3: Manual labor
According to your map, Objective A is just up ahead. You can see a Scrubot Cleaning-Fluid Refilling Station just down the corridor. You can also see piles of dead Troubleshooters—maybe three dozen bodies. Piles of corpses are ringed around a small, pyramid-shaped device.
There are no bots in sight, but you do see some of the Troubleshooters’ weapons amid the bodies. The weapons look big and powerful.
The bodies are so mangled it’s impossible to determine what killed them. Unthinking players are blindly afraid of anything that could have killed so many Troubleshooter teams. Smart
WMD
CLEARANCE ULTRAVIOLET
players realize the weapons are to blame. Smart,
devious players send other PCs into the area to
‘grab some of the leftover equipment’.
The weapons
Triple-barreled ORANGE laser rifl e: A rifl e
that fi res three shots at once. Roll once to hit; a successful hit means the damage is increased by two steps. For example, a margin that would cause a wound instead causes a Down result. Of course, three barrels mean three times the malfunction chance, which is why these weapons are rare. W3K energy; three shots remaining per ORANGE barrel.
Gelthrower: The non-lethal version of the
flamethrower. A thick, viscous goo shoots out from the hose, then quickly hardens and causes a snafu for the next two rounds. The goo degrades in a few minutes, leaving an annoying but harmless sticky residue. No damage unless it seals up the face, which would suffocate the poor sap. A backpack connects to the hose and is half-full; four shots remain.
Gauss rifl e: Sheri-G-VSY knew there were
bots left in MLJ Sector, so she thought this standard weapon would come in handy. It didn’t, but at least it didn’t kill any Troubleshooters. Like all gauss weapons, this only hurts bots, so it goes after the bot allies. W3K energy (only vs. bots); two shots left.
Barbed wire tangler: This is just mean. It’s
a tangler that uses fl exible barbed wire to tie up the target. It causes a snafu for one round like a normal tangler, but also causes W6M impact damage to human targets (no damage to bots). Two shots remain.
Bounce-correction grenades: These
grenades each have a tiny built-in gyroscope. This reduces the grenade’s bounce when thrown and makes it easier to hit a target. A thrown grenade slowly rolls around the bodies and towards the target, then detonates (W3K impact). A failed Violence roll when throwing the grenade means it rolls back unerringly toward the thrower. Place as many grenades as you think the PCs deserve to face.
RED laser pistols: Hey, these are dead
Troubleshooters. There’s gotta be a bunch of these lying around. W3K energy.
If any PC picks up the abandoned weapons, nothing happens. The characters can inspect them all they want, but there’s nothing out of the ordinary. The weapons can even be fi red. But when anyone tries to pick up the small pyramidal device—the Wireless Memory Downgrade, the key to deactivating the rogue CompNode—the weapons attack.
If they’re still on the fl oor, they try to shoot at some random PC’s ankles. (Or pick on players who have been boring. Nobody likes a boring
PARANOIA player.) For combat purposes,
the weapons have the appropriate specialty at 10. For example, the barbed wire tangler has Field Weapons 10. Use malfunctions as you deem necessary.
Any weapon being held by a PC attacks someone else, not the PC holding it. This might look like the PC has turned traitor and is attacking his fellow Troubleshooters. A shame, really.
Unplugging the shoelaces
As long as the PCs haven’t alienated their bot allies, the bots help fi ght against the frankenstein equipment. Some even take a hit to save the Troubleshooters. Again, it’s nice to emphasize the usefulness of the bot allies.When the fi ghting has ended and the clone replacements arrive, it’s time to disable the WMD device. The team leader can now open the instructions, which read as follows:
Document contains many terms and procedures above users’ specified clearance. Inappropriate terms and procedures have been replaced with low-clearance versions that convey same information in context. Users may now complete duties without transgressing security regulations.
1. There should be a small panel on the bottom of the device. Open it using a screwdriver found in any toolkit.
2. You will see a 2cm ALGAE CHIP.
This is the power source for the
LOCKED DOOR. Pull this before
doing anything else!
3. Once the ALGAE CHIP is gone,
look for two FIFTH SHOELACES
about 4cm to the left of the ALGAE
CHIP. Cut the SHOELACE closest
to the ALGAE CHIP.
