Peaky Blinders reminds the world that there were gangs before the Krays made it look cool.
Broadly speaking, there are at least two kinds of Rough Lads. Those that do it for profit, and those that do it for fun or out of conviction.
The ones that do it for profit are straightforward souls. They might have been in the military; they may have battlefield experience. Were it not for that, they might have found some other trade. Others may have fallen into it by other means, or because they had no other options.
However, whether this is so or no, the profit-seeking Rough Lads have few convictions of their own and will do whatever seems most reasonable at the time. Not for them the political rallies, or fighting for a cause of some kind, or refusing to surrender. No, this type of Rough Lad will cheerfully back down if it means money in their pocket.
Some of them can be bought very cheaply. A round of drinks at the pub, or a bottle of the pure. This kind of Rough Lad probably isn’t all that much in a conflict, but you never know; there could be a tiger hiding under that unprepossessing exterior.
The ones that fight for fun or conviction can’t be bought. These are the ones in it for thrills, or because they believe in what they’re doing. They might be committed communists, committed fascists, or just plain ordinary one-shy-of-a-bushel, but whatever the case may be, they can’t be bought because, as far as they’re concerned, they’ve already been paid. In the only currency that matters. There will be a few who do it for love of the game, or because they took one too many shots to the head and now don’t know how to stop, never mind when.
There’s no talking to these people. Rationality went out the window a long time ago. The best thing about them is, they’re predictable. Given the chance to do X, whatever X is, they will always do X. They can’t help themselves.
A Rough Lad uses whatever tools are at their disposal. In Peaky Blinders, the rough lads use razor blades sewn into the peaks of their flat caps as impromptu slashing weapons. It's a basic form of concealed carry.
There's a nice moment in Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels when Rory Breaker pulls a similar oldy goldy out of his pocket:
Lock, Stock Pub Scene
Shout-out to Daniel John-Jules, a bloody good actor. Rough Lads have been pulling that trick since the days of yore.
The only thing a Rough Lad probably won't do in a hurry is pull a pistol. The firearm laws in the UK are remarkably strict even in this period, when it's still (broadly) legal to own a gun. Just having one in your possession is probably enough to get you arrested; actually using one will get you the rope. It will also get you the undivided attention of every single copper around. Many's the cautionary tale of a hoodlum with more guts than sense who managed exactly that.
The Blue Lamp intro
From a Keeper's perspective, assume any weapon, concealed or improvised, used by a Rough Lad is equivalent to a knife, for damage purposes. A trick like Rory Breaker's is at best a Molotov, which is +1 at Point-Blank.
All that said:
The Rough Lad
Shadowing 3, Athletics 5, Scuffling 8
Red James is a bright feller, went to the Grammar on a scholarship. But you can't teach this dog new tricks, and his love of the fight game eventually got him expelled for gambling. Undeterred, he went into the ring full time for a while before busting a knuckle and retiring early. He drifted around for a while as a trainer and impromptu medic, even spending a little while as a backstage hand at a theatre before finding his true calling: violence on demand.
Red James is a kind of Rough Lad fixer. He knows all the faces, he knows who's in chokey and who's looking for work. If you need reliable hands for a job, he can steer those hands your way. He still takes up the cudgel from time to time and misses his time in the ring, but he's philosophical. You can't change the past, he says. You can only learn from it.
Pools he definitely would have if he were a PC: the Knowledge, Medic, Streetwise.
He's called Red James because of his hair, not his political convictions. That said, he's willing and able to bluff his way through a conversation with a Radical. He knows enough of the cant to pass for a Communist or a Fascist, though he sides with neither.
As a reader, he has eclectic tastes but is beginning to be enthralled by this George Orwell character. Orwell speaks his language. If Red James hadn't made a mess of things, he thinks, he might have been an Orwell.
Still, you can't change the past, can you?
As Ally
Can supply 1D6 Rough Lads as backup, on demand. Can provide a temporary safe house for those on the run from the law, or something very like the law; this only lasts for a day or two, but a day or two may be the difference between life and death. Knows a little about a lot, and can provide 1 pool point in Knowledge, Medic or Streetwise. Thanks to his time in the theatre, if someone needs an actor or actress for a dinner date or something like, he can oblige. Not that kind of date - Red James is no pimp - but actors are always on the lookout for a free meal.
As Clue
Red James knows who hired those thugs who [insert crime here] and knows where to find those thugs, if the Hounds want to talk to them. Red James saw [insert character of ill repute] at the theatre the other night; would the Hounds like to know who [character] was with? In an extensive history of treating unusual injuries Red James has seen it all, and he can make an educated guess as to what caused this injury. Not quite the same thing as a dedicated pool of Forensics, but in a pinch it will do. Red James can also tell the difference between arson and accident, but don't ask him how he knows that.
In Play
Red hair turning to grey, a little prematurely, and he's sensitive about it. As Sordid, he may be on the edge of a narcotic habit to dull the pain of a lifetime's worth of regret and old injuries. Still as fit as a butcher's dog, and willing to prove it on demand. Buys drinks for the house when he's flush and is the life and soul of the party even when he isn't flush. If someone's playing the joanna (piano) he's right there next to them, singing his head off.
I had something else in mind this week, but I've been sick as a dog (woof woof) so ...
Recently I had an article posted in Pelgrane's Page XX, Nosferatu. The medieval village of Crémieu features as a backdrop; let's play with that idea a little.
Crémieu is tiny, perhaps a few thousand souls, with a long and somewhat glorious history. Its heyday was long, long ago; it played host to a royal castle, monasteries and nunneries, a coin mint, and was an important trade hub. In more recent times its glory faded, but it still appeals to tourists, artists and lovers of history.
In Nosferatu, Crémieu is the closest township to the tech startup Nosferatu, which makes a specialist kind of security system that apparently is designed with vampires in mind.
Pelgrane's Resource Guide gives several new creature types, among them the Fetch:
Fetches are the embodied ghosts of those killed by vampires. When a vampire drains and murders a living human, it can trap the victim’s consciousness in the dead body. The result is a fetch. Fetches look much like they did in life, only greyer and somehow diminished ...
From all that:
The Bookseller of Crémieu
When Nosferatu first relocated to France, it attracted attention both international and local.
One of those in Crémieu who paid it more than a little mind was the bookseller Adolphe Monteux. His shop La Librarie Antique on the Rue Saint-Jean is a decayed little fixture of the town, established by Adolphe's father soon after the War. It has a reasonable reputation as an antiquarian bookshop but has struggled in recent years, and anyone who looks at it can see why. The place is shabby, its collections disorganized, and the place stinks of damp.
Adolphe is a local character. A perennial candidate for local offices who never once wins a race, a blogger on local history, a scandal-monger who manages to sniff out some of his neighbor's most guarded secrets, and a lover of conspiracy theories. Particularly if those theories involve aliens, alien technology, or alien infiltration of the government. He's the kind of local irritant who never quite hits what he aims at, but who throws enough shots to occasionally be embarrassing.
He has self-published a few pamphlets on local topics, ghost stories, witches and the like. He's also contributed to the Association for the Study of the Cultural Heritage of Isle Crémieu (E.P.I.C), though his contributions to EPIC aren't always warmly received. Adolphe tends to let his passions guide him which doesn't always sit well with EPIC's editors.
What happens to Adolphe depends on whether Nosferatu is Innocent, an Asset or a Minion.
If Innocent: Adolphe attempted to dig up some dirt on Nosferatu's partnership. He concentrated on Sue Choi; he'd heard about her peculiar experiences in San Francisco and speculated that she was being puppeted by alien masters. While none of this is true it did attract the attention of a French Conspiracy node. The node was curious about Nosferatu's intentions and background, and while it didn't see Nosferatu as a threat it did want to keep an eye on Nosferatu just in case its status changed. Adolphe became a Fetch soon after, installed to keep an eye on the tech startup. Sue Choi is aware of Adolphe's actions but not of his current status; to her, Adolphe is an annoying little man who tried to poke around in her private life.
If Asset: Adolphe is being run by the other side. Before the War, Crémieu was host to a Conspiracy Node that, as luck would have it, was wiped out by the Germans who mistook it for a Communist resistance cell. Adolphe is the sole survivor of that Node; he's had to remake his identity as his own son to keep the pretense up. He was re-absorbed into the Conspiracy in the 1960s, but the Conspiracy hadn't much use for him until recently. The relocation of Nosferatu was a lucky break for this creaky antique; now the Conspiracy expects him to keep close tabs on the tech startup. His spy skills are dusty, rusty, and antique. However, his money spends as well as anyone else's, and he's been able to bribe a few Nosferatu workers who supply him with intel. He knows what Vermillion workers are and his superiors are becoming interested. Whether they become interested enough to send a strike team is, as yet, an undecided question.
