Wandering Encounters (GUMSHOE)

Sourced from Ginni Di

One thing Dungeons and Dragons does well is filling in downtime and travel time, often with wandering encounters. 

Your group penetrates the dim, lightless reaches of the haunted forest on their way to [insert dungeon here] and, quite by chance, discovers [roll dice] a dozen zombies. These zombies are former villagers from [insert village here] and if proof of their deaths is returned to that place, the heroes will be rewarded with [reward]. 

Or, your group penetrates the dim, lightless reaches of the haunted forest on their way to [insert dungeon here] and, quite by chance, discovers [roll dice] a dolmen, under which rests the remains of sacrificial victims. It’s not immediately clear who sacrificed them or to what end (religion rolls may be helpful here) but among the belongings is a magical sword ... possibly cursed ...

It’s rare that Cthulhu or its iterations has random encounters. Partly this is because the whole random encounter system depends on what can only be described as Ye Ancient Ways. Gygax did it therefore we do it. The only reason Ye Ancient Ways survive is because Dungeons and Dragons survives; had it dropped off the twig, as might have occurred at several points in its career, wandering monsters would vanish like a magician’s assistant in a colorful, coffin-shaped box.

I can’t think of many other systems that use random tables, and this is because the ones that do are about as old as Dungeons and Dragons or are stealing their design philosophy directly from that system.  Cyberpunk, for instance, has random tables, but then Mike Pondsmith is as old as dirt. (Sorry, Mike, but you know it’s true.) 

I wouldn’t be at all surprised if, in some of the earliest iterations of the game, Call of Cthulhu had them too, since CoC (and BRP for that matter) are also old as dirt. It doesn’t have them now.

Partly this lack of random tables is because random encounters assume travel from A to B and Cthulhu and its variants really don’t do travel. At all. 

There are whole scenarios based around travel. Pelgrane has its Mythos Expeditions and CoC has Fearful Expeditions, but those stories aren’t about travel, really. They’re about what might happen to the group if they decide to catch a Tabor aircraft to Constantinople. The encounters aren’t random. They’re preplanned. 

Similarly with long campaigns about going from A to B, like Horror on the Orient Express or Masks of Nyarlathotep. There are travel segments, and things might happen. However, almost none of the encounters are random. There are no dice rolls to see if there are orcs, or the equivalent, round the next bend. It’s all Keeper’s Choice. 

In most cases, in Cthulhu and horror games generally, the action is broken up, not by journeys, but by scenes. The players want to go to the British Library. Boom. Next scene, at the Library. Have the players finished at the Library? Boom, next scene, at the pub. There’s no question of travel from [wherever] to [wherever next]. If there is any hint of travel, say, from the town to the haunted house, then it takes less than a day. It isn’t a ten-day hike across wooded terrain, in which anything might happen.

That said, going back into the misty recesses of time, space and RPG history, there was a game that used random encounters which also divided action up by scenes.

The James Bond RPG (Victory Games) had two encounter tables, one Hot, one Cold. Director’s choice as to which was used at any given time, point being one was for an active encounter area and the other for a more peaceful zone.

Roll a d6 and then a d6. Did you roll 2 and 2? Is this a Hot zone? Then the agent found a dead body. Is it a Cold zone? Then the agent finds James Bond his own self. On vacation, presumably. A brief description came with each. The dead body might have a clue on it to the villain’s location. James Bond might be willing to help for a scene. 

What I like about that idea isn’t so much the table itself. It’s the dividing up of possibilities. Hot, or Cold?

Dracula Dossier does something similar. Whether it’s Whitby or Varna or some forgotten castle in the piney woods, the location can be Cool or Warm. A former bastion of wickedness long gone to seed, or a germinating pustule about to burst. This duality fits horror nicely. Maybe the investigators are somewhere relatively safe, where they might get information. Maybe they’re somewhere dangerous, where they might get killed – or get someone else killed. 

Let’s take this a step further. I’m going to presume Gumshoe rules, and for purposes of this example it doesn’t matter whether the game’s Trail, Bookhounds, Tombhounds or something else. Let’s keep this as generic as possible and assume it’s a Horror Game of Some Description.

Let’s further assume two possibilities: Hot, or Cold. Dangerous, or (relatively) safe.

Starting with:

Cold

1. Helpful civilian, who works with an agency or entity that the protagonists want to get closer to. It might be the police, or the local museum, or the state intelligence agency, or something else. Point spends turn this civilian into a Network Contact.

2. Lucky break. The protagonists get a bit of luck, for once, and can either refresh 1 point in an Investigative pool of their choice, or 2 points Stability. Perhaps they find a helpful source of information, or perhaps they just have a quiet, Stability-refreshing moment in a safe location.

3. Minor Threat. This threat (it might be a small cult, or a supernatural threat) has been left over from a time when this area was more important than it was. Though its information is outdated, if defeated the threat does have information on nearby threats that can be traced to more important assets.

4. Minor Location. This was once of importance and now very much is not. However, a thorough search may uncover an item which can be recovered and used against the enemy.

5. Minor Brush with the local law. This may mean a temporary halt to investigations while the protagonists untangle their messy legal situation.

6. A chance meeting with a hunter, or an agent from a supernatural-curious agency. The agency can be anything from a state actor to an academic or religious institution. This agent is willing to exchange ideas and information, if the protagonist offers to do the agent a small favour ...

Hot

1. Unhelpful civilian. This person works with an agency or entity that the protagonists are trying to get close to and is blocking their efforts. Is this because they're being bribed by the enemy? Or are their motives purely personal?

2. Bad Omen. The protagonists encounter a particularly significant supernatural event, a 2-point Stability check. Clearly they're getting close to their prey, but at what cost?

3. A brush with a cult or cult-equivalent. The protagonists discover unmistakable evidence that a cult is operating in their current location. This seems too easy; is it a trap?

4. A significant location. It might be a pawnshop or antique dealer selling items that look remarkably like supernatural items, or it might be a church or similar with a very significant history. Either way, there could be all sorts of things down in the basement ...

5. Significant brush with the state intelligence agency. This agency is keeping a close watch on the protagonists, perhaps because of things they got up to in the past or because they look remarkably like terrorists/bad actors. Either way, until they shake this tail any significant or violent action taken by the protagonists provokes a response. Possibly an armed response, depending on how badly the protagonists have behaved before. Were they careless with matches?

6. A chance meeting with a significant supernatural threat. This entity isn't looking for a fight but will oblige if provoked. However, this entity also isn't on good terms with the major threat of the scenario/campaign and can, if appropriately rewarded, dish all kinds of dirt on the real enemy. 

That's it for this week!

Yes, I know there still seems to be problems with Many Mansions. Honestly, that Beta program is far more trouble than it's worth. I'm trying to fix. Watch this space! 

Turn of a Friendly Card II - The Confrontation

 

Cards from Labyrinthos Golden Thread Tarot

Last time I talked about the Setup, in which the Solo player first encountered the threat, acquired the McGuffin and (hopefully) progressed onward. By now the agent should be well on their way out of town, or at the very least approaching the exit point. 

So what makes a good Confrontation?

Well, we have one pointer: III of Pentacles. From last time:

III of Pentacles: lack of teamwork, disorganized, group conflict, when inverted. From Labyrinthos: it shows that people are working against each other and undermining the project along the way. There seems to be too much competition between them - each person is trying to display superiority. This results in scarcity of resources - too many people are viewing their project partners as competitors.

The great thing about Solo Ops, and one-on-one sessions in general, is that they share a central tenet of Film Noir: the situation is always bigger than the protagonists. No matter how skilled, worldly-wise or tough the protagonist is, there's always more dangerous threats out there. So the protagonist has to commit themselves to a course of action: no sitting on the fence when the fence is being shot out from under you.  

It's all very existentialist; there's no higher power, no greater meaning. Just you, a cold, dark alleyway, and what looks like certain death at the other end of that alleyway. Which fits in very nicely with the spy genre, particularly that kind of passionless double-cross style of spy story beloved of Le Carre and authors like him. 

Three Days of the Condor, Sydney Pollack, Eureka

What this means in-game is that while there may be several actors none of them can be trusted. Just because the agent works for the CIA it doesn't mean the CIA has the agent's best interests at heart. This is a setting in which a shadowy enemy might wipe out a station full of people to cover up one secret. Or to gain one bit of information. 

So, in-setting, the Conspiracy definitely wants the McGuffin and so does, say, Edom, or China's Room 452. It doesn't follow that Edom can be trusted to bring the agent to safety, any more than Room 452, or the CIA, or even the Conspiracy. In fact there are circumstances in which the Conspiracy might be more trustworthy than Edom, if the Conspiracy thinks it can deny Edom the McGuffin by saving the agent's life. 

However as the III of Pentacles points out there's a lot of competition and all those powerful forces rubbing up against each other is bound to cause problems. This is the kind of situation in which ordinary people get killed just because they happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Mechanically, this is the point at which the difficulty curve goes up. In the Setup you can afford a few easy victories; they help the player feel empowered and move the plot along. From this point forward, it's all Medium difficulty at best, and often Hard. Advances should be difficult to get, and most results should be Hold. The player should feel the need to spend some of those Edges.

