Nights Black Agents: The Dracula Dossier

Night’s Black Agents brings the GUMSHOE engine to the spy thriller genre, combining the propulsive paranoia of movies like Ronin and The Bourne Identity with supernatural horror straight out of . Investigation is crucial, but it never slows down the action, which explodes with expanded options for bone-crunching combat, high-tech tradecraft, and adrenaline-fueled chases.

NBA is basically a spy thriller ala Bourne Identity, Ronin or Burn Notice; where you play hyper competent super spies, who have stumbled upon a Global conspiracy (That is not supernatural in any way) and must uncover it before it buries them.

The central conceit of the game is that the players are in something of a chess match against “The (totally not supernatural) Conspiracy. They uncover clues and strike against The Conspiracy then The Conspiracy make a (totally not spooky) move against them. Each move hopefully uncovers more clues allowing the players to advance up the pyramid of power before The Conspiracy’s counter moves obliterate them.

THIS IS GAME IS:

Investigation: Heavy

(Tends towards the Bond or Mission Impossible style but still clue heavy)

Action: Heavy

(More ‘splosions, stealth and high wire acts than fighty)

Horror: Moderate-High?

(Hard for me to judge, I often create spookems accidentally)

RP:: Moderate?

(Should be lots of talky, but I suppose that Is player dependent)

PVP:: Low-Moderate

(The players have individual secrets that maybe at cross purposes, including the possibility of an outright traitor)

Aside from the spookems, This game deals with MATURE THEMES. Dealing at least partially with the very real horrors of the global criminal underworld and it’s roll in the degradation and destruction of human lives. This could include Human trafficking, Sex Slavery, Drugs, torture and other such miseries.

While I don’t intend to particularly wallow in these issues, I also do not intend to shy away from them either. The Taken movies are a good benchmark.

SOME IMPORTANT DETAILS

• I will be using a somewhat modified and expanded set of the standard NBA rules which in turn are a slightly modified version of the Gumshoe rules.
• There is some player commitment required from this game, more so than most. It is likely that some of the players will be required to read an actual book. They need it for clues.
• Also, there is a lot of player handouts/information to sift through for clues.
• There is also a lot of spy terms and tradecraft lingo that again is not required but sure helps.
I don’t want to scare people away but I also don’t want people to be constantly confused when people use terms like black bag operation, or in the clear/black.

INSPIRATIONS:

Bond, The Bourne Identity, Mission Impossible, Tinker Tailor Solider Spy, Sneakers, Jack Ryan, Burn Notice, Leverage, Chuck, Alias and Splinter Cell.
And for no especially relevant reason (stop being so suspicious)… Blade, Universal monster movies, Hammer Horror, It Follows, 28 days later, Cronos, Doctor Sleep, Overlord, Lights out, The Eye, Oculus, The Strain, Alan Wake.