All-American Small Town Evil Conspiracy Quest

[EarthScorpion]

On the other hand, couldn't we use some other, less human-dependent means to get those contacts? Wiretaps or something...

Click to shrink...

You have no influence with pertinent groups like the cable company or the police. You don't have any people on the staff with those skills, like if you recruited a PI or something. Your Special Asset is not related to a relevant field.

So, no. You cannot.

If people wanted to do that sort of thing, you should have been a rogue government conspiracy or evil future robots.

 

[Kaferian]

I'm willing to bet my .00003% share in our company that this "Lefty" feller will be brought back on as the estranged father of our strong, independent, teenage main protagonist in season 3 when the writers can't think of a suitable redemption plot that can spam a season. Faceless mooks are the only ones we can trust.

 

[The LD Creature]

[X] Protection:

 

[butchock]

@EarthScorpion when would be the next election going to be? is the sheriff here an elected official? along with the mayor? town council? judge?

[x] Acquisition: She's a sham with no knowledge of the occult. On the other hand, her bookshop is built above a mystical leyline that Black Goat Excavations wants. Beat her so she's hospitalised, and we can purchase the site when she's forced to sell it off to pay her medical bills.

- the classic land-grab plot of buying properties for cheap. Though usually, a classic cartoon villain will try to scare off the owner instead of beating her up...

 

[Arcus]

[X] Espionage: Corporate believes that Ms Hemmington has certain rare book sellers as her contacts which may be useful to the company. By stealing her keys, we can get into her shop and get our hands on her address book.
Asset: 'Lefty', an ex-con petty thief on the payroll (he's also quite tough) (3 dice)

Hmmm. Corporate better have given us the right information or, well, I dunno what we can do to them but the fleshpits yearn for flesh!

On the other hand, couldn't we use some other, less human-dependent means to get those contacts? Wiretaps or something...

Click to shrink...

Well breaking in is significantly faster.

EDIT: Also what ES said.

 

[Limstar]

[X] Elimination: She knows too much. She's identified the old ruins on the hillside above the quarry. She needs to die. Make sure she has an… accident before she gets home.
Asset: Several toughs (3 dice)

She's a test case for the company : a low-risk, seemingly unconnected young bookshop owner that, from the update, seemed to know that our people are following her.

There's a harassed expression on her face. Maybe it's just the look of someone who's having to dash out to the nearby supermarket to grab something for dinner. But then again, maybe it's something else.

Click to shrink...

Despite that, the car is parked sloppily and takes up three spaces.

Click to shrink...

She has been reading in the car, too, which is really suspicious. What would you do if you just found out something really big and suddenly there are these people following you, and you gotta tell someone else quick, oh look -- maybe in that 7/11 there they won't dare following!

To kill her would be like watching a controlled experiment on how the people of the town react to something like this. Maybe! But it wouldn't hurt to just make one person disappear, right?

 

[Wellhello]

[] Espionage: Corporate believes that Ms Hemmington has certain rare book sellers as her contacts which may be useful to the company. By stealing her keys, we can get into her shop and get our hands on her address book.
Asset: 'Lefty', an ex-con petty thief on the payroll (he's also quite tough) (3 dice)

Espionage and Acquisition appear to be proactive choices on our part, while Elimination or Protection make us reactive.
The reactive choices mean either, that we already have an enemy in town, in form of the roaming preacher, or there is already a tangible danger to our plans in form of the ruins.

On the proactive side, the choice could indicate what our season long background plot is going to be. The control of leylines for [Classified], or the acquisiton of knowledge, knowhow for [Something]. I chose Espionage, because I like the idea of eldritch tomes and the inevitable race against the heroes to get the relevant passages first.

Edit: Changed my vote to []Acquisition.

 

[EarthScorpion]

@EarthScorpion when would be the next election going to be? is the sheriff here an elected official? along with the mayor? town council? judge?

Click to shrink...

As is typical for the genre, elections occur whenever narratively necessary, especially clustered around the start (if setting up a new antagonist) and end (if it's part of their arc-long plot) of series.

However, taking over a civic institution by getting your pawn elected is a non-trivial Plot and would be a major endeavour, or otherwise wouldn't give you much meaningful control if you just back someone's election campaign or something. Either way, it's an Acquisition-type Plot.

