Friday 27 September 2013

My Delightful Reading List...

Hello again!

Below I have listed some of the books that I have used for my prep work for the game. There are some very interesting books listed below so I thought I might share some of them with you and give you some idea of how much I like to do prep work.

Since I am a rotten low down, cheeky bastard I am even going to post a link to an Amazon Wish List at the bottom for some other books I would love to have ;)

Dropbox Goodies will become available on your entry into the game so you will have access to the game rules and some other useful info.

Other Stuff is the catch all section for all the other gubbins I have been reading :)


Dropbox Goodies:



Night's Black Agents Core Rules.

NBA Double Tap Expansion.

GUMSHOE Zoom Martial Arts.

The Encyclopaedia of Espionage, Intelligence & Security Vol. I-III.

GURPS 4th Ed High-Tech.

GURPS 4th Ed Tactical Shooting.

GURPS 3rd Ed Covert Ops.

GURPS 3rd Ed Espionage.

Millenniums End - Tactics and Investigations Handbook.

Osprey Elite 138 - The Yugoslav Wars (1) Slovenia & Croatia 1991-95.

Osprey Elite 163 - Special Operations Forces in Afghanistan.

Osprey Elite 170 - Special Operations Forces in Iraq.

Osprey Elite 197 - Russian Security and Paramilitary Forces Since 1991.

Osprey New Vanguard 144 - Unmanned Aerial Vehicles.


Other Stuff:



The New Nobility: The Restoration of Russia's Security State and the Enduring Legacy of the KGB.

Glitter & Greed: The Secret World of the Diamond Cartel.

The Bureau: The Secret History of the FBI.

The Octopus: Europe in the Grip of Organised Crime.

Spies For Hire: The Secret world of Intelligence Outsourcing.

Corporate Warriors: The Rise of the Privatised Military Industry.

Wired For War: The Robotics Revolution and Conflict in the 21st Century.

Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA.

Killer Elite: The Inside Story of America's Most Secret Special Operations Team.

The Spying Game: The Secret History of British Espionage.

Traffick: The Illicit Movement of People and Things.

Secret Armies: A History of the SAS, Delta Force and Spetznaz.

The World's Elite Forces.

The World's Secret Police.

Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Private Army.

Information Warfare.

Global Intelligence: The World's Secret Services Today.

Gomorrah:Italy's Other Mafia.

The Money Launderers.

Ghost Plane: The Inside Story of the CIA's  Secret Rendition Programme.

Intelligence In An Insecure World:

Spy: A Handbook.

Secrets of Surveillance.

Surveillance Countermeasures.

Countering Hostile Surveillance.

The Encyclopaedia of Secret Societies.

SOE Syllabus: Lessons in Ungentlemanly Warfare.

How to Cheat at Everything: A Con Man Reveals the Secrets of the Esoteric Trade of Cheating, Scams and Hustles.

McMafia: Seriously Organised Crime.

How to Read Buildings: A Crash Course in Architecture.

Dictionary of Medical Terms.

The Vampire Encyclopaedia.

GURPS 3rd Ed Special Ops.

GURPS 3rd Ed Cops.

GURPS 3rd Ed SWAT.

GURPS 3rd Ed various other "fluff" books.

Lots of very interesting history and geography books (too many to list).

Lonely Planet Guides for most of Europe, the Middle East, North Africa and Asia.


As you can see from the list above I have been quite busy. I hope that this will translate into an interesting, absorbing and, most importantly, fun experience for you as players.

Here is the link for my disgracefully cheeky Wish List

Cheers!

Paul




Thursday 26 September 2013

Support #2

Hi all, welcome to the second Support post where I will provide some more useful and hopefully interesting ideas for you to use as players for inspiration.

Tools Of The Trade

Undercover IMSI Capturing Vest
Allows agents to be able to capture mobile phone information better enabling tracking/blocking and monitoring of individual cell phones.

"WiSee" Wireless Movement and Gesture Detection
Allows agents to remotely surveil properties that have wireless connectivity.

Bees, makers of honey, finders of trace explosives...
DARPA have also tested butterflies for this role.

Examples of criminally made and modified firearms seized in Ukraine

Remington 2020 Digital Telescopic Sight

Recon Outfitting

Sleeper Agent Outfitting

Remote Car Theft Unlocking Tool

Identity Theft

Russian FGO (Federal Guard Service) reverts to typewriters after NSA revelations.

Remotely rigged machineguns concealed in car used in assassination attempt on Czech fugitive

Silent Circle PGP Encrypted Email Tool

Russian PSS Silent Pistol
More info here.

Modified Motorola C123 citywide GSM cellphone jammer

Portable Laser Explosive Detector

Looking for a quick change disguise? Look no further...

