Perfect Organism
05-08-2005, 07:36 AM
None of my players are familiar with the THS setting and only one of them knows the GURPS rules set, so I decided that I had better start them off with a fairly straightforward monster hunt in a big derelict facility...
You can read a quick summary of the adventure here: http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?t=188099
I had written up six pre-generated characters for this introductory adventure and finally ended up with five players. Four of them chose to play one of my pre-generated characters (Harpreet the human team leader, Alex the Felicia II combat bioroid, Hikaru the SAI electronics expert and Robin the zoologist) and the fifth chose to generate his own character, Savannah Palanciano, a Ecuadorian marine who had been killed in combat and ended up uploaded into a second hand cyberdoll body and decided to study martial arts...
Play started a bit later than planned, so I served food and ran through a quick briefing session for anyone who hadn't read the handout while we were waiting for the stragglers to arrive.
The team decided to enter the complex through the submarine bay in the lower level. They drove their mini-subs up through the access port and left them in the lower vehicle bay, camouflaged among the abandoned vehicles there. They then split into two teams, with Hikaru and Savannah heading south to the mechanical engineering section and the others heading west to try and gain access to the nearest airlocks up to the next level. Both teams found their progress blocked by a large mass of some kind of white coral like substance filling the south-east quadrant of the base.
Up until this point the group seemed to be fairly well organised and there was a minimum of out of character chatter, however, once the team was split in two there was too much time when one group didn't have anything to do and ended up talking out of character, which made it difficult to generate atmosphere.
Robin examined the substance and found that it was mostly made of calcium and had small tubes running through it, like coral, but that there were no living coral polyps or worms inside it.
Harpreet sent a cyberswarm into the coral to explore it, but they didn't return. Meanwhile The infomorphs had started to explore the tissue synthesis lab and genetics section. Hikaru recovered some data disks from the tissue synthesis computers which looked as though they were still intact and then they found a corpse floating in the next room, apparently killed with multiple small stab wounds.
The corpse was dressed in civilian diving gear with Vietnamese labels. They found an empty pistol floating nearby and several bullet holes in the walls. A search of the next room showed more bullet holes and some severed fingers, possibly belonging to the corpse and apparently not more than a few hours old. Hikaru took the fingers and sealed them in a small container from the lab. Hikaru also recovered a fragment of claw from the vertebrae of the corpse.
The biosapient team then decided to retrieve some cutting gear from the mechanical storage room to the south and cut their way through the life support unit and up via the airlock. Around this time, Alex went to join Hikaru in the genetics area, while Savannah joined up with Robin and Harpreet. Alex took the virtual interface visor from the corpse, hoping to be able to access the data on it later.
Eventually the whole team were assembled at the airlock and Hikaru took over the task of cutting through the doors. When the airlock was finally opened, they found an air pocket inside with the mummified corpse of an electrician who had apparently been trapped in there since the base was abandoned. Alex took his identity badge and the team carried on cutting, soon gaining access to the next level.
I probably wasted a chance to get a more serious mood going for the session at his point. The mummified corpse seemed to get quite a reaction and the team were all grouped together. I was feeling a bit distracted though, since I was struggling with my notes at this point and didn't really sieze the opportunity.
The next level was also flooded. They didn't spend much time in this area, just entering the central chamber, noting another mass of the coral like growth in the east corridor and then forcing their way up the elevator shaft to the dock level.
The dock level was the first area of the base they had encountered which was mostly above water. The base had settled slightly to the east, so the central area had about a foot of water in it. Exploring carefully and stealthily, they overheard two voices whispering in Vietnamese. Alex spotted two figures lurking behind a crate next to the cargo elevator. The team decided that these were probably Blue Shadow terrorists, so decided to attack them. Savannah took the north corridor and circled around, after telling Alex to give her cover in eight minutes time.
In retrospect, I probably should have anticipated that this encounter would end in carnage, but I wasn't quite ready for Savannnah's next move.
At the moment her interface told her Savannah had left eight minutes ago, Alex threw a hot prismatic smoke grenade down the corridor, totally blocking all vision around the junction that the two figures were occupying. Savannah then charged the two with her katana (totally blinded by the smoke) while Hikaru and Robin used the cover of the smoke to advance to cover near the vehicle maintenance bay and Alex ran down the corridor towards the fight.
