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Actual Play Vignettes: 3:16: My First Times Playing, and Some Rules Questions

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  1.  
    • CommentAuthorWillow
    • CommentTimeSep 30th 2008
     # 1
    So this weekend, there was a local con here in Madison, Geekcon, primarily an anime and cosplay, but with a bit of gaming (in a different building). I ran some Games on Demand, and 3:16 got played twice, getting quite a bit of love, and having a good time.

    When we first started, we only had three people making characters, but by the end our squad was up to six- Sgt. Brillo, the By-the-Book sergeant, played by Brendan, a regular in my gaming group. He was backed up by the Rash Cpl. Liono, the Grizzled Trp. Guido (played by Tim, another regular), Trp. Nikov, Trp. Smith, and Trp. Boz (with the rep 'Guns, Booze, Guns!'), played by Chris, who we hadn't seen in a while.

    The Squad was assigned to a massive assault on the planet Goya, inhabited by Catgirls. (The Catgirls had the ability of Berserk.)

    "Your drop ship lands in the middle of some sort of courtyard. The hatch opens. There's lots of garishly clad alien lifeforms around. They vaguely resemble humanoid cats. There's lots of pink and yellow and green. What do you do?"

    "Uh, what are the aliens doing?"

    "They seem to be staring at you."

    (Lots of hesitation ensues. One of the catgirls decides to call one of her catgirl friends on her cellphone.)

    "One of them seems to be reaching for a strange compact communications device."

    "I open fire."

    Slaughter of catgirls ensues. (Some wounds were taken. Most of them were narrated to being friendly fire or incompetence.) The squad secures the courtyard, then the whole small town. One of them notices that catgirls seem to be fleeing the area in their cute pink compact cars. (Their briefing officer, Captain Perlman, reports that their forces are taking a hell of a beating on the southern continent, to the confusion of the squad.)

    The squad takes out the retreating catgirl convoy, blowing up the main vehicle, and all the catgirls who try to flee. Sgt. Brillo captures a pink catgirl "APC." The radio is playing J-Pop music.

    Brillo: "I try to uplink into their communication network." (Succeed.) "Ok, now I try to hack into it, and play the Terran anthem over their network." (Fail.)
    Me: "You fail. Now you can't turn the radio off."
    Smith: "Let me try!" (Fail)
    Me: "Now it's louder."
    Nikov: "I can do this!" (Fail)
    Me: "Now it's linked into your suit's comm-system."
    Boz: "It's worth a shot." (Fail)
    Me: "Now it's in Spanish."

    The squad made their way to the J-Pop radio tower, rigged the APC with explosives and crashed it into the tower, but not before dozens of catgirls were slaughtered. Trooper Boz had a nightmarish flashback to her 7th birthday party, where her family insisted on getting her Hello Kitty toys instead of GI-Joes like her brothers. And made her dress in a big pink floofy dress. And there was a clown. And a cake the exact same shade as the pink of one of the catgirl's clothes. The horror, the horror.

    Having taken out the radio tower, the squad received orders from Perlman to take out a large massed group of catgirls- an Anime and Cosplay convention! Seeing the horror of catgirls in bunny outfits, they loaded out to do their duty. The catgirls managed to close to close range, and viciously maul several troopers. Grenades come out, and do lots of damage. One of the Troopers (Nikov?) Has a flashback to getting hit in the blast radius of a grenade during basic, and runs away. The rest succeed in wiping out the catgirl menace, keeping the universe safe for humanity.

    (More to come tomorrow- planet Michelangelo, and my rules questions.)
    •  
      CommentAuthorWolfe
    • CommentTimeSep 30th 2008
     # 2
    By the Book appears to be a popular rep.. It's the one I used in my first 3:16 game.

    Slaughtering catgirls.. Couldn't you have tried to make the aliens just a *little* sympathetic?

    ::grins:: Sounds like a lot of fun. I look forward to Michelangelo.
  3.  # 3
    This is now my favourite 3:16 AP.

    Was there any truth to the report that troops were taking a beating on the southern continent?
    • CommentAuthorWillow
    • CommentTimeOct 1st 2008
     # 4
    Yes, the Brigade was genuinely taking a beating on the southern continent. However, it was never explained why.

