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Message: <blockquote data-quote="jcayer" data-source="post: 6027357" data-attributes="member: 76960">Session 2 - In the booksWotD Session 2 game report When we last left our unfortunate vacationers, they were racing from the Bridge down to Security, as contact with that section had been lost. Rounding the corner and coming down the stairs, the section was overrun with creatures. On the way, Kirkman had mentioned he had another 350 or so rounds in his office and Joel had come forward to state they should make some effort to rescue Forthington, who had been locked in the brig. If they didn't, they had effectively executed him themselves. I dealt the players action cards. Among them were included "Fade to Black" - which would take one character who was wounded grievously and have them go unconscious, removed from the scene, and appear with the group some time later miraculously unharmed. Boom Head Shot - Which converted any normal hit retroactively into a head shot. Momentary Distraction - Which creates a loud noise, like a car alarm, at a perfect moment, distracting all enemies in the room. Cards were dealt and the passengers all came out ahead of the shamblers. They took some pot shots, not hitting anything and began retreating almost immediately. Mike, the only trained shooter in the group drew his glock, squeezed the trigger, and snake eyes, critical failure. I was going with some sort of malfunction and flash blind him for a few rounds. But Mike knows far more about guns than I do, and said that pretty much can't happen. I said, fine, the gun malfunctions, blowing up in your hand, you’re able to drop it, but it’s a useless hunk of metal now. Strangely, he was ok with that solution. In the end, everyone retreated during the first round of combat and then made a run for it during the second. The players began to realize just how difficult it was to headshot a zombie. With a -4 to hit the head, and a standard difficulty of TN of 4. That effectively made a headshot an 8 or better with no other tricks to assist. Until this point, they had been much more confident about their abilities in combat. As they retreated, the last man at the bottom of the stairs, Kris, was too close to three of the undead. They moved adjacent to him and we saw the first instance of the wild attack plus ganging up combination. They hit him and the party almost had their first death. Kris used a bennie to soak the two wound's worth of damage. The players realized just how easily they could be taken out. They realized that for Kris to escape, he would have to sustain three attacks to step away from the creatures. The players then decided to use their "Momentary Distraction" card. Bob suggested that distraction could be that a person could walk out of an adjacent internet cafe with headphones on, and be devoured, buying them time. That seemed too grim indeed and morally questionable. Instead I opted to have one of the player's missed shot hit the fountain and cause it to malfunction in such a way that it began bubbling, cracking and popping, temporarily distracting the undead. The group used this opportunity to run away the next round. At this point, Kirkman admitted he didn’t have much chance of regaining control of the boat. Most of his security guys were not answering their radios and they were running into these things everywhere. He then told them he would take them to their loved ones so everyone could get off the ship. He was not yet willing to sound the abandon ship alarm as it would make it almost impossible to make it to the crew quarters and their loved ones. Besides, that was still the captain’s job. The players at this point were extremely animated. There was a LOT of talking. Some wanted to ransack the local shops on the promenade. Others wanted to make for the skeet shooting range and commandeer the shotguns up there. Still others wanted to fashion a bomb out of alcohol at the liquor store and throw it against the 20 undead near the security office. The players talked for more than 15 minutes about next steps before agreeing to head for their loved ones in the crew quarters. It is easy to see that there are a lot of strong personalities among this group, and I expect future heated discussions as they progress. Bob used this moment to retrieve two sturdy knee braces from his backack and put them on during this discussion, given his weak knee and torn ACL. Kirkman suggested heading through engineering as that was probably the least populated deck and might be free of the zombies. Bob and Mike were not big fans of that idea and in the end, Kirkman said he’d try to take them the most direct route he could. What followed was several of the “random” encounters in the adventure. In truth, I chose the ones that I liked and thought would be the most entertaining. Almost immediately, they ran into Ms Hartten, played by Kathy