Not really. The first campaign that I ran at ANU was in 1986. The player was about ten or eleven at the time, though his older brother played in it. It was a Justice, Inc. campaign set in 1936 and there was a recurring villain in it whom I designed to be scary but not to actually be very dangerous to the PCs, an acromegalic giant called “Heinrich Sachsenet”. Sachsenet was very hard to kill under Justice, Inc. rules (BDY 30, CON 28), and I never put him in a situation where the PCs would be likely to get a chance for a coup de grace. So he twice came back in subsequent adventures twice after the PCs had had a red-hot go at killing him, and made in total about half a dozen very unwelcome appearances. I always introduced him with the same formula, and after the second time a chorus of players would supply the “…and with a face that only a mother could love”: Then about a year later I ran another campaign, a ForeSight campaign set in 1956, including two of the same players, and I put Sachsenet, rather older and in fact very unwell, in one of the adventures. There are no rules in ForeSight for “presence attacks”, but I didn’t need them. Neither did I need to say “… and with a face that only a mother could love”: The story had been told. It was part of my rep as a GM.
Susilano’s introduction was a callback to that, but I didn’t expect that the player would remember a story about my GMing from when he was in primary school. It would have been cool, though, if I’d given that introduction and a player had chimed in on “and with a face that only a mother could love”:
I’m afraid that this campaign is still not going well, nor even satisfactorily. I’ll take one last kick at the starting lever on Saturday, and if that doesn’t work I am going to have to apply a rigorous process to figuring out what is wrong and how I can mend it.
We’ve had three or four sessions dealing with non-operational matters such as getting to know the neighbours, choosing a gym and a shooting range, and skirmishing with the local protection racket. The PC has established relationships with half a dozen vivid NPCs, including
the enigmatic Susilano,
Joko Dauoud, the closeted (and blackmailed) gay doorman at the Porte D’Or,
Jonez, the younger (and non-misogynistic) silat Persatuan teacher at a local community gym,
Fredo the ex-prizefighter who is custodian at the aforesaid gym,
Juba Pinner, the survivor of the pair of collectors who collect the graft from the gym and the PC’s tech support’s workshop. (The PC outed her former partner to the racket, and the racket killed him)
Alan Adina, the most active member of the informal practical-pistol club that Juba shoots with on weekends, and most interested in building it up to the sort of practical shooting outfit that the PC would find useful in training. He seems to be cultivating her as an agent for use as an ace-in-the-hole, i.e. keeping his involvement with her compartmentalised from all his other activities.
But the PC has not done well at the non-operational adventuring. He has completely flubbed his attempt to get the Pinner crime family off the backs of his gym and tech support gal. The player does well at filling in the detail of an operation in contact with circumstances, and at dealing with unexpected contingencies on the fly, but he just doesn’t cut the mustard when he is presented with an objective and has to devise a strategy.
So we’ve decided to go back to operational adventures, in which Hunter will tell the PC what to do, and the PC will deal with the problems that crop up doing it.
What if I switch it around? What if it is the PC who is trying to frame the scientist, not her boyfriend? He goes to the Radiometric Methods Association conference but either cannot or will not talk his way into her room to plant incriminating material into her samsonite. Fallback: he swaps in an identical-looking samsonite for hers, but then someone else advertently or inadvertently does another swap. The PC then has to do two swaps to recover the rigged case and get it to the scientist.
The P’s org could be trying to frame the scientist or her employer. Or they could be using her as an unwitting mule, to smuggle something to an agent such as her husband or boyfriend.
Does “the PC . . . is trying to frame the scientist” translate as “the PC’s assigned mission is to frame the scientist”?
Is the PC going to have a way of tracking the two samsonites, and thus of knowing when the third samsonite gets swapped for the swapped one? Is the PC assigned to monitor the progress of the swapped in samsonite?
Is the PC going to have a way of tracking the two samsonites, and thus of knowing when the third samsonite gets swapped for the swapped one? Is the PC assigned to monitor the progress of the swapped in samsonite?
I hadn’t thought of it. Tracking devices and tracking signals are giveaways that secret operators are involved, which risks exposure. The PC’s org’s doctine is that the acme of skill is that no-one outside knows that anything has happened, or if they must notice that something has happened, they blame happenstance. But if they must be clear that they have been the victim of hostile action, they blame somebody specific other than a powerful and very mysterious secret organisation that not even the Imperial Secret Service suspects exists.
