High Seas Booty II (Electric Boogaloo) (Night's Black Agents)

The eagle-eyed among you will have noticed that superyachts are once again in the news. Not a day goes by without some Russian's toy being sabotaged, seized or held in what amounts to debtor's prison. There's an interesting list of confiscated watercraft over here, if you're keen.  

When I discussed superyachts before I said:

The Resource Guide has this to say about super yachts:

A “typical” superyacht is 50 meters or more in length, but bigger, more impressive examples can be three or four times bigger. These are the playthings and status symbols of the wealthy, and are outfitted with all sorts of luxuries and opulent facilities. Money is rarely an object here – the yachts are made to reflect the personality of the owner, so one might have a swimming pool and a cocktail bar, another a state-of-the-art satellite communications center and secure offices, and another might have a secret temple to the blood god Zalmoxis and a moon pool for dumping bodies to the sharks ...

Double Tap divvies up Establishing Shots like these into Extras and Cameos, Clues, Rules Effects, In A Fight and In A Chase. So:

Extras and Cameos: Gym Rat (eye candy), bodyguard, civilian (plaything), civilian (stew/crew), civilian (billionaire), charismatic politician or celebrity, far less charismatic celebrity on a coke binge, talented C-list celeb chef/dancer/singer on hire for the week.

Clues:  That pretty young stew Tiffany isn't around any more; is she on the support boat? Somewhere else? Erratic, sinister mumbling from the coke binge celeb. Gym Rat's looking awfully pale and lethargic. A snippet of security camera footage shows something unpleasant. The stews complain that no matter what they try the stains in the disco will not go away. That portrait really is a [insert artist here], allegedly stolen from [museum] - how did it get here?

Rules Effects: Spending a point of Flattery buys the short-term loyalty of any stew. Also, you can find almost anything aboard this boat, so Preparedness test Difficulty drops by 1. However, it's not easy to sneak around when everyone's watching and there are more security cameras than the average prison, so Infiltration Difficulty increases by 1.

In A Fight: Almost every room has something you can use as an improvised weapon, and some of them have actual weapons; antique swords hung on the wall, say, or guns in so-called hidden compartments. That's before you consider the undeniable attraction of braining someone with a Picasso. Hiding the body is more of a problem, if you're going for a stealth run. There's plenty of places to hide the body, but you've got to avoid being spotted by those pesky cameras to get the job done.

In A Chase: Ranges from Normal to Cramped, depending on which room you're in. Obstacles include everything from naked wealthy passengers to fancy tables and chairs in the dining room and an unexpected dip in the plunge pool. Plus, what's really in that playroom? Enquiring minds want to know. 

What you, the Director, may not have considered is that a ship can be impounded for all sorts of reasons, including nonpayment of debts. That's what recently happened to the Crystal Cruises cruise ships, when they couldn't pay fuel bills. The Bahamian Government seized the Crystal Symphony and Crystal Serenity back in February, and the crew got very snotty about unpaid wages and the parent company's lack of support. With no destination and no fuel, the crew's basically stuck in place unless they can afford to pay their own way out.

Former KGB agent Vladimir Strzhalkovsky's Ragnar is currently sitting on its heels in Norway in very similar circumstances. In that instance it's less to do with nonpayment of debts and more that nobody wants to sell it fuel, but the result is the same. It can't go anywhere, and its crew is all but marooned.

Imagine for a moment that your agents discover that a Conspiracy-owned superyacht is currently chained at anchor in wherever it may be, like a plump little sparrow. The crew are getting antsy, and it's a sure bet that whatever its usual safeguards may be, they're down now. It doesn't have to be because of debt; it could be quarantined due to infectious disease, or perhaps, like the Ragnar, its owner unexpectedly became the target of diplomatic ire. 

Whatever happened, it's now unable to get away from its current location, which is probably some relatively quiet corner of the earth like the Bahamas. Something worth having is bound to be aboard. The team's hacker is champing at the bit to get at whatever's stored on its mainframe. Even just knowing where that yacht has been for the past year is data worth having. Of course, there may be even more interesting cargo hidden in its hold, or squirreled away in the med bay. 

The agents must act quickly. They have a week, at most, before either the Conspiracy or a vampire-hunting agency like Edom moves in and secures it/steals anything not nailed down. 

