[renegade scout] 3: aggravated burglary

here's the third (and unexpectedly long) instalment in my renegade scout campaign.

having failed to offload their haul of melange to the scabies punks, and with no prospect of another peaceful meeting being set up, the bonehead skins are lying low trying to come up with another plan to make some credits in order to buy themselves a new spaceship and get out of the caribbean VIII sector.
they have taken a suite at the down-at-heel lee perry conapts, and have hired a lock-up garage to store their utility walker and the remaining proceeds from the van heist, including the boxes of melange. They have also bought a second hand camper van to keep their options open should they find a sudden need to move on from spanglish town.
members of the gang are taking turns to sleep in the camper parked near the garage to guard their investment.
one night some familiar characters seek to break into the garage in an attempt to reappropriate the loot.

here's the table before the game begins:



the red building behind the storage facility is the nightclub. the camper van is parked between these with the rear doors facing the left of this picture (closest to to their garage) which i determined is number 4.
dave and jammy are in the van tonight. once they become aware that something odd is going on they can alert the others who will turn up D3 turns later. to determine this they must test against observation; i will give them positive modifiers for proximity and loud activity.
the security detail are deployed in three civ utility vehicles and will drive into the alley that is to the right of this picture, as this is out of sight of the nightclub entrance. they have a jokeiro with them to determine which is the correct garage, i am using the scientist stats from sourcebook 1: characters. s/he will do this by tapping into an entry pad and using the research rules from sourcebook 1: characters, with a research interval of one turn and complexity of 2; they then intend to break in and remove the boxes of melange to load onto their vehicles.
clarence, the bouncer, is outside the nightclub’s entrance; he has starport scum stats. he will be alerted by sounds of fighting and may become involved if he passes a leader skill test. either way he will alert the authorities resulting in D3 cyber enforces (sourcebook 1: character) turning up D4+1 turns later, assuming the dealers will have enough sense to leave the area before the cyber enforces can arrive.
at the opposite end of this alley are two dealers selling leaf to patrons of the nightclub. they will react similarly to clarence apart, of course, from alerting the authorities. these also have starport scum stats.

pre-game:

some of the bonehead skins had exp,. to spend.
connie increased cool under fire to 6.
rachel increased cool under fire to 6.
pricey increased movement to 5.
karen increased shoot to 3.
note i forgot to apply the cool under fire rules this game, so two of those advance went unutilised.

because they controlled the field of battle after the last game they could make three looting rolls; they rolled two 1s and gained rab’s sharpshooter’s slug rifle with sniper sight.

i rolled a couple of times on the character events table (sourcebook 1: characters) for rachel, this time, but neither roll seemed appropriate so i ignored them

turn 1:

I give priority to the security detail, since the bonehead skins have nothing to do just yet. they drive their civ utility vehicles 12” onto the table.
dave and jammy make observation tests to determine if they hear the vehicles and suspect anything. with scores of 2, unsurprisingly they both fail.
a couple of smartly dressed punters are allowed into the club, whilst the dealers conclude a transaction and their happy customer makes his way towards the club.

here's the table at the end of turn 1:



turn 2:

priority alternates to the bonehead skins.
both dave and jammy fail their observation tests again - get used to this.
the security detail disembarks from their vehicles and the jokeiro moves towards the closest entry pad.
the dealers' customer continues on his way, another punter is allowed into the club and another arrives outside.

here's the table at the end of turn 2:

turn 3:

priority alternates to the security detail.
the jokeiro reaches the entry pad.
both dave and jammy fail their observation tests again.
the dealers' customer continues on his way.

the jokeiro begins to tamper with the entry pad, and passes the test against his intellect, reducing the complexity to 1.

i don't think i have a picture of this turn.

turn 4:

priority alternates to the bonehead skins.
both dave and jammy fail their observation tests again.
the dealers' customer continues on his way, whilst another arrives.
another punter is allowed into the nightclub.

the jokeiro passes his test again, determining that the goods his employers want are in garage 4.

i don't think i have a picture of this turn either, but you get the gist.

turn 5:

priority alternates to the security detail.
the jokeiro returns to the vehicle; the active members of the group make their way round to the other side of the storage facility, looking for garage 4.
both dave and jammy fail their observation tests again.
the dealers first customer continues towards the night club.

still no sign of a picture for this turn; i was clearly too immersed in the excitement of the game.

turn 6:

priority alternates to the bonehead skins.
dave fails his observation test, but jammy finally passes his. he twitches the curtains open a few centimeters and sees grisham approaching the front of the camper van.
the security detail keep moving forward to find garage 4. The jokeiro gets in the civ utility vehicle basking in the satisfaction of a job well done.
the dealers conclude their second sale and the customer moves off towards the night club. the first customer makes it to the nightclub door and strikes up a conversation with clarence.