My plan was that the PC and his technician should open the samsonite that they ended up with (the original plan being, to extract the incriminating whatsit that the scientist’s contemptible boyfriend had planted in it) and find that it contained not the scientist’s personal effects, but e.g. contraband belonging to some organised-crime mule. And then work out that some smugglers somewhere must have a samsonite that contains material identifying the scientist.
But I’m open to other suggestions, including dumping this plan and trying something that I can work out right.
Okay. That seems reasonable. But then don’t you need some way for the PC to find out that the third samsonite has been swapped in and the mission has to be salvaged by undoing this?
Right. He has to end up with a samsonite that is not what he expected — e.g. does not contain the Po-210 that the scientist was unwittingly smuggling out or the sprytrons that she was unwittingly smuggling in — and perhaps hints that the people who have the scientist’s case really, really want their own back.
Suppose, for example, that he opens what ought to be the scientist’s suitcase and finds that instead of her manuscript, effects, and a box of sprytrons it contains, say, a statuette of a falcon with a coat of black enamel, done up in newspaper and string. Or, for example, a journal and set of ledgers for a criminal organisation. Or four kilos of HEDEX and a bunch of components for making detonation circuits. Or a disassembled sniper rifle and a dossier on the movements of a supreme court judge?
Hmm. I think you and I were assuming different sequences.
Let S be the scientist’s case; let F be the fake case the PC has to substitute for it; and let X be the extraneous case. From your description, I was assuming that we had S <=> F and then F <=> X, so that the PC ends up with S, the scientist with X, and the third party with F. From what you say now, it seems that you are assuming S <=> X and then F <=> X, so that the PC ends up with X, the scientist with F, and the third party with S.
On one hand, that makes the scenario make sense without having implanted tracking devices.
On the other hand, now the PC has two choices. They can track down the interloper, and do X <=> S, so that the PC has the crucial case, and the interloper has their own back. Then it seems that as far as the interloper knows, they have always had the right case, and if the scientist somehow tracks them down they will say so and can demonstrate that it’s not the scientist’s case. Alternatively, and probably more easily, they can watch the scientist till the scientist finds the interloper, and wants S back, and then the interloper says, No, that’s not my damned case! And at that point the scientist is aware that there’s a third party in the situation.
Either way it’s a glorious mess.
How good is the software? Can the scientist put in a request to get in touch with everyone who has a case of type n, and get a message forwarded to all of them, asking to meet the one who has the wrong case and swap back? and can the PC hack into that message and maybe do Man in the Middle somehow?
I’m open to any permutation, but I don’t want to start with the PC making an unforced error, because the PC is supposed to feel competent, and I don’t like the GM telling me that my character cocked up that I didn’t even get to roll for. So the sequence can’t begin with F⬄X. And we don’t want variations in which one case is never swapped, or with three or more swaps, or in which the first swap is reversed by the second. That leaves:
(F⬄S; X⬄F), i.e. the PC pulls his switch, but then the scientist and the mysterons muddle their cases or the mysterons pull a second switch
(X⬄S; F⬄S), i.e. the scientist and the mysterons muddle their cases or the mysterons pull a switch, and then the PC swaps the correct cases
(X⬄S; F⬄X), i.e. the scientist and the mysterons muddle their cases or the mysterons pull a switch and then the PC swaps the case that the scientist actually has.
These all effect rotations, of which there are two.
A = (X⬄S; F⬄X)
the scientist has F,
the mysterons have S,
the PC ends up with X.
B (the other two pairs of swaps)
the scientist has X,
the mysterons have F
the PC has S.
Either or those rotations can complicate four suggested missions:
The scientist is being used as a mule, the PC’s mission is to intercept the smuggle without her knowing. Then F is innocuous and S contains dangerous contraband. The scientist will open F or X when she arrives.
The scientist is being framed, and security has been tipped to search her luggage. The PC’s mission is to prevent her or her employer from getting into trouble. Then F is innocuous and S contains dangerous contraband, and the authorities will open F or X when the scientist passes security.
The PC’s mission is to use the scientist as an unwitting mule, to smuggle something to her husband or boyfriend. Then S is innocuous and F contains dangerous contraband; the scientist will open F or X on arriving home.
The PC’s mission is to frame the scientist and her employer. S is innocuous and F contains sprytrons. Security will stop the scientist and open S or X.
Supposing that no-one notices the swaps occurring.
