Hunt Vampires in a Postmodern Gothic Thriller!

[Tzer]

The Cold War? Over. The War on Terror? Over for you. You used to uncover secrets, or maybe kill to keep them. You used to serve your country in the shadows, doing things — or stopping things — that couldn’t be shown in daylight or on the evening news. Then you stopped. Maybe you got tired, maybe you got burned, or maybe you got out while you could. But you didn’t go into the daylight. Not just yet. You stayed in the shadows, in the deniable underground networks of crime and conflict, but you did it on your terms. You did a few ops, and you asked fewer questions. You worked for money in secret accounts, and for people you didn’t know. But they weren’t people. It turned out they couldn’t be shown in daylight or on the evening news either.


Because they were vampires.


And now you know. And they know that you know. Vampires exist. What can they do? Who do they own? Where is safe? How much is legend, and what is the truth? You don’t know those answers yet. So you’d better start asking questions and picking targets. You have to trace the bloodsuckers’ operations, penetrate their networks, follow their trail, and target their weak points. Because if you don’t hunt them, they will hunt you. And they will kill you. Or worse.


So rack silver bullets in your Glock, twist a UV bulb into your Maglite, keep watching the mirrors... and pray you’ve got your vampire stories straight.


---


Night’s Black Agents brings Gothic horror to the spy thriller genre, combining the propulsive paranoia of movies like Ronin and The Bourne Identity with supernatural horror straight out of Bram Stoker and Anne Rice. Investigation is crucial, but it never slows down the action, which explodes with options for bone-crunching combat, high-tech tradecraft, and adrenaline-fueled chases.


I'm looking for group of no more than 6 dedicated roleplayers for a play-by-post roleplay. You should be capable of writing a compelling and realistic character. English language competency roughly on par with this ad is required.


This game functions on a GUMSHOE system skeleton. If you're unfamiliar with the game or don't have the book, I would be more than happy to help you (legally) obtain any and all relevant materials, or just provide help learning the rules.


Everything about Night's Black Agents is modular, from the vampires to the combat rules. It functions in different modes that reflect different eras and subgenres of the spy thriller- Stakes (the betting kind, not the wooden kind), Mirrors, Dust, and Burn. While I haven't decided on every individual rule which will be in play, this game will lean heavily on Dust and Burn- a low-fi and dangerous psycho-thriller.


I do have the particular vampires and their conspiracy in mind, but it would ruin the fun if I told you all that. The tags should provide some clues.

 

[Stickdom]

Hmm, being in an RP that involves playing as said psycho-vampires, it might be interesting to be on the other end. How complex is the system we're talking about though? I tend to prefer detailed but simple rather than overwhelmingly in-depth, free-form dice can simulate chance just enough to be interesting, but don't rule the gameplay with calculations and min-maxing stats, ya know?

 

[Tzer]

As someone who's played a number of RPGs- FATE, Savage Worlds, D&D, GURPS, WoD, Exalted, the 40k RPGs, and others; Night's Black Agents is on the rules-lite end of the spectrum. There aren't a lot of attributes or derived statistics (the only one I can think of is your hit threshold, a number required for attacks to hit you). Stuff like Strength, Charisma, Wisdom- there's none of that at all.


Skills are split into two categories- General Abilities (Pilot, Drive, Electronic Intrusion, Stealth, Shooting, Hand to Hand, Gambling, etc) and Investigative Abilities (history, vampirology, human terrain, bullshit detector, pharmacology, occult, etc) that you spend points out of. The pools refresh at fairly regular intervals. Health and mental stability are handled as general abilities. Combat can get a little tricky when it comes to keeping track of modifiers, but overall I think it's very simple. All of the rules, I feel, support rather than constrain the narrative.

 

[Stickdom]

Alright, I'm a mainly detailed narrative player, supplementing them with some numbers seems pretty fair. Well, as long as you're walking us through how the system works as we start, I'm down for this :3

 

[Epiphany]

I'm totally in for this too!


But then, you hooked me when you originally talked the pitch over with me in IRC over the past few weeks so it's an easy sell. Still inclined to play an Action Girl Chinese-American/European native to a particular country who is actually a secret Chinese government plant who is no longer sure who she really works for or who she's really loyal to. Sort of equal parts Jason Bourne, Manchurian Candidate and Eva Salt mixed together. I'm sure we can hammer out the details, though.

 

[Grey]

I'm in. @Cthulhu_Wakes @Vanman @Blackadder you fancy givin' it a go, lads?


If I could think of anyone else off the top of my head who'd enjoy this I'd drag 'em in with me.


I haven't played NBA specifically before but I'm sure I've chatted to Gar about it at least once and I know my way around GUMSHOE.

 

[Blackadder]

I've always liked Gumshoe games but precious few spring up. I'm game.

 

[Vanman]

It sounds really, really interesting but I don't know that I have the time to dedicate to a fourth game. Thanks for thinking of me, though!

 

[Tzer]

Four players should be plenty. I'll put the game proper up soon!

 

[Blackadder]

Given my past experience with Gumshoe games I can provide PDF material or advice for anyone who needs it.

 

[Stickdom]

That would be appreciated, @Blackadder, since I'm a total newcomer to the system and have zero experience with how it works.

 

[Epiphany]

I'm in a similar situation. Lots of enthusiasm though! Although for Grey's sake, I'll try to limit my word count.

 

[Blackadder]

I'm in a similar situation. Lots of enthusiasm though! Although for Grey's sake, I'll try to limit my word count.

You've been invited to the PM as well.

 

[Stickdom]

I'm in a similar situation. Lots of enthusiasm though! Although for Grey's sake, I'll try to limit my word count.

Yeah, I most definitely consternate Grey enormously with my verbose dialogues and effervescent descriptions. I delight in making my intentions crystalline so that my motives might not be misconstruedz


Translated to Grey-Speak: I talk too much because I want to be descriptive and don't want to be misunderstood. xD

 

[Blackadder]

I tend to have less of a word count, because I'm more concise and also I think my strengths lie more in dialogue than description.

 

[Stickdom]

See, I'm trying to develop conciseness, but I keep ending up adding a "necessary" description here and a "must-have" phrase there and it builds itself into a much larger post than I originally intended, but I don't have the heart to deconstruct it for fear of losing the poetry and prose in the editing.

 

[Epiphany]

There's something to be said for brevity, definitely. Knowing your audience still matters especially if you end up doing things in your post that no one reacts to because you buried it in twenty sentences of purple prose.


That said, participating in a play by post is for fun, not for publishing a novel (usually). If you write a paragraph that illustrates your character's thought process, and reading it pleases you, that's part of why you play. As long as you're courteous enough to parse out your actual actions so another player doesn't have to read the whole thing if they don't want to, it's all good in my book.

 

[Tzer]

Detailed - Night's Black Agents - Dust to Dust