Chop Shop's page

ah. i am waiting for PCs to come over for us to have a pow-wow

Honk honk!

yeah, i probably have a good shot at pulling it off. Then again if i didn't, it'd be campaign over. Of course any fight in this system has a chance of ending the campaign, and i could spend some FP to salvage, so once we discuss in character i will see what the others come up with.

i agree. you said if i ram through, there is a turn in front of a cliff shortly thereafter?

Yeah, I guess Chop won't open fire then

i mean i dunno i just dont think this is gonna end in any way other than a firefight, so i was thinking about just starting it. but what do the other PCs think?

is there something we could roll to shoot the ATV guy before he can get out of sight?

loose air... i think we might just call it "tension" or "slack" but i get what you mean.

Chop Shop sits in the driver's seat and looks at the scene ahead for clues as to what is going on.

senses/notice: 3d6 ⇒ (4, 6, 1) = 11

i have 3 to add so i can make that 4 into a 6 and that 1 into a 2. Not sure if the natural 1 cancels out a natural 6, or vice versa, but i would still have a 6 to spare if so.

If i notice any fishy body language, I will also take the aim action with my machine gun

probably, worst case you could lie on the top in the prone with the rifle.

Chop slows the hauler down to a stop a good distance back, and waits for someone from the block to approach, or one of his comrades to act.

Chop looks at Slim, then fires up the engine.

"They'd have probably eaten ya. What brings you out this way? Know anything about those pillars of smoke?"

Chop Shop drives the hauler a good several miles from the overpass, eyes scanning the debris on the side of the road looking for secondary ambush.

Waving a flag to slow the group, he pulls the hauler to a stop and taps the top of the hailer to see if the stranger comes down, holding a pistol in case the guy wants to act crazy.

When Slim pulls up beside the hauler, Chop waves his signal flag out the window in a line, then a tight circle pointing backward at a low angle.

The symbolism is clear: Match speed, stay even, back a little...

The directions, while clear, didn't make sense until the trucker's arm drew the flag in and came back out clenching a K-BAR combat knife, which he made an "x" slashing motion with.

Rescue plan set, they sped forward to snatch the victim out of the clutches of the crazies.

-1 FP

Looks like Slim, Chop Shop and Tenebrous are up to spend an FP unless im mistaken to make this epic rescue happen. I can ram the flaming wreck out of the way as well for added sweet imagery

yeah ill just spend the fortune point then, not confident at this level that i could make those numbers. I figured they couldnt chase us and with their meal gone theyd move along elsewhere in the near-week before we pass back by here.

Yeah i mean it doesnt truly matter to me as long as I'm not missing a turn.

I can see that it is annoying to have everyone roll initiatives, that takes a day, then first round actions, etc.

well gang, what do we think? Waste bullets on these guys or drive by rescue for some Fortune Points? I'm loathe to spend Fortune on something we could do normally, but I'm also not keen on spending 40 or more bullets killing 20 crazies. I'm down if you're down, is what I'm saying. GM, how many successes to cut that rope while driving?

no binos. What is the clearance on the bridge, does our road go under the bridge, can a hauler get through there with a turret on top? Looking to see if i can drive by without hitting the hanging dude, maybe swing my knife out to cut him down while JJC rides to the side and behind me, and the dude could land on his hood. Haha

"I'll chug along as best i can, should be find with crazy-eyes in the turret and if you all don't stray too far."

Chop Shop waves a warning flag out the driver's window so Slim can see, then points directly ahead to indicate there is possivle danger ahead.

you know i'm ready

I figure Chop Shop has a big, dirt-brown duster.

And the wide-brimmed hat, like his avatar.

but no feather, unlike the avatar. hahaha

Leaning out the drivers side window of the rig, Chop Shop throws out a thumbs-up.

"Ready!" he yells, pulling forward to their staging location.

now, some of the DM narration has us outside the perimeter, so when folks are ready i suppose we can cut to us being on the road.

Yeah i figure Chop Shop snagged a loaded pistol and a spare magazine. Just for when shootin' out the window is needed, otherwise he will use his big ol' machine gun.

Also grabbed food and water and minor necessities, nothing too much so as not to leave PV stripped bare.

