Mercenary RPG (Psuedo-Firefly)

For a long moment, there was silence. "... I need a fuckin' drink..." The bartender whined before standing up and going around to the back of the counter, taking the shotgun with him and stepping over something. He spotted a shattered bottle on the rack, which he took and cautiously drank from. It was a full sized bottle, albeit partially emptied to where it was broken, but the little man downed all of what was left. All in one go too.

-
ooc:
I didn't have the profile of the bartender fully developed in the beginning. Still don't, probably, but more so than before.

OOC: Am I rolling to see if I'm successful for these? Or is this guy not saying anything because...

Rae stepped towards the bar. "I don't suppose you have any water on tap?" She took a seat if any stools were left standing or pulled one up if there was one nearby. "I don't want to be a pain, but..."

ooc:
I roll for some of them, yes. I didn't bother last time, figuring he doesn't really have incentive to help (trying to be as difficult as possible).

I suppose it would make sense if I gave shifts based on what I think of your methods (screaming like a Pterodactyl would get a negative shift).
For the record, this would be a 'significant' check situation, as opposed to major.

Do you think me rolling like this is a good or a bad thing?

-

The bartender reached under the counter for a mug, filled it up with water, then slid it across the table to Rae. It pushed aside some shards of glass as it went.

Afterward, he got out a phone from underneath the table and started dialing.

OOC: I don't know which would be better.

Rae sipped from her water, thankful for the hydration. She remained patiently by the counter of the bar and waited to see if the man would speak up.

ooc: Ted screeched like a pterodactyl as he chased sugartits
-------------
Ted continued his chase, although now that he was significantly closer he took another chance with his gun.

ooc:
Ted's scream scared Sugartits, causing him to run even faster. He went "MEEP MEEEP" before shooting off, gaining several lengths and losing Ted (and Pete).
(That was a reference to Road Runner, if you didn't catch it. Lengths is a reference to the UA chase rules.)

-

After dialing and as the phone made the call, the bartender leaned forward onto the counter, putting his head in one hand.
A man's voice could be heard on the other side of the phone.
"There was a shootout, there's a dead guy... I'm at the Stumble In Bar, 'round Handle 'n' Grip." (Street names.)
There was more talking.
"Yeah, there's... Some."

Suddenly one of the men (the less injured) behind Rae got up and ran for the door, jumping over the other guy.

~

Sugartits seemed to recognize that he wasn't getting away on speed alone. He suddenly stopped and lashed out at Ted, completely missing.
Almost point blank, Ted shot him right in the center of the chest, probably hitting the heart. Either way, Sugartits stumbled back a couple steps before falling flat onto his back. He continued convulsing, but the blank look in his eyes was a good indication that he was finished.

Pete (and Raymond) pulled up alongside Ted only a few seconds later.

-
ooc:
Credit to Lonesydanl (to the one person who knows him) for the idea of naming street names off of gun parts (though you probably couldn't tell based on those names).
I think I'm gonna go with the idea that streets close to one another are named by parts that are also close to one another.
I imagine the street system is not well organized or documented, so some (most) streets would probably have no name.

Ted walked over to the truck and ignored the corpse, he was more interested in getting back to the bar.

Rae simply sighed and shook her head as the man ran out the door, and made no attempt to stop him. She pushed away from the bar, downing the rest of her water. She knelt down next to the injured man and tried to assess the extent of his wounds. "Hold still so you don't end up like that poor fuck over there," she said, referencing the dead man. She began working on healing once again, trying to forget her previous failure.

ooc:
Guess I'll bot Fluffy again.

-

Ted hopped into the back of the truck with Raymond.

"... Guess we'll check on 'im later..." Pete said to himself looking at the fresh corpse. Getting back to business, he started forward again, turning around a building and then heading back to the bar.

~

Unlike Rae, the bartender flinched and went to shoot the fleeing man.
It was probably a good thing that he fumbled his shotgun, because the man got out the door before he could shoot, and no more shots were fired.

"... What?" He said on the phone, picking back up where he left. There was more talking. "Right. Right..." After a pause, he hung up.

