Little Drummers (Night's Black Agents)

It was the Bad Godesburg incident that gave the proof, though the German authorities had no earthly means of knowing this. Before Bad Godesburg, there had been growing suspicion; a lot of it. But the high quality of the planning, as against the poor quality of the bomb, turned the suspicion into certainty. Sooner or later, they say in the trade, a man will sign his name. The vexation lies in the waiting.

John Le Carré, Little Drummer Girl 

BBC version, dir. Park Chan-wook

The central premise is this: there is a bombmaker, a Palestinian, who uses naïve young women recruited by his younger brother to deliver the bombs. The Israelis want to stop him, so they fabricate their own naïve young woman and make it look as if the younger brother recruited her. That way, they think, the mastermind will take her on as a courier, which in turn will lead them to the bombmaker.

Not to worry, this isn't a spoiler. The whole thing's laid out in the first two chapters.

Le Carré expands on this in his short collection The Pigeon Tunnel, and in one piece (Theatre of the Real: the Villa Brigitte) describes one of his inspirations, Brigitte, a young German captured by the Israelis during a mission against Palestinian terrorists.

The door is unlocked from the other side, and a tall, beautiful woman in a prison tunic, enhanced by a tightly drawn belt, strides in with a diminutive wardress either side of her, each lightly holding an arm. Her long blonde hair is combed freely down her back. Even her prison tunic becomes her. As her wardresses withdraw, she steps forward, drops an ironic bob and, like a well-brought-up daughter of the house, extends her hand to me. "With whom do I have the honor?" she enquires in courtly German ...

  

There are two ideas I want to draw on here and use in Night's Black Agents: Heat as a pool, and an NPC: the Recruiter.

Heat is traditionally thought of as a kind of penalty. You accumulate Heat by doing criminal or near-criminal things, like hacking or stealing or shooting up the place. It can affect the Difficulty of tests, and it can draw extra official attention onto their poor defenseless heads. 

Generally you have to do something to gain heat. Armed robbery, stealing a car, gambling with high rollers, whatever it may be, but the essence is you do a thing, you get a point, or two, or more. 

What if you could voluntarily gain Heat in exchange for an improved chance of success in a General test?

Before Bad Godesburg, there had been growing suspicion; a lot of it. But the high quality of the planning, as against the poor quality of the bomb, turned the suspicion into certainty. Sooner or later, they say in the trade, a man will sign his name.

Here there was a test, probably of Explosive Devices, and something went wrong. That drew suspicion, which eventually became a certainty. The bombmaker gave himself away.

Let's say that was your Bang-and-Burner who flubbed the Devices check. Let's also say that you really, really need a success here, and that you failed the Difficulty by, oh, 2 points, why not. 

What if you could buy 2 points Explosive Devices in exchange for 2 points Heat? A 1 for 1 spend.

In game terms, this is you 'signing your name.' In poker, this would be a tell. You have habits, they become known, and the authorities pick up on the clues you left behind. It's up to you what those clues are. Maybe you always use a Nokia as a detonator. Maybe you always strike at sundown, or smoke a particular brand of cigarettes whose stubbed-out remains are at the crime scene. Maybe you can't help but leave behind riddles at the scene of the crime, or the Ace of Spades, or what-have-you. Maybe, like the Pink Panthers, you always drive an Audi. 

It doesn't matter what it is. The point is, you can't help but do it. By doing so you get a successful Explosive Devices check - but at what cost?

At the beginning of the session you might think it's an acceptable exchange. What's another couple points of Heat? You can buy that off - until you can't. Until Heat's at 5 or more, and making your Difficulty tests that much more difficult. Maybe it starts to feel like using your credit card to pay off your debts, until the card's maxed out and the debts aren't any smaller ... 

Let's not forget that Heat is a group problem. For your 2 points, you've just burnt everyone in your general vicinity. What your fellow agents may do about that is up to them.

As Director, you may only want to allow this once per session, and follow it immediately with a Heat test if Heat has risen to 6 or more. 

Now let's talk about the Recruiter.

In Little Drummer Girl the little brother, Salim, is stalking horse for his more dangerous sibling. His charm and good looks lure the couriers in, and by the time his brother gets hold of them the girls are indoctrinated.

Now, Night's Black Agents kinda handwaves the whole process by which humans are suckered into working for bloodsuckers. It's generally assumed that, if a human's involved, they're doing it for money, immortality, or both. Renfields might be in it for the blood, or addicted to blood. The mooks are in it for cash. The vampires are assumed to be charming enough to lure in their own victims.

