Re: [BNW] Fail Safe

[Sean Michael Whipkey <highway@cstone.net>]

Malcolm Knight wrote:
> 
> > The PCs are members of the Defiants who, while not agreeing with Kennedy
> > (duh!) don't want to see thousands or millions of innocents killed while
> > JFK sits in his bunker sipping brandy.  However, they can't reach the
> > Alpha in time.
> 
> I don't really understand how this can be used as a plot to a roleplaying
> game. The problem I see is that there's a certain inevitablity to this plot.
> You can't stop him. Boom. Oh well, I guess we'll just have to live with that
> one. What are you supposed to do, warn the government? Either they can
> detect him flying in (and I assume he's flying in) and will shot him down
> whatever you say, or they can't, and even if you tip them off he can't be
> intercepted.
>     If he flys in then he can't be more than a few hours away from
> Washington, and even if you could alert the general population to the threat
> they couldn't get out in time anyway.
>     If he's walking or driving to Washington then the adventure is a man
> hunt and you can burn him to Delta Prime and even go looking yourself, but
> then he doesn't really stand a chance.

The point is that you can't solve the scenario through the gratuitous
application of violence.  You need to work together with other groups
and make some hard decisions.

Do you try to notify Defiants in the path who might be able to stop
him?  If so, you risk exposing them, and they might not succeed.  In
addition, if they're Delta Warriors, they'll probably support him in his
flight.

Do you try to notify Delta Prime?  Let them know his secrets, what he
might do, etc.?  If so, why should they believe you?  How do you know
they'll bother to try to save the innocent when they could use it as
great anti-Defiance propaganda?

Do you bother trying at all and instead just look into trying to salvage
the post-explosion reaction?

Is your whole team working together?  Is one of the people trying to
save DC actually a Delta Warrior determined to have the Alpha destroy
DC?

If DC is destroyed, do you try to rescue the Alpha as he reforms?

>     As an aside, someone posted the plot to Fail Safe on the list, and I
> don't think the President's solution would (a) be something you'd do, (b) be
> something the Russains would believe you'd done, how can they take the risk?
> And (c) would mean anything to the Russians.

(Since I was the one who posted it): I agree with you on part a.  They
did it, though, to stop the Russians from retaliating in force when
Moscow was destroyed.  The Russians knew NY was destroyed the same way
that the Americans knew Moscow was destroyed; the president has the US
Ambassador in Moscow on one phone line, conference call, and the Russian
somebody in NY on another, with the premiere of Russian on yet another
line.  When Moscow died, it shrieked over the phone as the building was
destroyed.  NY did the same thing.

Besides, nuclear blasts aren't exactly subtle.  They detect using
earthquake sensors all the time...

SeanMike

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Sean Michael Whipkey, Operations and Systems Administrator
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