abbreviated version of the characters here for quick reference.
Turner – corporate soldier from Japan with a military background.
Jinx – fixer from South Africa, is an illegitimate daughter to a big corporate CEO.
Tower – driver, and all around bad-ass.
As usual, I read a little prompt about the city. This time the game takes place in Osaka, Japan. Japan has turned into the world’s leader in robotics and automation, the population lives under a modest social safety-net, but youth unemployment is high and this has led to a lot of criminal street gangs. Instead of corporations, I asked the players to add criminal gangs to the mix.
Gangs:
Sukeban 2 aka SB2: An all-girl gang with an extreme feminist agenda
Kang Pei: A Korean rockabilly gang that’s tied into classic car culture.
Kenji Gang: A Yakuza-esque organization composed of ex-military guys. They are notable for never openly killing their-own, instead opting to have them “disappear”.
Nakatomi Robotics: Large robotics company trying to develop A.I.
We also get a couple of past runs set up to give us a bit of history and some clocks running. Jinx and Tower stole Kanji owned cars and delivered them to Kang Pei. Tower and Turner steal them back and re-sell them to Kanji. Both gangs aren’t really gunning for the group yet, but they know something fishy has gone on.
Legwork Phase:
The game starts in Tokyo, with Turner (who is originally from Japan) working on a car in his garage. An elderly man shows up in the rain at his doorstep and asks to come in. The guest gives Turner the mission, he wants Turner to commit a michi no owari (translated to mean “end of the road”) against Kenji gang: essentially he wants them to kill every gang member to end their existence completely. Turner adds some fiction to his background, revealing that he is a former Kenji gang member – and this goes against his values. He gets a pretty good roll on getting the mission, which lands him the promise of excellent pay, [intel], and the fact that this meeting is secret.
Then we get a great collection of scenes as the band gets back together. Jinx flies into Japan on her Orbital Airways charter plane, barking on the phone about her side hustles, one of which earns her some [intel], another which advances Kang Pei’s clock. She is met on the tarmac by Tower, the driver, with his fresh neon and chrome sports car. Rockabilly Kang Pei members sit on the hoods of their muscle cars eyeing the whole scene from an overpass.
Right out the gate the players decide to start a gang war. Jinx thinks it will be easiest to rope in the female-led SB2 gang into helping them. Jinx declares a contact, with her reputation as the illegitimate daughter and enemy of her corporate CEO dad, she has enough clout to land the group a meeting with an SB2 Lieutenant: Juba Azumi. The players follow Jinx into the SB2 lair, their turf firmly planted in the shopping malls and arcades of Osaka, the gang notorious for handing our pastel switchblades and baseball bats to little girls. Jinx tells SB2 that Kenji gang is trafficking women. That sentence alone is enough to get SB2 involved. They hand Jinx a fortune cookie filled with SB2 contact info and couple of dog leashes for the boys of the group.
Turner declares a contact. At a ramen shop he meets with his old friend Shino, a former Kenji gang member and current corporate cop for Nakatomi robotics. Shino owes Turner for helping him get out of the gang. Shino breaks down some hard and fast facts about Kenji gang. He says the organization is a 100+ strong, that they are all about to celebrate the birthday of their new head boss, and they have recently been buying up tons of booze, girls, and drugs for the upcoming party. Shino says he will give them the location of the party when he gets it; Turner needs to do him a favor however. Shino has an open murder case with no suspect. He wants Turner to bring in a Kenji gang member alive so he can pin the murder on him and get the brass off his back. Turner agrees. Shino also warns Turner that firepower will be heavy, and they should get a street samurai to bring in some heavy firepower.
The group decides to go out and hire an augmented professional killer for this mission. Tower declares a contact, a guy he heard about back in South Africa, he’s new on the scene and stays at an offshore oilrig. The group uses the orbital charter jet to head there.
They players land on an oilrig off the cape of Africa. It’s a mercenary playgroup, with child soldiers and military transports flying to and fro. They come across the man they were looking for, Fredrik Coben. Coben was the former security director from the Jo-burg job the players ran. [The reaction on the player’s faces was awesome] He walked away after the players threatened to kill his daughter on that job. He then tells the players that after his insubordination the company killed his daughter anyway, and her mother too. Now he wears an augmented exo-skeleton, runs missions for hire, and is a certified psycho – offering the players bootleg tv shows and pineapple cocktails, all being fetched by his child soldier minions. He says he will do the job for the players under the condition that they return the favor in the future by helping him destroy VanderMaark – the company that killed his family. Before the players leave the rig, they buy some body armor and weapons from the tall buxom Russian arms dealers who run shop there. Jinx decides to save some cash and calls SB2 for a weapon as a favor.
Upon landing in Osaka, a little girl walks up to the tarmac to tell Jinx that SB2 received her message and they will have a “gift” waiting for her when she needs it.
