Always, Never, Now

SCENARIO FILEv05-11-13

Written and designed by Will HindmarchIllustrated by Steven Sanders and Noah Bradley

Based on characters by Anton Gleason, Martin Gleason, Seth Stevenson, and Tony Wagner

Developed from rules by John Harper, Clinton R. Nixon, and Luke Crane

Graphic design by Will Hindmarch and Craig S Grant

Created with the generous support of cherished Kickstarter backers

Playtested at Gen Con, Origins Game Fair, PAX, PAX East, and in homes. Thanks, testers!

[email protected]

Influences include (with thanks):William Gibson, Ian Fleming, Quentin Tarantino, John McTiernan, Robert Rodriguez, John Woo, The Wachowskis, Paul Greengrass, Doug Liman, Kathryn Bigelow, Masamune Shirow, Mamoru Oshii,Kenneth Hite, Robin D. Laws, Vincent Baker, Jason Morningstar, Steve Segedy, Jeremy Keller, Fred Hicks, Rob Donoghue, Leonard Balsera, Ryan Macklin, Gregor Hutton, Cam Banksand many more

The text of this project is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike 3.0 license. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/us

This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to real events or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

Will Hindmarch

Stphane Sokol (order #6286545)

2SPOILER ALERTThis manuscript contains all the secrets of the story thats coded into this project all the background dirt and details that players (and their characters) are meant to uncover during the course of play. Facts and motives alluded to via the clues in each scene get spelled out directly in this document for the ben-efit of you, the GM.

If you read this stuff, youll spoil some of the sur-prises for yourself.

If you read this stuff, tell your GM so she knows what you know.

If you read this stuff, youd better be ready to use your spoiler-charged knowledge to make the game better for your fellow players by helping the GM build up to certain surprises, dramatize key events, and play scenes with gusto.

Actors whove read the script dont blow the story for the audience, after all, but work to make the ma-terial as compelling as possible. By reading ahead, or by playing A/N/N after youve run it yourself, youre trading in some of your pleasures as an au-dience member for some duties as a player on the stage. Every RPG player is part audience and part ac-tor, of course, but youre changing your ratio.

All that should be fine provided youre all good sports.

HOW TO PLAY AS THE GMHow do you play an RPG adventure? A lot of mate-rial has been written on this subject over the years. In Always/Never/Now (aka A/N/N), I assume you al-ready know how to play a roleplaying or story game. In addition to the adventure info, I offer tips that worked for me, but Im not the boss of you.

You can bring a lot of tricks and techniques from your favorite games to your version of A/N/N and spin the adventure in bold, new ways. I recommend it. Experiment. Talk shop with your fellow players, who are taking on the roles of their individual charac-ters, and discuss what you want to say outright and what you want to leave unsaid during play.

For example, some games ask the GM to stay hands-off, to keep his mitts off the storys emergent trajectory. Other games call on the GM to work the throttle and the tiller to make sure play stays within certain charged or fruitful areas, to keep the players from wandering somewhere that might be boring. Both are legit modes of play. A/N/N draws a bit from both modes.

A/N/N is built to provide a lot of structure, to keep things moving forward with a minimum of dis-tractions and confusion. One groups distraction, though, is another groups welcome breather or dra-matic exploration of the characters. So A/N/N mod-ulates to make it easy for you to work the throttle, to speed up or slow down as you like.

This kind of play requires a dialogue. When that dialogue is implicit and full of appreciated subtext when a look conveys volumes and everyones receiv-ing all the signals its a phenomenal experience of flow. Truth is, though, that its not always like that.

Sometimes youll want to talk stuff out. Converse. Say things outright that actors making a scene to-gether would never say in front of the audience. Say things that creators say behind-the-scenes. Talk hon-estly. Notions of whats on stage and whats behind the scenes may get all tangled sometimes during play. Thats the way that goes. Enjoy that talk. Good stuff happens there.

Doing Your Own ThingIts my sincere hope that, while I encourage you to GM this adventure in one way, to help you out, youll also get a chance to confer with other GMs online or in person, talk out different tactics and styles of play, and throw out my words when you get a wave of in-spiration at the right frequency to make your instance of play really hum.

In this project, I focus on specific options and chal-lenges befitting this adventure. Some of this only makes sense when youve got a sense of the whole story in your head, after youve been through this document once. Dont sweat it.

I first built A/N/N to be played in one long night, but I have since played it as a big, extended adven-ture over multiple sessions. The scene-choosing method of play is designed to maintain focus and momentum under time constraints. Its not the only way to play.

Pull this sucker apart and put it back together how-ever you like for your version. Maybe you ransack the scenes in here for your own scenes. Maybe you keep the backstory the same but change the antago-nists plans and see if the PCs can save Josine or his plans without the pacing mechanism of the scenes presented. Maybe you start in the middle, screw my backstory, and follow the PCs as the players guide them across the globe, running into Nanotech and


3the Technocracy whenever they happen to collide with their schemes. Do your thing.

Heres the truth: I present A/N/N as a complete adventure because I figure thats the most cogent way to get all these parts across. If Im going to give you scheming antagonists, they should scheme. If Im going to give you a bunch of scenes, they should hang together. If Im going to share this adventure story I played, Im going to share with you how I told it. I figure its easier to pry this stuff apart than it is to assemble it.

Even still, the whole story isnt here. How the PCs change and act and react to the events of the plot and the actions of their enemies thats not written in here. Not all of it. The players have more freedom than it might appear. This web of scenes just makes sure that exciting things happen in the places they go. But this isnt a story about what Nanotech or the Technocrats want. Its a story about the PCs as your players see them. How the players and the PCs change and act and react to all the stimuli in this file thats what its all about.

The specifics, even in the scenes that assume certain arcs or paths, are there to help you make decisions. Screw this escape sequence! is a deci-sion. That enemys too tough! is a decision. If your group thinks a smash cut or a fade to black in the middle of a scene is the way to end that scene, then have at it.

If you want to play the adventure thats in here, though, Ive tried to give you a lot of material to work with. Ive found it a fun story to tell.

Facilitate the FictionIts good to provide context and details, as the GM, so that everyone can render the scene in their head. A lot of those details can come from the table col-lectively, as players say things like Im picturing the windows all fogged up from the temperature dif-ferences inside and out and you say That makes sense, yeah, nice.

Trust but verify. Let the players enjoy the rendering they have of the scene in their head but check in on important details now and again to make sure com-patibilitys intact. Ask questions like: I hear the glass crunching under your feet, even if the thugs dont hear it, is that right? Or: Im picturing Tank with the hardware in her metal hands. Is that where it is? Or: Did Emily turn the lights on when she came into this room? Was she expecting that to be necessary?

Adding and revealing details over the course of the scene like this works well for preventing people from getting bogged down in a flood of details all at once. Plus, everyone gets a chance to contribute to the ac-tion, atmosphere, and environment of the fiction.

Building up the fiction is a collaborative act but you can help by moderating that process. Help players reconcile their details. You dont have to be bossy, just evoke and confirm. Youre the one whos got the scenes and the backstory and the schemes in front of you, though, too. So sometimes it falls to you to say something like, If that were possible, it would be breakthrough technology, or Nice, but if it worked like that, nobody would ever have Hunted marked, or something else that protects the long-term flexibility and sensibility of play. When this happens, offer an alternative way for the player or PC to be awesome. The PCs live in this world as cunning operatives with death-defying lifestyles they should benefit from the tables collaboration.

QuestionsAsk questions; questions are great.

Ask questions that point toward tangible details in the game world: What does that look and sound like, when Henri brings down that goon?

Ask questions that characterize actions: Are you sneaking down the hall or are you more, like, strid-ing?

Ask questions that reveal things about the char-acters: When Tank takes out these two thugs, does she say anything to them or is it just, like, wham!?

Notice how some of those questions put two op-tions up for grabs, so the player can easily slot in an answer along that spectrum by saying something like Oh, Im totally being sneaky, here or Neither, cause Im sprinting down the corridor to get the jump on the next bad guys. Giving options when you ask these sorts of questions gives hesitant or shy players something to hold on to and build on with-out denying them the chance to make an important stylistic choice. Players with a strong idea already in mind, meanwhile, can disregard your options in fa-vor of their own. Gameplay is all about choices. In my experience, any given player sometimes uses of-fered options and sometimes doesnt, so its always good to offer, regardless of whether you think theyll use your options or not.

Heres a great fallback question to ask when you want a player to say more about what his character is up to: What does that look like?

To involve other PCs in a cool stunt or action scene, try something like this: What do Yoshi and Utseo see when you do that? Or: What do the other characters hear?

Its okay to let the players into enemy points-of-view, too. Describe what an NPC sees or hears to highlight the surprising and incredible things PCs


4do. The guard has no idea youre there, right? So he stomps out his cigarette and when he looks up, youre right in front of him and you have that moment before he can process the kind of trouble hes in.