 

[TenfoldShields]

[X] Acquisition: She's a sham with no knowledge of the occult. On the other hand, her bookshop is built above a mystical leyline that Black Goat Excavations wants. Beat her so she's hospitalised, and we can purchase the site when she's forced to sell it off to pay her medical bills.
Asset: Several toughs who've been told not to kill her (3 dice)

Think of this as the cold open for our pilot episode. It's gotta have menace! Violence! A cryptic comment by a masked man how she "should have taken the money"! Tbh stealing a key just feels rather flaccid and doesn't establish our threat at all. We hired a petty crook to steal a key to commit a B&E and got the protagonist fired from his part time job. How dastardly.

In narrative terms our first appearance in the plot should be startling, shocking, and have ominous implications. Dudes in white masks and matching suits or whatever showing up to beat the shit out of some random lady establishes that a. We can leverage a fair amount of color coordinated muscle b. We're a very active antagonist, bold going on brazen, and c. we're thoroughly nasty sorts who aren't remotely above hurting people to get what we want.

In more OOC terms: leylines are pools of power, of energy, that we can use to fuel our later workings and convert more easily into sweet sweet dosh. More easily than a book of names that may or may not lead to anything juicy (small town bookseller yknow?) on top of that we're a fairly thuggish conspiracy that is very good at being thuggish. An option that sees how one of our strongest tools plays out in a more controlled environment isn't a bad idea.

Getting hold of a neat bookstore site seems like fun, but I think getting information that we can use to drive our first arc plot sounds better. Especially since this means that the protagonist will have been working in the bookstore for her as a part-time job, and will come into work tomorrow afternoon to find that they've been robbed - shock, horror!

If we are very lucky, the annoying little punk will get blamed for it. Hah.

Click to shrink...

Honestly in terms of motivation I feel like that plays weaker than like "someone you care about has been badly hurt because they didn't roll over". It establishes a sort of this-can-happen-to-you-too vibe, matched with a desire for justice or maybe revenge. If nobody does anything more people can and will be harmed. It's a sort of scales falling from the eyes moment that causes them to really take a look at what's happening in their town And prompts the eventual Protag to go out there and do something about it.

 

[Aleph]

Okay, see, I was about to say "but that protagonist will be working against us! A theft is far less conspicuous and won't raise as much suspicion as a mugging!"

And then I remembered Problem Alchemy, and the fact that if we don't make problems for ourselves, @EarthScorpion will gleefully and inventively make them for us.

So yeah, I'm suddenly enraptured by the opportunities that beating up a helpless bookish young lady can offer.

CHANGING VOTE
From:
[-] Espionage
To:
[X] Acquisition

 

[HeavyBane]

[X] Espionage: Corporate believes that Ms Hemmington has certain rare book sellers as her contacts which may be useful to the company. By stealing her keys, we can get into her shop and get our hands on her address book.
Asset: 'Lefty', an ex-con petty thief on the payroll (he's also quite tough) (3 dice)

Knowledge is power. Besides, if we find something really interesting, we can both increase our general profits AND later on "persuade" her to give us her property.

 

[mr_stibbons]

[X] Acquisition: She's a sham with no knowledge of the occult. On the other hand, her bookshop is built above a mystical leyline that Black Goat Excavations wants. Beat her so she's hospitalised, and we can purchase the site when she's forced to sell it off to pay her medical bills.
Asset: Several toughs who've been told not to kill her (3 dice)

I think that TenfoldShields makes a good case. A leyline is a potent asset, violence plays to our strengths, and brutal violence is a nice hook for a pilot episode.

 

[FunkyEntropy]

While normally I'd be in favor of the slow burn conspiracy build this is the pilot episode which means the audience isn't going to give a shit without a dastardly hook. Which means Murder or her cocktease of a sister Attempted Murder.

[x] Elimination: She knows too much. She's identified the old ruins on the hillside above the quarry. She needs to die. Make sure she has an… accident before she gets home.
Asset: Several toughs (3 dice)

Voted changed due to persuasive graph.

 

[Noxious]

[X] Espionage: Corporate believes that Ms Hemmington has certain rare book sellers as her contacts which may be useful to the company. By stealing her keys, we can get into her shop and get our hands on her address book.
Asset: 'Lefty', an ex-con petty thief on the payroll (he's also quite tough) (3 dice)

 

[Arcus]

I'm in favour of our debut having us do nasty things to establish that yes, we are in fact the bad guys, but for maximum impact I'd rather go for Elimination than Acquisition.

