ShotC:Episode/1 Asteroid Recovery

Starring: Bigby Wolf, Captain John Starr, Dr Dare, Vic Savage
Guest Starring: Agent Joykill
Challenge: Race against the Russians; Snipers; Wolf Alpha and a host of Russia stormtroopers and scientists
Location: D.O.P.E.S. base in Fargo; Travel across the Atlantic; Czech small town; Asteroid landing site in the Ukraine
Date Played: 22 June 2015

This is the first episode of a playtest of the Alpha rules for the ShotC Fate Game. Some of the players were new to Fate, others had some experience. The GM has been running Fate for a while and spent a fair bit of time in this session making sure to expose the players to the nuances of Fate and ShotC.

Prologue

🎲 DM: The prologue was mostly exposition to set the stage for the players and how they were initially gathering.

The session opens on a starfield and as the camera pulls back we're in the middle of an intense and violent starship battle involving several different intergalactic parties. We cut to the inside of a lead ship, where the alien commanders are frantically working a nearly destroyed panel and ejecting a container of something to safety. The container leaps into subspace, reappearing near Jupiter and is on a course for Earth.

Agent Joykill wakes violently in the middle of the night, covered with sweat. She walks to the window and looks at the night sky, in time to see a single falling star. At the same time, in a lab deep underground a frantic scientist is shouting "OH NO, OH NO..." over and over again and rushes from the lab, a trail of dot matrix printouts flapping in the wind as he runs down the hallway.

A soldier attempts to calm his mind with yoga in his spartan quarters, obviously conflicted. With a last sigh he finds his calm center just as the lab tech pounds on his door. They sit together and once the soldier knows what is going on, he says "It's time to call in the operatives". He dials the rotatory phone on the wall and it flips, revealing a bright red phone that is the direct line to the operatives...

A 70s Impala goes diving over the the little hill in the city road in a rush, violating the speed limit but an obscene factor as it is being chased by a white van bristling with fully automatic machine guns. A crackling voice comes in over the walkie talkie, calling Agents Wolf and Savage back to base for 'Code Nightmare Green'. Savage pulls the test tubes out of the mini-fridge in the back seat and pushes the fridge out, causing the van to swerve sharply off the docks and into the river.

Racing the Russians to the Asteroid

🎲 DM: Once gathered, the cast is debriefed on the scientific analysis by Dr Dare. Once finished the general begins a slideshow briefing that shows the Russians mobilizing to get to whatever it is that crashed on Earth. The cast's job is to beat them to it.

🎲 DM: The race with the Russians was run as a Contest. The cast and Russians were neck-in-neck at two victories each when Captain Starr had one of his aspects compelled, putting the party into snipertown

Snipertown

🎲 DM: Captain Starr was a bit reckless and decided to take a shortcut that would cut many kilometers off of their route. While at a stop light in a Small Czech town, snipers popped up and began firing at the cast.

Snipers were run as a mob, with there being seven of them. They each had one stress and +1 to do snipery things (otherwise they'd've rolled +0).

Finishing the race

🎲 DM: After the cast took care of snipertown, the contest continued and the cast lost. The Russians got there first.

Crash Site

🎲 DM: When the cast arrives the Russians have been there for hours and are loading the crashed object into a truck.