We played two games of 3:16 at Go Play NW Jr. this past weekend. It was wildly fun and a bit moving, too.

Ben Robbins was the (amazing) GM.

In the first game we had:
- Corporal Syphon (played by Ryan)
- Sgt. Benito Cabral (played by John)

Cabral and Syphon exited the landing craft with their squad (NPCs Miller, Esche, Dvorak, and Bure) on the planet of Narcissus. It was a beach planet. Turquoise oceans, white sand, cool breezes. Another glorious day in the corps!

Sgt. Cabral (over radio): "Control, 42 Echo Six Actual reporting planetfall at grid marker Hotel niner Kilo seven three stroke five, over."
Control: "42 Echo, Control. Drop point confirmed. Move to Hill Bravo Six One Four, anticipate light resistance, copy."
Sgt. Cabral: "Control, 42 Echo Six Actual. Moving to Hill Bravo Six One Four, light resistance expected, out." (to the troops) "Alright, bugfuckers, let's move out. Everyone keep your dicks dry."

And with that, it was on. The squad met "light resistance" from the xenos as we started up the hill. In other words, a swarm of needle-toothed, killer starfish things exploded out of the sand and proceeded to attempt to crack us out of our armor and eat the soft parts inside. We lost Bure. He had a good singing voice and will be missed. (Ben ruled that whenever we, the PCs, took a hit, one of our NPC squad mates -- there for color only -- would die)

Corporal Syphon fooled around with grenades, exploding starfish left and right, narrowly missing his squad mates. Cabral (Reputation: "By the book") dressed him down for improper usage of high explosives while in close contact with the enemy, but Syphon did his best Private Hudson impersonation and shrugged it off.

Cabral: "Corporal, the Expeditionary Forces have invested over 4 million credits in your training, not to mention the training and equipment of your squad mates. Unlike your personality, looks, or breeding, this expenditure of resources gives your sorry life some value. Please treat the investment of the Expeditionary Forces with more respect in the future, or, at the very least, find a more distant site at which to blow yourself up."

The game system is super fast, intuitive, and colorful. It does a very good job providing the razor-edge balance between "tough but fair" and "doomed." You feel death right around the corner all the time, but there's a chance that you just might make it. It's a cool feeling, which adds nicely to the vibe of the game. This holds true for all the mechanics, as it turns out.

More to come...

Yes! We had a low AA planet and the Troopers were kind of cocky after slaying all its bugs with only minimal wounds. The next planet had a higher AA and the ability Lasting Wounds. After one encounter everything was on a knife edge and, I don''t know if the players realised it, they had this shock into "Fuck, we could DIE here." PCs got tetchy and the dice were being watched on every role.

I'm taking over for the very lazy John Harper. All players are encouraged to chime in if they think of things to add. Remember all complaints about the GM will go in your permanent record and affect chances of future promotion.

Game 1 -- the Sevastopol Missions

players -- John Harper (Sergeant Cabral 6/4) and Ryan Dunleavy (Corporal Syphon 7/3)

Planet 1: NARCISSUS

As John already covered the expeditionary force drops and charges out onto beautiful beaches and slaughters waves of small starfish-ball critters. It's a full-planet press on paradise, with different task forces landing all over the globe and seizing the rare points of dry ground.

I intentionally made this a quick intro planet. I had no idea how long a planet would take and wanted to give the players a chance to try out post-mission development so I ran it with only half the normal threat.

In the climactic battle the squad and all the other units in the area are called to rush to the support of a major engagement. They find hundreds of troopers laying down fire on a whale-like creature a kilometer long, wallowing in the shallow sea and singing a sorrowful song of pain as lasebeams and rocketpods rake it from the shore. Starfish-balls burrow up out of the sand and skitter out of the surf, trying to overwhelm the soldiers and perhaps defend the helpless leviathan. That's where we lose Trooper Syphon. In the immortal words of Sgt. Cabral:

Posted By: John HarperOn planet Narcissus, we're under attack by killer starfish. Corporal Syphon is throwing grenades and killing them by the dozens until he gets dragged down and they swarm all over his armor, cracking it open with their needle-like teeth bits. "My legendary calm is gone!" Ryan, the player, laments. Syphon decides to pull the pins on all his grenades and shoot up with his combat drugs at the same time. What could go wrong?

Yes, as described elsewhere, Ryan chucked grenades at Close range, missed, saw that the collateral damage would kill him, used his combat drugs to reroll FA but then rolled a 10, which mean he took damage from the drug overdose (killing him) and _then_ got blown up by his own grenades (killing him again). It was, sadly, his only kill of the mission.

Soon Narcissus is pacified and the Alien Threat eliminated (no chance those whales will ever build spaceships now!). With only two players both would automatically level, but instead Corporal Syphon gets a fine military burial on a nice sandy beach -- at least the parts they can find.

post-mission:
Sergeant Cabral - 13 kills, raises NFA (6/5)
Corporal Syphon - 1 kill (yes, only himself)

This thread is useless without pictures.

