This is the fourth scene in a text-based actual play of the Veil, by Fraser Simons (@frasersimons), brought to you by our MC, River (@pixelatedcoyote), and players Will and Yoshi (@yoshicreelman) playing as Zinc and Cio, respectively. Prior scenes are linked at the end of this post. This scene is a flashback, and would chronologically appear after Scene 1.2.

Content Warning: Violence.

• MC: You reveal your position because the manufacturer skimped on sound isolation.

Zinc’s feet slammed against the floor like cinder blocks, too loud for the camo to compensate for. He saw the individual's form turn to offset his charge. The individual--now helpfully labeled Hostile 1--spun Zinc around and slammed him into the teller’s counter. He could feel the weight of H1 bearing in on him, standing on his foot, pressing the base of his spine into the counter’s edge. He could feel the vertebra in his spine move as if worked by the world’s most sadistic chiropractor.

H1 had grabbed Zinc’s gun hand, he could feel the fingers searching down his arm towards his gun. This must mean his other hand has the gun--if there is a gun.

• MC: You will take 2 Harm, 1 harm after armor. You are pinned against the counter with your back bending into a C shape. It is excruciatingly painful.

Initiating cortex backup...
    
“Wrong arm,” Zinc grunted with pain as he raised his empty arm up to Hostile 1’s center mass and engaged his plasma torch.
 

• NEUTRALIZE: When you use force to attempt to neutralize a threat, take control of a situation, or maintain hold of something you have with the chance of taking harm yourself, roll. On a 10+, you generate 3 hold and take no harm in the doing. On 7-9, you generate 2 hold and you will take harm in the doing. Spend your hold 1 for 1 during the scene to:
  • Inflict harm.
  • Take away an advantage (requires 2 hold to be spent).
  • Suffer little harm.
  • Force a change of location (1 hold and the MC chooses the new location, 2 and you do).
  • Impress, dismay or frighten your opponent.
• Powerful: `2d6+2`  = (4+2)+2 = 8

“Please don’t die.”

• MC: You get 1 base harm, +1 harm your AI assisting you, H1’s armor is ineffective against this weapon.

The torch burned through Hostile 1’s armor with an acrid smell. Ballistic plastic, they must have known the guard was carrying a slug thrower.

“Oh, I won’t.” H1 growled through the distortion.

The pain did give H1 pause, however. They stopped pressing and broke the grapple with Zinc. He was no longer pressed against the countertop, but he had no path to the money or the vault except through H1.

Somewhere in the back of Zinc’s psyche, he could feel his AI judging him.

Zinc pushed his fist hard into the hostile’s wound, changing the angle of his arm slightly to aim up towards the heart. “Don’t make me do this,” Zinc whispered, certain he finally had control of the situation. “Stand down, call off your friends. This ain’t worth dying over.”

• ULTIMATUM: When you say what you want and what you will do if you don’t get it, roll. On a 10+, they have to choose: make you carry out your threat, or back down and give you what you want. On a 7–9, they also have these options; they can:
  • Clearly remove themselves as a threat.
  • Fortify themselves.
  • Give you something they think you want.
  • Attempt to remove you as a threat, after taking the established consequences.
  • Tell you what you want to know (or what you want to hear).
• Powerful: `2d6+2`  = (4+6)+2 = 12

• MC: Are you willing to kill this punk?
• Will: Yes
• MC: Narrate ending this fool, or at least taking them out and giving them a permanent reminder of their hubris.

For whatever reason, Hostile 1 decided to laugh and cement their fate.

Zinc side stepped and drove his fist hard into the hostile’s wound, aiming up towards the heart. The torch flickered on and off, and he sighed as he guided the now visible body to the floor. His fingertips began glowing as he touched the corpse’s interface jack. “Pull everything you can. Focus on ID and specs on that camo. Maybe we can upgrade.” He grimaced as he scanned for the second hostile, his thoughts straying to his own increasingly strained camo system. “Time is a factor.”

• Will: I’m not sure if this is Risk or maybe Lift the Veil. Maybe this is just a golden opportunity?
• MC: Risk.

• RISK: When you are aware of and act to avoid imminent danger, say how you do it and roll. On a 10+, you do as you describe and the danger doesn’t come to bear. On a 7-9, in the doing of it there will be a cost, complication, or choice introduced by the MC.
• Scared: `2d6+1`  = (6+5)+1 = 12

Suspending backup. Accessing ...

