Rockers, Spies and MICE - Flipping Vampires (Night's Black Agents)

This week's post is inspired by a Guardian article about the use of musicians and artists to shred the Iron Curtain.

Stop me if you've heard this one before. US government agencies - basically, the CIA - backed ideologically useful artists, singers, performers, and sent them across the Iron Curtain to boogie for their country. The idea being that if the enemy saw how wonderful freedom was, they'd stop being the enemy. Even when, as was the case with Satchmo, the artist in question faced significant restraints at home, they were expected to perform to order abroad. Except, as with Satchmo, they sometimes didn't; the celebrated jazz singer refused to do as he was told until Roosevelt mobilized the army to enforce anti-segregation laws.

So far, so Radio Free Europe. Let's talk about MICE.

Money, Ideology, Compromise, Ego. These are the factors that flip assets. If you want someone's cooperation you appeal to at least one of those drivers. Compromise is perhaps the trickiest, as it can range from blackmail to revenge, but they're all straightforward human impulses, played on like a violin.

Human, yes - but vampires were human too, once upon a time, prey to all the ills flesh is heir to.

In Night's Black Agents the characters will frequently want to turn the Conspiracy against itself. Take one Node, play on its baser impulses, and get it to smack one of its neighboring Nodes until its chimes ring like Big Ben. After all they're vampires, not zombies - they have free will, and anything with free will can be subverted. Money, Ideology, Compromise, Ego - and no prizes for guessing that Ego plays a big part in the vampire psyche.

You think to baffle me, you with your pale faces all in a row, like sheep in a butcher's. [now there's a dated reference. How many of you reading this have even seen a butcher's shop, much less sheep's heads for sale?] You shall be sorry yet, each one of you! You think you have left me without a place to rest, but I have more. My revenge is just begun! I spread it over centuries, and time is on my side.

Cultural espionage shows up in at least two Dracula Dossier scenarios, both in the Edom Files: Blood Coda, in which the action revolves around a Russian ballet troupe sent to London to dazzle capitalism, and Day of the Wehrwolf, where the agents encounter terrorists bent on blowing up Radio Free Europe. In each scenario cultural espionage is a background against which the main action takes place; nobody expects the agents to engage directly with ballet as an art form used to influence the West. However it can be a lot of fun to play with cultural espionage, as a form of gameplay.

Let's say the agents have a particular asset in mind. They've taken the trouble to know this asset inside and out. They're confident they have their fingers on the pulse, metaphorically speaking. They want to make the asset theirs, or at least influence the asset in a certain direction. But how to make the move? Just going in with guns and attitude escalates the problem. The soft approach is called for.

Show me the vampire who can resist a star. It's a huge ego-boost, particularly for those low on the Conspiracy's org chart. If you're in Dracula's clique then you know whatever you do for the rest of your unlife you will be second banana. If you're lucky. Did you command armies? Were you feared throughout Europe? Did the townsfolk not dare to speak your name aloud? That's great. No, really, super. Here's a scrub brush. There are toilets that need cleaning.

  
Now put a celebrity in the mix. Someone with fame, talent, charisma. Someone who's much more, well, likeable than you will ever be. Then imagine what happens when that celebrity finds you the most interesting thing on Earth - or performs just for you.

When Money won't work, when Ideology's a non-starter, the smart agent leans heavily on Compromise and Ego. All wrapped up in a pretty package, with charming smile to match.

The Wedding Singer

This story seed is nominally set in Monaco, but can easily be changed to a different location.

A celebrated Russian Mafia boss has arranged it so his daughter will have the ultimate private show - a concert in her honor at the Monaco Yacht Club. Invites are out, and this is very much by invitation only. If you don't have Streetwise or High Society sufficient to impress the higher-ups, you aren't getting in.

However the agents know that a very important figure within the Conspiracy is keen to get in. The performer is someone that Conspiracy bigwig rates very highly. They'd do, well, anything to get closer. Perhaps a quiet back-room conference - a quick bite, maybe?

In this seed the agents have two challenges. First, they have to get into that performance. They can't blunt-force this Infiltration. Monaco's much too high profile for stick-on comedy moustaches and a bit of the old Peter Sellers.  Force will be met with brutal retribution. Monaco's the most highly policed location on the planet, with cops and soldiers aplenty available at a moment's notice. With all those cameras watching everyone's least move it will literally need only a moment before Heat becomes unbearable. However they get in, it will need to be ironclad.

Second, they need to make a Network contact of that celebrity. Ideally this isn't just a point spend; you don't want the players thinking they can buy Beyoncé with X number of Network points. The agents will need some kind of leverage - which brings us back to MICE. Again, Ego is probably the most useful leverage but don't forget the power of Money. After all, Money bought Jackson Pollock. The rulebook calls it Excessive Funds for a reason. Given the Monaco setting this might be a fun time for some Gambling challenges to rack up funds. Perhaps the agents get the celebrity's cooperation through some strategic baccarat, in much the same way Sean Connery gets Sylva Trench's attention in the opening scenes of Doctor No.

All of which leads up to that psychological moment. Celebrity meets Vampire. At which point the agents presumably play their ace and flip that asset. Or not. Then, as with every con game, there is the blow-off, as the agents exfiltrate without arousing suspicion. Cackle bladder optional.

