Part 47: 19:45-23:47: Game Night
Chapter 47: 19:45-23:47: Game Night
ARIST: [Challenging: Success] You’re still standing in place by the phone, still bleeding, still crying. Are you even sad? Or just angry? Maybe both. Maybe neither.
We pop some pills and heal up the 3 Health and 4 Morale damage we took in that taxing conversation.
ARIST: [Challenging: Success] You’re struggling just to walk after what just happened. You need a distraction, something to re-set your mind and get your detective instincts back on track.
Perfect.
SUZERAINTY: THE BOARD GAME: The cover features a charming illustration depicting a mass of grinning labourers loading goods onto a ship while a richly dressed administrator oversees their work.
SUZERAINTY: THE BOARD GAME: The box has a nice haft to it. You hear the rattle of individual wooden tokens and feel their weight shifting back and forth…
INLAND EMPIRE: [Medium: Success] What treasures wait in store for you?
SUZERAINTY: THE BOARD GAME: There’s a hiss as the lid slides off. Inside you find a thick, full-colour rulebook and more than a dozen pouches of various wooden components.
ARIST: [Medium: Success] See? You’re already feeling better.
SUZERAINTY: THE BOARD GAME: The colourful illustrations depict cheerful workers picking apricots, hauling marble sculptures out of crumbling temples, and harvesting a strange, magenta-leafed plant. Everyone is smiling.
SUZERAINTY: THE BOARD GAME: The instructions are opaque at first, and introduce many concepts you’re not familiar with. Fortunately, there are many diagrams and examples throughout…
SUZERAINTY: THE BOARD GAME: That’s where the suzerain’s vassals come in. The game features four vassal nations, each one home to an economically important resource… Each turn the player collects resources from vassals where they’ve placed worker. They may then rearrange their workers, fulfill contracts for coin and bonuses, or build structures back in Revachol…
SUZERAINTY: THE BOARD GAME: Each cardboard token makes a satisfying *chhhk* as you pop it out. Soon a neat pile of cardboard tokens and counters has accumulated before you.
SUZERAINTY: THE BOARD GAME: In addition to the worker and building tokens used by each player, there are also several piles of colourful resource tokens, each representing one of the game’s four principal resources… From the Empire of Safre: orange apricot tokens, From Ile Marat (the ancestral name of Iilmaraa): gray marble block tokens. From the Semenine Islands: white sacks of sugar tokens. And from Supramandi and Saramiriza: magenta tokens for unprocessed cocaine leaves.
SUZERAINTY: THE BOARD GAME: The lieutenant looks over the rulebook before he sees something that makes his eyes go wide… “Holy shit, the average playing time for this game is one to *six* hours… I’m not sure we can afford to set aside *that* kind of time for a *game*.”
KIM KITSURAGI: “Hmmm, I do feel like my thinking has become somewhat *rigid*. Maybe a little diversion to keep the mind limber is just what’s in order…”
SUGGESTION: See? He’s doing the hard work himself. All he needed was a little nudge…
SUZERAINTY: THE BOARD GAME: You explain the basic set up procedures to the lieutenant, who seems to be a quick study. You each take your bags of tokens and counters and unfold the board between you… In the centre is the crown of Revachol. Radiating outward are her colourful vassals, each one supplying some raw material desired by the suzerain… Apricots from Afre, archaeological treasures from Ile Marat, sugar from the Semenine Islands, and magenta cocaine from Supramundi and Saramizira… There’s also a neat little log to keep track of your progress, in case you need to put the game away and return to it later…
KIM KITSURAGI: The lieutenant goes first. He draws a contract card and moves several of his workers to the Safre territory of the board and the others to the Semenine Islands… “Alright, detective. Your turn.”
SUZERAINTY: THE BOARD GAME: You have a few options available to you: Will you try to fulfill contracts right away or rearrange your workers to maximize production on future turns?
SUZERAINTY: THE BOARD GAME: You draw a contract card offering a number of coins in exchange for archaeological treasures… You place all of your workers on the Ile Marat territory. On your next turn you produce six units of archaeological treasures and fulfill the contract for a handful of coins.
KIM KITSURAGI: “Not bad, detective.”
RHETORIC: [Easy: Success] But not good enough, the lieutenant seems to be saying.
KIM KITSURAGI: As he completes his own contract card, the lieutenant is rewarded with four coins and a round wooden token that he places in the centre of the board…
KIM KITSURAGI: “Come on, detective, don’t be a spoil sport. You’ll have plenty of chances to earn your own points.”
KIM KITSURAGI: The lieutenant shrugs. “There are some *paranoid* types who believe the Moralintern keeps detailed score sheets for everyone in the Reál Belt, but that’s obviously nonsense… Otherwise, no. There are no points, just your actions and the consequences of those actions.”
