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!

The Call (RPG All / Modern)

 

Soviet Era Telephone

I've recently read Queen of Spies: Daphne Park, Britain's Cold War Spy Master by Paddy Hayes. I'll talk more about this on a YSDC Bookshelf, so look out for that, but today I'm going to borrow an anecdote from Park's experiences as a neophyte intelligence operative in Moscow, in the 1950s.

Park and a colleague decided to visit Kalinin, now known by its old name Tver, a medieval township not far from Moscow. The idea was to get a first-hand glimpse of the nearby air base, but they were out for whatever they could get. They arrived at the train station, wandered around and discovered

... what looked like an interesting building - interesting in that the dozen or so ground floor windows were barred. As they passed the entrance they glanced in. There was no one around but in the gloom they could make out a bank of telephones. Beside the phones were instructions telling people how to use them to denounce their neighbors. Citizens were to pick up the handset, wait for an official and then dictate their denunciation, remembering to provide full details of the guilty party. Park and Deverill stared at one another; telephones were unknown in ordinary Soviet households, so the solution was to provide a bank of phones to allow people to drop in and inform on their fellows. It must be the local KGB office, they decided ... There was no one guarding the entrance so they stepped in for a closer look ...

Things got a bit sticky from that point on.

It's relatively easy to get a Soviet-era telephone from the 1950s, but given the scarcity of such phones at the time it's likely any phone from that period comes either from a well-to-do household or from a situation like this. Banks of phones in a KGB office, with only one purpose: to help people inform on their neighbors. Whispering evil down the phone line, at any hour of the day or night.

Sympathetic magic is a process in which an otherwise inanimate object is imbued with power. It's based on the idea that one can influence something based on its relationship or resemblance to another thing, which is why so many herbal remedies involve plants that physically resemble a part of the human body. It's most often seen in fiction as the voodoo doll; stick a pin in it and watch the victim dance.

 Scooby Doo, Where Are You?

However you don't need intent to create a powerful totem out of an inanimate object. The yokai entity tsukumogami, from Japanese folklore, is essentially an item of clothing or tool that, over time, has come to life, developing a spirit (if not a soul) of its own. Anything that has long associations with people can develop a personality all its own.

Here you have an antique telephone, a battered old bakelite, that's been around for who knows how long. It's something you might find in an antique shop or just some weird kitsch collectables store. Or maybe it's sitting in some abandoned offices, a government facility, or maybe stacked up in a warehouse somewhere. The example I'm using is inspired by Park's story, but it could as easily have come from, say, a prison, or a military bunker. Anywhere, really.

What happens if you pick up the phone and listen? 

What happens if the phone starts to ring?

I'm going to use Night's Black Agents as a base for gamification, but this is an idea that can as easily be used in Esoterrorists, Delta Green - any horror game.

All you need is a phone with a nasty history.

Supernatural: vampires are the result of magical or other supernatural activities on Earth; spirits, ghosts, witchcraft and the like. Want to talk with the dead? This can help, but it's a party line so expect frequent interruptions from Heaven only knows who. Think of it as a medium's planchette, except you need a generous helping of blood to make it work. Sinner's blood, for preference. The blacker the sins, the better the result. Vampires sometimes use these phones to communicate with others in the network, since this is one telephone line mortal investigators can't tap. As vampires are effectively 'dead' as far as the telephone's concerned a vampire can easily talk to another vampire, but it's completely useless for talking with anyone else in the network - a Renfield, say.

Damned: Vampires are the work of Satan or other explicitly demonic creatures opposed to mankind and God. Those who know how can use these hideous reminders of times best forgotten as a means of enhanced interrogation. The remorseless voice on the other end of the line keeps probing, probing. It knows what you have done. You can't save yourself. The only way to earn mercy is to confess ... Treat this as +1 Maneuver in a Thrilling Interrogation challenge, boosted to +2 if the voice on the other end of the line is a dead friend. Agents can use this device if they know how, but doing so is a 5 Difficulty Stability check.

Alien: Vampires are alien beings, or earthly beings who nevertheless follow different laws of physics. It looks like a telephone. It acts like a telephone. It seems so normal. And yet ... and yet ... The chief advantage of a device like this is, if you know how, it can talk to the past. It can't talk to anyone before its creation date, so a phone made in 1952 can't talk to someone in 1951. Nor can it talk to anyone after its disconnection date, so a phone disconnected in 1978 can't talk to anyone from 1980. However,  within those constraints it can talk to anyone you like - so long as you know what their phone number would have been. Of course, sometimes the past calls you, for reasons best not to think about.

Mutant: Vampires are earthly beings infected or changed by (or into) some freak of nature. It might look like a telephone but that's clearly organic material in there. It's some kind of hybrid, patchwork relic, and it might be capable of thought. Probably not any more intelligent than a baby, which does raise the unsettling question of where the vampires got that organic material from. Used by Nodes to talk to other Nodes, and is capable of interfacing with computer networks, though the results are unpredictable.

