Pull - A game of criminals and capers

[Daniel Solis]

The Urban Mythos thread has got me thinking about a quickie rpg concept I got a couple years ago, but never developed entirely. You can probably see prototypical hints of the base-three trait categorization I seem to like so well. Perhaps it's time to finally put this concept to bed and post it on the web when it's done. At the end of this post, I'll write a couple questions I have for the Forgefolk.

Pull
A role-playing game of criminals and capers.
(Alternate titles: "The Score" or "Heist")

Concept: RPG inspired by Ocean's 11, Pulp Fiction, Things To Do in Denver When You're Dead, or any other source material where lowlifes in all strata of the criminal society converge in an elaborate caper plot. Characters are defined by their personalities, reputations, desires, habits, and relationships. The average session or series would be focused on the planning and execution of a big score involving very little combat, but lots of social legerdemain, theft, lying, espionage and intense near-misses.

What I've got so far...

The Underbelly
The world of relationships, crime, and reputation. Where bad word-of-mouth can get your throat cut. Where a nice pull can increase your standing in places you never knew existed with people you could have sworn were dead. The bosses are royalty of this unseen kingdom. Casino owners, corrupt politicians, secret billionaires, mafia dons, you name the flavor, they've got their own stake in the 'belly. The way bosses see things, everyone is either a resource or a threat to their interests. They're probably right. That's where you come in.

Character
You are a criminal. Perhaps not by choice and perhaps not necessarily a very good one either, but you're a criminal nonetheless. Further, you have some skills which make you desirable to a boss. That big cheese is your patron, your bankroll. You stay good to the boss, the boss will probably stay good to you.

Note, "probably." Bosses can do whatever they want, after all. It's good to be the king, but everyone had to start somewhere. Hell, you could be a boss if you get enough of a rep and do some nice pulls.

Creation
Style
Image is everything in the 'belly. If you act like a tough biker, you best be able to back up the image when you get tough biker jobs.

Write down one style for your character. That is, a succinct description of your character's mannerisms, dress and overall image. For example, "tough biker," "rowdy redneck," or "underappreciated intellectual." In the beginning, your style has rating of 10.

Quirks
Let's face it, the 'belly attracts people who just couldn't get proper jobs in the real world. You've got some quirks and obsessive habits that just make you weird.

Write down three quirks your character possesses, one categorized as 'small,' one as 'medium,' and the last as 'large.' Small quirks are trivial little things easily avoided with a little conscious discretion. Medium quirks are more noticable and could come into play during the course of a session. Finally, large quirks are major components of your character concept and will likely come into play at least once every session.

Even if a quirk seems trivial in its description, the categorization is what determines it's severity. If "bites fingernails" is a small quirk, then you bite your fingernails when your nervous. Not a huge deal. If "bites fingernails" is a large quirk, then the best damned manicure in the world can't fix the gnarly, chewed-up knobs at the end of each finger.

Examples: "bites fingernails," "sweats a lot," "stammers," "bad hygiene," "lazy eye" "Doesn't like being insulted," "still pines for his ex-wife," "loves the hooch," "never could pass up a game of chance."

Reputation
In the 'belly, your reputation is your business card. Your rep is what people halfway across the world will know you for. In this game, reputation isn't just a collection of exaggerations and half-truths. Your reputation really is, truly, what you can do.

Write down three reps, one categorized as 'small,' one as 'medium,' and the last as 'large.' Just like with quirks, the higher the ranking of your reputations, the more likely it will come into play during the course of a session. Your reps can be straight up descriptions of what you can do and what you know, but they can also be brief synopses of previous successful pulls.

Connections
No criminal is an island, but the ocean sure as hell is full of sharks. Okay, awkward analogy, but suffice it to say that a social network can be a lifesaver when you've botched a pull or pissed off a boss.

You can probably guess this next step: Pick three connections to three other people, even if they're not part of the criminal underworld, and categorize one as 'small,' the second as 'medium,' and the third as 'large.' Connections have a bit more depth to them than other traits, since they're such a strong focus of normal play.

For each connection, record the person's name to whom you're connected. Write your relationship to that person. For example, "nephew," "old cellmates," or "boss of me." Finally, write down the connection's sphere of influence in society. For example, "bouncers," "local cops," "dock workers," "mafia," or "richfolk."