Moreover there ought to be at least one double-cross, but it doesn't necessarily have to happen to the agent. There's a lot of pull in having an agent's contact on the receiving end, and the agent finds the bloody remains all over the carpet - or however it plays out.

Or, suppose that same contact walks into the Conspiracy and becomes one of ... them. Or perhaps was one of them all along. 

The chief thing to bear in mind is this: by the end of the Confrontation the agent should be:

1. Battered, and perhaps holding one or more Injury, Shadow or Heat cards;
2. Potentially the not-so-proud owner of a fatal Problem that must be solved for the agent to survive the Resolution;
3. In possession of all the knowledge they need to get to and even survive the Resolution;
4. Not necessarily in possession of all the resources they need to survive the Resolution, but at least now they know where to get those resources.

Whatever else might happen, the purpose of the Resolution is not to gain information. Information might be revealed, as happens in Twist endings, but that reveal isn't necessary to Resolve the narrative, It's there to change the impact of the ending. 

The Confrontation exists to fill in the last pieces of the puzzle and to smack the protagonist across the chops at least once if not several times. The Resolution exists to give the protagonist one last hurdle before they crawl, near-eviscerated, across the finish line. 

By the end of the Confrontation the agent may or may not have the McGuffin. In fact it's often better if they don't have it, because then the motivation becomes 'recover the McGuffin before whoever has it does something hideous.' The Bond thrillers are often good at this. Scaramanga, say, gets hold of the solex agitator and plugs it into his personal Golden Gun. Nobody really cares what happens to the solex agitator after that, just so long as Scaramanga doesn't get it.

Mind you, watching that again makes me wonder if the planet wouldn't have been better off if James Bond had been shot to death by Scaramanga. At least then we would have had workable solar power in the 1970s, which would have considerably blunted global warming. As it is, the Brits seem to have thrown the agitator in the bin after Bond recovered it. Or perhaps Harold Wilson stepped on it by accident and was too embarrassed to admit it.  

So by the end of the Confrontation the agent should know where, geographically, to go next, who has the McGuffin if it isn't the agent, and what they intend to do with it. Which is bad things. It's always bad things.

Maybe Edom intends to assassinate key figures in the European parliament to advance the UK's agenda. Maybe China's Room 452 wants to rejuvenate the Chinese economy through blood magic that will, among other things, liquidate Hong Kong. The Conspiracy almost certainly wants something much worse, and for all their plans to work they need that McGuffin at this Location probably at a specific Time, since it's much more dramatic and thematic to have the final act kick off on some kind of blood solstice than, say, just another Tuesday. Or to shoot De Gaulle on Liberation Day, or whatever the goal may be. 

Now we move into the Resolution.

Campaign Design: The Tree (Night's Black Agents)

There are some guiding principles to any campaign design, and this week I want to start applying them to Night's Black Agents. Before I do, let's go over some of the basics:

Power, and goals. The antagonists need both to be effective. 

Overall mood. Any scenario, any event needs to be true to the mood of the campaign as a whole.

Initial Arc and Conspyramid. The first story you tell and the Conspyramid's initial Nodes should reflect the power and goals of the antagonists as well as the overall mood of the game as a whole.

I'm going to add one more bit of guidance to those three principles:

A CORE CONCEPT tree bears CORE CONCEPT fruit.

Yes, I know that sounds gnomic. Consider: Nights Black Agents can be played in several different ways. Mutant, Supernatural, Alien, Damned are the main headers, with subheadings Dust, Burn, Mirror and Stakes. These combine in several different ways: Mutant Dust, Damned Stakes, Supernatural Mirror and so on. 

Night's Black Agents explicitly tells the Director this at the start, but most RPGs of whatever stripe - Cyberpunk RED, say - can be run in much the same way. Cyberpunk isn't as explicit in its genre tropes; Mike Pondsmith doesn't make a distinction between, say, Dust and Stakes. However for you, the Director, it makes sense to identify specific tropes of the genre early on and stamp them onto your campaign. 

Exactly what those tropes are is up to you. For reasons that ought to be obvious you should stick to four core ideas and decide which of them best suits the game you want to run. More than four gets difficult to organize. 

Using Cyberpunk as an example, let's say that of the core concepts we could potentially be going with we end up using Crapsack World. Thus: A Crapsack World tree bears Crapsack World fruit.

This means everything important that happens in the game world, whether it happens to the characters or not, is fruit of the Crapsack World. It is part of that world; it reflects its core principles. It is always Crapsack. 

Black Lagoon, for instance, is very much this. The whole concept of Roanapur is Crapsack central. This is where the characters live, and perhaps die. Even the nuns have guns and deal drugs. Everyone's an enemy. That noose hanging above the only bridge leading to Roanapur is your only warning.

 

Similarly, a Damned tree bears Damned fruit, a Supernatural Tree bears Supernatural fruit, and so on. If you add a qualifier, say Dust, then a Damned Dust tree bears Damned Dust fruit, and so on. The Damned Dust world is always Damned Dust. Everything that happens within that world reflects that core concept. 

Overall mood is a large part of this. Every event in the game has to be true to the overall mood. A swords and sorcery game, like Swords of the Serpentine, has to have a swords and sorcery vibe. You don't play swords and sorcery the same way you do cyberpunk. 

However the key point I'm drilling down to is this: the tree goes beyond mood, because it describes not just the present but also the future. Ideally, this is the future the heroes are trying to prevent. They are subverting the core concept and trying to replace it with something else - anything else, really. That's their struggle. They're trying to prevent that tree from bearing fruit.

Say this was a James Bond film. Bond represents a certain point of view, a set of tropes that almost by definition are opposed to the core concept. The Core Concept, as represented by Blofeld, Goldfinger, or whoever it may be, is usually chaos of some description, the precise nature of which changes from film to film. Bond is trying to subvert that Core Concept and replace it with his own. If this were a cyberpunk film with a Crapsack World core concept then the main characters would be trying to subvert that Crapsack World and replace it with something of their own. 

Let's start applying the guidance and see what happens next.

A CORE CONCEPT tree bears CORE CONCEPT fruit. This is a Night's Black Agents game, so the core concepts are helpfully defined for us. Let's go with Damned Stakes, thus: A Damned Stakes tree bears Damned Stakes fruit.

From the main book:

Damned: Their markers are holy symbols and symbolism; their emphasis is seduction. Starting in the 17th century, most literary and legendary vampires are damned.

Stakes: Although more common in earlier spy fiction than now, some spy stories play for higher stakes. The characters derive their actions from a higher purpose than mere survival or “get the job done” ethics: patriotism, the search for knowledge, protection of the innocent, or even justified revenge. This is the world of James Bond and Jack Ryan, of Tim Powers’ novel Declare, of films like Taken, of TV shows like Burn Notice.

The antagonists' power and goals must reflect the core concept, as must the overall mood, as must the initial arc and Conspyramid. All of these things must be Damned Stakes. Power and goal = Damned Stakes, mood = Damned Stakes, and so on. Moreover all these things are trending towards an ultimate endgame which itself is, you guessed it, Damned Stakes. Your agents are playing with the fate of nations (stakes) and if they fail then everyone's damned. 

So we're creating antagonists whose power and goals reflect this, creating a mood that reinforces this, designing a conspyramid intended to create this, and writing an initial arc in which the heroes are brought face-to-face with damnation and made very aware of the stakes.

Next week: the fruit, and thus the antagonists and first campaign arc.

Royal Flush (Night's Black Agents)

Ian Fleming's Casino Royale is his first Bond novel, and sets the scene for everything else. In it, neophyte 00 Bond has to beat the treasurer of a French union at cards. The union boss, Le Chiffre, is thought to be connected to Soviet intelligence, and the idea is to flip Le Chiffre by bankrupting him, then offer to bail him out of his financial troubles. In exchange, Le Chiffre betrays his Soviet masters. The 2006 movie changes this up a bit by making it terrorists, not Soviets, but otherwise the plot remains broadly the same.

This can be adapted to Night's Black Agents, and to do this I'm going to draw on a recent article about princelings. Deutsche Bank had to pay out $16 million in fines, thanks in part to its habit of hiring functionally useless, politically connected princelings from China and Russia. It doesn't matter that these little darlings are "a liability to the reputation of the program, if not the firm." Daddy says, so kiddie gets.

Now imagine what might happen if kiddie works for a Node. Probably a Level 3 at the least; you don't send princelings off to work for a downtown sleazepit. Naturally nobody's going to put this walking disaster in charge of anything important. They get a nice office, a secretary, a high-flying title, and are firewalled out of anything truly important. Except, darn the luck, being both nosy and bored is a bad combination, and the princeling gets hold of … the McGuffin. In this instance the McGuffin is probably data, which means it can be stuffed in the cloud or on a data stick.

The bored princeling then decides to take a vacation, and jets off to, say, Macau, for a nice, relaxing time at the tables.