If Minion: Adolphe has been a Fetch since the 1890s. Up until that point he was an investigative journalist in Paris, but his researches earned him a little too much attention. The vampire who created him kept him around for a while but forgot to keep an eye on Adolphe. The former journalist scarpered and made a home for himself in Crémieu, where he hoped to fade into the background forever and ever. After all, so long as his creator lived, so would he. Neither Adolphe nor his creator anticipated Nosferatu. As luck would have it, Adolphe's creator is one of those vampires sent to Nosferatu on punishment detail, expected to eventually succumb to one of the tech startup's test programs. This poses an impossible dilemma for Adolphe. After all, if the vampire dies, so does he. The former journalist turned bookseller has to decide whether he wants to risk it all to rescue his creator, knowing that if he's successful he'll be returning to a life of bondage. Or whether he wants to tip the scales and make sure the vampire dies, ensuring his own death in the process. What luck some Agents have arrived to complicate the situation; Adolphe may be able to manipulate them to his advantage.
[Use Thrilling Interrogation] when the Agents have captured a tougher-than-average bad guy who doesn’t give everything up to a simple Interrogation spend, or for scenes where one Agent has been captured by the police or some other mostly legal entity (domestic intelligence, corporate security) and you want to play out the cat-and-mouse game between interrogator and suspect.
Which is fine so far as it goes but it's always fun to play with the idea.
Last time I went off the beaten path I talked about dangles, those are-they-or-are-they-not people who walk in off the street claiming to have valuable intel.
This time let's consider another possibility.
Let's say that the agents know that the target has information because they know that the target is a member of, or associated with, the Conspiracy. An employee of a high-level node, let's say. Even a supernatural-level target of some importance, like a dhampir or lamia. Or at least someone who rates supernatural-level bodyguards. A Renfield, for instance, who doubles as the boyfriend/girlfriend.
Let's further say that the agents need to get this information without the target realizing that information is being extracted. Often this means Digital Intrusion or searching their offices, but not this time. This time the information is in the target's head. The agents need to get the information without the target realizing that the information was the goal.
They need to get the target to say something careless in polite conversation.
They need to Interrogate the target without the target realizing that they're being interrogated.
An adults-only sanctuary set on the clifftop above Mawgan Porth beach, where the sea is a big part of the treatment package, with every room facing the shimmering Atlantic – including the glass-walled, bromine-filtered indoor pool. The spa focuses on Ayurvedic principles, with tailor-made therapies, all taken along to the natural soundtrack of the waves crashing on the shore below. There are alfresco hot tubs for post-massage soaks and dinners offer locally sourced fish and seafood, along with slow-aged wines. There are also excellent vegan options.
Relatively isolated; the closest town is Magwan Porth which isn't exactly a bustling metropolis. Though there is an iron age village if you want a little archaeology next door.
The agents learn (by whichever means suit) that the target will be at the facility for a long weekend, to relax. Their job is to come up with a suitable Cover, (or Covers), perhaps cultivate a Network contact, get into the spa and somehow get close enough to the target to indulge in small talk.
For the purpose of this example I'm going to borrow from the Dracula Dossier and say that the target is the Hungarian (p34 DD). In this example he's a minion whose money and connections are slowly being siphoned off. The McGuffin this time out is the name of his Conspiracy contact - the Human Trafficker. His paramour, who is on this spa date with him, is infected with an Azdeh who is particularly fond of coconut water cocktails.
The Azdeh is a new development. The Conspiracy doesn't trust the Hungarian to behave, so it's keeping his beloved on ice. This can't last forever, but the Conspiracy reasons it should last long enough.
For rules purposes the Hungarian is Desperate (+1) but not otherwise conditioned or controlled. He's considered to be on the Faster side (Lead up by 2) and the Interrogation is Open. In fact, the whole point is that this not seem like an Interrogation at all, which means the Director is within rights to call for a check on that Cover identity - at least once.
Further rules effect - if the Azdeh is in the scene then the Hungarian's Maneuver increases by +1. If the Azdeh is not in the scene for whatever reason - perhaps another agent lured the Azdeh to the day spa - then this modifier does not apply. Getting the Azdeh blitzed on coconut water cocktails also counts.
The agents can't take the easy way out and kill the Azdeh. If they do, then the Hungarian will get very upset and that will end the interrogation. If they go this route, then they must somehow manage it so that the Hungarian never finds out. This probably shortens the time allotted to a day at most, since the Hungarian will notice when their paramour doesn't show up for the restaurant reservation.
Exactly how the agents obtain the intel is up to them. The line of questioning needs to be innocuous but at the same time, fruitful. If they know, for example, that the Human Trafficker likes a particular Berlin sex club, and they get the Hungarian to admit he is also a member, score. If you want to get creative, assign a three point win condition: get the agents to obtain three bits of intel and they can triangulate the result.
Think of it like a detective story. The agents, like murderous Miss Marples, must ask seemingly innocuous questions and, from the answers, unravel the plot. Simples!
If the agents win then they get the intel. If they don't win then either they don't get it, or they get bad intel.
There is a time limit. If the Hungarian's spa weekend runs out before the agents get their intel then the attempt is a failure. That means they have three ddssdays in a luxury spa in Cornwall to get what they want.
Don't feel that you have to reduce this to one quick scene. This is a three day trip at a spa on the Cornish coast. That gives them all kinds of opportunities - first to insert themselves as bona fide fellow holidaymakers (or whatever the cover story is) then to get a little closer, a little closer, ask some pertinent questions ...
As they clamber up cathedral walls wearing vacuum cleaner backpacks, the researchers look more like ghostbusters than planetary scientists. But for the team at the University of Kent, the equipment is crucial for collecting cosmic dust that becomes stranded on the ancient roofs after falling to Earth from space …
All of which leads me to:
Stargazing
A peculiar group of masked investigators have been seen crawling over the rooftop of the Cathedral. After attracting comment, there was a press release in the Arkham Advertiser. The masked investigators are actually University professors, collecting cosmic dust from the rooftop in order to carry out their experiments. After becoming a nine-day’s wonder, speculation about the roof-crawling group dies. Until one of them takes a tumble from the roof and lands in a heap on the paving stones below. “I see them,” the broken man whispers, just before the medicos load him up in an ambulance and whisks him away.
Option 1:
The investigators are actually part of the Armitage Group, that notorious collection of radicals. The others involved in this experiment have fled to their safe houses, but the one who took the fall, student Morey Amsterdam (p90) was looking for materials to be used in paint pigments. According to Morey’s notes/diaries/friends the art student believed that the artists of old had a peculiar means of mixing cosmic dust with paint to create unearthly effects in their art. However, Morey’s gone missing, and the medicos are very, very anxious to find him or anyone who might know where he is.
Option 2:
The one who fell is a Stalwart Transport Police, Malone. It’s not clear who the others were; checking at the University reveals that the names given were aliases. The medicos refuse access to the patient and say he’s at death’s door, hanging by a thread. His family plead with whoever will listen: let us see Malone. At least, they do right up to the day when all of them mysteriously disappear, never to be seen again … As for Malone it’s not clear what he went up there to find but these days the roof of the Cathedral has a peculiar ambient glow.
Option 3:
The investigation was actually sponsored by the Church of the Conciliator, who wanted to be kept at arm’s length from the whole affair. That’s why they hired academics from the University rather than go up themselves. The leader of this Stalwart group, Holly Kerr, was following up on Mythos clues that suggested the roof of the Cathedral was somehow coated with alien material. Kerr visited the unfortunate accident victim before he died and came away terrified by what he had to say. Meanwhile the other academics are back at the University planning their next jaunt on the Cathedral roof; what they saw up there has them hungry for knowledge.
What's on that roof?
Option 1:
Witch Keziah Mason is lost in space and time but that doesn't mean she's untraceable. Either her constituent parts or the trail of the things following on her heels can be found in the high places, where they won't be disturbed by people or vehicles. Those brave enough to scrape this dust from the high places can work out, approximately, where the witch is headed next, or going, or is. Problem being, people who get too much of this dust in their eyes start seeing things - hence the masks. But those masks don't provide perfect protection. Too much time up there and even the masks won't help ...
Option 2:
The far-flung heavens contain secrets man ought not seek out, but by a strange mercy the low-hanging clouds over Cthulhu city protect the citizens from seeing what's really up there. The pilot of that light plane out in Dunwich (p100) might know more about it, but the average citizen can get a similar effect by climbing very high and waiting for a gap in the clouds. Even better if that average citizen has a good telescope. Of course, the adventurous might not like what they see ...
Option 3:
Residual pollution from the Gardner Company out in Westheath taints the rooftops of every tall building in Arkham City; it just so happens that the Cathedral's roof is better protected than the rest which means the pollutant Colour isn't disturbed. It lies thick on the slates. That allows those keen to know more about this strange substance, and who want to trace its origin, have their best chance of collecting it up there. It also means that those who go in seach of it on the Cathedral roof are most likely to be changed by their exposure to the dust ...
