Shadow of the Century - Part 2: Smash and Grab

Last week, we sat down to run our first play session of the Shadow of the Century beta playtest!

The Pharmacy Scene from La Femme Nikita - Yeah, it was released in 1990—but FILMED in 1989!

We ran with three players again, but only one of three had attended the Pitch Session. Fortunately, one of the new players asked me to work up Hackerman from Kung Fury as a character ahead of time. The other new player decided to go with the pregenerated "Loose Cannon" character form the sample characters provided—we modified the aspect Mason's Gunning for Me to reflect one of the NPCs from the Pitch Session, so it became Biggins' Gunning for Me.

So, our characters for the night are:
Raymond James - Brain/Detective/Warrior
High Concept: Centurion Historian
Trouble: “Actually…..”
Call to Action: Following in the footsteps of the Spirits

Hackerman - Brain/Hacker/Inventor
High Concept: Hacker at Large
Trouble: Inappropriate Innuendo
Call to Action: With Great Processing Power Comes Great Responsibility

Officer Riza Colak - Cop/Loose Cannon(Gonzo)/Wheelman

High Concept: Cop on the Edge
Trouble: Biggins' Gunning for Me
Call to Action: None yet

Introducing...

In order to introduce the characters, I decided to do a series of scenes where each player describes their character doing their thing, getting caught, and making a hasty escape—to be scooped up by their mysterious benefactor. Ya know, the ol' "Everyone Meets Everyone" trope.

Ken described a giant Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark warehouse, but stacked with rows and rows of cardboard file boxes. Raymond James has pulled several off the shelves and is rifling through them. A security guard shows up and asks him who he is and why he's here. Raymond starts, "Well, sir, I'm from the University of..." and pretends to pat himself down for ID. The guard doesn't buy it and radios in to the front desk. Raymond scatters the contents of a box in the air to conceal his escape and ducks out a side door. Waiting for him is a white and gold custom conversion van. An elderly gentleman opens the passenger door and beckons him to jump inside. Once in, the old man jams a cane on the gas pedal and they're off.

Josh explains that Hackerman is convinced that Tastee-Freez is tied up in some big government conspiracy. He's broken into the back room of a local Tastee-Freez and is in the process of dialing in to their corporate records using a Tandy 1000 and a giant modem, when the assistant manager walks in. Hackerman explains that the sequencing board doesn't match the left-handed thrommel-meister, followed by more technobabble. The assistant manager goes to grab the manager, at which point Hackerman bolts, dropping the chunky modem in the process. Waiting for him is a white and gold custom conversion van. An elderly gentleman in a wheelchair slides open the side door and beckons him to jump inside. Once in, a bookish fellow stomps on the gas pedal and they're off.

Sarah sets the scene as a stakeout at a "typical 80's warehouse by the docks". (Josh starts playing "Crockett's Theme".) Officer Riza Colak is there with a fat cassette recorder. She's trying to get evidence that dirty cops from her precinct are getting paid by local drug dealers to look the other way. Just as it gets to the juicy bit, a rat knocks over some bottles, drawing their attention to her. Riza runs for it, bullets whizzing past, and ducks into a nearby parking structure. Waiting for her is a white and gold custom conversion van. A nerd with giant glasses and a mullet slides open the side door. An elderly gentleman in a wheelchair beckons her to jump inside. Once in, a bookish fellow stomps on the gas pedal and they're off.

The elderly gentleman introduces himself as Angus MacGregor. He explains that he's been gathering individuals with particular skillsets to, "help make the world a better place." Riza's not buying it. Raymond steps in to explain that Angus is the Spirit of Longing and a former member of the now defunct Century Club—an organization made up of exceptional individuals who, at one time, kept the forces of evil in check. Angus wants to reconnect old Centurion friends and try to make a difference again. Riza's still not buying it, saying she's got her own corruption to weed out. Angus finally convinces her by pointing out she could be more effective by going bigger: "try to cut them off at the head rather than try to whittle them down at their feet."