here's the table at the end of turn 6:



two of the security detail are moving around the back of the storage facility, passed the camper van.

turn 7 (in which some stuff happens):

priority alternates to the security detail, who all continue to move forwards.
rankin and larsson come head to head with the dealers and front off against them whilst cooper moves round to reach the garage.
grisham gets past the camper van whilst harris is alongside it.
jammy wakes Dave.
the dealer’s first customer is allowed into the nightclub, whilst the second continues towards it.

dave radios the rest of the gang to warn them of what is happening and request their assistance. they must have still been up, since they will arrive next turn.
jammy throws open the camper’s rear doors and fires at Grisham at point blank range but misses!
hearing shots, the dealers assume this is a hit and deshane shoots at rankin, not only missing but (by rolling a 6) discovering he failed to load his gun before going to work, he will have to spend next turn’s shooting phase reloading.
rankin returns fire hitting deshane and injuring to take him out of the fight. he won't have to reload his gun after all.
jamaall fires at larsson but misses.
again, Larsson returns fire and hits and wounds, taking him out of the fight.
grisham turns and fires at jammy, missing and also discovering he hadn’t loaded his pistol. how embarrassing for a supposed professional.
the camper van door is blocking harris’ line of sight, so he’s not yet sure what’s going on.
hearing multiple gunshots, clarence calls the Constabulary. cyber enforcers will arrive on turn 10.

here's the table at the end of turn 7:



turn 8:

priority alternates to the bonehead skins.
jammy moves aside so that dave can exit the van.
harris squeezes around the side of the van.
clarence moves to see what’s going on.
dave jumps out the back of the van, straight into base-to-base contact with harris. the melee rules will be tested.
hearing shots at the other end of the alley, but not able to see what is happening, larsson moves in that direction.
with gunfire in front and behind him the dealers' second customer abandons his plans for the evening and runs down the alley to his left.
yossa turns the corner to see larsson, his chosen enemy, and his comrades trying to break into the bonehead skin’s garage. he moves towards larsson.
rankin stays where he is to catch yossa in a cross-fire.
karen comes onto the table and moves to cover yossa’s back, keeping her weapon trained on rankin.
deaver comes around the corner and positions himself between rankin and cooper where he has line of sight on yossa and karen.
rachel moves next to karen.
realising all is not going to plan, cooper turns round to see what’s happening.
connie takes up the remaining space next to rachel.
there’s no room for pricey, so he stays off table this turn.

yossa fires at larsson hitting thrice with two 1s which he can roll again. however, they both miss. one hit wounds, taking larsson out of the fight.
rankin fires at rachel, who is directly in front of him. he hits and wounds, taking her out of the fight.
karen fires at rankin. she hits but fails to wound.
deaver fires at karen, but rolls a 6, he must reload next turn.
connie fires at rankin, hitting him but failing to wound.
cooper fires at yossa, hitting, wounding and taking him out of the fight.
at the other end of the alley, jammy fires at grisham, running out of ammunition.
grisham desperately seeks to load his pistol.

dave and harris are locked in close combat. i give dave the benefit of the doubt and decide he charged into combat, so he strikes first. however he misses.
harris lands a punch on dave but fails to do any damage.

the bonehead skins took two casualties this turn, so must take morale tests. connie fails while the rest pass; however, I must remove an extra figure due to the starport scum special rule. i chose karen since she's in a good position to run away.

here's the table at the end of turn 8:

turn 9:

priority alternates to the security detail.
rankin backs up to form a firing line with cooper and deaver.
pricey comes onto the table, now there is room.
clarence comes around the barrier to see what’s going on.
grisham looks for some cover by the vehicles.
connie continues to rout up the table.

rankin fires at pricey, keen to stop his grenade launcher being deployed, but he misses.
pricey fires at deaver and hits, for a 2” radius template. fortunately for pricey he is out of the area of effect, but cooper and rankin are viable targets. All three are wounded, and taken out of action. a morale test for the security detail at the end of the turn.
clarence fails his leader skill roll and decides he wants no part of this.
grisham fires at jammy, hitting and wounding, taking jammy out of the fight.

both dave and harris have power 3, since the security detail have priority, harris will strike first. he lands another punch but fails to cause any damage.
dave fails to hit.

