Wednesday 27 August 2014

Snatch and Grab - Advancing the Story



 Previously on Snatch and Grab.


“Don’t argue with me Billy, we’re short on time,” Ashlynn said. “If the three of us split up we can cover more ground. You know I’m right.”
She was, and Billy couldn’t argue with her. “Ashlynn, give me your Comm-Link. Elliot.” He said. After a minute of pushing buttons on all three Comm-Links he handed Ashlynn Elliot’s Comm-Link and his to Elliot. “Call me.”
Ashlynn punched in Billy’s number and her Link rang. “What?” she asked.
“Just in case you’re being tracked by your Comm-Link,” Billy said. “You’ve Elliot’s Comm-Link and he has mine, but we’ll still get calls like normal. Let’s get going then. Let’s meet up at Toby’s around 11."
The three went their separate ways.
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With nine more clues left to be solved in a short time splitting up was a good idea. But getting Ashlynn killed was a bad idea. So to decrease the odds I had Billy switch Comm-Links with Ashlynn.  In game terms , this meant if an ambush on Ashlynn was rolled the target would be Bill instead. 

Using NHC PI can advance the story without having to set up the table. Here's what happened:

  • Rolling on the Advance the Investigation Table in NHC, PI, two Objects and one Person of Interest needed to be resolved.
  • I gave Elliot the first object, check out the intersection where the kidnapping took place. This was a success and the clue was resolved as video ID of the vehicle. 
  • Ashlynn took the next object, at the Victim's place of work. She failed. With a Difficulty Factor of 5, any attempt to Find an Object would be tough. Elliot was lucky, Ashlynn not so much.
  • The Person of Interest was the name Captain Krell from the Hishen. Billy went looking for info. He was successful, in part by using Noel - a Net Runner he had met and worked with on the Sudden Death case. He found out that Krell owned a private security firm. Questioning him he solved an other Clue. That was three of the ten solved with 9 Day Parts left. 


Tuesday 26 August 2014

New Hope Cityscape Demo - Snatch and Grab

Previously on Snatch and Grab.

"Well that was a complete waste of time," Ashlynn Cooper said to Billy Pink. "The Mayor skipped right over that Snatch and Grab operation we saw yesterday."

"You sound surprised," Billy replied. "Here's Elliot now." For more info check out "Sudden Death".

Elliot sat down at the table and the three began to talk.
"You're sure it was HBA-3 Billy?" Elliot asked.
Billy nodded and chewed his sandwich. "For sure."
"How do you know this?" Ashlynn asked.
Billy and Elliot exchanged glances and he continued on. "Let's just say I know this and just trust me on it."

"Okay, so if it is HBA-3, what's it doing on New Hope and how did it get here?" Elliot asked.
"That's the second part of the job," Billy said. "The first is keeping Ashlynn alive."

Elliot smiled, "You mean a nice lady like you has enemies?" he asked.

Ashlynn just smiled and nodded. "Yeah, lots of them. You guys like the theater?"
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 This is a Bat Rep for 5150 Urban Renewal using New Hope City PI  to generate the investigation. With one clue already solved, Ashlynn is under the gun to solve nine more in 10 Day Parts. That's why I thought to bring in Elliot Bay, another PI. He is a character that Billy Pink knows from before and that would be the theme for the Encounter.  Except I would find that out the hard way.
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Tatiana showing up on the random roll as the Smuggler was bad luck as she already counted as having a Run In with Billy, who was with Ashlynn. Lucky for everyone Billy was running his Audio Loop and has the Steely Eyes Attribute. The +2d6 helped on the In Sight. Lose that one and Tatiana's gang opens fire.
Carlzk showing up and Kay Dee was strange. But I realize that the more adventures Billy has the greater the chance of running into NPCs he has history with. Sometimes I wonder if I'm playing the game or it's playing me.With the large number of clues to be solved and the short time I'll have to run multiple investigations as well as trying to keep Ashlynn alive. Now about this Captain Krell.

Part 4 - Advancing the Story

5150 Urban Renewal - New Hope Cityscape in the Works

Working on a project that will expand your 5150 Urban Renewal games.
It's called New Hope Cityscape.

16 tiles that can be set in four directions with each edge having a building that you can explore.
So that's 64 possible buildings. All the buildings are color coded. So the green tagged buildings are Greens (Coffee Houses) the yellow are Restaurants, the white Office Buildings. Here's an example of a block in the City Hall section.

So how do they work? You lay them out, next to each other and the gray border forms a street that you  can move your 15mm figures or PEF markers on.

But there are nine different area types in NHC from the City Center to the Space Port and a variety of income related areas in between.

And each are has a different color coding for it's buildings. So when you enter the Pub & Rec Area the tile above now becomes green (Green), yellow, a Night Club, and white - Restaurants. So instead of 64 buildings in one area we now have up to 576 buildings that can be explored. But wait, there's more!


Each color coded tag has a number...the number of floors in the building. There's 176 floors in each set of 16 tiles which means with 9 areas to explore we're looking at  potentially 2816 PEFs (1 per floor).

PLUS, we've added two new areas outside of NHC called Outside (how appropriate) and Elysium.

"Enjoy perfect happiness...come to Elysium."

This simple and inexpensive product will be home to many 5150 Urban renewal scenarios coming in the near future.


Watch for more updates and here's a demo.