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The Company
On October 5 (yes, we switched from Tuesdays to Mondays), we had Bonnie ("Xiang Wen," a.k.a. "Wu Xie Zhi"), Marc ("Anabel Windsor," a.k.a. "Abigail Wilson"), Mike ("Vincenzo Calliente," of many aliases), and Stéphane ("Hamid Fassal"). Martin ("Zhu Zhang," a.k.a. "Harold Lee") had just become a dad – congratulations, Martin! – so he had more important things to do than play games.
Time: September 9, 2009 (wee hours).
Place: Outside Kirill's luxury apartment tower, Paris.
Last Event: Attempting to intercept a black SUV that may hold some of Kirill's thugs.
With Anabel inside Kirill's residence, Wen outside with a rifle, and Hamid, Vinnie, and Zhang down the street in a car, the team is split up. The three in the car decide to follow Wen's lead on whether to shoot or regroup. After assessing the situation, Wen calls them and says that without knowing who, exactly, is in the SUV, it would be terribly risky to start shooting. Vinnie circles the block, stops to collect Wen, and pulls out of sight of Kirill's building for a quick discussion.
The Agents conclude that the surest way to save the girl that the thugs are bringing over for Kirill's predatory partiers is to bluff their way in. The four hastily arrange themselves for this gambit: Hamid in back, posing as an associate of Kirill's, with Wen next to him as a party girl, and Vinnie and Zhang up front as Hamid's driver and bodyguard, respectively. They hide the guns, crank up the car stereo, and drive back to the parking area to talk their way past the guard.
At the guard post, Hamid rolls down the window, says that he's headed to Kirill's party, points to Wen and calls her "the new girl," and drops a few names passed along by Anabel. The guard takes a look inside the car, leers at Wen, and sees that Vinnie looks like a gangster (it's his former profession!) and Zhang, a thug. A few seconds later, he raises the gate and lets the Agents in, instructing them to park in a specific spot and to call ahead on the intercom by the elevator to get up to Kirill's place. Vinnie nods and does as he's told.
As soon as the car is parked, Vinnie collects a handgun for each Agent and hides the weapons in his balled-up coat. Then all four leave the car and head to the elevator. Wen hangs drunkenly off Hamid, while Zhang and Vinnie stride purposefully ahead. As soon as Hamid speaks into the intercom, a voice barks, "Did you bring the girl?" Hamid is mildly surprised – apparently, the black SUV wasn't Kirill's men with the girl after all – but quickly recovers and answers: "Yes!"
An instant later, the elevator doors open. All four Agents get in, looking downward to keep their faces off-camera. Vinnie stands at the back, and as the elevator heads up into the tower, he sticks a gun in the waistband of each of his associates. At the same time, Zhang whispers instructions: "These guys will have body armor. Take head shots!"
When the doors open, Wen and Zhang spring out immediately and attack two surprised guards in the lobby. Vinnie piles out behind them to help. Three seconds and several brutal pistol-whips and kicks to the head later, both guards are unconscious on the floor, beaten so badly that one looks unlikely to survive. No shots are fired, but one of the guards does manage a stifled scream, and Hamid warns that he hears footfalls.
Immediately, Vinnie, Wen, and Zhang charge the doorway where Hamid heard a commotion. On reaching it, Vinnie realizes that it's locked. He pulls out his tools and works as fast as he can. As he picks the lock, Wen and Zhang level their pistols at the door, while Hamid skillfully disables the camera watching his allies.
Vinnie flings the door open as soon as it's unlocked. Inside, the Agents see two men armed with handguns. They're clearly surprised to see the door fly open. As soon as Wen and Zhang have a line of fire, they open up. Six headshots later, two more guards are on the floor. Zhang and Wen move in, see that the room is clear, and call for Hamid and Vinnie to join them.
The Agents find themselves in a kind of guardroom or security outpost. There's a console there to control the cameras, lights, elevator, etc. for the lobby; several phones and intercoms; and a locked rack full of AK-type rifles which the guards clearly didn't think they'd need or possibly didn't have clearance to use. Vinnie notes that the door he opened was armored, too.