Suppose they're not? Suppose they need someone to make the first move for them?

There isn't a Charm general pool. That role is taken by Flattery and Flirting, both of which are Investigative and therefore off-limits for NPCs. It's a good rule of thumb to apply MICE in any given interaction between Conspiracy-linked NPC and potential target - Money, Ideology, Coercion, Ego. One of those, possibly more than one, is the unwatched door that will let the Recruiter in.

Cameo: Recruiter (aka the Roper)

Conceal 4, Disguise 4, Surveillance 6

Martin could be a movie star; in fact, according to him, for a little while he was. Then he got bored with the superficiality of it all. Why spend all your time in an artificial bubble when you could be out there, in the world, living? He brushes off inquiries about his past, or his present. He's an investor, a white knight, and talks knowledgably about import and export, but exactly what he imports or exports changes depending on which week it is, and he's never investing right now; he's on a kind of sabbatical, recharging his batteries. In the meantime there's so much to do and see! This week Venice, next week Delhi; his passport is the only thing he truly values. Everything else, from his luxury apartments to his stylish clothes, is so much garbage, to be used and thrown away.

In fact Martin is someone whose sole occupation in life is to seek out people who can be used. Martin may have no idea who he's working for, or he may be a willing collaborator. Either way he could care less, so long as his bills get paid at the end of the month. He lines up the mark, male or female, for his employer, feeding them whatever line they need to hear. Maybe they need cash, or need to know they're sticking it to the Man, or need a little bit of flattery to grease the wheels. Martin supplies what they need, then leads them to the people who can give them even more of what they want. 

By the time that meeting happens, Martin's long gone. This week Venice, next week Delhi ...

As Asset. Able to hook the agent up with all kinds of interesting people. Martin doesn't have direct access to [whatever it may be] but he knows someone who does. His whole lifestyle depends on knowing someone who does.

As Clue. Martin knows where the bodies are buried; he helped plant some of them. For the right price, he'll turn over his little black book, full of useful contacts. Martin knows what happened to [fill in the blank] - and why.

In Play. Martin's a practiced gaslighter, and knows how to make you doubt yourself and isolate you from your friends without you ever noticing what he's up to. Always smile, always nod, and bring the conversation back to where Martin needs it to be. Money, Ideology, Coercion, Ego - one of those will be the weapon he'll drive into your back, and you'll help you do it.

That's it for this week. Enjoy!

Musty Money (Night's Black Agents)

I've been reading a lot about money laundering (yes, I have a day job, shocker, I know) and this little gem from The Bermuda Monetary Authority's Financial Intelligence Agency report Q3 2018 leapt out at me:

Three Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) were filed on the suspect activity of two Bermudians, who were on financial assistance at the time. Over a period of two weeks, the two Subjects attended the agency with a stack of “very bad and musty smelling BMD $20 bank notes”. The teller described that the notes had the appearance of being stored in a humid area. The stack of notes amounted to BMD$2,500.00 each visit. During the first visit, the Subject completed a Customer Detail Form, and provided a driver’s license as proof of identification. The agency accepted the notes and advised the first Subject that a cheque would be ready in five business days.

Five business days later, the first Subject returned to the agency where again a stack of musty smelling BMD$20 notes was produced in the same condition, which amounted to BMD$950.00. The first Subject received two cheques from the agency for the value of the damaged notes submitted. The notes tendered by the first Subject were then destroyed by the agency. This incident was closely followed by a second Bermudian, who also produced damaged BMD$100 notes of the same description for exchange.

The reasons for suspicion that were identified were as follows:

• It is known that gangs in Bermuda keep their proceeds of crime in cash and typically bury them until they are needed to fund further criminal conduct.
• The timing of these transactions along with the similarity in nominal value and description of the notes suggests that these transactions deal with cash from the same source, which is likely criminal.

Breaking Bad, Sony

When money laundering rears its ugly head in fiction, it's usually somewhere in the millions or squillions and some minor character speaks knowledgeably about placement, layering and so on. Sometimes shell companies and elaborate corporate structures are invoked, and people whisper about exotic, sun-soaked money laundering havens like Delaware, South Dakota and Alaska. 

However, as the FIA article points out, money laundering can happen on the micro as well as macro level. Never mind the squillions; what about the hundreds, the thousands? How do you prove that the wodge of cash you want to deposit is yours?

