Diamonds in the Rough: Escape from Kalisz (4e Rules, v1 Timeline)

[kcdusk]

Love the notes section. Thanks.

[kcdusk]

TBH i found writing my own creative writing section challenging. Reading the Diamonds story has been good.

I enjoy seeing both sides of the player/Ref fence. Whats the in game challenge, how do the players tackle it, what does the Ref mechanics of dice and modifiers look like?

How does the game tone compare to my own game / view of T2K?

I also like seeing how non-rifle skills are used in other games. For example using the drive skill to cross a creek. Or leadership to turn a battle. I know my own games end up combat heavy when running solo, so i am trying to add more non-combat encounters to develop a more rounded character.

I'm a little surprised this section hasn't attracted more attention. is it because everyones book marked the forum? So they don't see new posts in this section?

I have a scrap book of all my played out encounters. i've been doing some work to write it up, so others can comment (good or bad). I think its motivational to see what others are doing with the game.

[Raellus]

When asked to help move PR out of the shallow foxhole in which he’s slumped, unable to move, Honeybear reveals his own injury; the machine gunner’s dislocated shoulder is quickly, if painfully, popped back into place by Deacon. The medic tells Honeybear to take it easy and not use the injured arm for a few days; he’ll fashion a proper sling later. Sarge and Sandy help Deacon move PR while keeping the injured man’s neck immobilized, while Bird and Capt. Walker keep watch over the battlefield.

PR is strapped to a narrow door and, with the help of a few villagers, transported the village church where the Diamonds are lodging (an itinerant priest who used to hold mass there every fourth Wednesday and Sunday of the month was killed by the marauders in a different village a week or so ago).

With Bird and Capt. Walker providing over-watch from the woods and road, respectively, Sarge and Sandy sweep the ambush kill zone. Sarge corners a marauder trying to slink away on the concealed side of the roadside berm. When a couple of the village militia arrive on scene, there’s concern that they might summarily execute the captured bandit. Without PR to translate, communication is a real challenge. Bartosz speaks some Russian from his days in the Red Army, so he’s able to communicate with the captured bandit, but Sarge and PR have no idea what the Russian speakers are saying to one another. Instead of killing the captured bandit, or perhaps as a prelude to execution, the villagers put him to work digging graves for his 13 dead comrades.

An assortment of older-model Soviet small arms- as befitting deserters from a Category III motor rifle division- are recovered from the battlefield. Those marauders not killed at the outset of the ambush were down to their last magazine.

Later that day…

Walker, Sarge, and Deacon speak in hushed tones outside the door to PR’s ad-hoc hospital room.

“What’s the prognosis, doc?” Sarge asks.

Deacon shifts uncomfortably on his feet. He knows the appellation was used in good humor, but he still doesn’t appreciate when others over-inflate his medical acumen. The team’s amateur medic is already putting enough pressure on himself.

“Is his neck broken?” Walker follows up.

“Maybe. I can’t know for sure without an X-ray…” Deacon shruggs.

“But he’s paralyzed, right?” Walker asks.

“At the moment, yes- from the neck down. I don’t want to get anyone’s hopes up too high, but the paralysis could be temporary. There was trauma, which means swelling- that could be putting pressure on the nerves in his spine, blocking signals, kind of like a kink in a hose. Right now, all I can do is keep him immobilized so he can’t do any more damage to his neck, and try to get the swelling down. I’ve given him some anti-inflammatories but we’re running low; ice would be really helpful, but I doubt this village has an ice machine…”

The village has neither an X-ray or an ice machine. For the latter, the best that can be done is cold compresses (a flannel soaked in well water). The nearest hospital is in Ostrzeszow, 16km (as the crow flies) west of the village. According to the militia, the city is playing host to a field hospital for Soviet casualties from the Battle of Kalisz, of which, it is understood, there are many. The idea of sneaking into the city to use an X-ray machine or kidnap a proper doctor is quickly dismissed, as is the notion of leaving RP there, trusting to the Soviets to take proper care of him, and proceeding to E&E without him. It is clear, however, that, given PR's present condition, the Diamonds are going to be staying put in the village for at least a couple more days.

Later, there’s some discussion about whether or not to track down and eliminate the four marauders that survived the ambush, but it’s decided that the potential costs of such an effort outweigh the benefits. At least one of the escapees is wounded, as evidenced by blood trails leading away from the kill zone. After the massive ass kicking they took today, the likelihood or their return to Skarydzew is judged minimal.