Information and ChoicesRemember that the players characters are good at what they dothey notice things, remember de-tails, and know how to read a situation. Its your job as the GM to give players enough information so they can see at the crossroads and appreciate the decisions they have to make.

Gameplay is a series of choices. Easy choices, hard choicesboth are fine. Confusion is poison. Boredom corrodes. Hunting for choices to make isnt what this kind of play is about. Describe the sit-uation, bring the choices to life with fictional details and clear (if sometimes implied) consequences, and then let the players decide.

Jumping onto the helicopter is totally doable, you might say, but if you miss or get shaken off, youll land right in its field of fire. You could get In-jured or worse. Do you want to give it a try?

Players might cook up other options, other ways out of a choice you present them during the sand-box of any given scene. Thats great! Finding inge-nuity and creativity are just part of why we play.

Some details are important to the fictional back-ground, though, because they contain intel that leads to new scenes in the story, so the GM has the authority to put some details and cues into the fic-tion for that purpose. The hit squad outside Reykjavik carries gear manufactured by a known high-quality arms company recently acquired by Nanotech, Inc., for example, while the staff of Dougray Hoeflers floating residence just dont know what deals hes made outside the company these details come

pre-packaged because theyre clues to whats hap-pened before and whats happening elsewhere, while the PCs are doing other things. They represent the agency of the enemy.

RUNNING THE GAMEWhen youre the GM, its your job to keep everyone at the table clear on the action thats unfolding. Its your job to draw out interesting details and obsta-cles so that successes are always rewarding and set-backs are always exciting. Its your job to avoid those cardinal sins of storytelling: boredom and confusion.

Do this by asking questions, lots of questions. Aim those questions at what interests you as a spec-tator and as a fellow player. If you want to know what it looks like when Tank busts open a server rack to get at the data inside, ask the player, What does that look like to the other characters? Maybe offer options for the player to use: Do you snap it open, pieces going everywhere, or do you maybe peel the top off so you can plug into the drive inside? The player doesnt have to use your options, of course, but youre helping them winnow.

Heres a good question: Does taking out that thug kill him? The answer has tactical consequenc-es and reveals a lot about the player and the char-acter.

Remember that after one player describes some-thing, you can zoom out and contextualize their ac-tions for the rest of the group. Banter doesnt usually require someone to take a turn, so other players can say things like, Utseo, look out! to add drama to a roll, for example.

Listen close. Find ways to tie one players action into something another player is doing (So, while youre locked in this martial-arts battle with this mys-terious hit-squad driver, bits of shrapnel rain down

on you both from the snowmobile Emily just blew up.). This keeps everyone involved without stealing anyones moment to shine.

Play your parts with verve and detail. Remember, you play the goons, the informants, the heavies, the bullets, the skies, the broken glass, the close calls, all that. Pick two senses sight, sound, smell, taste, touch and try to use two of them whenever its time to bring the environment or one of your char-acters to life. Mix and match. You can feel spent casings rolling under your feet, you say, and hear the whine of your cybernetics straining. Or, the air tastes like gunpowder as the roaring guns pulp the concrete to gravel all around you.

Take the details you hear from the players and build on them. What they do should appeal to the senses just the same way.

Find the ObstaclesThe players characters are simultaneously experts in their fields and often in over their heads. They can do things like climb, jump, sprint, tumble, hack, and perceive with ease. Climbing a server facility girder half-twisted by a helicopters rocket blast? They may slip, they may gash their hands, they may wobble, but they do it. These are action heroes.

So whats an obstacle? When in doubt, an obsta-cle represents any attempt to take out an opponent or to avoid or overcome a Condition.

You dont roll for your characters but youre al-lowed, as the GM, to ask a player to incorporate a roll into almost any action, to avoid a Condition. You vault up the terraced floors and get on that snowmobile, no problem, but show me the roll you make to do it without being Injured by gunfire along the way, yeah? If that roll fails, for example, it shouldnt thwart the character it just means she


5reaches the snowmobile all the more dramatically, with McClane-style injuries to show the danger she was in while getting up there.

Sometimes a player does things without obstacles coming into play for a while. Maybe theyre playing to their characters strengths, maybe theyre setting up for a great move, maybe theyre cunningly stay-ing clear of what might hurt them so they can pursue intel. As long as theyre still involved in the game, thats fine.

Reading the ObstaclesSome of the obstacles in here use arcane phrasing to save space. Heres a quick rundown of how to read the obstacles:

Difficulty: Sometimes youll see Difficulty in pa-rentheses (e.g., Difficulty: 4), sometimes youll see the number of hits required to take something out (e.g., a 4-hit foe). If the text doesnt specifically say a roll is untargeted, the rolls targeted. If the text doesnt specify untargeted hits, the player needs to declare what theyre targeting before they roll.

Untargeted hits: Can players who roll more than they needed use some leftover hits to take out untar-geted foes? The answer is almost always yes, but you do have the authority to override that to reflect the fiction. I sometimes dont remind players of this so that one bizarre roll doesnt rob the other play-ers of a chance to shine. I also sometimes turn a tar-geted foe into an untargeted foe so that an uncom-monly high roll can do more than drop one targeted foe (especially when, say, Versatilitys being used). I dont usually hide it. I say, That roll was so high, I think you can also take out the guy behind you, what do you guys think? What happens to him?

#/#: Sometimes youll see a single target has multiple Difficulties on it, like 4/3 or 5/4/4.

Such targets are actually three different obstacles and each Difficulty must be overcome in order be-fore the thing goes down for good. (This helps mul-tiple PCs get in on the action, sometimes.) These are the bosses who get up off the ground and come back for more. These are the armored vehicles you cut through to take out the driver. These are the scar-iest bad guys. Beating one step of these obstacles counts as overcoming it, so a Condition shouldnt apply to that roll even though the enemy isnt dropped yet. Always dramatize the fact that an ob-stacle has been overcome, though. Show the play-ers that theyve made progress. Maybe the agents sunglasses get broken. Maybe the tanks outer shell is pierced. Maybe the foe throws away her broken gun and switches to an improvised weapon.

Rolling enough hits to take out a multi-obstacle enemy doesnt take it out in one fell swoop unless the obstacle looks like:

#+#: When you see that plus sign, it means youve got a multi-obstacle foe that a single terrific roll can take out. If the Difficulty reads 5+3, then five hits are needed to take out the first obstacle, leaving 3 hits behind for the second but if a single roll beats the total, the foe drops. In this example, 5, 6, or 7 hits takes out the first obstacle but 8 or more hits takes the foe out altogether. This helps PCs team up but rewards unusually good rolls.

The uncommon Difficulties work best when you dramatize them in ways that tell the players that something is up. For some groups, its enough to describe how the bad guy gets back up after a bad beat and comes back for more. Hes hurt but hes not quitting. After you describe the fiction you may want to say something like, Some foes are more than one obstacle.

These enemies are designed to convey a danger-

ous world populated by more than one-and-done foes. Use them not just to add menace and danger but also to help the PCs look and feel like action stars for overcoming serious rivals.

Calling For RollsForward momentum is important. Dont call for rolls just because you havent had any in a while, call for them because you want to know if a Condition ap-plies, if a foe is taken out, or if things otherwise esca-late in the scene. Rolls represent risk, so always ask yourself before you call for a roll: Whats the risk?

Look to the Conditions for inspiration. Is the risk that a PC might get Injured, Exhausted, or Trapped? Is it that more enemies might arrive? Is it that they might fail to stop a foe before some fearsome dead-line? These are all reasons to roll.

Sometimes players will want to roll to dramatize something that theyre not in any danger of failing that you dont have a consequence for. Sometimes I even let them get as far as gathering dice while I think about the risk that might be involved. If I dont have one, if I dont want the consequence in the mix, then Ill say something like, Its sounds like youve got this well in hand. I dont think you need to roll.

Then, sometimes, Ill add something like, Un-less what do you think might go wrong?

If the player has a consequence in mind, you can either take the opportunity to underline the PCs ex-pertise (Thats not a risk in this case, youve done this before) or roll to embrace the possibility of the players interesting consequence.

Enemies exist to give the PCs things to do and to provide consequences to things PCs could other-wise do automatically. Enemies endanger the path. Emily can hack that computer system, no prob-lem, but can she do it without being pinned down


6(Trapped) by enemy gunfire? Tank can fly a VTOL craft between the crowning towers of that skyscrap-er but if she doesnt get it right, the bad guys stay in pursuit. Enemies dramatize consequences.

Dont go into a roll without a consequence in mind. If the description of the action or some-thing about the roll makes you rethink the conse-quences you had in mind if you get persuaded by the players fictional tactics, for example it is okay temper those consequences. Maybe a Con-dition only applies for a little bit or maybe you decide the consequence can still be averted with one more roll (if, say, the back-up guards alerted by a failed roll can still be locked out by manipu-lating security doors or something). Let whats happening in the fiction inform the choices you make when calling for rolls and choosing to esca-late or apply Conditions.

