Narrativist Spies

[Mike Holmes]

Well, BW, here's your chance.

I can't think of a Narrativist game that does traditional spies. Oh, sure, EV, would work, but might not generate the right mood for some. And there is a version of Sorcerer being worked on in that forum. But how about a version from scratch?

First, lets start out right. Narrative Premise (by Ron's definition). We can't use the Sorcerer Premise as that's already being done. But I'm sure we can come up with others. How about the classic "Do the ends justify the means?" Would pit character success against their own morality.

Any other suggestions?

Mike

[lumpley]

How about something about individuality vs. conformity to employer expectations -- how do you keep your sense of self in the face of your job? or how do you balance loyalty with integrity? or when your boss tells you to do something stupid, do you?

I liked the stuff in the Sorcerer thread about a lower Humanity = a higher identification with your job.

Or maybe I'm just tired of mine.

-Vincent

[Ron Edwards]

Mike,

As far as I can tell, spy stories (by which I mean LeCarre and related material, NOT Bond, which is more fantasy-adventure) always focus on whether the spy empathizes more with his opponent spies than with his own employers. In other words, the community of spies, especially the ones in the field, have more in common with one another than they do with anyone they're working for. They live similar lives, in the same communities, using the same informants, and they all live in fear of the same things. They are wholly alienated from their own cultures and have embraced the "spy culture."

Thus alliances and conflicts at that level tend to be messier, more personal, and much grayer than the upper-up offices would like to believe. Spies on opposite sides tend to collude a lot and "clean up" the info they send on as a result of the deals. They switch sides, but no one knows whether they have really switched, often including the turncoats themselves. And almost always, the bosses are screwing them over, with secondary spies or vague/evil office politics that sabotage field operations again and again.

Seems to me the Premise is, "Whom do you trust, and why?" specifically in reference to a long-term information-gathering field operation, in which one's employers and one's opponent spies and their employers are all embroiled.

Best,
Ron

[Mike Holmes]

LeCarre is exactly who I was thinking of when I wrote the above blurb (For Bond, you should use EV, or something more like that). Robert Ludlum, too. And Vincent's idea fits in with that as well. Do you trust your organization, or do you trust only yourself? And your premise, Ron, encompasses mine to an extent with dillemas such as trust vs. expediency.

So, trust. Hmmm... I'm seeing a gambling mechanic develop. How about characters are just composed of their trust stats as they relate to other characters? Then, when you need something important, you have to trust somebody. You roll against their trust stat. If you succeed, they help, if you fail, they hurt you. Lots of potential for double crosses, and whatnot. You can test a character's faithfulness by giving them inconsequential tasks. But if they find out, then that might damage their trust. So, I'm seeing something kinda pool-like where if you trust somebody with something important, and they believe that it's important, and they do not cross you, then their trust rating goes up. If they fail, then their trust rating goes down.

Also seems a bit similar to Jesse's Isolation mechanic.

What can we do with that?

Mike

[lumpley]

What if it's not whether you can trust them, but whether they trust you?  

Your bosses trust you, your fellow spies trust you, your fiance from whom you're hiding your double life trusts you, all to some extent at least -- but they trust you to do different things.  This would put you in the moral position of the betrayer-or-not, not the betrayed-or-not.

Your character sheet would have a list of everybody you know on it, and what they trust you to do.

When you try to get information from someone, they'll tell you the truth if they trust you, and lie to you if you don't.  Or when you ask someone to do something for you.  Thus trust becomes reciprocal -- and you spend all your time trying to guess whether they trust you or not.

(Heh.  Even your gadgets could work or fail depending on how much Q trusts you.)

-Vincent

[Mike Holmes]

That's what I was getting at, Vincent. The amount you trust them is as much as you think you can.

I'm thinking that this calls for the trust stat to be hidden from the player for good effect, but that might be anti-Narrativist. The player should have an idea of the character's trust to make the story better, right? Hmmm....

I like the idea of the "Character Sheet" just being a list of contacts. "It's not what you know..."