    Anyway, onto Michelangelo. But we only had three players, Brendan (Brillo), Tim (Guido), and Ryan (another regular, who rolled up Trooper Demonm with the rep of Bloodthirsty.)

    Me: Looks like they're restructuring the company. Liono, and most of your Troopers are being reassigned.
    Brillo: Good riddance!

    I gave Tim the option of having Guido promoted to Corporal, or letting Ryan's character start as Corporal. Tim felt it was high time Guido got promoted.

    Captain Perlman: Report for Duty, you sacks of shit!
    Brillo: Sacks of shit reporting for duty, Sir!

    Perlman laid out the mission particulars- Michelangelo is a high-gravity hell-hole, ("So prepare to get your panties in a bunch") inhabited by (sentient?) ooze. (The ooze had the ability to Regenerate, ala the T-1000.) A survey probe crashed on the planet. Their mission was to recover 1) the survey probe and 2) the first team sent down to recover the probe.

    The mission got off to a rough start- their drop pod had trouble landing in the high-gravity atmosphere, and crashed in a puddle of goo. They had to bust the hatch open, and then find a way to get to shore.

    Michelangelo has pretty much three different types of terrain: grey rocky landscape, grey acidic goo, and grey acidic sentient (?) goo. They were in a big pool of the last.

    Taking an emergency inflatable combat-liferaft from the pod, Brillo began rowing the squad to shore. (On a NFA success, I let him change range for everyone.) Meanwhile acid tentacles were coming up out of the ooze and making life miserable for everyone.

    Cpl. Guido, now equipped with an E-Cannon, failed his roll.
    "They've got me in the middle of the raft! I'm surrounded by troopers! I can't fire."

    So did Brillo.
    "I look down, and the piece of scrap metal I've been using to row is completely eaten away by the acid. We haven't made any progress."

    Eventually, Brillo got the dinghy up to shore, and hopped out (retreating to near) to set up his Rocket Pod, while Demon and Guido stayed at close positions to take out the massing ooze tentacles.

    Later, they found the probe, crashed in some rocks, surrounded by a higher ridge.

    Brillo: "Demon, go recover the datapod! We'll cover you."
    Demon: "Yes sir!" (Goes down into the depression. Fails his NFA roll.)
    Me: "You don't know. That's like computers and shit."
    Brillo: "Looks like I have to do everything myself!"

    More ooze was found. In testing it to see if it was sentient or not, they agitated it, and it attacked them. I guess that's one way to find out. Brillo recovered the datapod.

    "Tactical Assessment: Planet Michelangelo: Native lifeforms are extremely dangerous. High Gravity makes conventional operations unfeasible. Do not send troops down to planet. Nuke planet from orbit."

    The squad mulled this over and sent the data up to Perlman. Brillo found a weak radio signal- presumably the other rescue team, and sent the squad in that direction. They found another wrecked drop pod, sinking into the muck. Brillo went in, found a dying survivor, who told them where the rest of the squad went. Meanwhile lots of ooze creatures were coming out of the muck and getting blowed up by Demon and Guido.

    Me: "You see some caves. The radio signals seem to be coming from underground."
    Brillo: "They must have taken refuge from the gravity in those caves!"

    The squad went down into the cave, and found the other rescue squad- with none other than Cpl. Liono, and Troopers Nikov, Smith, and Boz! (They had several unconscious wounded, including the other squad's unnamed Sergeant.)

    Liono: "We took refuge in these caves from the gravity, Sir!"

    Brillo helped Liono move the wounded up to the surface, and they radioed Perlman to send in extraction.

    Also around this time, we had Abram, who plays in my D&D game, stop by. He played Liono for the rest of the session. Which was like 15 minutes.

    Perlman: "Get ready! E-Vac in 5 minutes. Nukes inbound in six."
    Liono: "Shouldn't they nuke the planet after we're back on the ship?"
    Perlman: "Listen to me, maggot- every minute this planet isn't nuked is a minute it's threatening the sanctity of our very way of life!"

    So, of course the ooze stormed their position. Demon, Liono, and Guido began shooting with various types of weapons at Near range. Brillo retreated to Far, and set up his rocket pod, but not after taking Demon's Combat Drugs (having used his own dose in an earlier encounter.) Brillo failed, and re-rolled, getting a 10, taking a wound.