And that whole "she's discovered the truth" is a good way to have our opponents stumble on the same thing as well, by following her footsteps.

Change vote:
[-] Espionage
to
[X] Elimination

There was a car accident. A rather violent car accident involving explosions. How tragic.

 

[Mutton]

I'm in favour of our debut having us do nasty things to establish that yes, we are in fact the bad guys, but for maximum impact I'd rather go for Elimination than Acquisition.

And that whole "she's discovered the truth" is a good way to have our opponents stumble on the same thing as well, by following her footsteps.

Change vote:
[-] Espionage
to
[X] Elimination

There was a car accident. A rather violent car accident involving explosions. How tragic.

Click to shrink...

She drove a Pinto. What kinds of other car accidents are there with that model?!

 

[Arcus]

She drove a Pinto. What kinds of other car accidents are there with that model?!

Click to shrink...

This is television. All cars are naturally made of explodium.

Alternatively, the tragic accident was her driving into a lake by mistake and drowning. Alas.

Edit: Oh wait somehow I missed out the word "other" in your post.

In any case she's quite clearly an awful driver going by her atrocious parking so no one will suspect us of murder this way. It's a foolproof plan.

 

[EternalStruggle]

[X] Espionage: Corporate believes that Ms Hemmington has certain rare book sellers as her contacts which may be useful to the company. By stealing her keys, we can get into her shop and get our hands on her address book.
Asset: 'Lefty', an ex-con petty thief on the payroll (he's also quite tough) (3 dice)

I hear the arguments for violence and Problem Alchemy (nice phrase Aleph, think I'll be borrowing), but I am by nature the person who plays it safe. This option is the one with no obvious violence or opponents in place. Which yes, means we might have more shit to deal with slightly later, but I prefer a slow and steady start as opposed to FULL POWER THUG TOTAL DESTRUCTION.

 

[FunkyEntropy]

Anna Hemmerton was driving home from the supermarket when she was forced to take evasive action to avoid a small, unidentified critter that popped out of the bushes and ran in front of her car. Swerving to avoid the innocent creature, she unfortunately lodged the front end of her car into a nearby street lamp.

Several good samaratans, all strapping young lads, noticed her plight and sought to aid Ms. Hemmerton, helping extract her from the smoldering wreck of her vehicle. Unfortunately her vehicle, being of irreputable make, decided to take the opportunity to go up in a burst of flames which caused her rescuers to drop her in surprise.

A foot must have landed where it shouldn't during the confusion, which would explain the boot marks on her neck.

 

[Kaferian]

@EarthScorpion Is Lefty hot?

 

[TenfoldShields]

Knowledge is power. Besides, if we find something really interesting, we can both increase our general profits AND later on "persuade" her to give us her property.

Click to shrink...

no it's not man, like you know who says that? hot librarians and academics who haven't got it up in twenty years. and rare books would i guess, if we let them out of their pens anymore. look point is: knowledge isn't power, power is power and that shop is full of it

now go nightstick this lady so we can all get rich

While normally I'd be in favor of the slow burn conspiracy build this is the pilot episode which means the audience isn't going to give a shit without a dastardly hook. Which means Murder or her cocktease of a sister Attempted Murder.

Click to shrink...

I'm in favour of our debut having us do nasty things to establish that yes, we are in fact the bad guys, but for maximum impact I'd rather go for Elimination than Acquisition.

Click to shrink...

Here's the thing though: a mugging? We can brush that under the table. It was a (probably black) drifter, someone from out of town, very tragic but what can you do? No leads turn up, no much the police can do, they're probably already in the wind. I mean they took her wallet so, odds are that it was just a robbery gone wrong. Which is what she said from her hospital bed.

'Cause lol, like she's going to shoot her mouth off about that. People are people and people can be brave but it's hard to be brave in a hospital bed when the dudes in the masks said that if you breathed a word they'd swing by your room in the dead of night. (Naturally she might fearfully whisper it to the protagonist though~).

Murder's an entirely different kettle of fish. And we don't exactly have the finesse or the talented manpower to make it look like a convincing accident (thugs yo, sure they have more brawn in their arms than you do in your legs but clever cover up they ain't). And cleaning up a murder scene and making it more or less go away is going to involve a lot of work, a lot of resources, and a lot pull with the police we don't necessarily have. It's an escalation I'm not sure we can or should meet. Protag and friends is one thing. Investigation by the local cops is another.

