a ghost town is more than just a few forms. I think of it in these terms: first a town loses its ability, then its vitality, and shortly after that it becomes a ghost
Here's another practical example, inspired by various internet posts but particularly this one.
Goussainville, Val-d'Oise is close to Paris and was at one time an ordinary place. Then someone built an airport next door. Air and noise pollution was bad enough, but then a Russian aircraft crashed during a show killing several residents, all the air crew, and destroying a portion of the town. What was already a steady decrease in population became a flood, and the old town emptied out.
An architectural wrinkle prevents significant regeneration. The 14th century church of St Paul and St Peter at the heart of Goussainville is protected by the state. Neither it nor any building within 500 meters can be altered in any significant way. While parts of Goussainville are thriving, the old town is a graffiti-pocked shell of its former self.
I think of ghost towns in small sandbox terms. There may or may not be a convenient central hub - a general store, an inn, a church - but the town's story is scattered roundabout, which means there will be different kinds of experiences to be had.
That's what we're looking at here. There is a central hub - the church, the abandoned mansion, the old supermarket - but the ghost town's story is scattered across several locations. If they want to follow up on certain angles (the Russian plane crash, eg) they might have to leave the town altogether and go hunting in old archives. Perhaps they'll find old television footage:
Perhaps they'll find first responders or former government employees, now long retired to [somewhere far away from here] who have vivid memories of the event. Perhaps this, perhaps that, but the central point is that the story is large and will be found in several locations, not all of which are obvious.
Let's give this an Esoterror angle.
To The Devil A Daughter: Bundyclub, France
Bundyclub, from the Esoterrorists main book, is a group of otherwise unconnected people who become serial killers under the direction of John Michael Loehr, a ringleader figure who communicates with all of them online. The group began as killer fans, and later, under Loehr's direction, become killers.
Bundyclub acquires an international dimension when Loehr contacts a Frenchman, Gabin Bazin, through the same internet forum.
Bazin's fascinated by killer Marcel Barbeault, aka The Shadow, who Bazin believes committed at least one murder in Goussainville: Bazin's mother, Esme. Bazin believes the murder was never solved, at least in part, because of the plane crash which interrupted the investigation.
Loher's corpsejabber controller 'Maria' perked up when Bazin's dead mother was mentioned in chat. Could Bazin be tempted down the same path as Loehr, becoming the center of a French Esoterror daughter cell?
It's been two years since that initial contact. Now Bazin has a corpse on his back and a murder basement in one of the abandoned buildings in Goussainville. Like Loher, Bazin has been gathering like-minded individuals online. They plan their first killing soon. A target in Paris has been picked out.
However, unlike Loher Bazin hasn't quite mastered the dark arts of internet security, and the French authorities have picked up his trail. The OV is dropped a hint: somewhere in Goussainville a dark secret is hid, but where exactly - and what?
Lest old acquaintances be eaten by gruesome gribblies, and all that.
According to Funk & Wagnalls the New Year, as in 1st January, is a relatively recent innovation adopted at various times by various nations. You wouldn't see general acceptance in the West until (roughly) the mid-1700s.
There's a school of thought that says the drunkenness, debauchery and let-the-good-times-roll atmosphere is a hangover from the Roman Saturnalia, but this probably isn't so. When Julius Caesar made January the first month, way back in the before times, that meant the first month fell directly after the Saturnalia, and nearly every Christian of the day (and later) deplored this as irreligious. You just don't celebrate a new year after getting bladdered in the last days of the old one, was their point. It verged on Satanism. The Council of Tours, to name but one, insisted that the New Year begin with fasts, expiation, the banning of dances and frivolity, and so on. Most Christian communities of the day had similar views: you might get toasted at Christmas (grrr, how very Satanic) but God help you if you tried the same at New Year.
Funk & Wagnalls goes on to point out that many cultures celebrate the New Year with parties and jollity, not just the West, which suggests that the celebration's joie de vivre isn't based on one cultures' idea of what is proper. Everyone thinks the new year should begin with celebration, so it does. The form that celebration takes is determined by the culture. It can be as relatively benign as first-footing (being the first to walk over the threshold of the house in the new year) or as robust as flinging balls of fire about the place.
A crowded market on the streets of an old city. Is the market themed – a Christmas fair, stalls full of antiques and old books, local crafts, or mass-produced plastic junk? Is it a seasonal event or a fixture of the city? Old European cities often have warrens of narrow streets and alleyways full of small shops; North African cities have a similar medina quarter. Push through the crowds, grab a snack from a food cart, and follow your target as they browse the bazaar. A street market’s a good place to meet a contact or pick up rumors and intel from the streets – and that fishmonger deals in black-market weapons if you know the right passwords ...
We've already established that this particular 'market' is in fact a New Year's event. You won't see that many stalls; plenty of food & drink stalls, mind, less so the antiques and plasticky tourist crap. Nobody will be selling fresh fish. While there will be stores, they'll be shut and shuttered. There will be an increased Police presence, which in game terms means Heat goes up by an extra point for any dodgy dealings, and up by two extra points for anything involving overt violence. So, punching out that mook out in the open earns you 2 extra Heat on top of the usual 1 point you'd get for what amounts to a mugging. On the other hand if you lure that mook down a dark, deserted alley before you give him a thumping that only earns you 1 extra point. Better for you, really, to find some other means of dealing with the pesky little fellow.
I'd argue that one of the better 'quiet violence' options is to wait until there's a suitable distraction. A bunch of bagpipers and some firey balls ought to do it. Then you could bounce the little weasel's head down a dark alley without gaining extra Heat. Time it right and you could get away with no Heat at all. Say, if you dinged him and then covered it with 1 point Reassurance, Cop Talk or similar.