Using the Facility guidelines this would normally be a High Security High Monitoring environment, making Difficulty 5 for all tests involving security or infiltration. However Difficulty drops to 4 temporarily, while the ship's imprisoned. The catch is that the ship's not just watched by the Conspiracy any more; the local authorities have their eye on it, which means Heat gain should the agents make a play.

With all that in mind:

Taking the Kismet.

Conspiracy-owned asset Kismet is at anchor off Nassau, as one of its crew fell violently ill with a suspected case of the Plague - yes, that Plague. Nobody knows how it could have happened; they're not even sure it has happened, and further tests are being carried out. However, for a vital few days the Kismet cannot leave port. If ever there was a time to move quickly, it's now.

All tests involving security or infiltration are Difficulty 4.  However the Kismet is being watched closely by the US Coast Guard, which maintains very friendly relations with the Bahamian government. 

About half the crew have been evacuated and none of the guests are still on board. Those taken ashore are in quarantine, and cannot leave. This has caused some diplomatic concern, as the guests are highly placed and making a stink. They want to fly out on a private jet, but so far that hasn't happened. Medical concerns mean everyone stays put. 

A few crew - the captain, some support staff, some stews - are still aboard, to make sure the Kismet doesn't come to grief. A ship as dependent as this has lots of delicate, powered systems which could go wrong if not maintained, incurring expensive repairs. Even the furnishings want some attention - that Picasso/collection of expensive wines/library filled with antiquarian books needs to be in a climate controlled environment, for instance, which means someone needs to be keeping an eye on the air conditioning.

OPFOR: mostly Civilians, with perhaps a Bodyguard or some combat-rated Mooks keeping watch over the whatever-it-is. Also, possibly the actual no-shit Plague. Some more significant OPFOR may be en route, or the agents may provoke something they can't handle via Heat gain.

What's on board?

1. Vampire. Or vampire equivalent. Not one of the important ones; on the Conspyramid she's probably about as significant as a Level 3 Node, but that doesn't mean the Conspiracy wants to see her inconvenienced. She's the equivalent of a Linea Dracula Assign (p 144 main book), in power terms. Killing one of those is always fun, and a good deed to boot - but think about the secrets she might spill, if interrogated. Alternate: it's not a vampire, it's an important prisoner. Time to be a good Samaritan!
2. Data. Nothing specific on the Conspiracy's current plans, but the servers on board contain reams of useful information. Pictures, videos, emails, the works. Of course, to get that data someone will have to get on board and sneak into a secure area ... The Conspiracy are aware of the vulnerability, and have dispatched a Cleaner (or possibly a team) to infiltrate the Kismet and wipe the drives.  
3. The McGuffin! If this is a campaign where significant, valuable artifacts exist - say, the Dracula Dossier's Jeweled Dagger - then it's aboard the Kismet. It may even be the reason why that crewmate came down with the plague. Whether or not that's true, the Conspiracy have dispatched a handler to get it off the Kismet, but the Americans have a trace on that handler. So two groups of armed and dangerous people will arrive on board any minute now ... 

Enjoy!

It's a Living - Super Yachts (Night's Black Agents)

I've mentioned super yachts before, and they're covered in the Resource Guide as a potential Location. Bloomberg recently released one of its puff pieces, Wild Superyacht Secrets I Learned When I Became a Deckhand. 

Bloomberg is a pay-to-play site so you may not have access, but there's limited free access and for all I know you're already subscribed to Bloomberg, so here's the article. I'm going to quote from it but shan't post the entire thing. It's fluffy light reading. Brandon Presser is the author.

The Resource Guide has this to say about super yachts:

A “typical” superyacht is 50 meters or more in length, but bigger, more impressive examples can be three or four times bigger. These are the playthings and status symbols of the wealthy, and are outfitted with all sorts of luxuries and opulent facilities. Money is rarely an object here – the yachts are made to reflect the personality of the owner, so one might have a swimming pool and a cocktail bar, another a state-of-the-art satellite communications center and secure offices, and another might have a secret temple to the blood god Zalmoxis and a moon pool for dumping bodies to the sharks ...

The bits in the Bloomberg article that caught my eye are:

Privacy doesn’t exist

A good yachtie isn’t seen or heard—but they see and hear everything. Earpieces, radios, and cameras help keep a constant eye on guests, all feeding back to a control room.

