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[Veritas]

The rules of this RTD are a little different to what you may be used to. While most RTDs work off a graduating scale of success, with 1 representing total failure and 6 constituting a success of potentially dangerous magnitude, this one operates on extremes.
At the beginning of each round, you (the players) will collectively control a single character present in a random scenario. You will then be asked to dictate this character's actions, the success of which will be decided by a dice roll. Rolling any number between 2 and 6 guarantees some kind of success, or at least the avoidance of failure - you might just avoid getting killed, or you may win the day then and there. Rolling a 1, however, means immediate and spectacular death, which in turn means transitioning to a new scenario and the beginning of a new round. Feel free to take risks when dictating actions for me to narrate - as long as the dice doesn't come up with a 1, no horrible consequences will ensue. I'll try and include as many player suggestions as possible in every update, but contradictory suggestions will be included or excluded at my discretion.


Scenario I
Pvt. Jack Sandler, 67th Airborne Regiment
Somewhere above Amsterdam, the Netherlands
September, 1944

A thunderous crack jars you from your temporary stupor and you rapidly come to your senses. The sudden sound is joined by similar detonations in short order, and the air around you is soon a cacophony of both tame and ear-splitting explosions. Your seat rocks nauseatingly as your sizeable plane abruptly manoeuvres to one side, then the other in a hasty attempt to avoid getting torn from the clouds by the oncoming flak. A quick peek out of the dirty window between you and one of your squad-mates does nothing to assuage the knot in your stomach as you catch sight of a plane not unlike yours streaking towards the earth in a spectacular blaze. You unconsciously adjust the parachute pack strapped tightly across your torso - it's a small comfort, but comfort is scarce at 2,000ft above occupied Europe.

Your sergeant peers into the plane's cockpit and has a loud conversation with the co-pilot, which you don't catch a word of even though they're both shouting at the tops of their voices. Regardless, you know what's coming next. Ducking back into the cramped crew compartment, the sergeant slaps a nearby cowering private across the helmet and addresses the squad. "Alright, ladies!" he bellows over the crescendo of munitions choking the Dutch skies. "Green light in thirty seconds! You all know where to rendezvous! Kessler, you're up first!" As your superior rattles off the order in which you and your fellows will be making their exit, you note that you're up third - after Cpl. Olson and before Pvt. Diggins. Just as well, you tell yourself - you suspect that Diggins will lose his nerve and hold everyone else up. You're still trying to distract yourself by concentrating on these insignificant details as you unconsciously rise to your feet and grab the hanging handles above you.

The cargo bay door judders open and you're instantly blasted by the biting high-altitude winds, stealing your breath and dragging you out of your thoughts and back into the present. A distinct green light illuminates the helmet of the first jumper. Without hesitation, he throws himself bodily from the craft and immediately disappears from sight. With a barked order from the sergeant, Cpl. Olson stumbles forward and does the same. You can't help but imagine the two of them getting shredded by oncoming shrapnel as you force yourself forward, grasping the very same hand-holds that your two predecessors had tossed themselves from. You hear the order to jump. What do you do?

[NAV]

Jump backwards while saluting.

[Alev]

Jump, pull parachute at appropriate time, check inventory in the meantime.

[Person]

Jump out of the plane, engage parachute when appropriate. Remember where to rendezvous.

[Veritas]

Jump backwards while salluting.

Jump, pull parachute at appropriate time, check inventory in the meantime.

Jump out of the plane, engage parachute when appropriate. Remember where to rendezvous.

Roll = 6

At the last possible second, you twist around, snap a salute off in the sergeant's general direction, then let the wind suck you out of the aircraft backwards. In the split second it takes for you to rocket away from the plane and towards the ground, you sight a look of both confusion and amusement painted across the sergeant's face.

The sixty-second long vertical jaunt from your transport to your destination is both terrifying and oddly tranquil, despite each nearby detonation of flak rounds threatening to tear you limb from limb. As the lower-flying clouds clear away and the poorly-lit ground becomes larger and larger, you pull suddenly on your parachute cord and hope for the best. For a brief eternity, nothing happens. Quite suddenly, however, you feel all of your internal fluids fly upwards as your parachute mercifully unfurls and the laws of physics take their toll. After the red haze clears from your vision, you pat yourself down briefly and try and recall what you brought with you.

Your Thompson SMG and M1911 pistol are both where they should be - strapped hastily to different parts of your body. A quick fumble around one of your cloth pouches reveals that your compass, trench shovel and Zippo lighter are all in their correct places. You don't know why you own a lighter. You don't even smoke.

Once again, before you can ponder this meaningless byte of knowledge, you realise that the ground is far closer than it was a few seconds ago. Bracing your legs, you glide to a hard stop in an unoccupied section of farmland. After a few short and slightly painful seconds of tumbling across wet Dutch soil, you right yourself and whip out your compass. You recall - correctly - that you and your squad are to rendezvous a few clicks northwest in an unoccupied barn. What do you do next?

