STAB CITY: Roar Of The Cheneybeast

I said I would post this on Friday, but I am a foul braggart and liar, completely incapable of meeting my own deadlines.

Here is STAB CITY v2. It's been played 2 and a half times, and it works very well for the game I wanted to make.

• General Rules Doc
• Character Creation Rules + Character Classes
• GM Advice

Note: If you just want the STAB CITY mission info, scroll down past my nonsense design theory!

Designer Notes/Upcoming Changes:
v2 is going to be a short lived, intermediary version before I get the next one out. A lot of big changes between what I'm posting now and what is happening next.

• I've noticed that, and perhaps due to a background in D&D, but players are very, very concerned with money in STAB CITY. While the cash rewarded at the end of the mission is the equivalent of D&D XP, and mid mission expenditures are supposed to be balanced by not wanting to loose to much money, I never really envisioned STAB CITY as the kind of game where players are too thrifty to rent a car when they can steal one. As such, I'm going to completely strip out the current cash system and replace it with a seventh Attribute, which will be a measure of how easily an assassin can get the funding for in mission items, whether through using their own account or soliciting funding from their parent organization. The XP mechanic will thus have to be modified as well, but I've got some ideas for that too.
• I've decided to strip all non-combat Talents out of the character classes, expand the list, and have them be a separate list that you select from as well. This is for a number of reasons. For one, all characters are super badass assassins who are great at killing people - everyone should be good at killing people, just in different ways. I don't want to make players chose between being super awesome at killing people and doing non-combat activities. Beyond that, the character classes in STAB CITY are explicitly built around how that character kills people. There's no reason you shouldn't be able to build Grey Fox, Ezio Auditore and Sweeney Todd all as Executioners, despite all three of them having wildly different skill sets and approaches to killing people. 
• The GM section is a joke. It's just some rough guidelines for now. The monster/npc stats are working well, although due to the way combat works in this game, I need to really crunch some more numbers to give GMs a way to tailor encounters and know how dangerous they will be.
• An actual setting guide. Since I'm the only one running STAB CITY, I haven't really needed to sell the game world, but I'd like to have at least something by the time I get v3 done.

ANYHOO, want to be a Pit Boss in STAB CITY and run a game for your friends? Now there is a sample adventure!

THE ROAR OF THE CHENEYBEAST

My hot girlfriend made this for me

The Roar Of The Cheneybeast is a short adventure lasting around 1-1.5 hours of gameplay, and probably 2-2.5 hours if you are planning on teaching the game to new players while running it. All players should read the rules and character generation documents, and the Pit Boss should read the GM guide. Anyone else can read the GM guide if they want, but it isn't necessary.

General Guidelines: STAB CITY is a game where the players control as much of the narrative as the GM. In most traditional RPGs, the player states what they would like to do, the GM assigns a mechanic for it, the player rolls, and the GM narrates the results. In STAB CITY, the player is the one who narrates the results, based on the mechanics. While the Pit Boss is the one who decides which Attribute is used for an action, the player should be able to narrate their success any way they want.
The other major difference between STAB CITY and traditional RPGs is that in STAB CITY you, the lazy game master, can let the players write most of the story for you. Instead of locations and NPC stat blocks, you're going to need to be prepared to ad lib the majority of the story, and find ways to work in some challenges and scenes provided here.

PREMISE: The players get a mission from the US gov't to kill werewolf Dick Cheney. Meanwhile, due to a Lost In Translation moment, Louisiana Governor James Carville has accidentally hire the Yakuza to kill the player characters.

SCENE ONE: Go ahead and ask the players some questions. You'll probably want to know:

1. Who are the players? Have everyone introduce their character.
2. Why are they are working together? (College room mates; All in the same Puerto Muerto yacht club; Working for the same criminal syndicate) 
3. Where they are currently hanging out in Puerto Muerto, Cuba? (Their favorite bar; The club one of the player's own; 24 Hour Fitness, Stab City branch)
4. How did the group find out about their latest mission? (They work for an organization; They have a blind drop location; a contact is trying to reach them with it)

Once the players are all introduced and the scene is set, it is time for them to receive their mission. This might be a place to put a fairly easy obstacle. Perhaps the dead drop location has some rival assassins trying to race them to. Perhaps their contact is notoriously paranoid and has a booby trapped house out in the boonies.
Remember that this is just a throw away challenge to get everyone on the same page about how the game works, so a negative outcome from this obstacle should never prevent the players from getting the mission. After all, if they don't get the mission, then you'll have to ad lib everything and that's a lot of work.

Regardless of how they get the information, it is contained on an old tape deck. The headphones are big enough that everyone can hear the message if they crowd around it.

Mission Info:

If the player's want to know how much money "the standard amount is" grant $125k per player.

