Wicked Words 7

Transcription

Wicked Words 7

#7
PLAY
DIRTY
Cheaters &
Consequences
ZHERO
A Tale from
Galaxy XXX!
VANCIAN
A Magic System for
All Games
THE INVERSE
LAW OF NINJAS
Not a Roleplaying
Game!
Logo by
Inga Indrašiūtė
Cover by
Paulius Zakarauskas
A MAGAZINE FOR THE DISCRIMINATING GAMER
MARCH 8, 2015
John wick Presents
Magazine
Welcome Aboard!
Hello and welcome to the seventh issue of Wicked Words
Magazine! Our goal (and by “our,” I mean, “my”) is to provide
players and game masters tools that enhance your gaming
experience. This issue has a whole ton of articles for your
perusal.
It’s February and that means Valentine’s Day!
Ugh. I hate Valentine’s Day. I don’t need a special holiday to
say “I love you.” Every day is Valentine’s Day around my house.
(And every day is March 14th, too.)
However, I have not allowed my resentful and justified hatred
of this heartless holiday to wreck and ruin my resolve! Instead,
I’ve compiled a whole ton of goodies for you!
First, our Play Dirty article this month tackles two—count
‘em two!—different, but related topics. We’ll talk about the
proper way to handle cheaters (one of the most common
questions I get) as well as adding significant consequences to
your game.
Next, I’ve got a little magical chocolate morsel called Vancian.
It’s a meta magic system for any game inspired by Jack Vance’s
overused trope. (Consider it a Jack Vance heartbreaker. Oh!
Another Valentine’s Day reference!)
And then... and then... the biggest heartbreaker of them all!
You’ve been waiting for it... you’ve been begging for it... (okay,
only one of you has been begging for it) but here it is! The
beginning of Santa Vaca! This is where I take the character sheet
from The Most Popular Roleplaying Game in the World and see if I
can make a... different game out of it. Yeah. You know what I’m
talking about.
Next, a little love letter to one of my favorite people. A long
time ago, I designed an RPG for The Legend Jessie Foster called
The Inverse Law of Ninjas. I revamped it a bit, polished it up and
now, it’s yours.
After that is a short story from Galaxy XXX called “Zhero.” I’ll
say nothing more.
Finally, another Little Game. This one a twist on an old
friend. Go check it out.
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MARCH 8, 2015
Play Dirty:
Cheaters & Consequences
You get two subjects this issue. First, a “trick” I’ve been doing forever. Not really a trick at all,
really. And not really an essay this time. More of a screed. Maybe a rant. Not sure.
Second, you get a little lesson in how the little things can change everything.
You can get your own copy of the collected columns (and bonus stuff) at DrivethruRPG:
http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/85816/Play-Dirty
Cheaters
Nearly every seminar at a game convention
turns into a GM advice seminar. This is an insight
provided to you and I by the undoubtable Robin
D. Laws. Every seminar at a game convention
inevitably turns into a GM advice seminar.
And, at every GM advice seminar, you get the
standard run of questions. One of the oldest–and
by now, most annoying–is this one:
“How do I handle cheaters?”
Now, I have a Play Dirty answer to this
question. It’s a devious, underhanded, ruthless
and merciless technique that I reserve for only the
most advanced GMs. Seriously. You need years of
training to handle this technique and it’s got to be
done with the upmost skill and confidence. Show
a single moment of weakness or hesitation and
you’ll screw this up. I mean it. You will screw this
up.
So, get your Big Boy Pants on. (Or your... uh...
Big Girl... uh... Skirt... nah, that’s sexist... um...
yeah... let’s just skip that euphemism, shall we?)
Okay, let’s try that again.
Advanced technique. Only really experienced
GMs should handle it. Could go horribly wrong.
Okay, got all that covered. The technique is...
Talk to them about it.
No. Really. I mean it. Sit down privately and
ask the question. “What’s wrong that you feel the
need to break the rules?” “Why do you lie about
dice rolls?” “Why are you lying about your skills?”
Generally, what I find are two kinds of players
who cheat. The first lot are people who like
cheating. Okay, there’s not a lot I can do about
that. Don’t do it again, and if you do, don’t let the
door hit you on the way out.
However, I find those folks are a minority.
The majority of players cheat because they feel
the mechanics in the game and on the character
sheet aren’t helping them tell the kind of story
they want to tell. Here’s what I mean.
From my own experience, I can say that most
cheaters lie about die rolls because the system
doesn't support the kind of character they want to
play and the kind of story they want to tell. In
other words, the player feels their character
should be better at something than the game
currently reflects.
If I’m playing a mad scientist and I want to
make crazy inventions, my character sheet should
reflect a level of competence with creating crazy
inventions. If that isn’t the case, I’ll cheat the
system to make sure my character is competent in
the fields I want.
Now, this could be the result of a few
problems. The first is that the player hasn’t built
their character to reflect those goals. In other
words, she should have put more points in Mad
Inventing. Fix that. Or, it could be the player is
misunderstanding the system and isn’t rolling
correctly. Either way, misunderstanding is the
problem and the player is cheating to compensate.
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There’s also the possibility that the system
doesn’t allow the kind of success the player
wants. Yeah, I know that sounds crazy, but some
game systems only allow helpless or fragile
characters who fail most of the time. You play a
victim or a character who never gets ahead. (Some
system designers openly admit the system is
against the players because it's supposed to be
"dark" and "bleeding edge.") The dice fail them
because the system is set up
for failure. They cheat because
they come to RPGs to be
heroes, not failures.
Competence isn’t the issue: the
game wants you to fail more
often than you succeed.
(I’m looking at you,
Apocalypse World and World of
Darkness.)
In this case, it may be the
character and story the player
has in mind just don’t mesh
with the game you’re running.
Either you haven’t successfully
communicated this element of the game or the
player doesn’t understand it. Again, this is a
problem that can be solved by communication.
Other players lie about die rolls because they
want to do something awesome and the system
only has mechanics for one kind of success and
multiple kinds of failures. Yeah, I know. Isn’t that
crazy? There’s only one kind of success but
multiple kinds of failures. Or, as some GMs call
them: “fumbles.”
This comes from an antiquated philosophy of
GMing. The Killer GM. The person who thinks
boss monsters are a good way to challenge
players. Make things super hard so they’ll feel like
they earned something.
This is the wrong way to think about
designing stories for your players. Yeah, I said it.
The wrong way.
Let me show you a better way.
Consequences
Recently, the folks over at the Worldspinner
Kickstarter (which you can find here) asked me to
contribute a world as a stretch goal. Part of
designing the world was also coming up with
quickstart story ideas.
MARCH 8, 2015
The world I came up with (which you can read
all about when the project is finished) I called
“Black Iron Throne.” Take a standard fantasy
world and then throw a few meteors at it. The
meteors are made up of an alien, magical material
the folks of this standard fantasy world call “black
iron.” It makes you really powerful, but also
makes you really evil. Corrupts you. All the big
players have black iron. If you want to keep up,
you need to use it, too. But if
you use too much of it...
It’s the standard “power
corrupts” theme, except I made
the intangible into the tangible.
There’s also addiction
metaphors running around and
a few other subjects most RPGs
won’t touch.
One of the stories I wrote up
involves a black iron meteor
falling in ork territory and three
groups race to get it. The first
group is a tribe of orks, the
second is a human warriorscholar and the third are our noble heroes. It’s a
simple race to the treasure. The orks have their
skills and abilities, the humans have theirs and
the players have their characters’ skills and other
advantages.
Now, you could stop there. You’ve got
everything you need for plot: three groups who all
want the same thing. That’s really all you need. A
conflict of interest equals plot.
But let’s spice things up a bit. Let’s throw in
something that really makes our story interesting.
For example, what if the ork tribe leader,
Fenfall Burack, needs the black iron because he’s
losing territory to other ork tribes who have black
iron? Fenfall’s been trying to hold off the other
tribes without using it because he knows what it
does: it turns orks into the kind of stupid,
bloodthirsty beasts that... well, that most RPGs
paint orks as. Fenfall’s been holding them off,
using clever strategies and tactics, but the black
iron magic is too much. His enemies are two feet
taller and stronger and faster and don’t feel pain.
What’s more, every ork he loses either dies or
becomes a slave to the other tribes.
And Fenfall’s surrounded on all sides. He
doesn’t want to use the black iron, but he has no
other choice. If he wants to protect his people, he
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needs the black iron. Otherwise, his tribe will
become extinct by the end of the year.
Meanwhile, Janatha Valuin, the human
warrior-scholar, wants the black iron because she
thinks she can devise a method of counting its
effects. She’s well aware of the evil, corruptive
influence of black iron. Janatha watched the best
minds of her generation destroyed by it. She
watched her mother turn from a brilliant and
generous instructor at the Wizards Academy into
a fiendish mastermind who tried to assassinate a
king. And it was Jantha’s own sword that finally
stopped her mother’s schemes.
She watched her father slowly succumb to its
corruption as he tried to stop Janatha’s mother
from falling into wretchedness and evil, finally
ending his own life rather than become a slave of
black iron.
MARCH 8, 2015
And why exactly is our heroes’ motive?
All I did was throw a sympathetic movie on the
antagonists and I’ve changed the whole story.
Now, getting to the black iron meteor first means
the death of an ork tribe. Getting it first means
Jantha may never discover a way to destroy black
iron.
The best villains are the ones who have causes
we can sympathize with. Doctor Doom wants to
get his mother’s soul out of Hell. Magneto wants
mutants to live in a world free of prejudice. Mister
Freeze wants to find a way to bring his wife out of
her cryogenic tomb.
Oh, and terrorists hate us for our freedom.
The choices your players make should have
real consequences. Meaningful choices matter. I
don’t care about which sword you use or what
Janatha needs the black iron for testing. If her kind of armor you wear, whether or not you bring
hypotheses are correct, she can not only cure
the ten foot pole or the ten flasks of oil. I don’t
black iron addiction, but destroy the substance,
care how many hit points you can deliver in one
hopefully eradicating it from the metaphysical
round. None of that matters to me.
ecology once and for all.
What your character can do is
These are the two parties competing to get the inconsequential. What he will do... now that’s
black iron meteor.
where we start getting into interesting territory.
Special Thanks to all of
you who helped with our
Play Dirty Kickstarter!
Both books should be
available on my
webstore by the
beginning of March,
2015. You can get them
in PDF/ePub and dead
tree versions.
PAGE 5
MARCH 8, 2015
Vancian:
A Magic System
A “universal” magic system utilizing the memes created by the master storyteller, Jack Vance.
About a half century ago, a man named Jack
Vance created a magic system for his Dying Earth
series. It’s been so influential, the term “Vancian”
has become a meme. Almost every RPG, TV show,
novel and movie that uses magic uses a Vancian
magic system.
Just the other day, I was in the shower (where
all great ideas happen) and I was thinking about
the Buffy: the Vampire Slayer TV show, how to
create a magic system that addressed the true
spirit of the Vancian system. That is, could I
create a system that players used to address plot
problems. It started off with a single skill:
Spellcraft.
Spellcraft
Spellcraft has five ranks of mastery. Each rank
gives you a die to roll for research and
spellcasting. Doesn’t matter what kind of dice you
use. When you roll an even, you get a success.
Characters use this skill when both using and
researching spells. What’s more, they also use it
when defining spells. Yeah, defining. Let me
explain.
When you make a Spellcraft roll, you always
roll five dice. You only get to keep a number of dice
equal to your Spellcraft skill. That is, if your
Spellcraft skill is 2, you roll five dice, but only two
of them count toward your total. You get to choose
which dice you keep, but you only get to keep a
number equal to your skill.
Defining Magic
Your players need a spell that turns vampires
human again. They ask, “Is there such a spell?”
Make a Spellcraft roll. If get at least one
success, the spell exists. If you get no successes,
the spell doesn’t exist. Or, at least, you don’t know
about it.
