Medallions d20 Modern (Update Wednesday 09-20-06)
- Thread starter Old Drew Id
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Old Drew Id
First Post
Session 3 (5/21/2003) Science Center Combat
Session 3 (5/21/2003) Science Center Combat
The five thugs crossed the street towards the Children’s Science Center. In unison, they each slowly drew large Bowie knives from their jackets and held them out before them.
Willie shifted position slightly in his hiding place behind a dumpster and took aim with his pistol. Under his breath, he whispered a near-silent prayer, “Don’t make me do it, man…”
One of the figures, wearing a red ski cap, broke rank as they reached the sidewalk and took a few steps off to the right. He entered perfectly into Willie’s sights and stopped, exactly where the detective expected him to stop: the building’s power box. Willie saw the knife blade scrape quickly back and forth across the box, inscribing the strange symbol.
In one fluid motion, Willie was up and moving, his aim never leaving the vandal, “FREEZE! PUT DOWN THE KNIFE! STEP AWAY FROM THE ELECTRIC BOX!”
The man in the red cap turned his head back to Willie, and grinned. He then turned back to finish his work on the box.
Glass shattered somewhere around the corner of the building. An alarm sounded.
. . .
“They’ve broken into one of the windows. That mean’s they’re inside,” Crystal clicked the safety off her pistol and hooked the radio to her belt.
Taylor was leaning over the edge of the parking deck, her gun stretched out as far as she could. “I can’t see crap! I have no shot! I wasn’t expecting them to split up!”
“I’m on it,” Crystal answered, and began sprinting through the parking deck towards the stairwell.
. . .
Willie tried again. He didn’t want to shoot anybody he didn’t have to, no matter what mind-control-devil-pudding the preacher said these guys had eaten. “LAST TIME BUDDY! PUT THE KNIFE DOWN!”
The thug at the electric box kept carving.
Willie lowered his aim slightly. BAM! A bullet hit the thug cleanly in the lower leg. He crumpled over and dropped the knife.
Willie smiled. A clean hit. The guy was taken down, without having to kill him.
“Willie look out!!!” Taylor screamed from somewhere up above in the parking deck.
Willie turned around too late. A huge dark hand slammed into his face, sending him reeling backwards. His lost his balance and fell over in the gutter.
. . .
Taylor couldn’t get a shot. The thug was standing over Willie, swaying slightly as he raised his knife. Willie was rolling on his back, trying to get out of the way. They were too close together to risk a shot.
The other three were out of sight, around the corner somewhere, or else already through the window and inside. She had no viable targets.
Movement, from the corner of her eye. She pivoted, and brought the gun to bear. The thug that Willie had knee-capped was back up again, on one leg, clutching at the power box and trying to finish his design. Well, if it was the only target around, and he wasn’t taking a hint, she didn’t want the power going off.
Taylor held her breath and squeezed the trigger. Blood showered down over the pavement as the thug’s head exploded in gore. The power stayed on, as she turned and began sprinting for the parking deck elevator.
. . .
The thug hovered over Willie and shrouded him in darkness. The only part of his face that Willie could see was the gleaming reflection of the streetlights off his teeth. Willie threw his hands up defensively as the knife plunged down. He caught the thug’s wrists, bone-thin beneath his jacket, but surprisingly strong, and wrestled to keep the knife from sinking down into his chest. He pushed the thug back as hard as he could, but the knife stayed put, hovering an inch over his heart.
Willie took in a slow breath and gritted his teeth. His arms were shaking as he pushed with everything he had. Every muscle in his body was locked rigid, pushing the knife back. He was not going to die here, in a gutter, getting stabbed by some no-name bum. He would not go out like this. That was not…justice.
He pushed as hard as his arms could handle. The knife did not even move. The thug was leaning into it now, making it harder to resist. The point was now resting against his leather jacket.
Willie threw his weight forward from his stomach, felt the knife cut through the jacket and scratch his skin, but the sudden momentum gave him the edge and Willie shoved the thug back a few inches. He risked a glance at the sidewalk to his right. His pistol lay there, just within reach, if he could just get a hand free.
Then the thug was pushing hard again. Willie knew he must be at his limits. Having pushed him back a little, he could see the moisture on the thug’s black cheek, reflecting almost blue in the streetlight. One of them was about to give out…but Willie was not sure which one that would be. He had to go for the gun.