Now it's time to track the Cheneybeast. You'll want to ask the players for their plan on how to catch the cunning beast. Perhaps they will attempt to track it along the craggy sides of El Contrabando which looms over Puerto Muerto, maybe by themselves, or maybe with hired guides. They may seek to set a trap. They may try to use high tech tracking gear in helicopters or unmanned drones to find its lair. Regardless of their method, let them attempt it.

As soon as the players begin the first part of their plan (Looking for a guide; buying bait; heading to the mountains) have one of the players receive a cell phone call.

James Carville's Phone Call

James Carville will not respond to a returned call, and is in fact not really involved in the rest of the adventure.

Once the phone clicks off, Yakuza will attack in force. There should be 30 Yakuza for every two players, rounded up, and they fight in groups of 20 if possible. Use a mix of Yakuza Thugs and Yakuza Gunmen, and, since this is likely the first every combat any of the players have had in STAB CITY, consider showing off how Arenas work by having one of the Arenas be Open so the Yakuza Gunmen have a bonus.

Yakuza ThugsBrawn 4 Daring 3 Cunning 2 Perception 3 Commitment 2 Charm 2Weapons: Chains, clubs, knives (Melee)Defense: Leather jackets, sick tattoos (Defense 4)Special: Face cards count as +2 for Power

Yakuza GunnersBrawn 2 Daring 3 Cunning 3 Perception 4 Commitment 2 Charm 2Weapons: Uzis (Ranged)Defense: Flashy suits (Defense 2)Special: +1 Power on all Attacks; +2 Power when attacking Open Arenas

Talents: Suppressing Fire (Recharge 2: Make an Attack, and make another free Attack on any PCs who move into or out of that Arena)

After all being killed (or if things start slowing down and being boring, in which case the rest of the Yakuza flee), the players are free to continue their plans against the Cheneybeast. If they think to look, the Yakuza didn't bring Carville's money with them.

If things are going along at a good pace, and everyone is having fun, you might want to throw in another obstacle or two. If the players are looking for specific kinds of bait or equipment, perhaps they'll need to steal it, or sweet talk a Cuban army official to get their hands on it. If they're tramping around the jungle, maybe they need to overcome dangerous terrain, avoid narcotrafficante armies or the Cuban military  or trying to calm down the superstitious guides after they realize the lycanthropic nature of their prey.

Remember that failing on these tasks should be setbacks or complications that cost the players resources, but should not prevent them for reaching the Cheneybeast at the end of the adventure. That being said, if all else fails, perhaps Dick Cheney has heard about the hit and has decided to turn the table by tracking the assassins himself!

Eventually the players will either reach the beast's lair or reach a point where they have set their trap and are waiting for results. Go ahead and ask the players to describe their location and work with them to establish what sort of Arena it is, and maybe flesh out some other nearby Arenas that they may be waiting with their guns drawn. Once you've got that all worked out, it's time for Dick Cheney to arrive.

While I was running the, I described it something like this, told in a hushed voice with lots of drama and sweeping hand gestures. The more lurid and stupid the better. I followed it up with a roar and a latex Dick Cheney mask.

A cloaked and hunched figure approaches, hunched and drawn. His clothes are tattered and muddy, and flap in the wind around him. He pauses, and sniffs the air like an animal. His hood falls back, revealing the horrifying visage of Dick Cheney, his lumber pile teeth pulled back in yellow grimace. He straightens up to his full height of nearly nine feet, and throws off his cloak, revealing the swole and furry body of a massive werewolf! In one hand he wields a massively oversized sawn-off shotgun, and in the other he brandishes his own five dagger like claws. He throws back his head and ROARS

Combat breaks out.

The Cheneybeast
The Cheneybeast draws a 7-card Combat Hand
Health: 10 + 5/Player
Brawn 5 Daring 4 Cunning 4 Perception 4 Commitment 3 Charm 1
Weapons: Tooth & Claw (Melee +2 vs Dense) Shotgun (Ranged +2 vs Open)
Defense: Huge Muscles, Dense Fur (Defense 4)
Special: Face cards count as double for Power; If the players discovered some sort of weakness of the Beast (Silver, Wolfsbane, ect) they can have a +2 Power bonus against him
Talents:

• Recharge 2, Melee - +2 Power and the target is Moved to an adjacent Arena (A throw; a wind-up punch)
• Recharge 1, Melee, Delayed - The Arena the Cheneybeast is in becomes another type of Arena (Sonic boom roar; earthquakes caused by punching the ground; rampaging to knock down everything nearby)
• Recharge 1, Melee - Make an Attack at +2 Power, and heal a number of points of health equal to the damage dealt after Defense is calculated. The Cheneybeast cannot go above its maximum health. (Werewolf regeneration)

Once the Cheneybeast is dropped to 0 health, the mission is complete. From there, everyone can head on home and plot bloody vengeance against James Carville.