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The second session was set on the events of the 3rd of January, 2009 in Gaza. The ground offensive was just about to begin and the group with the player characters was transported towards the outskirts of the city of Bayt Lahiya in the North West corner of Gaza. Earlier that evening the group had attended a briefing in which they were given their orders: They were to advance towards a police station in Bayt Lahiya, take a position near it and secure a their own sector near the station. Meanwhile the IAF would bomb the police station. The group's mission was to make sure that the Hamas warriors wouldn't escape before or after the bombing. After the briefing IDF commander Ashkenazi addressed the troops chosen to lead the ground assault. In had planned to describe this speech as a flashback scene, but this was left to be used in the next session.
The Set-Up
At the start of the second session a discussion on the Gaza situation rose before we started playing. That day's newspaper had had an article on the destruction in Gaza and the experiences ofpeople living there during the conflict. We spoke briefly about the article and other subjects that came up. One of those topics were the tactics Hamas used. Matti brought up the argument that the tactics Hamas used which hid them in the midst of the civilians really prevented any attack towards them to being safe for civilians. Laku commented that this was only natural as they had a superior enemy in the Israeli army. Afterwards I wondered if they were many Gazans that were against Hamas's policies and what they had thought about this. We also talked briefly about the Israeli colonists and about their relationships with Palestinians, the Israeli army and the Israeli government. Then we sidetracked a bit and started playing.
As a reminder, here's a short description of the group led by Sgt. Baruch that we are following in our game:
Group 2 of the Eureka squad
- Sgt. Baruch ("Kischke") - indifferent, cynic, deviant intellectual from a wealthy family (played by Matti)
- Corporal Spielberg - authority respecting religious pacifist (played by Simo)
- Private (machine gunner) Lewandowski ("501") - a believer in the conflict, a slacker and a video game addict (played by Laku)
- Private Raanan (machine gun loader) - frightful but eager soldier
- Private Hershel (radio operator) - M.Sc., geek, avoids social conflicts
- Private Schmidt - indifferent slacker
- Private Humboldt - your garden variety nationalist
- Private Epstein - approves of hard disciplineand demands others get it too (justice too)
The squad leader ltn. Ben-Reuven has been left in the background but he's certainly not a hands-on leader.
Before jumping to the first scene we recounted the events between the
end of last session and the start of this one. I told about the Hamas
Qassam rocket strikes to the Israeli cities, of which the closest major
one is Ashkelon.Asked all the players to either 1) come up with a
relative or other person they have a close relationship with that lives
in the areas attacked by rockets or 2) describe a soldier in some other
group they have become friends with. As a result of this Laku decided
that Private Lewandowski's whole family lived in Ashkelon, Spielberg
also had an aunt there and sergeant Baruch, being from Tel Aviv and not
having family in the countryside had befriended a sergeant from another
group in the same squad during their officer training.
I asked players to come up with those connections because I wanted
to tie their characters more closely to the conflict. I told Laku and
Simo that to their characters' knowledge their loved ones were still
okay, but they could get a bit anxious waiting for and receiving
updates from their families.I did not need to milk these connections
any more in this session as the tension remained tight throughout
anyway.
The First Scene: A Gun man in the Window?
Sergeant Baruch's group exited the transport truck and started
heading towards the center of bayt Lahiya. The outskirts were silent.
Bomb explosions could be heard from the South and the East. In the
general radio channel of the Israeli army played a continuous loop of
threats and insults spoken with broken Hebrew, recorded and transmitted
endlessly by Hamas.
The group, made suspicious by the silence, decided to advance
through backyards and alleys instead of the main roads. When the group
had advanced a couple of hundred meters, private Epstein noticed
movement in a house window. He notified Cpl. Spielberg, who gave the
order to fire on sight. Epstein's shot broke the window but it seemed
he had missed. He told the group he saw a gun-man in the window.
