Spying, operating, burgling or any other ‘kinetic activity’ is usually thought of by players and the general public in a vacuum. Nine times out of ten when Bond or Bourne are doing their action movie thing they are doing it on their own. This makes for great cinema, but poor gameplay in a TTRPG. Luckily, the real world is not so unilateral, analysts put together targeting packages on just about every objective that a ‘doer’ will try to achieve before they ever get into action and this can offer a Delta Green party some ideas on how to include the whole party.
This post uses the example of espionage to detail one way of how to include support characters in a social scene, but the same principle could be applied to just about anything. an analyst who has looked over a cult compound and determined the best approach could give a special operator a bonus to stealth during the raid, just as a psychiatrist might give a case officer a bonus in a social scene. This is not a be all, end all solution to making support characters on par with action men but simply aims to give them another tool.
What is a Targeting Package
A Targeting Package, put together by a Targeting Officer, is an intelligence product compiled to support a specific operation.
In the military a target package might include details on a compound’s layout and patrol times, in espionage it will detail a possible asset’s background, access to desired information, willingness to support US causes, leverageable weaknesses and much more. It is in short a document compiled to give the boot on the ground the best possible foreknowledge to aid in achieving their objective. It is a key step in the recruiting of any asset and a case officer will almost never attempt to pitch someone without one.
What does that look like in game?
Simple, an Agent who has read a targeting package has a bonus on relevant skills. The extent of the bonus and the skills it applies to should be decided based on the context, but 20% to any one skill test is a good baseline.
Beyond the mechanical bonus a targeting package is also a sea of clues and can be used as an investigative tool to provide deeper background to the Player Characters.
Consider allowing support characters to cut into a social scene and compile a package in a flashback to keep the pace of the game moving. Maybe even add in an element of cinematic flair by letting the man in the van react in real time to what the man on the ground is seeing.
Making It
An Agent with contextually appropriate skills may put together a package. The package will be providing a bonus to a different roll and rolling to failure is bad.
Building a targeting package is usually an all-source effort — pooling information collected through the many different intelligence methods — but in essence it can be done with any amount of information and given the prominence of social media in the modern age it is entirely with open source intelligence. In game terms this means the only thing standing between Agents and a targeting package is creative reasoning for a skill to be applicable more than only a specific set of skills working for this purpose. Prompt the player for an explanation of what they would like to do to provide a bonus and be generous in what you say yes to.
Requisitioning it
Having someone else put together a targeting package for you means telling them exactly what you want to collect. This is unlikely to be a good idea, however, if you have enough cover or authority to do it safely it counts as a Major Expense.
Sample Skills and Targeting Information
Accounting can easily see this is a man up to his tits in debt. He’ll almost certainly do anything to make it all go away and you are just the man to make that happen.
Medicine can tell you the doctors he keeps traveling across the country with his kid to see are specialists in childhood degenerative diseases and also very selective in their patients. Pulling a couple strings would more than likely make him very happy.
Military Science can cut through the bullshit and read between the lines to figure out just where this guy was, just what he was doing and just how bad everything got fucked up overseas. An Agent interfacing with this guy will know just what buttons to press to put him back in that state of mind.
Psychotherapy can tell you this man moves and talks with paramount confidence. He is beyond sure of himself and anything that plays to his self image will get you far.
Pharmacy can identify an alcoholic (and that they have cirrhosis) through open source imagery on their instagram account, this man can certainly be bribed with drink and in the longer term would probably be appreciative of a new liver.
No comments:
Post a Comment