Investigative Methodology

Fire investigation techniques

Number of cracks in glass can reveal bullet speed

Hawala Money Laundering

Events

Now I'm not saying this is a modern version of Dracula arriving in Whitby but...

Italian police seize £390 million in 'Ndrangheta assets

Italian Border Patrol find £6 million in gold bars hidden in car

Belgian Police raid 1.3 billion Euro Drug Factory

Air France $270 million Cocaine Bust

German man arrested smuggling 0.5tons of gold and silver from Athens, Greece

Lone gunman steals £35 million in jewellery from Cannes hotel

German Police foil Neo-Nazi model aeroplane bomb plot

German police return ancient artefacts to Kosovo

Hell's Angels busted smuggling 1000lbs of Cocaine into Spain

8 Recently Unearthed Vampire Burial Grounds

Polish Vampire Cemetery

DDoS Wire Switch hack costs banks millions

Locations

Marseilles

Derinkuyu

Wieliczka

People
Pierre-Henri Bunel
French NATO officer who shared sensitive documents and classified air strike information with Serbian forces.

Hidden Lynx - Worldwide Elite Hackers

Federal Government identifies Russian and Ukrainian Hackers behind top cyber thefts

Nasar Kelmendi, Albanian drug lord arrested in Kosovo

Mafia boss Aslan "Uncle Hassan" Usoyan killed by Sniper in Moscow

Georgian organised crime boss Merab “Django” Dzhangveladze arrested in Budapest


How Badass Are You?

Are you this badass?

How about this badass?
Laser guided hatchets are not actually cool in real life but hey...

Or are you a Bad Motherfucker?

Enjoy reading and watching these. More to come!

Cheers,

Paul

Monday 23 September 2013

Questionnaire

Hi everyone,

here is a wee questionnaire to help me get stuff up and running. Once I've got some info from everyone we can meet up on Google Hangout, get to know each others faces and start the joyous process of character creation (everyone's favourite part).

If your preference for privacy is such that you are unhappy providing me with any of the information below please leave it blank, I'll just get the NSA & GCHQ to provide it for me at a later date ;)

I have filled in my details below to give you an idea of what I'm after and also to save me faffing about providing it piecemeal at a later date. You are welcome to contact me via email, the comments page or G+.

*Personal Information*
Name (IRL) - Paul Arscott
Availability - Mon-Fri (19:30 to 23:00). Sat (Variable but usually 19:00 to 23:00). Sun (Variable but usually 19:00-23:00). All times are GMT (+0).

*Game Preferences*
This you can fill in however you want to. Give me an idea of what it is you like and what sort of style of play you prefer. I have given a brief outline of my preferences below but by no means will this be the way it is run. I fully intend to tailor the game to the group's wishes and these are just some ideas to get you thinking about what you'd like to see.

Media influences - The Sandbaggers (TV Series), The Wire (TV Series), Miami Vice (Movie), The International (Movie), Ronin (Movie). I have *plenty* of books both fact and fiction to draw from.

Investigation:Action Ratio - I figure the occasional shoot out or car chase is definitely good fun but the focus of the game will ideally be around 3:1 or 4:1

Realistic/Cinematic - Where it fits genre conventions or is just plain cool I may swing towards cinematic but I do have a tendency to err towards realism. Don't try to do that thing that Jason Bourne does at the end of the first movie and everything will be fine but if you want your character to fight like Bourne does then have at it.

I like my technical stuff too so if you do feel like getting away with something, a descriptive awesome monologue works wonders -

The Magpul angled foregrip on my HK 416 makes aiming as easy as pointing. And when I aim at the bad guys, the ACOG / red dot TA01NSN sight makes it easy to find them. And when I find them, all it takes is a squeeze of the custom Geissele trigger to cut them down to size.
 
That tight little junction up ahead is a hazard, but like my driving instructor at the Farm used to say, a hazard can be attacked as well as avoided. I throw the Lexus down into second and push it into the red, engine throttling up into a roar as I gun for the gap, muscling oncoming cars out of the way.

Special Requests - Do you want to be that evil bastard that stabs the team in the back? Do you have work/life requirements that may mean having to drop in or out occasionally? Would you like to do the occasional 1-on-1 session outside of the team environment (this could be as an additional PC/NPC, opposition/antagonist or even a flashback to your time before you discovered the conspiracy for character development and setting up future story elements)? Whatever you want, if you think it's a bit cheeky then put it here. I'll do my best to make time and scheduling arrangements to make the game fun for you.