Erika Donnadieu, Kube Group's star, has broken from her dubious employers and tried to alert France's Direction générale de la Sécurité intérieure (DSGI) but, due to Conspiracy influence within that organization, her alert only brought more Heat on her. Now she needs to get out of the country but the Conspiracy is hot on her trail. She's made it as far as Lille, on New Year's; she just needs to get out of France. In this scene the action takes place at the Grand Place, at the height of the celebration.
The Grand Place is where the Christmas Market traditionally sets up, complete with Ferris Wheel and other carnival rides. During the New Year's celebration it will be absolutely packed with locals and tourists.
sourced from Wikipedia
Personally, I enjoyed going to Lille over Christmas while I was in the UK, which is why I picked it. Plus, thanks to the Eurostar you can get pretty much anywhere from Lille, which is a bonus from Erika's perspective.
Erika's booked a room at Couvent de Minimes, a former convent turned four-star hotel, under an assumed name (effective 2 points Cover) and has disguised herself as a postgraduate arts student. Little does she know, her cover has been blown and the Conspiracy knows where (and who) she is. A snatch team made up of a half-dozen mooks, a Renfield team leader and local supernatural talent, a Strix left over from the 1630s witch hysteria outbreak, are in place to grab her. Their plan is to do it while disguised as an ambulance team; Erika will just be another poor unfortunate who got a little too merry and had to be taken to hospital during the celebrations.
It's the agents' job to get to her and get her out before the Conspiracy spirit her away.
The agents are acting as third parties; their employer is an anti-vampire organization (or individual, eg. the Mysterious Monseigneur) who knows about Erika and wants to get her out of harm's way, probably for their own nefarious reasons.
Possible variations:
In a Satanic campaign the Couvent is a natural Bane to vampires as it maintains an air of sanctity despite its modernization.
The Stryx is all that's left of headmistress Antoinette Bourignon who started the witch hysteria. She still runs a school of sorts: a school of cultists. Thank heaven for little girls, as they say ...
Perhaps Erika takes refuge in the Ferris Wheel, which mysteriously breaks down at the perfect moment. Time for an aerial rescue?
There is a famous Lille ghost story set at Place du Lion d’Or, not far from the Cathedral, in which a small boy is said to have been tortured to death by his schoolmaster. He haunts the room where he died, trapped in an iron cage. Dickens used it for his A Christmas Tree collection, in which he transposed the legend to England and made the boy's tomb a wardrobe rather that Lille's iron cage. In real life Place du Lion d’Or is some distance from the Couvent, but why rely on real life? A ghostly child emerging from a wardrobe (iron cages are so last century) whether at someone's command or by pure accident (to add to the chaos) has to be worth your time. In a Supernatural game perhaps Erika knows the story and uses the ghostly wardrobe as part of her getaway plan ...
Roundabout p. 187 of the NBA main book Ken Hite starts talking about possible scenarios, and gives nine active scenario examples:
Destroy. The agents must destroy the local conspiracy apparat.
Flip. The agents must flip an asset to their side.
Heist. The agents must steal something
Hit. The agents must kill someone
Hunt. The agents must find someone.
Rescue. The agents must rescue someone.
Sneak. The agents must infiltrate a secure location.
Trace. The agents must find something, possibly something that went missing long ago.
Uncover. The agents must uncover a mystery.
Each scenario type can be reversed so a Destroy operation can become a Protect operation in which the agents have to defend something of theirs against enemy action.
I thought it might be interesting to discuss each operation in turn, using Bankhaus Klingemann of Bonn as the subject in each case. The Bankhaus is a Node I've developed before and if you're interested in knowing more about it I recommend the previous post.
Briefly: the Bankhaus is an investment bank with a murky past and has offices in several major cities, of which the Conspiracy has control over the Paris and Zürich branches thanks to its control over Lisle Klingemann, daughter of the boss and a senior partner in her own right, and Albert Ahrens, controller of the Zürich branch and Lisle's devoted slave. The Bankhaus is mainly interested in software development companies, particularly in jurisdictions within Europe, though it has a significant sideline in mining, especially in East Asia, a holdover from its former interests.
It has swanky offices, lawyers, a ton of assets on the book and off, and when it makes calls they get answered by senior politicians and members of the financial elite. It almost doesn't matter whether this is a Supernatural, Damned, Alien or Mutant game; all factions are going to want a piece of the Bankhaus whether to get access to its bottomless bank vaults or for more esoteric reasons.
Let's talk Destroy.
Destroy assumes that the target has something that can be blown up, burnt down or otherwise wiped out, preferably in an impressive display of pyrotechnics. It also assumes that people are going to die or be ruined in some way, either because they end up in jail for a very long time or are otherwise taken off the board and put in a position where they can't return.
Sony Pictures
Often this involves some kind of Infiltration. This may be an Infiltration in plain sight where the agents have to get access to, say, the Embassy Party by pretending to be guests and wait staff, or it can be the more usual kind of infiltration where the agents sneak in under cover of darkness.
It usually doesn't involve psychological or mystery tropes. As a rule, a Destroy scenario has a clear objective which has an identifiable value. It may be a bogus objective - your princess is in another castle - but the agents know at the start that the objective exists and can be found.