Let's say we opt for the Brotherhood of the Pharaoh as the main plot, the destination of this runaway train. The campaign is headed in an Egyptian direction. That doesn't mean you can't have side plots with, say, the Nazis, but after the side plot is over we go straight back to Egypt. In fact - tangent time - it could be a lot of fun to have a Tomb-Hounds of Egypt game running concurrently with the Bookhounds sessions, so the players get to experience the Brotherhood from both ends of the narrative ...
Which begs the question, when are RPGs compatible – or compatible enough that you can pull this trick – and when are they not?
In the example above the Brotherhood is the point of intersection between Bookhounds and Tombhounds. It helps that both games are set in the 1930s but that isn’t absolutely necessary. What is necessary is some kind of compatibility, some link that makes the one a natural fit with the other. If the Brotherhood wasn’t part of the Bookhounds main plot, then it wouldn’t work. With the Brotherhood and its Egyptian themes in the mix, it does.
That means you can mix genres, but more importantly, it means you can mix plots. Characters. Even whole locations. Say you had a major Brotherhood temple set up in London, with all the pharaonic symbolism that implies, tended by ancient mummies and spirits from beyond. Why not have a mirror image of that temple in Egypt for the Tombhounds to find? Why shouldn’t it be the same temple, linking one location to the other by means of a Gate?
It also helps that the two settings have a common theme: illicit knowledge. The Bookhounds sell it, the Tombhounds uncover it. The Tombhounds might want to catch the Orient Express up to London to have their latest find evaluated. The Bookhounds might want to learn more about these curious Dynasty XIII papyri they’ve purchased. There’s a reason why both groups might want to talk to each other, to draw on the others’ skillset.
On the other hand, let’s say you were trying to pull a similar trick with a different system – Esoterrorists, say. Does that work?
On its own, probably not, for two reasons.
First, there’s no element of compatibility. In the Tombhounds example the point of compatibility was the Brotherhood. In theory there could be an Esoterrorist element there; the Brotherhood could be Esoterrorists. So there’s a means of creating compatibility, if you wanted to force it. But Egypt is central to the idea of Tombhounds and is the main motivator of the Brotherhood. It is fundamental to both games. There’s no fundamental connection between Esoterrorists and Bookhounds unless you, as Keeper, care to force it.
There’s no common theme either. Bookhounds is about illicit knowledge. Esoterrorists is about fighting off the Outer Black. They’re both horror games, but that’s the only link between them and it’s not a strong thematic connection. There’s plenty of horror games out there. You could make an equally valid case for, say, Wraith. Or Werewolf. Or Dungeons and Dragons: Ravenloft.
None of that is to say it can’t be done. However, to do it you’d have to go some lengths to make it happen. Ideally that’s the kind of thing you want to avoid, if only because that means more work on your part and the whole point is to avoid extra work. You have enough to do.
Let’s explore the concept to see how it functions.
Say you’re planning a game of School of Night. Is that compatible with Bookhounds?
Well, you’re looking for an element of compatibility and a common theme.
School of Night is an Elizabethan-era horror game about defending the Realm against ‘occult forces ... You study those forces at the risk of torture — at the risk of your soul — but you must hold them at bay or see England destroyed …’ You’re walking alongside John Dee, Christopher Marlowe, Shakespeare and Sir Walter Raleigh. Bookhounds is a 1930s-era game about buying and selling occult tomes. You’re a contemporary of Agatha Christie, M.R. James, J.R.R. Tolkien and Aleister Crowley. On the face of it, the two seem very different games.
However, there is an element of compatibility. Both games involve literature; School of Night is literally about playwrights, poets and scholars pitted against occult forces. These people generate those same grimoires which the Bookhounds will later sell. You could even make a case for a common prop for both games – the book. A copy of, say, the Revenger’s Tragedy with its o-so-useful disputed authorship which can be battered about, annotated, have fake blood split on it, whatever, during play in School of Night, and then handed over to the Bookhounds.
Also, there is a common theme: illicit knowledge. With the added benefit that, if you start talking about Elizabethan spies and alchemists, you could make a case for cryptography and hidden secrets within the text. That generates new secrets which the Bookhounds then spend their time unravelling. The School of Night players could literally inscribe the Revenger’s Tragedy with peculiar codes which the Bookhounds players break.
Why do this?
Because it’s fun, silly.
That, and one other reason: it’s instant backstory. Most games involve a certain amount of backstory, and you don’t want to be in the position of having to read out chunks of text or giving the players a prop they may never give a second glance to.
I love Dracula Dossier to death; I think the Armitage Files is one of the best props in any game ever. I wonder, though: how many players actually look through the Dracula Dossier prop and pick out the particular annotation they want to follow up?
But if you’re playing two settings concurrently then the players will know what happened in the way-back-when, because they’re the ones who did the thing that happened in the way-back-when. The duel that Sir Walter Raleigh fought in 1608 is that same duel you played out at the table. The peculiar history of that scarab your Bookhound is using as a paperweight is something that your Tombhounds were caught up in two years prior. That peculiar fellow who plays chess every day at a club at the Elephant and Castle who strongly resembles Thomas Middleton might actually be Thomas Middleton – and because your School of Night players had that adventure they know why Thomas Middleton is condemned to remain at that spot forever and ever, amen.
Recently the booksellers Henry Sotheran, who you may recall from their hosting of a Bookhounds play session, tweeted a cri de coeur:
This micro RPG is a thing of beauty and a joy forever, but I wanted to draw your attention to it both as Bookhounds fodder and also as a means of establishing a setting.
Just drink in the inevitable grind into poverty of spirit and purse. There's only one possible way to make money: roll a 1, 2 or 3 (a customer! A CUSTOMER!) and then roll a 6 (purchases book). That's it. Every other option on the board costs you something. It might be patience, time, or (God forbid) money, but it's all cost, all the way down. After 10 days of this, your landlord demands their rent.
While Bookhounds is about running a bookshop, there aren't many mechanics for the actual shop beyond its credit rating and some helpful advice to let the players describe the shop and its working day. Ultimately the shop takes a back seat to all the Mythos creepiness infesting London. When your characters cross swords (metaphorically or otherwise) with, say, the Keirecheires, the last thing on their minds is whether or not someone made sure a plumber came in to unblock the shop toilet. Even though the stinking gusher from said toilet might be the reason why they don't make rent that month.
This is a mistake. If the game's about running a shop, then the shop is a character in its own right - and retail has its demons, far more dangerous and hideous than any interstellar squid person who keeps hitting the snooze button on their alarm.
I've mentioned Orwell before. I'm going to mention Orwell again, and also this Forgotten London post about Pubs, and could probably name a few dozen Ephemera posts before I was dragged, kicking and screaming, back to sanity. The point I'm trying to make, and seem to have been making for a very long time, is twofold.
First, conflict is the engine of plot.
Second, retail is nothing but conflict from the moment the first staff member cracks open the front door in the frosty morning, to the darkened shadows of evening when someone flips the signage from Open to Closed and starts cashing up the till.
Sure, you can have a game that's all about chasing squid monsters and giving them a darn good wedgie. In a sense, that's what squid monsters are for.
But you've played that game before. A dozen times or more. Surely it's getting a little ... stale?
Let's tweak this micro RPG and bring in a mechanic I used once upon a time in the Great War supplement Flying Coffins: sacrificing Stability to survive.
In Flying Coffins I gave the option of letting players whose aircraft were damaged in combat exchange Stability for Health. The idea being, if your crate is shot down you're dead, so why not spend Stability to ensure it stays in the air? Sure, you're sacrificing long-term health for short-term gain, but why wouldn't you when the alternative is burning alive ten thousand feet up?
In the micro RPG the player sacrifices time, patience, and possibly money to keep on playing, until the point comes when they no longer have the time, patience or money to continue. Then the day ends. Ten cycles of that, and the game ends. Again, the point is sacrificing long-term health for short-term gain, the difference being that in the micro RPG it's all down to a die roll. It's not a player-facing system, which is perhaps the point: retail isn't a heroic business. It's a daily grind in which you, the retailer, have little to no control over your fate.
Well, Trail has a mechanic that's all about sacrifice: Stability. Often Stability is expressed in terms of raw horror: you lose Stability either because you encountered something horrible, like a gouged-out eye, or because you encountered an element of the Mythos, like a Fire Vampire.
But retail has its own horrors. The micro RPG lists a few; if you've worked in retail you can probably think of a dozen more without too much effort. You could write a book about customers alone, and some have. There are significant portions of Reddit devoted to stories you can turn into RPG fodder.
For those of you asking 'should I be spending Stability to stay in business?' the answer is, obviously, No. You should be spending Sanity. However, since you can get Stability back but Sanity, once spent, is gone forever, out of the kindness of my heart I'm suggesting Stability as a pool instead.
Moreover I highly recommend getting out of the mindset that Stability is only for the spooky heeblie-jeeblies. Life stresses us in all sorts of ways without putting on the Scooby Doo rubber mask. There ought to be a means of expressing this in-game, and Stability spends are a convenient way of doing that.
