[MOD]
Decrepit Dakkanaut
Cozy cockpit of an Archer ARC-5S
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Okay, so I've sworn to never ever ever do a session as GM again, mainly because my players are horrible soulless little pricks who act like munchkins and feel it is their right to do as they please. Yesterday I finally got a good session under my belt, mostly thanks to a friend of mine who participated as player four. It's a big pro that she knows more about the background than the others and used to be big into Inquisitor when it was something that they did in the stores everywhere back in the day, having partaken in month long story arcs with a leprous mutant who just wanted to be left alone. When they killed off Inquisitor it was the last straw for her, having grown tired with 40k before. Yet despite earlier remarks of hating the hobby fervently and almost everything surrounding it she was most interested in the RPG's done by FFG. She knew of my previous experiences and despite that showed interest in playing along for a session. So I was coerced into doing one more game, something I wasn't exactly looking forward to one bit, given previous experiences. But my friend assured me that she'd help make it a great session, that she would draw upon her own experiences from playing Inquisitor. At first we wanted to go for a Dark Heresy game, but seeing as those have a low survival rate and the the other players were reluctant to roll up new characters, we revisited Rogue Trader. So there we went, one more time.
In truth, it wasn't half as bad as I had thought it to be. I kept the scenario as simple as possible, so that there was less to bitch and complain about but with a few twists that were really cheesy, but fitting for the ordeal at hand. While my players were expecting something combat heavy (About the only thing they were good at) I decided to go for the whole slow build up thing, going for the detective angle this time round, just to throw them off and give player four something of a throwback to Inquisitor. So instead of aliens charging at them they got the crack of a snapping bone here, a thump in the air vent there. While I'm not as good at setting suspense as I'd like to be, it worked out, making half the group impatient and frustrated with the gloomy setting and slow pacing at the start, which made them careless. Some more background on the game first before delving into the ordeal itself:
We used miniatures as with the previous sessions, to make combat easier and because well, it is an excuse to bust out certain minis again that hardly ever see any use. Based on the input from the other players they wanted to play on Space Hulk tiles. Seeing as how the Space Hulk tiles were a bit too claustrophobic for a four player game I decided to reserve those for service ducts, making it a multi-level map thing. The rest of the station segments were mapped out with AT-43 tiles and accessories where possible, forcing the players to use tape measures and their brains instead of lazily moving minis from grid to grid like a board game.
One thing that shocked me was the state the character sheets were in when I reviewed them before the game. It might be interesting(?) to just list them here now so we can all have a laugh at their (or maybe my) expense. My brother kept record of everything, what skills he purchased, his ammo expenditure, even his kill count. His friends on the other hand.. I have no idea where they spent their XP and on what. Does this make me a bad GM for not keeping track of what they do with their characters? Oh who cares, their own fault for not keeping proper records. What the sheet says is what they can and cannot do.
My friend had to roll up a character and got the same amount of XP to spend as the others: 1050 points. This to avoid the others being more powerful and to ensure that she could keep up with the others. To supplement the current party (a Seneschal, Explorator and Arch-Militant) she went with a Rogue Trader, something that the others felt was sorely missing from the party. Because in their reasoning, you can't have a group wander about without the title character now can you? As before with the other character creation processes, I allow the player one big, expensive or rare acquisition to help them start out. As examples I showed her what the others took: the Seneschal had a laser sight for her Hellpistol, the Arch-Militant a bolter and the Explorator light power armour. Player four went for an interesting choice: the concealed bolter-cane from the Into the Storm supplement. She also used the "Child of the Dynasty" entry as her point of origin for added flavour. Perhaps a tad bad, but I let her pick whatever she wanted, to which she showed great restraint and just settled for an attending cherub, a pile of digital weapons and several packs of Lho sticks.
