Starport Scum: Curiosity Kills (Almost)

Okay, so nobody's heard from Captain Redd in a while after he went to investigate that crashed transport, and now Agent M and his crew have decided to break into a Wagner-Vogel facility to figure out what's going on.  Before they can access the servers, though, they'll have to disable the security systems.  This is Verdun's specialty, so it shouldn't be too difficult if he can get into the building with the access point.

Starport Scum is kind of like an RPG, if an RPG was a an awesome skirmish game.  We've got characters and they have traits that define them, and they do things and maybe role-play and maybe roll some dice, and then there's a fight.  I mean, there's always a fight.  It's a minis game after all.

If you've got a game master running the bad guys, you can really get a nice RPG-fight experience.  I've only got me, but I'm going to GM for myself, anyway.  Yeah, I know what surprises are in store, but you don't so you get to just enjoy the ride.

Here's the layout.  Guards are scattered about, and our team has snuck in through a breach in the wall that has yet to be repaired.  If I were better prepared, there would be little yellow barricades, or at least some traffic cones.  Use your imagination.

Standard corporate sci-fi installation terrain

Verdun, the hacker, is on the left.  He's a Hacker, obvs, but he's also rather Charming in a roguish sort of way.  Not Flavio, though.  He follows some kind of Samurai code, and is all Brooding there in the back.  Agent M is their Intimidating Leader, leading.  Bloo (in red) behind him, is a Tough Demolitions Expert, and survivor the the Cola Wars of late 20xx.  And finally, Vindictive Amaranth waves her pistols around on the right, threatening everybody with her Two-Gun Fu.

Several of those traits aren't necessarily applicable in a fight, but might be handy between battles.

Verdun, Agent M, Flavio, Bloo, Amaranth

This is the building that somebody *cough*Verdun*cough* needs to get into to disable the security systems.  The only way in is through this roof access door.  There are, of course, guards.

Guarding guard is guarding

TURN 1

Our guys manage to hold initiative for a couple of goes, and Agent M and Amaranth move forward cautiously but quickly. (3d6, keep the highest, in inches).

Then a guard moves in on their position (Goons get a flat 1d6 move.)

As the GM, I've decided that the guards have to make a task roll to "spot" the intruders. (2d6, any 5 or 6 means success).  This guard, doesn't notice them yet.

He should have worn his glasses, but he thinks they make him look "nerdy".

Another guard fails to spot the team as they move in, but the one one the roof sees them!  But all is not lost!  If they can take him out before he radios in, they'll remain hidden. Yes, I'm totally making this up.  GM's prerogative.

"I can see my house from here!  And intruders!"

For some reason, Flavio wanders off on his own, not even toward the objective.

Amaranth: "Where are you going, Flavio?"
Flavio: [Geralt-grunt]
Amaranth: "Fine, whatever."

TURN 2

It's a bad sign when I can't even win a game that I'm playing by myself.
Both Amaranth and Bloo blast away at the guy on the roof, but between his armor and the cover of the building's edge, he almost avoids injury.  Luckily, Bloo's blast rifle gets a bonus die against armored targets, and they manage to pin the guard down.  Unfortunately, while the guard can't shoot back, he's perfectly capable of operating a radio.  The jig is up!

[Kshht!]"Did somebody order adventurers, because they're here. Over."[Kshht!]

Hearing the alarm, Ahnold straps on his flamethrower and lumbers onto the table, running "like a fool" toward the disturbance (extra dice and a +2 movement for running).

"Head for da choppah...uh... I mean security room!"

Flavio embarrasses himself, getting only one hit on six dice as he jumps out and slashes at the guard.  The guard, however, does much better with just two dice, pinning Flavio and sending him ducking for cover.

Well, you bring a sword to a gun-fight...

Verdun is apparently confused, and just sort of stumbles forward an inch.

"Time out, guys!  I've got to tie my cyber-shoe!"

And then this guy shoots Bloo in the back, pinning him.  For what it's worth, none of my guys are armored, so getting shot at sucks.

Sneaky bastard

TURN 3

Agent M gets up on the roof and completely misses the guard.  The guard moves into cover and shoots back, but fumbles!  Aha!  Agent M gets a free shot... and misses. :(

Like a scene from "The Naked Gun"

Meanwhile, on the ground, Flavio moves behind the building to try to stay out of the line of fire, but can't quite avoid it.  And then of course, the guard rolls three sixes!  Flavio is a Hero, so he isn't taken out, but he is Wounded and Pinned.