When the question arises, the player rolls a
number of dice equal to his Spellcraft skill. Even
one success means, “Yes, the spell exists.”
Additional successes allow you to alter the spell’s
elements: casting time, components, difficulty,
rarity and targets.
Spell Elements
Each spell has four elements. These make up
the details of the spell. All elements make casting
a spell difficult: casting time increases how long
you need to spend to cast the spell. Components
are the number of rare items you need to make
the spell work, etc.
When you make a Spellcraft roll, you can burn
successes to decrease casting time, components
and the rest.
For example, if you roll three successes, you
use the first to say, “Yes, the spell exists.” Then,
you have two more successes you can “burn” to
decrease the number of elements the spell
requires.
See each element for details.
PAGE 6
Casting Time
All spells require at least one hour to cast
properly. You can rush them, but doing so may
cause problems.
You can burn a success to minimize the
casting time of the spell by ten minutes.
Components
Each spell also needs components: eye of
newt, toe of frog, all that stuff. Most components
are not easily acquired (can you get a frog’s toe in
twenty-four hours?) and need a shopping run
before you can cast the spell.
Each spell requires component requires
twenty-four hours to acquire. Different folks can
make runs at the same time, but you need one
person for each component.
All spells require at least five components. The
first component is always the book or scroll
you’re reading the spell from.
You can use successes to lower the number of
components needed. Lowering the number of
components you need requires you burn one
success for each component you don’t need.
Difficulty
Once you’ve completed all the preparation for
casting the spell, it’s time to cast it. However,
altering the very fabric of the universe isn’t quite
like folding laundry. It requires complete
concentration, willpower and endurance.
All spells start with a difficulty of 1. That’s the
number of successes you need to cast the spell.
Roll your Spellcraft dice, count the successes. If
you get at least one success, the casting is also
successful.
You can voluntarily increase the difficulty of
the spell to decrease the number of elements you
need.
For example, you can increase a spell’s
difficulty from 1 to 2 and eliminate one rarity
element. Or, you can increase it from 1 to 3 and
eliminate one component and add 10 minutes of
casting time.
Rarity
Rarity indicates how many spellbooks carry
the spell you need. The higher the rarity, the more
rare the spell. (Duh). You can find the spell in
books that have an equal rank of rarity. To do
that, you need to find them in Libraries (see
below).
MARCH 8, 2015
Each spell begins with a rarity of 5. You can
lower the rarity of a spell by one rank per success
you choose to burn.
Targets
Each spell only targets one person, place or
thing. That person, place or thing may be you, a
house, a dagger or even someone else, but it’s just
one thing. You can increase the number of things
the spell targets by burning successes. Each
success you burn increases the number of targets
by one.
Casting the Spell
Once you finish casting, it’s time to see if your
spell is successful. Make a Spellcraft roll. Roll 5
dice Each spell has a difficulty of 1 (unless you’ve
voluntarily increased it). Make a Spellcraft roll. At
least one success means you’ve cast the spell
successfully. More successes get, the better.
That’s because you can use those successes for
additional experience. (See below.)
Experience
Every session you successfully cast a spell,
you gain a point of experience. For every
additional success you get when casting a spell
also counts as experience. Here’s how you can use
it.
Library
A library helps you research spells. It also
assists with the rarity element. Spending an
experience on a library gives you Library 1. This
means you roll one bonus die (roll, not keep) when
researching a spell. Also, you can use the rank of
the library to lower the rarity of a spell by the
library’s rank.
Increasing the rank of a library requires a
number of experience points equal to the rank you
want to increase the library to. In other words,
raising a library from zero to rank 1 requires one
experience. Raising it from rank 1 to rank 2
requires two experience.
Mastery
You can also use experience to master spells.
Memorizing means you can eliminate elements
from the casting. Every point of experience you
spend on a spell eliminates one group of elements
from its casting. For example, you can spend an
experience and eliminate rarity from the casting.
PAGE 7
MARCH 8, 2015
Santa Vaca:
Dangerous Ideas to Stab
Your Game in the Face
A while back, I had a notion... let’s finally flesh it out.
Introduction
You don’t want to read this.
I’ll take the heads off all your dolls and put
tinker toys in their place.
I’m serious. You really don’t.
I’ll switch the voice boxes on your G.I. Joes
and Barbies.
If you read these words, they’ll ruin your
game. You won’t look at it the same way ever
again. You’ll look at it like a husband or wife looks
I’ll take your Legos and some superglue and
at a spouse they know has cheated on them.
make laser sights and other accessories for your
superpowered squirtguns.
Some things, once you see them, you can’t
unsee them. This is one of those things.
If you tell me I can do whatever I want with
your toys, when you get them back, you won’t
recognize them.
Why are you still reading? You read the title,
didn’t you? What part of “dangerous” do you not
understand?
Like I said, most people see an OGL as
permission to write adventures and add on more
features. I see it in a completely different light. I
Maybe that’s just it. You don’t understand.
see it as permission to really screw things up.
Maybe you need someone to explain it to you. All
right. To save you some trouble, I’ll do that.
And that’s the point, isn’t it? That’s the whole
point. Experiment. Don’t just think outside the
When the guys at Wizards of the Coast
box; throw the damn thing out the window.
released The World’s Most Popular RPG under an
OGL, they gave license to other game designers.
They said, “Here are our toys! Come play with
***
them.”
The idea first came to me in the place where
Now, most folks see that and say to
all good ideas happen. I’m talking about the
themselves, “Hey, I could make a few new feats!”
shower.
or “Hey, I could make a new prestige class!” or
“Hey, I’ve got a few spells I could throw in there.”
For some reason or another, I was thinking,
“Could I change the core resolution system of The
I don’t see it that way at all. I see it as an
World’s Most Popular RPG without changing the
invitation to come in and mess things up. You
character sheet?”
want me to play with your toys? Fine.
PAGE 8
(Don’t ask me why I was thinking this. I
honestly could not give you an answer.)
The more I thought about it, the more I
realized, “Yes. Yes, I think I can.”
I jumped out of the shower, sat in front of my
computer and recorded my thoughts. When I was
done, I posted them on my Youtube channel. You
can even watch my wet hair slowly dry as the
video progresses.
It was a challenge that caught my imagination
and wouldn’t let go. Held on with the grip of a
maniac crocodile. Then, I started wondering,
“What else could I change without changing the
character sheet?”
Could I change alignment? “Yeah, I could.”
Could I change the magic system? “Yeah, I
could.”
Could I change… dare I think it?... combat?
After a short while, I said, “Yeah. I could.”
Not make them “better.” No, no, no. Change
them to something else. Change them to
something I was more willing to play. Make them
say something I wanted to say.
How much could I change without
changing the character sheet?
MARCH 8, 2015
World’s Most Popular RPG. If you ever played in
one of my games, these are the house rules I’d
make.
They change the game in fundamental ways.
You cannot play the game the same way if you
implement even one of these changes. The whole
game transforms. Takes on a different feel. It
means something different.
Also, each of the ideas is modular. That is, you
can take one of them and leave the rest. You could
use all of them if you like. (You’d be playing a very
different game, but maybe that’s the point.)
***
So, here’s your last warning.
Stop reading now.
Any further reading will damage you beyond
repair. Contaminate your mind with memes that
are not easily cleansed.
The ideas contained within are weapons.
Memetic weapons.
They are in your base, killing your memes.
Besides, sacred cows always make the best
steak.
That was the question I first
asked. And from that, I got some
ideas.
Dangerous ideas.
***
I feel it’s necessary to say this
again: I’m not “fixing” anything. Nor
do I think my ideas make The World’s
Most Popular RPG a “better” game.
But, as a game designer, I often putz
around with game systems after I get
done reading them. I fool around with
them more when I’m in the middle of
running them. I even think about
ways to change them when I’m not
running them.
These are ideas I’ve had while
reading, writing for and playing The
PAGE 9
MARCH 8, 2015
The First Dangerous Idea:
Ditching the d20
I have a notion.
Okay. So, we’re gonna ditch the d20. What do
we replace it with?
I was in the shower when the notion came to
me. A question, really. “Could I change the core
Let’s try a whole ton of d6s. In fact, one d6 for
resolution mechanic in d20 without changing the each +1 you have on your character sheet. What
character sheet?” In other words, could I ditch the happens when we try that?
d20?
Let’s find out.
The notion came to me because I don’t like the
d20. Why? Because it’s just too random.
Risk & Privilege
Pop quiz! What are the chances of rolling a 1
on a d20?
If you said, “five percent,” you are absolutely
correct.
Second pop quiz! What are the chances of
rolling a 20 on a d20?
If you said, “five percent,” again, you got it
right a second time.
The d20 is just too random for my tastes. It
swings up and down the scale from 1 to 20 with
the crazy abandon of a roller coaster without
breaks.
When it comes to rolling dice, I prefer bell
curves. And you only get bell curves when you roll
a lot of dice.
Also, I must confess, holding a handful of dice
and throwing them on the table, hearing them
clatter together… that’s just satisfying. Much
more satisfying to me than rolling a single die.
Rolling a single die feels more desperate to me.
Like things are out of my hands. When I roll a
whole bunch of dice, it feels more like they’re
working for me rather than against me. Many dice
is a gang of buddies working in my favor. They’re
my crew. But that single d20? He’s got it in for
me. He wants my character to fail. He’s The
Enemy.
Whenever your character takes a risk—an
important action that either changes the plot,
endangers a character or challenges a character’s
beliefs—you make a roll.
You’ll be rolling a number of d6s against a
standard target number of 10. Generally, this
target number does not change. In other words, it
does not increase for difficulty. This is an
important distinction from the way the game
usually works. We’re not changing the target
number based on difficulty. That’s because we’re
not rolling for success or failure… but we’ll get to
that point in a moment.
The target number is (almost) always 10. The
number of dice you roll depends on your abilities
and skills.
You gain a d6 for each +1 in the appropriate
ability. You also gain a d6 for each +1 you have in
a skill. This gives you a total number of dice to roll
against the target number (which is almost always
10).
Example
Your character is trying to jump from rooftop to
rooftop, running from guards of a jealous
husband. (How did you get in such a
situation? Use your imagination.) You use
strength as your ability. The appropriate skill
for this risk would be, of course, jump.
Your character has a +3 strength and a +3
jump. That gives you 6 dice to roll. When you
PAGE 10
MARCH 8, 2015
roll your dice, you get 5, 4, 4, 3, 2 and 2.
That’s a 20. You’ve beaten the target number!
fail? Well, because failure is sometimes more
interesting than success.
If you succeed in beating the target number,
you gain privilege. This means you can
describe how your character succeeded or
failed the risk.
Besides, I’m giving you another tool to use. A
tool that will allow you to add further details and
effects to your character’s actions.
That’s right. You describe your character’s
success or failure.
If you do not beat the target number, the
dungeon master gets to say how your
character succeeded or failed the risk.
Now, this may seem like a pretty radical
notion, but think of it this way. Under normal
operating conditions, when you fail a roll, the DM
gets to say what happens. He could say that your
character succeeded but got pushed back in some
way or he could say that your character failed but
moved forward anyway.
Let’s call them “wagers.”
Wagers
One of my biggest gripes with the d20 system
in general is how the “determining roll” (does my
character succeed or fail?) has nothing at all to do
with the effects that follow it. In other words,
success is binary. You either succeed or fail. The
only modifier to this is the critical hit rule. If you
roll a natural 20, you get a critical hit. But only in
combat!
(And, in some versions of d20, you only get a
critical if you “confirm the crit.” Nice way to kill
the moment, guys.)
When you get privilege, you get to say one
thing about the success or failure. You can add
It really doesn’t matter what you roll. A 4, a 6,
little dramatic flourishes, but privilege allows you a 19. Anything other than a 20 is just a plain old
—the player—to say only one thing about that
success. No degrees of success or failure.
success or failure. A single roll doesn’t make you
the DM; it just gives you the right to be the DM for
I don’t like that. So, I’m changing it.
a moment.
