Edited by Miya Jia
Back in June, Ehime AJET held the third TTRPG event of the year, this time featuring the silly and chaotic one-pager Honey Heist by Grant Howitt. The premise of the game is simple: you and your team must come up with a plan to infiltrate HoneyCon and steal the grand prize of honey which is heavily guarded with security features that may include laser tripwires, security cameras, or even poison gas! Oh, and the biggest catch? You’re a goddamn bear. If you can swipe the loot without unleashing your inner bear or succumbing to the life of crime, then you win!
The GMs (Game Masters) for this event, Andrew and Peng, wrote up their accounts of the mayhem that ensued over the course of four hours. Please take a look!
Andrew’s Summary
Our Heist was placed in Northern China in a city created by a bee worshiping cult who await the return of the one true bee queen. Honey-Con was being put on by an Elon Musk-esk Billionaire who was rumored to be unveiling a new super honey.
Our team was made of two Polar bears who obtained human tech and vehicles from the Russian explores they eat in the frozen north, and two pandas: one the super cute leader of the gang and brains of the operation, and the other the PowerPoint savvy face of the operation.
The gang got into the convention hall with a cleverly made PowerPoint explaining that the bears were actually Dutch tourists which is why they couldn’t speak Chinese. They then explored the convention center, while stealthily sabotaging the event in search for the honey. They finally found a key card that allowed them to access a secret basement that housed a underground lad.
There they found the billionaire and his goons who wielded poison gas guns, that he bears had to subdue. The bears took out the guards and locked the billionaire in a side room. They then cracked the code of a giant vault door and found the coveted super honey but also a giant grotesque mutant queen bee(!) the Billionaire had created to fulfill the bee cult’s prophesy. His plan was to use the super honey to give himself godlike powers and rule the world as the Bee Queen’s drone.
The bears flipped the script by consuming the super honey themselves gaining super powers which they used to break out of the basement with the super honey. They then made their great escape in their old truck they stole from Russian explorers before releasing the giant bee queen to destroy the city to distract the cops and cultists via a remote. They crashed their truck however and had to steal a cop car while the police tried to stop the bee kaiju from destroying the convention center.
They retired in their old Russian spy bunker in the middle of the woods with their new super honey and the cop car, of which they let the sirens run until the car ran out of power because they couldn’t figure out who to turn it off. It was a very fun time and I was very happy with how creative our group was.
Peng’s Summary
A game about being a bear and a criminal, at the same time. Now add a dash of drama into the mix and you’ve got my session of Honey Heist. The heist itself really stood behind the relationship drama that unfolded before us. So, let us introduce our bears. Please note the names are not accurate.
We had Grizz, a hacker grizzly bear. The two sun badger brothers, Honey and Badger, the brain and thief respectively. Sunny, a retired ex-criminal sun bear who made a name for themselves as the face of many heists before. Finally, we had Brown, a brown bear who was late to the heist, but played a role regardless.
We began this tale of heartbreak and rivalry with Grizz, Honey, Badger and Sunny meeting in order to plan a heist on a new brand of Honey, set to be shown at the famous Honey Convention being held at a truck convoy.
Sunny, a criminal of legend, was called out of retirement by their unknown benefactor for one final job. He had written a book about his adventures and now was humbly working at the local Wal-M*rt. Grizz, was a fan of Sunny and studied his work. He was looking to make a name for himself. He had previously been in a relationship with Honey, Sunny’s successor. Both Honey and Badger has been under Sunny’s wing before his retirement, however, Honey was chosen over Badger due to Badger being a bit unhinged. The two brothers never truly got along after that.
This ragtag team managed to sneak into the truck convoy using a Wal-M*rt truck. After some trial and error, the team obtained the honey through an expertly executed trick with smoke bombs and paint bombs. This journey had brought back the spark in Grizz and Honey’s relationship, the two rekindling their lost love. Badger had been able to prove their worth to Sunny, who finally accepted that they may have chosen incorrectly. However, everything came to a debacle when they ran into the rookie criminal Brown. This was their first heist and they would do anything to get that honey.
A short scuffle between Brown and Badger ensued, the two dropping the jar of honey splattering its contents on them. Consequently, they discover this honey was nothing special. It was ordinally Wal-M*rt honey. This had all been a set up by the convention planner to capture Sunny.
Badger snuck away during the commotion, plotting their next move.
Grizz fought off the guards in order to allow Brown and Honey to escape but Honey, overcome with their natural instincts, chose to stay behind and help Grizz, resulting in the death of both of them.
Sunny, using their stellar criminal skills, convinces the guards to turn against the convention planner.
Brown escapes with a truck and discovers that stuck to the honey slathered over their fur, was a new Queen Bee. He decides to leave the life of crime and return to being a honey farmer, just like his father before him.
After several years, Brown has become a successful farmer. The Queen Bee produced quality honey and Brown Farms racked in lots of revenue. On a warm summer day, there was a knock at his door. Sunny was there to claim what was rightfully his, along with his new gang of bears. However, it wasn’t just him who sought the Queen Bee. Badger had formed their own army through these years and had arrived to finally take down Sunny and claim their prize.
Of course, this is but a summary of the chaos that ensued. There were many tears and blood that was shed through this journey. Honey Heist is a great fun game that allows for lots of creative freedom! It being a simple to understand system as well as an easy one-shot to run, I highly recommend anyone pick it up and try.
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