Collateral Damage

[Braxen]

Did you or your party ever do something that turned out to be wrong on so many levels that you talk about it years later? What follows is just ONE in a string of humrous or just plain twisted things that seem to occur in my game.

Several years ago my party had been investigating a series of gruesome murders throughout the LA metroplex. Their investigation eventually led them to the edge of Miketown about half a mile from the border of the Fringe. One of the more promising clues led them to an abandoned house that belonged to the grandfather of one of the players. This house offered them a place to rest, eat, and try to patch up a couple of the wounded (something about a pack of starving zombies chewing on a live person screaming for their mother just say YES to me ). They had encountered several zombie-ish critters which the party had dispatched with great glee and hails of automatic fire (frakin military contacts....grrr). This house also offered another couple of clues AND a basement with a hidden tunnel.

Putting together some of the clues there was a reference to a "dark tunnel where the scent of death and decay perfume the air. The faint light of the chosen can be seen in brilliant flashes...." After carefully reviewing the area map I had provided for the house's location and other notes for detail purposes.
PC: "What's this icon here on the map?"
ME:"That's a storm drain tunnel. You know the one's about 2m high. there is also a small canal that runs from that into a larger one farther down."
PC:"Ok, by the clues we got that has to be the place. Let's pack up and get ready to roll. Let's be sure all the clips are full and mike bring your goody bag from the car we may need"

This is where things start to go bad in a hurry.....ah well, gotta love enthusiastic players

Two hundred yards later, nightvision goggles in place (they remembered the batteries this time ), and all weapons went to safety free they began their trek into the tunnel. At 20M in the tunnel came into a 4-way interesection where they heard some shuffling and occassional splashing of water. Peaking around they spot several man-sized shapes off to the right and another 10 m down. Behind them was a pieced together door that had flickering light coming through the cracks of the door. Most of the man-sized shapes had a variety of crude looking weapons (Machete, Knives, Cubs, Pipes, etc).

PC:"This must be the place! Ok, here's what were gonna do...."

After a couple of mintues the man-sized shapes go through the door and into the flickering light. With the guards gone they put their stealthy plan into action. Mike makes outstanding successes on his demolitions and stealth rolls while catastrophic failing a couple of observation checks while placing two claymores on the door facing into the door. The other players take up positions and also catastrophically fail observation checks. As Mike gets into position he bundles 6 count em 6 FRAG grenades ( I mentioned contacts earlier? grrr) and waits for the action to start.
After a couple of tense moments later the door opens and detonates the claymores showering the area beyond the door with wood, gore and ball bearings compliments of the USMC . At the same time Mike throws his bundle of grenades into the gore drenched doorway with an outstanding success. A phase later a couple of these man-sized things come staggering out of the doorway and are met with a crossfire of automatic fire.
When no more movement is seen or heard (no one has made an observation check since they got into the sewers) the party moves into the gore covered area. What they now see is that these man-sized things were people wearing rags and had an array of candles along the walls for light. The Butchers Bill was 12 dead and 20 wounded in just 15 seconds...not bad.
PC:" You said these were zombies"
ME: "Nope. You assumed they were zombies soley based off of their description. So, what are you going to do with the remnants of this homeless shelter?"
PC:"Homeless shelter?!! Let's take the wounded to the hospital"
Mike: Not the dead. Let's get some quick acting lye and cover our tracks!"

In the end the party slows down near the hospital ejects the wounded homeless people from their van and speed off into the night. As the campaign progressed the zombie attacks intensified and some of the zombies even smelled of Lye .

[Antenna]

Well, I done a variant of an adv where the players gonna search for a rock/goth singer that has disapeered in an deserted townpart. Really the townpart is an newly emerged small deamonground. So they find these homeless armed kids as it seems that stand in their way to get the goth/rock singer at last. Or at least they asume she is captured at the second floor of this building that is a stronghold. With the knoweledge that they need more weapons they start to track back to their small wan to get asorted explosives to blow a hole from the roof of this two store building "to SWAT" the kids. Encounters animated cars that drives over the empath/alien (who has this empathic armor that protects him from a pool of empathic points) Well, after they dispatched the car the empath/alien finds himself to have to rest to get empathic points back for protection. Well, time is of the essence here so he says I protect the first floor for stragglers getting thru with an AKM when back at the building. When the rest of the crowd gets on top of the roof to prepare "the SWAT move" theu the roof. The empath take stand in a small apartment on a short side of a hallway. Well in this room there is a big wodden ornamented box. Curious and refreshened with empathic drugs the alien starts to do a short investigation of the box. (And the rest of the crowd listening with a clue on what going to happen and well diciplined). The emapth/alien opens the box and 10kg of dynamite sends the empath into his alien heaven colapsing the room and the 20% of the building. Well, the rest of the crowd SWATs the kids who is now identified as newkids and frees the gothrocker. But the story told from this night is allways.