Now, some may think we should add the
The system hasn’t really changed all that
critical hit roll to actions other than combat. That
much. If you fail the roll, the DM still gets to say
isn’t enough for me. A 5% chance for a hero to
what happens—for better or worse. But now, if
make a critical hit? That’s too small. It’s also too
you succeed, you get to say what happens. You
random. Instead, let’s put the ability to make
become the DM for a moment and get to narrate
critical hits right in the players’ hands.
the scene.
Before you roll your d6s, consider your
Remember jumping from rooftop to rooftop?
chances of rolling a 10. Generally, you only need
Okay, so you’ve rolled a 2055. Because you rolled four d6s to make a ten. The average roll of each
10 or higher, you get to narrate the outcome of
d6 is around 3 (give or take; it’s actually 3.5, but
your character’s action. You decide that your
who’s counting?). That means you really only need
character makes it across the rooftop, slipping
four d6s to make a target number of 10. Three, if
slightly on the very edge, knocking some shingles you’re willing to take a 50%/50% risk.
down to the street below.
Look at the dice you’re rolling. If you think you
Or, you could decide your character misses
can afford it, set one or more dice aside. These are
the other side of the roof and now clings
your wagers.
desperately to the edge, his feet dangling over the
street far below.
A wager is a d6 you set aside before rolling.
Each wager you set aside can be used after the
Or, you could decide that your character
roll to add to the effect of your risk. In other
misses the other rooftop completely and is now
words, if you set aside wagers before a to hit roll,
plummeting to his doom.
you can use those dice as additional damage.
Why would you want to narrate such an
outcome? Why would you want your character to
PAGE 11
If you set those dice aside before a diplomacy
check, you can use each wager to move the initial
attitude closer to friendly.
If you set those dice aside before a craft check,
you can improve the quality of the item your
character makes.
But wagers can provide an additional bonus.
Remember how I said gaining privilege allows you,
the player, to say one thing about the outcome of
your risk? Well, each wager allows you to add a
detail to the outcome of a risk. In other words,
you get to add an “and…” to the narration of your
success or failure.
Remember jumping across the rooftop? Let’s
look at that roll again, but this time, let’s look at
using wagers in the example.
Example
Your character is trying to jump from rooftop to
rooftop, running from guards of a jealous
husband. You use strength as your ability. The
appropriate skill for this risk would be, of
course, jump.
MARCH 8, 2015
Your roll: 5, 4, 2 and 2. That gives you a roll of
13. That’s 10 or higher, so you get privilege.
You decide to say, “My character doesn’t make
it across the gap and begins falling toward the
ground.”
Each wager now allows you to add one detail
to the outcome of the risk.
First wager: “My character lands on a balcony
just under the rooftop.”
Second wager: “And the balcony is the bedroom
of a lady friend who wants to hide me from the
guards.”
You can use wagers to add elements to any
scene. Of course, these elements have to make
sense within the context of the scene. We’re not
going to use this rule to make ourselves look cool
at the expense of everyone else’s enjoyment.
In other words, we’re not going to abuse this
new rule so we can be wankers, right?
Right.
Your character has a +3 strength and a +3
jump. That gives you six dice to roll. You decide
to set aside two of your six dice for wagers.
PAGE 12
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Distribute.
MARCH 8, 2015
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PAGE 13
MARCH 8, 2015
Many years ago, I created a game for the Legend Jessie Foster. It’s been secret since then.
Not anymore.
What is the Inverse Law of Ninjas?
It’s a Law you already know but you don’t
know that you know it. Here it is.
process of the mission, you’ll lose ninjas. As you
do, each ninja who survives the mission gets a
little stronger.
He learns. He grows. He becomes ninja.
The number of ninja working in a group
increases, their individual effectiveness decreases.
Everyone knows it, but not everyone knows it
Put more simply: the more ninja there are, the
is a Law.
easier they are to defeat.
If a villain sends a whole scad of ninjas after
It is a rule everyone knows but not everyone
our hero, we know the hero will win. It’s when the
knows they know it. When they watch Star Wars,
villains sends just one ninja that we know our
when they watch The Princess Bride, when they
hero is screwed.
watch Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan… we all know
the drill.
If the villain sends a
horde of bad guys after our
hero… piece of cake.
It’s when the criminal
mastermind sends one guy—
just one guy—then we know
the hero is in deep trouble.
The Inverse Ninja Law.
The Law everybody knows.
This game is about that
Law. And it’s about ninjas.
You’ll be playing a whole
crew of ninjas. Thirty of
them. Your ninja master
sends your crew out on
missions—spying,
sabotaging, stealing,
assassinating—and in the
Photo credit: Flannol / Foter / CC BY-SA
PAGE 14
The Law manifests itself in nearly every genre
including (my favorite) the television show Firefly,
where an entire government cannot capture a
single girl, but a lone assassin quite nearly does.
MARCH 8, 2015
When all the dice have been allocated to skills,
your one ninja remains. The ninja badass. The
Master Ninja.
That’s the overview. Now, let’s see how this
I wrote this game for Jessie Foster. It was his
game actually works, step-by-step.
idea. Jessie is not a ninja. His t-shirt says so,
therefore, he is not a ninja. I told him once that I’d
make a roleplaying game about ninjas. He said, “It
should include the Inverse Law of Ninjas.” I told
him that was so brilliant, the entire game should
When you begin the game, every player should
be built on the Law alone. And so, here it is.
have a copy of the Ninja School sheet in front of
them. You will also need twenty four-sided dice for
each player. (You know, the ones that look like
I hope you enjoy it, Jessie.
caltrops.)
Or don’t enjoy it.
You can cheat by having tokens instead of
twenty d4’s, but I suggest having at least five.
Having more means less waiting around while
other people roll dice.
The whole premise is simple. A class of ninjas
You can also cheat by rolling different sided
begins their study with the Masters. They are
dice (d6, d8, d10), but having four-sided dice is
represented on your character sheet (the Ninja
really the best way to play The Inverse Law of
School Sheet) as twenty four-sided dice.
Ninjas.
Go ahead and put all twenty of those dice in
Each die or token represents a ninja-inthe middle of the character sheet. Each die
training, otherwise known as budoka. You use
represents one of the students (budoka) in the
these budoka to accomplish challenges during
school.
missions. I’ll show you how in a moment. First,
let’s look at the Ninja School Sheet.
Whenever your class goes on a mission, you
will run into challenges your team needs to
Notice that the center of the sheet says
overcome. You can allocate some of the dice to
“Meditation.” This is where all your budoka begin
particular challenges such as Climbing,
the game. Keep them there. Each of them is a
Weaponry, Disguise, etc. Then, you roll the dice.
bundle of deadly potential just waiting to be
Each die that rolls an even number counts as exploited.
a success. You can then narrate the outcome of
At the corner of the sheet are a number of
the action with each success. However, any dice
Training Rooms. Inside each of these Rooms, your
that do not roll successes are setbacks and the
budoka learn the tricks of the trade. The Training
Narrator can use those dice to narrate how your
Rooms are:
problems are complicated.
Also, each die that is a failure is removed from
your pool: a ninja who has lost his life or has
become so debilitated he cannot continue in the
mission. Naturally, he kills himself out of shame
and the ninja magic in his blood burns him into
cinders, leaving no evidence he was ever there.
Each success remains in the Skill area. That
is, if you roll five dice in Climbing and roll three
successes, two of those dice (the failures) go away
and the three successes remain. Now, whenever
you make another roll for a challenge in that skill,
the successes remain as automatic successes you
can use to narrate the outcome of the challenge.
• Weaponry
• Disguise
• Climbing
• Invisibility
• Hand-to-Hand
• Explosives
PAGE 15
This game has no single Game Master.
Instead, each player takes turns as the Game
Master for another player. It’s like a round robin
solo RPG.
Before you begin, you must determine your
Ninja Mission. Typical Missions include
assassination, infiltration, counter-espionage,
theft and other nasty business. Use the Mission
Table to determine the nature of the Ninja
Mission.
Ninja Mission Chart
First Roll
Second Roll
1. Sabotage
1. The Daimyo
2. Spy On
2. The Temple
3. Assassinate
3. A Rival Ninja Clan
4. Steal From
4. The Shogun
Each player rolls on the Mission Table. Roll
once for each column. This establishes the basics
of the Mission. Then, each player looks across the
table and plays the role of that player’s Master. In
other words, you roll on the table twice, then
speak to the player across the table as if you were
the Ninja Master on his sheet.
The Ninja Crew have no names. They are only
Ninja. The Master gives them a Mission and sends
them on their way. The Master also fills in the
details of the Mission. Which Daimyo? Which
Temple? What do they steal? These things are
made up by the Ninja Master.
Now, look at the sheet again. Do you see on
the left side it has an arrow and the word
“Enemies?” And on the right side is a similar
arrow and the word “Allies?” During your Mission,
the player sitting to your left plays all the Enemies
and the player on the right side plays all your
Allies.
(I learned this trick from an incredible game
called Polaris, written by Ben Lehman. You should
check it out.)
MARCH 8, 2015
As your Ninjas go through their Mission, you
roll dice to determine their success and failure.
But you only roll for an action that is particularly
risky. Because of that, we call these dice rolls
“risks.”
Whenever your Ninjas must make a risk, you
must send at least one Ninja to make that risk.
Yes, that means sending one of your Ninjas to a
possible death. Every Ninja you send to the risk is
one d4. You may send as many as four Ninjas
(4d4) to accomplish a risk, but no more than four.
If you send more than four, they become too
conspicuous.
When you make a risk, roll one d4 for each
Ninja you send. Move those Ninjas to the area of
your character sheet that best represents the kind
of risk your Ninjas are trying to overcome. These
are your Ninja Skills: the kinds of dangerous
activities Ninjas undertake.
Types Of Risk
Assassination: Murdering another human
being
Espionage: Gathering information on an
enemy (or ally)
Impersonation: Pretending to be someone you
are not
Sabotage: Blowing up walls, knocking down
gates, poisoning sake works
Stealth: Moving around without being seen
Theft: Taking objects that should belong to
your Ninja Clan
Remember: each die you send represents one
of your Ninja. A Ninja Team working together to
accomplish your goal. What you’re looking for are
even numbers. The 2 or the 4. If you get at least
one of those numbers on the dice you roll, you will
gain some amount of success.
Any dice that roll evens are survivors.
Any dice that roll odds are failures.
After the roll, ditch any failures. Just throw
them away. They are dead ninjas. They’ve
PAGE 16
disintegrated and leave nothing behind. They also
leave you with less dice to roll for future risks.
Any survivors, on the other hand, get put into
the Training Room that’s appropriate to the risk.
If your ninja were climbing a wall, put your
survivors in the Climbing Training Room. If you
were using weapons, put your survivors in the
Weaponry Training Room.
MARCH 8, 2015
Your opponent/GM/Enemy/Ally can use a
complication to kill one of the Ninjas on the Team.
“Yes, and one of your Ninjas falls on his own
poison needle and dies.”
Fortunately, all dead Ninjas disintegrate into a
pile of smelly dust.
Meanwhile, while you are rolling dice, the GM,
your Enemy or your Ally roll a number of dice
based on the difficulty of the risk. Use the Risk
Difficulty Chart below. Your GM is looking for odd
numbers instead of evens.
Whenever one of your Ninjas succeeds on a
Mission, move that Ninja (d4/token) to one of the
Ninja Skills.
Risk Difficulty Chart
Now, when you use that Skill, you may roll an
additional die, regardless of how many Ninjas you
send on a Mission.
Difficulty
# of d4s
Easy
1d4
Hard
2d4
Very Hard
3d4
Impossible for Anyone but a
Ninja
4d4
Your opponent can only kill a number of
Ninjas up to the number of Ninjas you send on a
Mission. If you have two bonus dice for a Skill and
you send three Ninjas (a total of five dice), your
opponent can still only kill up to three Ninjas, not
five.