Remember that you can call for rolls by giving the bad guys agency. Tell the players that if nobody en-gages that enemy helicopter, successfully or not, itll pick a target of its own. Then, if nobody engages it, pick a target and have them roll to avoid a Condi-tion. You can do that.

Keep the enemy actions rare for a while, maybe. Use it to define the big bad guys. Do it a little bit more as the adventure unfolds, though, to show that the stakes (and the skills of the bad guys) are going up.

Above all, use it to give PCs something to do when theyre not sure what to say in the conversa-tion of play. The helicopters motorized cannon angles toward you. How do you get out of there?! Then put it all together. If their descriptions great, let them dodge automatically this time. I usually set the Difficulty to avoid an attack at one step less than the current Difficulty to take out a foe. If the foes

vulnerable to untargeted hits, a roll to avoid an at-tack can even take them out!

Revealing the DifficultyAs a baseline, I dont reveal the Difficulty of an action. I like the players to roll and reason. A four didnt do it, they say. We might be in trouble.

I do make exceptions. When a player thinks he cant hope to succeed, I might tell him, The Diffi-culty cant be more than 4, given the situation, and you have a chance at that. Give it a shot.

Hidden Difficulties help some players keep an eye on the fiction but leave other players at sea. Start by not revealing Difficulty numbers and then, case by case, reveal them when its helpful.

EscalationEscalation is an art. Not every choice you make to escalate is going to be a hit. Thats okay. Aim for fun and thrills and the occasional stumble is no big deal.

Escalation is about making the threats and excite-ment feel serious. Its about turning the disappoint-ment in a failed roll into a dare to overcome this new challenge. Its about that beat when the stray laser-cutter ignites the spilled fuel or when someone glances out the window and sees that more bad guys are on their way. Its about the thrill of being in over your head.

Its also about pacing. Escalate too much, too fast, and you trap the PCs in a holding pattern where theyre just waiting to roll 5 hits so they can get out of there. Escalate not enough and a scene might rocket by. I tend to aim for quicker scenes and then accidentally escalate into longer scenes by acci-dent. So it goes.

Here are some built-in things you can do escalate when someone fails to overcome an obstacle:

Escalate the fiction: Nothing in the game rules happens, you just dial up the suspense and tension by adding details like a rampant fire, ricochets, bro-ken glass, the threat of future backup, that sort of thing. This sets up or establishes a future escalation and lets the players and their PCs know that worse things might happen if, say, the fire spreads to the fuel tank or the backup arrives.

Raise the Difficulty: You can raise the Difficulty on an obstacle by one step (to a maximum of 5) just by describing how its harder to overcome now that the place is on fire, or what have you. This is great at making things more perilous but can also just make a scene longer. Youre absolutely allowed to lower the Difficulty back to its original value if the fiction changes and somebody, say, puts out that fire.

Add enemies: Bring in more bad guys. Be care-ful with this, though, because its not just raising the Difficulty, its adding whole new obstacles, which is like adding a bunch of Difficulties. This is good for ratcheting up the tensions and jeopardy, though, and for giving the players more to do in a scene. Dont do this if you dont want to draw out a scene a bit, though.

Apply a Condition: This is like escalating the fiction and raising the Difficulty for just the affected PC(s). This also creates a new obstacle, to undo the Condition, which might be achievable with or with-out a roll, depending on whats happening in the fiction. This is my preferred thing to do because it is tangible in the fiction and on the character sheet and because it formalizes the way I can raise the Dif-ficulty by saying something like, Since youre Im-paired, this is going to be harder. Also, theres this: The GM can invoke a Condition to raise a Diffi-culty by one step, even up to a 6! No matter how many Conditions you invoke, though, the Difficulty


7just goes up by one step and cant go higher than 6. You are also always free to invoke Conditions in the fiction without actually raising the Difficulty at the same time, if you want.

Reveal IntelIntel provides answers and context and motivation to the PCs by revealing what their enemies are up to and where the PCs can go to take action. Dont roll for intel. Players and their characters get it by asking the right questions in the right scenes and some intel they get just for showing up. The characters know more about investigation in this future world than we do, so they notice, recognize, and puzzle out things that we might not.

Intel isnt necessarily fixed at the start, though. You assign it to scenes based on the mode of your version of the adventure. The end of this file provides some guidelines and a core model to draw from but you may want to meddle with it. Thats okay. Some-times the players think of something in a scene that should logically reveal intel you assigned exclusively to another scene. My advice is to hint at, allude to, or outright give them the intel then and there. Let them use it to speculate. Until their theories are veri-fied, even having a lot of information can feel like not having enough.

Part of this story is about uncovering whats been happening and whats happening now. Then the players decide what happens next.

In other words, the PCs are sort of behind the curve at the beginning. Theyre facing the mystery of Josines fate (and, it turns out, the fate of his big plans). Mysteries usually involve a bit of catch-up with those who know the truth and dont want to talk.

Your goal isnt to keep the PCs behind the curve,

its to give them enough intel to navigate the curve, make some speculations, and then test those against the truth near the end of the adventure, when theyre out in front.

Intel pushes the story forward through five Phas-es, each of which indicates an inexorable forward movement in time. The five Phases are divided out over three Acts representing the essential begin-ning, middle, and end of the story. Once youve left a Phase, you cant go back to play scenes from an earlier Phase. The Phase represents a move forward in time, in motivation, and in the schemes of the ene-mies. Certain key elements of the fiction can change, too, as the antagonists act in the background during each Phase.

Most of this stuff managing the intel, knowing what Phase it is falls to the GM to handle. To do that, youll need to know the background (whether mine or yours), the scenes, and the intel.

BACKGROUNDIn all the time we spent playing the campaign that inspired A/N/N, we produced a lot of fictional lore that informed our version of the adventure. You dont need to worry about most of it. The flashbacks allude to some of it; the character histories hint at other parts. For your groups adaptation of the ad-venture, though, what we said and did in our ses-sions isnt all that relevant mostly.

Some amount of backstory, though, is woven into the motivations of the antagonists. Some of it ex-plains whats happening outside of the PCs imme-diate experience. Some of it makes up the mystery wound up and ticking at the heart of it all.

That backstory is important to include or adapt for two big reasons.

First, its what motivates important NPCs to act, thereby explaining what would happen if the PCs werent in the picture. That helps highlight how the PCs do matter; things happen differently if theyre not around.

Second, it contributes to the intel, the connective tissue within and between the scenes, and surfaces as the PCs dig into the information held, hidden, and lied about by the rival NPC factions: Nanotech and the Technocrats.

This background is the source and subject of a lot of intel. It leads the PCs deeper into the story, which is in part about digging up and unraveling backstory and then using that backstory to inform climactic choices that shape the future.

So, heres what happened

THE WHOLE STORYJosine was a Technocrat, once.

As a high-ranking intelligence handler he worked with next-generation AIs on clandestine assignments for the Technocracy. Together with three remarkable AIs designated Key Alpha, Vital Beta, and Lucid Gamma Josine took on a code-breaking case that turned into a signal analysis project. His bosses gave Josines unit access to a signal intercepted in secret by the Technocracy on an unspecified date. Josine and his squad of AIs toiled on the code for months without success.

One AI, Alpha, speculated that the signal was not of terrestrial origin. When Josine took this theory to his bosses, they promptly elevated the security rat-ing required to work on the signal and shelved the project until a breakthrough could be made.

Josine didnt want to wait. He wanted to continue his work and the AIs were on his side. So Josine prepared new identities for himself, stole a copy of


8the alien signal, liberated the AIs, and fled the Tech-nocracy. Within a few days of being diverted, Josine and his retinue had disappeared underground.

Life as a SpymasterHe settled into a fortified and hidden lair beneath the New England sprawl. He surrounded himself with operatives, bodyguards, and allies he saved from Technocracy agents. He lived on stolen accounts, forged passports, and falsified identities, sharing his cultivated or fabricated wealth with his new friends. He planned missions to save lives, share technology, and slow down forces like Nanotech and the Tech-nocracy. Agents like Yoshi, Utseo, and Emily carried them out. They were building a new future.

And all the while, Josine labored on his passion project: making sense of the alien signal. He and the AIs spent years unraveling the signal. They even brought in enhanced, cybernetic cetaceans, wired for neural interfaces during some mad corporate war, to consider the signal from a different perspec-tive. The combination of human, artificial, and aug-mented cetacean intelligences all chipped away at the mystery signal. It worked. The signal wasnt any kind of ordinary playback, it was like an encoded memory containing instructions on how to signal back via intense, ultra-focused transmissions. It was an invitation for contact and information sharing. Jo-sine was all about it.

So he and his liberated AIs made a plan. First, Jo-sine went about backing up his memories in care-fully sliced segments called shards, which he stored with various data backup operations throughout the globe. The idea was that no one shard could re-veal enough about Josine to blow the plan but that enough of Josine would be preserved to salvage things in case the plan went to shit later.

Gamma stepped up to test the viability of their plan; it agreed to a neural downlink into residence in a human brain: Josines. The technology for getting the AI back out of the meat brain didnt exist at the time, but it would one day, they trusted.