First the N00b is hit by the car once and then second becouse of failure to intitiative check, then he blows himself to chunks with some dynamite "to distract" the enemy from us. A pretty good start on a roleplaying career in this group. You are allowed to say "been there done that" now...

Antenna

[anthraxus]

We had an incident where the group, along with one relatively new player, were meeting with the leader of a large and well organized gang to arrange the exchange of some information. The meeting quickly devolved into a firefight in the large, well lit parking garage that it had been arranged in. The more experienced members of the group quickly throw down and begin exchanging steady fire with the gangers. It comes around to Martin's turn and the following conversation takes place:

GM: Alright, Martin. Bullets are flying everywhere. What are you doing?
Martin: Ah, um...
GM: Come on man. Time's wasting. Do something?
Martin: Um, ah...
Other player: Dude, come on. You have a gun. Shoot something.
Martin: Ok. I'll start shooting out the headlights of all the cars.
Everyone: What?

So he proceeds to spend the next several phases shooting out headlights in both the ganger's cars and the groups, until his gun finally jams. At this point he bolts and runs away.

Ever since then, whenever someone does something completely pointless, it has become known as "doing a Martin".

[Paul Mann III]

I was 15 when I let my friends Dad borrow a character to play with us one night. I had about a half dozen people already, but I used to like to run huge games (I had 12 or 13 people a few times). He had been playing AD&D and D&D for 20 years already so figured, it's cool. I lent him my Cyborg Escapee character I'd kept as an NPC. That's when things went bad.

I had a nice plot worked out to chase the Cyborg (as per Conspiracys S.O.P.) and it started with cornering the players in a high-rise hotel. I sent a few Igors, posing as NSA to hijack the party, but of course the party started blasting without hesitation or conversation.

After a brief gunfight, the Igors were all laid out or wasted, and then my friends Dad took over. He suggested that they quickly move rooms and take control of the whole floor, and with many of them ex-military it wasn't hard. Then he had the bodies moved to an occupied room and tied up the only live, conscious Igor for interrogation (with the hostages present) while one of the players (a Mexican Ganger) kept watch over the elevator and stairwell.

The questioning of the psuedo-agaent failed, and in frustration the hostages (2 elderly people) and the Igor were thrown out of the Hotel window to the ground below. Then the Cyborg Escapee led his new troops out of the hotel. They collected their car (a LeBeouf) and moved into the streets. It wasn't long before I tried to tie them down with a riot in the streets to negate the vehicle movement and get another shot at them.

My freinds Dad decided they would find a Gun Store, and I couldn't see the harm, so I gave it to them. A building with Security Doors and Windows, counter-wall protection and two armed clerks on duty. I got the layout from the Shadowrun book on "Street Sprawls" I think, some sort of building map book with details on guards, security, npcs, customers. Great suppliment.

I forgot Cyborg Escapee dad had C-4 on his equipment sheet, set up in small 1/4 ounce blocks with remote electronic detonators. He blew the glass without even warning the party, and of course another shoot out started. After they killed the store owners, they raided the store, and fled the police by using more C-4 to clear a path in the riot crowd.

After that, it's all a blur of me throwing minions into the meat-grinder. It was years before I figured out ways to keep the power of a Cyborg Escapee limited.

I only played with adults a few other times, and the games were good, but weird. Now I'm 27, and I don't think I'd be letting anyone into my game as I young as I got to play. Oh well....

[Zvezda]

Looks like they killed more innocent people in a few hours than the average Werewolf in his entire life.

[Paul Mann III]

Looks like they killed more innocent people in a few hours than the average Werewolf in his entire life.

