So it's been a few months since I posted my initial thoughts about Triangle Agency, a really fun new system that seems tailor made for my new weird / metanarrative / corporate horror sensibilities. Since then I've enjoyed not only introducing it to my play group but also wrapping my brain around the fact that this game runs COMPLETELY different to anything else in my TTRPG wheelhouse.
As we know all too well on this blog, there's a difference between learning the rules of the game, and learning the best storytelling/directorial practices to get the most out of the game. To consolodate some of those lessons I thought I'd go over one of the game's sample missions to show how I'd prep/run something like it in the future now that I have at least a single clue what I'm doing.
So here's the setup: There's a heatwave in the city and a helpful spirit/reality manipulating thoughtform/monster has decided it wants to help people cool down. Problem is? It has no idea how cool is comfortable for humans, and anyone who eats icecream from the truck it's possessed risks freezing into a solid block of ice if they get too hot.
The worst part? The only thing preventing it from burying the city in glacial brainfreeze are you and your bumbling friends figuring out a way to stop it
(Quick heads up, since this mission comes right out of the core rulebook lots of GMs run it for their new players. We're going to have spoilers galore below the cut, so make sure you're properly authorized to view them)
Tip 1: The Tragedy Engine
The key to making Triangle Agency work in both a mechanical and storytelling context is to constantly put your players in situations where things will end badly unless they use their powers. Whether it's challenging them in the field or interacting with their relationships, you should keep an eye towards designing every scene and scenario with a bad outcome in mind.
When players choose to act, they are highlighting their AGENCY in the story, willing to suffer consequences in the hope of making things better.
Every morning meeting should have at least one crisis, minor annoyance, or chance to do something kind for someone around them. Tailor these to each agent and where you think they are in their personal story. While it's not always necessary to force a role, you can be heavy handed hinting at the bad things are to follow.
Sprinkle a few more of these crises/ annoyances/ opportunities for kindness into the mission's investigation phase as storybuilding/chances for the players to roleplay.
During the mission, find endless ways to stonewall them when it comes to pursuing their objective (whatever that might be). Intractable npcs, physical barriers they can't overcome, and weird coincidences that just make it impossible to progress. The trick to making these feel less like random hurdles is to make clues (or other forms of forward progress) a reward for completing these challenges/diversions. Also be sure to tailor the hurdle to the objective in question, they'll be able to get out of some of them without power use, but not all of them.
One of the greatest tragedies we can all sympathize with is not being able to satisfy our needs/desires, so pick 2-3 of your agents and place something they DEEPLY want inside the mission: Money, Friendship, a chance to show off, lore™, an opportunity to be selfless. then put this behind some of those hurdles.
I always like to have a human drama playing out in the foreground/background of my missions, something that the players can latch onto emotionally that speaks directly to the themes touched upon by the anomaly and its focus. By default it's going to end in tragedy unless they do something about it.
Returning to the Icecream truck mission, lets see about seeding some tragedies:
During Morning Meetings, A kindly old person/friendly family in a nearby apartment is suffering because their AC broke down, and they don't have the money to get it fixed. Does the player lend an anomalous hand, even if it might be against the rules?
Some jerks back at HQ are "blowing off steam" by pranking/bullying/being general assholes to someone the field team are sympathetic with. Are they going to let this stand, or potentially make enemies of someone higher up the chain?
Before anyone understands what the anomaly is doing, someone at the icecream meetup makes eyes at one of the agents. The promise of some hot, sweaty fun is teased... only to have the potential hookup start freezing over in the agent's arms.
There's an adorable neighborhood youth who really, really wants to get ice cream with their even more adorable little sibling, but they keep getting shouldered out of line by all the damn influencers trying to get shots of themselves with the popup icecream truck. Don't they deserve a treat? It's even adorable little siblings' birthday today and they look about ready to pass out from heatstroke, and bigger sibling is getting angrier and angrier about things not going to plan.
Tip 2: On the Clock
Depending on what TTRPGs you play, you might already know clocks: a mechanic for representing progress towards a goal/deadline popularized by Blades in the Dark. Even though I love being a storyteller, I don't feel like the narrative should progress purely by my arbitrary whim, so I'll often include a clock when my players face a challenge that I feel can't be solved in a single roll.
The sample mission already states that there's a small crowd of people around the icecream truck at a pop up pool party, which gives us a pretty good idea of the challenges the Agents need to face.
I'd specifically set up two clocks, one representing the barrier they have to overcome ( 4 segments: Attention on the Truck) and another representing a looming threat ( 6 segments: more guests arrive). This lets the agents know when their ideas are working, and gives them two different avenues of action for progressing the adventure (distracting the people that have already shown up while keeping newcomers out). It also lets me plant traps and obstacles that can purposefully lead to consequences if not properly dealt with, such as a particularly popular foodblogger livechatting about how amazing the icecream is.
If I wanted to make this more challenging, I'd have them track down the location of the party themselves, potentially starting with the second clock more filled up if they end up coming the city or getting sidetracked.
Tip 3: Adaptive Anomalies
While it's true that in the TA universe, self willed distortions in reality literally DO pop out of thin air, I always like giving the anomalies a little more texture and motivation. The way I like to run it, most anomalies form in a context where they're stable/unnoticeable, and then (tragic) circumstance causes them to JUMP to their present, unstable/harmful context. We want ghost story logic, where the danger of the present haunting (as well as the solution to it) is tied to a very human want or sorrow.
For our Icecream anomaly, I'd say that it was born in a small but locally famous parlour (the sort that dates back to the 50s) that acted as an air conditioned oasis for generations of folks looking to escape the scorching weather. When that parlour burned down last summer (killing the beloved family owner in the process) it not only shunted the Anomaly out into a world it didn't understand, it also created a city wide longing for a chance to taste that icecream again.
The Anomaly THINKS IT'S HELPING; it knows that people want to stay cool, and it doesn't have the awareness to distinguish between spiking environmental/body temperature and the fire that destroyed its previous home/only constant human connection. Despite not being traditionally conscious or sapient, the thing is traumatized, and if the Agents can address that trauma. This history also gives them something else to research that isn't just beelining for the truck.
Some time ago, I did 1cc Deathsmiles. It was such a great game. So... I’ll try now to learn the normal difficulty from Mushihimesama. Its reputation is not just a tale. Game Over in Stage 3 at the first attempt due me being dumbass (honestly I’m sick with some fever as well but I wanted to play a bit).