It's all the more important as banks and financial institutions, whether it's Bank of America or PayPal, conduct most if not all of their business electronically, and vendors accommodate them by introducing new practices that all but eliminate cash from the system. Tap your card against the terminal, and thank you for your patronage. 

Imagine trying to buy a car, even second-hand, with cash alone. It'd have to be a junker with more miles on it than God before anyone even considered taking cash-only. 

Imagine how many red flags you'd set off if you tried.

Psycho, Alfred Hitchcock

Time was stacks of musty cash meant someone found treasure, and quite often  worthless Confederate loot. Scooby Doo pulled off that old chestnut back in the 1970s, Chester Himes tried it, and there've been plenty of pulp writers who did the same. Dirt-smeared stacks of cash hidden in someone's basement often have an unusual history, or - as happened in the Bermuda example - are too damaged to be used as cash, which presents its own problems.

OK, let's start talking about gamification. 

Here we have a situation where a low-power Node, street-level most likely, has accumulated a chunk of cash it can't easily spend. Maybe it's ordinary currency, maybe it's out-of-date, maybe it's antique. I'm not sure what you'd do with a stack of French Francs, for instance, now the Euro's a thing; I think I'm right in saying the last date of exchange was a while ago. Presumably, if you found a suitcase full of granny's retirement fund in the attic and wanted to spend it, you can still hand over old Francs for new Euro, but I've no idea how you'd do that. Nor, I suspect, does your average street-level Node.

But it wants to spend that cash, so it tries to exchange it at a bank or credit union.

Red Flag

The agents, trawling for information that might lead to the next link in the chain, discover a suspicious activity report in the data they harvested from [insert financial institution here]. Seems that someone's been trying to bank odd-smelling notes in unusual amounts, and this someone's hit the official radar before, for a slightly different crime: robbing a blood bank. What's going on here?

Option One: the man with the money stole the cash from a Level One Node. This hopeless wretch - someone roughly on a par with the Dracula Dossier's Madman - has been shadowing the Node for some time, as they know it's linked to the Conspiracy and there's nothing this poor deluded soul likes better than vampires. Tracking him down will get the agents some useful intel about the Node.

Option Two: the woman exchanging the cash is one of several mules this Level One Node uses to launder its cash. It isn't a perfect system; in fact it's a bloody awful system, as proven by the fact that they have to use a petty criminal to launder their loot. However their only other option is to stash the money in their mattress, and that won't work forever. 

Option Three: the person exchanging the cash is a vampire hunter/Dracula Dossier Legacy or similar, who found it while following up other leads. They're possibly a little naïve when it comes to money matters but they aren't vampire-friendly; quite the reverse. However, the Node knows the cash is missing and has a pretty good idea who has it, so unless the agents intervene this potential friendly could find themselves in deep trouble.

That's it for this week. Enjoy!    

What Odd Fellows (RPG All)

Recently someone discovered desiccated human remains in a garage in Ohio, but you'll be pleased to hear that, just this once, it wasn't a gruesome murder.

The tip-off came when a neighbor heard what's been described as 'youthful voices' coming from a detached garage in Mt. Healthy, Ohio. Further investigation uncovered no suspicious youths (I firmly believe it was four meddling kids and a dog) but did find the bones of what proved to be a very long dead gent.

Turns out the garage was formerly a different building altogether, and was used by the Odd Fellows as a lodge. The bones were kept there for ritual purposes. Time passes, lodge changes hands, lodge is torn down to be turned into a garage, and lo and behold here's our pal Bonesy. 

What do you do when you find a corpse in your new garage? Why, you keep it, of course. The new owner didn't seem inclined to, I don't know, bury the dead, but he wasn't going to turf the poor thing out with the trash. He boxed it and forgot it. Then someone else found it.

The Odd Fellows is a very old masonic organization. The first lodges date back to the 18th century, and nobody really knows what they got up to; its traditions are shrouded in antiquity and, as any historian will tell you, the absolute best way to make everything clear as mud is to shroud the historical record in antiquity. Broadly speaking it's a charitable, philanthropic organization with a penchant for fraternalism and benevolence. Sounds very nice, I'm sure. 

Hot Fuzz, second in the Cornetto Trilogy

The Catholics didn't like 'em much, but then the Catholic Church in its day has condemned everything that isn't Catholic and some things that are, so it's not that difficult to see why the Church might have had a downer on the Odd Fellows.