Any action vs. Pirates
+1d4
In other words, your opponent can only kill
Ninja, not dice.
If you roll at least one even number, you
succeed in your task. You can say what happens.
Unfortunately, each odd number your opponent
rolls counts as a complication. He can add a onesentence modifier to your own description.
Trade off modifying the outcome of the risk.
Always start with the Ninja Team. They get to say
whether or not the risk succeeded or failed. (Yes,
you can roll evens and say that your Team failed.
It’s entirely up to you.) Then, your opponent adds
one element to that success or failure, using one
of his “complication” (odd numbered rolls).
Those that survive grow stronger.
At the end of the Mission, mark down how
many dice are in each Skill. From now on, you
always roll at least that many bonus dice when
you take a risk. But you still must always send at
least one Ninja.
As your Ninjas die, your remaining Ninjas
grow stronger, honing their Skills, becoming true
Ninjas.
Eventually, your Ninja Crew will be whittled
down to a single Ninja. This survivor becomes a
Master Ninja…
Trade back and forth between successes and
complications. And once someone says something
is true (“You drop your ninjato,”) you cannot use a
Fill out a new sheet, put your new Master’s
complication or success to simply say, “No, I
name
on that sheet and give him thirty new Ninjas
don’t.” If a complication or success say something
to
train.
is true, it’s true. You have to say “Yes, but…” or
“Yes, and…”
This is the Inverse Ninja Law.
For more information, consult your local
improvisational actor squad. Or Paul Tevis.
PAGE 17
MARCH 8, 2015
e
A Tale From Galaxy XXX
What does Galaxy XXX look like?
Here’s a little tale to give you an idea.
The last thing I remembered was the injection.
I was lying down in the Lazarus Chamber when
the needle went into my arm. The doctor told me
to count down from ten. I may have made it to
eight. I was always a lightweight.
The next thing I remember is a beautiful face
looking down at me, her hair neon strands of
shimmering crimson and blue, shifting like a
pulsing sunset. Her eyes blinked and her lips
smiled.
“He’s alive,” she said.
I couldn’t move. I looked up at her and tried to
speak. She shook her head.
“No,” she said. “Don’t. You’ve been out for a
long time.”
They put me in the Lazarus Chamber on
August 22, 2142. I wanted to ask what the date
was.
She said, “You’ve been out for almost three
thousand years.”
I had a clear view of the room. As she stepped
away from me, I saw her almost amber skin in the
blazing light. She wore a skin-tight, silver outfit
that would have been called a bikini a few
thousand years ago. High, leather boots and black
gloves. She carried no weapons that I could see,
and trust me, I could see just about everything.
I was still in the room where I went to sleep
and a billowing pillar of smoke stood where the
locked door used to be. Someone must have blown
it from the outside. She stood between me and the
door. I have to admit, I couldn’t help but
appreciate the view.
A figure stepped through the door. He was tall
and dressed in a red, skin-tight leather body suit.
I could not see his face: it was covered in a mask.
As he stepped through the smoke, five others did
as well. They were dressed in the same color, but
in different costumes.
Yes, they looked like costumes.
And they all carried what looked to be
weapons. Except for the big guy. Like the woman,
he carried no weapon at all.
“So, Valeria Vex,” he said through his mask.
“We
meet again.”
Despite my blurry, confused brain, I mumbled,
“You read my mind.”
I had to blink. I felt my lips trying to curl into
a smile, but they failed. What was happening?
Then, she winked at me, put her finger over
Was I dreaming?
my lips and said, “Shh. I told you to keep quiet.”
Then, an explosion blew that shimmering hair
over her eyes and she said, “Stay still. This won’t
take long.”
The woman put her hands on her hips. “Lord
Roland,” she said. “You’re a little late.” She threw
a thumb over her shoulder, pointing at me. “This
is my find.”
I wasn’t going anywhere, so I had no
objections. The Lazarus Chamber was vertical, so
PAGE 18
MARCH 8, 2015
The man in the crimson mask—I can’t believe I
Then, they threw their arms around each
actually thought that—laughed. “You may have
other and landed the most vicious kiss I had ever
found him, but I’m taking him back.”
seen.
From behind her, I could hear the laughter in
They spun about, surrounded by silver and
her voice. “You’ll have to get through me first,” she crimson fire. She wrapped her legs around him,
said.
he put his hands in her hair. Her back arched and
his fingers found that strap I was thinking about a
moment ago. Apparently, he had the same plan.
I wondered how she was going to fight off six
guys. Five of them had weapons. But somehow I
knew, without knowing why, that the guy in the
Their bodies moved in syncopation, that fire
mask was far more dangerous than the others.
spinning around them, ripping their clothes from
their bodies, throwing garments to the floor.
Sometimes, the fire was more silver than red and
“Very well,” he said. Then, he raised a hand.
sometimes, it was more red than silver.
“Dispatch her.”
That’s when it happened.
I felt a wave of sensation through my body
that almost made me buckle. Every nerve ending
suddenly stood up. Stood at attention. Yeah,
you’re getting the point.
My eyes focused on her left shoulder. A thin
strap of silver over her skin. I wanted to reach
forward and slide a single finger under that strap
and peel it down, put my lips on her skin and pull
my body against hers. Feel every curve of her.
Taste that thin layer of sweat on my tongue. Pull
her back against my chest and...
... I blinked. And I saw the five men with guns
on the floor, their bodies trembling.
And she stood there, just within reach. If only
I could command my body to move. Don’t get me
wrong, parts of me were moving, but not because
of any conscious command I made.
The man in the crimson mask looked to the
left, then looked to the right.
“Impressive,” he said.
She used a word I’d never heard before, but
would hear a lot of in the future. “I am a henta
adept,” she said. “And it is a mistake to
underestimate me.”
He laughed. “I know,” he said. Then, he
removed his helmet, throwing it to the floor. “As
am I.” He said, “Challenge.”
She smiled. “Accepted.”
It was a battle with rules only the combatants
could understand.
At one point, I thought he had her. The silver
fire was only thin strands, nearly devoured by
crimson. I heard her voice aching as the back of
her head touched the floor. But that didn’t last
long. She fought her way back, the silver
enveloping the red, and he was on his back, his
body bucking desperately.
It ended with an explosion of energy and my
still-numb body trembled. Lord Roland’s body lost
all strength and collapsed on the floor. She
paused for a moment, still straddling him. Then,
she took a deep breath and stood.
She was naked. She walked across the room
back to the Lazarus Chamber.
“You okay?” she asked.
“I...” was all I could manage.
She nodded. “I understand,” she said. “All this
must be very strange.”
I nodded, unable to speak.
“Let’s get out of here,” she said. Then, she
walked back to where her silver suit had fallen.
She picked it up and slid back into it. When she
was done pulling her boots on, she stood and
walked over to me.
“When I get you back to my ship, I’ll explain,”
she said. “But until then, just keep calm. I’ll
protect you.” Then, she squeezed her forefinger
and thumb together. I saw a glimmer of light
under her skin. “I’ve got him,” she said.
PAGE 19
I heard another voice say, “Great! Can you get
him to the ship?”
She said, “On our way.” She let go of the grip
and the light under her skin faded away. Then,
she turned her attention back to me.
I managed a weak, “Why?”
She smiled.
“I’m Valeria Vex,” she said. “Captain of Team
Vexed Angel.” She reached forward and picked up
my entire weight with one wave of her hand. I
floated in mid-air, my body seemingly weightless.
“And you, Mr. Andrew Anson of the TwentySecond Century, are worth five thousand points.”
Two thousand years ago, my ship—the Quatro
—left Earth’s orbit with me in deep sleep. As she
moved me through its halls, I saw other signs of
battle. At least, I saw casualties. At least, they
looked like casualties. But I didn’t see any
wounds. Just bodies lying still on the floor.
As I looked closer, I saw all of them still
breathing. Unconscious, I supposed. I
remembered what I saw a moment before.
She moved me to the airlock. We passed
through into another ship. The shift in technology
was swift and startling. The walls were like digital
rainbows. The whole ship pulsed. I felt no familiar
hum of engines.
She lowered me on a table that my skin dimly
felt.
“Diagnostic,” she said.
A three dimensional hologram appeared above
me. Another voice said, “Scanning.”
She touched my head. “Don’t worry,” she said.
“We’ll get you back up and walking in no time.”
Her fingers lingered in my hair. Echoes of the
moments from before were still in my blood.
The other voice said, “Nervous system intact.
Re-activating.”
My body suddenly snapped awake and I felt
every inch of me tense up and squeeze.
MARCH 8, 2015
“Welcome back,” she said. “To the land of the
living.”
A familiar voice said, “Is that him?”
I turned my head and saw something that was
not human enter the room. It was bipedal, it had
arms and legs and a head and a face, but it was
not human. It stood on the other side of the table
from Valeria.
She nodded. “This is him.”
The alien stepped up to the table. “Is he
repairable?” it asked.
She nodded again. “He is.”
The alien made what looked like a smile. It
reached over me and touched her face. “Good
girl,” it said.
She kissed one of his digits. I felt my mouth
drop open.
“How soon until we can get back home?” she
asked.
The alien said, “Xixix is on it.” Then, it
withdrew its hand and looked down at me.
“Hello, Mister Anson,” it said. “I am Doctor
Nilthus.”
I couldn’t tell for sure, but I thought the alien
might be male. Seemed male. I nodded. “Hi,” I
said.
“If you don’t mind,” Nilthus said, “I’d like to
see if you can sit up.”
I nodded and looked at Valeria. She said, “Let
me help you.”
I put my palms against the table and pushed
with my arms. It was hard, but I got myself into a
sitting position. I have to admit, Valeria helping
me didn’t hurt.
Nilthus nodded. “Good, good,” he said. “Now,
let’s see if you can stand.”
That took a little more work, but after a
minute or two, I was on my feet. The bare skin of
my soles on the deck of the ship felt warm.
PAGE 20
We tried walking next. That was a bit more
trouble, but my body eventually remembered.
The third voice said, “We’re clear of red
territory. Hitting the Eris Portal in two.”
I had been walking for a little while, but then I
stopped. I looked at Valeria and Nilthus.
“How do you all speak English?” I asked.
They looked at each other. Then, Valeria
asked, “We’ve altered your anatomy a bit.”
I just stood there. “You did... what?”
Nilthus said, “Nanobots. A few billion of them.
We injected them to save your life.” He smiled.
“You’ve been asleep for a very long time.”
“Holy crap,” I said.
She waved a finger at me, smiling. “Watch
your language.”
I shook my head. “How?” I asked.
She laughed.
MARCH 8, 2015
“It’s software. Downloaded into our brains
when we’re still in utero.” She finished the piece
and swallowed it. “Just one of many.”
I took a sip of the hot drink. It washed over my
tongue and I closed my eyes, just relishing the
taste. “I can’t believe how delicious everything is.”
She laughed. This time, with her lips. “I can
only imagine,” she said.
I had waited long enough. I had to know. The
question had been burning in the front of my
head long enough. “What... uh... what did you...”
“I’m a henta,” she said.
I nodded. “I heard that,” I said. “What does it
mean?”
She raised an eyebrow at me. Then, she said,
“Since you were asleep, technology has advanced
quite a bit.”
I said, “I can see.”
“The same technology that allows me to
communicate with you also allows me to
communicate with your body.” She paused. “I can
access every nerve center and... stimulate it.”
The Doctor nodded at me. “We’re not exactly
sure how your 22nd Century anatomy would react
She waved a finger at me and I felt it caress
to our technology,” he said. “But we had little
my
cheek.
choice. It was inject the nanotech or watch you
die. Thus, the upgrade to your biology.”
“See?” she asked.