The agents get wind of this, through unusual channels. Tradecraft or Traffic Analysis notices a sudden uptick in activity from the affected Node, as the powers that be realize what's happened. In a supernatural or similar game, Occult Studies indicate very dark portents gathering around Macau. High Society knows the princeling works for the Node, and also knows where the princeling is now - social media's a very useful tool. Negotiation hears whispers on the grapevine about the McGuffin, and how someone (naming no names) wants to use it to raise capital fast, to cover their debts at the table.

Opening Scene - Bad Feng Shui

The princeling is staying at a high end suite at the Venetian, and if the agents want to get close to the princeling they'll need to find a way in. A high-roller Cover or some form of disguise is needed. Disguising as casino employees may not be an option, unless the agents can convincingly pose as Chinese, or possibly a high-end prostitute. The Venetian doesn't employ that many Western staff, and those who are there all know each other reasonably well, by sight at least. That means disguising as Western staff increases Difficulty for tests by 1.

Failure in this instance doesn't mean the agents are kicked out of the Venetian. It means the agents attract the attention of the Triads, and gain 1 Heat. The Heat gain represents interest from Chinese military intelligence, not the police. The Macau police have very little interest in interfering with anything that happens at the Venetian. They know what's good for them. Agents prepared to spend at least 2 Streetwise can claim prior friendship with the Sun Yee On, which smooths the path, and the Director has the option of granting a Network contact.

The scene opens on the Cotai Water Jet from Hong Kong. The journey is smooth and luxurious. Passengers chatter among themselves, and oo and ahh at the traditional Chinese junks that the TurboJet speeds past - uncomfortably close, enough to set the junks bobbing in the backwash. Streetwise or Tradecraft (0 point) picks out a few obvious bad characters - Triads, grifters, probable low-level Chinese Military Intelligence assets. None of them have Conspiracy links, so far as the agents are aware. Think Casablanca, without the air of desperation.

1 point spend High Society recognizes the mark, or 1 point Streetwise realizes there is a mark but not who he is. The princeling may not realize the danger, but daddy does, and he sent a high-powered Hong Kong lawyer, Grenville Egan, an Australian who's lived and practiced in Hong Kong for more than 40 years. Egan's a criminal defense lawyer, semi retired, brought back into service in a last-ditch attempt to save the princeling's life. Egan doesn't know anything about the Conspiracy or the McGuffin; he knows the McGuffin exists, and it's his job to use it to bargain for the princeling's life. However the Conspiracy isn't having that, so a Hong Kong Node hired (X=N, where N is the number of agents) Triad to whisk Egan off to a quiet hotel room, far from the Venetian, where he'll be kept incommunicado until this mess is done. One Triad has a taser, the others knives. They intend to ambush Egan as he gets off the TurboJet, and hustle him into a waiting limo.

The agents don't have to intervene, but if they do then they get Egan's support for the rest of the scenario.

Treat Egan as a civilian with 3 points Law, 3 points Bureaucracy, 2 points Negotiation. The Triads are thugs, one has a taser, and one is a gym rat with 8 Weapons (cleaver). Overt violence here buys the agents 1 extra Heat; China doesn't like brawls on the doorstep of the Venetian, particularly brawls involving Westerners and high-flying Hong Kong lawyers.

The Rules of the Game

Macau casinos are relatively relaxed. You still have to dress like you belong in the High Roller lounges, but everywhere else is more accepting of casual attire and smoking. The Hong Kong dollar is the only currency accepted on the gaming floor. Drunkenness is frowned on.

Anyone with Streetwise realizes several of the security detail are Triads, as are some of the pit bosses.

The Venetian offers a wide variety of games of chance, from Caribbean stud to fan tan, but the princeling only plays at the high roller baccarat tables.

The princeling has courtiers. A local Triad boss, who operates one of Macau's many tourist concessions, realizes how connected the princeling is, and has made it his business to make sure the princeling isn't bothered by petty nuisances like, say, the agents. At any one time the princeling has at least two Triad bodyguards and seductive/handsome arm candy (civilian, but with 8 Athletics and 10 Hand-to-Hand). The bodyguards stay outside the princeling's door whenever the princeling retires to the luxury suite. Nothing but the best for daddy's little angel.

The Triad boss is from a different group than the ones which ambush Egan. The two groups have no formal contact, so the Triads the Conspiracy hired have no easy way to get this Macau group to lay off.

Ways to Get Close

Use Egan as an intermediary.

Gamble head-to-head with the princeling until the princeling is broke, at which point the princeling will agree to anything.

Persuade the Triad boss whose bodyguards are keeping the princeling safe that the princeling isn't worth protecting. This will require a Streetwise or Network spend.

Cunning plans, eg. slip something into the princeling's drink to make the princeling appear drunk. Rich or not, the casino bosses won't tolerate drunks on the casino floor.

Rope in a powerful third party. This can include supernatural entities; after all, someone's in charge of Macau, and it might not be the Conspiracy.

Where's the McGuffin?

Possible locations include:

In the safe inside the luxury suite.

Hidden in the luxury suite.

On the princeling's person.

Downloaded onto the hotel complimentary smartphone. No, the princeling really isn't bright at all.

Stolen by the seductive/handsome arm candy.

Held by the Triad boss for safekeeping; he doesn't know what it is.

The princeling knows the McGuffin is important, but doesn't know how important. So the princeling will take a little effort to hide it, but isn't clever or determined enough to really take trouble to hide it.

What will the OPFOR Do?

The Conspiracy is mad as hell, and there's no way the princeling's getting out of this alive (unless the agents protect the princeling, that is). However the McGuffin complicates matters. The Conspiracy doesn't want that McGuffin to slip though its cold, dead fingers, so, like the agents, the Conspiracy needs to secure the McGuffin before it can deal with the princeling.

Also, the Conspiracy would rather not cause a major incident in a world-famous tourist destination.

If the Conspiracy has access to abilities like mental attacks or mesmerizing, its first target is the arm candy. The Conspiracy then gets the arm candy to lure the princeling somewhere useful - a late night gondola ride, say, that ends with an unfortunate drowning. Shapeshifting into the eye candy, blood magic to make the princeling sick enough to call the hotel's doctor (calling Doctor Killpatient …) - whatever works. The Conspiracy can afford to be subtle, but it can't hang around in Macau forever, so its primary goal will be to get the McGuffin quickly, kill the princeling, and then get out.

Conspiracy assets on the ground include at least one supernatural assassin of vampire quality or similar, and (X=N) Triad thugs from Hong Kong, one of whom is an expert (6 pool) at Infiltration.  He'll need to be, since the princeling is just vampire-aware enough to put blocks on his hotel door and windows; no turning into mist and sneaking under the door.

If the Conspiracy has no strong Nodes in Hong Kong, the supernatural assassin may be hired help rather than someone directly connected to the Conspiracy. This means the assassin will be more concerned about their own skin than about completion of the mission, so Intimidation or Negotiation has at least a slim chance of success.

The OPFOR knows it must get the McGuffin at all costs, and is willing to let the agents, and even the princeling, live, if it means the McGuffin returns to the Conspiracy.

That's it for this week! Sorry about the missed post last week; I didn't get internet back till Weds, and by that point it seemed sensible to let it slide rather than post late.

Enjoy!

Neuf a la Banque - Gambling (Night's Black Agents)

Gambling (General Ability): You are conversant with the rules and etiquette of  all forms of gambling … but can you have fun doing it?

Doctor No's opening scene is the first time James Bond appears on the big screen. He'd been the hero of several novels before the movie's debut in 1962, as well as a television series. This was Connery's first shot at the role, and he made it iconic.

Most Night's Black Agents players take Gambling for the cherry, Luck of the Devil. It's certainly useful - exchange any die roll, yours or your enemies, for one you like better. However it'd be a lot more fun if gambling were more central to the plot. Or even the focus of a Thrilling contest; after all, most of the plot of Casino Royale is about an extended gambling contest. Where Bond goes, let your agents follow.

But where does Bond go, exactly?

In the novels gambling has two main uses. Bond uses his talents to expose cheats, like Goldfinger and Sir Hugo Drax at the start of Moonraker. In each case Bond is brought in by a third party to expose the cheater. In Moonraker M brings Bond to his club, Blades, to confront Drax quietly and discreetly. M knows Sir Hugo is cheating and can't understand his motives, but appreciates that someone as important to Britain's nuclear missile program as Sir Hugo can't be exposed to scandal. In Goldfinger, while on a stopover in Miami Bond is asked by a passing acquaintance - someone Bond met during Casino Royale, but only briefly - to help expose Auric Goldfinger's cheating methods. Bond agrees, and only later discovers that Goldfinger is also a gold smuggler HM Government's got its eyes on.

In each case the scene has several elements:

First, it happens right at the beginning of the novel. This allows Bond to meet the antagonist of the novel early, form an opinion of him, get a good look at his methods and his tricks. Any character flaws or incipient megalomania is on display early on. Moreover there's no chance of bringing the whole thing to a premature conclusion with a bullet. A casino or member's club is basically neutral territory and even if Bond were so inclined violence is not an option.