Angus directs Raymond to take them to their base of operations—an abandoned police station in the middle of an unpopulated and forgotten chunk of Miami. They park next to Riza's new "squad car"—a shiny new Mustang. Once inside, they have free reign and access to all the resources they could ever need. Hackerman is in heaven!

The Scene of the Crime

After getting settled, Angus calls the three of them into a meeting room. He presents them with a seemingly innocuous newspaper article—a drug store robbery where the crooks got away even though the place was surrounded by police. Something about it seems familiar to Raymond, but he can't put his finger on it. They go to check it out.

The drug store is a mom-n-pop shop currently surrounded by crime scene tape. The front window is smashed in and shelves are overturned.

Raymond heads to the pharmacy counter directly and finds paperwork spilled everywhere. None of the paperwork is newer than three months ago. Drug bottles not on the shelves have been lined up on the counter as if to be counted.

Hackerman makes a beeline to the office and discovers mom and pop have a brand new computer and security camera system. He begins downloading the contents of the computer to floppy disks. He also checks for the video tape of the moment of the break in. Not surprisingly, it's been taken as evidence.

Riza goes to the police station that handled the case to get a copy of the police report. As she's waiting for copies to be made, she notices an officer suspiciously pick up the phone and place a call. She can barely make out him saying, "you told me to call if she shows up. Well, she's here," before he quickly hangs up. With the copy of the report in hand, she stops by the tattletale's desk and makes her presence known before returning to the crime scene.

When Raymond is done examining the drug counter, he heads upstairs to where mom and pop live and questions them. They confirm that multiple people broke in, smashed the place, and took very little – just some loose cash and a couple of bottles of pills. The police arrived quickly, surrounded the place, and the noise from the store below just kind of stopped. The officers were unable to find anybody.

Hackerman starts to unpack all of his gear and starts building a "Magnetic Resonance Convergence Processor" using his Weird Science stunt. He succeeds, and gives it the stunt "When using the Magnetic Resonance Convergence Processor to process electro-magnetic signals, you get a +2 to Hacking to reconstruct those signals". Hackerman starts it running as it reads the magnetic residue image on the head of the video recorder and samples the camera cells and wiring to try to recreate the missing footage of the break in.

Riza compares the police report to evidence on scene. It also confirms that some small bills and a few handfuls of drugs were taken.

The Magnetic Resonance Convergence Processor finishes and ejects a newly minted video cassette. They all decide to pack up and head back to base.

Shortly after leaving the scene, Riza sees flashing lights in her rearview mirror. She diligently pulls over and Officer Joey Biggins steps out and over and leans on her car door. For all his bravado, Riza simply defects everything. Seeing as he's not going to get anything out of her, he smashes the Mustang's taillights for his trouble and moves along. During the rest of the ride back, Hackerman expounds the various ways he's going to make life difficult for Officer Biggins. When it's suggested he sign Biggins up for the Columbia Record & Tape Club, Hackerman states that's over the line as it's equivalent to being punished for war crimes.

Home Base Sweet Home Base

Back at base, Hackerman makes a big production of wheeling out the front-projection TV and gathering everybody around to check it out. Everybody gets a good chuckle when Raymond suggests this is an awful lot of effort just to show off his porn collection.

Hackerman ignores the comment and loads up his video reconstruction. A fuzzy black and white image appears on the screen...

Interior of the drug store.
A brick enters the frame, shards of glass following.
Three individuals enter, two bulky men and a woman with large hair.
One man enters the pharmacy and starts going through stacks of paperwork, throwing them on the floor as he goes.
The woman disappears into the office.
The other man starts pushing over shelves and smashing things.
After a minute or two, the woman returns with a scroll of dot-matrix printout.
Flashing lights begin to reflect off the walls.
The man in the pharmacy stuffs some pill bottles into his jacket pockets, smashes the register on the floor, pockets some cash, and throws the cash drawer at the ceiling light, plunging him into darkness.
The woman returns to the office and flips off the lights.
The remaining man makes a few false starts in various directions before deciding on a darkened corner.
Police officers enter the building from various directions, their flashlights reveal empty spaces where people were just moments before.

