New Exclusion Zone Campaign (pic heavy)

[Dan55]

I really like the idea of having a post apocalyptic skirmish campaign where the characters can leave the area, rest up and re-equip, and then go right back in.  I'm using a collection of home made rules and individual ideas to make a free flowing solo game.

Agent, below is a photo of a group currently causing disturbances in the zone.  A short summary of what is known about their members follows.  From left to right they are -



Zola - leader, combat trained, intelligent          Background:  Tech Corp          Motivation:  revenge
Known gear:  Assault Rifle, handgun, laser sight, blade
Zola was head of security at a science & technology firm tasked with recording the artifacts coming from the exclusion zone.  He became fascinated with those artifacts and the people who risked the zone to collect them.  On those occasions when no-one came back from an expedition or they came back hopelessly broken he took it personally and began to believe the zone itself was toying with the lives of all those who enter it.  Eventually he could no longer bear to sit helplessly by, cataloguing the latest loses.  He requested release from his contract, which was granted, and made his plans.  The Zone had made an enemy.

Dalila - zone runner, combat trained, wealthy          Background:  religious cult          Motivation:  wealth
Known gear: Assault Rifle, handgun, dagger
Dalila was an enforcer for a new Zone Cult, one that was growing quickly in size and power.  She grew tired of watching the church's leadership grow fat and rich off the believers while selfishly not passing any of the riches downwards to others.  One day in disgust she looted the daily offerings and walked away.  The church, knowing just how dangerous she was, decided to pretend it didn't happen.  She has retained several connections from when she worked with the church.  The Zone seemed to be a good place to make money.

The Kid - zone runner, technican          Background:  religious cult          Motivation:  adventure
Known gear: Advanced Rifle, handgun, dagger
The Kid was brought up in a pacifist society where doing anything unusual or exciting was forbidden.  When young he got his hands on some adventure novels and kept them secret for all his young life.  When of age he took the first opportunity to escape the cloister and the second thing was to buy guns.  Now where to use them?

King - zone runner          Background:  drifter          Motivation:  adventure
Known gear: Advanced Rifle, handgun, dagger
King was a wanderer most of his life, drifting from town to town.  He heard about the wonders of the exclusion zone and decided he needed to experience the place at least once before he died.  He's been there ever since.

Max - zone runner, tough          Background:  union worker          Motivation:  adventure
Known gear: Shotgun, handgun, fireman's axe
Max was a union agitator at a large, successful mining company.  Since the operation was running smoothly, his services were rarely required.  Not liking the boring 9 to 5 life he'd fallen into, he started looking about for a more adventuresome career.  He heard about the Exclusion Zone and checked to see if anyone was hiring.

Artur - zone runner, fast          Background:  inner city          Motivation:  glory
Known gear:  Sniper Rifle, handgun, blade
Artur lived in the big city most of his life.  Since his early 20s he survived as a bounty hunter while experiencing the dirty underside of the city.  The more he saw the less he liked and eventually decided to escape the city whatever the cost.

Agent, we have recovered what seems to be a diary of their exploits in a recent raid.  The record of their first excursion into the zone will follow.

[Cypher226]

nice little gallery of ne'er-do-wells - looking forward to seeing them in action

[CapnJim]

Nice backstories for your crew.  Waiting to see how they do in The Zone...

[Dan55]

Thanks for looking guys, here's the next post.

New Campaign, Week One

It was several days hard driving before we pulled up near the old abandoned farmhouse we had chosen for our new hidden base and settled in.  Camouflaging the mobile home we were using took a couple of hours but we were satisfied when we were done.  We then checked out the nearby small town and sent word to the new recruits as to were to find us.  As soon as they arrived we would be ready to do a quick and shallow exploratory penetration into the nearby exclusion zone.

Tasks prior to the preliminary excursion
Zola & Dalila - guarding the base
The Kid & King - sent out to explore the surrounding area and begin the basics of a map
Max & Artur - sent into town to do a little trading

The Kid found a hidden arms dealer who might be useful later on if we ever need more weapons.  King located a tech fanatic who spent the afternoon talking his ear off.  Max checked out the general store but was unimpressed with the stock.  He picked up some trade goods just in case we ever find a use for them.  Artur found a broken gunsight for almost nothing that he thinks he can fix.

Since this was the first time into the zone for this crew, we didn't attempt to line up an official sponsor.  This was more of an opportunity for reconnaissance so we left things up in the air.  We wondered if we'd made a mistake the moment the fog rolled in.  We were in for poor visibility for the rest of the day (it limited our weapon's ranges).  The Kid thought this was a perfect intro to the zone.   After an hour of advancing cautiously we came into contact with another stalker group (4 unknown mercs), who thought we were trying to ambush them.  A scuffle ensued, good practice for our new recruits.



