This will be slightly anachronic - some characters were spun up after
this session nominally started, but I've lumped them into the chargen post.

Standing upon the edge of the in-character line, I'd managed to
successfully engage the players thus far with the background.

Due to chargen, they also had a basic familiarity with MGT2's core
mechanics.  Das Boot even had a writeup, a name (Butcher's Paradise),
quirks, floorplan, J-2 capability, and running costs worked out.

Now it had come time to jump off.  With, or in this case without, Easy Frag.

I had yet to receive Tim's warning about the MGT2 trade gubbins, but
something about it had struck me as problematic.

So I piked, starting instead with a fairly simple out-and-back
whole-boat charter from Terra to Remulak (Sol Rim 1833), carting Smutny
survey crews and their kit out and back - at the moment, Das Boot didn't
yet have a fixed homeport.

We joined our ... um.. heroes^H^H^H^H^H^Hprotagonists on the return
trip, after jumping in from Ys to Procyon.

Much as no GM's plan ever survives contact with the PCs (especially any
played by this mob - there's only one GM we've come across who can keep
up with myself, Eddles and Mr Sweep at full tilt.  She's my sister), PC
plans tend to come off the worse for wear after the GM gets to them.

Out of this mob, myself, Mr Sweep, Wombat, Easy Frag and Eddles are all
veteran GMs, so they've pulled most of the stunts themselves.

Wielding that most basic element in the GM's toolkit, a file, I had
lifted the opening bit, "Hard Landing" out of "The Fall of Tinath"
almost holus-bolus.

Rosa, the official pilot (El Capitane preferred to astrogate, Nikki was
in engineering, The Dock-tah haunted sickbay, Badass-Moustache was on
sensors while Lily looked after the whiny cargo) eased the Paradise into
a nice and easy approach - so I asked Wombat to make Rosa's pilot
(spacecraft) check.  A result of 3 didn't _quite_ make it.

All hell broke loose, as all three active consoles on the bridge
(flight, captain's, sensors) lit up like a string of sequin factories
after Ditzie had gotten to them.

The M-drive kicked offline.

Alarms started blaring.

The ship was out of control.

The players started cracking wise.

"Aw hell, Wombat - first roll of the whole bloody game and you've broken
it." - Mr Sweep

"All the lights flash and the alarms are going off - on this ship, we're
either under attack or the baked potatoes are ready." - dingus

There were other wisecracks, but I wasn't the only one laughing too hard
to remember them.  (Sorry, guys!)

Badass-Moustache couldn't get a decent reading from the sensors thanks
to the Paradise's quirks, Nikki wasn't responding to intercom calls, and
Bert was yelling into the intercom about multiple conduit fires in the
main hold.

As in Hard Landing, I tracked the progress of the onboard fires by how
badly they penalised all rolls onboard - whether direct firefighting,
attempts to reboot the M-drive, co-ordinating the crew's combined
efforts, etc.

I had forgotten how nasty a -3 penalty actually is on 2d6.

This is where the Smutny guys came in handy to a GM - their firefighting
efforts generally netted out (and the failures gave Bert something to do
after the fires were out) but allowed me to tweak the net result if the
PCs really stuff it up. You (obviously) want to let the on-camera PCs
have a fair and even chance to muck it up, but don't want to kill all of
them in the first session.

After the first failed sensor pass, El Capitane told Rosa to scarper and
fight fires.  Either he or Badass-Moustache, in a pinch, were capable of
landing the ship, and Rosa didn't have much to do until the M-drive was
back online.

Badass-Moustache got on the blower and informed local traffic control
that things were a mite sticky.  Luckily, traffic control, recognising
the upper-class English accent and able to see the ship start to tumble,
managed to unpack that to "MAY DAY, MAY DAY, MAY DAY, BUTCHERS PARADISE
DECLARING EMERGENCY".

Bert dragged the smoke-incapacitated Nikki out of engineering and did
some of that doctor stuff.  dingus could only have failed by rolling a
natural 2 (snake eyes superseding the numerical success by 0), so of
course he rolls boxcars.

