Author: Alfred Rudzki Hitchcock

Played John Harper’s Bootleggers for real today! Two of my usual players, at the local comic shop. They opted for:

• Maggie Kendall is the supplier

• Tuck Malone is the buyer

• O’hara’s Junkyard is the ally

•They drive a Model T down the backroad route known on the sly as the “3:10 to Winnipeg”

•The Farenzas are their rivals

•They’re known as the Red Caps

We quickly latched onto the idea of playing Irish-American bootleggers, between Red Caps as a gang name, O’hara’s junkyard, and Tuck Malone’s ties to the Sons of Erin, an Irish-American community touchstone. So we obviously made the Italian Farenzas the enemies.

Character creation yielded:

• Moran, the insightful and connected smuggler who just did a 3 month stint after getting pinched by the police rum-running with Tuck’s previous middle/man. The evidence went down with the ship, so Moran got off light and is now sleeping at O’hara’s garage with the cash stash. He is seeing Bridget who works the front desk at the Sons of Erin flophouse.

• Cutter, the impressive and deadly murderer who killed her husband and hid the body. She moved to Seattle with the clothes on her back and has a room at the Sons of Erin center, with her son Flynn who is having trouble connecting to the other kids, as a third generation Irish-American with a half-Irish mother. She works as a cook in the kitchen.

So we sussed out that:

•Moran worked with Tuck’s previous middle-man, who was killed by police during the run that got Moran arrested.

•In the intervening three months, Tuck has been supplied by the Farenzas, to his distaste.

•Flaring tempers at a hand-off saw Cutter bash in a Farenza soldier’s face, the deal was off, and Malone still needed the booze. So, he gave the job to Moran, and pinned it on Cutter to help.

Started off, as advised, with the idea that they spot an ambush moments before blundering into it. First roll of the game was a fantastic Evade, and Moran’s player opted to avoid the ambush entirely and drive through a dirt foot path with the lights off.

A bad roll on Time though turned up that it would take 3 days to get back to Seattle. In the moment I flubbed up… I should have asked what time sensitive and important thing they would miss. Instead, at a loss and since one player made a fighter, I framed aggressively into being caught two days later at a gas station outside Seattle by a Farenza searcher heading home after a giving up on the chase. So bad call all around, but we got a cool scene.

Shoot out at the gas station. I love the harm rules that focus entirely on what would be fictionally appropriate injury — from a distance away, shooting in a panic, Cutter doesn’t get hit by the bullet, but by shrapnel from the exploding passenger side mirror. Mook and Cutter wind up wrestling it out, she gets face punched, Minor injury becomes Serious, and in the end Moran jumps the Farenza soldier, and chops his pinky off.

Cutter sets him on fire, and away we go.

This is witnessed by a gas station attendant, so the Heat goes up by +3. Whoops!

In the end, what with one thing and another, they lose two crates and return to Tuck who gets upset and pays them half-rate.

We proceed with play, and Moran takes the car out to O’Hara’s and throws him the $25 to get the car’s light cosmetic damage cleaned up, a bullet hole patched, a mirror replaced, and suspension tweaked: friends and family discount, ya know. The next morning, He catches the bus (.10c if you were curious) back to the flophouse to visit Bridget. He manages to persuade his main squeeze that he didn’t skip out to see some floozie. He makes things up to her on his terms, and says he’ll see her tonight for dancing at the neighborhood social.

Cutter reunites with her son (who asks her uncomfortable questions about her face bruise, referencing the player-supplied background of domestic abuse) who is feeling lonely. Says the other kids won’t play with him. Cutter convinces Flynn to go to the neighborhood social tonight and that he’ll have fun. He’s on board, and with that fire put out Cutter runs across Moran and gets him to drop her half of the job’s profit so she can hit the hospital. He relents.

At the hospital, after several hours, Dr. Andrews sees Cutter (“Mrs. Doyle”) and is curious about her cuts and facial bruising. She tells him her husband walked out on them, and he relents but makes it clear he thinks she’s in some kind of trouble. She gracefully avoids any deeper questioning and returns to the flophouse.

There, the Farenzas have paid a visit. Joe, a soldier, has been approached by an entranced Flynn (Cutter’s standard of living is Poor while the Farenzas, as Wanted Level 3, are Good so Joe looks awesome). Flynn is idolizing the Italian gangster, but the gangster is disparaging Flynn with slurs. Cutter intervenes, tells Flynn to go upstairs, and gives Joe a piece of her mind with a little fist-on-nuts intimidating.

In the nearby back room: Tuck and Moran listen as Vito Forenza explains they still owe him. At this point I rolled on the Opportunity table and got “someone demands half the shipments for a month” and it felt obvious that it was the Farenzas, feeling put out and wanting to act tough. So, Vito claims there’s a breakage fee for leaving the contract, and they owe him half shipments and they have two hours to decide to hand over the crates or else.

