Paranoia-Live :: View topic

saulres · Posted: Thu Dec 09, 2004 8:12 am Post subject:

Anybody play with the Mission Blender in the GM Screen yet? I thought I'd give it a whirl, so I grabbed my trusty twenty-sider and tossed it several times. Here are the results of the rolls, listed by the section they were from.

Irrational: The Computer has decreed a new holiday with odd customs and practices, and everyone knows about it but the PCs.
Fear: Alpha Complex is doomed, and not in a good way,
Someone: A senior CPU effiency consultant overreacted in imprudent ways in an effort to get proper paperwork filled out.
Out to get you: A strange new Food Vat slime is causing antisocial and dangerous activity in consumers of Hot Fun. The Computer needs the PCs to destroy the slime. Threat is real.

1: The mission alert is relayed through a public confession booth, read in the scrolling 'Credit Due' message on a vending machine or overheard in a communal area.
Oddly, the message is intact and correct [bad roll]

2:Their briefing is to take place in a VIOLET (Tension level 17) Postal sorting room.
Their briefing officer is hidden inside a pharmabot (hovering sphere that injects drugs and dispenses pills) chassis, communicating with an electronically filtered voice.

3:They are directed to PLC for outfitting. They're sent to a battle-ravaged warehouse staffed by war-weary, twitchy, but forcefully happy employees, who actually have the correct equipment.

4:Secret societies: I don't have PCs so I skipped this.

5:Their service service is for HPD&MC, accompanying an Indigo level PLC Cold Fun Production Chief on his daily routine.

6:The mission: I like the "Out to get you" so I'm using that.

7:The debriefing is done solely by R&D scientists. They ask many questions about equipment, giving the impression the only reason for the mission was to test equipment. After the scientists leave, The Computer covers the treason accusations.

8:The outcome requires play-through, so I skipped this.

---

Now to tie it into a story to have it make sense.

Boy-I-DEE-5, PLC Hot Fun Production Chief in LSH sector, is secretly a Mystic. He's been playing with a new, experimental pharmaceutical, UtriHretSlynth. One afternoon, on his daily routine, he was on a secure catwalk above a food vat, doing a routine inspection, when he decided to take a hit. He got sloppy, and some of the drug fell into the vat. As it is against regulations to have any sort of consumable on the catwalks, he just pretended it didn't happen.

The UltriHretSlynth reacted, shall we say, poorly with the contents of the food vat, and the combination congealed into a slime. Through a process barely understood by even Famous Game Designers, the slime gained intelligence. Realizing that the food vats are not a good place to be if you enjoy living, it looked for an exit, and found one, as the food left the vat to be used as an ingredient in hot fun.

Batches and batches of tainted hot fun were produced, and are still being produced. Meanwhile, the slime grew bigger, doubling in size every three days. Its drive to escape has found another exit -- the open top of the vat. It's been pouring out of there, and now covers 25% of the processing center, all in the hot fun production area.

This has naturally slowed down production of hot fun, and The Computer has finally noticed. Boy-I explained about the slime (although not the about his culpability in its creation), and instructed HPD&MC to clean it up. They asked Scott-Y-LSH, the local Food Quality Controller, to handle it.

Scott-Y's not stupid. As a Food Quality Controller, he knows better than to eat any food that hasn't been proven totally save by his subordinates. Imagine his surprise when his underlings began acting strangely after testing the (unknown to him at the time) tainted Hot Fun. They began acting all crazy and started trying to destroy all flesh they saw. Both Scott-Y-LSH-2 and Scott-Y-LSH-3 were destroyed before Scott realized the mixture only caused that reaction through visible means. So Scott-Y-LSH-4, for his own safety, secreted himself in a handy pharmabot supplied by his friend in R&D, Rick-Y-LSH-2.

Realizing that his people were too screwed up by the Hot Fun to be of any use, Rick-Y exaggerated the danger somewhat, and claimed that the slime was acting as a slow acid, and would eventually eat away the entire Complex! Using this excuse, he was able to get The Computer to assign a Troubleshooter team to the task. That's where the PCs come in.

