Drowned Kingdom (Night's Black Agents)

Beyond the Poseidon Adventure

This week’s post is inspired by the Jumbo Floating Restaurant of Hong Kong, AKA Jumbo Kingdom. First floated back in 1976, she’s capsized under what can best be described as uncertain circumstances near the Paracel Islands, while on her way to … actually, nobody seems to know. 

Jumbo Kingdom was launched by billionaire businessman Stanley Ho Hung-sun, AKA the King of Gambling, back when he was a sprightly 50-year-old in search of new worlds to conquer. Stanley Ho was a significant investor in real estate and casinos across the Pacific, but he’s best known for his enterprises in Hong Kong and Macau. Along with Hong Kong tycoon Henry Fok, Macau gambler Yip Hon and his brother-in-law Teddy Yip, Ho was one of the consortium that made Macau the gambling empire it is today. In 1976 he’d have been on top of the world having seen off all rivals to become the leading light of the Sociedade de Turismo e Diversões de Macau which meant that in terms of financial pull and influence he was the de facto boss of Macau. 

Jumbo Kingdom was meant to be a floating Imperial Palace, and in its heyday it looked the part. Beautiful alfresco banquet hall up on the top deck, Dragon Court fine dining on the first deck, a culinary school where eager students learned from the best, exhibition halls, outdoor gardens – it had everything you could wish for, smack in the middle of Hong Kong’s famous Aberdeen harbor. You couldn’t dream up a more iconic Hong Kong landmark, floating in the middle of another iconic Hong Kong landmark. 

COVID definitely played its part in Jumbo Kingdom’s downfall but there’s probably another factor: the decline and death of Stanley Ho. By the end he did his best to distribute his assets among his family, but what with familial disputes, a stroke and other issues the Floating Kingdom’s boss wasn’t around to look after her. Ho died in 2020.  

By that point the Floating Kingdom was on a downward slide. It went through a renovation in 2003, sold off some of its assets, but by the end Jumbo Kingdom’s owners couldn’t even give her away for free. 

Nobody’s said why she was towed out to wherever it was she was being towed – a shipyard in Cambodia is the latest tidbit, which sounds awfully like ‘the knacker’s yard’ to me – but she capsized in deep water and while in theory she can be salvaged in practice it’s probably more than the Kingdom’s worth to refloat her.  

Presumably at least some of her fittings were still aboard as well as all of her fixtures, which means there’s a lot of cutlery, chairs and whatnot undergoing the Shakespearian full fathom five right about now. They’d have cleaned out most of the fittings and whatever was in the freezers, and no doubt the departing staff nicked a set of spoons or two, but a floating restaurant of that size – she could seat over 2,300 diners - would have had a ton of stuff aboard. It seems unlikely it was all offloaded before she was shipped off to Cambodia. 

However, one man’s disaster – gosh, I sure do hope she was insured – is another man’s interesting RPG location.  

There’s a lot of adventuring meat to be had in upending a ship, as The Poseidon Adventure (in its various incarnations) demonstrates all too well. You have all the glitter and glitz of, say, a luxurious superyacht, except it’s upside down and smashed to hell and gone. Anything could be aboard her.  

Absolutely anything.  

Kismet  

A super yacht known to belong to a Conspiracy asset has, through some mysterious set of circumstances, capsized somewhere in the Pacific. Details are sketchy. Location is uncertain. However, this is potentially the heist of the century if the agents can get there before anyone else does and make off with the prize. 

It doesn't have to be a super yacht, of course. It can as easily be a gigantic floating restaurant like Jumbo Kingdom, or a cruise liner. However, a super yacht has the advantage of being a contained location, which may be helpful to the Director. A floating restaurant gives the Director more rooms to play with but that might be more hindrance than help, depending on the story you want to tell.

This is, broadly, the plot of Beyond the Poseidon Adventure, novelist Paul Gallico’s sequel to the original Poseidon Adventure. In the sequel seagoing bandits show up to loot the capsized ship. Gallico died before he could finish the novel. The book’s a turkey, and the film adaptation is also a turkey. Mind you, even a turkey has its merits, when properly roasted and served with mashed potatoes and gravy. 

A Thrilling Infiltration scene follows, complicated by the Kismet’s capsizing and deteriorating weather conditions. Can the agents make it before the Conspiracy’s rescue team arrives? What’s aboard the Kismet? 

• Option One: loot, glorious loot. Enough cash and art can be salvaged to make the agents very rich bandits. Of course, before they can loot the Kismet they’ll need to deal with the strange and hideous entities in the summoning pool. They weren’t expecting the Kismet to go belly-up, and they’re not happy about it. 
• Option Two: banes. The Kismet was collecting special (possibly antique) anti-vampire equipment for study and secure disposal. If your campaign has a particular anti-vampire McGuffin, then this is where it is. The crew and stews are all drowned and gone, but wouldn’t you know it, that zombie serum is kicking in …  
• Option Three: Coffins. The Kismet was transporting a Conspiracy bigwig, and that bigwig is particularly annoyed at this debacle. Also, hungry, Very hungry. There’s only so many survivors aboard, after all. Fortunately it looks as if someone ordered takeout … enter the agents, looking all tasty and full of vitamins.  

That's it for this week! Enjoy.

The Legend (Night's Black Agents)

This week’s post is based on a recent article about a Russian spy who attempted to infiltrate the international criminal court (ICC) in the Netherlands, using the false identity of a Brazilian citizen that he had built up over more than a decade. 