That's it for this week!

Forgotten London: Cato Street Conspiracy

There is a former stables on Cato Street near Edgeware Road in London that is the last reminder of a forgotten conspiracy against the state.

In 1820 a group of desperate men gathered there on the night of February 23rd to put their plot into motion. Their goal was to wipe out the Cabinet, start a glorious revolution and install themselves as leaders of same, at Mansion House. They called themselves the Spencean Philanthropists, after the radical (and bookseller) Thomas Spence and their target was the home of Lord Harrowby, where the Cabinet was supposed to be meeting for dinner. With all their victims in one place, it would be easy to destroy the hated politicians and Lordships who stood in their way. 

Unfortunately for them the Philanthropists had a spy in their midst, and their plans were well known. The dinner party was a fiction, intended to lure them out into the open. Some of them were immediately arrested when the loft of the stables was invaded by police; one of the policemen was stabbed to death, and those conspirators not caught at Cato Street were nabbed in the days following, as the authorities rounded up the Philanthropist's leadership.

It was a triumph for the Bow Street Runners, who were first on the scene. They were meant to be backed up by a detachment from the Coldstream Guards, but the troopers got lost on the way to the conspiracy so the Runners made the assault themselves. 

Five of the Philanthropists were condemned to death and the rest transported to Australia. The executions were unusual; as traitors, the five were condemned to be hanged, drawn and quartered, but their sentence was commuted to hanging and beheading. Their heads, once cut off, were displayed to the watching crowd and then flung into the coffins with their bodies. 

The Cato Street Conspiracy

The site still exists today.

Gamification:

The Cato Street Cult

Radicals: Fascist, Communist, foreign, Irish, Jewish, what-have-you. The radical has wild eyes and a tendency to hairiness – combs and razors being apparently tools of oppression. Dressed in solidarity with the working class, or in something cheap and warm, the radical carries his (or her) pamphlets, émigré newspapers, manifestos, and grudges wherever she (or he) goes. He (or she) mostly goes to drafty lodge halls, noisy protest meetings, sympathetic art happenings, or cheap tea shops. The only thing she (or he) hates more than The Class System (or the Jews, or the Bankers, or the Arms Merchants) is people who hate it incorrectly ... [Bookhounds p 55-6]. 

It's alleged that the leader of this so-called Philanthropic group sells books and radical pamphlets out of a stall in High Holborn, and can often be found near Tottenham Court Market. That may or may not be so. What is certain is that this group went from ignominious nobodies to public enemies in one fell swoop, when they made an explosive attempt of the life of the Earl of Harrowby. This attempt failed, but several were wounded and one innocent bystander, an employee of Coutt's bank, killed. The Philanthropists claimed responsibility and signed the note they sent to the papers with the name Arthur Thistlewood. Thistlewood was one of the Cato Street conspirators hung and beheaded, the other four being Richard Tidd, James Ings, William Davidson and John Brunt. 

According to those who claim to know these things the core group consists of these five, with a wider net of informants, rough lads and sympathizers. They claim to be working towards the Rights of Man, with the aim of overthrowing the ruling class and establishing themselves as the new power.

Those with occult leanings understand the Philanthropists' goal to be slightly more esoteric. They point to the Philanthropists' original target, the Earl of Harrowby, as proof. Why should an otherwise undistinguished member of the aristocracy be their first target? It seems nonsensical, until a connection is drawn between the current Earl and the target of the original Cato Street conspirators, in 1820. Also, they seem obsessed with obtaining relics of the original conspirators, and are currently searching for the knife hangman John Foxton is supposed to have used to cut off the heads of the Cato Street five. 

Moreover the potter's field in which the conspirators may have been buried, severed heads and all, has been targeted by graverobbers. At the time nobody understood why anyone would bother, but those who ought to know claim that the Philanthropists are very interested in recovering the heads of the original five. Though it's understood that this attempt, like the assassination, did not succeed - possibly because the heads were never there to begin with. A collector of medical curiosities, Arthur Scroggins, claims to have those fateful heads pickled in jars, part of a gruesome collage. Nobody believes he has the real thing - except possibly those Philanthropists ...  

Bookhounds of London - The Joys of Retail

Recently the booksellers Henry Sotheran, who you may recall from their hosting of a Bookhounds play session, tweeted a cri de coeur:

 

This micro RPG is a thing of beauty and a joy forever, but I wanted to draw your attention to it both as Bookhounds fodder and also as a means of establishing a setting.

Just drink in the inevitable grind into poverty of spirit and purse. There's only one possible way to make money: roll a 1, 2 or 3 (a customer! A CUSTOMER!) and then roll a 6 (purchases book). That's it. Every other option on the board costs you something. It might be patience, time, or (God forbid) money, but it's all cost, all the way down. After 10 days of this, your landlord demands their rent. 

Are you still in business?