Turner meets back up with Shino at his regular ramen spot. Shino says that he has the location of the upcoming Kenji gang party. It will be at the Nakatomi Space Needle, a large observation tower with a restaurant up top. He says security will be pretty thick and that Nakatomi Police-bots will be on standby. [The group at this moment is conflicted, the mission would be much easier if they can kill everyone in one fail-swoop by bringing the building down, but Shino wants them to bring a single guy out alive.] Turner tries to talk his way out of having to save a gang member for Shino. Shino reveals that the murder he is trying to solve is that of his wife, and that he wants to bring one guy out alive – to make him pay for what they did. Shino asks the chef to get his friends a “special meal to-go”. The chef goes into the freezer and comes back with a large bag, the players get [gear].
Tower at this time comes with a plan to extract a single individual alive. He will get some weather-balloon backpacks and will conduct a fulton extraction with his drones. The players break into a school on the weekend, go online, and meet up with an US Air Force guy who is selling extraction balloons whole-sale for cheap. The players are suspicious, but found out the Air Force guy is just a harmless stoner providing a bit of comedic relief. He tells the players the US Air Force is bankrupt, and is laying him off soon anyway, so he sells all the surplus he can.
Action Phase:
The scene opens with the SB2 gang walking into the base of the tower, killing Kenji gang members willy-nilly with an assortment of pastel weaponry. The SB2 members work their way to the long elevator up to dining room.
The players meanwhile land their orbital charter jet on the helipad at the peak of the tower. At first no one really bats an eye, but the players come out guns-blazing, Coben the psycho-killer loping off heads with his katana. Tower tries to locate a living Kenji member to Fulton extract (as there are a lot of wait-staff and guests mixed into the group). In the chaos he finds himself staring down the barrel of a gun, in an effort to save his friend Turner mincemeats the baddies’ chest with his assault rifle, but not before the ganger fires a bullet into Tower’s chest. Luckily for Tower, his Vizio Smart-Armor deploys it’s fragmentation counter measures catching the bullet in a haze of deployed aluminum chaff. It knocks Tower on his ass, he’s alive, but his armor is pretty much toast.
Coben, the psycho-killer is cleaning up the threat on the helipad, happily tossing baddies off into the neon-streaked city so far below. The players start making their way into the main dining room. A some-what-out of place waitress delivers a cardboard cake to Jinx, compliments of SB2. Inside is a string of Vizio EMP grenades. Jinx tosses the first nade, it rolls up to a gentleman’s feet, but misfires. Everyone in the party is now notified that shit just got real. People start running and hiding, flipping over tables, and panic ensues. Turner spots a cowering Kenji member covered in gang tattoos.
The players hear gunfire from the elevator shaft, reassuring them that SB2 is chopping people up on their ascent to reach the players.
Tower and Turner land a couple of well-placed punches on the scared gang member. They strap a weather balloon to the guy’s back and watch it lift him into the air. [But the roll wasn’t the greatest and the situation complicates.] They look up into the skylight, and notice a Nakatomi security helicopter flying overhead with robotic security leaning out to take shots below. Jinx tries to shoot through the skylight to take out some of the bots, but her pistol can’t penetrate through the ballistic glass. Turner spends a [gear] and unveils a Linear Motor Rifle aka a big fuckin rail gun. He takes aim at the helicopter. When the trigger is pulled every window in the place blows out from the sonic boom. It takes out the skylight, the bots, and the chopper they’re sitting in. Emergency lighting kicks on, dust settles, and everyone’s ears are ringing.
The poor unconscious gang member is lifted into the air, and sky-hooked by Tower’s drone.
Bing! The elevator has reached the top. The players sigh in relief, remembering their SB2 backup if finally there to help. The doors open, but the inside of the elevator is a blended mix of pastel clothing, detached limbs, and bodily fluids. SB2 has been eviscerated, in the middle of them is a barely perceivable outline – an optical camo’d ninja. Jinx burns an [intel], recognizing this guy as Onimura, Kenji gang’s very own cybernetic hit man extraordinaire. She also knows that his opticam stealth suit and cyberware is vulnerable to EMP grenades. Jinx tosses one into the elevator, disabling the baddie’s systems and freezing the elevator doors as they were closied, leaving him trapped.
A giant group of Kenji members run to hide in the kitchen, cocaine streaming out of a ripped backpack as the last member makes his way behind the doubled doors. Turner assess for a good advantage. The players move to a DJ booth that overlooks the entire dining room, a prime vantage point. Behind the kitchen doors Kenji members begin chanting and hyping themselves up for one last stand. They begin pouring out to meet their fate.
[As an MC, I que up my favorite opera tune: Nessun Dorma.]
The elderly man who hired the players arrives on the helipad in his nicest suit. As the Kanji members flow into the dining, some armed, many not – the first members in to the room pause at the sight of the elderly man, who tosses a single white rose down upon the group bewildered gang members and leaves.
