Chit Chat with the Chopper

Madeleine and Pepe will explain that the XTF-3 is Black Ops unit and as such the government will flatly deny their existence. Of course, the reality is the government really doesn’t know they exist!

The team will begin with a number of debriefings so that everyone can get to know each other. Pepe will have rented a facility where the team can also get some training done. Remember that the Lt. Colonel is doing this whole thing on the sly so he will avoid getting any high priced/profile items unless the mission demands it. Also the idea is that the XTF-3 is a group of privately funded hero’s working under a government authorization. The very reason these hero’s were chosen was because they were a force on their own.

Chit Chat with the Chopper Donny "The Chopper" Duncan is a rising star in the Hell’s Angels. His combination of ruthlessness, boldness, and business sense has made him an excellent foot soldier. Chopper has been living the high life on fast cash, loose ladies, hard drugs and thrill killing. And he’s just been spotted in Winnipeg!

A CSIS informant had contacted the regional office that morning. Madeleine believes the Chopper may be "properly motivated" to reveal the location of the Biker Boardroom. XTF-3 is sent off to Winnipeg to follow up on contacts and find Chopper and bring him in!

Winnipeg has had the most success fighting the Heroin Wars. A vigilant police force and tough Judges have made the difference in this northern city. With very few seats left at the Biker Boardroom's "Big Table" Chopper wants to do something special to impress the big bosses. After throwing some money around he was able to find out which school bus Judge Harrison's kids were going home on. It was time for the Angels to make their own justice.

An hour to get ready and an hour long flight out of Toronto will get the XTF-3 into Winnipeg. Based on the PCs modus operudi they can gather the following four clues which lead to The Choppers and his gangs location. The type of information the PCs get is heavily based on what kind of investigators they are. Their informants could be anyone from Cockroach the Shoeshine to Equinox Guardian of Tomorrow! Your encourged to come up with four clues that will lead PCs toward their goal.

Gathering information is a time comsuming task. The four rolls should take PCs well into the next day. The level of sucess will determine how soon they find the bikers. Allow four rolls for whatever information gathering and interrogation tools the PCs undertake. Add the amount by which they succeed each roll (good information) and subtract the amount they fail their rolls by (bad information). You can divide the rolls between your players however you wish. If they have a negative score: they see the shooting on the news or hear it on a radio. They better hustle if they want to minimize casualties. A score from One to Nine: the PCs are pretty sure that he’s going to hit a Judge daughter and the time of the hit. Unfortunately three girls on three different buses could be targets! A score of Ten to Fifteen: allows the PCs to know the when and where but only minutes before the bus leaves school. Not enough time to do anything but to go there and try to stop it. A score of Sixteen and above: The PCs know when and where of the hit with enough time to take the girl out of play.

Or just pick which one you like best! Remember, it's Chopper's game, PCs may not want to make a move for fear that he catches on and decides not to show up! Interrogating Chopper is the primary mission.

Part One: Biker Boardroom

Ok. I've been playing around enough. Here's Part One.

PCs have been involved with (fighting or working with) crime across Canada, probably in Vacouver, Toronto, and Montreal.

The Hell's Angels are kick’in ass . Ever since they hooked up with their new contact they have had more Heroin then they know what to do with. The have been opening new chapters and moving west across Canada taking over other gang territories as they go. It's a golden age of Dealing as the Angel's have begun to pull down more cash then they ever have in their history!

The local gangs are outmatched, the police are over worked, and the violence is on the rise. To make matters worse, the JFT-2 (Joint Task Force- 2 Canada’s Special Forces)tried to capture a shipment and shut down the operation but were wiped out. The bikers have been buying high tech weaponry and defense from the black market. The only people who are actually enjoying this war are the Harley Davidson dealers.

With the launch of their Vancouver chapter the Angel’s are represented across the whole Great White North. They plan to celebrate at their main compound outside of Montreal. They are calling it the first annual Biker Boardroom.

Lt. Col. Pepe Girrard is behind a desk. His last assignment didn’t go to well. Under his command 45 of Canada’s toughest and deadliest, the JFT-2, was taken out by an extremely well armed gang of Hell’s Angels. The Army was humiliated. His career was ruined. They took him out of the field and put him in accounting.

Girrard spends his days overlooking balance sheets his evenings catching up with his contacts in the field and his nights with his girlfriend, Madeleine Cruz who works for CSIS (Center for Strategic and International Studies).

During a routine data dump Madeleine discovers the details of Biker Boardroom. She realizes that this maybe the one chance to decapitate the Hell’s Angels organization but hesitates about giving it to her superiors. After the failure of the JFT-2 the Hell’s Angel file was turned over to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. The RCMP are not nearly as well trained when it comes to combat and all indications are that the Angel’s have become even more dangerous since the last encounter. She decides to discuss it with Girrard before turning the data over to her superiors. Maybe he can convince someone to drop a brick ("brick" is a JFT-2 combat unit) on this meeting instead of sending RCMP to the slaughter.