It's also very cinematic. Serious gamblers bent over an immaculate table, either wagering or watching someone else wager. The theatre of the casino, of each bid, raise and re-raise. The exotic unfamiliarity of things like the shoe - that leathery bag used when the cards are dealt. Baccarat's simple enough that after seeing a hand or two you get the gist - two cards dealt, high card wins, face cards don't matter. Which is why her eight falls to Bond's nine even though both had face cards in their deal. So you don't have to spend five minutes before the scene explaining how baccarat works, even though it's more complex than I described - you can just deal cards. Blackjack has the same appeal; if you can count to 21, you know how to play blackjack. Poker's become so ubiquitous most people can follow along, though the intricacies of play are daunting for new players. Which is probably why four of a kind features so often in movie card games; much easier to show four aces winning than wonder whether a straight beats a flush. Anyone familiar with a card deck knows four of a kind is the best you can hope for, and will presume it's a good hand without being told.

Compare that with the Bond backgammon scene in Octopussy. I can tell you now, first, double sixes are next to no use in backgammon except under certain specific circumstances. Second, anyone so reliant on crooked dice as Kemal Khan would have been kicked out of the club years ago. There's just no way that would not have been spotted by the club's manager, and private members clubs are very, very sensitive about their reputation. Cheats get kicked out double quick, and the clubs that don't kick out cheats are the ones nobody in their right mind joins.

Finally, scenes like these allows the protagonist - the agent - a chance to seize the spotlight. Bond dominates that Doctor No scene, and it reveals a lot of his character in very economic bite-sized bits. No monologues, no dancing up and down in front of the camera - just cool, collected play. You don't even see his face for a full minute, in a two minute forty seven second clip.

So from a Director's perspective what all that says is, first, pick a game that everyone at the table at least knows something about. Blackjack, poker - anything the Director thinks the players are familiar enough with that someone at the table might get off some Thrilling dialogue. If the Director and at least one agent knows the difference between a running game and a blocking game, about covering blots and a lover's leap, then by all means use backgammon. Otherwise steer well clear of games you don't know.

Second, the major antagonist can show up, and that includes everyone from the head of a Tier Three Node to Dracula himself. After all, just as the agents can't leap across the table and stab Dracula in front of all these pesky witnesses and security, so too is Dracula prevented from causing a total party wipe. This is a good moment for everyone to strut their stuff and show how cool they are, not to wet the table felt with blood.

Third, if the Director intends for some important Conspiracy henchman to play a major role, like Oddjob or Khan's bodyguard Gobinda, then that henchman must also be in the scene alongside the major antagonist. The henchman ought to do at least one cool thing, or threaten the agents in some way, as Gobinda does when he crushes the crooked dice in his fist.

Double Tap introduces some new Gambling clues and new cherries, All In and Everybody's Got A Tell, but doesn't include Gambling in the list of potential Thrilling Contests. I think more can be done with this general ability, so here's my advice to you.

Step One: Establish Stakes. This is never about the chips on the table. It's about people. In Doctor No, the card sequence leads to a seduction scene. In Goldfinger, Moonraker the novel and Octopussy the film, the gambling sequence is all about cracking the opponent by exposing weakness - cheating, every time. In Octopussy the stakes are even higher, since by using the Fabergé egg - the MacGuffin everyone's chasing - as collateral, Bond leverages Khan into a position where he can be beaten.

So what's the stakes? In Doctor No, 1 point Flirting. In Goldfinger, Moonraker and Octopossy, 1 point Intimidation, Notice or similar. The agent is buying pool points in an Investigative ability with his victory at the tables, and spending it immediately in play. The player sets the wager, in other words, and that wager can be anything. Need a sportscar for that chase scene you just know is coming? Some Streetwise so you can broker a deal with those Triads? Flirting to impress that minor royalty so you can leverage a ticket to that exclusive ball? Get it through Gambling.

Ultimately what counts as a stake is up to the agent and Director on the day. However I recommend that stakes be calculated in terms of Investigative pool points. A stake is worth either 1 pool point in an Investigative ability, or the equivalent benefit in ordinary items. Ordinary is defined in context as something that is useful but not the equivalent of a Bane, Block or similar advantage against supernatural foes. Higher stakes are worth more points. Anything gained at the table must be spent during the scenario; it cannot be saved for future scenarios.

I can see an argument for allowing Cover or Network points to be won at the table. Pools of this type are strictly temporary - the equivalent of meeting a Sylvia Trench at Baccarat and leveraging that into a Network contact, or spreading the rumor that the agent is a high-stakes gambler from, say, China who just blew into town for the night. The Cover or Network contact gained in this way is strictly temporary, and will not last longer than the scenario unless actual experience points are used to build up that Cover or Network contact.

Step Two: Establish Difficulty. The higher the stakes, the higher the difficulty. Difficulty 5 gets a pool point. Difficulty 6 gets 2 pool points or extraordinary equipment, like a Bane or Block. More extravagant stakes mean higher difficulty numbers, but ultimately the limit is Director's discretion.

Point being, none of this is essential so you needn't worry about denying agents access to core clues. The agent is looking for extras, and ought to be prepared to pay for those extras.

The pool point, or whatever it is, ought to be spent as quickly as possible. No saving this up for future scenarios - cash in those chips now. This is to discourage players who might otherwise stack up on extra points by repeated trips to the table. Also, it's in keeping with the genre. Bond doesn't wait till the end of Doctor No to sleep with Sylvia Trench, nor does he leave Auric Goldfinger to fleece his unfortunate victim unmolested.

Step Three: Establish Consequences. In Bond's world there are always consequences. When he beats Goldfinger's card cheat, Goldfinger responds by painting Jill to death. Kemal Khan responds to losing at backgammon by threatening Bond. Bond's victory over Sir Hugo Drax means he stands out later when M assigns him to look into suspicious events at Sir Hugo's research facility. So what happens to the agent when the agent wins at the tables?

Either 1 point Heat gain or a Level One Antagonist Reaction, Director's choice as to which. Ideally Heat gain occurs when the agent is not pitted against a Conspiracy asset, and Antagonist Reaction occurs when the agent beats a Conspiracy target.

This happens whenever an agent wins one of these contests. What happens when the agent loses?

Ultimately that depends on the stakes involved. In contests where only 1 pool point was at stake, there should be no consequences - beyond the Gambling pool points spent, of course. Loss of pool points, and a certain amount of embarrassment, is enough.

However in situations where 2 pool points or some other form of extraordinary benefit was sought, consequences should be the same whether the agent wins or loses. That means 2 points Heat gain or a Level Two Antagonist Reaction, whichever the Director deems suitable.

That's it for this week. Enjoy!

Sir Roger and the Microstate (Night's Black Agents)

Sir Roger Moore died on the 23rd.

For many of you he was James Bond, his most celebrated character. My personal favorite is The Man With The Golden Gun, his second film as Bond; that has a lot to do with his co-stars, Christopher Lee and Herve Villechaize, both of whom chewed the scenery like consummate professionals.

Sir Roger played Bond seven times all told. The only other actor to have managed that trick is Sean Connery, and Roger Moore was 45 when he took up the role, old for an action hero.

'Of course I do my own stunts,' he's supposed to have said. 'And I do my own lying too.'

You couldn't accuse Sir Roger of being a brilliant actor. That was never the point; he played a type, and was lucky enough that, for a while, that type was what people wanted to see. He claimed, as Bond, to have three emotions; right eyebrow raised, left eyebrow raised, and crossed eyes, when being strangled by Jaws.

He didn't take Bond at all seriously. 'To me,' he said, 'The Bond situations are so ridiculous, so outrageous. I mean, this man is supposed to be a spy and yet, everyone knows he's a spy. Every bartender in the world offers him martinis that are shaken, not stirred. What kind of serious spy is recognized everywhere he goes? It's outrageous. So you have to treat the humor outrageously as well. My personality is entirely different than previous Bonds. [Moore replaced Lazenby, whose behind-the-scene antics ensured he'd only play the part once.] I'm not that cold-blooded killer type. Which is why I play it mostly for laughs.'

Though his Bond never went there, Sir Roger is also well known as a citizen of that quintessential Bond location, Monaco. As it happens I've learnt a lot about Monaco over the past few weeks, preparing for a potential writing project.

Apart from anything else, in order to qualify for residency you have to deposit at least 300,000 Euro in a Monaco bank account. Somehow I suspect Sir Roger passed that hurdle easily.

In 2014 he was appointed Monaco's Goodwill Ambassador, for his efforts in publicizing and promoting the Principality all over the world. He was on very friendly terms with Prince Albert II, the reigning monarch of the microstate. He divided his time between Monaco and Switzerland, and though he said it wasn't primarily for tax reasons there's no doubt he benefited from a lighter tax burden.

I could do a Monaco Quick and Dirty, but as I may have a use for that in different circumstances I'd prefer not to. However let's talk a little about Monte Carlo Casino, since that's probably going to be the one location all the agents rush to as soon as they get to Monaco, and then dream up some theme achievements in Sir Roger's memory.