NOTES:
This "session" was mostly RP. The only random event here involved how the militia would respond to the prisoner. I pulled a card from the Oracle- the result was "mildly helpful". I ruled that this meant that the PCs would not have to be responsible for deciding the prisoner's fate. That wasn't quite enough guidance for me, though, so I pulled another card for NPC (militia) motivation- the result was "generous". I ruled that this meant the militia would not harm the prisoner. I've got the next day rolled up and outlined but I'll share it in a subsequent post, so as to keep the length of these reports somewhat manageable (and hopefully avoid a TLDR situation).

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[Raellus]

Deacon cares for PR as best he knows how, massaging and stretching the radioman's arms and legs every few hours. PR regains some feeling his upper body, then a hint of movement in his fingers. He cries tears of joy.

Honeybear has to be reminded constantly to take it easy with his injured shoulder. The rest of the Diamonds busy themselves around the village. Grease, as usual, works on Pole Position, starting by doing his best to decontaminate the APC, inside and out, with soap and water. After maintaining their personal firearms, the others sort the captured Soviet weapons based on condition. The diamonds keep the RPG-7 (with two HEAT rockets) and the PKM (w/ 100 rounds) for their own use; three AKs, the SVD, and the RPK are donated to the village militia, along with two full magazines for each weapon. The rest of the captured weapons (an AKSU, five AKMS, and an RPD) will be used for trade.

Keeping their promise, the villagers keep their American guests watered and fed, as well as keeping a brew on in the village still. The captured marauder is kept locked in a root cellar.


NOTES:
As per the Care rules on p. 74 of the Player’s Manual, Medical Aid rolls can be made once per day if a shift is spent caring for the injured character; if successful, that day counts double for time spent recovering. Deacon succeeded on his rolls for 7/30-8/2, so that will cut 8 days from the 14 days originally rolled for the injury on the Crit table, as mandated by the rules. I haven't rolled past August 2nd.

Bird will make several TECH rolls over the next few days to restore lost reliability points to the Diamonds’ weapons (p. 91 of the Player’s Manual).

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[Raellus]

Around mid-day, two riders are spotted approaching on horseback from the east. Both wear US-issue battledress and carry M-16 pattern weapons. Contact is made. The pair- a man and a woman- are stragglers from the 4th Squadron, 12th Cavalry (5th ID). For the past 13 days, they’ve been on the run, eluding Polish and Soviet Army patrols. The two riders started out with several others, but a couple of clashes with enemy forces since the “You’re on your own” transmission have winnowed the group down to two. They ask for food for themselves and their horses, and ammunition for their M4 carbines. Discussion inevitably rolls around to the two parties joining forces.

“We’re not going to hang around until you’re ready to leave,” the man says, upon learning of the Diamond’s delayed travel plans.

“What’s your rush?” Sarge asks, trying to keep his frustration under control.

“You haven’t heard? The big brass decided to pull US forces out of Europe; there’s gonna be a major evac, from some port in northeast Germany, end of the month, first come, first served. We’re fuckin' going home.”

Sarge and Walker both raise their eyebrows at this revelation.

“And how do you know about this… ‘major evac’?” Walker asks skeptically.

“We ran into a guy who hid out for a couple of days with a comms specialist from the 5th ID head shed.”

“So, hearsay,” Sarge says, nonplussed.

“You wanna take the chance he was full of shit?”

There’s an uncomfortable pause while both parties process this.

“I’m not going to order you to stay,” Walker says, breaking the silence. She knows full well that her unit can’t stop the Cavalry troopers from taking off if they’re really determined to do so. The Cav troopers expressions only reinforce this.

Sarge makes one last pitch with the “strength in numbers” argument.

“Bigger group means bigger target- and slower. We got a better chance on our own.”

The Diamonds command team discusses whether to grant the Cav troopers’ request for ammunition. Ultimately, Walker decides to offer the pair a trade; she doesn’t feel right letting two friendlies head off on their own without providing some potentially life-saving assistance. The two troopers are offered their pick of the remaining small arms captured from the marauders (not those previously spoken for), plus as much Soviet ammo as they can carry, for the pair’s carbines and remaining NATO-caliber ammo. The riders accept the deal. They take two AKMs (including the one with a BG-15 40mm grenade launcher attached), seven compatible mags, and two 40mmS HE rounds; in exchange, they hand over their M4s and four full STANAG magazines.


NOTES:
To determine encounters while the Diamonds remain encamped in Skarydzew, I’m using the Frequency rules and Stationary Encounters table on p. 36 of the Referee’s Manual. The Frequency rules suggest one encounter per shift. That seems reasonable when the party is on the move (they could run into stationary groups, or others on the move) or in a city, but not so much when the party is staying put in a small, isolated hamlet (technically, they can only “run into” another group that’s on the move). Consequently, I’m rolling the dice only once per day/every other day (?) from 7/31, as that seems more reasonable to me.