If you want to know more about the Odd Fellows there is an interesting book over on Gutenberg, first published 1901, about the American branch of the Odd Fellows. 

On Jericho Road is about as gnomic and mystical as you could possibly hope for.  It poses the obvious question: "If," it is demanded, "the aims and purposes of the order be legitimate and praiseworthy, why shroud them in mystery rather than give them the broad sunlight of publicity." only to answer it with the most banal retort possible. "But if the preference of Odd-Fellowship be for quieter and less obtrusive methods, pray who shall fairly contest its right of choice?"

If it specifically mentions bones and peculiar rituals, I didn't notice. That said, I couldn't read it cover to cover and I shall be surprised if you manage it. If you wanted some bland yet useful text to make a mystic, or even Mythos, tome out of, you certainly couldn't do any worse. 

We travel from star to star, from system to system, until we reach yon lonely star that appears to be performing the Guardian's task, upon the verge of unmeasured and immeasurable space. We may descry and describe the form and outlines of those heavenly bodies, detect their movements and approximately determine their distances and dimensions. But what more? Little that is satisfying ...

OK, let's talk gamification. This could be a purist Trail of Cthulhu scenario. In that event the Lodge gets knocked down, say, in the 1890s and replaced with [insert building here - something modern and industrial]. There's a fair amount of junk left over from the old Lodge and the building's new owner can't be bothered to throw it out, so it ends up in the spare room. You know the type. Every office has one. Nobody remembers what its original use was; now it's a place you put things you don't want to have to think about. 

It could also be Fear Itself, or Esoterrorists, or any one of a dozen different modernist settings. Given the Youthful Voices, it could also make a fun BubbleGumshoe scenario. It might be a little tricky to turn it into Night's Black Agents since, in that setting, finding human remains in an unexpected place is just another Tuesday, and not a very exiting one at that. However if you replace the human remains with, say, any of the relics from Dracula Dossier, or some similar McGuffin, you're off to the races. 

Let's round out with a few story seeds. 

The premise: someone finds human remains in a [mundane setting] and it turns out that these bones are older than expected and came from the building that used to be on this spot, but which was torn down forty years ago to make room for this one. What happened, and what will happen next?

• What happened: the old building used to be an occult lodge, and the bones were kept for ritual purposes. 
• What will happen next: The new lodge, located somewhere else in town, is startled to discover its old ritual artefacts hidden away in some forgotten spot, and will do its best to get them back - using magic, if they have to.
• What happened: the old building used to be a funeral home, and was put out of business because it was breaking all sorts of laws regarding the disposal of human remains. The new owner found these bones, decided they didn't need the negative publicity, and put them somewhere forgettable.
• What will happen next: The former owner of those bones wants to be buried properly, and will haunt the finders until they do that.
• What happened:  the old building was someone's home, back in the 1840s or thereabouts, and they wanted to be buried on the old homestead. So they were. The bones were excavated as part of the new build and the developer didn't want the headaches that come with admitting you've found human remains on the property. So they hid the bones.
• What will happen next: The bones become the focal point for a peculiar kind of time dilation. The psychic powers of the dead person were such time doesn't really exist for them: it's always 1840, where they are. Now they've been disturbed the bones will start rebuilding reality to fit its internal vision: first the bedroom where they spent their final hours, then the rest of the house, hall by hall. Soon people in the new building will find themselves walking into the old, by accident, and there's no telling when or how they'll get out again ...

That's it for this week. Enjoy!

Stuck in a Rut (RPG All, Night's Black Agents)

 At some point in your career as Director, Keeper or whatever it may be, you're going to realize you've done the same plot once too often. It might be Trail, Delta Green, Yellow King, Call, or any of a dozen other investigative horror/supernatural settings, but regardless of the How or Where the one guaranteed fact is, it'll happen.

If this is your first time at bat you might be feeling nervous. Surely this is the end? Hang up your hat? No more the wide and open vistas for you, that sort of thing?

How do you plot when you've run out of plots?

First, consider some of the basics we've already discussed. Those will never change.

A CORE CONCEPT tree bears CORE CONCEPT fruit. Everything you put in this moment has to reflect the core concepts of the setting and the game. Exactly what that means will depend on the setting itself, and your interpretation of that setting. 

Second, consider the OPFOR, whatever it may be. Whether some forgotten threat from beyond the stars or a bloodsucker very much in the here and now, any OPFOR  has these characteristics:

• Power appropriate to its function.
• Goals, which may be personal or professional.
• Assets, which it uses to reach its Goals.