When guests are seen leaving for breakfast, the stewards (or stews, for short) are immediately deployed to the guest rooms to clean. When someone picks mushrooms out of an omelet, the chef makes a note to tweak the dish the next morning ...

Sometimes you need a second boat for prostitutes

Prostitutes are a different story. “We see day-use girlfriends on other boats all the time,” says Christopher Sawyer, the Bella’s chef, “especially in the Med.” He’s even witnessed big spenders fill a secondary superyacht with women to trail the lead vessel, swapping them on and off—10 at a time—throughout the course of several days.

Often a yacht will be rented for two weeks: the first for the family, the second for bachelor party-esque antics. I’ll tell you about the crazy land-bound shopping sprees in a bit—they’re often the wives’ revenge ...

It's all about the tips

When a boat is being chartered, the unspoken rule is for the renter—called the “primary”—to tip each crew member 1% of the total weekly rental cost. For the Bella, which costs $220,000 for seven days (not including food, fuel, and dockage), staff can plan on pocketing at least $2,200 each. The number can be far higher if a group leaves behind what’s left of their food and fuel deposit—30% of the total trip cost—and it’s dispersed to staff. A great summer in the Med could bring in $50,000 worth of tips per person, and then there are those elusive one-off charters where yachties hit it big with a $10,000 bonus.

Incidentally for those out there thinking that renting a super yacht must be easier than buying one, technically you're correct, but take a look at these per-week prices. At the cheap end something like 150,000 Euro, for a 50-m boat. At the more expensive end, half a million per week for an 82-m boat. 

So if your agents get a hankerin' for something different, they'd better have Excessive Funds or a compliant sugar daddy. Even the CIA would blink at half a million a week for a fancy show boat.

James Bond picks up just such a sugar daddy in the short story collection For Your Eyes Only. In The Hildebrand Rarity, parts of which show up in the film License To Kill, insanely wealthy sadist Milton Krest invites Bond aboard his swanky yacht on an expedition to find a near-extinct fish, which Krest intends to poison and preserve for his collection. It's one of the rare Bonds without a spy story; Krest is just a rich man, not a megalomaniac in search of world domination. The ship scenes are well-thought-out but infrequent. 

The film is stagey, but probably more effective from a spy thriller POV.

Let's go back to the Bloomberg article. Picture the world it paints. Everybody knows everybody's business. Not just the captain and chief officers; the least stew knows your every move. Everybody's on the make. You don't earn those tips by being slow. Faces change all the time. Here one week, gone the next. It's a job for the young, particularly if you're a woman since the industry is extremely gendered and you can age out as a yachtie at much the same rate Hollywood actresses do. 

If you're wondering what you might expect on board, let me borrow from Wikipedia:

Yachts above 60 metres (200 ft) are typically built to individual specifications, cost tens of millions of dollars, and typically have four decks above the waterline and one or two below. There is likely to be a helicopter landing platform. Apart from additional guest cabins, which are likely to include one or more "VIP suites" besides the owner's suite, such a yacht will have some or all of the following amenities: indoor hot tubs, sauna and steam rooms, a beauty salon, massage and other treatment rooms, a medical centre, a disco (usually the same space as the sky lounge or saloon, transformed into a dance area when furnishings are moved aside and special lighting activated), a cinema, plunge pool (possibly with a wave-maker), a playroom, and additional living areas such as a separate bar, secondary dining room, private sitting rooms or a library.

Superyachts may be accompanied by a support (or shadow) vessel that carries such items as watercraft, helicopters or other large items that the yacht, itself, cannot readily accommodate. Such vessels range in length from 20 to 100 metres (66 to 328 ft) ... 

So that extremely intimate floating world has plenty of quiet corners to get lost in, but all of those corners have cameras and there are attentive staff hovering on your heels wherever you go. 

Double Tap divvies up Establishing Shots like these into Extras and Cameos, Clues, Rules Effects, In A Fight and In A Chase. So:

Extras and Cameos: Gym Rat (eye candy), bodyguard, civilian (plaything), civilian (stew/crew), civilian (billionaire), charismatic politician or celebrity, far less charismatic celebrity on a coke binge, talented C-list celeb chef/dancer/singer on hire for the week.

