Normally I let my thoughts on the session stew before I post the recap, but I have quite a few, so fuck it, we'll do it live:
MR. JOLS: BLOOD HARVEST PART THREEAfter eliminating the DCA the heroes searched the third floor of Gregor Agriculturalists, where they found president Barry Valentine's office... with him dead in it. His diary indicated that something was in the basement, and he had a crisis of faith and ultimately took his life, with gun that had one last bullet. After loading up the box truck with everything valuable outside of what they came for, the Reformers and Samuelsson went to the basement.
At the guard kiosk they found a fully loaded
Rifle and with a crit success Freebird found a hidden cellphone with one contact: Benjamin. Also on the phone was a pdf that had truncated maintenance plans for the vertical farming equipment, as well as a second model that was an enclosed tank. After checking the empty bathrooms they went into the main lab, which had the vertical farms... and to their horror (and Pixie's delight), containers that were growing organs. Hearts. Lungs. Intestines. As well as a final container that had a completed digestive system, fully functional. Freebird cracked and vomited his guts out before leaving the room. The others followed.
Once he regained his composure, they checked the other room in the outer hallway, which was the maintenance room, containing the maintenance records. Freebird then insisted he would be fine and ran into the grow lab, where he noticed black strands hanging from the ceiling. Elected to check the room opposite the side with the strands, they found a seed and stem cell library. As they elected what to do Pixie made the last Sensitivity check necessary to realize that Samuelsson was hiding something, and he came clean; he is a DHQS agent. His crew had been occasionally coming to Gregor to maintain the equipment and reverse engineer it so they could safely transport everything. He also knew that 'something' was in the waste room, but they left it to its devices.
The Reformers did not elect to do so, and used Freebird's Molotov and used the forklift to secure the door. After barely making his Athletics check, Freebird tossed the Molotov right into the hole leading to the offal / waste tank, and heard an inhuman roar. They moved the forklift in time and then fled the building, leaving the thing to its fate. In exchange, Samuelsson let them take 6 of the vertical farming tanks and the schematics for the organ growth tanks; combined would be more than enough Bounty to be a satisfactory Mr. JOLS. Samuelsson's CO, the aforementioned Benjamin, came back an confirmed the 'thing' was killed and that the building and tanks are fine.
In the aftermath (and during as well,) Samuelsson explained himself. His crew was taken off the Gregor job when it was discovered that Jeff Carnavan was printing fake Bounty. Samuelsson was implanted with the Reformers to study them (since while they had spent the fake Bounty their records were otherwise clean,) while the rest of the six person squad studied Jeff's City to locate where the ID printers might be located. The DHQS was split with how to deal with the situation. Samuelsson's bosses wanted to find a way to deal with Carnavan and / or disable his ability to print, another faction wanted to just sack Jeff's City and let God take care of the rest, and the final, horrible group wanted to devalue Missouri Bounty... which everyone else realized would eventually lose people's trust in Crash Bounty, rending it void, which would likely render Recession US currency void, and the whole economy of the present and former United States would collapse.
As they saw it, Jeff's main enforcers and scavengers of the materials were the DCA. By taking them out, Samuelsson sent a threat to Jeff, and he should be taken care of. The Reformers were shown two options; they could help Samuelsson's squad infiltrate the facility where Jeff was storing the Bounty printers and disable and/or destroy them, permanently rendering him incapable of printing fake IDs. They could also steal his legit Bounty and be truly made for life, and with no printers and no Bounty Jeff would be ruined and his collapse much more peaceful. Or if they just took the money and ran, they could, but without the DCA Jeff might have a more violent fall, especially once the nearby Enclaves realize what Jeff's doing. The fall of Jeff's City in this fashion might have consequences for the Four Seasons. After the additional prize of having the DHQS fly them back to the Recession, claiming they were 'survivors found in a bunker' (common parlance for personnel brought back by DHQS,) not only could the Reformers return to civilization, they could also have their full lives back. Both tempted and worried for their soon to be former home, the heroes elected for a second Just One Last Score...
MARKET TICKERThis session went very well, although there were certainly things that could have gone better. I did kind of shoehorn in the final boss (SPOILERS: it was an Aberrant called The Fisher of Men. Caleb didn't want corpse gestalts, so I made an organ gestalt.