It doesn't have to involve outright violence. Bond's Casino Royale is basically a Destroy scenario in which Bond is tasked with beating Le Chiffre at Baccarat, because Le Chiffre has been embezzling from his bosses and it's hoped that if Bond wipes him out the bosses will wipe out Le Chiffre. This works so long as your agents enjoy the kind of specialist play that the scenario demands. Thrilling Infiltration, say, or Thrilling Digital Intrusion.
Double agents often provide spice to the narrative; in Navarone one of the team is revealed to be working for the enemy. This is problematic for the Director. Either one of the players has to be the double agent, which is fine up to a point but can cause group conflict out of game as well as in it, or one of the NPCs has to be the double. You can't over-use this idea, or the agents will distrust every single NPC they come across. It works best in Mirror-style games where the idea of betrayal is baked in.
Apply the Rule of Four to this and all scenario types. Four characteristics of this Destroy scenario which you can bring into play at any time. More than four and you will start to lose track.
Kreis 1: Albert Ahrens has a home in Zürich's old town which he's kept carefully off the company books. He's owned it for more than thirty years and there are some dire secrets buried under those floorboards, secrets that he'd do anything to keep out of the light of day. Not least of which is his latest Lisle-a-like, who's undergoing psychological torture so she can better fill her role. Her predecessor is one of the things buried under the floorboards.
Slush Fund: Lisle keeps a special fund for her frequent, illicit trips to casinos. It's hidden under the company books as a special investment fund, the Raptors, and each Raptor holds the debts of the previous Raptor on its books as assets. Currently there are more Raptors than even the company accountants can keep track of and one of these days a whistleblower will make hay with them. Lisle isn't as clever about money as she thinks she is; she relies on bluff and a reputation for financial infallibility to keep the Raptors off the radar.
Project Achilles: The Bankhaus is deeply vested in a French software development company, a start-up with a stellar reputation but not - yet - much in the way of product. The jewel in the crown is something called Project Achilles, a new kind of vulnerability testing software specifically designed to defend against resource stealing. It's garnered a lot of attention and several governments are thinking of buying into it. The firm, Kube Group, has its main offices in Paris with representation in Monaco, but for some reason it has a satellite installation in Rome - nobody knows why.
Tracfin: Allegedly the Traitement du renseignement et action contre les circuits financiers clandestins, France's intelligence service dedicated to defending against money laundering, is interested in the Bankhaus. This isn't exactly news; Tracfin is interested in pretty much everything that goes on in the financial world. What isn't nearly as widely known is that Lisle has infiltrated Tracfin and is using it against her company's rivals. Lisle's contact within Tracfin, senior investigator Claude Leroy, is rapidly becoming a Renfield and is Conspiracy-knowledgeable but doesn't have a way in other than through Lisle. Leroy can use Law and Heat to make life very difficult for the agents, and if necessary can brand them as terrorists or terrorist sympathizers to get the heavy mob involved.
With those Four Things the agents have at least two potential avenues of attack. They can ruin either Lisle or Albert by exposing their secrets, or they can Destroy valuable assets by going after the Kube Group's assets in Paris or that mysterious satellite in Rome. Any of these targets could weaken the Node if they were taken out. Meanwhile in addition to any resources the Node might have in its own right it also has that willing stooge at Tracfin who can up the agent's Heat or get the heavy mob involved, perfectly legally. All this is before any supernatural assets get in on the action.
Potential scenario locations include Paris and Zürich with a side trip to Rome or Monaco, if the agents feel like it. As Director you'd want to at least have a surface understanding of all those locations - nothing fancy, just a quick-and-dirty.
The agents get to pick for themselves exactly how they Destroy the target.
Now, let's flip this over and look at it as a Protect scenario. What exactly are the agents protecting from Bankhaus Klingemann?
They could be protecting allies within the French government or software development or the financial sector. The Bankhaus would be interested in Destroying any of these and have the tools to do so. Alternatively, the agents could have allies or assets within the Bankhaus or Kube Project itself that need protecting. After all, Lisle has an interfering brother who might be a crucial asset, or there could be a whistleblower in Kube Group providing valuable intel about that mysterious project in Rome.
The Four Things remain exactly the same. The difference is, if the agents go after any of these Four Things it's not to Destroy them necessarily; it's to Protect whatever asset needs defending. So the Kube Group insider, let's say, is Protected when Uncle Albert has to deflect attention from that peculiar house of his, or Lisle has to hide her gambling debts. Perhaps Lisle's brother Eric will breathe easier when Claude Leroy is out of the way.
In any event the point I'm getting at is this: the terrain does not change whether it's a Destroy or Protect operation. What changes is the objective. Which means you can re-use the same terrain as a Protect scenario even if it was written as a Destroy scenario, if there's reason for you to do so.
This is something you should always strive for no matter what system you're writing for. Never kill yourself with work, particularly if it's the kind of work that nobody but you will ever see. Instead make sure that the scene, asset, or whatever it may be, can be used multiple ways for multiple reasons.
It has been compared with being reborn. Once a person experiences casino life, the rest of experience pales. People entering a luxurious casino for the first time have noted physical and psychological changes taking place in themselves. They shed their mundane lives, like butterflies emerging from cocoons, and leave their worries and troubles at the door. Once inside, they are insulated from the ravages of the world by the cloak of the casino ...
The jangling crash of slot machines fills the air. You’re surrounded by mass market elegance, a vast honey trap designed to separate tourists from their money in a thousand little ways. Gorgeous couples saunter past towards the high-stakes tables, and tourists wearing Hawaiian shirts sit at slot machines and mechanically press the buttons to the sound of bells and chimes. Gossip in a dozen languages hangs as thick as the cigarette smoke ...