Casino de Monte-Carlo was proposed  in the 1850s as a moneymaker for the cash-strapped principality by Lady Caroline, a former stage actress who married the Grimaldi heir to the microstate. At that time Monaco was a remote backwater, with poor roads, no rail, and little in the way of quality accommodation for the kind of guests Lady Caroline wanted to entertain. However despite some initial economic setbacks the casino began turning a profit by 1859, and Lady Caroline managed to persuade casino entrepreneur Francois Blanc to take it over.

Blanc was an entrepreneurial genius, and the Casino went from strength to strength. Over the next twenty years the relatively modest Belle Epoque building expanded significantly and, though extensively modernized since, it still retains its grand Victorian air. Until recently the casino was the primary source of income for Monaco, and its ruling family.

It provides table games of all kinds, American and European. There are seven Salles, or gaming rooms, and two panoramic gaming terraces overlooking the ocean and the delights of Monaco. That's before you even consider the food at the Salon Rose, or the gardens, or any of the other pleasures on offer.

This includes slots and electronic entertainment. So if you ever wondered what it would be like to play Plants vs Zombies in the most exclusive destination on Earth, the Casino has you covered.   

Bond enthusiasts may recall that his first adventure, Casino Royale, is set at fictional Royale-les-Eaux, which is (very loosely) based on places like Monaco.

With all that in mind, here's some Achievements for Sir Roger. All Achievements are location-based; they have to be earned in Monaco, and preferably at the Casino or one of the spas and restaurants run by the Societe des bains de mer de Monaco. So let's start:

Goodwill Ambassador. Have your picture taken with the current Crown Prince of Monaco. This can, at the Director's discretion, be extended to include any of the Crown Prince's immediate family.

How do you say p__s off in Russian? Thoroughly humiliate a boorish Russian oligarch or mafia don at the tables or in the restaurant, preferably with your innate good breeding or Gambling as opposed to a punch on the nose.

For better or worse, for richer or poorer. Have a screaming, no-holds-barred public argument with your spouse, or supposed spouse, in which you come off the loser. This may involve damage to your Cover. [Sir Roger's first three marriages ended badly. He and his fourth wife Kiki set up home in Monaco.]

I don't think I've ever made any good financial decisions. Gamble away a significant sum of money at the tables, so that for the rest of the mission you are on Insufficient Funds. Bear in mind that Monaco is one of the most expensive places in the world; not the place to be if you have little in your wallet. Interesting side note: according to Sir Roger he got the Bond role because of his gambling habits.

I'm not that cold-blooded killer type. Neutralize a potentially hostile Conspiracy asset or opponent by using Flirting rather than combat. Also known as I didn't recognize you with your clothes on. 

I never thought I was much of an actor anyway. At time of writing Sir Roger is to be buried at a private ceremony in Monaco, and presumably will end up at the Cimetiere de Monaco, which is the only graveyard in the microstate. To earn this achievement, the agent must use Sir Roger's gravesite either as a meeting place, or a dead drop.

Finally, a bit of a cheat:

This never happened to the other fella. Go to a fancy event, like a 100,000 Euro Punto Banco tournament, which features one of the actors who played or currently plays Bond. Bonus points if the Bond happens to be dead at the time, like Sir Roger, or David Niven. Though how either of them get in without causing a sensation is something best left up to the Director.

That's it for this week. I know it's a little short; I'm flying to NYC for the Book Fair, and by the time you read this I'll probably be up in the wild blue yonder. Enjoy!

Got You Where I Want You (GUMSHOE Night's Black Agents, all)

I've been reading Andy McDermott's Kingdom of Darkness, part of his epic spy vs ... actually, I'm not sure. Spy vs reality, maybe? Or action hero vs mundane life? Anyway, it's book 10 in an ongoing line featuring Yorkshireman ex-SAS crazy person Eddie Chase and his beautiful archaeologist wife Nina Wilde. They wander across the planet finding pretty much everything and exploding bad guys as they do it.

By everything, I mean everything. I just dropped into this series and apparently they've already found Excalibur, Atlantis, and Valhalla, among other things. Presumably these discoveries all got blown up shortly afterwards; everything else seems to have the life expectancy of a gnat's fart, so why should Valhalla be any different?

This isn't not quite book review corner, so I won't go into detail except to say this: Chase and Wilde face down theoretically immortal Nazis living in Argentina, who discovered just enough immortality juice back in 1942 to keep a dozen of them going, and are now looking for more juice. Apparently Alexander the Great's cook Andreas knew where it was, so it's off to find Alexander's tomb. And blow it up. Because reasons.

It's a fun read, absolutely not to be taken seriously, and I have to give credit to McDermott for having the imagination and effrontery to put all this in one book. Apart from anything else I think this may be the first time I've seen a Yorkshireman in the protagonist role since James Herriot, though I suspect if you presented Eddie Chase with a cow's backside he'd stick a grenade in it.

I see from his bio he's written for 2000AD. Why am I not surprised.

Anyone who can sneak Patrick McGoohan and Raiders of the Lost Ark references in the same novel is worthy of praise. There's some good action chase sequences too, even if the biggest chase liberally borrows from The Man With the Golden Gun - the novel, not the movie.

That, and McDermott isn't as predictable as other pulp spy writers; there's no telling who's going to live or die, with the exception of the two longstanding leads of course - and it's not clear from the start that even they have plot immunity, since Wilde is under sentence of death from one of their previous adventures.

So yes, I do recommend it to Night's Black Agents directors with the obvious caveat that this is as Pulp as pulp can possibly be, so if your instincts draw you more to the Le Carre side of the spectrum you'd better steer clear.

However there's a moment in the book that intrigued me and I thought it would be useful as an Ephemera piece.

In the narrative Nina and some colleagues are captured by the Nazis and dragged off to the Argentina compound, there to languish in durance vile until they reveal the location of the source of the Immortality Juice, which means solving an archaeological puzzle.

Capture is not something recommended by most GMs in any system. It tends to derail the game, and takes agency away from the players which emphatically is not what GUMSHOE is all about. The NBA main book makes this very clear:

Directors should get player buy-in at the beginning of the game; if capture isn't an option, then it simply isn't an option ... Here's our GUMSHOE promise: If you are captured, you will learn something you want to know ... And you will have a chance to escape.

I would add another item to that list:

As Director it is your job to make sure the characters have something to do if they are captured.

Players tend to think that if their character is captured then that character can't do anything. They rot in a jail cell. No scenes, no spotlight; there they sit, forever and ever and ever.

Here's the thing: the McDermott sequence is a perfect example of good capture because it allows for three things:

1. The captives learn something about their captors, in this instance that they have the contents of cook Andreas' shrine and are on the lookout for the source of the Immortality Juice.
2. The captives have a chance to escape, when Eddie Chase invades the compound.
3. The captives have a puzzle to solve.

Granted it's not the most taxing puzzle in the world, but it's something to spend Investigative points on. It's an individual scene, which means characters can have the spotlight.

Players want agency, but agency isn't just about giving players the opportunity to roleplay. It's about giving those characters something to do. They're not just kicking their heels in a filler scene waiting for their chance to saw through the cell window's bars and break free.

In this particular instance not only do Nina and her companions have a puzzle but they also have an additional conundrum on top of that, because if they tell their captors what they know then their captors will probably kill them. So it's not just about spending that Investigative point to gain knowledge; it's also about bluffing or otherwise concealing what they know, just plausibly enough that their captors don't get bored and shoot them out of hand.

In short, it's Thrilling, which means as Director you could make a Thrilling sequence out of it.

Remember the Hitchcock film Torn Curtain, where there's a Thrilling sequence revolving around a Physics equation. The Thrilling mechanic's not just for car chases any more; you can make a Thrilling sequence out of almost anything, and that means you can invent one to fit into a capture scenario.

Any moment in which you can say 'this is a cat-and-mouse moment' has the potential to be Thrilling. Thrills depend on stakes, not action, and while you don't want to invent a Thrilling sequence every time one of the guards goes to the toilet there are times when a good Director makes Thrills happen.

There's one other important factor, which is:

As Director you should craft a capture scene as carefully as you would any other, but always remember a capture scene is Alternative, not Core.

What do I mean by this? Let's take a trip on the Orient Express, and find out.

VERY MILD SPOILERS AHOY.

In that venerable campaign there is an in-plot capture scene that cannot be avoided. The game literally cannot proceed without this scene, and there are other campaign elements in the capture scene which the players also may not appreciate.

I have yet to find a group of players that enjoy this scene. Even the players who accept railroading as a necessary plot element really have trouble with it. The scene boils down to the Keeper saying 'yeah, you're hosed. No, there's nothing you can do about it. Sucks to be you.'

The scenario in question even concludes with the line 'The investigators regain no Sanity for this scenario; after all, they have lost dismally.' Yeah, because the writer - and by extension, willing or otherwise, the Keeper - rigged the game, not because of any real failure on the players' part.

This is exactly the kind of agency-stripping plot device GUMSHOE was designed to avoid.