here's the table at the end of turn 9:



turn 10:

i decide the cyber enforcers are worthy of being given their own place in the priority order, and role that they will act first this turn. the role for number turns up 1, which moves up alongside clarence.
connie routs off the table down the side alley which the dealers' second customer used for the same purpose earlier.
grisham moves to take cover in the mouth of the alley.
clarence goes back to the nightclub.
pricey moves up the alley.

the cyber enforcer fires a pepper grenade (my own invention, supposed to emulate tear gas) at grisham and hits. grisham fails his defence roll and is forced back 4”. he now only has line of sight on dave; there don’t seem to be any rules for firing into combat, so i assume he can’t since he might hit his own comrade.
pricey fires his grenade launcher at the cyber enforcer but misses.

dave strikes at harris but misses.
harris returns the blow but misses.

here's the table at the end of turn 10:



turn 11:

priority alternates to the bonehead Skins.
pricey advances on the cyber enforcer.
the cyber enforcer moves forward 5” which brings it abreast of dave and harris, who it turns to face.

pricey fires at the cyber enforcer but misses.
the cyber enforcer fires a pepper grenade at the combatants, and hits. both jammy and harris fail their defence rolls and move 4” away from the enforcer, their combat temporarily forgotten.
grisham doesn't seem to know what to do.

i don't seem to have a photo of the end of turn 11.

turn 12:

priority alternates to the security detail.
grisham turns and advances on the cyber enforcer.
the cyber enforcer turns towards pricey, but sees grisham closer to.
pricey stays where he is, since there is no cover nearby.
harris continues to move back to the vehicles; he clearly knows what a cyber enforcer is capable of.
dave gets into the camper van and clamber s over the seat towards the back doors to draw a bead on the cyber enforcer.

grisham takes a shot at the cyber enforcer, but misses and runs out of ammunition again!
the cyber enforcer takes a firmer line and fires its laser pistol at grisham, but misses and runs out of ammunition.
dave fires at the cyber enforcer and hits but fails to wound.
pricey fires at grisham but misses.

i seem to have missed a photo of this too.

turn 13:

priority alternates to the cyber enforcer who charges grisham.
harris runs 8” towards the civ utility vehicle closest to the street.
seeing harris pass him the jokeiro gets out of his vehicle and follows him.
pricey’s last hope is to take grisham and the cyber enforcer out of action so he can evacuate his wounded comrades before they are arrested. he fires at the cyber enforcer but misses and runs out of ammunition.
dave fires at the cyber enforcer but hits grisham, wounding him and taking him out of the fight.

here's the table at the end of turn 13:

turn 14:

priority alternates to the bonehead skins.
dave closes the camper van doors and gets into the driver's seat.
the cyber enforcer advances on the van.
pricey moves across the street to get a better angle of fire.

pricey reloads his grenade launcher.

here's the table at the end of turn 14:



turn 15:

priority alternates to the security detail.
harris runs to the civ utility and gets in the driver’s seat.
dave starts the camper van and drives 8” around the corner into the alley, the jokeiro manages to jump out of the way, and dave drives another 3” before hitting the middle civ utility vehicle. both vehicles take a wound.
the cyber enforcer moves 5” forward.
the jokeiro runs towards harris’ vehicle.
pricey runs 6” towards the alley down which the cyber enforcer has disappeared.

no picture of this exciting enstallment.

turn 16:

priority alternates to the cyber enforcer.

the cyber enforcer moves towards the camper van.
the jokeiro gets into the civ utility vehicle with harris.
dave gets out of the camper van and into the civ utility vehicle he has just rammed.
harris starts his civ utility vehicle and reverses onto the main road, off the table and out of the game along with the jokeiro.
pricey moves to get a better angle of fire on the cyber enforcer.

pricey fires at the cyber enforcer but misses.
the cyber enforcer calls for back up to catch the fleeing perps.

no picture of this one either.

turn 17:

priority alternates to the bonehead skins.
dave reverses the civ utility vehicle around the corner to where the bonehead skin casualties lie.
the cyber enforcer moves towards pricey.
pricey backs off to avoid getting charged next turn.

pricey fires his grenade launcher again and finally hits. he manages to roll to wound, but the cyber enforcer's armour deflects the shrapnel.
the cyber enforcer fires its laser pistol at Pricey, hitting but failing to wound.

no photo. of this round either, by the looks of things.

turn 18:

priority alternates to the cyber enforcer.

it moves 5” towards pricey.
pricey backs off 4" (i forgot he'd improved his movement).
dave gets out of the civ utility vehicle, ready to start loading his injured companions into the back.

the cyber enforcer fires its laser pistol at pricey (we'll assume it had found time to reload somewhere over the last few turns), hits and wounds taking him out of the fight.
dave fires his pistol at the cyber enforcer, but is out of range.

here's the table at the end of turn 18, except that pricey should be down:



turn 19:

priority alternates to the bonehead skins.

all alone against the cyber enforcer, dave decides to cut his losses, gets back in the civ utility vehicle and drives off as fast as he can, leaving the field to the cyber enforcer, whilst clarence looks on.

after that marathon i was in no mood to go straight into the post game events; so i'll follow those up later.

