This is the translation of the above Actual Play, revised and corrected for the English public.
_ _ _
[NOTE]
For those who does not know it, Tactical Ops is a game that allows Players to tackle high-octane Missions as a team of Characters working together for a common goal.
I like to say that it plays out a bit like a mix of A-Team, Ghost in the Shell and Serenity.
There is no Game Master.
There is no pre-determined plot.
As a Player you only play your PC nd you only know what your PC knows ... you do not play as a director coming up with a story.
It also allows a group of Players to use a game setting without any previous knowledge of it, provided there is at least one Player who knows the setting, ot the group is using an appropriate Setting-in-a-Box (it's like a micro-compendium that also uses cards).
[/NOTE]
. . .
1) Game SetupThe group was composed by Me, Ivan and Francesca.
They never heard of SLA before, and never played with TOps in their lives.
Character Creation took about 1h total, a time that I've learned is quite standard for this game.
Basically 30-40 minutes go by explaining the basic concepts of the game required to know what the stuff on your CharSheet means, then 15-20 minutes are all that is needed to flesh out all the group Characters.
We were using, in addition to the TOps rulebook, a veeeeery scrawny version of the SLA Industries SiaB document, with just a few templates to represent Races and Trainings, and a few pointers about equipment.
Francesca created a Wraithen with Media training.
Ivan created a Xeno with Scout training.
I produced a Human with Striker package.
After that the game started.
. . .
2) Intel PhaseWe went through Intel in a breeze.
Following game procedures our PCs were presented with a White BPN.
It was supposed to be an "easy peasy" investigation regarding a bizzarre murder happened in Suburbia; the only request made by the Department employee was for us to keep a "low profile".
[
mechanically it's an Easy mission of Quick length with one Condition attached to it]
. . .
3) Action PhaseUnfortunately we could only play for a brief time ... about 2h total ... so just a bit more than 1h of Action time, if we factor out the CharGen process.
In this time we accrued 2 Victory Points out of the 5 required by the Mission.
Anyway, here's what happened:
- first our PCs got on the crime scene, and the events shaped up like a CLASSIC episode from CSI or some similar tv-show.
We analyzed the corpse, we cross referenced the data at our disposal, we even checked the bank in front of the alley where the crime happened to see if we could get anything from its surveillance cameras.
Turns out that someone moved the body from Downtown to Suburbia, dumping it in the backstreet.
- while investigating we often crashed on a wall of bureaucracy because, strangely enough, we seemed to lack enough SCL to access detailed info on the victim.
- we manage to secure the bank's surveillance video-tape (almost useless in its raw state) and then we decide to split the team...
- I was looking online for info in a SLA traffic database, but my SCL got rejected and my hacking attempt turned out as a D-Notice (then I rushedly cleaned up my traces and disconnected from the web).
So I decided to physically go to the Perimeter Gate closest to the crime scene, to directly access the local surveillance computer, hoping to find some record of the person driving the car used for the body-dump.
- the Xeno went to the Department of Traffic & Viability to also get info on the mistery driver, but squeezing one of his contacts, a human secretary that owed him more than a few favors.
- the Wraithen went home with the bank's video-tape and used her high-tech media equipment to cleanse and magnify both the video and audio tracks.
- shit starts surfacing ... apparently the car was property of the victim, but at the time the car passed the Gate the victim must have been (for our estimated HoD) already dead from more than one hour, possibly crammed into the trunk ... and when we got the driver's face all attempts of identification ended up in SCL blocks.
- it also turns out that our current case bears more than a few elements in common (aka: fucking exact match) with other 4 similar cases ... unresolved ... dating more than 10 years ago.
The squad of Operatives that investigated back then seemed, according to the official records, to not come up with much ... but searching for info on the squad resulted in yet another SLC blockade.
And here we had to close the session :x
. . .
4) Post-Game ThoughtsThe game run smoothly.
The
Automatic Opposition produced unexpected twists and we then built upon them, congecturing and making ourself paranoid.
Without any conscious or planned plotting/directing our "easy peasy" investigation took the dark colours of a conspirancy much bigger than us! :twisted:
It was surprising!
And
everything made perfect sense at every step of the way (this is a result of the game-rules in play).
On a side note I, as a veteran SLA player, think that the game felt "
very SLA".
I did almost nothing to stir things this way.
I just explained briefly the WoP and its playable races to the other Players... and when they came up with something I slapped a SLA name on it ... so the "
police" became "
Shivers", the Xeno's "
sniper rifle" became a "
FEN 30-30 True Shot", our "
access level" became "
SCL" and the hacking attempt resulted in a nasty "
D-Notice" instead of a more common "
Access Denied".