Scene 1: What are you waiting for?

Jan 20, 2024 3:20 pm
https://i.imgur.com/TAb0RtP.jpg
Hadley’s Hope, jointly funded by Weyland-Yutani and the United Americas, has a "them and us" feel to it, with any visiting corporate folk looking down their noses at the colony’s laborers. Despite this, the colony has been developing well. There’s opportunity aplenty—and risk aplenty, too.

Four days ago, a wildcatter named Russ Jorden was brought back, infected with something. He died, and some snake-like parasite disappeared into the guts of the base. Security has had no luck catching the thing, and somehow more people were infected. Rumor has it that some of them have died, and that there are more of these snake-things than Supervisor Simpson is admitting to. Simpson spoke over the intercoms, calling for calm.

Crisis or not, you have a job to do. Twenty-four hours ago, you headed out on a maintenance run to Processor 9, happy to leave base until the crisis blows over. Ten kilometers out, Singleton’s tractor gave up the ghost. A nasty, mechanical crunch told you it wasn’t going any further. Calls back to Hadley’s Hope got a cursory response: you were told to wait, and they’d get to your little problem when they had the time.

While you waited, you got to talking about the crisis and the Weyland-Yutani corporate shuttle that arrived right before you left. The shuttle carried an inspection team led by company agent Miranda Reynolds and her chief scientist Theodora Komiskey. Sigg relayed something he’d overheard—a hushed conversation about the shuttle being quickly and quietly readied for departure. Reynolds and Komiskey are likely the only two who can authorize its use, and the only two with the access keycards needed to use it. For all you know, it was Reynolds who ordered Jorden out there in the first place. It’s not right for the Weyland-Yutani reps to just skip out and leave you—the workers—to clean up this bloody mess! If things go bad, why shouldn’t you get those keycards and get away instead?

A day has passed, and you’ve still heard nothing. All further attempts to contact Hadley’s Hope have been fruitless. No one is coming to help. The only communications you pick up on are garbled, panicked even. There’s no option but to walk back, and see what the hell is going on...
Jan 22, 2024 1:26 pm
Hannah sighs and tries to rev the tractor engine one more time, a hourly ritual since it gave up on the way to the processor.

"Piece of", she mutters under her breath and hits the steering wheel with her palm. It's clearly not going to turn over.

She smacks it on more time and then jumps out the tractor. "Guess we're walking. The radio still being weird?", she sighs looking back at the tractor with a grimace.
Last edited January 22, 2024 1:52 pm
Jan 22, 2024 8:00 pm
You've been stuck in this damn tractor for what feels like an age. It's cramped, it's none too warm, it smells...

To pass the time, each of you stuck on the tractor takes time to tell a few stories to the others.

Players, please each give us a story from your PCs past, something you can imagine they'd be up for sharing with the group to pass the time. Could be something funny, or scary, or really tedious... you chose :)
OOC:
I'd usually ask here for PCs to describe what they're thinking and feeling about what's coming next - but with your personal agendas not being know by the other PCs (or, indeed, players) that doesn't really work here. Hence this different scene-setting question.
Jan 22, 2024 8:23 pm
'When I was in school I got a job at a refueling station on the wrong side of Shreeport. I needed the money. I worked the graveyard shift so I could go to class during the day- and I thought it was going to be cake. This old guy named Ron taught me the ropes, and then it was my first shift by myself? Not only did I get robbed that night by a junkie with a fucking hunting knife? A few months later some dipshit OD'd in the lav. Ripped the sink out of the wall before he went out on a hot shot. I called the cops 'cuz I thought he was trying to bust the door down to the garage to steal the tools. When the cops came they blocked my ride in- so his buddy just crept off. They made ME unlock the door where the guy bit the bullet. I was like 'Hey you guys got the guns!'. The whole place was surreal. And the rats? Holy shit... Place was right next to a swamp so we got all these marsh rats coming in the service station. My boss put these bag traps out- the rats would climb in and eat whatever poison was in the bags and then supposedly kick it. I worked the morning shift on Sundays because nobody wanted it. One sunday I propped the door open to the garage and as a line of customers came in this uber rat in a bag comes scraping into the service station store where a line of people were gassing up and buying lottery tickets. The rat-in-a-bag was behind everybody and it was just doing donuts on the linoleum floor... and here's 18 year old me praying nobody turns around. They didn't. NOBODY noticed the last waltz of Templeton Rat at the Mobile station that day... Place was a trip though.'' Sonny sighs. 'Glad I finished school.. guys I grew up with still work dead end jobs like that. Although this shit looks like it might be the ultimate dead end, if what we can hear on the radio is any means of considering...' Sigg gulps. 'Sorry. I talk a lot when I get nervous...' the lab tech hugs his shoulders and looks away from everyone.
Last edited January 22, 2024 8:25 pm
Jan 23, 2024 4:10 am
"You're fine, I just...this damn car", Hannah says.

