I, personally, have been going about T2k all wrong.

[raketenjagdpanzer]

See, for years I've had the mindset that T2k should be about the whoosh of antitank missiles, eating MREs in some miserable ruined suburb of Lodz while trying to quietly brew up enough fuel to get your Humvee back to the jump off point, desperately scavenging brass because it is literally money in most places, staring in gape-jawed wonder at a functional helicopter with attendant fuel barrels because holy shit that may be the last aircraft in the world, and so on.

Nosir.

I have been doing it dead wrong.

I started watching The Blacklist and setting aside the mannequin-like performances of everyone else on the show, James Spader chews up scenery and is so campy and is obviously the only person having any fun with the show both within and without.

For those who don't know, his character, Raymond "Red" Reddington is a former intelligence agent who went "off the reservation" decades ago and was branded a major terror threat, international criminal, etc. and was put at the top of the FBI's Most Wanted list. One day he simply walks into FBI headquarters in Washington DC and surrenders, and cuts a deal: all his years of very dark and dirty dealings have given him access to some of the most dangerous criminal and terror threats in the world, threats so bad (like, existential threats against the safety of not just the nation but whole nations at once) the FBI keeps their existences classified (the titular list): Reddington has intimate knowledge of how these people have moved and do move and dribbles out information to the FBI a little at a time in exchange for a huge amount of latitude in his comings and goings. He's not in prison, there's no sanction against his ongoing "businesses" and so forth.

That is a guy who should be driving player-characters in T2k.

I mean, picture this...just bear with me...

Don't start the game in the trenches of the Kalisz pocket. Instead, GM dialog over what happened in Europe, and explain that the party is finally home. Weary, faced with the seeming impossible task of finding their way in a country that has been smashed to bits, what are they to do?

Then they meet this dapper fellow...



...who, intriguingly enough, has full dossiers on the characters activities in Europe, their pre-war military careers, and so forth and he offers them work in exchange for whatever creature comforts they seem to want. They're ex-military now and officially "off the books", and he explains to them that he needs the particular kind of crowbar that they represent to pry open various closed doors across the devastated US. He realizes you can get much with a kind word but you can get more with a kind word and a team of commandos. If the characters take him up, he takes them to a small airfield in the Virginia countryside where there sits an ex-USAF Gulfstream - with four AIM-9s hanging from the wings, and an F16's Radome in place of the Gulfstream's "usual" nose-cone. And apparently loaded with enough avgas to just sit there hot-and-ready, waiting for his return with the characters.

Red explains that his position pre-war was far less tenable, but that he has always believed that "crises" don't exist - merely opportunities. Since he has considerable investments throughout the world he has a keen interest in seeing the world right itself, and the characters can have a hand in assisting him.

This is the kind of NPC foil that can drive players crazy: he'll do things that are seemingly inimical to everything that seems "right" - like having the players accompany him as muscle on a short jaunt from Key West to Cuba to deliver two dozen Hellfire missiles, which (all things considered) would be a highly treasonous act...but he exchanges them for an experimental antibiotic that will save the life of an important senator's daughter, as well as tens of thousands of others once it's replicated back in the States. He's got access to things that would have been rare before the bombs fell (like a seemingly endless supply of avgas, a hardened laptop, a satellite phone that works, etc.), and access to people in the DIA, CIA, CivGov and MilGov, all of whom are willing to listen to him.

He's an information broker, as well as someone who trades in hard goods, and may seem to put the character's lives at risk but never, ever reneges on his relationship with them. Likewise he is enigmatic, and doesn't reveal too much about his pre-war existence beyond what tantalizing bits the GM might want to dispense. He's like a cross between an off-the-grid James Bond and Gandalf, always appearing whenever and wherever it seems least likely...

That's the kind of T2k game I want to run next time I start one up.

...

*=The USN and USAF use modified Gulfstreams for testing radar sets and other types of flying electronics, there's no reason a guy as resourceful as Red wouldn't just pull some strings to get one as a fast mover for going from A to B, and have some contracting work done to finish out the plumbing necessary to haul a few "bad guy discouragement" devices along.

[Targan]

My last campaign had very much this kind of vibe. I could tell stories for hours about Major Anthony Po, his merry band of renegades and his delightful "Target Zero" doctrine.

[Tegyrius]

I am intrigued by your concepts and wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

- C.

[Cdnwolf]

Love the show. Such a departure from his normal type of character for Spader.

Love your concept too. But does he work for the MILGOV or CIVGOV.... or someone else.....

[raketenjagdpanzer]

Originally Posted by Cdnwolf

Love your concept too. But does he work for the MILGOV or CIVGOV.... or someone else.....

"Yes."

[Raellus]

That sounds really cool. Seriously. I think that I would enjoy playing in that campaign. That said, I worry that that sort of mysterious mastermind archtype playing such a central role in the direction of the campaign might seriously hinder PC agency, making the players feel like pawns with little understanding or control over their own IG destiny. PC's, not NPCs, no matter how cool and charismatic, need to be the stars of the game. To make it the other way around is a recipe for a failed campaign.

I think that you could run a successful, long-lived campaign based around a central NPC, but it would definitely be a balancing act. Take away too much player agency, and Red might wake up with a frag underneath his cot.