Omnia Incommoda, Certitudo Nulla

This is the second instance of my “Playing FanX” posts, where I describe how I play FanX and try to do a bit deeper into my reasoning as a GM^[1]. I’m using the same city I’ve created in the first post, which you can find here.

The Beginning of the Night¶

This is just a quick recap of the current situation, right before we roll on the Incident table. The city has three groups: the Mob, the Sport Hunters of the Long Pig and the Utopian Dreamers of a Far-Flung Future.

The Mob¶

Strength: 25
Social Roles:

• Autocrat, power 10. An accomplished crimewoman who rules with the help of the criminals’ wives. She’s somewhat traditionalist in her matriarchal views.
• Whip, power 7. An uppity man with a more patriarchial view of women in crimes, he employs a lot of sex workers to run his part of the empire

Rules:

• Communal living: the Mob controls a whole city block and all the vampires live here
• Food restrictions: vampires cannot drink blood from the human associates

Plan: Summon a demon to cement their supernatural power in the city.

The Sport Hunters¶

Strength: 13
Social Roles:

• Gatekeeper, power 5. An aloof and disconnected industrialist from the XIX century, attented to by a swat of yesmen.
• Treasurer, power 6. A chauvinistic yuppie, sorrounded by accountants he uses for everything, including cannon fodder.

Plan: Expose the secret relationship between the Mob’s Whip and the yet-unnamed member of the Utopians, in order to finally snap the already strained relationship between the former and his boss.

The Utopian Dreamers¶

Strength: 21
Social Roles:

• Seer, power 6. A punk rock musician who basically practice slavery. Not very utopian for them^[2].
• Outsider, power 7. An old school blackster who hangs around other undeground bands of similar tastes.

Plan: Leverage the clandesting relationship between one of them and the Mob’s Whip in order to esfiltrate the Mob’s secrets.

One of the suggestions I make in the manual is to put each plan at different stages of completion. This gives more space of action, adds some depth for a longer campaign and doesn’t just shovel stuff on the players. Since we only have three plans, we should have one which is nearly completion, one which is about halfway and the last one just starting. I see two ways to do this, depending on the game, so I’ll detail them both. Pick whatever works best for you.

If this were a one-shot, I’d mark the Mob’s plan as “nearly done”, because it’s the one which requires the quickest and most immediate response from everybody. I’d mark the Sport Hunter’s plan as “just started”, because it doesn’t have much breadth between “just started” and “done” and it will most likely surface anyways. Finally, I’d consider the Utopian’s plan as “halfway”, because it’s the last slot remaining.

If this were the start of a longer game, I’d consider the Mob’s plan as “halfway”. This should give us some sessions to discover it and react - or add a huge complication to the whole scenario if allowed to progress. It’s the kind of mess which can kick a scenario back in motion after the lull of a couple of quiet nights. The Hunters’ plan will instead be “nearly done”, which will kick a nice wasps’ nest. Compromising pictures surfacing after a night of madness can be interesting, and smart PCs can get a lot of info when they cross paths with other detectives. Lastly, the Utopian’s plan needs to just be starting: it will give some more depth to the Hunters and not discover immediately the Mob’s nefarious summoning.

Since, in the first post, we decided that this is going to be a one-shot, we’ll stick to the first ordering:

1. The Mob will complete the summoning in the last third of the night^[3]
2. The Utopians are pouring over some stolen ledgers to see what they can make of them
3. Some of the Sport Hunters are stalking the Mob’s Whip and taking compromising pictures^[4]

Now everything goes astray¶

The dice says 6: an ancient monster, either Vampire or not, woke up from their sleepless slumber, hungry, thirsty and longing for weirder fulfillments. The Night World shrills and trembles, in excited fear.

This marries pretty well with the idea of the demon summoning^[5] but it’s a easy explanation, we can make things messier. So the idea could be this: the demon summoning is in progress and the first enchantments have been uttered night ago; this has awoken another entity, which wants to take advantage of the thinning of the wall between realities to get in. Another demon will be a good bet, but since it’s coming on its own terms, it will be free from everyone’s control.

The only thing we still need is a way to let everybody (not just the PCs^[6]) get a hint of this. Nightmares work pretty well, have all of them wake up terrified is a great way to start a game - I know it because I’ve done it multiple times. In this scenario, though, we have a lot of people spying on other people, so it might be more interesting to have something more active. The new demon^[7] is already squeezing in, but with limited power: it can only possess mortals, and for a few hours at time. There have been weird murders and thefts across the city, all linked to the occult, and the Night World suspects someone has entered the city without announcing themselves.

This is the end of the series, because from now on we need the players. The pieces are all set, rivalries, hate and backstabbing are in motion and a new, secret, player has joined the game. It’s up to them find a way to navigate this scenario and get something out of it. Keep in mind that this is not a game about solving mysteries, it’s a game about using what you (believe you) know about others to your advantage. Here we have multiple power struggles and an external menace, all of which can be turned into a weapon in the hands of the PCs, or against them.