This was a PC rocking out in his main area of specialty - so I stood
aside and let him rock out.

As Badass-Moustache headed downstairs to help fight fires, I figured now
was a good a time as any to introduce what MGT calls task chains, or
GURPS 4 calls complementary skills.  I restated the MGT version somewhat
- zero effect on the complementary skill (such as Leadership) gives a +0
DM, regular success (failure) gives +1 (-1) DM, and critical success
(failure) gives +2 (-2) DM to the main skill roll.  A 6+ positive effect
(or boxcars) generally counts as a critical success, and likewise, a 6+
negative effect (or snake eyes) generally counts as a critical failure.

Firefighting efforts went back and forth - only notable fail was Rosa
getting incapacitated by smoke and burns, requiring Bert to do some more
of that doctor stuff.

Once El Capitane got on top of co-ordinating things (ie, started
succeeding by at least 1 on his Leadership rolls), the crew did likewise
with the fires, finally putting them out with seven whole minutes until
significant atmosphere.

As the fires tailed off, Badass-Moustache headed into engineering (JOAT
3, remember) and started trying to bring the M-drive back online so the
atmospheric entry can be under some semblance of control - he wasn't a
major fan of having to abandon during said entry.  Yes, he's jumped out
of many perfectly good starships, but that's the rub - _perfectly good_,
according to the Objective Interim Moustache Support System, precludes
out-of-control vessels _by definition_.

Lily was helping Bert look over the Smutny guys - a few had varying
stages of burns, and about half had some level of smoke inhalation. 
Rosa parkour'd back up to the bridge, while El Capitane was
congratulating all hands on their fire response and informing the
passengers that the next few minutes were likely to be rough.

It took Badass-Moustache 2 attempts and six seemingly-eternal minutes to
get the M-drive back online, while El Capitane tried to talk Rosa
through recovering from their tumble and restoring a good atmospheric
insertion.

That didn't go so well - she flubbed her first attempt, while Bert
joined most of the crew on the bridge and, after threatening Rosa (not
sure what the reason was, now) with "GTFO CHAIR OR SEDATION", hoisted
her clear of the pilot seat, jumped in himself, and managed to get the
Paradise lined up so as to minimise the buffeting.

Back in engineering, the M-Drive and Badass-Moustache eyed each other
askance, both quite sure the other should _NOT_ be making the noises
they were currently making.  I think I said something about a "murlock
in a garbage compactor".

Bert managed to get the ship through interface (iirc, Pilot 0 and a +1
dex mod), but El Capitane called Rosa back to do the actual landing -
she was more familiar with the ship's quirks than her old
partner-in-research was.

On approach to Procyon Down was the time that everyone's dice karma
picked to come good.

    Down in engineering, Badass-Moustache had to hand-control power to
the M-Drive to stay on top of potentially-fatal further power spikes;

    El Capitane simultaneously, and at the same time, plotted an
approach vector and kept everyone pulling in the same direction;  (Mr
Sweep's dice karma is usually hilariously manic-depressive)

    hex's long meatspace day caught up with her and she fell asleep;

    dingus carted his missus off to bed;

    Rosa, with sweat drops marching lemming-like off her brow, managed
to fly, with all the help she was getting, an approach that was
practically welded to the published one.

As Rosa lined up over their assigned pad, the M-drive kicked offline
again.  Despite the torrent of sulfurous, multilingual, cursing emerging
from engineering, she had been waiting for it and cut over to contragrav
to gently lower the ship down onto its landing gear as the crash, fire
and rescue boys looked on nervously.

dingus returned.

As soon as the landing gear registered the ship's laden mass resting on
them, Lily opened the main hatch - the residual black smoke escaping
didn't necessarily reassure the CFR boys that all was well.  She wasn't
the only one to jump out and kiss the concrete, either.

The CFR chief, a former bush fireman gone walkabout, welcomed them,
congratulated them on their skill, and asked "Do you blokes usually land
this way, or was this a special occasion for our benefit?"

--