A legend is basically exactly that. It’s the backstory, the plotline, the history that anyone who encounters the spy is meant to believe. The more elaborate the legend, the more believable it’s going to be – in theory, anyway. Sergey Vladimirovich Cherkasov, the spy at the heart of this particular narrative, had a fairly elaborate backstory that covers everything from his dislike of fish to the crush he had on his high school teacher. Unfortunately, he wrote it all down. 

In a physical document. 

Which is now in the hands of the authorities.  

Oops. 

Probably the most famous legend of them all is the one used in 1943’s Operation Mincemeat. There the British went to great lengths to make it look as if the corpse they carefully planted for the Germans to find was in fact Captain (Acting Major) William Martin of the Royal Marines, assigned to Combined Operations Headquarters. They even went so far as to have someone else wear Martin’s uniform for several weeks, to give it that lived-in look, and made sure that love letters, a receipt for an engagement ring, and irate letters from his bank manager were all found on the corpse in addition to the fake military documents intended to foozle the Germans. 

There the intent was to make one man appear, in all ways, to be another. The most useful thing about this version of a legend is the subject doesn’t have to be alive to pull it off, though Operation Mincemeat’s planners were concerned that the body they used didn’t quite look fit enough to be a Marine nor did they have the luxury of time; they had to keep the body on ice but not frozen, and if they waited too long then decomposition would have given the game away. In the absolute ideal the stomach contents would also have matched the legend; the actual Martin died after eating bread crusts laced with rat poison. 

In Night’s Black Agents a legend is represented by the Cover ability. While this is usually shorthand for passports and driver’s licenses, in practice it’s everything from the subject’s pocket trash to their social media profile. Everything has to match and be plausible. Gone are the days when a prospective Jackal could steal a few passports and fake an identity using a dead man’s birth certificate. Now you have to really get creative, if you’re going to get close enough to take a shot at the head of state. 

I can spot an obvious use for Cover: an Achievement, as described in Double Tap. If you need reminding, an Achievement Refresh works like this:

1. when an agent meets the criteria for an achievement
2. and the player provides a colorful bit of roleplaying or hot-dogging
3. the agent gets a 3-point refresh of whichever General ability seems most appropriate.

In this instance:

Mincemeat. The agent makes it look as if their current Cover identity died, and the corpse stands up under forensic investigation.

Of course, it’s a little different for the Conspiracy. If the vampires have access to mesmerism, necromancy or similar then they don’t have to fake being, say, ASM Gordon of the Green Jackets; they can actually be ASM Gordon, assuming such a person exists.   

However, any advantage gained through supernatural means can be countered by supernatural means. If the agents can deploy a block or blow someone’s cover by seeing what they look like in a mirror’s reflection, that’s a problem. 

So for the Conspiracy attempting to penetrate an enemy agency or some neutral organization with useful intel hidden away, it may be better to fake it with a legend than try to brute force it with a zombie.  

With all that in mind: 

Dead Man Walking 

The agents are alerted by a Network contact that an agent of [a foreign power – pick the one you like] has been caught trying to infiltrate the International Criminal Court. Though the authorities are convinced this is a relatively ordinary espionage attempt, there is evidence to suggest that the infiltrator is a Conspiracy operative.  

There are two questions to answer. First, is this person really a spy (time for a Thrilling Interrogation scene), and second, if they are, does this mean they work for the Conspiracy or someone else? Of course, there’s the added challenge of trying to find all this out while at the same time keeping out of a Dutch jail; after all, the agents are spies themselves and it wouldn’t do to get caught. 

• Option One: yes, they are a spy, but no, they aren’t a Conspiracy asset. In fact, the whole point behind getting into the ICC is to make a play for a Conspiracy asset already embedded with the ICC. This asset knows what’s going on but is reluctant to make any overt play, since this might reveal their identity. From the Conspiracy asset’s perspective, the best outcome would be if the spy died and the agents were blamed for it. 
• Option Two: yes, they are a spy, and yes, they are a Conspiracy asset. The Conspiracy realizes it’s all gone a bit Pete Tong and want to tie up loose ends. That means a heavy squad is on their way to deal with the situation. The spy thinks the heavy squad is there for a rescue attempt; there’s a chance to flip the spy once it becomes obvious that the heavy squad is there to kill them. 
• Option Three: no, they aren’t a spy. They’re a corpse. The intent is to lure the agents out of hiding and feed them false intel, and it's up to the Director who's behind it. It could be the Conspiracy or another anti-vampire agency. Funny thing about that corpse; everything up to and including the pocket trash and stomach contents indicate the deceased is a Dutch journalist living in London. Except, if the agents dig a little deeper and check Forensic Pathology, they notice that judging by some background radiation information he spent his early years in Russia, probably Novosibirsk. How does a Dutch journalist manage that?

That’s it for this week. Enjoy!  

On A Liar's Orders (Night's Black Agents)

This week’s post is inspired by a news article floating round the net recently about a pair of German ex-soldiers who tried to form a paramilitary outfit on the urging of a psychic. 

Achim Allweyer, 52, and Arend-Adolf Graess, 60, tried to set up a group of 100-150 ex-special forces to fight in Yemen. Their stated goal was to bring peace to the region, but they accepted there would have to be bloodshed and civilian deaths. All this because of ‘messages from a fortune teller that they understood as binding instructions for action.’ 

