[UA] Gangland [Long]

[John C]

>Yes, feel free to post the Gangland specs. I'd do it myself, but it'd take
>far too much drinki... um, working time to reformat the documents.

Yes, I could use some serious "working" time myself right now....  
Fortuntely, it's been a quiet kinda day.

Here 'tis, then:

[UA] Gangland - Notes Towards a Campaign (long)
Fri, 25 Aug 2000 15:58:38 +1000

Hi guys.  I've mentioned plans for a UA campaign a few times recently; 
finally I've finished my preliminary notes.  There are still a lot of things 
that need fleshing out, though - which is where I'm hoping you can help.

(There are a lot of smart people on this list, as well as the designers of 
the game; this is a resource that should not be wasted.)

Below are my initial notes, along with the areas I need help, advice or 
suggestions with.  I'd really like you all to respond if you can.  As  well 
as the question I ask, feel free to bring up any other problems you see.  
Tell me if you think some of the ideas suck.  Tell me if you think  the 
whole thing sucks.  _Definitely_ tell me if you think it's a work of  
genius.

This is Gangland; we are down among the dead men.

--
A dying mob boss is losing control over a city torn apart by warring 
criminal gangs.  To escape a slow and painful death from cancer, and to 
wrest power back from his enemies, he'll crowbar open the gates of Heaven 
and push a shotgun through the gap.  But in his haste to rip life back from 
the fist of God, he's made a deal with a Devil…

Gangland draws inspiration from two main sources -'The Sopranos' and 'Ghost 
Dog', both of which perfectly capture the tone and flavour of the game.  
Other important inspirations are 'Miller's Crossing', 'Wiseguy', a pile of 
other gangster and hitman movies, and all the usual UA-relevant books.  Plus 
there's my fascination with crime, and the parallels I see between the 
criminal underworld and the occult underground.

THE SETUP
The campaign is set in a major American city, with several different 
organized crime groups - the Mafia, black gangs, Russian Mafia, Triads  and 
so on.

     QUESTION: Which city should I use?  Chicago seems really obvious, for 
the crime connection; that's one reason why I want to avoid using it (plus I 
set two of my last few campaigns there).  New Jersey has that Sopranos 
connection, but that could also be another decent reason not to use it.  New 
York and Los Angeles both seem possible, but I'm concerned that those cities 
are too big for me to get a solid grip on.  I'm an ignorant Australian, so 
help is appreciated (along with information on _why_ the city is suitable).

Fat Tony (not the name I'll use, but a decent placeholder) is the boss of 
the Mafia in the city.  The mob are losing their grip on the city, taking 
hits from the other criminal groups in town.  Plus, Tony's dying.  Now that 
the stomach cancer is taking it's toll, Fat Tony weighs less than 50 kilos, 
and he's got less than a year to live.

Into the picture comes Dr. Mabuse, an enigmatic old man with encyclopaedic 
knowledge about the occult underground, magick and the Invisible Clergy.  He 
has a complex plan to propel Fat Tony along the avatar path, to the point of 
replacing the current archetype within the Clergy (more on this later).  The 
main workers on this plan will be the PCs.

Over the course of about a year (in-game), the PCs work to increase Tony's 
mystical standing and push him along the path to Ascension, while 
simultaneously waging war against the other criminal groups and fighting off 
mystical threats.  At the end of this year, Tony is ready to Ascend - but 
Mabuse is going to hijack his power for his own use, and the PCs will find 
themselves grappling not just with danger, but with serious moral dilemmas 
over what course to take.

THE PLAYER CHARACTERS
All of the PCs are involved in Tony's mob on some level - mostly as 
gangsters.  The character of Christopher from 'The Sopranos' is very similar 
in 'power level' to what I want from the PCs.  These aren't major bigwigs or 
made men, but nor are they faceless goons.  Instead, they're mid-level 
gangsters, hoping to make a big name for themselves. They all should come 
with lots of personal baggage, plot hooks and so on.

     QUESTION: Should I give these characters free Hardened notches for 
Violence?  They are professional bastards, after all; seems to me that they 
should be fairly comfortable with the idea of hurting people.  Or can I 
presume that unless they deliberately take on Hardened and Failed notches, 
they're still not at ease with what they do?

One thing I'll be doing is also assigning each player an NPC to run as well; 
Fat Tony, his wife, and his top advisors.  NPC actions are important in this 
game, as are inter-NPC relations; having players handle NPC-NPC interaction 
feels better to me than playing both sides myself.

By and large, this is a campaign for fairly 'normal' characters; no adepts, 
no avatars.  Well, avatars are probably okay, but I'd prefer to see the 
avatar skill at a pretty low level.  I want characters with little or no 
knowledge of the occult.