[Alev]

Rip off a small section of clothing. Pick some grass. Roll grass in cloth. Light the new cigarette. Head towards the farmhouse, stealthily, using the compass for direction. Take your Thompson out.

[TamerVirus]

DIG A TRENCH TO THE BARN

[wer6]

EXIST, AS SPOOKY FLOATING NUCLEAR BOMB

[NAV]

DIG A TRENCH TO THE BARN

+1

Don't damage the uniform. Not even for cigarettes.

[Alev]

DIG A TRENCH TO THE BARN

+1

Don't damage the uniform. Not even for cigarettes.

Is couple kilometers. Eejyut.

[Veritas]

Rip off a small section of clothing. Pick some grass. Roll grass in cloth. Light the new cigarette. Head towards the farmhouse, stealthily, using the compass for direction. Take your Thompson out.

DIG A TRENCH TO THE BARN

Roll = 6

You realise with a start that you simply must put your vestigial lighter to good use - you're a paratrooper, after all, and you're certainly not meant to be carrying dead weight. Tearing off the left cuff of your fatigues, you rip some vegetation from a nearby clump of upturned soil and twist the two components into some facsimile of a cigarette. Feeling proud of your intuition, you light it with the Zippo and try your damned hardest to enjoy smoking literal grass. You're sure this will catch on fifty years from now.

After you cough up a worrying amount of grass smoke, you elect to keep your new cigarette shoved in your mouth as you consult your compass. However, it suddenly occurs to you that if any German snipers are operating nearby, they'll almost certainly have caught sight of the tiny, luminous target sticking out of your lips. Thinking quickly, you whip out your trusty entrencher and dig yourself a hole at a speed that would impress a mole. You know you can't stay in it - you've got people expecting you to be somewhere, of course - but you can't leave without compromising either your cigarette or your head. However, in another stroke of genius, you realise how you can circumvent both of these problems with some good old American elbow grease.

Gritting your teeth, you begin digging your way to the northwest, trying to keep your head low and your grass cigarette secure. You occasionally stop to take another drag of chlorophyll. Each one leaves you feeling fairly vomitous, but you remind yourself that all the cool privates in your division are smokers. You manage about three hundred metres of trenching before exhaustion and fume inhalation get the better of you and you're forced to stop. Letting the long-extinguished butt of your cigarette drop from your lips, you peer out of your trench and are immediately met with a wooden wall. It's just as well you stopped digging - you've arrived at your destination! Pulling out your Thompson, you clamber out of your hole and peer around. The coast looks clear. What next?

EXIST, AS SPOOKY FLOATING NUCLEAR BOMB

For a fleeting moment, you become aware of a vague concept at the back of your mind. Some kind of... extremely powerful explosive, something that could level New York in a single blast. You picture this 'super bomb' floating around the battlefield aimlessly... with a start, you cough up the last of the grass fumes in your lungs and shake yourself back to reality. You're suddenly glad that that damned makeshift stogie is done with.

[SaberToothTiger]

Look for our comrades. Salute.

[Alev]

Make more cigarettes for everyone. Smash a window and jump in, greeting the other soldiers.

Guys, we are in the Netherlands. We have to smoke.

[TamerVirus]

Scream and yell while hitting own helmet with shovel

[Veritas]

Look for our comrades. Salute.

Make more cigarettes for everyone. Smash a window and jump in, greeting the other soldiers.

Scream and yell while hitting own helmet with shovel

Roll = 4

Some curious notion at the back of your mind tells you that all your buddies would appreciate the stuff you just inhaled, especially on-duty in enemy territory. Your fatigues rapidly become short-sleeved as you defoliate the surrounding area, eventually ending up with many multiple cloth-and-grass cigarettes shoved into your various storage pouches at odd angles. Something tells you that the poorly-made lumps of vegetation and cotton won't survive if you make any sudden movements.

A sudden movement is exactly what you proceed to perform as you dart around the corner of the barn, violently probe a paneless window with the butt of your Thompson (you don't quite know what made you think a barn would have glass windows) and vault you way in, landing flawlessly on your feet. Your hand is already making its way to your brow in another flawless salute before your eyes send a few key details to your brain.

The four men stood inside the barn are clad in sharp grey uniforms, much more defined and striking than the baggy fatigues you'd expect to find a fellow paratrooper wearing. Their steel helmets aren't quite the correct shape either, and the firearms clasped in their hands certainly weren't made by Uncle Sam. It takes you only a few moments more to realise that these are German soldiers - enemy soldiers - and you're saluting them. In the split second of confused inaction that follows, you flick out your muddied trench shovel and bellow a fearsome war-cry while whacking yourself over your well-protected cranium. The ringing, thudding and screaming noise that ensues seems to hurt your foes more than it hurts you and buys you a few more precious seconds before the inevitable retaliation. You've only got a few moments to overcome or escape the stunned Germans - what do you do?