Another lunge, and Willie pulled his knees up between him and the thug. He kicked out and let go of his grip. The thug reeled backwards and stumbled as Willie rolled to the right. His fingers wrapping around the gun felt like sex as he turned back around to aim.
Then white hot pain, and a ragged yelp erupted unwillingly from his lips. Willie looked down to see the thug pulled the knife out of Willie’s exposed left shin. The thug ripped the knife clean in a spray of blood, and was standing over him, grinning from ear to ear.
“The same leg?! That just got healed, you SON OF A B*^#!!!!” Willie fired, one round after another, into the thug. Blam! Blam! Blam! The thug’s chest and neck sprouted blood and gore as he collapsed backwards onto sidewalk.
. . .
Crystal saw the broken display window, and flashes from gunfire in the parking lot. She cantered over behind a mailbox as she tried to make out the scene and catch her breath. Even above the wailing alarm siren, she heard a stream of curses and saw a recognizable figure with a very recognizable limp staggering towards her. She stepped out from behind her cover and moved to join him at the window.
“Looks like your limp is getting worse, Willie”
“Shut up….so did they go in here?”
“Huh? No…this window is always like this. It’s supposed to teach kids the science of broken glass.” Crystal rolled her eyes and stepped lightly into the display window. Her boots crunched on the glass. Above her head hung giant models of Saturn and Jupiter and to her left was a shattered Earth. Like usual, white men…no respect for the earth.
Willie limped after her, and they stepped into the darkened science gallery. Dim utility lights illuminated clusters of oddly shaped displays, computer kiosks, and scientific models of giant insects, planets, and molecules. The thugs had evidently moved through this room, trashing the displays as they went. Looking around the room, Crystal saw a thousand shadows and a hundred good hiding places amid the debris and wreckage.
“We’re gonna need to move slow through here…”
. . .
Taylor had to pee. She danced back and forth from one foot to the other, waiting on the elevator.
This always happened when she got too much excitement. Here she was, combat going on all around her, in the middle of a freaking battlefield, but she had no good shots from the parking deck, so she has to waste all this time getting downstairs.
And the elevator just takes forever, so she just has to stand here, all this adrenalin pumping through her system, and she can’t do anything. Just stand here and wait.
And have to pee.
. . .
Willie limped forward again and peered around behind a giant ant farm, thankfully still intact. All clear. He continued his watch on the multiple doorways in front of him and gave a thumbs-up to Crystal behind him. A second later she darted past him and took cover behind a six-foot-tall volcano. He saw her gun scan the room, then another thumbs up. His turn to leapfrog again.
Willie shambled on, past the restroom doors, and took cover behind some kind of giant slinky. His leg wasn’t hurting as bad as he had feared, and was not bleeding to badly either, but he couldn’t put too much weight on it. Crystal moved past him again, and froze.
Even above the din of the alarm, the crashing sound of breaking glass echoed from upstairs.
Willie hobbled over to the stairs and began to climb. Crystal followed a few footsteps behind.
Then the lights went out.
Willie cursed loudly, only realizing how loudly now that the alarm was no longer sounding. Before he could formulate a plan, an audible click sounded behind him, and he saw his shadow appear on the suddenly-illuminated wall ahead of him. He turned and crouched, as Crystal moved closer. An illuminator on her pistol lit the way up ahead.
“Damn, you come prepared…” he mumbled, and started back up the stairs again.
. . .
Willie held up three fingers so Crystal could see, as he leaned in close to the open doorway. The sounds of a commotion were clear from out in the hallway, and flickering orange firelight glowed from inside the room. Slowly, one at a time, Willie lowered each finger. Crystal tensed up and got ready to roll. Three…Two…One.
Willie spun around the corner, pivoting on his good leg. Crystal rolled past him and landed in a crouching position on the far side of the room, her pistol out and ready.
She could see the three thugs were trashing the place. A small but growing bonfire in the middle of the room burned a random collection of furniture and trash. By appearances, it was some sort of small lobby opening to a suite of conference rooms, all paid for by donations from Dick Scorse. Not that the trashed décor and weak firelight allowed for that much visible detail, but the sign on the wall that read “Dick Scorse Conference Suite” and the large oil painting of the rich philanthropist tended to give that away pretty easily.