Which …  

I mean … 

Even accepting people are weird, how does this come up in any kind of conversation, polite or otherwise? 

You should have the benefit of remarkable energy; learn how to concentrate your efforts on a specified objective and pursue it through to the end. Be cooperative but not too easy-going with your family circle. Don't let anyone meddle in your private life, oh, and by the way, Yemen. 

They tried to peddle this scheme to the Saudis, thinking that if they had the Saudi bankroll they could afford to pay the troopers 40000 Euro a month. The Saudi government did not respond. 

The plan didn’t get very far and the two were arrested last year. This is hitting the news now because they’re going on trial.  

Which brings me round to Night’s Black Agents. 

If ever there was a setting where a psychic could somehow persuade ex-soldiers to form a paramilitary outfit, and be in any way successful, it’s Night’s Black Agents. If this were Dracula Dossier there’s even a handy-dandy candidate: Singleton, the Psychic. 

Imagine if you will a situation in which Singleton persuades former members of Edom’s E-Squadron that now’s the time to form a paramilitary squad ostensibly to help out in [insert war-torn hellhole here] but actually to hunt vampires. If you figure these ex-members are in their 60s now, then they were active in the 1980s, which is a good excuse to use some of the Edom Files scenarios as a kind of flashback moment. 

Edom must keep at least one eye on its former associates, not least because they might be going coo-coo for Coco-Puffs thanks to not getting regular supplies of serum any more. However, Edom’s alertness level probably depends on how powerful Edom is right now. If it’s just a handful of ageing spooks operating out of a decayed Ring, then maybe Edom’s eagle eye is just some geezer watching the obit columns. On the other hand if Edom is a power player then there’s probably a section of an office somewhere with half-a-dozen luckless saps watching every news feed they can get their hands on, praying for the day when the Boffin finally pops his clogs so they’ll have something interesting to report. 

In fact, it might be cool plot action if this was a punishment detail for spooks who got a bit too hands-on with the subject material. Like your player characters, for instance. ‘Until you learn how to conduct yourself in the field, you’re on the graveyard shift.’ 

Then the graveyard shift gets interesting … 

The Eagle has Landed And Is A Gooney Bird 

Through diligent Data Recovery/Human Terrain/Military Science/Research/something else, your agents discover that a pair of holdovers from Edom’s past are putting together a mercenary company. These two were among Edom’s finest back in the day; they’re Edom’s creakiest warriors now. Yet they’re not alone; someone’s giving them marching orders, but who? Does this new player have a supply of serum, and is that how this mysterious Mr. X is persuading these two soldiers back into the field? To which government are they appealing for funds, and why? 

Options: 

• It’s the Psychic, working on his own. He thinks he has solid intel on a new, dangerous Conspiracy threat which nobody’s paying attention to. He’s managed to persuade the ex-soldiers to follow his lead by posing as a genuine psychic – or perhaps he really is a genuine psychic. Who can say? 
• It’s the Conspiracy, working through a handy go-between. It might be the Psychic or it might be someone else, but the point from the Conspiracy’s perspective is to set up a bunch of useful throwaways that the Conspiracy can send on a one-time-only job. Perhaps the idea is to embarrass Edom, or the British Government, or whichever Government the mercs are reaching out to for funding. Or perhaps there’s a more specific target in mind. In this version the mercs have access to serum; no prizes for guessing how. 
• It’s a rogue faction of Edom, or one of the other vampire-hunting organizations out there. They have intel on a specific and very real threat, and they want Government assistance to deal with it. However they can’t afford to be seen to be involved themselves, as it would embarrass their own Government. As luck would have it there are two useful stooges willing to suit up for one last rodeo if it means plunging a stake in Dracula’s heart. If this is rogue faction of Edom then whoever it is doesn’t agree with the direction mainstream Edom is taking, and want to throw a monkey-wrench in the works before things get out of hand. In this version the two ex-soldiers may become mentors for the PC agents, assuming the PCs are the sort who like derring-do, adventure, and things that go off bang! in the night. After all, who doesn’t love explosions?

That's it for this week. Enjoy!

Slains Tours (Night's Black Agents Dracula Dossier)

Footage from 714 Aberdeen

The ruined fortress of New Slains Castle overlooks the small village of Cruden Bay, on the northeast coast of Scotland. The castle was built in 1597, and extensively reconstructed in 1836. For most of its existence, it was the seat of the powerful earls of Erroll. The 20th earl sold the castle to the secretive shipping magnate Sir John Ellerman in 1913; he never lived there, but leased the property for a few years before allowing it to fall into ruin.

Bram Stoker visited Cruden Bay many times. One of his novels, The Mystery of the Sea, is set there, and there is a distinct resemblance between the ruined castle and Stoker’s description of Castle Dracula in the novel ... Dracula Dossier Director's Handbook p176

Silhouetted against an expanse of fields that were once the scene of a bloody slaughter of the Danes by the Scots, the ruins of Slains Castle casts an eerie shadow over a rocky coastline where, legend has it, the ghosts of shipwrecked sailors emerge from their watery graves once a year.

Now the dramatic fortress, which fired the imagination of horror writer Bram Stoker and is credited with being the true inspiration for Dracula's castle, is itself about to rise from the dead - to become a holiday home for tourists ... Guardian, 'Dracula's ruin' comes back from the dead

In 2004 it was reported that the Slains Partnership was preparing plans for the restoration of the building and conversion into 35 holiday apartments. In August 2007 the scheme was granted outline planning permission by Aberdeenshire Council, but the plans were put on hold in 2009 due to the Great Recession ... Wikipedia

What if it wasn't?