1A
The scientist opens F, which seems a first glance to contain her effects. She takes a shower and changes, grabs her paper, and goes. The intended recipient comes to her room for the contraband, which isn’t there. The PC’s mission has succeeded.
• The mysterons open S, expecting to find their mcguffin. Instead they have a lot of personal effects, a scientific manuscript with the scientist’s name on it, and a stupendous fortune in radiological poison, which they might not even recognise. They go to the scientific conference to burgle the scientist’s room and get their mcguffin. But their mcguffin isn’t there. They may encounter the intended recipient of the contraband. They probably don’t notice that the effects in F are identical to those in S. They might kidnap the scientist.
The PC opens X, expecting to find a vial of Po-210 among the delicates, toiletries, scientific papers, and high-heeled shoes. Instead he has the mysterons’ mcguffin. If it identifies them he has the choice of going to their place or the scientist’s.
1B
The scientist opens X, expecting her effects and manuscript. Instead, she finds the mysterons’ mcguffin. She might send that to the police or to lost & found, but she is most intent on getting her manuscript in time for her presentation
• The mysterons open F, expecting to find the Maltese falcon. Instead they have a lot of personal effects and a scientific manuscript with the scientist’s name on it. They go to the scientific conference to burgle the scientist’s room and get their mcguffin, where they may encounter the intended recipient of the contraband in her luggage. If they don’t get the mcguffin the scientist tells them its with the police or in lost & found.
The PC opens S, which is what he expected. He takes the contraband and leaves. If he hears about the confusion above his best professional play is to have a quiet chuckle about the fact that this will certainly prevent anyone from figuring out that his org was involved. So unless he gets sentimental about the scientist, the adventure tanks.
2A
Security open F, fail to find what they were tipped off to, and let the scientist pass. She goes on to her room, and probably attributes any disorder of her packing to the search, at first. The PC’s mission has succeeded.
The mysterons open S, expecting to find their mcguffin. Instead they have a lot of personal effects, a scientific manuscript with the scientist’s name on it, and a stupendous fortune in radiological poison, which they might not even recognise. They go to the scientific conference to burgle the scientist’s room and get their mcguffin. But it isn’t there. They probably don’t notice that the effects in F are identical to those in S.
The PC opens X, expecting to secure a vial of Po-210. Instead he has the mysterons’ mcguffin. He has succeeded at his original mission, but now he has to secure the contraband. If the mcguffin identifies the mysterons he has the choice of going to their place or the scientist’s. Otherwise he has to chase the scientist, who might have been kidnapped.
2B
Security open X, and find the mysterons’ mcguffin, which might be of obvious law-enforcement significance. The scientist protests at the security screen that this is not her case.
The mysterons have F, but they have no reason to expect it to be interesting, and they aren’t going to come forward to swap it for X, nor do they want to be caught by it is security starts looking for the pair to X. They abandon it and disappear. If they have already passed the screen the evidence to implicate the scientist is lost, but if not security eventually find the abandoned S, and confront the scientist.
The PC has S as expected, but as far as he knows it could equally be F. If he has already passed the security screen he opens it and finds no contraband. If he hasn’t he must either be caught with it (which puts both him and the scientist in the soup) or abandon it — which leaves the scientist defamed when it is found.
3A
The scientist opens F, which seems a first glance to contain her effects. She takes a shower and changes, grabs her paper, and goes. The intended recipient goes to her room for the contraband.
• The mysterons open S, expecting to find their mcguffin. Instead they have a lot of personal effects, and a scientific manuscript with the scientist’s name on it. They go to her room to burgle or negotiate, and may encounter the intended recipient of the contraband. But their mcguffin isn’t there in any case. Nothing they have points them to the PC, but they might kidnap the scientist.
The PC delays opening X, because he doesn’t expect it to contain anything of interest, until he hears that the intended recipient didn’t get his shipment, or got killed by mysterons, and maybe that the scientist has been kidnapped. So he opens X. If the mcguffin identifies the mysterons he can go to their place, otherwise he can go to the scientist’s. But will he? The mission is a failure and probably can’t be recovered. Saving the scientist would be sentimental but not his problem. Nice mcguffin, though. Looks good on the mantelshelf.
3B
The scientist opens X, expecting her effects and manuscript. Instead, she finds the mysterons’ mcguffin. She might send that to the police or to lost & found, but she is most intent on getting her manuscript in time for her presentation.
The mysterons open F, expecting to find the Maltese falcon. Instead they have a lot of personal effects and a scientific manuscript with the scientist’s name on it, and a package of spy equipment. They go to the scientific conference to burgle the scientist’s room and get their mcguffin.