^_____^

The GenCon 3:16 runs were so very fun. I even got a medal for them, from Gregor himself. There's a picture of the commendation ceremony around somewhere...

I'll post AP for that in its own thread. After I sleep for four straight days.

(Daisy continued)

The Objective
Once they get near it the bomb is easy to find: it's as big as a truck, sitting in the middle of a muddy clearing flattened by the landing thrusters.

Sarge sends a trooper to recon but when he gets near the bomb he starts pointing his rifle around nervously, then hightails it back to the approaching unit. "There's somebody down there! I heard somebody talking -- maybe one of the tech guys made it here?"

The squad approaches cautiously but is brought up short by a terse "Intruders! Identify yourselves or I will activate security protocols!" A moment of confusion follows before the our heroes realize that the bomb itself is talking. Yes, that's right: a smart, bomb.

Discussion ensues. The bomb explains (in a nasal, pusillanimous voice) that this target is clearly an unworthy objective that doesn't merit its detonation. How is it going to look on its military record if it kills a handful of aliens blowing up some backwater wilderness? It wants to get in touch with command and be reassigned, saving itself for some nice juicy urban center, except atmospherics have prevented contact. Yes, even the bomb is greedy to score kills.

The flummoxed troopers tell the bomb too bad, it's going to blow up whether it wants to or not, but that's greeted with a "Negative Trooper!" It holds the rank of Captain. There's even a little insignia painted on its hull. It's the senior officer here and it will be giving the orders, thank you very much.

Bad to Worse
I laugh and laugh as John and Ryan try to argue with the bomb, sullenly resigning themselves to taking its orders. It's the most fun I had all weekend. Then in the midst of this debate the sentries spot something in the forest -- it's more alien striders lurking nearby. Disturbingly enough they've been standing there the whole time, keeping an eye (a big eye mind you) on the bomb.

Once they're spotted the aliens stride out of the forest and attack, and to avoid being a total jerk GM I don't spend another threat to ambush again. The troopers are very hard-pressed anyway, and just as the fighting is at it's worst the bomb declares that if the troopers can't hold out it should probably just detonate right now to avoid capture by the enemy. Gee, thanks.

Caught between a rock and a hard place, Sgt. Cabral cuts loose with a Strength to save the surrounded squad (details hazy, but it involved positioning his men with crack precision to lay down fields of fire and cut down the approaching striders).

With heavy casualties and possibly only minutes before more aliens show up, Trooper Seven risks disobeying a superior officer and tries to sneakily connect the override device they salvaged from the tech team, but the bomb spots him (failed NFA) and orders Sgt. Cabral to arrest the unlucky grunt for court-martial. Cabral, having already shot one trooper today for disobedience, pulls his side-arm but then fakes out the bomb and lets Seven dodge past him and slam the override home (finally, a successful NFA turns up) before it can detonate out of spite.

As the now lobotomized smart bomb does its best HAL-9000 imitation our heroes set the manual timer and then beat feet for the pick-up zone, fleeing the blast area Predator-style.

Mission accomplished.

post-mission:
Sergeant Cabral - 26 kills, raises NFA (6/6). Cabral bucks for promotion and is denied. How many troopers do you have to shoot around here to become an officer?
Trooper Seven - 5 kills, raises NFA (7/4).

(Juniper continued)

Friendly Fire
The not entirely reassured marines move out and before long come across some other marines moving towards them in the corridor -- the PCs roll an ambush, but can't decide if they really want to attack. The Intelligence spook is ordering them to open fire, not take any chances, etc. but our heroes are hesitant to cut down what look like their own men. At the last minute the approaching marines spot the spook drifting near the ceiling and Cabral and Seven bite the bullet and open fire.

It's short and sweet, a handy victory for Cabral and Seven as they cut down their fellow space marines. As the dust settles (a metaphor in zero-G) they move forward to examine the bodies. The Intelligence spook is exultant as he examines the shattered faceplate of one of the dead marines. "See? Look right there. He's one of them. Good work Trooper, you too Sergeant. I'll see you both get commendations for this."

I make it quite clear to John and Ryan that they see _nothing_ to mark the dead marine as an alien. They start to get a sinking feeling in their stomachs that they have backed the wrong horse and hooked up with a deranged lunatic who has convinced them to slaughter their own brothers-in-arms. There's a certain grim silence around the gaming table. After their past victories and tough scrapes they have really grown to like their characters, so this reversal is really getting them in the gut. I let them stew for just a minute or two more before letting them off the hook:

One of the drifting corpses begins to twitch and then twist in inhuman ways, the spine ratcheting left and right as the limbs flail spasmodically. The spook is horrified: "Oh god, it's a Phase 2!" Then the armored body swells and bursts, long flat worms rippling out and swimming through the vacuum towards our heroes.