4. Underneath the S H O E L A C E S
is a small ‘C’-shaped piece of plastic. Pull this out towards you and remove the long, rectangular
I N S T R U C T I O N M A N U A L .
WARNING: Do not under any circumstances D R I N K the
INSTRUCTION MANUAL, or
you will be HEALTHY!
5. Near the long edge of the MANUAL
are ten DOORS. Using needlenose
pliers, move DOOR 1/2 to DOOR 5/6
and DOOR 11/12 to DOOR 15/16.
Reinsert the MANUAL where you
found it. WARNING: Do not reinsert
the MANUAL with excessive force
or you will be VERY HEALTHY!
6. Finally, look for a pair of NINTH
S H O E L A C E S that connect to
FIRST MOUTH just above the
MANUAL. Unplug the SHOELACES.
There should be a FOURTH CRATE
below the MANUAL. Plug them into
the open MOUTH on the FOURTH CRATE.
This should cause the device’s digital output to only emit static and random noise, rendering the device safe.
There is a logic to the ‘code’ used in the instructions. ‘Shoelaces’ are wires because they kind of look the same, and a ‘fi fth shoelace’ is a GREEN wire because GREEN is the fi fth-highest security clearance. Some players might even realize a ‘manual with ten doors’ is a circuit board with ten jumpers, but that’s not important—or particularly helpful.
When you open the panel, you see a copper disc-shaped battery, a silver disc-shaped processing chip, a pair of GREEN wires, a pair of black wires, a pair of white wires and two ‘C’-shaped pieces of plastic connected to removable circuit boards.
Who will try to disable the device?
Foster the illusion the players’ actions matter. You want them to feel like they’re responsible for the horrible actions to come. Speaking of which….
No matter how the players interpret the instructions, they disable the WMD device and stop it from transmitting the virus. However, they also make it emit a signal that’s extremely painful to bots. The signal is weak (the range is only 1.5 meters or so), but bots cannot get closer due to the pain. A bot’s agony continues as long as the bot is in range of the device, but afterward the bot recovers without permanent effect.
Bid goodbye to any remaining alliance between Troubleshooter and bot.
Your bot allies approach to look at this device… and suddenly scream with pain! Anguished mechanical cries fi ll the air as they quickly roll a few meters away. ‘You traitors!’ one bot screams. ‘You used us! All along you just wanted to get to this, this…thing so you could hurt us! How could you? We trusted you!’
All the bots suddenly charge the device, but when they get a meter away, they suddenly stop and fall over. If they were human, you’d think they were having convulsions.
When the PC with the WMD device moves away, the bots slowly right themselves and quickly zoom away. The Troubleshooters are alone.
47
something: bots. Hundreds of scrubots, petbots and jackobots painted black or red. As far as you can tell, they aren’t armed. And they’re not moving. They’re just sitting there.
This is an army of Nodist bots sent by the CompNode to stop the Troubleshooters. No matter what the Troubleshooters do next, they swarm forward and surround the PCs. A few bots get pushed into the WMD device’s range and fall over, but most stay just out of range.
It’s not the bots players should fear; it’s the other players. It should be obvious to even the most combat-ready PC that the only hope of survival lies with the WMD device. The team must huddle close around the device to stay out of reach of the bots’ gripper claws, brushes and manipulators. In this confusion, it could be remarkably easy for a PC to push another PC out of the protective circle to be torn apart by rabid bots.
Roll some dice every now and then and mention how one PC almost tripped. If any player gives you a secret note that he wants to pick a pocket or plant some evidence, let the victim feel a hand on his back. Prey on the PCs’ distrust for each other, but keep emphasizing how they would all be greasy stains on the fl oor if they weren’t staying close to the WMD device.
(Why don’t these bots have laser pistols like the earlier ones? Because a tense scene with PCs fi ghting for the safety of the WMD device seems more fun than a fi refi ght. But it’s your game, so if you want run-’n’-gun, go for it.)
With the WMD device acting as a sort of plow, the PCs can continue their trip down the corridor, albeit much more slowly than before. Eventually the batallion of bots thins out as the PCs reach
a VIOLET door. The door has an antique knob and manual lock, so the Troubleshooters can get through and trap the bots on the other side of the thick, locked door.