The sarge ordered the first team to secure the house. The machine
gun gave cover and the sarge with private Hershel rounded over to cover
the other side. With the Cpl.'s order Epstein threw a tear grenade
inside the house. In game terms we decided that this was a conflict
where Cpl Spielberg was using his tactical and leadership skills to
force those inside the house outside. Simo won with three successes, so
I decided that two people fled the house straight into Sergeant Baruch
and Hershel.
Sarge and Hershel opened fire immeadiately. We decided that Simo's
three successes carried over to this conflict and with them, Matti won
clearly with 4 successes, so both of the escapees were dead. Two swift
shots hit them and they fell into the ground. They turned out to be
civilians, a man and a woman. The sergeant ordered Cpl. Spielberg to
make sure they were dead. Simo hesitated for a while, and was about to
decide that Spielberg would shoot in the air when we noticed that
Spielberg was in a position where Baruch would clearly see what he was
and wasn't doing, so fooling him would have needed a success in a
conflict. For an alternative option I suggested that Spielberg could do
as asked and take a point of Guilt trauma for his troubles. That's what
Simo decided to do.
Private Humboldt found two children inside the house and dragged them
out. Epstein commented loudly that the gun-man must've escaped.
Lieutenant Ben-Reuven informed the sergeant that the house would be
bombed as a precaution (the report of a gun-man led IDF to believe the
house could be a weapons cache) and ordered him to lead his troop to a
safe distance. Some of the soldiers (PCs) discussed if the children
would face a destiny of terrorism and joked about doing the dirty work
now, when it was still easy.
Spielberg however noticed that the children weren't leaving their
dead parents behind. He grabbed the older child and ordered Humboldt to
take the other with him. Sgt. Baruch objected but after Spielberg
retorted that they weren't here to kill children but terrorists he
concurred.
This scene was a direct result of the active discussion amongst players
on how the outskirts seemed to hold some trap for them. They
practically decided with their talk and actions that there was a deadly
trap ahead. Instead of giving them that I decided to offer a red
herring. Although the setup was unjust (I decided that Epstein really
thought he saw a gun-man and was wrong), the scene delivered on its
promise and provided just the kind of action the players wanted. This
is of course only my interpretation as we didn't discuss this
particular scene afterwards.
Sidetracked
The second scene started with new orders for the group for the
lieutenant: They were to raid a Hamas weapons cache that had just been
located in a building near them. Being closest to the building Baruch's
group was to do the job. Ltn. Ben-Reuven warned the sergeant that the
house was probably trapped with explosives and snipers could be
guarding the building from nearby houses.
When the group approached their target they noticed a few
complications: 1) the gps location pointing to the weapons cache
pointed to a complex of four houses, any of which could have been the
one with the weapons. 2) If the weapons cache would be trapped, they
couldn't enter through a door or a window but would have to blow an
opening to one of the walls. 3) Getting to the houses unseen would be a
major problem if there would be snipers about.
The players decided to solve the last problem first. They planned
directions of approach and points where they would be able to survey
the location from every angle. After that they planned to shell the
supposed weapons cache houses with tear gas grenades and enter with a
two-man team with the help of explosives.
Cpl. Spielberg and the machine gun team were primarily responsible for
checking out the perimeter so Iwe made two conflicts about which party
would gain an advantage over the terrain. Simo succeeded on his roll so
I narrated Spielberg seeing a glimpse of a Hamas gun-man in a nearby
window. Laku's opposition got two successes over him, so I decided that
one of the snipers shot at Lewandowski, who panicked (2 points of
Stress for him).
Spielberg ran toward the window where he had seen the sniper and
threw a grenade at it. In game terms this was a conflict of Destruction
domain. The opposition won with one success causing one point drop in
Spielberg's health. We decided that the grenade would hit the window
(and maybe the gun-man had already left the room) but Spielberg had
advanced to the line of fire of the other sniper, who wounded him on
the thigh (just a scratch though).
