An Admission of Paranoia -- Session 2, Part 2 · 7:50am Jan 20th, 2016
So, I met the goal for doing weekly blogs. I'll start adding the promised names from the Patreon as soon as the first proverbial cheque clears, and the site starts giving me the details of the obligations I got.
Unfortunately for you, you get another rambling tale of a tabletop game I ran. Clever pieces and dissection of characters later. I've gotta get these all down before I forget what happened, and I think this is already from December 10.
So the players set up their drinks table, with the Team Leader wearing his Chef hat. Glorious.
I tell them three working a cart can serve a drink every ten seconds – assuming they're polite and courteous – and there are four of them. Working together, they can get all 222 prisoners served in under two hours. I mean, assuming no distractions.
Right?
The Janitor looks over their supplies too. Friendly old Humphrey-R is a delightful and cheerful old man. He keeps wandering up and down the line, trying to reassure patrons that it isn't so bad, really, and once they get through it they don't have to sit through the waiting anymore, and if it's their last clone, they might finally get some lasting peace.
He works out what the air fresheners are for immediately. Someone tried to escape through the plumbing in that corner over there, and a sentry bot blasted it with a missile. Now the toilets blew up and they're still waiting on fixing the open sewage main.
So. A cargo crate of 200 air fresheners makes a lot of sense. He takes that off their hands.
So the Team Leader's Secret Society passphrase is a hearty and very specific form of handshake. So he designates himself as paperwork filler-outer. Very clever, actually, taking the napkins that will be given to them with their drinks, taking their drink order from them in the line – tea, coffee or cola – and then they just have to present their napkin at the front of the line to have the appropriate drink given to them, courteously. After signing the paperwork, of course. Everyone who gets a drink needs to sign a form.
He also gives the handshake to all Reds in line getting drinks. You might think that he'd be at risk getting false positives, but given how many secret societies there are, that he's a Troubleshooter, and that betrayal is the norm… even if there were a few comrades in here, odds are fairly that a Red would risk it.
The Mad Scientist does the milk, sugar, stirring and Bouncy Bubble Beverage, while staring menacingly at the explosive cells and constantly stating his Mutation is pyrokinesis.
The Girlfriend manages the Perky-Laters and actually pours the drinks, to be served by
The Communist, who's managing the drink orders, retrieving the paperwork, and saying “One taste, and your tastebuds go BLAMMO!”
Why? Because it's PURGE's codeword this week.
I wasn't subtle coming up with it, because neither are they.
They burn through their contacts.
First the Mad Scientist's pops out.
“Hey. Hey, I'm with Sierra Club too.”
“Have a nice day, Ma'am, I don't know what that is.”
“I'm a Green citizen. You have to listen to me.”
“Absolutely, and I listen to you with the absolute respect and attention you deserve. Please hand over your napkin so we can serve you the appropriate drink.”
“I have a base on the outside. We made it outside, and the world isn't as bad as they're saying. Friend Computer is insane. You break us out, and we can get you all free.”
“Very interesting. Would you like your coffee black, Ma'am?”
She grumbles, takes her coffee, and storms off. Turns out she was an Internal Security plant. Turns out he was a plant from a rival Alpha Complex. Turns out there's a lot of plants in the Sierra Club, and none of them produce chlorophyll.
Next up is Purge. The Communist opens his mouth to deliver his oft-quipped catchphrase when-
“Alright, scrubstains, listen up good. I'm with Purge--”
“Tea, coffee, Bouncy Bubble Beverage?”
“Doesn't matter. I'm with Purge and-”
“It's free!”
“Fine. Coffee. Black, two sweeteners.”
“Coming right up.”
“You help me in what comes next, there's a weapons cache in it for you, and these clone's lives. If you don't, you're all going to sudsing burn.”
He was a very pleasant, angry chap. So they give him his coffee and send him on his way.