The four decide to hole up for a second. Vinnie works on the lock of the gun cabinet. Hamid sits at the console and starts calling up camera views to see what the reaction is, if any, to the shooting. Wen and Zhang ensure that the four guards dropped so far are dead. Brutal? Yes, but it's exactly what rival gangsters would do, and this has to look like a gang hit – not the work of police, intelligence agents, or anybody else with instructions to use only "necessary force."
Hamid announces that as far as he can tell, five men are headed toward the lobby to check out the noise: two groups of two, plus a loner. All five have AKs, not just handguns, and two are moving as if they know what they're doing. He also warns that a silent alarm was sounded at some point, and that this alerts the master security station on the floor above this one, which is very likely where Kirill's party – and Anabel – can be found. Finally, he says that the elevator is moving down to this floor from the one above, but manages to lock it down.
As Vinnie continues to fuss with the complex lock on the gun rack, the armored door starts taking hits. It sounds as though somebody out there is very interested in getting in, and is knocking with automatic weapons! As the door gets shot to bits, Wen and Zhang erect a hasty barricade of tables, chairs, and the body-armored corpses of Kirill's guards. Anything that isn't nailed down gets tossed on the pile.
At last, Vinnie unlocks the gun cabinet and hands out rifles. He loads the spares and stacks them up behind the barricade next to Zhang and Wen. Then he and Hamid drag the heavy steel locker over and prop that up to reinforce the barrier. After that, it's time to wait. Vinnie, Wen, and Zhang all crouch behind cover, pointing rifles. Hamid stays well away from the door, keeping an eye on the console.
Suddenly, the armored door starts to fail. A few bullets whizz into the room, one of them narrowly missing Wen's head. An instant later, the Agents hear a few solid butt strokes, and the door caves in. When it falls, the Agents inside see two crouched gunmen with automatic rifles . . . and vice versa. Both sides fire immediately and without warning.
Most of the attackers' bullets hit the barricade. Vinnie sees a burst walking toward him and finds himself pinned down behind cover. Then Wen stands up against one wall, aims low, and blasts both enemy gunmen with a burst from her AK. Two more of Kirill's men suddenly pop around the side of the door to shoot back at her. They fire wildly, and don't hit anyone inside. Wen and Zhang hurdle the barricade, skid out into the lobby, and gun down those shooters as well.
When the initial exchange is over, Vinnie is kneeling behind the barricade, Wen is in a low crouch outside the door, Zhang is prone on the lobby floor, four of Kirill's gunmen are out of the fight, and most of the assault rifles on both sides are empty. Across the lobby, the fifth man Hamid reported ducks out of a corner and unloads at Zhang, but doesn't hit much. Zhang grabs one of the fallen men and rolls, using him as a shield. The shootout ends when Vinnie tosses Wen a loaded rifle, and she catches it, spins, and drills the last shooter in the leg, hand, and face.
While the gunfight rages, Hamid keeps an eye on the security console. Once the shooting stops, he warns that reinforcements are on their way from upstairs, taking the stairs to either side of the elevator. Vinnie loads up more rifles and tosses them to his allies. Then he and Zhang take a shooting position about 45° off to one side of the north staircase exit, while Wen crouches slightly off to the side of the south staircase door. Hamid does what he can to blind cameras and keep the lighting unfavorable for the men on the stairs.
As soon as Kirill's men open the doors, the Agents shoot. It isn't a pretty sight. The two men on Wen's side decide to move quickly and try to take the lobby by surprise, but Wen is a remarkable shot and is waiting for them; one burst of automatic fire later and both are dead. The men on the other side are more cautious (or less brave . . . it's hard to tell), but that doesn't help them much. Vinnie and Zhang greet them with copper-coated, steel-jacketed lead rain.
With those four down, a grand total of 13 of Kirill's thugs are shot to bits all over the lobby's attractive marble flooring. Hamid sees no evidence that further reinforcements are on the way. However, it goes without saying that the building's other wealthy tenants will be in a panic, and that the police are probably on the way. That means it's time to leave.
Hamid dashes off a threatening message to Kirill over the security network, doing his best to make it sound like it's from the competition. Then he grabs the surveillance hard drives, dims the lights, and unlocks everything he can unlock from the console. Vinnie gathers up and reloads the rifles. Wen and Zhang once again see to the grim task of executing the fallen, moving around the bloody scene with handguns, putting an extra bullet in each head.