On that note, is FC coastal? Or do they just have a big lake for fishing?

"Plenty of room, just don't get yourself killed on that bike," replies Chop Shop, and seeing Sid's thumbs-up, he responds with a thumbs-up of his own before checking the box on his makeshift clipboard.

Seeing Sid wondering, he points up to the turret.

"If you're a good shot, wouldn't mind you up in the turret keepin' an eye out."

i see you are 3/3 at shooting so the turret would be a good place for you. mechanically speaking, it has the same level of protections as sitting inside the vehicle.

ive got a nonlethal and a lethal melee weapon, both light since im a bit more nimble than muscle. And so they dont take up much space on my person or weigh me down.

as a note to all, as we have several new to the boards, on these boards "out of character" notes are typically done in blue text. internal dialogue is usually italic. I'm not a stickler, just letting you all know in case you go gettin' in other games 'round these parts.

@GM, is it alright if Chop Shop has a pistol or crossbow? He would basically use it while driving only, so he can keep a hand on the wheel. Outside of the vehicle, he'd prefer his machine gun. Without a 1-handed ranged weapon, he was just gonna stab anyone silly enough to try to climb in the driver's side.

"Sheriff, you want that perimeter check pre- or post-range?" the trucker asks of the law-man.

***

When the time comes to load, the trucker is all business, behaving like a true professional looking to eliminate any silliness from untested militia members and make sure there is no complacency on the part of the road-hardened crew members.

"Alright, let's get her loaded up." "Chop Shop" Dean says to the militia and any other box-kickers around. He has a piece of old, over-laundered cloth stretched over a small, flat wooden board that he carries, and writes on with a grease pencil. He writes down the items as they are loaded on to the truck, eyeballs the load to make sure it is balanced and secured inside, and locks the hatch from the inside, crawling forward to the trailer's front opening just behind the cab.

He does a walk-around, climbing in the cab to ensure the vehicle's controls and other necessities function properly.

"Those in my truck, time for pre-range checks. Stand in a line, I wanna see your weapons and I want to see ammo counted. Water, food, you best have these or the trip's gonna suck for you." Dean walks up and down the group, making a check on his makeshift clipboard for each of them once he deems them fully prepared.

When all are ready to load up, he climbs in the cab and slams the door shut, securing it with a makeshift latch he welded on years ago. Picking up the handset, he calls on the CB, "PV this is Chop Shop, you copy?" assuming PV has a radio, and figure FC probably doesn't, but lemme know if something else is the case

how long is the distance from PV to FC?

gameplay is live, folks!

Chop Shop wrote:

Hauler Image

Also, does my gun turret add an additional seat, or subtract from the seats available on the front? i pictured the turret being on the back or near it, and on top of the trailer.

Any PC is welcome in the gun turret. otherwise an NPC of dubious ability will have to fill that slot.

It can be an additional seat. I recommend not having all three of your backseats filled up. If you need to haul someone or rescue a teammate you'll need some extra space.

Ah, good call, hadn't thought about that. I at least want one PC/NPC with a gun on my passenger side.

with our vehicles off-road capable, would driving in the blackened wastes be possible vice the road with the ambushes? if we are driving on the road, I suppose my rig would probably go first since the ram can push things out of the way for the coupe. (With the motorcycle wherever he wants to be)

Hauler Image this is the image i was kinda going for, but yes an 18-wheeler and armored up truck and trailer.

Also, does my gun turret add an additional seat, or subtract from the seats available on the front? i pictured the turret being on the back or near it, and on top of the trailer.

Any PC is welcome in the gun turret. otherwise an NPC of dubious ability will have to fill that slot.

March order of vehicles, I would say that the coupe would be off the drivers side of the hauler in combat at least. if his gun is facing rear then on a single-lane road he could be behind me, but off to the side would be best. with his speed, even if off-roading were to reduce it, it would still be way more than mine. On a bridge or something where single file is enforced, that is a good question... he has more forward-facing guns, but i have the ram.

Yeah im excited, cant wait to hit the road

Arknight wrote:

Would there be a spot for a 'steader Sentinel?

