A Grapple A Day... This column, my gentle readers, will introduce you to a prime example of how a fixation with a favourite piece of equipment can showcase extreme Cluelessness, as related by an eye witness. You have been warned. His name was Creeping Death. A cybernetic ninja death machine. Emotionless. Ruthless. Dangerous. And those were his good qualities. Now as it happened, one of the PCs lived in an abandoned high-rise, and liked to drive his motorcycle up the eight flights of stairs up to his apartment (and that's a whole other story in itself). Unable to keep up with the speed at which the other character was traveling up the stairs, and not wanting to look 'un-cool', Creeping Death was hit by a sudden idea... CD: 'I stop running up the stairs, there's no way I can keep up with him' GM: 'Right. So what are you going to do?' CD: 'Well, I reach into my longcoat and pull out my grapple gun' (other players sigh in the background) 'I aim at the roof in the middle of the stairwell and fire' <<< miscellaneous dice rolls >>> GM: 'Okay, you've got the grapple line leading up to the roof. What are you going to do now?' CD: <grins smugly> 'I'm going to hold it tightly and step out into the middle of the stairwell, hitting the self-wind as I do so' GM: <winces, realizing that CD has seen one too many episodes of Batman> 'You realize that you are already three floors up?' CD: 'Yep' GM: 'You step out into the area clutching tightly to the grapplegun, and <more dice rolls> manage to hit the self wind. A dull whine comes from the engine, but you begin to rise slowly up the cable' CD: <obviously pleased with the cool factor of not being the last one to the top of the stairs> 'I sit back and enjoy the ride. At this rate, I'll be up there before him.' GM: 'There's a sudden grinding noise from the grapple gun and then you begin to descent at a very rapid rate. Cable unspools from the back of the winder faster and faster, and before you can act, you hit the ground. <resistance rolls, etc.>. You lie on the broken-tiled floor of the ground level of the building, the self-wind on your grapple gun smokes slightly'. CD: 'Okay, I start running up the stairs. I can still come equal with him - I'm a ninja, doncha know'. After yet another episode in which CD is electrocuted while trying to use his grapple gun to cross a high voltage electric fence, we now join our hero as he attempts a bit of subtlety. Creeping Death's grapple gun came in handy once again when he was called upon to quietly assassinate a Corp. Exec. The corper always worked late on Friday nights, and after finding that his house was virtually unguarded during the night decided that the best place to take him out would be during business hours on a Wednesday (???). His plan, if you could call it that, was to get into the office building next door, use his sniper rifle to shatter a window, use his grapple gun to swing down through said window, blow away the corper, then use his grapple gun to swing to safety. After readying his gear, and spending several hours trying to get past security in the building next door, CD managed to make it to the correct floor. After figuring out how to open the window on the 23rd floor of a skyscraper (namely by shooting it repeatedly with a pistol), CD proceeded to shoot out a likely looking window on his target building and then, after attaching the grapple gun to his belt and firing it at an appropriate spot, jumped out the window. After numerous skill tests, CD managed to swing in through the window (roughly five minutes after he'd begun shooting). He smashed through the remnants of the window (cutting himself badly in the process), and suddenly it occurred to him that the guards might have been alerted, and declared that he was going to, immediately upon landing, open up with his submachine gun. Landing on the shards of glass and rolling over the glass to gain his feet and go for his gun, he heard someone yelling at him to freeze. Ignoring them, CD was promptly shot as he was straightening up by several panicking security guards, whose hail of bullets caused enough knockback to send CD flying back OUT the window. 23 floors up. 'Nuff said. I feel for you, brother. Karen - karenmr@shadowrun.html.com