Dry As Dust (Night's Black Agents)

I was going to talk about something else, but then a question popped up on Ken & Robin's podcast about Dust mode in Night's Black Agents.

It occurred to me that I've been working on just that very thing for a writing project I'd like to see come to fruition, so with that in mind:

Dust Mode

[REDACTED] is written with Dust mode in mind.

Dust tends to be less cinematic than the standard setting. Characters are still badass, but they’re not Jason Bourne badass. Death is an ever-present reminder that mistakes may be forgivable but are also fatal. The vampires and their human allies tend to be much more challenging in open combat.

Dust tends to work well with Mirror mode, that shifting morass of ever-changing loyalties which makes heavy use of the Trust and Betrayal mechanics described on pages 40-41 of the main book.

The following rules modifications are required for [REDACTED's] Dust mode:

·         Remove the MOS rules.

·         Remove Cherry benefits that result in automatic success.

·         Keep Cherry benefits that do not imply automatic success, eg Medical School of Hard Knocks with its bonus point in Diagnosis.

·         Cap Health at 10.

·         Keep the Thriller Combat rules.

·         Use the Guns Kill rules given on page 63 of the main book.

The Thriller Combat rules make combats more interesting, as do Cherries like Martial Arts. Equally the Athletics Cherry gives access to Parkour, which allows for better chase scenes.

The point being that simply having access to those rules does not imply automatic success; just because a character is experienced in Parkour doesn’t mean she won’t screw up the vault.

However the MOS rules and Cherries like Infiltration’s Open Sesame do allow automatic success, and therefore should not be used if the Director intends to play this setting in Dust mode.

There are some grey area Cherries, and the Director should make a judgement call as to whether to use them. Gambling’s Luck of the Devil Cherry, for example, allows the player to make a dice roll at the beginning of the session and decide when to use it. Technically this could allow an automatic success, or an automatic failure.

The Director must decide whether this benefit is applicable in Dust mode. In my Dust games I allow it, on the basis that the Cherry does not necessarily result in automatic success or failure; the Difficulty of the test still needs to be taken into account.  

If Mirror mode is to be used then players assign Trust as usual.

It sometimes happens in Mirror games that the Betrayer reveals that they’ve been working for ‘the other side’ all along, where the other side is often an intelligence agency. In the example in the main book, Beatrice tells her companions Jack and Luc that she’s been working for the DGSE, the French external intelligence agency, all along.

In this setting, it’s also possible that the Betrayer is working for one of the players in this high-stakes game, like [YOU BETTER BELIEVE THAT'S REDACTED]. The Director should consider carefully whether to allow this; it may be that aligning with one of the in-game agencies allows the player greater access to in-game secrets.

That said, it’s perfectly in keeping with Mirror mode to have a character announce she’s been bought off by one of the in-game agencies. If the Director wishes to allow it, by all means do so.

Why, Bob? Why?

Ultimately the point behind Dust mode is that it's gritty, more realistic, potentially more fatal. In Anthony Price's novels combat is rare, but when it happens somebody dies. In Price's war novels, like Hour of the Donkey, there's death by the bucketload; an entire unit is wiped out in the first few pages of Donkey. 

So the Thriller Combat rules have their uses. True, they add cinema, but they also increase the stakes, particularly if the Guns Kill rules are used. Plus, the players love Thriller Combat, possibly because it gives them the illusion of control. Never take away anything the players love. It's much better to destroy the things they love, preferably with as much drama and fanfare as possible. Try to arrange a brass band, possibly a few elephants. Elephants add class to every occasion.

That said, the MOS rules can be a problem because they allow the players to eliminate serious threats without rolling dice or spending points. One automatic success later, and the encounter that the Director thought would be challenging is reduced to a brief cameo moment, starring 'pink brain mist' in tonight's climactic scene. For much the same reason, Cherries that give automatic success are also difficult to deal with. Preparedness can be particularly annoying, but there are plenty of others.

Players become more concerned if they know they have to spend points to guarantee success, because their points pools are finite. Sure, at the beginning of the session they have pools for days, and can take on any foe, but they know and you know that, at the midway point, things change. The center cannot hold. 

To quote LBJ - or possibly John Wayne or Teddy Roosevelt - if you grab them by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow. 

Inject anxiety into the equation. Make the players question whether they can hold out long enough. Once they start thinking they might not have enough oomph for yet another gunfight, they'll do their best to avoid another gunfight.

Finally, a word about the Guns Kill rules.

It's one thing to see those rules in print, something else again when the first player drops from, say, 5 Health to -6 in a single shot. The first time something like that happens, prepare for falling jaws to splinter floorboards. Assume Health 10, and two shooters, both of whom hit the target. On an average roll of 4+, the target is in serious trouble. If the total is much more than that - if one rolls 4, the other 6, say, or 2 5s - then the target is already on -6 Health, possibly in the first round of combat.