We advanced along the left side of a short dirt road which ended near a broken down old shack.  It was then I realized what we had stumbled upon.  Our opponents were defending their own hidden base, and one within the zone itself.  This was going to be a harder fight than I had expected.



It was a good thing that we outnumbered them, because they sure looked tough.  They confidently moved forward.



King and the Kid ran towards the cover in the center of the field.  King let loose with a hurried potshot, but his target didn't even notice.



The Kid raced to catch up when incoming fire erupted all around him and he went down.  King turn in shock just in time to see the Kid jump up again and get into cover.  King burst out laughing - the Kid had tripped and fallen on his face.  The enemy had almost gotten first kill with their first shot but ended up missing.  (we collect special points, something like "fate" points that you can spend to change the results of certain dice rolls.  However we require that the player works the change into the story somehow - not just cancel the roll.)



The enemy opens fire, determined to pin down King and the Kid.



Max sprints forward attempting to get a good angle for a shot with the shotgun.  The plan to flank the enemy seemed to be working.  The small hill is useful in blocking the enemy's line of sight.  Zola & Dalila follow him.  Artur calmly covers them with the sniper rifle and at just the right moment takes his shot.



The enemy ganger goes down.



The rest of the enemy move up.  They continue firing at King and the Kid who are cowering behind the crates.  How did we get into this asks the Kid.  Their sniper shifts position to get a better shot.



Their sniper gets the Kid and he goes down.  King tries to spot who had fired.



King and Max open fire at the enemy fighter in the rocks and he goes down.  But King does not notice that one of the gangers has now advanced into the stack of crates.



Zola & Dalila finally arrive just as the enemy fighter bursts out of cover and attacks King.  It now no longer seems like the flanking move has worked as planned.  Not when the enemy manages to flank you instead.  Surprisingly, King manages to hold his own for a few moments.



But it's not to be, and a crashin' blow from a huge right hand sends King spinning into the dirt.  As the ganger looks up and sees me, Max and Dalila staring at him I could almost hear him thinking "oops".  When the gunsmoke cleared he's down and we could see the last gang member beating a hasty retreat.



We patched up King and the Kid as best we could and prepared to move out.  We took a look at the old shack before we left and quickly realized that it wasn't anyone's base, it was just an old shack.  It had been a co-incidence that we'd bumped into the other gang just outside it.  We picked up some old junk that might be of some value to someone and some old guns that could see use again with some cleaning.  None of our opponents were dead, but we did not loot their guns because it is an unwritten law in the zone - you never leave fellow stalkers defenseless.  In the truck, which had no chance of ever running again, we found some pills and an old attache case.



We got King and the Kid to the small local hospital.  King was fine, nothing a bit of rest and some over the counter extra strength pain relievers wouldn't cure.  The Kid was a bit worse off.  It was only a flesh wound, but he required some patching up and would need a couple of weeks bed rest.  We promised him he could have his pick of the new weapons when he recovered.

[Kourtchatovium104]

Great table and great report 

[clanmac]

Great batrep and some lovely looking terrain.

[CapnJim]

Good first trip in.  Could have been a worse outcome, so your crew is either lucky or skilled. Or both...

[Grumpy Gnome]

Loving it! 👍

[mikedemana]

Fun AAR! It makes you care more about the characters when you've developed a back story for them. Keep the adventures coming!

Mike Demana

[Dan55]

New Campaign, Week Two

Assigned tasks
Zola - investigate rumors
Dalila - get in touch with her contacts in the church hierarchy
The Kid - rest
King - watch the camp and attempt some repairs
Max & Artur - sent into town to do a little trading

We heard rumors that someone was asking questions about the new group in town (us) so I went into town to see if I could track down the source of these rumors.

The documents in the old attache case were a bit of a mystery.  Mostly they were just old printouts of numbers and code words, but on the back of the first page was a penciled note.  ". . . we found it by a couple of old abandoned twin cottages separated by a stone wall.  We tested it with a couple of bolts and it was there alright.  We had no time to check it out right then, but when we have time . . ."  We debated excitedly about this.  If it was what we thought it was, then this was why we came to the zone.  We needed more info of course, we needed to find out more about the cottages in the area.  Artur spoke up.  He knew where there were a bunch of cabins inside the zone.  He had checked an old area map before he came.

