Back in October I had my first game of
The Price of Freedom
(TPoF) with my group. Present were Eric, Ryan, Geis and myself. We
decided to use the pre-generated characters and play the adventure as
written (in NYC), putting off the avatar campaign until we are
comfortable with the rules. Actually we ended up playing a number of
Savage Worlds powered games in the months that followed.
Anyway this is what happened back in October 2010:
Characters were chosen as follows:
Eric – Moishe Cohen
Ryan – Billy Bartsow
Geis – Jordan “Jordo” Miller
The initial adventure, “The Path of Freedom,” began with three PCs
meeting in the apartment of Moische Cohen – 72 year-old former Polish
freedom-fighter. They discussed the imminent arrival of the Soviet
occupation forces and quickly decided to get the hell out of the city.
On the way out they heard sobs from the next door apartment. Moishe
expressed sympathy for the widow within – a fine lady who had also
escaped from behind the Iron Curtain – but he did not stop to comfort
her. As they piled into Billy’s pick-up, Moishe asked if they wouldn’t
mind stopping by the 14th Street Armory to see if his friend, Westtree,
was there, and if he would join them. With the agreement of the others
they started south on 7th Avenue, amid the looters in a city in panic.
South of 19th they came across a makeshift roadblock. Four street
gang members had blocked the road with burned out cars and other
debris. The gangers stopped beating the kid they had jumped and pulled
firearms on the truck. From behind, a gang-painted Cadillac blocked the
avenue of retreat and gun muzzles protruded from its windows. Boxed
in, Billy decided to ram the weakest looking part of the barricade,
while Moishe and Jordo fired on the gangers. Between Jordo’s Uzi and
Moishe’s pistol, two gangers were killed and another wounded. The
gangers shot the truck up pretty good – blowing out both tires on the
passenger’s side – before scattering to find less dangerous prey.
Moishe grabbed the gangers victim and pushed him in the truck. Then the
vehicle moved slowly, on bare rims, toward the Armory.
 |
| 14th Street Armory |
Outside of the Armory was a military roadblock, errected by the
loyalist National Guard soldiers. The sergeant (a reversely-racist
Hispanic NCO with stereotypically poor grammar) manning the barricade
refused to recognize Jordo’s credentials or admit him. Miller (as
played by Geis) was much less of an ass than written to be so, when
faced with Sgt. Morales and his insubordination, he called over the next
highest ranking soldier and calmly relieved the sergeant of duty.
Inside the Armory the trio met Colonel Samadi, the unit’s commanding
officer. Rather than lay down arms, the Colonel has decided to shanghai
weapons and light vehicles through the
Port
Authority
Trans-
Hudson
tunnel beneath the Armory out to New Jersey. From there, the men will
disperse throughout rural PA and NY to attack the Soviets,
guerrilla-style. Our trio volunteers to help and is given a pair of
CUCVs to repaint and load with weapons. Stolen civilian plates are
screwed on the bumpers and the vehicles are made ready.
The convoy rolls down a makeshift ramp, through passages dynamited by
the engineers, into the subway and then the PATH tunnel. The trip is
slow and dark as they move under the river and under Jersey City. Then a
collision up front brings the column to a halt. As the passage is
cleared, word comes back that one of the NG saboteur teams failed to
blow the “Communipaw Bridge” (aka Lincoln Highway Bridge), between
Jersey City and Newark. Miller, who has demolitions experience from his
days in Vietam, is tapped to take out the bridge. Doing so will hamper
the movement of Soviet forces and buy time for the NG teams to escape
and disperse.
The trio of men commandeer a vehicle from the front of the column and
load it with the required supplies. They then move out of the tunnel
and through bumper-to-bumper traffic toward the Communipaw Bridge. Once
there they quickly set the charges and take up positions in a factory
warehouse on the Jersey City side of the river. The bridge is jammed
with civilian traffic as panicked people try to escape the city.
Unwilling to harm the civilians the team decides to wait for the arrival
of the first Soviet troops. It is hoped that they will clear the
bridge for their own uses, and once that is done – the destruction of
the bridge will include a squad or two of Soviet forces.
 |
| “Communipaw” aka Lincoln Highway Bridge |
The Soviets arrive in commandeered vehicles and begin sweeping the
bridge. However they begin to examine the bridge before it is
completely free of civilian traffic. In order to divert attention from
demolition charges and expedite the evacuation of the civilians, Barstow
snipes at the Soviet officer on the Newark side of the bridge. He hits
and wounds the man. Most of the Soviets panic and are pinned, while
their comrades search for the source of the fire. In this way Barstow
is able to loose a few more shots before taking any fire. As the Soviet
soldiers move to the edge of the bridge over the outlet, Jordo sprays
them with AR fire, wounding several. Barstow kills another before
taking a wound that could have been very serious (hero point used to
reduce wound to light). As the last of the civilians clear the bridge –
increasingly intense fire hits the factory building. Moishe pushes the
detonator and the bridge and 15 Soviet troops go into the water.
With the objective achieved the trio hightail it back to the Path
tunnel, retrieve their vehicles, snag a few more goodies from a grateful
Colonel, and disperse to continue the fight against the Soviets.
In all a great game. Combat works well, with a believable level of
lethality, and a smooth game mechanic. The only thing we disliked was
the widespread panic of the opposition. Soviets must roll for nerve
every round, which makes them a bunch of pussies. The Soviet Union was a
highly militarized society, with all children receiving weapons
training. While conscription was for two years, it was based on this
preformed military knowledge. Indeed the photos of back-flipping shovel
throwing soldiers doesn’t jibe with the Keystone Cop feeling engendered
by the panic rules. They will have to be adjusted.
In all, we want to play the game as we envisioned it – a
Red Dawn
RPG. The background provided in the game books is patently ridiculous,
and sometimes offensive. Soviet invasion of the US is a pretty far
stretch to begin with, but I believe
Red Dawn‘s chain of events
is eminently more believable – or my own idea of a Soviet move to
decapitate and secure America’s nuclear arsenal before it can be used
against Russia (a preemptive defensive invasion ala Iraq 2003) – or the
setup presented in the
Freedom Fighters
video game (it even allows for cool modern Russian toys!). We intended
to play a few more games with the pregen characters, in order to get
comfortable with the rules before starting an Avatar campaign in one of
those two settings – but real life and other games took over.
