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• Combat
• Gameplay
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Something in the water does not compute

Why so many hostile encounters in Radium City? Some time after the seal-off, PanoptiCorp added a chemical to the water supply in order to test out a range of new combat drugs for its ‘Mad Dog’ super-soldier programme, though it was described in press releases as a mood suppressor designed to weed out only a small number of antisocial troublemakers. The programme was ended 3 hours after activation, as the PanoptiCorp R&D board switched the funding to a new hunter-killer drone that could detect weddings from beyond the horizon. The effect on the population of Radium City, however, remains. Around 50% are affected by occasional (sometimes once in a lifetime) murderous rages, while a beleaguered 1% are permanently enraged.

City Streets

Radium City is divided into numerous walled-off districts. Each has a Security Level, starting at 1 for the basic, most derelict areas where the mass population lives and going up to 4, according to publicly available data. When the Stay Frosty rules refer to ‘level’, e.g. as a multiplier for Tension Explodes results, use the level of the district you are in.Typically, you need a blue keycard to get into a level 2 district, green for level 3, and red for level 4. Gates to leave Radium City, if any exist, are most assuredly Security Level 5 or higher, requiring a golden keycard.Each district contains 9, 16 or 25 sectors, square blocks of buildings with major highways running between them and secondary roads within.
Every sector has at least one of the following:
- Bar
- All-nite diner
- Convenience store
- Video rental
- Coffin hotelAnd one of the following (roll 1d6)
1. Gun shop (personal & vehicle ranged weapons)
2. Auto repair (Speed, Handling, Toughness, HP upgrades)
3. Emergency ward (urgent medical care)
4. Car dealership (new vehicles)
5. Custom garage (Style upgrades)
6. Failed hub (Roll 1d10 or choose: 1. STEM 2. Startups 3. TCM 4. Elective surgery 5. Legal arbitration 6. Innovation as a general concept 7. Telecommunications 8. Non-challenging art 9. Banking 10. Property speculation)(Don’t map these out in advance, just roll when someone goes looking for a new car or whatever.)

Tickets to Freedom

It’s technically possible for drivers to grind their way to the keycards they need to get out, but that’s a long way off. If you’re the GM, you need to provide shortcuts in the form of special missions from shadowy figures who, every now and then on a Clue/Item Danger Die result, offer keycards for the whole syndicate as a reward.The nature of those missions - especially the nature of the ones that the drivers accept - determines the nature of your GRIDLOCK game.
They might be covert deliveries for the Resistance, convoy robberies for the Ruritanian Mafia, detective work to get dirt on a sleazy PanoptiCorp exec’s rival, or maybe some nonsense involving wizards.“They hit this morning. Four black Cyvics. Shipping container from Japan. DVDs. Playstations. Notebook computers. Insured for a million seven."In a one-shot, run one or two normal fares, then give each player a level one mission from a different faction and let the syndicate choose which one they want to try, if any.In a multi-session game, introduce one mysterious stranger with a lucrative mission either at the very end of session 1 as a cliffhanger, or around the midpoint so that the group has time to complete the mission.