[I break tradition at this moment and have all the players roll a single d6, and multiple it by 10, and reveal it to the table. That’s the number each of them kill.] It’s a blood bath; I bring up little vignettes to see how merciless the players are. A man holding his wife, a shocked member sitting down resigning himself to one last drink, two women simply running to the gunmen pleading for help. All executed with brutal vengeance.
In the aftermath the elevator reopens, Onimura’s had rebooted back to normal. The assassin sends a ninja star flying into Turner’s leg where it wedges into the bone, it’s attached explosive device chirping menacingly. Jinx tosses another EMP grenade, temporarily resetting the ninjas systems yet again. Tower acts under pressure to remove the ninja star from Turner’s leg. It’s a not a good roll, he pulls the star out but the decision leaves Tower with a spurting arterial wound that paints the floor red. The ninja star slides across the floor and explodes, causing the emergency lighting and sprinklers to turn on. If Turner doesn’t get medical help very quickly – he will die.
“Where the fuck is Coban?!” shouts Tower.
At that moment Coban comes from the kitchen, his katana glowing orange from heat. He walks to Turner and cuts off his leg, cauterizing it in the process. Turner passes out. The bleeding has stopped, but he needs help very quickly.
[As an MC I purposefully left the my NPC in the background, waiting to see if anyone asks for his whereabouts. I wanted the players to feel like they are directing the heavy firepower and therefore are in the spotlight.]
Tower places a fulton balloon on Turner’s back, and extracts his limp body with the drone’s skyhook.
The ninja’s systems are rebooted and Jinx is out of grenades. Coban engages the assassin, two cybernetically augmented killers going at each other full force. The fight is messy, each exchanging vicious blows in unarmed combat, rolling across the floor and breaking shit along the way. The ninja gets on top of Coban and begins choking him pretty bad. Jinx tries to shoot the ninja in the head, it’s a bad roll. The ninja activates a magnetic device that rips Jinx’s pistol out of her hand and sticks it to his armor. Coban is slowly dying, the blood vessels in his eyes begin to rupture and his face turns colors as he is choked to death. Coban fiddles for something in his pocket. Tower shoots the ninja point blank in the head.
The assassin’s black armored body rolls off of Coban and begins twisting and seizing. They see sparks fly from the exit wound as the assassin’s systems start redirecting power and applying internal first aid. The realization hits that Onimura may be more machine than man.
Tower reaches into Coban’s pocket while he lies there struggling to catch his breath. Tower finds in his pocket a photo of his daughter wrapped around an Acti-Stim injector. Coban juices up, chemicals and nanobots pushing his body to get back into the fight. Coban jumps back into against the ninja, this time getting the upper hand, but its still a fight for the ages.
The wail of police sirens can be heard closing in from the distance. The players need to get out of there. Tower realized he has one more fulton extraction device left. He has to make a decision on which of them will get to use it. He forces it onto Jinx, as the balloon inflates – he holds her hand, their grasp slowly slipping in a nice show of emotion. He lets go, and she slowly lifts to safety.
[Jinx now gets a +1 link with Tower for such a heroic deed] Tower looks into his hand however, and sees the remote start for Jinx’s Orbital Air charter jet, she left him a way to escape! Tower runs to the helipad, Coban and the assassin still going toe-to-toe in the background. Tower wants Coban to bail with him, but Coban simply cracks a joke, grabs the rail gun in the wreckage, and goes back into the fray. Coban determined to see this fight through for better or worse.
Tower lifts into the sky as he sits on the loading ramp of the Orbital air jet, watching the chaos in the tower shrink in the distance. Coban is last seen clutching a photo of his daughter in one fist, while the other lands clutches onto Omnimura in combat.
Epilogue:
Turner wakes up in the hospital. His old friend and contact Shino assuring him he will be all right. Shino’s tie is stained with blood. He tells the doctors he wants only the best for his old friend. Nakatomi cybernetic nurses haul in a prosthetic leg. Turner fades under anesthesia, knowing Nakatomi never does anything for free.
Jinx goes to the elderly man to get paid for the mission. He meets her at a bench in the park. She doesn’t get the greatest roll. He tells her they won’t get fully paid, citing the mission was to kill everyone, and he knows about them extracting a living survivor. Jinx does get the chance to identify the employer. He admits to being Mizu Ryu, founder of Kenji gang, and he wanted to destroy the monster he created so he can provide a better future for his grandchildren. He says that family is everything, and he gives the gift of an antique chess set to Jinx, saying he knows about her story, and her ambitions to overtake her father. Mizu says he will be available to help in the future.
Tower gets a call from ##!N aka “The Source”, the anonymous hacker group. They warn him, saying that his identity is being sold to the highest bidder and he is now topping some of the world’s criminal watch lists. We close on Tower wandering the Japanese streets, seeing a picture of himself and his fellow compatriot Turner scroll past in the news feeds.
The game ends with Turner in rehab, learning how to walk on his new cybernetic leg. Nakatomi big wigs watch in the distance. The corporate suits disable his leg remotely, than reactivate it – showing Turner who really is in control.