Here's the meat of your connection. Every relationship is comprised of different amounts of give and take between the two people. You're interested in the 'take.' That's what you get from your connection, what you get out of the relationship. The 'give' is where things can get tricky. Your ally isn't that for his health, he's going to want something in return.

Your small connection has one 'give' and one 'take.' That is, one thing your contact can rely on you to 'give' to him and one thing you can be sure you can 'take' from him. Medium connections have two gives and two takes. Large connections have three gives and three takes.

Task Resolution
Doing things in normal society is fairly easy. Effectively, you always have around five bucks in 'belly credit at convenience stores, fast food joints, and bars. You're never out of dough when you need a drink or a quick cab ride. Unless your quirks or style say otherwise, you're assumed to know how to drive, how to hold your liqour, how to hold your liqour while driving and any other 'casual crime.' The flipside of all this ease is that the Fuzz is always giving you the evil eye. Make one wrong move, say one stupid thing, you'll be wearing bracelets and getting a free ride downtown.

Doing any other stuff that doesn't fall under the general ease of criminal life requires that you roll a couple ten-sided dice to see if you succeed. First off, find out if you have any appropriate reps to do this task. If you have a relevant large rep, you get three dice. Mediums get two dice and smalls get one. If multiple reps are triggered, you get all those dice. When those dice are put together, they're called a dice pool. Roll the pool.

Every die result below your style is a success, every one above it is a failure. More successes are good since some actions have 'difficulty numbers,' which determine a minimum number of successes to be successful at that action. Not every action has a difficulty number, only those done in high stress situations. Difficulties range between 1 and 5.

While successes are called "successes," the opposite aren't "failures." The term failure implies that there's no further chance for success and you may as well just give up. That's not how the game is played. Crime never stops and neither do you. Instead of failing at a task, some complication happens that prevents you from succeeding at this time.

Finally, if you're rolling for an action befitting your style concept, every '1' rolled raises your style rating by one. If you're rolling for an action that is contrary or unrelated to your style, every '1' lowers your style rating by one.

Sometimes you'll have bonuses or penalties to your roll depending on certain conditions. These modify your roll by adding or removing dice. For example, a +1 bonus adds a die to your pool. A -1 removes a die. At either extreme, penalties and bonuses cap out at plus or minus 3.

Rep Combat
In the 'belly, violence is avoided unless absolutely necessary. It's a small world for criminals, always on the verge of complete collapse. The 'belly relishes a vacuum. When one villain goes down, his connections get right pissed and start offing anyone connected to the deed. Pretty soon, the hole in the social network grows exponentially larger, taking even the most distant connection along with it to the grave or, worse, to the slammer.

So instead, villains stick it to each other where it hurts most, the reputation.

Accusation
You accuse someone else of some sort of disgusting, inappropriate or generally uncool behavior. A mere insult won't do, you've really got to hit it home. The accusation should be something that sounds just true enough to have even his closest friends believe it. If you reach too far, the accusation verges on the absurd and you've lost your audience.

The accusation doesn't even need to be done face to face, you could discretely spread the rumor around in the local 'belly scene. Either way, the damage to the accused's reputation is still be done. If the accusation in some way incorporates the target's quirks, then you get a bonus. Small quirks give +1, mediums +2, larges +3.

After the accusation has been made, roll one die plus any bonuses. If the accusation goes unanswered, the accused will have his style rating reduced by the accuser's number of successes.

Retort
(Haven't quite worked this out yet, but this is essentially a "counter-attack" to save face among the rest of the 'belly's lowlifes.)

Calling in Favors
(Again, an as yet undeveloped, possibly metagame method of activating a character's connections in his favor.)

Heists
(This is by far the most important aspect of play, but I'm completely at a loss as to how to appropriately simulate a caper drama. The basic components, as far as I can see, are:

[*] The Mark - The person or establishment targetted for a heist.
[*] The Payoff - What lies in store for the criminal good enough to dupe the mark and take his stuff.
[*] The Plan - An elaborate series of acts of espionage, social engineering, security hacking, impostering, and fast-talking.
[*] The Catch - The foreseen difficulties that need to be overcome by the plan.
[*] The Complication - The unforeseen complications that need to be overcome while the plan is being executed.[/list:u]
Those are the ingredients, I just need to find the right recipe.

