Red Markets: A Game of Economic Horror

301 The Market asks if the crew has a blood testing kit they want to use. They do not. So the Market rolls in secret and is about to add Teapot’s STR... but the dice land B7/R7. Turns out the lucky bastard is naturally Latent and didn’t know it! The Market smiles – just to fuck with ‘em – and play continues. They’ll need to have packed a blood test if they want the results. Meanwhile, the Takers just made a lot of noise. Neither rifle had a silencer, so the Market starts coming up with new mass and Shamble ratings for the two loud weapons used. Let’s hope Teapot’s gratitude protects Killy from the 3 mass/7 Shamble mob about to break through the barricade at their back and the 4 mass/4 Shamble coming through a window from outside. She better get that door open soon.... But then the Market describes Teapot’s screams as a wave of black veins begin crawling up his neck. The players cuss, aware of what’s happened. Even on a success, Teapot’s Humanity would be damaged enough by the agony of turning Latent to take a Trauma Regret. The character drops to the ground, crippled by pain as the Market begins rolling to tally up Kill damage inflicted by the sinew. Now Killy needs to figure out what do. She can drag her seizing, infectious partner down the hall and try to pick the lock before the casualties pouring inside eat them. Or she can try to ignore the sounds of Teapot being eaten and get back to work. LootIng The Undead Casualties never carry anything of worth beyond a bounty or two. To make matters worse, not everyone fled the Crash carrying a wallet, and fewer still have managed to keep it in their grimy pockets in five years of wandering the Loss. For jackpots — like a deceased father carrying all his family’s important documents — crews have to hack through dozens of “blanks” that aren’t worth and end the combat. It’s a badass check, but her request to spray is denied. The mob is in melee range and extra rounds might hit Teapot; all Shoot checks require precision when firing into melee. Still, the mob is down to 3 mass and Teapot has a better chance than he did before. Since he declared he was going full offense, Teapot uses his twitch to attack as well (second attacks move to the end of the initiative order, but humans do everything faster than casualties). He buys-a-roll and gets B10+2/R3. Sweet. He spends his last three charges to spray again. Two more casualties go down in a guillotine of bullets, but then the rifle clicks empty (Teapot’s player was keeping track of charges; one spent on the failure and four spent on the success with a spray ate the rest of his magazine. He’ll have to use a point of ADP to refresh). One Shamble is within striking range for Melee and Unarmed attacks. The last remaining member of the mob goes into frenzy and reaches for Teapot. Since the character has no more actions left, the Market assumes a hit and rolls for damage: B1/R4. The Market describes the casualty tripping over the pile of dead and landing first in Teapot’s left thigh, biting through the pants and breaking skin. It’s only one Kill damage to the leg, but it might be enough. The Market calls for a Self-Control check against the Trauma threat; Teapot is not Immune and could be infected. He’s got a +1 Self-Control. The dice land B3+1/R9. Suck! That’s 2 Humanity damage to Trauma, but thankfully just shy of a Regret. Teapot decides this has to end. He uses his twitch to quick draw, dropping the empty rifle and unsheathing his machete. He can’t dodge anymore, but he won’t have to if he kills the last casualty before its next attack. Teapot spends a charge of rations to buy a Melee attack as his tactic. He gets B1+1/R2. Whiff. Killy sees her opportunity and buys another shot. She scores B10+3/R4. The creature’s head explodes with its teeth inches away from Teapot’s groin.

302 Stampedes As far as the narrative is concerned, encountering a stampede is not an enemy so much as a natural disaster. Stampedes are huge masses of casualties heading towards a single food source. Stampedes carry numbers that would be suicide to oppose. Most groups are content to call the number of undead in a stampede “too many” and plan from there. Stampede Mass (Black): Mass is measured by a factor of 10. That means that a B3/R2 stampede has mass of thirty casualties. Unless the players have fully automatic weapons firing explosive rounds, the only real option is to run. One successful attack by a stampede follows almost exactly the same rules for mobs: add +1 for every additional casualty (in the previous example, this would be 1d10 +29 Kill damage) or make a knockback test. In the case of the latter, knockback from a stampede can’t be resisted. the bullet that put them down. Looting casualties is therefore a little different than as laid out in the Combat chapter (see “Looting the Dead” p. 289). Here’s how things differ. • Casualties only carry bounty; nothing else. If the Takers succeed their Scavenging check, the natural Black is how much bounty was located amongst all the zombies in the mob, limited by the mass of the mob. • Casualties are looted as mobs; not as individuals. So if the crew put down a mob of 10 and a mob of 1, they could make two Scavenging checks (using two PCs). They couldn’t make 11 Scavenging checks, or two Scavenging checks each 11 times. • Critically failing a Scavenge check on the undead means one of two things: one of them is still alive, or one of them had something sharp — and infectious — in its pockets.

303 Vectors At-a-Glance The main rules for Vectors are... • Murder Modifier: Equals the Vector’s inlife SPD; affects their undead movement and strength in addition to equaling their Advantage (Red bonus) in checks against PCs and on skill checks declared against the Vector. • Fast: Vectors can move their Murder modifier in shambles per round . • Strong: All successful Vector attacks add the murder modifier to damage, in addition to dealing knockback. • Psychological Warfare: Fresh Vectors (those turned within the last few hours) scream “apologies” that cause Self-Control checks in all who hear them. • Hard to Kill: Vectors are harder to damage than casualties. - Turning Vector heals/ignores all previous wounds. - If the Vector started as a random NPC, headshots kill it instantly (via called shots or lucky hits). Otherwise, the Vector’s total hit points have to be depleted as if it were a management-level Market force. - If the Vector started as a PC, the Vector has the same hit locations. All boxes in the torso or head have to be filled to kill the creature. The Vector cannot bleed out. - Killing a Vector with anything but a headshot sends it into torpor. It will rise again as a casualty in a few days. - Latents that “go Vector” can only be killed with headshots. • Hot Strain: Vectors are more infectious than casualties. - Victims of a casualty bite turn in a matter of hours or days. Vector bites cause transformation in a matter of turns equal to the Red of the failed infection check. Stampede Shamble (Red): Stampedes stumble and claw against each other in such away that they achieve a momentum greater than their typical shuffle. All stampedes reduce 2 shambles per turn instead of 1. There are also so many casualties that the term “wave” might be more appropriate. If a Taker misses a chance to dodge a mob, they can still wrestle free in the next round. This is not the case with stampedes. After the first missed Athletics check, the horde encircles the victim and escape becomes impossible unless the poor soul can reach a ladder, stairs, or door. If the players encounter a stampede of Vectors... something has gone terribly, terribly wrong. The PCs should be too worried about getting the hell away to care about the horde’s statistics. Vectors Vectors are freshly infected humans hijacked by the Blight’s hot strain, but not yet killed by it. The contagion controls their minds by ramping up all sorts of violent hormonal responses and excising certain sections with quickly forming viral sinews. The infected person hemorrhages from every orifice as the contagion begins seeding the body with its parasitic nervous system. The process is agonizing, but by the time it starts, the victim has already become a frothing killing machine. For more on Vectors in the setting, check out “The History of the Crash” (p. 32). For a more condensed description of how the hot strain works, read this chapter’s entry on “Infection” (p. 305). Thankfully, there aren’t many Vectors left five years after the Crash. Currently, most derive from a Latent dying or a new infection. But one “freshy” can create a thousand inside of an hour. They’re stronger, faster, and more durable than any human, and the Blight is more infectious than ever in its live state. Vectors are one of the most serious threats a Taker can ever face.

304 also climb walls, dodge obstructions, sprint up stairs, and work door handles. The murder modifier places Vectors in the initiative order. For instance, if a Latent with a SPD 3 turns, the resulting Vector starts with an initiative of 1d10+3 (an initiative check + the murder modifier). The character’s initial place in the order doesn’t matter; it’s recalculated after the person transforms. Strong If within one Shamble of a Vector, failed Athletics checks cause Kill damage like any other casualty, but the damage is increased by the murder modifier. Additionally, all Vector attacks have knockback. They plow into victims like linebackers. Damage goes to the same hit location as the Red, and infection checks follow. For instance, imagine Scapegoat is fighting a Vector with a murder modifier of +2. Scapegoat attacks with his +2 Shoot, but that skill bonus is negated by the murder modifier. The dice land B1+0/R9 for a miss. Next, the Taker spends his twitch and uses Athletics to dodge, but his +3 bonus gets whittled to a +1 by the murder modifier. Scapegoat rolls and gets B4+1/R6. Instead of the usual 4 Kill damage to the chest, he takes 6 Kill damage (+2 from the murder modifier). There’s also a knockback effect, and Scapegoat has no actions to spend on a Resistance check. He’ll start the next round pinned by the frothing cannibal, and that’s before he even knows if he’s infected or not. PsychologIcal Warfare Though the terrifying transformation of infection seems instantaneous enough, it is not. The brain of the victim does not die all at once. Eventually, the sinews worming through their frontal lobe destroy any reason left in the brains, but this doesn’t happen fast enough. Those recently turned scream in panic and terror while eating their loved ones, lucid and able to watch. The language centers break early, but not so fast that a few pleas for mercy Fast The brain imposes limits on human strength via the central nervous system. Anatomically, humans can wield savage power only slightly less than that of wild apes, but developmental priority is given to our cerebral growth, which means our structurally similar musculature is much more prone to strain and tear. Certain extreme situations and drugs can generate enough adrenaline to bypass the limits that pain places on human strength, but by and large, one of humanity’s greatest evolutionary adaptations is the way our nervous system can stop exertion before it reaches dangerous levels. The Blight doesn’t care. The first thing the infection dismantles is the central nervous system’s protections against muscle stress. The early stages of Vector creation are almost miraculous – the lame walk, the mute scream, the feeble flex – but they do so through an agony they can’t escape. When Vectors sprint at a victim, they are snapping the tendons in their glutes and quadriceps to do so. When they bite, cracked teeth and unhinged jaws do nothing to stop the feeding frenzy. Vectors don’t have superpowers; they’re just humans without the brakes. In the game, this means that Vectors are faster, stronger, and more resilient than seems possible. Vectors have a “murder modifier” equal to their in-life SPD. For Market Forces that were never completely stated out, the Market can default to whatever SPD is appropriate. When rolling against a Vector, add the murder modifier to the Red every time, or deduct it from the player’s skill modifier and spends. This is equivalent to the “trained” advantage mentioned in the combat chapter (see p. 292). Vectors move a number of Shambles per round equal to their murder modifier. A Vector’s sprint is slowed by one Shamble for every hit it takes that round, but only for that round. Blows don’t affect the murder modifier in the long term, but a shotgun blast to the leg can still make the thing stumble. They can

305 damage. Latents going Vector are even worse – turned Latents are technically casualties without the limitations of rigor and rot; only a headshot takes them down. To survive Takers must adopt the same panicked fear and rage fueling the monster. Spend big, spend quickly, and leave nothing in reserve, or join the blood-vomiting hordes. Hot StraIn Finally, if all goes wrong and a Vector infects somebody, things get much worse. Failing an infection check against the hot strain means the Blight is already in the midst of exponential replication. There is no unpredictable phase between infection and symptoms; there may not be time to use a blood test, even if the crew has one in reserve. The victim turns into a Vector in a number of rounds equal to the Red on the infection check. This means that, if bitten by a Vector, there may not be time to use a blood test, even if the crew has one in reserve. Hard choices have to be made to stop a hot outbreak. InfectIon If a character isn’t already Latent or Immune, they must make a check against infection whenever they receive Kill damage from a casualty, Vector, or Aberrant. This is one of the few times the Market rolls dice in secret. The Market makes a check, adding the character’s STR to the Black. If the character was wise enough to bring a blood testing kit, the player can make a check instead, and WILL can be used to shift results. But no matter who rolls the dice, the modifiers and results stay the same. On an infection check: • If the Red is higher than Black + STR, the character is infected. • If Black + STR is higher than Red, the character is uninfected. • If it’s a critical failure, the character is naturally Latent. • If it’s a critical success, the character is Immune. don’t break through the cannibal screams. These are called “apologies.” Vector apologies are terrifying for everyone. It’s a constant reminder of the fate awaiting everyone who survived the Crash. When a character hears a Vector apologize, it calls for a Self-Control check against either Detachment (if witnessed from a safe distance) or Trauma (if threatened by the Vector), regardless of mental fortitude. The Market may call for more severe checks if the Vector was once a friend or lover. The sorrow and guilt of having to kill a family member can make anyone hallucinate guilty rebukes inside an unintelligible scream. The Market can roleplay these cries directly or they can describe the screams of the damned and ask the player what their character hears in the cries. Characters that have been Vectors for a few hours but have yet to die don’t shout apologies; they are entirely lost to the Blight. Hard to KIll If a Vector started as a Market force with a simple pool of hit boxes, turning effectively “heals” all wounds. Since Vectors are still technically alive, all hit boxes in the torso or head must be filled up before the creature goes down. This means aiming center mass can still be effective, at least in the short term. However, a Vector felled by body shots is just a casualty waiting for the torpor to end. Destroying the brain is the only way to keep a zombie down for good. Called shots and headshots bypass any hit pools and provide instant kills, as is tradition of the genre. Just remember that the murder modifier is going to be making that precision check all the more difficult. If a PC is the Vector, things get that much worse. The player passes his newly doomed character to the Market. The Market plays the character as a Vector, healing all hit boxes and factoring in any worn armor. Slaying the former friend requires filling all hit boxes in either the torso or head with killing damage. Called shots no longer work as instant kills. Worse still, bleed out doesn’t contribute to the

306 While the end result is not in question, the speed at which they occur depends on which creature did the infecting. The rates of transmission are detailed in order of their commonality. 'Cold' BItes: CasualtIes and Latents If the infection is from a casualty bite, transformation into a Vector happens at a dramatically appropriate time, according to the Market’s whims. The Blight takes time to resurrect into its living state after transferring into a living host, and the wildly differing time period between becoming infected and turning symptomatic remains a major obstacle to understanding the disease. Markets could roll a die and decide that the victim turns in that number of minutes, hours, or days. Or they could just wait until the worst possible moment and spring it on the players. The unpredictability of the time it takes a casualty to make a Vector – and the uncertainty as to whether or not the character is infected at all – should do a lot of damage to the entire crew’s Humanity. Since Latents are infected by the “undead” version of the Blight as well, accidentally or intentionally becoming infected by one works the same as a casualty bite. 'Hot' BItes: Vector and Aberrant If the infection is caused by a Vector or Aberrant, the change occurs in a number of combat turns equal to the Red of the infection check. Blight is already in the active state when transferred from these more deadly creatures, and the rapid transformation of their victims is what made the Crash so deadly. This doesn’t mean that the wait time between infection and symptoms is any less damaging to Humanity; the anxiety just doesn’t last as long. Latents: 'Take a Shot or Take the ShOT' Taking Supressin K-7864 before the Blight resurrects into the hot strain makes the character Latent. Even if they were not actually infected by initial contact with the Speed of InfectIon Though multiple types of zombies exist in Red Markets, the characters will likely only witness people turning into Vectors. The lifecycle of the Blight is explained more in-depth in the “History of the Crash” p. 55. But for now, the takeaway is that a freshly infected person can only turn into Vector, not a casualty. Though incurable cannibalistic monsters, Vectors are still technically alive. Stopping the heart of a Vector kills it, but only if the blow fills every hit box in the torso. Vectors can also die from exposure, starvation, and dehydration, but only when those circumstances would also kill the most hormonally-flooded human imaginable, such as a psychotic in the midst of PCP binge. The death of a Vector, without a destruction of the brain stem, is impermanent. Shooting a victim full of holes only accelerates torpor: the period in which the Blight, now distributed throughout the body, begins forming the sinews that allow it to preserve and puppet a corpse’s musculature. The dead body of a former Vector eventually rises as a slowmoving casualty. Though these creatures now make up the majority of the Loss’s inhabitants, each was once a Vector. Abberants...well, no one knows where Abberants come from. This means that it’s never a matter of what an infected PC turns into eventually: the remaining crew will have to dispatch their former friend or be killed long before another stage of infection can develop. Bust: God’s BlIght In this variant, a Taker’s health has no effect on the Blight. The disease is totally inscrutable, and luck is the only determiner of who survives. Check Black/Red, but add nothing. Critical failures still mean latency and critical success still mean immunity, but the results of exposure are based only on blind chance.