“Upgrade… my biology?” I asked.
I nodded. “Yes,” I said. Then, I asked, “So...
you... stimulated those men into
She smiled. “Welcome to the 42nd Century,”
unconsciousness?”
she said.
Later, I had some food inside me and a hot
drink in my hand. She was sitting with me, her
boots up on the table, long legs stretched out.
“Telepathy has been available for about a
thousand years,” she said.
“Seems like magic,” I told her.
She shook her head. “No, not magic. A
technological advance.” She picked up something
off my plate and put it to her lips. Those lips. She
chewed while she talked to me.
“Yes,” she said. “In a matter of speaking.”
I ate another bite, thinking. “And Lord
Roland?” I asked.
“He is a henta, as well,” she said.
“So...” I paused. “You two were...?”
“Fighting,” she said.
I almost laughed. “It looked a whole lot like
something else.”
She smiled. “It was both,” she said. “A henta
duel.”
PAGE 21
I remembered the whole experience again.
Then, I asked, “Why didn’t I pass out?”
“Because,” she said, “your body does not have
the same... software... as theirs.” She moved her
hand and I felt it on my chest. “I can still use my
skills on you...” I felt that hand slip lower. “They
just aren’t as... effective.”
I took a breath and then took a chance.
“That’s a shame,” I said, sipping my drink.
“It means you can defend yourself against a
henta attack,” she said, letting her touch fade
from my skin. “With the proper training.” She
winked at me. “Most cannot.”
“Good thing I know a henta,” I said. I dared a
wink.
She smiled. “Good thing.”
Just then, Doctor Nilthus walked into the
galley. Just as I was making ground.
“We’ve made it through the Eris Gate,” he said.
“We’re home free.”
She jumped up from the chair and into his
arms. She kissed his cheek. “Five thousand
points!” she said.
MARCH 8, 2015
Doctor Nilthus told me, “There came a point
where all the races decided to outlaw war and use
the technology of the Ancients for our mutual
advantage.”
She said, “The Ancients are why we’re all
where we are.”
“They left behind technology for us to find,” he
said. “Uplifted all of us so we would find it around
the same time.”
“Anyway,” Valeria said, “since we outlawed
war, the Game started up. Anybody can play. You
choose to be a hero and you start earning points.”
“Hold on,” I told them, raising my hands. “I
don’t understand this.” I asked, “What do you
mean by ‘Game?’”
Valeria sat back down, her hip against my hip.
“Here,” she said, reaching out and touching
my face with both hands. “Let me show you...”
She was born on Abraxas 3 and grew up with
her fosters who had personalities that would
compliment her own, ensuring a healthy and
happy family. Her mother was a historian and her
father was a scientist.
I raised a hand. “Points?” I asked.
By the time she was fourteen, she showed
They both looked at me. Doctor Nilthus turned great promise as a psychologist and was eager to
begin advanced studies. But all the while, she
to look at her, still holding her in his arms. “You
watched the Great Game from Galaxy X.
haven’t explained the Game?” he asked.
“It’s been slow going,” she said. “He is two
thousand years behind, after all.”
“Very well,” the Doctor said. “I suppose I could
assist.”
I was hoping to keep this between Valeria and
me but I suspected I’d be getting more alone time
later.
I was right.
Meanwhile, the way they explained it was like
this.
“There was a war,” Valeria said. “A big, brutal,
bloody war. And it nearly wiped out everybody.”
She saw heroes and villains playing the Game,
earning points, developing rivalries. She saw
heroic escapes, epic duels, romance and betrayal.
And she knew, when she was old enough, she
could sign up for the Game, too. Because she was
showing more than just potential to be a great
scientist one day. She also showed potential to
become a henta.
One day, her mother told her that if she
wanted, she could apply to the Henta Academy. “It
won’t be easy,” her mother told her.
Her father drove her in the aircar to the
Academy test. He hugged her as she left. “I’ll be
proud of you, no matter what,” he told her.
The tests were hard, but she passed them and
the Academy accepted her application. She
PAGE 22
MARCH 8, 2015
trained for four years until she was eighteen. She
could have gone further, but the Great Game
awaited her.
Game, cheering for their heroes and cursing their
rivals. It was gladiatorial combat... but with no
bloodshed.
She put in her application for the Game and
waited. They responded in two months. She
signed the agreement to participate: observation
and broadcast at all times. Every galaxy would be
watching her. She would leave her family and
friends behind to reside within the Game’s
boundaries: the famous Galaxy X.
The guns those men carried into the Lazarus
Chamber could not have killed anyone. If one of
them pointed that weapon at me and squeezed the
trigger, my nerves would have been overloaded
with a kind of pleasure I would never imagined
possible until Valeria awoke me. She had been hit
with those guns. I knew the sensations they sent
through her body. But her henta training allowed
her to control it.
I felt the rules wash over me like I had learned
them myself.
No lethal weapons allowed.
And I knew the kind of power she felt when
she was locked in a henta duel. Power and
weakness.
No murder.
It was... it was...
Constant surveillance and broadcast to other
galaxies.
Every participant must be a member of an
authorized team.
Teams competed with other teams for points.
Slowly, I began to understand what this Game
was. My first impression was, this is
entertainment. But then, I began to understand
how Valeria understood it.
I felt her love for the heroes and their rivals.
Her home planet sponsored a team—the
Abraxasian Archons—and she had banners and
pendants and clothing. She knew the stories of
their defeats and victories.
Her favorite was Salera Synn: a henta from
her own colony on Abraxas 3. I felt her excitement
as she watched Synn battle against Borivir Tavu
from the Hades Shadows. The two were the
fiercest rivals, trading victories and defeats for
years. And I felt Valeria’s heart sink into her heels
when Synn betrayed her teammates and joined
Borivir and his Hades Shadows...
Suddenly, the contact ceased. I was in the
mess hall, Valeria’s fingers still touching my skin.
I felt like I had just awoken and could not yet
move. My body was still asleep.
The Game. Galaxy XXX. I understood it now.
More than just entertainment. They were fulfilling
a public service. A thousand galaxies watched the
I saw her smile. “Yes,” she said.
Doctor Nilthus nodded. “I think he
understands.”
All of it swept over me. I could be a hero. A
hero to billions. Or a villain. I looked at Valeria. I
could be her villain.
“Yes,” she said. “You could.” Her smile didn’t
blemish. “And your unique physical attributes
would make you a quite remarkable adversary.”
I sat there for a moment, letting it all sink in.
Then, finally, I nodded. “What do I have to do
to play?”
“Besides the paperwork,” the Doctor said, “the
first thing you have to do is pick a side.”
I looked at Valeria. She looked back at me.
on.
Her smile told me she knew which side I was
That’s when the whole ship lurched to the
side, throwing all of us to the floor. I slid across
the slick surface, hitting the large table in the
center of the mess.
“What was that?” I asked.
The voice on the intercom answered me. “We’re
under attack! Get to battle stations!”
PAGE 23
Valeria shouted, “How did they sneak up on
us?”
“Cloaking device,” the intercom voice said.
“Veshna nay!” Valeria cursed. “We need a
better radar!”
All of them jumped to their feet and ran in
different directions. I just stood there, feeling like
an idiot.
MARCH 8, 2015
I banked and pulled up. “Aren’t you?” I asked.
Somehow, the octopus shook its head. Don’t
ask me how, it just did. “No,” he said. “I’m the
navigator.” One of the little red dots exploded on
the screen. “That would be our Valeria,” he said.
“Excellent shot.”
“Where’s the pilot?” I asked.
The octopus smiled. Again, don’t ask me how.
He said, “We haven’t had a pilot he left two weeks
“What can I do?” I said to nobody in particular. ago.” He laughed. “Good luck finding you, huh?”
“Go down that corridor behind you,” the voice
on the intercom said. “Take your first left, then
climb the ladder up.”
The ship shook again. I wasn’t paying enough
attention. A voice spoke to me. It was Valeria.
“Keep it up,” she said. “We can’t let them hit the
engines.”
I did what I was told. In the middle of the
corridor, we got hit by another blast. I caught
myself on the wall and regained my balance.
I pulled the joystick, turning it as I did. “Why
are they trying to kill us?” I asked.
When I got to the ladder, I pulled myself up.
There, in a tiny cabin, were two chairs. In one of
them was something that looked like an octopus.
It’s tentacles stretched out across multiple
controls, holding what looked like a joystick.
“Sit down,” the octopus said.
I did. “What can I do?” I asked.
He said, “I hear you’re a pilot.”
I nodded. “I am.”
The octopus looked at me with one of its large
eyes. “Good,” it said. One of its tentacles pointed
at the joystick in front of me. “Give me some space
between us and those fighters.”
I looked up and saw a holographic display in
front of me. Little red dots flying around a larger
blue dot.
“Got it,” I said. “Thrust? Pitch?”
His tentacle pointed them out to me. “Here
and here,” he said.
The moment I knew those two, I could make
sense of the rest. I took hold of the joystick. “Here
we go,” I said. Then, I sent us into a dive.
The octopus grabbed hold of his seat and
started laughing. It was more like a chortle: a
deep, wet sound. “You’re a pilot, all right,” he said.
“They aren’t,” the octopus said. “They’re trying
to disable us. So they can board.”
I didn’t like the sound of that. I put us in
another dive and banked to the right. We missed
another shot, but I heard is screaming across the
hull.
“Well done, my boy!” Doctor Nilthus said to
me. I had no idea how they were all talking to me.
It wasn’t through an intercom. It was... oh, that’s
right.
“Yes,” the octopus said. “You’ve got it.” He hit a
couple of controls. “My name, by the way, is
Xixix.”
“I’ll shake your... hand,” I said, “when I’m not
trying to keep us from blowing apart.”
Just then, another red blip appeared on the
holographic display. It was much bigger than the
other red blips. Much bigger than our blue one.
“What is that?” I asked.
“Working on it,” Xixix said. His tentacles
focused the part of the screen on the blip. I saw
letters on the screen I didn’t recognize.
“Is it...?” Valeria asked.
Xixix nodded. “It is,” he said.
“Tanalana!” she shouted.
PAGE 24
“Who is it?” I asked.
Valeria didn’t say anything. The octopus
looked at me, a hint of fear in his eyes. “It’s Baron
Zehro.”
The way Valeria responded to that name—or,
more accurately, the way she didn’t respond—told
me enough.
After a moment that seemed like an hour, she
spoke in a calm, cool voice. “Get us out of here,”
she said.
Xixix seemed to nod. “Activating AZtech
Drives.” Then, he looked at us. “Better go strap
yourselves in.”
Valeria grabbed me and pulled me back into
the ship.
“What’s an Aztec Drive?” I asked.
“Shut up,” she said, her voice as serious as
murder. She shoved me into a chair and started
strapping me in.
That’s when the ship shuddered, slipped up
and threw her against the wall.
“We’re hit!” Xixix shouted from down the
corridor.
I saw Valeria bounce from the wall to the floor
again, hitting hard on her knee. She almost
bounced a foot up off the ground. She grabbed it,
hissing air between her teeth and I was reminded
of my high school buddy James who popped his
knee cap out during football practice in high
school.
I put my hands on the straps, trying to get
them undone, watching her writhe in pain. But
then, she stretched the leg out, her hands still on
the knee. It should have been swelling up, but
instead, she got back to her feet. She was still
wincing and had a small limp.
She came back to the chair. “Stay,” she said.
“What the Hell just happened?” I asked.
She sat down beside me and started pulling
straps over her shoulders. “Nanos,” she said. “Not
a problem.”
MARCH 8, 2015
Nanos, I thought. “You mean nanotech? You
guys have nanotech?”
She nodded. “For a few centuries,” she said.
Then, she looked at me. “Weren’t you playing with
them before you left Earth?”
“Yeah, but…” That’s as far as I got. The ship
rocked again. Luckily, both of us were in our
chairs.
