Re: (TFT) Who killed the electric car? --> Rick muses on power politics.

["Ty Beard" <tybeard@sbcglobal.net>]

One thing that I think makes any adventure better is to have the various 
non-player characters and groups respond to the incentives that apply to 
them (or that they *think* apply to them). The problem with a lot of hack 
writing (movies, adventures, etc.) is that the motives of the villains (and 
often the protagonists, for that matter) are either left out completely or 
are poorly conceived. To be credible, Bad Guys (tm) must have *reasons* for 
doing what they do. I like the series "Columbo" for a lot of reasons, but 
one reason in particular is the way that we learn *why* the murderers do 
what they do. Often, their motives are such that the viewer even feels some 
sympathy for them -- though rarely do we actually want them to get away. One 
exception to this are the villains played by Jack Cassidy -- he's an utter 
jerk, but makes a delightful bad guy. I have *never* rooted for him. Patrick 
MacGoohan's villains evoke far more sympathy. Columbo villains *never* 
murder for the sheer EVIL DELIGHT of it. Even revenge is a seldom-used 
motive.

So in my extended campaigns, I slowly let the characters learn *why* the 
villains are doing what they're doing. The bad guy with noble intentions is 
a bit of a cliche, but it still works. I prefer bad guys with understandable 
intentions myself. In my current Traveller campaign, here's an upcoming 
adventure.

The campaign is not the Traveller Imperium. It's year 3106 AD and humans 
have found no life anywhere except on Earth. The players hail from the 
Terran Commonwealth, a democratic state based on the 19th century British 
Empire (there's even a queen -- Empress Katherine). The main evil state is 
the Shinai Democratic Collective -- think Chinese Stalinists in space. Due 
to the distance between the two states, full scale conventional war is 
impractical, so a nasty Cold War rages in the DMZ -- a 20 parsec wide buffer 
zone between the two powers. Both sides use numerous intelligence 
organizations to sabotage and harrass the enemy.

Sir Hiroshi Auberjon is an ally who has helped the characters out greatly in 
the past. He even risked his rather cushy position as a director of a 
shipping megacorp to help them, and lost his directorship over the matter. 
He is personally honorable, gentle and contributes huge sums of money to 
charity. I have succeeded in inspiring a significant degree of loyalty in 
the players to Sir Hiroshi. Importantly, the players have been "good 
guys" -- their adventures have always been setup so that they are in the 
right. If laws are broken, they are the laws of brutal and corrupt regimes.

Anyhow, Hiroshi asks the players to destroy some nefarious assassins, who 
have been methodically liquidating members of Hiroshi's private investment 
group. Hiroshi will lie to them about his past -- unprecedented, by the 
way -- and tell them that they were friends at the elite Sowell School of 
Business together.

But since one member of the group is a reservist in Naval Intelligence, the 
players will find out the truth. They will discover that Hiroshi and his 
investors served together in a secret espionage unit some 20 years ago. This 
unit was disbanded and its members prosecuted for war crimes. No one was 
incarcerated or executed, but they were all discharged and the unit 
disbanded. Hiroshi's unit developed and used a highly illegal 
antigen-shifting virus on a DMZ world, Arcadia, a world once known as a 
veritable Eden.

The virus slaughtered 90% of the planet's population -- some 60 million 
people. At first, it will appear that the operation was merely an 
overreaction to a perceived threat. Indeed, this is why the group was not 
executed for war crimes.

However, further investigation will show that Hiroshi's team fabricated 
evidence to make it appear that his team honestly believed that Arcadia was 
riddled with Shinai agents. Hiroshi's team intended to let loose a 
plant-destroying virus, then blame it on the Shinai. In the chaos, the 
Shinai agents and infrastructure would be liquidated.

In fact, Hiroshi knew full well that Arcadia was a friendly world and no 
such Shinai infiltration had occurred. Hiroshi's team discovered that the 
planet had huge reserves of _________ , a very valuable substance that must 
be extracted through environmentally destructive processes. The problem is 
that the Arcadians were very environmentally conscious. Their laws made it 
nearly impossible to legally implement such mining. Even if permission could 
be obtained, it would take a decade to secure the appropriate permits.

So Hiroshi's team tailored a virus to destroy most of the plant life. They 
expected to be charged with war crimes, but knew that they could escape 
punishment. As long as the plague was successsfully blamed on the Shinai, 
they'd be discharged dishonorably, but that's all.

Unfortunately, the virus mutated and began to slaughter humans instead. The 
players will be tempted to believe that Hiroshi simply miscalculated. 
However, they'll later discover that he was warned that there was better 
than a 50% chance that the virus would mutate into an animal killing virus. 
In addition, many millions would have died of starvation even if the virus 
had restricted itself to plants.

And in any case, Hiroshi and his team became fabulously wealthy by 
discretely acquiring the mineral rights. Ironically, the royalties paid to 
the Arcadian survivors made them all fabulously rich.

The killers are funded by some of these wealthy Arcadians. The leader is a 
woman who leads the Children's Aid Society -- a well known charity that 
provides scholarships for millions of orphans. Her entire family was 
killed -- 3 children and 5 grandchildren. She and her friends want to punish 
those who massacred their people.

Hiroshi deeply regrets his role in the affair, but he's not interested in 
dying to atone for it...

Anyhow, I hope that this will provide an interesting diversion for the 
players.

--Ty 
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