Mind you if it all goes wrong and Beyoncé ends up one of the Conspiracy's converted it shall be an interesting after-mission briefing with Edom (or whoever's paying the bills). The agents will be lucky if they escape with a written reprimand in their case file ... 

Enjoy!

Locked Room Mysteries (GUMSHOE Any)

I recently watched a film I'd really wanted to see and came away dissatisfied. I shan't say which one, as this post might constitute spoilers. I'll just say CSI KYC and leave it at that, on the supposition that if you get the joke you've already seen the film and so spoilers mean nothing to you.

Part of my dissatisfaction is because it sets up a locked room mystery and then betrays the trope. The classic locked room is the Mary Celeste of mysteries. It sets up a situation that ought to be impossible, and then shows you not just that it's possible but takes you through the working until you see all the clues you missed along the way. It's called locked room because the classic example is the corpse found sealed away in a locked room, whose death seems inexplicable. Edgar Allen Poe's Murders in the Rue Morgue is the original version, but there have been countless others since.

There have been a few real-life examples. The 2010 death of MI6 operative Gareth Williams, found padlocked inside a bag in his London apartment, is one. Williams, who might have been investigating Russian financial crime at the time of his death, went on leave and never came back. Nobody noticed he'd gone missing until his employers thought to make a welfare check, which is when his corpse was discovered. It's thought he went into the bag alive and the Metropolitan Police concluded his death was probably an accident, a sex game gone wrong. As a means of disposing of a body locking it inside a sports bag and leaving it in the flat seems unnecessarily theatrical, almost amateurish, especially if a professional espionage agency was involved. You'd think it'd be simpler to dump the bag in the Thames with weights wrapped round it. It's that Mary Celeste touch again - cups of coffee found still warm in the wardroom, everything apparently normal except there's no crew aboard.

The thing about a locked room is, it's never impossible. It's a puzzle box, and there's always a way to solve a puzzle box. The key is to disbelieve what's in front of you. The minute someone says 'judging by blood splatter, the only way it could have happened is ...' you know for a fact that, whatever else happened, the so-called only way is precisely how it didn't happen. A locked room works on magician's rules, and a magician's favorite trick is misdirection.

So if a corpse turns up in a burnt-out garage, for example, and dental records show that the corpse is Mister Bob Bingo who owed everyone a ton of money, then your first job is to look at those dental records and see if they're fake. Trust nothing, check everything.

As it's a puzzle the emotional satisfaction comes from solving the puzzle, and if the thing's badly designed or if the author cheats their way to a solution then the fun's lost.

Example from CSI KYC: at one point a poison's described as being lethal inside ten minutes. The characters go to a great deal of trouble to establish this. Then in another scene the same dose takes two hours, and even then the victim isn't dead. Which is it? 

In game, how would this work?

Remember this: once you introduce magic, or super-powers, or whatever it may be, the puzzle stops being a puzzle. The audience - the players - will assume magic did it. The problem switches from 'how does the puzzle work' to 'how do I show the solution isn't magic?' At which point you've probably lost the most important battle: capturing the audience's attention. 

So set the puzzle up in such a way that magic isn't the first or obvious answer. Maybe this is a Mutant City Blues game in which the necessary mutant abilities don't fit well into the Quade Diagram, or perhaps this happened during the day when vampires are powerless. Something quick, simple and obvious, so you can get on with the plot. This is why abilities like Night's Black Agents Vampirology are so useful, because one point spend will tell the agents 'a vampire couldn't have done it, at least not the way it was done,' without the Director jumping through hoops to show it wasn't vampire magic.

The best way to design a puzzle like this is to start with the solution and work backward. If you know who did it and how they did it then you should be able to come up with clues that show as much. Always remember this is a puzzle, and puzzles can be about anything. It doesn't have to be murder. It can be 'how did a virus get onto the system when it's not connected to the internet?" Or 'how did that burglar get into this hidden safe?'

Let's play with an example. Assume the setting is Night's Black Agents, modern day, so we're talking every conceivable current technology. Let's further assume that the crime takes place in an area patrolled by security robots which ought to have detected the intruder but did not. It doesn't matter what the crime is. The puzzle is how whoever did it foozled the security robots so they weren't detected carrying out the crime.

The software that operates the robots and monitors their activity reports no anomalies at the time of the crime. The incident reports show only that there was a brief interruption in patrol when a human employee fell ill. The robot stopped to monitor the situation and summoned a security guard, who confirmed that the person suffered a bad reaction to allergy meds. The sick person was escorted away and treated. 

The hardware that runs the show is not connected to the internet or the outside world. It's a purely internal network whose sole purpose is to run the building. It does everything from monitor the security robots to adjust the HVAC and make sure the goldfish tank in the exec suite is operating smoothly. Employees are expressly forbidden from attaching their own devices to the network, or using company property like laptops outside the building. There's no indication (via internal monitoring) that anyone did connect an outside device to the network, whether on the day or at any time in the past. So there should be zero chance of a virus corrupting the system. The hardware is in a security room down on the ground floor that is constantly monitored by cameras, sensors and human security personnel. 

