Q: What's this?
A: A simple little Arms Race I'm throwing up.
Q: No, I mean, what's the concept?
A: Arstotzka and Kolechia have finally given up their open war of many years to begin a secret war of many weeks. Both sides are trying to get their agents through the other side's border. A side can use agents that have successfully crossed the enemy border to perform missions. The objective is to assassinate and possibly replace the enemy side's important government officials.
Q: So what are the rules?
A: They're very simple. See below.
The game starts November 1982. Each turn is a month, and each turn is divided into two phases: the Development Phase and the Ops Phase.
In the Development Phase, each side uses their Security Design and Ops Design to develop new technologies and strategies, effectiveness dependent on a d4 roll. On a 1, the development fails utterly with low experience and comes out rather buggy with high experience. On a 2 or 3, the development comes out rather buggy with low experience and succeeds with high experience. On a 4, the development succeeds with low experience and succeeds with an extra bonus on high experience. Security Designs are used to develop defensive strategies and devices, meant to block illegal border crossing and protect against enemy Operations. Ops Designs are used to create gear and strategies used for operations and illegal border crossings. A side may choose to sacrifice one of their designs to gain a revision, which can only be used to improve existing technology incrementally but can be used on Ops and Security and has a +1 bonus.
Designs are limited to what is possible within the known laws of physics except in extreme circumstances(very high rolls used on an impossibility, repeatedly). Attempting to design something impossible or far beyond your experience will only yield knowledge, even on a 4.
In the Ops Phase, each side chooses what designs to use and where to use them and assigns their newly produced Agents. Each side gains 5 Agents per Ops Phase, with an additional 10 for the very first Ops Phase. Each Agent can either be kept in reserve(in which case they can be assigned to protect a given Official) or sent to attempt to cross the enemy border. If an Agent is sent to cross the enemy border, success will be determined based on a comparison of the defending side's Security Designs and the crossing side's Ops Designs. If they succeed, they will enter the enemy country and become available for Operations. If they fail, they may simply return to their homeland... or they may be detained.
Agents kept in reserve may be sent to attempt to cross the border in later Ops Phases.
During the Ops Phase, each side may attempt an Operation, which will use some number of the Agents present in the enemy country to attempt assassination(or possibly replacement) of one of the enemy's Officials, using whatever gear they have managed to smuggle across the border. I will compare the number of Agents attempting the Operation to the number of Agents defending the Official, as well as comparing each side's gear, and roll dice accordingly. An Operation can have varying consequences, from assassination or possibly replacement(both the ideal result) of the Official to failure(which may result in the Agents escaping or may result in negative consequences).
Each side has four important Officials, the Prime Minister, the Minister of Information, Minister of Trade, and Minister of Labor. If a Minister is killed, he or she can be replaced after three months. If the Ministers of Information, Trade, and Labor are all dead at the same time, or the Prime Minister and one other Minister are both dead, their side will suffer a collapse of government. This is the defeat condition. More difficult than killing a Minister is replacing them with a doppelgänger Agent. If successful, the country who lost their Minister will not even know they have lost a Minister(and will hence not request a replacement), and the nation with the doppelgänger under their command will be able to pull shenanigans. If a country suspects that one of their Ministers has been replaced, they can perform an Operation on their own Minister to detain or kill them. If a nation has Agents in their enemy country, they can use those Agents to covertly protect a doppelgänger under their control.
Each Prime Minister has 4 bodyguards who count as super-skilled defending Agents, but cannot be reassigned.
Q: Uh, that's complicated.
A: Feel free to ask questions. Anyway, it could be worse. You don't have to worry about resources for the most part, after all.
Q: So how do I sign up?
A: Just post in this thread about your interest and what side you're playing for.
Q: You have posting guidelines, right?
A: Three rules: No salt. If you think I made a mistake, you may appeal,
once. Stick to your own team's thread. One guideline: if your designs are the only ones being voted up, repeatedly, over multiple phases, maybe take a break from posting designs to give someone else a chance to do it. New rules may be added as needed.
Q: Why can't we just close the border completely instead of going over possibly fake papers?
A: The Minister of Labor has forbidden it. Our country needs immigrants for its economy!
Q: Shenanigans?
A: Yes. If you manage to pull off a replacement, ask and we can discuss options.
Q: Are you going to update your mafia game?
A: It's really jumped the shark, hasn't it? Yes. Give me a minute.
For a game with no territory, this isn't necessary.
Before your first Ops Phase, you get three Free Universal Designs and three Free Revisions to use on whatever, instead of the normal one Ops Design and one Security Design. Assume 1982 tech base.
Author
Topic: Border Crossing and Special Ops Arms Race: Jan 1983, Development Phase (Read 1334 times)