Post date: Sep 29, 2009 12:44:7 AM
Coming into the Third session I figured it was time to introduce one more Savage World Toy. The Savage World game system really has lots of toys: bennies, cards being used in initiative, and they also have something called an Adventure Deck. What this does is at the beginning of each session players are dealt a card from a special deck known as the Adventure Deck, each card has printed on it some special game-breaking rule. Yes, I said game-breaking. It is a deck of cheats for the players. It allows them, once per session, to break some rule specified on the card. And you know what, I am okay with that. The players should not feel invincible, but they should feel empowered. Its a tough balancing act, but one I hope to pull off.
So back to the game.
After introducing the Adventure Deck it was back to the TV for introduction #3. I decided to do the intro from Fallout 3, I think the intro time helps the players focus on what is to come. We then went to the table and I decided to give a Bennie to the player that would do a recap. So I looked at very quiet table and wondered why no one was leaping at the chance. It wasn't until the player of Doc said something along the lines of, "Someone who has not had you do a recap for their game should do the first recap." It was such an interesting compliment that it stuck in my mind. It also made me wonder if I was GMing up to the standards I set for myself as a player.
So PR did the recap and did a fine job reminding everyone what had happened since last time.
So we started with them being rudely awakened by a screaming patient, a Railyard Scavenger who had been wounded all the way up in Albany, a good 30 miles, or by SW speeds 10 or so hours, away. Dragged here by his comrades instead of being taken to nearby Corvallis, a sign that not all was right between these two towns. After Doc, and the Railyard doctor worked on the wounded did the Scavengers give any details, that they were scavenging in Albany when they tripped a mine and came under automatic fire by some raiders. But the rest would only be told to someone in charge.
So the scavengers left, but not before gaining the shadow of Ninja, who followed them to a meeting with Shane Smith the head Engineer and thus boss of the scavenger teams, where she overheard a conversation that basically said the Raiders had somehow gained access to the National Guard Armory in Albany. As the Ninja left she was spotted by a kid.
The next morning they got an unpleasant wake up call at 7:05:28am from a left on PipBoy 3000 from the disk jockey in Corvallis, after dealing with the obnoxious noise and then pleasing music, the get a pleasant surprise in the form of some free gruel and road tar "coffee" from Kara, a vault 33 slave who works in the dining car. Then on the way out of town they were stopped by Shane Smith who explained that they are always on the look out for good scavengers, and should they return enough scrap or report a large enough find that they could earn "Passenger status" - which is the same as citizenship. Of course PR engaged in a stare down with Shane's two guards. (what they did not notice was the kid from the night before was hanging around nearby watching Ninja carefully).
From here the group decided to head to Corvallis along the back roads. This gave us a chance to try out the interlude rules. The interlude rules were originally published in a web-only adventure called Zombie Run and had such great feedback that I purchased the product for that and its scavenging rules. Then of course, just a few weeks ago they released the Interlude rules as a freebie on the Savage World website. So now I can officially include the rules in my Player handbook. Yipee! Anyway, the interlude rules work like this (in summary) players are each dealt a card and working from lowest (a 2) to the highest (Joker) the GM calls out the card value and the players reveal them. A 2 means some sort of hostile encounter where as Joker gives some decent loot, but here is the important part. The player with the card must set the stage, describe the scene, and in someway reveal some aspect of their past when it is all resolved. In exchange for a descent description and perhaps involving the other players, they get an extra Benny.
So I shuffle and deal the cards. And I call out "2" and Face has the deuce of diamonds, which means a hostile encounter. So he sets it up, that somewhere between Railyard and Corvallis they encounter a trader, and as Face is the best at negotiations he is the one talking with the trader and as they are about to make the exchange the trader levels the sawed off shotgun at Face and initiatives are dealt as the double-cross becomes a raider ambush. So I bust out terrain and figures, giving the players some chat time. And we go from there. In the end the encounter goes smoothly, cover rules get to star here as part of the fight takes place in a dense patch of dead trees and scrub and the raiders use the concrete barricades to hide behind as they shoot at the PCs. After the clean up the raiders and do some looting they find they have two structures to search, an abandoned farm house and a strange "cargo container converted into a drop pod" from Poseidon Oil. So they search the house first and find the classic raider decoration scheme - body parts hanging from chains. The raiders were clearly cannibals and had some "meat" jerky prepared. They also tried to search the cargo container and were unable to bypass the sophisticated lock, they decided to go through the side where there was an AC unit, but triggered some self destruct which slagged the whole inside (which now has the players thinking about why a Poseidon Oil Drop Pod was out in the middle of no where and not in use by these raiders). The group got some loot as well as a Brahmin to follow them around (Bessie).