So how was it done?

A virus was introduced into the system that prevented the security robots from detecting the intruder, or anyone at all, after a certain point. The target room and the corridors immediately around that room became invisible zones; the security robots could not see humans while they were in those zones. The agents may become aware of this when they realize that the robots did not detect the CEO even when he was in an area where he ought to be detected. He was working late on a big project, which is why he was in the building. 

How was the virus introduced? By our old friend the fish tank. 

The thermostat was recently replaced on the CFO's authority. That thermostat was the Trojan Horse which introduced the virus to the system. The CFO is the employee who had the bad reaction to allergy meds, which coincidentally enough happened at about the same time as the incident. The CFO doesn't remember authorizing the thermostat switch.

The CFO didn't authorize the switch; her secretary did. Turns out the CFO was poisoned by her secretary to create a diversion so the secretary could carry out the crime. While security and the robots were diverted the secretary got into the invisible area. She used 'I'm going to get your meds' as an excuse to leave the CFO's side and carry out the crime. The whole thing took five minutes.

So how would you do it?

Enjoy!

A Million Dollar Trouper (Night's Black Agents)

This week's post is inspired by a recent Guardian news article about the antics and jolly japeries of the Barclay family.

The brief version is this: concerned that their uncle Sir Frederick was blabbing just a little too freely about the family's business interests, and in particular about the sale of London's Ritz Hotel to Qatari businessman Abdulhadi Mana al-Hajri, the younger generation bugged the Hotel's conservatory to listen in on Sir Frederick's business conversations. Sir Frederick's version is that he had buyers lined up prepared to pay over a billion pounds for London's most famous hotel, as discussed in those recorded conversations. The Ritz sold for much less than that. The implication is that the younger generation, which has control over the family's complicated financial structure, sabotaged his attempts to get a better price. The younger generation seems to think Sir Frederick is talking a load of old cock to leverage his way into a bigger payout.

Truly, the rich are different from you and me.

For those of you wondering 'haven't I heard the phrase Barclay Brothers before,' Sir Frederick is one of the two billionaire Barclay twins who, like Colossi, bestride the British financial world while petty men walk about under their huge ... well, that's enough of that. They're the ones attempting to take over Sark's feudal government, who've fiddl ... managed their taxes for years by claiming residence in Monaco (for health reasons, claims Sir Frederick), and who made sure the Ritz paid no corporation tax in the UK for 17 years. In short, wealthy weasels.

It's not entirely clear why the younger Barclays would deliberately sabotage a business deal that would earn them more money. Were I writing this as fiction, one possibility occurs: the deal wouldn't earn the business more money, but the buyer would sling a big fat financial inducement to the person who swung the deal. Sir Frederick, not having any direct say in the family's financial affairs, wouldn't benefit directly from a business deal, beyond the usual, but hankers after that big fat financial inducement. Hence those business meetings at the Ritz. As the family network wasn't getting any more cash no matter who bought it, the younger generation might be perfectly happy kicking old uncle Freddie in the statisticals if it meant a) he wouldn't get the B.F.F.I., and b) he'd keep out of the family's business in future. Game of Thrones, really, but with lawyers and bribes rather than stabbing and bribes.

However it did make me think about Night's Black Agents, and Nodes.

One typical version of the National or International level Node is the Corporation, or the Wealthy/Influential Individual. In Dracula Dossier terms, Klopstock & Billreuth, Bankers, or the Petroleum Executive.  These are the entities or people who can get things done, who by virtue of their own power/authority can affect and even direct the policies of small countries or nations. They have outposts in several different places, and luxurious homes in other places - Monaco, say. Often they're treated as monolithic or singular entities, but every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. Far from being singular, the Petroleum Executive, say, will have a flock of hangers-on, employees, family. Klopstock & Billreuth, having more working parts, will have an even larger flock.

These people will notice if the Node does something out of character, say because it's being influenced by outside powers. The Conspiracy doesn't care about balance sheets so it might order the higher-ups at K&B to do something that doesn't benefit the bank but does benefit the Conspiracy. Or it might tell the Petroleum Executive to falsify reports on prospective oil fields. The people close to them, but not directly touched by the Conspiracy, will notice this. They may try to do something about it. Like the younger Barclays, they may get very reckless. They may plant bugs, or hire people to plant bugs for them. Put surveillance on mobile phones, track the company car with GPS - all the kind of things that sound or look cool in a TV show but often end up in court in real life, possibly with substantial damages attached. As happened to the younger Barclays.

With that in mind:

Niko, My Cousin

The agents become aware (High Society, Law, possibly Cop Talk or via a contact like the Journalist) that a scandal is about to break. Someone attached to a suspected Node has been caught planting surveillance equipment in the Node's luxury Monaco townhouse. Apparently this has been going on for at least a few months, but it only recently came to light when that someone - Nic Bellic, the Serbian fiancée of the Node's son/daughter - was caught replacing one of the bugs.

According to Nic, the intent was to protect the fiancée from the Node's questionable business dealings. Apparently the trust fund was being drained, for reasons Nic doesn't fully understand. Nic thinks it has something to do with the Node's business partners, but isn't sure of the details.