Unable to see who was attacking them, one of the Vietnamese panicked and fired wildly with his PDW, hitting his colleague in the chest. Savannah tried to locate him in the smoke by the sound of his weapon, but was unable to land a solid hit with her katana before a stray round hit her in the left arm damaging it fairly badly (five hit points lost). In response she finally managed to hit the man who had shot her, severing his arm with a blow from her sword and sending it flying past Alex. She then stabbed her opponent several times while he was lying on the floor screaming, finishing him off.
When the smoke cleared the team found the surviving Vietnamese man lying on the floor clutching his chest wound. Alex pulled out her medical kit and managed to stabilise him while Hikaru did hir best to patch up Savannah (restoring 1 Hit Point with a mechanic roll).
They then interrogated their prisoner, who told them that he was a scientist working for the Vietnamese government. Harpreet thought that he was almost certainly telling the truth (or at least what he believed to be the truth). He explained that his team had set up a sealed area in the second level between the cold storage facility and the west security station. He said that they had tried to prevent the crabs from gaining access to their area but that they had forced their way in and killed several researchers, before suddenly retreating back towards the east side of the complex. Questioned further about the crabs, he said that two years ago another team had examined them and studied their behaviour patterns, but that between then and now the crabs had changed their behaviour and were now more aggressive and dangerous.
He told them that three members of his eight man team had now been killed, leaving four unaccounted for. One of them had tried to get to their transport boat in the north dock, but he didn't know if he had made it. The team decided to find out, so they headed around the circular corridor towards the north dock, taking their prisoner with them.
At this point we decided to end the session, since it was getting late (later than I had intended to play) and it seemed like a natural break.
In game, my major problem was that I wasn't really able to roleplay the NPC convincingly (didn't have any notes on his personality, so I had to wing it, which I'm not very good at) and the players didn't really seem to get in character much (not sure if this is a problem of them not really liking the pre-generated characters all that much or just how the session went).
I'm going to see the group later tonigh anyway, so I'll try to get some opinions on what I can do to make the next session better then.
You can read a quick summary of the adventure here: http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?t=188099
I had written up six pre-generated characters for this introductory adventure and finally ended up with five players. Four of them chose to play one of my pre-generated characters (Harpreet the human team leader, Alex the Felicia II combat bioroid, Hikaru the SAI electronics expert and Robin the zoologist) and the fifth chose to generate his own character, Savannah Palanciano, a Ecuadorian marine who had been killed in combat and ended up uploaded into a second hand cyberdoll body and decided to study martial arts...
Play started a bit later than planned, so I served food and ran through a quick briefing session for anyone who hadn't read the handout while we were waiting for the stragglers to arrive.
The team decided to enter the complex through the submarine bay in the lower level. They drove their mini-subs up through the access port and left them in the lower vehicle bay, camouflaged among the abandoned vehicles there. They then split into two teams, with Hikaru and Savannah heading south to the mechanical engineering section and the others heading west to try and gain access to the nearest airlocks up to the next level. Both teams found their progress blocked by a large mass of some kind of white coral like substance filling the south-east quadrant of the base.
Up until this point the group seemed to be fairly well organised and there was a minimum of out of character chatter, however, once the team was split in two there was too much time when one group didn't have anything to do and ended up talking out of character, which made it difficult to generate atmosphere.
Robin examined the substance and found that it was mostly made of calcium and had small tubes running through it, like coral, but that there were no living coral polyps or worms inside it.
Harpreet sent a cyberswarm into the coral to explore it, but they didn't return. Meanwhile The infomorphs had started to explore the tissue synthesis lab and genetics section. Hikaru recovered some data disks from the tissue synthesis computers which looked as though they were still intact and then they found a corpse floating in the next room, apparently killed with multiple small stab wounds.
The corpse was dressed in civilian diving gear with Vietnamese labels. They found an empty pistol floating nearby and several bullet holes in the walls. A search of the next room showed more bullet holes and some severed fingers, possibly belonging to the corpse and apparently not more than a few hours old. Hikaru took the fingers and sealed them in a small container from the lab. Hikaru also recovered a fragment of claw from the vertebrae of the corpse.