Anyway, here are the character sheets of those involved:
+ + + Dramatis Personae + + +
Chisami Ulrich, Seneschal
WS 37
BS 50*
S 38
T 35
Ag 42
Int 50*
Per 32*
WP 30
Fel 48*
Wounds: 10
Fate: 3
Insanity: 2
Corruption: 0
Skills: Awareness, Barter, Commerce, Common Lore (Underworld), Deceive, Dodge (+10), Inquiry, Intimidate, Logic, Security, Silent Move, Speak language (Hive Dialect)(Low Gothic)(Traders Cant), Tech use
Talents: Accustomed to Crowds, Wary, Quickdraw, Resist Fear, Basic Weapon Training, Pistol Weapon Training
Equipment: Best-craftsmanship Hellpistol with laser sight, auto-quill, data slate, micro bead, multikey, chrono, cloak, synskin
XP to spend: 0
XP spent: 1050
+ + +
Keishu, Arch-militant
WS 38
BS 56**
S 47*
T 44
Ag 41
Int 40
Per 46
WP 31
Fel 19
Wounds: 14
Fate: 3
Insanity: 2
Corruption: 0
Skills: War, Dodge, Intimidate, Sleigh of Hang, Survival
Talents: Jaded, Quickdraw, Ambidextrous, Bolter specialisation
Equipment: Best-craftsmanship bolter “Betsy”, good-craftsmanship chainsword “Montgomery”, heavy stubber, micro-bead, bolt shell keepsake, medkit, manacles, 3 doses of stimm, beef jerky, 4 stun grenades
XP to spend: 100
XP spent: 950
+ + +
Dujek One-arm, Explorator
WS 46*
BS 36
S 38
T 40
Ag 39
Int 40
Per 38
WP 38
Fel 39
Wounds: 11
Fate: 3
Insanity: 2
Corruption: 0
Skills: Common Lore (Tech)(Machine Cult), Intimidate, Tech-Use
Talents: Technical Knack, Quickdraw, Enemy (nobility), Light Sleeper, Nerves of Steel, Hatred (Psykers), Sprint
Equipment: Lasgun “Pleasure”, power axe “Pain”, Servo skull, light power armour, micro-bead
XP to spend: 150
XP spent: 900
+ + +
Lady Captain Victoria Josephine Agness Celestine Alexandra Katharina Beauchamp, Warden of the Reaches, Bearer of the Silver Halo, Holder of the Warrant of Trade, Rogue Trader
WS 46
BS 44
S 42
T 28
Ag 42
Int 47
Per 39
WP 28
Fel 45
Wounds: +5
Fate: 5
Insanity: 9
Corruption: 0
Skills: Awareness, Charm, Command, Commerce, Common Lore (Imperium), Evaluate, Inquiry, Literacy, Scholastic Lore (Astromancy)(Imperial Creed), Speak Language (High Gothic)(Low Gothic)
Talents: Air of Authority, Ambidextrous, Die-Hard, Melee Weapon Training (Universal), Pistol Weapon Training (Universal), Talented (Command)
Equipment: Best-Craftsmanship laspistol with three reloads, best craftsmanship mono-sword, microbead, set of really fine clothes, xeno pelt cloak, light carapace armour, digital weapons (4x laser, 2x needlers), Lho sticks, data slate, cherub attendant, concealed bolter-cane
XP to spend: 0
XP spent: 1050
+ + + Briefing + + +
In a nutshell: The party is sent out to investigate a supply space station gone dark. Nothing but static and barely registering power signatures. The players must find out what happened and see if the station can be restored or salvaged for future use by the dynasty.