We settled the Kid in for an extended rest and assigned King to keep an eye on him while guarding the base.  If he felt like it, he was encouraged to try and fix-up some of the recovered weapons.  He wanted to work on the gunsight Artur had found instead.  Max and Artur went into town again.  Artur checked out a contact we had made at the local pharmacy and found out the pills were just strong stimulants.  His contact also mentioned he'd heard about the Kid and asked if we didn't have any 1st aid kits.  Artur said we did and found out something we didn't have - knowledge on how to use them properly (actually, I'd forgotten the gang had them - they would have been useful during the last battle).  Artur also dumped the junk he'd picked up last week for a few bucks.  Max did some odd jobs for the hospital and picked up some stim packs and medical kits in return.

I decided for our next excursion we needed to get paid,  so I asked Dalila if she'd check with her contacts to see if her old church had any needs from inside the zone.  The tech fanatic that King met last week dropped by and helped fix the gunsight and as a bonus, dusted off the bipod found with the old weapons and showed King how to attach it to Artur's sniper rifle.  He commented on our repair tools, said we have a very good selection.

Now we wait.

[Dan55]

Sorry for the delay, I've converted the campaign over to the "Five Parsecs From Home" rules from Modiphius.  A friend alerted me to these rules and suggested I give them a try.  I looked into them but thought a different set "Five Klicks From the Zone" would work better for what I was doing.  I discovered that these rules all tend to have themes as to how they work, and 5 Klicks had the theme of "defend & improve", while 5 Parsecs was "make lots of money".  I decided the 5 Parsecs theme fit in better for a exclusion zone campaign and went with it.

Obviously, since the background did not include any space travel, the mobile home had to take the place of any space ships, and travel had to be limited to moving from town to town outside the zone.  Otherwise, I tried to convert the rules while staying faithful to their basic intent.

New Campaign, Week two - the photo op

Information came back from Dalila's contacts that the church did indeed have a quick job that needed doing, but needed to have some facts confirmed first.  There was an abandoned inspection building inside the zone that they wanted searched IF it was still intact.  We were to follow a map that would be supplied, photograph the installation, and bring the photos back.  Depending on how it looked a further operation might be authorized.  It wasn't much money, but a job's a job.

We left the Kid in charge of our base, packed up all we thought we'd need for a simple walk in the park, and left at first light.  The trip in was straight forward and unremarkable, except for the fog.  Fog again, but it burned off after a few hours.  Other than that and sighting some wild dogs that kept their distance, there was not much to report.  Photographing the building from its parking lot was quickly finished and we headed back.

On the way back I decided to follow a dried up creek bed since it would be quicker and easier.  In the distance I could see an old abandoned truck sitting in a field, and decided to give it a quick search as we passed it.



I was walking point, and waved the rest of them forward when I spotted the truck.



Just to be safe I ordered Artur into an overwatch position with his sniper rifle.  From there he could watch out for the rest of us as we checked out the truck.  To keep HIM safe I had Dalila join him.



King, Max and I advanced on the truck.  That's when we saw the bugs.



Swarms of them poured out from under the truck.  They must have heard us approaching.  They were huge (for bugs) and were a bright red colour.  We immediately began calling them Firebugs.



They weren't doing much but milling around and they were moving rather slow so I told King to move around them to the right to check out what he could see from there.  I fired a shot into them to see if I could disperse them.



That's when we discovered they could fly.



King and I began firing into the swarms, but it wasn't effective.  Each shot would take out 2 or 3 bugs but there where dozens of them.  Artur opened fire as well but had the same problem.  We were getting scratched and bitten without doing much harm in return.  Then Max opened fire with the shotgun.  That worked just fine.



Taking my cue from Max I switched my assault rifle to full auto and fired an entire clip into the remaining swarm.  An expensive way to kill bugs, but it worked.  King and I then checked out the truck.  We found in the cab a leather case containing what looked like several fake IDs, and in the back a crate filled with canned goods.  We dumped the dented ones and packed away the rest.



By this time Dalila and Artur were coming forward.  Lucky for them Max had moved to meet them because 2 more swarms appeared out of nowhere, probably attracted by the noise.  Max put several shots into one of them, and Dalila dumped another clip full auto into the other.  Do you know how much a full clip of assault rifle ammo costs?  Both swarms disintegrated.



At this point, all bitten and stung, we carefully and quietly walked out of the zone.



We delivered the photos and are now waiting for further word.

[Bullshott]

Nice report. It certainly gives a good feel to what it's like in your zone.

[Redmao]

How did the team react when they realized that the tow truck had a smile?
Great reports, very ambiant.

[dadlamassu]

Enjoyed this.  Especially like the background and terrain you have created.

[Grumpy Gnome]

Loving it! I have considered something similar, repurposing a game setting to a different genre. Looks like it is working well for you.