After that was my best impression of what would happen if you met the eMail Nigerian Prince in human form. Offers a huge stack of untracable credits chips. The cache exists, funnily enough, but they're all tracked by IntSec. The players give him a soda and shoo him off.
Finally, a traumatized Red citizen matches the handshake and hugs the Team Leader gratefully, tears in her eyes. She did nothing wrong and it's her first clone. She doesn't want to die. It seems like it hurts.
She's honest, she's Red, and she has nothing to offer the PCs. They immediately decide they need to save her. Why? Because she's the only one that didn't try to bribe them, which meant she was the only one who probably didn't actually do anything wrong.
Down the end of the corridor the Yellow booth operators have recognized The Communist. They wave and shout and get his attention, and then, when they get it…
The screams and whirring of the tubes tack on a musical quality. I him and punctuate with screams what they've synchonized it to when-
The Communist: “Oh, no. That's the Stealthy the Steam Train jingle isn't it?”
“Oh, yeah, they saw you on TV. Huge fans.”
They continue to play their fan ode to him with the screams of the dying. How? They all share one skill: “Synchronize Death Tube with Other Tube Operators to Musical Accompaniment: 18”
This is about the time that the Lieutenant from before storms out to tell them to deliver the air fresheners.
“Uh, Humphrey already did that for us.”
“But I didn't sign the paperwork saying you were allowed to deliver it yet.”
“But it was our assigned mission...”
Anyway. Turns out she's super vindictive, and the players manage to talk their way down to a 50 credit fine, and spare Humphrey from her wrath.
She takes the 20 rubber handles though. That one goes according to her check list.
The players are through 170~ of 222~ prisoners at the moment. The finish line is in sight. They're nearly home free.
So of course, this is when the turdkettle starts hitting the turbine.
The Lieutenant storms back out. “I'm afraid you're going to have to come with me.”
Team Leader: “We're still serving drinks but… I mean, okay, Green Citizen.”
So they're taken into the office of The Director, George-B, who is in charge.
George-B: “So, care to tell me why you're suddenly the next in line for euthenasia?”
Team Leader: “… what?”
George-B sighs and flips his computer moniter around to show the Troubleshooters they are, indeed, next in line to be terminated. Four termination booths, four troubleshooters.”
Mad Scientist: “Shit. Okay… ahh...”
The Communist: “I trigger my detonator.”
Me: “Somewhere very far away, you have absolutely ruined an Internal Security officer's day.”
The Communist: “Sweet. Okay, so, that didn't help. Us.”
Me: “'Fraid not.”
Team Leader: There has to be some kind of mistake. We haven't done anything wrong, and to be shot to the top of the list?”
George-B: “Oh, yeah, it's really obvious what's happened. Our data has been really, really weak, and I don't have any permission to do anything about it. Some malicious hacker, probably a computer Phreaker or something, probably has it out for you and thought this would be a great joke.”
Team Leader: “Excellent. Glad that's settled.”
George-B: “Except I can't prove that. This is a public firm. I don't have it in my power to look into that, or manage that information. I can open an investigation into it, but right now, I gotta clear the list, and I can't afford more of a backlog then I already have. So I'm afraid you're going to have to… you know...”
Four Green Vulture guards surround the players.
Mad Scientist: “IF I'M GOING DOWN, I'M TAKING YOU ALL WITH ME. MRNUMBERS, PYROKINESIS CAN RAISE THE TEMPERATURE OF THE ROOM I'M IN TO DETONATE THE PLASTIC EXPLOSIVES I'M DOING THAT I JUST NEED LINE OF SIGHT.”
After some searching through the books: “You could raise the temperature of that room by, like, ten degrees. You need over 200c to detonate it.”
Mad Scientist: “… Oh.”
George-B: “As soon as the investigation's cleared, reparations will be paid to your next set of clones. Seriously. Sorry about this. Now, if this were a private firm, none of this would have happened, I want that on record.”