However with GUMSHOE I've noticed the reverse problem: that because Directors know capture scenes can be problematic, they don't detail those scenes. 'It's something you can do - if you're a complete and total weirdo - but we don't talk about it much.'

Capture has its uses. For one thing, it keeps characters alive in circumstances which might otherwise lead to a total party kill. Surrender means the characters live to fight another day. Okay, they have to find a way out of their jail cell, but that's a minor problem compared to crawling out of a bodybag.

For another, it's genre-appropriate. Even James Bond gets captured more than once, in the novels and the movies. Some of Bond's most iconic moments depend on capture scenes. 'Do you expect me to talk?' 'No, Mr Bond, I expect you to die.' Ahh, the classics!

Third and last, it's a brilliant way to introduce clues that either the characters have failed to gather - and it happens, believe me - or that they need in future scenes. Sometimes players display a perverse genius for avoiding or forgetting clues, even Core ones. Sometimes they could use a little nudge to discover, say, a Bane, or the Conspiracy's next target. Let them glimpse the clue they need, or a handy map, while in captivity, and the problem solves itself.

This is something the Orient Express capture scene does well. It's dripping with atmosphere, the players get to learn dark secrets, and they have a problem to solve that isn't just about getting out of their jail cell. The difficulty is that, in GUMSHOE vernacular, it's a Core scene, so any good it might be doing is outweighed by the evil it did in stripping the players of agency in the first place.

So my advice is this: in any game of whatever type, recognize that capture is possible. Then design an Alternate scene around that possibility. Give it a little local color, perhaps think about how it could be made Thrilling, factor in some clues that you know the characters will appreciate. Try to come up with a few ways for the characters to plausibly escape. Then leave the scene alone until you need it.

This preserves player agency. The scene isn't Core, and the characters might go the entire game without realizing this Alternative exists, but like other Alternative scenes the capture moment allows the players to gather extra clues which they can use to their advantage.

And if they end up strapped to a table with a red-hot laser slowly snaking its way up to their unmentionables, so much the better.

That's it from me. Enjoy!

His Name Isn't Bond: Cover & Network (Night's Black Agents)

I've just finished reading Jeffery Deaver's take on British superspy James Bond, Carte Blanche. With this novel, 23 in the Bond series, Deaver updates the Bond mythology, reimagining Fleming's character in the 21st Century. Fleming's basic Bond is still here, complete with Bond's treasure of a Scot housemaid and the Vesper cocktail. Except this time Bond's shaken concoction with a slice of lemon peel gets a different name, Carte Blanche, and broadly speaking that's how the novel develops; Fleming's original, with a slightly different twist.

An example: CIA agent Felix Leiter appears in a support role, because that's how these things are done. At one point Leiter is threatened with death by crusher, his limbs dangling just that bit too close to the mangle. Instantly a Bond fan's mind turns to Live and Let Die where, in the novel, Leiter loses an arm and a leg, but still appears in later stories with prosthetic limbs. Will this be the moment, I wonder, when Deaver's Leiter gets his cyber upgrade? They're doing all kinds of things with artificial limbs these days ...

On the whole I enjoyed it, though I think there are too many changes here to satisfy a Bond purist, and there are elements of the story that make little or no sense. Take the support character Gregory Lamb, a British agent from MI6 sent to back up Bond. He has very little personality, appears only in a few scenes, and departs in a way that seems remarkably out of his established character; moreover, from the moment he arrives to the moment he departs he does nothing interesting, nor does he affect the plot in any way. I had to wonder whether Deaver really thought the character through, or whether he was hastily shoehorned in to solve a plot problem. Maybe someone won a place in the book through a charity lottery and Deaver didn't know what to do with him?

But this isn't a book review. I want to talk about a very cool scene about halfway through, and how it relates to Night's Black Agents.

The setting is Cape Town, South Africa. Bond is trying to pass himself off as a successful mercenary, to worm his way into the villains' confidence. He goes to the head villain's office, makes his pitch, and then says he has some pictures the head villain might be interested in. But Bond doesn't have those on him; they're back at Bond's office. Bond offers to email the .jpegs to the head villain, but the main henchman says no: go to your office, get them, and bring them back here.

Bond obediently does just that, and then the henchman says to the head villain: I don't trust this guy's story. Let's go to his supposed office, which I bet he doesn't have, and catch him in his lie. Which they do, only to find that Bond really does have an office, complete with staff, in this case South African police who Bond has brought on board thanks to what Night's Black Agents would call his Network contacts.

It's a brilliant scene, and immediately made me wonder how something similar could be achieved in Night's Black Agents.

To begin with, kudos to Deaver's Bond for actually having an honest to God cover identity. Usually he marches in under the name Bond, from Universal Export, and somehow nobody ever questions it. But let's consider this from a mechanical perspective, using Cover, Network and Preparedness.

Cover and Network are two pools that don't work the same way as other General pools. Both begin with high ratings that the player doesn't have to pay for - 10 Cover, 15 Network - and neither refresh. Instead the player has to buy them back with experience points.

Cover represents your agent's cover identities, and the stronger the investment, the stronger the cover. So if you invest 4 Cover points to create a pool in a particular identity, it's a pretty good cover. Whenever you do something that would test that Cover - cross a border, gain admission to restrictive areas - then you make a Difficulty test, usually 4, and you can spend from that newly created pool to bolster your chances. Failure means that something has gone wrong, but it's up to the Director what that means. [There is one Cherry that might affect Cover: if your Disguise rating is 8 or more you have Connected Cover, which means you can establish a cover identity that is both plausible and also related to your target in some way.]

Network is your pool of professional contacts, and like Cover the strength of each contact will depend on the amount of points spent on the contact. So in Carte Blanche, Felix Leiter is one of Bond's network contacts, in whom Bond's player probably put a lot of points bearing in mind how useful Leiter is to Bond. In the scene described above the leader of the South African police is also a Network contact, but one in whom Bond's player didn't put a lot of points, since this NPC challenges Bond in several different scenes and refuses to back him up at least once. Difficulty for Network tests depends on Heat; Heat is the amount of attention the authorities, usually the police, are paying to your character.

Preparedness is the game's equivalent to Monopoly's Get Out of Jail Free card. You use this ability whenever you see an opportunity to gain an advantage, or get out of a bad situation, explaining it away as a clever plan you thought of earlier but didn't mention until now.

So in this scene Bond blew a Cover check. Maybe he got overconfident and didn't spend points, only to have that magic number One turn up. What happens next?

The temptation on the Director's side is to turn this into a complete disaster, Han Solo style. That said, Deaver's solution to the problem shows that not every failure ends in failure. True, Bond failed the check. However the villains didn't draw weapons and gun him down on the spot, nor was his Cover completely blown. The failed roll merely meant they were suspicious, and decided to investigate further.

Now, from a game perspective, all the Director needs to say is, 'You're pretty sure [thanks to Tradecraft, Bullshit Detector or what have you] that they didn't believe your story, and will check on it.' If the player wants her character's Cover to hold up in future tests, she needs to do something about this. Otherwise the Difficulty in later scenes may be more than her Cover can handle, and that could be very bad if she happens to be behind enemy lines or in the major villain's lair at the time.

In game terms, I would suggest that unless the Cover is repaired all Difficulty tests for Cover checks go up by the amount of Heat that the group has generated. Which is about the time that the group may really regret stealing all those cars or blowing up those police stations, but that's just tough luck, really.

Bond's solution is a mixture of Preparedness, Reassurance and Network. This could be handled as a special Tactical Fact Finding Benefit, which for the purpose of this example I'm going to call The Big Store.

A Tactical Fact Finding Benefit relies on four attributes: the tactical ability needed to find the information, the action required, the circumstance under which the benefit comes into play, and the nature of the benefit.

In this instance the tactical ability can be Reassurance, which tends to be the con artist Investigative ability. I can see an argument for using Data Recovery as well, but Reassurance seems the obvious way to go.

The action required is this: the character creates an imaginary office, business or agency. This office exists in the virtual world on a 1 point spend plus a Difficulty 3 Digital Intrusion check, or in both virtual and reality on a 2 point spend plus a Difficulty 4 Preparedness check. In the virtual world it has a website, a history, possibly even a TripAdvisor rating if applicable. If it exists in the real world it also has an address and a small number of staff. If the target visits this Store, or just looks at it online, it seems in every way to be a genuine entity. The Director may wish to set limits on the Store, to avoid players claiming to own a huge multinational corporation that nobody ever heard of until five minutes ago. But that's up to the Director.

In Deaver's example, the office has a couple rooms and three or four staff. That's about right. So we're talking about a small operation, possibly a business like a diamond dealer's, a software developer, or small bed-and-breakfast hotel. There's nothing stopping a player from claiming to have a business somewhere other than the character's current location, so a character in Dublin can claim to own a pub in New York, no problem.

If the Store exists in the real world and the on-site staff are to be badasses in disguise, then there ought to be a Network spend to create those badassess. Otherwise they're regular civilians. Probably temps hired for the day, possibly criminals, but in any case they won't suddenly reveal themselves to be marksmen or Martial Artists. Nor will they fling themselves, lemming-style, in front of a bullet to save a character. If used as Mook Shields there probably ought to be a Stability penalty, since they really didn't deserve it.