), but the players agreed that although anti-climactic (since they beat it without fighting it,) it and the confrontation with Samuelsson were good as climaxes. Since they thought I was going to throw a final boss at them I thought I should, but my frustration were not knowing what Aberrants really are meant to be. The Fisher of Men used the black strands to move around and would attack with the organs, using bone marrow as armor. However, since it's covered in organs it was a glass cannon as general gunfire and especially actual fire would be effective against it. My only other thought was the strands in Bradley regrowing his head (as nothing but black strands and making an Aberrant like that,) but I knew especially with the Candyman I was likely stretching the limits on Aberrants in the setting. I didn't want to go too far, which I feel with the Fisher of Men I did. I love the concept, but wasn't 100% behind it because I didn't want to go to far off the reservation.
They also didn't fight him, but that's the thing with non linear narratives, but also a thing I like about role playing and investigation. They found all the clues that intimated something was down there, and using their trademark caution they came up with the plan to burn and leave on their own, and naturally chose the waste room to search last. Another issue is that I feel the batttle against the DCA could have been a successful climax on its own, but since we only play in two hour bursts I felt like a climax was needed in this episode as well. In a standard four hour session just the DCA might have sufficed. Also, they could have failed their rolls to make Samuelsson spill the beans, but Pixie made the first roll and used the Will she earned to make the second, which made him tell the truth. They could have made it out of the lab and not known about the DHQS plot against Jeff Carnavan. This was how I wanted the MR. JOLS to end, but in this way it might have been anti-climactic and kind of a low note.
With the MR. JOLS rolls, Pixie FAILED that it was Vertical Farming Equipment. I didn't know how to implement that fail, but it came with a later roll. Elder SUCCEEDED that it was in KC, so it was guaranteed to be there. Elder FAILED DHQS interest, and Freebird SUCCEEDED that they were interested in the bioengineering aspects. With these four rolls, my narrative was that it would be in KC. The vertical farming equipment is a prize, but the real prize is the organ growth tanks (the stem cells would be entered into a 3D printer in the top, which prints the organs. Since they are real organs they would grow, decay, and rot, which meant the bottoms had to be used to suck out the dead organs.) The DHQS was interested, but was no longer their primary objective due to the situation in Jeff's City.
Some of the rolls were contradicting (the fail on the vertical farming equipment but success on DHQS interest in bioengineering aspects, but failed that they were interested.) It made it hard to make all four rolls important, but I think I made it work.
I had to force it into the narrative, because I laid enough hints to not do anything, but not enough to satisfactorily do it at this stage of the game. My plot was that there was a mission in Branson that would have let them find the DCA HQ and given them more intel on Jeff's City. The plan was also that the DCA would just be rivals, and not intrinsic to the meta plot, but my failure and giving them too much Bounty after the last mission meant I wanted to wrap up the DCA in a bow since it's the faction they had the most experience with. Also using them was a satisfying Final Boss without demanding that they deal with the Jeff's City stuff; they could've just taken the money and ran. The stuff in Adam-ondi-Ahman was also thrown in because with both I wanted Elder and Freebird to have some sort of closure for their stories as we had set up some stuff in game. With Pixie I wasn't sure how to do it, as most of here meta plot was surrounding her relationship with Sarge and not with external factions. I feel bad and like I should have done more with her character, but I wasn't sure where to go.
However, it's one of the chief things I'm learning about GMing; my love of Whose Line is not in vain. Improv is key. They make too much money? Come up with a way to make it work! It might not be 100% what I or they want, but so long as it works and can be fun, that's the best I can do, and I shouldn't sweat my worries of "Is this stupid? Are they going to hate this?". Work on making a good narrative. It won't always work, but nothing ever does.
But ultimately, my players had fun, there was some narrative satisfaction, and in the end we will give the send off to the Red Markets Beta with my original concept; a 'storming' of Jeff's City. Will they stealth their way in? Charm their way in? Just use the DHQS and sack the place? (nah) We'll find out soon! Next time it's
RED MARKETS BETA: THE REFORMERS FINAL MISSION: LEGAL TENDER
