The New Year Job

How about beginning the new year with a game of 5150: New Beginnings? Bad wordplay aside, here's a quick battle report.

Ken Folstom, from my first game in New Hope City, returns. This time his group includes Marie, a dropout he met shortly after his failed job at the police depot, and Charlie, a lab assistant (LWC) working at a corporation during the day and computer hacker at night. The trio has been performing some small data theft jobs for a while.

Ken's new plan involves breaking into the office of a small corporation to steal a prototype gadget and its production data. This is a bigger move than what he's used but he's counting with inside help: a disgruntled employee who contacted him to propose the job. Supposedly, the office would be lightly guarded during the New Year festivities and, with the information he would provide, the job should be very easy.

Part 1: the Meeting

35 days before the new year. 

Ken and Marie meet with Terry, the company worker who's supposed to give them details about the office. Hopefully, Ken will also get a security pass to make entering the office building easier. [I set this part as a Chillin' encounter in the Pub & Rec area during the evening. Terry will be in the building at the top center.]

As they move towards the meeting point, Ken and Marie meet two Zhuh-Zhuhs and a group of three humans but nothing happens. They finally reach the place where Terry is, and start negotiating. [I made a People challenge between Ken and Terry. A major success means he gets the security card, a major failure means he doesn't and Terry demands more money. Other results mean he gets the information about the office and nothing else.]

Terry doesn't seem in a good mood and he keeps changing subject. Ken gets worried -- what if he's changed his mind? [The first challenge resulted in zero successes.]

Ken mentions the possibility of getting a security pass. 

"Are you stupid?," Terry says. "Or maybe you think I am. There's no way I'll give you something that can be traced straight back to me."

Ken nods, displeased. Marie takes a sip of her drink and looks around, a little concerned of people listening.

"Here," Terry says, putting a small data card on the table. "The info you need." [I got a minor failure when trying the challenge again.]

Part 2: the Robbery

Night of the New Year.

Ken, Marie and Charlie arrive at the neighborhood of the corporation office. The objective is to get in, grab the items and get out. [I set this part as a Raid encounter late night in the Downtown area.]

Since one of the PEFs was generated inside the office building, I set up the second board with the floorplans.  The central row is a corridor with doors to the three rooms on each side. The entrance is at the bottom center section.

As they approach the office building, three Xeog get in front of them, machine pistols drawn. "Do you want to live to see the new year? Then give up all the stuff you're carrying," says their leader. [I rolled for first contact but got no surprises. The PEF resolved into three criminal Xeog: a thief, a dealer and a net runner, turning this into a Robbery encounter.]

The sight of three Xeog pointing firearms and ready for action is enough to make anyone (well, except maybe for a Grath) stop in their tracks. Under their careful eye, Ken and the others hand their weapons, tools and credit-sticks to the robbers.

"I... I can't believe this! We were supposed to do the robbing here," Marie says in a frustrated voice.

Ken tries to signal to her to stop talking, but it's too late.

"What is she talking about?," the Xeog thief asks.

Shaking his head, Ken explains about their plans. The Xeog exchange glances with each other. Finally, the thief says, "You two take care of them," and starts fiddling with the lock on the office door.

[Meanwhile, the PEF inside the building moved to the section in front of the door...]

Part 3: to Fight Another Day

Seeing the Xeog thief busy with the door, Ken looks at his companions and they nod. Unarmed, their only chance is to run away. They wait long seconds until the other two Xeog seem a little distracted, and then Ken says, in a hushed voice, "Go!" [At this point I made an In Sight check for the two Xeog and the three humans. Even spending two bonus dice, Ken only got two successes...]

The Xeog net runner opened fire with her machine pistol against the three humans. Charlie was hit in the leg and fell to the ground in shock. The Xeog dealer also fired and hit Ken on the chest, knocking him down. Screaming, Marie darts down the street leaving them behind. [Marie passed her Received Fire and Man Down checks so she could act and fast move to exit the board... after all, dropouts are motivated by survival.]

"Stupid humans," the Xeog dealer says. "Lets get out of here before the cops arrive."

Conclusion

The Xeog gang leaves and the police arrives, not much later. The two wounded men are taken to the hospital as victims of robbery. Since they have nothing incriminating on them, no charges are filed, even if they can't quite explain what they were doing.

Ken passed on one dice on his recovery test, so he will be out of action for three months. Charlie, surprisingly, passed his recovery test with two dice. Even more surprisingly, he will stick with Ken. Marie, on the other hand, left the group after such a fumble.

Looking back, I should have spent all the bonus dice on the In Sight check, instead of only two. However, I was confident since I was rolling eight dice (five from Rep, one from the Steely Eyes attribute and two Bonus dice.)

This scenario surprised me -- or rather, New Beginnings once again amused me with its encounter system. Rolling a Xeog gang right before getting to the office building turned everything upside down. It also felt good to write a new report after a while.