Alternatively, what if it wasn't the Great Recession that killed the conversion plan?

The architect behind the rebuild is extensively quoted in the article, and claims to intend to rebuild Slains much as it was in Stoker's day. The exterior would be meticulously preserved. The interior would be something else again of course, but you can't have everything.

If you're wondering why this comes to my mind now, it's because of another Guardian article, this one much more recent, talking about the author's walking tour around Cruden Bay.  It took him about five hours more or less, and he saw barely a soul. He ends up at the Kilmarnock Arms, a very pleasant hotel by all accounts. It's all part of the recent anniversary of the novel, which saw a record number of Draculas turn up at Whitby - but that's a whole 'nother story unto itself.

The Cool and Warm versions of Slains in the Handbook both suggest Edom involvement, but the Cool version presumes Edom abandoned ship some time past. The recent planned rebuild is discussed in a throwaway line, but not seriously explored.

Cruden Bay is much like Whitby, without the cliffs or Abbey. A small-ish seaside town, once known for fishing, now not much to look at. It survives largely on tourism and some runoff from North Sea Oil, and a significant portion of its current population are actually commuters from larger towns wanting somewhere a bit more rural and pleasant for the kiddies to grow up in. 

Its big landmark is the castle, and if that rebuild had taken off it would probably be the significant employer in Cruden Bay. Slains was meant to have 35 luxury holiday flats, after all; Kilmarnock only has 19 en-suite rooms, and while they look perfectly nice it'd be difficult to call them luxury. 

The castle's described as ruined, and while that's true the word ruin conjures up a desolate and picturesque crumbling monument, which isn't quite what Slains is. Slains lacks a roof and the interior's basically gone, but unlike Whitby Abbey the Germans didn't try to shell it flat back in the Great War. Visually Slains looks in relatively good condition. Like a house that's been abandoned for less than a century, which (broadly speaking) what Slains is. 

Incidentally I tried to find out more about the drowned sailors mentioned in the article, but came up short. The closest I could get was this piece from Lippincott's Monthly which talks about smugglers and a peculiar Monsieur saved from a wreck, but nothing about a ghostly crew that emerges from the depths at a particular time of year.

Let's take two suppositions.

In the first, Slains was rebuilt shortly before the recession. That meant its grand reopening fell flat and the investors lost their shirts, but the building's basically luxury residential with all the mod cons. It's just a little ... neglected. The roof leaks, housekeeping isn't all it could be, and the on-site restaurant wouldn't know a health and safety inspector if one bit the chef on the leg. Thirty-five luxury flats built to the highest standards, struggling to make a go of it as a glorified Air B&B. 

Meanwhile the locals that work there - of which there aren't as many as you'd think - are very unhappy but remarkably close-mouthed. It's as if they were terrified of something, but can't afford to leave.

In the second, the Slains rebuild was killed off but not by Edom. At least, not the current Edom. Elements within Edom influenced by the 1970s mole or whatever network that person left behind killed off the project, because the Conspiracy had plans for Slains and a rebuild didn't factor in. This is a one-hand-doesn't-know situation, where Edom proper has no idea what happened but Edom (Conspiracy influenced) did the deed.

Slains Rebuilt is nominally owned by a consortium of which the largest shareholder is a Trust based in Gibraltar. The Cruden Bay Trust is, through various cutouts, ultimately owned by Edom. Edom wanted to resurrect its vampire holding plan and thought that the most convenient front was a working hotel. There would be one set of rooms for the public and a hidden set for 'special guests'. This was largely influenced by Edom holdovers from the 1970s with one eye on Edom's history; after all, most of the anti-vampire blocks were already in place. Shame to waste them. Except the plan rather depended on the hotel being a working hotel, and it really isn't. 

For some, like Hound, this is actually a bonus. This faction of Edom uses Slains as a kind of stopover before you get to Proserpine, a secure location for the ones who need interrogating but don't need to have E-Squadron step on their neck a few times before they'll answer questions. The soft-spoken drug reliant interrogators operate from Slains. Dr. Sykes (Field Manual p84-5) is often here, as is the archivist Henry Poole (Field Manual p.90-91) as Slains makes an excellent backup archive. Edom has collected a ton of research material over the years, and it can't all fit in the Ring/Exeter/Carfax/Asylum.

Slains In Ruins is, like its rebuilt version, ultimately owned by The Cruden Bay Trust, which in turn is an Edom front. The difference is, the faction of Edom that runs Cruden Bay is heavily influenced (if not outright owned) by a section of Edom that was tainted by the 1970s mole. This agency within an agency knew that Edom wanted to resurrect Slains as an anti-vampire prison, and they weren't having it. Instead they wrecked the project and did everything they could to put a Red Room in Slains. Whether or not they succeeded is a matter for conjecture. 

What is certain is the ruins of Slains are a desolate, horrible place. Every so often a bloated pale victim of the sea is found floating near the ruins, and the people of Cruden Bay shake their heads. It's not the first time and won't be the last. All they can do is bury the poor soul discreetly, in the traditional manner, and hope they don't find their way out of the grave again. 

These drowned victims coincide with a visit from 'the Londoners.' It's a different set of Londoners each time but they always stay at the Kilmarnock and their rooms are always booked by the Cruden Bay Trust. After a few days they vanish, never to be seen again - but their bills are paid, their absence unremarked on. 