The seconds crawled by. Any moment another hostile could round the door into the teller’s space, and Zinc would be back to square one.

Data downloaded...

Data decrypted, Displaying.

The comm stored a student id and a handful of wrestling pictures. When Zinc looked back to the corpse, he saw Malcolm, previously known only has Hostile 1. The man’s face was unlined by age and sported the faintest of red stubble around the jaw. In his hands, he’d held nothing. No knife, no cutting edge energy weapon. Nothing.

The last of Malcolm’s thoughts appeared on Zinc’s feed. He’d been chanting silently to himself, “No future. No future. No future.”

We now have elevated permissions in the bank’s Veil systems. Exempting us from their cloak.

At least two more perps remained. An unknown quantity of cash was stolen. The haulers either knocked out or or bribed. But maybe none of them were armed. Maybe they’d flee now that their comrade was dead. They say that dead men tell no tales, but that adage is close to a century out of date. 

No. They’d have to come for their friend as soon as they steeled themselves, and they would come soon.

“No weapons? No future? The hell…” Zinc sprinted back towards the vault, dropping his camo. He yelled, “Malcolm’s dead! You got a death wish too, I’m right here! Otherwise, take your friend and leave!” He stands in the entrance of the vault, daring the thieves to approach.

• ULTIMATUM: When you say what you want and what you will do if you don’t get it, roll. On a 10+, they have to choose: make you carry out your threat, or back down and give you what you want. On a 7–9, they also have these options; they can:
  • Clearly remove themselves as a threat.
  • Fortify themselves.
  • Give you something they think you want.
  • Attempt to remove you as a threat, after taking the established consequences.
  • Tell you what you want to know (or what you want to hear).
• Powerful: `2d6+2`  = (5+5)+2 = 12

• MC: What’s your Powerful at?
  
• Will: It is currently at 2 out of 5.

“SHIT!” a voice shouted from outside, clear as day. A young adult approached the bank’s rear entrance with their hands up. They wore a formless coat and baggy pants, and their face was obscured by an old-school hockey mask.
They said “Fine. You win, asshole. We surrender.” They turned slightly towards the parking lot and continued, “Cipher, turn off your toy!”

As they entered the bank, and Zinc’s AI labelled them Hostile 2. As H2 continued, they began to vanish, but snapped abruptly back into focus. The Veil in the bank shimmered as it returned to its default configuration.

A third now entered, heavier than the other two, also wearing a mask. The two dragged Malcolm’s body out the door, leaving only the stink of charred fiber and flesh.

25% of the money is missing from the vault. Your demands did not specify the disposition of the money.

Zinc stood for a moment looking into the vault. Then he sighed. “Damn it. About that technicality …”

​The first scene can be found here.
The second scene can be found here.
The third scene can be found here.

​In this post, I want to share some notes about running Ring 2 of a Trophy incursion. These notes are not presented in any particular order, nor are they meant to be “authoritative.” They are simply my observations from running the game. 

Let the survivalists show off
Because Trophy is so focused on the psychology of the treasure-hunters—and the dark, arcane forces that are trying to rip them apart—it’s easy to overlook gameplay moments revolving around the practical difficulties of navigating the forest (finding trails, making camp, managing supplies, etc.) This is compounded by the fact that we tend to hard frame each scene, with little attention given to how the characters physically got to that point. This can lead to a problem in the gameplay: your ranger-type treasure-hunters don’t get to do what they’re good at. 
 
But look closely: Ring 2 is where we find many of the environmental challenges the incursion has to offer—navigating tricky bits of terrain, crossing yawning gaps, dealing with the fauna, and so forth. Sometimes these challenges are baked right into the text of the incursion, but more often they are simply hinted at. When I’m thinking of obstacles to put in the treasure-hunters’ path during Ring 2, I always take a quick glance at the skills of the treasure-hunters to see if I can come up with something that plays into what the characters are good at, and if there are some survivalist-types in the group, I  go with something that plays to their strengths because Ring 2 might be the last chance to see them. 

Going a little bit beyond the scope of this blog post, the above is a great example of a concept we frequently discuss on The Gauntlet Podcast: goal posting. When players make character creation choices, they aren’t simply filling in blanks. Rather, they are telling you, the GM, the kinds of challenges they are interested in facing during the game (and, given the collaborative nature of Trophy, they are also telling the other players the same info). A shrewd GM will pay attention to (and remember) these choices, and then find natural places in the fiction to interrogate them.  

