So after really, really reading the monster updates you've done (which I'll now spoiler for lazy people)
Missions are the cornerstone of the game. Your role as Broker is to devise these missions to do whatever it takes for the corporation to profit!
The core elements of a mission are the Target, Objective, Security, Plots, and Assigned Operatives.
Your first missions are usually about generating Intel. Intel is an abstract value for how much you know about something. For a corp this is stuff like financial records, employee directories, executive holiday locations, morale surveys... anything that can be turned to an advantage! You target the Corporation you want to investigate (perhaps a rival robotics corp), and you'll be given a selection of objectives. For investigating, you could set up a spy operation, or just a one-shot investigation mission to collect a burst of Intel Once you have Intel it will be used to uncover targets within the corp you can plan runs on, such as their exposed assets or vulnerable staff.
There are three layers of security:
Domain: The city you're running the mission in. The higher the enemy presence in the city, the higher their domain security.
Location: The security of the location you're targeting. Bigger more important companies and corporations will have higher security
Asset: If you are pursuing an asset, there may be additional security protecting it.
For each rank of security, you'll need a plot to get through that layer, and a final goal plot to complete your objective.
Plots are these small "narrative moments" that happen during your mission, such as using a fake passport to get by security, seducing a lonely secretary into letting you into a server room, casing a building for weaknesses, or so on. Depending on your target and objective, there may be a certain type of plot required: Investigating requires lots of plots about sneaking around, spying on things, talking with people, and occasionally a supporting hack or steal plot.
This is where your operatives on retainer chime in: if they think their skills are a good match, they'll recommend plots that could fit the type. The plots they recommend have challenges, numerical representations of something they must overcome by applying their skills. They may not be able to complete all the challenges in their plot, so you will assign other operatives to pick up the slack.
Plots come with more than challenges, though. Each one may have its own unique requirements, costs, or consequences for selecting. You'll have to determine how to best apply your resources to complete your objective.
You can also get plots based on advantages you've collected: If you've turned someone inside the enemy organization, you may get a proposal for a talk plot that calls on your mole to take care of things for you, keeping your operatives from facing more risky challenges at the cost of our hold on that double-agent.
If none of the proposals fit your needs, you can spend Intel to generate new "outside-the-box" plots, that may require hiring new operatives to fulfill the challenges involved.
Once you've build your road of plots to your goal, the mission is approved and set into action!
Mission is Go!
Your operatives will automatically attempt to follow the plan you outlined, using their skills and resources to overcome the challenges and reach their goal. most plots they will be able to resolve on their own, but sometimes if they fail, or simply by chance, they'll face a critical Event.
An Event can be good, bad, or a mix of both. The operatives will call on you for orders, and you'll have to decide what the best course of action is. Again, you might have some collected advantage that you can use here, depending on the crisis that comes up!
Ideally, the operatives complete their plots, make it to their objective, and escape... but things are never ideal! dilemmas or failure can force operatives into NEW plots, squeezed into the current plan. Depending on *how* things got off track, these could be car chases, elaborate cat and mouse games with assassins, finding hiding places for things to cool down, or possibly even a firefight! These plots must be completed, and then the operatives can usually get back on track if they resolve it carefully... but every plot that wasn't planned for means another chance for things to go wrong, your operatives burning unplanned resources, and possibly more dilemmas. As the broker, it's up to you to decide whether the operatives should continue on track, retreat, or wait for the heat to die down.
Heat is what happens when things go wrong. Depending on what and how, heat can stick to locations, operatives, corporations, or even brokers! Heat in a location makes security tougher, heat on an operative makes it harder for them to lie low, heat on a corp leads to bad press, sanctions, and counter-attacks, and heat on a broker - something that only occurs when things have truly hit the fan - can lead to you being targeted by your rivals who will attempt to hunt you down!
Sometimes the best solution is to have your operatives plow through it, and sometimes you'll want them lie low to wait for it to pass. If the operatives each their objective and there's still heat on the operatives or in the location, they'll have to make new impromptu plots to escape. Hopefully they're not too worn out, injured, or low on resources to make it through... being caught with stolen property is a quick way to the interrogation room!
Of course, the important part is the objective. As long as your goal is completed (and if you're stealing something, that at least one operative makes it back with the package), you'll seize the Net Gain! In the case of our investigation mission, our operative comes back with a load of Intel we can use to uncover assets for stealing, staff for turning, waits to hurt their reputation, straight up financial robbery, and all sorts of fun objectives!