Questions for the Forge-ites
Any other films, games or other sources of inspiration and information that could help flesh out the concept to its full potential?

What aspects of cool "movie criminal" behavior haven't been touched upon yet and that you would like to see?

Is there too much focus on social networking for a game about heists and capers?

How can I make basic rules for catches like security systems, with all the associated impressive techno-babble, without actually getting into the details of those systems?

I'd like to liberally sprinkle criminal jargon throughout the game text, the sort that would be used by con artists. Is there a resource for this kind of slang?

Complications could be directly linked to quirks, but then this would likely entail some sort of "saving throw" mechanism to resist acting on the quirks. Is there a better way to handle them? I'd like to encourage acting on the quirks, but I'd also like to have them be sources of complication.

[Jason E. Roberts]

I toyed around with creating a game in this genre as well. Two major areas that you need to address are (1) the concept of the double-cross, a a staple of heist films (Ocean's 11 being a notable exception) and (2) the complications.

I was stumped on the first - thus leading to the game's quick demise. But I tweaked Jared's iSystem 50% resolution mechanic for creating complications. Until the very end of the caper, all intermediate actions are either "Yes, buts" or "No and moreovers". You may succeed, but the GM gets to add a "but" clause. For failures, the GM adds a "moreover" as a new complication. Yes, I realize that the GM is not ceding a lot of control, but it seemed like something that may prove worthwhile to playtest.

As for inspiration, try:

$ aka DOLLARS (Richard Brooks, 1971)
AD OGNI COSTO aka GRAND SLAM (Giuliano Montaldo, 1967)
THE ANDERSON TAPES (Sidney Lumet, 1971)
THE ASPHALT JUNGLE (John Huston, 1950)
THE BADLANDERS (Delmer Daves, 1958)
BAND OF OUTSIDERS
BOB LE FLAMBEUR (Jean-Pierre Melville, 1955)
BOUND
LE CERCLE ROUGE aka THE RED CIRCLE (Jean-Pierre Melville, 1970)
CHARLEY VARRICK (Don Siegel, 1973)
COPS AND ROBBERS (Aram Avakian, 1973)
DANGER: DIABOLIK
THE DAY THEY ROBBED THE BANK OF ENGLAND (John Guillermin, 1960)
DOG DAY AFTERNOON (Sidney Lumet, 1975)
ENTRAPMENT
FACE
A FISH CALLED WANDA (Charles Crichton, 1988)
GAMBIT (Ronald Neame, 1966)
THE GETAWAY (Sam Peckinpah, 1972)
THE GOOD THIEF
THE GREAT TRAIN ROBBERY  (Michael Crichton, 1979)
HEAT (Michael Mann, 1995)
THE HEIST
THE HOT ROCK (Peter Yates, 1972)
HOW TO STEAL A MILLION (William Wyler, 1966)
I SOLITI IGNOTI aka BIG DEAL ON MADONNA STREET (Mario Monicelli, 1956)
INSIDE OUT (Peter Duffell, 1975)
THE ITALIAN JOB (Peter Collinson, 1969)
THE ITALIAN JOB (XXXX, 2003)
THE KILLING (Stanley Kubrick, 1956)
THE LADYKILLERS (Alexander Mackendrick, 1955)
THE LAVENDER HILL MOB (Charles Crichton, 1951)
THE LEAGUE OF GENTLEMEN (Basil Dearden, 1960)
MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE
NINE QUEENS (2002)
OCEAN'S ELEVEN (Lewis Milestone, 1960)
OCEAN'S ELEVEN (Steven Soderbergh, 2001)
PAYROLL (Sidney Hayers, 1961)
PERFECT FRIDAY (Peter Hall, 1970)
RESERVOIR DOGS (XXX)
RIFIFI (Jules Dassin, 1955)
ROBBERY (Peter Yates, 1967)
RONIN (John Frankenheimer, 1998)
THE SCORE
SEVEN THIEVES (Henry Hathaway, 1960)
SNATCH
THE SPANISH PRISONER
STRONGROOM (Vernon Sewell, 1961)
SWORDFISH
THE TAKING OF PELHAM 123 (Jospeh Sargent, 1973)
THIEF
THE THOMAS CROWN AFFAIR (Norman Jewison, 1968)
TOPKAPI (Jules Dassin, 1964)
TOUCHEZ PAS AU GRISBI aka GRISBI (Jacques Becker, 1953)
TRESPASS (1992)
TWO-WAY STRETCH (Robert Day, 1960)
UN FLIC aka DIRTY MONEY (Jean-Pierre Melville, 1972)
USUAL SUSPECTS