“Xixix!” she shouted down the corridor toward
the cabin. “I told you to get us out of here!”
“Calculating!” he shouted back.
The ship rocked a third time and I saw a red
light flash. An alarm blared.
“Tanalana,” she cursed again.
“What is it?” I asked. But Xixix answered my
question for me.
“He’s taken out the AZtech Drive!” he shouted.
She shook her head and shouted, “Prepare for
boarding action!”
Valeria hit a single button and the straps
popped off. Then, she did the same for me. “Can
you shoot a gun?” she asked.
I nodded. “Yeah, but not since Air Force basic
training,” I told her.
She raised an eyebrow at me. “I guess that’ll
have to do,” she said.
She ran and I followed, trying to get a sense of
the ship. If we were going to be fighting corridorto-corridor, I wanted to know where I was fighting.
We got to a door that slid aside as we
approached. Inside were racks of weapons. She
gave me a pistol. Smooth sides, easy grip. It felt
light in my hands, like a toy.
“Try it out,” she said.
I shook my head. “What do I shoot at?” I
asked.
She almost laughed. “Anything but me,” she
said.
“Won’t it…?”
PAGE 25
She shook her head. “No,” she said. “It’s a
stungun. Only affects biological systems. You
can’t hurt the ship with it.”
MARCH 8, 2015
caress my cheek. And that’s exactly what it felt
like. Not a burn. A caress. Swear to God, my
knees almost turned rubber.
I nodded. “Got it,” I said. I pointed the pistol at
I took a couple more shots and then I heard
the wall and squeezed the trigger. A beam of light
Valeria shout, “Fall back!”
fired from the muzzle and hit the wall. The gun
kicked in my hand. I looked at her. “How does
I did. While Doctor Nilthus blasted away, I ran
light kick?” I asked.
and jumped over the heavy table he had turned
up. I looked over the edge and saw her standing in
“It’s a feature,” she said, “not a bug.”
the middle of the corridor.
“You mean, someone added…?”
“Let’s go, she said, turning away.
“Don’t you need a weapon?” I asked.
She stopped at the door of the armory and
looked at me. “I am the weapon,” she said.
I didn’t ask any more questions. I grabbed a
holster, strapped it across my back and followed
her to the airlock.
We settled in. Her on that side and me on this
one. Behind us, behind a table, Doctor Nilthus
took cover, a pistol in his hands.
“What’s she doing?” I shouted at the doctor.
“Why did she…”
“Watch,” he said.
I peeked around the table and saw the blasts
hitting her body. She did not fall. Instead, she
began to glow. The light intensified. I had to look
away. Then, I heard the sound of air buckling and
snapping, as if she pulled all the oxygen in the
room to the very end of a whip and cracked it.
I sat there, behind the table, my eyes shut.
There were no more stunguns. I looked up and
saw her in the corridor, down on one knee.
I looked at Valeria. “How many rounds do I
have?” I asked.
“She didn’t want you near the blast,” the
Doctor said. “No telling what might have
happened.”
“More than enough,” she told me. “Just keep
squeezing the trigger.”
“I thought I’m immune to that Henta stuff,” I
said.
The corridor in front of us was short. Maybe
twenty feet. I heard sounds on the other side of
the bulkhead.
“They’re coming through,” she said.
I gripped the rifle in my hands. “I’m ready.”
She looked at me and smiled. Henta powers or
not, I suddenly felt invincible.
The door blew open. There was smoke and
fire. Then, what looked like laser blasts. I ducked
behind the wall and waited for a pause. When it
came, I ducked around, took a quick look and saw
a whole lot of targets, obscured by the smoke. I
leveled the rifle on my shoulder and squeezed the
trigger.
The blasts hit and I saw bodies falling back. A
couple of blasts went by me, a couple hitting the
wall in front of me. One came close enough to
The Doctor shrugged. “No telling,” he said.
I jumped over the table and ran to Valeria. She
was still on one knee, gasping for breath.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
She didn’t nod, she didn’t shake her head. She
just kept trying to get oxygen into her lungs.
I put a hand on her shoulder and immediately
withdrew it. She was hot. Not enough to burn, but
enough to surprise me.
Her skin was covered in a thin layer of sweat
and her chest heaved. Blue strands stuck to her
forehead and fell over her face. She looked up at
me.
“I’m not okay,” she said with a weak smile.
“But I will be.”
PAGE 26
A voice spoke to us from the other end of the
corridor. It was like a rolling shadow of smoke,
smooth and dark, filling the whole space.
“I do not think so,” the voice said.
Through the smoke, a man stepped through.
His hair was black and over his shoulder and he
wore a thin beard. I could see his ice blue eyes
from twenty feet away. Tall black boots and a
black suit trimmed in red. He was smiling.
“Count Zehro,” she whispered.
He nodded. “Yes, Valeria Vex. It’s me.”
I didn’t hesitate. I aimed the stungun and fired
it straight at his chest.
The blast hit him, but did nothing. Almost as
if his body absorbed it.
I fired again. The same thing.
“You have a new toy,” Zehro said. “How
amusing.”
Then, he waved a hand at me. I saw the
energy blasts fire from his fingertips as they
blasted into my flesh. I felt my body fly across the
room, saw Doctor Nilthus watch me fly. I hit the
wall hard and I slid back to the floor.
Valeria stood up. Pain urged me to keep down.
“This is my ship,” she said, her body shaking.
“No,” Zehro said. “It’s my ship now.” He raised
his right hand. “It belongs to me… as do you.”
Then, he said, “Challenge.”
Valeria’s body was shaking as she nodded and
muttered, “Accepted.”
He clenched his fist and energy flew from his
hand, engulfing her. I saw her arms fly back, her
back arch. She made a sound deep in her throat
and then her body stiffened. She raised her hands
up in front of her and he flinched.
I pushed myself up to my feet and shambled
forward, but the Doc stopped me.
“No!” he said, putting his hand on my
shoulder. “You can’t interfere.”
MARCH 8, 2015
He put his hand on the stungun’s barrel,
lowering it. “The duel has begun. You can’t
interrupt.”
I looked at them. I had seen this before. But
this time, the outcome was clear. She was losing
ground every moment. Her body twisted and
contorted as she tried to keep control. His
gestures became more focused. Stronger. The pace
of her breath quickened. I heard her voice rising
with each gasp.
Light and sound, building. The sounds of
imminent victory and defeat. The Doctor put his
hand on my shoulder, pulling me down. “Best to
duck now, I think,” he said. I did.
Then, they exploded.
The table blew over us, smashing against us.
The stungun flew from my grip. I tumbled across
the floor, smashing into the far wall again.
Everything went blurry for a moment. But I heard
laughter. His laughter.
The table landed on top of me and I pushed it
away. I looked to where they were and saw him
standing over her. Valeria’s body was still on the
floor. Helpless.
“I told you,” he said. “You and your ship. You
belong to me, now.”
My hand reached out and found something
hard and heavy. I looked. A piece of the metal
table leg had broken away. I wrapped my fingers
around it and got to my feet.
“Mister Anson!” the Doctor shouted at me.
“Don’t!”
I ran at Zehro, the metal bar in my hands.
When I got to him, I swung it like a baseball bat.
He was too busy gloating over Valeria to see me.
And even if he did, I doubt if he would have paid
me any notice.
The metal leg hit his square in the jaw. He fell
down, flat on his back, looking up at me with a
surprised look on his face. His hand reached for
his jaw and his lips trembled.
I heard the Doctor say something to me, but I
didn’t quite make it out. But what Zehro said, I
heard clear.
“Why not?” I asked, raising my rifle.
PAGE 27
“Cheater!” he said, his voice twisted by his
broken jaw.
I kept hold of the metal bar, my fists clenching
around it. “Get up,” I said. “Get up so I can knock
you down again.”
MARCH 8, 2015
screens. “I apologize your arrival was met with
such misfortune.”
I shrugged. “I don’t know what you mean.”
He paused and his holograms did, too. He
looked at me. “Captain Anderson, I am Officer Bix
He backed away from me, one hand on his
of the Galaxy Triple X Rules Enforcement
jaw, the other raised up between us. “No,” he said. Committee.”
“Cheater!”
“Did I do something wrong?” I asked.
An alarm went off. Red lights.
He shook his head. “No,” he said. “But Valeria
I spun around, looking for the danger. That’s
Vex has.”
when everything went black.
I looked at her. She took a deep breath.
When I woke, I was on a bed. My hands and
legs were tied to my sides.
I turned to look where I was. A silver room.
Didn’t recognize it. But sitting on a chair on the
other side was Valeria. She was wearing a bit
more than the last time we met. Black leggings, a
blue top with long sleeves. I could still see the
curves. She stood up and smiled.
“You cost me a lot of points, Anson,” she said.
I blinked, still trying to see through a thin veil
in my vision. It curled over my memory. I still
could see Zehro on the floor, clutching his chin,
but after that…
“What happened?” I asked.
She finished her walk, stood beside the bed.
“You broke one of the fundamental rules,” Valeria
told me. She put her finger on the tip of my nose.
“No real weapons.”
The door on the other side of the room slid
open and an alien walked in. He had pitch-black
skin and shining blue eyes. He wore a suit that
made him look like a priest. He stepped over to
the bed.
“Captain Andrew Anson?” he asked. His voice
sounded like it came out of a busted speaker. “Of
the 22nd Century?”
I nodded. “Yeah, that’s me.”
“Yeah,” she said.
Officer Bix went on. “By involving you in the
Galaxy XXX game, she’s exposed a non-contracted
player to a hostile environment.” He paused and
looked at her. “Among other rules violations.”
Valeria said, “I wasn’t supposed to wake you
up until we got to a safe zone,” she said.
I asked, “So, why did you?”
She smiled at me. “You were gorgeous,” she
said. “Besides. I’ve never met anyone from the
22nd Century before.”
Officer Bix said, “Valeria Vex, I’m suspending
you for three months.”
Her eyes went wide and looked away from me
to him. “What?” she asked.
“In addition to your standard loss of points
from being captured by Baron Zehro,” he said,
“I’m also docking you five thousand points for
violation of Galaxy XXX rules.”
“Five thousand points?” she shouted. “You’ve
got to be…”
“Good day, Captain Vex,” he said and closed
his hologram. Then, he looked at me. “Captain
Anson, if you wish to join the games, you may.”
He looked at her again. “I advise you to find a
better team.”
Then, he left the room. The door slid shut and
“Welcome to the future,” he said. He waved his did not hit him on the way out. I was slightly
hands in front of him and a 3-D hologram
disappointed.
appeared. He touched buttons and swiped
PAGE 28
“Five thousand points,” she said again. She
wasn’t looking at me. She was looking at the wall.
And she was steaming.
“Um,” I said. “Look. Uh. Can you. You know.
Untie me?”
“Five thousand points,” she said again.
“Valeria,” I said. “I can’t really get up.”
She shook her head and looked down at me. “I
should take it out of your hide,” she growled at
me.
“I have to admit,” I said, “that sounds like fun.
But right now, I’d like to have my ankles and
wrists free.” I smiled. “Please.”
She paused there, looking down at me. Then,
she undid the straps. I sat up and swung my feet
over the side of the bed. It was then I noticed I
was wearing nothing but shorts that the old 20th
Century NBA players would consider too short.
“Where are my clothes?” I asked.
MARCH 8, 2015
with me, but all of it was there. And all of it could
fit in a duffel bag. I hefted it up on my shoulder.
“Well,” I said. “Shouldn’t we get back to the
ship?”
She tilted her head. “What are you talking
about?”
“I’m a part of the crew, aren’t I?” I asked. “A
part of the team.”
She laughed and stood up. “You sure?” she
said. “You heard what the…”
“I heard what he said,” I told her. “I don’t care.
I want to be on your team.”
Valeria looked me in the eyes. She was almost
as tall as me, her eyes just under my nose. She
looked up. “Baron Zehro has my ship,” she said.
