STAB CITY: Playtest Round 1

First, the news! STAB CITY v2 will be done and posted on this blog on Friday, including a "DM" guide for making NPCs and a sample Mission, "The Roar Of The Cheneybeast" After the first round of play tests and feedback, I've got some tweaks to make, but things have actually gone really well. While originally this was going to be a Winter project, it probably won't take anywhere near as long as I expected!

Fresh outta Stab City

SO, there have been three play tests, and I'm happy to say that the game is playing exactly the way I wanted it to. It's a short, punchy game with over the top action and ludicrous slaughterpunk body counts. Of the play tests, two of them have involved a hit job of lycanthropic Dick Cheney. I'm going to cover the events of both play tests to show how the game can go.

Premise: During ex-VP Dick Cheney's heart transplant, he was accidentally given the heart of a werewolf. He has since gone on a killing spree, being pursued by US officials all the way to Cuba, where the players have been hired to hunt and kill him. Meanwhile, Louisiana Gov. James Carville is trying to pay the players to not follow through. He has some strange ideas about crossbreeding with Cheney to produce a warrior race of half snake half wolf half men. He attempts to hire the yakuza, but due to a slight miscommunication  has accidentally hire the deadly Japanese mafia to kill the players.

Group One
Run in person, alcohol served
Characters

• Natasha Bleedingyet (Trigger Man): Russian supermodel turned to a life of crime, and capable of echolocation and hilariously bad Russian accents.
• Jigsaw(Cobra Kai): Oat Bran refused to divulge any information about his character. He spent the entire game wearing various disguises and using different personalities. The only information know about the character is that he is very proud of his sports car collection.
• The Beard (Gorilla): Night club owner ex-CIA operative known only by his code name. His beard was large enough to conceal a cache of weapons, and may have been prehensile.
• Stabbert Cockswain (Executioner): Stabbert, pornstar hair stylist hacker with switchblade middle fingers, was largely overshadowed by the other characters. After the game, when I was looking over his character sheet, I found the curious inscription "I'm the baddest dude in town because I backstab friends." I am left wondering if Stabbert Cockswain perhaps has some as yet unrelieved master scheme.

Four assassins, having met through their yacht club, are reclining in the Beard's Stab City nightclub, Hair Club For Men, when they receive a message about a new contract. Deftly avoiding a bar fight, they receive their mission from a taped message from the US Government. Natasha Bleedingyet announces that her years of hunting experience tell her that Dick Cheney will most likely be found in the ravines to the east.

The group heads out in a stretch humvee limo complete with stocked minifridge and strippers, only to be driven off the road by yakuza. A battle ensues between the assassins and 20 yakuza that pour out of their clown car Escalades, but before long, the yakuza lie dead. Their own vehicle smashed in the ditch, they take the Escalade and continue into the woods.

Realizing they have no idea how to lure the Cheneybeast out, and the group debates the merits of illegal immigrants or infant blood as bait. The Beard spends some Infamy points and has one of his fixers airdrop Ellian Gonzales and a newborn to their location. The young Cuban and the sleeping baby are hung from a tree, keeping-food-safe-from-bears style, and below them Jigsaw leaves a mine. The Beard raises a complaint about the baby, but is shouted down. Jigsaw, meanwhile, has adopted the strangest of his disguises, and wanders the woods dressed as an old woman and calling Ellian's name.  Before long, Cheney shows up and attacks with tooth, claw and sawn-off shotgun, and at the same time, a yakuza attack copter arrives.

The battle ended 4-0 Assassins. Highlights include Jigsaw and the Beard teaming up for a "fastball special" against the helicopter, and several lucky Draws convincing the players that Dick Cheney's shotgun was some sort of miniature WMD.

Group Two
Ran on G+, no alcohol served
Characters

• Shia LeBouf (Monster): The Hollywood actor, but also a cannibal serial killer. Perhaps it is just my unhealthy fascination with Micheal Bay's Transformers movies, but I have something of a soft spot for LeBouf, so Shoe Skogen's character concept amused me greatly.
• Master Chiba (Cobra Kai): Dragonball-Z Sonny Chiba. Rey Madrinan's old Asian man impression amused be greatly, and I appreciate him joining in my in shouting Japanese car brands to represent speaking in Japanese.
• Madame Edna (Professional): S&M Judi Dench, played with cold detachment by William Broom. When I mentioned Madame Edna to my girlfriend, her only comment was "I think Judi Dench already does that."
• Juan Valderamma (Executioner): Juan Valderamma, undisputed master of the flamenco dance of death, was not only an homage to MGS's Vamp, but was hilariously successful with his brazen homosexuality. Bravo, Kasper Blomdell, I don't know if I've ever seen someone so dedicated to a vision.

During a dance lesson with Juan Valderamma, Shia LeBouf receives a phone call from Megan Fox. The cyborg femsassin has left a mission for them at a kebab stand in downtown Stab City. They head out immediately, but discover the stand is swarming with soldiers of the narcotrafficantes. Juan begins a dance to distract him, gyrating, thrusting his hips, and eyefucking all of them. Their message retrieved, they decide to build a trap for the Cheneybeast.

Step one was to acquire a large safe. Look, I don't get it either, but Rey was convinced that Dick Cheney loves safes, so that's what they went with. Carville's yakuza assassins showed up at this point, and a battle broke out. Juan did a flying leap into one of their van as it was still puling up, killing seven Yakuza before they had even drawn their weapons. The other big highlight of the battle was Madame Edna threating to "give the pipe" to Master Chiba, which while none of us were entirely sure what that meant, but it was sufficient to get Chiba back on his feet and into the frey in terror.

After the dispatching the yakuza and stealing a safe, the assassins completed their trap by adding a corpse dressed in a duck hunter outfit, and a forged document that Madame Edna snagged as a favor from an old flame. The document was conclusive evidence of Barack Obama's al-Quaeda training during his youth after being born in Kenya. Anyoo, after setting up the trap in a copse of marijuana trees, Cheney showed up. This fight was a lot of fun, as the group had gotten progressively more and more over the top, so Master Chiba was flying around and glowing with power, and Cheney himself was causing small earthquakes by punching the ground and hurling players across the forest. The battle ended when Juan flew through the air and spend all of his remaining Infamy and breaking the game math by making an attack with nearly 30 power. That's what play tests are for, baby!