GM: Jay Brown
Players: Charles Picard, Gerald Cameron, Sean Nittner
System: CBR+PNK
Jay put out a little teaser and I took the bait!
[ENCRYPTED MSG // TRACELESS NODE // BAMA/ΔNET.SHADE.HALO]
From: Memfhiz
subject: Ghost in virtual seconds.
I need operators. Short-burn types. Runners who can handle CBR+PNK-class heat and think sideways when the grid collapses. We’re stress-testing a blacksite dice system — MAD-DICE.COM — and you’re invited to help put it through the paces. Invited, because each of you know what you owe me.
- One-shots only
- System: CBR+PNK (Cyberpunk plug-and-play)
- Mindset: Tactical, fast, loud — with moments of fragility
- Thursdays for the next three cycles (05/15, 5/22, 5/29)
- 2-3 hours, earliest start 18:00CT
We’re running a rotating crew job to extract 15 high value vehicles from the BAMA sprawl.
Each ride is wired, warded, or Loa-watched. Some don’t want to be rescued.
Each night we boost one.
Jump in for a night, return for another.
The List is long. And the gods are watching.
Seat’s yours if you reply.
Tell no one who sent you.
And what you owe me will be nulled.
—Mfz
//PNKs
Our roster for the night included
Rick Dallas (played by Charles), a Miami Vice era Don Johnson figure who has a built in defibrillator (ReBoot 2.7) cause he was just the kind of guy that would need one. I got extreme Crank vibes. YoloMotherfuckers
Linnaeus (played by Gerald), an empathic Face with all kinds of connections on the street. He was there to make chaos and get out of the Sprawl once and for all.
SWNK (pronounced swick-in, played by me) was an old mechanic stitched together too many times with NoleX Kid/Liv/Stom-gan44 cyber organs to replace the ones that past their expiration date. He was in this to get his son DRWN out of the game.
(pics by me based on the descriptions the players gave)
//Job.Intel
As the pitch stated above Memfhiz wanted 15 high value vehicles from the BAMA sprawl, one ride per score. For this job we were going after one of only two SPRAWL bikes.
Yuller Twins are ultimate combat bike celebrities. DisneyUFC raised, they were supposed to be from the streets, but their lack of scars tells otherwise. Quinn and Paris (brother and sister) ride the SPAWL bikes in the competitions and they are the local champions.
Tonight at the Rage Yard Arena in Old Secaucus, a combat bike fight is going down and Quinn and Paris are the celebrity commentators as well as the opening act.
Our job was to be the closing act and ride off on one of those bikes.
//deception.method:inifil
The Rage Yard is an old arena. Dilapidated but still drawing a huge crowd. The respectable rich watch the show from their better-than-live(TM) AR devices safe at home. The rest of us grunts have to go in our meat suits.
We knew the twins were raised to be ultimate sports celebrities. They have a public persona of being tough, but it looked as fake as the feeds.
People weren’t checking small arms or IDs all that well, so we had an easy time making our way into the arena.
- Rick Dallas in coveralls (Disguise) pushing a card (full of demolition tools) with tarp pulled over it was muttering angrily to no-one and everyone at the same time. The arena was blasting music, but when the camera flashed to Rick, the sounds were muted and we just heard him muttering “Fucking coming in on my day off. What the fuck is this bullshit?” People gave him a wide berth.
- SWKN was down in the common pit working as a mechanic for a rider he never cared to learn the name of (“Sure thing boss. You got it chief. I’ll get her running for you Hoss.”) He was watching the activity in the celebrity pit as things started to go down.
- Linnaeus is dressed as a producer. Someone important named Garrison that everyone knew was in charge.
The scene opened with Corvin aka Wrench, a huge whistler-type figure carrying a giant wrench and a broken bike part angrily across the common pit and into the celebrity VIP garage.
Linnaeus flashed back to dropping Corvin a message for Quinn. Garrison, the big shot producer, is in the audience tonight and he wants to talk to Quinn and Paris. No further details, just enough to make everyone unnerved (6 on the Empathy + Influence roll)
//start.fin
SWKN tried to get into the celebrity area by goading the mechanic working on the SPRAWL bike “Junior, you’re not old enough to drive that thing, let alone fix it. You’re using a 7/16″ hex driver when you need an 11mm, you’re gonna strip those bolts!” The harassment was meant to gain entry, but it just pissed everyone off more (1-3 result Aggressive + Rigging Level 3 Threat).
A security bot came out of the garage, closed the door, and then approached SWKN. “Please provide your Access Pass. Access Pass please.”
SWKN pulled a million parts out of his pockets and the bot became more agitated, replacing it’s hand with a taser “Access Pass!”