She hears her mother in the background, "#@$$%, Hannah, watch what your doing. You know that doesn't go there", the phantom of the past days says as Hannah purses her lips and drifts towards the past.

1. Graduation or more importantly not graduation.
She is in the hallway yelling. She throws her text on the ground. Her parents follow her out of their foyer, matching her anger. She will realize only later that they were afraid.

2. She finds herself testing for her pilots examine. She likes her fellow students, but loves driving. This is her ticket away from the dull 9 to 5 her parents had planned for her. This is her ticket to adventure.

3. She sits in a poorly lit office, somewhere on some random rock. Weyland-Yutani branding catching her attention. A hand shake, then....

She snaps back to the present.
Why?, she thinks glowering at the tractor.

"Uh, anyone here about McClean? I heard he got a new welder.", she says awkwardly trying to work through her frustration.
Last edited January 23, 2024 4:18 am
Jan 23, 2024 6:26 am
OOC:
Loving the writing here. Sonny and Hannah both really different AND very evocative of their characters!

Checking our Lines and Veils, I feel that Sonny's story is just on the OK side of:

"Cautious" i.e. "Content can occur in the game, but please be cautious and let's have a pre-game conversation. (X card always available)" for "Overdose"

"Full Veil" i.e. "Content can be exist in the game world or backstories but should not be part of scenes or storylines." for "harm to non-pet Animals"

I feel for me, it doesn't cross the lines/veils, as it's backstory, not part of a scene we're acting. AND if anyone wants content X'd at any time - including here - you have my full support, and can PM it to me, if you'd rather not mention it here in pleunum. And it's certainly (for me in this caes) not a censure or criticism of the person writing something that's being X'd - it's us finding our boundaries.

And I feel those boundaries are particularly important in horror games.

I was also reading other games the last couple of days doing their Lines and Veils. I learned that swearing is frowned on for GP public games - but this isn't public, and I'm comfortable with this level of swearing. AND again if anyone isn't, in public or PM me and we'll find a way forward that makes this work.
Jan 23, 2024 10:01 am
OOC:
Oh-sorry everyone! I have no problem editing the story at all content-wise (or cleaning up the language).
Jan 23, 2024 10:03 am
'The radio isn't any better... and what I CAN hear coming from the station is... pretty messed up. We should be careful...' Sonny sighs.
OOC:
Is there anything useful in the vehicle the group can salvage and carry on their walk?
Last edited January 23, 2024 10:04 am
Jan 23, 2024 11:54 am
OOC:
@SenorDeebs thanks so much for being so open about the Lines and Veils stuff. I really appreciate that.

Last thing I want is for you to feel criticised or complained about here - it's just it's really important for me to enjoy a game that I feel safe. And knowing that we're taking these things into account helps me with that a lot. So when something comes up that's on the edge, I want to talk about it.

As I said, for me this doesn't need to be changed. And I found the harm to the rat difficult (the "full veil" for harm to animals is from me), going forward it would be better for me if that kind of thing were less graphic.

