[Mob Justice] Betrayal at Cold Cut

[iain]

The 'Collective Endeavour' went to conflagration in Glasgow on the 24th and 25th of March. We had a good time and I got to run a full game of Mob Justice for Lambert, John, Doc and Adrian. It was an extension of the 15 minute demo I run at cons, called ‘Betrayal at Coldcut’, allowing for players to experience a bit more of the system

The characters played do not have their background filled out as I let the players make that up as they go. The characters are mainly defined, roleplaying wise, by their reputations. Reputation is ranked from Ace – King with ace being low, and also has some descriptors showing how the public perceive that character.

Each character also has a stature showing their position in the Mafia at a given moment, again ranked from Ace – King.

So the characters played were:

Michael ‘Mick’ Morello:    Reputation 4 (cool headed, decisive, selfish), Stature 5
Paul ‘Two Punch’ Corelli:   Reputation 5 (Hot blooded, loyal, ambitious), Stature 3
Frank ‘Snake Eyes’ Soldano:   Reputation 5 (Brash, Unlucky, Funny Man)    Stature 5
Joe ‘Lawman’ Lorenza:   Reputation 5 (Patient, Unemotional, Ruthless) Stature 6

The statures these characters have basically means they are soldiers starting to rise through the ranks. Joe is on the cusp of becoming a Lieutenant. Each character also had some Codes, Loyalties and tells that would hurt or help them depending on how they acted. They also have access to skills and contacts that can assist them when in skirmishes.

Setup
A year ago the character were on a job in New York with their Boss’, Don Perelli, Nephew. He was killed during the execution of the job but the character’s were not blamed and no ‘repercussions’ had come their way in the interim. They all had been put into different cells on their return and have not seen each other since. Until tonight. Tonight they have been sent to the ‘Cold Cut’ speakeasy in Chinatown to extract money from the owner Mr. Chan.

As they are shaking the cash out from him, the Boss’ right hand man Lt. Tatallia walks in, accompanied by 4 big guy. He rubs his hand together, looks across the faces of the characters, pulls out a gun and says “This is for New York!”. The characters are being whacked.

Let the game begin
The players are immediately in a skirmish in this scenario allowing me to take them through the basics of a skirmish. They all went for guns or dived for cover and came off the best as Tatallia beat a retreat for the door. Joe wanted to pursue but an argument erupted regarding the fate of the remaining mobster. He was eventually shot in the head by Frank but by then Tatallia had escaped.

Wondering what the hell just happened, the players decided to make for Paul’s father. He lived in an swanky uptown flat, and they holed up there whilst figuring out what to do next. Tapping his father for some info, Paul found that Tatallia has been making inroads with the Triads in town and that Don Perelli saw his ties with them as suspicious.

Whilst that was going on Michael, who had been left outside saw a car going round the block several times and he suspected they were being watched. Joe got in touch with his police contact, Officer Crunky, and tapped him, this is a mechanical effect, for information on the car and found out that it was owned by a Johnny Chan and was registered at a Chinese Restaurant in downtown.

Chinatown
Making their way to the restaurant, the players set up for an assault on the place. Paul used his Street Urchin contact, a boy working in the kitchens of the Restaurant, to let him in the back door and he found that Johnny was eating there that very night. The other two waited in another car around the corner in case a pursuit was needed.

The offending car was parked outside the restaurant and the players waited for Johnny to make his way out. Michael broke into the car and hunkered down in the back seat, waiting for Johnny. When he turned up he was ‘persuaded’ by Michael to reveal what he knew about Tatallia and was left with only his clothes as the characters took everything else he had.

They had discovered that Tatallia had had some high level meetings with the Triads of late and that a warehouse downtown was being used to store something that Tatallia and the Triads both wanted.

Warehouse Showdown
Making their way to the warehouse the characters scoped the place out, taking in its security and guards. Their seemed to be a minimum amount of human presence, but their was some CCTV, high walls and barbed wire fences round the perimeter. Using some of their story chips the players made the guard on duty fall asleep, and quietly made their way in and up the stairs at the side of the warehouse.

Making their way inside, they saw a huge number of boxes, marked with Russian script, as well as several men talking in the middle of the warehouse. Three cars were also present close to the large metal door of the building. One of the men was most definitely Tatallia. Vengeance was nigh!

As they made their way along the metal platform that ran around the warehouse, their sneaking skills let them down. This resolved as a skirmish with me winning, meaning I had about 10 chips to use on the final scene. They were in trouble and they knew it.

As they realised they had been discovered they could see down into the boxes. Each one seemed to contain large amount of weapons. Joe had a small camera on him and took some photos of it as the men below opened fire. The characters returned fire making for the exit, as Tatallia and some of his men piled into cars. Using his story chips to have a Molotov cocktail on hand, Michael threw said projectile into the warehouse to little effect, getting shot up for his trouble.

Stumbling out the door, the characters quickly recovered and made for the front of the building as the metal door rolled open. Three cars and a group of men met the characters and a firefight ensued. Michael left the others to their fate as he made his escape, nursing a fairly serious wound. Some John Woo style action ensued and the players quickly had the upper hand.

As the fight drew to a close, I used a couple of chips to throw some more enemies into the scene. One of these was Joe’s brother, a Tell at rank Jack, who was shot up a bit, but not killed by one of the other players. Jack picked his brother up whilst Frank finished the job, splattering Tatallia’s brains all over the back of his car.

We wound the game up there, though further play would have no doubt resulted in a conflict between Joe and whoever had shot his brother, Joe and his brother as well as a potential confrontation with Michael who had abandoned them. Michael was in not good a shape and would no doubt have had a ‘War Wound’ as well as some social damage: one of his tells was ‘Leather Jacket’ which had gotten pretty beaten up.

Things that went well
Pace of the game was exactly what I wanted and the players really got into improvising stuff by using story chips. No one had too many chips by the end of the game and it was nice to get back into a system I had designed and see that it worked as well as I remembered. Their was some great action and the players really got into the mobster vibe.

Things that didn’t go so well
I forgot a couple of damage rules now and again, haven’t played the game for a while, so I will be reading up on those for my current game. Next time I run this as a demo I am going to be sure to bring in tells and codes a lot more often and will engineer it so that there is a lot more potential conflict.