It's a short fight (relatively few threat), allowing the troopers to mow down the first wave of worms and then flee before the other corpses burst as well. The spook goes down in the first round, the worms wrapping themselves around his suit and burrowing in through the joints before a grenade puts him out of his misery. A suitably horrible death for the spook.


Abandon Ship: women, children and alien doppeltroopers first
The now somewhat relieved troopers leave the carnage behind them and beat feet for the escape pods, but when they get there they draw up short: the pod bay is filled with locked-and-loaded soldiers. But are they good-old red blooded space marines or alien infected doppeltroopers?

As Cabral and Seven skulk and watch more troopers arrive, and then without warning one of the troopers levels his weapon and guns down another marine standing next to him. Chaos erupts as troopers turn on each other while others dive for cover or throw up their hands in confusion. No one seems to know what's going on except the doppeltroopers.

All the remaining threat goes on the table and Cabral and Seven spring into action, mowing down suspected doppeltroopers and anyone else who points a gun at them. It's sheer mayhem. Trooper Seven pops a Strength to end the carnage, hurling grenades into packs of doppeltroopers with no regard for his own safety (anyone remember what the actual Strength he used was?).

When it's all over the marines stand victorious but at great price. The Sevastopol is damaged beyond repair and has to be abandoned and scuttled. The few survivors are transfered to other vessels (after very thorough medical screenings).

In post-game our heroes learn that the Sevastopol had recovered a probe that had been sent ahead to Juniper to see if it harbored alien life, and a TechInt team had secretly come aboard to examine the recovered sample (their arrival was what caused the rumors among the crew at the beginning). A minor lab accident resulted in staff getting infected by the alien micro-organism and spreading the infection to the crew. Fully-infected doppeltroopers eventually tried to take the bridge and opened fire on a nearby ship, resulting in a ship-to-ship collision that caused severe damage to the Sevastopol.

Juniper is nuked from orbit, and few outside of the highest echelons ever know what really happened aboard the Sevastopol...

post-mission:
Sergeant Cabral - 44 kills, raises FA (7/6)
Trooper Seven - 28 kills, raises NFA (7/5). For his outstanding service Trooper Seven is promoted to Corporal.

Ryan getting promoted back to Corporal added a nice justice to the evening after his untimely demise on Narcissus. I'm not sure but I think Cabral might have also used a strength during this mission and was denied promotion again. Tough luck Sarge.

Yes, lots and lots of kills. Were all of them aliens, or were some just innocent soldiers mistaken for doppeltroopers? We will never know. Shoot first, etc.

When I ran Juniper I was prepping in a hurry (never thinking we'd get to three planets in one night) so I didn't use a special power, but if I did it again I'd give them Impair (because the troopers are hesitant to attack their own guys) or Induce Weakness (since killing your buddies could certainly cause some freak out moments).

End of game 1, the Sevastopol missions.

John: What do you think of reviving Fudge Force 9 on top of the 3:16 rules?

Force 9 still has a nice place in my gamer memories, John. The promises the trade council stuff gave the military setting some extra, Alien-like spin.

But yes, making replacements Clones instead of all-new troopers would certainly be enough to revive the setting …

"Rumor has it, there actually is no fleet. It's just your one ship pushing on, the rest exploded in some attack months back. You don't know, they tell you troopers shit. Haven't seen a window for weeks."

Oooh, nice one John! I'm still pretty fond of your vend-o-medal too. Ahem: play thread please. If you can't get 27 zillion people to contribute their favorite moments from your GenCon games than you just aren't trying! I'll bet you could just start an empty thread and let everyone else fill it in.

Posted By: John HarperA few little extra bits I recall:

Good, good bits. I thought you did something bastardly to the Intelligence spook but I couldn't remember the details.

Do you remember if you used a Strength for Juniper? I have this feeling that Cabral got passed over for promotion multiple times but that might have just been other failed Development rolls.

Posted By: John Harper- Ben's smart bomb voice was so good. It was like a Dalek crossed with Grand Moff Tarkin. "Evacuate? In our moment of triumph?"

I could walk around all day saying "Negative Trooper!" in an annoying nasal voice. In fact, today might be that day.

Posted By: John HarperThe troopers don't know shit.
The universe is big and mysterious.
The squad makes the tough choices.

You've nailed it. Would-be 3:16 GMs everywhere, tattoo this on your arm.

Awesome, I like the idea of sleeping with the medals on. Especially when the Crimson Sword is totally undeserved.

Rashomon space marines. I love it.

Posted By: Jonathan WaltonI'm totally naming all the ships in my 3:16 games after territories in Diplomacy.

Funny! That's exactly what I think of too, whenever I see Sevastopol.

Yeah, I noticed that too, Ralph. Weird. Anyway, my first ship is gonna be the the Skagerrak, sister to the Sevastopol.