     QUESTION: What about adepts, though?  I'm sure someone will want to 
play one, and they are fun.  Where can an adept character fit into the game? 
  Postmodern Magick touched on this, but I want some ideas. Off hand, I can 
see two options for adept characters.  Maybe they practice their magick in 
secret, unbeknownst to their colleagues.  This might work for reasonably 
subtle schools, like Cliomancy, or for schools that don't require _really_ 
unusual behaviour, like Dipsomancy or Amoromancy.  This has potential, 
because when the other PCs realize their friend is a mage, there'll be 
tonnes of fun.  So what schools are reasonably easy to practice in 
semi-secret?

The other option is that the Mob knows something about the occult, and that 
the adept operates more openly.  I'm not crazy about this, because it puts 
the wackiness in the game from Day One.  On the other hand, magick is fun, 
and this lets players have fun with it from the start.  So what kind of 
adepts are the mob likely to hire?

PART ONE
The first section of the game should last for 3-4 sessions, and about a 
month of game time.  The main focus is to get the players comfortable with 
the system and the campaign, and to introduce the major NPCs.  The other big 
thing is teaching the players about organized crime and what that really 
means; being a professional bastard.

     QUESTION: What are some good books about the reality of organized crime 
and what mobsters actually do?  As well as proper books, any RPG material 
would be useful, as those are written from a fairly practical viewpoint.  I 
recall Destiny's Price for MAGE being okay, and I've heard the GHOST DOG RPG 
has excellent material on crime; can anyone give me a report card for those?

So they do the crime thing for a session or two; get into some fights, meet 
some major and minor NPCs, establish character and so on.  Then Mabuse 
approaches them for an intro to Tony.

Mabuse makes a proposal to Tony, and demonstrates that he has real 
supernatural abilities.  He can't cure Tony's cancer, but he can do  
something better; elevate Tony to Archetype status and let him into the 
Clergy.  (For a fee, of course.)  Tony will go for the deal, and orders the 
PCs to do whatever Mabuse needs of them.

     QUESTION: What archetype should Tony fulfil?  True King seems like an 
obvious option, and is what I'm leaning towards.  However, maybe I should 
create something like the Gangster or the Criminal.

PART TWO
This section should last 5-6 sessions, and 1-2 months of game time. This is 
the main part of the First Act of the campaign, and will establish the tone 
and flavour for the bulk of the game.  During this section, the PCs will get 
shoved headfirst into the occult, maybe learning magick along the way.

Mabuse's first task for them is to find a new location to be the 'base of 
operations' for the project.  This has to be a moderately large building, 
say warehouse size, which has some mystic significance.

     QUESTION: What kind of place should this be?  I'm probably going to use 
a genius loci, as per my email of last week.  However, a cliomanticly 
significant site would work too.  In either case, it also needs some sort of 
criminal connection.  If I was running this in Chicago, the site of the St. 
Valantine's Day Massacre might work well.

Whatever the nature of the site, the PCs will probably have to spend a 
session finding it, and taking control from whoever currently possesses it.

Next, Mabuse wants them to find carpenters, builders, electricians and other 
construction people.  He also wants maps of the city; TV and media 
technicians; books about the city and its people; and probably some esoteric 
magic stuff.  Again, another session of work.

Over the next few weeks, Mabuse is working on 'preparing' the site, while 
the PCs can get back to their usual shakedowns and operations. Another 
session or two.  Might throw in some external supernatural elements as well.

Finally, Mabuse unveils his creation - "Gangland".  This is the central 
element of the campaign.  The building now contains a scaled-down version of 
part of the city (the area that Tony controls); small enough to walk 
through, with buildings about 2 metres tall.  Gangland also bristles with 
symbolic references to the classic gangster style of the 50s - TV sets play 
loops of 'The Godfather' movies; portraits of John Dillinger are on the 
walls; Frank Sinatra Italian folk songs play over speakers; cigarette smoke 
occasionally wafts from vents and so on. Apart from the Gangland complex, 
the building also contains reasonably luxurious housing for Tony and his 
family, along with the PCs.

Gangland is a mystic amplifier for the symbols of Tony's avatar path. Ritual 
actions taken within Gangland 'reverberate', increasing the power and 
significance of actions taken outside.  For instance, if Tony ritually 
curses an enemy within Gangland, and that enemy is within the area 
represented by the cityscape within the complex, then attacks or actions 
made against that enemy receive bonuses, and help to further Tony along the 
road to Ascension.

     QUESTION: Any other cool things I could include in Gangland?  I want 
the place to feel eerie, haunted, strange; like stepping back in time to a 
world where stylish criminals reigned supreme.