Particularly in Stakes games, which tend more towards high-octane action than John le Carré-esque multiple layers of deceit, a scenario set in a casino sets expectations. Yes, it could be the kind of Vegas strip let's-all-gawk mass market theatre, with pirate ships gunning down frigates every hour on the hour. Vegas shares that kind of showmanship with Macau, but there are plenty of examples of the opposite approach. Monaco built its reputation on high-end gambling, the kind that wouldn't be caught dead in a Hawaiian shirt. Moreover casino architecture design can be a gorgeous flight of fancy, the kind of thing that excites the senses just by being there - even if the point is to maximize the amount of time the average customer spends in their chair.
People go to casinos to stop being themselves for a while. They want to be successful, risk-takers, the sophisticated elite. Whether they are or not is neither here nor there, but the casino's job is to indulge this fantasy. To cocoon the gambler in a comfortable environment, one in which they feel free to do as they please - and spend money for that privilege. To feel like the big winners they know they are.
For the purpose of this post I'm going to use the Casino La Seyne of La Seyne-sur-Mer, France, as an example. My attention was drawn by this blog post by Archute, and further information has been taken from this architectural document by Archdaily. The Archdaily document is particularly useful for Directors, as it includes floorplans.
Image by Javier Callejas, found via Archute.
La Seyne-sur-Mer has been an industrial, shipbuilding commune; it also built Iraq's nuclear reactors, destroyed by Israel back in 1981. It is part of Toulon, itself a major naval port, home base to the Mediterranean fleet; La Seyne-sur-Mer is to Toulon's west.
In recent years La Seyne-sur-Mer became more of a tourist destination, exchanging its shipbuilding docks for hotels and parks - not a million miles away from the changes that turned London's Canary Wharf from a maritime hub to a high-tech commercial hub. It's part of the Riviera, the famous Côte d'Azur, with its brilliant blue ocean.
According to Archute: Visually it is a wide, relatively low, and geometrically simple building, said to resemble a great, docked ship from certain angles. It is only up close that you notice some of its sleek, glass-walled sides. The casino is also situated beautifully, in between an active marina and a new public park, as well as near a newly opened hotel.
It's relatively small as casinos go, if its Companies page is to be believed. It has less than a hundred staff, and earns less than $10 million revenue per annum. As a very rough comparison, the Hotel Ritz Paris employs over 400 people, while the Société des Bains de Mer of Monaco employs over 4,000 casino staff spread across several different installations - though with COVID those numbers have fluctuated.
On the other hand it is very new; the build completed in 2016. That implies everything is as modern as can be managed. It also implies there may be snags that can be exploited; there are always problems with new build.
According to Archdaily: The newly completed complex is bordered to the east by a great leisure craft marina and to the west by a recently landscaped public park, at the end of which, just by the old drawbridge, stands a new three star hotel. The casino is thus at the heart of a series of large existing and future installations in the centre of a cultural and commercial hub which will breathe life into the old brick buildings, docks and the marina extension, along a privileged and autonomous beachfront.
Image by Javier Callejas, found via Archdaily.
Image by Javier Callejas, found via Archdaily.
Now we've gone this far, let's talk about some scenario seeds that might use this location.
Data Tap. A hacker team set up a data leak to steal the personal information of the casino's high rollers, and everything was going according to plan - when the guy who was supposed to be extracting the data dropped dead of an overdose. Nobody else on the team knows how to remotely extract the data, and time is a factor, so somebody's going to have to go into the casino and take out the device manually. That means bluffing your way past security, getting into the theatre (seats 500), cracking open the cooling system and taking out the data collection device by hand. Sounds like a job for professionals - but why did that fella drop dead, anyway? Was it really an overdose, or did something else happen to him?
Beautiful Foil. An asset of interest who happens to be very close to a Conspiracy Node bigwig is currently enjoying the casino's hospitality. They particularly enjoy Texas Hold'em, and the casino boasts precisely one Hold'em table. If the agents want to find out more about the Node bigwig they're going to have to talk to the Foil, but that means getting into the Casino and staging a showdown at the poker table. Or perhaps inveigling the Foil to a dinner at one of the Casino's luxury restaurants, or maybe just cocktails at the bar overlooking the marina. Better find some way of neutralizing the Foil's personal security, or Fido's liable to tear the interfering agent a new one.
Hollow Triumph. A former Cospiracy asset, now a desperate freelancer trying to stay one step ahead of his former comrades, has hit upon the perfect retirement scheme - rob the Conspiracy, which owns the casino, of hundreds of thousands in Euro it has in its vaults. This asset has inveigled his way into the casino as a croupier under a false identity, and is bringing in experienced professionals to help him stage the robbery now he's been able to case the joint. However those professionals don't realize they're being conned; he doesn't want money, he wants revenge. He's staging this robbery the same night his former master - his tormentor - is meant to be visiting the casino aboard her superyacht, docked at the marina next door. The casino vault isn't a vault; it's a vampire safehouse, where Conspiracy bigwigs come to meet face-to-face. He figures his heist buddies are useful scapegoats, and by the time the Conspiracy finishes chasing them down he'll have got what he wanted. [Potential Initiation scene for new characters.]
