[Contract Work] Making a game of killing for money.

[Russell Collins]

I've been kicking around a cyber-noir game for years, but never made any real headway. I've decided that the cyber parts are what're getting away from me, so I stripped the game down to the noir elements. I give you: Contract Work Possible inspirations include the comics of Frank Miller, the film Day of the Jackyl and the Hitman 47 series of video games.

1) What is it about?
Killing people. For money

2) How is it about that?
Our players are hitmen and women, trying to make a living in a corrupt urban blight where the rich get richer, the poor get hungrier and no one ascends to the well-fed by honest means. That leads to lots of anger and a need for "someone else" to do the killing. If you're playing this game, you are "someone else."

3) How does the game enforce that?
Economics and a strong structural outline to the Job.

Character stats are bought with in-game money, and each one costs an upkeep at the end of the episode. To keep the players focused on the money, the game mechanic is structured so that points equal a dollar value. Players will have to spend money to gain points worth of information, equipment and so on in their pursuit of the job. In a conflict, you compare the stats of what you've bought in a little bidding war to see who wins.

The Jobs are laid out along an outline starting with The Hire; a scene to determine the basics of who needs killing, for how much and by what day. The Job proceeds to The Investigation, when the players try to feel out their target, getting into small confrontations in hopes of buying or gaining an advantage over their target. After enough advantages are accumulated or time runs short, there is a Preparation or planning phase. Naturally enough, Execution follows. Every job has this rough outline to restrain the Game Boss (GM) and to enforce on the players that a quick drive-by is not a Job done right. At least, if you hope to survive for the next one.

Interested? Horrified? Want to keep reading?

Charcter Details
Characters are defined by 3 stats each with a minimum rating of 1 and a max of 20. Stats are bought, 1pt=$1,000.
Body: Physical fitness, health, force. Use it to fight, out-drink or overbear someone.
Mind: Mental acuity and awareness. Handy for debasting and research as well as any criminal activity that requires attention to your surroundings like lock-picking etc.
Rep: Reputation, social standing, overall charm. Use it to seduce, con, schmooze and bribe.

Additionally, characters have Advantages of two types; gear (tools, guns, etc.) and preparations (information, ambushes, etc.)
Advantages also are rated 1-20 and are much cheaper than stats, because when an Advantage is bought, an intended use must be declared for it, limiting it's usefulness. For example, I don't just buy tools and assume I can use them to fix my flat tire and pick a security lock.

After those, the only useful stat to track is money.

Mechanics
The primary conflict resolution mechanic is used heavily in the Investigation and Execution stages of the Job. There are some restrictions in Investigation that are lifted once the alarm is raised by senseless player actions or once the Execution stage begins in earnest and the blood is flowing.

For the first example we'll assume the Investigation is in full swing. Our player is a dapper dan trying to seduce a secretary to get to her boss.

After cooperatively narrating the scene in which the player meets the secretary at a bar after following her from work, we can get to the meat of the matter.

Bidding

The player declares what advantage he wants to gain from the situation, including the value of that advantage. In this example he wants knowledge of the security layout of the building worth 10 pts. He then spends the money to buy that advantage, in this case $1,000. (1pt=$100).

He next takes his rep stat (13), and adds any advantages he already has that he wants to spend. He has a nice suit that won't be too out of fashion if he's seen out in it a few more times and spends 7 points of its value. That means he has 20 pts to bid in this conflict.

The Game Boss is doing the same for the secretary's attempts to resist giving the player the advantage he wants. She doesn't have advantages of her own, so the Game Boss spends from a budget to help her resist. Her total is 16. Note that one of the main reasons to seek advantages is to get the GB spending from the security pool, reducing it for later when the hitmen make their move.

Both sides divide up their points as they see fit between attack and defense and write those numbers out on an index card: A/D. Dapper dan bids 13A/7D. The secretary puts down 8A/8D. They flip over cards and compare results.