Beta set out to prepare hardware and networks for the final phase of Josines plan. It ventured out into the global network, moving from machine to machine, establishing nests for itself and preparing to monitor and protect Josines plan until it came to fruition. It was Beta who hacked the Technocracy monitoring systems to allow Josine access to secret high-powered communications arrays.

Alpha packaged itself up for transmission. Jo-sine uploaded Alpha to a Technocracy needlecast-ing installation the kind of next-gen installation they keep secret from the unready public and transmitted Alpha out toward alien receivers. The transmission would take years to travel each direc-tion, but while with the extraterrestrial intelligences, Alpha would commune with their AIs for just hours or days, and then be transmitted back to Earth for downlink into a human brain.

Josine set up a receiver and neural downlink de-vice in a failed arcology in St. Petersburg, sealed up part of the building, and set out to wait for Alphas return. It would be almost a decade before the AI came home. Beta was to keep the arcology securely defunct until Josine could get back in there and re-trieve Alpha.

Josine disappeared just days after the transmis-sion. The Technocracy traced his handiwork, gunned down his guards, and captured him. Josines closest agents the PCs were kept in the dark about the AIs and the big plan to protect them from this kind of situation. Satisfied that Josines operation would dis-solve without him, the Technocrats locked him away

in a nameless prison and let his old agents drift apart. Josines been in Technocrat custody ever since.

(Later, to keep an eye on them, the Technocrats in-stall a spy near one of Josines former operatives. Her cover name is Caroline Killebrew. In the internecine tradition of the Technocracy, she is being tested at the same time she is being employed. Killebrew was part of an investigation and interrogation team that failed to break Josine. The Technocrats want to know if Josine has turned Killebrew.)

All About the InformationTime passed. The Technocracy tried to break Josine, tried to find out what exactly he transmitted and how to decrypt whatever might signal might come back. Josine gave up just stray bits of intelligence as he weakened over years of interrogation but he gave as good as he got a parade of Technocrat interrogators gave up on the case and he effectively turned a few agents to his way of thinking along the way. Combined with Lucid Gamma, he made a for-midable foe.

At the same time, Nanotech gradually built up a sense of what was happening inside the Technoc-racy through spies and turncoats. Eager to beat the Technocracy to whatever signal might come bearing futuristic technical specifications (and confident they could crack it before the Technocrats), Nanotech set out to locate Josines AIs, thinking they were the best way to unravel the signal when the time came. To do that, they turned to their R&D departments devel-oping advances in artificial, biological androids (aka biodroids) and a secret weapon they had over the Technocracy for a while: they had access to some of Josines memory shards.

The Hoeflers, a family of international memory brokers and data-storage specialists, had bought


9up smaller data-backup companies in an effort to so-lidify their market share. Along the way, they bought up databanks containing many of Josines memory shards (in addition to countless other memories and files). But the Hoefler patriarch was dying. To stop a feud between his sons, Edgar and Dougray, he gave them each half of the company. Nanotech quickly bought Edgar, gaining access to some of the data the Hoeflers were keeping secure for their cus-tomers. Dougray, suspecting his brother was selling out, offered his own share of the company to the Technocrats before Nanotech could sift through it all, while it was still worth something.

So the scheming between Nanotech and the Technocrats continues. The Hoeflers, Josines data, and the AI called Vital Beta are all caught in the midst of it. And last year, Alpha came home.

Now Nanotechs plan is to lure out Josines agents in-cluding the PCs and the AIs (since Nanotech doesnt know what happened to them) by installing frag-ments of his memory into custom-built biodroids designed to match the images of Josine they have on file (including images smuggled out by spies within the Technocracy). Nanotech isnt so sure that Josines people dont know things about the mans secret plan. Theyre not even sure that the Techno-crats arent protecting Josine while pretending to in-carcerate him. Now the megacorps going to have to move up the timeline despite better judgment.

The Technocracys plan is to let some of Nano-techs scheme play out and then intervene if Beta (or Alpha) turn up. The Technocrats dont realize that Alpha was transmitted; they think its in hiding like Beta. (Josine has told them where Gamma is, much to his own dismay.) The Technocracy might even as-

sume that Alpha and Beta are in unknowing PCs. The Technocracy is confident maybe too confident that others wont have luck decrypting any alien transmission that arrive. They dont realize yet that the second signal bearing Alpha has already arrived and is waiting in St. Petersburg.

Then a band of data thieves in Iceland robs a Hoefler suite, hooks it up to a satellite signal to ex-port the data, and everyones plans go to hell as a Josine memory shard carries out an old program and calls in the PCs.

With them in the mix, everything changes.

PLACING CAROLINE KILLEBREWThis parts tricky. Caroline Killebrew doesnt need much establishment for the reveal in Perugia to work. Give her too big a role and youll have to keep track of her for the whole adventure and the PCs might build up and reincorporate details that wont work with the reveal in Perugia. If that hap-pens, the version of Caroline that the players invest in wins. Recast Agent Wolcott as just a protg of Josines who is making a play to help him at a late hour in the game. Forget the whole spy-in-their-midst angle.

That said, if you can have it both ways, such that the players pay just a little bit of attention to Caro-line and then lose track of her before she turns up in Perugia, thats great. All you really need is one mo-ment early in the adventure, maybe during an open-ing montage, when Caroline is present and you can set her up with the necessary exposition. Something like, Caroline Killebrew has been your personal as-sistant for years. She keeps things running when you go out of town. Shell keep an eye on stuff while you get the band back together.

Emily and Utseo are the easiest PCs to which you

can attach Caroline, but here are some ways to as-sign her to other PCs:

Yoshi: Caroline haunts a barstool next to Yoshi or is a regular client in his bodyguard-and-driver-for-hire service. Maybe shes even there when the text comes in that triggers the whole adventure. Impor-tant text? she asks.

Utseo: Caroline is one of Utseos top assistants. She keeps on eye on Utseos underlings while hes away. Ill handle things here. Go do what you need to do, she says.

Alex: Alex is the tough one. If you assign her to Alex, dont set her up at all. Instead, in Perugia, re-veal how shed been on Alexs case for years. Youre a hard man to keep up with.

Emily: Caroline is Emilys scheduler or factor for Europe and North Africa. Caroline pretends not to know why Emilys canceling appointments. I know better than to ask questions like that.

Tank: Caroline is a contact of Tanks for moving hardware throughout Europe and Eurasia. They go back a few years. I can get you to Reykjavik without raising any red flags, sure.

Henri: Caroline is a contact of Henris for moving medicines and gear. She once warned him before a local operation busted his clinic, saving him a lot of trouble. I can refill meds while youre gone. Just be careful.

Once Caroline is established, leave her alone until Phase 3 and then reveal that shes gone missing, if the players bring her up. Let the players speculate. The less of a big deal it is, the better.

Final warning: Some players get rankled by this bit. Without fair warning that she was a spy, they may feel cheated. Not once have I actually encountered this in the wild, but its worth being ready for it. The tricky part is showing them, in Perugia or in an inter-


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rupt scene with the Technocrats (including Agent Wolcott), that Caroline really did have their best in-terests at heart. The time she spent assigned to the PC in question? Thats what makes Perugia unfold the way it does. This isnt about spotting the hidden motive its about how knowing the PC(s) changed Carolines mind.

ALTERNATE BACKSTORIESMaybe youve got another idea for how to connect the action scenes. Maybe youve played A/N/N once with my backstory and now you want to try it a different way. Maybe you think the backstory sucks and you want to adapt your own ideas into the story to appeal to your players. Fair enough. You know your players better than I do.

Have at it. To get you started, here are a few other ideas to work with (at least a couple of these I consid-ered while devising the adventure in the first place):

Josine is dead. Nanotech caught up to him while the PCs were off saving the world and the death of their boss is just the price they pay for doing dangerous business. The backed-up memory shards he stored throughout the planet are all thats left of him and gathering them is a memorial act as much as its an intelligence op-eration.

Josine rejoined the Technocracy and is working to prepare the Earth for the arrival of extraterres-trial AIs transmitted into our satellite networks using alien tech. The first alien AIs may already be here, either hiding out in public or held cap-tive by some corporation out to either rule the planet or save it. Josines been working for years to let the PCs retire, in their own fashion,

but either he needs them now or he just cant keep them protected forever.

Josine uploaded an AI into his own brain years ago to protect it and its secrets about alien con-tact. Nanotech has had Josine in captivity for a decade, trying to separate the AI from the hu-man brain so they can root through the AIs knowledge and Josines old Technocracy se-crets. Nanotechs motives are, as ever, all about global domination and profit.

All of those are pretty close to my big backstory, of course. I hope some of you devise whole other ways to recombine the core scenes of A/N/N and share them with your fellow GMs. Think about how to reveal your backstory using the scenes provided (or scenes you create yourself). You can do like I did and attach one or more clues to each scene or you can dole them out by Act and Phase, or you can try other options and let us know how it goes.

