Welcome back as we continue a SPOILER HEAVY recap of Heart of Glass for Street Wolves. If you missed part 1, check it out here!
By the way these sessions about two and a half hours long, so if you want to get a gauge on session count to hours there you go.
As a reminder, here are the characters:
- Doc a medic
- Crash a con artist (and stunt man)
- Hornet a driver
- Cobra a thief
A Confrontation
Our session opened up with the team still at the Hideaway bar at 10pm the night of their arrival. They decided to head back to their motel rooms to rest for the night. When they got there, they spotted a man slashing the tires of one of the cars in the parking lot.
They intervened, but didn’t physically confront him until he had slashed a second tire. Hornet grabbed the man’s hand while Crash punched him, which took the fight out of him. The man was very drunk and not much of an opponent for the team.
During the commotion a motel door opened, it was Gina the waitress over at Dresdon’s cafe. Gina was pissed. The man is her ex husband Tommy. The team prevented her from attacking Tommy. They stole money out of his wallet to help pay for the tires. When Tommy tried to drunkenly drive away in his truck, Hornet stole his keys.
When they realized the town of Keysville has no cabs of any kind, Hornet and Crash got Tommy to get into their car to drive him home. Meanwhile Cobra and Doc talked to Gina a little bit. Gina asked if Crash was with either of them and they said no, but it doesn’t seem like Crash is interested in a romance at the moment.
A kid on a BMX bicycle dressed like a greaser rolls up at this moment. It’s Matt, Gina and Tommy’s kid. He acted a little bit like a jerk, but not too much.
When Crash and Hornet dropped Tommy off, Crash decided to find some dog poop in Tommy’s yard and put it in his mail box.
After all of that the team went to bed.
Designer’s Note 1: This scene is a pretty important one for our side characters. Gina no longer becomes “just an npc waitress” and introduces her low life husband Tommy who they will likely want to question later. Oh and the players had a hilarious reaction to Tommy’s portrait that’s in the book, “What a weasel dick” was the best reaction.
Designer’s Note 2: I also did not expect the players to drive Tommy home. Usually players let him drunkenly drive away. Or they’ve made him walk home.
Designer’s Note 3: This is the first time I’ve had Matt come in like this. I figured it might be good to have one of the teen greasers be represented somewhat early for when they meet a couple of them later. And if they don’t meet them, then they know Tommy is around if they want to ask a kid about anything related to the school.
Checking Out the Town
The next morning they went to the shut down bowling alley, Keysville Lanes, to scope it out. Since they’d have to sneak in, they decided they’d rather wait until nightfall to check it out under the cover of darkness.
They drove around the town a bit to get a lay of the land and then stopped at the Blue Lantern bar and grill. There was some more talk with locals about the town to get an idea of what they were like and to indulge in fried cheese curds and brandy old fashions.
After that, they headed to the library to do some research. After fumbling some checks, Crash decided to cozy up to the librarian to get some help . After he smooth talked her, she directed them to the info they wanted. They were able to get a big info dump on the background of the town, the Keysville slasher, the trial of the Keysville Three and all that business. It was all official records, but at least now they’re up to speed on major events in the past to really start putting some pieces together. Basically, this town is rotten, there’s powerful people controlling it, and some innocent younger folks were set up to take a fall.
Designer’s Note: The library was a great opportunity to learn back story. At the start of the adventure you can roll to see how much you know about the official story. One previous group basically had a true crime nut that knew just about everything. This group all failed and were pretty much in the dark. I could have had the librarian be a bit more confrontational as they’re a group of weird strangers in town, but with the smooth talking from Crash and not wanting to keep the players from that info I had her be a bit easier on them than I could have handled it otherwise.
The Bowling Alley
Once night fell, the team broke into Keysville Lanes. Cobra snuck into a window and then was joined by Doc while Crash and Hornet waited outside. As the duo explored the bowling alley they found the manager’s office where the manager’s corpse was behind the desk. Thanks to Doc’s medical training she really didn’t need to make any rolls to assess that his throat was violently cut about three to five years ago. They also found his foot had been removed at some point. And the final clue: some peanut butter cup wrappers on the floor.
After investigating that gruesome scene, they found the locker that they had the key for and retrieved the main clues: another tape from Stacey (Tape 3) and her list of suspects.
The PC’s listened to Stacey’s tape and now know about the movie “Satan’s Children” that they worked on back in 81. And how that tape was used to frame them. They also have a list of Stacey’s prime suspects, six people in all, so it’s up to them who and in what order they want to check out. They also clearly know the police are involved, after all there was a guy murdered in the building that they had closed up and Stacey listed the police chief as a suspect.
Things are starting to heat up in Heart of Glass! We end session 2 at 11:00 pm on Friday. We’ll see what they do during the weekend!
Designer’s Note 1: Once again, the players surprised me in that this group was seemingly intent on finding some OTHER bowling alley, even after being told the nearest one besides Keysville Lanes is thirty minutes away in a town that no other leads point to. It seems like in their minds “closed down” meant dead end. I have added the initials on the key “KL” just to reinforce that Keysville Lanes is probably the right one. I suppose you could have them go to that other bowling alley and have someone there point out that it’s a key for the lanes in Keysville, but I have limited table time and I try not to eat up too much of it with stuff like that.
Designer’s Note 2: I was glad that Cobra and Doc were able to explore. They hadn’t had a ton of “screen time” at this point so it was good they had some time to shine. Personally, I love when a group breaks up into smaller units like this. I’m glad to see it happen organically.