Sotheran's

While Bookhounds is about running a bookshop, there aren't many mechanics for the actual shop beyond its credit rating and some helpful advice to let the players describe the shop and its working day. Ultimately the shop takes a back seat to all the Mythos creepiness infesting London. When your characters cross swords (metaphorically or otherwise) with, say, the Keirecheires, the last thing on their minds is whether or not someone made sure a plumber came in to unblock the shop toilet. Even though the stinking gusher from said toilet might be the reason why they don't make rent that month.

This is a mistake. If the game's about running a shop, then the shop is a character in its own right - and retail has its demons, far more dangerous and hideous than any interstellar squid person who keeps hitting the snooze button on their alarm.

I've mentioned Orwell before. I'm going to mention Orwell again, and also this Forgotten London post about Pubs, and could probably name a few dozen Ephemera posts before I was dragged, kicking and screaming, back to sanity. The point I'm trying to make, and seem to have been making for a very long time, is twofold.

First, conflict is the engine of plot.

Second, retail is nothing but conflict from the moment the first staff member cracks open the front door in the frosty morning, to the darkened shadows of evening when someone flips the signage from Open to Closed and starts cashing up the till. 

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Sure, you can have a game that's all about chasing squid monsters and giving them a darn good wedgie. In a sense, that's what squid monsters are for. 

But you've played that game before. A dozen times or more. Surely it's getting a little ... stale?

Let's tweak this micro RPG and bring in a mechanic I used once upon a time in the Great War supplement Flying Coffins:  sacrificing Stability to survive. 

In Flying Coffins I gave the option of letting players whose aircraft were damaged in combat exchange Stability for Health. The idea being, if your crate is shot down you're dead, so why not spend Stability to ensure it stays in the air? Sure, you're sacrificing long-term health for short-term gain, but why wouldn't you when the alternative is burning alive ten thousand feet up?

In the micro RPG the player sacrifices time, patience, and possibly money to keep on playing, until the point comes when they no longer have the time, patience or money to continue. Then the day ends. Ten cycles of that, and the game ends. Again, the point is sacrificing long-term health for short-term gain, the difference being that in the micro RPG it's all down to a die roll. It's not a player-facing system, which is perhaps the point: retail isn't a heroic business. It's a daily grind in which you, the retailer, have little to no control over your fate.

Well, Trail has a mechanic that's all about sacrifice: Stability. Often Stability is expressed in terms of raw horror: you lose Stability either because you encountered something horrible, like a gouged-out eye, or because you encountered an element of the Mythos, like a Fire Vampire.

But retail has its own horrors. The micro RPG lists a few; if you've worked in retail you can probably think of a dozen more without too much effort. You could write a book about customers alone, and some have. There are significant portions of Reddit devoted to stories you can turn into RPG fodder.

For those of you asking 'should I be spending Stability to stay in business?' the answer is, obviously, No. You should be spending Sanity. However, since you can get Stability back but Sanity, once spent, is gone forever, out of the kindness of my heart I'm suggesting Stability as a pool instead.

Moreover I highly recommend getting out of the mindset that Stability is only for the spooky heeblie-jeeblies. Life stresses us in all sorts of ways without putting on the Scooby Doo rubber mask. There ought to be a means of expressing this in-game, and Stability spends are a convenient way of doing that. 

Mechanically, I would express this as follows:

At least once a week, each working week, there's a crisis. It doesn't really matter what the crisis is, for the purpose of describing this mechanic; all that matters is, it's a crisis, and needs to be dealt with urgently - but that's spilt milk under the bridge, as Jeremy Irons has been known to remark. 

In order to deal with this crisis, one or more of the characters needs either to pass a Stability test, or sacrifice two Stability. Failing the test means losing 3 Stability.

Alternatively the players can ignore the crisis, but that means it isn't dealt with. If they ignore 2 or more crises, or they fail a Stability test 2 or more times, then the shop suffers a Reversal for the month and its Credit Rating goes down the pan. This has consequential knock-on effects for the longevity of the shop as a business. Too many Reversals and it's back to running a barrow under a bridge in the Isle of Dogs, or wherever it is booksellers go to die. 

The intent is this: the players should always feel under pressure. Their usual adventures bring them into contact with the outré on a very regular basis. That means their Stability is already under threat, so they might want to ignore a crisis and retain their Stability. However, if they ignore too many crises then the shop suffers. 

At the same time each character may feel it prudent to pass the risk on to someone else. It shouldn't be them who takes the test, or sacrifices 2 Stability. It should be someone else. Anyone else. Which inevitably means a few minutes of furious infighting, as the characters decide amongst themselves who gets to deal with the tedious bore of a customer who just walked in the door, unblocks the sink, does the taxes or otherwise deals with whatever-it-is that has the shop in an uproar.

This can only lead to wonderful things.

Always remember, conflict is the engine of plot, and retail is nothing but conflict, morning, noon, and night.

Three cheers to Henry Sotheran's and all who toil in retail's service!