Dan's attack is higher than the secretary's defense, so he gets what he wanted. Dan's player narrates the scene to explain how he seduced the info out of the secretary with expensive drinks and fancy gifts or whatever he thinks fits the cost of the advantage.

Pressing the Issue

However, the secretary's A is 1 higher than Dan's D, meaning he took "damage" from the exchange to his Rep. Maybe being seen with the wrong woman in this night club is bad for one of his "steady" relationships? What if he didn't bid higher than her defense? Does he have to live with that outcome? Not necesarily. The player can Press the Issue.

To Press the Issue, roll a d20, trying to score lower than the stat you're using in this conflict. The difference of your stat and roll are bonus points you can add to either the A or D of the conflict. The reason not to do this too often though, is that Pressing the Issue may alert your target that someone's after him.

In the investigation phase, before the alarm is raised the GB has some restrictions on how hard he can fight against a player seeking an Advantage (like not being able to put all his pts in defense, etc.) Once the alarm is raised however, he gains free reign.

So, there we have a quick, dirty explanation. I'll post a more detailed version of the work in progress later. Many of the elements are further fleshed out already, but I don't want to bore everyone, just a select few.

Thoughts?

I'd especially like to know what you all think about elements like the Job outline directing the narrative, and the conflict resolution mechanic. I'm still working to balance this system, as I want the value of the job to equal the amount of security budget the GB has to challenge the players with.

[knicknevin]

I like it; I like the idea of paying to gain and maintain your stats and I'd like to see a bit more about that. How does the GM set the 'budget' for a mission? I ran a game recently where the players decided how difficult the overrall mission would be, which determined a) the total amount of success they had to get on certain rolls (totalled throughout the game, like InSpectres) b) the minimum difficulty of certain tasks and c) the maximum result they could get from those tasks. In your example, I would say that the players can decide how important the secretary is: the more of the 'budget' they assign to her, the more they can get out of her but the more points the GM has to spend on her response. Once the players have spent the entire 'budget' for a mission during the Investigtion & Preparation phases then thats its, they can't do any more to get ready, they have to move on to the Execution. For example, say the contract was put out at $50,000; over the course of the mission, the players take money from this budget, so in the secretary's case, the player takes $1,000 from the budget to assign to the value of the information he wants to get and then pays $1,000 of his own money to try and buy the information (as in the example previously given), leaving only $49,000 for other actions; if the player fails, the money is still gone from the budget and from his personal funds.
I think Pressing the Issue should drain further funds, or else the target is alerted to what is going on and may take precautions that make the PCs job harded, i.w intsalling new security systems, changing their routine, hiring a bodyguardm etc.

[Graham W]

It's a great concept. The Hitman series of games is excellent.

I'd especially like to know what you all think about elements like the Job outline directing the narrative

It's good. It gives a very natural and satisfying structure to the story.

Here's lots of questions and then a wishlist.

Firstly, what happens when a player runs out of money? Won't it just end the game very quickly? What happens when a player has spent his money too quickly, leaving nothing for the difficult obstacles at the end of the game?

Secondly, do the characters work together? One of the nicest things about the Hitman series is that 47 works on his own. Doesn't it change the game if you've got a party of hitmen? Is there any scope for the characters to work against each other - say, killing off the other characters to get their share of the money?

Also, how specifically do you encourage stealthy kills? What's to stop the characters from just blowing up the building that the target's in?

Wishlist: one of the best things about the hitman games (and Day of the Jackal) is the fact that killing someone is a puzzle. There's a great deal of observation and planning: working out the target's movements and weaknesses. Is there room for that in the game? Is a large part of the game puzzle solving?

And the other thing I like is the stealth. Any room for that in your game?

Finally, if you haven't read InSpectres, I think you'd get some very good ideas from it. Particularly in terms of structuring the jobs.

Graham

[MikeSands]

There's a lot of converting between points and cash in there - why not just rate everything in the game with its cash value? That seems fitting and reduces complexity in play a little.

[Vaxalon]

Yeah.  "My strength is $100,000" sounds odd, but every game has odd language. 