Anyway, the first roll called for a draw from the RED, but the result didn’t apply, so I ruled that as No Encounter for the day. On day two (D6+1), the result was 6, Stragglers. The D6 roll to determine how many stragglers appeared came up 2. The encounter suggests that the stragglers will attempt to steal from the PCs and leave at the earliest opportunity. That reminded me too much of the Murderous Bastards random encounter that I ran earlier in the campaign, so I omitted that part about stealing. I supposed I could have rolled an opposed Persuasion roll to convince them to stay, but that would have completely nerfed the encounter described by the rules, so I didn’t. Instead, I rolled to see if Walker (Persuasion C) could convince the riders to share any rumors that they picked up since the death of 5th ID. I awarded Walker +2 in modifiers for asking for something that didn’t cost anything (rumors), and outranking the people she was trying to persuade (CPT vs. SGT). Even rolling 2D12 vs. 1D8, she had to the push the roll in order to succeed. The result on the Rumor table was 9. I worked its contents into the dialogue.

Once again, I forgot to roll for Weather changes [for any of the shifts since the PCs arrived in Skarydzew]. Doh!

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[kcdusk]

Originally Posted by Raellus

“You haven’t heard? The big brass decided to pull US forces out of Europe; there’s gonna be a major evac, from some port in northeast Germany, end of the month, first come, first served. We’re fuckin' going home.”


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Wow! Great stuff!!

[kcdusk]

Originally Posted by Raellus

[FONT="Courier New"]NOTES:
To determine encounters while the Diamonds remain encamped in Skarydzew, I’m using the Frequency rules and Stationary Encounters table on p. 36 of the Referee’s Manual. The Frequency rules suggest one encounter per shift. That seems reasonable when the party is on the move (they could run into stationary groups, or others on the move) or in a city, but not so much when the party is staying put in a small, isolated hamlet (technically, they can only “run into” another group that’s on the move). Consequently, I’m rolling the dice only once per day/every other day (?) from 7/31, as that seems more reasonable to me.


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I've been doing the same, only rolling once per stationary day. I've been ignoring the result if it doesn't fit.

[Raellus]

It rains for a few hours during the morning, so anyone not on guard duty tries to stay indoors. The rain lets up around noon, but overcast remains. It’s going to be a grey day.

PR continues his ad hoc physical therapy program supervised by Deacon. In addition to making continued progress with his fingers, hands, and arms, PR has regained some feeling and movement in his feet. His spirits have risen tremendously- he’s convinced that he will soon be able to walk again. He even insists that the team medic prop him up in bed (i.e. into a reclining seated position). Deacon is trying to temper his own optimism about his patient’s prognosis, but the medic’s hopes have risen as well. He now no longer fears that PR will experience significant, long-term paralysis.

At about ten hundred hours, a group of seven rain-soaked civilians arrives from the west. They hail from the neighboring settlement of Wygoda Plugawska, just under 2km west of Skarydzew, but have been squatting in the larger town of Doruchow (4.3km further west) for the past week, since the last marauder raid on their hamlet. The marauders took most of their home settlement’s food; what little the bandits left behind has since been consumed, leaving nothing until the upcoming harvest season. The people of Doruchow fed some of the refugees for a while, but that town is running low on food now too, so they were asked to leave this morning. The refugees have come to Skarysdzew to ask for charity, but are willing to work for it, and repay the food debt after the next harvest. With its new guests (i.e. the Diamonds) already providing more mouths to feed, Skarydzew is approaching a similar situation- provisions are running out faster than anticipated. Everybody’s about to go hungry, it seems.

When the refugees learn that Skarydzew’s American guests killed most of the marauders just two days prior, they grow animated, ask if a teenage boy was with them. The refugees explain that the boy was kidnapped from their village during the last raid- why, they can’t be sure. They beg the Diamonds to go find him and bring him back, even claiming that they heard that the bandits also had some American prisoners too. The Diamonds believe the part about the Americans is bullshit, laid on to give them an incentive to look for the civilian boy, but they agree to help anyway.

The Diamonds start by interrogating the captured marauder- something they didn’t see much use in doing, earlier. The process is complicated by the need for two translators- Bartosz translates Russian to Polish, and PR translates Polish to English (and vice-versa). The prisoner is in no mood to talk, but Walker is able to get him to admit that his group did indeed kidnap a boy for use as a camp “servant”; he also gives the Diamonds a rough idea of where his camp is located in the woods to the south.