Clues.  That pretty young stew Tiffany isn't around any more; is she on the support boat? Somewhere else? Erratic, sinister mumbling from the coke binge celeb. Gym Rat's looking awfully pale and lethargic. A snippet of security camera footage shows something unpleasant. The stews complain that no matter what they try the stains in the disco will not go away. That portrait really is a [insert artist here], allegedly stolen from [museum] - how did it get here?

Rules Effects. Spending a point of Flattery buys the short-term loyalty of any stew. Also, you can find almost anything aboard this boat, so Preparedness test Difficulty drops by 1. However, it's not easy to sneak around when everyone's watching and there are more security cameras than the average prison, so Infiltration Difficulty increases by 1.

In A Fight: Almost every room has something you can use as an improvised weapon, and some of them have actual weapons; antique swords hung on the wall, say, or guns in so-called hidden compartments. That's before you consider the undeniable attraction of braining someone with a Picasso. Hiding the body is more of a problem, if you're going for a stealth run. There's plenty of places to hide the body, but you've got to avoid being spotted by those pesky cameras to get the job done.

In A Chase: Ranges from Normal to Cramped, depending on which room you're in. Obstacles include everything from naked wealthy passengers to fancy tables and chairs in the dining room and an unexpected dip in the plunge pool. Plus, what's really in that playroom? Enquiring minds want to know. 

Rounding it off, let's have a Thrilling Interrogation.

From the Resource Guide, a Thrilling Interrogation models the interrogation of a subject where they’re trying to hold out for as long as possible. They might be concealing some vital (but not core) clue.

Now, that assumes one subject. Let's play with multiple subjects: those all-seeing Stews.

Assume the agents want to know what happened aboard the Kismet [whenever it may have been]. The agents have reason to believe something significant happened, but don't know precisely what. They'll need to piece it together from multiple eyewitness accounts, but for that to happen they'll need to track down all those eyewitnesses - wherever they may be. Stews migrate. One might be in Monaco, another in the Bahamas, a third in Florida and so on. Track down enough Stews and successfully interrogate them to win the Thrilling Interrogation.

So where the standard interrogation is one target in one room, this interrogation is multiple targets in different locations, all of them Open for interrogation purposes. Assume a base pool of 12 for the Stews as a whole, and starting Lead of 5 or 7 depending on how difficult you want this to be. Allow the agents the option of bumping their Chase ability with Investigative spends, particularly Flattery and High Society since most of these interrogations will take place in high-end locales.

For a Swerve, assume Conspiracy mooks have caught up with the Stew and will silence them unless the agent intervenes. If the agent successfully defends the target they cut the Lead.

If the agents reduce Lead to 0 then they find out what happened aboard the Kismet. If Lead increases to 10 then they'll never be sure what happened, but maybe they picked up a couple tantalizing hints.

As a potential extra, if Lead = 0 then the players unlock a bonus scene where they play out the events aboard the Kismet on the night in question. The players take on the role of those Stews and other passengers, and the Director gets to cut loose safe in the knowledge that if it's a bloodbath nobody of any consequence ends up dead.

That's it for this week. Enjoy!

Playing With Real Toys: Monaco Yacht Show (GUMSHOE, Night's Black Agents)

This post is partly inspired by this Guardian piece about the perils of crewing a super yacht.

To start with, what is a super yacht?

Though luxury yachts have been around since the 19^th Century, the number of super yachts has spiked since the 1990s and the rise of the mega rich. There’s no set rule for what is or is not a super yacht, but generally they have to be more than 45 meters long. That's for your ordinary rich person. The 100-meter gigayachts tend to be the exclusive preserve of Russian oligarchs and Gulf royalty.

They always have a permanent crew and luxurious accommodation capable of handling many guests. They can accommodate as many as they like while in port, but at sea  they're limited to 12 passengers unless they have specific permits saying otherwise. They have at least four decks above the waterline and two below. They are built to commission, which means no two superyachts are alike.  This one might have a gym, pool and sauna, and that one might have a working medical lab, a movie theatre, or massage parlor. It all depends on what the owner wants.

The industry is very gendered. As a general rule the deck crew will be exclusively male, and below decks crew exclusively female. This also means there is a strict age limit for female crew - "late 30s, and you're off," says one yacht captain. 