Operations are a type of mission that, when complete, the operatives don't return to base - instead, they stay in the field and continually work the Goal Plot. You could, for example, set up a spy network in a rivals territory. Your detectives will hang around, continually sending back new Intel. It's still a risk, and if your men are exposed you'll have to plan a hasty extraction, but supporting operations can provide all sorts of useful benefits: Intel on corporations, resupply of resources for your operatives in the field, safehouse networks for them to hide when things go bad, "coyote" operations to smuggle operatives and supplies, smear campaigns... All of them use the same mission planning structure to put in place, then stay operational until a problem or you call your guys home.
Operatives
The operatives are the sword and shield of the Broker. They are the eyes and ears. They are your tools, your attack dogs, your advisors, and sometimes even your friends or enemies.
There are a many things that define a Operative: Their Name, Avatar, Profile, Traits, Skills, Statistics, Circles & Contacts, Resources, and Loyalty.
Their name, of course defines what they are called. An operative can also collect aliases as other corporations begin their attempts to find out just who was responsible for bombing that embassy their mole was working in. They may also start with an alias, as is popular in hacker and criminal circles.
Their avatar is their unique look: Different styles and colours to show off who they are! You can check on your operatives at any time, and see their avatar running through your missions, training hard, or idling at home enjoying the luxuries you enable them to buy.
The profile is like a profession: it defines the kinds of skills the operative generates (if not pre-made), the kinds of skills they prefer to develop, and can also have a few other tweaks such as their reactions to events and the kind of things they’ll acquire (see: Resources).
Originally this was hidden information but after talking to the community about the project, this will be represented as a small icon by their name to make it easier to sort and find the kind of person you want!
Traits are the core of an operatives personality, and one of the more complex systems. They can be good, bad, or anything in between. First, traits give you an idea of who that person is, from the name alone. It’s a “narrative seed” that helps you to build a larger personality and voice and mannerisms for that operative in your mind! Second, most traits have a direct and literal game changing impact.
Here are a few examples:
Cheerful operatives do better on social tests and form connections to other operatives faster than most... unless the other operative has the trait Depressed, Curmudgeon, or the like... then the constant barrage of happiness just gets on their nerves!
Addict operatives are less than ideal... while normally functioning people, they do tend to enjoy their vices on their time off. this can be a problem if you suddenly call them onto a mission, or if they’re assigned to a continuing operation, as they’ll perform worse on the job. If you check on them while they’re at home, you’ll probably notice the place is a bit of a mess, and they don’t tend to have a lot of money on hand.
Bloody operatives certainly have their uses, getting large bonuses in assassination plots, firefights, and weapon skill challenges... but they’re also much more likely to start the firefight! if a plot goes wrong with a Bloody operative, the chances of sneaking away quietly drop significantly as the safety comes off.
Orthodox operatives are great, getting a small bonus for one test per plot... as long as you planned for it. The minute you go off script, the Orthodox operative loses their cool, doing worse at almost everything! They’re great for stable operations and support, but not the kind of person suited to a more risky mission.
Traits can modify skill tests, what kinds of plots they recommend, the gear and property they acquire, their loyalty and how it changes, how they interact with each other, their responses to event (and what kinds of events they get), and more. Traits make up all the unique ways that operatives are more than just a set of skills.
When an operative faces a challenge, their school and stat determine the height of their success, and skills provide the base amount of success you can expect. While there may be other modifiers at play, that base success is what helps you to plan out your missions!
Skills are the reason you hire operatives: they’re used to break through the challenges in plots and advance towards your objectives. Skills are grouped into schools (Shortartms, Longarms, and Heavy are grouped under Firearms), giving the operative a synergy bonus to the other skills in that school. Say our sniper is forced into a pistol duel; while he wont have the certain success of his Longarms skill, the points it contributes to the Firearms skill gives him a chance.
Stats are the inherent abilities of your operative, providing a raw (and unpredictable) talent to related skills, and also providing the various forms of basic health and defense.
Body is the operative’s core physical ability. It’s used in feats of strength, to determine the maximum amount of gear they can carry, cybernetics they can install, and as the amount of wounds they can take before going down.
Agility is the operative’s speed, balance, and dexterity. It’s used for precision and reflex, determining the maximum amount of gear an operative can carry without being encumbered, and is used to “soak” attacks in combat, as they throw themselves into cover or hit the ground.