Then the Agents depart, pantyhose pulled over their faces against the possibility of being caught on camera. They leave behind a pile of dead men, several hundred cartridge casings, and Hamid's message. Wen leaves another message by wiping down one of the handguns taken from the Amsterdam cache and leaving it next to one of the men she executed with it. That message amounts to "We took your guns and shot your men, and now we're coming for you."
The four dash downstairs quickly, reaching the parking level before either Kirill's men or the police arrive. They chuck the guns in the car, hop aboard, and speed toward the guard station. They make no effort to be subtle: With pantyhose still pulled over their heads and four automatic rifles in hand, the Agents command the man at the post to raise the gate and drop the tire-shredder. He complies without hesitation.
Once Vinnie is on city streets, he speeds off evasively, doing his best to steer away from sirens or flashing lights. He seems to succeed. After a few dozen turns, nobody can see or hear police nearby. As soon as the way looks clear, he, Hamid, Wen, and Zhang ditch the car, set it aflame, and lug their firearms to another vehicle. Vinnie hotwires this and drives them out of the area.
———
Anabel is one floor up when her allies strike. Initially, she sees just a few of Kirill's thugs heading to the elevator and stairs. Then a few more head out. And then Kirill looks a little worried, and takes her into a heavily armored panic room behind a bookshelf. In there, Anabel sees the expected food, water, medical supplies, and so forth . . . and also guns, grenades, and rocket launchers. However, she realizes that Kirill wants her to think that he's the good guy, saving her, and that the people hitting his men downstairs are the gangsters, so she plays dumb and pretends all the firepower makes sense.
As Anabel looks on, still feigning no knowledge of Russian, Kirill barks into a radio, giving orders to his men. He grows increasingly agitated, and then can't seem to rouse anybody at all on the channel. While Anabel has no way to know for sure what happened down there, she can guess . . .
Eventually, Kirill turns to Anabel and tells her that he'll have to call the police. He says that gangsters attacked his home "because of his family." Fortunately, he explains, he's friends with an inspecteur général of the police nationale, who will bring the scum who shot up his apartment to justice. He warns her not to call the police herself, however.
Anton interrupts on the intercom. In Russian, he explains the situation: 13 men down, panicked party guests, and a high-profile shootout that has the police on the way. He adds that based on the methods used in the hit – people in disguise, somebody tampering with security, and accurate gunfire at close quarters – this is probably the same gang that hit the arms shipment in Amsterdam. Kirill order's Anton to find out who did it and kill 'em all. He tells Anton to start by interrogating the guard downstairs, and to pull in as many men from the banlieues as he needs.
Then Kirill opens the door to the panic room. Outside, Anabel sees the party attendees crying, hiding, calling the police on cell phones, and trying to flee . . . sometimes all at once. Few of Kirill's men are in sight. Anton is there, and Kirill instructs him to get Anabel out before the police arrive. He explains that there's no need for the police to meet his new girlfriend under these circumstances. Anabel feigns a tearful goodbye, and then leaves with Anton.
Anton escorts Anabel down a private back elevator, through a locked staircase, and out the rear of the building. They manage to get some distance down the street before the police intercept them. The officers ask a lot of questions, but both Anabel and Anton are good at lying, and manage to convince the police that they were out for a late-night walk when they heard shooting, and just want to get safely home.
As soon as the police are out of sight, Anton pulls a knife! He accuses Anabel of being somehow connected to the night's bloodshed, and vows that he'll protect his boss from his own blindness. Anabel flees, pulling out her phone as she runs. She calls Kirill, who answers quickly when he sees who's calling. Anabel explains that Anton has gone nuts and is trying to kill her with a knife. An instant later, she hears Anton's phone ringing behind her. Anton realizes that the jig is up and breaks off the chase. Anabel keeps running until she finds a cab.
———
By dawn, everybody is back at the Le Marais safe house. Once again, Vinnie has a stolen car to dispose of, and is the last to return. When the whole squad is present, everybody fills in everybody else on what happened. Now it's time to see what effects the team's violent hit will have on the Bogdanov family business . . .