307 A character becoming Latent must immediately make a level-4 Self-Control check against the Trauma threat. If the Humanity damage doesn’t result in a Regret, the Taker can still manage to move, despite the agony. If they do suffer a Regret, the character is incapacitated by the sensation of razor wire crawling underneath the skin. The Market should also treat the event as if a loud weapon was fired – the screams don’t stop. The sight of black veins coursing throughout the afflicted’s extremities causes Self-Control checks in all present. Finally, the Market rolls 1d10 Kill damage for every hit location on the Latent and inflicts the damage to each limb separately. It’s entirely possible for Latents to bleed out or die as they are riddled by Blight sinew. In fact, it’s a common occurrence. Medically trained Takers nearby can administer aid, mediating damage and sedating the patient. But, of course, any exposure to the Latent risks secondary infection, so assisting is not without its risks. If Latents die, they technically become a casualty as the viral sinew “wakes up.” However, since the transformation occurs immediately after brain death, the body has no rigor mortis or decomposition to slow it down. Effectively, treat such foes as Vectors in terms of strength and ability. Immune and UnInfected Characters only learn if they are naturally Immune one of four ways: • Use an upgraded blood test at the sight of infection, directly after exposure • Undergo extensive and sophisticated lab testing • Suffer an exposure to the Blight so severe that immunity is the only explanation for survival • Take Supression K-7864 to no effect Thousands of Immunes aren’t aware of their own gifts because, to test for the condition, both Blight cells and Immune blood undead, injecting K-7864 results in the condition anyway. Latents may also occur naturally, due to some unpredictable flaw in Blight’s genetic code that occasionally prevents its typical resurrection into the hot strain. Whether a character uses drugs or becomes Latent naturally, the effects of latency occur immediately, even faster than Vector infection. The cold strain – which constantly reengineers human flesh into the parasitic nerve tissue and musculature referred to as Blight sinew – assumes that the body of a Latent is merely a cadaver that has yet to be converted. The process of torpor begins immediately, but rather than causing a long-dead corpse to seize and slowly reanimate, the victim is alive and aware, their mind undamaged. As a Latent’s flesh is rent asunder from the inside and rearranged into invasive, alien tissue, they can feel the entire thing.

308 bitten, and fear is enough to mimic infection psychosomatically up to a certain point. Early InfectIon: Placebo Effects and Real SIgns Those infected by casualties show few outwardly visible signs. The Blight’s resurrection from the undead, “cold” cells into the hemorrhagic, “hot” strain of Vectors is slow, invisible, and little understood. Symptoms only manifest once the fully resurrected cells begin attacking the brain, killing and coopting neural tissue in preparation for housing a central ganglia of viral sinews in the brainstem. Once this process begins, the infected person has minutes before transformation. At most. Internally, the viral replication of hot Blight starts in the frontal cortex and replicates at a rate utterly unprecedented in the scientific record. Meanwhile, more sophisticated, specialized cells similar to prions differentiate and hijack the endocrine system, flooding the victim with a variety of stress hormones. A certain percentage of the new Blight cells produced by metabolizing the brain tissue of the victim redouble the attack on the mind, but the majority become “seeder” cells and disperse among the tissues via the circulatory system. These heretofore-unclassifiable microorganisms serve no function until the victim’s death, at which point they activate and begin converting dead tissue into Blight sinew. Externally, sweats and tremors characterize the early stages. There have been reports of high-grade fevers developing as well, but such claims could be apocryphal. Common wisdom holds that strange urges, hallucinations, and a tendency to slur or stutter speech precedes the first violent outbursts by a few moments, but the degree to which these symptoms can be explained by the extreme stress of the situation cannot be known. Suicidal ideation correlates strongly with infection, though selftermination is arguably the sanest reaction. TransformatIon: TurnIng Takers Into Monsters At this point, any infected PCs lose control of their characters if they’ve yet to inject Supressin K-7864. must be in contact at the exact moment of analysis. An absence of reaction is the only reliable indicator of the condition discovered by science. Standard blood tests produce false positives for immunity too easily, as many escape infection for entirely mundane reasons. Older casualties tend to dry out, losing the majority of the black preservative ooze that leaks from the Blight’s sinews. Some bites just don’t exchange enough fluids to infect a person. Or wounds may not have come from a casualty at all, but close encounters can drive anyone with broken skin to paranoia. In fact, the Blight’s head games killed far more Immunes than the zombies did during the initial outbreak. The Crash was the single most terrifying event in human history, and almost everyone got to witness the Blight dismantling someone they loved. Exposure to undead fluids has a powerful placebo effect, and a panicked mind can manufacture many of the symptoms indicating pre-Vector transformation. The only way to know for certain is to wait for the change, but people usually start putting guns-to-temples long before then. Regardless of whether a character is Immune, uninfected, or waiting to turn, the Market should describe the same set of bodily changes to keep the entire group paranoid. DescrIbINg Symptoms Narratively, what happens when someone begins to turn? Well, if the character is Latent, Markets should read “Latents” on p. 306 for a description of events. If the crew has a blood test, administer it and make the infection check. For everyone else, use the following description to narrate a character’s symptoms. Make sure every PC that was exposed experiences these symptoms – regardless of whether they’re actually infected or not. Five years after the Crash, everyone is aware of the horror awaiting the

309 Around the time bleeding begins, owing to widespread damage, hormonal imbalance, or some yet-to-be understood from of parasitic behavioral modification, hosts lose all control and begin attacking the nearest living creature. Cannibalistic urges may not yet be present at this phase, but the overwhelming, psychotic aggression of Vectors means that biting remains common. Language centers still survive, which leads to the disturbing “apologies” as the condemned attack. Thankfully, the Blight’s severe neural abrasion continues until only the victim’s autonomic functions remains, so this period of nightmarish awareness ends after brain death. For characters infected directly by the hot strain (through Vector or Aberrant exposure), the symptoms begin here after the randomly rolled number of rounds passes. Either way, placebo effect is no longer a possibility once the transformation reaches this stage. As damage to the brain increases exponentially, effects become more pronounced. Victims may scream or clutch at themselves, though a sudden onset of catatonia has also been observed. Spasms and seizures set in seconds later. The disease begins secreting a new form of extreme anticoagulant into the bloodstream – currently theorized as a means of embedding seeder cells deeper into host tissue – and this development leads to hemorrhagic symptoms. The victim vomits, defecates, urinates, perspires, and/or cries blood.

310 directions? Mental illness deprives people of support services, relationships, and relief even as it increases the likelihood of emotional trauma from every source. This isn’t to say that this game seeks to simulate reality on any level. Red Markets is a horror game, and in horror fiction, the world breaks characters’ minds as well as bodies. But while Takers may “go insane,” it’s got nothing to do with their genes and everything to do with the Loss. The supernatural terror of the undead gets added to the scraping dread of capitalism. Characters are as likely to snap under the pressures of crushing debt as they are to lose it while fighting monsters. The sleepless horror of living on the edge can wear down any human. Letting go of some of that vulnerable Humanity is sometimes the only way to survive. Hardening oneself against the constant assault of the Loss can work for a little while, but everyone breaks eventually – great HumanIty The last few decades of mental health research reveal that biology and chemistry bear more responsibility for mental illness than we ever thought possible. RPGs depict fantastic worlds and part of that escapism is the comforting notion that mental illness can be prevented by behavior, just like washing hands lowers chances of the flu. In reality, much madness is in the blood and it will take those of us it so chooses. But, if any part of insanity is communicable – a malady of nurture as well as nature –, then there could be no better home for the infection than poverty. Socioeconomic status is correlated with mental illness, especially anxiety and depression. The question of whether insanity causes poverty or vice versa is a false dichotomy: why have it one way when we could be getting screwed from both

311 if they did, no survivor of the Crash is healthy enough to stand in judgement of someone else’s crazy. Collectively, a Taker’s mental health is referred to as their Humanity. It rates the Taker’s remaining ability to stay a person, or imitate the person they used to be. Mechanically, a Taker’s mental health is tracked along three threats to Humanity: Detachment, Trauma, and Stress. Threats measure the common ways the Loss can scrape away at a Taker’s well being. When something in the game threatens Humanity, the Market calls for a Self-Control check against a certain threat. If the check succeeds, the character holds it together. If it fails, the PC takes damage in that threat. There’s more on the type of Self-Control checks the Market can call for on p. 312. For now, let’s talk specifically about the three threats and what they represent. mountains of strength worn into sand by the constant, rhythmic waves of madness. The business of Takers is not about staying healthy; that’s never going to happen. It’s about getting out before the point of no return. The Threats to HumanIty Humans are defined by what they do beyond the work of survival. But life in the Loss doesn’t leave much time for anything beyond the bottom line. Drowning pain in drugs, cutting ties with risky relationships, expecting betrayal at every turn – these are all essential survival mechanisms in the Carrion Economy. But past a certain point, the act of staying alive becomes all consuming, and the Taker no better than an animal. Out on the edge, these personality shifts don’t have a name. Few enclaves have doctors trained to diagnose and treat them and, even

312 when a character finds the pantry bare. It attacks when a spouse in the Recession stops returning emails. It strikes as the price for supplies rises and the time between paydays stretches. Stress measures the everyday bullshit of trying to get by and get out of this nightmare; it’s the many straws that break a back. Real-world ailments related to the Stress threat are panic attacks, obsessive behaviors, and other symptoms of anxiety disorders. Other terms Regrets refer to moments when a character loses control from taking too much Humanity damage in a single Threat. Regrets are so named because there’s no taking them back. Once a character suffers a Regret, their Humanity can never heal below that point again. Characters suffer regrets for every five points of Humanity lost in a single track – once all the boxes in a track fill up, the regret occurs and all boxes to the left of the regret are permanently filled for that threat. There are three levels of Regret: cracks, crumbles, and breaks. Each level has three choices as to how the player wants to roleplay that Regret. There’s more on taking Regrets later in the chapter (p. 313). Self-Control Checks The Market calls for Self-Control checks when something particularly disturbing, shocking, or horrific happens in the game. In addition to calling for a Self-Control check, the Market names the threat. In general, threats correspond to the following events. • Detachment: witnessing or inflicting pain upon teammates, loved ones, and other humans. • Trauma: experiencing personal injury or illness; fear of the same • Stress: suffering financial and professional setbacks; anxiety over persistent problems; fear of the same Detachment Detachment threatens the ability to connect meaningfully with other humans and, eventually, to one’s own self-concept. Everybody lost somebody in the Crash, and people have been betraying and backstabbing each other ever since in fearful, misguided attempts to save what’s left. It can be hard for experienced Takers to find relationships worth the risk anymore. When new friends are nothing more than future appointments with pain, why make the effort? Many don’t even find themselves worthy of love after the things they’ve had to do to survive. Real-world ailments related to the Detachment threat are depression, blunted affect, and antisocial behavior. Trauma Trauma occurs when characters suffer from a violent act or the fear of violence to come. The threat damages the ability to overcome fear and maintain perspective in survival situations. The Blight encouraged acts of violence unheard of in human history. Survivors of these events have suffered physical and emotional pain for which the preCrash world left them completely unprepared. Takers that survive life-threatening injuries and agony must often volunteer to repeat the experience, but such wounds take their toll even after the flesh heals. Collect enough scars and healthy caution gives way to paranoia, phobia, and delusion. Real-world ailments related to the Trauma threat are post-traumatic stress disorder and various phobias. Stress Stress harms a character’s ability to stay cool and resist panic in the face of prolonged struggles. Stress is affected by nearly everything, including the other two threats, but the Stress threat is primarily about the grind. The bad luck of seeing a loved one get ill (Detachment) or suffering a major injury (Trauma) can cause Stress in extreme cases, but the Stress threat is most dangerous

313 • Detachment: watch a Dependent or teammate die as a result of your failures; kill in cold blood • Trauma: fight an Aberrant, stampede, massive Vector outbreak, or other supernatural event pulled straight from a nightmare • Stress: Lose all your gear in the middle of a mission; find yourself unable to pay back a loan shark Level-4 Checks: Success still does two damage to the threat; failure destroys four Humanity in the threat. At this point, only the hardest and most privileged Takers can avoid succumbing to a Regret. • Detachment: kill someone you know in cold blood; allow dozens to die through inaction • Trauma: get caught in an enclave or settlement wide outbreak; lose control of your own body • Stress: sever a Dependent as a result of your inability to fulfill responsibilities; lose everything in a bad investment. Unless the Market says otherwise, assume all Self-Control checks are at the “Level-1” difficulty. The Market has no obligation to say how much Humanity damage is riding on a check until after the check is made. Regrets When a Taker suffers five or more Humanity damage in a single threat, they take a Regret. On the character sheet, this means a Regret occurs the second the bar is filled, NOT when it goes over. Regrets are moments where the facade of toughness breaks down and characters reveal just how much the Loss has worn them down. A Regret is a loss of control that puts the Taker, their teammates, and the success of the contract in danger. The player, on the other hand, still has some options when it comes to roleplaying the Regret, which we will go into momentarily. Finally, Markets can increase the difficulty of the check depending upon the severity of the event. There are four levels of difficulty. For simplicity’s sake, they are referred to by the amount of Humanity damage that might be done. If the Market needs even more severe levels of Self-Control checks, the general rule is that a successful check can’t mitigate more than two points of Humanity damage at any time: it pays to be mentally tough, but Takers are still only human. Level-1 Checks: Success does no damage, but failure costs one Humanity in the threat. Here are some examples of appropriate difficulty on each threat: • Detachment: watch helplessly as some horrible crime is inflicted on your fellow man • Trauma: see a deadly threat coming for you, such as near-miss gunfire or casualties on the march; suffer physical pain • Stress: be forced to borrow money from your crew to meet upkeep or fail to meet financial goals like projected earnings (see “Upkeep: Paying the Bills” p. 223) Level-2 Checks: Success does no damage, but failure costs two Humanity in the threat. • Detachment: lose faith in a teammate (certain Regrets suffered by other players can be interpreted as betrayal, such as a personal addiction putting everyone in danger); watch a Dependent suffer for your failures • Trauma: get seriously injured; get (possibly) infected by the Blight • Stress: make no profit from a job; lose a vital piece of equipment; withdraw from the retirement plan to make upkeep Level-3 Checks: Success does one damage to a threat; failure costs three Humanity in the threat. Things are so bad that no one, even the hardest among the group, is going to ever be the same.

