The Department of Fabricant Management - Fifth Mission

Mission Five: Bust the Dealer!

Wait!  What happened to the fourth mission?

Well, I wanted to do this mission, but I didn't have enough People Evidence to afford it, so I had to do "Grass the Neighborhood" again.  You've already seen that sort of mission, and not much happened anyway.  I spent 5 Budget, and came away with 1 People Evidence and 1 Place Evidence.  Good enough.  This mission is pretty short, too.

Drug dealers, at least the better ones, have tons of contacts.  Sure, they're probably not tied directly into what you're investigating, but they might know somebody who knows somebody who is.

So, Agent M decides to look up Vinnie Verdun, and ask him a few questions.  The mission costs 5 Budget, plus one of my People Evidence, that I guess lead me to this drug dealer in particular.

THE SETUP:

Six buildings are set up, along with some scatter terrain and walls, because I like it pretty.  Verdun is hanging out in the middle of the map with 1d3-1 bodyguards (in this case, just one).  There are three crowd markers on the map as well.  They could provide valuable evidence, but they're just as likely to draw Agent M into trouble.

M considers taking backup, but he doesn't want to spook the locals, so he settles for some light body armor instead (at a cost of 1 Budget).

Vinnie Verdun in the center.  Agent M is at the rightmost edge.

TURN 1:

Verdun and his bodyguard just sort of stand there, looking around.  They're probably talking about drugs or something.

Agent M moves.  He considers approaching the crowds, but really his more likely to tip off Verdun or get mugged than uncover anything useful, so he decides to avoid them.  He does decide to run, however, just to avoid wasting time.  His Prowess (2) + Running (0) + 2D for the Edge gives him four dice.  He gets 3, 4, 5, 6.  Four or better is a success, and six counts double, so that's four successes, added to his 6cm move.  He jogs forward 10cm.

TURN 2:

The bodyguard scans for trouble, but he's facing the wrong way.  Verdun, meanwhile, starts wandering off.  He's facing M now, and maybe sees him, but doesn't know that he's a cop right away.

Agent M continues to jog toward Verdun, scoring two sixes for 4 successes and moving another 10cm.

"Dat guy runnin' at me wit' his gun drawn ain't probably
nothin' to worries about." -Vinnie

TURN 3:

Verdun and his bodyguard shuffle around a bit more, and Agent M runs up to him!

TURN 4:

Surprise!  Man, your bodyguard sucks!

And here's the moment I was dreading.  Verdun offers M 2 People Evidence and 2 Financial Evidence to let him go.  That's pretty good, and certainly better than what M will get interrogating Verdun back at the office.  Unfortunately, that's 3 IA points to contend with.

Well, M wasn't here to bust this guy anyway.  He's after bigger fish.  It's not exactly ethical, but here we go.  Agent M takes the deal.  He'll have to deal with the fallout later.

Post-Battle Results:

Not that there was much of a "battle".  Nobody was hurt, but Agent M does get +1XP for surviving the mission, and +1XP for gaining evidence in the field (despite the questionable method involved).

Station Actions:

With nobody to interrogate, Agent M decides to make clever use of his "By The Book" special ability to try to undo some of those IA points he earned.  The rules say this is a Logic test, but the FAQ suggests using Bureaucracy instead, since it doesn't get used anywhere else in the game.  Of course with my Logic (2) + Bureaucracy (0), it amounts to the same thing.  I do get two 5s, though, which is two successes, knocking my IA points down to just one.

BUT... last mission, Agent M got another verbal warning, which means that if he gets ANY IA points this mission (which he did) he gets an additional one as well.  So now he has two.

Internal Affairs:

So now I roll two dice.  I don't want any "successes".

A five and a six is THREE goals! Budget cut!  Agent M loses 1D6 = 6(!) Budget! Noooo!

Results:

Okay, then.  Let's see what we've got here.

Budget: 60/100
XP: 2
People Evidence: 1/2
Place Evidence: 2/4
Electronic Evidence: 0/1
Financial Evidence: 6/3
Physical Evidence: 0/1

Ĝis la revido!

Jason "Ludanto" Smith C;E