The first two thugs turned and lunged forward like rabid animals to attack. Crystal fired first and the thug in front of her crumpled to the floor.
Willie hesitated until the second thug was almost on top of him. He screamed, “Don’t make me shoot---” before the thug was within melee range, but the thug gave him no choice. Willie fired and the thug collapsed dead before him, half of his neck blown out by the gun.
The third guy was caught completely off guard. He had focused his attention on ripping the oversized oil painting off the wall and had his back to Willie and Crystal. He turned and tossed the portrait onto the fire as his two allies fell. For one silent moment, he studied the two vigilantes across the burning room. Then he grinned.
“Don’t do it, man!” Willie ordered as the thug leapt across the room, gibbering and grinning. He cleared the flames of the bonfire in one fluid motion and simultaneously Crystal and Willie both fired. Two gaping holes blossomed in his chest, and he fell between them.
Crystal took one slow breath in and out, then wasted no more time relaxing. She found the fire extinguisher on the wall and quickly put it to use on the flames. She turned angrily back to Willie as she sprayed the flames, “Are you always going to waste time with a warning before you shoot?”
Willie’s eyes narrowed. “Hey, some of us don’t want to kill anybody we don’t have to. In case you forgot, these guys are not in their right mind---”
“SAZOMBIE!!!!SHOOTUMBUNCHOFTIMESINTHEHEAD!!!!”
Crystal looked down at her belt. The radio she had clipped there was still on, and Taylor was screaming gibberish into it.
Willie raised an eyebrow, “What the hell is she talking abou---AAARGH!” The thug Willie had shot in the neck was suddenly up on him, biting into Willie’s leg and clawing at his chest. Willie fell backwards and fired directly into the man’s head. Bone and brains exploded out all of the room. Willie cursed and screamed again. “MY FOOT! I JUST SHOT MYSELF IN MY FOOT! SON OF A--”
Crystal raced to his side and ripped her handkerchief from her back pocket. The bullet had gone clean threw the man’s forehead, out the back of his head, and into Willie’s big toe. With no clear way to make a bandage while his boot was still on, she did the next best thing.
“This is gonna hurt,” she warned, and shoved the handkerchief into the hole.
“OWOWOWOW!!!!”
“Quit screaming, you big girl! You wake up zombie again!” Taylor was suddenly there now, beside them, still holding a pistol in one hand and her radio in the other. She looked white as a ghost.
“What the hell are you talking about, zombie?” Willie managed to say through gritted teeth.
“Zombie! You know word? Zommmm-Beeee! You shoot them. They dead. Then they get up again! Like in movie! We got to get out of here!” Taylor was frantic, and started pulling Willie to his feet.
“Are you out of your mind?!”
“She’s right,” Crystal announced. She pointed to the corpse that Willie had just shot in the head. In the light of her pistol's illuminator, it was obvious. Willie’s first shot upon entering the room had ripped the thug’s throat completely open, shattering the spine and most of the neck muscle.
Whatever that thing was, when it got back up to chew on Willie a second time, it wasn’t a living person.
Session 3 (5/21/2003) Science Center Combat
The five thugs crossed the street towards the Children’s Science Center. In unison, they each slowly drew large Bowie knives from their jackets and held them out before them.
Willie shifted position slightly in his hiding place behind a dumpster and took aim with his pistol. Under his breath, he whispered a near-silent prayer, “Don’t make me do it, man…”
One of the figures, wearing a red ski cap, broke rank as they reached the sidewalk and took a few steps off to the right. He entered perfectly into Willie’s sights and stopped, exactly where the detective expected him to stop: the building’s power box. Willie saw the knife blade scrape quickly back and forth across the box, inscribing the strange symbol.
In one fluid motion, Willie was up and moving, his aim never leaving the vandal, “FREEZE! PUT DOWN THE KNIFE! STEP AWAY FROM THE ELECTRIC BOX!”
The man in the red cap turned his head back to Willie, and grinned. He then turned back to finish his work on the box.
Glass shattered somewhere around the corner of the building. An alarm sounded.
. . .
“They’ve broken into one of the windows. That mean’s they’re inside,” Crystal clicked the safety off her pistol and hooked the radio to her belt.
Taylor was leaning over the edge of the parking deck, her gun stretched out as far as she could. “I can’t see crap! I have no shot! I wasn’t expecting them to split up!”
