Wherein I offer up a second campaign I'd like to run for this month's RPG Blog Carnival. You can find more info over at the Age of Ravens. You can read my first entry, Mage: Technocracy Risen, here.
Night's Black Agents:
Deluxe Campaign Edition
Conspiracies
exist everywhere.
Some
conspiracies are so good, they must be true.
Some
conspiracies are so inept, they are not true.
Some
conspiracies are true.
A
team of former special agents, spies, and wet works specialists are
assembled to stop a possible rogue CIA agent from purchasing nuclear
and biological weapons for the terrorist organization he infiltrated.
Has
this agent gone rogue? Is he purchasing live weapons or is he putting
on airs and purchasing fakes for the terrorist organization? What
purpose does the terrorist organization have for these weapons?
While
investigating the former CIA agent, the assembled team will only fall
further into the conspiracy. Is that another team watching the agent?
Are they now watching the assembled team? Why is that person from one
of the team's past involved?
Wedding
cakes and conspiracies are built on layers. Layers add strength.
Layers add support.
Layers
allow you to hide things better left to the darkest corners of the
Earth. . .
The
high concept behind this game is to take John Steakley's novel
Vampire$, lock horns with the
idea of different vampire families as found in so many sources (such
as Blade), rope it
with brand names like Treadstone and Quantum, and then kill it with a
thermobaric weapon.
I
want to take the core premise of Night's Black Agents and take
it to the next level. In keeping with the movie-style of the game, I
imagine this campaign to be a trilogy – or perhaps an HBO series
ala A Game of Thrones or
AMC's The Walking Dead.
I want to run this game for a larger than usual group of players (4+)
or for multiple groups of players at the usual level. I want to build
this game out into a full-on, potentially gonzo, campaign. I want to
build it into a controlled sand box.
Tinker Vampire Soldier Spy
The
game starts with the cast being assembled into a team to look into a
situation. The handler wants the team to stop a CIA agent from
purchasing both a nuclear and a biological weapon. The purpose for
purchasing the weapons is not known. However, the word is out that
the agent is looking for said items. The agent is currently in Varna,
Bulgaria, but was recently in Berlin, Germany. The agent has
infiltrated a terrorist organization based out of Chechnya.
The
cast will be given the opportunity to track down the CIA agent, as
well as, do some digging into his background. Neither of the
activities are hard to accomplish. A few spends will reveal
interesting tidbits about his background (think Treadstone
activities). The cast will be able to track the agent and locate his
hotel.
If
the cast decide to investigate the hotel or follow the CIA agent,
they will notice that others are also watching the hotel and
following the CIA agent. Whether the watchers notice the cast will
only be revealed with time. The cast will need to decide how to
approach the CIA agent. Will they go in and extract him? Will they
wait and find out who the seller is, then go after the seller? Will
they wait for the deal to go down and then “retire” everyone
involved? There are many options for the cast and none of them matter
to the storyline.
Eventually,
the cast will come in to contact with the other group watching the
CIA agent. Depending on the cast, they may even drive right at that
topic. I can think of at least three potential players (four if I was
playing) that may perform such a tactic. Other forms of contact
include the cast catching the other group watching the cast, the cast
going after the seller or the CIA agent and the other group stepping
in to assist one of the three (cast, buyer, seller), or perhaps the
other group commits before the cast, going after the CIA agent for
their own, nefarious reasons. Either way, a third party is
established.
Between
the CIA agent's terrorist organization and the third party, a bridge
to the vampire conspiracy is provided. The game continues on as a
standard Night's Black Agents
game. As they cast climbs the conspyramid, they will have the
opportunity to learn about another family of vampires. The cast may
or may not realize this is another family of vampires and simply
think all vampires are the same “family.” It will depend on clues
gathered during game play.
By
the time the cast reaches the top of the conspyramid, other families
will know about the cast. Calls will have been made, emails sent, and
pictures viewed. One of the easiest ways to build in the other
vampire families is to allow the cast to follow the money to another
family. For example, if the cast is following money from a vampire in
the manufacturing industry, to the bank, to another bank, to someone
in the arms industry, it could be vampires laundering money – or it
could be one family buying product from another family. As the cast
investigates the flow of money, they are noticed by the other family.
I
intend to end the first “movie” with the cast destroying the head
of one of these vampire families. The cast is not likely to wipe out
the entire family. They may have the opportunity to do so, but this
game is not about tracking all of them down to exterminate the
vampires. It is about climbing the conspyramid to the top and cutting
off the head.
The Honorable Vampire
This
leads to the second film in the trilogy, as the other family or
families decide to pursue the cast. Maybe the cast decides to go
after those loose ends, in order to destroy all vampires. That would
lead them into direct conflict with the other families. If not, the
other families could decide to send minions (vampire, ghoul,
renfield, human, it doesn't really matter), after the cast. What
starts as bad luck turns into odd coincidence, and ends with fangs.