Girrard had a better plan. Project XTF-3: X-factor Task Force-3. Girrard proposed a team of private sector X-factors (CSIS term for societies unknown element) to meet the growing X-Factors that were appearing on the national and international crime scene. Nobody in Ottawa was willing to listen to him but after hearing about the Boardroom he had to do something! That night they came up with a plan.

Madeleine used her knowledge of uncovering money laundering to advise Pepe on how to siphon money from the department of defense. Girrard used her knowledge of security protocols to get access to military equipment but to also keep it "off the books". Project XTF-3 was born. Now all they needed was a team.

Revelation

I always try to tie all the pieces of a puzzle into one coherent story. It tends to get too complicated. But thnking about comic books it made sense, for this game and others, to make a number of short arcs each with its own threat. Alot easier to create, and just make sure one leads to the next.

So the first part will be to get the team together so that they can face an extremely well funded Hell's Angels. At the end of the unit they will learn that the Angels are getting all their money from Afghan Heroin. The next unit will then deal with taking out the supplier.

Watching Alias I came accross a neat idea. Hell's Angels usually have a clubhouse, but with all their resources why not have a gated community?

It's Raining Men!

I've decided to change the name of Mickey's team to "The Rainmen" from the Devil's Brigade. It kicks up Rainville's badassness if he has a team named after him. And as a team I really only invision Micheal on it, the rest will be basic pleebs with low grade abilities. Special forces usually are sneaky and can get into anything, so I'm considering, wall crawling, invisiability, and phase powers for Micheal and his team...

Once around the World

Well, as always, the challenge will be to make personal connections with the PCs so they have a personal interest in the completion of the unit beyond the overall motivations.

A general outline fo the gig is as follows but its sure to change once we know more details of the players.

The world is as dangerous as ever. Kim Il Jong has become more arrogant demanding more suplies from the world in exchange for him laying off his weapon programs. Reluctanly, the world has complied but Kim feels the need to make everyone know he's serious.

General Zmarak is a very fortunate man. He was lucky to get on the right side when the US forces came rolling into Afghanistan. Now that the Taliban has been destroyed nothing stands in the way of his Heroin production. He has enough Heroin to cover the world just not enough people.

Micheal Rainville can't find the edge. He joined JFT-2 to travel to different countries, meet strange new people and kill them. He never thought he would get bored. When he decided to go out on his own he became the most ruthless man in the underworld. Mickey doesn't give a rats ass about consequences and actually is looking forward to the day his massive underworld machinations collapse under its own bloated weight.

The Devil's Brigade is Rainville's criminal strike team. Modeled after the WW2 special forces unit, the Brigade is made up of ex US and Canadian special forces looking to make a big score. The Brigade was small time until they did their last job for North Korea. At the end of that gig, they shot to the top of the Underworld and to the top of Kim Il Jong's most wanted list.

The Neo Cons have taken over the United States of America. 1oo years from now they will call it the Silent Revolution. All real power within the United States was consolidated by a small group that works out of the Pentigon. These Neo Conservatives main purpose is to see that the US remains as the most dominate nation in the World. To this end they have been actively creating chaos around the earth and allowing the US to swoop in and clean things up. Historians will conclude that the first major act of the Neo Cons was on 9/11 that resulted in thier most powerful tool against their own people, the Homeland Security Act.

Strike Force One are the Right Arm of the Neo Cons. Right now they are in Afghanistan securing people and resources for their masters in the US.

And Lastly there is OmniGod. The only place that will fund his rather unorthodox research is North Korea. With the endless flows of their government's Defense funding, OmniGod has found what he's been looking for, but after a breach in security caused by the Devil's Brigade, security around the project has doubled. Making it all the more difficult for Omnigod to steal it.


These are all the major plot points. Next I'll start the Story.

Its Alive. ALIVE!

This is the first time I feel the freedom to create a monster without the need of a logical explanation. In Cyberpunk, well it takes place tomorrow, so there should be some kind of resonable explanation, not anymore. It can be 50 stories tall or the size of a microbe.

I want the Hulk. Who dosen't? This is a superhero game, they are gonna fight the Hulk. I'm gonna make him a hole lot hungrier than the him though. Probably with alot of teeth. Closer to Doomsday.

Science and Politics

For me in crafting this story interesting things in politics and in science will kinda have an equal weight in plot points. Some of the things Im considering as plot points - plot centers - plot very important thingies.....

1) Red Mercury. Apperntly it has some use in making Nuclear Bombs and has some kind of black market value. Gotta look into that.