Mechanically, I would express this as follows:
At least once a week, each working week, there's a crisis. It doesn't really matter what the crisis is, for the purpose of describing this mechanic; all that matters is, it's a crisis, and needs to be dealt with urgently - but that's spilt milk under the bridge, as Jeremy Irons has been known to remark.
In order to deal with this crisis, one or more of the characters needs either to pass a Stability test, or sacrifice two Stability. Failing the test means losing 3 Stability.
Alternatively the players can ignore the crisis, but that means it isn't dealt with. If they ignore 2 or more crises, or they fail a Stability test 2 or more times, then the shop suffers a Reversal for the month and its Credit Rating goes down the pan. This has consequential knock-on effects for the longevity of the shop as a business. Too many Reversals and it's back to running a barrow under a bridge in the Isle of Dogs, or wherever it is booksellers go to die.
The intent is this: the players should always feel under pressure. Their usual adventures bring them into contact with the outré on a very regular basis. That means their Stability is already under threat, so they might want to ignore a crisis and retain their Stability. However, if they ignore too many crises then the shop suffers.
At the same time each character may feel it prudent to pass the risk on to someone else. It shouldn't be them who takes the test, or sacrifices 2 Stability. It should be someone else. Anyone else. Which inevitably means a few minutes of furious infighting, as the characters decide amongst themselves who gets to deal with the tedious bore of a customer who just walked in the door, unblocks the sink, does the taxes or otherwise deals with whatever-it-is that has the shop in an uproar.
This can only lead to wonderful things.
Always remember, conflict is the engine of plot, and retail is nothing but conflict, morning, noon, and night.
Three cheers to Henry Sotheran's and all who toil in retail's service!
Last week I talked about how to start a campaign and this week I want to expand on that, drawing on Auntie's War by Edward Stourton.
I'm going to talk more about that book for YSDC, but the short version is Stourton has put together an exemplary history of the BBC during WWII. Highly recommended, but I'm not going to talk about the War here. Instead I want to dwell a little on an experience he recounts in the Introduction.
Auntie periodically insists that those of us who travel a lot attend what is called a HEFAT course - Hostile Environment and First Aid Training - at which you learn the sort of skills you hope you will never have to use; if you suffer a sucking chest wound from shrapnel, I'm your man. The courses are usually held in some hideous Home Counties mansion with dark shrubberies - rather the sort of place one can imagine being sent for special ops training during the Second World War in fact ... One of the tricks in the HEFAT team repertoire involves a post-prandial stroll across the lawn. You can admire the pretty countryside, and chat with your colleagues and tutors as you walk, but the Home Counties peace is suddenly interrupted by a burst of automatic gunfire, and you are expected to dive under the nearest rhododendron bush. Once the game is over you very often find that, when seeking cover, you have rushed towards the source of the fire rather than away from it; it is surprisingly difficult to identify where bullets are coming from when you are taken by surprise ...
Imagine being a journalist on that course. Drawing further from information supplied by the International Women's Media Foundation, HEFAT courses look a little like this:
Now, let's go one step further and gamify this.
There will be some changes depending on whether the agents are with, or against, EDOM, but the short version is that the agents are tasked with infiltrating a HEFAT course, snatching a specific journalist and conducting a interrogation on-site. The objective is to find out what the journalist knows about [whatever it may be - presumably a McGuffin or a Node], and a secondary objective is to discover whether the journalist has been co-opted by the Conspiracy. Perhaps the journalist is infected; perhaps they're a Renfield.
So the snatch has very specific parameters. It needs to happen in a particular place. It needs to look as if it's all part of the course. The interrogation needs to happen very quickly, since the idea is to return the journalist to the course as if nothing has happened. In the best case scenario the snatch and interrogation take place and yet nobody - not even the target - knows it's happened. The target assumes the whole business was part of the course, and the people running the course think the journalist was out of pocket for, maybe, half an hour, perhaps because they wandered off somewhere unexpected. If the agents are particularly cunning one of their own might impersonate the journalist for the necessary half-hour, meaning that the HEFAT course operators don't even notice the journalist is missing.
All this is taking place at Stourton's hideous Home Counties mansion with dark shrubberies, which in this narrative may or may not be an EDOM asset. Lord knows EDOM's probably collected quite a few hideous Home Counties mansions over the years. It might even be Ring, depending on your campaign. Whether or not it is Ring is up to you as Director, but even if it isn't it probably shares some characteristics with the former Holmwood estate.
The Dossier has this to say about one version of Ring:
The house is two stories tall, built in a rough J or hook shape; the north wing is mostly disused and remotely monitored. The upper floor of the south wing has 14 rooms; the ground floor somewhat fewer ... Power comes from a generator in the old coach house. Ring incorporates 100 acres of parkland, no longer maintained and therefore gone somewhat to seed ...
That sounds about right for the HEFAT facility. Impressive looking, but a fair-sized chunk of the property is essentially unmonitored except by remote viewing, and it's likely nobody's tasked with watching those cameras full-time. Someone might hack those cameras, or pick a route that avoids them altogether, so the journalist can be brought to the interrogation chamber. Perhaps that's a basement, perhaps it's some forgotten bedroom. Whatever or wherever it may be, the furniture (if there is any) is covered in dropcloths and there's a strong stink of rat.
Again drawing on the Dossier, the Journalist:
Paula Teague, mid-40s, chain-smoking cigarettes, rumpled clothes.
As the Runner, the Journalist would use Stability as a chase ability. NPCs generally don't have Stability pools, so I'd assume a base pool of 8 for the encounter - tough but not impossible.
The interrogation is Open, so I'd add 2 to the Journalist's Lead. The Runner is trained to resist interrogation (that's what the HEFAT course is for, after all), so the Runner gets +1 Maneuver. This might increase by +2 if the Journalist is under vampiric control (total +3).
The Agents start with +2 Maneuver and are using Shrink as their chase ability.
Whoever has the higher Maneuver adds the difference to their roll. Assuming +2 Agents, +1 Journalist, then the Agents add +1 to their roll. If there's vampiric influence, increasing the runner's total to +3, the Journalist might add +1 to their roll.
Either the runner gets to Lead 10 and escapes - which in context means they outlast the agents and have to be let go - or the pursuers get to Lead 0 and get the information they want. I'd either start at Lead 5 or 7 depending on how challenging I want to be to the agents. This is an opening scenario after all; presumably it's better for the game long-term if they get the information, but at the same time it might be better to make the agents sweat.
In broad terms, it goes like this:
Snatching Auntie
Start with: the agents are already at the HEFAT facility and are about the snatch the Journalist.
Next moment: the agents have snatched the journalist and are taking them to the interrogation room.
Next moment: the Thrilling Interrogation begins.
At the same time: whatever cover the agents have dreamed up is beginning to unravel. Maybe the HEFAT organizers notice the Journalist is missing, or someone else on the course unexpectedly wanders a little too close to the interrogation room. The agents have to deal with this problem or the Journalist will get a free Swerve Lead bump.
Possible Swerve: Flashback In which the characters play through a significant event in the Journalist's life, as if it was actually happening now. That nightmarish moment in Fallujah, the strange conversation in a bar in Bonn, whatever it may be. Successful resolution of the scene (definition of success being in the hands of the Director) gets the Pursuers a bump, or the runner a Lead bump.
Next moment: the Thrilling Interrogation concludes.
Final moment: the agents return the Journalist and make their escape, hopefully without being spotted.
Throughout the whole process the agents are in no immediate danger. They might not even see a hint of a vampire, or anything to do with the Conspiracy. Still, if ever there was a time to make them sweat a little ...
Recently, on the Bookshelf for YSDC, I talked about a Vietnam War novel, Play the Red Queen, by Juris Jurjevics. At that time I'd forgotten Michael Herr's Dispatches, or I'd have mentioned that Jurjevics borrowed his entire plot from a paragraph of Herr's. I'm going to quote that paragraph now, leaving out a small portion that might be considered Red Queen spoilers:
Those nights there was a serious tiger lady going round on a Honda shooting American officers on the street with a .45. I think she'd killed over a dozen in three months; the Saigon papers described her as 'beautiful' but I don't know how anybody knew that ... [redacted.]
Herr goes on to say:
Saigon, the center, where every action in the bushes hundreds of miles away fed back into town on a karmic wire strung so tight if you touched it in the early morning it would sing all day and all night. Nothing so horrible happened upcountry that it was beyond language fix and press relations, a squeeze fit into the computers would make the heaviest numbers jump up and dance. You'd either meet an optimism that no violence could unconvince, or a cynicism that would eat itself empty every day and then turn, hungry and malignant, on whatever it could for a bite, friendly or hostile, it didn't matter. Those men called dead Vietnamese 'believers', a lost American patrol was 'a black eye,' they talked as though killing a man was nothing more than depriving him of his vigor.