314 disappears. The character can take more damage in that threat later, but any excess Humanity loss is soaked up until the Regret is fully played out. 6. Characters that take a Regret at the break-level are removed from the game. The player still gets a choice in how their player goes out, but the character is so emotionally shattered that they become an NPC. Regret Levels There are three levels of Regret, each referring to facade of normalcy Takers have to cling to get through the day: cracks, crumbles, and breaks. Cracks refer to momentary lapses of control. These perfectly understandable reactions to extreme hardship are no less dangerous for being sympathetic. Cracks are short, in-the-moment behaviors that put the Taker and crew at greater risk. A Taker can recover as soon as the next scene, but the crew must forever have to wonder if they can rely on that person in the next crisis. Crumbles refer to persistent, debilitating personality flaws that develop from prolonged exposure to the Loss. Crumble Regrets aren’t immediate, but they are constant. Markets call for Self-Control checks against past crumbles once per game. On a failure, the player must choose to take additional Humanity damage or indulge in unfortunate behavior that very moment. This consistently puts contracts and crew at risk. Other Takers watching friends crumble know it is just a matter of time before the person snaps completely. Breaks remove characters from the game. The Taker just can’t handle it anymore and is removed from play. How this occurs is up to the player. Regardless, the characters Dependents, crew, and enclave are going to be seriously damaged in the process. Nothing degrades people faster in the Loss than watching their loved ones break under the pressure. First things first – here are the rules regarding Regrets: 1. Characters start with 15 Humanity in each threat. A Regret is triggered after every every box beneath that Regret is filled. The only way to start out with less Humanity is to assume a tough spot that reduces the starting amount in character generation (see p. 185) 2. The player always chooses the Regret from the available options at that level. The Market has no say in what the player chooses. 3. The same Regret can’t be taken twice. For instance, at the crack level, the player might choose “freeze” when they hit that Regret in Detachment. If the character later cracks along the Stress threat, they can’t pick “freeze” again. 4. Humanity cannot be healed past the level of the last Regret taken. A character that’s suffered a crack in the Trauma threat is never going to forget that moment; neither are their teammates. No matter how helpful Dependents may be or how much bounty is spent in recovery, the character never again has more than 10 Humanity in the Trauma threat. Threats other than Trauma may be healed normally, but additional Trauma still counts as the “furthest” damage taken for purposes of healing columns using Dependents. 5. Regrets consume excess Humanity damage when they are reached. For instance, if a Taker takes three Humanity damage in the Stress threat, but only has one point left in Stress before hitting a Regret, the additional two damage Dependants References Needy Strained Severed Taker Crew Weak Spot Soft Spot Tough Spot Potential Skills STR Haul Unarmed Melee ( ) ( ) ( ) Resistance Athletics SPD Shoot ( ) ( ) Stealth ADP Awareness Self-Control Scavenging Drive INT Foresight Research ( ) ( ) First Aid CHA WIL Networking Persuasion Sensitivity Deception Criminality Mechanics Profession Intimidation Leadership Refresh Trauma Stress Crack Crumble Break Threats Detachment Taker can carry STR in Haul and personal gear 1 Essential Static Backpack Rations Rations can be spent to Buy-a-Roll on skills that require exertion. Additional spends add +1 Essential Addictive Charged Effect Qualities Upkeep Charges 00000 00000 Effect Qualities Upkeep Charges Static 1 1-2 3-4 5 6 10 7-9 ALT ALT ALT ALT ALT ALT RED MARKETS 1 Character Advancement: 1 Potential = 10 Bounty Skill Points = Bounty equal to new skill level (1B = 1 Skill, 2B = 2 Skill, etc)

315 Regret, treat all weapons as if they have the loud quality (on account of all the screaming). Witnessing an enraged teammate dismember the body of a fellow human can also threaten Trauma in teammates, alarming the crew with sheer savagery. Flight is the total opposite. The character does everything they can to get away. They ignore cries of help from allies, drop precious loot, and flee towards certain doom so long as it means getting away from the original object of terror. When flight is chosen, the character may come out of their panic in the next scene with no idea where they are or how they got there. If it takes place in combat, other Takers have to make Self-Control checks threatening Detachment: their supposed teammate just abandoned them in a time of great need. Freeze means the Taker can take no actions at all for the remainder of the scene. The shock of the event has shut down their ability to process the environment around them. In negotiations, they shut up and stare blankly in wall-eyed catatonia. They wander through the middle of a firefight looking confused and listless. They gibber nonsense, recounting grocery lists as the undead beat down the door. Unless the rest of the crew takes control and leads the helpless Taker to safety, the Regret could get the shell-shocked character killed. This can threaten Stress for teammates; the last thing a Taker needs on a job is to babysit the helpless. Crumble When characters begin to crumble, the damage to their Humanity becomes permanent and consistent. This doesn’t happen instantly. When a character starts to crumble, the player lets the Market know so it can become part of the scene, but the character doesn’t lose control. However, in every game, for as long as that character remains alive and unretired, they continue to crumble. The Market calls for one Self-Control check related to the character’s specific Regret once per session. This occurs at a time of the Market’s choosing. If the check fails, the Crack Characters crack in one of three ways: fight, flight, or freeze. These Regrets take place the instant they are received. Fight means just that: the character fights with irrational, suicidal fervor. The character goes berserk and attacks a single enemy until one party is dead. Characters undergoing a fight response stop at nothing to destroy the target. If their arms are bound, they use teeth. If the crew is trying to be stealthy, they charge screaming from the shadows. If the enemy is already dead, they keep beating the corpse into paste as the building burns down around them. Physically dragging the sufferer from the scene is the only thing that stops the rage. When a character picks fight as a

316 a delusion. The player can do nothing for the remainder of the scene save treat the delusion as absolute truth. This can lead the character into danger or cause Self-Control checks amongst the crew when they see their friend slipping towards madness. Dependency forces the Taker to rely on some external item to get through the agony of existence. More often than not, this takes the form of drugs or alcohol, but players can pick other addictive behaviors such as nymphomania or compulsive gambling (adjust according to your group’s comfort level). It is the thought of the next fix that gets the Taker to wake up in the morning. They secure the next contract to feed the habit. They maintain ties with Dependents only to ensure no one interferes with feeding the need. The next fix is everything. Sometimes, things in the field just get too stressful and a Taker has to dip into an emergency stash. When characters suffer dependency, they must pay double their break point in upkeep for the remainder of the game. The new costs come from enabling the addiction. If there isn’t enough bounty to go around, it requires a Self-Control check to spend on things other than the addictive behavior. If the check is failed, the Taker buys more drugs, booze, poker chips, etc., even if their Dependents are starving as a result. Assuming the Taker can meet the added cost, they remain functioning addicts. However, the Market still gets to check the addiction once per game session. If the check fails, the Taker must feed the addiction and damn the consequences (i.e. drunken parkour over casualty-filled streets) or take additional Humanity damage. Break When characters break, they exit the game. There is nothing left to lose; there is no one left to rescue. All that remains to be seen is how much damage the shattered mind does on its way out. Like crumbling, characters do not break immediately. Unlike the last crumbling, the player shouldn’t tell the Market anything character must either take Humanity damage in the threat or indulge in the Regret again. Players can choose one of three ways to represent persistent psychological damage: disassociation, delusion, or dependency. Disassociation occurs when relationships no longer seem worth the effort or pain they require. The Taker has lost too many people and seen too many hopes dashed. In every interaction, all the character can think about is how it’s only a matter of time before this person becomes another ghost. The disassociation Regret affects relationships. If a character fails Self-Control with a Dependent or Reference, they can no longer maintain the illusion of normalcy. Emotional affect flattens, tact is lost, and the entire interaction turns sour. Mechanically, this deprives the Taker of favors and the healing power of Dependents. A successful CHA skill check is required to even get the person on good terms again. How the player chooses to roleplay this scene is up to them, but note that even a successful Self-Control check just means the facade is successful. The Taker forever feels distant from the rest of mankind as a maladaptive coping mechanism. Delusion means a recurring hallucination that the Taker must struggle to remember is false and impossible. The exact nature of the hallucination is up to the player, though the Market and other players can make suggestions. Perhaps the Taker imagines seeing her dead husband walking in the wasteland, unharmed and beckoning her to follow. Maybe a character believes he can hear God whisper between the reports of gunfire. Remember, it is a comforting fantasy that’s a desperate escape from a too-harsh reality; the hallucination doesn’t come from a chemical imbalance or genetic disorder. As such, the Self-Control check gives Takers a chance to see the hallucination for a lie. But success only gives the character a chance to hide seeing and hearing things that aren’t there; it doesn’t stop the hallucination. When the Self-Control check is failed, the Taker believes in the hallucination and it becomes

317 literature and there’s no reason the character can’t do the same. Grittier, more realistic depictions of suicide are on the table for groups comfortable with that level of intensity in the game. Regardless of whether the character goes out with a bang or quietly with a note, self-destruction forces everyone in the crew to make high-level Self-Control checks threatening Detachment. Seeing someone you love and trust succumb to hopelessness risks dragging the whole crew down. And what to do about those abandoned Dependents? Betrayal opts for physical and financial damage over psychological pain. The character loses their cool and can’t wait one second longer – they have to get out of the Loss now, even if it means no one else gets to come along. The character betrays the enclave to an enemy for a big payday, or they steal bounty from the crew and run. Players shouldn’t pick the betrayal option unless they are okay with the Market playing their character. The Taker is now an NPC and likely a major villain in the campaign. Markets can let the original player keep controlling the character if they feel it can be done objectively and within the story, but ultimately, the former friend has become a selfish bastard out of desperation. The unshakable rule for the betrayal Regret is that a crew must always have ample chance to get revenge and reclaim their lost bounty. The dice may not support the crew’s payback, but nobody gets to disappear suddenly with everyone’s hard-earned loot, never to return. While the animosity of betrayal certainly lessens psychological blows, having a trusted colleague make off with a big payday or try to have you killed is bound to threaten Stress and/or Detachment. Convalescence might, at first, seem to be the best option. The character’s mind breaks and is no longer fit for going out on the job, but no one dies. Hell, the same player can even control the character, just like before. Except it’s not just like before. The character is broken – completely and totally – catatonic, delusional, paranoid, hysterical, or everything at once. When a character convalesces, they has happened until after the game is over. It’s a big deal when a character breaks, and it’s going to be a major focus in the next session. As always, the player gets to choose the specific Regret, but try to work with the Market to make a memorable exit. In addition to the player needing a new character, a break does a lot of damage to the group as a whole. It’s meant to make characters paranoid about their teammates in the future, wondering whether or not it might be wiser to cut an ailing friend loose rather than deal with the fallout. While no one can get ‘fired’ in Red Markets, being wary of the crew’s emotional state should be a recurring conflict that appears in the roleplaying. Breaking a character is as much about the burden carried by survivors as it is about removing a Taker from the game. Players can choose one of three ways to break a character’s psyche: self-destruction, betrayal, and convalescence. The same rules for Regrets are in effect: if this is the second character that’s gone mad for the same player, they must pick a different Regret the second time around. Self-Destruction means suicide. Be careful when selecting this Regret; don’t ruin anyone’s fun by dragging in real world hurt. However, even if someone has been unfortunate enough to lose a real loved one to suicide, this Regret can still be saved by zombie tropes. Wading into the crowd of undead and taking down as many as possible is fairly common in the While crises do shake people out of their complacency, forcing them to question the fundamentals of their lives, the most spontaneous first reaction is panic, which leads to a “return to the basics”: the basic premises of the ruling ideology, far from being put into doubt, are even more violently reasserted. -Slavoj Zizek

318 RegaInIng HumanIty Besides Dependents (see below), the only way to recover Humanity is by spending bounty to relax and recover between jobs. But time spent on recreation, healing, and recovering is not spent working towards survival. The opportunity cost of staying sane eats up capital, and the price of healing invisible wounds stacks up fast. To heal one Humanity damage in a single threat, spend one bounty. There is no spend limit, except Takers may not heal past the last Regret they suffered in that Threat. Dependents Dependents, or loved ones a Taker must support financially, are a vital part of any Red Markets character. As such, they’re explained more in-depth in Character Creation (see p. 205). However, Dependents do play an important mechanical role in maintaining Humanity. won’t be getting better. Those that don’t get years of serious psychiatric treatment can’t hope to recover and that’s not going to happen out in the Loss. No enclave employer is willing to deal with the wild mood swings. Instead, the family has to cope with screaming night terrors, bed-wetting, and slow decay of a loved one eaten alive by mental illness. It’s up to the remainder of the crew to take care of their ailing friend. This means paying any outstanding debts to References and shouldering the cost of the player’s Break Point for the remainder of the campaign. Seeing the old friend is also a burden in its own right. Lucidity is rare and it’s heart wrenching to watch it slip away every time. More psychopathically profit-oriented outfits might decide to put the character out of their misery, but anyone opting for the Of Mice and Men option can expect a far more brutal hit to Humanity than the daily disappointment of bearing witness to a friend’s fall.

319 After one missed bounty, the Dependent is “Needy.” This means the NPC has to do without and suffers for it by going hungry, cold, alone, or any other way the Market describes. The Taker must make a SelfControl test against Stress upon seeing the struggling loved one. After another missed bounty, the Dependent is “Strained,” hanging on by a thread physically, emotionally, financially, or all three. The Taker must make a more severe Self-Control check threatening Stress as the situation worsens. At “Severed,” the Taker loses all contact with the Dependent. The Market might kill them off, have them lose contact, or inflict a fate worse than death. Regardless, a severed Dependent is lost forever. The Taker picks the threat they’ve suffered the most Humanity damage in and rounds up to the nearest Regret (see p. 313). There’s no way to mitigate the damage; it hurts to lose the ones you love. Relationships can be healed much the same way as Humanity: one bounty erases one dot of damage. If a relationship is needy, spending one bounty on the Dependent for that session would only keep the situation from getting worse. It would take another bounty to erase the damage done. In the interest of making rules easy to find, some of the more salient rules regarding Dependents are repeated here. The Power of ConnectIon For every fully supported Dependent available (not Needy, Strained, or Broken), the Taker heals one column’s worth of Humanity damage after completing a vignette. The term column is meant literally. A Taker suffering from 2 Detachment, 3 Trauma, and 3 Stress could reduce the damage to 2 Detachment, 2 Trauma, and 2 Stress. Detachment wouldn’t go down because it wasn’t aligned with the threat that had taken the most Humanity damage. In this example, another Dependent could heal the Taker down to 1 Humanity damage across all three threats. Players can use Dependents to heal once per session (Score or contract). In advanced play, the effects of Dependents can be gained twice in per session or not at all, depending on how the Taker uses Work/Life Balance (p. 434). To heal, players can request a vignette between their character and an available Dependent of their choice. This can happen either at the end of the current contract or the beginning of the next session. The player, the Market, and any other players stepping into to roleplay a Dependent can negotiate any kind of scene they wish. Regardless of the narrative details, the goal of these vignettes is to show the PCs recovering from the trauma of the Loss in the company of loved ones. It should be noted here that, for Takers suffering from the disassociation Regret, SelfControl checks are required to receive the healing benefit of Dependents. The Cost of FrIendshIp If a Dependent doesn’t receive at least one bounty in a session, the relationship with the Taker begins to degrade. In advanced play, skipping a vignette with Dependents causes all costs associated with Dependents to double, according to the Work/Life Balance (p. 434). Life as we find it is too hard for us; it entails too much pain, too many disappointments, impossible tasks. We cannot do without palliative remedies....There are perhaps three of these means: powerful diversions of interest, which lead us to care little of our misery; substitute gratifications, which lessen it; and intoxicating substances, which make us insensitive to it. Something of this kind is indispensable. -Sigmund Freud

320 But negotiations warrant specialized rules because Red Markets is a game about economic horror. One of the central tenets of modern economics theory is that humans are not rational actors. This irrationality is the central tenet of economic horror. In the real world, goods and services that promise high quality despite sizable risk, grueling labor, and constant demand aren’t always rewarded accordingly (Don’t believe me? Work on a fishing boat or in an inner-city high school for a few years). Conversely, some people can turn so little effort into so much profit that the public deems them thieves. Navigating the disconnect between these two extremes and roleplaying what it does to human relationships is what Red Markets was designed to do. Furthermore, negotiations are really about rhetoric, which is a unique skill set in the world of RPGs. Actual skill with a gun or melee weapon isn’t rewarded in most games. Hell, considering the medium’s reliance on emulating other entertainment media, practical experience might actually hinder an action scene. That’s why the character sheet exists: to mediate between the expertise of the player and the character. However, the veneer of mechanics grows very thin in scenes where two characters are talking. To tell a lie as a character, the player has to come up with something at least vaguely plausible before a Deception check is made. After all, the Market wouldn’t ask players to make a Drive check when they aren’t in a vehicle, or a Shoot check when they don’t have weapons. All RPGs reward players for good roleplaying and the ability to communicate well, either explicitly or implicitly. Red Markets chooses the former, and negotiation makes the rewards financial. Lastly, the negotiation mechanic demands the same thing from PCs as every functioning economy demands of its workers: specialization. The ability to maintain a network of contacts, trade favors, engender goodwill, and manage contracts is enormously important to a crew’s survival. However, the skill set required for negotiating a fair (or NegotIatIon Playtesters have argued that negotiations in Red Markets constitute another game entirely. The skills and other mechanical trappings of the system get expanded to encompass new meanings. The themes of horror and violence are suddenly reprioritized in favor of political intrigue and psychological manipulation. Whereas many traditional RPGs encourage using grids and miniatures to track the minutia of combat, this game only breaks out the visual aides to keep track of price-fixing. There are four reasons the negotiation mechanics in Red Markets take up their own chapter. Most importantly, it’s because they are optional. Groups that don’t find the social combat of negotiation interesting can set the price for a contract via Market Fiat (p. 379) or design a Score (p. 394). Those that want to jump straight to the action are encouraged to do so.