[Daniel Solis]

I was stumped on the first - thus leading to the game's quick demise. But I tweaked Jared's iSystem 50% resolution mechanic for creating complications. Until the very end of the caper, all intermediate actions are either "Yes, buts" or "No and moreovers". You may succeed, but the GM gets to add a "but" clause. For failures, the GM adds a "moreover" as a new complication. Yes, I realize that the GM is not ceding a lot of control, but it seemed like something that may prove worthwhile to playtest.

Thanks for the movie suggestions! I'll have a lot of "research" to do now. :) Are there any particular movies I should note as successful implementations of my desired design goals?

It seems like Jared's ideas just keep trickling into my own games, but in this case I don't mind too much. Okay, so here are the ingredients: The Mark, The Payoff, The Catch, The Plan, and The Twists (formerly "complications"). And the beginnings of a recipe...

Heists
I think the mark is probably the most important part of the heist, it lends a human face to the job. A person with their own connections amd underlings, probably a boss. I think I'll tweak character creation into a specific guideline for boss creation.

The payoff has to be in some way related to a character's desires as expressed in the "take" portion of their connections. The easy payoff is, of course, cold hard cash, but payoffs can also be the affections of an estranged lover, the rescue of a hostage, or the favor of a local boss.

In game, the catch is whatever dramatic difficulties that are expected to present themselves in the pursuit of the payoff. Security systems, tough guards, "elevators we can't go down," "fingerprints we can't fake," yada yada yada. Out of game, the catch is simply the mark's style rating, a predetermined number known only to the GM. The mark's style rating is also the difficulty number of any attempt, by any means, to get the payoff.

After taking into account all of the catches, a montage proceeds wherein the plan is conceived and prepared, possibly taking up a complete session on its own. For every catch, a countermeasure is planned in order to reduce its severity. Each character is assigned their tasks based on their appropriate rep. The players make their rolls and every success reduces the mark's style, and thus the difficulty of further actions, by that amount.

After the preparation is complete, the execution begins where wheels are put into motion, dominoes start toppling and metaphors careen into each other. During this session, at a time of her choosing, the GM introduces the twists on little pre-written notecards. These notecards introduce new complications to the plan's execution. Every twist introduced reduces the mark's style rating by one, so a GM should be choosy about when and where a twist pops up. Sample twists could be:

[*] "Your boss has changed his mind. Botch the job."
[*] "Your ex-wife is dating the mark."
[*] "Someone in your crew is a snitch."
[*] "The cops are on to you."
[*] "There is nothing on this note card. I just wanted to get the rest of the players paranoid."
[*] "You secretly discover the payoff is more than you had expected and more than the rest of your crew deserves."
[*] "The crew suspects you of being disloyal. Prove them wrong."
[*] "The plan isn't going to work. You probably have a better idea anyway."
[*] "The plan is complete. No further preparations are necessary."[/list:u]

Thoughts?

EDIT: I should be more specific in my questions.

Does linking everything to the mark's style rating centralize heist gameplay too much? Does it reduce the dramatic tension of making a plan, executing it, and hoping it works?

How about the concept of changing a "target number" into a GM resource for the introduction of twists? Is it too much of a distraction? Too mechanical? Should the GM be able to introduce a twist for free if a character completely fails a roll? What about when a character succeeds?

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Daniel,

Do a Forge search using "Criminal Element" and read the resulting threads in some detail. Also, get the copy of the game in question, which I believe is still available through the links in those threads, and check it out in detail. It was written by Michael P. O'Sullivan as one of the 24-hour games earlier this year.

Criminal Element remains my top choice for current halfway-there game designs that I'd like to see further playtested and developed for publication. You may find that it scratches the same itch that led to your current game, or you may find that you're taking another route entirely. Either way, doing the above investigation will certainly be worth your time.

