Operation Rupert and other disguised scenarios – onside report by Trevor Duguid Farrant

Disguised Scenarios

1. For close friends
2. For games clubs and the games holiday
3. For paying customers, e.g., megagame

I have run many roleplay scenarios with hidden agendas, especially morphing into Call of Cthulhu type adventures.

Hidden objectives is one thing, but a hidden game…

Roleplay is relatively easy, players are more likely to expect the unexpected or go along with the flow.  Indeed my role as GM is to create an adventure for the players to be entertained and normally have fun.

I do need to be careful not to give all my ideas away today, since I want to run at least one at a future CLWG.

For example, a WWII German paradrop to capture a Mediterranean island.  However, instead of doing Crete – could I run Operation Herkules and invade Malta?  Would people be upset?  What if someone read a book, watched a film, researched on the internet to prepare for Crete before the day?  What if Crete holds some significance for them, Uncle John was evacuated from Sfakia or compared to “What’s this fantasy nonsense the German’s never invaded Malta?”

Part of my interest is to prevent hindsight or at least greatly reduce it for the players on the day.  Even if someone had read the planned invasion of Malta, they are unlikely to recall all specific details, air cover, troop dispositions, mined areas, key locations, etc.  Whereas often prepared players may know as much as the umpire, maybe more!

For a paid game, a player may request their money back if it’s not as advertised.  With the above example I feel they haven’t been harshly deceived if they get to play Malta.  However, they would be justifiably peeved if I took them to watch Charlton play cricket instead!

• Does the disguise totally change the nature of the game?
• Set the expectations for the players at the onset.
• One side changes the original plan, then play against the new plan.
• Play the new situation rather than the historic.
• Player quality, have the weaker players play the side that benefits most from hindsight.
• Try to avoid games that have an obvious use of hindsight.
• When you write the advert for the game, state I might change a few things and so the scenario will be slightly different.
• Alternatively expand the scope to the whole Mediterranean, but then home in on Malta.
• Game length vs investment, play for a shorter duration if the game is heavily disguised.
• One side can have a hidden objective like the CoC hidden spell for the cultist in the ‘lose your marbles’ megagame.

Napoleonic Call of Cthulhu – one success, one failure

I played with 3 experienced Napoleonic figure gamers familiar with my rules set and three inexperienced players.  The game was a blatant Call of Cthulhu scenario with labelled place names the haunted forest, the troll’s bridge, necromancers keep, werewolves ridge, the black ooze, etc.

The experienced helped the beginners with the rules, the movement and the combat and I was able to act as the umpire and narrator.  They created elaborate plans and played with enthusiasm.  Some notable moments included one guy who always needed to know what he needed to roll and then would miraculously achieve it manage to move his artillery 7+” every turn despite it being a D6+1 max!  However, he didn’t notice as the troll removed an infantry stand each time a unit crossed the bridge or that every time shot and damaged French infantry, 2 (undead) were placed back into that location.  The game finished with the old guard storming the church crypt chanting onward Christian soldiers to keep the vampire lord at bay.  A total success and all involved had a wonderful time.

I played with 3 experienced Napoleonic figure gamers familiar with my rules set and one fresh player.  I set this is Ossiriand (land of the seven rivers in Middle Earth).  One player was deliberately and quite subtly moving the woods closer to the British troops, until eventually they began to interweave.  After we broke for lunch, the new player said he was not enjoying it and said one of the players was cheating.  I had to come clean and explain he was playing one of the corrupt forest Maiar and that he was able to do this.  The Maiar player had even taken pictures showing the gradual march of the corrupt huorns.  The player refused to continue and was still unfriendly to the opponents for the next couple of days.  Okay he was a bit of an oddball (but then aren’t we all as gamers), but it did make me wary.  Typically the games holiday is by invite only, with people I know well, this person came because he’d met another of the holiday gamers at a show and he was filling a vacancy.  This has worked well in the past with some great additions, but this shows that it is not a guarantee.

Morale – really know your audience/players well, before you venture into running twisty-turny side plots.

• Acceptance is easier if you retain the normal laws of physics/nature.
• If trees are magical this is a very large shift.
• Other players can be informed that demons & gods are real or that superheroes exist, etc.
• Generally stick to what is possible.
• Perhaps write something in your umpire notes/briefing if something is different, e.g., there is an ESP officer as part of a USA military team.
• Decide if you want a single game or to build to a series of games, ‘strange’ elements can be slowly introduced.
• State upfront you are going to do a whatif? Scenario, e.g., the Luftwaffe won the Battle of Britain and operation Sealion is on, then play the actual one.
• General advice having the right audience is the best way to do it, so ‘crash & burn’ is not an issue.
• What is the relationship between players & game control, what if this breaks down (megagame example, when a team no longer trust their liaison officer).

Roleplaying yourself

Three years ago I ran the same scenario 4 times on the games holiday in groups of 4 players with very, very different and memorable results. Players sworn not to reveal or discuss details until all groups were completed.