Oh wow! That's a messy skirmish there. Crooks, gangers, cops, buyers, PIs . . . I love it! I understand why you're not quite ready to write up the post-op debrief and all that jazz, but man, it sounds like it was fun. And I look forward to the next installment. I'm . . . who the heck is in prison, and who's loose and who has the spice? Maybe it needs to flow, but it sounds like there's a kink in the pipeline at the moment.

yes., it was a blood bath and a disaster for almost all involved; when I first read the cyber enforcer stat. line I realised they were formidable, but it seems I still underestimated them; imagine if three of them had turned up!. i thought i'd put plenty of the cover on the table, but whilst playing it turned out most of it was pretty impractical; that and forgetting to check people's reaction to being shot at probably made it worse than it might have been otherwise, or perhaps just quicker.
here're the results of the post-game rolls, with a few tweaks for my own story-telling benefit.

post-game

the bonehead skins: they lost their utility walker, the melange and most of the money they gained from the van heist. they’re back to square one, except that most of them are looking at a long prison stretch!

yossa sustains a short-term injury, meaning he misses the next battle, and gains 4 exp. for a total of 13; he can gain an advance before the next game. he is, of course arrested.
connie gains 4 exp. for a total of 6. by routing she avoided arrest.
the recovery roll for jammy came up as a permanent loss, but i switched this to immediate recovery as i had already decided dave wasn’t making a come back (see below). i decided not to give him any exp. though, as a further counter-balance.
rachel sustains a short-term injury and gains 1 exp. for a total of 1. she is, of course, arrested.
pricey sustains a short-term injury and gains 4 exp. for a total of 7. he is, of course, arrested.
karen gains 2 exp. for a total of 6. She is spared arrest thanks to the disposable rule for starport scum meaning she was removed from the table at the same time as connie routed.
dave is never seen again, mostly because i have no decent dismounted figure for him and since the bonehead skins have lost their utility walker, i don’t need him in the gang to represent the gunner. this also balanced up for my decision to keep jammy in the game.

grisham makes an immediate recovery. He is arrested.
cooper is a permanent loss.
deaver is a permanent loss.
larsson suffers a long-term injury, reducing his Movement to 3.
rankin is a permanent loss, demonstrating that getting caught in a grenade blast is bad thing (in rule terms it is pure coincidence that all three of pricey’s victims died; there was a 1 in 6 chance for each of them.)
harris and the jokeiro get away; neither grisham nor larsson grass them up ( tested against their cool under fire stat. to see if they held up under constabulary interrogation).

jamaall make an immediate recovery. he is arrested.
deshane suffers a short-term injury. he is arrested.

^It's always an interesting question how powerful to make the random deterrents. I know Cheetor ran a Pulp Alley starport game where firing a gun could get you in a heap of trouble, since there were a fair number of armed cops ready to take anyone down who pulled anything of the sort. I used that as partial inspiration for an investigation game of my own once where three different factions were attempting to secure a fugitive for their own ends. And indeed, there was a robot cop in it. I think the cop was nigh on invlunerable, but not an especially good shot. That said . . . oh man there were a lot of people down in at least one version of the game. (I ran it twice or maybe three times. With different outcomes, so I know it wasn't completely unbalanced.)

Anyway, as I'm reading through your reports I'm starting to get really interested in Renegade Scout. It sounds like a great rule set. But as a Pulp Alley aficionado I think I might recommend one change and see if you like it:

I have come to dislike randomized or back and forth initiative, as I feel initiative is important and should affect the flow of events fairly dramatically, and taking it or holding it becomes an objective in and of itself. Most games don't do that. Pulp Alley has a really neat solution that makes initiative important, but variable. You can roll randomly to determine it once, at the beginning of the scenario. (Though you could just as easily assign it based on the outcome of previous scenarios.) But after that it only changes if the side that doesn't have the initiative "captures" it somehow: taking an objective or clearly winning a fight, say. And here's the really cool part: the player with the initiative simply decides who goes next. You want to know what your opponent is going to do before you have to act? Make them go first. You want to capture an objective your opponent is uncomfortably close to? You go first. The neutral baddies are pleasantly close to your opponent buy a good distance from you? The neutrals go first. (And you go second, maybe.) The player with the initiative just . . . decides. Always. Until someone else takes it, that is. I LOVE that!

