Actual Play of Action Movie World, There Will Be Bullets – Part 2 of 2

(In the first half of the report, we leave off just as the bullets start flying.)

Sami, undercover as Noor, realizes he’s got to fire his machine-gun some to make it look good, so he aims a little high and lets the lead fly. The hovercraft column fans out into the oasis and start mowing down the boats of the idle rich.

Being hugely outgunned sends the heroes into frantic action.

Ali runs around looking for more firepower. A guy brings a case but it’s just full of, you know, 9mm pistols. Ali shrieks, “That’s it? That’s all you’ve got?”

Back on his hovercraft, Sami does a lot of property damage, but manages not to kill anyone. Not so, of course, with the rest of the hovercraft. There’s blood in the water.

Danny and DeMont notice Malcolm and Lisa escape into a panic room, just as they see a hovercraft making for a series of staircases at the back of the mansion. Apparently, the driver of the hovercraft plans to bring the monstrosity right inside! Danny sprints at the lead hovercraft to close the distance, while DeMont runs upstairs looking for a bigger gun.

DeMont kicks open a set of double doors to find none other than Sheik Fisal hunkered down behind his desk. He shouts, “I don’t know what they paid you to kill me, but I’ll double it.” DeMont says he’s just looking for a gun, but would be happy with some cash, too. Fisal hits a secret switch, and the wall opens up to reveal the typical action movie wall o’ guns. Grabbing an egregiously large sniper rifle, he heads for the roof.

He gets there just in time to see Danny Wong leap into the air, bounce off the skirt of the hovercraft, and execute a perfect front-flip onto the deck. (As with seemingly every Stunt Move Danny tried for the entire session, Brian rolled a 10+.) DeMont starts lining up the shot with the rifle and realizes he knows the gunner. “Sami? What the F@#K?” he exclaims.

However, the camera stays mostly focused on Danny as he kicks all kind of ass. Mooks emerge from the guts of the hovercraft and he takes them out with ease. Danny hurls Sami off the hovercraft, not realizing he’s a possible ally. Eventually the only person left to take on is Zhaglool, who’s still at the helm. Rather than waste his energy. Danny aims the pintle-mounted MG at the pilot’s cabin, and turns Zhaglool into a meatmist-colored memory.

Sami, who’d gotten trapped between a marble column and the skirt of the hovercraft (a rock and a soft place?), slumps to the ground relieved as the vehicle powers down. By this point, our heroes have all made it to the vicinity of the hovercraft, but there’s no rest for the weary!

Their attention is grabbed by the screams of Malcolm back inside the house. A squad of drug dealers is dragging Malcolm towards the front of the compound, and Lisa seems to be trotting along with them. (Apparently she was all too happy to sell out her despicable brother.) The assembled heroes give chase.

The bad guys get to their hovercrafts first, but the heroes discover they have their choice of crazy-awesome valet-parked rides to go after them with. DeMont points to the brand new Tesla and everyone nods. The gang, now assembled in the Tesla, gives chase. They’re going after a two hovercraft column. (With Malcolm and Lisa in the lead hovercraft.) En masse they blaze away at the rear hovercraft. They lads in the hovercraft aren’t idiots, once they realize there’s armed pursuit, they turn off into the desert.

Ali, driving the Tesla, does his best to keep up. He pulls off some very slick maneuvers that allow Danny to get on to the back of the nearest hovercraft. Danny manages to take it out (with some grenades down the hatch if I remember correctly), but the hovercraft with Malcolm and Lisa zooms off into the desert.

With the Tesla completely trashed, the gang is at a loss about what to do next. Someone has the bright idea to look in the trunk, and what helpful item do they find…? Why, it’s super-producer Ryan Kavanaugh! He’s extremely pumped with having been on the awesome thrill ride. He offers to call his helicopter on his sat-phone. The gang is happy to get some transpo, whatever the source, and Ryan discusses their plans with great interest.

A matchbook found in one of the bad guy’s pockets turns out to be for an aquarium located in the Petronis Towers in Kuala Lumpur. Ryan asks to look at the matchbook. He tells the gang that the aquarium turns into a kind of speak easy after hours where “awesome parties” happen. He’s eager to join them on their “awesome adventure” but the gang decides they should leave him behind.

My recollections about the events at Club Aquarium have become a bit hazy except for a few incidents. I’ll do my best to capture the essence of it…

They make it to the club and discover that Jafara is holding court while his thugs party. Lisa appears to have become a sort of consort to Zhaglool. The crew approaches him in the guise of a group of mercenaries. They’ve “heard he’s down a few men.” I loved that touch. Kill a bunch of a dude’s henchmen, and then offer to replace them.

Things start to get interesting. Lisa, who’s seen Ali Hazard before, notices him. She whispers something into Jafara’s ear. Now, at this point, I was going to have Lisa (who I’ve decided is a bit of a sadist) call for Ali to fight one of his friends to the death to prove his loyalty to his new employer. She, of course, suspects that these guys are all friends.

But Greg, playing Ali, jumps to the conclusion that she’s just outing them as agents. So he says… “I guess Lisa just told you that we work for Interpol…” Zhaglool looks shocked. And then of course the shit hits the fan. After that it’s bullets, broken glass, and bloody murder for the next five minutes. Lisa and Malcolm get mowed down in the crossfire. Sami gets blown out of a window and falls to his death, despite a diving attempt by Danny to grab him.

In a completely separate window incident there’s very nearly a total party kill as everybody ends up holding onto everybody else for dear life. But in the end Zhaglool gets his. The surviving characters ride off into a consequence free future.

In AMW you get XP from succeeding, and I couldn’t believe the giant stacks of experience everyone, particularly Danny and Ali had earned. Brian and Greg both ended up with something like 15 XP each, but then, they were just rolling their asses off the whole game.

It was a really great session. Everyone was entertained and there was a lot of a sequel talk in the air. It’ll be a busy summer, but who knows?