321 The BIg Idea BehInd NegotIatIon In a negotiation scene, the dice are going to generate the random forces of the economy outside most people’s control, such as the starting price of certain goods and services. The Market always roleplays the client, the person with a job that needs doing. The client is always trying to find the cheapest crew available that can still succeed at the task and will use everything at their disposal to get the price down as low as humanly possible. unfair) price demands time and effort... time and effort not spent on the expertise needed to navigate the Loss or the ferocity required to survive it. Having to keep the underpowered sales rep alive makes encounters more dynamic and interesting, allows for a wider range of character concepts, and works to ensure every PC gets time in the spotlight. The Loss is always trying to kill Takers; a good negotiator might get you paid for the trouble. ”That’s my final offer!” No. It’s really not. Stonewalling will not work. PCs must haggle to survive. Most RPGs assume a fixed price model similar to the postindustrial Western economies in which the games were written, even when the game is trying to convey a setting where bargaining would be the norm (see: the overwhelming majority of human history). There are many reasons for this: it’s hard to conceive of economic models outside one’s own experience; haggling makes some people very uncomfortable; it’s difficult to meaningfully bargain when one isn’t experiencing a genuine need; it interferes with the hitting-zombies-with-swords part; etc. Red Markets includes haggling because haggling is a game. Sociologists and game theorists have been studying the intricate mechanics of price negotiation for decades, and practicing in a low-stakes situation (e.g. zombie make-believe) can be fun once the risk of real-world financial ruin is off the table. Furthermore, the rhetorical structure of haggling is largely invisible, which means roleplaying a negotiation makes for sophisticated character moments. It would be a mistake to think of negotiations as a repetition of numbers until someone gives up due to boredom. Entire social constructs exist exclusively around bargaining. Consider current Western norms, for example. Most Americans would consider a person paying sticker price for a house a fool: bargaining is expected as prices rise in US culture. However, the same bargaining principles one brings to the car lot would seem insane in the grocery line. All that has changed is the starting price. So when can I haggle for goods? Is $101 the haggling starting point? $102? Southeast Asia also frowns on negotiating the price of something like vegetables, but only because throwing the price of food into question is seen as poor taste, inconsiderate of the unfortunates who can’t afford such necessities. Everything else - be it T-shirts, cab rides, or lawn mowing services - remains up for negotiation. Paying sticker price in some African countries is viewed as an atrocious, classist insult. It flaunts one’s own wealth as beyond frugality and could be seen as akin to lighting cigars with thousand dollar bills. And all these customs only scratch the surface of national and ethnic differences. Consider the weirdness of negotiating prices in various subcultures. Due to concerns about law enforcement, complex protocols and body language are used to fix prices for drugs and sex work, layered contracts hashed out without a single piece of paper where the cost is never stated but always understood. To bring the example closer to home... ever tried to explain a crowdsourced RPG to someone that hasn’t heard of Kickstarter? What’s crowdsourcing if not a negotiation between producer and consumer? So, yeah, Takers have to negotiate every time they pick up a job. Don’t worry; the only real-world requirement is a willingness to roleplay. The mechanics take care of everything else. As for the specific sociological practices of negotiating contracts for excursions into a zombie wasteland? That’s up for the players to decide. Whatever you come up with, it can’t be weirder than some of the ways people do it in the real world.

322 NegotIatIon At-A-Glance 0. Non-negotiables • One-on-one: Only one Taker per round may speak to the client. • Clients are Competent: Clients never make a skill check but always succeed. Takers can only defend against or outperform a client’s success. • References Only in Scams: Negotiators may not use References while speaking to a client. • Simultaneous Resolution: Nothing moves on the Sway Tracker until both parties have spoken and the round ends. Dice on the Sway Tracker then move at the same time. • Heads Up: Dice on the Sway Tracker cannot intersect (i.e. they can not be on the same space on the Sway Tracker) and must “push” each other with Sway until negotiations end. • Payment on Delivery: Nobody brings bounty to the meet up. 1. Prep Work • Before negotiations, every Taker gets one prep action. The skill used depends on the method used to get the information and the context of how the player describes the scene. • Successful checks entitle the Taker to the answer for one of the following questions: - What contracts are available to us? - What will a specific contract likely require? - What is the starting value (equilibrium price) of a specific contract? - The Market rolls Black + Red to generate this price and consults the Supply/Demand chart. This check always occurs during the Prep Work phase, but Takers need to successfully discover it in order to find out the price before negotiations begin. - What competition is vying for a specific contract? • Failed checks can succeed by tapping References. After all, no one saves enough surplus bounty to hire Takers by being generous. They care about their bottom line. Amongst the players, one character (usually the one with the best CHA skills) takes on the role of negotiator. This character is the contact person for the whole crew, and it is their job to convince the client to pay more. In negotiation, each of the negotiator’s CHA skills gains a special ability specifically geared towards pushing the price higher, but the negotiator needs to cater their roleplaying to the skill they want to use in order to use those abilities. For example, a player that wants to use the Intimidation skill needs to say something intimidating in-character before they make a check. The Market, playing as the client, is tasked with doing the same. What is everyone else doing? Well, no one is keen to let their kids starve just because the negotiator screwed up. Takers that survive do so by doing everything they can to support their negotiator before and during the actual conversation with a client. While the negotiator is in the room proving how suave they can be, everyone else has scenes demonstrating just how much better Takers know the Loss than anyone else. They can manipulate clients before they ever show up to the table. The variety of actions other players can take in-between rounds in the client/negotiator conversation are called Scams, and they either provide a mechanical bonus for the negotiator’s next skill check or increase the price of the contract. The basic structure of a negotiation scene has the client and the negotiating Taker sharing a brief verbal exchange, followed by a dice check that determines the conversation’s effect on the price. The narrative then flashes back or cuts away to show what the rest of the team has done to help. The cycle repeats until the negotiator can no longer push the price and the contract’s compensation is agreed upon. By the end, the complex social maneuvering of the whole crew decides exactly how much risking their lives is worth that week.

323 • Each Taker may perform only one Scam. - MBA Rules: a Taker might be afforded one, two, or no Scams, depending on Work/Life balance. • The skills used in a Scam and the number of checks required depends on the context of the scene decided between the scammer and the Market. • Regardless of the skill used, each Scam can only fulfill one of five purposes: - Partners in Crime: The scammer is in the room with the negotiator. He or she can “step in” and perform a CHA skill check instead of the negotiator. - Negotiator Support: A scammer’s actions provide the negotiator a one- time +2 bonus to one of the negotiator’s skills. - Discourage Competition: The scammer sabotages competitors and prevents an undercut (see #8). - Price Manipulation: The scammer’s actions add bounty to the equilibrium price equal to the natural Black of the check. - Intelligence Gathering: The scammer learned one of the client’s Spots, providing more leverage for the negotiator. 5. Repeat 3-4 • Step 3 and 4 continue until all rounds are used up or the negotiator checks Intimidation to leave early. 6. Leadership Closes • After the dice resolve for the last round, the Taker rolls a Leadership check. The result is the same whether the dice are heads up or not. - Success: Black moves right to align with the Red for a higher price. - Failure: Red moves left to align with Black for a lower price. 2. Leadership Opens • The Taker serving as the crew’s negotiator meets the client and makes a Leadership check. The result determines the number of rounds negotiations will last. 3. Negotiation Round Negotiator/client verbal sparing, taking place “in the moment.” • Winner of the Leadership check determines who speaks first. • Taker decides what skill to use, roleplays according to the choice, and makes a check. The Market decides what skill the client uses and roleplays a pitch, succeeding automatically. • Negotiation-specific uses for CHA skills can be found on the Sway Tracker. • Dice resolve on the Sway Tracker simultaneously: moving, pushing, or sticking according to the amount of Sway. • Negotiation pauses as other members of the crew perform Scams. • Repeat until rounds end or the Taker successful exits the negotiation. 4. Scams Scams are actions roleplayed between negotiation rounds, taking place before or concurrent to the negotiator/client conversation. • Scams are only available between negotiation rounds. A three-round negotiation would only have two Scams: between the first and second rounds, and between the second and third.

324 investigation while still allowing Takers to prepare to negotiate for one contract well (see “Scams” p. 339). If players want to know more than their questions allow before bidding on a contract, it’s up to the Market whether or not to provide it. The default answer is “deal with it”. A job gone horribly wrong is an interesting story; a bunch of people squirming with indecision and follow-up inquries is decidedly less interesting. Besides, the leisure time required for endless interrogation makes little sense in the setting. Nobody is paying Takers to be safe or well informed. They take the job or they don’t. The Carrion Economy has no time for anything else. What contracts are avaIlable? Succeeding on a check for prep work and asking this question reveals one of the contracts the Market has prepared for the session. Knowledge of the job includes the clients name or alias, whatever they are willing to reveal about the affiliation, and a basic description of the task. If players ask this question and all the contracts have already been revealed, they can ask one of the other questions instead. Example: Sigma burns a charge off her laptop and makes a Research check. It succeeds. She tells the Market she’s looking online for any jobs currently bidding in her enclave. The Market says BeeMail (affiliation) has subcontracted Cutthroat (client) to find them a hit squad to take out the pirates shooting down their drones (task). 7. Last Chance to Back Out • Takers don’t have to accept the contract. They can move on to a different client, but they start at the lowest rung of the Sway Tracker and receive no additional prep work, Scams, or Will. 8. Undercut • If the competition wasn’t sabotaged, they threaten to do the job for one rung cheaper than the PC crew. Any Taker present can make a final CHA skill check against the client to prevent this. - Success: clients believe they’re paying for quality and keep the higher price. - Failure: the Takers have to meet the lower price or chase a different contract. Prep Work (Before NegotIatIon) No economy is a perfect information system. Even when the actors take the time to research options, that time isn’t spent researching other, potentially more lucrative options. Just because characters have a choice between jobs, doesn’t mean the choice will be easy or well informed. The amount of information players can learn before actually bidding on a contract is limited, and that limited information must be spread amongst all available jobs. This phase of negotiation is called “prep work.” Every Taker can make one check to learn information about available contracts before committing to one of them. Each success answers one essential question about the job (see below). What Can Prep Work Do? There are four questions that can be asked as a result of successful prep work. One question finds a potential contract; the other three provide details about contracts the Takers already know about. The number of questions that can be asked equals the numbers of players at the table and, even then, only if everyone succeeds. There’s no time for more MBA and Prep The advanced rules provide a wider variety of options for the economy of actions using the Work/Life principal (see p. 434). However, these rules do not affect prep work. Contracts have to be found, and even if the crew is doing Scores, the prep work is eaten up by the research that would be required of the characters to even learn the opportunity exists. One can’t forgo prep work to get extra scams or vignettes.

325 What wIll a specIfIc contract lIkely requIre? Takers ask this question to get a more specific picture of what the job likely requires. Since clients need to keep as much classified as possible before negotiations start in order to prevent their opportunities from being stolen, Sin-ergy is looking for a job as well. After some thought, his player decides to lie to the mayor of the enclave, claiming the deputy mayor recommended him for a job but he was told to ask the mayor about it in person. He succeeds on a Deception check. The mayor falls for it. She reveals that DronePunk (client), leader of the Hawks raiding group (affiliation), wants someone to escort their inventory of drone parts back to the enclave’s market (task). Six makes her Networking check as well, but the Market has no more contracts prepared for this session. He says she can use her skill in Networking to ask a different prep question about the two jobs already on the table. Freelance Contracts vs. Job Lines If the players want to learn anything about a freelance contract (a contract offered by a one-off client or during a one-shot), they must do prep work. But in campaign play, recurring clients are one of the easiest ways for the Market to compose a broad, sweeping story. This repeat business is called a job line, and one of the ways Market’s can incentivize going after job lines is by making prep work easier. Once a crew successfully completes the first job on a job line, the client makes sure they are the first to know when another job becomes available. Takers never again have to make a check to find work from that particular client. As the relationship continues and the crew becomes the client’s preferred provider of service, more questions can be answered up front until the Takers know everything they can about a contract before it starts. Less required prep work, combined with immunity from competition, makes selecting contracts on a job line that much easier. However, clients often prefer working with the same people because they already know which buttons to push, so negotiations with these friends gets increasingly difficult. For more on job lines, see p. 420. Why Prep At All? Since every adventure is built around a contract, some might ask why make a Prep Work check at all? Why not present the players with all their options, or have the Market simply declare the contract the players pursue? Well, those are certainly options, but making checks creates more interesting player dynamics. If a one job would benefit an individual Taker’s finances or situation more than the group, the fact that the whole crew doesn’t have the same information becomes an interesting source of conflict. For instance, if I.P. really wants to meet with the Moths because they’re essential to his retirement plan, he can choose to lie to his crew about the better paying work he discovered in his Networking check. Players see the lie of omission, but the characters don’t... unless they make that Sensitivity check. This resentment and petty conflict makes for a more interesting group dynamic when the crew has to cooperate to survive. Conversely, choosing to sacrifice self-interest for the sake of the crew is an equally character-defining choice. Others might ask what happens if everyone fails their checks? It’s certainly possible, but that’s what References are for. Buy a favor, roleplay the tip, and get on with it. If no one is willing to ask for help, the players can design a Score for just such an occasion (p. 394). They might even hash one out beforehand, so the Market can have it ready to go for a rainy day. Finally, if no other options are available, the players are always guaranteed a game. At least one contract is always available, regardless of prep work, but it doesn’t make itself known until late. Getting a lead on a contract by default always means the competition have already bid on it. The PCs must undercut their prices to earn anything from the job.

326 Now that Six knows the job will involve some brutality, the group can make a better decision on which job would be best to take. If everyone in the group has taken a lot of Humanity damage, slaughtering a bunch of desperate pirates for a corporation might not be worth the risk to their souls. But... BeeMail’s need for discretion could be leveraged for a bigger payday... What Is the equIlIbrIum prIce of a specIfIc contract? The Market rolls Black + Red to generate the equilibrium price for each contract; the sum of the dice is the base price for the contract. It’s where negotiations start; the lowest possible price for the goods and services themselves, without accounting for risk or worker compensation. It’s the price the job would be offered at if there were international corporations of Takers that could provide economies of scale. The combination of Red and Black also determines where the contract lands on the Supply/Demand chart (p. 363). The chart describes how the local economy values the this information is normally based of rumor and conjecture. What the characters find out may end up being inaccurate or invalidated by the contract’s complication. The only rule the Market need follow is that a success entitles a character to some actionable intelligence; whatever rumor they end up overhearing, it has to contain some information that might be relevant to making a decision. Example: Six uses her Networking success to look up rumors about the BeeMail contract. Rumors on the LifeLines indicate that hiring a local middleman to organize retaliation against groups assaulting BeeMail drones is a standard tactic for the corporation. They like using guys like Cutthroat as cat’s paws in case officials in the Recession start looking into their illegal drone smuggling over the border. Meanwhile, they make sure the crews hired to do the job advertise that BeeMail put out the hit. Anyone working for them will likely have to keep things completely deniable on the Recession’s end while making damn sure everyone in the Loss knows damn well not to mess with the yellow drones.