Best,
Ron

[Daniel Solis]

Holy crap.

Holy crap.

There's only one thing worse than getting a creative itch to scratch. That is finding out someone's already started scratching it better than you. Thanks for the tip, Ron. But now I'm completely thrown for a loop. The concept, even if unfinished, has already got some great system stuff backing it up that I sincerely doubt I could improve upon. Should I continue with my current system or completely move over to the CE system and develop that further?

EDIT: After thinking about it for a bit, I'm probably going to focus more on a very specific playstyle or, in CE terms, a narrow group of genre expectations then gear the system towards those ends. With that in mind, I've worked up a mechanic to discourage violence as a solution to problems.

(Something I posted on RPG Theory)

The way I'm thinking of handling combat in Pull is that it reduces your style trait (the number under which dice must roll to be counted as successes). In effect, the actual damage of a gunshot is not as relevant as to how it affects the image you're trying to portray to the rest of the criminal underworld. That being the case, simply being attacked is enough to reduce your style, the success of the attack isn't such a big deal. In some cases, attacking at all reduces your style.

Haven't worked out the details, but that's the gist.

[Mike Holmes]

Talk to Mr. O'Sullivan (if he's available). Maybe you could collaborate. If he doesn't move on the idea (even if he does), then you've got every right to move forward instead. In the end such a game needs to be published. You can't steal his copywrited work, but you can ethically use his material as inspiration, or as a bar that you have to exceed making your own game.

In any case, talking to him might give you some perspective.

Mike

[Daniel Solis]

Thanks for the tip, I'll try contacting him straight away. I just noticed an incongruity with my game text, actually. That's what I get for hastily revising something written over a year ago. One paragraph says dice result in success/failure while the next paragraph says it's more like success/complication. I need to fix that.

A section on handy-dandy crime tips would be cool to have, much like the sort of thing being discussed in the Player's Terrorist Handbook thread. I'm thinking of just a big list of quickie fun facts of the sort Tyler Durden would impart on someone. Home recipes for napalm. How to make a silencer out of a plastic soda bottle. That sort of thing.

Phew.

[Tim Alexander]

Heya,

First off, love the concept. I haven't gotten to digest it all yet, but I had a quick reference point. Depending on the jargon you're looking for, and what period I'd recommend:

a) Any of the hardboiled detective stuff, Hammet etc.
b) The Big Con; which served as a very loose basis for The Sting. It was written by a linguistics professor fascinated by criminal jargon. It ends up being a well covered piece on the height of the Big Store era of conmen, but also has a lot of cool jargon.
c) Mamet uses a lot of period jargon in almost all his con works, it's worth referencing if that's what you're looking for.

-Tim

[MPOSullivan]

hey guys,

i see people are talking smack aoubt me again! ;-)

well, hey, it's always fantastic to see people talking about a genre that i adore, and it's even cooler to hear such glowing praise for a game that i created in twenty four hours.  thank you guys sooo  much for the attention.  

first off, gobi, you've been doing some really interresting stuff around here lately,and the ideas that you have for your game are really solid.  the way you lay out the specifics of the hiest are perfect i think.

secondly, thanks ron for the thumbs up.  and, i know i've said this before, but i am still working on CE.  the game has been slowed up mainly because i recently moved across six time zones and now live in hawaii.  i am currently using a roommates computer until i get all of my things set up, which will probably take another month, then i will attempt to develop the rest of the game material.  i do hope to publish it sometime in the near future, though i am completely clueless as to going about that.

even though i am still working on CE gobi, feel free to develop your own game.  i can see that you have ideas and directions that you want to go in that are fresh and fun so feel free to run with it.  but hey, Mike mentioned collaboration, a prospect i am completely open to.  it'd be a blast to work with someone on this project.

once again, sorry for the lack of conversation lately.  moving whooped my ass.  hope to be back in the ring soon.  feel free to email me people!

laters,

   -michael p o'sullivan

[Daniel Solis]

Thanks, Micheal :)

I'd be very cool with collaboration on this project. I'll keep working up some stuff until you get a more reliable internet access. Then maybe we can compare notes? Hope to see you soon. I'll PM my email address to you straight away.

edit: I've said "straight away" twice in this thread. Someone stop me. :P