HOW SCENES CONNECTThe core rundown on this is in the Player File. Lets build on that.

The Scene-Flow DiagramLook around for the scene-flow diagram and the sample path (taken from one of the at-home play-tests), on nearby pages. Theyll help you understand the Acts, Phases, and flow of the scenes in the de-fault arrangement: Hybrid mode.

Note the key symbols on the scene-flow diagram:The Arrows indicate an entrance and an exit from

a scene. So, for example, if you go from Atlantica to Seattle, youre not stuck there; you can move on to any other scene in the Phase.

The Dots indicate an exit only. They mark the spots you cannot enter, reinforcing the rule that you cannot move back to an earlier Phase of the adven-ture once youve moved on to the next.

Youre meant to play any given action scene just once or not at all.

THE SHAPE OF ITPlay the Reykjavik scene for Phase 1, then maybe play some recovery scenes, then let the players choose between Mumbai and Atlantica for Phase 2. Maybe you have flashbacks in the mix. Maybe you play an interrupt between recovery scenes, to show that the antagonists mean business. Then its on to the next scene.

At every decision point, when its time to select the next action scene to play, the players should have at least two scenes to choose from. For exam-ple, after the first scene of Phase 2, they can choose between playing the other Phase 2 scene and mov-ing on to Dezhou, Lagos, Seattle, or Sydney.

When its time to choose, lay out the cards for the eligible scenes. Let the players know that if they move on to the next phase, they cant go back. You might even tell them at the beginning of a phase that you intend to play only one scene (or two, or how-ever many) in that phase, so the choice is a big one. Dont rush the scene-selection process. Everyone should get a chance to read those cards.

Each card contains one or two descriptors drawn from Action, Intrigue, and Stealth that hint at what that scene is designed to highlight.


11Stphane Sokol (order #6286545)

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Theyre listed in order of magnitude, so an Action + Intrigue scene has a prominent action element to it while an Intrigue + Action scenes intrigue component is more prominent. To be clear, though, most scenes can be approached in many ways ac-tion especially can break out whenever the players want so remind everyone that these are hints, not

mandates. The description of each scene is more in-formative but can also sometimes set up surprises.

Depending on how the intel shakes out, players may select a scene that has no new intel for them. Thats okay! Getting redundant intel can confirm clues or shed new light on their speculations. If you want, maybe in the interests of time, you can tell

them outright, You know what there is to learn from that scene, so only pick it if you want to play it for kicks.

You also have a card for interrupt scenes. Put that on the table to signify that youre launching a scene on behalf of an NPC force. You can do this before, between, or after recovery scenes. You can even put the interrupt card into the mix of scenes for the PCs to choose from, in case they want to select that kind of side-quest challenge, but I havent tried it.

Lets look again at the modes of play put forth in the Player File and see how they interact with the master scene-flow diagram.

Linear ModeLinear mode short-circuits all that, particularly the part where players choose action scenes, and re-places it with a chain of action scenes youve cho-sen in advance. The idea here is to just throw a few playgrounds at the players, let them brainstorm and describe some exciting sequences, and then move on with the story. I dont recommend this mode but it is an option if you really need to mind the clock or you dont want to be responsible for handling more complex intel deliveries. Players should still be able to call for recovery scenes between action scenes, lest their PCs get overwhelmed with Conditions.

For example: You might go from Reykjavik to Mumbai to Perugia to St. Petersburg with no op-tion to deviate from that course, just to play a quick version of the adventure and then move on with your life.

Hybrid ModeThis is how I assume youll be playing. This mode uses the scene-flow diagram, with each scene bro-ken out by Act and Phase, progressing through time


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from left to right, but deploys intel differently than the Open mode. In Hybrid mode, you reveal intel based on how far into the adventure the PCs are and how many scenes you intend to play. So if youre in Phase 3, and youre only planning on playing one or two scenes in that Phase, you might deliver all the in-tel you think the players need in and after that first or second scene so that Phase 4 makes sense and has scenes to offer. The players still decide what scenes to play, which affects what the intel looks like and some of the intel they get, but doesnt depend on them to dig only in the right places to get treasures.

Dont withhold information for the sake of mys-tery; spread it out over multiple locations only if the players want to play out multiple locations in this Act and Phase of the adventure. Dont guess. De-cide how many scenes you have time for asking the players how many hours or sessions they want to spend playing is ideal and then parcel out the clues to fit the available time.

Youre also allowed to give them some additional intel between scenes to make sure they have scenes to choose from in the next Phase.

At each decision point, lay out the cards for the eligible scenes and let the players pick. Special in-tel reveals Buenos Aires and Vietnam after the first scene of Phase 3 (mostly to keep the players from picking from so many scenes at once).

For example: One of my playtest groups went from Reykjavik to Mumbai to Lagos to Vietnam to Hokkaido to Perugia and finally to Karakum. Re-covery scenes were mixed in here and there and I played, I think, only one interrupt. That took us a few sessions of play spread over a few weeks.

Open ModeThis mode also uses with the scene-flow diagram but deploys intel differently than Hybrid mode. In Open mode, you only give out a scenes intel dur-ing or after that scene, never moving things around, so if the players skip certain scenes, they go forward without some intel and understanding of events. This mode is tricky because its possible to move through the adventure in a way that doesnt neces-sarily make much sense of the backstory. The play-ers may be motivated to have their PCs interrogate NPCs more often to get at the truth, unlock scenes, and understand just what the hell is going on in the background.

Intel is assigned by Phase, too, to help things hold together, but if youre very strict with intel, players might actually end up with fewer choices for scenes as they go.

This mode is described here to acknowledge that you might make it work or instinctively find its style more appealing than Hybrid modes style of custom-izable exposition.

For example: After starting Phase 3 with the Seattle scene, the players decide to go straight to Hokkaido in Phase 4 without getting the Phase 3 intel you assigned to Vietnam and Buenos Aires. Thus they cant access Perugia (or Karakum), so they move on to St. Petersburg and only sort of under-stand whats happening there.

Special: Free Play ModeIn Free Play mode, you peel apart the whole thing and use the pieces to react to the choices and deci-sions the players make about where to go and who to fight. I presume you still start with Reykjavik, just to kick things off, but thats up to you. In this mode, you dole out intel as the players ask the right questions, wherever they are, as they interact with the plans and background of the NPCs, until you reach some kind of ending that satisfies you and thus decide to stop playing.

For example: You play Reykjavik, then dole out intel that sparks the players to go to St. Petersburg or Karakum (or both), and then collaboratively impro-vise the consequences and larger world as you go. All the scenes become resources you use to build up the fiction when you like. The PCs are the spear-heads and their enemies try to chase down intel on them for a while.


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BEGINNING PLAYAfter all this time, a message from Josine.

Everything about it, from its simplicity to it speci-ficity, feels like him... just years too late. Is he finally surfacing after all this time?

The message affords only a few clues. This is the first intel of the adventure, reveal it as the players ask questions:

The text bears none of the telltale markers offi-cial cell carriers would put on it. Its a ghost message bounced through a dozen satellites.

The coordinates point to a spot near the end of the Alftanesvegur road in Iceland, north of Reykjavik.

Nearby, on a south-facing coast, is a glass-and-steel structure that looks almost like a sleek green-house from above. Its a simple structure: longer than it is wide, situated on a steep hill above the sea, with a small parking lot on one side and vents jutting from the ground to bleed off heat. No data lines go in or out of the facility. Its isolated.

The building is a server farm, part of a defunct startup operation intending to provide discreet cloud storage for wealthy customers. The whole operation was bought out by the Hoefler brothers memory and storage dealers, heirs to a memory empire their father built. They use the site for over-flow data storage and redundant backups now, ac-cording to contacts and research. Its a low-security facility with a staff of three or four.

The players characters begin play on a wind-swept and grassy hill overlooking the information suite below, glittering in early night on the coast of rural Iceland. What happens next is up to you. Make your decision based on the amount of time you have.

For a faster start, gloss over the details of how everyone got there. One of the characters who-ever the players decide held out hope for Josine the longest got the message and brought in the other characters for this job. Somewhere down in that server facility, you say, Josine needs your help. De-scribe the setup using the details on offer here, or those of your own devising, and let the players loose on the facility in whatever fashion they like, whether its rough and tumble or elegant and suave.

For a slower build, find out where each char-acter was when she learned of Josines call for help. This is like a montage, so dont get too deep into it. Maybe do it like this: Say Youre all standing on an Icelandic hillside overlooking the server facility, the wind snapping against you. Work with each player to make their flashback quick and evocative, to show what their characters life is like when theyre not do-ing the action-hero thing. Do that by asking one question What was your character doing when the call came in to rescue Josine? and then either offering or asking for a sentence that begins with the phrase I picture my character and describes what the PC was doing when the call came. After that, ask these follow-up questions: What do you look like now, standing in the snowy grass on the hillside? How do you come across from outside?

Either way, ask the players how the PCs arrive at the server facility from Reykjavik. Did they come on sleek, silver snowmobiles? Did they come in a single snow-cat with big, fat treads? The characters have the means to rent, borrow, or steal such things for this op; its really a question of style.