If that doesn't cause the players to rethink their John Woo ways, nothing will.

Enjoy!

You've Got To Hear This Podcast

I wouldn't usually post on a weekday nor would I use the time to big up a podcast, but this is one you have to listen to if you have any interest whatsoever in cinema: The Secret History of Hollywood. This is by far the single best podcast I have ever heard, in any genre, and I'm not at all surprised that Audible has picked it up.

So what is this glorious thing? Briefly, it's one man's descent into cinematic obsession. This gent's knowledge of early cinema history is exhaustive; if ever you wanted to know anything about anyone in Hollywood before, say, 1960, this is the place to learn about it.

Moreover it's well presented. Despite the wealth of detail, it's not overpowering. The presenter is a pleasure to listen to, and the flow from moment to moment is seamless. I'm indulging in A Universe of Horrors, an in-depth study of Universal Studio's great horror experiment in the 20s and 30s and, while I know a lot of this material already, it's a treat to have it all laid out like a movable audible feast.

One caveat, and it's a fairly significant caveat: Ye Gods, these things are long. Like transatlantic flying time long. Universe of Horrors is over 7 hours worth of audio. I'm flying to the UK later this year, which is usually a 7 to 8 hour journey; I could plug myself in as soon as I board the plane, and may still not have finished listening by the time it lands. There are three separate episodes on Alfred Hitchcock, for over 18 hours total. And there's more ... and more ... and more ...

Leaving aside the obvious, the length of the episodes poses a device storage problem. Usually a podcast is, maybe, a handful of MB. Not so here. If you're so foolish as to download more than one you're looking at several GB worth of data. That takes time to download as well as space. Some mobile devices may find that difficult to swallow.

But!! If you let that put you off, you're really missing out. I cannot praise this enough. If you're a cinephile, this is a must-listen. It may be a constant companion for a week or so per episode, depending on how you devour your podcasts. In fact the biggest problem may not be listening to this one, but in finding time to listen to all the other podcasts you'll be ignoring while working your way through Secret History.

Enjoy!

Some Housecleaning and Other Strangeness (Monte Cook Games)

First, a bit of news. The scenario I wrote for YSDC, The Long Con, has been nominated for a UK Game Expo award. As I write this, votes have either been cast or are being cast for this award; not sure which. If you're reading this, and can vote, please do! Hope all's well over in Birmingham, Paul!

Second, if you listen to the Plot Points podcast, there's a show coming up that you'll be veeeerry interested in. I don't know how much I can say about it now, so I shall say nothing, except stay tuned!

Recently the Plot Points folks have been talking about Monte Cook's The Strange RPG, which I reviewed for the Escapist, but the review never saw print. Rather than waste material, here's the column that never was. Enjoy!

***

System: The Strange

Creators: Bruce R. Cordell, Monte Cook

Publisher: Monte Cook Games

When I saw that RPGgeek had nominated The Strange in both its Game of the Year and Best Presentation categories for 2014, my first thought was, ‘bwuh? I’ve never heard of this one. Monte Cook I know – difficult not to, if you’ve ever been interested in Dungeons and Dragons - but this Bruce Cordell guy is new to me.  Oh, another Dungeons and Dragons alumnus, eh? Perhaps this is worth seeking out …’

Yes. Yes, it is.

The Strange assumes that aliens once created a communications and transport network, which humans now call the Strange, many billions of years ago. For whatever reason, that network was abandoned, and over the years has become chaotic and difficult to navigate. Among the many creatures living out there in the Strange are planetovores, creatures capable of devouring Earth, and which can get to Earth via the Strange, if a connection is created between their reality and ours.

However there is a defense network, of sorts. Stable, imaginary little islands in the Strange, called Recursions, form a buffer zone between us and the planetovores; a Warsaw Pact of sorts, where creatures of magic, weird science and pretty much anything else in between stand between us and destruction, merely by existing. These Recursions are essentially fictional, mostly created by human imagination, but the Strange gives them a kind of life. As far as each Recursion is concerned, it’s the reality, and we’re the fiction, though some Recursions have a better idea of the nature of the Strange than others.

The game assumes that each character is a member of the Estate, a quasi-governmental organization with the self-appointed task of keeping the Recursions more or less stable, thus staving off attack from those all-devouring planetovores, or even the inhabitants of those Recursions less inclined towards civilized interaction with fellow sentient beings.  After all, Recursions cover the entire scope of humanity’s imaginary worlds, and that means everything, from zombie apocalypses to world-conquering Nazis, ravaging Mongol hordes, immortal Pharaonic priest-kings, and so much more. It should come as no surprise that some of them want to invade our version of Earth, for reasons of their own.

However the Estate isn’t the only organization which knows about the Strange. The Office of Strategic Recursion is a nice, friendly agency which really just wants to get along with everyone, and weaponize whatever Strange technology it can pick up. The September Project may or may not be using the Strange to develop the next generation of quantum computers. The Circle of Liberty wants to use the Strange to get rid of governments worldwide. That just scratches the surface, and it doesn’t include the many hundreds, perhaps thousands, of individuals who are also aware of it, and are busily exploring or harvesting its riches for their own benefit.

