4 December 2000 0700H. Taj Mahal Hotel Tower, Atlantic City, NJ.

Today’s update will be entirely out-of-character. This was the most hair-raising fight we’ve had in a while. Usually, the party tries to pick its fights to be on their terms. This was not one of those times.

I took a bunch of screenshots throughout the session. Note that they are from my perspective. My brother, the player, cannot see any areas shaded gray. They are black to him.

Orange pins represent The Indian’s gunmen. Here on the 1st level, the casino floor, they’re his guards, and have a higher morale.

Blue pins are The Indian’s captains. Sub-bosses.

Gray pins represent non-combatants. I told my brother that some may actually be gunmen.

Maks has a white pin, Wojciech yellow, and Linda the Hammer is red.

Most of the fighting occurred around banks of slot machines and attached seats.

Both the party and adversaries made use of the Movement and Fire Rules. Walking and shooting imposes a -1 STR penalty for Recoil purposes. Trotting halves STR for Recoil.

Despite the map being bright white, the casino floor is not well-lit. There is some sunlight coming through the entrances, and torches and lanterns. Overall, the light level is dim, with lots of shadows. I had PCs and NPCs making a lot of Observation rolls to acquire targets.

The result was quite a bit of chaos, as the combatants were stumbling into fights.

 

Capture26
Maks and Wojciech each grabbed an M3 “Grease Gun” from a fallen opponent. They were headed NE toward the other stairwell, as that seemed their best option. Both fired at the sub-boss behind them, and his guard.

 

Capture28
No autofire. The party has very little ammo. In the chaos, Maks and Wojciech were calling out positions and info to each other in Polish, knowing it exceedingly unlikely their opposition will understand them.

 

Capture30
The fight took a while, as I had a lot of gunmen (moving in) and bystanders (fleeing) to manage.

 

Capture32
A gunman with a .30-30 lever-action came up between the slot machines and took two shots at Wojciech, got bad rolls, and missed.

 

Capture33
Another with a .38 Special shot at Maks. Fortunately for him, it was medium range for the revolver, and the gunman missed.

 

Capture35
Maks chose to ignore the .38 Special, and killed the man with the .30-30 he heard behind him.

 

Capture36
With Wojciech engaging the combatants behind them, and Linda advancing, Maks took out revolver-man. Thus far, Maks and Wojciech have taken light wounds.

 

Capture37
My first time with a .22 rifle in Twilight 2000! Gunman found that it had great range, but poor stopping power. He hit Linda twice. Even the shot to the head neither KD’d nor Stunned her. Here he’s engaging Wojciech, who got a light wound.

 

Capture38
Situation is going south for Wojciech. A gunman with a .380 pistol got up in his face, and he still had opponents to the party’s rear. Simultaneously at Initiative level 3, they fired. Wojciech went rock-n-roll, spraying fire at his close opponent and hoping to clip the gunmen further out with Danger Zone rules (Twilight 2000 v2.2, page 203)

 

Capture39
Wojciech killed the .380 gunman, missed the guys further out, but not before a .380 bullet hit him in the Head and Stunned him.

Wojciech went down like a folding chair, writhing on the ground.

…continued next session.