Sergeant Baruch and private Humboldt entered the nearest house. The
downstairs seemed empty, but they heard noises from upstairs (Search
conflict for Baruch, one success).
At the same time Lewandowski tried to improve his position and locate
one of the snipers by firing suppressive fire with the machine gun.
Laku lost the conflict once again, this time with one success. The
consequence would have been a scratch to Lewandowski (one point of
health).
At this point I revised the rules for using trauma points in conflict.
The explanation sinked and the players now got exactly what the rules
for using trauma points were for. Laku immediately used a Guilt point
which caused the bullet to hit Raanan instead of Lewandowski. The wound
was pretty bad (NPCs have two health levels in SS). Lewandowski
informed the rest of the group and started bandaging Raanan's wound.
Nearby Cpl. Spielberghad to double back as the other sniper opened fire
again.
Baruch peppered the upstairs room with mace before rushing in. In
game terms he used Desctruction domain to disable the sniper inside the
room. He got one success so the sniper was stunned by the mace. After
that Matti used a Violence point to try to finish of the sniper. He got
enough successes. rushed into the room and emptied his pistol clip on
the sniper.
Next, Simo decided to use a Violence point to kill the other sniper.
Simo got two successes meaning he got his man. On the game fiction
level we decided that meant that Spielberg ordered Hershel to throw a
smoke grenade to provide him cover so he could throw a grenade at him.
The grenade was timed perfectly and exploded just when it went inside
the window.
After that the group secured the surroundings and found out that there
were no more Hamas fighters about. Then one sniper's cell phone and a
phone in the other building started to ring at the same time. The
soldiers feared the worst; probably this was a warning by the IAF aimed
at the Gazan civilians tha the area was about to be bombed. This was
confirmed by Ltn. Ben-Reuven after he'd contacted the IAF. Apparently
there was some kind of mix-up and IDF hadn't been notified before, but
IAF had been planning to air bomb the weapons cache all along. The
group had to flee once more from under the bombing.
Conclusion
I think that the second combat scene went really well. The players
became aware of the trauma point system and saw that the point of the
mechanism was to tempt the players to increase traumas on their
characters, thus enabling interesting and dramatic character
development.The two snipers provided ample challenge, too. I didn't
fully heed Kobayashi's suggestion to always give 5 dice to opponents.
Instead I gave them 4, which seemed like an appropriate amount of
challenge at this point. For a tighter spot, 5 dice or more enemies
could be the right amount, too.
After the second scene we
decided to call it a night because it seemed like a good point. I had
one more scene prepared, but in hindsight it was a good idea to leave
it at that. Now it is possible to have a more quiet scene at the start
to pace the action a little bit.
Being a GM didn't feel like as much of a challenge as the first
session was. The system was more familiar to me as were the characters
and I had planned a more solid structure (and had ample material to
throw at players what ever they decided was interesting). On the other
hand I feel like the structure could have been even more solid as we
had two action-packed scenes with little or no time to breathe. I could
improve on that later on.
Other thing was that I kind of
aborted the weapons cache plot line in the middle because it seemed to
take too much time for a side track. Other option would have been to
not have the building bombed but to play the weapons cache raid all the
way. Still, I'm pretty pleased the way it went because I got to
incorporate all the color about the warnings IAF uses before the
bombings.
After the session we noted how different the characters seemed
compared to the first session. This was due to this session being about
the real serious business of war whereas the first one had been kind of
an easy ride. This gave a very moody, realistic light to all the
events. I can warmly recommend a structure that introduces the
characters in a more peaceful situation before throwing them to the
tension and horrors of war for anyone that will play Shell Shock in the
future.
The system also showed it's best; the trauma point mechanics
seemed to support the game's basic premise in an excellent way. We'll
see if anyone will use the Fear trauma in the next session.
Credits: Photos by cromacam and Zoriah, both licensed under Creative Commons and used under the right of non-commercial reuse with attribution. Links to the photos' Flickr pages and to the photographers' info can be accessed through links on the photos.
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