Acuity is the operative’s intelligence and mental sharpness, used in a wide variety of skills. It also helps operatives in developing their skills, and acts as a sort of “health” for hackers when faced with a difficult barrier on the net.
Integrity is the operative’s mental fortitude. It isn't used for many skills, but “soaks” the damage from a variety of non-physical attacks, such as intimidation, net barriers, social sparring, negotiations, morale loss from injuries, and so on.
Personality is the operative’s sociability, how genial and easy to talk to they are... and how good they are at twisting words to their advantage! Used as the basis for social skills, and as a sort of “health” when engaged in a social conflict over contract terms, interrogations, seduction, or more!
Circles are the communities and networks an operative is connected to; a community that they talk to or work with or simply signed on with. Their immediate circle is in turn part of larger circles, connecting the various groups into pre-defined pools of people. A hacker probably has a small circle of her friends on the net, or a node network she hangs out in, and that in turn is connected to hacker communities around the world!
When your broker is looking for someone to hire, they have a selection of circles and favour with them. The stronger the connection, the better operatives the broker can hire from that circle. If a broker treats that social circle well, he’ll gain more favour, but if he starts to treat them poorly, kills too many of their people, or otherwise upsets them through events, all that favour can start to slip away. Brokers will make enemies, it’s part of the job, but make sure you’re making the right enemies and keeping the right friends!
Contacts are specific people within that circle that the operative knows and has a connection to. For example, when an operative signs on with a corporation, they join that circle and will owe a certain loyalty to it. But within that circle (if you treat them right, personally) they may begin to feel more of their loyalty is owed to *you* specifically. Operatives who work together will also begin to develop bonds with each other. Useful if they don’t much care for you, since they’ll stick around to be with their friends!
Resources are composed of five parts: The Resources Value, Gear, Cybernetics, Salary, and Property.
The Resources Value is an abstract representation of “stuff” provided by gear. During a mission, if an operative fails to pass a challenge, and they have gear that enables that School or Skill, they can use Resources to bump up their test to success! Budgeting resources is a vital part of planning missions. Whenever you assign the operative to a challenge, if there’s a gap between their skill and the challenge, the resources are marked as potentially spent. If the challenge is greater than the Operative's school and stat combined, it’s marked as confirmed to be spent.
Those resources are precious, and they will especially be vital if a mission goes off rails, and you face more challenges than originally planned. In times like that, it’s good to have saved some in reserve, or established an operation of Safe Houses that the operatives can stop and resupply in.
Gear is the wide range of equipment the operatives can bring with them on missions. There are three general “types” of gear:
School Gear allows them to spend resources on any challenge for a certain school. The SkyEye Minidrone allows for resources to be spent on Presence checks, useful for detecting ambushes and spotting small details.
Skill Gear allows them to spend resources for a specific skill in a school but with a small bonus. A V-80 Hellion Sniper Rifle would be a piece of gear that enables the operative to spend resources on [Firearms:Longarms] challenges, and provides a bonus while doing so.
Perk Gear is more varied, and can provide an artificial bump to a stat, skill, or other tweak. Golem Fullplate Body Armor gives an extra 2 points to body, but only for soaking hits!
Cybernetics are similar to gear, and are limited by Body as well. Unlike gear, cybernetics can’t just be swapped in and out, and require a lot of money and time to install. Usually it’s best to get cybernetics you think the operative will use often, and use gear to pick up the slack.
Salary is simply the amount you pay the broker each time you collect your budget. Most of it is spent maintaining their lifestyle (see:Property), and some is collected in a small slush fund they’ll use to but new property, gear or cybernetics they personally want, or just to save up for a rainy day.
Property is all the stuff your operative owns, all the lovely shiny toys they can buy with that hard earned money. It consists of furniture, gadgets, tool benches, huge wall-sized TVs, servant androids, security, and fancier apartments and penthouses. The more they get paid the more they can spend, though like most people, operatives fall into the trap of increasing their expenses through rent and other property. You can check up on your operatives and see what property they decided to acquire, often reflecting their traits.
Finally, there’s the loyalties an operative holds. Out of 100%, an operative’s loyalty is divided among her circles: the communities she belongs to, and the corporation that hired her. Within those divisions of loyalty, an operative can have specific ties of loyalty to other contacts... not always a good thing if you get her friend at the corp killed!