Thanks again.
Jan 23, 2024 2:24 pm
OOC:
To search a location for gear: each location can only be searched once in the game, and that by only one PC, although other PCs can help them with this. To do this, roll for OBSERVATION.

To do that, roll a number of d6 that corresponds to the sum of you WITS attribute (will be between 2 and 5) and your OBSERVATION skill (will be between 0 and 3). Thus, for example, if you had WITS 3 and OBSERVATION 1, you would roll 4d6 (these are your "base dice".)

To help out, to quote the rules "For each person helping you, you get a +1 modification. No more than three people can help you with a single roll, meaning your maximum modification from assistance is +3" i.e. if you are helped out by 3 other people, you get to roll 3 additional base dice. To keep things moving a bit quicker here in PbP, rather than waiting a while to give everyone a chance to say whether or not they help out (it needs to make sense in terms of the narrative, how you'd be helping with the action - here it's clear, you just help the first person rummaging around in the tractor), I'll ask the person doing the roll to do an additional "Help" roll with 3d6, and if one person helps we'll add the first of the three dice to the pool, if two help then the first two, etc.

If you had any stress points, you'd roll the number of d6 (in a separate roll) corresponding to your stress point score. At the moment, no one has any stress, however, so that's not relevant yet.

One or more 6s count as a success (including if you'd got any on your stress dice). Successes in addition to the initial 6 can be used for "stunts". We'll get to what that means when someone roles one :)

So here, if Sonny searches around the tractor for gear, you'd roll

Your stats: 4 (WITS) + 2 (OBSERVATION)
Help dice: 3
Stress dice: 0

i.e. a roll of 6d6 (your stats) and then a roll of 3d6 (help dice) and we count the number of 6s you roll on the "your stats" dice, and if anyone chimes in during the next 24 hours that they'd like to help out, we include also dice rolled in the "help dice" (one for each helper, starting with the first of the results listed starting with the left of the array - any 6s in the help dice that are brought in will add to number of 6s overall.
OOC:
Trivia note because I enjoy this kinda stuff - title of this scene is taken from the scene in Aliens where the marines first wake from cryosleep on the Sulaco. Apone says to the marines "What are you waiting for? Breakfast in bed?"
Jan 23, 2024 3:56 pm
OOC:
I'm going to sort of train-of-thought Morgan til I get his character down, hopefully I edit out anything that looks like it's close to any lines/veils, but I'm 100% cool with being called out and editing anything out if it even comes close to a line I missed.

I added some backstory for Morgan kind of taken from an Alien novel - space marines fighting bugs prior to seeing the Aliens in the movie Alien. If it's too much or needs to be removed, let me know and I can rewrite.
Morgan shook his head and chewed on the stump of his unlit cigar. He liked Sigg, but the kid talked too much. Still, he was a good egg. Better than that high and mighty bike handle MacWhirr. He knew she'd start barking orders soon enough and they'd be trekking either up to Processor 9 or back to base. Barking orders. As if she had any idea about how to command under pressure.

He remembered his first deployment, Lieutenant Daniels barking orders, now there was a commander. If it hadn't been for his quick thinking, they might not have escaped those damned bugs. He'd heard marines over the comms screaming, "get 'em off! get 'em off!" But he hadn't seen the bugs, and it made it all a bit surreal. But Lt. Daniels had good intel, good instincts, and most of the team survived. That was the first time Morgan had thought of going AWOL. Light sensitive alien bugs. Who'd have thought? But he toughed it out, fought when he had to, did his duty. Then he'd seen the bugs himself, a swarm of the fuckers, devouring those colonists like... like...

He shuddered remembering. He had almost frozen up, but kept firing, clip after clip til he was almost out, forgetting all about the light sensitivity. He'd barely got his shit together enough to flip on the UV spotlights and fry those six-legged fuckers. He'd gone AWOL two days after they got back to base. Fuck that. We didn't need to be out here if there were bugs. There were plenty of planets. Stick to the bug free ones, that's what he said. He never wanted to see that shit again.