Indeed. The party ended up being almost totally wiped out to make a point about the "ethics" an RPG. I'm all for bad guy PC's, but not mindless slaughter. They should have a "grandiose" mega-plan of evil, or be some sort of professional criminal, the type that don't screw around so they won't get caught.

Oddly enough, the Cyborg Escapee was nearly taken out by the party, in the only case of Party Conflict I've ever endorsed. The whole team worked together to kill one PC. My games are pretty Dark, but my players are loyal to the game, and tough spirited. Sometimes you have to give them a little guidance is all. Plus, we were all like 16 year old stoner-drunks. It was a miracle any of us could even read or write, let alone memorize all the rules....

[Zvezda]

Somtimes I wonder if actually a old teacher invented RPGs to make kids read. And hell write A LOT!

[Paul Mann III]

Somtimes I wonder if actually a old teacher invented RPGs to make kids read. And hell write A LOT!

No kidding, I spent more timing writing for my game than I ever did in school, and now I write constantly. It was a good trick....

[Zvezda]

I suspect that a lot of gamers share this expirience.
You said that the decommissioning of the Cyborg was the only case of player conflict you ever endorsed, so where there more (deadly) cases?

[Paul Mann III]

I suspect that a lot of gamers share this expirience.
You said that the decommissioning of the Cyborg was the only case of player conflict you ever endorsed, so where there more (deadly) cases?

Oh yeah. We had a phase where one of our regulars just kept getting killed by the other players (he went through a "making stupid characters" phase). After it happened the 3rd time, I tried to put a stop to it. They were all playing Gangers and I made the Gang Boss hand out justice by hanging the PC who'd killed a Gang Mate. Long story short, the offending character did survive being hung, I gave him a groovy scar, and the example held out for some time.

In another incident, after everyone had been getting along real well, the PC's got into some drugs, the affects were mostly off of the table from Rifts, but I added some stat modifers and have my own table, of cuorse. In an effort to play out an attitude rolled up by a Criminal character, the PC "Leo Picatzi" had jumped from the PC's car in traffic, and attempted a hijacking of a parked semi-truck. The other PC's protested, even the Criminals, and as an arguement carried around the table, I decided the trucker was armed with a .38 snub. I had people make suprise checks, and combat ensued with a suprise round fired by the Trucker. The bullet missed, and "Picatzi" blew the truvker away. Another PC, uder the influence of a "Hostile" affect on the drug table, took matters into his own hands and shot the PC "Leo Picatzi" in the head, fatally. End of PC, but no one was bitter.

In 1995 my two best friends were playing, they had an arguement over who would drive a getaway car, weapons were drawn by one of them, and he shot the other PC to death. They're still a little pissed at each other.

I also shot one of my favorite ex-character/npc's, it was awful. It was like my character had been killed, so I don't push too hard to kill PC's....

[Zvezda]

Hell, it seems like a lot of PCs in your group get killed by other players. I never experienced it in DC. In merc2000 occeasionally, but never in DC. Sounds like a lot of fun though.

[Paul Mann III]

Hell, it seems like a lot of PCs in your group get killed by other players. I never experienced it in DC. In merc2000 occeasionally, but never in DC. Sounds like a lot of fun though.

I wouldn't say alot, but some need killing. They speak very clearly on keeping the PC's paranoid, and keeping suspense and tension high. It's helpful to have them not only fear the GM and his Dark Earth, but also each other. I use the contacts alot too, and people can have paranoid issues with other peoples NPC's or contacts. Think of our game table like "Resevoir Dogs." It was real big when we were playing hardcore, like every day....

http://llbbl.com/data/RPG-motivational/target136.html




Click the link to blow this picture up, the GunMen are sitting around the Game Table, screens and Dice, and Paper everywhere. That's us. We're the last kind of guys people think play RPG's....

[Zvezda]

Haha so that's your party! Nice Pic. Did you notice that there is more than one GM screen on the tabel. So players keep their notes secret from the other players. It sounds very, very interesting your type of game there. So have you any dead Players to report?

[fenlason]

You should play Paranoia. You are encouraged to shoot each other.

Norm

[Zvezda]

Ohh yeah, that's a great game anywasy. Though only for single advetrues not as campaign.