So Face finished his story of how a comic book trade was double crossed when he was younger.
So we went through the remaining cards. PR got a serious injury where his knife slipped while cutting armor off a raider and slashed his wrist, and he explained in his youth how he had cut himself and it was Doc who as a child was the first to come to his aid. The doc came and healed him, of course after some terse words were exchanged (we are all grateful that the doc has the vow: Hippocratic oath), because since the second adventure PR has not made a friend of Doc.
Geek got to find a Memento, something reminded her of her past. So since this was the first time, and she was a bit stymied of what to do, I helped set the scene that then made her explain why she was a Nuka Cola fanatic.
Ninja got a describe a humorous scene, where she explained how birthdays were celebrated in vault 33 by Group B, by using a piñata, unfortunately there was only one, so over time it became a great big ball of duct-tape that gave canned meat. So to bring that information to the present situation she had a bloated body in the raiders house explode over PR coating him in entrails and fecal material. For some reason PR has been designated as the whipping boy. Definitely a clash of PC attitude with others in the group, I am not sure if it arrogance or just natural hostility, but the players behind PR, Ninja, and Doc are obviously good friends so I don't think I need to intervene.
Doc got a scene of beauty, which he described a creek bed near their path where they went to wash off PR, sadly it was dry but the wind had carved the walls back to reveal a sandstone canyon of many hues. So my mind wandered to the path to Petra or the Sandstone canyons near the Grand Canyon.
Anyway, that ended the interlude section and the players arrived at Corvallis, where they got the run down of the town.
Corvallis (Edited so as to not reveal what the players have not found)
(Pop 1200) (Home of Oregon State University the Beavers)
Corvallis is a university town that is doing well. The fact that it was also near Vault 35 which opened 25 years after the war, also helped a ton.
Currently everyone lives "On Campus" A walled section of the former OSU. And not some ramshackle wall of corrugated iron and spare bits, but one made of sturdy logs taken from the Oregon Mountain Range and hauled here to build what appears to be a classic western fort.
Inside you will find people living in the two-three story "Dorms" that are a mix of original structure with some repairs. The "Mess Hall" is where communal dining occurs. There is "The Administration" building, a heavily fortified multi-story structure with sandbag bunkers outside and turret defenses inside the building, which also acts a last stand location.
There is the "Study Hall" where 3 class rooms teach general education. There is "The Labs" a large building with all sorts of generators outside and piping and duct work, and a fire truck permanently parked outside. "The Library" is housed in the basements under the "The Labs".
For visitors, they get to stay in Dorm 0, an all wood structure (think a long log cabin), that is just inside the gate. For pleasure, you have to leave campus and go a couple blocks away to the mostly intact "Bombs Away Cafe” this former restaurant is now the town’s only tavern and as such it gets really busy after payday. Mike Fleer is the current manager of the place and cooks up the best Brahmin burgers and Gecko Burritos. He serves the local brew that most call "Beaver Piss," but if you need a buzz for a few caps, it does the job.
Trade Goods: Corvallis's main export is drugs and repaired parts. The labs, when not being used to explore new technologies are used to manufacture a wide variety of items. Gunpowder, Wonderglue, Stimpacks, Rad-X, Rad-Away, Med-X, and Buffout are all produced here. They are eager to trade for ammo and armor to protect against the raiders threatening from the east and the Grand Tribe to the west. They also trade for distant Thorn's mutafruit and Iguana bits as they have just enough purified water to go around and raise their own Brahmin, still the Thorn Jerky is pretty popular amongst the Interns as it is rumored to be an aphrodisiac.