Finally, remember that the players will have already clued you in to what they want to see. If half or more of the team is dedicated to infiltration and sneakiness of all kinds, then they want a sneaky plot. If they've gone full combat monster, then they want a combat plot, and so on. 

OK, having said all that let's cover some specifics. I'm going to use Night's Black Agents in this example, but the principles can be used for any investigative setting.

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.

The great thing about this list is it can be used for almost any RPG setting, and pretty much every GUMSHOE setting. It's not difficult to think of a few Cyberpunk scenarios, for instance, that use one or more of these ideas. Fantasy settings like Swords of the Serpentine often involve sneaking, rescuing, hunting and so on. 

The only one of the nine active scenario snippets that isn't common outside of the spy genre is the Flip idea, and even that can be encountered in settings other than Night's Black Agents. I can easily picture a Bookhounds story, for example, that involves Flipping an auctioneer, say, or a local government figure, so they're more friendly to the Hounds. 

Hits probably aren't that common in Bookhounds either, but even then I can picture a situation in which the Hounds have to destroy someone's professional or personal reputation, which amounts to the same thing.

Hite also points out that you can reverse all of these concepts and make them reactive, so (for instance) the players' role may be to protect, rather than hit, a target, or defend, rather than heist, a valuable trove. That means you have eighteen potential scenario ideas, rather than nine.

In Swords of the Serpentine, for instance, it could be that your band of ne'er-do-wells is hired to protect, rather than Heist, the wedding presents at a highfalutin' nuptial celebration. Or remove all evidence that might help an official investigation Uncover a mystery, such as what really happened to those wedding presents.

OK, so I started this by talking about doing the same plot once too often. If you're like me, then you'll look at that list and realize that there are some of those nine you've done a lot of, and some that you barely touch. I'm big on Heists. Rescues are not uncommon. I've planned the occasional Sneak in my day. Hunts are a lot of fun.

But I don't often do Uncover, Trace, Hit, Flip, or Destroy. There's no real reason why not. Those just aren't scenario ideas I use often. I also don't tend to do reactive scenarios of any kind, since those carry an unspoken risk: they make the players sacrifice the initiative, and become passive. In a game like Night's Black Agents - in most settings, really - it's a good idea to encourage the players to be active. Passivity can be habit forming, and that's usually a bad thing.

My rule of thumb when stuck in a rut is simply this: take the basic principles, which you will always rely on, and apply those to a scenario idea that's outside of your usual favorites. 

Let's Reverse an Uncover, Trace, Hit, Flip or Destroy seed and see where that takes us.

As stated, I'm using Night's Black Agents. I'll go further and say this is a Dracula Dossier game, using Whitby as the setting, with Alien vampires as the OPFOR. I'll use the Ancient Stones from the main book (p 147, Vampires are silicon-based aliens existing mostly outside our conventional Euclidean geometry. Their perceptions are not time-bound; they see all times as simultaneous.)

Let's Reverse a Trace scenario.

The Vampires want to uncover something, and the agents would rather they did not - or alternatively, the agents would rather the Vampires' agents get bad intel which they take back to their bloodsucker masters. 

I already know from the core concept (alien stones) that these are entities with a peculiar grasp of reality, that are big on prophesy, blood sacrifice, time manipulation and weird science. Those are the tools at their disposal, which means those are the elements that will play into this scenario.

I also know that the OPFOR will probably include, if not an actual Perfecti, at least a Renfield or some similar supernatural leader-type, and other, more human agents. 

I also know that, since this is Dracula Dossier and the setting is Whitby, that there's going to be all kinds of Dracula-related information that the OPFOR will want to uncover. This is where Edom once held Dracula, after all. There's bound to be all sorts of intel left behind after an operation like that. 

Roundabout p. 103-4 of Dracula Unredacted the text talks about Billington & Sons and its dealings with the shipping firm Carter, Patterson & Co., which delivers fifty boxes (of grave soil, though the text doesn't specify) to Carfax. Since this is Unredacted, there's all sorts of intriguing handwritten notes that lead to further clues.