Riza loses it. She can't believe people just disappeared into the walls. Angus MacGregor asks her, "now do you see what we are dealing with?" Riza storms off for a stiff drink.

It finally clicks in Raymond's head: That's where he knows that ability From! The Grey Ghost used to able to do that! Angus confirms Ray's discovery and surmises that somebody has the Grey Ghost captive and is somehow extracting his powers.

Hackerman starts reconstructing the contents of mom and pop's computer from floppy disks...

Shadow of the Century - Character Workup: Hackerman

When we sat down to do the Pitch Session for Shadow of the Century, a few of our regular players weren't able to make it, because Life™. One player, Josh, sent the following consolation note:

"Make me this guy as a character:"

That's Hackerman, from the crowdfunded short film, Kung Fury. Which, itself, is a love letter to the 80's. I need to sit down and watch the completed film, but what I've seen is FANTASTIC!

So, just before the first play session, I worked up Hackerman based on just the above video (really, I should watch the whole thing). Here's the result:

The above is all "Beta" – the final version may be different.

I decided to give him a gonzo stunt to see how the "take two stunts, mash them together, and give it some wacky flavor" works out in play.

I did want to give him a stunt that allows him to hack anything as long as he could conceivable connect a computer to it. However, I decided to stick with the spirit of the playtest and use only stunts as written.

Josh was pleased.


P.S. I watched Kung Fury in its entirety. It IS FANTASTIC! Doesn't add much to the character of Hackerman—the above video does a better job characterizing him.

Shadow of the Century - Part 1. The Pitch Session

In 2006, Evil Hat published Spirit of the Century, a pulp role-playing game set in the 1920's and using the Fate system. Its premise is that, at the stroke of midnight, at the beginning of the century, extraordinary people—Spirit Centurions—are born with an innate urge to fight evil, right wrongs, shine light in the shadows, and generally make the world a better place.

Recently, Evil hat released Young Centurions to Fate Core and Fate More Kickstarter backers. Young Centurions uses the Fate Accelerated rules and posits, "what were the Centurions like as teenagers?"

Fast forward along that timeline to the 80's. Roles have flipped—the bad guys, specifically Shadow Centurions, are taking positions of power in megacorporations and political offices, and the good guys, the Spirit Centurions, are now relegated to the shadows and hiding their identities. However, they are still trying to do good and make change through their proxies: New-Wave Heroes. This is where the players come in.

The brilliance of Shadow of the Century is that it totally embraces the tropes of the 80's. Take several of the movies and TV shows of the 80's: The A-Team, Airwolf, Big Trouble in Little China, Charlie's Angels, The Dukes of Hazzard, The Goonies, Knight Rider, Magnum P.I... and you can imagine the old Spirit Centurions directing the young heroes to go out and make a difference!
(Hannibal, Archangel, Egg, Charlie, Uncle Jesse, Chester Copperpot(?), Devon, Higgins respectively.)

Recently, Evil Hat announced a Shadow of the Century beta playtest. Our regular play group was fortunate enough to get in on it. I've spent the last five days devouring the playtest document. Shadow of the Century uses the Fate Core system, but includes a simplified system of roles for character generation, simplified rules for generating NPCs, and lays out steps for having a Montage! The background text really captures the feel of the 80's—the energy, the excesses, the emerging technology we now take for granted. This Friday, we sat down to do the "Pitch Session".

The Pitch Session is where you set the tone, basic plot, and characters of your game's story. We repeatedly commented on how it felt very much like we were a bunch of writers trying to come up with a new TV show or movie to pitch to some media bigwigs.

Phase One: Format
First, you decide if you will be playing as if you are shooting a movie or a TV series. A movie has big, fast action and a shorter overall story arc. A TV series has a much longer major story arc and several smaller "season" story arcs that can be wrapped up quickly. Since our group suffers from what we call "Gamer ADD" and the fact that we want to get four or five sessions in before the playtest ends, we decided we were going to treat our game as a movie.