One thing Jujevics hammers, which Herr does not (as he spends more time out of Saigon), is how irredeemably corrupt Saigon became in this period. Everyone's on the make, from the corporals to the colonels to the astrologer telling fortunes in the tea shop. Troops go back and forth to the Indian money changers, there to exchange their pay (and extracurricular funds) at favorable rates. Spooks from Langley are ferrying vast quantities of dirty currency to Hong Kong, there to be laundered and put back in circulation. Up in the Ambassador's Mansion Henry Cabot Lodge is scheming, and down in the town the Red Queen is picking her next target - though whether she's doing so on the CIA's behalf, the Viet Cong's, or on a mission of her own devising is an open question.
This is all the more pressing because, at the time of Jurjevics' novel, Prime Minister Diem is on the verge of toppling, yet again. His generals are plotting to depose him, everybody knows it, and the only serious consideration is whether or not Diem and his closest people be extradited somewhere safe before the ax falls. It's not the first time Diem's regime, and life, has been threatened but everyone thinks it will be the last.
The Fall of Delta Green takes place during this period. Perhaps the most likely occult organization to be involved, aside from Delta Green itself, is the Order of the Black Buddha (p305). It's a fair bet that any Delta agents operating in Saigon are at least going to spare a moment's thought for American officers being gunned down by a mysterious female assassin. Using Constructing a Crime (p 312) as a baseline:
The Victim(s): An American officer of captain rank or higher. Further investigation shows that they're all working in procurement in one capacity or another; these aren't just REMFs, they're accountants and auditors - the people who know where the money goes and who set it in motion.
The Deed: Each time the target was shot at a distance by a woman using a .45 caliber pistol, who immediately speeds away on the back of a scooter driven by an accomplice. The weapon, forensics can determine, is a Savage 1907, manufactured for the French in the Great War; it probably made its way to Vietnam as a police sidearm, before the assassin got hold of it. Her marksmanship is impeccable, never more than one shot per kill. Funny thing; at each scene there's a graffiti skull on the ground or wall next to or very near to the victim. It seems to have been put there beforehand.
The Culprit: The assassin is a Vietnamese woman approximately between the ages of 25 and 30, according to witnesses, who also describe her as 'beautiful.' She has one or more accomplices who act as getaway drivers, and there may be still others who act as spotters. All of them appear to be VC, and judging by strategy and tactics are veteran guerillas. The shooter is a class apart, with talent that could easily have taken her to the Olympics - but will probably take her to the boneyard. Further investigation brings their allegiance into question; is this actually a CIA-backed cleanup crew, eliminating witnesses that might later testify as to the source and whereabouts of its slush fund? Or is this a Russian effort, perhaps GRU-SV8 working through KGB cutouts, to destabilize a Delta Green cash cow? Who really controls all that money flowing through the system to Hong Kong and back? Criminals? The CIA? Someone - something - else?
The Puzzle: That graffiti skull at the crime scene uses magical theory derived from Hermann Mülder's 1939 text Geheimes Mysterium von Asien, the limited edition published for the Karotechia. Use some of your own blood to make the paint and inscribe the death image at a place of your choosing. So long as you're shooting at that point, you gain 4 points Firearms pool and can spend or pull off combat tricks as though you had Cherry level expertise, whether you do or don't. Damage is always considered to be Point Blank for the weapon, no matter how far distant the shooter. This doesn't affect forensics, only damage - so, eg, no gunpowder burns from muzzle contact with flesh, but the wound is in all other respects as bad as it would have been if the weapon was pressing against the target's forehead. Of course, you need to make sure your target is standing where you want them to stand, which is a whole other problem. [Note: DG doesn't use Cherries but NBA does, extra text included to ensure NBA rules taken into account.] There's one other catch. For 24 hours after this magical shootist's trick, the shooter is exceptionally vulnerable to being shot and takes +2 damage from any successful Firearms attack.
Question being, how did this hit team get hold of a Karotechia text?
OK, the stage is set and the main actors are waiting for their cue. The opening act is about to start - but what should it be?
The first act should set up the rest of the show, and you can't have a tragedy without a little victory beforehand. Macbeth has his glorious moment in battle before his meeting with the weird women, Romeo his romance with Juliet. That taste of victory makes the tragedy to come all the more bitter.
There's lots of options, but for my money there are two big moments that define the early years of Blair, one of which is right in the heart of London and couldn't be more iconic.
The first is the Good Friday Agreement which put an end to the Troubles and brought about demilitarization and peace in Ireland; great for those players who really enjoy political negotiations, with potential for some high-tension moments.
The other is the Millennium Dome project. So iconic it features (briefly) in Ultraviolet, defines the early years of the Blair premiership, and has as its capstone an honest-to-God jewel robbery complete with a high speed boat chase on the Thames.
I know which one I'd pick.
The Dome's one of those moments of overweening pride that, in hindsight, looks ridiculous but at the time seemed iconic. The original, relatively small-scale project conceived under the Tories as a kind of celebration of British ingenuity becomes an over-baked extravaganza as Blair pours money and optimism into the thing.
The video keeps nattering about how it's in Greenwich, and technically it's not wrong. Speaking as someone who lived near there, it is in Greenwich. The awful, neglected bit of Greenwich. The dumpster fire end. The Greenwich everyone wants to see is further south, with the Market, the Cutty Sark, Brunel's under-river tunnel, the Meridian, the Observatory, the National Maritime Museum. The Dome is huddled on the Peninsula, like a boil on Greenwich's rump.
The Peninsula is where the old gasworks used to be, and a whole bunch of other high-pollution industries, most of which were dead by the later 20th century. The kind of place they used as background for cop shows like the Sweeny, all empty factories and deserted streets, great for shootings and car chases. Imagine the toxic wasteland you'd find left over from a century or more of heavy industry. That's where they put the Dome. Also, some relatively cheap housing - at least, cheap by London standards.
You couldn't even get there easily, not until the North Greenwich Jubilee station opened, and that was a late arrival. These days there are new roads, a Thames Clipper Shuttle stop, new bus routes, even a cable car over the river. Before the tube station opened in 1999 it was shank's mare or bust.
There are all kinds of stories to be told, culminating most likely in Operation Magician to catch the jewel thieves intent on ram-raiding the DeBeers display in November 2000 - no doubt backed heavily by the Conspiracy.
It's all new build, so something along the lines of 'we found this odd thing while digging the foundations for' [whatever it may be - the Jubilee Station seems an obvious pick] is an excellent starter. All very Quatermass, which fits any setting from Alien to Damned.
Then there's the displays, inside and out. You've got all the main events, Who We Are, What We Do, Where We Live, plus the art installations and other showpieces being set up outside the Dome ready for the big opening in 2000. Any of them could hide some Conspiracy plot, mind control device, peculiar necromantic summoning, or whatever-you-like. An Alien Stone hidden inside the Night Rain contemplation area, an over-complicated plot by Linea Dracula assigns to manipulate the Where We Live exhibit so as to effectively remove the Block that prevents vampires from entering a space if they haven't been invited, an attempt to spread the Vukodlak Plague via the many commemorative tchotchkes on sale - you can get away with almost anything inside a space designed to evoke wonder and awe by playing with what you see and hear.
If you're wondering how far you can go, remember that we live in a world where this happened, and I defy you to invent a notion half as nutty:
So that's the start. What should the opening chapters be like?
Successful, for the most part. This is a tragedy. For a tragedy to have any impact there has to be a downfall, and you can't have a downfall without some initial, visible success. Romeo falls in love, Othello defeats all comers in court as well as on the battlefield, Macbeth is made Thane of Cawdor and Glamis, and is emboldened to murder Duncan and become King.
So from a game perspective the agents are probably facing off against anything up to a Level 4 Node, and winning, for the most part. Not necessarily easy victories, and if some friends or allies get dusted along the way that's the cost of doing business. Still, they've yet to really come face-to-face with the Vampires at the heart of the Conspiracy.
These are the Good Times.
You can set the stage for the Bad Times to come with the opening shots in the Kosovo War. Blair's heavily involved in the planning and wins the 1999 Charlemagne Prize for his work. How appropriate would it be if, while Blair is taking center stage in the ceremony at Aachen, the agents are busy fending off Conspiracy plotters behind the scenes? Perhaps they're trying to steal some scientific wonder, or trying to suborn members of Blair's government or family. Skulking around the Town Hall on the day of ceremony trying not to get spotted sounds like something every NBA character ought to attempt at least once in their career.
Shortly after that comes the General Election in June 2001, and in November planes fly into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
There's a reason why this story starts with a fight in the marketplace. It elevates the action immediately. This is no political intrigue, no intricate cat-and-mouse duel of wits. It's a straight-up stabfest, and it's there to demonstrate the stakes, just in case anyone was asleep when the narrator told us two star-crossed lovers were about to bite it.
Pelgrane's Resource Guide has a useful section in the opening chapters: Initiation. Agents who have already had a close encounter with the undead conspiracy describe how that came about, and what consequences arose. Each segment looks something like this:
Afflicted
You were attacked – mentally or physically – by a supernatural threat, a horror you had no words to describe.
Changes: Gain Vampirology +1 and Sense Trouble +2. Either reduce Health by 2 or gain PTSD (Night’s Black Agents, p. 84).