OK, so this is all coming together. I need a Reverse Trace, which means the OPFOR wants to Trace something and the agents want to muddy the waters. Given the situation and the setting it seems reasonable to say that the OPFOR wants to know more about those fifty boxes and their delivery instructions. Billington & Sons still exists. Carter, Patterson & Co. got bought out, but that doesn't mean all its records are gone - the new parent may have them. Billington is a small, family affair, and if there's one thing about a family-owned company it's that they keep everything. Absolutely everything. Including company records that nobody in their right mind would consider valuable, but which they (in their infinite wisdom) still have in boxes up in the attic - or wherever it may be.

So I have an OPFOR which will be arriving in Whitby any minute looking for information held by Billington & Sons. The organization the OPFOR works for is big on prophesy, blood sacrifice, time manipulation and weird science, so when they arrive it's a safe bet there'll be an uptick in those things - say, when the OPFOR arrives the first thing it does is conduct a blood sacrifice ritual up at Whitby Abbey, and its team regularly visits palmists, Tarot card readers and similar in the town. Or peculiar time events start to occur - odd Victorian vistas, say, or paintings in galleries that seem to warp reality around them. Google weird science facts and see which ones you want to borrow - that sort of thing. I quite like the look of bioluminescent human bodies, but you do you.

It's the agents' job to mislead the OPFOR. That means the agents need to get there first, and either remove the evidence the OPFOR searches for, or plant information that leads the OPFOR in the wrong direction. The OPFOR seeks one or more boxes of grave dirt, and to find it they want to get access to the delivery records from Carter, Paterson that are kept in Billington & Sons' attic.

It's up to the agents how they do that. They might choose to impersonate a Tarot card reader and, using their Gambling or Filch abilities, force a result that benefits them. Death Reversed? Well, that means ... They might manipulate weird science to make it appear as though the box the OPFOR's looking for is [over here]. 

They might do any number of things, but at some point there's going to be a confrontation at or near Billington & Sons, where the OPFOR sneaks in looking for records in the attic and the agents will have to make sure either that the OPFOR doesn't find them, or only finds the records the agents want the OPFOR to find. That means in turn that the Director will need to flesh out Billington a bit. Who's the current senior solicitor? Who's on the front desk? What's an old family office like Billington look like - the epitome of shabby good taste, a modern front hiding a classic interior, fancy front rooms and dusty old storage areas, something else?

Further there will probably be a second confrontation either at the place where that missing box is, or at a place of the agents' choosing - perhaps where the agents have planted a 'missing box' for the OPFOR to find. As Director you need to think of a few places where that might happen, so that when the agents spend a point of Tradecraft (or whatever it may be) you can suggest things like, say, that abandoned jet mine near Whitby where Edom used to keep vampires, or even an iconic location like Carfax or Seward's Asylum. Suggestion made, you need to have at least an idea of what might be found there.

I could go on, but rather than do that I want to draw your attention back to the process.

The problem was, you've fallen into a scenario design rut and are looking for a way to get out.

The answer was twofold. First, go back to base principles. You already know the core concept, the nature of the OPFOR, and your players' personal preferences. You can build on those three things to make any scenario you like.

Second, once you've reminded yourself of the base principles you then go to the seed idea list and remind yourself of the ones you least use. Pick one of those, and use that. This forces you out of your usual habits, which in turn will probably force you to think of ideas, situations, and settings that you don't often play with. 

The best way out of any problem is forward, but if you keep doing the same thing that got you in a rut in the first place, don't expect to get out of that rut in a hurry. It's like repeating the same course of action again and again in the hopes you'll get a different result. Or doubling down on a bad decision. 

Rely on core principles, then take the least-used option and see what that gets you. If nothing else, you'll get a different perspective on the problem - and your players will be surprised by the result.

That's it for this week. Enjoy!   

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!

Lost But Not Forgotten (RPG Modern)

Most of you will have noticed that the world will soon come to an end thanks to a Japanese rock and an ancient curse, as attested by pretty much every newspaper in the Western Hemisphere. Possibly the writers were looking for a distraction from current events.

The rock in question is the Killing Stone or Sessho-seki, which until last week contained the corpse of Tamamo-no-Mae, a beautiful woman who had been part of a secret plot hatched by a feudal warlord to kill Emperor Toba. Tamamo-no-Mae was actually a nine-tail fox - a trickster spirit - and when caught in the act the Emperor had her remains imprisoned forever. Or so he believed. 

Original Theatrical Poster

Most newspaper accounts mention that her story inspired an anime film, but none that I've seen went into any depth. Which is a pity, as the anime makes for a good story.