Use Ring 2 to lengthen the incursion
Trophy is a terrific one-shot. With 3 players and 4 hours, you can complete an incursion and tell a very satisfying story in which everyone gets a chance to “shine” (I use quotes here, because “shining” in Trophy usually means losing well). But what if you have more players? What if, for whatever reason, you want to increase the number of sessions it takes to finish the incursion? What if you simply want more of what the incursion has to offer?

Ring 2 represents your best opportunity to expand the length of the game. Unlike the emotional chiaroscuro of Ring 1, the internal exploration of Ring 3, and the Ari Aster-esque, beautiful insanity that is Ring 5, Ring 2 feels the most like a traditional, party-based adventure game (we’ll put a pin in Ring 4 for now; that ring also has a more traditional feel, but isn’t as suitable for expanding the length of the game as Ring 2 is). There is an expectation that you will present the treasure-hunters with challenges related to the environment or that otherwise feel a little more like an “adventure.” And, as noted in the first section of this post, a lot of these challenges are merely hinted at in the text of the incursion—it’s on you, as the GM (or, indirectly through Devil’s Bargains, as the player), to flesh this stuff out, especially if you want to expand the length of your game. 

So how does this work? For a one-shot, I think you stick to 1 or 2 scenes/encounters/obstacles, and if there is something spelled out in the Terrors and Temptations text of the incursion, that’s a thing you focus on. So, for example, in The Flocculent Cathedral, you definitely do the bug swarm and the row of saints, and maaaybe throw in a terrain navigation scene if you have time. 

If you want to lengthen your game, I think you do the things that are spelled out brightly in the text, and then add in 2-4 more scenes/encounters/obstacles, depending on how much you want to stretch things out (I think if you go past 6 total scenes, that’s probably overkill, and you risk muddying Trophy’s tight construction). As for what these additional scenes should be, it depends very much on the incursion you are using. In the Tomb of 10,000 Dreams, for example, you get a helpful list of Terrors and Temptations in Ring 2, but they are just short prompts—you have to put the meat on the bone yourself. In The Forest of Blades, there are only 2 ideas, but they are each filled out in more detail, and advice is given on how to present them. In this latter example, if you want to expand Ring 2, you have to think about what sorts of obstacles have been implied in the fiction so far. 

AND DON’T FORGET: Devil’s Bargains! Devil’s Bargains that are negotiated in earlier scenes are often a rich resource for future scene ideas. If you want a quick, satisfying way to lengthen your game (in Ring 2 or otherwise) think about a scene you can frame around a Devil’s Bargain. 

This is the third scene in a text-based actual play of the Veil, by Fraser Simons (@frasersimons), brought to you by our MC, River (@pixelatedcoyote), and players Will and Yoshi (@yoshicreelman) playing as Zinc and Cio, respectively. Prior scenes are linked at the end of this post.

Most of the revelers have started to stir, and Lisbet takes her leave. The capacious warehouse begins to fill with the smells of breakfast, savory and sweet breads, rices, bacon, tofu scramble, all with an undertone of Old Bay.
​

• MC: Zinc, this is the scene your character wakes up into. Describe how you are, how you react to the the surf sounds and breakfast commotion.

Zinc wakes to complete silence, holding his eyes shut against the morning light. The smells roil his stomach. The Breath assaults his mind.

“The quiet helps me forget.” With his aural implants disabled, he can’t even hear his own voice. But he can feel the rhythmic vibrations pulsing through his body.

He stands, wobbles, and opens his eyes, searching for his host. He finds them, and issues a short series of reinitialization commands before walking over. “Morning Cio.”

“What have I told you don’t swim against the tide, swim to the side, get out of the current or… or you’ll end up looking like you do now.” Cio holds a new cup of steaming coffee, offers it to Zinc, and gestures at the sugar and cream, “It’s above average at best, but given how you look, how tastes is probably the least of your concerns.”

As Zinc manages the coffee, Cio continues, “I know you might just be recovering, but when it rains it pours. I’ve got a friend who’s in a spot of trouble. I want to toss her a life preserver, but I’m afraid that the current is too strong for just one person. I don’t want to get sucked into the storm.” Cio takes a moment, sips from their coffee, and runs their eyes over Zinc really assessing his state, “I don’t know the bearing the siren is whispering in your ears, but it’s clear to me, if it guides you into another storm, you won’t survive it. For me, there’s choppy waters ahead, but with two sets of hands on the oars we should be able to keep the ship true.”

