I got together with a group. I am pleased to share that my first one-shot as the Market went relatively well. I was a little rough with some aspects, but I think the players had fun, I know I enjoyed myself. Here is an after action report.
A trio of takers get ready to find work in Trabajo. They take on the crew name Ingress, after the ARG, which they play at jobsites.
A player character created character, Valkyrie (social/negotiator), and two pre-gens, Smoke and McStuffins do some prep work to find some jobs in the area. I had prepared two job for their consideration. With a small crew though once one was uncovered they double down on it. The job was titled "Golden Parachute" (Details:
here. A veteran taker by the name of Tick-Tock recently hit her Mr. JOLS and is ready to retire. She is hiring a group of takers to clear out a small municipal airport three legs away so that a small airborne smuggler can take her to the Recession. The job is to clear out the airport, hold it, radio in to Tick-Tock and wait for her to arrive and receive payment.
The negotiation goes quite well and Ingress manages to land at 100% Mark-Up. A highlight was that a joke about alternative Red Markets social media/internet companies led to the app LatentIn. Smoke used a reference to contact a fellow latent on a job, he was happy to help for a bounty and an endorsement for Networking on his LatentIn account. The job works out to 45 bounty, not bad for what on paper is a pretty straightforward job, right?
Ingress hits the road and encounters their first leg. From the random table they stumble upon #49, the military checkpoint. The Market informs them that they're standing on an overpass, below are casualties. The military checkpoint up the road seems abandoned. They send Smoke ahead to check it out. His awareness fails to pick up anything out of the ordinary, except that many of the casualties below are in military uniform, meaning that it was overrun, not abandoned. The zombies in the APC respond to Smoke's presence and accidentally hits the brake and it begins to roll towards the takers. He doesn't get out of the way in time, but only takes a small wound to his shoulder. McStuffins is less lucky and ends up taking six stun to the chest. Valkyrie dives out of the way. The APC careens over the side of the guardrail and crashes below. A failed scavenging check means that they only find rusted materials left up there. McStuffins patches himself up and they move on.
Leg 2 is a real challenge to the crew. From the random table it's number 58. After the disaster on the highway they decide to switch to country roads. They come across an old farmhouse on a hill. There is a well defended path leading up to it with traps. Valkyrie tries to contact the house with his Ubiq specs. There's a set up there, but no one answers. They're still too curious. They inspect the first set of traps, a barricade of barbed wire. No one is eager to get chopped up. They ask if there is a way to get a better look. The Market suggests they can climb a tree across the road to get a sense of the traps. Valkyrie uses athletics to successfully climb and spots the three traps: barbed-wire, ground spikes, and a pit. She fails her resistance to climb down and falls. Smoke, the latent, manages to succeed and break her fall. Valkyrie desperately checks herself for exposure. Eager for more information they burn a charge on the glasses for a reference, One Nut, who conducts geosurveys and maps the Loss. He reports that the house belongs to the McCarthys, a religious group of Christians who want to stay away from the threats (moral and physical) of enclave life. He assures them that they aren't dangerous and hospitable to strangers. The crew cannot find a way in and don't want to risk it, so move on.
Small highlight, McStuffins is an immune but no one in game knows it. The player role plays it as a slightly paranoid germ freak, constantly harping on hygiene and exposure. He also talks like a quack, making that "Profession: Doctor" questionable.
Leg 3 is #44, the crashed Taker vehicle. They recognize the logo on the side of the SUV, it's the Accountants, a rival taker crew from Trabajo who went missing a few weeks ago. They roll self-control for seeing their fellow takers dead in the wastes. The cold-hearted Ingress crew feels nothing - less competition. After investigating the car Smoke wakes up the casualty in the driver seat when he tries to open the locked door. Valkyrie kills the belted in zombie after two shots. They find 3 haul of medical supplies, the Market rolls it at 9 bounty a piece (an error in hindsight). The take it off their unlucky fellows and head off to the airport.
