After-Action Report: Me and My Shadow Mark IVRun with Red Clearance Edition
Trouble shooter team:
Name / Secret Society / Mandatory bonus Duty
Tye-R-ANT / INTSEC / Team Leader Secret Society Mission: INTSEC views the Mark IV as being an indication that the Armed Forces may try to muscle in on INTSEC's prerogatives. Obtain information on the Mark IV and sabotage it if possible.
Fried-R-ICE / Neuromantics / Equipment Officer Secret Society Mission: The Mark IV is so, like, boring dude. All that gleaming chrome needs some lightening up. We've snuck paint supplies into the hangar. Give that warbot a new paintjob!
Pyp-R-DUD / New Communists / Loyalty Officer Secret Society Mission: A rival splinter group of communists intends to attack the Mark IV. Thwart their doctrinally impure efforts and kill as many as you can.
Summary:
The players are awoken by a the calming klaxon and the voice of the computer. The computer asks if they're ready to start the day. Tye-R responds enthusiastically. Fried-R and Pyp-R don't. So, the computer asks them what's wrong. Fried-R says they're tired and Pyp-R says they were so fired up they couldn't decide how to respond. Well, medication ought to fix that. Fried-R gets some uppers (+1 violence, -1 brains) and Pyp-R gets some downers (-1 Violence, +1 brains). And then begins the aerobic sequence with some pretty badly failed athletics rolls from 5 jumping jacks. Just as the workout leader announces a 5 kilometer run-in-place they get the mission alert!
The trip to the briefing is straight forward until they find the Infrared guarding the door who excitedly announces a special message for Tye-R. They move to the side and give Tye-R the message (which is gibberish) and a strange salute. They pause to interrogate the Infrared about this salute before walking into the briefing, late because of the message, just in time to hear "...and you should be very careful to stay outside of the blast radius." In typical Paranoia fashion the briefing is light on useful information but they do get loaded up with a box of R&D equipment and authorization forms. They find out they're guarding the new warbot, Mark IV, and that the Mark IV "Is actually very large." The briefing officer is on a tight schedule and immediately ushers them out to make way for his next briefing.
They get to the Mark IV and get inside the hangar where the Mark IV bellows at them. Luckily they remember their authorization forms and are not disintegrated. Then begins the twenty hour guard shift on the Mark IV. Fried-R immediately finds the paint his secret society stowed and tries to sneak it into the mission equipment box. He gets caught by Tye-R and reported for a treason star. But the rest of the team make no effort to do anything about the paint so Fried-R sneaks it up onto the Mark IV, on the opposite side from the rest of the team, and hopes for some kind of accident to cause it to spill.
Me and My Shadow Mark IV is a fun little bottle adventure with a lot of modular parts that can be switched around or dropped for time. This makes it ideal for an introductory adventure since they sit in one spot and things happen
to them. It doesn't require the PCs to be active. The first such event is a rogue scrubot enters the hangar and begins cleaning closer and closer to the Mark IV threatening to breach its perimeter and give it a good scrub. Pyp-R tries to intervene and prevent but the scrubot moves to push him out of the way. With an expert role, Pyp-R gets into a panel on the scrubot and rips out some circuitry. Fried-R immediately reports this to the computer netting Pyp-R a serious XP fine for destruction of computer property.
