[UA] Help! Dumb PC investigated for kidnapping (Bi3P)

[Ted Prodromou]

So, I think the question here is, what do you WANT to
have happen?  There's plenty of different ways the
police and FBI could react, and you can pull other
plot elements into the story to direct it that way. 
You're controlling the story.

It sounds like, right now, the PCs are desperately
trying to figure out more about this Bill Toge guy,
make sure everything's okay, and follow any leads they
can get.  It sounds like they're having fun with this,
but doing some wacky stuff that could be alerting the
police.  It also sounds like their relentless and kind
of incomprehensible pursuit is starting to annoy you
and make you unsure of what to do next.

Here's a few things that come to mind:

1.  "The Police" isn't a single amorphous entity which
stores information efficiently for later retrieval. 
They could just completely fail to connect and follow
through on this.

2.  Furthermore, the police only have so much manpower
and time.  If Delilah's mother is calling about her
daughter, they might decide she's a crackpot, and not
bother to investigate.

3.  I find that a useful device with the police is to
create a particular officer who's investigating it. 
Give the investigator a personality and remember that
this is just a job for her, and she probably has a
dozen other cases she's working on right now as well. 
Or him.

4.  In this case, you've got a lot of opportunities
for plot devices if you want to get the players out of
it.  The realities collapsing back down could result
in a cleanup of evidence.  The Sheriff de Germaine
could sweep in and make everything better but tell the
players they really caused enough problems.  The
situation is weird enough that it might merit Sleeper
notice and cover up - and explain patiently (or
not-so-patiently) to the players what they did wrong.

5.  If all else fails, arrest the character.  He can
then post bail, get a court date six months in the
future, and you can run the rest of the game with that
over his head.  As long as the game you're planning
doesn't include travel, the character can continue to
be a PC, and will now have a really good incentive to
act more carefully.  

I had the last thing happen to my "street vigilante
House of Renunciation agent trying to redeem the world
one criminal at a time" character in an awesome UA
game recently, after I'd done something impulsive and
stupid (I tried to taser and drag off a criminal while
police were already on the scene.)  Getting arrested
worked out great.  I was still in play for the rest of
the game, getting pressure from the DA to turn in my
friends, and desperately trying to find some kind of
mojo that would get the cops off my back.

Being watched constantly by the police can be a real
downer for a game.  I've had a game turn into a
fugitive game, and, unfortunately, the plot gets kind
of tired quickly - at least, this game did.  My advice
would be to avoid that, unless that's the kind of game
you want to run.  Bring the conflict to a head so it
can be resolved, rather than dragging it out and
letting it escalate until it takes over the game.

One last possibility: Give the PCs something else to
do rather than just leaving them to dig their own
grave deeper and deeper.

--- Christopher <x-opher at bigfoot.com> wrote:

> Okay, a PC has gotten in a sticky situation in the
> aftermath of Bi3P. I've
> googled FBI procedures in kidnapping cases, but
> haven't found how an
> investigation is mounted. Hopefully, someone here
> can help. Let me set it up
> first:
> 
>  
> 
> My group went through Bi3P. The only Bill who wasn't
> stopped was the second
> one, the epidiro. One character, Jason, tried a last
> ditch effort of
> stopping him as he drove away, by firing a shotgun
> blast at the vehicle.
> Moments later, he saw his double drive by. At the
> end of the scenario, when
> Bill the epidiro and the double drove by, another
> character, Marvie, jumped
> into his car and tried to catch up to no avail. He
> asked if he caught the
> license plate number. He had never asked before, but
> with his obsession
> being numbers and his photographic memory, I let him
> roll for it. Got a
> Major success so I gave him some of the numbers. He
> then kicked in the
> bumper of another PC's car (his own was a rental)
> and called the cops to
> report a hit-and-run by a blue Hyundai. After a
> little more searching over
> the next day, they called it quits.
> 
>  
> 
> Marvie kept looking into it via the internet,
> discovering that the two Bills
> stopped seemed to be erased from reality, slowly but
> surely. He finally
> figured out the license plate and the address it had
> originally been
> registered to. The phone number for the property was
> under the name Jonathan
> Toge. Going to scenic Ellensburg, WA, they found a
> blue Hyundai and a
> grieving father. Jason and Marvie spoke to him,
> telling him about the
> hit-and-run and the desire to keep insurance
> companies out of it, but find
> out that Bill had made it that far before saying,
> "Hey, Dad, I'm home," and
> collapsing and dying from blood loss. (I was hoping
> that would be the end of
> it.) Jason asked a lot of questions about Bill and
> his past and about Bill's
> daughter. He also asked if Bill was with a guy who
> looked an awful lot like
> him, who goes by the nickname, "Jason." Jonathan
> implores them to talk to
> the cops with what they know. Then they left. They
> do not talk to the cops.
> 
>  
> 
> Then they decided to hightail it to Yuba, CA, which
> is where Bill the
> epidiro had been living. Looking through birth
> records finally turned up
> Sascha Delillo and her mother's name. They found her
> phone number and one of
> them, Adriano, called her. It did not go well. So,
> Jason and Marvie head
> over and are met by Delilah's mother. They try to
> get more info about Bill.
> The mother is barring access to Delilah, so Jason
> tells her that he saw Bill
> with Sascha, in violation of the restraining order.
> She asks him if he's
> talked to the police about this. He lies and says,
> "Yes." Then, as a last
> ditch effort, he hands the mother his cell phone
> number and impresses on her
> that he knows Bill has been near Sascha and to call
> him when ready to talk.
> Heavily implying, of course, that he knows useful
> information. Then they
> leave. That was pretty much the end of the session.
> 
>  
> 
> Oh, and I should mention that Jason's niece went
> missing two months prior in
> their first adventure, while he was visiting for
> Thanksgiving. The group
> rescued her and others, but Under Very Mysterious
> Circumstances. 
> 
>  
> 
> Now, I really don't want to put Jason away for this,
> but I obviously gotta
> do something. The FBI will get Jason's cell phone
> number. What do they do
> next? I figure they talk to Jonathan Toge. Do they
> show up on Jason's
> doorstep? Do they question him there, or do they
> have enough to haul him in?
> Does a possible missing child alert hit the area?
> Really, I'm hoping my
> player does some dazzling bluffing and talks his way
> out of it. There's no
> evidence on him or his belongings. I could have the
> street people who saw
> him shoot off a shotgun in Don's neighborhood give
> enough of a description
> to implicate Jason, but I think I'll rule that they
> weren't close enough,
> they were surprised, and they give conflicting
> reports.
> 
>  
> 
> Anyway, thanks for any help you can give.
> 
>  
> 
> Christopher Smith Adair
> 
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