The cards have two pages of the basic 9 operations, and one page of my own personal interpretation of reversals of those operations. Print them out on cardstock and cut them out. When you need to develop an operation, draw two cards and select the one you like best. Fill in the blanks, and you have an operation!
The basic operations:
- Destroy
- Flip
- Heist
- Hit
- Hunt
- Rescue
- Sneak
- Trace
- Uncover
The reversed operations:
- Guard
- Mole Hunt
- Secure/Stash
- Bodyguard
- Flee
- Imprison
- Watch
- Provoke
- Cover Up
Both GMs and Players can use these cards! If your campaign is sandboxy enough, the players can use these cards to help them decide what to do. They can draw two or three cards and pick the one that they like best, then embark on using that operation to advance one of the plots they're interested in.
GM Example: You draw "Bodyguard" and "Trace." Trace leads to a clue chase style mystery, and that appeals to you more than the Bodyguard card. So you choose Trace. Then have to fill in the blanks.
- Follow a string of clues and obstacles to a lost person or object The agents will follow the clue ____ because they want to know ____ about ____
So you need a lost person or object and a few clues that lead from one to the next in a string that ends at the lost person or object. Say a local vice detective disappears just as she was about to crack a major case involving human trafficking. The police won't be able to find her because a lesser vampire mind-controlled her away in the night (Lucy Westenra style). They have to rescue the detective before she is turned with three bites on three successive nights...
The agents will follow the clue of the vice detective's dreams because they want to know what happened to her (changing "about" to "to" in this case, for grammar reasons).
The first clue is that she had had dreams of bats coming to her window every night for the last week, according to her husband. In her dreams she left the house and went to a graveyard.
So the next clue is at the graveyard: The groundskeeper reports seeing her walk in in a "drugged out daze," and trying to persuade her to leave, but just before he was about to call 911 on her, someone picked her up in a slick Maybach. In typical Night's Black Agents fashion, add a complication: Say a ghoul watching the graveyard to cover the back-trail. The PCs notice the ghoul slipping away to alert his master and have to chase him down.
The Mercedes and Ghoul both provide clues that lead to the vampire's uptown penthouse condo, where the PCs have to slay the vampire to rescue the detective.
Player Example: The PCs are investigating a money laundering scheme, but don't know where to go next. They've only vaguely encountered the organization, and then only three people who they suspect of being a low level bagman and two goons who provide at large muscle for the organization. They draw Flip, Uncover, and Bodyguard. Flip makes the most sense, but they don't know who to flip.
They propose to the GM that they use all three cards and more: They use Uncover to search for clues to narrow down the ideal candidate to put pressure on from the three they've met, then Flip him, and then keep surveillance on to Bodyguard their new double agent until he can create or discover an opportunity for them to Destroy the money laundering operation.
Download the PDF here (LINK FIXED 1/17/14). Suggest edits or new cards in comments below!
I'd say "Thank you for the cards!", but I'm too excited to go start messing around with them and thus haven't the time to say "Thank you for the cards!".
ReplyDeleteSorry.