I think there definitely should be. The GM put forward the following premise:

Brian Perlis wrote:

The town sheriff kind of knows you guys are doing this, which is against the town rules, but doesnt say anything about it. A couple of the town cops who have attitudes with your team suspect the same but cant prove it - since they never leave the gates anyway.

So maybe they have you spying on us, or perhaps traveling with an "official" is the only way that we'd be permitted to do this kind of work?

or maybe he is keeping them off the scent, to keep his team outfitted well enough to stay a few steps ahead of death.

Bayonets aren't too bad, Jumper cables can be quite useful, plastic splints could be useful in several scenarios...

We probably have plenty of hammers and wrenches. Pitchfork maybe not so useful. Reel Lawnmower might be good for scrap use, but it could be a good bartering tool.

Well, i imagine at least some electronics would survive. The CB radio was on the scavenging table. Someone with decent tech knowledge could use (rare) undamaged parts, such as wires that were not part of any electrical system (such as could be found in stores pre-blast).

Also, surge protectors exist that can protect against the highest-powered HEMP waves. Theyre just very rare because theyre expensive and also people tend not to take EMP threat seriously.

Also at certain depths underground things are insulated from a HEMP blast. Actual depth required depends on the conductivity of minerals present in the earth surrounding such locations, but typically a bit deeper than your average basement. A subway tunnel wouldn't protect from the blast because of all the wide openings and very conductive metals present. A mine shaft would probably work, but with the main elevators destroyed, salvaging from there would be difficult.

But with things like loudspeakers and winches on the customization lists and CB radios on the salvage tables, some electronics have survived. The CB radio, now that i think of it, would probably only be useful for contacting our settlement.

Yeah, flag system is the best low-tech solution. Later we can mod our vehicles with loudspeakers, but the parts for that will be more rare than scrap and rivets for gun mounts and armor.

Yeah, good question.

I have a CB radio, so that might give the others an option to contact us, but i dont imagine theyre all that common.

Granted, i think we keep guns trained on 'em as caution, and see what they do. if they're going to attack, they'll attack anyway, but if they consider peace an option, they might try to use a speaker to chat.

also, we could get some flags with a system between our cars. wave a black flag, we shoot on sight. wave a blue flag, we talk. that sort of thing.

though i imagine if we have a guy on a motorcycle and he comes back with gunfire at his back, we already know what to do haha

---------

also, i think an important bit is who comes up on who. if the strangers are doing something and we roll up, they'll likely decide to shoot or not, and we likely wouldnt just roll up guns blazing unless we recognized them as a raider gang.

but if they come up on us, we have the right to caution, perhaps a warning shot at them. if they're planning on raiding us, i am sure they will initiate firing.

well, shouldnt be too bad of a blind spot, honestly. say we are driving forward (12 o'clock)...

- You and your passenger can cover from like 9 to 12 (9 to 3 if you are even with the front of me)

- my passenger side folks can cover 12 to 3.

- your rear gunner can handle 6 to 9 (3 to 9 if you are even with the back of me)

- my gunner can cover from 1 to 11, with a small blind spot directly in front of the truck, but it could hit 12 o'clock on targets outside of short range.

So, while we have all angles covered, some maneuvering would be in order if we want to bring more than a small portion of our firepower to bear in any direction.

JJC given that your vehicle has an interior pivot mount, what direction is the arc facing? The driver would make most sense firing forward so he is keeping "eyes on the road" with the pivot off the passenger side (allowing it a 180-degree arc from front to rear).

I am trying to think of a way to utilize your back passengers more. Since the Hauler can hold most cargo and you'd wanna be light for speed, you could cut out the trunk and put the pivot mount facing the rear, giving you one back passenger firing, you and a front passenger able to fire out the front windows with personal arms, and i guess your other back passenger on reloading duty, haha.

Sweet. I figured Hauler would be fun, really let us bring back as much salvage as possible, and also give us something to rally around outside of the town.

PC or NPC in my vehicle, it's all good to me. A PC would be better in the gunner spot (since ties between PC and NPC go to the PC).

For 4 other passengers in the hauler, if Chop Shop gets a say in who the town sends with him, he'd ask for two skilled shooters, a brawler, and a spare greaser.