“Then we’d better get it back,” I told her.
“You got a plan?” she asked.
She went back to her chair and sat down. “In
the closet,” she said.
I shook my head. “I have no clue what to do,” I
told her. “But, I’m pretty sure you and I can come
up with one.”
I looked around, found the closet. I got my
clothes out and started getting dressed.
She held my gaze for another long moment.
Then, she kissed me.
“I guess five thousand is a lot, huh?” I asked.
She waved it away. “I could make it up pretty
quick,” she said. Then, she cursed. “Futha’kah
Baron Zehro.”
I slipped a shirt over my head. “That mean
what I think it means?” I asked.
She didn’t say anything. Then, she smiled and
nodded. “Yeah,” she said. “It does.”
I tried the word out. “Fucha’kah,” I said.
She laughed. “Futha’kah,” she said. “Put the
emphasis on the second syllable.”
When she was done, she looked up at me
again. “You were damn cute in that Lazarus
Chamber,” she told me.
“You were damn cute in that… whatever you
call that silver thing you were wearing.”
She raised an eyebrow at me. “Cute?” she
asked.
I swallowed. “I mean to say, ‘smoking hot.’”
She put her fingertip on the tip of my nose.
“Come on, 22nd Century Man,” she said. “Let’s go
get our ship back.”
I tried it a second time. She nodded when she
heard it.
“You’ve got it,” she said.
I finished getting dressed and I looked at the
rest of the stuff in the closet. I didn’t bring much
PAGE 29
MARCH 8, 2015
Heist
A Little Game About Big Jobs
Here’s a mod on an oldie but goodie. I took Wilderness of Mirrors, switched out some moves, added
some others and turned my espionage game into a heist game. Let me know what you think.
Introduction
A while back, I wrote a game called Wilderness
of Mirrors. It’s a spy game in the fashion of
Mission: Impossible (the TV show, not the movies).
Many people told me they felt it would make a
great system for running heists. Okay. Let’s give
that a try.
Making a Crew
Get a character sheet and take a look at it.
Step 1: Expertise
You’ll see that your criminal has five spaces
for “Expertise.” These are skills each criminal has,
but your criminal is the best in the crew at one of
them. Let’s take a look at each and see what they
mean.
The Driver
Anyone can drive a car, but you’re a pro.
You’re either an ex-stock car driver or you just
grew up in a part of the country where speeding
laws were more like suggestions. Plus, if you want
a car, it’s yours. You see a car you want, you can
have it in 60 seconds or less.
The Fixer
Most guys on the crew know what to do with
an alarm, but you’re knowledge goes deeper than
that. You can shut down an entire building if you
need to. And locks? Might as well be made of
butter.
hands of most men, a gun is a loud, clumsy
weapon. When you squeeze the trigger, you have
the delicacy of a surgeon with a scalpel.
The Heavy
When you’ve got a spot in a crew, you’ve got to
be able to carry your weight. But you? You can
carry three guys’ share of weight. And when you
throw those mitts around, you knock jaws loose.
The Shade
You have to know your way around shadows
to be on a crew, but you seem to be made of them.
When you don’t want to be seen, nobody sees you.
Thirty-Five Points
So, let’s make your agent. First, your agent
has a 1 in each Expertise. Next, you get thirty-five
points to put toward making your Agent better.
Here’s the trick: getting the first rank is free, but
the second is really expensive. Getting more ranks
is cheaper. This means it’s easy to specialize in
one Expertise, but it’s really hard to be good at
everything. Any leftover points you have are lost.
The costs break down like this:
Expertise
Cost
1
Free
2
4
3
3 (7)
The Gunman
Everybody on the crew knows how to use a
gun, but none of them use it like you do. In the
PAGE 30
Expertise
Cost
4
2 (9)
5
1 (10)
MARCH 8, 2015
you better at one thing. Specialties that are too
general, by definition, are not Specialties.
Each player gets 10 points to spend on
Specialties and cannot spend more than 3 points
on a single Specialty.
Step 3: Contacts
For Example...
I’m looking at the different Expertise and I
decide to make my character like this:
Driver: 2 (four points)
Fixer: 4 (nine points)
Gunman: 5 (ten points)
Heavy: 2 (four points)
Shade: 3 (seven points)
That’s a total of 34 points. One short of my
limit. I don’t get to do anything with that extra
point; it fades away.
Using Expertise
When on a Heist, if you want your criminal to
do something risky, roll a number of dice equal to
your character’s most appropriate Expertise.
Trying to do something sneaky? Use your
Shade Expertise. If that’s 3, you get to roll three
dice.
Trying to shoot someone? Use your Gunman
Expertise. If that’s 4, you get to roll four dice.
I’ll tell you how to interpret the outcome of the
roll in a moment. But before we get that far, let’s
talk about The Heist.
Step 2: Specialties
Each character also has a number of
Specialties: these are particular skills that
represent advanced training.
Each Specialty falls under an Expertise. For
example, you can have a Gunman Specialty:
Pistols. You can also have a Driver Specialty:
Hotwiring. You can have a Fixer Specialty:
Surveillance Systems.
Everybody knows somebody. This is the place
where someone says, “We need a safe house, fast,”
and you say, “I know a guy.”
You can list three Contacts on your sheet.
These represent people you trust who will help
you out. Contacts especially come in handy when
you are planning a heist or when you are trying to
make a quick getaway. See Planning and The
Getaway, below for more information on how to
use Contacts.
Step 4: Wildcards
Wildcards represent sub-plots that could
either help or hinder the heist. Every player draws
a Wildcard before the Planning Phase of the heist
(see below). He keeps the Wildcard secret and can
only reveal it under certain circumstances. When
and how he reveals the card will affect his
Reputation (see below).
Step 5: Reputation
Reputation represents how people view you in
the criminal world. Do you have a reputation for
killing the crew and taking it all yourself? Or, do
you have a reputation for making sure everybody
gets their share? A bad rep means people don’t
trust you and won’t want to work with you on a
future heist. A good rep means you’re a stand-up
guy and people are more willing to trust you.
Reputation can go from +6 to -6 (including
zero). At the beginning of the game, your
character has a Reputation score of +1. You are
starting on your criminal career and while some
folks are willing to back you up, nobody really
knows you very well. At the end of each heist, if
you did not screw over another member of the
crew, roll 1d6. If the roll is equal to or greater
than your current Reputation score, it goes up by
one.
If you did screw over another member of the
crew, your Reputation automatically goes down by
one. The way your Reputation goes up or down is
through Wildcards.
Players can make their own Specialties with
GM permission. Make sure each Specialty makes
PAGE 31
The Heist
Now that we have our crew together, let’s talk
about the heist.
A heist has three phases:
Phase 1: Planning
During this Phase, the players put together a
crew to pull off the heist, scope out the place they
want to rob and then, finally put together a plan
for getting in, getting the stuff and getting out.
Phase 2: The Job
During this Phase, the crew pulls off the job.
This is where things start to go wrong.
Phase 3: The Getaway
Finally, during the Getaway, the crew has the
cash but they have to escape the scene and hold
up until the heat dies down. They also have to
divide up the loot... which isn’t always as easy as
it sounds.
Now that we’ve got that down, let’s take a look
at each one in detail.
Phase 1: Planning
Usually, someone comes to the crew with a
heist. This is the finger man (someone who points
the finger at possible loot). A finger man can be a
disgruntled employee who works at a diamond
store who knows when a huge shipment is coming
in and they tip of the crew for a percentage. Or, he
can be another criminal who has scoped out the
score and wants to bring in additional
professionals to help him pull it off.
Our Game Master takes the role of any
character who isn’t in the crew, and thus, the
finger man is one of those characters. He (or she)
is an outsider: someone the crew doesn’t
necessarily trust. That’ll be important later.
Step 1: Wildcards
Before anything else happens, every player
draws a Wildcard. He reads the Wildcard and
keeps it secret. Because each Wildcard is
different, be sure to read yours carefully. It will
tell you when you can reveal it, how you can
reveal it and the consequences of revealing it (for
good or ill).
MARCH 8, 2015
Step 2: The Meeting
The story usually starts with a meeting. The
finger man invites the crew to his home or a hotel
and lays out the tale. The crew listens and
considers risk versus reward. They look at the
possibilities and make a plan.
The players then spend time on how they’re
going to snag the score. They start planning…
right down to the last detail.
For example, the finger man tells the crew
about that jewelry store getting a shipment of
diamonds. The truck stops by the store on
Sunday morning when nobody’s around. The
truck carries multiple deliveries. At least five
hundred thousand worth of diamonds each
Sunday morning. How does he know this? He
works at the jewelry store. His dad owns it.
There’s more to that story, but we’ll save that for
the Getaway.
Another example. Our finger man is a
professional the crew has never worked with
before. He knows their reputation and he wants
them in on the job. He wants to knock over a
floating casino: a riverboat just off the western
shore of the Mississippi. He needs a crew to pull
off the job. He’s walked through the casino, seen
the security and thinks a small crew can get into
the cash room and get out with no problems. Of
course, your crew may have different ideas.
Once the finger man (via the GM) gives the
crew the basis for the heist, it’s time to scope out
the place for themselves. This means heading to
spot, scoping it out and finding all those niggling
details that will send them to prison if they aren’t
careful.
The crew walks around looking for details.
They scope out the jewelry shop and start adding
details to the heist. As in, they make things up
and tell the GM. Each detail the players add earns
them a point in the heist pool. The heist pool is a
pool of bonus dice the players can use during the
heist. Every detail they add is more bonus dice in
the pool.
If the detail is only window dressing or does
not add to the difficulty of the heist, the GM adds
one d4 to the heist pool.
If the detail is an obstacle, the GM adds one
d6 to the heist pool.
PAGE 32
If the detail is a particularly dangerous
obstacle, the GM adds one d8 to the heist pool.
MARCH 8, 2015
identical gear. They will knock out the guards and
take their place, jumping in the back of the
armored truck.
However, there is a catch. For every three dice
the GM adds to the heist pool, the GM gets a
complication point.
Once inside the truck, the two crewmen will
take out the other two guards. Then, once all the
guards are taken care of, they’ll steal the
For example, what did our players come up for diamonds and drive away in a plain, white van.
the jewelry store? Here are the details:
The truck is on a regular schedule. When it
fails to get to the next jewelry store, someone will
The jewelry store is in a strip mall with other
call. The stop after this one is twenty minutes
stores. (1d6)
away. That gives our thieves twenty minutes of
head start to get out of the city and to a safe
Because the economy sucks, more than half
house.
the store fronts are empty. (1d4)
There’s no visual in the back of the store.
(1d6)
That’s three details, so the GM gets a
complication point.
The truck has four guards all with shotguns
and body armor: two in the front and two in the
back. (1d8)
The truck is armored. (1d6)
The truck has a panic button that immediately
alerts the police if they run into trouble. (1d8)
That’s another three details, so the GM gets
another complication point.
Nobody else will be at the store when the truck
arrives: only the finger man. (1d4)
And that’s it. Seven details. That gives our
crew a total of 2d4, 3d6 and 2d8 in the heist pool.
During the heist, they can use these dice as
bonus dice.
Anything the crew hasn’t spotted is open for
the GM to use when they pull off the heist.
Now, for the plan itself.
Our crew decides to have the truck pull up
back rather than pull up front. The back has less
visibility and thus, the chance of anyone seeing
the heist gets smaller. They make the front door
look like it’s under construction and can’t open.
Our finger man will be up front to tell the truck to
go around back.
When the two guards bring in the diamonds,
two of the crew will already be inside wearing
Our crew then takes the diamonds to the fixer
who pays them .20 on the dollar. $5,000,000 in
diamonds is $1,000,000, split up evenly. Not bad
for a day’s work.
Step 3: Gear
So, what do our criminals need to get for the
heist? Well, they need to figure this out before
they go to the backer (see next step).
