Difference between revisions of "The Inanna Protocol"

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(GUMSHOE Resoled House Rules)
(GUMSHOE Resoled House Rules)
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'''Investigative Abilities Rules
 
'''Investigative Abilities Rules
 
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This thread is for a new Night's Black Agents campaign with a different take on GUMSHOE. It's also an original campaign, though it's going to be using published campaign resources, especially The Dracula Dossier. Agents will be starting in London, as burned and damaged goods, freelance assets, hired to commit a deniable heist. As to where it goes from there, well...
 
  
I’m running this campaign partly to sort out my issues with GUMSHOE as a system and try out some ideas I’ve had. I enjoy GUMSHOE’s point-spend resource management mechanic a lot. But I think it and the whole game suffers from the basic redundancy of Investigative Abilities as written. They just don’t do anything. Especially in a system like GUMSHOE with no characteristics, Abilities essentially define the character. And the most personal, distinctive Abilities in standard GUMSHOE do nothing at all.
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With this system, you can roll with Investigative Abilities, according to the usual GUMSHOE roll of a single d6 to beat a set Difficulty, modified by Pool Point spends.
  
Yes, I know there’s TFFBs. Yes, you can occasionally spend IA points for other purposes than clue-finding. But overall, there’s nothing in the system as written to animate IAs . And Call of Cthulhu, Delta Green and other systems have got over the Spot-Hidden-fail problem without needing to give up their skills systems.
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Normally, you don't need to roll for Core Clues, and finding information - although you do need to say you're using the Ability. However, you do need to roll for doing things.  
  
So for this game, you can roll with IAs for many things – though you don’t need to for Core Clues. For whipping up explosives with Chemistry, saving someone's life with Diagnosis, Cop Talking a constable out of making an arrest, etc, it all works, just like with any Ability. So long as you have any points in the Ability, you can roll for it, even with all pool points spent, and still have a chance against the basic Difficulty of the task. Everyone starts with 60 points to dole around GAs, and 30 points for IAs.
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For whipping up explosives with Chemistry, saving someone's life with Diagnosis, Cop Talking a constable out of making an arrest, etc, you have to roll just as with a General Ability. So long as you allocated any initial Build Points to the Investigative Ability, you can still roll for it, even with all Pool Points spent, and still have a chance against the basic Difficulty of the task.  
  
For this campaign, to keep things fun, I’m keeping the TFFB rules, cherries, Thriller Monologue, and most perks except MOS. (That’s part of the test, to see how well these still work with the revised system.) The whole shebang will probably need some tweaking as things go on, but it's intended as a learning and a discovery experience.
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You can still spend Investigative Ability Pool Points for the standard Tactical Fact-Finding Benefits, and rolls don't affect those one way or the other.
  
If you like the sound of it, go ahead and state your interest. Any questions, go ahead and ask.
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Cover
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You can spend Pool Points from your Cover pool for Cover identifies. To use a specific Cover ID, you need to put at least one Pool Point of Cover into it. You can then pass yourself off as that Cover ID, but if it can be tested. The value of the Cover ID is equal to how many Pool Points you put into it, and you can spend these on any tests. However, any Pool Points you spend on that ID are used up instead of refreshing later, and you have to refill the ID with more from your pool if you want to keep on using that ID. A failed Cover test means of course that your Cover is blown: you've lost the Pool Points you used and you can't use that Cover again.
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For most Covers where you already have a supporting Ability (e.g., Mechanics for a repairman, etc.), any test will have a lower Difficulty (typically 3 or less). The Director may let you use your Ability to test instead of your Cover.

Revision as of 07:38, 10 May 2022

Scenario Overview

A mismatched group of Agents from various backgrounds and affiliations combat vast shadowy supernatural and vampiric conspiracies, unearthing the secrets of the Inanna Protocol.


Helpful Resources

[ooc]This is the IC channel for the Night's Black Agents / GUMSHOE resoled campaign The Inanna Protocol


The OOC channel is here.

The recruitment channel is here.[/ooc]

Characters

Player Agent Health Stability Network Background/Type Notes/Points Spent
Grey Mouser Mustafa Cetin 10 10 15 Turkish cuckoo
EnigmaticOne Dr. Mario Saltatore 8 8 20 Italian medic
Delazur Andreas Rohr 12 6 17 Swiss asset handler
Slack_C Parker Stilton 7 5 15 American wetworker/hacker
inoshiro Kyungmin Jang 7/7 5 / 5 15 South Korean bang and burner/wire rat
The Lore Bear Evelyn Rousseau 8 8 15 French black bagger/wheel artist

Important Places

Please note: While we're using real place names, the game takes place in an ahistorical past. Any resemblance is coincidental and/or for convenience.

London

Core kickoff location

(Zoomable street map here)

Important People

Investigative Leads

GUMSHOE Resoled House Rules

Investigative Abilities Rules

With this system, you can roll with Investigative Abilities, according to the usual GUMSHOE roll of a single d6 to beat a set Difficulty, modified by Pool Point spends.

Normally, you don't need to roll for Core Clues, and finding information - although you do need to say you're using the Ability. However, you do need to roll for doing things.

For whipping up explosives with Chemistry, saving someone's life with Diagnosis, Cop Talking a constable out of making an arrest, etc, you have to roll just as with a General Ability. So long as you allocated any initial Build Points to the Investigative Ability, you can still roll for it, even with all Pool Points spent, and still have a chance against the basic Difficulty of the task.

You can still spend Investigative Ability Pool Points for the standard Tactical Fact-Finding Benefits, and rolls don't affect those one way or the other.


Cover

You can spend Pool Points from your Cover pool for Cover identifies. To use a specific Cover ID, you need to put at least one Pool Point of Cover into it. You can then pass yourself off as that Cover ID, but if it can be tested. The value of the Cover ID is equal to how many Pool Points you put into it, and you can spend these on any tests. However, any Pool Points you spend on that ID are used up instead of refreshing later, and you have to refill the ID with more from your pool if you want to keep on using that ID. A failed Cover test means of course that your Cover is blown: you've lost the Pool Points you used and you can't use that Cover again.

For most Covers where you already have a supporting Ability (e.g., Mechanics for a repairman, etc.), any test will have a lower Difficulty (typically 3 or less). The Director may let you use your Ability to test instead of your Cover.