THE SCENESHere, then, are the scenes that make up A/N/N,

starting with the optional flashbacks and proceed-ing on through the five Phases of all three Acts.

Printing Note:The following scenes are arranged for easy two-sided prints. To include the flashback scenes, print pages 1655. To skip the flashbacks, begin with Reykjavik and print pages 2255 (or on through to the end to include the guides for intel and the motif).


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FLASHBACK SCENESThese scenes take place long ago a decade or more. Each scene reveals something about a charac-ters past; many focus on things done while on a mis-sion for Josine. Each scene asks the player to decide what choices her character has made in the past and how the character is changed by that experience.

Flashbacks are all about these choices. Theyre defined by them. These scenes are about rewarding a players decision, even if the outcome of that deci-sion, back when, was not the happiest.

In the unfolding story, these flashbacks already happened. We know the stars of these scenes make it out alive. The real questions are How did it hap-pen? or At what cost? or What did he learn along the way?

How Flashbacks WorkFlashback scenes are interrupts a player can call for her characters first flashback scene whenever its her characters chance to act, whether its between other scenes or in the midst of an action scene. A flashback doesnt count as a characters action, it just happens and then play resumes.

The player decides which flashback to play out, A or B, by selecting the pair of Tags she wishes to choose from. Players see the Tags in advance and might have one in mind when they call for the flashback.

Then you, the GM, read or paraphrase the flash-back situation and ask the player which course of ac-tion she wants her character to take to resolve the scene. Read the outcome of that choice, usually ask-ing the player to describe what the character does to pull it off.

Once the player has chosen her outcome, her character gains the associated Tag and adds it to any list of Tags, under any Trait on her characters sheet.

So, the order of operations is:

1. The player calls for the flashback scene, picking the scene (A or B) based on the pairs of Tags listed.

2. The GM reads or paraphrases the flashbacks situation, then asks the player to choose between the two approaches to the situation.

3. The player chooses.4. The GM reports the outcome of the choice,

then helps the player describe it.5. The player assigns the related Tag to her charac-

ter sheet as a part of any Trait list she likes.

Keep flashbacks brief. Get into the heart of the flashback, present the choice, and get out. Instead of treating them as full scenes, make them intense vi-gnettes, visceral and immediate. Add details to make the scene come alive, sure, but instead of building to the big choice, start as close to that choice as pos-sible. Trim all the fat.

Take turns. Players can call for their flashbacks in any order but no player can play out a second flash-back until everyone has played their first. Depend-ing on how long you all have to play, you might even decide that each player only gets one flashback. Thats fine.

Do not roll dice to overcome obstacles dur-ing a flashback. Instead, the outcome of the scene turns on a single choice made by the player. That choice leads to built-in outcomes which, in most cases, the player is invited to describe. Its an op-portunity for the player to show off how awesome or impressive their character is, even if theyve been getting unlucky rolls lately.

The player doesnt get to decide what the out-come of their choice involves and some of the outcomes might be more grim than hoped for so

they get to describe their characters part in that out-come, at least. At that step, play is about dramatiz-ing the outcome in a way that satisfies the flashbacks player and entertains all the players.

Stunt-dice can absolutely be awarded during flashbacks!

What Flashbacks DoIdeally, flashback scenes make a player second-guess the choice of Tag they were after, even if they do end up selecting the Tag they thought they want-ed in the first place. Its one thing to say I want Yoshi to gain Support as a Tag, and another to risk Josines secrecy and protection to get it even if the player doesnt change her mind.

I dont know your players, though. Feel free to tweak these to better challenge your players, but not at the expense of their decision-making. Its okay to say, Are you sure? but dont goad a player into choosing a Tag they dont want.

A flashback is also an opportunity to reveal more details about the game world, the characters rela-tionships, and how these characters are linked to Josine and each other. Take advantage of these to show the pasts the characters share and the stories they have in common.

At the end of every flashback, try asking the play-er this question: Who else knows what happened back then, in that scene?

The answer is sometimes obvious because other characters may have been nearby when it hap-pened. Other times the answer reveals things about who the character confides in. It also helps players know what they can talk about in-character.


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FLASHBACKS

A: Direct / EvasiveYoshi is on a mission for Josine eleven years earlier. The situation: Yoshi, perhaps with an accomplice, is driving a gigantic stolen tanker-truck down a desert highway, pulling a high-tech cargo container dis-guised as a petroleum tanker. Inside the tanker, a cybernetic dolphin attached to a brain monitor and an oxygen system awaits delivery to Josines con-tact, a cyberneticist called the Clock, who intends to set him free. As Yoshi approaches a long bridge across a deep canyon, a pair of sleek black sedans with Nanotech plates appear in the rear-view moni-tors on either side of the truck. From each car, gas-masked thugs with submachine guns emerge and wave for Yoshi to stop the truck. The truck is ten times the weight of the cars, but damage to the trail-er could harm the dolphin inside. If Yoshi doesnt act soon, the truck may be boarded!

Was Yoshi +Direct or +Evasive in response?+ If Direct... Yoshi slams into one car, then the other, maybe

running either or both off the bridge, but not before the second car opens fire with explosive rounds in response, puncturing the tanker. Yoshis player: De-scribe how Yoshi uses the truck as a blunt instrument to take out the two pursuit cars. How badly was the dolphin hurt? Did it ever make it to freedom?

+ If Evasive...Yoshi weaves the truck across the highway, maybe

tearing across the desert across the bridge to shake the boarding party. Yoshis player: Describe how Yoshi evades the pursuing vehicles on the highway or across the desert. How does Yoshis driving help him escape his attackers?

B: Protect / SupportIt is a few weeks before Josine went missing. The situation: Yoshis in a posh and glossy hotel bar at the top of some dizzying tower in a Middle Eastern metropolis just before last call. A Technocracy fac-tor in a bespoke suit steps out of the background and approaches Yoshi, saying, I know who you are. He doesnt sit down. Your boss is a turncoat, a coward, and a menace, he says. He gets good people killed. Hell get you killed one day. Youre a fucking fool. The Technocrat goes on and on.

Its clear that this factor knows Josines rep, which implies a level of security clearance not befitting this kind of talk in public. The Technocrat tries to stay vague, but he brushes close to references that no one wants said in a public venue. The world isnt any safer because of what you do. How dare you?

Yoshi can protect Josine by staying silent or he can support Josine by speaking up in his defense.

Did Yoshi +Protect or +Support Josine?

+ If Protect... Yoshi stays quite while the Technocrat speaks,

long minutes ticking by, then finally says just a few words that send the Technocrat packing without giving up anything about Josine. Yoshis player: What did Yoshi say? Did he keep his cool?

+ If Support...Yoshi speaks up in Josines defense, explaining

why Yoshis loyal to his uncle, and says a little bit too much something he cant unsay. The Tech-nocrat lays off and leaves. Yoshis player: What did Yoshi say? Could it have been something that led to Josines disappearance?


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A: Clandestine / NotoriousUtseo is on a mission for Josine eleven years ago. The situation: Utseo must liberate a hard drive from an undersea research facility where cybernetically en-hanced dolphins were used for uplift-technology re-search. The place is swarming with Nanotech troops ransacking the place after the megacorp bought out the facility and shot down trespassing scientists who refused to leave.

Utseos outside the central lab, monitoring activity within via fiber-optic camera and a signal-intercep-tor earpiece. He counts maybe six or eight Nano-tech gunmen. He has just his knife, his metal legs, and a damned lot of chutzpah. Every second, the goons get closer to the encrypted backup drive Jo-sine wants.

Was Utseo +Clandestine or is he +Notorious?+ If Clandestine...Utseo sneaks into the lab, taking out half the goons

one by one until he reaches the hard drive. Once the drives in hand, Utseo slips back out, boards his waiting rental sub, and disappears into the deep. Ut-seos player: Describe how Utseo sneaks in and out of the lab and how he takes out half the goons.

+ If Notorious... Utseo storms the place, taking out all the goons

and causing enough damage in the ensuing fight to ultimately flood the facility but not before he nabs the drive and flees in his rented submarine. Utseos player: Describe how Utseo causes all this damage and how word of his exploits spread from the Nano-tech survivors.

B: Nimble /PowerhouseUtseo is on a mission for Josine ten years ago the last mission he got from Josine. The situation: A crazed plutocrat exec ousted by the Nanotech board, along with a loyal cadre of corporate sol-diers and a stolen military AI, hijacked a Technocracy orbital-laser and aimed its emitter at Hong Kong to take out key Nanotech skyscrapers and set the com-pany back a decade. Countless civilian lives will be lost in the blast. Josine somehow knew about the rogue executives plot before even the Technocrats or Nanotech proper could respond so its up to Utseo and his cohorts to stop the attack from on board the orbital facility. While the rest of the team holds off Nanotech goons, Utseo is just one shiny metal corridor away from the lasers emitter array. If the arrays taken out, the emitter wont deploy when the locked-in countdown runs out, overriding the

firing sequence, halting the shot and saving Hong Kong. (The built-up charge may be enough to blow the space station, though.)

