Definitely target doing Thursday and Saturday. It's worth the rush.

That being said, that means there's a natural cutoff. There needs to be a mini-climax halfway through. I'm thinking that will probably end up falling at the end of interstitial #2, but who knows how these things go?

The absolute perfect spot to cut off: right in the middle of the car chase, during a cliffhanger shot (like we're in the middle of a tricky jump where we might die)

Each vignette and interstitial should be approximately one room. Of course, not everything is a dungeon, but if there's gonna be a map, try keeping it to a single room, or at least an uncomplicated area. That will keep the time down, and make it possible for you to prepare.

They should have simple objectives, with simple enemies to deal with. The whole point is to force the characters together into an interesting situation where they have time to talk about it.

Jump right into the action. The party is in a truck, bearing down on the train. Everything is going according to plan, but then...a motorcycle gang appears! We fight them!

(We might actually be stationary at this point, setting up some kind of road block, so this could be a traditional ground battle. There's still room for the moving battle later)

End with some sort of reference to the next vignette. Suggestion: my character says to Grace something like "well, ain't you just a dose of bad luck".

Stars: Pie, Grace.

Which is exactly what he was saying as he picked up his hand in a game of cards, or saw the result of some sort of die throw, or perhaps saw some big bruiser planning to collect a debt. I'm not sure, since I don't really know what this vignette is about. Ultimately, she saves him from something.

Close on: "don't worry, cowboy. You'll owe me one."

Cast: everybody

Location: some sort of base? Do we have our home base yet? If not, something like that.

Open with her reminding him of the favor. Maybe this is the first mission involving him, but she has worked with the others. Maybe that was the only way to rope him into all this. Who knows.

Anyway, here's where she lays down the adventure hook for all of us, straight up. Explain what's at stake, what the plan is, who we're working for, why it's important, and what the reward is.

Then we can yakkity yak for a while about the first step. If that takes more than like 20 minutes, we can get bailed out by (lady) luck.

We head out to go get the First MacGuffin. Tension builds. This is a potentially (but probably not certainly) risky task in and of itself. It involves subterfuge...to that end, we look to Patrick's character and ask something like: "so, think you can handle (relatively easy thieving situation)?"

Stars: Patrick, Pie

Patrick's character is doing the whole sexy bendy Entrapment thief thing through the laz0rs to get the shiny. She gets it. She then slips out of the treasure room just in time to avoid a guard (who sees the dupe she put in its place) and slips away.

Following shot as she strips out of her thief catsuit, revealing a fancy dress beneath The catsuit unravels, and she turns it inside out into a handbag (it's made of some space-age nanostuff), into which she stows the treasure. She emerges into a fancy ballroom with lots of fancy folk.

She smiles, makes small talk, and generally wends her way through the crowd without drawing undue attention (mini skill challenge). Just when she thought she was home free, my character is there. Snark snark snark, flirt flirt flirt, we fight. Ninja battle!

The fight is cut short as the patron of the establishment happens by, wondering what we're doing in his private dressing room or whatever. She'll probably try to talk her way out of it, maybe blame my character if she's nervous. Play it like we're both thieves, and the patron is angry at both of us. Then reveal that actually, he hired me specifically to stop her. In any case, get her to run. If that's not enough, maybe some guys with automatic weapons.

Chase scene! Let's do some stairwells, elevator shafts, some sort of loft or whatever, and ultimately outside...many stories up, on a ledge, amidst gargoyles or somesuch. (Make sure he can't fly or any such nonsense)

We corner her. I say something like "hey, just give up the gem, and we'll go easy on ya". At which point the patron reveals "the gem is worthless, it was just a trap" (but with better dialogue), and essentially his true prize is her: an ultra-rare supernatural, who he needed the help of an ace bounty hunter to catch. the trap is sprung!

But my character doesn't like where this is going. He'll mention the contract, and the patron will respond something about the fine print. Thus, my trigger...not a fan of fine print.

We join forces against the patron and his men with guns. It's a fight. Ultimately, he's too powerful for us (supernatural, maybe a recurring villain? was going easy at first, don't come off too strong in round 1), and we flee...specifically, I grab her, we jump to our doom...but not, because I can slow-fall like a sumbitch.

Cast: everybody

Where: not sure

"Gravity is my bitch!" I say, completing a much lower slowfall (variation of sigil teleport) right after the jump cut.

Cut to immediately *after* we finish getting the MacGuffin thinger-madoodle. We just skipped a scene. Whatever, it wasn't supposed to be interesting.

That scene should be followed by something a bit more exciting. How about a car chase?

We're just pulling away from the place we just knocked off (or whatever), when a car peels out behind us, bearing our old friend Men/w/guns. We floor it. Since my character is a melee specialist, and Patrick is more of a vs.-humanoids kind of fighter, this should give Gino a chance to do something for the first time in the session. Grace might make me drive, which I'm probably not too bad at, and she's a better shot anyway.

I can do some driving skill challenge stuff while the others fight the bad guys. It's sort of a mini-type 2; you can try to snipe the bad guys when they attack, or disable the car (big armored truck), because we're not likely to take it out by just nickel-and-diming it.

In any case, we win the day and escape. We pull into HQ.

As we're walking, there's a conversation about our next steps. It's probably a good idea for this mission to have been my first with the group, so I can ask a lot of questions.