They arrive and the paranoia begins! There are four buildings and the runway. There are twelve casualties on the tarmac that they will have to take out so that the plane can land. A Cessna doesn't do well when a casualty runs into the prop. They decide to take the airport building by building. An awareness check from the road tells them that someone has been in the area lately, there are tire tracks and boot prints. They enter the civilian hanger. A lone casualty stands in the middle. Smoke takes it out with his axe easily. They scavenge and find a bunch of pilot licenses, which can be redeemed for (rolled) 10 bounty.
They enter the hanger for Cloud-Skimmer Charters after a critically successful lockpick by McStuffins. The casualties are in there at 2, 4, 6 and shambles away. Smoke continues his slaughter and takes them out. They don't turn up anything in the hanger and move onto the office. There's nothing of interest in the office, just mildewed papers and soggy carpet. They enter the terminal and find more evidence that five people were walking around from muddy boot prints. The crew begins to panic OOG that there must be an aberrant around the corner or something. The Market calmly reassures them with their awareness/foresight checks that nothing seems other than it seems. The crew sets up a choke point at the gate in the terminal (a pair of glass doors). The silence shooters try to pick them off without drawing attention. However, after two failures the zombies catch on and start to approach. Skilled shooting and a melee rush by Smoke takes out the casualties. After hesitating Ingress calls in Tick-Tock. She says she'll be there in a couple of hours and so will the pilot.
They burn time playing cards, but the paranoia strikes again. Valkyrie and Smoke decide to scout up the road McStuffins holds down the terminal, inspecting the expired vending machine goods. The paranoia pays off. In the grass off the road, well away from the airport, they spot a red light. Smoke investigates and finds a camera with an antenna on it. They switch it off. They call Tick-Tock, but they don't have any details. They discuss calling it off, Tick-Tock tells them that if the rendezvous is called off they don't get paid - failure of contract. The threat of no payment raises the stakes dramatically.
The trio decides that they will wait in see. They hunker down in the terminal and wait. An hour before Tick-Tock is to arrive a pick-up arrives. Climbing out of the back is four men in eclectic gear carrying rifles. They get ready in the office and behind the terminal counter. The raiders pry open the sliding glass doors, while the leader and another takes shelter behind the truck. Valkyrie calls it in to Tick-Tock who tells them they're raiders. They will have to hold out for reinforcements from Tick-Tock and her crew, the Black Sheep, 30 minutes out. Smoke and Valkyrie open fire. Ingress' cover is good so the trio who enter are forced to flank while exposed. One of the raiders takes it in the neck and is out of the fight. Smoke manages to hit the two working on a flank and dodge their shots. McStuffins sits tight, waiting for them to come into his line of sight. They hear a low buzz as the plane comes in for a landing. When one of the raiders outside tries to rescue neck-wound Valkyrie nearly kills him. McStuffins and Smoke kill one of the guards inside and get another down to one health. The leader calls the retreat. They finish off neck-wound once and for all and take another captive. The leader and final survivor get in the truck to get away. Valkyrie jumps out onto the road and with a called shot blows out the leaders brains. The truck crashes into a ditch and the passenger goes flying and breaks his neck.
They briefly interrogate the lone survivor and learn that they plan was to rob Tick-Tock when she made her flight to the recession. Tick-Tock and the Black Sheep arrive on the scene. They survey the damage. Ingress successfully scavenges the dead for 5 more bounty. Tick-Tock's Mr. JOLS was not a well-defended secret, the raiders used the same rumours the takers did to get the job, to plan their ambush. Tick-Tock thanks them for their work, pays them in cash/bounty, boards, and flies off to her retirement.
The crew, grateful to have come out of it unscathed (mostly) count up their 87 bounty and head back to Trabajo with the Black Sheep.
Summary: The crew got very lucky with their rolls. I was hoping that the second leg would end up with them stuck with the toddler and an added complication during the airport portion. The casualties were not that fearsome for them, again, largely to spending and good rolls. Two of the players had never played Red Markets and so I didn't wanted to go total grim dark. I thought the raiders would put up a bigger challenge, but sometimes things actually end up working out well for the players. Overall a really good experience.