And I find it's really hard to keep your opponent from ever taking an objective or winning a fight, so the initiative really doers change, typically several times. And it's an easy dynamic to put on top of pretty much any system. So . . . you might give that a try. In the meantime, maybe I'll go buy myself a copy of these retro rules and start hacking them up and gluing on some shiny parts from other systems to see what goodness emerges.

yes, i'm willing to give that a go, although my immediate concerns are in deciding what is a significant enough event to cause initiative to switch, and then being consistent in application. does pulp alley suggest you decide such conditionsas part of scenario design, or just determine them on the fly.
i'm enjoying rogue scout enough to get another couple of the expansions, but you might also want to consider starport scum by the author. you have to do mord work yourself in terms of weapon and equipment design for example, but it has a more integral campaign mechanism.

Actually bought a PDF of Renegade Scout yesterday and printed it out. Slowly working my way through. (Which really only means about the first dozen pages at this point. Not far yet.) Once I get myself familiar with the dynamic I'll give Starport Scum a look. I assume they use similar game mechanics?

As to Pulp Alley . . . It's pretty explicit what hands over initiative. You capture the initiative when you complete a "plot point" or "clearly win a fight." Plot points are basically objectives, and they're spelled out before the start of the scenario. They needn't be physical objects or locations. Successfully hacking a terminal might be a plot point in an investigation scenario, for instance. Or successfully interrogating a witness. Alternately, they could be objects, like a crate of spice or a getaway van, which could presumably be dropped and then picked up by another player. (Potentially changing hands multiple times.) Whatever they are, they are spelled out before the beginning of the game. They might be hidden, so that you have to look for them, but both players will know what all of them are in advance. "Clearly winning a fight" is defined as dealing damage to an opponent's character without taking any damage yourself. There is, perhaps, some room for fudging here, but not much. And this might not work equally well with all systems. In PA this sort of thing can happen smack in the middle of a turn, allowing the initiative to change even inside a turn. For systems that have a more structured activation and action sequence you could maybe muss this about so that it only happens between turns: the player who completes the most objectives or takes the fewest casualties or some combination of the two gets the initiative on the next turn, perhaps.

If you start rearranging rules at this level you'll probably want to be clear with whoever you're playing with about what you're doing beforehand. But my own gaming is pretty casual, so we have a bad habit of "fixing" things on the fly. "You know, Joe, that dynamic is kinda stupid. What do you say we do it like this?" . . . "Okay Dave. Sure. That makes sense." Or maybe "What? No! That's really dumb!" Or even "I don't know. Let's roll a die and let the gods of randomness decide whether we will institute this new rule just now."

I'm getting pretty far in the weeds. I'm going to have to figure out how Renegade Scout actually works before I start deciding how to "fix" it. I'm only just now beginning to think about how I might want to change Pulp Alley even though I've played a dozen games or so, and the shooting rules have annoyed me ever so slightly right from the get to. (They're not bad. They have some good points. But it's rare that you can "safely" shoot at someone. They almost always get to shoot back. Simultaneous like. Which makes your snipey sneaker a little less useful. Especially if she's small and easily wounded, say. Hello Kitty pajamas just don't provide a terribly good armor save.)

Anyway, you've sold me a copy of RS. Maybe I can sell you a copy of PA and we can meet in the middle.

You do, after all, run precisely the kinds of games I like to play. (And hopefully vice versa, though I'm not sure how many battle reports I've actually put on here. I'll have to look and see. There's a bunch on the blog, but that may not even be obvious if you don't know how to find them. I should go and tag them appropriately.)

symphonicpoet":2u4v75pd said:

I'll give Starport Scum a look. I assume they use similar game mechanics?

Click to expand...

actually, no. renegade scout is a roll under mechanism where each figure has a fairly large stat,. line, whilst starport scum is a dice pool mechanism where the required roll for success stays constant but better figures have more dice to roll to try and achieve the target: grunts get 1d6, ace's 2d6 and heroes 3d6 with a roll of 4+ usually being the threshold.

^Huh! Both are good enough mechanisms, but yeah, that's a pretty different approach. Pulp Alley uses the pool approach with different characters having not only different numbers of dice, but different die types: from one to four d6-d10 with more difficult tasks requiring more successes. (And a four or better is a success, same as Starport Scum.) I can't see any particular reason you couldn't extend the die types to d4 and d12 at need, or even allow larger die pools for characters outside human norms. So anyway, yeah, I'll give Starport Scum a look too.