Where an operative’s loyalty lies is never a clear answer, but you do have a general sense of what her potential lowest and highest loyalty to the corporation is. There are many ways to make that loyalty more clear, and to discover any loyalties she might hold to other circles (or corporations!), whether through events, keeping her close to HQ, or even running missions to spy on your own operatives!
Loyalty is an ever shifting thing in Net Gain, as dozens of things can impact where they stand. As a general rule, paying them well and keeping them alive is enough to make operatives happy. Getting a salary for being on retainer is a pretty nice deal for most of your operatives! If an operative is in danger, faces challenges they’re not up to, getting injured, or finds out such things happened to one of their contacts or circles, their loyalty will drop respective to the damage done. Events can also change loyalties in unexpected ways.
Take the example of Conrad finding love on the battlefield. If he pursues that option, he’ll certainly be happy that you didn't interfere, and will most likely gain loyalty to you, but he’ll also gain a chunk of loyalty for this new person (who just so happens to be part of a rival corporation!). You might be able to exploit that bond later, or if the other corporation finds out, they might try to use it against Conrad! Of course, you could always tell him to stay on task, but snuffing the flame of passion is rarely taken well...
Loyalty isn't always given, but sometimes held. A bond sets a minimum loyalty “lock” on an operative, preventing their loyalty from dropping below that point. A bond is put on an operative when you hire them, the security of employment keeping them from making rash decisions when things get bad. Bonds can also be placed through less ethical means, such as blackmail or holding hostages (ideally a method only used on your enemies!). Each bond has a strength determined by what placed it: how much you’re paying them, or how incriminating the blackmail is.
Whenever loyalty would drop below this bond, the bond is instead strained, eventually returning to normal. Press someone far enough, though, and the bond will shatter, loyalty will plummet, and often disastrous consequences can follow! For a weak salary bond, this could simple be the operative quitting, but for stronger bonds it could lead to long and bloody vendettas!
I hope you enjoyed this recap of the many systems that power the operatives, creating complex characters who will react in surprising ways, and give your world life!
Specialists
Specialists are just like Operatives, but during generation a Specialist has a much higher limit for their starting stats, skills, and resources!
Stretch Goals!
I didn't think I’d be writing about these so soon, but as we close in on the goal, it may be time to start teasing some of the expanded content I have planned. Funding above the goal means more time developing additional features that didn’t quite make it into 1.0!
The first goal I have planned is at the $25,000 mark: The War Room.
The War Room is where the magic happens. Off on one side, the finely furnished office of the Broker, with a resplendent view of the city below. Through the office door, the pit of cubicles, filled with analysts and handlers scurrying about, eagerly doing their jobs, while your off-duty operatives mill about stealing the doughnuts from the break room.
The war room can be expanded with funds from the budget, adding in exercise rooms and shooting ranges for your operatives, extra banks of servers for collecting Intel, massive maps on screens for tracking global actions, support staff for your operations in the field, or slip den for your weary staff to take a break and fall into some virtual reality.
This “ant farm” of activity will not only get you a behind-the-scenes peek at the support that goes on to keep your operatives running, but each new upgrade comes with perks to enhance the corporation and operatives!
The War Room also unlocks Staff: these lead managers and advisors work directly under you, taking on important roles of the shadow war and giving passive bonuses to the team based on their own skills. The staff is comprised of operatives you can hire, and is a great way to retire those operatives that have served long and well, but at this point know too much to risk in the field. A comfy desk job will put their skills to use and keep them out of harms way! Of course, if you really need them you could always call them back into the field for one last job...
There's something I'm a little unclear on. You allot resources to each Operative. Do you pull that from a general resource pool, i.e. your warchest? Is there a cap on the amount of resources an Operative can have? I was thinking it was all "go in, roll against your stats, have a random event, succeed or fail..." but it reads like even an ill-suited Operative can accomplish a lot with a ton of available resources.
Like, I'm kind of staggered by how complex you've built this up to be. The video can't even begin to describe this stuff. The heat on Operatives, Locations, Corps and the player. The interplay between an Operative's contacts, circles and their loyalty, how their loyalty is fluid based on a ton of stuff if it interacts with their circles, rep with different circles affecting hiring, losing Operatives screwing up rep with circles, how you can plot against your own Operatives....can you point to a % of what you talked about as implemented vs. not? I was excited before, now I'm frothing at the mouth a little. Is there a cap on Agents? Difficulty modes?