A Player's Terrorist Handbook

[brainwipe]

I am currently looking at the next netbook to produce for Icar ( http://www.icar.co.uk ) and I have recently stumbled across an idea scribbled on the back of a beermate I'd glued into my notebook. I was wondering if anyone had heard of this kind of book before and if you forsee any problems with creating it. It's a player guide of sorts...

Terrorist Handbook
In Icar (as there are in any game) there are certain techniques, tricks and tips that can help a team get through difficult situations or solve seemingly complex problems. And do this without loading the largest weapon and vapourising the problem in a puff of steam.

For example, if they commit some crime in a conspicuous vehicle, they can change the registration plates as often as they like, but it if is still a bright red muscle car bristling with guns then they are going to get picked up pretty quickly. Therefore, the tip would be "Steal a car and then do a job"

So, this book would include how to steal things, con people, ideas on ruining people's lives (rather than killing them), blowing things up, perhaps a few dissident style skills, what weapons are good for what sort of job, where to hide, how to stow away on someone's space craft and who to go to if the preverbial hits the air circulation device.

Of course, this kind of volume would be a dangerous thing to give players and would not comprehensive. The idea would be to spark some ideas that might help out their specific situation. Another good reason to do this book is that it would give options when they are in a tight spot, rather than doing the 'blaze of glory' or 'gun toting' routes.

However, they may start to rely on the procedures in this book and therefore not dream up their own crazy ideas. Of course, the ideas would be general, but if the idea given in the book does not work the players might not trust it at all.

When replying, please remember that Icar is free and will remain so, so publishing type arguments and cost-benefit issues do not effect this book.

Your opinions, of course, are all welcome.

[Minx]

I like the idea. This book was the thing that I always missed in my Shadowrun games.

It would also decrease GM frustration. ;)

M

[xechnao]

Depends on the potential of the game's campaign. Lots of games have supplements-guides like this and they are supporting well gaming in the campaigns they are about. If the book can fit well with a campaign of your game or a style of campaign appropriate for your game I would say go for it.

[Daniel Solis]

A chapter specifically on this sort of stuff was just what I was struggling with for PUNK and Pull. What sources would you be using for this sourcebook? I imagine biographies of real con artists would be a good treasure trove. Hell, autobiographies like Catch Me If You Can would be fantastic too. I don't know where you'd go for the really, really juicy ideas though.

[DP]

Hello Rob,

Your book sounds like an excellent idea. It'd really help players get over their normal way of doing things--"To the man who is good with a hammer, every problem looks like a nail."

A set of core principles of Being a Sneaky Git would benefit a lot of games--especially as it'd give players a framework from which to inquire as to specifics of a setting. That is, if I'm not familiar with a setting, particularly a far-future setting, rather than not doing anything for fear of looking foolish because I don't know if there are muscle cars in this setting and needing to ask endless questions, I can work from known principles and focus my efforts, or at least my setting questions.

[Daniel Solis]

I just remembered something that may be a good model to follow, and one which I'll surely be using for Pull. In Unknown Armies 2nd edition, the combat chapter has a complete section giving simple words of advice on how to avoid combat. Though some of the tidbits seem like common sense, players and GMs tend to fall into habitual problem-solving patterns without their even realization. Just a simple "Hey, you're pissed off, you wanna deck the guy, but don't. Here are six ways to do something else..." can be a revelation.

[Mike Holmes]

Rob, you want players to put more thought into this part of their play? Why? Because the game is all about this sort of stuff?

If that's true, then what I'd suggest, more than text giving ideas, is to have mechanics that reward this sort of play.

If this isn't the basis of play, then I'd suggest that it should be the GM's job to frame past all such stuff. Don't ask the players, "How are you going to commit the crime?" instead say, "OK, you've intelligently stolen a vehicle so as not to be indentified, and are now driving up to the bank."

I mean, after all, if they're criminals wouldn't they know to do that? Asking them to think of that is like asking a player whose character was a chemist to actually describe the way in which he's using dehydration synthesis to construct his hydroxyl adjuncts to his compounds. It's just not pertinent to play.

If the players aren't playing to some specification it's because the game doesn't encourage it. That's either good, and you shouldn't mess with it, or it's bad, and you need to change the focus.

Have mechanics that focus play on what the game is about. Then gloss the rest.

Mike

[brainwipe]

Thanks for the great thoughts and replies, I'll do my best to provide an adequate reply.

Sources (from Gobi)
The source is essentially 10 years of play testing. I can remember a hell of a lot of ways in which the players thought ways out of sticky situations without resorting to firearms. I shall also try the biographies of real con artists, as you mentioned.

Mechanic bonuses (from Mike)
I agree that to get players to do a certain style of aply, you must reward for it.  In Icar, I reward for playing a character consistently and with depth. I am not trying to bend the game into a lateral-thinking or problem solving game, but instead provide some other ideas about how to deal with situations without resorting to violence. It's sort of a background, if you will.

Thanks for the all the positive feedback, I shall start putting finger to keyboard and jotting down some ideas.

[AgentFresh]

GURP's Cyberpunk Sourcebook had stuff like this in it (junction boxing, phone phreaking, dumpster diving to get sensitive discarded papers, etc.)

Of course, this also got SJG raided by the Secret Service.

