Since launching my solo game Scalphunter I’ve been asked a few times to post some examples of how it works. Here’s a run through of a game I did tonight, with all the rolls and outcomes exactly as they happened with no fudging. It also has the little narrative notes I made as I went through it to add some story-flesh to the bare mechanical bones.
It actually turned out to be quite a walkover thanks to some successful rolls
Operative: Eddie Lawson of the Operations department of SIS
Action: 3 Analysis: 1 Interaction: 2 Standing: 1 Tradecraft: 2
Ally: Connie Yvon (Analysis 3)
Pressure Valve: Solitary Brooding
Burnout currently 1 out of 6, Blown currently 2 out of 6
New Mission: OPERATION ACROBAT
Organise Activism (Interaction) Highly Complex (10 Complexity) Important (5 Urgency)
A long term operation to stir up an anti-Soviet cell in East Berlin and equip them with the tools to be a thorn in the side of the Stasi and KGB operating there. The secondary purpose is that such activism will cause an extra load on the intelligence departments of East Berlin and thus make SIS operations that bit safer.
Task 1 Covert Entry – tradecraft.
This is Eddie making classic move, bailing out of a legally allowed diplomatic car from West Berlin without being seen and going to ground
Roll is 5 – a full success. He’s done this before. Within minutes of bailing out of the diplomatic vehicle he’s a couple of blocks away and looking like every other citizen of the city. (Fill in 1st Complexity Box)
Task 2 Establish unsanctioned Wiretap – tradecraft.
He has to pick up the tools from a safehouse and then break into a junction box during the next night in order to tap the line of a key Stasi informer.
Roll is 5 – another full success. (Fill in 2nd Complexity box)
Task 3 Secure Asset’s Family’s evacuation (Standing)
His contact, Fritz Richter, has set up the safehouse and the equipment. He’s worried about the backlash on his family. While he’s happy to risk himself, he wants them safe. Eddie makes contact with an SIS cut-out and pushes for Fritz’s wife and daughter to be given an emergency lifeline.
Roll is a 1. Failure. The message comes back the next day – a hard “No” from the chief.
Eddie is furious. He marks 1 Stress (out of 3), as well as ticking 1 Urgency box (out of 5)
Roll for enemy Action is a 2, so no enemy action.
Task 4 Coerce Cooperation (interaction)
Fritz is angry too about his family being denied evacuation. He blows up angrily at Eddie who has to try to calm him down and get him back on mission.
Result is a 4 – partial success. Eddie marks 1 Exposure (out of 3) – the argument was loud and the walls are thin. He does get to mark the 3rd Complexity box.
Task 5 Shadow Target – Tradecraft
Eddie and Fritz follow Andreas Wagner, a Stasi officer who has been tasked with investigating the anti-authoritarian activists that Eddie is here to join up with. Knowing Wagner’s patterns and contacts will be vital.
Result 6 – A success. Eddie marks the 4th Complexity box (out of 10)
Task 6 Contrive a Meeting – Tradecraft
It’s time for Eddie to make a risky direct contact with a key member of the activist group.
She’s called Giselle Schwarz the former wife of a civil servant who lost his life in an auto accident and who masks her cynicism with a frivolous exterior. She hates the Soviet system and has been a little too careless in expressing that.
Roll is 1 – a failure. Eddie will spend one of his 6 stored experience points to add a bonus die. That gives a partial success on a 4. He marks a second Stress (2 out of 3) as he turns a seemingly accidental meeting with Giselle on the street into a hurried conversation in a back-street. At first she suspects him of being a plant but he convinces her and marks the 5th Complexity box
Downtime
Eddie’s stress is now dangerously high.
After the meeting with Giselle he refuses Fritz’s offer of a night drinking and instead returns home to the safehouse where he spends the night smoking and brooding. His downtime roll is a 6 and he removes both Stress, but has to add another Urgency mark (2 out of 5)
Task 7 Covert Interrogation – Interaction
Giselle introduces him to a contact in the radical group. Eddie needs to find out if Martina Bohm is legitimate or a security risk. He spends an evening with the two women in Giselle’s apartment, talking and drawing Martina out as best he can.
Roll is a 6 – success. He marks another Complexity box (6 out of 10 now filled) and is reassured. Martina is on the level. He begins to fill them in on how to organise and increase their operational security.
Task 8 Map Enemy Network – Analysis
There is quite a counter-intelligence operation going on in East Berlin and Eddie needs to know how it’s operating. After spending a week training Giselle’s cell of activists he is back in West Berlin in his department and calls on his ally, Connie Yvon, to carry out this analysis task for him.
Connie’s roll is a 5 – a full success and he gets Connie’s aid later if needed. He marks Complexity box 7 and returns covertly to East Berlin fully briefed on the potential risks from Stasi agents.
Task 9 Predict Enemy Action (analysis)
Once again Connie’s report comes in handy. Her mapping of the network included predictions on likely enemy action.
Connie’s roll is a 6. He marks Complexity box 8 and can warn Giselle’s group about a traitor within their group, Timo Zimmermann, who can now be sidelined or dealt with before they take action.
Task 10 Bluff Authority (Interaction)
Potential disaster strikes as Eddie and Fritz return from a late night meeting with the activists. They’re stopped by an aggressive police patrol who have a lot of questions.
Roll is a 6, a full success! Eddie marks Complexity box 9 out of 10 and spins a fake drunken yarn about having found out his girlfriend was cheating on him and that Fritz had taken him out drinking. He is annoying and convincing enough that the police sternly tell Fritz to get the drunkard home without causing any more trouble
Task 11 Review Dead-Agent’s files (Analysis)
In this case the dead Agent is actually the now-executed Stasi informer, Timo Zimmermann, from within Giselle’s group. Eddie, back in the office, has Connie review everything they gleaned from the dead man’s identity and objects taken from his apartment.
Connie’s roll is a 4 – a partial success. “This is the last time I can help you for a while,” says Connie regretfully, “The Chief has already blown up at me for spending more time on your work than his!” But she helped. She pinpoints exactly what instructions the informant had been given by his handlers and knows that a key command was to alert them at once if any damaging action was to be publicly taken ahead of a party conference being held in the city later that month. “Now that,” says Connie, “Might make a nice target for your new girlfriend.”
“Giselle is not my girlfriend,” Eddie tells her.
“I was talking about Martina,” Connie says slyly. She was always too good at picking up fine details!
The final Complexity box (10) is now ticked and the mission is ready to be completed.
Endgame
In the weeks leading up to the Conference, Eddie primes the activists on how best to get their message out there, how to disrupt the Conference and how to avoid backlash. It will take an Interaction roll.
The roll is a 4 – a mixed success!
Eddie can’t be there when it happens but picks up the details in his office. The party conference went ahead but activist slogans were daubed on the buildings nearby and their literature was inserted into the official material. The local and world press picked up on this and it was a major embarassment to the East German authorities. It was not all good news though. Some of the activist cell were arrested. One was shot dead fleeing a raid. Martina.
Epilogue.
Eddie finished the mission on 0 Stress, 0 Health Damage, 1 Exposure and 0 Oversight. It went smoothly despite the tragic cost.
He has 1 Exposure so needs to roll 1d6 to see if any long term consequences arise, and rolls a 2 so his “Blown” track does not increase, and he clears his Exposure track.
He earns 2 Experience Points for a partial success on the final roll
Otherworlds 