Bates. She would not leave the characters as they had weapons and could help protect her. She spent most of her time rambling on about the “Will of God” and him “Cleansing the Earth” The characters quickly tired of her, but she would not leave them. Heading down another corridor, they stumbled on 3 zombies who had cornered an old woman in her nineties. She was managing to keep them at bay with her walker, but was tiring. Realizing she had little to no chance of surviving without their help, they opted to attempt to save her. Most of the players had acquired axes while traversing the ship, so I let them have the drop on the creatures, so they could easily rescue Ethel, played by Estelle Getty. Ethel, much like Hartten would not leave their side. When asked about keeping up, she poked Adam and said, I’ll keep up with the fat guy, don’t worry. She never fell behind….as an NPC, she was barely mentioned, but she made it. A couple minutes later, they ran into Jon Treymore and his family. Wife Ellen, and three kids, ages 6, 9, and 12. Aimee had met Ellen earlier, while the were sunbathing around the pool. Treymore had an axe and Mike persuaded him to go up to the lifeboats as that was the eventual destination of the party. Mike took a moment to explain that the group had so far determined that aiming for the head seemed to work best. Nothing else stopped them. And he also cautioned against exposure to blood or being bitten. At this point the group was beginning to get a better understanding of the dangers they were facing. Not a minute later, a man carrying a young child bumped into the group. The child was bitten. Bob offered to tend to the child while Mike let the father in on the grizzly truth, the child was doomed to become a zombie as a result of the bite. As Mike was telling the father, Bob was pretending to bandage the her, but was actually tying her up, in case she turned at that very moment. Eventually the man would no longer listen to Mike and said he was leaving and taking his daughter with him, to which Mike and Bob said no. They wanted to keep her nearby, just in case. Ultimately, the man grabbed her and raced off, down the corridor. The final “random” encounter was an open cabin, with a crying baby inside. The mother was dead on the bed, being consumed by 8 zombies. The baby was in a crib in the corner, crying. I expected there to be a “bit” of contention by the players about how to handle this. As it turns out, “Bit” was an understatement. Adam was first to approach the door and see into the room. He immediately shouted out to get the creature's attention. Bob and Mike were behind him and looked into the room. Mike's first response was, "Really? Did you really just do that?" to which Adam replied. "It's done. I've already shouted. Deal with it." Bob and Mike(despite his Heroic hindrance) did not want to get involved. Adam, on the other hand, could not leave, due to his own heroic hindrance of having a soft spot for all children. Despite Bob’s best effort to close the door, Adam burst in, screaming and yelling at the creatures, attempting to distract them away from the baby. It succeeded and the zombies began to follow him out into the hall where the other players were waiting. Bob wasn't prepared to face eight zombies, however, and initiative was drawn between Bob and Adam. Bob won iniative with a Queen and ran forward and closed the cabin door. Adam went next with an 8. He prevailed upon Kirkman to unlock the door with his security card. Kirkman unlocked the door and Adam re-opened the door. At this point the undead were now directly at the door and stumbling into the hall. In this case, I gave the players “the drop” as it was an easy way to handle someone waiting outside a door, with a glock, ready to blow someone’s head off. This encounter could have been over fairly quickly, but really degenerated into a difficult exchange between players. Adam was adamant about saving the baby and Mike was threatening to shoot Adam since he put the group in danger. "If you ever do that to the group again, Adam, I will shoot you in the head," Mike warned. Bob was also very upset with Adam and things were not made easier by Ms Hartten calling the two of them(Mike and Bob) the “spawn of the devil” and other like names, since they wanted to leave the baby behind. She praised Adam, Joel and Jeff as "Angels of God." A quick search of the room did yield a baby carrier and a backpack with formula, diapers, etc. Adam accused Bob of being heartless and a monster for actively closing the door and attempting to allow a six month old to be killed. It was reprehensible. As he spoke he became even more upset. Bob responded telling Adam his priority was getting back to his wife and making sure she was safe. Bob said that should be Adam's priority as well, as Adam was the other member in the group who's wife had joined the cruise. Adam asked, "Who was hurt in that? Did anyone get hurt there? No! No one got hurt!" Bob told Adam he couldn't save them all. He asked Adam how many zombies would it take for Adam to close the door - 16? 