Actual Play – Officer Down (2/28/2011)

GM: Sean Nittner
Players: Chris, Fattig, Steve, Omar
System: Dresden Files

Omar leaving

This game was Omar’s last. He was a few days from moving to LA so I wanted it to be his send off game. We talked a little before the game and decided that Kyle Stone should be presented with a no-win situation and we’d just see how he handled his own personal Kobayashi Maru. Omar was down, so we talked about a couple possibilities and decided going toe to toe with a vampire noble was the way to go. He’s the criminal; the PCs have figured this out already, so it was just a matter of seeing what Kyle would do when he found out.

My bangs for this session.

Rose Itsuaki (Smile for the sham). We all knew Rose was going the APEC Free Trade conference her father was hosting, but when she showed up in a silky slinky sexy dress, the last thing she expected was her father’s attaché immediately tasking her to resolve a dispute between the a delegates from the Republic of China and Korea. It was ugly; one was a steadfast supporter who didn’t approve of the new representative. They argued over a 2% margin and neither would give.

Kyle Stone (Juris-My-Diction). We kicked Stone back to a flashback. Being on the table, tended to by one of the VCs stitching him up and warning him to back off and let his partner settle something. Not only was it personal but it was too dangerous for a cop, at least a “normal” cop to get in the middle off. And of course VC was acting strange, going lone wolf, and not talking to his partner. Doing all the things he always scorns Stone for doing himself. Yeah, that was the easiest fate chip I ever handed out.

Actual Play

The game ended up being split into three scenes. The first was following Stone as he tracked down Armand in a shipping yard by following his goons. The center piece was Rose and Monroe at the APEC gala and somewhat in the background we had VC doing some actual police work.

What came out of it were some bond level spy action as Monroe hobnobbed with guests, met his target, stole his fingerprints, put them on the murder weapon and finally used a bit of unseelie magic to put the attaché in a slumber and plant the weapon on him (with a little boon from Mab herself).

Rose on the other hand resisted the forces around her. She snubbed her father and Daiske (his attaché) and decided to party it up with Chad, the only other guy at the gala that didn’t fit in at all either. When Monroe called enough attention to himself that she had to make a good show though, she found the arguing delegates, got their stories and in one beyond legendary berating (she really got [+9]) completely tore through all their excuses and found out that one felt cheated out of a table tennis championship and until they played another match to settle the score, would not be satisfied.

VC after finding the body of Tony Si-Yen in a dumpster (and tossing said dumpster over while Stone was watching him) figured out that his boss was probably in danger as well and followed up. It just so happened that his boss, was Rose’s father, who was also the dupe Monroe was framing for murder. Fun times all around. VC made his way to the part, met Mr. Itsuaki and found that he had purchased the watch… a giant clusterfuck. What surprised me as GM was that once he had the watch, enough to completely incriminate Mr. Itsuaki, he just thanked him and told him the watch would be safer in his hands.

Stone, following VC to the dumpster with Tony’s body and watching him walk away, hung around until the goons showed up to pick up said body and followed them back (at least the one that survived his beating) back the docks where said thug reported his failure to Armand, who out of frustration snapped his neck. The inevitable showdown between Stone and Armand was brutal. Stone never really stood a chance, but he was never going to give up. He took consequence after consequence getting torn apart by the Vampire who in the end left him wrapped in the twisted metal of a cargo container, but not without doubt in his mind, and potentially walking into a trap. The fight was gnarly, involving drowning, breaking bones, and crumpling cargo containers. We never saw the end, only the reaction the next day, when VC arrived at the scene and screamed into the heavens his vengeance (very point break style).

What rocked

The end fight was doomed for stone the whole time, Armand was double his refresh and then some, but he found that by stacking maneuvers up on him, he was able to deliver one nasty blow before going down. Armand, however was doing the same, toying with Stone, shattering him to deliver one devastating killing blow. It took a while, but it was an awesome fight.

Seeing the interplay between Rose and Monroe is great. I’m going to have to keep giving them different things to argue about, so the debate doesn’t get stale.

VC really blew me away when he didn’t care about the watch being evidence, we’ll see where this goes.

What could have been improved

I felt a little like I was orchestrating moves, trying to maneuver it such that Monroe would incriminate Rose’s father without realizing who he was incriminating and without Rose noticing either. It all worked and the players played along but it felt contrived on my part. Not sure what I should have done with that.

The round robin style, even with only four players, seemed to leave a lot of down time. Going to have to try and frame scenes with more parings.

For next time

I want the case against Rose’s father to be something nobody can easily write off, at least not without consequences. I’m going to have to hammer on that.

Also, VC knows what happened, but how will he deal with it, especially if he gets pulled off the case. Should be good times.

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