Team Leader: “Oh, shit, he has his own agenda doesn't he… Okay, okay, fuck, we don't offer any hint of resistance, do we guys?”
Me: “Well, tough, because:”
Vulture Guard: “Thanks for the new rubber handles, guys. Been dyin' to try these things out.”
ZAAAAAAAAAAAAAAP.
Yeah. Can't account for trigger-happy with a new toy.
All four of the Troubleshooters are dragged past their unattended drinks tables… past the lines of cells… past the hopeful and tragic look of the Red who sees her last hope of escape dragged past…
The Yellow operators are miserable. They're about to have to execute a celebrity. They're so sullen they agree to flush them in a minor key. But hey, they're just doing their jobs.
The PCs stand in those cool, calm stainless steel tubes. Humphrey the helpful janitor has walked with them, apologizing the whole way, and offering his condolences. He'll try to help finish the drinks line in their absence, now that the toilet areas are breathable again. The players have got no plan. Nothing. This looks like it could be it--
But of course, death would be too easy. George-B would fill out the report, the paperwork would be intact, and the PCs might even get promoted for falling in the line of unwavering duty.
Can't have that.
There are explosions from the ceiling. Ten yellow PURGE soldiers drop from the yawnlingly cavernous ceiling, taking out all the sentry bots before they can react with heavy gauge shotguns loaded with EM shells, so enshrouded in surprise in darkness as they are.
The extermination booth attendants cower, running for their employee exit. On the other side of it, more PURGE soldiers fight, slaughtering the Green staff members in the employee cafeteria. No good. They've got huge sentry bots guarding them here, but escape is pointless.
Down the bottom row of cells starts exploding. Noxious gasses billow outwards, to kill all who survived the initial blast.
A fight rages on around the drinks table, the surviving staff repelling the invaders.
Team Leader: “I'm saving that goddamn Red citizen.”
He runs out and grabs her from her cell, borrowing some of the Yellow's keys to do so. It's right at then end of the second-from-the-bottom-row, about to explode like dominos. As he gets to the end, though, Dan-B sees them…
Just as he's about to rappel up the ceiling again, he cries: “They're traitors to the cause! Kill those vatslime Troubleshooters!”
Oh snap.
The Team Leader runs, all-but-dragging the terrified fellow Red girl behind him, and throws her in the tube.
Mad Scientist: “Is there anyway to keep the doors operational, but to disable the execution mechanic?”
Yellow operator, a weedy, geeky thing: “Oh, yeah, you just...” He opens a panel carefully, flips it open, looks at it seriously, then rips a red wire out of it and shows his fellow operators. They follow suit. The doors open.”
“We can close them from the inside. I don't know what we'll do in there though.”
It's a hermeticall sealed steel tube. Right now, the safest place in the execution center is the killing apparatus.
The players all chuckle darkly at the irony.
The Communist: “WAIT.”
Everyone else: “What?”
The Communist: “WE DON'T HAVE THE PAPERWORK!?”
Indeed, sitting back on the drinks cart is the forms filled out proving they've served the drinks they have.
It's a shame there's a series of domino-detonating explosions between him and it.
Everyone else: “You'll never make it. They singled you out specifically, Mr-goddamn-BLAMMO!”
Him: “Right. But I have one thing you guys don't.”
Everyone else: “What?”
Him: “Mutant Power: Adrenaline control.”
And with that, he rolls a fantastic roll and runs screaming out of the both.
“ARRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH-”
To the table:
“HHHHHHHHHHHHHH-”
The Lieutanent sees him.
“I've never seen anyone move that fast before, kid. Take this and help us fight 'em off, it's a green-barrel. They're only using Yellow reflec. Be a big damn hero and we can fight all these Purge monsters off!”
She throws him the pistol.
He lets it bounce off his chest.
“I'M SORRY MA'AM BUT I AM NOT AUTHORIZED TO HANDLE THAT FIREARM.”