Hook: A young student has been found dead in Père-Lachaise Cemetery. The police say it was a regrettable accident; the 19-year old tripped and hit his head on one of the tombs. Witnesses are not forthcoming. Among the items found in his possession is a copy of the 1920 first French edition of Stoker's work, Dracula, l’homme de la nuit. The agents are hired by le Milieu (underworld) go-between to recover the book from the Gendarme; it is heavily implied that the book is stolen property that belongs to a Godfather in Marseille. The agents are to recover the book and deliver it to its rightful owner. The Book: This soft-cover first French edition is rare, but not spectacularly valuable. Cryptography notices marks in the text, made recently in pencil. The positioning of these marks suggests the novel has been used as a book cypher by an amateur. Perhaps the Marseille Godfather wants to recover the book before the Gendarmes realize what they've got hold of? Père-Lachaise Cemetery: This is one of Paris' most well-known landmarks, and the most visited necropolis in the world. It's the first garden cemetery, built far outside Paris proper so it could sprawl, a somnolent verdant memorial. Among its famous dead are the lovers Abelard and Heloise, Jim Morrison, Oscar Wilde, Edith Piaf, Frederic Chopin, and Marcel Proust. Its 108 acres are easy to get lost in, and, with its mix of monuments and architectural styles, it has a timeless quality. Though in the past it has suffered from outbreaks of crime, its status as a tourist draw ensures the gendarmes keep half an eye on it. Only half an eye, which explains how, for instance, noted art thief Verjan Tomic was able to hone his parkour skills by jumping from tomb to tomb, and to break into nearby houses by using the cemetery wall as a boost. Thousands of people walk through every day, especially around the tomb of Jim Morrison, decreasing Disguise and Surveillance difficulties by 1 - it's easy for the agents to get lost in this international crowd. The cemetery does have security officers on call; treat them as Police, but without stab vests and heavy armament (ie. submachine guns). The cemetery opens every day and closes at 530pm. Though it's not Fort Knox, it's secure enough that casual Infiltration is doomed to failure; Difficulty 3.
The Police: There are two obvious ways to secure the book. Bribe the cops, or break into the evidence locker. The agents find unexpected resistance if they go the bribe route, and their Heat increases by 1. They'll need to spend 2 points to find a willing accomplice in the Préfecture de police de Paris, but spending the extra point confers one other benefit: the agents discover the flics have been suborned by the Conspiracy. It's not clear who's in and who's out, but someone on high has already been bribed more than the agents could ever afford. The agents may discover this as a consequence of having their police contact murdered. Securing the book through bribery increases Heat by 3. Alternately the agents may try to Infiltrate the gendarmerie. Difficulty 5, reduced to Difficulty 4 with successful Disguise, Digital Intrusion or similar tests. According to the logs the book is kept in an evidence locker, but this is not so; it's actually on the desk of an inspector in the anti-crime division. This man is working with internal affairs (nicknamed the stew squad, or boeuf-carottes) to uncover the mole within the department. The stew squad believes there are elements within the Paris gendarmerie working with organized crime in Marseilles to protect the drug trade. The anti-crime inspector, Dallest, is their informer, but he's personally invested in this as his partner was murdered, so he's investigating the book on his own time. If the agents went the bribe route, Dallest handed over the book because he realized he was in way over his head and wants to get out alive. This won't happen; the Conspiracy can't afford loose ends. Potential Twist: the vampires have either smuggled in a Renfield, or a full-fledged vampire, to search for the book. Their own informant ought to have taken it easily, but the informant didn't know about Dallest. If a vampire, the undead is lurking in the morgue, but a Renfield could be anywhere in the building. The Body: Jan De Vries, 19, a student of theology pursuing a doctorate at Tyndale seminary near Amsterdam, died from repeated blows to the head (Forensic Pathology 0 point). The first blow was probably delivered by a baton - a 12 inch concealable would do the trick. Once incapacitated, De Vries was smashed against a nearby tomb with extreme force. Marks on his clothing (grass & gravel) indicate he was dragged to where he was found, then killed. He arrived in Paris two days ago, and was staying at an apartment very close to Père-Lachaise. None of his friends or supervisors knew he was planning this trip. Bullshit Detector: his tutor, Sophie Visser, knew. She's the one who sent him. She's working with an anti-vampire group; Director's choice as to which. If the agents don't follow up, the Conspiracy will silence Visser soon. What Happens Next? There are several possibilities, revolving around the book, the Cemetery, and the alleged Marseille connection. The Marseille Godfather is … an important part of a Marseille-based Node. Or has reasons of his own to be hunting Vampires, and went to Sophie Visser for help. Or is ignorant of the Conspiracy, but is heavily involved in narcotics smuggling. The Conspiracy wants to absorb the Marseille smuggler into its organization, and figures raising the Godfather's Heat is a good way to do that. "Having problems with those pesky freelance agents? We can help …" Père-Lachaise is … A convenient haven for visiting Vampires. There's any number of tombs the Conspiracy use for temporary homes away from home, and Visser found that out. Or the real secret is in the tomb of Russian aristo Elisabeth Alexandrovna Stroganoff, died 1818, who promised that anyone who could spend a whole year and one night in her tomb would get her fortune. Some tried, none succeeded, and though people still volunteer now and again the Cemetery staff refuse to allow it. Visser and her student De Vries were about to crack the mystery, when De Vries was killed. Or the cemetery is a drop-off point for drug smugglers; leave the packets near such-and-such a tomb, and someone else picks up. De Vries stumbled on this and was killed. No vampire connection, but given who De Vries was, and working for, people make all kinds of assumptions. The Book is … a codebook that indicates the actual location of a stash hidden in Père-Lachaise. Or it contains Forged pages which describe an alternate adventure featuring Dracula and one of his brides in Père-Lachaise, and includes a description of the tomb this alleged incident occurred in. Or it's impregnated with some kind of reagent or similar substance that allows the user to detect vampires or vampire-haunted locations. [works best in Supernatural or Damned campaigns]. Or is a fake, a poison pill planted on De Vries by whoever killed him. The intent being to use the book as a weapon or false lead, distracting investigators from the real reason De Vries was killed - whatever that may be. Who Are The Opposition? Criminals from le Milieu, who want the book for their own reasons. Bent gendarmes. Conspiracy goons. Sophie Visser and whoever hired her to investigate Père-Lachaise. Vampires or other supernatural agents unconnected with the Conspiracy, but who have a connection with Père-Lachaise. The ghost of Jim Morrison, who's annoyed that all this activity is distracting people from his shrine. Père-Lachaise security cops, who just want a quiet life. Enjoy!