That's it for this week. Enjoy!

The Die Is Cast: Interchangeable Scenes (RPG All)

James Bond, SPECTRE

There are moments in any RPG narrative where the heroes have has A Moment, whatever that moment may have been, and now need to transition from the Moment to wherever else in the narrative they need to be right now. Maybe they just overheard the bad guys explaining their plan and now need to get the hell out of there, as happens in SPECTRE. Maybe they need to get from their current location to a more useful location, say because somebody in the party died and they need to get to the temple for a resurrection or raise dead.

Maybe this, maybe that, maybe the other thing, but the point is they were Here, and now they need to be There. Right Now. 

Often this involves a chase scene, a dramatic interpersonal showdown, or something that, as Director, you may not have planned for - hence this post.

Many RPG campaigns, no matter the setting, explicitly plan for this moment. Horror on the Orient Express is designed so the ending scenario of the campaign is a race to [LOCATION HIDDEN] to prevent horrible things from happening to the world. Nights Black Agents has Extended Heat chases for exactly the same reason, always linking the agents to the ongoing threat whether they happen to be in Lisbon or Bern this week. 

However, you can't always plan for these moments. Players are unpredictable. They may invent the most peculiar moments and make them the Moment, for no better reason than it seemed like a good idea at the time. Then you, as Master of Ceremonies or whatever shiny hat you're wearing this week, have to pull a scene out of your capacious crevice. 

Or it may be that the players haven't invented a Moment at all, but instead they're stuck in a holding pattern waiting for a Moment that may never come. 

 Waiting for Godot, Harold Pinter (Sir Patrick Stewart, Sir Ian McKellen)

What to do in moments like this? Or even Moments like this?

Cheat.

The great thing about many RPG systems, and I'm going to use Dungeons and Dragons as an example, is that the crunchier they are, the easier it is to cheat, since most of the narrative depends on die rolls. It's not exactly scripted, but it's easy to manipulate a situation so that it appears scripted because everything ultimately depends on whether or not a particular die roll hits a particular difficulty.

That means you can create interchangeable scenes. You take a prewritten sequence, slot it into the narrative, and boom! Instant plot, that looks as if it was made from scratch.

So in any given chase scene, for instance, it almost doesn't matter who's doing the chasing or where the action is taking place. What matters are the DCs scattered along the path, because the DCs determine whether a particular moment goes one way or the other. 

This is more difficult to pull off in player-facing systems where the emphasis isn't so much on hitting a particular number as it is leveraging a particular situation. In those circumstances the GM really does need to know what is going on in that specific scene, rather that rely on a set of generics to help them out of an awkward situation.

However, even then it can be done. Consider Night's Black Agents, with its various Thrilling scenes - chase scenes, infiltration, digital intrusion, and so on. These scenes ultimately depend on the agent hitting a particular sequence of difficulty numbers in more or less the right order. That means it doesn't matter who's the active party and who the subject, or where the scene is taking place. What matters is the sequence of difficulty numbers that the agents have to cope with.

Let's say this is Dungeons and Dragons, Ravenloft, using the Mordent setting.

Mordent is a ghost-ridden coastal community, vaguely Georgian in terms of technology and social mores. There are no cities; the biggest community is about the size of Whitby, Yorkshire. There's vast stretches of lonely moorland, isolated hamlets, spooky mansions on the hill, Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing are chewing chunks out of the scenery, that sort of thing.

So how shall we cheat?

To begin with, on that description we already know that most if not all scenes will take place in a moderately civilized but not urban area. This isn't Tolkein's Middle Earth; you won't find ancient dragons sitting on vast hoards of stolen dwarvish gold down some mountain hole or other. Nor is this Jack the Ripper's fog-shrouded London town, with sinister threats lurking down every dark alley - and there are more dark alleys than there are hot dinners. 

On the other hand, a coach racing down a lonely road trying to outrun a half-dozen highwaymen sounds perfectly in keeping with the aesthetic. Or a skiff out at sea trying to beat the storm and get back to harbor before being driven up on the rocks. 

So any DM wanting to organize a transition chase scene could assume that the available chase options are:

• Small village (one-horse town).
• Large community (more than one street and horse, but not a metropolis).
• Open civilized countryside (ie. something with a road in it, but houses/inns are few and far between).
• Open countryside (no road, probably a few treacherous bogs or a Hound of the Bonkervilles lurking down an abandoned tin mine shaft).
• Coastline, shallow water.

You could get more complicated than that if you wanted to, but that should cover most options. 

Then you go through each line item, assign half a dozen obstacles or chase moments (is that a fallen tree trunk blocking the road ahead? What's the Jump DC?) and you're more than halfway there. 

So if the players manage to antagonize, say, a bunch of hellhounds and have to run for their lives, you already have most of the work prepped ahead of time. Or if they're at sea and need to beat that storm back to shore, bingo! One coastline shallow water chase coming up.

Exactly the same works for systems like Night's Black Agents. In fact it's easier, because the players announce ahead of time that they want, say, Thrilling Digital Intrusion scenes by giving their agents 8 pool points or more in Digital Intrusion. Knowing this, you can set aside a couple of Digital Intrusion sequences knowing full well it won't matter whether this sequence is meant for the casino in Monaco or the military base in Germany. Then, when the player announces they want to make a Digital Intrusion, you can slip one of your pre-prepared sequences in  and it will look as though the player's improvised moment is part of the narrative.