Time: September 9, 2009 (wee hours).
Place: Outside Kirill's luxury apartment tower, Paris.
Last Event: Attempting to intercept a black SUV that may hold some of Kirill's thugs.
With Anabel inside Kirill's residence, Wen outside with a rifle, and Hamid, Vinnie, and Zhang down the street in a car, the team is split up. The three in the car decide to follow Wen's lead on whether to shoot or regroup. After assessing the situation, Wen calls them and says that without knowing who, exactly, is in the SUV, it would be terribly risky to start shooting. Vinnie circles the block, stops to collect Wen, and pulls out of sight of Kirill's building for a quick discussion.
The Agents conclude that the surest way to save the girl that the thugs are bringing over for Kirill's predatory partiers is to bluff their way in. The four hastily arrange themselves for this gambit: Hamid in back, posing as an associate of Kirill's, with Wen next to him as a party girl, and Vinnie and Zhang up front as Hamid's driver and bodyguard, respectively. They hide the guns, crank up the car stereo, and drive back to the parking area to talk their way past the guard.
At the guard post, Hamid rolls down the window, says that he's headed to Kirill's party, points to Wen and calls her "the new girl," and drops a few names passed along by Anabel. The guard takes a look inside the car, leers at Wen, and sees that Vinnie looks like a gangster (it's his former profession!) and Zhang, a thug. A few seconds later, he raises the gate and lets the Agents in, instructing them to park in a specific spot and to call ahead on the intercom by the elevator to get up to Kirill's place. Vinnie nods and does as he's told.
As soon as the car is parked, Vinnie collects a handgun for each Agent and hides the weapons in his balled-up coat. Then all four leave the car and head to the elevator. Wen hangs drunkenly off Hamid, while Zhang and Vinnie stride purposefully ahead. As soon as Hamid speaks into the intercom, a voice barks, "Did you bring the girl?" Hamid is mildly surprised – apparently, the black SUV wasn't Kirill's men with the girl after all – but quickly recovers and answers: "Yes!"
An instant later, the elevator doors open. All four Agents get in, looking downward to keep their faces off-camera. Vinnie stands at the back, and as the elevator heads up into the tower, he sticks a gun in the waistband of each of his associates. At the same time, Zhang whispers instructions: "These guys will have body armor. Take head shots!"
When the doors open, Wen and Zhang spring out immediately and attack two surprised guards in the lobby. Vinnie piles out behind them to help. Three seconds and several brutal pistol-whips and kicks to the head later, both guards are unconscious on the floor, beaten so badly that one looks unlikely to survive. No shots are fired, but one of the guards does manage a stifled scream, and Hamid warns that he hears footfalls.
Immediately, Vinnie, Wen, and Zhang charge the doorway where Hamid heard a commotion. On reaching it, Vinnie realizes that it's locked. He pulls out his tools and works as fast as he can. As he picks the lock, Wen and Zhang level their pistols at the door, while Hamid skillfully disables the camera watching his allies.
Vinnie flings the door open as soon as it's unlocked. Inside, the Agents see two men armed with handguns. They're clearly surprised to see the door fly open. As soon as Wen and Zhang have a line of fire, they open up. Six headshots later, two more guards are on the floor. Zhang and Wen move in, see that the room is clear, and call for Hamid and Vinnie to join them.
The Agents find themselves in a kind of guardroom or security outpost. There's a console there to control the cameras, lights, elevator, etc. for the lobby; several phones and intercoms; and a locked rack full of AK-type rifles which the guards clearly didn't think they'd need or possibly didn't have clearance to use. Vinnie notes that the door he opened was armored, too.
The four decide to hole up for a second. Vinnie works on the lock of the gun cabinet. Hamid sits at the console and starts calling up camera views to see what the reaction is, if any, to the shooting. Wen and Zhang ensure that the four guards dropped so far are dead. Brutal? Yes, but it's exactly what rival gangsters would do, and this has to look like a gang hit – not the work of police, intelligence agents, or anybody else with instructions to use only "necessary force."