KIM KITSURAGI: “That’s just the way it is.” The lieutenant doesn’t seem to find much value in dwelling on the subject… “Now, I believe it’s your turn…”
SUZERAINTY: THE BOARD GAME: Glancing over the board, you see several possible strategies: Pressing more workers into service would increase your economic output and help you survive a possible conflict with the lieutenant, or you could ignore your labour supply and focus on fulfilling contracts for points and resources…
RHETORIC: [Medium: Success] Those aren’t your *only* options. You could also show your workers how much you appreciate them by *investing* some of that wealth in them. After all, they’re the ones *producing* wealth for the suzerain.
KIM KITSURAGI: “That’s up to you, detective. But remember, the objective of the game is to earn victory points for the suzerain…”
KIM KITSURAGI: “Because the way you earn points is by pleasing the suzerain, and the player with the most points wins the game.”
SUZERAINTY: THE BOARD GAME: Using your powers of ‘persuasion’ you ‘convince’ more workers to join your cause…
KIM KITSURAGI: “Take a look at the scoring table in the back…” The lieutenant turns to one of those appendices you skipped over earlier…
KIM KITSURAGI: “Yes, precisely.”
RHETORIC: [Medium: Success] Nonsense. Remember what the lieutenant said? If points are arbitrary, who cares about *winning*? You should reject their system and just play how you want.
KIM KITSURAGI: Now it’s the lieutenant’s turn to respond. He moves aggressively onto the Safre territory. Soon his workers are producing asteady supply of extremely valuable *apricots*…
SUZERAINTY: THE BOARD GAME: For several turns you struggle to respond to the lieutenant’s burgeoning apricot empire. Eventually you relocate the majority of your workers to Supramundi and Saramiriza, where they begin producing a bumper crop of cocaine tokens… You draw a new contract card. According to the text, there’s an aristocrat willing to trade a large supply of cocaine for a number of coins and access to a rare bonus: amplified music, worth *seven victory points*…
SUZERAINTY: THE BOARD GAME: Well, the suzerain was looking for new markets for all the cocaine it was producing, and it settled on Safre…
SUZERAINTY: THE BOARD GAME: Yes, you can. It’s right there in the rules…
AUTHORITY: Now’s your chance. Show the lieutenant what happens when he patronizes you.
This is my Breath of the Wild. Let’s do this.
KIM KITSURAGI: “Hrm….” The lieutenant’s face goes stony as you take your turn. He does not appreciate you getting all his workers addicted to cocaine…
SUZERAINTY: THE BOARD GAME: With each passing turn you slowly bleed the lieutenant of coins as his own workers become less productive and more dependent on your magenta cocaine tokens.
ARIST: [Medium: Success] Please stop calling it that, you know it’s wrong.
KIM KITSURAGI: “More or less,” the lieutenant says, but he’s thinking less about matters of historical wrongdoing than how to get out of the jam you’ve put him in… Realizing victory is slipping away, the lieutenant launches a desperate gambit: *Protectionism*. By erecting tariffs on your cocaine he hopes to starve you out of the market at the risk of incurring the suzerain’s disfavour…
SUZERAINTY: THE BOARD GAME: The endgame is upon you. Do you escalate the *trade war* with the lieutenant in hopes of crushing him with your economic might. Or do you ignore his aggression and focus on building the mighty *victory column* structure in Revachol herself? Alternatively, you could throw the whole game away by trying to build a *public education system* for the children of your workers…
SUZERAINTY: THE BOARD GAME: Building the ultimate structure requires diligent economic planning, which you completely failed to do… Rather than build a glorious monument to Revachol’s economic superiority, you have to settle for a handful of post offices and school for the blind.
KIM KITSURAGI: “That might have helped, yes… Now, let’s tally up the scores, shall we?”
SUZERAINTY: THE BOARD GAME: Computing the final scores is almost a game unto itself. You each spend an inordinate amount of time making stacks of coins, consulting tables, and struggling with basic addition and multiplication… After double- and then triple-checking your maths, you have your final score… Fifteen victory points. The suzerain will not be impressed.
KIM KITSURAGI: The lieutenant looks up from his tabulations. “I’ve got 26 points,” he says, a barely contained smile breaking out across his face… “Don’t be so glum, detective. There’s always next time. Figuratively, I mean. There’s no way we have time to play this game again… Now, let’s clean up and get back to work.”
ARIST: [Challenging: Success] Fuck, that didn’t help at all! Go read that Dick Mullen book, maybe that’ll get you back into the copping mood.
DICK MULLEN AND THE MISTAKEN IDENTITY: The cover features a pastiche of different scenes. In the foreground, a man in a dark overcoat clutches a pistol to his chest. Rising up behind him are two silhouettes wrapped in a passionate embrace. The tagline reads: “Detective Dick Mullen must prove his innocence after an old friend is murdered—by someone who looks just like Dick Mullen!” That seems to sum up the premise nicely.
ESPRIT DE CORPS: [Medium: Success] Needless to say it violates nearly every RCM regulation for a detective to investigate a murder in which he is a suspect.