“I’m on it,” Crystal answered, and began sprinting through the parking deck towards the stairwell.
. . .
Willie tried again. He didn’t want to shoot anybody he didn’t have to, no matter what mind-control-devil-pudding the preacher said these guys had eaten. “LAST TIME BUDDY! PUT THE KNIFE DOWN!”
The thug at the electric box kept carving.
Willie lowered his aim slightly. BAM! A bullet hit the thug cleanly in the lower leg. He crumpled over and dropped the knife.
Willie smiled. A clean hit. The guy was taken down, without having to kill him.
“Willie look out!!!” Taylor screamed from somewhere up above in the parking deck.
Willie turned around too late. A huge dark hand slammed into his face, sending him reeling backwards. His lost his balance and fell over in the gutter.
. . .
Taylor couldn’t get a shot. The thug was standing over Willie, swaying slightly as he raised his knife. Willie was rolling on his back, trying to get out of the way. They were too close together to risk a shot.
The other three were out of sight, around the corner somewhere, or else already through the window and inside. She had no viable targets.
Movement, from the corner of her eye. She pivoted, and brought the gun to bear. The thug that Willie had knee-capped was back up again, on one leg, clutching at the power box and trying to finish his design. Well, if it was the only target around, and he wasn’t taking a hint, she didn’t want the power going off.
Taylor held her breath and squeezed the trigger. Blood showered down over the pavement as the thug’s head exploded in gore. The power stayed on, as she turned and began sprinting for the parking deck elevator.
. . .
The thug hovered over Willie and shrouded him in darkness. The only part of his face that Willie could see was the gleaming reflection of the streetlights off his teeth. Willie threw his hands up defensively as the knife plunged down. He caught the thug’s wrists, bone-thin beneath his jacket, but surprisingly strong, and wrestled to keep the knife from sinking down into his chest. He pushed the thug back as hard as he could, but the knife stayed put, hovering an inch over his heart.
Willie took in a slow breath and gritted his teeth. His arms were shaking as he pushed with everything he had. Every muscle in his body was locked rigid, pushing the knife back. He was not going to die here, in a gutter, getting stabbed by some no-name bum. He would not go out like this. That was not…justice.
He pushed as hard as his arms could handle. The knife did not even move. The thug was leaning into it now, making it harder to resist. The point was now resting against his leather jacket.
Willie threw his weight forward from his stomach, felt the knife cut through the jacket and scratch his skin, but the sudden momentum gave him the edge and Willie shoved the thug back a few inches. He risked a glance at the sidewalk to his right. His pistol lay there, just within reach, if he could just get a hand free.
Then the thug was pushing hard again. Willie knew he must be at his limits. Having pushed him back a little, he could see the moisture on the thug’s black cheek, reflecting almost blue in the streetlight. One of them was about to give out…but Willie was not sure which one that would be. He had to go for the gun.
Another lunge, and Willie pulled his knees up between him and the thug. He kicked out and let go of his grip. The thug reeled backwards and stumbled as Willie rolled to the right. His fingers wrapping around the gun felt like sex as he turned back around to aim.
Then white hot pain, and a ragged yelp erupted unwillingly from his lips. Willie looked down to see the thug pulled the knife out of Willie’s exposed left shin. The thug ripped the knife clean in a spray of blood, and was standing over him, grinning from ear to ear.
“The same leg?! That just got healed, you SON OF A B*^#!!!!” Willie fired, one round after another, into the thug. Blam! Blam! Blam! The thug’s chest and neck sprouted blood and gore as he collapsed backwards onto sidewalk.
. . .
Crystal saw the broken display window, and flashes from gunfire in the parking lot. She cantered over behind a mailbox as she tried to make out the scene and catch her breath. Even above the wailing alarm siren, she heard a stream of curses and saw a recognizable figure with a very recognizable limp staggering towards her. She stepped out from behind her cover and moved to join him at the window.
“Looks like your limp is getting worse, Willie”
“Shut up….so did they go in here?”
“Huh? No…this window is always like this. It’s supposed to teach kids the science of broken glass.” Crystal rolled her eyes and stepped lightly into the display window. Her boots crunched on the glass. Above her head hung giant models of Saturn and Jupiter and to her left was a shattered Earth. Like usual, white men…no respect for the earth.