Due to the nature of the the remaining man's injuries (several pellet holes), it was difficult to stop the bleeding. Patching it up was going to be difficult as well.


The others returned in the truck shortly after. Pete did a loop around before parking, putting the driver's seat closer to the bar.

-
ooc:
@Glyph: 1 away from a matched failure again.

@Everyone: I figure I should ask, how are things going so far? In terms of enjoyability and all that. Things you like, dislike, etc. etc.

Also, I figure I should throw this out now, at some point we'll probably jump over to the window system (rules and stuff make more sense to me, among other advantages).
This probably won't happen for a while though, like winter break.

OOC: I'm going to crap a fucking castle if I get a bad roll again. Seriously, several shit rolls in a row, and then two rolls being 1 away from a matched failure? FUCK! I am enjoying things when they're not going to shit, though. And how similar is the window system? Will we have to change anything?

Rae continued her efforts, hoping that whatever gods that rolled the dice of fat and chance would take pity on her.

Ted walked into the bar cautiously, not wanting to get shot because he surprised someone. He even knocked on the door a few times before entering.

ooc:
@Glyph: Acknowledged about the excessive difficulty. I'll try to work on that.

Regarding the Window system... Well, it is a different system, so some converting would be needed.
Converting shouldn't be too bad though. It's got stats and skills like UA does (albeit they're called different things), but no real restriction besides what the GM might impose.

If you weren't aware, it's a pretty free form system. You mostly just go with what you visualize and what makes sense.
The biggest thing is probably just learning the system. I don't think it's that long of a read (but I read it awhile ago, and was interested, and wasn't paying particular attention to time, and wasn't busy).


Gonna bot Fluffy again.
Is everything alright with him? It's been a couple of weeks since he's last posted (only about a week since he's been around though).

-

There wasn't much Rae could do without the proper equipment. For the time being, nothing really happened (in terms of her patient).
She noticed the pistol that was next to the man was gone. The one she'd kicked away earlier was still in its place though. The escapee likely snagged it.

The bartender got himself another broken bottle to drink from, which he gulped down just like the previous.

The three men coming up the stairs seemed to disturb the broken window, because the chair lodged through it fell out, landing with a thud.
The man who escaped (or lack thereof) was probably one of the first things they noticed.

The bartender belched out loud before coming out from behind the counter (leaving his shotgun on top). He turned up the table Ted and Raymond had used as cover and slid it back to its proper position.

"So, uh, what happened...?" Pete asked, looking around.

Rae looked towards the door and was relieved to see that none of her friends were outstanding injured. She got up from where she was and approached the three, addressing them in a low voice so that the others in the room couldn't hear. "One ran away once the bartender made a phone call, and another died." After explaining, she realized Pete had been in the car the entire time. "Well, to make a bullshit story short... everything got fucked up. And he's not saying anything," Rae said with an annoyed expression, motioning with her head towards the difficult bartender.

She pushed past the doorway, grabbed her supplies out of the back of the truck, and returned to the bar; she redoubled her efforts - now assisted - to heal the wounded man.

OOC: And regarding Fluffy... I don't know what he's doing. I'll grill him about it at some point in the near fucking future, I guess.

"We cleared up your problem, you help us with ours." Ted said coolly to the bartender, "That was the deal, no?"

Raymond was holding his ribs when he came in.

"Phone call? The police?" Pete asked and guessed quietly in response to Rae.

The bartender paused what he was doing after Ted spoke, facing away. Then he turned around with a disgruntled look on his face. "Clear up my problem?!?!" He said loudly. "All you did was, make it worse! Now I got dead guys, more damages! An' fuckin' nightmares I'm sure!"

"Hey now, we're sorry... Okay?" Pete said delicately, hands raised slightly with his shoulders hunched a little. If nothing else, the bartender didn't say anything and took a breath (albeit not a deliberately calming one).

Meanwhile, Rae started the medical procedure. It was going to be a lengthy process.
She started with removing the bullets with a pair of tweezers. As she reached in and pressed open the hole slightly, she saw one of the pellets. The man cringed a little and was breathing kind of fast.
After a few moments, Rae pulled the first pellet out.

