So I’ve written two playbooks to my attempt at hacking blades to a supernatural law firm setting, inspired by the Craft sequence.
the playbooks are the Attorney and the Archivist –
The Attorney is a slide reskin that excel at courtrooms and the binding of demons.
The Archivist is sort of whisper-leech-spider blend that utilize ancient knowledge and laws in his favors.
here’s the google sheet for the playbooks, and thanks Adam Schwaninger for letting me use his sheets as a template:
In case the letters are too small, here is the abilities of the Attorney:
O Flawless logic: you’ve practiced the law, you practically perfected it. You can debate with anyone who hadn’t lost all reason and you gain potency when debating with with the supernatural.
O As good as your word: when you catch someone breaking his word (lie, break contract, ext’), you may magically bind him to make amends to the offended party. (If you tricked someone into breaking his word, it counts).
O Objection!: You get special armor vs. legal actions and the breaking of violence. When you roll a critical while using fine rhetoric or legal agreements, clear 1 stress.
O Friends in the lowest places: when you accept devil’s bargain, you may declare an actual devil involve. If you do, name it,and gain potency for the roll (you can’t name the same devil a second time until you paid him back for his help with soulstaff or a favor).
O Good Investment portfolio: At the end of each downtime phase, you earn +2 investment.
and the Archivist:
O Analyst: When you take extra time and care to gather information during downtime, you get potency.
O Knowledge is power: Three times per case you can assist a partner without paying stress. Tell us how you prepared them for the situation.
O Right on schedule: Due to your careful planning, during downtime, you may give yourself or another crew member +1 downtime action.
O The old ways: You can devise an occult ritual to summon effect or being of the gods or of the Craft. Costs based on the magnitude of the results.
O Necromancer: You can devise ways to raise the dead to do your bidding or deduce the cause of death from the state of the body. You get +1d when you acquire an asset by raising the dead.
O Well read: You get special armor vs. ignorance and subterfuge: where did you find out the truth? When you roll a critical while using knowledge or the Craft, clear 1 stress.
O Craft Ward: You know how to Devise an area with the Craft so it is either anathema or enticing to spirits, demons and arcane influences (your choice). It can also be outside of our plane of existence if so you wish.
.
I think this concept could greatly benefit as a hybrid of InSpectres and Blades in the Dark.
InSpectres has various stages of investigation to complete, and you walk through step by step. It could be really valuable to have the stages of the trials to go through, and have a running “score” for the jury or judge, however you have it set up.
Prosecution is ten points ahead of defense. Then defense pulls out a precedent and gets prosecution’s evidence thrown out, costing them 8 points; now the defense is back in the game!
It could also be valuable to structurally arrange the dueling process. The arenas available could be precedent, initial investigation, subsequent discovery, expert witness, eyewitness, and jury sympathies.
Each one of those can be a vector the players use to bring in support for their case, either by cheating or by legitimate work. They can also target their opponent’s strength in those areas. Does the jury love their client? Well, it’s time to render him unsympathetic! And the defense’s points go down, if you can accomplish sabotage.
Use Command to manage gangs out there doing legwork or cheating to strengthen your case; are they intimidating jurors? Are they manufacturing (or discovering) new evidence you can try to get admitted into the case? Are they burning the midnight oil studying over precedent to find something you can twist?
So the “heist” is the trial, using flashbacks and all resources at the firm’s disposal to show backroom deal conversations to suborn witnesses, surprise new evidence, calling a mistrial, scandal about the prosecutor’s personal life, etc.
Once you have that structure set, you have more levers for playbooks to affect. Maybe there’s a playbook for a loyalty expert, skilled at managing witnesses, juries, and experts, as well as delegation to subcontractors active in the field while the trial is ongoing.
Perhaps there is a playbook for the drama lawyer, fireworks of rhetoric and presentation on the floor. A playbook for research and digging up hidden information and archaic precedents. An enforcer playbook for foiling attempts to harm the firm’s employees or witnesses, and also potentially an attacker against the other side’s witnesses and employees.
I think this really opens things up, and provides a structure for the trial, and also codifies how things can come in to affect the trial, so you’ve got more options for playbooks that have mechanical impact.
Also, this opens up something that would be unique to your game–opportunity for scaldingly delightful PVP! Three or so players to a side, managing defense and prosecution. All the action is contained in the courtroom or flashbacks, so tracking the activity of multiple groups and springing surprises could work there as it doesn’t in any other game.
I hope that’s helpful.
I could see each point-affecting move being recorded in order in the Trial Ledger (or somesuch) with notes where they cheated, whether it was discovered, and the total points that “move” had on the trial outcome.
A major goal would be figuring out where the opposition cheated, finding a way to prove it (or bluffing), and bringing it to light or using it for blackmail leverage. =)
I like Friends in the Lowest Places. I like all of this, but I think I like the concept of that one the best, especially as a fan of The Devil’s Advocate. 🙂
I do wonder – is being in debt to a devil like it would be in Blades, or is it a lighter matter in this setting? I don’t think potency is a fair trade here – I would want something to ensure what I wanted was going to happen, if that makes sense?
Archivist has Necromancer ability. Seems legit to me!
Nice, maybe this could be used to play the law firm Wolfram & Hart from Angel (Buffy)
Andrew Shields your suggestions are gold and I’ll definetly going to use some of them, but I think that it’s better for the game to treat court hearings as the climax, not as the default score for the firm. I think it might be better to use cases that went to court as an analogue of going to war – when one of your cases is in court, you have less downtime. The upside will be some kind of “court claims” that require winning at court (or something, I’m still thinking about it.)
Adam Schwaninger
What about a reroll? It might work to enforce this “it’s a really bad idea but it’s my only way to win” theme of a bargain with an actual devil.
BeePeeGee RPG
Anything you can tell me about Wolfram & Hart to use in the hack? I haven’t watched Angel.
Rerolls are good. Chancy, and feels like cheating – just as a deal like that should feel.
Cases that don’t make it to court could be down time actions.
What do you see being the action of the “heist” or the main focus of play time, if not the court room?
I think the main strength this model brings is that you can let the CHARACTERS (not the players) do the slog work of filing depositions, prepping witnesses, poring over research, etc. Then handle the backroom deals, critical conversations, etc. as flashback events.
Glow in the Dark got mixed in there by the way as the 4th slide
I think the type of “plan” is tied intrinsically to the fiction of the “score.” A “score” in this context sounds a legal proceeding to make “claims.” I am picturing the six plans as something like:
* directly attack using evidence (assault plan)
* use your guiles to win, settle the case favorably (deception),
* suppress evidence or destroy it (stealth)
* arcane intercession through devils and with powers (occult),
* pulling strings or making alliances (social),
* a change of venue for more favorable judgments (? for transport)
It could also be that you zoom in to the phases of legal proceedings, making them linked projects
Roe Portal: “Wolfram & Hart” is basically a multi-dimensional (evil) organization. It’s base in the human world is the LA-based law firm. The ‘senior partners’ are essentially demons who don’t show up much. The lawyers represent all sorts of shady characters (mobsters, criminals, horrible people…) quite successfully.
I could tell you more but I’d spoil the TV series for you – definitely worth watching Angel !
hey, any news on this work? I’d be interested, as I’m just in the middle of said books and do think you could work out decent game setting from them.
Ганс Андроид news coming soon, I have hammered few things down, and now I think I have something borderline playable. I’ll post it later today.
Awesome! Thanks!