Willie limped after her, and they stepped into the darkened science gallery. Dim utility lights illuminated clusters of oddly shaped displays, computer kiosks, and scientific models of giant insects, planets, and molecules. The thugs had evidently moved through this room, trashing the displays as they went. Looking around the room, Crystal saw a thousand shadows and a hundred good hiding places amid the debris and wreckage.
“We’re gonna need to move slow through here…”
. . .
Taylor had to pee. She danced back and forth from one foot to the other, waiting on the elevator.
This always happened when she got too much excitement. Here she was, combat going on all around her, in the middle of a freaking battlefield, but she had no good shots from the parking deck, so she has to waste all this time getting downstairs.
And the elevator just takes forever, so she just has to stand here, all this adrenalin pumping through her system, and she can’t do anything. Just stand here and wait.
And have to pee.
. . .
Willie limped forward again and peered around behind a giant ant farm, thankfully still intact. All clear. He continued his watch on the multiple doorways in front of him and gave a thumbs-up to Crystal behind him. A second later she darted past him and took cover behind a six-foot-tall volcano. He saw her gun scan the room, then another thumbs up. His turn to leapfrog again.
Willie shambled on, past the restroom doors, and took cover behind some kind of giant slinky. His leg wasn’t hurting as bad as he had feared, and was not bleeding to badly either, but he couldn’t put too much weight on it. Crystal moved past him again, and froze.
Even above the din of the alarm, the crashing sound of breaking glass echoed from upstairs.
Willie hobbled over to the stairs and began to climb. Crystal followed a few footsteps behind.
Then the lights went out.
Willie cursed loudly, only realizing how loudly now that the alarm was no longer sounding. Before he could formulate a plan, an audible click sounded behind him, and he saw his shadow appear on the suddenly-illuminated wall ahead of him. He turned and crouched, as Crystal moved closer. An illuminator on her pistol lit the way up ahead.
“Damn, you come prepared…” he mumbled, and started back up the stairs again.
. . .
Willie held up three fingers so Crystal could see, as he leaned in close to the open doorway. The sounds of a commotion were clear from out in the hallway, and flickering orange firelight glowed from inside the room. Slowly, one at a time, Willie lowered each finger. Crystal tensed up and got ready to roll. Three…Two…One.
Willie spun around the corner, pivoting on his good leg. Crystal rolled past him and landed in a crouching position on the far side of the room, her pistol out and ready.
She could see the three thugs were trashing the place. A small but growing bonfire in the middle of the room burned a random collection of furniture and trash. By appearances, it was some sort of small lobby opening to a suite of conference rooms, all paid for by donations from Dick Scorse. Not that the trashed décor and weak firelight allowed for that much visible detail, but the sign on the wall that read “Dick Scorse Conference Suite” and the large oil painting of the rich philanthropist tended to give that away pretty easily.
The first two thugs turned and lunged forward like rabid animals to attack. Crystal fired first and the thug in front of her crumpled to the floor.
Willie hesitated until the second thug was almost on top of him. He screamed, “Don’t make me shoot---” before the thug was within melee range, but the thug gave him no choice. Willie fired and the thug collapsed dead before him, half of his neck blown out by the gun.
The third guy was caught completely off guard. He had focused his attention on ripping the oversized oil painting off the wall and had his back to Willie and Crystal. He turned and tossed the portrait onto the fire as his two allies fell. For one silent moment, he studied the two vigilantes across the burning room. Then he grinned.
“Don’t do it, man!” Willie ordered as the thug leapt across the room, gibbering and grinning. He cleared the flames of the bonfire in one fluid motion and simultaneously Crystal and Willie both fired. Two gaping holes blossomed in his chest, and he fell between them.
Crystal took one slow breath in and out, then wasted no more time relaxing. She found the fire extinguisher on the wall and quickly put it to use on the flames. She turned angrily back to Willie as she sprayed the flames, “Are you always going to waste time with a warning before you shoot?”
Willie’s eyes narrowed. “Hey, some of us don’t want to kill anybody we don’t have to. In case you forgot, these guys are not in their right mind---”
“SAZOMBIE!!!!SHOOTUMBUNCHOFTIMESINTHEHEAD!!!!”
