Hostage Negotiator: Abductor Pack
Case One: Connor Ogden

“This CEO’s a nasty piece of work, even among CEOs. His decision to invest heavily in goat-powered cars has led to a meeting we’re guessing wasn’t for a raise. He’s gone for the high stakes way of keeping his job; at gunpoint. We’ve got one person on the inside helping us out, but it’s only a matter of time until they’re caught. Now you need to make sure he’s taken out of there, in handcuffs which are a lot less golden than he’d want.”

It’s been a while, which admittedly the statement I make when posting each of these. At this point I might get through them before the campaign mode of Hostage Negotiator comes to Kickstarter, or maybe it’ll be out soon enough and I’ll be slow enough that I’ll just transition from these one offs to a campaign report. We’ll see.

I finished up my reports of Hostage Negotiator: Crime Wave and I’ve been very eager to see what the Abductor Packs offer. I went all in on the Kickstarter, which meant I received all of these packs from the previous campaign and Crime Wave. I also exercised a lot of restraint by not opening them all (okay, I opened the pack which enhanced the existing abductors, just because it meant the core set’s content was increased… I’m only human). I even wrote a little about the joy of opening a booster pack specifically because of this game. It was an article I knew I wanted to do and I had to wait until I had time to get on with the Abductor Packs before I could write it.

Hostage Negotiator had some simple changes to the rules for the abductors there, then Crime Wave shook things up nicely, but these sets look like they must all add something bigger to them. In this case, there’s a hostage who’s helping out. They give me extra actions which might help, but it’s risky them doing so. Connor’s also very angry, so I needed to tread carefully. I also took in a new assistant to help me out with this game, as The Rock had been almost too good in previous situations.

Because I kept each pack sealed, I also stowed enough sleeves for them in the box, ready to go.

Connor Ogden: Attempt One
Connor wanted his termination retracted, which isn’t really all that logical given what he’s doing, but I think we’re at a point where logic’s gone out of the window (along with other CEOs if I’m not careful). He wants a golden parachute (non-literal) and a leer jet to escape on. Yep, not really the most realistic demands, dude.

I started out with some small talk and used the points from that to get a life-saving net in place. He showed a moment of weakness, just happy someone was listening to him after all these years. He released George, who was busy taking the minutes.

I tried to get him to keep cool and tried a little more small talk, spending a reroll to make sure everything was okay. Using all of this I bought ‘I can get one out of here’ from my buddy in the board room. Connor decided he wanted the company’s documents to get publicised. Little did he realise that I was completely fine with that, stupid Connor. I managed to use this temporary bonus to get another couple of hostages out thanks to my contact. It worked, but angered Connor come more. I had to ditch one of the help cards from the hostage and used that to get rid of the card which checked out his demands, then hoped he wouldn’t hurt me.

I bought ‘Little Compromises’ and ‘Extended Conversation’ and actually had a plan. Oh yeah, take that, terror. I had to remove an internal influence card which felt fine until I realised it was actually very good and I should have used it before. Dang. The extended conversation went down really well and the little compromises could have been better, but did alright. He was on ‘S’ level, which means he’s practically chilled out and may start letting folks go if I’m lucky.

Connor tried winning me round to his way of thinking by making me wealthy, but no, he’s not convincing me given today’s behaviour. I’m terrible with money, but even I know that’s a bad investment.

I thought about getting another ‘Keep cool’, but ended up with a ‘worse before it gets better’ card, which would buy me some time. That and a ‘tight spot’. An attempt at getting hostages out only got one until I chanced it with a reroll and miraculously got two out in one go. An injured businessman and a secretary. I ended the turn with 0 conversation points to spend, but I didn’t care. It meant that I was near the end. He sadly also was near the end of his rope, with ‘time’s running out’ meaning that I had to take a bunch of terror cards out of the deck, speeding up the endgame.

This is what it looks like when things go well. It’s a rare sight.

I managed one more hostage escape, put him in a tight spot and used my new helper, The Legacy, to keep him in the green despite these people escaping. It was too useful having him add another die to my pool. Connor decided that was fine, but he wanted food, adding that to the demands. I tried some small talk and got nothing from him. He removed a card from my selection from the game, so I picked the sniper one. If I can go all the way through this campaign without having to kill, that’d be cool. He also stopped another internal informer card. Ugh.

Eventually a lot of small talk, as well as a ‘you talk, I listen’ added a bunch of assistance. I actually promised to give him his sodding parachute in return for the last two hostages. Then my inside contact managed to make themselves known, escorting the exhausted Connor out of the building, where we finally met and I was able to slap the cuffs on him.

This was a very different experience to the last games and I really liked it. We’ll see where it goes from here. I’ll definitely be giving the next pack a go soon. I didn’t get the new card for the pack, where he wants to see the board fly, which was a shame, that sounded like it could be a tricky situation to play off of. Also the last two playthroughs have actually ended well for me. I can’t help but feel the next one’s going to be trickier, just because I’ve evidently used up my luck this time.