This, mind you, all in North America; what with all the dodgy physics and mystic forces floating around, if you wanted, say, a Torchwood-style group, or any other kind of Strange-exploiting organization elsewhere, no problem.

Character generation is a breeze, even for novices. Fill in the blanks: I am an adjective noun, who verbs. Or, I am a fast spinner, who solves mysteries. Fast means you have a tier tree linked to the attribute fast, spinner that you’re a character type who relies on bluff, manipulation and subterfuge, and solves mysteries gives you access to a tier tree that revolves around solving mysteries.  That, and a little bit of point spending on your three attributes of Might, Speed and Intellect, and you’re good to go. Shouldn’t take longer than half an hour, even if you’ve never played tabletop before in your life.

Mechanically, The Strange’s Cypher System is about as simple as you can get, and still involve random chance. Tasks range from Routine Difficulty, which doesn’t require a dice roll, to Impossible. That Difficulty setting determines the Target Number, which you have to roll equal to or greater than on a d20. The outcome is dependent on the character’s Might, Speed or Intellect – whichever is most appropriate to the task – with any special benefits, items or other modifiers factored in. Roll the dice and find out if you did it or not. As the character, you’re always going to be the one driving the action, and you’re going to be the one rolling dice. Conflicts between NPCs are decided by the Game Master, who decides which result would best fit the narrative and goes with that.

Simplicity is one of the things I really appreciate about The Strange. Sure, I loved First Edition Dungeons and Dragons when I was a teen, and had the time to master all of its arcane subsystems, tables, and charts. Those days are done. Now what I want out of a game is an intriguing core idea, and rules mechanics that are lucid enough for anyone to pick up without any difficulty.

That core idea is definitely intriguing. You can quite literally go anywhere, anywhen. The main book describes several different Recursions, including one based on a fantasy video game RPG, another on a dystopian world racked by nuclear war and inhabited by, among other things, hyperintelligent roaches, and yet another where Sherlock Holmes plays violin and waits for clients at 221B Baker Street, London. You can go to Shangri-La, Innsmouth Massachusetts, King Arthur’s Court, the Land of Oz, or anywhere else you fancy. It’s not difficult to see how the Game Master could design a whole raft of scenarios around this core concept. For those willing to dive right in and just go nuts, The Strange offers all kinds of pulp fun.

Its Dungeons and Dragons roots are pretty clear from the example scenario and scenario seeds in the main book. You are made aware of a potential problem by your employer and are sent out to investigate. You go into what amounts to a dungeon, whallop a few mooks, and perhaps negotiate your way past the tougher obstacles. There is a boss encounter of some kind, and after you deal with that, you go back and report to your employer. Job done, until next time, when your employer makes you aware of another potential problem, and the cycle begins anew. The game certainly doesn’t have to play that way – the rules are simple enough and the setting loose enough for any kind of play style - but those are the examples on offer: light on investigation, heavy on the action. I was particularly struck by one encounter, which could have come straight out of Grimtooth’s. You have to wonder where the bad guys get their contractors. There’s no Angie’s List for that sort of thing.

Do I recommend it? Sure, it’s a great little knockabout. The rules are simple enough that anyone can get to grips with them without too much effort, and the core concept’s strong enough to engage even the most jaded of players. Its malleability is one of its strengths. If your group is tired of horror, play fantasy. Tired of fantasy, play sci fi, and so on. The Recursion idea is pretty close to the old Ravenloft concept of the Mist, with little pockets of reality hidden away from each other behind a mysterious wall, which is great for changing up the setting when you feel the need.

Would I play it? Hum. As a break from a different system, yes. It’s perfect for that one or two session hiatus game, where you put your main campaign on hold for a while, so everyone can recharge their batteries, but The Strange’s malleability is a problem as well as a benefit. It can become so many things that it almost lacks an identity of its own. 

Oddly, it reminds me a little of Atlas’ horror title Unknown Armies, in that I feel the same way after reading The Strange as I did when I first read Atlas’ game. There are so many ideas here, a lot of them really great, but what do I do with them all? Monster of the week it, try to go for high concept, immerse in the fantasy aspect, something else? How do I pitch it to the players? Is this something for a particular kind of gamer, the way Wraith suits certain players and not others, or will anyone be able to get on board?

On the whole, these feel like minor worries rather than dealbreakers. It’s still a system I’d like to try. Wandering through the multiverse with an Estate gold badge, like some kind of modern day Wyatt Earp with all the potential layers of existence as my Tombstone, has a lot of appeal. I’d recommend The Strange to anyone who enjoys Dungeons and Dragons style monster bashing, with a touch of Torchwood, and just a little hint of X-Files. Enjoy!