Crystal looked down at her belt. The radio she had clipped there was still on, and Taylor was screaming gibberish into it.
Willie raised an eyebrow, “What the hell is she talking abou---AAARGH!” The thug Willie had shot in the neck was suddenly up on him, biting into Willie’s leg and clawing at his chest. Willie fell backwards and fired directly into the man’s head. Bone and brains exploded out all of the room. Willie cursed and screamed again. “MY FOOT! I JUST SHOT MYSELF IN MY FOOT! SON OF A--”
Crystal raced to his side and ripped her handkerchief from her back pocket. The bullet had gone clean threw the man’s forehead, out the back of his head, and into Willie’s big toe. With no clear way to make a bandage while his boot was still on, she did the next best thing.
“This is gonna hurt,” she warned, and shoved the handkerchief into the hole.
“OWOWOWOW!!!!”
“Quit screaming, you big girl! You wake up zombie again!” Taylor was suddenly there now, beside them, still holding a pistol in one hand and her radio in the other. She looked white as a ghost.
“What the hell are you talking about, zombie?” Willie managed to say through gritted teeth.
“Zombie! You know word? Zommmm-Beeee! You shoot them. They dead. Then they get up again! Like in movie! We got to get out of here!” Taylor was frantic, and started pulling Willie to his feet.
“Are you out of your mind?!”
“She’s right,” Crystal announced. She pointed to the corpse that Willie had just shot in the head. In the light of her pistol's illuminator, it was obvious. Willie’s first shot upon entering the room had ripped the thug’s throat completely open, shattering the spine and most of the neck muscle.
Whatever that thing was, when it got back up to chew on Willie a second time, it wasn’t a living person.
Old Drew Id
First Post
Re: Re: owowow
We allow for critical misses like critical hits. Roll a 1, then roll to confirm by rolling another 1 or a 13. Then some percentile dice come in for a chance at:
If a person hurts themselves, we roll for the body part, which we also do for triple-critical hits (which are critical hits that roll critical on the confirm roll). That's how Willie got stabbed in the left thigh back in the library.
Then, in the science center, Willie fumbled and rolled "left leg" again. After that, it became a running joke, and soon we stopped rolling for Willie anymore and just assumed that anything bad that could happen to him would always happen specifically to his left leg.
As a side note, the first shot hit his leg. His next attack took down the zombie. Creative license combined the attacks into a single shot which went through the zombie's head and into Willie's left foot...
Spatula said:
We allow for critical misses like critical hits. Roll a 1, then roll to confirm by rolling another 1 or a 13. Then some percentile dice come in for a chance at:
- dropping your weapon (likely)
- damaging your weapon (uncommon)
- hurting yourself with your weapon (uncommon)
- two or more of the above (rare)
If a person hurts themselves, we roll for the body part, which we also do for triple-critical hits (which are critical hits that roll critical on the confirm roll). That's how Willie got stabbed in the left thigh back in the library.
Then, in the science center, Willie fumbled and rolled "left leg" again. After that, it became a running joke, and soon we stopped rolling for Willie anymore and just assumed that anything bad that could happen to him would always happen specifically to his left leg.
As a side note, the first shot hit his leg. His next attack took down the zombie. Creative license combined the attacks into a single shot which went through the zombie's head and into Willie's left foot...
ledded
Herder of monkies
Re: Re: Re: owowow
Oh yes. Ha. Ha-ha. "Running" joke, as in "you cant run, Willie, because you have a crowbar lodged in your leg" ;^)
Stay tuned, gentle readers, as there are many more things in store for Willie's Left Leg.
Which, BTW, I liked a lot better than the explanation at the time of "I dunno, I guess you slipped in Taylor's urine while you were trying to step away from the zombie-thing and accidentally shot yourself in the leg. Again." ;^)
ledded a.k.a. Willie Lamar
Old Drew Id said:
Oh yes. Ha. Ha-ha. "Running" joke, as in "you cant run, Willie, because you have a crowbar lodged in your leg" ;^)
Stay tuned, gentle readers, as there are many more things in store for Willie's Left Leg.
Which, BTW, I liked a lot better than the explanation at the time of "I dunno, I guess you slipped in Taylor's urine while you were trying to step away from the zombie-thing and accidentally shot yourself in the leg. Again." ;^)
ledded a.k.a. Willie Lamar