30? It was clear that Adam's own extremely heroic hindrance of having a soft spot for children did not sit well with Mike or Bob. Words became heated, and Kris warned that the raised voices would attract more creatures to the group. Adam walked away, furious. The players were feeling real emotion here - they really got into it. Adam actually stood up and I had to bring the volume level down for fear of waking my wife. Kirkman said they were almost there when they came to a deck that had been completely overrun with the creatures. They had no good way to get past them. Every route to the crew quarters seemed to be blocked. Kirkman continued to say he thought going through engineering would be the best choice until finally, they agreed. They made it to the engineering deck without further incident and descended a ladder into complete darkness. Luckily, Kirkman had a flashlight with him. This was a pretty intimidating map as I used Fog of War and Darkness in Maptools to really limit what the players could see. The group heard a low, long moan from somewhere within the room, and they knew they were not alone in the dark. The undead was among them. As they prepared to begin crossing the room, automatic gunfire was heard on the far side of it. Mike looked at Kirkman who replied, “I don’t have any automatic weapons. I don’t know where they came from, but I would certainly like to get my hands on a few.” Moments later, a klaxon sounded and was followed by a message directing all passengers to report to the auditorium immediately. Once the announcement was over, Kirkman began swearing. When asked, he replied, ”Captain Romero is probably dead. That alarm sounds when sensors installed in the ship detect anything that sounds like weapons fire and when there is another boat within 50 feet of the ship. The alarm can be suppressed on the bridge, or from security. If that alarm is going off, it means a ship is nearby, there’s been gunfire, and there is no one on the bridge to stop the alarm. It was designed to get passengers into the auditorium, which can be sealed and used somewhat like a safe room.” Once I get you to your loved ones, I need to get to the auditorium to try to get everyone there into the lifeboats. Bob spent a significant amount of time trying to convince Kirkman his plan to visit the auditorium was foolhardy and that there would be terrorists there, but Kirkman would hear nothing of it. He had a duty to protect these people. Even his own friends were getting impatient and exasperated with him, and the group spent a lot of time attempting to convince Bob it made sense to escort Kirkman to the auditorium after they had reconnected with their loved ones. Bob eventually relented, but not until he suggested that perhaps he should split from the party with his brother and meet them at the lifeboats. He decided it would be best to stay with the group. Despite being a group of friends, I’m curious if they would stay together long term if such an event happened. With things going from bad to worse, the group was unwilling to brave crossing engineering. In their minds, terrorists or pirates had also invaded the ship and had automatic weapons. At least one or two where down in engineering, along with an unknown number of dead, and the possibility of a crying baby. I had really wanted to run engineering in a horrorish role, but they really didn’t want to stay, so I took off my conductor’s hat and let them find another, much longer way, to the crew quarters and their loved ones. After doubling back several times, avoiding any combats they could, and taking almost an hour, they ran into a Miami policeman who had been on vacation. Stephen McDermont was a gruff cop who had seen a lot in his career. He was described as a God-fearing man. He had already acquired a gun from a dead security guard and a nasty gash on his arm from someone who was using a piece of broken mirror as a knife. Mike and Bob wrapped the arm, inspecting McDermont for signs of any bites or wounds that could be infected. They found none. And Stephen joined the group. Moments later, they dispatched a few zombies that were outside crew quarters and they were reunited with their loved ones during which Bob and his wife Andrea shared a kiss so passionate it made the one at the end of the Princess Bride look like a peck on the cheek. Kirkman briefed the two remaining security guards about his plan to get to the auditorium and get anyone there off the boat. Once again, Bob spent significant time trying to change his mind, but to no avail. Kirkman told everyone there was a back staircase from the crew quarters that went past the back of the auditorium and then up to the deck. Again, Bob did not believe this was a sound plan. He had concerns