He looked over at Singleton. She was a kiss ass, but a good pilot. He didn't especially like her, but she did her job and did it well, and he could respect that. More than he respected MacWhirr. Like most of 'em, she'd climbed that ladder til she got high enough to be useless.

"Look," he said. "I've seen this movie, folks. Ain't nobody coming to rescue us. Sitting around here listening to a buncha nonsense over the radio isn't getting us anywhere. It's obvious we got a choice to make, and it ain't whether to stay here or not."

He switched the stump of his cigar to the other side of his mouth as he eyed everyone in the tractor. "We can hoof it rest of the way up to Processor 9, do the job we were sent to do, or we can hoof it back to base, find out what's all the hoopla. Either way we're taking a hike."

He glanced toward MacWhirr but didn't let his gaze linger long, more of a disgruntled side eye than anything. "What do you say, Mac? You're the boss. Which way's this field trip headed?"

His disdain for having to take orders from MacWhirr was obvious in his tone, but his actual words couldn't be used against him in his permanent record. He'd been around and played the game.
Jan 24, 2024 2:42 am
OOC:
@Beardhare thanks!
Hannah side eyes Hirsh as he talks to MacWhirr. "He isn't even trying to play nice", she thinks and turns to MacWhirr.

"What do you think, Janice?", she says tempering her annoyance at the situation and producing a smile.
Last edited January 24, 2024 2:43 am
Jan 24, 2024 8:18 am
OOC:
Just checking - so far, no one has decided to search the tractor for possible gear, is that right?

If someone does want to, then hopefully the guidlines above give you the info you need to make the corresponding Observation roll.
Jan 24, 2024 9:11 am
OOC:
Sorry busy day
Sonny searched the vehicle for anything useful.
OOC:
Well. Nope.
Last edited January 24, 2024 9:12 am

Rolls

Wit (4) + Obs. (2) - (6d6)

(154511) = 17

Help Dice - (3d6)

(535) = 13

Jan 24, 2024 9:45 am
OOC:
Quoting here from the rulebook on what happens on a failed roll:

"If you don't roll any 6s, something goes wrong. For some reason, you failed to achieve your goal. Feel free to elaborate on why with the help of the GM. She might even let a failed roll have further consequences to move the story forward in a dramatic way.

Failure must not stop the story completely. Even when you fail, there must be a way forward—perhaps at the cost of time, risk, or UA dollars, but still a way. The GM has the final say on the consequences of failure in any particular situation.

You have one last chance if you really want to succeed—you can push the roll."

Would you like to push your roll, Sonny/@SenorDeebs?

If you push, you increase your STRESS LEVEL by 1, and then re-roll any dice that were not a 6 PLUS your additional new stress dice that comes from the increase in your STRESS LEVEL.

Thus, "stress actually increases your chances to succeed at skill rolls – it makes you more sharp and alert. However, if you roll a 1 on one or more Stress Dice during a skill roll, you risk panic.

My suggestion is that, going forward, to speed things up a bit given the relative-slowness of PbP:

if you know you would want to push your roll, if the first one fails, then you commit to the push at the time of the initial roll. To do that, in parallel with the first roll, you also label another roll as "PUSHED", and roll that at the same time as your pre-push roll.


In that case, you'd do in addition something like

PUSHED Stat Dice Wit (4) + Obs. (2) - (6d6)
PUSHED Help Dice - (3d6)
PUSHED Stress Dice - (1d6)

in addition to the initial rolls i.e.:

Stat Dice Wit (4) + Obs. (2) - (6d6)
Help Dice - (3d6)

How does that sound to you?
Jan 24, 2024 9:56 am
OOC:
Sounds great, thanks.
'There's gotta be something here we can use...'
Last edited January 24, 2024 9:57 am

Rolls

PUSHED Stat Dice Wit (4) + Obs. (2) - (6d6)

(324643) = 22

PUSHED Help Dice - (3d6)

(662) = 14

PUSHED Stress Dice - (1d6)

(3) = 3

Jan 24, 2024 10:22 am
Holroyd sits quietly while the others contemplate their position in the middle of nowhere. He considers the situation and the lack of communication while sitting next to Sonny at the radio. He keeps his mouth shut, not wanting to hamper the situation further and not having much in the way of stories to tell - his stories were full of maintenance hatches and failed regulation valves.