Mike

[Mithras]

I like the idea of keeping up a list of contacts. It only hinges on this in a slight way, but I tried to incorporate contacts into my Japanese cyberpunk game in this chapter: http://www.angelfire.com/games3/errantknight/zaibatsu/zaibatsu_1.html

Contacts aren't solid resources, their reliability and existence depends on your actions. If you appear weak, indecisive or out of control you'll find your contacts vanishing, or at least being more reticent to help you out. Personally I'd use a simple rating (eg. 9). Roll it or under on 2d6 and you get the aid you need, but the rating drops by one. Roll over and the contact is unwilling or unable to help you out. Favours dished out or just consideration shown for the security of a contact may see that contact's rating increase.

[Bailywolf]

Oh yeah.  Premise time.  Hmmmmmmm



What about an entirely introspective spy game?  More one-on-one (GM to Player).  

Make the conflict one of Identity (someone mentioned Ludlum...).  Who am I vs what I must seem to be.  Identity vs Cover.  

I talked with a retired undercover narc/vice detective once.  He did two years undercover (if my swiss-cheese memory isn't too riddled, 79-81).  He said he would go for weeks and not think like a cop.  He said the most importiant part of deep cover was in your mind.  Support and backup was esential- a good, solid cover- but wihtout actualy (on some level) believeing you were part of the underworld culture, you got made immediatly.  

And it wasn't like the movies.  If you got made, they didn't let you know.  The smart criminals used you to feed BS to the authorities, isolating you without letting you know.  

It also eats you alive.  He said there was one guy- a bastard and a half- who used to joke about how he would fuck up street dealers who tried to hold out on him.  He would make cracks about breaking fingers a faces.  The cop said he not just had to laugh along, but he had to seem to really find that shit funny.  He said after a while, he did.  He did coke to blend in, beat the crap out of people, almost went rogue.  

Spy field work has got to be close to deep cover cop work.  It's a struggle to blend in enough to survive, without going so far under your loyalties shift.

A struggle to resist becoming the person you pretend to be.





So it's internal identity vs. external identity.

With a game based on a Bourne-like situation; this metaphore is made real in the form of actual amnesia, identity confision, and twisting loyalties.  Who am I?  Who's side am I on?

[Mike Holmes]

I mentioned Ludlum. And The Bourne Identity is one of my favorites. But I think that there would be much less in the way of Cognative Dissonance for a spy than a narc. Presumably a spy will have to do much less of the reprehensible things that you mention. Most covers are buisnessmen or diplomats and the like. They won't have to do drugs or beat any good people up to maintain their cover. It's these sorts of dissonant activities that result in people brainwashing themselves. Keep in mind that the Bourne identity only takes over after a nasty blow to the head and a traumatic near-drowning.

OTOH, there is the matter of loyalties. Perhaps that could work in with the trust issue, as trust of your superiors. And the trust of those who believe your cover. You may come to value these people, and then what do you do when you're ordered to betray them? Think Russia House. I think that's where a spy is most likely to go over.


Another mechanic that I'd like to see would be one that placed a value on information. So you have the plans for Iraqi nuclear weapons program. What is that worth? A lot of play might go into characters determining the importance of what they are carrying. Sometimes information will appear valuable but be fake, or the estimation of it's value might be a mistake. Take it to your weapons expert friend to assess the value of the object. Then hope he doesn't tell anyone.

Essentially the value of such items would be subtracted from people's trust rating (or something like that) to determine their actual trust level when they know what they have. So you may be able to trust a particular person with something relatively unimportant, but not with a big secret. You can hand stuff off blind to people, asking them not to look at it. But that, itself, will probably damage trust. Fail the trust roll and the person looks anyway. Then roll again to see if they take it to someone you don't want them to. That sort of thing.

Also, valuable information will cause more resources to be sent to retrieve it. Lots you can do here. Instead of making up scenarios, simply roll the value rating at each scene to see if some force appears looking for the info. In one scene it might just be well informed border guards. In another it might be counteragents. In a hacking scene it could be a trace on the information. The idea is that information becomes a magnet for action.


I like that part above about the weapons expert friend. Hmmmm. Perhaps a character has a resource pool that the player can use to create contacts out of thin air. So, if you need a weapons expert, it so happens that you know one. This could also be used to make any character created by the GM or other players into a contact of yours (always keep a couple of points in reserve for such occasions). The spy community is small, you may know almost everyone. This creates a tight net of characters each with intertangling trust levels. This instant "trust-map" then drives the action as you place stressors on the trust lines.


Mike