327 use to do prep work depend on the skill they are best at and the type of scene the player wants to roleplay. Anyone stumped for an idea should consider Networking. In Red Markets, finding a job requires navigating a variety of Ubiq forums, listservs, and internet rumors to find work in the area. Rather than roleplay every fruitless lead, investigating available work can be abstracted using the Networking skill. The Sway Tracker ExplaIned Rather than try to keep the math from a dozen bids and counter-offers fixed in one’s mind while attempting to roleplay, Red Markets employs the Sway Tracker to track the status of a negotiation visually. The tracker’s only purpose is to reduce the complex rhetorical strategy of a negotiation down into a simple, visual goal: push the opposition as far into a corner as possible. The Taker and the client each put a die representing their current standing on the tracker. The goal of the Black (the Taker) is to push the Red (the client) as far right as possible, increasing the price. The goal of the Red is to push the Black as far to the left as possible, discounting the price. The way the representative dice move and push each other is through Sway, which measures the social leverage employed in the characters’ roleplaying as moves along the tracker. The Sway Tracker also includes formulas for calculating final prices and a cheat sheet of rules reminding players of all the rhetorical tactics of which their CHA skills are capable. The formulas are explained more in depth here, whereas strategy for the negotiator’s skills can be found in “Sway Skills” on p. 333. goods and services needed, and this gives the Takers ideas on how to best manipulate the price during Scams. If no one asks about the equalibrium using their prep work, the price isn’t rolled until negotiation begins. Example: Audit hasn’t done any prep work yet. He checks his Profession: Accountant skill. It fails, but he taps a Reference and quickly roleplays a scene with his friend Deduct. Together, the pair figures out that a hit job for a major corporation would score B1/R1 on equilibrium price. No way! Nobody wants to do it, and there’s not enough demand to make it profitable. The negotiator would have a really hard job making that contract worthwhile. The crew decides to work for the drone pirates instead. What competItIon Is bIddIng for a specIfIc contract? Crews that want to ensure nobody comes in and undercuts their bid need a warning as to whom else is sniffing around the contract. Finding out who is else is likely to bid for the job requires a prep work action. Otherwise, crews are left to deal with undercuts after the fact (see p. 343). Example: The crew has decided to pursue the drone pirate job, but they’re out of characters capable of doing prep. This means none of their Scams can go towards eliminating the competition. They’ll have to deal with the FUGOTMINE crew trying to snake their contract at the last minute. WhIch SkIlls to Use? It depends. How does your character learn about the world? Social characters can check Persuasion down at the local bazaar to convince an acquaintance to give up a hot tip. Quiet types might use Awareness to notice the new blood in the enclave. Brainiacs might use Foresight to predict GMO corporations usually shop in the Loss around harvest time. The more hands-on type might beat information out of Crafty Carl, who seems to know everything going on in the enclave. The skills characters Let us never negotiate out of fear, but let us never fear to negotiate. -John F. Kennedy

328 decided are flashbacks to the crew’s careful planning. Spots: these character traits exist for NPC clients as well as Takers. “Playing a spot” refers to exploiting these traits to provide +1 Sway to normal rolls. Starting Position: This is where the dice representing the client and provider start. Starting position is affected by turning down jobs, competition, and Leadership checks. Sway: The measure of how far a client or provider can move in a single round of negotiation. A Sway of +1 would move one space; a Sway of +2 would move two spaces. The dice can’t intersect until negotiation ends, so Sway also measures how hard each party is pushing. A Sway of +1 against +1 would cancel out, while a Sway of +2 against +1 would push one space on the tracker. Rounds: The number of exchanges that take place before negotiations have to agree on a price. A round consists of one attempt to gain Sway by the client and one attempt by the provider. Rounds are usually separated by Scams. Where Do I Put the DIce? The center path on the Tracker is where the price is set. When negotiations end, the two dice finally rest on the same space and come to “meet” in the center. Until then, the dice move on separate tracks and in opposed directions. The Black represents the Taker doing negotiations. It moves along the bottom space of the tracker, starting at the “Buyer’s Market” step. It might start underneath the “As A Favor” step if one of the following happened. Nomenclature The negotiation mechanics have their own vocabulary. Here are some of the more important terms: Client (Red): the person purchasing a good or service from the provider. Clients are NPCs controlled by the Market. On the Sway Tracker, the client is always represented by a Red die. Contract: the subject of the negotiation. The contract is the agreed payment for completing a service and/or providing a good. Payment is provided upon delivery and doesn’t include any bounty discovered enroute to the job site. Heads Up: The client and provider, as represented by a Black and Red die, can’t share a space on the tracker until the very end of negotiations. As such, while any unopposed Sway results in a movement of the dice, when the dice rest across from each other they are said to be “Heads Up.” At this point, movement requires overpowering the other party’s Sway. Provider (Black): the person seeking to get paid for providing a good or service. The providers are the PCs. On the Sway Tracker, the provider is always represented by a Black die. Scams: every Taker in a crew not involved in negotiation can perform one action between rounds of conversation, called scams. Scams can provide the negotiator a variety of bonuses (see p. 339). It is understood that scams take place before or during the conversation between client and provider, and the scenes in which they are Client Start Red Die Black Die Black Die As A Favor Provider Undercut Provider Default Start Start Buyer’s Market At Value Labor Hazard Pay 100% Mark-Up Expenses Contract is offered at the Demand price only AND client earns a - Rep spot to use in future negotiations Contract is offered at the Demand price only (Black result on a equilibrium roll) Contract is offered at the value of Supply+Demand (Black + Red) Client agrees to add the crew’s break point to the price (Black + Red + break point) Add one Bounty per Taker per Leg to Hazard Pay. (Ex: a crew of four on a three-Leg run earns 4 x 3 more) The equipment upkeep of every participating Taker is added into the price (no one pays upkeep this session) Double the cost of the job before Labor RED MARKETS NEGOTIATION SHEET Crew Name Enclave Weak Spot: A character flaw or secret that can be leveraged to provide +1 Sway Soft Spot: An area of sentiment or great passion that can be exploited for +1 Sway Tough Spot: For NPC clients, this takes the form of a specific need the client has for the contract. It can be exploited for +1 Sway For Takers: Working a client’s weak, soft, or tough spot into the roleplaying behind a skill automatically adds +1 Sway to a roll. This bonus remains even if the check fails, so success means +2 Sway, but a failed play on a spot is still worth +1 Sway. Spots must be learned in scams or using Sensitivity + Rep Spots: If the crew has earned a + Rep Spot for a notable deed, the negotiator can work it into the roleplay for a bonus +1 Sway. For Clients: Sensitivity: Clients can sacrifice a turn to learn one spot from the Taker in negotiations Gift Spot: Once per negotiation, a client may “sweeten the pot” with a piece of gear, earning an irresistible +1 Sway - Rep Spot: If the crew has done something unprofessional, incompetent, or dishonest in the past, the client can use it once for an irresistible +1 Sway To Start: Player makes a Leadership check (see above) Heads Up: Red and Black cannot be parallel while in negotiation. Each die resolves at the same time (moving simultaneously once both parties have spoken). It takes 1 Sway to advance unopposed, but in head up, dice only advance by pushing (negating an opponent’s Sway and having some left over) Fixing Price: On the last round, player makes a Leadership check. On a success, Black moves right and parallel with the Red (higher price). On a failure, Red moves left until parallel with Black. Parallel dice indicate the agreed upon price. Undercutting: Competition will try to undercut agreed upon prices, unless eliminated or left out because the PCs are “preferred providers” of a job line. Resisting an undercut requires a successful CHA check or a dedicated scame. Failure means the price goes down one space; critical failure means two spaces. PCs undercutting competition always succeed (there must be a game), but they start on “As a Favor” on the tracker. Clients Have... Playing Spots Negotiation Charm Skills Determining Price Networking: Persuasion: Sensitivity: Deception: Intimidation: Roll a check to find a contract or find info about it. Total failure means undercutting to “As a Favor.” Success moves +1 Sway, or defends against opponent’s Sway if heads up. Can be used with spots. Intimidation can be used to end negotiations early with a threat to “walk out.” Work in a spot to move and end negotiations in the same turn. Read an opponent’s weak, soft, or tough spot, but sacrifice a turn to do so. Failure wastes a turn and provides no information. Lie about the crew’s abilities to move +1 Sway. Can be used with spots. Deception can defend against the client’s spot play with “poker face” To Begin: Black + Leadership / 2 (rounded up, to a max of five rounds) equals the number of turns. Failure means rounds are rolled secretly. To End: Success has Black meet Red at the higher price, and failure brings Red down to Black at the lower price. Leadership:

329 Like “As a Favor,” “Buyer’s Market” indicates the negotiator failed to convey the crew’s limited availability and unique skill set. But at least working for half the price is a oneoff failure, without complicating social issues that follow the crew’s brand. At Value “Contract is offered that value of Supply + Demand (Black + Red)” Agreeing to do a contract “At Value” is still an enormous hardship for most Takers. The Market determines the equilibrium for a good or service with a dice check on the Supply/ Demand chart (see p. 363). Takers may have manipulated the equilibrium with Scams before the price was agreed upon, but the compensation still doesn’t account for labor, expenses, risk, or anything else. It’s the value of the good and/or service as if it fell from the sky. Unless the crew is minimally equipped and staffed, it’s almost certain the Takers will be losing bounty on the job. Takers that didn’t do the prep work (p. 324) only learn the equilibrium of a good/service when they reach the “At Value” price point. Labor “Client agrees to add the crew’s break point to the price (Black+Red+crew’s break point)” Clients that agree to pay for “Labor,” begrudgingly recognize that being a Taker is an act of desperation, fueled more by responsibility than greed. Compensating labor means that the break point – the minimum amount of bounty required to keep a Taker and related Dependents alive – gets factored into the price for each member of the crew. So, for a three-person crew with break points of three, three, and four bounty, 10 bounty would be added to the total price. “Labor” adds sizably to the overall price, but it still does nothing to save against large expenditures of time or supplies. But while all lower price points are certainly exploitation, the labor price point is, at least, arguably fair. • Everyone in the crew failed prep work and they bid on the contract late. • The crew already passed up a contract after negotiation and they’re trying to undercut competition. • The negotiator critically failed the opening Leadership check. If the Leadership critically succeeds, the Black can start on “At Value.” The Red represents the client. It moves along the spaces above the tracker. The client always starts at the “Expenses” step. As a Favor “The contract is offered at the Demand price only (Black result only on the equilibrium check) and the client earns a Rep Spot to use against the crew in future negotiations.” The price of the contract is only the Black result on the equilibrium check. Whereas B9/ R6 would normally mean 15 Bounty, doing it “As a Favor” means it’s only worth 9 Bounty. Frankly, the client doesn’t care how much supply is available. They’re in no hurry, feel no pressure, and remain confident they can find a dozen other people willing to do the work. In order to keep the client from waiting for a more favorable price, the crew must bid the job below its acknowledged market value. To make matters worse, they also have to make a major concession in the form of a rep spot as they beg for work. Agreeing to do a contract “As a Favor” is a total failure of business acumen and common sense. It only occurs when the client has completely outclassed the provider’s negotiator. The Takers will be lucky to be able to pay enclave rent by the end of the session. Feeding their families and recouping costs? Yeah right. “As a favor” equates to begging; the crew has to use the promise of future favors to convince the client to take a chance on them. Buyer's Market “The contract is offered at the Demand price only.”

330 Unless the crew spends extravagantly or dies, it’s hard not to profit from a mark-up job. The crew can expect serious consequences, however, if they end up not being worth such an exorbitant price. Expenses “The equipment upkeep of every participating Taker is added into the price (no one pays upkeep this session).” Convincing the client to pay expenses means the big payday. The client recognizes that resources expended in pursuit of another person’s needs deserve to be reimbursed. At this point, the combined equipment cost of every Taker participating in the contract gets added to the price. Securing expenses effectively negates an crew’s entire overhead, aside from seriously unfortunate incidental costs. This is a dream scenario for most realworld business ventures; Taker’s should be downright thrilled when their equipment costs get reimbursed. Calculating “Expenses” is easy: nobody pays upkeep this session. If the gear is already owned, survives the contract, and can be refreshed, it automatically refreshes. Those that desire to keep their books more fastidiously can just add in the crew’s equipment cost from the Crew Sheet (p. 488). LeadershIp Opens (StartIng NegotIatIons) Every CHA skill has a special function in negotiations, and Leadership is foremost among them, measuring the Taker’s overall presence. How commanding is their voice? How imposing the stature? How confident the expression? Leadership determines all these aspects and the checks affect both the beginning and close of negotiation. It’s the intangible combination of variables that forgives interruptions, demands attention, and draws eyes. Since so much of human interaction is determined by these non-verbal cues, Leadership frames the whole process, Hazard Pay “Add on bounty per Taker per Leg to the price (Ex. A crew of four on a three-Leg run earns 12 bounty)” Takers that convince the client to give “Hazard Pay” have forced an acknowledgement of the danger they face. This price recognizes that every second in the Loss increases cost and risk, so the distance to the job site is taken into account. One bounty per Taker, per leg, is added to the price. “Hazard Pay” on a 3-leg job means that a 3-person crew makes 9 bounty more on the contract. It’s harder to miss out on profit when the client agrees to compensate for unforeseen hazards. 100% Mark-up “Double the cost of the job before Labor” Takers aren’t universally regarded as heroes for a reason – they gouge the hell out of clients when the opportunity arises. Whether or not the crew is really worth the cost is irrelevant. Once clients are convinced they’re over a barrel, the truth no longer matters. When a crew gets the client to agree to a 100% mark-up, the price before labor is doubled. The Market takes the equilibrium for the contract, multiplies it by two, then adds in labor and hazard pay. Continuing the examples discussed so far, let’s say a job’s equilibrium is 15 bounty total. Add in the crew’s break point (10b) and hazard pay (9b). The price is 34b before the mark-up. After the mark-up, the equilibrium is added again. The new price is 34b + 15b = 49b. A great many people think they are thinking when they are rearranging their prejudices. -William James

331 Success also determines who talks first – the winner of the check chooses who speaks first. While simultaneous resolution (p. 332) negates most bonuses from initiative, order can inform roleplaying and might be crucial to an Intimidation check to end talks early. The Task of the NegotIator (DurIng Rounds) Successful negotiation is a group effort, but one player still has to take on the responsibility of strategically catering the roleplaying to secure the best possible dice checks. The negotiator has to deal with the client face-to-face, and the blame for a bum deal usually only falls on the one in the room. Players that prioritize CHA skills to build the best negotiators possible represent a core truth of economics: interpersonal skills always have value. History has shown that, no matter how dire survival circumstances may get, there are always some that manage to survive through wits alone. The “soft skills” required to deal with people may not decapitate a zombie or stitch a wound, but the boardroom secures the bounty necessary for such feats. Being the negotiator doesn’t mean you can’t have any action movie moments in the Loss, but it does means those moments are a poor allocation of resources. Negotiators have people for that; who is going to get the big opening (see the next section) and closing negotiations (see “Leadership Closes (After Negotiations)” (p.343)). FIrst ImpressIons In Red Markets, a Leadership check represents the oh-so-important first impression. Succeed on a Leadership check, and the negotiation lasts longer, giving the Takers more time to push the price up. Failure means the client can sense the upper hand and use it to earn discounts. The number of rounds a negotiation lasts is always equal to the Black + Leadership, divided by two and rounded up. On a success, negotiations last the number of rounds equal to the Black+Leadership divided by 2, and the players know it. They can plan any Scams and play spots accordingly. On a failure, the Market rolls one Black die in secret, never telling the players how many rounds they have to work with. A critical success puts the players at the next highest stage on the Sway tracker: something about the negotiator just screams “competent.” Conversely, a critical failure drops Taker’s down on the Sway track (but never below “As A Favor”). Why Leadership? Neuroscience and sociology suggests that, more often than not, people judge each other in seconds and spend the rest of the interaction compiling a narrative that justifies their snap decisions. When you walk into a job interview, the boss likely knows whether you got the job the moment you walk through the door. The discussion only exists for as long as it takes for the boss to explain his own irrational choice. Some people know how to manipulate the instantaneous prejudices of others. In negotiations, Leadership measures that ability.