The PC delays opening S, because he doesn’t expect it to contain anything of interest, until he hears that the intended recipient didn’t get his shipment, or got killed by mysterons, and maybe that the scientist has been kidnapped. So he opens S, and finds what he expected. The mission seems to be a dull off-screen failure.
4A
Security open F, find what they were tipped off to, and arrest the scientist. That is what the PC expects.
The mysterons open S, expecting to find their mcguffin. Instead they have a lot of personal effects, and scientific manuscript identifying a scientist who is under arrest for terrorism.
The PC may abandon X, expecting it to be dull old S. But if he opens it, he finds a nice mcguffin.
4B
Security open X, and find the mysterons’ mcguffin, which might be of obvious law-enforcement significance. The scientist protests at the security screen that this is not her case. There is a security flap.
The mysterons have F, but they have no reason to expect it to be interesting, and they aren’t going to come forward to swap it for X, nor do they want to be caught by it is security starts looking for the pair to X. They abandon it and disappear. If they have already passed the screen the evidence to implicate the scientist is lost, but if not security eventually find the abandoned S, and confront the scientist.
The PC has S as expected, but can’t be sure that it isn’t F. His only way to succeed is if security find F but not S, which depends on the mysterons abandoning F in the airport (or where-ever) and the PC working out that he has to make S unrecognisable.
Is that all right?
If it is, then operations 3 and 4 do not lead to interesting adventures unless the PC blunders. 1B and 2B don’t work as adventures either. 2A (my original idea) works, but turns the muddle of the three samsonites into a complicated and improbable introduction to a straightforward recovery operation. 1A is workable. It, too, degenerates into a recovery operation, but with the interesting complication that the PC has the mcguffin and wants the contraband, while the mysterons have the contraband (and maybe the scientist) and want the mcguffin. If the mcguffin doesn’t identify the mysterons that’s workable.
I don’t know, though. Is it all too fussy? Too many working parts at the beginning that turn out not to matter? A core conflict that turns out to be not really about the mission?
I think that what we have here might be an idea for a story in which the PC is not the protagonist, or that is not an RPG adventure.
Maybe I’ve overlooked something there. If there’s a mix-up on a luggage carousel perhaps we can end up with a two-case swap. Nevertheless, no permutation is interesting in which the mysterons end up with case X, because then they don’t appear in the adventure at all. So we end up adding the possibilities
C in which the scientist ends up with S and the PC has effectively swapped F for X with the mysterons
D in which the PC ends up with F and the scientist has effectively swapped S for X with the mysterons.
1C isn’t a good start because the PC’s mission has failed and his professional play is to walk away with the mcguffin leaving the scientist in a mess with the mysterons.
1D looks possible. The PC opens F and thinks he’s failed outright, but if the scientist makes finding the mcguffin known the PC may still see a chance to get the contraband from the mysterons. S leads the mysterons to the scientist, and the PC can intercept them.
2C is an outright fail for the PC when security open S.
2D goes like 2B.
3C is a failure of the PC’s mission, with the possibility that the PC might have to recover the lost contraband, with his only lead being that the mysterons (who have it) will come for the scientist to get the mcguffin (which the PC has). It’s a bit like 1A except that the PC has failed and it trying to recover instead of having succeeded and having to clean up after.
3D is an irrecoverable failure of the PC’s mission, and his best play is to walk away from the scientist’s troubles with the mysterons.
Conceptually I like the A rotation, because it has the key twist scene for the PC (“the hard bit of the mission is done, I’ll just sort this out and go home,” [click] [click] “what the…?”) rather than for the scientist.
Then you have the PC thinking “OK, clearly another party is up to something” – also “there is a box of deadly poison out there which needs to be in safe hands, i.e. mine”.
As far as the missions go, 1 and 2 are more the sort I favour because they feel more like “good guy” things to do. So 1A and 2A are the models I’d be most likely to work on. More practically, this means that the mission has a metagoal of “leave the scientist in a fairly good place”, which effectively gives the PC authorisation to get involved in PC-ish shenanigans.
If the mysterons are at all sophisticated, they’ll know that they’ve got something valuable, which is probably more interesting than “twenty people die of radiation poisoning in criminal hangout”. (Though the latter has very probably happened; see GURPS Disasters: Meltdown and Fallout ) If they’re not the sort of people who can use it directly, they’ll probably try to sell it - criminals or spies, they all want operating funds.