Systems like Dungeons and Dragons, which rely heavily on crunch, are particularly easy to manipulate this way because everything those systems do rely on one Difficulty Number or another. Social Interaction is a set of Difficulty Numbers, Stealth is a set of Difficulty Numbers, everything can be reduced to a set of DCs - and it doesn't matter who's making the roll or why, because what matters is someone will have to make a roll eventually.  

This, in a nutshell, is the difference between a player-facing system and a more traditional RPG. A player-facing RPG relies more on the player than it does the game mechanics; a traditional RPG relies on the mechanics rather than the player. Point being, if the game relies on mechanics then as DM you can manipulate the mechanics to make your life easier. Sometimes this can involve outright bullshit, like fudging die rolls behind a screen to produce one result or another, and that kind of thing is always a bad idea. 

But sometimes it can involve using the existing mechanics to your advantage, to save yourself work.

Let's say the players suddenly take it into their heads to interrogate the Master of the Guild of Bakers. God alone knows why. Maybe they want to know how he makes those delicious scones. Doesn't matter. What matters is whether the Master (or whoever the heroes have to talk to before they can get to the Master) is Friendly, Indifferent or Hostile, because that will determine their initial reaction to the heroes. 

Then that NPC will have character traits - ideals, bonds, flaws - which can be manipulated (through die rolls) to change their original rating of, say, Hostile, to Indifferent. At which point, having played the NPC like a Stradivarius, the PC then makes ... you guessed it ... a die roll to determine the outcome.

What this means is, it doesn't matter whether the Master is some critical path character who the heroes have to talk to in order to unravel the plot, or just some random nutbar who the PCs happened to take an interest in this week. Centaur or Goblin, doesn't matter. Alignment doesn't matter. Stats don't matter. 

You could just work up half a dozen profiles with Ideals, Bonds, Flaws and starting Interpersonal rating - Friendly, Indifferent, Hostile - and it will not matter whether you use a particular profile on the sinister vampire lord Strahd Von Whosavitch or Bingo the Wonder Dog. 

But it will look as though you planned it all along. 

That's it for this week! Enjoy.

From Zero to Hero (Many Mansions)

Cthulhu is an infra-dimensional entity that has only a conceptual existence within the human “R-complex,” the brain stem and limbic system left over from our primordial reptilian ancestors. This is why he appears only in dreams, high-stress encounters (such as shipwrecks), and artistic impulses. He is attempting to create a critical mass of believers so that he may “emerge from R’lyeh” and open the eyes of all ... [p91, Trail of Cthulhu]

In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also. John 14:2, KJB

Session zero, in any RPG ruleset, is about setting expectations. You need to be clear about what you hope to accomplish, and you want to encourage the players to be open about what they hope to achieve. Even in a mystery-solving setting like GUMSHOE, it helps to be as open as possible about the campaign and setting.

How open, I hear you ask?

Well, using Many Mansions as a guide and bearing in mind what's been said so far:

You need to tell the players about the world and its main features. That means you need to be up-front that this is Purist, set in Kingsport, with Cthulhu as the main Mythos threat. You can even quote that bit about Cthulhu being an infra-dimensional entity; it helps define expectations. You probably also want to talk about Mislow's Antiques, the Downtown Library and other important locations within your version of Kingsport. 

This will give the players some idea of what to expect, and where they might go when looking for clues. It also allows you to drop reminders about those locations if it seems, during play, that the investigators may have forgotten about Tredwell and his peculiar knowledge base. Those reminders can be useful 0-point clues in any session.

More importantly, it whets the appetite. The players know it's all about Cthulhu, and that's fine. You want them to anticipate that awful moment when they're face-to-face with the unspeakable. It also gives the players a clear route forward, which is always useful. Most of the GUMSHOE products explicitly say that the players are responsible for providing some of the thrills; they can't do that if they don't have at least some idea of where they're going.

Most importantly, this avoids player frustration. Yes, this is a mystery game. That does imply a certain amount of, well, mystery. But it doesn't mean the players have to wander around in a fog.

Think of Session Zero the same way you might the opening moments of Columbo. The idea isn't to hide the mystery. The idea is to make the parameters of the main threat plain, so you can watch the investigators slowly make their way towards that threat.

This doesn't mean you have to reveal absolutely everything. Notice I mention Purist, but not Dreamworld. That underlying layer is for you alone. Let the players fumble towards that hideous, Sanity-destroying reveal - in order to 'win' they must destroy themselves, and Kingsport, so the dreamer they inhabit can awake.

Session Zero is also the moment for you and the players to talk about their characters, and the group. How did they meet? Why do they stay together? What triumphs have they had, what tragedies? Do they have a favorite hangout? Do they want to add something to your base description of, say, Mislows?

This last can be especially useful. You might never have thought that Mislow was connected with the Profaci mob family of New York, but if one of the players likes that idea, add it in. Maybe you planned for Tredwell to be a comedy character, but the players prefer a Terrible Old Man version of Tredwell. When in doubt, go for the option that promises the most fun.

Always remember that this is about fun. Never fall so in love with your plot that you can't face the idea of changing it; no plan survives contact with the players. You might have all sorts of ideas, but if you can't bear someone else playing with the toys then you should write a novel, not an RPG campaign.

As this is about fun you need to think about safety tools, and to discuss any special rules that your campaign might use. 

