Shot in the Dark

Shot in the Dark

I’ve been working on an XCOM-themed military-scifi horror-drama hack of BitD about humanity’s last days facing an unfathomable, superior existential threat. I’ve wrestled through a few hack names, including many that drop the “in the Dark” motif, but yesterday I suddenly fell in love with the name “Shot in the Dark” for all its lovely connotations: an attempt with almost no hope of success, total ignorance about what you’re dealing with, and non-idiomatic plasma-fire sniping your teammates while you investigate unsettling evidence of alien activity in a Siberian barn in the dead of night. I’m not sure it conveys the idea of “alien invasion” clearly enough, but hey, that’s what subtitles or taglines are for right?

Here is a bit more by way of teasers:

Playbooks

Player playbooks represent departments or strategic leaders within the Agency serving as humanity’s last hope of survival. A bit more troupe play is expected than in core Blades, since each department will have to recruit and manage a stable of agents, trying to keep a balance of agents available with the experience, specialties, and readiness/health needed for the needs of various mission types. Each agent will be attached to and derive benefits/options from the department playbook as a whole, and they will rank up more quickly than in core Blades. Since agents will die frequently in this pretty lethal premise, there will be incentives for players and the overall Agency when agents are lost, based on which department they represent. Losing higher ranked agents will derive greater benefits, but also leave you without key personnel. The playbooks, so far, loosely parallel Spec Ops specialties:

Alpha (command/strategy/morale)

Bravo (weapons/tactics)

Charlie (engineering/demolitions/EW)

Delta (medical/science/xenology)

Echo (communications/psyops/diplomacy)

Foxtrot (intel/infiltration)

Zulu (operations/logistics/vehicles)

Factions, Clocks, and the Invasion

The various elements of the invader’s efforts are represented as different factions (such as Command, Fleet, Logistics, Recon/Surveillance, Engineering, R&D, Heavy Infantry/Armor, Espionage/Diplomacy, etc.), with each faction’s tier representing the relative superiority/potency of that facet over common human capabilities and technology. As the campaign goes on, the invaders achieve their own goals and improve their situation, dominance and tier of various branches via their efforts (ticking faction clocks) unless the players’ counter-efforts slow or stop them. For instance, they may improve their own engineering and logistics to establish bases and supply lines globally, or they may improve their aerospace fleet or surveillance technology, long-range artillery capabilities and precision, or maybe the armor of their heavy infantry or the lethality of their weaponry or clandestine/disguise capabilities of their scouts or spies. Other human groups like nations, populaces, mega-corporations, cults, news media, and other military groups make up the other factions that serve as clients, enemies, allies, etc. to the Agency.

The Agency

Inspired by Scum & Villainy, the crew tries to maintain (and supply) global coverage against the visitor’s activities. Like the S&V ship systems, players must choose how well to cover various global regions. More coverage means ability to respond more proactively rather than reactively to invader activities, while keeping well-covered human nations, corporations, and other groups happy and blissfully ignorant. Expanding coverage also means players must pay higher upkeep costs, and supplies will start to stretch thin, especially as the agency starts appropriating rare alien tech and materials. Depending on the campaign, players may have to balance Exposure (like Heat) to keep humanity from all-out panic (like in M.I.B. or X-Files).

Research and Development

I’m currently noodling over ways to make investigation and research a key component of the meta-game. For instance, troopers collect generic clue/intel resources during missions (kinda like Intel in the Sprawl). Then long-term projects in downtime consume that intel to allow players to create tags that can then apply to gear, constrained by budget. New tech would go through phases of unstable experimental versions, stable versions, and finally more widespread adoption, possibly even to the point of lucrative export to other human groups. Missions would then present players a bit of push-your-luck choices because the more they poke around and linger the more intel and supplies they can get, but they also risk running afoul of the invader’s awfully lethal and efficient attentions. I would hope there’d be a fun way to have mission gameplay emulate the slow-build suspense of horror plots and Mythos-type investigations, where protagonists want to avoid direct confrontation as long as possible until they can find ways to survive it.

Enemy Unknown

I want a big part of the player experience to focus on wrestling to make sense of the unknown (and the fear associated with a hostile unknown). To this end, there must be means by which GMs are empowered to make where each campaign’s invaders wildly unique in physiology, strategy, organization, goals, weaknesses, and the horrifying ways they break humans’ expectations about the supposed laws of reality. In an ideal world, I’d love it if the invaders’ could be emergently defined through play as players uncover, use, and test intel about their strengths, weaknesses, and goals, sort of like how clues work in InSpectres. In an even more ideal world, I’d love for this hack to be playable GMless with players cooperating against the game, but that’s another whole can of worms.

Of course, none of this is anywhere near complete enough to playtest. Maybe I’ll get a bit of it to the table over the holidays with some family members. Nevertheless, I’d love to hear anybody’s thoughts, ideas, or questions.