Currently Nic is under lock and key in one of Monaco's high-end hotels. Lawyers are said to be circling, and the fiancée is dithering between the Node and Nic.

The Agents will want Nic's data. So does the Conspiracy. The question is, where is it? Does Nic have it in the hotel room? Is it in Nic's lawyers' safe? Does the fiancée have it?

The Conspiracy will also want to silence everyone involved, but in Monaco that's a tall order. The recorded murder rate has been 0% per 100,000 people since 2007. Even in 2001, the high-water mark, the murder rate was 3% per 100,000. There are more police per capita here than anywhere else on the planet, and cameras all over every street, public place, and high-end hotel corridor. An actual killing will be difficult to pull off. The Conspiracy's used to planting snipers on rooftops, but this is more a 'death by natural causes' situation. It would be much, much easier if this happened outside Monaco, but none of the main players seem all that keen to leave the fleshpots.

Enjoy!

Bookmarks of London (and Eversink)

Bookmarks have been with us since the earliest days. There's evidence that they were being used as long ago as the 1st Century AD, but we don't see what we think of as bookmarks - ie detachable, ephemeral, mass-produced - until the mid 19th Century, when books themselves become ephemeral and mass-produced. Up until that point, and even with the invention of the printing press, books are relatively rare and expensive to obtain. You had to be upper class or of similar status to be able to afford, never mind read, books. Once the middle and lower classes get in on the racket you start seeing changes in the trade. Less porn, for one thing. Well, not that much less. But they were slightly more discreet.

By this point booksellers and marketers alike are seeing potential in the humble bookmark. You can put your brand on them. You can put advertising on them. If you want to be very fancy you can embroider them, stud them with beads or semiprecious stones, design them with special rotating discs or tongues so they can mark not just the page but the very line you last read. Want to spread word of your hotel? Put free bookmarks in every room with your hotel's branding. Want to sell chocolates? Here, have a bookmark. Want people to know where this book was purchased? Here, have a bookmark.

I'm going to discuss this with an eye to Bookhounds of London and also Eversink (because why not). Much the same techniques could be used in Yellow King, but as I haven't read the Yellow King books yet I shan't comment. Heck, I've barely had chance to skim the post-playtest version of Serpentine.

First point: you can make bookmarks out of almost anything. Silk, paper, leather, cardboard, silver - whatever you like, which means in a fantasy or horror setting whatever you like. In a world where books can be bound in human skin, you can bet some charmer's tried to make bookmarks out of human leather. Moreover that charmer's almost certainly a medical professional, and probably someone working in the early to mid 19th Century, when interest in anthropodermic leather peaked. There's a certain macabre satisfaction in having a memento made from the skin of a condemned man. Murderabilia has become a recognized phenomenon in recent years, but as a tradition it goes back a very long way - after all, what's a hand of glory if not the ultimate collector's item? Of course in a fantasy setting this can run the gamut. A bookmark made of ghost? Why not? Leather tanned from the corpse of a dead God? Certainly sir - will that be letter of credit, or hard cash?

Second point: you can make bookmarks for almost any purpose. I've mentioned advertising and branding because those are the obvious uses, but you can spread any message. Religious or charitable groups make bookmarks to spread the Word, or perhaps just the word. It follows that any other organization spreading its word may do the same. Back in the 1970s, a Golden Dawn group issued 'magical' bookmarks to spread its creed. In a world where curses can be spread by bits of paper with runes writ on them, a bookmark could be a weapon. In a world where mind or dream control is a thing, a bookmark could be an infection vector.

Third point: bookmarks are transitory. People collect them inadvertently. I must have at least a score spread around the place, picked up in bookstores or on my travels. I've no idea where they all are or what they all are. Some came to me without my knowledge, stuck in the leaves of a book I bought second-hand. That's just the ones made to be bookmarks, mind - I'm not counting bits of used envelopes or old newspaper clippings shoved inside a forgotten tome. So there's any number of reasons you might find a bookmark somewhere in your house, your luggage, your hotel room. These things happen …

With all that, some seeds:

Graveyard Shift (Bookhounds): Your Shop decided it was time to spend a little on advertising, and bookmarks seemed the best way to go. A few hundred were ordered and you've been giving them away to favored clients. These aren't your standard bit of tat; you paid good money for best quality. You know the vendor; she's reliable, and a customer interested in Egyptology. Which would have been fine, except now all the Shop's best customers complain their dreams are awful. Some go on extended vacation - doctor's orders. Some customers just vanish ... Turns out that interest in Egyptology wasn't just academic. The vendor wanted to boost her luck and incised all kinds of charms in her printing machine. Charms invoking old Gods, meant to summon protective spirits. They attracted the attention of Rat Things, who decided to manipulate the vendors' interest for their own amusement. The Rat Things use the bookmarks as an infection vector, spreading dream control (nightmare fuel) with each bookmark. The bookmarks cause Egypt-themed nightmares which sap the owners' Sanity. This only works for a short period, perhaps two weeks, but it's long enough to cause the holder serious problems. Soon the Rat Things will get bored and move on, but not before causing as much chaos as possible.