Chop Shop in the driver's seat, Brawler behind him in case anyone gets the funny idea to jump on to the drivers side he wants someone to pull the guy off. Shooters on both passenger side windows to fire out. Greaser in the back center. Only asking for a spare greaser since the repairs take all day and we have two big vehicles that will need repair and only one PC greaser. These NPCs can also take security positions in situations where we have to get out of the vehicles. This is all assuming a PC is in my gun turret, otherwise I'd probably ask the town for a spare shooter for that as well.

Since the main shooters will be on the left side, JJC's battlecar ought to be off the driver's side to cover that angle of fire. That also gives him the best chance to shoot out of his own driver's side window while driving for maximum cool points.

Awesome.

Anyone in the party is welcome to man the spare machine gun on my rig. I imagine JJC will have a gunner spot as well.

My rig can hold Driver (me) +4, and the rules don't specify that me adding a turret adds a spot, but common sense tells me that it probably does. I imagine a big rig with Driver+4 means driver, passenger, and a 3-passenger seat behind the front seats.

In any event, 3 passengers besides the gunner could be firing out the windows of my truck. However, they take -1 to their total dice I believe increase their Difficulty by 1, at least until we get enough scrap metal and bolts to add small arms mounts on the passenger doors. I could fire out my window will driving, but my firearm is a 2-handed weapon so i need to get a pistol or something during play.

My plan to improve my rig is to increase its nimbleness at least 1 (since steering uses the lower nimbleness between myself and the truck) but preferably increase it by 2. I also want to increase the armor, which shouldn't be too hard since that is just bolting scrap metal on there. The turret is up top towards the back and currently the gunner in there will have really good protection and a 360-degree firing arc. It has a medium machine gun, and I would like to get one more turret and get them both upgraded to heavy machine guns. Also early on I want to add a winch on there so we can more easily haul back junk cars to the settlement for some good scrap. Maybe increase Speed by 1 to have a better shot in chases, though if enemies catch up to us, they're gonna have a rough time near the front of my rig since I can sideswipe them for extra damage. Wheel spikes will be good for that as well.

as for what the group needs, good question. I have never played this system before, so take my responses with a grain of salt. here are my impressions:

Airman: could be good for us to have some air support, though i worry that they might not get enough vehicle points to have something that won't take a dive after a single bullet.

Beastmaster: with several of us having vehicles, beasts likely can't keep up unless we load em into the hauler, which would be ok if that is what you want to do.

Bounty Hunter: seems like they could be useful in any situation.

Brave: not sure it jives with out "city-folk" theme.

Greaser: with several vehicles, this is an invaluable member of the team.

Hauler: that's me. If we were to have two of these, we would need more Road Warriors for sure.

Healer: seems like every group could use one. I think Yorick is rolling one.

Lore Keeper: could be useful in many situations, seems like a secondary combatant.

Outrider: motorcycle man. Seems cool, but also seems like one crash on a motorcycle would be game over for you.

Pit Fighter: not sure our town would have a gladiator pit, but then again it might.

Raider: not sure how well a Raider would be taken in our town, but that would be up to GM. Get a small amount of vehicle points. Dune buggy would be your best option, since 10 points for trucks would get you the smallest truck with only 2 points left for customization.

Road Warrior: The Hauler's best friend, and as a Hauler, I am a little biased and can't have enough of them protecting my rig. This gets you a good amount of points to customize your car.

Scavenger: These seem like one of those things every team wants at least one of. I would say no more than two, because each place we encounter will only have a finite amount of stuff to scavenge. Moracai has rolled a Scavenger, I think.

Sentinel: This seems to be a good fit for us coming from a settlement. starts with a little armor and some binos as well, which is a nice perk. And it would be good for our team to have a buddy in the sheriff's department.

Shaman: seems less suited for settlement life, but in a large enough settlement I am sure people would love to have all the help they can get.

Skulk: seems pretty useful. every team needs people who can fight. and you get lockpicks and the skill to use them.

Wastelander: could fit thematically, but the mount wouldn't be very useful for you in a party with cars.

Tenro's submission.