....
PanoptiCorp Exec missionsSports!
Job: Pick up PanoptiCorp junior exec Alfred Hailstrom nearby in your taxi and kidnap him: deliver him to a warehouse 6 sectors away so that your employer can exact revenge for Hailstrom thoughtlessly spilling Amarula Cream on his autographed Huey Lewis cassette.
Contact person: Andrew Bateson
Payout: $2000 and some light condescension
Hostiles: as generated by Danger Die, plus 3 C.O.P.S. squad cars if Hailstrom manages to alert someone to his kidnapping.Rock Paper Scissors Shoe
[unlocks with Blue Keycard]
Job: Deliver the new shipment of Panopti ALIEN 2 limited edition sneakers to four stores, each five sectors away in a different direction, as quickly as possible, to undercut the launch of a slightly different limited edition sneaker from a slightly different branch of PanoptiCorp that’s happening today. One crate of shoes to each store.
Contact person: Linda Panopti (she changed her name to the company’s in exchange for an internship)
Payout: $2000 per crate of shoes delivered
Hostiles: as generated by Danger DieDistraction Engine [unlocks with Green Keycard]
Job: Steal a COPS squad car and make the law chase you for long enough for Linda to sneak into the security facility and get up to something or other that she refuses to disclose.
Contact person: Linda Panopti
Payout: $20,000
Hostiles: as generated by Danger Die, plus 1d2-1 COPS squad cars every round
Linda’s progress: start with a d6 supply die. Roll it at the end of each round. When the die disappears (rolls 1 or 2 on 1d4), the PCs can now escape from the COPS without forfeiting their fee.Destroy the Prototypes [unlocks with Red Keycard]
Job: Destroy or steal four vehicles being used to test an experimental mind-control device developed by a rival PanoptiCorp department (Health & Lifestyle).
Contact person: Andrew Bateson
Payout: $40,000
Hostiles: as Danger Die, plus the targets: a Goblin, a street racer, a COPS squad car, a battle bus.Resistance missions
Spirit of Radio
Job: Rewire the PanoptiCorp radio mast two sectors over so that it broadcasts Resistance Radio. Your contact, Michelle, will pay you when you get back.
Contact person: Michelle
Payout: $2000, when you return having completed the mission.
Hostiles: one C.O.P.S. squad car near the mast; three of them as soon as you finish rewiring.
Radio mast rewiring mechanics: make a Handling save; roll the Danger Die alongside each attempt.Counterstrike
[unlocks with Blue Keycard]
Job: Destroy one C.O.P.S. squad car per PC, livestreaming the destruction as it happens.
Contact person: Michelle
Payout: $3000, when you return having completed the mission.Assassin Intercept
[unlocks with Green Keycard]
Job: Drive a squad of two Resistance fighters per PC to a location 10 blocks away to capture or kill an assassin hired by PanoptiCorp to take out the Resistance leader, El Jefe. [On arrival, the fighters run into a crumbling apartment block. Roll 1d6 - a 6 means the Resistance fighters capture or kill the Assassin. Otherwise, the Assassin makes a break for it in a cool car, and the result of 1 to 5 shows how many of the fighters died in the attempt. Each player must describe a feature that makes the Assassin's car look way cool.]
Contact person: Michelle
Payout: $4000, when one or more of the Resistance fighters return having completed the mission.
Hostiles: The Assassin (4HD, A4, Turret assault rifle 2d6/Concealed spikes 1d8.)Ruritanian Mafia missions
Freeway Hijack
Job: There’s a truck coming down Elevated Freeway 6 in a few hours carrying a cargo of valuable electronics - 20 crates of TVs with built-in VHS players. Your contact, Rupert, will give you blue keycards so you can get onto the freeway (security level 2). Try not to wreck the truck, because you can only carry one crate in each of your taxis. Maybe there’s a non-destructive way to get the crates off?
Payout: $100 per crate recovered, plus you can keep the blue keycards.
Truck stats: 4HD, A2, Combat spikes 1d8/Rearward defence guns 2d10 (short, attacks tailing vehicles only). Speed +1, Handling +3, Toughness -2.
Jumping onto a moving truck mechanics: get to Contact range, roll Style.[Ruritanian Mafia missions to be continued....]

Failed hubs

In the two decades before it was finally sealed off, Radium City’s developed a kind of obsession with making the city a ‘regional hub’ for all kinds of things: lightbulb manufacturing, tourism, currency speculation, extreme sports. You name it, Radium City set aside a zone for it and poured money into real-estate developments dedicated to it at inflated prices, to funnel money into the developers’ pockets. The legacy of this mania is a range of derelict hub projects, some with a few vestigial enterprises clinging on in the decaying husks of office buildings and industrial parks.This is where you can use existing hexcrawls, dungeons, etc. Simply increase the dimensions where needed so that the corridors are big enough for two vehicles to pass, and convert gp to Radium City dollars in the treasure. As for the monsters: you know how in Romeo + Juliet, Benvolio says ‘Put up your Swords’ and then there’s a close up of someone’s gun and it says ‘Sword 9mm’? Do that. The Bugbears and the Orcs are now street gangs, or perhaps those are the names of the gangs’ motorbikes. Your call. A dragon is some crazy flamethrower-equipped Fury Road-style battle truck. You get the idea.Use HD and attack damage directly. Light armour becomes A1, heavy armour A2. Fast things Speed -2/-5, big things Toughness -2/-5, agile things Handling -2/-5. And the opposite for slow, weak or ungainly things.Suggested failed hubs: Zenopus Dessert Wine Transhipment Port Zone (Holmes D&D sample dungeon); Sleepy Bear Culture and Arts Park (Slumbering Ursine Dunes); Podmax Puppet Innovation Hub (Through Ultan's Door)

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