Precious Memories (Eversink):  The designer Cestino once created a number of collectable cameos for adolescents wealthy enough to afford them. Several generations later those cameos are sought-after among the aristocracy, and anything rare and valuable attracts forgeries. The Cestino Bookmark is a particular kind of forgery, created as an attack on a particular aristo. Though it is made in Cestino's style (ceramic embossed in silver, with a little wheel attached to mark the exact line the owner was reading) it is actually marked with a discreet Rune of Humiliation, targeting the owner of the bookmark. Its creator intends to pass it on to someone they really don't like. The characters are either employed to deliver it to the target (a gift from an admirer) or to find out who made it (so the admirer can get their own back). Or both, as in 'find out who hired you to deliver this or I'll make sure your throats are slit one dirty night ...'

Enjoy!   

North Korea's Floating Hotel (Night's Black Agents)

Once again this video comes courtesy of Side Note.

This location combines the unusual locale of a cruise ship with the happy fun times any enterprising agent might have in North Korea. For those of you who don't want to watch the whole video, a brief precis:

Once upon a time a man with more money than sense thought it would be a spiffing idea to open a grand hotel floating on the Grand Barrier Reef in Australia. In theory this is a fantastic location for a boutique hotel. You have all the beauty of nature at your disposal coupled with the luxuries a top tier hotel can offer. In practice this rapidly fell apart. Hotels, like all other service industry enterprises, operate on the basis of low cost high return. Even the Ritz scrimps. However a floating hotel was always going to be an expensive proposition, particularly given the ecologically sensitive nature of the Grand Banks. There were expensive delays which meant it didn't open when it needed to. Added to that is the less obvious problem that once you plonk it out there, there's not a lot you can do with it. Any other hotel can offer excursions, change the look up, offer deals. Operating costs being what they were, deals were off the table: you paid through the nose. If you didn't really enjoy watersports or suffered from seasickness, you weren't going to have a good time. Any local problems, like starfish eating the coral or cyclones knocking out the pool, meant the site was less desirable. Then they found discarded WWII ammo - possibly live ammo - dumped nearby.

Ooops.

Incidentally if any of you are suffering from an advanced case of deja vu, then you've read Chris Brookmyre's One Fine Day In The Middle Of The Night.  In that comic crime novel a developer puts all his eggs in one floating basket and opens a hotel in a converted oil rig off the coast of Scotland. A floating "Butlins meets ethnic cleansing", with "every modern British urban leisure activity, but without the British urban clouds and rain. A resort where all the staff didn't merely speak English, but spoke it in comfortably familiar accents … And crucially, a resort where you could be guaranteed never to see the front page of Bild staring back at you from your desired poolside spot." As a kind of fuck-you to his past he arranges a class reunion aboard his pride and joy, so he can flaunt his success in front of the people he wants most to acknowledge his greatness: the kids he knew at Catholic school St Michael's, Auchinlea. Then terrorists show up, shoot the place up, and plant a bomb in the oil rig.

Ooops.

Australia's pride and joy migrated to North Korea via Vietnam, and was used for a brief period as a kind of way station for reunited Koreans when NK flirted with reconciliation. The idea being that those who'd been on one side of the Bamboo Curtain could meet their relatives from the South on what seemed more or less neutral ground. As with all things designed by man this too fell apart, and for now the empty hotel floats off Mount Kumgang. Allegedly it's slated for redevelopment, a project temporarily delayed by COVID quarantine. In practice given the idiosyncrasies of NK's current government it is likely to be mothballed till it sinks.

Its timeline is:

• Inception and late opening 1988, as the John Brewer Floating Hotel off Australia's Barrier Reef. It was very briefly also known as the Four Seasons Floating Hotel, when some addled philanthropist bought it from Brewer. If further proof were needed that the average rich man's brain consists entirely of warmed-over pudding ...
• Relocated 1989 (oh dear) to Vietnam, where it had a home on the Saigon River near the Tran Hung Dao Statue. 
• Relocated 1998 to North Korea.
• Closed 2008 after a shooting incident in which a NK soldier shot a South Korean visitor dead. Allegedly the tourist was entering a militarily sensitive zone and did not heed warnings. Remains closed to this day.

There is a free Night's Black Agents RPG based aboard a cruise ship, Pleasures of the Flesh, written by Alasdair Sinclair and available in Pelgrane's downloads section. With some small modification it could as easily take place aboard Brewer's seven story luxury floating hotel. Given it was only at the Barrier Reef for a year, unless you want to set the game in the 1980s - which is perfectly doable - you're better off having it a 1990s scenario, or even a North Korean getaway. What sinister secrets lurk inside North Korea's luxury resort, and why do so many NK officials want to stay there?  If it's a Vietnam scenario you have other options, not least returning veterans of the Vietnam war trying to recapture their lost youth in a sparkling high-end nightclub playground. Dance the night away in the Downunder Bar, then restore your strength with one of the management's special tonics …

To close out, here's a scenario seed:

Dead Drop

A North Korean source claims to have what Edom would describe as a Special Biological Asset - a vampire. The source wants to smuggle it out of North Korea, allegedly because the powers that be want to use it as part of a North Korean eternal life program and the source fears what might happen if Kim Jong-un lives forever. Terms include a fat payoff for the source, to be routed via casinos in the Philippines. A fixer in Macao is arranging the deal, negotiating with interested parties which include every known vampire program - so America's Find Forever, whatever's left of Germany's Unternehmen Braun, the Vatican's St Lazarus - only China's Room 452 isn't on the bidder list. That may or may not be a warning signal that something dodgy's going on, given North Korea's historic ties to China.