[failrate]

I don't agree with Mr Holmes in that you can just say, "Okay, you stole the car, are you going to rob the bank now?"  Maybe the players didn't think of that.  Certainly, people have robbed banks and then tried to take cabs or the bus or ride off on a bicycle.  Sure, these are all insanely stupid options, but people have tried them.  Just because someone is a professional criminal doesn't necessarily mean they are intelligent.  Think of the old bunko con.  I actually had someone pull this on me.  By confusing a store clerk by having them make a whole shitload of change in different denominations, giving them back certain amounts, and then taking away different amounts, the bunko artist can actually end up getting back more money than they paid with.  The person conned either never notices the difference, or realizes it much later and feels too embarrassed to do much about it and doesn't clearly remember the "artist's" face.  About the most you can make on a bunko job is about twenty bucks.  Doesn't really seem worth it, hey?

If the game promotes ANY kind of realism, the players should really have to think out their plan.  Watch the Grifters and Killing Zoe for some heists and cons.  The techniques used in the movies are generally pretty good stuff, but the fact that the characters are all too human and f-UP during planning causes their plans to go horribly wrong.

[Mike Holmes]

FR,

Would you advocate that players have to describe how their characters eat? Do the players have to say that their characters continue to breathe or risk their deaths? How to properly cross the street?

Now, I'm sure that people have crossed the street before in ways so stupid so as to get themselves killed. So is it "unrealistic" to assume that your character makes it across the streetwithout an appropriate description?

I'm using extreme examples to make a point. Which is that all RPGs have a focus of play. Something that describes what they're about. Rob's game is Sci-Fi with it's own slants. And as such, it should stick to what makes that genre great. How about a more reasonable example? If the GM says, "OK, after a long week in space, you find yourself on the next planet." Is that not realistic because all the character actions required to get to the planet have been assumed to have succeeded by the players and GM? No, it's not "unrealistic" to skip action ever - it happens in all games to some extent. What skpping it can be is inappropriate for the design in quesiton.

Now, there are many different styles of play, something we talk about here all the time. Some of them involve player challenge. If that's what Rob's game is about, and if part of the challenge is the players deciding how best to rob places, then I'd be sure to advocate having the players detail that sort of thing. But if you read Icar, I think you'll see that this isn't the focus of the sort of game that Rob's put together. As he says above, he's not so much interested in challenging the players to come up with other solutions to problems, he just wants them to realize that there are other options than violence so that they can attempt those instead. Basically, he's trying to escape the fact that his game puts too much attention on combat at the moment (but that's a whole different point).

Anyhow, there's another school that says that the idea is for the players to decide on anything that's remotely interesting about what the characters are doing. Now, that school would also advocate that the players decide what the characters were doing vis a vis setting up the robbery, as it would satisfy that goal. But, again, I'm not seeing that all that much in Rob's game. The simplest statement that I can see of what the game is about is:

The player characters begin as pawns in a huge space opera where millions of people's lives are often at risk, by fighting for what they believe, they improve and grow in power until they are the ones holding the strings.

The system is "quick" and "cinematic".

That tells me that the game is on a scale grand enough that the GM framing past scenes involved with setting up robberies is completely appropriate. What matters is what the characters are attempting. It's the decision to rob something that's important, and the action involved in seeing that happen. Heck, at some points in the game, if the robbery was just to set up something more important, I'd just make it a die roll, and describe it in a couple of sentences.

"Success? OK, you steal a vehicle for annonymity, make the raid, and get away with the unobtanium with ease. The one downside is that Zax's weapon got hit by some stray fire from the guards as you were leaving, and will need to be replaced."

Look at it this way. Sure, if a character is dumb, then maybe he'd mess it up. But what if the character is also intelligent? A much more likely case in Rob's world. Then isn't he likely to do things right? Think of it this. If the player doesn't know anything about how to run a criminal operation, and yet the character is an expert according to the rules, then isn't it "unrealistic" for the character to fail based on the fact that the player knows less than the character? I mean, to be accurate, wouldn't the player have to go through several years of actual criminal training in the actual setting in question? A physical impossibility.

This all comes down to one of the age-old debates about design. What should character effectiveness be allowed to solve, and what should player ability be used to solve instead? Well, the answer can only be found in the particular design. In some games you can roll to see if you seduce another character. In others you're required to play it out. Some people like the first method, allowing players to play characters with abilities in these areas that they, themselves, do not have. Some prefer that this be left in the hands of the player alone to promote first person play of that sort of activity.

The truth is that they both work. So the fact that you wouldn't play the game as I've described it is just your personal preference (and I bet that you'd like it more than you think, anyhow). There are loads of folks who would like it better if set ups of the sort described didn't require tactical scenes for the players to make these decisions. In any case, what Rob has to ask himself is what his focus is. And then design to that. I've just given him food for thought on one option to solve his problem.

Mike

[brainwipe]

Mike, that is by far the most complete post I have ever read. Food for thought? I veritable banquet. To attempt a reasonable reply:

I am trying to design a game where the players can choose to describe as much as they like. If they feel like describing a shopping trip, then fine. If they feel like describing how they interrogate someone, then the rules allow for this. They also allow for the quick-rolling-and-get-onto-more-interesting-stuff. Some players know a lot about the technology of Icar and thus like to discuss possible technical solutions to problems.

Most campaigns I have run (a considerable number), the players have often enjoyed getting into sticky siutations (doing the robberies) and getting out of them. However, often they end up using guns - only working out a more peaceful solution after.

The Terrorist handbook is design to provide general ideas that might spark off a more event-specific solution to their problems. In might include methods of smuggling themselves onto ships or gunfight tactics in a city. How these ideas are applied (or warped into something new) is what I feel the players enjoy.

Some of my more experienced players note that this would be a pointless book for them, as they know the lay of the land, but new people to the game might find the book very useful: "I didn't know that standing behind a structural wall can protect me from that sort of weapon...".

I hope this clears this up. Do you still find the book a useful idea?