The Night Eats the World, a 2018 indie horror release starring Anders Danielsen Lie as zombie holocaust survivor Ben, and directed, in a first-time feature length effort, by Dominique Rocher, is an entertaining way to spend an hour thirty minutes, with a very misleading trailer. You'd think this was action, action, action, chock-full of tense thrills, and it really isn't. If anything, it's zombie-lite; you rarely see the walking dead, which combined with an intelligent monster design makes the ravening ghouls much more threatening this time out. It's more a bleak, character-driven drama about loneliness and dealing with trauma, which works on its own terms and draws you into its claustrophobic Paris apartment building.
It didn't work for me, though, and it's because I really have no sympathy with the protagonist.
Ben is a misanthropic music lover who wants to get his cassette tapes back from his ex-girlfriend. The ex has moved out of wherever she and Ben lived, and inadvertently packed Ben's stuff among her belongings. When he goes to her new apartment, he finds her place packed with partygoers and an inconvenient current boyfriend, a reminder of Ben's sexual failures. Ben wants his tapes, but party comes first, and she's more interested in being hostess than solving Ben's problems. So Ben gets mopey, and drunk, and more drunk, until finally she pushed him off into an office where all the boxes are. He finds the tapes, but is incapable of moving at this point so he passes out and misses all the zombie action.
This is the first ten minutes or so of the film. He spends the next hour twenty surviving on his lonesome and realizing how much he misses having people to talk to.
As a slow-burn tragedy it works, but because I thought Ben an unlikeable, miserable prick at the start, and didn't have much reason to change my mind for most of the narrative, I wasn't too invested in his adventures. I know people like Ben. You know full well that if you were silly enough to sit next to Ben at this party one of two things would happen: he'd get drunk and say nothing at all, or he'd get drunk and say something unpleasant about his former girlfriend, or the party, or life in general. Either way, about as attractive as a slug excreting into your beer.
Which meant I spent more time picking apart the film than I did enjoying it. I mean, how many times can you pull the 'it was all a dream' trick, anyway? Damn, that must be the best fire alarm in the history of fire alarms, to go off now when there's no AC mains supply. Those batteries really held out. Does Paris not have some municipal code that mandates the blocking of fireplace flues? Why, in God's name, are you using YOUR ONLY SHOTGUN to prop open a door while you make a stealth run through a zombie-infested street?
See, if I actually liked Ben, or found something to admire in him, I wouldn't even think about these little things. Well, I might grouse about the number of times 'it's all a dream' gets used as an excuse for plot bullshit. I see the film's based on a novel by 'Pit Argamen' aka Martin Page, and I'm really hoping the novel has more depth. It feels as though it might be a story with plenty of internal monologue, which is always tricky to do on the big screen.
If you're going to spend any amount of time with a fictional character, it's important - vital, even - to find something likeable about them. Dirty Harry has plenty of flaws, and you probably wouldn't want to live in the same apartment building as him, but he does have bravery, and compassion for the victims of violent crime. That was enough for five films, even though the character was paper-thin and two-dimensional at the end of it - and didn't have that many dimensions at the beginning either.
All of which got me thinking protagonists, and RPG characters.
I don't listen to every RPG podcast nor do I watch every Twitch stream - there aren't enough hours in the day. However I've listened to and seen enough of them to ask myself how I'd design an entertaining character. If Ben's failing is that he's not attractive in any way, then what makes a character attractive and therefore worth spending an hour thirty with - or a dozen or so RPG sessions?
The Deadly Sins get a lot of love, but the Virtues aren't nearly as appreciated. Chastity, Temperance. Charity, Diligence, Patience, Kindness, Humility - these are the things that make a character interesting, and each Virtue has modifiers that further elaborate the core tenets of the virtue. Some RPG systems lean heavily on this. Vampire presses the Humanity button repeatedly to make up for the evil nature of its protagonists, and Humanity is part of Temperance. However it's true across the board, whether explicitly part of the system or not. Persistence, making an effort - all part of Diligence. Forgiveness, Compassion, Bravery - Patience, Kindness, Humility.
If there is to be anything likeable in a character, they ought to demonstrate at least one of these qualities. Nobody has to be a saint-in-training, but then you don't have to be a saint to be brave, or show forgiveness, or abstain from getting rat-arsed and falling into a self-pitying, boozy stupor when the zombie apocalypse shows up.
Gumshoe uses the Drives mechanic to give characters motivation, and these Drives can be tied to Virtues to make characters more interesting. A Drive without some kind of foundation is meaningless, but a Drive with a foundation in Virtue has meaning.
Using Nights Black Agents as a template: Altruism and Atonement are fairly obvious. Altruism springs from Temperance, perhaps Charity. Someone becomes altruistic because they have great humanity, benevolence, generosity. Atonement can have the same source, but comes at that source from a different perspective - one dark event that leads the character to seek atonement through humanity, or generosity. Comradeship from Humility, bravery, even reverence, in this case submission to the legitimate order of a superior. Mystery from Diligence, with its focus on persistence and effort. Nowhere Else To Go from Kindness, with compassion. Patriotism is Humility wrapped up in the flag. So on and so on, with odd ones like I Never Left, Programming and Collector linked to hidden Virtues, part of the cover story.