Some hours later, a hatch opens and four mechanics enter carrying heavy tools boxes. They approach the Mark IV perimeter where Tye-R stops them. They explain that they are there to perform some routine maintenance on the Mark IV. But they have horrendous russian accents. In truth, these are the rival communists come to sabotage the Mark IV. The back-and-forth goes on for about a minute before Pyp-R opens fire. Three of the mechanics duck behind cover and provide suppressing fire while their wounded leader, Comrade Borscht, runs for the exit. Tye-R hides behind a massive fuel tank in the hangar while Pyp-R stands firm taking aim at the mechanic leader. One of the communists fires at Tye-R, missing. Which means they hit the fuel tank which explodes stunning everyone and sending Fried-R, who was on top of the Mark IV, flying. The paint buckets spill over leaving massive trails of paint on the opposite side of the Mark IV. Tye-R's replacement clone runs in and hides under the Mark IV. Instead of fighting, Tye-R uses their corrosion mutant power to destroy one of the Mark IV's treads and bore a hole in its chassis. Eventually Fried-R joins the fight and tackles a communist. Comrade Borscht escapes and Pyp-R guns down the other two commies. They search the tool boxes and find high explosives and, *gasp*, copies of the Communist Manifesto! They ask Friend Computer what to do with the captured Commie. The Computer gives the execution to the Mark IV. Pyp-R marches the tied-up communist to a spot indicated by Mark IV and whispers, "Your way is not the true way" before pushing him into the spot and running. Mark IV obliterates the communist and the team's rope which Tye-R and Fried-R immediately report to the computer, blaming Pyp-R. The troubleshooters ask Pyp-R how he knew the mechanics were traitors.
Some hours later, Mark IV is bombastically praising themselves when suddenly.. something falls off. A miscellaneous piece drops off and the Mark IV's voice stops abruptly. In reality, Mark IV is physically fine they just realized their own mortality. But the Troubleshooters don't know that.. The resident engineer, Pyp-R gets on the case and finds a serial number on the part that fell off. They call the computer to ask about it and discover this serial number is highly classified and get a treason star for their trouble. They grumble and climb up and do manage to get the part reattached.
Finally, a door opens and a class of child-clones run in! They immediately begin touching everything with their grimy, sticky fingers. The troubleshooter team is initially stunned and begin arguing with the teacherbot. This gives the children a chance to play with the Vulture Warrior launching tubes and launching one of their own clean out of Alpha Complex. This nets the Troubleshooters a hefty fine. Tye-R spills the petroleum jelly barrel in the equipment box to make a slip-n-slide to distract the children and finds its more of a jellied petroleum substance. Hrm. A tattletale child bother Fried-R, telling friend computer how mean they all are netting treason stars all around. A mischievous child finds some matches in the team equipment box and begins playing with them in the jellied petroleum (napalm) slip n slide. Frantically the troubleshooters begin scooping up and shoving children away from the impending disaster, grabbing the mischievous child and hauling them away causing the match to fall and the napalm to ignite. A massive scorch is left in the hangar as the teacherbot scolds the troubleshooters for their irresponsible behavior. More treason stars!
Finally, at long last, the testing team enters. They dismiss the Troubleshooters to their debriefing. There, Johnny-B, their briefing officer gives them no end of hell for their mistreatment of computer property and damage to the Mark IV. The destroyed tread caused issues in the test and the paint required rampant explanation. XP is awarded. XP is fined away. And in conclusion everyone got a treason star. But wait! This pushed Fried-R and Pyp-R to their fifth treason star which leads to the greatest thing that can happen in any Paranoia debriefing: Two troubleshooters desperately trying to kill each other to earn back a treason star. Fried-R activates the mines in the equipment box causing them to walk out and blanket the entire room. Everyone treads lightly as lasers fly and Johnny-B's VULTURE guards make use of their hand flamers. The VULTURES get the kill as Fried-R is roasted. In a last ditch effort, Pyp-R begs for mercy saying their must have been a mistake. Unfortunately, the roll had zero successes and Pyp-R increased his clone number.
I had 3 hours slotted for the session including character generation. If I had had 4 I think I could have gotten the module's entire content. I had to cut the return of the communists which is a shooting gallery set piece as the commies attack the Mark IV in waves and the actual field test of the Mark IV which includes giving the PCs the honor of manually detonating a tactical nuclear warhead by a switch on that same warhead.
All in all fun was had. Everyone lost a clone, so it was a bit reserved. The Neuromantics player especially liked their secret society mission and Pyp-R's mission succeeded in the goal of starting a firefight with the commie mechanics.
submitted by
/u/Booster_Blue [link] [comments]