Mabuse performs rituals to link Tony, his family, the PCs and some of the 
other mobsters to Gangland.  He'll also encourage the PCs to learn some 
magical skills; teaching them rituals and Tilts, encouraging them along 
appropriate avatar paths, maybe even pointing them towards adepts who might 
train them.

PART THREE
We now move into Act Two of the campaign.  This section will probably last 
at least 10 sessions, and be at least 4-6 months of game time; this is the 
bulk of the campaign.  The focus here is on establishing the powers of 
Gangland, and the PCs fulfilling their duties as Tony's main men.  There are 
3 major elements to this.

First, the PCs must establish Tony's position as True King over the area he 
already controls.  (Or whatever archetype I use; I'll take True King as it 
for the moment.)  This means that that those within the area (those already 
involved with the Mob in some way, whether as mobster or victim) must not 
just see Tony as a crimelord or gangster, but must acknowledge him as their 
King, maybe even swear fealty.  The PCs must introduce mystic elements to 
their mundane activities.

     QUESTION: Again, this is an area where I really need to have a good 
grasp on just how organized crime operates on a day-to-day basis. 
Information is appreciated.

Second, the PCs must take new territory; they must wage war against the 
other gangs that control the city.  This might be subtle, with negotiations 
and alliances; it might be violent, with big-arse gunfights, drive-bys and 
bombs.  To complicate things further, that mystic, ritual element must be 
included in these conflicts.

     QUESTION: My imagination isn't coming through for this bit; all I keep 
thinking about are big fight scenes.  Suggestions on the forms this conflict 
could take would be helpful.

As the PCs take territory from their enemies, they'll find that Gangland 
gets bigger; buildings appear within the cityscape, and the building gets 
bigger on the inside than on the outside.  As Tony increases along his 
avatar path, and the mob take control of the city, Gangland becomes more 
powerful.  Soon the outside world will begin changing to better reflect 
Gangland; fashions, music, mindsets will all drift towards the image that 
Gangland projects.  There might even be temporal slides back to the 50s.

Third, the PCs must defend Tony from attack; not just from the other gangs, 
but (more importantly) from other elements of the occult underground.  The 
power of Gangland isn't so overt as to awaken the Claws of the Tiger (yet), 
but it's a major mystic undertaking nonetheless.

     QUESTION: How would the various dukes and cabals react to this?  The 
New Inquisition will _definitely_ be interested, and worried; probably the 
Sleepers as well.  The others, I'm not so sure on.  What about TOSG?  The 
Naked Goddess sect?  The rest of the Clergy?  Other avatars? Adepts?  
Saint-Germaine himself?  (Not Mak Attax; they don't really fit the tone of 
the campaign.)  All suggestions welcome.

This section is a messy, frantic juggling act.  The PCs have to handle all 
of the above, as well as trying to live their lives, run their operations, 
deal with the FBI and the police, develop their plot hooks and so on.  
They're also going to be under a lot of strain, physically and mentally.  
This section should be good for a lot of madness checks, character 
development and fun improvising.

Throughout this section, I want to force the players to confront the moral 
dimension of their characters' actions.  The PCs might be sympathetic, but 
they aren't good people; they're thugs, crooks, murderers and thieves.  At 
some point in this section, the PCs need to start wondering about the worth 
of the lives they've chosen, and questioning what they should do if they 
want to redeem themselves.

The other major subplot will be growing suspicion about Mabuse.  Who is he?  
How does he know so much?  Some of the occult NPCs may warn the PCs against 
him; some may want to train at his feet.  The PCs learn that he isn't 
spending the money he's getting from Tony; he's giving it away, maybe even 
throwing it away.  Tony won't hear a word against his advisor, though; he's 
so focused on the prize of Ascension and eternal life that he doesn't care 
about the PCs' suspicions.

Eventually, at the end of this section, the PCs will find out Mabuse's  
secret.  He reacts by leading them into a trap of some sort (dunno what yet, 
I'll work that out later), and ices the cake by faking evidence that the PCs 
have sold out to the cops.  If they live through the trap, they'll be hunted 
by their own allies.

     QUESTION: So what is Mabuse's secret?  Not sure yet; here are my 
initial ideas.

First option, and the one I like most.  Mabuse is an ex-member of the 
Clergy, forced through the House of Renunciation reasonably  recently.  Now 
he wants revenge against the avatar that ousted him, and against the Clergy 
in general.  This version of Mabuse has no avatar powers or adept skills, 
but an encyclopaedic knowledge of magic; he can perform rituals fairly 
easily, maybe even make artefacts.