The biggest risk – and least recognized, at least by their owners – is cybercrime. The yacht’s Wi-Fi network is typically designed to be very strong; the owners like to be permanently connected. This means a super yacht’s network extends over a very large area, which lets people in the ship moored next door, or on shore, infiltrate it. Since most of the ship’s systems are interconnected a good hack team can get everything from the security camera feed to control over the navigation systems. Those with Data Analysis or using Digital Intrusion as an investigative ability know this as a 0-point clue. It bears repeating - the weakest link is always the internet of things. If you can crack any one device on that yacht, odds are it's connected to every other thing. It doesn't matter whether it's a projector, a fish tank, or the toilet. Once you're in, you're in.

Image taken from the Guardian, photographer Mark Thompson/Getty Images.

I've discussed Monaco before.

The annual Yacht Show began in 1991 and is organized by British events and publishing company Informa. It is held at Port Hercules, an ancient anchorage that dates to the 6th Century BC, Monaco's only deep-water port; the next event is scheduled for September 25th to 28th. The Show always lasts four days and includes over a hundred yachts and at least three times as many events. To give you an idea of the kind of event I'm talking about, when Informa bought the rights to the Show from the previous holders, it paid $1.4 billion. That's how much Informa thought it was worth in 2005.

It's a toy show for those who have the cash to afford the latest in marine architecture, prestige cars, and private jets. Whether you're interested in hardware, design, or accessories, you can find what you want at one of the hundreds of display stands dotted around the show. The most revered marine architects show off their newest creations, and discreetly deal with prospective clients in between chaperoning visits to their showcase yachts.

As with all things in Monaco security is heavy but discreet - the MYS site makes a point of thanking "the 35 security agents" who made the show a success. "The Monaco Yacht Show has identified 16 possible points of entry and access to the Show. One or several security agents will perform visual checks of bags of all types, and will ask those wishing to access the Show to open their jackets." Given there are 16 possible entry points and 35 security agents, it suggests that the heaviest security is at the entryway and there's minimal security presence once you're on the Show floor.

There's well over two hundred hostesses and support personnel whose comings and goings are controlled with access passes, for those agents wishing to make a more discreet entrance. There's a barrier for sea craft, limiting entrance to Port Hercules to those vessels with the appropriate security clearance sticker. Even then all passengers aboard need their own security passes. Sounds like a job for the Forger, though it should be noted that access to the best berths often depends not so much on the yacht's owner as it does on its captain. Seniority counts, even in Monaco.

Map taken from MYS.

Thrilling elements:

• Polite but persistent security agents converge on a less-than-well-dressed attendee. Whether it's last night's liquor or natural talent that's making the attendee balky, this offers a chance to bluff past distracted security.
• Glamorous twentysomethings in revealing outfits and stilettos breeze through the crowd, hoping to catch the eye of a super yacht's owner - or their more impressionable freewheeling children.
• Calm and collected hostesses corral boisterous attendees, smiling at every less-than-funny joke.
• Crowds gather around an impossibly cool thoroughbred car, eg an impeccably restored Shelby Cobra. The exhibitor discreetly takes the details of a potential customer.
• Laughter and music from one of the yachts, as its architect hosts an impromptu cocktail party on the upper deck for potential buyers.
• A brief flurry of excitement as an heiress' small dog escapes its leash and skitters through the crowd. Its owner, a couple minders and an embarrassed MYS official are in pursuit.
• [Supernatural campaign, possibly an Occult spend] As has become traditional ever since the 2002 disaster, a special sacrifice of food and beautiful women is made at the opening ceremonial party in honor of Hercules whose port this is. Not that anyone dies - the women are ceremoniously dipped in the harbor. Tradition has it that Hercules, or his less-than-heroic twin Iphicles, attends the Show in secret, and any offense given to the God shall be repaid a hundredfold. 

Finally, a Scene:

A Network contact or similar go-between wants the agents to infiltrate the Show and hack the yacht Mantra-Mukta, owned by Indian billionaire Lakshmi Jindal. The contact is very interested in obtaining documents concerning a takeover bid Jindal may be contemplating against an American Biopharma company, and believes that Jindal will have the information on the ship's server. Jindal will only be in port for a few days, and after the Show will sail away. The agents will need to be quick.

