“All you have to do is keep rolling sixes.”
After a tense cliffhanger that left 2 PCs trapped inside the Crows’ watchtower HQ, the rest of the PCs joined the battle alongside Vampire Roric’s basement assault. A lot of Skirmish went down, a lot of resistance rolls (you don’t want to go out by being drowned in shin-deep sewage), a lot of looting. We had a looting race clock, as the Buzzards and the Dead Setters tried to scour the Crows’ HQ for valuables and intel before firing the structure.
We learned something about every gang member through their actions this session, enough to warrant that “anytime XP”.
The Spider led a charge against the remaining Crows but turned it onto a “you guys go first” feint, which while effective, was witnessed by Roric.
The Hound tried to murder the surrendering Crows, and was only stopped by Roric shoving her gun skyward.
Roric might have caught on to how the Setters were trying to make sure the Crows didn’t have too many people to swear loyalty to Roric, and they were trying to thin out the Buzzards just in case. It’s going to affect the faction standings, and it was a cool Devil’s Bargain.
The Leech waited until everyone else had made Desperate Prowl rolls to parkour their way out off the top of the HQ to avoid the Crows’ bribed bluecoats swarming the perimeter before revealing she had Spider Oil and just walking to safety.
The gang was clear, with 10 Coin and a decent lead on where Lyssa had escaped. 3 of them had 1 stress box left. It had been a close thing.
So Rook the Cutter decides he hasn’t killed enough cops today and heads down to street level.
There’s twenty of them, and they were waiting in a firing line for anyone to walk out the front door of the watchtower.
“You’ll have to make a resistance roll before you can even do anything-“
“I’ll spend my Armor, and I have enough slots for Heavy if I need it.”
I offer a Devil’s Bargain: the gang’s Bluecoat contact, Laroze, is down there with the cops. He might catch a bullet if you don’t roll a 6. Acceptable.
“Bluecoats are Tier IV, so you’ll have limited effect even with Brutal and your railjack hammer.”
“What does rage essence do?”
“Well, that’d cover the gap in effect level for damn sure.”
Rook walks out, face smeared with blood and rage juice, duckfoot pistol in one hand, railjack hammer in the other, screaming a Skovlander working song. The cops empty both ranks of their firing line into the man and he rips off the dented and holed pig-iron breastplate, Eastwood-style. Rook lays into the cops. No fucks are given. Nothing less than a six is rolled across multiple Skirmish and Prowess resistance rolls. The 12-segment fight clock is filled in record time.
The cops’ morale is broken. Laroze tries to spark a retreat – Rook catches all but Laroze and wants to interrogate them. He’s on rage essence, though, so I ask for a Resolve resistance roll. Rook finally – finally – rolls a 2.
“You can ask your questions for 4 stress or you can kill them.”
And that’s how you make 10 Heat on a score.
#heestcomplete
We have such similar crews! My PCs damned near got a wanted level from their first score. They got hurt more than yours though from the sounds of it. Cheers to hot crews for being interesting to GM!
Also, you’re so nice. You let the player opt out after rolling?
Mark Cleveland Massengale John Harper mentioned this as an option at one point, I believe.
Mark Cleveland Massengale oh, I’m a sweetie. I let the guys roll resistance and then choose if they want to burn Armor. In this case, I had some creative fatigue and actually preferred that Rook had that hard choice between “lots of Stress” or “just bodies”. He chose to kill them, and I didn’t have to think up any intel on the spot. 🙂
The way I look at it, as the GM you can practically call for a resistance roll at any time. The Armor’s really there to keep them playing, and my guys deal more than enough Stress to themselves without taking harm. I had 3 PCs with 1 stress box left, Rook was 4-5 full at the end, and the Spider… well, he ended with less Stress than he started because he clears stress on a crit.
And they’re a Thieves crew. They’re just super, super vindictive is all.
SO GOOD.
And yeah, it’s fine to let people choose to resist or not after they see how much stress it costs. That’s not technically how the rule is written, but it’s totally ok if that’s how you like to play.
It was a weird case, too, with the rage essence. It wasn’t really an incoming attack, it was a choice by the Cutter’s player (“can I interrogate these guys?”) where I didn’t want to shut him down completely, but wanting a potential cost for doing something counter to what I felt rage essence was all about. I could’ve offered a straight-up cost, but I felt a Resolve resistance roll was appropriate, and it felt right to offer the player the choice between getting what they wanted but at the cost their roll specified, or saying the cost would be too high and going with the rage essence. I wasn’t sure how badly he wanted answers. Did he want it badly enough to snort 4 stress? What could they even tell him that would be worth that?
Adam Schwaninger yea, sounds like it made it fun to do what you did anyways. cool AP report