Vito catches Cutter assaulting his man and he gets in her face after separating them — and he promises her that if he sees her face here again he’ll throw her out on the street himself and make it so no one will take her in. The player got a 7-9 on getting Joe to never go near her Flynn again, so I respected the success and had Vito pick a fight her while remaining ignorant of her son.

So the trifecta of Moran, Cutter, Tuck throw together a plan whilst arguing: Moran wants to fuck up the Farenzas when they show up in two hours — Tuck doesn’t think they can take them (the Farenzas are Level 3 after all) and they should just play ball… Cutter and Moran doubt Vito will accept 1 crate of booze and they can’t give both crates away. Tuck asks if there’s anyway to get more booze right this minute, while Cutter exits to say some comforting words to Flynn to no effect…

Cue a use of Connected! Moran knows that Minxie at the Kitten Club would have some booze and he could probably pay her on the sly for it. She doesn’t ever sell, to avoid a visit from Roy Olmstead (her supplier and the man who owns Seattle), but a bus visit and a pleading conversation later she relents with a sigh. She and Moran have a history. Moran, Cutter, and two Thugs load up satchels with a half-dozen bottles each and tread carefully.

Now! See… They’re smuggling now. They’re walking around with booze… With 3 Heat. Out of a gentleman’s club supplied by a crooked ex-cop, with some cops inside and others loitering outside… So I suggested we roll Evade, which was successful with a brilliant “what can I do to get a +1” from Cutter; she pretended to be Moran’s wife.

Then, the Hand-off with Vito Farenza. It wasn’t great. The player chose Show Weakness and the deal was altered, but they weren’t being paid anyway, so instead Vito altered next week’s deal and said he’ll be expecting three crates next week instead of two. Vito drives off with his goons.

Moran and Tuck are livid.

Thankfully, making it back in time for the social, Moran and Bridget dance and its nice. Cutter entertains Flynn, who is lonely. Over at the punch bowl, an outraged Moran says they have to leave tonight. They owe the Farenzas three crates this week, and they’ll never make any money under Vito’s thumb. Cutter agrees. She tells Flynn that she has to go to work now, and he’s upset because she said they could go to the park if the social was lame.

Cue mother and son scene at the park. She runs into Dr. Andrews getting off shift there and they talk — and a successful roll evades his suspicions when she suddenly excuses herself, and in fact he gives her his personal contact information … should Flynn ever need anything, of course.

We then go through a full bootlegging run! First, Moran finds a contact in Canada — Baxter Hill and sets up a deal between him and Tuck just this once, in return for a favor when he’s in Seattle next week (setting up rolling another Opportunity next game). Then, we roll out — they make the trip in 1 Day, but the Handoff is sour on a 7-9 and Cutter chooses to show strength.

Now here, normally, showing strength penalizes your next roll with the supplier — but the rules say you can’t use suppliers/allies/resources more than once if they’re not unlocked from leveling up. So yeah its like, uh, what roll? For that matter, we look at Hand Off (which says its for dropping off or picking up) and ask what the fuck withholding half the cash means on a 7-9 means when picking up. Like… what? They only give you half a full car load?

No clear answer in the text — so fuck it. We roll along with Baxter saying one favor in Seattle ain’t worth 2 crates, but Cutter stands up to him and says well then 2 favors is worth 4 crates and he guffaws and goes along like ‘this girl’s got moxie!’

They blow the evade roll to get back to Seattle, and now they’re being pursued! I have the police car ram them (since — duh Heat 3 and they lit a guy on fire) and they skid the car to a stop, Cutter leans out and blows out the cops tires. Cop car skids to a stop, the two get into position, but then Moran, Cutter, and two NPC thugs they brought open up with their guns and swiss-cheese the cops.

They drive off, leaving one barely-there survivor.

Three days later, they make it back with three of their four crates intact.

Tuck only pays out $50. The Sons dont have the cash to pay out for two shipments in one week.

Moran groans. He skipped out on Bridget for four days again… Cutter goes back to her son. Somewhere the police are preparing a sketch of what the surviving officer claims the Red Cap riding shotgun looked like.

Rules hiccups as all, we agree this game was fucking awesome.

Took John Harper’s Bootleggers to the local comic/game shop last night to see if I could seduce any stragglers into playing! That didn’t work, because everybody was playing D&D5e – sadness!

Met a very friendly party who let me drop in to their game with a pregen, though! I played Rook Rosethistle, charismatic Criminal Rogue. It was all right — no complaints, although I did at one point exclaim out loud (after getting a 22 and a 27 on two stealth checks to set up for a backstab and then blundering an attack roll) “But but but… fictional positioning!”

And hey! The party fighter is a Powered by Apocalypse enthusiast, I learned, when I pulled out my copy of DW to make up a character name! We stayed after the game ended and talked about all thing PbtA. We talked Fate too, and I pointed out some PbtA players in our area.

Overall the night was a net Gain, I’d say! Anyone else ever stumbled across PbtA fans unexpectedly?