• LEAN ON: When you ask someone to do something you want and use Obligation you have on them to make things square between yourselves while doing so, if they do it, you erase 1 Obligation you marked with them for each thing you ask of them.
• Yoshi: Cio has one Obligation on Zinc from knowing about the AI and how it’s merging with Zinc (the siren whispering). Leaning on that to clear the obligation, to get Zinc to help with whatever trouble Lisbet is in.

Zinc stares down into his mug of coffee, trying to parse his companion’s words. After a long sip, he makes eye contact. “Of course I’ll help you. Owe you that much at least. But … “

Zinc shifts his weight uncomfortably. “Last night you offered to take my confession. I’m ready now, if you’re still willing. I’ve done a terrible thing Cio.”

Zinc’s AI remains quiet. No words come across the interface, only the slightest indication of withholding.

Cio nods, “If you are ready, then let’s talk. There’s a room, originally an office, that should work for a quiet conversation.” Coffee still in hand Cio leads Zinc through a door and up a staircase to an office overlooking the warehouse floor. The office is disheveled, some mostly empty industrial shelves, a plastic and metal desk pushed against the far wall, and half a dozen chair like objects circled around an a cable spool “coffee table” with some empty bottles of hard liquor strewn about. “It’s not pretty, but this should do.” Cio takes a seat on one of the upside down dark green plastic grated boxes acting like a stool. They turn to Zinc, and wait quietly. 

Zinc sits down and spends a long moment inspecting every corner of the room before speaking. “I killed someone yesterday. I mean, I thought he deserved it. He tried to steal my delivery. I had to … “

His voice trails off. “He was just a kid, Cio. Just a dumb kid. I didn’t know.” Zinc transfers a video file to Cio‘s interface. It is a POV of the incident from the moment the guard was dropped. He waits in sullen quiet, and continues speaking once Cio has finished.

“No future, no future, no future … Have you ever heard that before?”
​

• Yoshi: Will, to me, Zinc feels like he is acting Scared. Pg 42 of the Veil, "Whenever a player is describing an emotion, they may remove an emotional Spike of the opposing State." [I’m checking with Fraser, to see if a move needs to be triggered, or just describing the character being in an emotional state is sufficient for the emotional spike removal. Response is: yeah, you could remove an emotional spike, even if it doesn’t trigger a roll of dice]. Do you want to remove an emotional spike from Powerful? 
• Will: Absolutely!

Cio sits still, eyes on Zinc as the confession trickles out. A small nod of acknowledgement, as the words, video, and information wash over them. 

• LIFT THE VEIL: When you try to pierce the constant illusion of The Veil, search for information, or recall something you may already be privy to, roll.
  • On a hit, the MC will tell you something new and interesting about the current situation. On any roll the MC will ask you a question or two; answer them.
  • On a 10+, the MC will give you good detail. On a 7–9, the MC will give you an impression.
• Peaceful (+2): 2d6 + 2 = (1+2)+2 = 5

A voice rang out through the warehouse, “My brother! I thought you might still be here!” 

The words have a musical quality to them, almost as if sung. The light in the large, empty venue space becomes more yellow and brighter, reminiscent of how sunlight once looked. The voice, and the alterations to The Veil, emanated from one young man, Sunny.

He was a corporate ladder-climber, a Kool-Aid drinker, a boot-licker. Worst of all, he was a supervisor. He shouldn’t have known Zinc’s whereabouts, but here he was all the same.

He strode through the room effortlessly, making a bee-line for Zinc. His feet landed deftly between the discarded cups and empty sleeping bags.

“I am so very sorry to tear you away from your merrimaking, brother,” again with the false endearment, “but administration absolutely requires your presence.”

His smile beams. In his vision, his star is always ascending. All is right with his world.

• MC: What should be a simple search through The Veil is interrupted by Zinc’s real-world obligations. We will pick up later with Cio running solo, or trying to sync back up with Zinc (which is no small feat in his profession).Whichever, Cio has to follow his leads alone for the moment. If Will has a solo scene cooking for Zinc, we can pick that up. Oh, and everyone marks Mad.
• Will: I’d like to meet this administration. If they are anything like this Sunny I’m sure we’ll have a good time.

The first scene can be found here.
The second scene can be found here.