What the Network contact doesn't know is that Jindal has been Renfielded by a vampire unconnected to the Conspiracy. This trip is a discreet meet-and-greet arranged by the Conspiracy in hopes of inducting a new member to the fold. Both Conspiracy and non-conspiracy assets are on site, including a Bhuta who may or may not be the non-Conspiracy vampire. The non-Conspiracy vampire stays on the Mantra-Mukta at all times in a specially constructed bane-free stateroom, but the Conspiracy assets wander the Show as attendees.

Hacking the Mantra-Mukta requires a Difficulty 5 Digital Intrusion test, reduced to Difficulty 4 if the agents can lift a smartphone belonging to Jindal's dissolute daughter Chandni and piggyback on her social media accounts to get access to the yacht's network. Of course the agents have to get into the Show first, and that will involve either High Society spends, an appropriate Cover, or some creative Forgery. The hack can take place from the dock but if the agents want to get onboard the Mantra-Mukta by all means let them; they might accidentally wander into that forbidden stateroom … If it takes place from the dock, someone will need to distract attention from the hacker otherwise bystanders or Show security might get curious.

There are two ways to do the hack. The hacker can try to sort through the reams of data - everything from the crew's social media to Chandni's porn and more besides - to get the precise information they need. That takes time. Or they can download every single scrap onto their own device to sort through later. That takes less time, but might require more sophisticated equipment since there's a lot of data to download. 

The agents will notice extra security on site not all of whom are what they appear to be; the Conspiracy is taking its privacy very seriously, and has infiltrated and replaced the Show's security with some of its own people. For that reason even a successful Digital Intrusion gains not 1 but 2 Heat. Moreover Monaco takes its security very seriously, and even more so when a prestige event like the Show takes place. Any Heat-gaining activity involving overt violence, even a punch-up, generates 1 extra Heat.

In a Supernatural game in this location, Heat doesn't just mean the cops. It also means Hercules, or his twin Iphicles. The God having been propitiated, He's willing to help His people if they get in trouble. That means in any Heat encounter involving non-Conspiracy cops, the God may choose to give one of them His strength. This gives one security personnel an extra 12 points to spread among Athletics, Hand-to-Hand and Health. If it's Iphicles giving the benefit then the boosted security can be Intimidated or bluffed, but a Hercules-inspired guard is immune to such tactics. Either Hercules or Iphicles can be delayed or stopped by a willing beautiful woman and an Occult spend to find the appropriate ancient Greek incantation. A boosted guard can be identified by the aureole that temporarily forms around his head.  

In a game where the optional Double Tap Familiar Foe rules (p 52) are used, the Familiar Foe should be the Conspiracy asset in charge of the meet-and-greet. The Director should assume the Conspiracy asset, Familiar Foe or not, has starting stats equivalent to Special Police or Special Operations Soldier. Conspiracy guards have stats equivalent to Gendarmes, and ordinary Show guards are Civilians with personal defense training. One in four Show guards are equivalent to Police - the leadership cadre. Not all the Show guards have been bought off by the Conspiracy, but a considerable number have and there's no obvious way the agents can discover who has.

Given the number of high value people at the Show there are bound to be Bodyguards, but as there are no guns allowed on site they won't have firearms. On that note, unless the agents can think of a really clever holdout they don't have firearms either. They might sneak in a small handgun, but anything larger is right out.  

Once the hack is complete the agents have to make a Thrilling escape from the Show. Assuming the hack was an undetected success, the agents need Lead 6 to escape and might begin at Lead 2 if the Digital Intrusion succeeded by 2 or more points. If it was not, then the agents need Lead 14. In this instance "chase" means "discreetly walk away" rather than run, though stealing a luxury car and driving through the Show is an option, as is stealing a boat. Remember that all exits including the harbor are monitored by Show security. The Show is Cramped for chase purposes.  

Once out the agents need to leave Monaco quickly, especially if the Conspiracy knows they're out there. A successful hack completely spoiled their meet-and-greet; the non-Conspiracy vampire is very upset that the Conspiracy's bungled security let hackers lift its data. An unsuccessful hack is still annoying, since any attempt is bound to upset the non-Conspiracy vampire. At a bare minimum a Tier 1 response is called for, especially if the agents are foolish enough to hang around in Monaco.

Enjoy!