In every sessions of Dark Conspiracy, your players (Operatives) will be sent on a mission - an adventure, in other words.
Now, while you can, of course, handle missions in any way you see fit, starting them in media res or something suitably dramatic ('Turn on the TV, aliens have landed outside Downing Street!'), and we are working on a system whereby players can create their own missions, we do also provide a 'standard template' of how missions should go.
Each such mission has three steps.
Step 0: Briefing
The players get their orders - basically, go here, figure out what is going on and stop it. How they get these instructions is pretty much up to the Referee and will depend on how the player's cell is regarded. They might get an encrypted email, a video link of a black silhouetted guy with a voice changer, a Deep Throat contact who meets them in a busy street... whatever. They get their instructions.
Step 1: Gather Intelligence
So, the players have their orders and thus some clues of where to start looking. But very little actual detail - remember, no one actually knows anything. There are no Class 5 Free-roaming Vapours here, because everything is too new and simply not understood. The players will thus need to trawl the internet, talk to those who may have seen things, do recon of the area. They need to try to figure out what they are facing and how to combat it.
Step 2: Neutralise the Threat
Whether through guns, the occult or mad science, the players (hopefully) stop the Dark, at last for a while.
Step 3: Maintain the Conspiracy
For reasons that will become abundantly clear, no one can ever know anything about the Dark. This information must be kept secret, for the good of humanity. The players will therefore need to ensure that there can be no leaks, that anything that slips through is discredited - and they should probably be keeping this in mind when doing Steps 1 and 2, otherwise they might find themselves in a position where something... permanent has to be done. The secret cannot get out. Your players are the ones creating the conspiracy...
Now, through all of these steps, the players will be evaluated by the Powers That Be. We actually give the Referee a scoring system, and this translates into the level of Trust the Powers That Be have in the players. Build up your Trust, get better access to resources. Stuff things up, you get treated like a joke, and probably a bad one at that.
Here's the thing... Complete everything you need to do in Step 1 by gathering intelligence, and you get x amount of Trust. Successfully neutralise the threat, and you get the same amount again. However, everything is weighted to maintaining the conspiracy - that is regarded as important as the previous two steps combined.
Throughout the Core Rulebook, we hammer these points in over and over again, both through text and via rules mechanics. No one knows anything, and the conspiracy must be maintained at all costs.
Now, while you can, of course, handle missions in any way you see fit, starting them in media res or something suitably dramatic ('Turn on the TV, aliens have landed outside Downing Street!'), and we are working on a system whereby players can create their own missions, we do also provide a 'standard template' of how missions should go.
Each such mission has three steps.
Step 0: Briefing
The players get their orders - basically, go here, figure out what is going on and stop it. How they get these instructions is pretty much up to the Referee and will depend on how the player's cell is regarded. They might get an encrypted email, a video link of a black silhouetted guy with a voice changer, a Deep Throat contact who meets them in a busy street... whatever. They get their instructions.
Step 1: Gather Intelligence
So, the players have their orders and thus some clues of where to start looking. But very little actual detail - remember, no one actually knows anything. There are no Class 5 Free-roaming Vapours here, because everything is too new and simply not understood. The players will thus need to trawl the internet, talk to those who may have seen things, do recon of the area. They need to try to figure out what they are facing and how to combat it.
Step 2: Neutralise the Threat
Whether through guns, the occult or mad science, the players (hopefully) stop the Dark, at last for a while.
Step 3: Maintain the Conspiracy
For reasons that will become abundantly clear, no one can ever know anything about the Dark. This information must be kept secret, for the good of humanity. The players will therefore need to ensure that there can be no leaks, that anything that slips through is discredited - and they should probably be keeping this in mind when doing Steps 1 and 2, otherwise they might find themselves in a position where something... permanent has to be done. The secret cannot get out. Your players are the ones creating the conspiracy...
Now, through all of these steps, the players will be evaluated by the Powers That Be. We actually give the Referee a scoring system, and this translates into the level of Trust the Powers That Be have in the players. Build up your Trust, get better access to resources. Stuff things up, you get treated like a joke, and probably a bad one at that.
Here's the thing... Complete everything you need to do in Step 1 by gathering intelligence, and you get x amount of Trust. Successfully neutralise the threat, and you get the same amount again. However, everything is weighted to maintaining the conspiracy - that is regarded as important as the previous two steps combined.
Throughout the Core Rulebook, we hammer these points in over and over again, both through text and via rules mechanics. No one knows anything, and the conspiracy must be maintained at all costs.