Hamid announces that as far as he can tell, five men are headed toward the lobby to check out the noise: two groups of two, plus a loner. All five have AKs, not just handguns, and two are moving as if they know what they're doing. He also warns that a silent alarm was sounded at some point, and that this alerts the master security station on the floor above this one, which is very likely where Kirill's party – and Anabel – can be found. Finally, he says that the elevator is moving down to this floor from the one above, but manages to lock it down.
As Vinnie continues to fuss with the complex lock on the gun rack, the armored door starts taking hits. It sounds as though somebody out there is very interested in getting in, and is knocking with automatic weapons! As the door gets shot to bits, Wen and Zhang erect a hasty barricade of tables, chairs, and the body-armored corpses of Kirill's guards. Anything that isn't nailed down gets tossed on the pile.
At last, Vinnie unlocks the gun cabinet and hands out rifles. He loads the spares and stacks them up behind the barricade next to Zhang and Wen. Then he and Hamid drag the heavy steel locker over and prop that up to reinforce the barrier. After that, it's time to wait. Vinnie, Wen, and Zhang all crouch behind cover, pointing rifles. Hamid stays well away from the door, keeping an eye on the console.
Suddenly, the armored door starts to fail. A few bullets whizz into the room, one of them narrowly missing Wen's head. An instant later, the Agents hear a few solid butt strokes, and the door caves in. When it falls, the Agents inside see two crouched gunmen with automatic rifles . . . and vice versa. Both sides fire immediately and without warning.
Most of the attackers' bullets hit the barricade. Vinnie sees a burst walking toward him and finds himself pinned down behind cover. Then Wen stands up against one wall, aims low, and blasts both enemy gunmen with a burst from her AK. Two more of Kirill's men suddenly pop around the side of the door to shoot back at her. They fire wildly, and don't hit anyone inside. Wen and Zhang hurdle the barricade, skid out into the lobby, and gun down those shooters as well.
When the initial exchange is over, Vinnie is kneeling behind the barricade, Wen is in a low crouch outside the door, Zhang is prone on the lobby floor, four of Kirill's gunmen are out of the fight, and most of the assault rifles on both sides are empty. Across the lobby, the fifth man Hamid reported ducks out of a corner and unloads at Zhang, but doesn't hit much. Zhang grabs one of the fallen men and rolls, using him as a shield. The shootout ends when Vinnie tosses Wen a loaded rifle, and she catches it, spins, and drills the last shooter in the leg, hand, and face.
While the gunfight rages, Hamid keeps an eye on the security console. Once the shooting stops, he warns that reinforcements are on their way from upstairs, taking the stairs to either side of the elevator. Vinnie loads up more rifles and tosses them to his allies. Then he and Zhang take a shooting position about 45° off to one side of the north staircase exit, while Wen crouches slightly off to the side of the south staircase door. Hamid does what he can to blind cameras and keep the lighting unfavorable for the men on the stairs.
As soon as Kirill's men open the doors, the Agents shoot. It isn't a pretty sight. The two men on Wen's side decide to move quickly and try to take the lobby by surprise, but Wen is a remarkable shot and is waiting for them; one burst of automatic fire later and both are dead. The men on the other side are more cautious (or less brave . . . it's hard to tell), but that doesn't help them much. Vinnie and Zhang greet them with copper-coated, steel-jacketed lead rain.
With those four down, a grand total of 13 of Kirill's thugs are shot to bits all over the lobby's attractive marble flooring. Hamid sees no evidence that further reinforcements are on the way. However, it goes without saying that the building's other wealthy tenants will be in a panic, and that the police are probably on the way. That means it's time to leave.
Hamid dashes off a threatening message to Kirill over the security network, doing his best to make it sound like it's from the competition. Then he grabs the surveillance hard drives, dims the lights, and unlocks everything he can unlock from the console. Vinnie gathers up and reloads the rifles. Wen and Zhang once again see to the grim task of executing the fallen, moving around the bloody scene with handguns, putting an extra bullet in each head.
Then the Agents depart, pantyhose pulled over their faces against the possibility of being caught on camera. They leave behind a pile of dead men, several hundred cartridge casings, and Hamid's message. Wen leaves another message by wiping down one of the handguns taken from the Amsterdam cache and leaving it next to one of the men she executed with it. That message amounts to "We took your guns and shot your men, and now we're coming for you."