The problem I have is that even after reading Statosphere, I still don't 
have a really clear idea on how the House works.  The idea I started with 
was that Mabuse used to be the Fool.  His trip through the House has made 
him the opposite of the Fool; now he's highly intelligent, and while 
powerless, has knowledge abaout almost all aspects of the Clergy and the 
occult.  Does that fit the paradigm of the House?  I really don't get how 
the House affects ex-archetypes.

Another possibility is that Mabuse is an adept; probably one of the more 
subtle types, like a Cliomancer or an Urbanomancer.  He might also be a 
demon, on the same 'power level' as Rome and Carthage from Postmodern 
Magick.  In both these cases, I'd have to work out why he holds a grudge 
against the Clergy.

In any event, Mabuse has a lot of occult knowledge on his side, he's very 
smart, and he _hates_ the Invisible Clergy.  He's using Tony's ascension as 
a springboard for his revenge.  At the time that Tony is ready to Ascend, 
Mabuse is going to hijack that mystic power and use it to propel himself 
into the statosphere - and start kicking Clergyman heads.  Tony will die 
from the strain, and the assault on the Clergy will be parallelled by 
disaster and Armageddon on earth.  And it's up to the PCs to stop him.

PART FOUR
The final act of the campaign, the big finish; about 2-3 sessions, at a 
guess, and no more than a week or two of game time. The PCs know that Mabuse 
is planning the final ritual to happen very soon (3 days to 2 weeks, 
depending on pacing).  This is the ritual that will allow Tony to Ascend as 
the True King; or would, if Mabuse wasn't going to hijack it.

(One thing I'd like to aim for is that the PCs should want to stop Tony from 
ascending as well.  After the events of the campaign, I'm hoping to have 
challenged the morals and ethics of the characters a few times, and made 
them confront the bastardry that they've done in their criminal careers.  If 
they're sick of their life of crime, they'll want to prevent Tony from 
getting into the Clergy and making the world that bit shittier.)

To stop Mabuse, the PCs will have to return to Gangland and interrupt the 
ritual.  This is a lot harder than it sounds.  The city is solidly under the 
King's rule, now; his loyal subjects see the PCs are traitors to be killed.  
They're bereft of support, and tripping over unnatural phenomena.  Gangland 
is heavily guarded, both mystically and physically.  And they're probably 
all banged up from the trap Mabuse set for them.

They'll find a way in; PCs are like that.  I can see them hooking up with 
temporary allies from the occult underground or TNI; that'd make things a 
bit easier.

Anyway, as the ritual rolls around, they break into Gangland - to find it's 
grown even bigger.  Gangland is now _real_; a pocket city that is a dark, 
distorted mirror of the city they left behind.  Hoods drive through the 
streets in 1930s roadsters, wearing double-breasted suits and carrying 
Tommy-guns.  This is a film noir city, surreal and dangerous; a fictional 
world of criminal supremacy, mixed with a few  'Knights of the Round Table' 
flourishes.

The PCs will probably spend a session or two within this city, trying to 
come to grips with things, before storming the King'S 'Coronation' ceremony. 
  Here, Mabuse leads the ritual of Ascension.

     QUESTION: Any ideas on what form this ritual should take? Statosphere 
calls for a confrontation with the current Godwalker, and then a conflict 
between the new Godwalker and the archetype.  I don't mind flaunting the 
material in Statosphere a bit; hell, it's my campaign.  But suggestions on 
how this ritual would play out would be good.

If you have any ideas about who the current Godwalker of the True King (or 
whatever) might be, I'd love to hear them.

Finally, the showdown.  The PCs must stop Mabuse from completing the ritual. 
  They'll be facing other gangsters, Tony, and probably some supernatural 
nastiness like an Unspeakable Servant.  This is a big-arse action scene; I'm 
hoping to leave room for some supernatural shenanigans and character 
material as well.  Hell, maybe one of the PCs will end up ascending 
themselves, with all this archetypal power sloshing about.

Anyway - denouement.  The dust settles; Mabuse is dead or destroyed; if Tony 
hasn't ascended, he's quickly dying from his cancer.  Gangland is crumbling; 
either Tony's power has been lost, or he doesn't need it any more.  The 
surviving PCs will have to find a way to escape the pocket reality before it 
collapses; if I'm feeling mean, maybe the building is surrounded by the FBI. 
  In any case, game over.  If needs must, round out the session by tying off 
any loose ends from PC plot hooks.

--
That's it.  Your thoughts?

--
Patrick O'Duffy, Brisbane, Australia




_________________________________________________________________
Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp.


_______________________________________________
UA mailing list
UA at lists.uchicago.edu
http://lists.uchicago.edu/mailman/listinfo/ua