"The game was originally devised as a fencing system, with background added to provide scenarios for the duels. After a time, it became apparent that the background was more fun than the duels and En Garde!, in its present form, was born." - En Garde!, 1975
A longish one this time, but I preferred to finish the fight rather than split it in two.
Hollis Highport, 1105 Week 51
Setup
Arion, Cori, Officer Muhammed and Mr Osheen are walking back from the medbay - where Sheng is recovering from her broken arm, under the watchful eye of Karagoz - when Arion notices a group of people, armed with a mixture of knives and pistols, lurking under a streetlight up ahead. It's the night shift in this section of the station, when the lights are turned low for the benefit of people trying to sleep. The people look shifty, and are taking an unhealthy interest in Arion and company.
Turn 1: Arion 7C, Thugs 5D
Arion hustles everyone out of sight down the closest alleyway. The opposition fan out in multiple directions, with the mustachio'd boss holding in place and one of his men climbing onto the roof of the building they were loitering by; some cross the street for a better line of sight, some check the opposite direction for unexpected reinforcements coming to help their quarry.
Turn 2: Arion AS, Thugs 4D
Arion and his friends move up through the alleyways, tracking the thugs by sound. It's not like him to back away from a fight, and Cori whispers to him that these people are probably connected to the transmission station on the planet's surface; it does not yet occur to him to wonder how she knows that, or why they put the station down there in the first place. The thugs continue to spread out, with a second one climbing up to a higher vantage point.
Turn 3: Thugs AD, Arion KH
One thug advances far enough to get line of sight on Mr Osheen and fires a pistol at him, Shaking him. The other thugs move cautiously forward for the most part, jumping down to ground level, although one scans behind them for the signs of approaching Port Authority, and the boss climbs up the nearest building for a better view. Shaking his head to clear it, Mr Osheen charges the man who shot him; Officer Muhammed holds in place and calls for backup, while Arion and Cori run forward to engage the enemy - as soon as they can see them.
Turn 4: Thugs JS, Arion JC
Of the six thugs with line of sight to Mr Osheen, only one manages to draw blood as he charges the closest ganger, roaring; but that is a solid hit, and Osheen falls with a look of surprise on his face. Another ganger runs to a building, ready to climb up it, but sees Arion and opens fire on him; he misses. Arion returns fire, but also misses. The last ganger dithers, darting this way and that, unable to decide which way to go. Cori leapfrogs past Arion and walks a short burst from her SMG up the wall the gangster firing at Arion is climbing; one round hits him somewhere vital, and he falls, his fingers suddenly nerveless. Officer Muhammed pops up out of cover long enough to squeeze off a shot at the closest thug, but misses. She ducks back to avoid his return fire.
Turn 5: Arion 8D, thugs 6D
Cori and Arion exchange a look and a nod, and advance. Cori steps into the street and lays down suppressive fire on the closest two thugs, while Arion runs straight forward, pausing for a second to fire at the ganger with the best shot at Cori before ducking into another alleyway, as he has noted the dithering ganger to his south. Realising she's getting separated, Muhammed darts across an alley mouth in pursuit of Arion, squeezing off a shot at one ganger as she flashes through his line of sight. This time she hits, and he collapses to the floor.
The dithering ganger sees Arion duck into an alley and moves after him, getting close enough to slash with his knife, but only gashes Arion's leather jacket. The two suppressed by Cori fire back at her, but one has a badly-maintained gun, which jams, and the other misses. The two across the street from Cori fire at her, but miss. Meanwhile, the leader moves to get a clear shot at Arion, but misses.
Turn 6: Arion 3C, thugs 2S
Arion steps back, dodging a second thrust from the knife, and shoots his assailant, who curls up around his new orifice and falls. Cori crosses the alley mouth with an unconcerned stride, firing at the thug on the pedestrian crossing; she gets two solid hits from the three rounds fired, and he goes down. Muhammed closes up and fires at the first thug she sees, Shaking him. More tactically aware than the others and with the home ground advantage, she is in a place where none of the surviving enemy can see her.
The enemy leader now has a clear shot at Arion, and Shakes him with a graze. The unwounded female ganger stalks forward until she has clear line of sight on Muhammed, and drops her with a well-placed shot. The Shaken ganger composes himself and darts across the alley mouth, firing as he goes and Shaking Cori. His colleague follows suit, is equally accurate, and Cori goes down, Wounded.
Turn 7: Thugs 5S, Arion 4H
The leader, who can see Arion staggering back against a wall, directs his followers to close in, and they move to cut off his avenues of escape. The two who have line of sight fire, but Arion twists out of the way at the last second, shaking his head to clear it and running for his life; he can't see the others, but the silence on the tactical comms channel is not encouraging.
Turn 8: Arion QH, thugs 2H
Arion ducks down a side alley, vaults up onto a fire escape, then drops down on the far side and doubles back on himself, hoping to lose his pursuers so he can go back to check on his friends, just the sort of thing an Impulsive, Heroic fellow might do. The gangers run after him, but he has broken line of sight, even from the one leaping across from building to building above him.
At this point, the sound of alarms blaring is heard, and the sound of bulkheads dropping to seal off this section of the station. The thugs' leader gives a piercing whistle, and they run off in the direction of the nearest exit.
Aftermath
Three of the four injured thugs survive long enough to be captured, but one bleeds out before help can arrive. Mr Osheen's alien physiology regenerates quickly, not least because the dead ganger - only a few metres from him - seems to be missing a lot of bodily fluids when the Port Authority finally get to him. Cori is badly injured but quickly stabilised, and the redoubtable Officer Muhammed has already levered herself upright and is making her unsteady way towards Cori.
NPC AI
Updated with lessons learned this fight...
- If in close combat, fight until one side is Incapacitated.
- If you can make a ranged attack, attack the closest visible target.
- Move towards closest visible target, or where they were visible last turn, and attack in close combat if possible.
- Move in a random direction. Stop and turn at obstacles.
GM Notes
For me, the game comes first; to a large extent, the narrative simply justifies the characters moving from one action scene to the next. So here we are, with pictures of the skirmish and not much in the way of narrative or rules exposition. It's the opposite of "fiction first", and I like it that way. Your Mileage May Vary.
I also find it easier to maintain my enthusiasm for a solo game if each episode includes some kind of experiment as well as moving the story forward. This time, I wanted to try out the current version of my NPC combat AI, derived from the old Showdown skirmish rules. I also wanted to try out my shiny new Giant Book of Cyberpunk Battlemats with figures on a tabletop, but having that does not magically grant me access to any of our tables for hours at a time; fortunately, I have the VTT versions of those battlemats, so the game took place in Roll20 instead.
While what the AI did was surprisingly sensible considering its simplicity, but I think in the situation at turn 1, it would make more sense for the thugs to close on where Our Heroes were last seen; by turn 5, I'd decided to allow them to move towards where they saw someone the previous round. Once Muhammed raised the alarm, I made a Mythic Fate roll every round to see if backup arrived, starting with the odds at Impossible and improving them one step each turn. The cavalry arrived just in time, and everyone was lucky on their Incapacitation rolls.
Checking Interstellar Rebels, I see that a fight against 2 basic warriors is worth 1 VP; there were 8 of them, but then Arion had friends with him, and I infer the Interstellar Rebels solo mode is intended for a single PC; so let's say the extra people on both sides cancel each other out. The current score is thus Arion 7, BBEG 2; first to 10 wins.
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