The Big Store is used to bolster Cover. A grifter would use a Big Store to con a mark, using Cover to foster the mark's belief that the grifter really is who he says he is. The player's doing exactly the same thing.

So the benefit, which is the final point to consider, is this: the Difficulty for Cover tests in one scene is reduced by 3.

In context, going back to Bond, the scene plays like this:

Bond flubs his initial Cover check. He knows the villain is suspicious. So Bond establishes a Big Store, using Preparedness to make that possible since this is probably a 2 point spend situation. The reduced Difficulty is then used to make another Cover check in a new scene - remember, Difficulty increased by Heat and then reduces by the Store - and if this one succeeds, then the Difficulty of all future checks is no longer increased by the amount of Heat the group has generated. It drops back to 4, and Bond breaths a sigh of relief.

I hope that all makes sense! It's an expensive TFFB, so most players aren't going to try this every time they deal with an obnoxious bureaucrat at passport control. But for those moments when you're dealing with someone really important, like the major villain or a significant henchman, the Store can be the difference between a Cover that works, and a trip to the river with concrete shoes on your feet.

As far as Carte Blanche is concerned, if you're a Bond purist then you probably oughtn't to pick it up, as it may frustrate you. However there's plenty of fun to be had here, as well as some ideas for a Director to steal. I particularly recommend Bond's solution to a problem that Fleming never tackled: what to do if you capture, rather than kill, the villain. And no, that's not a spoiler. It's a Bond novel; you didn't think Bond was going to lose, did you? Deaver hasn't published any other Bond novels, but if he does, they may be worth seeking out.

Enjoy!

Bond and the Chase Scene: Night's Black Agents

Let's tackle something a little different this time and talk about chase scenes.

In Night's Black Agents the main book points out that they 'require more attention and creativity than other contests' and should be considered a major set-piece event, packed with thrills. That means the Director needs to prepare in advance, or at the very least have some notes for potential chases given the locale the agents are likely to be in. To discuss what that might mean for the Director, I'm taking two Bond chase scenes as examples and dissecting them, from a pure rules perspective.

Starting with Moonraker, take a look at the canal scene.

First: yes, it's incredibly camp. All the Moore Bonds were camp. That's part of the fun!

Second: there's no real reason for Bond to be using a gondola in this scene, but it's a cool thing to do, and it's an iconic Venetian symbol. When in doubt always do the cool thing ought to be the agent's motto, and the Director's too. It's been a long time since I've seen this movie, but I have a sneaking suspicion that Bond's gondolier is introduced as agent Blankorelli of the British Secret Service. IMDB has not seen fit to preserve his character's name for posterity.

The scene kicks off with an ambush moment, a really fantastic reveal. True, there's no reason why he should be popping out of that coffin with throwing knives when a silenced pistol would be more efficient, but screw efficiency; knives are the better cinematic option. The chase hasn't officially begun yet, so the usual prohibition on Weapons during a chase doesn't apply. Note how the NPC gondolier is his first target, even though Bond's a sitting duck. Not only does this give Bond a chance to fight back, it also knocks the gondolier - who otherwise might have tried to pilot the gondola - out of the running straight away. Always leave the agent in the driver's seat.

Initial Lead is probably very short - no more than 2, given that Bond's caught flat footed and the mooks are right next to him - and the operative ability is Piloting. This is a cramped chase - all those narrow, twisting canals - and Bond is probably the more maneuverable participant, so the starting Lead is bumped by minimum +1, up to 3. It might be more, but without handy gondola stats it's simpler to opt for the minimum. Given how quickly Bond moves to the Sudden Escape, those mooks probably didn't start with a fantastic Piloting pool.

A mook immediately opens up with an SMG, peppering the scenery but otherwise doing no damage. Bond's Hit Threshold would be 4, bumped up to 5 since this is an Attack During Chase. The mook used 3 pool points just to attack, but for once the chase difficulty doesn't go up, since the boat opening fire isn't one of the ones chasing Bond. Not yet, anyway. Nevertheless there's a cinematic failure moment when the funeral barge cruises under a low bridge, but that doesn't affect the chase scene itself since, after the initial reveal, the barge was out of the running anyway.

By 1.13 the chase begins in earnest, Bond in his tricked-out gondola versus two mooks in a much more conventional speedboat. Bond's going to jump to Lead 10 fairly quickly, so by this point it's reasonable to assume the initial contested chase roll went Bond's way. Lead is now 5.

More shooting, and again with an SMG, probably not the optimal weapon under the circumstances but what the heck, they're only mooks. At Lead 5, Bond is at Near range for combat purposes. Again, the mooks are spending 3 pool points just to shoot, Bond's Hit Threshold goes from 4 to 5, and the difficulty of the mooks' chase test bumps up by 1. Bond opts for an Evasive Maneuver, turning a sharp corner and increasing his Hit Threshold from 5 to 6. That costs him 2 Piloting. Given that he's probably a Gear Devil, he may opt for a 3-point refresh at some stage. The gondola takes some dramatic splash damage, but otherwise things are going Bond's way.

Again, it's reasonable to assume he wins the contested chase roll this round, possibly because the mooks opted to shoot, thus increasing their chase difficulty number. Lead is now 7. If the mooks try to shoot again, it'll be at Long range. Which they do, of course; they're mooks, and by now the only hope they have of getting Bond at all is with a lucky shot. Again, Bond's Hit Threshold goes from 4 to 5, and the mooks' chase test difficulty goes up by 1, in addition to all the other modifiers that will apply.

The mooks aren't providing much challenge, so it's time for the Director to throw in a Hazard: Bond's rapidly approaching a traffic stop, and the lights are against him. There's a potential Crash at stake, with a vehicle roughly equivalent of a motorcycle for damage modifier purposes. Assume a Difficulty 5 for that test; with modifier -3 that means only 2 Damage is at stake, but given the relative fragility of Bond's gondola it could change the chase significantly if he crashes. He doesn't, so the next in line - the mooks - do, probably because they exhausted their Piloting pool a while back and are running on hope and prayer right about now. Not that 2 Damage is going to do the mooks any harm, but it makes for a fun moment as the lovers drift off in their own little world while their gondolier goes down with the ship.

By this point Bond has hit more than 7 Lead, so it's time for the Sudden Escape. The gondola is clearly Q issue, but its gadgets haven't been fully described, and while there's no reason why Q - practical man that he is - would design a gondola capable of going on land in Venice, the lure of that Sudden Escape is too good to pass up. No doubt Gear Devil Bond uses those refreshed Piloting pool points to make the roll. The mooks despair, Bond drives merrily through the most famous public square in Venice, and the chase is over.

None of this is particularly rules-heavy or difficult to pull off. In the final analysis, the chase was just a few contested rolls, some shooting, one hazard and a sudden escape. What makes it memorable is its location, its vehicles, and the cool set pieces; the knife-throwing coffin man, the oblivious lovers, and the blatant Up Yours of that sudden escape. A chase doesn't have to be packed with stuff to be a good chase, but it does need to have those images, those WTF moments, to work as a scene. 

Now consider the ski scene in On Her Majesty's Secret Service. Bond is trying to escape Blofeld's mountaintop fortress, but the guards spot him before he gets too far and an Athletics chase ensues. Technically this is a three group chase; Bond, mook group A, and mook group Blofeld. Beginning Lead is probably quite good, since Bond is the instigator and has had some time to prepare; call it 5. This is a normal chase, all groups are traveling at about the same speed, and by the look of things everyone's equally as good at Athletics, so there's no bonus to be had there. Brilliant chase scene music, by the way; just goes to show getting a good soundtrack is worth the trouble.

Technically the first shots fired (about 0.30) aren't part of the chase sequence, but were I Director I might say that the agent's difficulty increases by 1 for the next contested chase roll if the agent is under fire.  That allows the agent to rush off in a hail of bullets, without the tedious dice rolling (and possible early termination of the chase) that might accompany an actual attack.

Much activity ensues, and Blofeld is informed. At this point no actual chase action has taken place. Earlier I divided the mooks into two groups; they could as easily be kept as one big pool, but with Blofeld in the mix it makes more sense to have two groups. That way the major villain is still a major threat, while the other group of mooks might be knocked out of the running. It gives Bond someone he can beat, while at the same time introducing an antagonist that the Director would rather Bond didn't beat at this point in the plot.

It's 1.50 and now the chase is on. Each mook group has at least one armed man in the group. Now, in the gondola scene, when shooting took place there had to be an increased Firearms pool spend, the target's Hit Threshold went up by 1, and the Difficulty of the attacker's chase test went up by 1 in the attacking round. It could be argued that, since there's only one shooter, the shooter and only the shooter suffers the penalties that come with shooting; the other mooks in the group don't have the same penalty. I'd argue against that. Giving each mook separate die rolls only draws out what should be a quick, action-packed scene, and goes against the game principle of multiple pursuers. What if there had been ten mooks in the group? Will ten separate die rolls really be necessary? No; it's more sensible to treat the group as a group, with a common pool and common penalties.