Finally he pulled one (Marking Infiltration Gear and got a 6 on a Cautions + Observation roll to flashback to making face Access Passes). “There you go chrome dome, now fuck off and let me get to work.”
The badge passed inspection (phew) and the bot returned it’s hand from taser to hand mode “Thank you Mr. Hobson. Have a nice day.” It the returned to the garage but stood there posting up guard.
Rick Dallas meanwhile pushed his card of concealed explosives to the freight elevator and took it up to the catwalk above. There were security checkpoints but the fake badges (thank Jay for letting that one ride) got him through them, and soon he was beside a giant high tech scoreboard mounted to a decrepit arena riser. It hardly needed the bombs he planted to go crashing down!
Linnaeus, as garrison sent a headset down to Quinn as he was walking through the pit and got on a audio-chat with him. Garrison told Quinn that he sure as hell better not get on that bike without taking to him first, like the agreed on 6-weeks ago. Meanwhile SWKN got in Quinn’s face and started rattling off things about the SPRAWL bikes’ carbonetic converted need calibration for the jump, and that if it wasn’t done he’d be a dead man, and—Garrison was still ranting that he had to be up there ASAP. (Crit on an Aggression + Influence Roll with an assist from SWKN). Not only did Quinn go looking for Garrison (who would never be found) he also gave SWKN a guest pass to get backstage…which he rubbed in that fucking bot’s face!
Linnaeus delayed the show and caused more panic an confusion. Using his Weyland-Ohtani Augmented Reality Eye he looked up all the dirt he could on Paris and finally found something that would sting. He had been calling after her before, but she ignored him. She couldn’t ignore this. “Paris, there’s someone here with the WildFire (very illegal drug someone like Paris shouldn’t be know to use) you ordered!” (Crit!) Paris and her entourage descend around Linnaeus to keep him from saying more where others could hear.
Back in the pit, SWKN manage to rattle the mechanic “Did you just get out of primary school? You’ve gotta update that Firmware to 7.4 or the booster jets will misfire!” David, the mechanic was flustered, but Corvin aka Wrench was going to let his apprentice be intimidated by some old has been.
“You. Get the fuck out of here. I’ll check the firmware, but I want you out of this pit now.” He hefted his giant wrench and was going to swing it, but SWKN dodged towards the bike too quickly and he had to choke up at the end to avoid hitting the bike as well (6 on a Caution + Mobility check).
“All right, I’ll get out of your hair, just make sure this baby is in tip top shape before the show” SWKN patted the chrome frame and with that planted his remote rigging device on the bike.
Quinn mounted the bike, rode it around the arena for show and was about to do his jump when there was explosion above and the scoreboard started to crash down (6 on an Aggression + Rigging roll from Rick Dallas) and the bike suddenly stalled. The whole things was going to come down on Quinn but SWKN just happened to be there to help. “Get off that bike and let me fix it.”
As soon as Quinn was off, SWKN jumped on, disabled is remote rigging lock and was about to take off and do the jump himself. But another remote deactivation occurred and the bike stalled mid-way up the ramp. His UrsulaInterface chest tentacles hacking rig burst out to kick the bike back to life! (4-5 result on a Caution + Piloting, consequence resisted with Signature Augmentation). SWKN didn’t have the momentum to make the jump so he got to the top of the ramp, spun the bike around and then drove it back through the wreckage and out of the arena!
Rick Dallas walked out in his coveralls to have a smoke, and Linnaeus walked off with Gill (part of the Paris entourage) still chasing him for the WilfFire.
//angle
None of us got out clean however.
Rick Dallas – Goes off to the cannonball run (Result: You did it, but you know it won’t last. How do you prepare?) He didn’t die, which surprised everyone, so now he’s broke. He needs one more job.
Linnaeus wanted to get out of the sprawl. He’s wanted to get out his whole life but he’s always owed someone. Tells Memphis “I owe you my life, but I’ve got nothing left. This is the biggest job we’ve ever done together. (Result: You did it, but you know it won’t last. How do you prepare?). Buys a little piece of land and lives i the quiet and he’s too bored and doesn’t know what to do with himself. “Well, fuck”
SWKN got his kid back for doing the job, but it was too late and DRWN was already in the life. Now he had to stay in to keep him safe! (same result)
Thoughts on this game
- A very fun one shot.
- Seemed like our dice pools were huge (commonly 4-5 dice).
- Jay did a great job providing a framework for the job, but it seemed like he had to do it all from scratch (not a lot of setting or GM help coming from the game)
- Mad Dice RNG properly punished me. Well designed Jay 🙂
- Several rules Expertise, Edge, Augmentation we weren’t really sure about and searched for a bit to suss out.
- We somehow had 3 versions of the game (printed, PDF, and web) all with minor variations. Firmware update needed indeed.
- One down, 14 to go!