He turns back, running.
Lieutenant: “I AM REPORTING YOU FOR INSUBORDINATION, TROUBLESHOOTER.”
Still running.
Him: “THIS DOES NOT FALL UNDER THE PARAMETERS OF MY ASSIGNED MISSION, MA'AM.”
It hasn't taken long to grab the paperwork, but the explosions have reached the top row now. Not only are PURGE shooting at The Communist, but he'll have to dive through a literal ring of fire to make it to the safety of the execution booth.
He uses another surge of adrenaline and jumps, emphasizing at all times that he stuffs the folders under his reflec and keeps it as safe as possible, running full speed, screaming the whole time – you know, to keep the poison gas out of his lungs.
Love is a burning thing. And it makes for a firey ring.
So I throw a shitton of Perversity points on him for what's just happened. I'd be a terrible GM if I didn't.
He makes it into the booth and they all close the doors. Now they're in a new problem.
“You're quite literally out of the frying pan and into the oven.”
(Mad Scientist's) Girlfriend: “How is that literal?”
“You're in an enclosed metal space while everything around you explodes and bursts into flames. You might be safe from the explosions, but good luck not roasting to death. Oven.”
Girlfriend: “Oh.”
Me: “Yeah.”
Mad Scientist: “Okay, so… first thing's first, no witnesses. No survivors. Except the Red girl, Humphrey, and the tube operators.”
The Communist: “Do they fit in here with us?”
I say you can fit two in a tube for a squeeze, and three if you're really pushing it. Each tube has its operator, a Troubleshooter, the Scientist takes Humphrey and the Leader takes the Red girl.
Girlfriend: “Well, now we have corroboration. No other survivors.”
Team Leader: “Well, duh. No one to contradict our story that way. Our amazingly truthful and honest story.”
Girlfriend: “Right.”
Mad Scientist: “And I have line of sight of a lot of fire right now.”
Me: “So, you want to use Pyrokinetics to make this a super fire right now? The kind that melts through concrete and all but, say, this part of the room?”
Mad Scientist: “Yep.”
Me: “You realize this will destroy your assigned mission equipment. You're responsible for that.”
Mad Scientist: “I know and I don't care.”
Me: “Okay, roll for-”
Mad Scientist: “I use all of my Perversity points.”
Me: “… what?”
Mad Scientist: “All of it. Everything.”
…
…
Flight of the Valkyries starts to play. One of the booth doors opens solemnly. The Mad Scientist starts hands clapped together and slowly spreads them, high and wide, like Moses parting the red sea. Only this is far more red and far less sea. The fire burns all, encompasses all. Concrete melts. The walls weep quicklime. The rest of the cells explode with a roar. All soldiers above, around, everywhere, are incinerated into ash.
The booth closes as he returns the fire to normal, so that only its immense heat is left to harm those inside the protective womb of the terminals of sanctuary and life.
Team Leader: “Now what.”
Everyone thinks.
The Communist: “So. We flush ourselves.”
Booth Operator: “No, that won't work… it's designed to flush liquified people remains, not whole people.”
Mad Scientist: “… GM? My skill… Flush Large Things down Small Drains? Would that apply here?”
I fall over laughing.
Oh, no.
Oh, no.
Me: “Oh, yes.”
Mad Scientist: “Fantastic. So how about the rest of you?”
The Communist: “The Booth Operators… Their skill is to synchronize flushing with their other operators to music, right?”
Me: “Yes.”
The Communist: “So, if the Scientist successfully flushed… would that mean the rest of us could if the booth operators synchronized us with him?”
Me: “… Roll for it.”
Mad Scientist: “I'm out of Perversity Points.”
The Communist: “This shit is happening, I've got plenty. Roll low and we survive.”
He rolls low. The Communist throws some points on for good measure.
So the party is flushed down into the pipe network like a waterslide…
To the Stealth Train Jingle.