Safety tools have been discussed so often that I hope I don't need to discuss them here, again; either you see the need, and don't need the speech, or you don't see the need, in which case nothing I say will persuade you. 

I will say that safety tools are as important, and possibly more important, in horror games like Trail than in any other RPG setting. You're going to want to know if body horror, say, is a complete no-go. You're going to need to know if player X likes the idea of romance (tragic, doomed, but, y'know, romance) or if player Y is going through tough times and doesn't need your commentary about [whatever it may be] adding to their troubles. Again, this is all about having fun at the table, even if that fun is eldritch and coated with a thin layer of grue. No fun = no table.

Special rules, particularly in Trail, is an important conversation. Trail and games like it dwell as much on mental corruption as physical hurt. If this were D&D the players would ultimately only have to worry about how many hit points they can afford to lose. With Trail you can be as healthy as a horse, and still get pounded. If the players aren't familiar with that concept now's the time to set them straight. It's also a good time to talk about their Sources of Stability as well as anything unique to their character that might affect the narrative.

The last thing to discuss in any Session Zero is the opening session of the campaign. The very first session is like troubleshooting a new product; you take it out on the road and see how it handles. Then you fix the things that broke. This is helpful for the obvious reasons, and also because, if you haven't played with some or all of these people before, you need to know what they're like. Anyone can say they're thus-and-so before the session. Only by playing with them will you find out what they're really all about. 

The first game should be something light, influenced if not driven by the players' ideas or requests. Perhaps it introduces the characters to a major asset - say, their first visit to Mislows, or maybe Tredwell has some ideas for the characters to chase up. The opposition should be interesting but not so challenging that the investigators end up in the hospital, or, worse, the morgue. So, a ghoul, say, but not a pack of ghouls. A ghost, but not a whole haunted house stuffed full of ghosts. Open with action, sure - but they almost never open a James Bond film by killing James Bond. Except that one time. And the other time. It doesn't happen often. 

Now! Time rushes on, the scene is set, you've done all you can do ... now it's time to DESTROY SOME SANITY!!!!

That's it! Enjoy. Next week, something completely different ...

All The World's A Stage (Many Mansions)

Cthulhu is an infra-dimensional entity that has only a conceptual existence within the human “R-complex,” the brain stem and limbic system left over from our primordial reptilian ancestors. This is why he appears only in dreams, high-stress encounters (such as shipwrecks), and artistic impulses. He is attempting to create a critical mass of believers so that he may “emerge from R’lyeh” and open the eyes of all ... [p91, Trail of Cthulhu]

In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also. John 14:2, KJB

Jude Lazaro performs Shakespeare's As You Like It

The Setting of any campaign is a delicate and tricky thing to get right. You want it to sing, but you don't know how it will change over the course of play. What if it doesn't work? Will you need to fix it? Is it broken forever? 

The thing you need to bear in mind - whether with this or any other RPG - is that you don't have complete control over the Setting, any more than you do the plot. Even if this were a stage play, carefully rehearsed for weeks and with every least action plotted out and calculated for maximum effect, every performance is its own animal. You just don't know what will happen when an actor moves to center stage and opens their mouth, any more than you know how or when the audience will react, laugh, gasp, or sit in enraptured silence.

What you do know is that the audience - the players - are a vital part of the experience. A good play can die on its feet if the audience aren't engaged. A middling play can seem brilliant beyond compare, if the audience laughs.

If you don't believe me, check out this Broadway thread about the best night to go to the theatre. I tend to agree with the folks who say Thursday is the best night to go. Friday, the audience is too frazzled.  Saturday, they're not paying attention. 

Incidentally, this is also why, in any stage production, that the director hands control over to the stage manager before the opening night's performance. The director has done all they can. If they stuck around, they'd be tempted to fiddle with the performance and that would never do. The stage manager is best placed to look after the show, and won't be tempted to stick their thumb in the soup.

All you can do is write a certain amount, rehearse a certain amount, and leave the rest to chance. Exactly what that certain amount is, is up to you. You need to be comfortable, so you can raise the curtain without having a panic attack. It takes time to work out how comfortable you need to be. 

Personally I've always liked sketching out the bare bones of the narrative and leaving the rest to the performance on the day, but then I've acted on stage since I was 15, done plenty of improv, and am comfortable performing. Your milage will vary.

So what do we know so far?

We know about the Antagonists. 

We know this is Purist Dreamworld. 

We know this is Kingsport, which means we have a certain amount of pre-written material we can slot in about Terrible Old Men and their peculiar ghosts, and houses up on high. 

We know that the ultimate big bad is Cthulhu, attempting to create a critical mass of believers so it can break free. 

We also know that the underlying plot point that pins all this together is dream logic. As described in the first post:

Let's say that this whole campaign takes place in the mind of someone who's going slowly insane. That the characters are aspects of this person's personality, fighting back against the horrors which are eating this person's soul. If they win, then the person wakes up - which means the characters die, fading away like dreams.

Of course, if they lose, then the person never wakes up. 

That sounds pretty Purist to me. Further, it allows an extra little fillip: should a player character fall, then even if that character is replaced a section of the game world crumbles and becomes either less reliable than before, or downright dangerous. The loss of that portion of the personality = danger for the rest. 

So this isn't real world Kingsport (assuming there is such a place). This is a dream version of that quaint little New England township. That means it doesn't have to conform to the version found in the written RPG guides, or Lovecraft's fiction. It can be just as odd as I like, and I like odd. 

