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 ...
Enjoy!
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