332 client plays that spot, they automatically get +1 Sway, unless the provider is successful at Deception. Assume that the client earned enough bounty to hire a crew by being good in business; they will dominate the negotiation unless the Takers pull Scams and leverage spots. Heads Up The Black and the Red can never intersect on the tracker until the very end of the negotiation. If the final Leadership test fails, clients push prices down to meet providers. If the Leadership check succeeds, providers move the price up to meet the client. Otherwise, the dice can only ever be unopposed (open spaces on either side) or heads up. When dice are heads up, they lock horns and push each other according to who has the most Sway. No References Takers cannot succeed-at-cost by tapping a Reference during negotiations. Failing to impress the client is bad enough, but pausing the conversation to phone a friend is only going to make things worse. References can be used to repair failed checks in Scams, but Will is the only mediator for failure in the negotiation itself. SImultaneous ResolutIon There is no mechanical bonus for going first. Dice representing the provider and client do not move until both have had their say that round. Players should keep this simultaneous resolution in mind when planning strategy; it affects the way dice become heads up and push Sway. payday if you go down? Haggling over a card table in a disused storage unit may not be quite as grand as the conference rooms and car dealerships where the negotiator honed the necessary skills, but the stakes have never been higher. Non-NegotIables Certain aspects of the negotiation mechanics are essential if the game is to work properly. Payment on DelIvery Nobody dumb enough to bring the money to the meeting lasted five years in the Loss. The PCs never have the option of just sticking up the client and making a run for it. Additionally, no one is dumb enough to pay in advance either, so no one can grab a contract and stop returning calls. As for the clients refusing to pay once the job is done... that’s always a possibility. But then again, that’s one of the many reasons Takers tend to carry all those weapons. One on One No one negotiates terms individually with every single worker in a company. To that end, there should never be a situation where five PCs shout over each other while debating with a single employer. Negotiations are personal affairs. The crew elects somebody to represent their interests, and that person goes in. The representative makes all the skill checks and calls the shots as to strategies. If other players want to help, they can pull a Scam (see p. 339). Though some Scams put other PCs in the room, only one person can make the skill check that round. Nobody can fail a check, then tag in someone else to try again – that violates the “one-and-done” rule. ClIents are Competent Like in combat, the Market never rolls for the rhetorical attacks of the client. If the client wants to move one Sway, the client automatically can. If the client wants to make a Sensitivity check to learn one of the PC’s spots, it automatically succeeds. When a No man is wholly free. He is a slave to wealth, or to fortune, or the laws, or the people restrain him from acting according to his will alone. -Euripides

333 moves +1 Sway, and a success is necessary to defend against an opponent’s Sway when dice are heads up (unable to move without sharing a space). Leveraging a weak, soft, or tough spot – or using a +Rep spot – requires the player to work that information into their pitch. If the Market deems the information properly incorporated, playing the spot is worth +1 Sway even if the Persuasion check fails. If the negotiator is successful and the spot is used? That makes a success worth +2 Sway. Knowing when to bank on simple success for a +1 and when to gamble on a spot for a +2 is the key to good negotiation. Persuasion can also be used to prevent an undercut by competition, so long as the negotiator advocates paying a premium price for premium quality. On a success, the client views the competition as “bargain bin” and sticks with the quality providers. A failure means the crew has to meet the competition’s Sway SkIlls Sway refers to a character’s combined influence: political, financial, rhetorical, etc. Make a successful check on a CHA skill to gain one Sway. Make a successful check that exploits a spot? That’s two Sway. The only problem is that Sway cancels Sway. Clients and providers that are heads up and wielding the same Sway stay deadlocked. The only way to make progress is to play spots for leverage at the right time. All CHA skills have some function in the fight for Sway in negotiations, in addition to their normal functions (see “List of Skills” p. 203). These special uses are detailed here. PersuasIon Persuading a neighbor to turn down the music is one thing; convincing him to fund a suicide mission is quite another. Persuasion is the primary means of moving across the Sway tracker. A success on a Persuasion check

334 no information is offered willingly. Still, particularly observant negotiators can spend a full round on a digression, asking a question or talking just to gauge the opponent’s reaction. If the Taker’s Sensitivity check is successful, they learn one of the client’s spots and can exploit it in the next round. The problem is that playing mind games wastes time that could be spent pushing the price and isn’t guaranteed to succeed. That’s why learning a prospective client’s spots so often ends up being one or more of the crew’s Scams. In summary, Sensitivity can do the following in negotiations: • Sacrifice a turn to make a check. On a success, learn one of the client’s spots. Example: “Seems a little odd, keeping such an average job so hush-hush. What’s really going on here?” DeceptIon The client needs a combat specialist with experience in military-grade computer encryption and paratrooper certification. The most badass occupation anyone in your crew had before the Crash was “Temp.” So, it’s time to lie on your resume. Deception is used to make promises the negotiator has no intention of keeping or bullshitting about the team’s abilities. More price in order to keep the contract. In summary, during negotiation Persuasion can do the following: • On a success, move the Black +1 Sway up by pitching your crew’s abilities. Example: “We’re still alive; that’s the greatest recommendation a crew can have. We can get this job done, and we’ll be here when you need us again.” • Incorporate a spot into roleplay for a +1 Sway bonus, regardless of success or failure. Example: (for the soft spot: Animal Lover) “Have you met Fido? He’s really our manager. We’d be lost out there without our boy, wouldn’t we Fido? WOULDN’T WE?!” • On a success, convince a client to stay away from competition. Example: “Look, if you want to trust a bunch of cultists with your money, that’s your business. But my crew doesn’t have an ideology; as long as your bounty spends, we get the job done without distractions.” SensItIvIty Good negotiation is about reading the opponent, but since the mark is competent, Where Roleplaying and Dice Meet What rhetorical appeal counts for what skill? It can be difficult to tell sometimes. Let’s assume a Taker asks the client, “Can you really sleep at night, knowing those things are piling up against the gate?” Is it a Sensitivity check, meant to gauge the client’s grit? Is it a Persuasion check, a strictly rhetorical question meant as a pathetic appeal? Or is it Intimidation, meant to scare the client at the prospect of losing this crew of Takers? In edge cases such as the example above, Market’s are encouraged to ask players their intention out-ofcharacter and let them make whatever skill check they planned their roleplaying around. However, the Market gets final say on what mechanical skills the roleplaying qualifies for. Takers can’t “convince” a client they really will cut his tongue out if he doesn’t hire them, no matter how many more points they might have in Persuasion. That’s an Intimidation, plain and simple. Players are always allowed to “rewind” the story and roleplay a different appeal if the Market vetos their play.

335 • On a success, negate the bonus Sway of a client exploiting one of the Taker’s spots. Example: “Well, I’m glad you did the research on my church, but all that God stuff is really just good for networking. I don’t let it affect my work, you know.” • On a success, lie to scare the client away from competition. Example: “Okay... but don’t let them lure you into a dark alley. I think they recently sold the last of the organs leftover from their previous ‘client.’” IntImIdatIon The eye contact, intimacy, and trust of goodnatured haggling run counter to the prisonyard mentality that rules much of the Loss. Survivors carry a lot of baggage, and many aren’t keen to have a stranger rifling through it in an attempt to squeeze a few more bounty out of a deal. Clients that push too many emotional buttons might find themselves reminded their employees are experienced killers. For the cost of one turn, Takers make an Intimidation check to scare NPCs away from any further Sensitivity attempts or from playing spots. On a success, the negotiator’s dead stare or whispered threat is enough to dissuade the client. On a failure, they “doth protest too much” and reveal a spot in the process. Players can end a negotiation early by threatening to walk out with Intimidation. Empty threats to leave the room are great for negotiations that go well early but face the often than not, Deception checks only arise when the crew is trying to exploit a contract’s tough spot without the required expertise to do so. The Market calls for the Deception check to see if the client buys it. Deception designed to exploit a client’s spot works the same way as with Persuasion. The player must have learned the spot through an action and it must be present in the character’s pitch. But, if those requirements are met, the bonus +1 Sway always happens. A more common use of the Deception skill is to resist a client’s use of a spot. If the NPC learns the negotiator’s weak, soft, or tough spot by sacrificing a turn to Sensitivity, they can play it automatically for +2 Sway. The only hope the negotiator has is maintaining a poker face, hiding the emotional impact of the barb, and forcing the opponent onto another tactic. A successful Deception check reduces the Sway of clients playing a spot down to the +1 Sway of a normal success. Finally, Deception can be used to prevent competition from undercutting an agreedupon price. Get the client to believe a lie about the other crew’s reputation and tie the job down. If this strategy is overused, however, the Market may give out -Rep spots for slandering fellow Takers. In summary, Deception can do the following in negotiations: • On a success, lie about a crew’s abilities for +1 Sway. Example: “Oh yeah. We’ve got a couple of anti-material rifles actually. Those tanks won’t be a problem.” • Incorporate a spot into roleplay for a +1 Sway bonus, regardless of success or failure. Example: (for the soft spot: The Faithful Must Stick Together) “I, too, drink deep the holy blood of the Immune, brother! You need not worry about me selling the details of your little human farm to, say... relatives thirsty for revenge.” Bust Rule: No HIdIng the Truth For added difficulty, a GM can disallow the use of Deception to resist client’s playing spots on characters. Clients are competent, after all, and their shots always land. The only way to weather the abuse is to bring more social ammo to the table. For even more challenge, the Market might say particularly brutal verbal jousts provoke Self-Control checks.

336 LeadershIp Leadership’s use in negotiations is dealt with more in depth in “Leadership Opens” section (see p. 330) PlayIng Spots Adam Smith may have believed in rational choice, but no logic survives contact with a human. Even the most deadened sociopaths have buttons to push, and negotiation rewards emotional manipulation above all else. Playing spots is all about leveraging an opponent for maximum profit. Once the dice go heads up on the Sway tracker, the only way to break the deadlock without giving in is to get the other party to start thinking irrationally. Spots are the most powerful weapons either side can use in a negotiation and absolutely essential to success. You don’t have to play spots to negotiate – just to win. Spots At-A-Glance All spots must be learned, either through Scams or through Sensitivity, before they can be played. Spots for Takers to use against Clients: • Weak Spot: Work a mention or exploitation of the client’s personal flaws into the roleplaying for a bonus +1 Sway. • Soft Spot: Work a mention or exploitation of the client’s virtues into the roleplaying for a bonus +1 Sway. • Tough Spot: Work a mention or exploitation of the contract’s requirements into the roleplaying for a bonus +1 Sway. • +Rep Spots: If the crew has earned a +Rep Spot for a notable deed, work it into the roleplay for a bonus +1 Sway and erase the +Rep Spot from the crew sheet. Spots for Clients to use against Takers • Sensitivity: Clients can sacrifice a turn to learn one spot of the provider in negotiations. They never start off knowing spots unless they’ve already worked with challenge of additional rounds without the resources to accrue more Sway. Intimidation cuts the conversation off early, allowing Takers to quit while ahead on a success. Finally, Intimidation is another skill available to prevent competition from undercutting the final price. Roleplay a threat to rivals and make an Intimidation check. On a success, the other crew withdraws their bid. In summary, Intimidation can do the following in negotiations: • Sacrifice a turn to make a check. On a success, the client can’t learn any more spots. Example: “Stick to business. You try to get in my head again? I’ll paint yours across the wall.” • On a success, force an early end to negotiations. Instead of simultaneous resolution, negotiations end the moment the Taker succeeds. The process moves directly on to “Leadership Closes” (p. 343) and price fixing. On a failure, the client doesn’t buy the threat. Example: “I don’t have time to prattle all day with you. You want to risk your bounty with some Bait-ass crew, be my guest. I got shit to do.” • On a success, scare a competitor into removing their undercut for the contract. Example: “You can snake my job and lose a lot of bounty paying your medical bills, or you could keep walking and save us both the trouble.” Bust Rule: Peasants Don’t Scare Me To add challenge, Markets can disallow Intimidation checks to prevent further Sensitivity reads by the client. No one gets enough bounty to hire out Takers by being shit at reading people. In this Bust variant, sacrificing a turn means the client learns a spot. Always.

337 character’s speech to the dice is putting the fate of everyone in the hands of blind luck. Since spots are so powerful, incorporating one increases the roleplaying challenge even more. Now, instead of merely catering their speech to maximize the impact of skills, the negotiator has to work the spot into the pitch as well. So if a group has a skilled improvisor amongst their ranks, maximize the crew’s profits by having the thespian play a highCHA negotiator. The challenge then becomes keeping the golden goose character alive when it comes time to fight. GIft Spots A gift spot is an intrusion of the barter system on negotiations. Everyone likes presents; when they might keep you from being eaten alive, it’s really hard to be ungrateful. A client can offer the crew a piece of gear for free and get an automatic +1 Sway for “sweetening the pot.” The gear doesn’t have to be useful, and it’s up to the crew to decide who keeps the profits or pays the upkeep, but the gift always works. The client cannot use a gift spot more than once in a negotiation, but the gesture can’t be denied without committing a social faux pas that cuts off negotiations altogether. crew in a job line, but they always succeed on Sensitivity checks. • Character Spots: The spots listed on the negotiator’s character sheet, once learned, can be incorporated into the Market’s roleplay for a bonus +1 Sway. Takers may be able to resist the bonus with a successful Deception check. • Gift Spot: Once per negotiation, a client may “sweeten the pot” with a piece of gear, earning a bonus +1 Sway. No skill can resist this Sway bonus. • -Rep Spot: If the crew has done something unprofessional, incompetent, or dishonest in the past, the client can use it once for a bonus +1 Sway. No skill can resist this Sway bonus. RoleplayIng Challenge Playing a spot is, above all, a roleplaying challenge. The entire negotiation mechanic already requires some careful acting if the negotiator is to utilize the best skill for a given check. Saying “I’ll kill you if you don’t give me the job” isn’t exactly persuasive, and the difference between Persuasion and Intimidation skills might be a +3. The negotiating player that can’t cater their

338 The first gift is hard to argue with, but the cost of fencing extra crap would make any contract not worth it. Clients only get one gift spot per session. Both + and -Rep spots are “burned” once they are used. The Loss has a short memory, and using the crew’s brand for or against them has a limited shelf life. Once the spot is used, it can’t be used again in any other negotiations during that campaign. However, there are some Bust rules that make Rep spots reusable. Always Powerful; SometImes Enough Spots always count for +1 Sway, regardless of whether the associated skill succeeds or fails. Leverage remains leverage even when inexpertly applied. Example: So, let’s say Whitman wants to employ the Tough Spot: Time is of the Essence. He’s heads up with the client and needs the extra push. The character says, “The Philosopher Kings aren’t only professional; we’re available. We have no other obligations at this time, and we can start work immediately.” Whitman’s player rolls B6+2/R8. Damn! Ties go to the Market. The reminder of the ticking clock is good for +1 Sway, but his delivery seems paper-thin. It won’t be enough to push the client, but using the spot at least keeps the dice where they are for this round. DefendIng AgaInst ManIpulatIon One non-negotiable is that clients are competent. So long as a turn’s not being sacrificed to learn a spot, the client always has at least +1 Sway available to them. The same goes for playing spots against the PC. The client’s success is assumed, unless the Markets should take care to make sure the gift warrants the extra Sway, though. Bribing the Takers with an extra Haul of rations is condescending rather than ingratiating. Rep Spots In long-term play, the Market offers Rep spots for particularly noteworthy actions. When the Takers are documented or witnessed doing something heroic or impressive, the crew gains a +Rep spot. During negotiations, they can play a +Rep spot for an automatic +1 Sway, regardless of the associated skill check’s result. The same rule applies for public disgrace and failure. In the event the Takers get caught being unprofessional, the crew’s reputation gets damaged. Clients can burn a -Rep spot for an automatic +2 Sway. No skill check can prevent this maneuver. LImIted Usage Whether used by the client or by the Taker, each spot can only be used once per negotiation, and sometimes only once per campaign. All characters have weak, soft, and tough spots, but wailing on them over and over creates bad blood and breaks contracts. Each one may only be played once per negotiation, and only after it has been learned. The only way to replay a spot would be if the same negotiator and client met again as part of job line, but even then, the client’s tough spot would shift to reflect the new contract. Similarly, gift spots are irresistible, but the client can’t endlessly bury a crew in presents. Bust Rule: The Loss Never Forgets In this variant, reputation never goes away. It can be used in every negotiation, by both the client and the Takers. The only way to get rid of a -Rep spot is for the crew to burn a +Rep spot to cancel it out. If the crew chooses to level out its karmic accounts, erase both the + and -Rep spots from the crew sheet. Bust Rule: All or NothIng For an increased challenge, the spot means nothing if the associated check fails. That means playing a spot can result in either 0 or 2 Sway: nothing inbetween. The spot is gone after the check is made, even if the skill failed.