When Sonny starts searching through the tractor for anything useful, Holroyd assists. He doesn't care for Sonny, but typically due to a lack of doing anything useful. In this case, he appreciates the man's motivation.

While searching, he listens to Hirsch give a synopsis of the situation and their options. He smiles at the man. He worries signs of emotion like this might be interpreted as fake - he's heard the barbs and jabs aimed at his direction as a result of him being synthetic.

"The options are clear, Hirsch, just as you've laid them out. I worry that, were we to walk to Processor 9 to complete our work, we would then have to return all the way from there to base on foot. With the tractor dysfunctional, that could make things...arduous."
OOC:
Two things - is there anything Holroyd can do, as a technician, to determine what's wrong with the tractor and/or try to fix it?
Second, what do our supplies look like? Could they sustain the organics in the group for the journey back to base? What about to Processor 9 then all the way back to base from there?
Jan 25, 2024 1:56 am
Alright. Let's give this one more try, then it's time to start back. We can't sit out here another day with nothing to show for it. I need to get back and see what's going on with the suits.

Janice looks around for anything that will help get the tractor going again. Halroyd. You got any ideas on how to get this machine moving again. If we're dead in the water, it's best to call it. There's no point sitting here and wasting more time. Can you fix it, or not?

Janice had listened to them all shoot the breeze while waiting for Hadley's Hope to tell them someone's on the way. It's tough to open up to those that see you as the boss. Give up too much, and it can turn into a bitch session.

Janice started reminiscing about Hadley's Hope when she first got here. Great people looking to start something new. There was so much excitement about this place ... that was before the suits arrived. She had stopped herself there. Corrected herself. I mean things got more serious. We were doing great work, but the focus can shift to results and numbers. It's just different.

Janice was on edge. Miranda Reynolds and her chief scientist Theodora Komiskey were back at base doing god knows what and she's sitting out here in her hands. Let's make something happen or I'm calling it. She can only imagine what the corporate lackeys are coming up with while she's out.
Jan 25, 2024 2:53 am
"Well, if Holroyd can fix, Holroyd will fix it. Holroyd?", Hannah says switching her gaze from MacWhirr to Holroyd. Then she thinks, "If you can fix it, that would have been useful hours ago."

She doesn't really know Holroyd, but the Holroyd's reputation around the colony is good. Everyone who has ever worked with Holroyd has a kind word.

She doesn't want to step on MacWhirr's toes, but can't help but say, "I'm pretty sure this things dead. We should hoof it back. Of course, if you agree.". She looks at Janice.
Last edited January 25, 2024 3:57 pm
Jan 25, 2024 3:29 am
"If Holroyd could have fixed it, he would have first try. We're just wasting time." Morgan pulls out the emergency igniter for his cutting torch and holds it to his half smoked cigar, clicking it a few times until it ignites. He inhales deeply as he lights the old cigar and opens the hatch.

I'll be outside taking in the air," he says sardonically and climbs down out of the tractor.

"Ah, the beautiful sunsets of LV-246," he says before the door slides shut behind him, continuing his sarcastic commentary as the wind whips his jacket around him and rain pelts his face. "Like a little slice of heaven."

Once he's alone, he says, "useless, the lot of 'em."

Well, maybe not Sonny or the synthetic, but MacWhirr's going to have them checking, double-checking, triple-checking until another day goes by. He just wants to get home to a shower, clean clothes, and those new, crisp sheets he just put on his bed.
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