The deal is, pay through the nose via the casino and the buyer collects the asset at the floating Hotel Haegumgang. How the buyer gets to the hotel and retrieves the asset is entirely up to the buyer. The seller only promises to deliver the asset, as securely bound up as possible. This offer's only open for a  limited time - buy now, beat the rush.

Verifying the vendor's bona fides is a chancy proposition. The only contact is the Macau fixer, Wan Kuok-koi, aka Broken Tooth, a notorious gangster affiliated with the 14K Triad. Recently released from jail and enjoying millions earned from a cryptocurrency scheme, Broken Tooth isn't the sort to cave under intimidation tactics and he knows how to keep his mouth shut. However someone able to do him political favors or wipe out a few outstanding warrants for friends of his will get him to talk. The vendor is an elder statesman, ally to Kim Jong's father and now out in the cold, politically speaking. 

The asset will be in one of the hotel's most expensive suites, in five day's time. Either the agents represent the buyers, or they represent a disappointed bidder who wants to snatch the asset before the buyer takes possession. All they have to do is sneak into North Korea, take possession, and get out without being arrested and thrown into a North Korean re-education camp. Assuming the vendor's trustworthy. Assuming the asset's as securely bound as the vendor says it is. Assuming this isn't all some double-bluff on someone's part to capture a foreign vampire hunter and use that person's knowledge to kick-start North Korea's vampire program.

Easy peasy lemon squeezy ...

The Harker Intrusion & the Van Helsing Letter (Dracula Dossier)

I've been asked to talk about weaving (S)entries, the Harker Intrusion and the Van Helsing Letter into an introduction to the gory chocolate box that is the Dracula Dossier. I've already talked about (S)entries and where I would put it in the list. Today's the day the Harker Intrusion and the Van Helsing Letter get their time in the limelight.

As always I will try to avoid spoilers, but if you want to be completely unspoilt then stop reading now.

I should begin by saying that the Harker Intrusion appears in several different formats. It was a free RPG pdf download that was later incorporated into the Edom Files, and I believe it also features in a KWAS Collection. I'm unaware of any significant difference between the publications, but if there are any then you should know I'm relying on the version in the Edom Files for this discussion. To my knowledge the Van Helsing Letter only exists as a Free RPG day scenario.

Like (S)entries the Harker Intrusion demonstrates the core concepts of the game. However, unlike (S)entries, the Harker Intrusion isn't concerned with game mechanics. This one's all about mood. There's a potential Thrilling Chase early on, but this one's much more about chills than thrills.

The ultimate objective of the Harker Intrusion is to hand the players a McGuffin which can be used in later scenarios. There are some creepshow moments before that point, in several different geographic locations, and the climactic scenes take place in the heart of London. One optional moment puts the agents face-to-face with a significant threat, but it is very much optional; if the agents don't want to run the risk, they don't have to.

Whereas in the Van Helsing Letter the objective is to pit the agents in direct conflict with the Conspiracy. There is a significant threat, and it is not an optional encounter. An even mix of thrills and chills with this one, with the added bonus of an artefact which can be used in future scenarios - though there's no guarantee the agents will find it.

If I were using these three scenarios in combination then a great deal depends on whether they're playing as Edom, or whether they're playing against Edom.

In either case, (S)entries goes first. That's just good sense. Then I would use the (S)entries option whereby the NPC with the laptop is already in contact with Harker, who's the driving force in the Harker Intrusion. Harker's been gathering intel from several different sources and employing others to root out intel. The (S)entries NPC is just one of Harker's many sources. Perhaps Harker was trying to sell that NPC the Dossier, or some of the information that book contains. Perhaps Harker was after something else, but whatever it might have been there is enough information on that laptop to put the agents in contact with Harker.

Perhaps the agents contact Harker, or, if they do not, Harker contacts them. To get the laptop back, to find out who the agents are, it doesn't really matter; whichever way this goes, Harker and the agents are in contact by the end of (S)entries. If the agents are Edom, then this can be an elaborate double-bluff, since Harker is very definitely against Edom and all its works.

The question then becomes where to place the Harker Intrusion? The answer, as I've delicately hinted, depends on whether your agents are Edom or are against Edom.

If they are Edom, then Harker comes last. If against Edom, then Harker can be last, but fits in just as well in the second slot.

If they are Edom, then their role is either to protect the Dossier at all costs or to use it against the Conspiracy. That book is Edom's beating heart. This makes any scenario in which the Dossier plays a major role the natural capstone for the opening chapter. By obtaining that McGuffin they're doing their job, and incidentally opening themselves up to a larger, more complicated world.

The only real switcheroo is whether or not the OPFOR in Harker is Edom. That ultimately depends on how the Director intends to portray Edom. Perhaps the agency is corrupt, either suborned by Dracula or too committed to its own debased ends to care how it gets the job done. In that event Edom using lethal force against its own is par for the course.