Rick-Y informed the Computer about the problem with the Hot Fun, as well. The Computer, not wanting to scare the populace, began broadcasting automatic messages on all the vending machines in Alpha Complex that reads "Suspected [DELETED FOR SECURITY REASONS] activity in Hot Fun processing plant in [DELETED FOR SECURITY REASONS] sector. Do not eat any Hot Fun processed in [DELETED FOR SECURITY REASONS] sector. Troubleshooters {insert troubleshooter names}, report to Transtube Platform 27b-8hyRY and use transbot 9j-428 to get to Briefing Room LSH-271-ACT for your exciting new mission. Please insert 3 additional credits for your product."

The PCs get the notice and meet at the platform. While waiting for the transtube, they're approached by Janet-O-BRD-3, who says she's from HPD&MC. She knows the Troubleshooters are headed for sector LSH, and asks the Troubleshooters, while they're in the area anyway, to accompany Jerma-I-LSH-5, the Cold Fun Production Chief for LSH sector, on his daily routine, to "ensure that he has the proper level of enthusiasm for someone responsible for the culinary delights of so many." Basically, HPD&MC noticed that consumption of Cold Fun in LSH sector has increased drastically since The Computer's warnings about Hot Fun, and wants them to see what Jerma's doing right.

The transbot arrives, and the PCs get in. They're the only ones in there. Shortly after they're on their way, they hear over the loudspeaker "This is Gil-B-ROP-5, CPU Form Efficiency Coordinator. To increase the efficiency of proper paperwork submission, power to this transbot will be immediately be temporarily suspended. Please stay where you are until power is restored in approximately" and then all the power goes out. Not only is this a nice Dark Room location, but it completely prevents the Troubleshooters from hearing The Computer's announcement that, in order to increase morale, today is "Walk Funny and Speak with an Odd Accent" day. Observance is mandatory.

So when the PCs get off the transtube, they have to deal with not only a large number of flesh-destroying-Hot-Fun-addicted clones, but rather, with a large number of flesh-destroying-Hot-Fun-addicted clones who are walking funny and speaking with an odd accent.

Due to budget cuts, all briefing rooms in LSH sector have been subleased to other large areas. Briefing Room LSH-271-ACT is located in the (what with PDCs and all) Postal sorting room. This is a large room where all sorts of -- well, postal sorting -- is performed, for all clearances (darn budget cuts). It's subdivided into color-clearance sections. Their briefing "room" is in the VIOLET area. Maybe they can get their breifing shouted from there into the RED area?

Scott-Y's there, in his protective bot suit, to give the mission briefing. Fortunately for him, pharmabots are allowed in VIOLET level areas, but he's electronically filtering his voice to keep others from identifying him.

The PCs are directed to go to the local PLC warehouse for outfitting, where the staffers who are left (those who didn't yet eat any tainted Hot Fun) are glad that someone's finally going to deal with stopping all those crazy people who've attacked them lately. The room shows signs of the epic battles fought here between afflicted and non-afflicted PLC personnel. The survivors are only too happy to help the PCs get whatever they need -- whether it's on the list or not. They even try to push some higher-clearance items on them.

While following Jerma-I-LSH-5 around, the PCs may get clues as to what happened, and certainly should be able to encounter the slime first-hand. Good luck to them. Details are left to the GM (Oh, lucky GM!).

The debriefing officer is Rick-Y-LSH-2, Scott-Y's friend, and some of his ORANGE subordinates. He's particulary curious about the effects of slime on the pharmabot and any equipment they got from PLC, but he's not supposed to know about the slime so the questions are all designed around the hypotheticals: "How did your plasma rifle function against doors? Floors? Food vats? Contents of the food vats? Transbots? Docbots? Pharmabots?" etc. ...

---

See? A whole mission, from start to end, completely constructed from the mission blender. Nice, nice job, Allen!