Setting, the players were in their local pub playing a roleplay game.  The players consumed too much alcohol and fell asleep, okay totally believable so far!  Players did con rolls to wake up, as they did, they realised they were in the upstairs room of a slightly different looking pub. All they had with them was all that the players had with them in the real room.  Before the game start, I had allowed them to select a special item for their character, if could be anything (within reason), +2 dagger of orc slaying, potion of healing, uzi 9mm (excellent choice as long as you can find more bullets), holy water, summon badger spell, etc. some things had to be banned or made defunct as they would ruin the scenario (almanac, tricorder).  However, the game was to see how the players could work out where they were and when, then how to blend in / survive in this alien world.  They were in London, in late Victorian England.  Money no use, credit cards what’s that, mobile phone does not work.  How to get food, clothes, etc.  What skills does my character have?  Good question, what skills do you have, I work in IT, bad luck no computers.  You are, of course, all intelligent and well educated, although you may be locked up for some crazy ideas about flying machines and landing on the moon!  Some found jobs, teacher, newspaper editor, an African prince (Pickles 😊), insurance (Kray type), cook, doctor, thief, pimp.  Frequently the theme was to turn their question back in on themselves for some self-inspection.  Could I be a bobby?  I don’t know could you be a bobby?  What’s skills do you have, what training have they had?  Once they’d begun to establish themselves and were becoming ‘comfortable in their own skins’ things began to happen.  This is where it was crucial, they didn’t twig at least right away and not all of them.

They were in Whitechapel in 1888, when suddenly the vicious murders of women (on investigation mostly prostitutes) began to happen.  Could the team solve the crimes?  How long before they were all aware this was Jack the Ripper territory?  Again their skills were their own, but it was crucial that they hadn’t read up on the ripper beforehand as I was following the historic times and locations.  Players did well and like the law were slowly gathering clues and homing in on the killer.  There was a twist, there’s always a twist!  We ran these in the individual flats rather than the games room or comfy lounges normally reserved for roleplay.  The flat owner and I set-up beforehand, they weren’t told the scenario, I wanted them to have the same self-roleplay experience as the others, but when I gave the signal (turn the large D20 to 1 on the table) their character would need to get themselves alone (sometimes they were not together anyway).  Once they’d managed to do that, after a couple more minutes playtime, the next murder would happen.  Foxy was excellent at this, he’d got a job as a newspaper reporter and the editor needed him more frequently and for longer because of the increased readership due to the murders!  Then the players would hear, read, discuss and try to solve the mystery.  Of course, one of them now knew they were committing the murders.  They’d play down some evidence, enhance others, support speculations or actions that would not endanger themselves.  As more murders were committed the noose began to tighten and more clues were given to the players.  Very interesting psychologically when self-preservation kicked in and their character became more important than the party.  Sometimes the ripper would emerge triumphant as the last victim fell, other times the party tracked them down, then the player would confess.  A couple of Jack’s killed off other party members as they came too close to the truth, when those died, they woke once again back in the roleplay pub.  Poor Mukul was stitched up horribly by Jack and ended up being hanged as the ripper!

• Let players bleed into their characters and their characters bleed into them.
• Role playing other real people is challenging.
• Tell me what you specifically think, but you can’t tell other people outside the game.  Does this / can this work?
• An example of a phycology game was given, where you are trying to diagnose the player to your left and they have to answer truthfully. Apparently, this can have dire consequences when you are a young teen!
• You can design a hidden game where your character did something that leads into the next game, in a positive or negative way.  You could even add in some limited LARP (Live Action Role Play).
• You can use economic games to provide a very good, disguised scenario (assuming you have players who’d want to play an econometric type of game).

Roleplaying other players

For one of the games holidays I want to create a Zombie attack on a beautiful farm in the Cotswolds.  This makes maps, building floorplans, etc. unnecessary as they can look out of the windows or walk around the rooms/farm.  I want the players to be the characters in this setting. However, I don’t want them creating their own character or playing themselves, e.g., I’d want Mukul to design Andrew as a character, then Sean to play Andrew in the game.

I intend to use my simple 3D6 roleplay system, so characters only need to be allocated their best, second best and worst stat, a special skill and a secret item.  The stats can be from any system and the latter two should be of use in a Zombie film.

For example:-

ANDREW

• Intelligence +4 modifier
• Durability +2 modifier
• Not a morning person -1 modifier (on actions between 7am and midday)
• Special skill: mass calm, prevent up to 5 characters (30’ radius) having to take a panic check
• Secret item: three-folded steel Samari Katana, +3 to any sever attempt

Concern, is this too personal?  What if the character Andrew’s playing interacts with ANDREW and doesn’t like the way they’ve been portrayed?  Once designed should I get the designer to give them a character name instead?  Or is that irrelevant if Andrew can still recognise himself (and doesn’t like it) even if the character is now called Bob?

I want this to be ongoing over the 10 days, but very low intensity.  When a group have a few minutes spare I can point out some zombies approaching, get the reactions of their characters, resolve a short combat/interaction/relocation as required.  Potentially the players could be asked to do more that day or nothing for the next day or two.

Consenting adults, only those who wish to partake, it won’t be forced on anyone.  The played characters will come from the pool of only those people who are playing.  Even if only half want to play, I’ll still have a pool of 10 characters.

NAME

• Primary stat: +4 modifier
• Secondary stat: +2 modifier
• Worse stat: -1 modifier
• Special skill:
• Secret item

I used ‘worse stat’ because however good your character gets one stat will always the lowest and often is not an issue, e.g., a wizard with a low strength stat.  For ‘real’ characters this could simply become a weaker stat.

• In addition to the above you could have the real person right some statements of how they may react to certain circumstances.
• Have the players chose from a menu of options for character generation
• Stick to positive stats only, add in some adjectives to describe the player.
• What would you do in this situation?
• What about an optimism to pessimism scale?
• An example of the evolution board game was given, personality traits could be developed/obtained.
• Still have a negative element, BUT the person themselves writes that part, all the other elements are then done by the character creator.

A very big thank you to Jon Casey, Mukul, Andrew, Evan and Nick Luft for a very useful discussion session.

This has given me some great ideas that I’ll be able to put into practice.