Unanswered Questions:
What scars do you still bear from the encounter?
Do you recall the encounter clearly, or only in fragmented nightmares?
Did the affliction heal naturally, or does it still trouble you?
Resolution: Kill the creature that injured you. (Alternatively – if the wound is unnaturally hard to heal, find a cure.)
It arises from a fairly basic premise: whatever happened left its mark, and now you, the one affected, have to deal with the consequences. It's a version of what has been called blue-booking, where players describe what happened to their characters in rules-lite terms. Often it's used to flesh out backstory, play out moments when X first meets Y, or how Z came to be. It usually takes place between games, so as not to interrupt play in formal sessions.
Often this is a solo experience but it doesn't have to be. I first encountered the term in Cyberpunk's Listen Up, You Primitive Screwheads! where Blue Booking was described as roleplay between GM and player. In the example, Media Emile faces down some of Arasaka's Executive VPs at gunpoint in a meeting room on the 47th floor of Night City Tower. There's gunplay as well as roleplay but no random element, no checks, no dice; it's an extended yes-and improv moment in which the player gains information and is presumed to survive but not necessarily escape unscathed.
In fiction you're encouraged to start with action. Whatever the most interesting moment in the character's life-to-date is, that's where the opening chapter finds the character. Nobody cares about Bilbo's many years of more or less blissful stuffing-his-face-in-Hobbiton life. What we care about is the moment when Gandalf the wizard pays him a visit, and inscribes a fateful rune upon his otherwise pristine painted green door.
In RPGs you're also encouraged to start with action. If there isn't a swordfight in the marketplace within two minutes of the opening, start one. Bite your thumb at someone, or just bite your thumb, but whatever you do make sure blades are flashing.
In this particular campaign there are questions that need answering, chief among them being how the agents first meet the King. I've already discussed how you should design the King; but what was that first fateful encounter that bound the agents to the King?
I'm going to propose to you now that the opening chapter should be a Session Zero Blue Book, borrowing elements from the Resource Guide's Initiation chapter. In that Session Zero there shall be no dice, no random element, but neither shall it be a solo act. All the players will be at the table. The Director will be the Director.
Traditionally a Session Zero is a pre-campaign meeting and is often dealt with in a kind of checklist format, where players reel off the things they want to see and don't want to see, going forward. That's not what I'm proposing. This is more in line with the Initiation format, which tries to describe how the characters first became involved with the Conspiracy.
So start with action.
The Initiation section starts each moment with a brief, short descriptive header: Afflicted, Betrayed, Collateral Damage, Criminal Traces, Head-On Collision, Impossible Analysis, Old Files, the Trade. As a group decide which descriptive header best suits, either from that list or create one yourself. It can be a mixture. Ultraviolet uses Betrayal with a mix of the Trade, and opens with the sudden disappearance of a Met Detective Sergeant shortly after one of the DS's contacts tries to spill the beans on a criminal conspiracy, only to be brutally murdered. Action, action all the way.
Develop the scene from there.
Let's say that your opening scene is a version of Head-On Collision in which some of the soon-to-be agents are breaking into [BLANK] in order to [BLANK] and some are part of the protection detail. It doesn't really matter what BLANK is, but for this example let's say that the job's an assassination to take place in a fancy London high-rise, either an office or an apartment block.
It doesn't have to be a London high-rise, of course. It could as easily be a pre-handover Hong Kong. Greg Rucka got good mileage out of that in Queen and Country (v4 Definitive Edition). Anywhere in the Commonwealth will probably do, but for the minute let's stick with London.
Let's set some ground rules:
Every character comes out of this changed in some way, and each player gets to decide how their character is permanently altered. Other players can offer suggestions, but it's the player's call as to what happens to their character.
Every positive change (+1 to Vampirology, say), is balanced by an equal penalty to a pool or some kind of permanent affliction (eg. PTSD, chemical dependency).
No more than +3 benefit total, and therefore a -3 penalty (or equivalent).
If using Trust, assign Trust points based on the events of this scene.
The individual player gets to decide what the Resolution should be for their agent, and that's the character's long-term goal in the campaign.
The players get to resolve the scene, as a group - that is, they decide how the Head-On Collision ends. In the example, was the target killed? Did the target turn out to be something damned/supernatural/alien/mutant?
Those permanent changes can be anything you want; be creative. Not everyone has to have an addiction or mania. It might be something more mundane, like a +1 or 2 to Heat whenever operating in [wherever it might be] because your reputation precedes you. Or Difficulty for Stability tests increase by 1 under certain specific stressors (whenever encountering Bhuta, say).
Either during, or as a result of, this scene, the King comes into the agents' lives. Thanks to their actions the King now wants to be their patron. In much the same way, Philip Quast's character in Ultraviolet decides to bring Jack Davenport's DS Colefield onto the team as a consequence of his relationship with the policeman-turned-vampire Jack Beresford.
Anyone who dies in this scene, dies. This can be a way to permanently alter a character, by taking up to -3 Network and describing how their comrade in arms was [burnt alive / crushed to death / taken by Them]. Someone who dies can be encountered in future scenes or scenarios, of course. That's what ghosts (and vampires, for that matter) are all about. This is also a good excuse for taking the Revenge drive.
At the end of this Blue Book Session Zero the players should have decided how their agents first encountered the Conspiracy, and what the result was. They have a relationship with the King, which in turn will lead to future scenarios. They have a goal to shoot for - their Resolution.
I've been looking forward to talking about Swords of the Serpentine for a very long time. It's on pre-order now; I participated in the playtest and have the Adventurer's Edition; I really want to see the final version.
I thought I'd talk about one-shot design this time out and use Swords as an example.
A One-Shot is a simple adventure that theoretically can be slotted into any campaign or played as a one-off with disposable characters. It has no significance in a campaign's ongoing plot but can be modified to fit. An ideal one-off is short and simple enough to be played in one session of about 4 hours, more or less. Often the point of a one-off is to teach new players the rules, but it could as easily be used as a filler or special occasion scenario. In Night's Black Agents, The Van Helsing Letter is a one-off.
Serpentine's Main Rules talk about one-shot construction and offers considerable advice, including:
Strong Premise: Pick an exciting and adventurous plot hook for the adventure.
Start with Action: Starting with a short action sequence immediately helps new players focus, and teaches them combat rules in just a few moments.
Clear Goals: Give the Heroes specific goals for the adventure. Whether that’s “find the idol,” “blackmail the noble,” “uncover the Sorcerer,” or “rob the treasury,” starting with a clear goal gives a one-shot momentum.
Going back to Van Helsing for a moment, and without spoiling too many plot points, that scenario begins with the agents going to a place to do a thing, only to be immediately interrupted by mooks who steal the McGuffin and run away, possibly setting the scene location on fire in the process. That is action. When in doubt have a man come through the door with a gun in his hand, as Raymond Chandler would say.
So what makes a premise strong? A premise is strong when it compels action. A knock on the door compels action, a gunshot is more compelling, and the building you're in going up in a blazing inferno is more compelling still. The premise has to make the players want to get up and do something immediately, because that thing, whatever it may be, is important enough to grab their attention and get them moving.
The old first edition DMG said something about loot that's relevant here:
While it is possible to reduce treasure in these areas to some extent so as to prolong the period of lower costs, what kind of dragon hoard, for example, doesn't have gold and gems? It is simply more heroic for players to have their characters swaggering around with pouches full of gems and tossing out gold pieces than it is for them to have coppers. Heroic fantasy is made of fortunes and king's ransoms in loot gained most cleverly and bravely and lost in a twinkling by various means - thievery, gambling, debauchery, gift-giving, bribes, and so forth. The reality AD&D seeks to create through role-playing is that of the mythical heroes such as Conan, Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, Kothar, Elric and their ilk. When treasure is spoken of, it is more stirring when participants know it to be TREASURE!
You should apply the same philosophy to your Premise. It's got to be Big. It's got to be Four-Color. This is swords and sorcery, after all. If ever there was a genre where everything is larger than life, it's this one.
Whichever Goal your characters are trying to achieve, it ought to be no more than once sentence long. Devoting paragraphs to backstory and intricate diplomacy is not encouraged. Find the idol is great. Twenty paragraphs describing the idol, those who've sought it over the years, why it's important to an obscure sect of Outlander sorcerers and so on is an appalling waste of time and effort.
Finally, a one-shot needs only one major adversary, and at most one minor adversary. This isn't the time for complicating the narrative with side-plots. The minor adversary doesn't have to be daggers drawn with the characters; it could be a rival, or some troublesome incorruptible City Watchman. This character is there to be the irritant, the foil. not the nemesis. The Villain, on the other hand, is there to chew bubblegum and kick ass, and as bubblegum hasn't been invented yet he's a bit of a monomaniac.
Incidentally for those GMs looking for Serpentine setting-specific NPC naming conventions, I recommend this resource.