+ + + Synopsis + + +
The shuttle docked, prompting the rogue trader to order the others with the job of restoring power. She refused to exit the vessel while there was no atmosphere, dreading the idea of hiding her fine clothing beneath an ugly void suit, telling us that she picked the class for the costume porn. The other players gladly agreed thinking there would be more to kill for them, tearing across the deserted station ignoring most of the sounds and auspex ghosts in favour of closing in on the auxiliary power console thing. They did notice a few servo skulls but a cursory glance deemed them harmless and not a threat. As the Explorator made ready to restore power the servo skulls buzzed into action, a dozen of them massing to attack the Arch-Militant and Seneschal. The skulls were soon joined by four maintenance servitors, two of which wielding servo arms, the other two brandishing shotcannons. Power shot back to life and the Explorator charged into the fray, again blocking the firing lines of the other players, much to their dismay and my secret relish. As the Explorator charged forward a miniboss arrived in form of an enemy I wanted to use last scenario but decided against due to dickery from my brother. I moved an AT-43 Dragomirov Kolossus onto the table, presenting it to them as a modified deep-space suit turned into an ad-hoc combat system piloted by a deranged engineer. AP 8 on all locations, a flamer on one arm and a rivet gun (Bolter, but without tearing and I instead of X) on mounted the other. I also boosted the stats a bit to make it a tough encounter so they had to sweat to get it taken out. I surprised me that they didn't even bother taking cover, something they didn't really think off until the Explorator was blown away, opting to burn a Fate point to survive it somehow. It was at this point that the rogue trader made her grand entrance, telling the others how she splendidly stepped into the corridor and levelled her laspistol against the thing, boasting about how she would fell it with a single shot.
She promptly missed and decided to run for cover instead of looking pretty, ordering her cherub to fly around the armour to cover her retreat. One dead flying baby later the Arch-militant finally gunned it to pieces, making a nice mess of the guy within.
My brother, in top form as always made to move on, having completely forgotten about the wounded Explorator still bleeding on the floor. Thankfully the Arch-militant had a medkit on hand to do some horrible attempts at first-aid. With the Explorator more or less patched up and back into walking shape they moved on, the auspex giving a strong return when focuses on the cargo bay. The group reasoned that someone should stay behind and watch their backs, after I implied that anything could happen. Again, my brother was being a prick and told the rogue trader to stay behind, probably afraid that she would steal his thunder or something. The Arch-militant quickly soothed it over a bit by stating that she was too precious to risk in the coming fight against whatever it was. While the group made ready to enter the cargo bay the rogue trader went to the control room overlooking the bay.
The group spread out and in a moment of dickery I decided to spring my trap on my brother, who had a thing or two coming in all honesty. I had the Lictor (don't ask me how it got there) fire its flesh hooks into the seneschal, nicely snaring it, all the while describing how the feeder tendrils of the beast would crack open the skull and feast on the brains. After some struggling the Arch-militant came to the rescue and with a dodgy roll managed to hack the hooks off. While this could have turned into another one-sided fire fight the rogue trader had an idea of her own, one that caught us all, including me off guard.
'Secure voids,' she said as she used her cane to smash a glass panel besides the viewing port. The others were curious as to what that might mean.
'Oh,' the Arch-Militant said, somehow understanding what was about to happen.
'It's a little stuffy, I'm popping a window.' With that horrible one-liner the rogue trader pulled the emergency override, throwing the hangar door open to the cold void. I was a bit annoyed by this course of action, taking a few minutes to think things over and work it out before deciding to just shout out loud "feth it!" and going with it. Forcing the players to perform several agility tests based on the objects in their direct vicinity, the difficulty based on the size of said object. Some were hit but they all managed to pull through. The lictor was sucked out though, blown into the cold void. The players were a bit angry at this course of action, feeling that they were cheated out of a good fight. The rogue trader on the other hand stayed in character and commended them on acting like perfect diversions, congratulating them on a job well done.
I told them to regroup at the shuttle bay airlock where they were met by the Lictor, barely alive. It stood between them and their shuttle. At this point my brother loudly objected, demanding to know how it could get back inside without voiding another section. The rogue trader raised her cane and fired it at the beast, slaying it with a clean shot and a slight fudge on my side. With the beast slain I declared the session over and done with.
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