The trouble is, the corridor leading to those gears is filled with probing security lasers intense enough to slice apart flesh. Somehow, Utseo got through them, in microgravity, to the machinery beyond.

Was Utseo +Nimble or was he a +Powerhouse?+ If Nimble... Utseo dodges and spirals through the corridor

in microgravity, lasers searing and refracting off his metal legs, always positioned just in time to save his flesh. Once through, he somersaults and glides to-ward the gears legs first. Utseos player: Describe how Utseo stops the machinery before the orbital laser can fully deploy, thereby halting the firing se-quence at the last minute.

+ If a Powerhouse...Utseo pushes off a bulkhead in microgravity and

falls through the laser-filled corridor feet-first, grind-ing emitters off the walls with his heels and spinning into the weapons gears beyond, jamming them with his metal legs. Utseos player: How does Ut-seo react as his metal legs are destroyed and their wreckage jams the vital gears?

FLASHBACKS


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A: Talking / FightingAlex is on a mission to help out Josine eleven years earlier. The situation: Alex is caught on the top floor of the swanky Technocracy embassy in Prague fol-lowing a harrowing chase. Hes cornered in his cat-burglar getup by armed guards in long gray coats, each one pointing a rifle at him. Hanging from Alexs belt is a thumb drive with hot Technocracy files on it, freshly stolen from downstairs. Alex raises his hands and smiles. Hes unarmed except for the laser-cutter he used to get through a few security systems. The closest exit is the window behind the guards 11 stories above the parking lot below. If only Alex can reach that window...

Did Alex get out of this by +Talking or +Fighting?+ If Talking... Alex opens his mouth. Do you guys know where

the mens room is? A guard grabs him, takes the thumb drive, and walks him toward the stairs right by the window. Alexs player: Describe how Alex uses his charms or lies to get the guards off balance long enough for him to leap out the window with his climbing harness. How does Alex manage to grab the stolen data back?

+ If Fighting...Alex hurls a nearby vase at the guards, kicking off

a hectic brawl designed to distract and disrupt the guards long enough for Alex to reach the window and escape on his climbing harness. Alexs player: Describe how Alex fights his way through the guards and makes his escape out the window, with the drive still on him. Describe the injuries he gets in the fight. Does he disappear into the night or go roaring away on a hotwired motorcycle? Something else?

B: Rough / SmoothAlex is on a job for himself, twelve years ago. The

situation: Alex is deep in the mansion of a gallery owner (and Technocrat agent) in Montreal. Its the night of a fancy party, but no one should be in this part of the building. Alex has just slipped a prized antique statuette into his tux when the lights come on. The Technocrat host stands in a nearby doorway in his tux. What are you doing in here? Alex knows Technocrat agents are almost always armed.

Was Alex +Rough or was he +Smooth?

+ If Rough... Alex talks too much, stepping on his own sen-

tences, convincing no one. He finally says, And, you know aw, screw it, and throws down a de-vice that explodes in brilliant, flickering holographic flames before bolting through the mansion for an exit, statuette still on his person. Alexs player: De-scribe what Alex breaks or threatens to break as he runs through the mansion. How does he get away without getting shot by the yelling Technocrat?

+ If Smooth...Alex is suave and sly. He lies about seeing some-

one in here and asks if anything is missing. We should warn our host, Alex says, that guy should be more careful with his guest list. Alexs player: Describe how Alex talks his way out of the scene, with or without the statuette. Does Alex storm out, insulted, or does he seemingly disappear? Some-thing else?

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A: Intimidating / SeductiveEmily is on a mission for Josine twelve years earlier. The situation: Emily is on the dance floor of a posh gala affair in Berne, dancing in the crowd, when the music changes. Tango. The corporate agent that Emily has come here to question stands a few feet away, smiling in his tuxedo. He extends a hand. May I have this dance?

He knows the access codes for a satellite weapon system that uncle wants deactivated so spacecraft can reach an orbiting habitat secretly and safely. His bodyguards watch from every corner of the room.

Emily takes his hand. They begin to dance. Some-where on his person is his phone. Emily wears a slew of spy gadgets disguised as accessories. This is as close as shes likely to get to the target. Time to go for the intel.

Was Emily +Intimidating or +Seductive?+ If Intimidating... Emily whispers in the agents ear, telling him

what shell do if he doesnt give her the codes. He laughs in disbelief. My men would have you on the ground in no time. Emily grabs him, swings him into a chokehold, and snatches his phone from his pock-et. Emilys player: Describe how Emily commands the whole room and escapes the scene. How badly does she hurt him to bring back the data for Josine?

+ If Seductive...Emily whispers in the agents ear, luring him to a

suite upstairs. He smiles and agrees. They go up-stairs and he goes to the bar and pours them both drinks. Emily slips a drug into his drink as she takes hers, smiling the whole time. Shes charming as can be until he passes out and she can ransack his phone for data. Emilys player: Describe how Emily is so smooth that the agent doesnt even realize hes been lied to, drugged, and robbed. How does she get out of the guarded suite?

B: Disarming / TurnaboutEmily is on a mission for Josine eleven years earlier. The situation: Emily, clad in black, has been caught deep in a plutocrats high-rise office by a security operative in digital camouflage. He gets Emily in a firm hold and puts a long knife to her neck. Emily can see the gleam where a micro-sensor on the blades edge records or transmits data back to building se-curity if the blade tastes blood.

Youve got no way out of here, the enemy op-erative says. Who are you working for?

Disarm this security agent and a brutal, drawn-out fight may follow but the blades sensor wont be tripped. Turn the blade against him and hell be quickly killed but the sensors get tripped.

Was she +Disarming or did she pull a +Turnabout?

+ If Disarming...Emily talks a bit to lower everyones blood pres-

sures, then slips smoothly out of the hold and kicks the blade away. A murderous dance unfolds in the office as the security operative, too proud to call out for help, dodges blow after blow. Emilys player: Describe what Emily says and how she is disarming. How is the security operative finally, quietly defeated there in the office environment? Is he alive or dead at the end of the encounter?

+ If Turnabout...Emily quickly ducks and pivots, driving the blade

into the operatives throat. Blood gushes. The blade detects catalogued DNA and triggers an alarm. A computer voice announces Operative down in Sec-tor 7. Emilys player: Describe how Emily escapes the scene with the plutocrats data despite the blar-ing alarms. Armed guards are en route. How many of them does Emily take out making her escape?

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A: Ruthless / WaryTank is on a mission for Josine eleven years earlier. The situation: Tank approaches a lakeside moun-tain cottage somewhere in Switzerland. Inside is a corporate turncoat looking to sell some information if he hasnt already been gotten to by rival spy-masters. The corporate informer was supposed to come alone for the meet but thermographic imag-ing reveals three people inside the cottage. Tank can approach slowly, perhaps being spotted along the way, or storm the place and take out the two un-expected strangers immediately, before they have a chance to respond.

Was Tank +Ruthless or +Wary?+ If Ruthless... Tank smashes the door down with her metal arms,

rushes in and takes down two people in gray suits with Technocrat ID badges on their lapels. Shes al-ready got the turncoat in hand when she notices. What did you do? the turncoat says. Is this how you do things? Let me go! And tell your boss Im off the market. Tanks player: Describe how Tank re-sponds to the turncoat, even as a Technocracy VTOL appears over the treetops. Does she let him go or drag him bodily back to a teleconference with Jo-sine, somehow losing the VTOL along the way?

+ If Wary...Tank approaches the building carefully, sneaking

close enough for her short-range parabolic mic to cut through the signal jammer on the cottage and pick up the meeting inside. The two strangers are Technocrats there to bring the turncoat in to a safe house for debriefing, rather than let his intel spur any kind of corporate espionage or violence. Tanks player: Describe how Tank manages to hide out and record the conversation, getting Josine the location of the Technocracy safe house, before watching in secret as a Technocracy VTOL craft carries all three people away. Does she manage to hit the VTOL with a tracking device? Describe how.

B: Devoted / SurprisingTank is on a mission for Josine eleven years earlier. The situation: Tank is tied to a chair, without her met-al arms, in the rusted belly of a bombed-out tanker ship on some remote Pacific island beach. Three cold-hearted pirates have guns on both Tank and a comrade in arms who is hooded, bound, and un-conscious. The pirates want to know who Tank and her cohort work for and how to contact him. Well ransom one of you back, they say. Maybe kill the other, if you dont talk fast. Tank can stay quiet, re-lying on her steely gaze and steady poise to hold out and protect Josines identity until rescue arrives or she can spring on the pirates, surprise them, and risk a gun going off.

Was Tank +Devoted or +Surprising?+ If Devoted... Tank keeps calm and quiet even when the pirate

shoots her in the leg even when the pirate shoots the cohort in the gut. You have until this one bleeds out to tell me who and where your boss is, the lead pirate says. But Tank is devoted and has endurance. She keeps her eyes on the pirates even as they wa-ver and grow bored waiting for the cohort to die. When her three enemies are relaxed, Tank strikes.