339 • Scams are only available between negotiation rounds. A three-round negotiation would only have two Scams: between rounds one and two, and between rounds two and three. • Each Taker may only perform one Scam. - MBA Rules: A Taker might be afforded one, two, or no Scams, depending on Work/Life balance. • The skills used in a Scam and the number of checks required depends on the context of the scene decided on between the scammer and the Market. • Each Scam can only fulfill one of five possible purposes: - Partners in Crime: The scammer is in the room with the negotiator. They can “step in” and perform a CHA skill check instead of the negotiator. - Negotiator Support: A scammer’s actions provide the negotiator a onetime +2 bonus to one of the negotiator’s skills. - Discourage Competition: The scammer sabotages competitors and prevents an undercut. - Price Manipulation: The scammer’s actions add bounty to the equilibrium price equal to the natural Black of their check. - Intelligence Gathering: The scammer learned one of the client’s Spots, providing more leverage for the negotiator. NonlInear TIme Planning in RPGs can be laborious, hindering the progression of the story. Also, even if a group cooperates well enough to agree on a scheme quickly, once that scheme is executed, everyone at the table is still stuck watching the provider and client talk. Scams are designed to prevent both problems and keep the game engaging for everyone. To this end, Scams operate off of nonlinear time. What does that mean? In the middle of conversation, if it turns out the negotiator really needs to know the client’s weak spot, player makes a successful Deception check. Deception is the only way to cut the +2 Sway from a spot down to the regular +1 Sway. Like an Athletics check used to dodge an attack, it’s best to think of Deception as a twitch action compelled by someone attacking a character’s spots. The skill check doesn’t even have to represent any actual speech; it could be something as simple as a poker face. If the Deception check succeeds, the client’s Sway drops down to +1 again, allowing the provider to push the price by playing a spot of their own. ObtaInIng Spots For the cost of a turn, negotiators can check Sensitivity to learn a client’s spot in the moment. But turns are precious and time spent reading the audience isn’t spent working it. It’s best to know what makes clients tick before ever even meeting them, and that’s where Scams come in... Scams (Inbetween Rounds) Clients seemingly hold all the cards in a negotiation. They have the bounty to pay, a desperate workforce, and all the time in the world. But successful crews don’t leave anything to chance when it comes to a payday and, as far as the Loss goes, they’re the experts. The whole crew cooperates to fleece the client as much as possible. PCs not directly negotiating with the client engage in Scams that boost the price, sabotage the competition, and support their negotiator’s plays. Players that don’t want to play a CHAheavy character but still want to contribute to negotiations should read the following and familiarize themselves with Scams. Scams At-A-Glance Scams are actions roleplayed between negotiation rounds, taking place before or concurrent with the negotiator/client conversation.

340 LImIted Resources Scams are limited to the number of the players outside of negotiations. In a 3-person crew, two Scams would be available: one for each player outside the conversation. The negotiator cannot scam because their work action is used actually talking to the client (see “Work/Life Balance” p. 434). Scams are also limited to one or two skill checks apiece – also keep in mind that References can be tapped to succeed at cost during Scams. It’s not possible to interrupt a tense negotiation to phone a friend, but Scams operate off nonlinear time. Between planning the Scam, executing it, and roleplaying any networking used to compensate for failure, a complex Scam could eat up ten minutes of time at the table. The goal is to keep any single player from dominating the spotlight entirely, so players aren’t encouraged to go off on never-ending, one-man side quests. MBA Rules and Work/LIfe Balance In its basic form, Red Markets assumes the Work/Life Balance of every character. Takers get one vignette with their family (life), and they get one action to help the crew (work) either through scamming or negotiating. The MBA Rules make available a variety of other actions that PCs might want to engage in, but the opportunity cost of the Work/ Life Balance still exists. This means some characters might get two scams by sacrificing time with family, or no scams by focusing on their loved ones. For more detailed rules on this advanced style of play, see p. 424. The Targets of Scams Like “Prep Work” (p. 324), players can propose the use of any skill in a Scam so long as it might reasonably get the job done. But, regardless of its design, Scams can only serve one of five mechanical functions. IntellIgence GatherIng Any time a negotiator wants to figure out the opponent’s spot, it requires sacrificing an entire turn for an uncertain Sensitivity check. one of the other crew members can use a Scam to say they figured it out already and relayed the intel before the negotiation even started. How did the crew know they’d need that information? Because they’ve been surviving in the Loss for five years, that’s how. Alternately, if the negotiator needs a distraction that very second in order to assist a Deception check, a coworker can spend their Scam to trigger a diversion as the negotiation is going. It doesn’t matter if the Scam happened before or during negotiations, so long as the skill check succeeds, the scheme succeeds. At the table, Scams always take place between rounds of a negotiation: after both provider and client have determined their Sway but before the next round starts. While the scam can determine whether the character is acting before or during the conversation, the player always describes that action between one round and the next. “Nonlinawha?” Anyone who has ever seen a heist movie or read a novel knows how nonlinear, time-hopping story structures work. What at first seems like an insurmountable obstacle ends up having been conquered at a previous point in the narrative... a point left out by the author until such a time as a flashback could relieve that artificial suspense. For instance, it looks like the Ocean’s gang is going to be caught... until we find out they’re disguised as the SWAT team. Voldermort has certainly won... until we learn about the secret histories that both Dumbledore and Snape have been hiding for six books. It’s a cheap writing technique, but it’s less of a copout in games: those flashbacks still need to be played out in the moment and the dice don’t always cooperate. If the scheme failed, but the negotiator had to go ahead regardless, it still makes for satisfying drama rather than stopping the negotiation dead. A failed Scam can only ever deny a bonus. It’s never a matter of life or death..

341 • Preach about the coming apocalypse to the fearful refugees, driving up demand for guns. • Spread internet propaganda about the dangers of the job site, decreasing the competition of other Takers to increase your crew’s payment. Partners In CrIme Good cop/bad cop, straight man/cut-up... there are a variety of rhetorical strategies that require more than one person. Players can forgo their opportunity to scam if they want to be in the room with the negotiator. The non-negotiable of “One-on-one” (see p. 322) still applies – no one can shout down the client as a PC hive-mind choir – but being the room allows the other Taker to “tag into” negotiations. There can still only be one person speaking to the client for any given round and the person speaking is still allowed only one CHA-related check. So no one can fail a Persuasion check and then immediately have their partner make another Persuasion check, and neither Taker can use References once engaged in the negotiation. Though both parties are unable to scam, they can alternate using their skills and play to each Taker’s strengths. For example, if the convincingly earnest negotiator finds herself in need of some bullshit, the duplicitous bastard can step in for a Deception check. Two middling negotiators can add up to a great one, with the right cooperation. Remember: neither party is guaranteed success, and both are cut off from the powerful support positions played by those outside the negotiation. NegotIator Support Supporting the negotiator’s rolls means somehow being present for the negotiator in the room, either physically or through reputation. While intel gathering makes certain rolls possible (such as playing spots), supporting the negotiator provides a one-time +2 bonus. Considering the power of playing spots, the risky fishing expedition may very well be worth it, but it requires perfect timing. Successful Takers know their clients before they even meet them. A great way to use a Scam is to figure out a client’s spot before they ever walk into the room. Lots of ADP, INT, and CHA skills can get the crew insider information, provided they have the leisurely time limit of a scam. Example Intel Gathering Scams: • Hack into a client’s internet history using Profession: Hacker, learning about the boss’s embarrassing addiction to some very questionable genres of pornography. • Pick an assistant’s pocket with Criminality to learn the client’s tough spot. • Tail the client with Sneak, and then use Sensitivity to read one of their spots. • Contact an old squadmate back in the Recession with Networking. Maybe she has dirt on this Steward you have to deal with. PrIce ManIpulatIon Price manipulation Scams seek to alter the equilibrium price of the contract. The Market determines the initial equilibrium by rolling on the Supply/Demand chart (see p. 363). The Black and Red determine the quadrant on the chart and what kind of scams Takers can perform to alter the fundamental price of what they are selling. On the final dice check determining the success or failure of the scam, success adds a number of bounty equal to the natural result of the Black. Critical success maxes the added bounty out at 11. Failure doesn’t alter the equilibrium at all. Example Price Manipulation Scams: • Puncture holes in the jugs storing the water reserve, decreasing supply to increase demand. • Secure a hiding spot for the salvaged generators off-site, creating an artificial scarcity to keep demand constant

342 all possible competition in the vicinity even provides the +Rep spot “Only Game in Town.” However, enclaves and settlements have their own laws, and outright murdering other people within the borders tends to be illegal. Less deadly sabotage – dosing all their rations with laxative, for instance – still risks repercussions from the authorities and the sabatoged crew. Groups antagonizing the competition regularly or overtly can expect -Rep spots and ambush out in the Loss. Ruthlessness only works in the short term, and even then only if the group is smart enough to hide it. Markets should make sure that their players understand that gunning down their rivals can never be done with total impunity. At the minimum, successful sociopathy still costs ammo and Humanity. Shady business practices can help or hurt the bottom line in equal measure. Example Discourage Competition Scams: • Using Leadership to stir up public fervor, insisting that the other crew are “the only ones who can be trusted” to take on a Example Negotiator Support Scams: • Using Profession: Computer Science to skim the wireless traffic from the client’s fitness watch, monitoring the heartrate for signs of lying, and feeding data to the negotiator (+2 to Sensitivity) • Using Profession: Herbalist to ease a mother’s gout, thus securing her son’s – the client – gratitude (+2 to Persuasion) • Using Criminality to plant oneself in a “random” crowd and Deception to act surprised when the provider proves she can read minds (+2 to Deception) • Using Networking to convince a Reference to soften the client up with stories of this terrifyingly badass crew of Takers in the area (+2 to Intimidation) DIscourage CompetItIon One or more Takers can use their Scam to discourage competition, thus preventing the undercut at the end of a negotiation. After all, if all the other crews in the enclave are too busy being on fire to take on new clients, that’s a powerful bargaining chip. Eliminating

343 attempt to undercut the final price to steal the contract. Competition always tries to steal jobs after the price has been set, providing one last challenge for the negotiator. Resisting the undercut requires someone in the crew to somehow convince the competition to back down or the client to pay for quality. If either of those tactics fails, the crew has to meet the competition’s price to keep the job. If the check critically fails, the crew has to go one step lower than the undercut on the Sway tracker to keep their contract. Once an attempt to undercut the PCs has been made, the NPCs won’t make another – undercutting is a one-and-done move. Failing the Prep Work (p. 324) checks required to find a job means the Takers are the ones that must undercut their competition in order to get access to negotiations. This starts the negotiations at the lowest possible price on the Sway Tracker. It’s possible to undercut in order “to get a foot in the door” only to end up negotiating a higher price, but doing so requires more skill from the negotiator. Though undercutting is limited and can’t reduce prices infinitely, it’s still a dangerous maneuver available to competitors. The certain enclave contract... distracting them from the more lucrative job. • Using Criminality to break in to the rival crew’s HQ. With all their weapons disassembled and hidden about the enclave, it’s going to be hard to go over the fence. • Using Intimidation to convince the crew to find another client... or else. • Using Unarmed to start a bar fight with the rival negotiator. It’s hard to use a silver tongue with your jaw wired shut. LeadershIp Closes (After NegotIatIons) What tips the scales in haggling? Most of the time, even experts can’t point to the straw that breaks a negotiator’s resolve. As with the beginning of Negotiations (see “Leadership Opens” p. 330), the Leadership skill measures all the variables in the Taker’s personality that can affect the price. It takes one final dice check to agree on a price. Then players deal with the competition and decide whether it’s time to suit up. Leadership closes negotiations by determining who ultimately compromises on the price. The dice representing the two parties can’t lock horns forever: someone is going to have to come down or go up to agree on a price. Was the client impressed enough to pay more than planned, or do the Takers make a concession for fear of going hungry? It’s a test of personality to see who breaks first. The negotiator rolls a Leadership check. On a success, the provider’s die (Black) moves up to meet the client’s die (Red), ensuring a higher price. On a failure, the client’s die (Red) goes down to meet the provider’s die (Black), and the Takers give up a final concession. In short, success means the Takers get more bounty, failure means they get less. UndercuttIng A successful Networking check gets the players first shot at a job, but competition can What If the dIce don’t meet? If negotiations have been disastrous and the dice aren’t even close to a compromise, there are two ways to fix the price. Boom Rule: the Taker makes a Leadership check all the same. Success moves the price up, failure brings it down... even if the dice are three boxes apart. This means that an uncertain, rocky conversation can end up working out based off the Taker’s sheer force of personality. Bust Rule: the price always goes down. If the dice aren’t head’s up, the client only goes down to meet the Taker. If they wanted more bounty, they should have pushed harder for it.

344 Example NegotIatIon Basic Premise Wyeth, Ghede, and Fern run the Voodun outfit. We’ll refer to each as the combined entity that is a PC rather than cluttering the text with separate player/character names. Voodun just got off the ground, so they haven’t had a chance to open any job lines yet. They only have freelance jobs available. Voodun is negotiating with another Taker that goes by the handle of Splenda. Splenda has been hired to contract some protection for a group of wealthy Recession businessmen that want to go on “safari” out in the Loss. But while they want some simulated danger hunting casualties, they need experienced Takers to prevent that danger from becoming real. Prep Work Voodun just got off the ground, so they haven’t had a chance to open any job lines yet. They only have freelance jobs available. Wyeth goes first, spending a charge of his Ubiq Specs to make a Networking check. He succeeds and asks “What contracts are available?” He learns of a security detail job being offered by a Taker in the area named Splenda. Fern uses Networking as well and also succeeds. She could ask a follow-up question, but she decides she wants more options. She asks for another contract. Fern hears rumors that a group of rebels are willing to pay big for water purification tablets. After some discussion, it’s decided that it’s better to sign up for the security job; the group is pretty well-armed, but they don’t have any vehicles to carry salvaged goods and would be leaving bounty behind for every box of tablets left behind. If negotiations don’t go well with Splenda, Voodun can still try to negotiation for the rebel’s job at a penalty. Ghede decides to use Intimidation on local snitch called Crab. The check fails, but Ghede decides he really wants more information and taps Crab as a Reference: if he can’t scare him into talking, he can bribe him. He asks, “What will the security job likely require?” primary appeal of using scams to eliminate competition is preventing this stressful and potentially damaging check. This is also one of the benefits of chasing job lines early: groups that are the preferred providers for a client don’t have to worry about competitors undercutting them. BackIng Out PCs aren’t obligated to take a job they don’t feel pay enough. When negotiations fail, they can move on to another job the Market has created, or one can be randomly generated (see p. 358). However, everyone should be forewarned that all economies move in cycles and waiting too long for the perfect job could mean passing it by. In the Carrion Economy, a number of factors give the markets their seasons. The weather plays a part. War against the dead is easier in winter, but it costs more in gear and supplies. The summer means a lower overhead, but more danger from casualties and other factions. Clients from the Recession only hire out contracts as they can afford to, which keeps most of the apocalyptic wasteland marching to the same “1st and 15th” monthly beat as the old world. So Takers don’t have to take the first thing that comes along, but they can’t afford to waste time either. There is a finite amount of work in every cycle, and starvation keeps a much more demanding schedule. The opportunity lost by turning down a job is represented by the starting positions on the Sway tracker. If a group turns down a job because they’re dissatisfied with how negotiations worked out, the competition gets that job. The next job they pursue starts them in the “As a Favor” section of the tracker. Furthermore, while players get another Scam in a Boom game, a Bust game leaves the group with whatever is left over after the first negotiation. In either case, resources and Will spent on failed haggling don’t come back.