Alternatively the OPFOR could be a different organization entirely. It might be the Conspiracy, or it might be one of the other intelligence agencies making a play for the ultimate prize. The logical choice, if using the Van Helsing Letter, is the German Vampire Program, Unternehmen Braun. However it could be any of the other contestants for the prize: the Vatican, China's Room 452, the US' Find Forever program - whoever you fancy, though it might be especially delicious if it was Find Forever since that pits UK vs US, and in any battle between those contestants the US will have the best toys and cash to burn. Added to that, if the agents upset the Americans then their own people will be very upset with the agents. Tea with the Queen is cancelled, that sort of thing.

Which brings me to Van Helsing, which in many ways is a much simpler introductory scenario. No globe-trotting, lots of chances for fisticuffs, big gribbly bad boy, spooky setting. Plus a genuine artifact from the Good Old Days, left behind by one of the major players in the first operation.

If the agents are Edom then there are good reasons to make this the second scenario in the trilogy. The best being that it shows them what might happen if Dracula's left to his own devices. It raises the stakes; Dracula isn't just some sleepy bloodsucker content to hang out in his castle, he's a mover and a shaker intent on nefarious goals. He has access to sophisticated equipment, minions, and big gribblies. Dracula's an active threat. This fits in best with Stakes games, but works just as well with the other variations on the formula.

The only change I might make depends on who the OPFOR is in Harker. If the idea is to make the OPFOR Find Forever, for example, then I would make it clear that Find Forever is linked somehow to Germany's Unternehmen Braun, since Germany's vampire program plays a big part in Van Helsing. Perhaps this dates back to the Cold War days, or even immediately post-war, when the US was snatching every ex-Nazi asset it could get its hands on. The same applies to all the other potential OPFORs, just with different variations on the theme. That provides a clear link between this scenario and Harker.

If Harker is still in play at this stage - which might not be so, if the Harker Intrusion was the middle scenario - then Harker introduces the agents to the NPC who kicks off the Van Helsing scenario. However Harker plays no other significant role; this isn't Harker's story to tell.

The objective of all three scenarios taken together is:

1. Introduce the players to all the major rules mechanics. (S)entries goes first, for that reason.
2. Introduce the agents to the major driving forces in the game world. Van Helsing works well as second scenario for this reason, but it could as easily be Harker.
3. Provide the agents with a dramatic capstone for the opening chapter while at the same time leaving dangling plot hooks for future scenarios. If the agents are Edom then Harker is the obvious capstone, but Van Helsing can be just as useful as it introduces the agents to the Conspiracy, with all the dangling plot hooks that implies.

Now, I've talked enough on this topic. Next time, something different!  

(S)entries & the Dracula Dossier (Night's Black Agents)

I've been asked to talk about how I would use (S)entries, the Harker Intrusion and the Van Helsing Letter as an introduction to the glittering treasure box that is the Dracula Dossier. This week I'll be discussing (S)entries, the opening scenario published in the main rulebook. 

For those of you who don't want any spoilers whatsoever, stop reading now. I'm going to be as spoiler-light as I can, but any discussion must inevitably drift into spoiler territory.

The opening scenario of any game needs to do two things: demonstrate the core concept, and show off the game world. The core concept is the crunchy rules bit of the campaign. How do you do combat? How do you resolve tests, uncover clues, uncover the twisty turns of the plot and win the day? Is this grim and gritty, high stakes stuff? Le Carre, Bond or Bourne? Who are these characters and what is their relationship with the setting?

(S)entries is very good at this. By the time the agents have completed their task they will have had to engage with most of the core mechanics of the game. They will also have encountered an unusual adversary. Odds are one or more of them will be injured, but unless things have gone badly wrong nobody will have died. However there is the potential for things to go badly wrong. This isn't a cakewalk. Incautious agents will get reamed. 

They will also have encountered a  McGuffin, and may still be in possession of same by the end of the scenario. 

Yes I know, you've seen that one before. It bears repeating. Particularly if you're new to this, you need to know just how disposable McGuffins are. That means if the players drop the McGuffin there is always another McGuffin round the corner. If, at the end of (S)entires, the agents no longer have the McGuffin that shouldn't bring the plot to a premature conclusion.

In the Dracula Dossier, the McGuffin is the Dossier itself. A copy of Stoker's Dracula that theoretically contains vital information which, if used correctly, can stop Dracula in his tracks. Or not. Several generations of spies have used it, and come up short. It is protected by the strongest and most lethal defenses Edom has to offer. Or it's been hiding in a box for however long. Or someone stole it. Or someone lost it. 

'Someone lost it' is more common than you might think, in spy circles. Magician John Mulholland's Manual of Trickery, written to help the CIA, went missing for decades after MKUltra went blooey. It finally turned up in someone's desk drawer in the early 2000s. Peter Wright in Spycatcher mentions in passing clearing out his office safe, full of all kinds of oddments he'd squirrelled away over a lifetime of espionage. Files get taken out of archive and not put back. Things get taken out of the office even when every available protocol says they shouldn't leave the archivist's store. It's said it's better to seek forgiveness than ask permission - some people seem to spend their entire careers asking for forgiveness.