We have people in the civic government so with a mugging we can maybe like, y'know, have the Mayor make a speech about how we need to be on the look out for predatory probably black "criminal elements" and then start burbling on about his policy platform and the homeless. We don't have anyone in the police.

 

[changeling]

[X] Acquisition: She's a sham with no knowledge of the occult. On the other hand, her bookshop is built above a mystical leyline that Black Goat Excavations wants. Beat her so she's hospitalised, and we can purchase the site when she's forced to sell it off to pay her medical bills.
Asset: Several toughs who've been told not to kill her (3 dice)

Now, I am sure it's precisely what would rouse proactive group of teenage morons protagonist suspicion, especially if bookstore owner is beloved and very British quirky mentor figure. Nothing can go wrong!

Ps. and I pretty sure "she's a sham with no knowledge of the occult" will be redacted to "she is part of mysterious and occult do-gooders sisterhood" before episode 4.

 

[Havocfett]

[X] Acquisition:

I really like Tenfold's argument and think that jumping straight to Murder will have worse consequences if the roll fails than Acquisition will.

 

[GretelOstrich]

Besides, if we find something really interesting, we can both increase our general profits AND later on "persuade" her to give us her property.

Click to shrink...

I'm... not sure if it actually works like that? The way I see it, we're choosing between four version of Ms. Whatserface the Librarian Hemmington - "snoopy librarian", "hack witch", "librarian with weird contacts" and "creepy cat-murderer who works for us". Whichever version we choose is real and I wouldn't count on stuff that's true in one version being true in another, so if we pick Espionage, the ley line might've never been there, and if we choose Acquisition, she possibly never had any of those contacts.

...or at least that's my interpretation. >_>

Uh. Anyway. Vote change! Tenfold's argument is pretty convincing and I'm extremely indecisive and prone to sudden changes of opinions at slightest provocation a ley line seems like a pretty good immediate benefit, which is probably more important in the opening stages than the potential benefit that Espionage grants, so uh

[-] Espionage: Corporate believes that Ms Hemmington has certain rare book sellers as her contacts which may be useful to the company. By stealing her keys, we can get into her shop and get our hands on her address book.
Asset: 'Lefty', an ex-con petty thief on the payroll (he's also quite tough) (3 dice)

[X] Acquisition: She's a sham with no knowledge of the occult. On the other hand, her bookshop is built above a mystical leyline that Black Goat Excavations wants. Beat her so she's hospitalised, and we can purchase the site when she's forced to sell it off to pay her medical bills.
Asset: Several toughs who've been told not to kill her (3 dice)

 

[FunkyEntropy]

Here's the thing though: a mugging? We can brush that under the table. It was a (probably black) drifter, someone from out of town, very tragic but what can you do? No leads turn up, no much the police can do, they're probably already in the wind. I mean they took her wallet so, odds are that it was just a robbery gone wrong. Which is what she said from her hospital bed.

'Cause lol, like she's going to shoot her mouth off about that. People are people and people can be brave but it's hard to be brave in a hospital bed when the dudes in the masks said that if you breathed a word they'd swing by your room in the dead of night. (Naturally she might fearfully whisper it to the protagonist though~).

Murder's an entirely different kettle of fish. And we don't exactly have the finesse or the talented manpower to make it look like a convincing accident (thugs yo, sure they have more brawn in their arms than you do in your legs but clever cover up they ain't). And cleaning up a murder scene and making it more or less go away is going to involve a lot of work, a lot of resources, and a lot pull with the police we don't necessarily have. It's an escalation I'm not sure we can or should meet. Protag and friends is one thing. Investigation by the local cops is another.

We have people in the civic government so with a mugging we can maybe like, y'know, have the Mayor make a speech about how we need to be on the look out for predatory probably black "criminal elements" and then start burbling on about his policy platform and the homeless. We don't have anyone in the police.

Click to shrink...

Look, "Local bookstore owner roughed up by hobo" doesn't have nearly the same draw as, "Shopkeeper dies in tragic, mysterious circumstances." OK, yes, just roughing her up is probably the smarter thing to do but we're an evil corporation chock full of men in rubber monster suits. We've got to establish our evil creds and those mustaches aren't going to just twirl themselves.