terrorists would be in the auditorium. Even after being reassured the staircase was only known to the crew and they didn’t actually need to enter the auditorium, Bob still objected to the plan. He pointed out that an auditorium filled with hundreds of people only required one infected person to make the place extremely dangerous. He spent significant time trying to change everyone’s mind, but no one would budge, they all agreed the staircase was their quickest/safest way to the top deck and lifeboats. In the end, Bob caved to stay with the group, but he was definitely not pleased. Moments later Kirkman and his remaining security guards said their goodbyes to the passengers as they parted ways. Kirkman went to the auditorium and the rest of the group went up to the decks and hopefully a lifeboat. At the top of the stairs, chaos reigned. Dozens of zombies crowded the deck as a small group of survivors struggled to winch a lifeboat down to the water. The two guys who were trying to operate the winches were under pressure from zombies. Two members of the crew were separated from the group and would soon be surrounded. The group came out at the top of a staircase and were able to avoid immediate detection. Several lounge chairs lined the deck, and there was a wooden bar approximately one hundred and forty feet away. The group counted dozens of undead shambling on-decks. It looked insurmountable. As they looked down the stairs, a group of zombies gathered at the bottom, looking upwards. Taking a quick inventory of the situation, Bob told Andrea he loved her and ran off to try to create a distraction to allow the rest of the survivors to get to the lifeboat. Mike opened fire, dropping the closest zombie with a headshot. Jeff advanced, picking up the corpse and throwing it at two approaching zombies. Thanks to a great roll, he knocked them both prone. Several of the others ran halfway down the stairs and attempted to leap the railing, with varying degrees of success. They did manage to bring down one of the zombies pressuring one of the winch operators. By this time, Bob had made it to the bar that was on deck and jumped on top, yelling and screaming, attempting to draw the zombies to him. Unfortunately, only some of the zombies turned their attention to Bob. That's because just at that moment, the baby began to wail and scream. The crying infant, combined with the sounds of gunfire from the top of the stairs, served as an equally powerful distraction. As the round progressed, some lucky rolls dropped more of the zombies by the lifeboat, allowing the gang to close in on their salvation. Adam took over one of the winches while the rest of the gang worked to clear a way to the other winch. Realizing his distraction was over, Bob lept off the bar and took several attacks as he tried to make it to the boat. He soaked a couple wounds, acing on two vigor rolls and then his luck ran out, he took a wound he couldn’t soak, taking 21 points of damage over his toughness of 5. In the end, he used the adventure card, Fade to Black , which allowed him to wake up safe and sound after the battle. Bob took over running Stephen McDermont to give him something to do. Jeff also took a pair of wounds from a particularly ferocious attack, acing on his vigor roll and probably saving his own life. Luck was with him as he managed to soak both of those wounds as well. Joel attempted to fire at a zombie, despite never having used a gun in his life. Rising to the occasion, he made a perfect headshot, destroying a zombie by the winch. Next to that zombie, the man who had been managing the winch fell to his knees. He was infected and could no longer control himself. Jeff raced over and pushed him overboard. With the battle winding down, Jeff took over running the other winch after pushing the recently bitten former operator overboard. Mike, Stephen, and Joel provided cover as Kris and McDermott attempted to make it to the ship. During the battle, Ms Harttel, the baby, Ethel, and numerous others safely made it to the lifeboat. As time was running out and everyone prepared to get into the lifeboat, Joel saw Jon Treymore, carrying his youngest daughter, 6 year old Monica. His wife and sons were nowhere to be seen. He was dodging and weaving and trying to make it to the boat. With seconds to spare before they dropped the boat, he made it to them. With tears in his eyes, he handed Monica to Joel. He didn't move. A second later, the reality of the situation set in: Jon had been bitten, and after losing his wife and sons, had given everything he had to get his daughter to safety. My players, chatty and engaged the entire night - were stunned speechless. Joel offered him his gun, but Jon refused. He looked to Mike and as Joel took Monica into the lifeboat, Mike pulled the trigger and made sure Jon Treymore would never become a zombie.</blockquote>

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