Food is a mix of Brahmin and Gecko meat. Corn/Maize is grown in the area adding grain to the areas diet. A greenhouse on top of the Administration building also grows a stock of cherry tomatoes which are processed into juice to ensure everyone gets their vitamin C.
So after stabling Betsy they go through the gates and try to check into Dorm 0. At first they are quoted 30 caps, then the attendant notes Geek's invention - her own version of the Railway Rifle. [Tangent Note: The Railway Rifle is from FO3 where players could build strange weapons using junk found around the wasteland once they find the right schematic. In Savage Worlds, I have modified, slightly, the rules behind Weird Science, where powers are basically schematics, and would thus be represented by items found in the game. So the Power Bolt is represented by a Railway Rifle]. The Attendant says the price is actually 50 caps. When pressed as to why, the attendant says something about Railyard extra fees. To which the Geek explains this is her own invention and not a Railyard issued weapon. To which the attendant senses truth in what she is saying and returns the price to 30 caps (another indication that all is not well between Railyard and Corvallis).
Once settled in, they meet with some blanket traders and stock up on ammo from a guy who stores his goods in US Navy tagged ammo boxes. At which at some point Geek reveals an atomic clock they found while searching the Overseers office back in session 1 (yes, I know it must be annoying to you as the reader as I reveal these forgotten things in later sessions, mea culpa) and garnishes the attention of one Dr. Preston, an absent minded, high energy fellow who offers to trade for it, or will send a lab assistant to trade for it, before wandering off.
During this time PR spends 5 caps for a 15 minute hot water shower to scrub off the debris from the corpse piñata at the raider house. About 5 minutes left a knock on the door and female voice interrupts him and the two of them share the last 5 minutes of his shower just cleaning up and washing each others backs before she leaves. He never gets her name, she never asks for his.
After trading and getting settled they grab some food and discover the joys of tomato juice, grilled gecko or squirrel, and instamash potatoes. They also get interrupted by the very excitable Dr. Preston who is very eager to get the Chronograph XV5800J from Geek. During the conversation Preston reveals he is some how tied to the weapons development portion of the lab, that there was some mysterious lab incident, and that Professor Leonard O'Dee gets all the cool toys. He also talks about Tesla in a strange religious reverence. And comments how Tesla is hungry. To which a Guard shows up escorts Dr. Preston away, apologizing for Dr. Preston's behavior.
They retire for the evening with no incident.
In the morning they go to the class rooms and watch a Vault-Tec video on how to handle radiation - what to do after exposure, how to spot the signs of radiation sickness, and the joys of Med-Teks rad-x and rad-away. They speak with the instructor, Dean Caster and find out that most of Corvallis is descendant from those that survived in a nearby Vault 35. They learn that to become Students (those that can live inside the walls of Corvallis) they can perform some tasks for the Administration. The players seem interested in this and are offered two tasks. Deal with some raiders in nearby Albany or deal with some missing interns who were sent to recover an engineering data array from the Vault. They choose the later.
So as the evening was nearing the end I shortened up what was planned and had them explore the vault and fight some mole rats and discover that giant ants had burrowed into the vault. They find the wounded interns (Bill and Tammy) and rescue them, but to get the disk they need to enter the server room which is inhabited by the Ant Queen and several large barrels of radioactive wastes. After dealing with the ants using Fragmentation Grenades, and shooting the queen to death, they don the science suit they found in Vault 33 and liberate the Engineering disks from the safe that was in the server room. They also found a second disk that was unlabeled, but figured it might be valuable.
The returned to Corvallis and received 150 caps for their efforts of recovering the disk and the interns, they then mention they saw a second disk, to which Dean Caster offers 100 caps more for them to recover it. So after hanging out in the wasteland for 4 hours they return with the second disk and claimed that reward.
They retired for that evening and that is where we concluded that nights adventure.
I think I really need to pay better attention to timing, the group was going strong at 10:45 when they entered the vault, but then started flagging hard around 11:15pm, so I need to start shooting toward setting up either good breaks or good cliff hangers around 11pm. The trick is some sessions will be dependent on what is dealt with the Interlude rules.
Anyway, very excited for the next session where they are going to take on some Raiders in their stronghold in Albany.