By the Book v3.0

5 November 2016: 11am: By the Book v3.0

This was a game I'd playtested before, when it was called Hudson City Police Department Year One: Rise of the Wolf. As before, there were five people: the GM and four players divided into two pairs, and each pair played 2 cops working together to try to close cases and raise the city's faith in the police department. They didn't want chaos, but neither did they want the vigilante known as The Wolf to be more trusted than the police.

Their success or lack thereof was reflected in the Integrity score, which started at -1. The City's Integrity could go from -2 to +3.

Among the changes since I'd last played, players no longer played the NPCs who were interviewed for leads and evidence, which I found a relief.

For the playtest, the GM was most interested in our answering: How does investigation feel? Is it satisfying to pursue the leads etc.?

He also explained:

• Evidence doesn't tell you who did it -- evidence tells you who you can pin it on. * The City doesn't care -- it just wants to close cases.

And, a pair could have more than one case at a time. Lucky them.

All PCs have a Dark Secret which their partner knows, and they know their partner knows it.

GM: Mark Diaz-Truman

Vincent (Vince) Easton: Caesar Gutierrez. Hispanic male. He's had a bit of a rough life, and he has a hard time getting along with other officers, but is brilliant. He stays on the straight and narrow.

• Stats: O Brutality, +1 Grit, -1 Polish, +1 Wits
• Dark Secret: Family comes first and mine ain't great. Caesar destroyed evidence that implicated his cousin, a low-ranking gang member in the Kings.

Amy Delloranville: Carrie Jenkins. White female. She's only been here a couple of years. She found out that her partner destroyed evidence. But, she's a new cop, and he taught her a lot. And he is her partner, and she believes that he has good intentions. Carrie herself is "The Shiny One", Dressed to the nines. She takes pride in everything being where it is supposed to be. She doesn't like getting really violent with witnesses.

• Dark secret: She's gay.

Vince (figuring out how Caesar learned this): I may have answered your phone.

The players agreed, saying that the ID for the call was simply "The Chief". So, of course Caesar assumed that this was their superior in the department and returned the call. Their boss was Lt. Muñoz, who had recruited Carrie because of her potential -- she was the top of her class. And Caesar can't be bought.

Consensus, after seeing the stats the players chose: The Wits Team, clearly.

Eli Easton (no relation to Vincent): David Nugyen. A trans man, not really good with violence. Sharp, without bullshit, and doesn't take crap either. He'd been having issues with his previous unit when he transferred. Lt. Muñoz liked his no bs attitude.

• Stats: -1 Brutality, +1 Grit, 0 Polish, +1 Wits
• Dark Secret: His father was the head of an organized crime syndicate.

Player: It may or may not be in this city.

GM: Oh, it's in this city.

Me: Domenick Walters, White man S* tats: +1 Brutality, 0 Grit, +1 Polish, -1 Wits

• Dark Secret: Dominick let a perp go in return for sex. The man in question worked for David's father, which is how David knows.

The Mask: The Wolf: There were questions about the Wolf for all of us.

Vince/Caesar: What is the department's Official Policy on the Mask and how do we show this?

• The Wolf is a dangerous rumor that some underprivileged communities spread. It's saying, "We don't care if police don't come here -- we have the Wolf."
• Official Policy: The Wolf does not exist.
• The department shows this with posters emphasizing real communities and communication.

Amy/Carrie:

• In interviews, what do they say he is capable of? He's smaller than expected, powerful, with quick moves -- like a wolf. He can take out a lot of guys at once -- like in a warehouse with 20 guys, he leaves them taken out.
• Is he supernatural? Yep: "sweep his hand and all their guns fall" -- almost supersonic or psychic.

Easton/David:

• You _met_ the Wolf. What surprised you? I was outgunned and rescued by The Wolf, who was a lot younger than I expected. Hard to get a fix on who they were, but seemed to be teenager.
• Did you tell anyone? No.

Me/Dominick: The Wolf is capable of solving cases. What do you have to do to turn a case over to him? Put everything, all the information and evidence, in a package and address it to the Wolf. There's a PO Box, but that's it. No zip code.

Caesar said that there was a sort of "pack mind" in communities who believe that the Wolf will protect them.

The Wolf was already mixed up in the case that Caesar and Carrie drew, obviously and publicly mixed up in it. On the side of a building was a picture of a wolf's head and claw marks. There were a bunch of captured criminals tied up around a pole. Did I say "tied"? Actually, they were wrapped around the pole with a piece of steel.

Inside the building was a bunch of chemicals that had clearly gone missing in _huge_ numbers. There was a disabled truck, as someone had taken claws to the tires.

There were half a dozen barrels, as if the criminals had been interrupted while loading them into the truck. There was a dead security guard, and the guard looked shriveled or desiccated.

As the partners approached, they saw other cops talking to a red headed woman who was 5'7" or 5'8". It looked as if she were familiar with the place, but also kind of stunned at how it currently looked. She was the building's manager.

Carrie decided to talk to one of the perps, and the player rolled a 9, which is at least a partial success.

Perp: We didn't kill that guy.

Caesar looked for things that the other cops had missed, pulling a lock off something -- perhaps the building or the truck? Whatever it was, it revealed 4 more bodies. These were the bodies of people dressed like the captive goons -- and shriveled like the dead guard!

Caesar: Any signs of illegal imports?