2) Afghan Heroin. I like the idea that the US opened up the flood gates of Heroin to the world, AND that their allies, the Afghan Warlords, are the suppliers is just perfect.

3) North Korea. He runs the country like its his personal sandbox and no one is allowed to play. And he should know - he was born in HEAVEN. This guy like to extort money by building up his army and threatining the world. What a great villian.

4) The Neo Cons. I've covered this before. These guys will be like the Phantom Menace moving everything from their shadow halls. Maybe their base will even be called the Shadow Halls.

5) The US can do whatever they like in Afghanistan. Who is gonna know? You hardly even hear about it on the news anymore. Hell, when is the last time they killed a village? I don't know. How will XTF-3 deal with thier allies committing war crimes.

6) The Hell's Angels. I don't feel the threat of Canadian Organized Crime. I hardly think its a crime. When in history have people not bought drugs? Well anyway they are bikers, something everyone understands. XTF-3 will kick their ass.

No Mr. Bond. I expect you to die.

So who will be the villains? In a world where our heroes have to keep and make the peace, their enemies will be the trouble makers of the world. Those that subjugate others just so they can feel powerful.

The ones I have in mind are Micheal Rainville who I mentioned before, The Neo-Cons of the United States and their StrikeForce One, General Zmarak an Afghan Drug Warlord, The Montreal Hells Angels, Crazy Kim Il Jong of North Korea, and Omnigod renegade scientific genius.

So with the characters set all I need do is devise a story that ties all these elements together is a exciting and fantastic way.

Who are the XTF-3

The idea for the XTF-3 came after the rather startling discovery that Canada had a kick ass special forces team called the JTF-2. A group of people that travel all over the world to break things and kill people? How un-Candadian. Wait a minute, their predecessor the Canadian Airborne Regiment was disbanded for some nastiness they committed in Somalia. Now its a little more Canadian...

They even had one character, Micheal Rainville, who was a particularly bad apple. He killed one guy in Somalia in a "weapons demonstration", was at least abetting other JFT-2 members as they committed bank robbers, and once bragged to the press that he could kill a man in three seconds. Oh yeah, during an unannounced training exercise he overpowered the guards, tied and beat them, and one guy was sodimized with a baton and then a shotgun. I'm thinking of making this guy the main foil for the team. He has the double bonus of being well trained and bat-shit crazy.

The XTF-3 will be the private sector of the JTF-2. This will be the group of private citizens best equipped to deal with the treats of todays world. Frustration from government bureaucracy will drive someone ( I’m not sure who would be appropriate) to siphon government money to fund his own special forces group. The XTF-3. As a background plot point. I think PCs may be motivated to do well in order to make to make the government see their worth and maybe permanent jobs.

Another challenge is that I think it would be cool if PCs handled the finances to some extent. Renting Hercules Air transport, Paying customs to look the other way, Expensive equipment, that kind of thing.

I’m still wondering if the team should have a public persona and be XTF-3 privately, the whole team has a secret identity.

Why Does Alpha Flight Suck?

More than a critizism but a query into theory. Can't Canada be a setting for high flung far out action? I see it as a paradox. There very existence of shoot outs and explosions mar the social landscape so completley that it cannot be recognized as Canada.

Then I was reading some Queen and Country, and some CIA and CSIS sights on the internet and it got some Ideas spinning. What about the super hero adventures of Peace Keepers and Aid Workers, mixed in with Super Spy stuff. Now we were getting somewhere. The tension of Q&C and MI-5, mixed with the heroism of making the world a better place. Then I would conflict that with the Americans goal of Dominating the World.

Of all people it was Pat Buchanan that inspired me. Even he was disgusted with the war in Iraq ( which shocked the shit outta me). He blamed the whole mess on a group of powerful men in the Pentagon that he referred to as the Neo-Conservatives. A group that see's the world as the ass-cusion of America and are fighting to keep it that way. To hear it from him, this group has taken over the Government.

What a great villian. Then there was that Law and Order where they found Afghan Heroin in New York. Apperently, they are flooding the world with this stuff after the US did the favour of destroying the Talaban, effectivley killing the cops. I could work with that.

Then there was North Korea. What a bunch of Looney Toons. This would be fun.

So I'm also gonna assume that I'm gonna run this game once (If I get to run it at all), so I want to cram as many fun comicbook cliche's in here as possible. Im sure Im going to want a huge Darkseid type guy, I want to throw some cars, I want to wipe out a gang, Over the top super science fiction, real tension, and a huge stakes classic throw down at the end.

On a professional level. This is supposed to be cathardic gaming at its best. Being able to french fry Americans and Terrorists from the comfort of my basement. An easy syste, (Tri-Stat) that seems to support dynamic gaming, and real life assholes to put in the crosshairs.