I suspect what you may need to do next is nail down the mysterons and decide what their goal is: why did they plant X on the scientist, and what are they expecting to happen if everything works perfectly and there is no PC involved?
If I want the PC not to walk out on the scientist’s difficulties, then perhaps the best option is mission 2, in a version in which the plot is to discredit and incriminate her personally, and the PC’s org has for its usual mysterious reasons an interest in protecting her personally. The player won’t mind the mystery — the last adventure in this campaign that he really enjoyed involved a mission to go along on a hunt for sunken treasure and make sure that certain things supplied by Hunter were “found” among the rest, while incidentally making sure that the cabin boy came to no real harm.
There were pirates, a treacherous crew, a mutiny, a bluff and rather stupid but startlingly violent captain. The PC got to know what everyone was doing without anyone realising that he was doing anything, but he never got a hint as to why his org wanted to plant a set of fake Brazilian Imperial crown jewels in the hands of a treasure-hunting squire on Fureidis, or what was special about the cabin boy (apart from his being spectacularly good-looking). And the player is more than happy with that.
An interstellar very secret organisation that mysteriously wants to protect a good-looking teenager on Paraíso might just as well mysteriously want to protect an obscure but honest scientist on Persatuan.
On the other hand, the player has had the PCs massacre gangsters on Fureidis and murder a fall-guy on Navabharata to muddy the waters around his operations, and contrived (and took part in) an internecine round of purges in a neo-fascist party on Fureidis that left no-one alive above the rank of Truppführer.
Even if it’s not an official part of the mission, I assume that the secret masters don’t generally want innocents harmed. And if the PC is trying to find out where the poison went (A rotation), an obvious place to start is with the scientist. Which is also an obvious place for the mysterons to interfere.
Beginning with F<=>X does appear to be the fourth option, when I diagram it out. But I agree that it’s not a good one; there is no reason for the PC to make that swap intentionally, and I don’t like just declaring that the PC made a mistake.
(I suppose it’s possible that the Mysterons are the agents of that initial swap, grabbing the PC’s case when they meant to be grabbing the scientist’s case. But then I think the Mysterons are going to want to get the case back from the PC, not to swap their wrong case for the scientist’s case. I think that’s going to seem like an unnecessary and arbitrary complication.)
I don’t find the second of those easy to justify. It seems to require unreasonable omniscience on the part of the PC for them to know that the case they want is now in the hands of the Mysterons, and to go right to them as the new target.
The first one is perfectly possible, but if the PC has put the false case in the scientist’s hands, then on one hand they may not care what happens afterward as long as S is in their own hands, and on the other they have no obvious reason to continue monitoring the scientist and thus find out about the later swap.
The one that seems easy to justify is the one where the Mysterons get in first and muddle things up for the PC. That one ends up with XFS, and with the PC needing to find out who has S now and how to get it back.
I’m going to say that I think there are two basic branches here: The one where the goal is to get case F into the scientist’s hands, and the one where the goal is to get case S into the PC’s hands.
On the first branch, the PC has no particular reason to open up the case they get from the scientist. On the second branch, they’re going to do that as soon as they’re in a secure location, unless they have specific orders not to; and if they have such orders, they’ll never find out things went wrong until it’s too late and they’re being asked awkward questions back at HQ. I think you don’t want such orders to have been given, but I think it works better if you have the PC wanting to get something from the scientist, not to plant something on her.
If the design of the adventure requires it I can have all three cases put in the same cargo hold on an airliner or on the same luggage carousel. One of the swaps can be inadvertent, or take place while one of the cases is unattended.
Maybe the org has someone put a mark on S that is invisible to the naked eye, but that the PC can see with the UV cameras in his Visor. The mysterons, perhaps inadvertently, swap X for S at the baggage carousel in the arrivals lounge, and take S to the kerb. The PC spots the UV mark on S and puts up in his fake taxi, putting S into the boot beside F. When he delivers the mysterons to their destination he gives them F and makes off with S. The scientist has X.
On the other hand, in the second branch there is no real reason to create F. The PC can just steal S.
This is why I first thought of the scientist being framed by putting a nuclear material in her suitcase and tipping off security. The org wants an innocent case in her hands to present to security, but it also wants to make sure of the custody of a couple of milligrams of Po-210.
) If they’re not the sort of people who can use it directly, they’ll probably try to sell it - criminals or spies, they all want operating funds.