The biosapient team then decided to retrieve some cutting gear from the mechanical storage room to the south and cut their way through the life support unit and up via the airlock. Around this time, Alex went to join Hikaru in the genetics area, while Savannah joined up with Robin and Harpreet. Alex took the virtual interface visor from the corpse, hoping to be able to access the data on it later.
Eventually the whole team were assembled at the airlock and Hikaru took over the task of cutting through the doors. When the airlock was finally opened, they found an air pocket inside with the mummified corpse of an electrician who had apparently been trapped in there since the base was abandoned. Alex took his identity badge and the team carried on cutting, soon gaining access to the next level.
I probably wasted a chance to get a more serious mood going for the session at his point. The mummified corpse seemed to get quite a reaction and the team were all grouped together. I was feeling a bit distracted though, since I was struggling with my notes at this point and didn't really sieze the opportunity.
The next level was also flooded. They didn't spend much time in this area, just entering the central chamber, noting another mass of the coral like growth in the east corridor and then forcing their way up the elevator shaft to the dock level.
The dock level was the first area of the base they had encountered which was mostly above water. The base had settled slightly to the east, so the central area had about a foot of water in it. Exploring carefully and stealthily, they overheard two voices whispering in Vietnamese. Alex spotted two figures lurking behind a crate next to the cargo elevator. The team decided that these were probably Blue Shadow terrorists, so decided to attack them. Savannah took the north corridor and circled around, after telling Alex to give her cover in eight minutes time.
In retrospect, I probably should have anticipated that this encounter would end in carnage, but I wasn't quite ready for Savannnah's next move.
At the moment her interface told her Savannah had left eight minutes ago, Alex threw a hot prismatic smoke grenade down the corridor, totally blocking all vision around the junction that the two figures were occupying. Savannah then charged the two with her katana (totally blinded by the smoke) while Hikaru and Robin used the cover of the smoke to advance to cover near the vehicle maintenance bay and Alex ran down the corridor towards the fight.
Unable to see who was attacking them, one of the Vietnamese panicked and fired wildly with his PDW, hitting his colleague in the chest. Savannah tried to locate him in the smoke by the sound of his weapon, but was unable to land a solid hit with her katana before a stray round hit her in the left arm damaging it fairly badly (five hit points lost). In response she finally managed to hit the man who had shot her, severing his arm with a blow from her sword and sending it flying past Alex. She then stabbed her opponent several times while he was lying on the floor screaming, finishing him off.
When the smoke cleared the team found the surviving Vietnamese man lying on the floor clutching his chest wound. Alex pulled out her medical kit and managed to stabilise him while Hikaru did hir best to patch up Savannah (restoring 1 Hit Point with a mechanic roll).
They then interrogated their prisoner, who told them that he was a scientist working for the Vietnamese government. Harpreet thought that he was almost certainly telling the truth (or at least what he believed to be the truth). He explained that his team had set up a sealed area in the second level between the cold storage facility and the west security station. He said that they had tried to prevent the crabs from gaining access to their area but that they had forced their way in and killed several researchers, before suddenly retreating back towards the east side of the complex. Questioned further about the crabs, he said that two years ago another team had examined them and studied their behaviour patterns, but that between then and now the crabs had changed their behaviour and were now more aggressive and dangerous.
He told them that three members of his eight man team had now been killed, leaving four unaccounted for. One of them had tried to get to their transport boat in the north dock, but he didn't know if he had made it. The team decided to find out, so they headed around the circular corridor towards the north dock, taking their prisoner with them.
At this point we decided to end the session, since it was getting late (later than I had intended to play) and it seemed like a natural break.
In game, my major problem was that I wasn't really able to roleplay the NPC convincingly (didn't have any notes on his personality, so I had to wing it, which I'm not very good at) and the players didn't really seem to get in character much (not sure if this is a problem of them not really liking the pre-generated characters all that much or just how the session went).
I'm going to see the group later tonigh anyway, so I'll try to get some opinions on what I can do to make the next session better then.