Think of it this way.  "I spent a hundred g's to get this body... I'd better be damn tough."

[Russell Collins]

I like it; I like the idea of paying to gain and maintain your stats and I'd like to see a bit more about that.

Initially players pay $1,000 per point in stats, at the end of an episode, they pay $100 per point, or the stat degenerates by 1 pt. to simulate missing their workouts, not keeping up on the latest news, or not making the rounds and buying drinks for all their influnential friends. Stats can be improved for $1,000/pt., but after the upkeep is paid.

How does the GM set the 'budget' for a mission?

I'm still working to refine the math on that. I'm thinking of it as a challenge rating kind of thing, based on the total value of the characters.

In your example, I would say that the players can decide how important the secretary is: the more of the 'budget' they assign to her, the more they can get out of her but the more points the GM has to spend on her response.

Yeah, that's basically it. The GB can counter the PCs in investigation with up to the same amount they are spending. Additionally, the stats of the NPCs are determined by what "rank" of NPC they face. I'll post more on that later.

I think Pressing the Issue should drain further funds, or else the target is alerted to what is going on and may take precautions that make the PCs job harded,

They way I have it now, everytime you press the issue increases the chances of "raising the alarm." Simply put, if you roll 1 on the 1st attempt, the alarm is raised, since 1 is the best possible roll it will certainly garner attention. On the 2nd attempt, 2 or less raises the alarm, and so on.

When the alarm is raised, the GB can now spend more from the budget than the value of the advantage to block it. Also, he can distribute A and D bids however he wants, and NPCs can now initiate confrontations, where before only PCs took that risk.

Thanks for your comments!

[Russell Collins]

Firstly, what happens when a player runs out of money? Won't it just end the game very quickly? What happens when a player has spent his money too quickly, leaving nothing for the difficult obstacles at the end of the game?

Resource management is the name of the game really, If you've spent all your money, you'd better have spent it on enough advantages to get you throught the job and your paycheck at the end. Think of it as hitpoints, you wouldn't squander those would you?

Secondly, do the characters work together? One of the nicest things about the Hitman series is that 47 works on his own. Doesn't it change the game if you've got a party of hitmen? Is there any scope for the characters to work against each other - say, killing off the other characters to get their share of the money?

To improve the party mechanic, I decided that each character can only enter one confrontation a night in the Investigation phase or they raise the alarm. That means if you've only got a few nights to case the target's home, bribe off some of his guards, etc. It helps to be in a few places at once. Also, PCs can share money and advantages, so maybe you can borrow a gun, or name drop from your Crew.

PKing has a Rep cost, if you f___ over your friends, people are less likely to trust you.

Also, how specifically do you encourage stealthy kills? What's to stop the characters from just blowing up the building that the target's in?

I don't really. If they think that's the best way to do the job, they do it. they just have to make sure they've really got their asses covered and have bought the advantages that will get them around a bomb squad and so on. If there's money left in the GB security pool after the hit, that money could go to a little NPC  investigation.

Wishlist: one of the best things about the hitman games (and Day of the Jackal) is the fact that killing someone is a puzzle. There's a great deal of observation and planning: working out the target's movements and weaknesses. Is there room for that in the game? Is a large part of the game puzzle solving?

Yep. The PCs need to know what kind of advantages are actually going to be useful, but they are on a deadline, so they can't have a quiet stakeout. During Investigation, they are supposed to be following the target, calling favors from people in the know, maybe even picking a fight with the security to see if they can handle themselves in a bar brawl. Those narratives come to a head when the confrontation is declared and bid on. I kind of glossed over that in the initial post to keep it brief.

And the other thing I like is the stealth. Any room for that in your game?

Sure. Stealth is primarily situational awareness, so it ties to the Mind Stat. Any sneaking activity can be done by putting Mind on the line instead of another stat.

Finally, if you haven't read InSpectres, I think you'd get some very good ideas from it. Particularly in terms of structuring the jobs.

Yeah, I've paged through it, but I really should just plunk down the cash for it.

Thanks! Some good things to think about here.