Thursday, July 17, 2014

Jenkins' Story - Part 3

So here we go for another part of Jenkins' Story, where hopefully his luck will turn better.

May 2220: following a disastrous guard job, Jenkins was arrested and spent three months in jail. Now he has been released, although he is sure the New Hope City authorities will be keeping a closer eye at him. He plans to visit his former boss at the holo-vid store, to try to get his job back, and then lay low for a while.

[And then my plans are disturbed by a Confrontation involuntary encounter...]
Jenkins meets with Viper in the Midland Terrace neighborhood, and while they are passing through an alleyway, a tall muscular man stops in front of them. "You have been causing problems to the wrong people," he grunts.

Before Jenkins can react, the man lunges forward and hits him in the face, knocking him down. Still on the ground, he kicks the man on the left knee while Viper punches him in the stomach, making him drop to his knees.

Jenkins gets up and kicks the man on the head but he parries his leg to the side. Viper moves in, intent on hitting him with her knee, but the strong man trips her. She hits her head on the ground, going out of the fight.

The stranger gets up and lands another strong punch on Jenkins' face, knocking him out. [To be precise, he rolled an Obviously Dead result, and my Star Power roll only reduced it to Out of the Fight!]

Viper wakes up to find a police officer staring at her. There are no signs of Jenkins or their assaulter.

A few days later, Jenkins' body is found in an alley of the Spaceport district. Apparently he was further beaten up and shot.

Conclusion
This involuntary encounter took me by surprise. As the enemy did not draw guns, I figured that I could keep it as a simple fist fight. I did not want to have more trouble with the police right away, and I wanted to run the encounter with Jenkins and his former boss... the bad Star Power roll ruined it all. Then, another bad roll at the Confrontation Mercy table got him killed.

This is not the end of this campaign, however: Jenkins' untimely death seems a good opportunity to try the New Hope City PI supplement, so I will fudge things a bit and give Viper a friend who is a private investigator. She will want to find out who killed Jenkins... maybe not for justice but at least to know what kind of trouble he got into, and if it can spill on her.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Short career, that...

I like the way you're picking up with Viper (as a Star now?) and running with her into the PI rules - neat!

Ricardo Nakamura said...

Hey Iain, thanks for the comment. I think Viper will be a star/co-star along with some investigator. I have to get this started!

Ed the THW Guy said...

Yes, things can go badly in NHC. I have to be pro-active when I play and never hope for the best. Fun story and nice to move it along with Viper.