GM: None of these chemicals match what's on the invoice.

Meanwhile, David and Domenick caught a case, one which, the dice informed us, was "weird and cryptic" and with "high stakes" and "urgent". Oh joy.

The two came to a fancy apartment, one with 2 sloping staircases. This was the apartment of one of the largest philanthropes in the city, and the philanthrope's daughter had been kidnapped, just vanished. I think there was a ransom note.

They talked to the doorman, a skinny man, face ashen and concerned. This was Carl. He said that he had seen the child at 3pm with the au pair, but by 6pm, the child was missing.

I believe Carl had taken a cigarette break at a critical moment, but security footage showed the child walking out with a white woman of medium height. One of the partners tried to calm down the doorman, only getting a 6, which would normally be a failure. But, in this Powered by the Apocalypse game, you can get help from your partner. The partner wagered between 1 and 3 stress, I think maybe 2 in this case? Regardless, a +1 was generated, resulting in a 7, which was a partial success, rather than a failure.

Meanwhile, the other team asked one of the perps how he got a bump on his eye.

Perp: Te f*cking Wolf.

Caesar (I think): Thanks for your cooperation -- cuz the Wolf isn't real!

Later, Caesar noted: This is an open crime scene -- _everything_ here is evidence.

One of them, probably Caesar, tried to intimidate a witness, noting: One of these things is not like the other.

They may have gotten coffee for the man, since my notes say, "coffee -- maybe you can focus more". And someone may have lawyered up. A witness was hauled in, and the dice rolled 8, which meant that the pair at least got a lead.

Meanwhile, David scoped out the high profile scene, and the player got a 7, so could ask a question: What did other cops miss?

There was a breeze mid-hallway, and David noticed the air vents, as well as the elevator. I think they learned about a delivery guy, something being catered. And I think Forensics was called in, but a roll of 4 guaranteed that information would complicate the case.

Someone on one of the teams asked fellow officers for help, rolling an 8. The detective got what was needed, but would be affected negatively, whether by bureaucracy, incompetence, or corruption.

And on top of that, the sergeant, a large man, complicated matters.

Sergeant: Jenkins! Come here. (Carrie does so and he hands her a second case) Now I would rarely bestowed such largesse, but everyone in this office is working very hard. Why aren't _you_ working very hard, Jenkins?

I think dice were rolled, but the player got a 6.

Sergeant: Oh, there is one more thing -- I forgot to tell you, since you're our resident expert on the Wolf that doesn't exist.

This probably means that the 6 meant that the Wolf was involved in that second case.

Meanwhile, Forensics came to help David and Domenick. There was, it turned out, a basement. There were no cameras showing it. The family had it installed 2-3 years ago, but said nothing about this to the cops.

The detectives showed the family the elevator they'd found, the one leading to the basement. They wanted to discover whether there were ties to organized crime and to uncover the family's loyalty. I think Domenick is the one that got a result of 13 on a Polish roll and used the "help us help you" tactic.

And, indeed, organized crime was involved.

GM: We are talking of the Lietti family.

One of both of the players, remembering that both were totally mixed up in a bad way with organized crime: We are NOT looking at each other.

Meanwhile, Carrie's girlfriend called her, as Carrie had either missed or cancelled a date. Again.

Girlfriend: Another case dropped? Or is it the Wolf?

Carrie convinced her to give Carrie one more chance.

Girlfriend: You'd better not f*ck this up!

The one more chance involved a restaurant date at 7:30.

And at some point, I know, someone considered mentioning the wolf connection to Lt. Muñoz, but the timing just didn't work.

Muñoz (to someone): The Wolf. I don't want to hear it. I swear, the next person who mentions the Wolf to me -- (sees detective) What?

Detective: ...It can wait.

Unsurprisingly, no cases got even close to solved, as this was a 2 hour playtest. And we did need to save time to talk about things that clicked and what was confusing.

Vince liked the initial setup, the case move, how screwed we all were, the stakes, and the flexibility of the mechanics.

Amy liked how the papers were easily layed out, and how folks got partnered off.

Easton noted that nothing seemed pregenerated. Mysteries flowed naturally, and got more complicated and weird. The moves made sense. We got to set relationships with others. We were entertained. There was enough party splitting. The game worked.

Me: I liked the development I saw from the last time I'd played the game. I really liked that I no longer had to play NPCs, particularly NPC witnesses when I didn't know what they knew or what would make them tell it if they weren't willing to do so at once. I continued to like the way the dark secrets worked -- that each person knew their partner's secret and knew that their partner knew their own.

Vince asked about playbooks. The GM said that originally, there weren't going to be any, I think due in part, at least, to the players taking on NPC rolls. Now that this was no longer the case, there might be.

Amy said something in agreement, mentioning the "same elements" as in the investigation. I no longer recall what she meant.

Easton noted that even with leads, there was a certain amount of confusion.

I wasn't entirely sure how the PCs closed a case.

I think we also discussed whether Wits might be underpowered and whether five stats might be better than four.

And the GM gave the formula for quick NPC creation with a deck of cards:

• Hearts: NPC is open and honest.
• Diamonds: NPC is doing something illegal, but this is not necessarily relevant to the case.
• Clubs: The NPC is not involved in the case, but is trying to get something out of it.
• Spades: The NPC is involved in the case in some way.