This doesn't have to be a ton of work. Remember the one sentence rule. Going back to an old post about hacking, I designed a character:
Kayo
One sentence: Former Nollywood actor and con artist shooting for the big leagues.
To make things interesting, add:
Virtue: Diligence (persistence). Kayo loves a challenge, and makes sure every hack he undertakes is carried out to the very best of his ability.
Adding that Virtue not only makes the character more interesting, it also adds extra roleplay hooks. By playing this Virtue, the Director gets extra ways to dig into Kayo's story, creating new plot paths designed with this Virtue in mind.
I've been buried in an Esoterror project, so I didn't post anything last week. I know, I'm evil. But then, so is Esoterror, so I guess that works out in the end. More or less?
If you're a Call of Cthulhu fan from way back then you probably remember the Tales of Terror. The Tales are short adventure seeds, with three possible outcomes. The intent being to let the Keeper and players riff on the basic premise, and use one of the three outcomes as the core of the encounter. The old Unspeakable Oath used to print these fairly regularly, but I've no idea what's going on with the Oath these days. I know there's a podcast, but I don't really follow the site any more.
However one quick glance over there shows that it does still publish Tales every so often, so if you're still unclear as to the concept then here's an example written by S Cogswill.
With that in mind, let's tear something from the headlines and use that as a basis for a Night's Black Agents Tale of Terror.
"Belgian police opened fire during a cross-border chase with suspected people smugglers driving a car with a British number plate, resulting in a pile-up on a motorway in northern France.
At about 5am on Thursday, a lorry driver in Belgium called local police saying that smugglers had tried to get 17 people into his truck and that he and other drivers had been threatened with a knife, the French paper La Voix du Nord reported.
When police intervened, the suspects sped off by car, first hitting a Belgian police car, then heading on the motorway towards northern France."
For the rest of the article, click on the link.
From there we get to:
Possibility One: Botched Rescue. The so-called people smugglers are actually trying to save the seventeen 'smuggled' victims. These people were being held at a Conspiracy site in Belgium, for reasons the characters don't yet know - blood banks, biological agent testing, Satanic ritual, something else - and their rescuers did their best to get them across the border. However it all went wrong in the worst possible way, and the rescuers panicked and ran. It did not end well. Now there's seventeen people in a detention center who may, at any moment, be stolen back by the Conspiracy, never mind their two would-be rescuers currently in police custody. What next? Character Link: One of the rescuers is a character's Network contact, or even Solace.
Possibility Two: Node Fratricide. Two Nodes within the Conspyramid are fighting, as described in Double Tap. One of those Nodes is in the people smuggling business, and its rival tips off the police. The result is much messier than anyone predicted, because the people smugglers panicked and ran. Now the characters are in an excellent position to exploit the situation, either keeping pressure on the damaged people smuggling Node, or letting the people smugglers point the characters at the other Node, as revenge. Character Link: Either one of the police is a Network contact, or one of the people smugglers is an already established dramatically important character, possibly a foil for one of the player characters.
Possibility Three:Blown Op. Among the people being smuggled is an operative on the run, who was hoping that the smugglers would be able to get him/her across the border after the operative built up too much Heat. However increased police vigilance, thanks to the Heat, led to the car chase and subsequent disaster. Now the operative is in real trouble, and the only hope is that someone gets the operative out before the opposition catch up. Character Link: The characters are gathered as an ad-hoc rescue team, or possibly a snatch team unknowingly working for the opposition, by a friendly Asset Handler. This op needs to happen fast; in a few hours the operative will be moved from a holding cell to somewhere much more secure. In an Edom Files game, the operative is Edom and so are the rescuers.
Why do this? Well, because it's fun, obviously. But also because it serves a useful purpose. There are going to be times when the Director is at a loose end, or the plot seems temporarily derailed by circumstances beyond the Director's control. While waiting for inspiration, the Director can use a Tale of Terror as an easy bridging point between the current impasse and the next significant plot development.
Besides, they're easy to do. All you need is a good headline for inspiration, and from that come up with three reasons as to why those events will interest the characters. After that, let the players go nuts. They're probably going to go nuts anyway, so what the heck.
On that note, since the headlines have been so useful this week, let's have another:
"An abandoned oil tanker has washed up on the shores of Liberia in west Africa, prompting an investigation - and speculation over the fate of the ship's crew.
The Tamaya 1, which is registered in Panama, ran aground on a beach near Robertsport earlier this week, apparently without a crew or lifeboats. On Thursday the Liberia national police and bureau of immigration inspected the ship, days after local residents first discovered it on the beach.
The 64-meter (210ft) tanker's last known position was on 21 April near Gambia and Senegal, according to shipping site Marine Traffic - well north of Liberia along the west African coast. The ship was en route to the Senegalese port of Dakar, according to the site."
Panama registers nearly 20% of the world's merchant fleet. Panama is an open registry, also known as a flag of convenience, and has been since the 1920s. If your ship is Panamanian registered, Panamanian laws apply; this is often done by ship owners to reduce costs, particularly labor, but also the cost of keeping up with environmental regulations. Critics claim open flag jurisdictions are hotbeds of crime and terrorism.