In this instance I would play it that the McGuffin found in (S)entries is a much smaller version of the Dossier. A few pages at most, obtained at great expense and effort. When I did this in my game I had the scanned pages on the hard drive of the laptop that the agents have to snatch, and played it that the NPC the laptop belongs to was negotiating with the Dossier's holder for full access. The scanned pages were to establish the holder's bona fides.

The physical book is part of the Dracula Dossier set. However there's nothing to say that you, as Director, can't buy a copy of Dracula and use it in your game. In fact if you're feeling particularly crafty you can get a completely unrelated book and switch out the cover for the first edition. People assume that first editions must be spectacular, high-end items with lavish production values. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Theoretically the actual first edition ought to be a fairly battered artefact. Even if its owner kept it as pristine as possible, when first released Dracula wasn't what you'd call highbrow literature. Nobody was releasing high-end limited editions. This is practically Mills and Boon mass-produced commercial tat. Yellow cloth cover with red lettering, and eight pages of publisher's advertisements at the end. The 1927 Doubleday edition is prettier. The 1931 dustjacket is more evocative. The annotated version is more informative. None of that matters. People don't buy first editions to read them. First editions are all about bragging rights. 

In short: make your own Dossier. A little bit of Photoshop, and you're golden. Whatever it is, it's just as viable as any other version of the McGuffin. It can lose pages. It can be valuable, or at least desirable to a collector. Buy a cheap one second-hand and let the players keep it. Splatter it with blood or write on the pages with glow-in-the-dark ink. Treat it as disposable, because it very much is. 

For reference, this is the back cover of an Agatha Christie White Circle Pocket paperback circa 1930-something. The inside cover has an advert for something called Pelmanism. The back page just says I WANT CADBURYS. This is the very definition of cheap disposable tat. I picked this up when I was last in London for three quid and a bit, as the condition isn't collector's standard. Haunt your second-hand shop and you too can come away with gold. 

If I were using (S)entries as an introduction to the Dossier I wouldn't touch the scenario at all. I would leave it exactly as it is, but I would make sure that the McGuffin in the scenario either includes information that leads to the Dossier, or information about whoever has the Dossier. 

I would also make this the very first scenario of the series. In part because it does everything you want a first scenario to do, and also because there's a decent chance the characters will end up with the McGuffin at the end which in turn can include information that leads to other scenarios.

The Director-controlled character who possesses the McGuffin at the start of the scenario is fairly undefined. He has a name and a plot function, but there's nothing in the scenario to indicate why he's interested in the McGuffin. He may not even realize the importance of what he has. The only change I would make to the scenario is to tie that character more firmly to the ongoing plot as a whole. There are several ways to do this:

• The NPC is an agent working for X (Edom? The Conspiracy? Someone else?). In the course of the scenario the characters find out a little about X, and X's ongoing plot function.
• The NPC is a Legacy.
• The NPC is part of an independent group dedicated to finding the Dossier.
• The NPC is a Stoker enthusiast whose search for a first edition has uncovered some very odd facts.

In each of these instances it may or may not be useful if the NPC is a recurring character. Alternatively the NPC's mysterious disappearance or death shortly after the events of the scenario gives the characters the first indication of the seriousness of their long-term situation.

There is one other optional change the Director could make: change the location of the NATO base. 

The opening scenes take place in Bosnia, where the agents have to infiltrate a NATO base. However if you're playing the Dracula Dossier then some of the action - possibly a lot of it - will be taking place in Romania. As Director you're going to want to introduce the agents to the setting as early as possible. As luck would have it, there's a perfectly serviceable NATO base in Deveselu, Romania. It used to be a Romanian Air Force Base before it was shut down in 2003. Technically you may want to play with dates a little bit as NATO doesn't move in until 2016, and the usual modern day start date is 2014. That said, there's no law that says your game has to start in 2014, and if you wanted to move the occupation date for Deveselu forward a couple years nobody's going to cry foul. Plus an air base that's been mothballed for more than ten years in a relatively rural part of Romania sounds like the perfect setting for supernatural shenanegans.  

Understand, I'm not saying put Dracula's Castle in sunny downtown Deveselu. I'm saying lay a little groundwork for what's to come. Perhaps Edom's cup insignia on some old monument, or a fleeting glimpse of a Node like Heal the Children. If a Director-controlled character like the Psychic is going to be important later, have the Psychic appear on local television. Just drop hints, with perhaps a bit of folklore attached, so when the agents come back to Romania later it can be more along the lines of 'I remember this from last time - and it was just as creepy then, too.'

In a previous post, Messing with the Protagonists, I give an example of what can be done with the McGuffin itself. I let the players obtain information, but it came with a sting in the tail: viruses, which infected their own hardware. As Director you should consider doing something similar with your McGuffin. After all, once the players have it everyone else wants it, and that means the players will constantly need to defend their prize. The whole point behind a McGuffin is that everyone wants it. If the characters aren't threatened 24/7 as long as they have it, why, it's not a McGuffin.  

Anyway, that should give you enough to be going on with. Next time, a discussion of another scenario that can be used as a lead-in to the Dossier.

Enjoy!