DwD Studios

Warning: Spoilers for the module.

Dramatis Personae:

Neil: the outdoor survival expert (Scout)
Steve: the computer hacker extraordinaire (Tech)
Kir: half Russian, half Chinese (naturalized US Citizen) Trust Fund Baby (Academic)
Belinda: Ex Air Force MP, with a fair degree of intelligence experience (Detective)
Isabella: Israeli military sniper, with dual citizenship (Soldier)
Joe: Ex military courier who transported classified information (Pilot)
"John Smith": "My real name is classified." Infiltration expert (Thief)

A bit of further background on Kir: His father was an old school Russian aristocrat, who left Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union, (taking his fortune with him0 and moved to China, marrying a Chinese national (who is Kir's mother). The father was later assassinated by Putin's goons, as part of seizing as much of the family's wealth as possible. Kir (a young teenager at the time) and his mother fled to the US, with a significant part of the family fortune still intact. Kir has an Extravagant Lifestyle, but his mother actually controls the family money and he lives on a generous allowance. Because of the family's political connections, the mother is in the CIA's version of the Witness Protection program, and Kir, when he graduated from college, joined/was recruited by the CIA, being an ideal candidate in many ways (and they can protect him better than anyone, including the actual Witness Protection program). The 2nd part of Operation: Olympus Rising is on a 240 foot luxury yacht, during a charity fundraiser for an international charity. This is Kir's world.

The first attachment is the CIA's briefing summary of the charity, Children of Tomorrow. (I'm told it reads like a description of Bill Clinton's foundation, or Bill Gates'. This was not an accident.)

This was a remarkably nonviolent mission, for us. Fairly well planned, for us, as well.

The first step was figuring out how to get on to the yacht. Various plans were discussed, from SCUBA gear to HALO drops to bribing their way on to the security staff. In the end, they went with the obvious: Kir bought tickets for himself and his date, Isabella (who got do to a Sandra Bullock act from Miss Congeniality). Belinda as a personal assistant at no extra cost ("We are two people, that is a servant!"). Kir then called on a friend in Boston (His free contact is that he knows somebody pretty much everywhere who knows people. He can't call on them for action or equipment, or even really for information, the way you can a normal contact, but they'll know what's going in in the high society scene, and introduce you to people who can help you - if you can convince them to.) to find out who the catering company was. He then approached the catering company, and told them there had been several attempts on his life in recent years, and he wanted to bring his own chef and assorted serving staff along, with his own pre-prepared food, for everyone's safety. The catering company checked with the security company, who verified with Stavros' security people, and . . . the story checked out because it was 100% true. (That is one of two uses of a character's real identity as a cover ID in this scenario.) A large pile of cash (three month's worth of discretionary allowance for Kir - "I'll have to drive a Tesla, instead of this custom built 1200 hp sports car. Woe is me.") changed hands, and pretty much everybody but "John Smith," who had his own plan, was in.

John "My real name is classified" Smith, of the mysterious past, revealed to his teammates that he had served in the Coast Guard at some point in the past. Calling on CIA resources, he reactivated his real identity (by spending mission points on a Cover ID), and arrived at the yacht early in the day to perform a "surprise safety inspection." This surprised exactly no one in the crew, since it's a fairly routine game that lets the lucky Coastie attend a very expensive social event at no cost (the guy who won the competition among the actual Coast Guard station was very, very disappointed, but they really don't question orders from On High, when told it was a national security matter). This also gave him access to the entire ship, and it was actually expected that he fill out his (entirely real) inspection forms on his iPad as he did. They did not realize the camera was one as well, but the rest of the team knew exactly where they wanted to be before they left the dock.

When he discovered that most of the crew were female, the sailor in him came out, and the flirting began. In both directions, since they a) had reason to avoid annoying him, and b) actually kinda liked him. Smith spent the entire party being entertained, and entertaining, the female crew, and, coincidentally, finding out Stavros' plans for the yacht (and, to a degree, himself) for the next several months. There's a good chance he'll be able to remain in contact with one or more of the crew as the yacht travels the world, which is a more reliable way to track its movements than even a spy satellite.

Meanwhile, Kir was . . . the distraction. Everyone spend some time circulating, working the crowd, meeting interesting people. The most notable are in the second attachment, which is the summary from the CIA's (and FBI's) database, obtained after the party. Steve, who was supposed to be part of Kir's personal catering staff, managed to make Barry Franz, the Silicon Valley mogul, suspicious (because caterers normally do not use their laptops while working a gig), but Belinda rescued him by sending him off to serve the boss, then giving Barry the cold shoulder when he hit on her. (He is used to that.) Kir took a particular interest in Usam Vizirov, having a certain commonality of world view. I believe he intends to develop Vizirov into a contact, which Vizirov will not be entirely opposed to.

After dinner, Kir had one of his caterers bring out a century old bottle of vodka, and invited Chief Taylor to sample it. Chief Taylor, being the walking stereotype of the Irish Cop, in turn produced a bottle of Irish whiskey of comparable quality, and the serious drinking began, with Vizirov as the referee. Many people circulated by, for a sample, while Kir and the Chief determined that both could, indeed, hold their liquor.

Meanwhile, knowing that Stavros' office was on the top deck, and that there was a laptop on the desk there, Neil, the closest thing the team has to a second story man, slipped out to the edge of the 2nd deck and climbed to the top deck (making use of the Identity Change feature of his Agency Uniform), and slipped into the office easily. He was spotted by somebody, who notified security, who assumed he was a drunken git trying to impress a girl or something, and didn't expect any real trouble, but sent someone to investgate. Neil had several minutes alone in the office, and booted the laptop to a USB fob prepared in advance by Steve (from his Technician kit), which installed a root kit that would copy the entire drive to a remote CIA server, then delete itself and shut down the laptop. About this time, the security guard arrived and Neil makes excellent use of his "Agency Wristwatch" - really his cell phone - which has a poison dart (a tranquilizer) feature. The security guard fails his STR check, and falls unconscious. This is the only combat roll of the entire mission. He was found some time later, and security was stirred up, but his memory was a bit fuzzy, and a decision was made to not stir up the passengers. Hardly anybody (other than the team) noticed the paramedics arrive and escort him off to be checked over at the hospital.

Once the laptop is humming along, Neil climbs back down to the lower deck and rejoins the party as Kir's personal chef, and Steve monitors the progress for the rest of the evening. They all left around midnight, with an entirely successful mission.

(By all rights, I should probably have given Stavros and his people more chances to catch them in the act, but it was such an elegant plan, and they played it off perfectly, so I never got around to it.)

Between the two scenarios (this one and Burning Presidents), everyone had enough Development Points to achieve Rank 2 (I believe, in each case, by virtue of having Level 2 in Soldier, which would suggest how unusual it was for us to go anentire game session with only one combat roll), and the team now has a medic.

The third attachment is the summary of what the team of analysts figure out about Stavros' Industries, after several months of digging into the complete backups of both of Stavros' laptops (island and yacht) and the island's server room as well (which has all of the above-board financial information).

The last attachment is the GM's notes on the NPCs (so if you're one of my players - a couple have expressed interest in reading the mission reports here), please don't read that one. Or I may have to change it, and give them more equipment points with which to torment you.

My final rating on both these scenarios is about a 10 out of 10, and introductions to the Covert Ops game system. Both are well thought out, a little bit, but not too much, challenging for people still learning the system, with exactly the right amount of detail to keep the gamemaster on track, but with plenty of room to wing it as needed.

Next month, we'll be off to Vancouver, for the first mission built for these maniacs. It should involve the chase scene rules.