Flavio adds "getting pwned by a Goon" to his list of things to grumble about.

[EDIT: Oops.  I forgot that Goons get NO bonus dice.  Should have just been 2d6.  But Flavio doesn't know that, and I'm not telling him.]

Everybody else moves into position, and maybe takes a shot at an enemy, but there's nothing to show for it.

TURN 4

OMG!  Verdun brings the pain!  First kill!  All of those hours in Call of Duty XLII are paying off!

(Haxx!)

Bloo blasts another one!

Ka-"BLOO"!

This one guy must have really short legs.  He's been working his way up these stairs for like three turns!  And he's totally holding up Ahnold.

"Move it, you load!"

Flavio tries to get out of the way, but being Pinned, he loses his 5s and 6s on movement.  Still, one inch at least puts him in a bit of cover.

Flavio drags himself behind cover, in true samurai fashion

Nothing else interesting happened, but you can imagine there's probably a bit of moving and shooting going on.

TURN 5

Finally Verdun ducks into the security room and with a successful hacking test, turns off the security system!  And then there are flashing red lights and klaxons.  This was not how things were supposed to go down.  What's going on?

"WHOOP! WHOOP! NEENER! NEENER!"

Ooh!  Apparently that security system was keeping the creepy, hissing alien murder-machines from escaping!  Oops!  Hopefully there's only those five right there.  (Spoiler: There's more.)

There's movement all over the place!

Agent M figures Verdun probably has things under control and bravely makes for the ladder, but he does manage to fire off a shot, making the guard on the stairs keep his head down.

"You've got this, right?  I think I hear my mom calling..."

With that one load in the front blocking the stairs, the other guards don't have much choice other than to make a fighting withdrawal.  Unfortunately, even with Ahnold's flamer, they don't take down any of the vent-crawlers.

"Hissssss! Hisssss!"

Flavio and Amaranth, meanwhile, clear the exit while they wait for the rest of the team.

Flavio's honor is restored (with Amaranth's help).

TURN 6

Oh 'eck!  They can climb!  Everybody, they can climb!

No fair!  There are terrain rules for a reason!

Agent M slides down the ladder and hides.  Verdun, walking out into this mess, sees what's going on and decides to risk jumping over the edge.  He rolled very poorly, and ended up face-planting on the pavement below.  That's going to slow him down, but he's alive for now.  The rest of the team continues to fall back.

"Geronimooo-" [crash]
"I'm OK!"

Ahnold's flame-thrower manages to burn one of the vent-crawlers down!  Unfortunately, there are plenty more.  Surprisingly, that load on the stairs survived the first round of panicked flailing.

Disco Inferno

TURN 7

The vent-crawlers continue to swarm, and another guard goes down!

"Game over, man.  Game over!"

Poor Verdun gets up from the ground and limps forward an inch.  That's not going to be far enough to get away from the monster behind him.  Then, in a stroke of lucky dice, Agent M put a blaster round into the thing, exploding it in a spray of acid blood (that was too far away to hurt anybody else)!

"SUPPRESSING FIRE!"

TURN 8

Well, it looks like that load finally found his feet, just in time to run away!  The swarm overwhelms Ahnold, and he goes down, cursing everyone and everything.

"Damn you, Load! Gaahhh--"

Our "heroes", meanwhile, make a relatively casual escape the way that they came in.  Their wounds aren't bad, and they'll be ready for the next mission.  What mission?  Who knows?  Maybe revenge on whoever obviously set them up?

Amaranth: "I'm telling everybody that you got thwomped by a Goon."
Flavio: [Marge Simpson grumble]

And that's a session of Starport Scum.  It's pretty fun, and I like the "RPG lite" feel of it.  I wish I had more friends who were into this kind of thing nearby.  It would be cool to run a proper little campaign for them.  Oh well.

[EDIT: Astute humans will notice that I totally forgot chose not to use the Morale rules.  That was an oversight a scenario specific ruling as determined by the GM.]

(I always forget the link.  Starport Scum on WGV.)

Ĝis la revido!

Jason "Ludanto" Smith C;E