“When we get there, make sure to identify your targets. We don’t want to hit the kid we’re trying to rescue, so no sprayin’ and prayin’, got it?” Sarge admonishes the rescue team, just before they set off.

The rescue team consists of Walker, Sarge, Deacon, Bird, Honeybear, Sandy, Grease, and one of the village militiamen with experience hunting in the woods. Any trail the marauders may have left has been washed away by the morning showers, so the team has rely on the prisoner’s directions and dead reckoning to locate the marauder campsite.

After about an hour of slow, cautious movement through the woods, the hunter, on point with Bird, indicates that he’s hearing voices from up ahead. Sarge gets the team on line and they begin a tactical advance towards the suspected campsite. 30m from the camp, Bird catches his toe on an exposed root, loses his balance, and falls forward; somehow, his "new" M4 carbine discharges a round when he hits the ground. The marauders are alerted. They drop prone, facing the danger, and open fire.

Deacon is already prone, making him a smaller target. Nevertheless, an incoming round grazes the medic's right cheek. Somehow, he manages to keep his cool and return fire. Just a few paces away, Walker staggers as a round pancakes against her PAGST vest. She falls forward, going prone, takes aim at her attacker, and squeezes of a few rounds. Both Diamonds score hits, although neither is aware of this at the time.

The rest of Diamonds go prone and start engaging targets. Sandy, Grease, and Sarge all miss theirs, but Bird and Honeybear eliminate two of the four marauders.

The opposing groups exchange fire for about 10 more seconds. The marauders are the first to cease fire, it turns out, because they are all dead. Two Diamonds (Deacon and Walker) are slightly wounded during the exchange.

The kidnapped teenager is found, curled up behind a tree, feet chained together. He’s filthy and badly shaken, but otherwise unhurt (at least, physically). The Diamonds seize the dead marauder’s weaponry (four AKMs w/ 3.5 mags, three RGD-5 hand grenades, and a few assorted knives/bayonets) and search the filthy bandit camp. Grease is a master scrounger- apart from some very dingy camping equipment, he turns up an Oriental carpet, a fire extinguisher [fully charged], and a Nintendo Gameboy hand-held video game console! (Batteries not included, unfortunately).

The party returns in triumph to Skarydzew with the rescued teenager and a carpet-full of loot. To show their gratitude, the refugees from Wygoda Plugawska share another rumor they’ve heard. A merchant passing through Doruchow told them that Krakow has declared itself a free city and is hiring soldiers of any nationality to join its nascent defense force. The Soviets are also supposedly hiring mercs to help them retake the city. Some of the merchant caravan guards were discussing signing on with one side or the other (probably whoever pays better) when they return to the area.


NOTES:
I finally remembered to roll for Weather changes! Twice a day seems more reasonable to me than four times a day (i.e. at the beginning of all four daily shifts).

This is encounter was built by rolling D6+2 on the Stationary Encounter Table. I rolled 7 on 2D6 to determine the number of refugees. I had to ponder for a while to figure out how to make this encounter fit into the narrative, but I’m satisfied with what I came up with. Since the party agreed to help, the refugees shared two rumors (I rolled twice on the rumor table). I tweaked the rumors a bit. One (R6) was the throw-away about the marauders having some American prisoners, the other (R2) was about the Krakow and the Soviets competing to hire mercs.

The rescue op started with a successful roll for Interrogation [pushed]- the prisoner confirmed the refugees’ story about the kidnapped boy. I wanted to use Bird’s Hunter specialty to try to track the marauders all the way back to their camp, but the morning rains washed away all spoor, so I scratched that. The opposed Group Recon roll to attempt to “Ambush” the camp failed 30m from the camp, so the engagement began at close range, and the marauders drew the first two initiative cards.

I didn’t use as many ammo dice in this firefight. The marauders were running low already, and the good guys were trying to reduce the chance of a stray round catching the kid they were trying to rescue. Deacon and Walker survived head and torso hits, respectively. Body armor is a real life-saver!

I used the Oracle to determine the condition of the kid and drew Seven of Diamonds (mildly helpful)- I ruled that this meant that the kid was unhurt and relatively healthy (at least, physically).

Since the marauder camp is relatively small, I ruled that the party could roll for Scrounging even though they spend less than a shift searching it. Grease rolled three successes (I even forget to add +1 for Help from another PC). I Googled “random gameboy game generator” and, low and behold, there’re a couple. I used the first one that popped up and the result was Streetfighter II (1993). Luckily, the Diamonds scrounged a couple of AA batteries a few days earlier. Let the games begin!

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