Liberia, the Land of the Free, is still suffering from the effects of the civil war, and rebel leader Charles Taylor's excesses. As of 2005 the constitutional republic is led by President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, but it's an uphill struggle. Trial by ordeal is not uncommon in rural districts, and corruption is endemic at all levels of government.
With all that in mind:
Possibility One:Asset On The Run Perhaps it's one of Edom's SBA's, a Conspiracy entity gone rogue, or an escapee from one of the other interested parties' weapons programs. Whichever it is, it's loose, and is doing its best to stay free. A lot of very powerful (and peculiar) people are suddenly very interested in Liberia, and agents are being sent in to see what happened to that escaped asset. Character Link: The agents have faced this particular asset before, but now the tables have turned the asset may be more amenable to moral 'suasion. Or, a Network contact in Liberia is very worried about some of the stories coming in from the hinterlands, and asks for help.
Possibility Two:Stage One of the Master Plan. The Conspiracy is planning something big, really big. The Liberian operation is either a test run, or the first stage in what amounts to a vampiric coup, taking out the democratically elected government and replacing it with a catspaw. Why? Well, Liberia's asset-rich, but perhaps there's something else out there that the Conspiracy really can't do without. Works best with Mutant or Alien vampire types. Character Link: This is it. If the agents are ever going to find out what the Conspiracy is all about, Libera's the place to be.
Possibility Three:Panamanian Shenanigans The Conspiracy's Node in Panama is shipping dangerous materials across the globe, and this time something went very badly wrong. Now that Node is scrambling to cover up the mess, and has hired mercenaries, or a science team backed up by mercenaries, to deal with whatever-it-is that's loose in Liberia. Character Link: One of those mercenaries is a Network contact, possibly a Solace. Alternatively one of the people the mercenary team comes into conflict with is a Network contact or Solace.
Marseille, France: on Monday, heavily armed gangsters opened fire on a police car. Nobody was reported injured, and a response team - 100 special forces police - were dispatched to lock down and search the housing estate, Castellane, where the incident took place. A small cache of weapons, money and drugs is reported to have been found.
According to reports the occupants of the police car were Pierre-Marie Bourniquel, the departmental director of public security, and a police chief. They were inspecting the estate, a known narcotics hub, prior to the arrival of the Prime Minister, who was supposed to congratulate the city on its crime crackdown.
They fell foul of a small group of assailants armed with Kalashnikovs, who were searching the estate for members of a rival gang. One sniper apparently got a little too excited, and started firing at the police car when it showed up.
All of which goes to show just how quickly things can deteriorate, under the right circumstances. I very much doubt that the gangsters wanted to be hit by a special ops unit, 100 members strong. Equally I doubt that Marseille really wanted this kind of black eye just before the Prime Minister's visit.
However it does suggest an interesting possibility for Night's Black Agents: what would happen if, at the worst possible moment, completely unrelated events caused a sudden, massive increase in police presence on the streets?
The protagonists could make it work for them, perhaps even provoke the incident by sending the powers that be proof positive that, say, a terrorist cell, or mad bomber, is at work. Or they could opt for something a little more mundane, like rigging the traffic control so that it makes the streets impossible to navigate. That might make a Chase scene all that more difficult for the pursuers. Of course, it does mean you'll want to plan out your escape route in advance, but that's what Preparedness is for.
Of course, it could be something neither the protagonists nor the OPFOR anticipated: a completely random event, like a riot, gang shooting, fire, power station fire, train crash or other significant crisis. The police, emergency services, even the army could be called out. Spot checks, blockades, and other choke point hazards could end up blowing someone's Cover, and then all bets are off. This is less a chase scene moment and more a tense game of cat and mouse, as both sides try to navigate safely past the hazard towards the objective.
A third option could be to have it be something that the OPFOR provokes, possibly by accident. After all, in the Marseille example, the incident's sparked off by a handful of heavily armed dimwits, who happen to find the one thing they really shouldn't have shot at. Any other day, and it wouldn't have been a problem, or at least not as much of one.The Conspyracy has plenty of knuckleheads on its payroll; after all, someone has to do the heavy lifting. Maybe one of them got a little careless. The wrong kind of carelessness at the wrong time - say, when the protagonists are about to infiltrate an OPFOR facility - could make life difficult for everyone.
In game terms, the increase in public security caused by the Marseille Option is represented by Heat. Ordinarily the characters always have Heat 1, representing the fact that, just by existing and doing what they do, they attract some notice from the powers that be. In the event of a major special event, Heat automatically goes up by +1, so base Heat is 2. This represents the fact that the police, and possibly more than the police, are on high alert. They're not looking for the characters specifically, but anyone who looks even remotely dodgy is going to get their attention, because right now they're amped up and ready to go. The target doesn't matter so much any more, not when you're full of adrenaline and convinced you're about to get into a shooting war.
In any Chase scene where the Marseille Option is in effect, Difficulty is automatically going to increase. Again, this doesn't represent specific OPFOR action or police tactics; it just means that travel for everyone right now is a nightmare. Where Difficulty is usually 4, now it is 5, possibly more, depending on the circumstances. This applies equally for all involved in the chase.
If this is a Marseille Option that the protagonists deliberately caused, as cover for their own activity, then a Preparedness check, minimum Difficulty 4, reduces their Chase Difficulty by 2. So in those circumstances the OPFOR is at Difficulty 5 minimum, while the protagonists are Difficulty 3. The police, if they get involved, are either Difficulty 4, or 5. Difficulty 4, if the Option is something they have some control over, like a series of police blockades set up to catch a terrorist; Difficulty 5 if it's something they have no control over, like all the traffic lights in the city going wrong at the same time.
