I’m planning a session for the next couple of weeks and am trying to work out the best way to run it. Currently I am thinking of something that site between Espionage and Warfare, but I would appreciate any comments and suggestions. (Some of players are on the boards, if not very active, so I’m avoiding specifics)
The set up is that a gang member has gotten their hands on something important to the players that they were supposed to pass on to their enemies. They got greedy and tried to double cross them for more money.
The players are now aware the gang member is in the city and the enemy are hunting them.
I have a rough map of the city with linked locations such as Palace, Slums, Transit hub, market, etc…
The objective is 2-fold. First find the gang member and defeat them, then move the asset generated back to their base (Palace or Transit hub respectively) .
I’m planning on running this mostly as an Espionage conflict, but I want there to be actual fighting when they are both trying to get the asset back to their side. Hence why I was thinking of segueing it into Warfare.
Giving the idea of squads of searching House troops running into enemy agents and fights breaking out across the city in running battles.
Of course my players will no doubt throw a spanner in the works regardless, but can anyone see any glaring issues or suggestions to improve the idea.
Only thing I would say is to be prepped to toggle between Agent and Architect play, ie. have your PC and NPC groupings statted for as individuals and an Asset.
Clearly, you can do that pretty easily on the fly but I’ve gotten caught there and had to flip pages to make sure I had my NPCs set-up as a patrol Asset rather than individual Minor SCs.
Yeah, sounds like a great idea and a lot of fun! The architect mode is really a strength of Dune AitI.
Evocatus is right, you’ll surely have to switch between the two modes.
Keep us updated, that session will be epic.
I would make failures and complications in the Espionage of the game affect the “balance” of the Skirmish scenes. More or Tougher or Better_Prepared npc enemies or locations with Zone traits that favour the enemies.
Some of that sort of thing occurs anyway as some Threat can be generated by the Espionage, but due to the resistance of PCs (in my games) to give me Threat, I’d also handle it in the scenario design.
Recently I let slip that my scenario had notes about “if you have 4 Threat, do ■■■” and thenplayers took crazy risks to avoid giving me Threat when my pot got to 3
We’ve just run the session.
My players enjoyed themselves, but I don’t think I will use Espionage too often. It might work better with only 3 players, but with 5 it felt a bit like people were stepping on each others toes as they moved assets around.
When it moved into Warfare it seemed to run a bit smoother, but 1 of the players had also dropped out into Skirmish mode at this point as well. So there were only 4 controlling the assets at the other end of the map. @Evocatus, thanks for the tip to have the assets prepped for both asset & NPC. I went and marked up the book for the NPC stats so when they switched to skirmish I had them in front of me.
Below is the map I created (And by I what I mean is Countess Thalim…) showing the links between the locations and its use during the session.