Incidentally I owe my information to the kindness of Ian Horner of Loadingreadyrun fame, a gentlemen whose Twitter feed and many comedy videos I highly recommend.

Once upon a time in 1960s Japan there was a man named Gentaro Nakajima who wanted nothing more than to make his magnum opus, Kyubi no Kitsune to Tobimaru, a horror(ish) fantasy anime. He switched to anime because nobody was willing to back his original idea, a live-action film. As it turns out there weren't many people willing to back his anime version either, and it proved to be a box-office dud which only showed in one cinema for a very limited period in 1968. 

Crushed, the disappointed filmmaker retired from showbusiness and gave the original print of the film to one of his sons. That gentlemen speculated unwisely, and committed suicide in the aftermath of a bribery scandal. The original print - the only version thought at that time to exist - vanished altogether, and for many years was considered a lost film.

Not so. A print was found, and is currently in the vaults of the Tokyo Metropolitan Library. It has never seen a commercial release of any kind since 1968, though the Library has shown it several times.

So, in one breath we have: a curse. A broken sacred stone. A luckless anime that ruined the life of its creator, potentially also his son, and currently lives in a library vault like some scorpion lurking in a shadow. Or a nine-tail fox spirit hiding in a rock, come to that.

Given that one of the characteristics of a nine-tail fox is its desire to consume the flesh and/or souls of men this is a story that fits nicely into Nights Black Agents, but it could as easily be an Esoterrorists plot, Fear Itself, Delta Green or any modern-day horror setting. With a bit of finagling it could be a Cyberpunk plot; lost mysterious anime lurks on the Net, allegedly killing any runner foolish enough to seek it out. Is it some crazed AI, an urban legend, something else? Or, depending on the nature of Japan in your RED world, what really happened to the Killing Stone way back in the dim and distant past of 2022, and why is Arasaka so concerned about it? Is it because one of Gentaro Nakajima's heirs is now a senior figure in Arasaka who'd rather nobody remembered the past, or is there some other reason?

OK, all that said, let's gamify.

Lost But Not Forgotten

The original print of Kyubi no Kitsune to Tobimaru turns up at a minor auction or flea market, perhaps in Japan, perhaps somewhere else. The person who buys it has no idea what they have, but they do know it's anime, so they offer it up for viewing at a minor anime convention in [choose location now]. 

All twenty of the people who watch it are found dead over the next few days, brutally butchered and partially eaten.

If this is a Fear Itself game or a similar setting, where the characters are ordinary people who are unwitting victims of unearthly forces, then they were among the audience that day and recognized the film for what it was, but they aren't dead - yet.

The viewing takes place shortly before Monday 7th March; the cracking of the Killing Stone is when the murders start.

Options:

• The killer is the alleged 'discoverer' of the anime, who actually faked it in order to lure in victims. This person believes, perhaps incorrectly, that they're a fox spirit on the verge of achieving the unthinkable: ascension to Heaven, after a thousand-year cycle. To complete that cycle and achieve the ascendance they deserve, they need a *lot* of energy - hence the killings. The victims are sacrificial, and the whole point of getting them to watch the anime is to make them understand, even on a subconscious level, their place in the grand scheme of things.
• The 'original print' was faked by Esoterrorists (or a similar cult-style group) who added a special scene not found in the version held by the Tokyo Metropolitan Library. That scene is the true killer; the monster hides in it like a vampire in its coffin, but once it's exposed to an audience it lives in their minds - until it can creep out and kill them. It might emerge from a painting, a mirror, or a television screen, but it's really coming from inside the victim's memory. The intent is to spread fear, but also to generate interest in the 'psychic killer' anime. If enough interest is generated more people will seek it out, creating more mind monsters ...
• The problem isn't the film. The problem is the mold growing on the film reel. It's pretty toxic stuff. It does damage the film a little, but not so that it makes it unwatchable - though the effect is clearly visible, and anyone with knowledge of old film knows what's causing it. However, if you breathe that stuff in it can warp your mind in very unpleasant ways. The original discoverer is the most dramatically affected; they're living in a very dark closet trying to keep the mind weasels at bay. Meanwhile some of the audience, less dramatically afflicted, are seeking out the other audience members to 'commune' - that is, to kill and eat - their fellow sufferers. They see it as further exploring their shared experience. One of them has the film reel, and will do anything to show it to others - bringing more people into the shared experience.

That's it for this week. Enjoy!