Phase Two: Gonzometer
The Gonzometer gives you guidelines for how crazy and wacky you want your game to be—from your basic competent action heroes, all the way to alien invasions and robots from the future. We set it at level 2 (out of 4)—just slightly supernatural.

Phase Three: Issues
It took us a while to figure out in what direction we wanted to take the game. The first thought was to concentrate on the Cold War, but decided that, in nuclear war, nobody wins. Eventually, we worked our way towards a group similar to the crew from the movie Sneakers. Even though that movie was from 1992, we liked the idea of outlaws with special skill sets trying to make up for their previous transgressions—possibly with supernatural abilities.

After some further discussion, it was decided a Centurion runs the group and he’s trying to rescue other Centurions. Since we needed to focus on just one rescue, one player suggested a very old Centurion. Since Young Centurions mentioned the Grey Ghost was from the 1800's, he was our man.

Big Issue: We have to rescue the Grey Ghost.

Subplot Issue: Criminals are using Grey-Ghost-like abilities to commit crimes - this needs to be stopped.

Phase Four and Seven: Heroes

Keith decided he wanted to play the ladies man who's secretly a huge computer nerd.

Mike Smith - Face/Hacker/Thief

High concept: Undercover Nerd

Trouble: Nerdgasm

Call to Action: Repenting former thief

Ken wanted to play the bookworm who's been following the exploits of the Century Club for as long as he can remember. In almost a stalker-like fashion, he wants to be one.

Raymond James - Brain/Detective/Warrior

High concept: Centurion Historian

Trouble: “Actually…..”

Call to Action: Following in the footsteps of the Spirits

And Michael decided he wanted to play a hippie pharmacologist who's stickin' it to the man!

Sunshine - Alchemist (Gonzo)/Detective/Saboteur

High concept: Tactical Alchemist

Trouble: Bad trips

Call to Action: Fighting the Man

Phase Five and Six: Cast and Villains

These phases are kind of a neat twist on Fate world building. In this case, all the players quickly generate three NPCs each by writing down names on three note cards and passing them to the left. Then everybody adds a quick note to each name and passes them on for another round of quick notes.

We changed it up slightly in that we did them as a "card draft": Write down names on three note cards, pass them to the left. Pick one card, pass the remaining two to the left. Pick one card, pass the remaining to the left. Everybody will end up with three cards from different people. Add a note to each one and repeat the process.

We had the most fun with these phases.

Here's what we ended up with. NPCs chosen as "villains" are marked with an *:

Alexa Park - Heiress to a Hotel Magnate, Big into biker culture

Big Pete - Bouncer at TechNoir, Trained in martial arts

Dr. Raymond Cunningham - Has a PhD in Philosophy, Always wears a surgical mask

Lenny the Snitch - Key witness to an ongoing investigation, Has no middle fingers

Mr. Zero - Buys and sells “questionable” electronics, Always wears a Captain Planet Inspector Gadget t-shirt

*Officer Joey Biggins - Detective, Takes payoffs from gangs

Sally Maxwell - Wealthy daughter of the Maxwells of the Maxwell Museum, Never seen without a “boy toy” on her arm

Samantha Patel - Girlfriend of drug kingpin __________, Does his books and is secretly siphoning off funds

*Slick Steve - User car salesman, Makes under-the-table deals with corporate types

*Tryn Velcog - Standoffish Greek hacker, Stands 5’8”, but 6’ with hair

*Vieger AKA “Switch” - Norwegian hacker–Tryn’s nemesis, Split personality disorder

Zed Kalista - Owns a pawn shop, Obsessed with Ninjas

Finally, a suggestion was made for another “Bad Guy”. Here's the notes we took: Technophobe, Can render tech dead with  an EMP-like touch. 

Now I just have to figure out who has the Grey Ghost and why for next week!