A white van.
Guns.
A hideout.
Two sets of body armor (if they don’t want the
two guys in the van to get suspicious).
They don’t get these things for free. They have
to pay for it. That’s the safe way to do things.
They have to go to a man who can get them a
clean van. And by “clean,” I don’t mean it’s been
washed lately. I mean a van that’s been stripped
of all legit ID and has a clean past.
They also have to get the guns from a man
who sells clean guns. Can’t go to a pawn broker:
they keep records. No, you need guns from a man
who sells clean guns.
And that body armor? You’d better find a guy
who can take care of that, too.
All of this requires cash. And there’s usually a
mark up. Some guys offer you the opportunity to
rent the equipment–so long as you return it
undamaged. If you’re going to buy it outright,
there’s usually a mark up. How much of a mark
up depends on who you’re dealing with. Renting is
PAGE 33
cheaper, but if you lose or damage the gear, you’ll
end up paying for it anyway.
Like I said, all of this involves cash. And to get
that cash, you’re going to have to talk to a backer.
Step 4: The Backer
Next, the criminals need to find a backer.
Nobody puts up their own money for a job. You
need someone who is willing to put up cash for
the equipment. Typical backer gets 20% payback
on their investment. The bigger the risk, the
higher the payback to the backer. A perfect
negotiation scene, so play it out.
Once our crew has everything planned out and
they’ve got the gear they need, it’s time to do the
work.
MARCH 8, 2015
Roll
Outcome
16-20+
Player Narrates
This encourages players to utilize their
characters’ strengths rather than their
weaknesses, but still does not cripple them. If you
are the gunman and you need to talk, you can
still roll dice, but it costs you more to do it. This
way, everybody can do their jobs, but it’s just a
little tougher for some guys to do things they
aren’t used to.
The Heist Pool
When you spend a die from the Heist Pool on
an action, you add it to your of Expertise for the
number of dice you roll. For example, if you want
to shoot someone, you use your Gunman
Expertise. Let’s say your Gunman Expertise is 3.
Normally, you roll 3d6. You can take any number
The criminals are ready. They’ve got their gear. of dice from the Heist Pool and add them to your
Now, it’s time for the heist. The players describe
roll.
their actions to the GM and the GM narrates the
actions and decisions of NPCs. When the players
ExpertsandSpecialEffects
want their characters to take a risky action or an
On your team, whoever has the highest level of
action that may have important consequences,
Expertise
is considered the Expert in that field. In
they use their characters’ Expertise.
other words, if your criminal has the highest
Gunman, he’s considered the Gunman of the
UsingExpertise
squad. If two or more criminals have the same
Most roleplaying games say something about
expertise, they are both considered Experts.
“whenever your character takes an action, roll
dice to see if he succeeds of fails.” Not in this
Once per game, an Expert can trigger an
game. Criminals don’t “take actions,” they take
Expertise “special effect.” Each Expertise gets one
risks. With that in mind, let’s look at the basic
and it can only be triggered once per game. That
resolution mechanic.
means, even if you have multiple Gunmen, the
Gunman’s special effect can only be triggered once
Whenever your criminal takes a risk—an
per game. Triggering these effects requires the use
action that puts your character or another
of one Heist Point.
character in danger or significantly influences the
plot—roll dice. You roll a number of six-sided dice
Once per game, the Driver can spend a Heist
equal to the most appropriate Expertise. Check
Point to break into a car without setting off the
the total of your roll with this table to determine
alarm or make a fast escape with nobody following
the outcome.
him.
Phase 2: The Job
Roll
Outcome
1-5
GM Narrates
6-10
GM Narrates with one Player
Veto
11-15
Player Narrates with one GM
Veto
Once per game, the Fixer can spend a Heist
Point and have the exact right tool or weapon he
needs.
Once per game, the Heavy can spend a Heist
Point and take out up to ten opponents with
hand-to-hand violence.
Once per game, the Hitman can spend a Heist
Point and make a kill without rolling any dice.
PAGE 34
Once per game, the Shade can spend a Heist
Point and move through any area without being
detected.
NarrativeControl
Narrative control has become a subject of
obsession for me lately. No reason not to use it
here. Narrative control may sound like a newfangled high-falutin’ artsy fartsy wanna-be actor
idea, but it’s actually one of the oldest ideas in
roleplaying. In most roleplaying games, the Game
Master has complete narrative control. The
character takes a risk, the player rolls dice, and
the GM says what happens. In this circumstance,
the roll determines who gets to narrate the
outcome.
If the player gets to narrate the risk, he
doesn’t have to make his agent succeed. He can
force his agent to fail instead, but he can control
the outcome. Take Indiana Jones for example. He
jumps across the pit... and he fails. But he
scrambles to find a root vine, pulls himself up,
and rolls through the quickly closing stone wall.
The player got to narrate the scene and he
narrated a failure, but he got to control the
failure.
Meanwhile, if the GM gets to narrate the
outcome, he doesn’t necessarily have to force the
agent to fail. He can force the agent to succeed,
but he gets to control the success.
Han Solo trying to con the intercom on the
Death Star...
Ray Stanz and the Staypuft Marshmallow
Man…
Jack Burton and… well, his whole life.
Narrative control, shifting back and forth
between the GM and the players, allows a
different kind of roleplaying experience.
We do this with two mechanics: Trust and
Time.
Yes, And…
The resolution chart notes possible results
including getting a “veto.” What kind of veto does
the GM or a player get?
I would say, for the purposes of challenging
the players and making the game fun, that you
should employ the old improvisational rule of
“Yes, but...” or “Yes, and...”. The veto cannot
MARCH 8, 2015
change a fact, but only modify it. So, if a player is
trying to unlock the door and gets a “Success, but
Veto” result, he says, “The door is unlocked.” The
GM then says, “Yes, but it set off a silent alarm
somewhere in the building.”
Trust
Another important element of crime literature
is trust: the protagonists have no clue in whom
they can place their trust. This, for me, is one of
the pivotal elements of crime novels and
something I just had to address. So, I did.
The GM plays all the “outsider” characters. He
plays the finger man, he plays other criminals
who join the crew, he plays characters who aren’t
a part of the crew. This adds one element of
suspicion into the game. Even if the players trust
each other, the GM plays the outside element: the
element they should never trust.
For example, with our diamond heist, the GM
plays the son of the owner of the store. His dad
has been cheating him for years, paying him less
than the other employees and reminding him that
the only reason he has this job is because of his
mother and her bickering. “I can’t divorce your
mom because I’d lose everything. So, I’ll just treat
you like crap instead.”
The son is sick of it and wants out. But he
doesn’t really have any other job options. So, he
concocts a scheme to get rich and disappear. He’s
going to hire a bunch of criminals to pull of the
scheme, then he’s going to double cross them
later and take all the diamonds for himself. That’s
his plan.
But, as game masters know, no plan ever
survives contact with the players.
So, if trust is such an important element of
the genre, let’s make it a mechanic.
Each player has one Trust Point. They can
give that Trust Point to any other character they
want–even characters run by the GM. Or, they can
keep their Trust Point to themselves.
If a player keeps his Trust Point, it does
nothing.
If a player gives his Trust Point to another
character, that character can use it in one of two
ways:
PAGE 35
A player can use the Trust Point given to him
to have his character save the character who gave
it to him without rolling dice. In other words, if I
give you my Trust Point, you can use it later in
the game to pull my bacon out of the fire with full
narration and no vetoes from the GM. None. Not
even if he spends a Complication Point.
A player can use the Trust Point to betray the
character who gave it to him. He gains full
narration powers but the GM gets one veto (which
he doesn’t have to use if he doesn’t want to). In
other words, if I give you my Trust Point, you can
use it later to shoot me in the back of the head
with no roll. The GM can put in a veto (“You just
think he’s dead...”) but I get no say in what
happens.
That’s the two ways players can use Trust
Points.
MARCH 8, 2015
spends a point of Setback when he has full
narrative control, he can permanently scar your
agent.
Solution#3
When I shared this mechanic to Jess Heinig,
he suggested a slightly different Time Mechanic:
for every twenty minutes of time that passes, the
Heist Pool loses a die. This also represents the fact
that as the heist goes on, complications make
even simple things difficult.
Step 3: The Getaway
After a successful heist, it’s time to getaway
with the loot. Problem is, getaways seldom, if ever,
go as planned.
A few things happen during The Getaway.
Time
First, everyone gets a Trust Point. So far, so
good.
Finally, when it’s time to pull the caper, we
come down to the issue of time. Time is always an
important element in crime novels and movies,
but it’s never really addressed in games. This is
my solution.
Second, everyone has to spend their Trust
Point.
Third, the GM gets a Complication Point.
Takes & Training Points
(Actually, I have three solutions: two from me
Finally, everyone gets to consider this rule. For
and one from Jess Heinig. I’m providing both
because I think both of them work well in different every “cut” of the loot you have at the end of The
ways. I liked all three mechanics, so I included all Getaway, you get one Training Point. You can use
a Training Points to increase Specialties and
three. Pick the one you like the most.)
Expertise.
Solution#1
For every twenty minutes of real time that
passes, subtract 5 from all the players’ rolls. The
longer the criminals take on a mission, the more
difficult the mission becomes.
To increase a Specialty, you must spend one
Training Point per rank of the Specialty. Thus, to
increase a rank 3 Specialty to rank 4, you must
spend 3 Training Points.
Solution#2
To increase an Expertise, you must spend 10
Training Points.
For every twenty minutes of real time, the GM
gets a complication point. At any time during the
game, the GM can spend a complication point,
moving his narrative control up by one notch. If
he gets only one veto, he gets full control; if he
gets no control, he gets one veto. If he has full
control, he can do permanent damage to your
agent.
You see, agents never get permanent damage.
Well, almost never. Bond does have a dueling scar
after all. And he did lose his wife to a sniper... on
their wedding day, no less. I’d count that as
“permanent damage.” In other words, if The GM
Wildcards
Loyalty
You stick to the plan! You know the best way
to retirement is not screwing everyone over. If
anyone ever questions your loyalty, you can put
this card face up on the table. When you do, gain
a Trust Point. You can give the Trust Point to
anyone you like.
PAGE 36
Police Informant
You are an undercover cop, or you're simply
reducing the charges brought upon you by taking
others down with you. Either way, you've shared
the details of your plan with the Police and they're
probably on their way to the safe house now.
Needless to say it might be best if the others don't
find out.
MARCH 8, 2015
Crime Boss Rising
Your ambition means things need to change in
your favor and the time is now. Either folks are
with you, or against you. No more deals.
Play this card during Phase 3: The Getaway.
Play it face up. The whole crew is captured by the
police. If a crew member rolls 16 or higher on
Shade, he can escape. You gain three Training
Points.
Revenge
One of your teammates needs to pay. His
share and his life just might be enough. Choose
another member of the crew. Play this card during
Phase 2: The Heist or Phase 3: The Getaway.
_____
The Driver
_____
The Fixer
_____
The Gunman
_____
The Heavy
_____
The Shade
Specialties
Wild Card
Contacts
Reputation
Other Stuff
PAGE 37
Why are we here?
Oh, not this again...
Come on! Aren’t you at
the least bit curious?
How come?
No, I’m not.
Because I know
why we’re here.
YOU DO?!?
Yup.
You’ve got to tell
me!
Because of that.
Whoah...
Yup.
That’s... huge!
Where did it
come from?
Don’t know. Just
showed up one
day.
And I didn’t
notice?
What’s in it?
Maybe if you
shut yer hole
once in a while...
Don’t know.
Don’t care.
Let’s take a
peek...
OH @#$%!!!!
RRRRAAAAR
RRRRRR!
OH @#$%!!!!
Have you seen... ?
Curse of the Yellow Sign
All Three Chapters
Revised and Expanded
Kickstarter Begins February 7

Wicked Words 7

Transcription

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