Secret Room - The Contractor (RPG All)

This week's post is loosely based on the recent case of Timothy and Tracy Ferriter, who allegedly had a secure room built to 'house' their adoptive son.

A contractor tipped the police to the existence of the room. He'd been asked to build a small, lockable room in the Ferriters' garage, 8 by 8 ft, with no way to open the only access door from the inside. It had electricity, a window air conditioning unit and a camera in the ceiling, and the Ferriters insisted it be built within two days. The whole thing felt off, so as soon as the contractor finished the job he told the cops, who discovered that the Ferriters were using it to keep their son in secure lockdown when he wasn't at school. 

The case is ongoing.

Secret or secure rooms are fairly common in fiction. There was a time when you couldn't write a cozy cottage murder mystery set in England without at least one 'priest's hole,' and the trope is very common in cobwebbed ghost stories too.

Harvington Hall

Secret rooms turn up now and again in pulp crime novels, particularly those that have some connection with Prohibition, when there were very good reasons for hiding the booze store, or making sure that your tunnel to the outside world wasn't easily spotted by curious onlookers. Some, like the cellar of the 21 Club in New York, still exist.

PIX11 News

The principle is sound enough. You need somewhere secure, concealed and relatively easy to access. To do this, you take a portion of the existing structure and wall it off from the rest of the unit. You want to make sure that the space isn't so large that it's easy to spot by cursory inspection, but it can't be so small as to be useless. The priest's holes were built to accommodate one person, perhaps two, and then only for a few hours. The 21 Club's cellar wasn't meant to be secure housing for anyone; it just had to be big enough to store a restaurant's worth of booze, and convenient enough that the waiters didn't have to schlep all over the block to get another bottle. 

However this example introduces a new element - the contractor. Someone has to build that room, after all, and construction is a fairly specialist job. Particularly if you want that secret room to have electricity, or plumbing, and especially if you want it to be undetectable. The man who built the 21 Club's cellar was an expert in his field, and he had to be. The whole point was to make an actual brick wall, with all the weight that implies, slide shut noiselessly, with minimal effort, and without leaving any tell-tale scuff marks. This is not a simple feat of engineering. This wants effort, and skill.

You know who else has a particular set of skills? Player characters.

Let's talk gamification, and for once in a way let's talk Fantasy. I'm not going to specify setting, except to say that it could as easily be Ravenloft as Swords of the Serpentine.

Command Performance

The group is hired by a suitably mysterious client, who calls themself Lord Bardwell, owner of Bardwell Hall. Lord Bardwell wants the adventurers to build a secret room at the Hall, to these specifications:

• It must be south-facing.
• It must have a window or some kind of view port that allows Lord Bardwell to see a particular constellation, at certain months of the year.
• It must be undetectable by ordinary means.
• The people currently living at the Hall - Lord Bardwell's family and servants - can't know the room is being built.

That last part's the kicker. The group might have all manner of architectural or magical talents that will help them build that room. How can they do it without being spotted by the people living there?

Complicating factors:

1. 'Lord Bardwell' isn't really Lord Bardwell at all. Their actual employer, who prefers to remain incognito and is working through magical disguises or some kind of third party, is the second eldest child of the current Lord Bardwell, the scholarly one who has esoteric and peculiar tastes. Hence the need to look at a particular constellation. Best not to ask what their obsession is really all about. Or why they need to be so secretive.
2. There are several possible locations for the south-facing room, but the best one is in the old Tower, sometimes called the Green Tower after the green cupola at its top. It's one of the oldest sections of the Hall, and houses a forgotten cellar as well as a seldom-used guest bedroom. The reason why few people go there is because it's supposed to be haunted ...
3. Lord Bardwell - the real one - spends most of his time in his bedroom, as he's a complete invalid. An ever-changing procession of doctors and other parasites visit every month, each with their own cure. This means new faces come and go regularly, which can be a blessing or a curse depending on how clever, and how much of an interfering busybody, the latest batch of doctors are. To get access to the Hall the player characters can disguise themselves as quacks - probably not much of a stretch for them.
4. Lord Bardwell's spouse, the beautiful (and licentious) Baroness, spends most of her time in sunnier climes, working her way through the servants and hotel staff. However, Lord Bardwell unexpectedly cuts her off at the wallet, forcing her sudden return to Bardwell Hall complete with a menagerie of card sharps, eccentric swordsmen and other lackies who are hoping for a sniff of the Bardwell loot.   

That's it for this week. Enjoy!