DICK MULLEN AND THE MISTAKEN IDENTITY: The story opens with a knock at the door. Detective Dick Mullen is greeted by an old friend, Charlie Spillane, who’s come to Mullen to ask a favour on this dark and cold night… Spillane needs Mullen to drive him in from Vesper to a small town along the Insulindian coast. Despite his friend’s apparent agitation, Mullen does as he’s asked, then returns home where he passes out drunk, as he does most nights…
DICK MULLEN AND THE MISTAKEN IDENTITY: Two days later Mullen is arrested by the Vesper police and charged with the murder of Charlie Spillane. At his interrogation, Mullen learns that Charlie Spillane was shot in a bar in the very town Mullen dropped him off in, by a man matching *Mullen’s* description…
DICK MULLEN AND THE MISTAKEN IDENTITY:Secrets are the currency of human relations.
DICK MULLEN AND THE MISTAKEN IDENTITY: Deneuve reveals that she was Spillane’s lover, and that he was mixed up with a local amphetamine smuggling operation. As soon as Mullen begins pulling at strings, the whole conspiracy begins to unravel…
DICK MULLEN AND THE MISTAKEN IDENTITY: Outwardly, the old police captain is a real law-and-order crypto-fascist, a barrel-chested man who’s beaten his share of suspects to a pulp. But he’s also dirty, and increasingly paranoid that someone’s going to expose his role in the drug ring…
DICK MULLEN AND THE MISTAKEN IDENTITY: A typical privileged twat. In all likelihood, he’s just in over his head. He does bear a personal grudge against Spillane, though, a former prosecutor who nearly brought down his father’s administration…
DICK MULLEN AND THE MISTAKEN IDENTITY: Torvald the art collector is a strung-out mess. Frankly, it’s hard to imagine him holding a pistol steady enough to actually hit someone, let alone plug them three times in the chest the way old Spillane got did…
DICK MULLEN AND THE MISTAKEN IDENTITY: One evening, Deanna Deneuve comes to Mullen’s hostel room in tears. The two of them drink half a bottle of vodka, and soon they’re seeking comfort in each other’s arms…
ESPRIT DE CORPS: The main’s a prosecutor’s nightmare. Solving a murder counts for nothing if all the evidence gets thrown out in court over police misconduct.
DICK MULLEN AND THE MISTAKEN IDENTITY: As the two lovers share a post-coital cigarette, Deanna Deneuve turns to Mullen and says, “By the way, Dick, there was something else I meant to tell you…”
INLAND EMPIRE: [Medium: Success] “I love you”?
HAND/EYE COORDINATION: [Medium: Success] “Always aim for the centre of mass”?
KIM KITSURAGI: The lieutenant gives you a quizzical expression in return. You go back to the story.
DICK MULLEN AND THE MISTAKEN IDENTITY: Mullen trashes his blood-stained clothes and flees the hostel, knowing it’s only a matter of hours before the cops discover Deneuve’s body, if they haven’t been tipped off already…
ESPRIT DE CORPS: [Medium: Success] Fleeing a crime scene, destroying evidence… Even if Detective Mullen *didn’t* commit the murder, he should be facing *years* behind bars.
AUTHORITY: [Medium: Success] Dick Mullen won’t be sent to the clink for the sake of some *legal niceties*!
DICK MULLEN AND THE MISTAKEN IDENTITY: The heat is on! If Dick Mullen can’t solve both murders before the cops catch up to him, he’s going away for life…
DICK MULLEN AND THE MISTAKEN IDENTITY: For a moment you cease to read the story on the page and see the book for what it is, a collection of brittle, cheaply printed pages, held together by glue made from the hooves of horses…
DICK MULLEN AND THE MISTAKEN IDENTITY: Just make sure you don’t lose him. You’ll not find another like him…
ESPRIT DE CORPS: [Medium: Success] It’s true in more ways than you know.
DICK MULLEN AND THE MISTAKEN IDENTITY: What? That doesn’t even make sense. There’s never a straight answer with you, is there? You just get hooked on random stupid notions and then repeat them every chance you get.
DICK MULLEN AND THE MISTAKEN IDENTITY: You begin furiously flipping through pages. Even as you know these books follow a series of well-worn tropes, you find yourself completely engrossed. You’re turning pages so fast you don’t even notice the ancient spine coming unglued…
REACTION SPEED: [Impossible: Failure] You try to grab the pages as they come loose but your fingers aren’t quick enough… they’re gone.
(That passive Reaction Speed check may actually be literally impossible. You need a score of twenty to pass it)
KIM KITSURAGI: “Too bad, detective. If it’s any consolation, the resolution is almost never very satisfying… And on that note, perhaps we should get back to making sense of our own case?”
ARIST: [Formidable: Success] Well… fuck. That didn’t work. Failing to unravel the tapestry of Dick Mullen has you in a worse mood than ever. Just go solve the case, I guess.