With all that in mind:
Doting Mother
Premise: a Giant Scorpion brought into Eversink to guard sorcerer Tranquilo's tower escaped and is living somewhere in the Tangle, the poorest part of the Goddess Denari's eternal city. Rumor has it that when the scorpion did a bunk it carried off Tranquilo and the wizard's famous Grimoire, and there are plenty of would-be sorcerers who'd pay good money for that book. Besides, Tranquilo won't need it any more ...
Complication: a barbarian, Bloody-Ax Kang, is also after the scorpion, to prove his power and to make a trophy shield out of its carapace. Kang isn't much of a reader and will probably destroy the Grimoire if he finds it first.
Goal: Recover the Grimoire.
Complication to be uncovered during play: the Scorpion's pregnant, which is why it ran off; it wants somewhere peaceful to give birth and raise its brood. It's carrying a number of juveniles on its back right now, some of which might be old enough to wander around on their own.
From wikipedia: The size of a brood varies by species, from three to over 100. Before giving birth, the female elevates the front of her body and positions her pedipalps and front legs under her to catch the young. The young emerge one by one from the genital opercula, expel the embryonic membrane, if any, and are placed on the mother's back where they remain until they have gone though at least one molt. The period before the first molt is called the pro-juvenile stage; the young are unable to feed or sting, but have suckers on their tarsi, used to hold on to their mother. This period lasts 5 to 25 days, depending on the species.
Secondary Goal to be uncovered during play: kill or otherwise deal with the Scorpion's brood, before they grow and become a real threat to the Tangle.
Start with Action: the characters hear screams and see something large and black scuttling over the highest points of the Tangle. Chase scene! Bloody-Ax also saw the whatever-it-was and is in hot pursuit.
Ultimate Location? Well, that's up to the Game Master. I see it as some tumbledown slum near the Hospital (and all those tasty sick citizens) but the Tangle's a big place. She could be anywhere ...
Once again this video comes courtesy of Side Note.
This location combines the unusual locale of a cruise ship with the happy fun times any enterprising agent might have in North Korea. For those of you who don't want to watch the whole video, a brief precis:
Once upon a time a man with more money than sense thought it would be a spiffing idea to open a grand hotel floating on the Grand Barrier Reef in Australia. In theory this is a fantastic location for a boutique hotel. You have all the beauty of nature at your disposal coupled with the luxuries a top tier hotel can offer. In practice this rapidly fell apart. Hotels, like all other service industry enterprises, operate on the basis of low cost high return. Even the Ritz scrimps. However a floating hotel was always going to be an expensive proposition, particularly given the ecologically sensitive nature of the Grand Banks. There were expensive delays which meant it didn't open when it needed to. Added to that is the less obvious problem that once you plonk it out there, there's not a lot you can do with it. Any other hotel can offer excursions, change the look up, offer deals. Operating costs being what they were, deals were off the table: you paid through the nose. If you didn't really enjoy watersports or suffered from seasickness, you weren't going to have a good time. Any local problems, like starfish eating the coral or cyclones knocking out the pool, meant the site was less desirable. Then they found discarded WWII ammo - possibly live ammo - dumped nearby.
Ooops.
Incidentally if any of you are suffering from an advanced case of deja vu, then you've read Chris Brookmyre's One Fine Day In The Middle Of The Night. In that comic crime novel a developer puts all his eggs in one floating basket and opens a hotel in a converted oil rig off the coast of Scotland. A floating "Butlins meets ethnic cleansing", with "every modern British urban leisure activity, but without the British urban clouds and rain. A resort where all the staff didn't merely speak English, but spoke it in comfortably familiar accents … And crucially, a resort where you could be guaranteed never to see the front page of Bild staring back at you from your desired poolside spot." As a kind of fuck-you to his past he arranges a class reunion aboard his pride and joy, so he can flaunt his success in front of the people he wants most to acknowledge his greatness: the kids he knew at Catholic school St Michael's, Auchinlea. Then terrorists show up, shoot the place up, and plant a bomb in the oil rig.
Ooops.
Australia's pride and joy migrated to North Korea via Vietnam, and was used for a brief period as a kind of way station for reunited Koreans when NK flirted with reconciliation. The idea being that those who'd been on one side of the Bamboo Curtain could meet their relatives from the South on what seemed more or less neutral ground. As with all things designed by man this too fell apart, and for now the empty hotel floats off Mount Kumgang. Allegedly it's slated for redevelopment, a project temporarily delayed by COVID quarantine. In practice given the idiosyncrasies of NK's current government it is likely to be mothballed till it sinks.
Its timeline is:
Inception and late opening 1988, as the John Brewer Floating Hotel off Australia's Barrier Reef. It was very briefly also known as the Four Seasons Floating Hotel, when some addled philanthropist bought it from Brewer. If further proof were needed that the average rich man's brain consists entirely of warmed-over pudding ...
Relocated 1989 (oh dear) to Vietnam, where it had a home on the Saigon River near the Tran Hung Dao Statue.
Relocated 1998 to North Korea.
Closed 2008 after a shooting incident in which a NK soldier shot a South Korean visitor dead. Allegedly the tourist was entering a militarily sensitive zone and did not heed warnings. Remains closed to this day.
There is a free Night's Black Agents RPG based aboard a cruise ship, Pleasures of the Flesh, written by Alasdair Sinclair and available in Pelgrane's downloads section. With some small modification it could as easily take place aboard Brewer's seven story luxury floating hotel. Given it was only at the Barrier Reef for a year, unless you want to set the game in the 1980s - which is perfectly doable - you're better off having it a 1990s scenario, or even a North Korean getaway. What sinister secrets lurk inside North Korea's luxury resort, and why do so many NK officials want to stay there? If it's a Vietnam scenario you have other options, not least returning veterans of the Vietnam war trying to recapture their lost youth in a sparkling high-end nightclub playground. Dance the night away in the Downunder Bar, then restore your strength with one of the management's special tonics …
To close out, here's a scenario seed:
Dead Drop
A North Korean source claims to have what Edom would describe as a Special Biological Asset - a vampire. The source wants to smuggle it out of North Korea, allegedly because the powers that be want to use it as part of a North Korean eternal life program and the source fears what might happen if Kim Jong-un lives forever. Terms include a fat payoff for the source, to be routed via casinos in the Philippines. A fixer in Macao is arranging the deal, negotiating with interested parties which include every known vampire program - so America's Find Forever, whatever's left of Germany's Unternehmen Braun, the Vatican's St Lazarus - only China's Room 452 isn't on the bidder list. That may or may not be a warning signal that something dodgy's going on, given North Korea's historic ties to China.
The deal is, pay through the nose via the casino and the buyer collects the asset at the floating Hotel Haegumgang. How the buyer gets to the hotel and retrieves the asset is entirely up to the buyer. The seller only promises to deliver the asset, as securely bound up as possible. This offer's only open for a limited time - buy now, beat the rush.
Verifying the vendor's bona fides is a chancy proposition. The only contact is the Macau fixer, Wan Kuok-koi, aka Broken Tooth, a notorious gangster affiliated with the 14K Triad. Recently released from jail and enjoying millions earned from a cryptocurrency scheme, Broken Tooth isn't the sort to cave under intimidation tactics and he knows how to keep his mouth shut. However someone able to do him political favors or wipe out a few outstanding warrants for friends of his will get him to talk. The vendor is an elder statesman, ally to Kim Jong's father and now out in the cold, politically speaking.
The asset will be in one of the hotel's most expensive suites, in five day's time. Either the agents represent the buyers, or they represent a disappointed bidder who wants to snatch the asset before the buyer takes possession. All they have to do is sneak into North Korea, take possession, and get out without being arrested and thrown into a North Korean re-education camp. Assuming the vendor's trustworthy. Assuming the asset's as securely bound as the vendor says it is. Assuming this isn't all some double-bluff on someone's part to capture a foreign vampire hunter and use that person's knowledge to kick-start North Korea's vampire program.
I've been asked to talk about weaving (S)entries, the Harker Intrusion and the Van Helsing Letter into an introduction to the gory chocolate box that is the Dracula Dossier. I've already talked about (S)entries and where I would put it in the list. Today's the day the Harker Intrusion and the Van Helsing Letter get their time in the limelight.
As always I will try to avoid spoilers, but if you want to be completely unspoilt then stop reading now.
I should begin by saying that the Harker Intrusion appears in several different formats. It was a free RPG pdf download that was later incorporated into the Edom Files, and I believe it also features in a KWAS Collection. I'm unaware of any significant difference between the publications, but if there are any then you should know I'm relying on the version in the Edom Files for this discussion. To my knowledge the Van Helsing Letter only exists as a Free RPG day scenario.
Like (S)entries the Harker Intrusion demonstrates the core concepts of the game. However, unlike (S)entries, the Harker Intrusion isn't concerned with game mechanics. This one's all about mood. There's a potential Thrilling Chase early on, but this one's much more about chills than thrills.