    Brillo: "Having already taken a dose of these, I collapse, overdosing. I'm sweating a lot. And the sweat, it's so heavy!"

    The ooze managed to get closer, and lots of grenades came out, but there wasn't too much collateral damage. The squad made good use of suppression fire, using their FA successes to negate several successes from the ooze.

    Finally, the E-Vac came in, and extracted them from the planet, and they saw the nukes rain down on Michelangelo. Mission complete!
    •  
      CommentAuthorJohn Harper
    • CommentTimeOct 1st 2008 edited
     # 5
    Perlman: "Listen to me, maggot- every minute this planet isn't nuked is a minute it's threatening the sanctity of our very way of life!"

    Fantastic.
    • CommentAuthorWillow
    • CommentTimeOct 2nd 2008
     # 6
    So here's my rules questions, and assorted rules ponderings.

    *What happens if there's a tie in combat?
    I ruled it was simultaneous actions, but on multiple occasions, the aliens had 1 threat left, and two PCs had the same initiative. I ruled they both got their kills.

    *Sgt. Brillo wanted to heal his troopers during combat. How do I handle this?
    Is this even allowed by the rules? Can I give him a NFA roll? Should I force him to use up a Medpack, or is this just tough luck.

    *How do I handle promotions in the fiction?
    We haven't gotten a promotion yet, but I'm looking at the two most likely scenarios- Brillo makes Lt, or Guido makes Sgt. If Guido makes Sgt, there would probably be two squads working closely on missions- lots of fun for drama there!

    But reasonably those squads would both have (NPC) Corporals, right? And a Trooper could arrange things to frag one of those Corporals, and get promoted, right? (So far, I don't have a problem with any of this.)

    But what if one of the Sarges bites it? Fiction wise, the field promotion should go to the Corporal, but rules wise (and interestingness-wise) it should go to a player character. What do I do in that situation?

    Finally, these are some house rules I'm thinking about. Maybe someone can point out a flaw in these:

    *When you requisition new gear, instead of getting or upgrading a weapon, you can get some useful piece of non-combat gear that you and the GM agree upon.

    *If your character dies, when you make a new character, you can recover a used Strength box or a used Weakness box, your choice.

    (Weaknesses seem really fun to use, and it seems sad to me that a player can be restricted to just 5. I know they can set you up for demotions, but if a player is willing to risk that, why not?)
  7.  # 7
    *What happens if there's a tie in combat?

    Rule is on p. 18 (second last paragraph), and an example is at the start of p. 76.

    *Sgt. Brillo wanted to heal his troopers during combat. How do I handle this?

    You can only heal between encounters (p. 22). (Describing using a medipack as an NFA roll is perfectly OK during an encounter, Malcolm was saving NPCs this way in a game we played -- after all, you're hoping to roll high and avoid getting killed by the aliens by doing something non-fighty, it's just that it isn't going to get any health boxes back.)

    *How do I handle promotions in the fiction?

    Section 9, p.38, advises on just working it in to the fiction as best you can. For me they might end up in a supersquad made up of remnants of some decimated units. Or an elite unit of Special Forces might make sense? Or maybe someone is waiting on secondment to a different unit and there's tension that way?

    Field Promotions on p. 30 say that it's only ranking PCs dying that get another PC field promoted.

    Hope this helps!
  8.  # 8
    Hi Willow

    Oh, I wanted to comment on your house rules too!

    Posted By: Willow*When you requisition new gear, instead of getting or upgrading a weapon, you can get some useful piece of non-combat gear that you and the GM agree upon.

    *If your character dies, when you make a new character, you can recover a used Strength box or a used Weakness box, your choice.


    They both sound very cool to me. I mean, Officers get access to non-weapon gear as they rise up the ranks, and they probably will replace some of it between missions after using the first one up (TPK Bomb, I'm looking at you...). Did you have any cool gear in mind? Maybe stuff like rocketpacks or an ambush detector?

    Let me know what stuff you come up with!

    Strengths are most useful to the party, but Weaknesses are very useful to an individual PC. If someone said to me, I'd rather have a Weakness then I'd be OK with that.

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