The four dash downstairs quickly, reaching the parking level before either Kirill's men or the police arrive. They chuck the guns in the car, hop aboard, and speed toward the guard station. They make no effort to be subtle: With pantyhose still pulled over their heads and four automatic rifles in hand, the Agents command the man at the post to raise the gate and drop the tire-shredder. He complies without hesitation.
Once Vinnie is on city streets, he speeds off evasively, doing his best to steer away from sirens or flashing lights. He seems to succeed. After a few dozen turns, nobody can see or hear police nearby. As soon as the way looks clear, he, Hamid, Wen, and Zhang ditch the car, set it aflame, and lug their firearms to another vehicle. Vinnie hotwires this and drives them out of the area.
Anabel is one floor up when her allies strike. Initially, she sees just a few of Kirill's thugs heading to the elevator and stairs. Then a few more head out. And then Kirill looks a little worried, and takes her into a heavily armored panic room behind a bookshelf. In there, Anabel sees the expected food, water, medical supplies, and so forth . . . and also guns, grenades, and rocket launchers. However, she realizes that Kirill wants her to think that he's the good guy, saving her, and that the people hitting his men downstairs are the gangsters, so she plays dumb and pretends all the firepower makes sense.
As Anabel looks on, still feigning no knowledge of Russian, Kirill barks into a radio, giving orders to his men. He grows increasingly agitated, and then can't seem to rouse anybody at all on the channel. While Anabel has no way to know for sure what happened down there, she can guess . . .
Eventually, Kirill turns to Anabel and tells her that he'll have to call the police. He says that gangsters attacked his home "because of his family." Fortunately, he explains, he's friends with an inspecteur général of the police nationale, who will bring the scum who shot up his apartment to justice. He warns her not to call the police herself, however.
Anton interrupts on the intercom. In Russian, he explains the situation: 13 men down, panicked party guests, and a high-profile shootout that has the police on the way. He adds that based on the methods used in the hit – people in disguise, somebody tampering with security, and accurate gunfire at close quarters – this is probably the same gang that hit the arms shipment in Amsterdam. Kirill order's Anton to find out who did it and kill 'em all. He tells Anton to start by interrogating the guard downstairs, and to pull in as many men from the banlieues as he needs.
Then Kirill opens the door to the panic room. Outside, Anabel sees the party attendees crying, hiding, calling the police on cell phones, and trying to flee . . . sometimes all at once. Few of Kirill's men are in sight. Anton is there, and Kirill instructs him to get Anabel out before the police arrive. He explains that there's no need for the police to meet his new girlfriend under these circumstances. Anabel feigns a tearful goodbye, and then leaves with Anton.
Anton escorts Anabel down a private back elevator, through a locked staircase, and out the rear of the building. They manage to get some distance down the street before the police intercept them. The officers ask a lot of questions, but both Anabel and Anton are good at lying, and manage to convince the police that they were out for a late-night walk when they heard shooting, and just want to get safely home.
As soon as the police are out of sight, Anton pulls a knife! He accuses Anabel of being somehow connected to the night's bloodshed, and vows that he'll protect his boss from his own blindness. Anabel flees, pulling out her phone as she runs. She calls Kirill, who answers quickly when he sees who's calling. Anabel explains that Anton has gone nuts and is trying to kill her with a knife. An instant later, she hears Anton's phone ringing behind her. Anton realizes that the jig is up and breaks off the chase. Anabel keeps running until she finds a cab.
By dawn, everybody is back at the Le Marais safe house. Once again, Vinnie has a stolen car to dispose of, and is the last to return. When the whole squad is present, everybody fills in everybody else on what happened. Now it's time to see what effects the team's violent hit will have on the Bogdanov family business . . .
character sheets
Any chance of getting a look at their character sheets?
Re: character sheets
no subject
no subject
The players are well aware that modern guns are deadly. We discussed the matter before the campaign started. We agreed from the outset to allow multiple PCs per player – both temporary replacements (e.g., so that it's possible to play a much-needed specialist when the group lacks one) and permanent ones. So far, only Stéphane has wanted to swap Agents, but the Company is still hiring and expects attrition, so if somebody croaks, he croaks.