345 Negotiation: Round 1 The Market, assuming the role of Splenda, opens with a simple Persuasion move: “We are looking for guides to accompany an already well-stocked and heavily-armed expedition. Really, your people would only be tagging along to provide some peace of mind. This contract is practically charity, so I won’t be tolerating the usual cons. I suggest you take what is offered and be grateful.” Clients are always competent and the dice aren’t heads up yet, so the Red die will move down the tracker at the end of the round. Since he’s got four rounds to work with, Wyeth figures that it’s time for the long con. He is going to burn his turn for a Sensitivity check. This could be roleplayed by simply describing the Taker’s penetrating stare, but Wyeth figures he’ll try and probe behind what Splenda’s masters told him to say. He asks, “Do you really think there is such a thing as charity? Out here?” The Market thinks about Ghee’s request. The answer would give away one of the client’s spots, specifically the Tough Spot: Absolute Discretion Required. Breaking quarantine is widely illegal, and powerful men won’t risk their positions for a little fun without guarantees. Since learning spots is reserved for Scams, the Market leaves that information out, but he does reveal where the group plans to hunt. Turns out Crab has heard about the proposed casualty hunt: the obvious choice is Ivory Plains, a gated community with a sealed off and finite population of undead. The group now knows the job is going to be five Legs away. Such a journey is risky, but it can make for a hell of a payday if the price point is right. Leadership Opens Wyeth is elected as the negotiator for Voodun. The Market gets out the Sway Tracker. She places a Black on “Buyer’s Market” to represent Wyeth’s lowly class. The Red goes on “Expenses,” representing the client’s comparably limitless resources After roleplaying introductions with Splenda, the Market asks Wyeth for a Leadership check. The results are B6+1/R7, a failure even with Wyeth’s skill in Leadership. Normally, this would mean that the Market would roll in secret for the number of rounds and the group wouldn’t know how many were available. Wyeth hates that idea, but he can’t use References in a negotiation. After some consideration, he spends a Will to swap the dice. Hopefully he won’t need that point later... Now that the “natural” results are B7+1/ R6, the group knows the negotiation is going to last 4 rounds (B8 divided by 2). Since Wyeth won the Leadership check, the Market asks if he wants to pitch first or respond to the client’s demands. The order can have an effect on the tracker, depending on whether the strategy is a hard initial push or a lategame burst. Wyeth, as a role-player, decides he is more comfortable going second. It gives him more information to make decisions.

346 failed attempt to read him. Splenda plays the -Rep spot: Sneaky Bastards, leftover from Voodun’s brutal betrayal of their competition last session: “I’m glad you asked that question. It reminds me: my bosses won’t like working with a bunch of sociopathic thugs. If you want this job, I have to neglect to mention some of your previous indiscretions. And if I’m going to do you that favor, you’re going to have to work for bottom dollar so I get my bonus.” This is a maneuver that Wyeth can’t defend against; the crew did backstab people to get previous jobs and it is on record. No amount of Deception can change that. The client’s die will move 2 Sway on the tracker, but at least the crew doesn’t have to worry about the past coming back to bite them anymore. The Market erases -Rep Spot: Sneaky Bastards from the crew sheet. Well, crap. Wyeth has a spot to play, but he doesn’t want to waste it until the dice are heads up. Since the dice resolve simultaneously, it would be a waste to use it now. He figures he’s better off with a Persuasion check: “The same problem your boss has with my people is the same reason you need us. There’s no place for scruples once you hop the fence. You want ethics? Find a philosopher. You want to stay alive? Hire Voodun.” Wyeth rolls and gets B4+3/R6. His +3 Persuasion makes that a success. The Black moves up. Since they didn’t bother to research the current equilibrium for security jobs during prep, the Market only now rolls on the supply/ demand chart. He gets a B4/R10. That means the job is worth 14 bounty and the economy Wyeth makes a Sensitivity check and gets B5/R5. Critical failure! Splenda’s demeanor remains icy and totally unimpressed. It’s so bad that the Market calls for a Self-Control check against Stress. Luckily, Wyeth makes it with B4+1/R2; he’s not quite ready to despair his chances yet. Ghede’s Scam Things are not going well in there for Wyeth, but Ghede would have planned for such an eventuality. The Voodun representative is going to need leverage, so his scam seeks to gather intel. After some out-of-character discussion, Ghede figures corporate executives would leave some sort of electronic paper trail. Ghede doesn’t have any skills capable of sniffing out such clues, and the player fails to default off of INT. However, that doesn’t preclude calling in a favor. Ghede contacts QA, a hacker he knows at a different enclave and roleplays the request with the Market. QA goes on Ghede’s character sheet as being owed a bounty (Needy), and the NPC reports that he’s sniffed Splenda’s wireless signal and found a number of communications with Phoenix Armaments, a major weapons manufacturer in the Recession. Breaking quarantine is wildly illegal and powerful men won’t risk their positions for a little fun without guarantees. The group therefore knows the Tough Spot “Absolute Discretion Required” and can play that spot against the client. Negotiation: Round 2 The Market figures that Splenda would want to push hard, sensing weakness in the Taker’s

347 Nobody can turn down free military hardware in an apocalyptic wasteland. The Gift spot is worth an easy 2 Sway. The only way to resist the push is to come back with just as much leverage. Wyeth needs to push hard, so he plays the tough spot he learned with Ghede’s scam: Absolute Discretion Required. Even if he fails the check, Wyeth will still put up 1 Sway of resistance, and they might negate Splenda’s maneuver entirely. Wyeth wants to use his Persuasion skill because it’s his best; he’s got to work in the spot to get the bonus without being so overtly threatening as to call for a different skill. After some thought, Wyeth says, “That’s very gracious of you, though those folks at Phoenix Armaments probably have guns to spare. If we don’t get this contract, I’ll have to tell all my fellow ‘sociopathic thugs’ exactly who they’re helping to break quarantine.” Wyeth rolls B8/R8. Critical success! He gets +1 for the success, +1 for the spot, and another +1 for the critical. That’s 3 Sway versus the client’s 2 Sway. Splenda’s maneuver has backfired and pushed him back one. is flooded: there are too many other security contractors competing, keeping prices down. Fern’s Scam Fern hasn’t contributed a scam yet. She wants to scare off some of the other Taker crews, decreasing supply to increase demand. Wyeth begs her not to; he needs more spots to play if this is going to work out. This kind of table talk between rounds is allowed and encouraged. It reminds everyone at the table that the crew is made up of experts that would have predicted as many possibilities as they could before meeting the client. Fern considers how she might get the inside scoop on the client. She figures that Voodun would’ve guessed a big player like Splenda would be across the table one day. Of course she’s already figured out an angle on him! Fern’s player asks the Market if she could have used Criminality to disguise herself as an average enclavist, then plied the freelancer with drinks until he let his guard down. The Market thinks that sounds plausible. Splenda works with so many Takers it’s hard to keep them straight, especially when he’s being bought drinks. Fern makes the Criminality check and gets B5+3/R9. That’s a failure. But wait! This is a scam. Fern can tap a Reference. She calls up Shifty Eddy, the most renowned pickpocket in the Loss. She pays a favor to have him lift Splenda’s backpack while the guy is busy rebuking the advances of some random barfly. Eddy finds a dozen faded photographs in the man’s wallet before returning it. Turns out Splenda has the Weak Spot: Family Man. Negotiation: Round 3 Splenda smells blood. He can get these amateurs working for a song. The Market plays a Gift spot: “Look, I know there’s a potential for danger out there. But these guys are willing to share. If you take the job, we’ll throw in a fully upgraded assault rifle: silencer, hollowpoint ammo, the works.”

348 was saving his last point of Will! He flips it to B10+1/R5. The Black moves up to meet the Red at “100% Mark Up” Voodun earns the equilibrium price (14 bounty), plus their combined break points for Labor (6+3+4= 13 bounty), plus one bounty per Taker per leg (3 Takers X 5 legs = 15 bounty), plus another 14 bounty from 100% Mark Up (equilibrium x 2). When it’s all added together, the contract is worth 56 bounty split three ways – not to mention a free, fully upgraded assault rifle. Undercutting Right as Voodun is about to leave, Splenda messages them on Ubiq. Dr. Epicurus and his band of merry amateurs have offered to do the job for only “Hazard Pay,” a full 21 bounty less than the agreed upon price. Splenda demands Voodun meet their price or he’s going with the other crew. Ghede is now regretting his decision to be nice; not having to deal with this shit is the main benefit of eliminating one’s rivals. Fern says she’s got this and gets on the Ubiq specs to say, “Well, we’re sorry it didn’t work out. You’re sure your clients are cool participating in all that weird sex stuff though?” “What?” Splenda asks. “Epicurus practices a denomination of Detoxinism that practices ‘community love.’ You didn’t hear about that? He never sent you an invite to one of the orgies?” This, of course, is complete bullshit. Fern knows nothing of the rival crew or their religion, but she wants to get paid. The Market says this is a Deception check: Fern rolls B8+2/R3. Out of Scams Both of the characters outside of negotiation have performed their scams. They’re all out of resources and have to hope Wyeth can get a big push using the remaining spot they learned. Negotiation: Round 4 Splenda is running out of options. He’s all out of easy leverage to play, and he hasn’t taken the time to get a read on Wyeth’s personality. The Market opts for Intimidation: “Breaking the confidentiality of this conversation will ensure you never work again. I will blacklist Voodun with every group I represent.” It’s a transparent strategy, but it’s still good for 1 Sway. Wyeth started slow, but it’s time to finish strong. He sticks with his best skill, Persuasion, and plays the Weak Spot: Family Man: “Lose the holier-than-thou attitude, Splenda. I know you’d do anything to provide for your family, and you can’t fault us for doing the same. Giving us a fair price won’t steal food from the mouths of your kids. We’re right for this, and you’re too good a person to send those citizen assholes out to die with some punk crew.” Wyeth gets a B8+3/R9. The success and the spot add up for 2 Sway. Since the dice are heads up, it’s a 1 Sway push after Splenda’s resistance is factored in. Leadership Closes Wyeth has to make his Leadership check to see who compromises. It’s not his best skill (+1), and he ends up with B5+1/R10. He was afraid that might happen, which is why he

349 Some example archetypes for fixers: • Raider’s Advocate LLC: a boutique PR firm comprised of out-of-work lawyers struggling to survive in a Recession ghetto. The team hires out their nearly obsolete expertise over Ubiq to supplement their meager new incomes as subsistence farmers. • Mullet: a legendary Taker from the early days of LifeLines. She retired to Leper after a disastrous contract wiped out her whole crew and left her Latent. She gets by selling her shrewd bargaining skills, but the horrors she’s witnessed have left her entirely unfit for field work. • Mr. Johnson: Cold, dispassionate, callous – Johnson is the only man with the gall to attend meetings in the apocalypse in khakis and a pink polo. He’s been around for years, lending his inexplicable professionalism to the highest bidder, negotiating some of the greatest Taker paydays in history from behind his mirrored aviator sunglasses. No one knows how he’s survived this long, not to mention how he’s stayed so clean doing it. Shared Burdens Whether a fixer loves, loathes, or remains indifferent to the crew that employs them is up to the group to decide. But regardless of personal opinion, fixers never work for free. Groups that want to outsource their contracts need to pay for the privilege. Fixers charge a retainer per session, whether they are used that session or not. The cost is equal to the number of players in bounty. If that amount isn’t paid per session, the fixer finds other work and the Takers have to figure things our on their own. Investment In Human Resources Fixers wouldn’t be working if they weren’t competent. A fixer starts with a three in CHA and +1 in every CHA skill. Beyond that, fixers have no other stats except Will (which also starts at 1). They exist solely as social surrogates for the player inhabiting the Splenda sighs, “Nevermind. Forget what I said. Good luck out there.” He hangs up. The crew has secured a reasonable price, stymied their competition, and avoided murdering anyone in the process. Everything’s looking up for Voodun! Now all they have to do is stay alive.... Alternate Rule: FIxers Perhaps no one wants to take point in negotiations. Or maybe your group is comprised of enthusiastic roleplayers who all want a turn with the talking stick. Either way, the Fixer rules allow groups to succeed in negotiations without having to commit a character’s skills to one focus. But as is the case with subcontractors, outsourcing the work raises overhead. What follows are the rules for using a fixers in campaign play. HIve MInd A fixer’s purpose is to enable any player at the table to take a turn as the negotiator, without reprioritizing all their skills. Naturally, making sure the fixer has a backstory that can support a variety of different actors is going to ease this mechanic’s implementation in the narrative. The fixer could actually be a team of fixers working for a single PR firm, subcontracted by the crew to secure the best prices. He could have a lot of personal issues taking place in the enclave or back in the Recession, explaining he wild shifts in demeanor from week-to-week. The group could merely agree on a few spots that describe the fixer’s personality, or develop a list of talking points to keep the personality grounded. Regardless, the only wrong choice would be a fixer that can only be successfully roleplayed by one person. If the negotiator has a thick Irish brogue, that’s all well and fine for the one player that can manage the accent, but what about everyone else? The goal of the mechanic is to democratize the role of head negotiator. Don’t write fellow players out of the part.

350 Groups are still only allowed a number Scams equal to the number of PCs minus one, as the number of rounds allow. The PC of the player adopting the role of the fixer has to sit out. Shot-calling the negotiation is enough spotlight time already. Players that don’t want to play a CHAheavy character but still want to contribute to negotiations should familiarize themselves with Scams. role for that session, so CHA, Will, and the associated skills are all that’s necessary. Improving the fixer’s negotiation prowess requires bounty, just as if they were a regular PC. The only difference between normal character advancement and fixer advancement is that the bounty has to be paid by everyone profiting off the professional negotiator’s skills. Upping a fixer’s skills still takes a number of bounty equal to the desired bonus, but this amount is multiplied by the number of PCs in the crew. So, raising Deception from +2 to +3 doesn’t cost 3 bounty; for a group of five players, it would cost 15 bounty. Every player needs to pay the same amount to increase a fixer’s skills set. The burden of the subcontract is carried by all. Skills are still limited by Potentials, but raising a fixer’s CHA costs 10 bounty per point, to be paid by every member of the crew. So, to return to the previous example, raising Deception up to +4 would be impossible without first raising Potential. Our hypothetical group of five players would have to share the burden of 50 bounty first, then pay the 15 required to up the Deception skill. LImIted Scams Scams are still limited whether using a fixer or not. After all, someone is still going to have to play that fixer during the negotiations. I have to pay HOW much? For those that judge the costs of retaining and developing a fixer too high, consider the ways in which having a dedicated negotiator frees characters up to invest in other skills. CHA skills remain as useful as ever during the job proper, and avoiding the need to specialize lets at least one more player dedicate more resources to combat and survival skills. Cutting the cost of fixers would make any other option too foolish to consider and that contradicts the entire point of fixers: to provide more options.