Remember, a CORE CONCEPT tree bears CORE CONCEPT fruit. Everything about the Setting needs to reflect Purist Dreamworld, and now's the time to think about what that looks like. 

I find it helpful to divide the setting into Thematic and Quest elements. 

Quest elements aren't automatically adventure locations; they can also be places the investigators need to go to find out more about the adventure locations. Libraries, forgotten chambers in long-abandoned chapels, that kind of thing. Places where they might find grimoires, sinister artwork or something else that will help them in the narrative. Those things will probably cost them Stability/Sanity too, but probably not a lot. No more than 3 points potential loss per Quest object, and ideally no more than 8-10 points overall spread between the group. You want them to feel tested, like they had to go to some trouble to get this stuff, but not so utterly trashed that they can't go on.

This may seem slightly high. After all, assuming a four person group with an average of 6 Stability each, 10 points Stability lost is close to 50% of their total. Remember, this is Purist. If it were Pulp, I might dial it down a bit. Purist is a rocky road; the investigators ought to pay a little extra for every potential benefit. 

Also, don't forget you don't have to call for a Stability test if you don't want to. Or, if you feel you must, you don't have to ding the investigators more than a point if they fail. The players never get to see how the sausage is made.

I put it in terms of Stability and Sanity because, in Trail, those are the equivalent of Hit Points in any other RPG. Using a different ruleset I'd probably stick to the same ratio; that is, slightly less than 50% of the [Hit Point] total spent in Quest locations. Not that they have to lose that much, just that they ought to risk losing that much. 

Thematic is exactly what it sounds like. Whatever this setting element may be, it fits the theme and so reinforces the theme. It doesn't have to lead to anything useful. It might, of course, but it doesn't have to. These are the in-game equivalent of the crazy person waving a sign that reads The End Is Nigh. At first you might dismiss that person; later, after one or two brushes with the uncanny, you may think they have a point. Later still, perhaps after you've lost a point of Sanity (remember, you don't get those back), you might realize that the sign doesn't read The End Is Nigh at all - and then you wonder what it really does say.

They Live (1988)

With all that in mind, and using the Rule of Four, what kind of Thematic and Quest Setting elements are there in Many Mansions?

Thematic:

Lightning and the Colonel a popular comedy radio show that airs every week on Thursdays. It stars Lightning, a clever but lazy employee at Wingate Boatyard, his long-suffering and slightly dim employer, the Colonel, and their extended families. It's set in Kingsport, and the action mirrors the investigators' actions. So, if last week the investigators went out to Pilot Island to find out more about the mysterious mists, then this week Lightning and the Colonel find themselves adrift near Pilot Island. This seems peculiar at first; it gets stranger, as the investigators realize they're the only ones who hear this broadcast. Everyone else thinks it's a completely different show, set in Milwaukee.

 A horse-drawn Hearse, elaborately decorated is seen again and again around town. At first it's just background noise, something the investigators might notice while about their business. Still, it keeps showing up. The driver is sullen and uncommunicative, and under certain light the casket glows a peculiar green. How much business can one Hearse have? Why does it seem to be trailing the investigators?

Peculiar Whispers on the Telephone might just be a problem with the party line. These things happen. Yet why do these whispers seem somehow prophetic? When that woman says 'what a shame that poor woman died' why is it that the woman she talks about is named in the obituary column the very next day? What does it mean when that man repeats a phrase again and again? Who are these people, and why do they keep showing up on the party line no matter which telephone the investigators use?

Bellow's Cream Ale is locally brewed and very popular, particularly among fishermen. It's a little strong, and while hard-drinking watermen can down it in quantity and not collapse the average weedy investigator may find it rich for their blood. Investigators who get drunk have the most peculiar dreams, of a different time and place altogether. Very vivid dreams; almost as if they're living a different life. Oddly, it's always the same life, the same person. Even more oddly, though Bellow's is locally brewed, nobody seems to know where the brewery is.

Quest:

 Mislow's Antiques in the Hollow is a known hangout of book thieves and other ne'er-do-wells. Mislow, an outsider who moved to Kingsport from New York in the 1920s, boasts that if it's in print he can get a copy, no matter how rare or whose library it's in. Mislow's a surly character, but investigators willing to take the time and play a few chess games with him get Mislow to open up a bit.

Saint Andrew's Shrine down near Harbourside's wharves is a good place to go if you want to hear fishermen's gossip. They don't open up easily around strangers, but folks willing to show Saint Andrew some respect earn their trust. Plus, every so often someone leaves peculiar offerings at the Shrine, offerings which might repay study. Where did those peculiar trinkets come from?

The Downtown Public Library is a good place to go for general knowledge, local history and other tidbits, and the librarian, Tredwell, knows a great deal for someone as young as he seems to be. He sometimes sounds more like a child of the 16th century than the 20th. If you want to know who's buried at that grave site, or who used to own that crumbling mansion, Tredwell is the one to talk to.

The Hilltown Artist's Colony is a good place to relax among liberal-minded types. You can talk here and let your guard down; nobody's going to be gossiping about you or spilling your secrets, Plus, some of the art these bohemians create seems relevant to your current investigation, and you're not sure why that should be. How do they know about the Green Foulness in the Hollow, or have any idea what's in those crumbling Mansions in West Town?

That's enough for this week. Next week, the final episode: Session Zero.