How close did they come in that session?
Re: How close did they come in that session?
Two things were decisive:
Re: How close did they come in that session?
The other thing I was thinking is how hard it will be for the characters to maintain the conspiracy.
Ordinary spies have a home base. If get exposed they go home and as long as their opponents don't want to strike back at them personally they should be right (when their opponents do want to strike at them they get shot by radioactive pellets years later or something equally nasty). It doesn't matter if their opponent realises that the CIA, ASIS or whoever pulled off an operation. No one will respond against the individual, but rather they will consider what the consequences of escalating the situation with the other country will be.
For example if American spies realise that Chinese operatives stole secret plans they may or may not respond directly based on whether or not they want to escalate the situation. Now they may respond by executing spies, but equally those spies are protected by the possible response of their Government (obviously sooner or later one side will have to stop escalating or there would be a war)
'The Company' can only survive as long as no one ever learns that it exists. If the intelligence community found out that there was an independent player there would be little reason not to destroy them outright. The consequences of leaving the Company to exist outway any possible retalliation.
I realise the Characters don't know any intel that could hurt the company, but just admitting to its existence would be catastrophic. Ideally any captured agents could just be palmed off as crazies or assasinated/rescued before any interrogation.
Re: How close did they come in that session?
Oh, that happens! I don't rule out Luck as unrealistic, though, or even especially see it as such – when you read accounts of real-world police and intelligence activity, a lot is ascribed to "luck" even by relatively rational, unsuperstitious people. The upshot is that most of the players bought Luck for their PCs, and the worst bad rolls of the night end up rerolled. We interpret those moments as "near things" where training kicked in and saved the Agent from a bad situation.
'The Company' can only survive as long as no one ever learns that it exists.
Yeah, that's a basic premise of the campaign.
If the intelligence community found out that there was an independent player there would be little reason not to destroy them outright.
Establishing an operator's independence isn't trivial, easy, or necessarily even possible, however. In the real world, there has never been a true extranational intelligence agency working in the name of generic justice – like comic-book superheroes – rather than in a national interest. Thus, there are exactly zero examples of how real-world services would react to such a thing, and also no prior evidence to lead the major players to suspect organized independents. The probable first and second assumptions, in no particular order, would be "gangsters" or "somebody's people, but man, their cover is strange." The way the Agents survive is to keep changing that cover story. They've yet to use the same pseudonyms, passports, or equipment twice; they've been very good about taking extra time to "clean" behind them; and they haven't operated in the same countries or against the same people for extended periods.
I realise the Characters don't know any intel that could hurt the company, but just admitting to its existence would be catastrophic.
I've made the executive decision that it would take a few separate cases of someone talking about the Company in several unrelated contexts to interrogators working for the same people before anybody would take it seriously and not assume it was the result of indoctrination by the Israelis, Russians, or whomever. I don't think that a private player would even be believed. Large intelligence services are very conservative, and have a long real-world tradition of denying the obvious-but-unlikely in favor of what they expected to find. For instance, during the Cold War, the CIA regularly blamed on the Soviets what was actually the work of others – including domestic political cells in some cases.
—
Anyway, the campaign's central conceit is that somehow, independents with enough money and influence to set up an organized "justice enforcement agency" did so secretly. I started the campaign with the "Clues" counter set to 0. It only goes up if the PCs seriously mess up. This doesn't mean "shoot"; this means, "expose a Company handler, shipment of Company equipment, or similar to actual police or intelligence officers." They players have roleplayed deception really well so far, making every single skill roll for stuff like Acting, Disguise, and Fast-Talk to pose as somebody else, and against Criminology, Forensics, Housekeeping, and Search to find and clean their own evidence. They've also operated through handlers and cutouts; nobody has yet to try to circumvent the buffer and deal directly with the backers. So the "Clues" counter is still set to 0.
How was Anabel's cover blown?
How did you handle Anabel's cover being blown?
Did Marc fail a acting roll or did Anton make a successfull roll? or was it a handwave?
Re: How was Anabel's cover blown?