Criminal Element.pdf





a 24-hour rpg

Designed, written and illustrated by Michael P. O’Sullivan

Inspired by Scott McCloud and the Forge crew.

Food consumed : a burrito with homemade sweet salsa and lots of iced tea.

Music listened to : Placebo’s “Sleeping with Ghosts”, the new Zach DeLaRocha track, Elliot Smith, Mudvayne,

Poison the Well, At the Drive-In, 30 Seconds to Mars, Incubus.

Slept for: ive hours

Movies watched at work before starting design: Heist and Killing Zoe

Created between 12.30 am 8 April 2003 and 12.30 am 9 April 2003.

Why the hell was I here anyway?

I felt the cool steel of the gun in my hand, the dead weight of it. It was starting to warm up from use

and little twirls of smoke were inding their way out of the barrel of it. I took a look around the room and took

everything in. A couple of security guards were tied up on the loor with thick silver duct tape, others left in a

small heap ion the loor, blood slowly seeping out of them and forming a scarlet pool for each of them to swim

in. Gordie was working on the vault door, pressing a drill machine into the surface of it, little bits of hot metal

lying up into the air. Lenny and Bastard Billy were standing by the doors, waiting expectantly for more guards

to arrive.

I walked up to Two-Jack Tommy and patted him on the shoulder.

“What the hell are we doing here, Tommy?” I asked, wiping a little splatter of blood off of my face.

Tommy pointed at the vault and gave me a punch in the shoulder. “That’s why we’re here, man,” he

said, a smile starting to spread its way across his normally placid face. “Once we crack that, we’re out of the

game! Don’t you remember why you joined up with this gig?”

I mulled it over for a moment. I tried to remember why I would have joined up with these guys and try

and heist three million dollars in diamonds from Sebastian Jones. I thought about my wife for a moment, I think

it had something to do with her, but I couldn’t get it right in my head. Instead, the only thing that I could think

of was getting caught by that insane Jones fucker and what he would do to us if we dropped the ball here. I’d

heard that he keeps a vat of maggots in his basement.

I heard something then. It wasn’t too loud and, honestly, I don’t know how I heard it over Gordie’s

drilling machine boring its way through the vault door, but I heard a loorboard creek. I grabbed a little trinket

off of a night table and threw it at Gordie, hitting him in the shoulder with it. He turned around, ready to

punch me, when I held my inger up to my lips and started taking a look around. Gordie shut off his drill and I

switched off the safety on my gun.

A guard jumped out of one of the closet doors, a small black rile gripped tightly in his hands. He starts

iring off shots and before I can even think of it I’m jumping through the air, ducking behind a couch. The

guard was screaming like a banshee and iring wildly, bullets punching holes in everything, dust and little bits of

shrapnel lying up in the air. Then I heard his gun click.

I immediately shot up from behind the couch and lined up a shot on the guard. My inger lightly pulled

the trigger back and suddenly half of the guards head was a smear of red mist hanging in the air.

“Is everyone okay?!” Tommy yelled out. I took a look around and saw Lenny laying on the ground, his

gut laying open like a biology class experiment. No one answered Tommy’s question.

A moment later we heard the squeal of a bullhorn being turned on.

“Well boys, I’m home now.” It was the voice of Sebastian Jones, coming from the next room over.

“Now you are truly fucked.”

What the hell was I even doing here anyway?

Introduction

Criminal Element is a role-playing game set in that

dark and seedy underbelly populated by gangsters,

thugs and hoodlums, a genre that can be seen

in popular ilms and novels as well as other pop

entertainments. Here we explore what happens

in the dark recesses and the hidden places within

our societies. Players portray characters that fully

believe that “who dares wins” and are willing to put

everything on the line to prove it.

don’t necessarily oppose the Protagonists. Lames

are characters that are not of any great importance

to the game but instead populate the background,

making things seem full and real. The Director is

also responsible for describing the action of the game,

making things quick-paced and entertaining.

The Protagonist

Protagonists are the lead characters of the story as

well as the characters portrayed by the players. The

Protagonists are the characters that the storyline of

the game centers on and the action revolves around.

Being a Protagonist does not imply that the character

is a kind hearted or good-natured person, the term

simply states that the story being told is one that is

lead by this character.

Your Gear

What you need to play

All that you will need to play Criminal Element is

some paper and pencils, a standard deck of playing

cards without jokers, a set of poker chips to represent

Drama Points in play and an active and devious

imagination.

Who the hell do you think you

are?!

The Roles of players in a game of Criminal Element

There are two kinds of players in Criminal Element:

Protagonists and Directors. In short, Protagonists

portray the main characters and help envision a story

that is in part controlled by the Director. Each group

of players will have one Director, the other players

being Protagonists.