*A Little Bit About YOU*
This may be a bit weird but it's always nice to know a little bit about you as a person. Where you've been, subject matters that you have expertise/interest in etc. This is mostly to ensure I don't cause a break in your "buy-in" by telling you that an Audi RS6 Avant has a four cylinder engine or that it's raining heavily in Prague mid-June. Do you know boats? Let me know and I'll brush up on my sailing jargon before I say something dumb that takes you out of the game. If you are not comfortable sharing this sort of thing don't worry! I shan't be offended but please do let me know if I screw up establishing my Mise en scène.

*One paragraph summary of your ideal character*
Examples below Male, 41 years old, British Ex-Royal Marine Captain, No.42 Commando/SBS "M" Squadron. 4 combat tours split between Iraq and Afghanistan. Attached to SIS "Increment" (2009). Private employment CRG Security Services Maritime Division (2011). Combat Intelligence/Reconnaissance specialist. Attended Defence School of Transport Advanced Defensive/Offensive Driving courses.

Male, 27 years old, French/Armenian Ex-Street criminal, burglar and ex-heroin addict. Discovered God in rehab. Fitness fanatic, traceur, ascetic, guilty. Familiar with local gangs in Marseilles. Family disowned him. Seeks forgiveness through acts of generosity and outreach programs with disadvantaged kids.

Female, 45 years old, Russian Ex-FSB "Swallow". Retired and opened her own brothel catering to high members of the Russian oligarchy, foreign businessmen and statesmen. She uses her girls to extract pillow talk from her clientèle; expanding her influence and allowing her to maintain good relations with the higher echelons of Russian power structure.

Female, 32 years old, German/Turkish Ex-BND "Watcher". Counter-intelligence expert. Trained in CQB alongside GSG9. Kidnapped by Neo-Nazi gang during operation but effected own escape. 2 gang members were severely injured during the escape. One later died of his injuries. She wishes she had had enough time to end both of them...

You get the idea I hope - go as detailed as you like. So that should be about it. Hopefully this isn't too much of an imposition.

Cheers again,

Paul
 

Sunday 22 September 2013

Support #1

Hi all,

this will be the first Support post to the weblog. Here I will be posting cool ideas, suggestions, hints, tips, tricks and other things that may be of interest to players and readers. I've been collecting this little lot for some time so there's plenty to go around - here's the first selection below

Tools of the Trade
Titanium Ring with in-built saw and handcuff shim

NFC Enabled Ring for portable, secure password access

Quadcopter piloted by a smartphone

Disposable spy computers

Brazilian Doctors spoof biometric fingerprint scanners

Remote hacking Philips Hue wireless lighting system to create a blackout

Undercover bracelet with inbuilt handcuff key

Spoofing GPS Receiver with $3000 of parts, a laptop and antennae

"Traps" - Alfred Anaya's Hidden Car Compartments

Hacking the iPhone in 60 seconds via malicious charger

Insectothopter - CIA Drone from the 1970s

Portable hacked mobile antennae allows cell phone monitoring

DARPA hackers remote control car through data port
This requires physical access to the vehicle data port but the EMU/ECU can also be accessed by remote Bluetooth hacking of a paired mobile device and even by the playing of an MP3 file stored on a CD. The hackers demonstrated setting off the seatbelt tensioners by changing the speed the vehicle believes it to be moving at from 100mph to 1mph instantly, activating brakes, changing gears etc.

Criminal Activities
Criminals used SFX masks to conceal identities

$50 million diamond heist at Brussels airport


I hope you enjoy reading these and maybe get some ideas and inspiration for yourselves. There will be plenty more to read in the future.

Cheers,

Paul

Introduction

Hi all,

welcome to the weblog for my Night's Black Agents Role-playing Game! Night's Black Agents is a Vampire-Espionage thriller game from Kenneth Hite and uses the GUMSHOE engine from Pelgrane Press. The primary focus is investigation mixed with high-octane action and the PCs are up against a conspiracy run by vampires. Their task is to bring this conspiracy down, whilst doing their best to maintain sanity and avoid capture at the hands of law enforcement. Think a mixture of Ronin, The International and The Bourne Trilogy but with Vampires as the bad guys.

This weblog will consist of two main sections: Support and After Action Reports. The Support section will consist of real-world links of interest to players and readers, suggestions, hints, tips and tricks and other stuff useful to the agents. After Action Reports will be the section where I summarise each session's events. This will, with player permission, also feature "agent's eye views" of the action, witness statements, police report and other documentation to show the effect on the conspiracy.

If you are reading this and think "I'd like a piece of that action" you are absolutely welcome to contact me. This does not require you to join in as a PC and you are welcome to suggest NPCs, events, scenes and what have you that I can throw at the agents, with the caveat that the powers behind the conspiracy will not be revealed outside of the game.

Enter freely and of your own will,

Paul