Soon enough, the cast realizes they have another family of blood
suckers to deal with. If the cast runs and hides, the vampires dig
them out. If the cast burns down a house, the vampires turn a loved
one.
The
second film will be darker than the first. The fight becomes more
personalized as more and more resources are taxed or used up. The
vampires will appear to have an endless pool of resources at their
disposal. It is as if this is all a game to them (to some, it is) and
nothing the cast does matters to the vampires.
Cat.
Mouse.
Cat.
Ball
of string.
Cat.
Wait!
Was that a big dog's shadow?
The
second movie moves away from the straight to the top attitude of the
first movie. It needs to expand out from one family to two or more
families. It needs to show a broader spectrum of the vampire
community. What is vampire society really like? Do they have board
meetings? Do they all meet on the second floor of a popular club,
socializing and playing chess? Do they meander through art galleries
late at night, pontificating on the weariness of the soul? Maybe they
do all of this and more. How deep do those claws really go?
At
this point, I would also like to begin to work in other elements from
classic vampire films. Monstrous animals such as giant rats, cats, or
alligators as guard dogs, werewolves as allies or enemies who aren't
worried about the environment, or a mad scientist with a penchant for
creating flesh golems is researching a way to cure vampirism or Banes
of a vampire family. A group of psychic vampires infiltrating high
levels of governments, allowing them to control whole cities or
countries.
The
second movie will need to end with a big explosion. I could set it up
for the cast to take out more than one family. It could end with the
cast discovering human government types have been in on the
conspiracy all along, helping the vampires for whatever payment the
vampires offer them. The cast should feel they came closer to dieing
than ever before. Whichever way I go, the third movie is set up for
revenge.
Smiley's Fangs
The
third movie starts out hot and heavy. We return the cast to the
conspyramid style game. The cast knows there is a snake's head
waiting to poison them. As they work their way up the conspyramid,
any and all resources will be used up. Government contacts turn on
them. Friends suddenly pull their support away from the cast. Loved
ones are murdered moments before the cast arrives to pull them from
harm's reach.
However,
the cast will also have their chance at revenge. They will have
opportunities to defraud banks, blow up manufacturing facilities that
supply the conspyramid with much needed cash, and go after people or
things the vampires hold dear. This is Return of the Jedi and
Revenge of the Sith rolled into one and given to Oliver Stone
to pen with Akira Kurasawa directing. Cast members could very well
die leading up to the finalé.
Night's
Black Agents: The Series
The
end of the third movie could very easily be the end of the game. All
resources are gone. Maybe new resources have been gained while
destroying the vampire families. Monies gained, contacts made, trust
earned outside the circle of cast members. Further adventures could
include following leads to continents not yet visited (I currently
imagine the series staying in Europe and Eurasia). Egypt,
Johannesburg, New Delhi, Tokyo, Mexico City, and Rio offer different
atmospheres to apply to the setting. What about those other monsters
from classic film lore? What was up with the werewolves? Are there
families of them, too? Has the mad scientist turned into Victor Von
Doom and launched a plan to take over a country utilizing his golems?
Are there awful humans the cast crossed paths with, who could use a
bit of f-u (that's follow up, not what you thought it meant)? Human
trafficking, money laundering, and selling firearms to the highest
bidder does not go away, just because the vampires went away.
Blu-ray
Extras
I
am not certain how well the Gumshoe system will hold up to this
type of beating. By all intents and purposes, it should work just
fine. I may need to slow down the experience point progression to
stop the cast from becoming all powerful beings in the universe.
Another thought is to keep the progression, but then remove half of
the experience points between the first and second movie. This is
meant to represent a lull in activity and the need to relearn old
skills. I like this idea less than simply slowing down character
progression. Yet, it is an interesting idea, if only in theory. The
players would need to know this was slated to occur before character
creation occurred.
Running
the game past the end of the third movie appears to be pointless.
However, if the players are having fun and the director is not burnt
out or bored of the storyline, it can be done.
A
part of me wants to run this game with a high number of players. I
think the reason is only that a high number of players reminds me of
early D&D and WoD experiences. This is a step away from what I
think of when I ponder sand box games or gonzo games. I think a
better idea would be to run two groups congruent to each other. I
could design a second conspyramid for another family of vampires and
let the second group of players chase that tail. How do the two
groups' actions affect one another? Are perceived threats suddenly
gone? The casts could come across evidence of the vampire conspiracy
watching another group of humans similar to their own. The conspiracy
could even pit them against each other. The easier route is to simply
allow the two groups to witness activities effecting the conspiracy
or witness the after-effects of the other group.
I
also have two sets of people I can see running this game for and
there is very little crossover between the two groups. Both groups
bring interesting things to the table and it could be fun to see
where each of them take the game.
This
style of campaign allows for the director to use all of the Modes of
play recommended in the Night's
Black Agent core book.
The first movie should be run in one mode. The second movie can
interweave the modes from session to session or storyline to
storyline. The third movie should return to one mode of play.