-
ooc:
Another thing about the Window system, it would probably be more merciful.

OOC: I don't think this system has been too merciless, I've just been getting less than stellar rolls : P

Rae simply sighed and did nothing to contribute to persuading the bartender to cooperate. She just focused and got back to her work.

"You didn't tell us not to kill anyone." Ted shrugged, "And there's no more fighting."

Pete subtly stepped halfway in front of Ted after he spoke.
"I didn't tell ya d'a shoot up the place either, you stupid hwoon dahn*!" The bartender quickly retorted.

"Can you give us a minute?" Pete asked, turning around. He semi-forcibly grabbed Ted by the shoulder and turned him around too. He grimaced, emphasizing with his fingers, in a 'what the hell are you doing' manner. Getting back to business though, he whispered, "Maybe we can pay this guy off."

Meanwhile, outside of the (attempts at) negotiation, Rae continued the medical procedure.
The second pellet carefully came out, leaving only a couple more.

-
ooc:
*Bastard, jerk, literally bastard egg.

I suck at writing out certain gestures and expressions.

For the record, you could try to get your information (i.e. where the other bar guy is) from other places, should this not work out.

"I'm not going to pay him off." Ted replied to Pete, "We can pay for any damages we specifically caused, but that's the most I'll do."

"... Alright." Pete whispered back. He paused, thinking of what he was going to say, before turning back to the bartender. He resumed his original timid pose, though less emphasized than before. "We can pay for the damages we caused, okay? But uh, we don't have the money on hand right now. But we're on job that's gonna pay big-"
"No, I want my money 'now!'" The bartender interrupted.

Rae continued the medical work.

-
ooc:
If the setting were a little more lawful, I'd have him say something to the effect of "I'm suing!"

I imagine the damages to be within the low thousands (based on a quick Google search for windows).
Basically, it's more than you can afford right now, but a fraction of what the job would pay.
Though you could... *mumble mumble mumble*

It occurred to me that this team is really combat oriented (seeing as everyone (but Pete) is a proficient marksman, among other things).

ooc: But how much of that low thousands are due to our bullets?

"Be happy that we're paying you back at all." Ted replied, "Also, I only said that we'd pay back our damages, not damages that the other's may have caused."

OOC: From your mumbling, we can only assume depraved sexual favors. Too bad that isn't a skill! I'm not really sure why anyone would be anything other than a combat oriented character. Seeing as this RP is (I'm assuming) fairly combat heavy, there's not much other characters could do without getting reamed when shit gets real.

From where she worked, Rae spoke up. "If you want to get paid at all, you're going to need to help us out. If we finish this job we'll have a lot of money coming in, and we can pay you. But if you don't help us, we're going to be forced to walk out of this bar and leave you to your damages and debt." She didn't look up, her eyes' attention taken up by her healing work.

ooc:
You could do an unskilled roll for those depraved sexual favors (stat-30 acts as your "skill"). Not sure what stat I'd use, might depend on how you go about it.
*Makes some mind stat rolls* I was implying there's a bunch of dead guys around that probably have something of worth on them.

@Sunfish: I'm not sure how much you're responsible for, to be honest. I have yet to comb through every post.
I'm not too worried about the details though. There's a lot of variables and stuff that could be debated.
I think Ted broke a window...

@Glyph: Good point on combat being a significant part of this RPG.
I'd like to think that combat can avoided, or at least minimized, via other skills, strategy and other stuff (cut the power, get enemies to turn on one another or leave, distractions while other people achieve a higher goal, to give a couple of examples). That was my vision at least, not sure how well it'll work out.

-

The bartender seemed to just automatically respond badly to Ted speaking. "If ya hadn't gone about 'solvin'' the problem like a inbred brute, they wouldn'a done as much damage as they did!"

He at least listened to what Rae had to say. He seemed ready to retort, but Pete cut him off as he followed up on Rae. "We can get you your money, an' extra. We just need 'one' bit'a information from you."

"... An' what's that?"