So far, though plenty of shots have been fired, Bond hasn't been hit, but neither has there been any real change in Lead, suggesting that both Bond and the mooks have been succeeding their Athletics tests. By 1.35 we have the first of several Hazards, a jump sequence at night in snow-covered rocky terrain. This is a Falling Hazard, probably with minimum Athletics Difficulty 5, at considerable speed and height. Without sitting down to work out the actual speed plus height - which would be tedious, and again, this is meant to be a quick, action-packed scene - assume +2 damage for speed and height and a further +1 for the terrain, with no other applicable modifiers, so in total there's 8 (Difficulty 5+2+1) damage at stake. Certainly enough to splash a mook, and it probably wouldn't do Bond any good either. That Falling Hazard is soon followed by another Falling Hazard, higher this time, so call it 9 damage at stake.

The mooks are holding fire, and with good reason; everyone must be burning through Athletics. Bond might be able to blag a refresh from his Director, but the mooks haven't got that option. At about 1.55 Bond slips into the treeline, probably still at Lead 5; there's no reason to think anyone's been able to extend or reduce Lead dramatically. The change in terrain alters the chase conditions from normal to cramped, but nobody's more maneuverable than anyone else. Bond is probably hoping to provoke a Raise in his opponent's Difficulty numbers.

Then the mooks stop to coordinate, with flares and rockets. Bond's in trouble. In game terminology, this is best represented by mook group Blofeld, which so far has hung back out of the action, adding points from its relevant pools to mook group A. Effectively this provides mook group A with Athletics - and possibly other abilities, like Firearms - refresh. It allows the Director to account for a major villain's presence - Blofeld giving orders to the troops and organizing the attack - without actually bringing the villain face to face with the agent.

Bond's best chance now is to get mook group A to crash out early, so it's time to start provoking Raises. Bond opts to increase Difficulty by 1, from 4 to 5; he could have gone higher, but he hasn't had the pool refresh that the mooks just enjoyed. In fact they enjoyed it so much that, at 2.36, they Raise with gunfire, upping their chase sequence Difficulty from 5 to 6, upping Bond's Hit Threshold from 4 to 5, and spending 3 points from those refreshed Firearms pools to do it.

Bond is hit, but not out. He fails the chase sequence Difficulty test, goes arse over teakettle, and busts a ski. He also takes some Damage, and may even be less than 0 Health. Remember, the agents can go below 0 Health; mooks can't. Bond's probably at Hurt, so his Difficulty numbers, including opponent's Hit Thresholds, go up by 1; an effect neatly illustrated by his having to get away on one ski. Lead is also reduced, from 5 to 3.

Now, if Bond continues to Raise by snaking in and out of the treeline, his Difficulty goes up to 6 - his Hurt penalty plus the Raise - while the mooks' Difficulty stays at 5. Bond clearly thinks this is worth the risk, and he probably has the Athletics pool to back that bet up. What's more, by 3.10 he's back in Falling Hazard territory again, so Bond's Difficulty is actually 7 while the mooks' Difficulty is at 6. That's too much for the mooks, who lose a man in the trees. However we're close to the end of the sequence and the mooks are going to win this one, so while Bond made the Falling Hazard Athletics test he must have flubbed a contested chase roll at some point, bringing Lead from 3 to 1.

Another Falling Hazard at about 3.30 reduces mook group A to one man, but Bond's running out of luck, and also, it turns out, room to maneuver. The chase ends at 3.45 at the precipice, with Bond unable to go any further. In game, that last contested chase roll must have either ended in a draw, with the mook having the better roll, or Bond must have lost it. In any case, Lead drops to 0 or below. Hurt, and with his back to the metaphorical wall, he turns on the surviving mook, and the scene goes from Chase to Combat.

Again, nothing about this scene is particularly rules-heavy. It's mostly contested Athletics, with some Firearms, and the agent's making some clever use of the Raise mechanic. While there is a Hazard, it's the same Hazard each time. That doesn't have to be a problem. Multiple use of the same Hazard is acceptable, provided it's in keeping with the scene, and serves to increase dramatic tension. Besides, it wasn't over-used; ten Falling Hazards in a row would have been tedious, but there weren't that many of them, and the ones that did exist were mixed in with other events to break up the sequence. Bond didn't win the chase, but he had enough points left in his pool to quickly finish the Combat sequence, even taking his Hurt status into account. All in all, a success!

I hope this is of some help to you Directors out there. Have a good one!

  
    

Night's Black Agents: Chilling Locales

Victory Games' James Bond RPG, one of the best spy games of its era, knew that if it was to capture the imaginations of the players it had to present itself as the perfect Bond experience. One of the ways it did that was by immersing itself in real world detail. The iconic Bond travels all over the planet, stays in the best hotels, is seen aboard the most luxurious ships, planes and trains; the players expected no less for their characters. The Thrilling Locations supplement did exactly that, and while I can't hope to achieve the same thing here, I thought it would be good fun to start the conversation by talking about hotels.

The best hotels offer sterling service, excellent kitchens, comfortable rooms, and convenient access to the best that the area has to offer. Some hotels have a gimmick, some have a reputation, but the key thing, from a Keeper's perspective, is that they stand out. The players need to capture an image of the place in their heads, to really get into the game. The best way to do that is to make the place memorable right from the start.

With that in mind, let's start with Hotel Castel Dracula. Located atop the craggy heights of Tihuţa Pass - which Stoker fans will know is the real name of the Borgo Pass - its views are second to none. Built in 1974 in a pseudo-medieval style, Castel Dracula was created with one object in mind: vampire tourism. Guests can visit Dracula's tomb, deep in the basement, and then adjourn upstairs to the restaurant, sampling local food washed down with Dracula's elixir. The Tihuţa Pass is perfect hiking for those who enjoy wandering in beautiful countryside, and for those who enjoy more lively festivities, there's annual Witches Parties and Halloween get-togethers. What more could a vampire ask for?

Yes, it's kitschy as hell, and definitely one for the younger crowd. But consider: if ever there was a place where a vampire could get his or her freak on, and not be noticed, it's somewhere like this. Supernatural or Damned bloodsuckers could be partying in the hidden basement, the one underneath Dracula's tomb. Or perhaps the place has deeper significance; maybe the location wasn't just picked for its connection to Stoker's novel. It could be hiding something genuinely evil behind a plastic facade. What was there before the hotel was built? Who owns it? Are there significant political or criminal connections? After all, Romania is the 9th most corrupt country in the EU; is the Hotel a front for some other organization, and if so, what?

For obvious reasons, a location like this best suits a Supernatural or Damned game, but Aliens and Mutants have their place too. Either group could be using the Hotel as a convenient base of operations. Romania's EU membership gives it a surprising amount of political reach, and its troops served in both Iraq and Afghanistan. It's also part of the missile shield being put together by the US and the West. A group which wanted a voice in world affairs without appearing too obvious about it would do well to be on good terms with a government like Romania's.

Passing from the shadow of Dracula's castle, take a trip aboard the Orient Express. The name is synonymous with luxury, and the Orient Express Group has some of the finest hotels in the world. But it's best known for its very famous train, which still runs each week to Budapest, Istanbul, London, Paris, Prague, Venice and Vienna. In its heyday it was the train of spies and crime, as well as luxury travel, but now there are much faster trains, never mind planes, to get people where they want to go. It's more for the tourist than the traveler these days, and it's doubtful spies wander the train carriage corridors.

That said, vampires are nothing if not nostalgic. An entity that's been around for a hundred years or more might have been on the train for its original incarnation's inaugural run in 1883. Perhaps one ride a year, just to recapture the magic, is a habit the players will make a particular entity regret. But there could be a more practical reason for riding the train, particularly for a bagman or a fixer. A bagman knows that sometimes the best way to stay out of sight is to be visible. Walk as if you own the place; millionaires seldom get asked impertinent questions. A ride on the train could be the best way to get to Paris without being made, or it could also be a good spot for handing off the goods. A fixer who wants to hold a clandestine auction, say of some sensitive data with a very limited life span, might like the idea of holding a private auction aboard the Express. Its publicity is its own security; few will be willing to risk the notoriety that comes with an overt assault on the most famous train in the world. Picture a scene in that famous dining car, with the fixer sat in magnificent solitude at his own table, occasionally getting a text bid from one of the interested parties, perhaps in their own cabin, perhaps in the dining car, or perhaps somewhere else altogether. 

Or perhaps, since this is a train as famous for murder as it is for luxury travel, the Keeper could go the Polonium Cocktail route. Say an important contact - perhaps that fixer - walks off the train gravely ill, and checks himself into a hospital soon after. It's pretty clear he got a bad dose, and it was probably given him aboard the train, as several Orient Express staff are also sick, although none nearly as bad as the fixer. But who handed him the dose, and what happened to the goods he supposedly had on him? The mini flash drive's not at the hospital; could it be still on the train?

That's it for the moment, but I will return to this theme later. There are plenty of places out there perfect for a Night's Black Agents moment and, after all, your players deserve nothing but the best.