Tanks player: Describe how Tank takes out all three pirates. Who was under that hood? Was it another players character, later saved by modern medicine?

+ If Surprising...Tank nods and whispers. The lead pirate leans in,

gun to her head. What was that? he asks. Tanks player: Describe how Tank slips or breaks

the bonds holding her and takes out the three pi-rates. In the fight, one of the pirates opens fire, shooting Tank through the shoulder. Does the hood-ed cohort get hit in the battle? Do they live? Who was under that hood, anyway?

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A: Reasonable / ForcefulDr. Qamar is serving in a private corporate army thirteen years ago. The situation: Henri is in some bombed-out cityscape somewhere, where hes the last one left alive from his squad, when the patient hes helping gets shot dead by an enemy merc who appears from nowhere.

Im your patient now, says the merc, bleeding from a gut shot, his gun hand steady. Help me or we both die.

Maybe saving this soldiers life will defuse the situ-ation. Maybe not. This soldier may well kill Henri anyway once hes patched up. Better to take the gun out of the equation.

Henri can talk the gun out of the soldiers hand or he can fight him for it.

Was Henri +Reasonable or was he +Forceful? + If Reasonable... Henri talks the soldier into handing over his weap-

on in exchange for treatment. Henris player: De-scribe what Henri says, or say it outright. Did Henri help that enemy off the battlefield or did they part ways? Did Henri treat that soldier to the best of his ability? Is that enemy soldier alive today?

+ If Forceful...Henri goes for the gun and gets it. Henris play-

er: Describe how Henri gets the gun. Is it quick and decisive or is it an ugly struggle? Was Henri able to treat the soldier after that? Is that enemy soldier alive today?

B: Rapid Fire / Precise StrikeHenri is on a mission for Josine eleven years ago. The situation: Henri has been betrayed by the people fly-ing him back from a mission. Three turncoat thugs have pulled guns on Henri and a comrade in arms. Henri, wanting to protect his cohort, has a fleeting second to make up his mind he can reach a near-by submachine gun, hanging on a hook on the bulk-head, or he can pull the combat knife on his belt.

A rapid spray of gunfire might damage the aircraft but could take out all three thugs at once. A precise strike keeps the aircraft intact but could lead to a messy fight with these thugs that could turn against Henri and his cohort.

What was Henris approach?Was it a + Rapid Fire attack or a + Precise Strike?

+ If Rapid Fire... Henri grabs the submachine gun and sprays gun-

fire across the aircrafts hold. Two thugs drop, the third dives for cover, and the guns potent ammo blows a canister that weakens the planes skin. A chunk of it peels free. That third turncoat tumbles out of a new, widening gap in the fuselage. Henris player: Describe how Henri gets out of this. Does he grab a parachute before falling out of the aircraft or do he and his cohort work together to capture and crash-land the plane? Who was that cohort?

+ If a Precise Strike...Henri slips his combat knife from behind his back

and takes out two of the turncoats. The third fires a shot that drops Henris cohort just before Henri drops that third turncoat, too. The gunshot also blows out a cabin window, leaving Henri to perform combat medicine on the fallen cohort in a howling, struggling fuselage. Henris player: Describe the knife fight and Henris reaction to seeing his cohort get shot. Did Henri save that cohort? Who was it?

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Placement: Act 1, Phase 1Scene Type: ActionSynopsis: Josines call came from an isolated server facility near Reykjavik, Iceland. Go there and rescue Josine.Objectives: Locate and rescue Josine Get out alive

YESTERDAY CALLED

Josines call came from and lead to a long, low, glass-and-steel building lo-cated on an Iceland ridge overlooking the Atlantic. The PCs reach the site to discover the place is being ransacked by a cadre of anarchist data-thieves who busted open the site some time ago. Just as the PCs finish taking down the data-thieves, a mercenary hit squad arrives via helicopter (and maybe snowmobile) to eliminate the PCs and obtain or destroy all working hardware on sight. Whoever they are, they have guns and are ready to kill to get what they want. While dealing with the hostiles, the PCs learn what they can, including how they got the call that brought them back together.

Information SuiteThe building at the heart of this scene was meant to be a modern office retreat and server farm for an Icelandic company that never quite congealed: Cerebral Compression Backups. CCB was bought by memory storage experts Edgar and Dougray Hoefler, heirs to a digital-memory empire. Theyre in the business of storing peoples files in secret un-derground clouds maintained in high-security server locations across the planet. The CCB site is just one of their lower-security redundant sites.

The place is very beautiful and very cold and not meant for human hands. The place was mostly au-tomated until the anarchists dismantled it to make a point and snag any drives they could maybe ransom off. The bodies of the three on-site security staff lay dead in the snow outside.

The Server FacilityThe place is long and narrow, glassy like a green-house with black steel supports and greenish glass.

The parking lot has two modest hatchbacks in it, each under a faint dusting of blown snow, plus a muddy all-terrain van. The lots little gate has been smashed by that van. A big, brown, windowless truck has backed up to the front of the building and sits there with its loading doors open. Lazy thieves, thinking

Inside, the polished concrete floor, crowded with racks and racks of servers, drops into the ground through three terraced levels, making a shape that a stepped pyramid might plug into. Four glass-walled offices sit cold at the bottom, built into the walls of the smallest, lowest level.

Electronic eyes run along the walls and ceiling on delicate tracks, monitoring everything.

The People on the SceneHalf a dozen or so dudes in rugged wardrobes of worn leather and frayed parkas are either moving about the facility with submachine guns on short straps or are tossing hardware into the back of the van. They seem to be in no great rush. They figure security wouldve arrived by now if it was coming.

The thieves are self-pierced, self-tattooed, and marked with anarchist symbols suggesting theyre part of Icelands new anti-establishment criminal out-fit would-be revolutionaries engaged in a straight-up robbery. They think theyll change the world with the information they steal... but in their drugged out way theyre trashing as much as they capture.

Details Snow blows silent against soundproofed windows. The chirps from the servers sound like a hundred

crickets trapped indoors. It smells like hot solder but is quite cold inside. Everything is smooth and solidpolished concrete

and black metal. The surf crashes below, the sound suddenly audi-

ble once a window is broken.

Make An EntranceThis is an opening action sequence.

The players decide how to enter this scene but be clear with them: stealth and intrigue are not really options here for long. As soon as the data-thieves see theyre not alone they open up with small-arms fire, intending to shoot their way out of the place, get back to their all-wheel-drive trucks, and make off with some hardware. (Thats not happening, though the mercenary hit squads ready to take out the data-thieves if the PCs arent.)

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Information Suite+Plate-glass Windows, +Falling Glass, +Razor-sharp Edges, +Jutting Girder,

+Live Wire, +Rack of Hardware, +Windswept Snow, +Frigid Wind

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Getting inside is a question of what kind of dramat-ic entrance the PCs want to make. They can stride in or storm in, but the data-thieves arent here to talk to people they assume are mercenaries coming to take them out. (Maybe one even says, Its a kill-squad! Lets get out of here! then sprays gunfire at the PCs.)

This opening sequence exists to help the play-ers learn the game, get the story moving, and open things with a bang. If things crawl (maybe the players or their characters are overcautious), remind them that these PCs did this stuff all the time back in the old days.

Establishing the CharactersEspecially if youve chosen not to play out an open-ing montage, ask each player how their character first appears on screen. Is it in a flurry of blowing snow and muzzle flashes? Is it while adjusting a necktie on her way right up to front gate? Is it crashing through the glass of the information suite? Give them each a chance to shine.

OBSTACLESThis fight scene lets the players show off a bit, tests the characters with gradually more difficult foes, and introduces rules like location Tags.

Fighting FoesTwo waves of foes challenge the PCs in this scene: the data-thieves and the mercenary hit squad. The data-thieves are simple to handle and exist mostly to show the players how things work, to give them a chance to show off, and to trigger the action. The hit squad is a bigger threat.

Each data-thief = 2 untargeted hits. As-sume 2 of these foes per PC, each vulnerable to un-targeted rolls.

Each mercenary = 3 untargeted hits. These come clad in sleek special-forces gear with enclosed helmets and no identifying marks on their outfits. No targeted rolls necessary.

The helicopter = Difficulty 4. The helicopter is big and tough, with shiny black armor and a ca-pable pilot. It requires a targeted roll to take out.

Escalation: The Hit Squad ArrivesWhen the timings right like when the fight with the data-thieves is about to end a mercenary hit squad interrupts the battle, raising the stakes and the difficulty. Pick an entrance for them to make or invent one of your own:

Mercs rappel through the glass ceiling (or whatevers left of it) right when the data-thieves are taken out. Once theyre on the ground, their heli-copter assumes an attack position.

Mercs shoot dead the last data-thief standing, robbing the PCs of someone to question or of a final v

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