OH STEALTHY! OH STEALTHY, FLUSH, FLUSH.
Good God I haven't laughed this hard since the last time Aragon told me to try to take him seriously.
They fall into an algae vat, the communist using the last of his adrenaline surge to doggy paddle directly up, holding the paperwork above his head, rising slowly out of the water from the intensity of his kicking.
Tank Operator: “… Supervisor? I need a supervisor?!”
Then we did debriefing.
Debriefing was conducted later, after a long rest, some good food, and a clean change of clothes, in confession booths. None of them knew what the other was saying or had said. Players were heavily incentivized into backstabbing.
The Team Leader valiantly told the Friend Computer that the reason they saved the Reds they did was because they were the only ones who had made no attempts to bribe them. The girl had obviously been framed, and Humphrey just seemed a nice guy.
Promoted on the spot and given extra commendation for rescuing a citizen who had since been proven innocent by other means. He goes up three ranks in his secret society.
The Communist… good fucking God. I need to do something special here. He's the only reason they're all getting promoted right now. The mission wasn't to serve drinks: It was to provably serve drinks, and he went so far above and beyond the call of duty to do it, I need to do something special for him.
But as my old boss working IT used to say every day: “No good deed goes unpunished.”
Friend Computer: “Wowie! Those terminal operators couldn't stop talking about what a superhero you are, Communist! And so good at following orders! You're really becoming popular around the complex, like our very own Captain Alpha!”
The Communist: “Thank you, Friend Computer. I only seek to set the best possible example to my fellow citizens.”
Friend Computer: “Which is why I'm giving you your very own TV show. You'll be the star of Troubleshooters of Alpha Complex! We'll be following and tracking your every move to make you the biggest celebrity you can be! What do you say, Communist?”
The Communist: (Internally screaming!) “OH BOY FRIEND COMPUTER I CANNOT WAIT TO EMBRACE THIS OPPORTUNITY.”
He's promoted on the spot, changes career to a more luxurious celebrity path. Less work, more bennies, and constant monitering his every move for entertainment. Oh boy!
The Mad Scientist:
Looks like all records of him using mutant powers were destroyed. He's fined with a slap on the wrist for all the equipment he destroyed – owch! It wasn't cheap – but given the same promotion. The promotion more than outweighs the cost.
He also gets bumped up a little in the Sierra Club.
And that's it. That's the game. That's the whole ridiculous story as I remember it.
I've got one more of these lined up…
… next time. The Christmas game.
Special apology to Ferret for not getting to proof: I just wrote this offline on the train in one sitting, after joining all the notes I made over the week, and I'm trying to keep my Wednesday deadline.
Yell at me on Skype as much as you want. Sorry 'bout that.
That's beautiful.
A rival Alpha Complex? There's more than one?
"Flight of the Valkyries starts to play."
Did you actually put that on for the players? :)
"… next time. The Christmas game."
...Why does that sound particularly
ominousperfectly fine?Paranoia:
If nobody dies, something has gone horribly right.
This was magnificent.
Those moments of perfect convergence of mission parameters, skills and utter coincidence.
This is exquisite. The confluence of ridiculosity, determination, Perversity...
Seriously, this is beautiful. Though I have no idea why you thought exposing your post-apocalyptic setting to this group would ever end well.
These make my day. I'm glad there was a lull here at work and no one was around to hear me laugh my ass off.
Holy fuck man, I love you.
3699769 *makes plans to doso*
3700212
I am now picturing Twilight in a lab coat sitting sheepishly while a ferret jumps circles around her, spewing an uninterrupted stream of fierce, high-pitched squeaks.
This is wonderful and I fucking love you, Numbers.
Also, if Ferret isn't around, I'm also happy to help proof. Give you a secondary, just in case. All for Friend Computer, of course.
This is one of the most delightfully twisted things I have ever seen.
Also, talk about Chekhov's Perversely Specific Skill, there.