One of them being the one we cut out on, just as the doors to Alex's lab open: "and just what are we looking for down here?" to which the answer is something horrifyingly shocking which the audience doesn't get to see just yet.

Cast: Alex and Grace

(Remember: direction! Tell Gino what he's doing in the scene, what he's after, what his motivation is)

Dramatic wind blows through his hair as Alex spies on the intersection through his binoculars. Everything is in place, the timing is just right, and all the players have shown up to the play. Especially the most important one: "target acquired", he mutters to himself as he centers her in his sights. (I would almost go with this text, literally; just have the character say that (Gino won't know what to say), and don't actually reveal who the target is just yet)

But then, something unexpected happens. A woman, walking across the intersection, trips on her own two feet. A car, running the red light, screeches to a halt and honks at her, just in time to get in the way of a bus, which nearl flattens him. Chaos! Bedlam!

He rushes down to try to salvage the situation. (If this doesn't get him going, emphasize that the bus is now blocking his line of sight to the target). He reaches ground level (via fire escape? etc) and finds Grace in his path, walking away from the carnage he caused.

He accuses her of ruining everything, she doesn't know wtf he's talking about, he's rude and dismissive. Whatever. He soon spots the target, turning about and getting away. He runs after her, and she after him.

She sees as he rounds the corner. He's chasing a little girl on a pink bicycle, who is just passing a white utility van with the back doors open. And he's shouting "you're supposed to get in the van!". (Not sure how to make him do that, but I'll kind of say it for him if it comes to it)

Grace is pissed. She catches up and tackles him just as he's turning down an alley to chase the kid. They have a scuffle (do some grapple checks and the like, she'll probably win, use her bad luck powers to make him fail if need be). She berates him for his depraved ways, and threatens to turn him in, all the while he insists she's misunderstanding...

Then the Tooth Fairy attacks. Battle!

(Maybe Patrick and I can play some summoned cthulhu monsters that he brings in to help. Or maybe the bad guys!)

Ultimately, they win, and he gets the thing in a trap. She asks "so...what are you going to do with it?"

Cast: everyone

Place: Alex's lab

Jump cut to the full reveal of Alex's lab. Start right off with the weird monsters in cloning-vat-lookin-things, the ones pinned up like butterflies, the monster parts in jars, etc. It's like a fucking mad science lab.

We walk in as he narrates the features of the lab (ask him to prepare this). Quick cameo of the Tooth Fairy in the back. He's narrating for my character's benefit, if no one else's.

Maybe we're just on the way to a room to talk strategy. Maybe he needed to come down here to somehow employ one of his captive monsters to help turn our MacGuffins into a final plot device. Maybe he needs to perform an arcane ritual. Who knows.

Anyway, we do all that, and complete all the final planning for the climax. (I will help guide the plan to become the original, failed plan from the intro scene)

Resume where the intro left off. The plan just failed. The train blew past our road block that we didn't have time to set up. Or whatever. Time to improvise. My character will take the lead, if need be ("say, that's a nice bike!").

Motorcycle chase! Here's how it can go:

• Start us off split on two sides; two bikes on one side with a head start (me and Patrick?), and Grace's truck with Alex in it
• Each round, there are hazards, perhaps randomly generated, perhaps planned. We have to avoid them (skills, choices; remember, on a vehicle we use normal skills like Agility and Dodge, and the vehicle modifies it based on how agile it is).
• We also have to push to catch up with the train. It will take something like 3 successes; failed checks on the hazards won't kill us (except on critical failures, requiring hero points and the like), but will set us back.
• If we're progressing too fast, through a tunnel at us...it's either guaranteed to set us back a bit, or guaranteed to kill a really stupid PC. And even if one is stupid, we kind of all have to get there (except grace, maybe? someone needs to drive the getaway car)
• While all this is happening, it might be interesting if someone is shooting at us. Let's just gloss over the whole "the guard would tell the other guards" thing. I have a jammer. I guess. Who knows. It's more fun this way.
  • Maybe there just aren't all that many guards.
• We have to get to a target near the middle of the train.
• Once there, we'll have to leap from our bikes (or the bed of the truck) to get to the train.
• I have to be there for my hacking skills. Patrick has to be there for who the fuck knows. Gino is needed cuz of magic. Or something. Basically we all have to be there except Grace.

Once we're on, we'll be splitting up--one to the front, one to the back, one to make a distraction in the middle, perhaps. Each of us will face several skill/combat/RP challenges, depending on our strengths and weaknesses. Being a buffoon, I'll probably come in handy making a distraction. Who knows.

When we finally get the thingy, we get word that we have 60 seconds to escape before the train passes some sort of point of no return. We have to rush back through all the carefully-navigated traps and encounters we just went through.

We escape just in time, jumping into the truck and riding off into the sunset. Yay!

We get to the meeting place with the client. But then, there's a twist! Dun dun dun!!!

(Might even be able to work a final vignette in here, based on Grace. Maybe the gist of the double-cross in this scene is that she's way too nice, too trusting, etc. So show a scene where she has to deal with something like that, in which she proves that she can be a badass when she needs to, but she's nice cuz of love. Because she wants to believe the best in people...not because she isn't strong enough to face the worst, but because she genuinely wants to make the world a better place, and to help people become better people.

After which you could cut back to the double cross. Maybe the bad guy has a better deal for us 3 vagabonds, so we'll turn on her. And we say "eff you, dude, we're with her!" etc

And so, fight. Then love and hugs. And parties.