Dystopic: Firing Range

This game ended up being quite short (about 30 minutes of roleplay) although it were interspersed over around two and a half hours due to distracted players.  The characters were awoken to a voice over the intercom: "Warning!  Radioactive dust cloud imminent in five minutes and thirty seven seconds.  Warning!  Radioactive dust cloud imminent in five minutes and thirty one seconds."  Since Nomad 6's player wasn't here, I simply said that he went back to sleep as he was used to dealing with radioactive issues and knew that since it was the dust that was radioactive he'd be safe inside so long as it was air-sealed.  If it wasn't, there was no point panicking.

The others didn't have that experience to stay calm and London was especially anxious about the whole thing.  Nice arrived and explained that so long as they stayed out of the dust (which was top soil blown up from radioactive areas by the wind storms that took over post over-farming in the area) they should be fine.  She gave them anti-rad pills just in case.

London asked to use a firing range and Nice took them downstairs into a cubic room surrounded by white tiles which, when activated, became a 6 acre paintball-style outdoor yard with thirty foot high ceilings, dark fields, and the ruins of an old fort.  This bastion was based on Paths (to warp distances into seeming longer) and Light (to make all of the decorations and background effects).

Each of the combat characters went up against the illusions.  I basically did a roll off using the relevant combat stats on a best out of three arrangement.  Each character won two and lost one.  One of the wins was, in each case, an exceptional success.

Leningrad sparred with a hard light illusion and, while he lost one, he got an impressive five successes on one attack where in a few solid strikes with his sheathed blades to down the illusion in a few quick steps.

London ran through the fortifications with an SMG and got an impressive seven successes on one go and we basically determined it was like in Men in Black where the guy shoots all of the enemies but the civilians in single and instinctive shots.

Miami had the lights turned off in his area (darkness followed him) and used his Infra Red glasses (which worked on the illusions as light does generate some heat and that could be intensified) to shoot a number of the enemies with six successes.  Nice wanted to see what he could do so she created a smaller grid version of what he was doing to watch it and that allowed the others to see it as well.

During all of this, Tokyo simply used her palmtop.

Canterbury then entered with a tray covered with lunch and switched the location to nice rolling green hills and caused a picnic blanket to spread out over the grass.  She sat down and invited them all over and asked them if they were thinking of joining.

Leningrad was very impressed and determined to work with these really good combat characters and that inspired him to join the team when Canterbury asked about that.  The others did express interest in joining Prometheus although they were less committed to that idea than to the idea of joining a team.  Canterbury asked them what sort of jobs they would like to do and Miami mentioned that he had a lot of experience in stealing expensive and occult books for people.

Having just read a bit about Bookhounds of London, I jumped on the idea.  Canterbury suggested they find a base and she could give them missions to locate books or other data for them as that would doubtless use all of their skills.  She suggested that perhaps they settle in Miami for their HQ and then range from there.

They're still not members of the super-faction and are understandably reticent about the whole idea but that works out fine.  Prometheus can just hire their assistance and keep them at arm's length.  Stealing books is generally not super-secret Prometheus business anyhow as it's more about acquiring resources rather than deal in the faction's own secrets.  Perhaps later they might end up more keen on it.

Anyway, the next session will probably be all about sorting out their base.