The ultimate objective of the Harker Intrusion is to hand the players a McGuffin which can be used in later scenarios. There are some creepshow moments before that point, in several different geographic locations, and the climactic scenes take place in the heart of London. One optional moment puts the agents face-to-face with a significant threat, but it is very much optional; if the agents don't want to run the risk, they don't have to.
Whereas in the Van Helsing Letter the objective is to pit the agents in direct conflict with the Conspiracy. There is a significant threat, and it is not an optional encounter. An even mix of thrills and chills with this one, with the added bonus of an artefact which can be used in future scenarios - though there's no guarantee the agents will find it.
If I were using these three scenarios in combination then a great deal depends on whether they're playing as Edom, or whether they're playing against Edom.
In either case, (S)entries goes first. That's just good sense. Then I would use the (S)entries option whereby the NPC with the laptop is already in contact with Harker, who's the driving force in the Harker Intrusion. Harker's been gathering intel from several different sources and employing others to root out intel. The (S)entries NPC is just one of Harker's many sources. Perhaps Harker was trying to sell that NPC the Dossier, or some of the information that book contains. Perhaps Harker was after something else, but whatever it might have been there is enough information on that laptop to put the agents in contact with Harker.
Perhaps the agents contact Harker, or, if they do not, Harker contacts them. To get the laptop back, to find out who the agents are, it doesn't really matter; whichever way this goes, Harker and the agents are in contact by the end of (S)entries. If the agents are Edom, then this can be an elaborate double-bluff, since Harker is very definitely against Edom and all its works.
The question then becomes where to place the Harker Intrusion? The answer, as I've delicately hinted, depends on whether your agents are Edom or are against Edom.
If they are Edom, then Harker comes last. If against Edom, then Harker can be last, but fits in just as well in the second slot.
If they are Edom, then their role is either to protect the Dossier at all costs or to use it against the Conspiracy. That book is Edom's beating heart. This makes any scenario in which the Dossier plays a major role the natural capstone for the opening chapter. By obtaining that McGuffin they're doing their job, and incidentally opening themselves up to a larger, more complicated world.
The only real switcheroo is whether or not the OPFOR in Harker is Edom. That ultimately depends on how the Director intends to portray Edom. Perhaps the agency is corrupt, either suborned by Dracula or too committed to its own debased ends to care how it gets the job done. In that event Edom using lethal force against its own is par for the course.
Alternatively the OPFOR could be a different organization entirely. It might be the Conspiracy, or it might be one of the other intelligence agencies making a play for the ultimate prize. The logical choice, if using the Van Helsing Letter, is the German Vampire Program, Unternehmen Braun. However it could be any of the other contestants for the prize: the Vatican, China's Room 452, the US' Find Forever program - whoever you fancy, though it might be especially delicious if it was Find Forever since that pits UK vs US, and in any battle between those contestants the US will have the best toys and cash to burn. Added to that, if the agents upset the Americans then their own people will be very upset with the agents. Tea with the Queen is cancelled, that sort of thing.
Which brings me to Van Helsing, which in many ways is a much simpler introductory scenario. No globe-trotting, lots of chances for fisticuffs, big gribbly bad boy, spooky setting. Plus a genuine artifact from the Good Old Days, left behind by one of the major players in the first operation.
If the agents are Edom then there are good reasons to make this the second scenario in the trilogy. The best being that it shows them what might happen if Dracula's left to his own devices. It raises the stakes; Dracula isn't just some sleepy bloodsucker content to hang out in his castle, he's a mover and a shaker intent on nefarious goals. He has access to sophisticated equipment, minions, and big gribblies. Dracula's an active threat. This fits in best with Stakes games, but works just as well with the other variations on the formula.
The only change I might make depends on who the OPFOR is in Harker. If the idea is to make the OPFOR Find Forever, for example, then I would make it clear that Find Forever is linked somehow to Germany's Unternehmen Braun, since Germany's vampire program plays a big part in Van Helsing. Perhaps this dates back to the Cold War days, or even immediately post-war, when the US was snatching every ex-Nazi asset it could get its hands on. The same applies to all the other potential OPFORs, just with different variations on the theme. That provides a clear link between this scenario and Harker.
If Harker is still in play at this stage - which might not be so, if the Harker Intrusion was the middle scenario - then Harker introduces the agents to the NPC who kicks off the Van Helsing scenario. However Harker plays no other significant role; this isn't Harker's story to tell.
The objective of all three scenarios taken together is:
Introduce the players to all the major rules mechanics. (S)entries goes first, for that reason.
Introduce the agents to the major driving forces in the game world. Van Helsing works well as second scenario for this reason, but it could as easily be Harker.
Provide the agents with a dramatic capstone for the opening chapter while at the same time leaving dangling plot hooks for future scenarios. If the agents are Edom then Harker is the obvious capstone, but Van Helsing can be just as useful as it introduces the agents to the Conspiracy, with all the dangling plot hooks that implies.
Now, I've talked enough on this topic. Next time, something different!
This is loosely based on the career of wartime spy for the Japanese, Velvalee Dickinson.
Born Velvalee Blucher, this Californian native met her future husband, Lee Dickinson, when she was hired by his brokerage firm. The pair frequently socialized with Japanese, and were welcome visitors at the Japanese consulate, where they met diplomats and navy officers.
Later, when they moved to New York, Velvalee opened up a doll shop, and husband Lee kept the books until his death in 1943. This high-end enterprise specialized in collectors' items, and had a worldwide clientele.
Image taken from Wikipedia
The FBI first became aware of Velvalee's spying in 1942, when wartime censors picked up on suspicious wording in a letter Velvalee sent to a 'client.' Velvalee's scheme was simple. Her letters, sent to a Japanese agent in Buenos Ares, spoke of 'a doll in a hula skirt', meaning a ship recently arrived from Hawaii, or 'fishing nets' and 'balloons' for coastal defenses. As a scheme it worked quite well, but Velvalee made a mistake. Anxious not to attract attention to herself, she put her real clients' names and addresses in the 'return to sender' section. She probably thought she was cunning; problems arose when her Japanese contact changed address, and the postal authorities in Buenos Ares started returning Velvalee's letters. The alleged senders, confused and worried by all these odd letters, contacted the FBI, and not long after that Velvalee found herself accused of spying for Japan. She claimed her husband, Lee, by that time long dead, was the real spy. When that didn't work, she offered up her Japanese contacts and other information in a plea bargain. She went to jail in 1944 for ten years, and was released in 1951, with time off for good behavior.
So let's recap: spy set up in small high-end collectors' business, with money given her by her co-conspirators. She reports back on military movements, and would probably have gotten away with it too, were it not for that darn kid in Buenos Ares, who screwed everything up by not leaving a forwarding address when he moved.
The Conspiracy has interests all over the world, but it can't maintain full-fledged Nodes everywhere it likes. There are going to be times it has to rely on assets in place. Those agents will have a specific task; it might be to watch a person or place, or to surveil a particular port, or whatever the Director deems appropriate. They may not understand the whole picture, but then they don't have to. They just need to observe, and report.
The Doll Woman: Meredith Soames
Soames [change name as needed] owns a doll shop in [Director chooses appropriate location], which deals in high-end collectibles for well-heeled clients. It might specialize in a particular kind of item - Japanese hina-ningyo, perhaps, or manga collectibles.
Soames is backed by a Conspiracy Node, but she doesn't know anything about the Node except for her handler's contact details. Nor does she know a great deal about the Conspiracy. Her connection with it is strictly medical; back when she was in college, she developed a debilitating and ultimately fatal disease, and it was only thanks to the Conspiracy's medical intervention (ie. it Renfielded her) that she survived. Now she depends on her special medicine to keep going.
Her job is to monitor [target's] communications, which means she hacks computers, monitors phone calls, and conducts on-the-spot surveillance, as needed. She's been trained in some aspects of surveillance, but much of the tools of her trade - like the viruses - come direct from her handler. The target can be anyone or anything, from an Edom Prince, to a particular pharmaceuticals company, or a mission-critical location - Whitby, say.
Problems arise when her handler switches to a different supplier, a Ukrainian hack team, for the viruses. The Ukrainians are either sloppy or deliberately sabotage the scheme, because the viruses attract the attention of the authorities [increased her Heat to dangerous levels, mechanically.] This attracts the characters, but it also attracts the authorities. The agents will need to act quickly if they want to benefit.
Civilian Template
General: Athletics 3, Hand-to-Hand 4 (training), Health 2, Weapons 2 (-1 damage, extendable baton, possibly also taser if allowed).
Special: effective Digital Intrusion 4, thanks to equipment supplied by Node.
Abilities: Enhanced Hearing, Infravision (free powers), Cloud Men's Minds. If the Director prefers, Cloud Men's Minds can be switched out for doll-specific Magic, most likely mood controllers and surveillance tools rather than Chucky-style killing machines or Puppet Master antics.
Soames depends on the Conspiracy for her life-giving medicine. She won't betray its secrets, at least not without an ironclad guarantee that her drug supply - vampire blood - will continue.