Even while speaking, Rae made good progress on the wound. Both of the remaining pellets were removed.

-
ooc:
Betcha you can't remember the guy you're looking for without looking back. (Not the hostage.)

Spoiler:

"We'll try to leave the bar as much like we found it." -Ted, page 1.

Imagine if this was the wrong bar?

OOC: Then we would have been led-on, and I'd be pissed. Even if this is the wrong bar, this guy at least knows where we can find Gary. In any event, I've known who we're looking for.

And I think it would be a lot easier to avoid combat, if rolling weren't so central. Even if you make a great point, and are nice, and do everything you can to be reasonable, the roll can fuck it all up. You could make a moving SPEECH, and at the end, if you roll poorly, he could just be like "Ehhhhh fuck you." On the other hand, you could half-ass it, insult him, and still succeed.

And that's just for speech alone. All the other non-combat skills apply just as much. In my opinion, non-combat skills, when used outside of combat, shouldn't be rolled. For example, if you could spend as much time as you wanted on a task, chances are you could get it done. Rolls are only really important in stressful, fast situations, where you only have one chance. So unstressed actions should be automatically successful. Or at least given a bonus or something!

--------------------------------------------------

Rae continued patching up injuries, pleased with her progress. "We need to know where Gary is. He's our only lead right now."

ooc: I knew that we were looking for gary without looking back. I checked the spoiler.

Ted kept a close eye on the bartender and waited to see what kind of reaction he made.

ooc:
@Glyph: Acknowledged. The Windows system should help with issues like that.
For the time being, I'll try to go with something like the idea you had.

@Sunfish: Clever girl.

-

"Gary Martin?" The bartender asked reflexively.
"Yeah." Pete answered.
The bartender was quiet for a moment, looking off to the side. "... How 'bout you pay for the damages, an' a tip for the info?"

Some vehicles could be heard outside, coming in at relatively high speeds. It turned out to be two pickups, as they each came up to the front of the bar. Both stopped and had their engines turned off.

One of the pickups had a (metal) camper cover over its bed, and red crosses at certain locations.
The other looked to have been made of thicker metal, which had some dents in it (some from bullets, others from larger impacts). Instead of red crosses, golden shields were drawn.

A big tall man had been standing in the bed of the police truck, and hopped out while the truck was still moving. He was loaded from head to toe with combat equipment, most notably what was probably full body protection (including a helmet) and some kind of rifle with a large magazine.

The big man marched towards the front door while other people began to get out of the trucks.

-
ooc:
I'm not fully describing the big guy mostly because I don't think it's necessary. Imagine a swat team member, just more makeshift and less professional.

Rae looked towards the newcomers, saw that they were the police, and went back to her work. She grew a little nervous when she realized that the law could have this man killed if his crimes were serious enough.

Ted quickly made sure his guns were holstered before acknowledging the newcomers, "How can we help?"

The big man came at the door from an angle and had his gun aimed ahead of him. After looking through the door at one side, he moved to the other side and looked. When he finally came in, he had his gun trained on Raymond, and he gave the room a quick but full look over. He noticed that Ted was also packing heat, and must have noticed Rae as well.

He lowered his rifle, but had his finger just outside of the trigger guard. He adjusted his position so that all three of the mercenaries were in front of him.
When Ted spoke, the big man glanced at him but quickly resumed full surveillance. "There still any trouble?" He asked.

A second man walked into the bar a moment after, more calmly than the first. He was of more normal stature, but dressed similarly to the big man, just less extreme. He gave the room a look over before gesturing the other people outside to also come inside.

Two more men walked inside, wearing aprons and waist pouches. One carried some stretchers under his shoulder, while the other carried two medical kits.

Rae had only just begun to wrap the man's injuries when the two medics arrived. They set their stuff down on a nearby table, and knelt down by the injured man. "What are his injuries? And what have you done?" One of them asked Rae.

"So. What happened?" The regular police officer asked. He took a seat on the edge of a (fixed) table and got out a notepad and pencil.

-
ooc:
*Someone rolls a matched failure and get gunned down*