The Director

Criminal Element is a game for telling stories. As

such, one player is selected to be the lead storyteller

of the game. Other games use various different names

for their lead story maker. Some call him the Referee,

others the Game Master. Some even call him the

Storyteller. Criminal Element refers to this player as

the Director

The main purpose of the Director is to weave

together different plot elements to create a functioning

storyline for the Protagonists to play in. The Director

also acts as the rules arbiter, being the inal word on

the outcome of conlicts.

Directors also control the remaining cast

of characters that the Protagonists don’t control;

the Antagonists, the Supporting Cast and Lames.

Antagonists are characters that both directly oppose

the Protagonists and are also of some importance

to the story. Supporting Cast Members, or SCMs,

are characters that are important to the game but

1. Playing the System

The basics of playing Criminal Element

As with most other Role-playing games, Criminal

Element uses a system to arbitrate most conlicts and

questions that may arise during gameplay, as well as

add an element of suspense and randomness. Below

the system is laid out in detail.

Vices are certain things that a Protagonist or

Antagonist has a soft spot for, something that is a

hang-up that they can just never get over and will

always trip them up. Protagonists and Antagonists

always start a game with one Vice. Vices make

it harder to succeed at actions that involve them.

Examples of Vices include “Boozehound”, “Never

allow a woman to be hurt” or “Adrenaline Junky”.

Deining Conlict

Whenever a character encounters a task that he wishes

to accomplish but there is some doubt as to whether or

not he will be capable of succeeding he is in Conlict.

Conlict Resolution is something that helps the player

igure out whether he is capable of succeeding in said

action or if he fails miserably in the attempt.

Criminal Element uses a conlict resolution

mechanic that utilizes a standard deck of playing

cards with jokers included. Basically, the system is a

variation on the core rules of Blackjack. Every conlict

boils down to a series of card draws between the

characters involved. Cards are drawn and compared

as described below.

The Director is always the person to decide

whether a character is in Conlict and is the inal word

on the matter.

Conlict Resolution

When a conlict is irst declared each player draws

two cards from their deck. In most situations the irst

card drawn is set down face up so the other players

can see the value of the card, the other face down. If

a character has a Knack that is related to the task at

hand all cards played are kept face down face down.

If a character has a Vice that is somehow related to the

conlict all cards are kept face up. If a character has

both a Knack and Vice that relate to the conlict, ignore

both and act as if the character had neither.

Next, each player should look over their

character’s Traits. Try and ind one that is closely

tied to the conlict. A player may draw as many extra

cards, either face up or face down, as he has in the

highest ranked trait that is related to the conlict at

hand. These extra cards can only be used if the trait

can be reasonably seen as helpful in the conlict. Only

one Trait may be used by a character in any given

draw. A player does not have to draw these cards if

he doesn’t want to and can draw less than their Trait

rating if they chose to do so.

It is likely that a character will not have a

Trait related to the Conlict. If this is so the draw is

calculated from the two original cards drawn.

Finally, each character should try and put

together their best hand possible in an attempt to get

as close a total from their cards to 21 without going

over. All face up cards must be used to create this

total but any face down cards that the player doesn’t

want can be discarded. In conlicts where two or more

characters oppose each other, players compare their

hands and the person with the highest total that doesn’t

exceed 21 succeeds.

After the end of each conlict, shufle all cards

back into the deck.

Traits, Knacks and Vices

Characters in Criminal Element are deined by three

basic game concepts: Traits, Knacks and Vices. While

all characters will have Traits, only Protagonists and

Antagonists will have Knacks and Vices.

Traits are simply qualities that a character has

that may be of note. While basic one-word descriptors

such as “Strong” or “Quick” can be Traits, others

named with a bit more lair also can count, such as

“Gift of Gab” or “Cool as a Motherfucker”. Traits are

ranked on a scale of one through three, a one showing

certain ability with the trait, a two showing a good

skill with it and three displaying a mastery of the trait.

Having a rank in a Trait will help a character succeed

on actions that involve that Trait.

Knacks are not only something that a character

is good at but is something that they deine themselves

by. Some people call their Knack their calling, their

bag or perhaps their talent. It’s what they do best and

is what they’re known for.

All Protagonists and Antagonists have one

Knack, which is not ranked. Common Knacks are

“Hitman”, “Driver” or “Leader of the Pack”.

Margin of Success/ Failure

Sometimes it becomes necessary to know by how

much a character succeeded or failed on a draw. In

Plik z chomika:

Inne pliki z tego folderu:

Inne foldery tego chomika: