itch.io

The devcycle of Copperhead County is such an endless saga that the Tortuga County campaign is a spin-off of our original, multi-year campaign and yet I will still have occasional breakthroughs now 🙃

I just playtested them with a couple of people and was really happy with the results. The project stuff felt especially exciting — we really easily moved into identifying how positions could work, and played a couple of project scenarios with different consequences, and it felt really natural and alive with possibility.

I also really liked rest & recovery. Something else I like about it, and forgot to mention here, is that I like how it orients "rest" as something that happens by default in downtime, and then treats "indulgence" as something extra on top. That feels more natural to me.

One thing I'm still kicking around a bit is whether rest might get OP during the endgame — we talked about a possible solution (making it "rest OR recovery") but I was unconvinced by it, and we also settled on it not really being a big problem.

See https://itch.io/t/1911143/praise-and-question!

You’ve got it. You need Turf = the new Tier, so 4 presence = 2 Turf = eligible for Tier 2.

They are single upgrades with a single box. The only upgrade which can be bought indefinitely is Windfall.

Recruiting Spree says “create”, meaning you take that action when you buy it. It does not apply to all future purchases or any purchases separate from that upgrade.

then they might as well do that! The Bank track still has a separate function to track a PC’s Bank rating. If players want to put Cash in and out of it willy-nilly, then cool. It’s not an actual problem.

It’s the same.

the Copperhead Brain Trust™️ had a quick chat about this and I think we like Trouble overflow. I think what might be best, and what would fix something I still don't like, would be to do clock overflow but use the same roll results as project clocks (I don't really like how the two clock systems have different roll results). So overflowing clocks fixes those issues, and standardizing the roll results can still help with pacing and overall system clarity.

I'll keep it in mind!

nah, those are good points, and it certainly won't break anything to have them overflow! It's really a pacing consideration so that events have some breathing room and don't all pile up on each other. But that's not necessarily a bad thing! It's something for me to consider and run by the Copperhead Brain Trust™️

nope, they reset. That’s mostly for pacing, but feel free to have them overflow at your table if you want to really crank up events, Ozark-style. 

Thanks Eric. It does use flashbacks, which are also on the GM reference sheet iirc.

That’ll be in the relevant section in the next update. I worked on the current version on a very abbreviated schedule and skipped over it tbh!

I would bet the first place it gets released is Calum's patreon, which is where he posts a lot of WIPs.* Tortuga is totally Calum's thing, so I don't want to speak for him, but one of the objectives of our campaign is to flesh out the setting through playing in it.

*Including his cyber-horror-punk FitD game Deep in a Matrix of Flesh and Metal, which is Copperhead County's official FitD cyberpunk endorsement. The two games have exerted a lot of influence on each other!

Sorry, I didn't get a notification about this post! I'm not sure what you mean.

What I meant is that the "Sheets" PDF and the "Playbooks" PDF are the same file. They are posted separately so that one can be a free download and one can be bundled with the paid files.  The file organization on Itch is not great, and I'm trying to err on the side of caution with making sure everyone can get the files.

Great questions! These are all open to a bit of interpretation, since awarding xp is ultimately up to your table.

XP Triggers

1. I see "solved a problem" more as succeeding at an action, in contrast to the second trigger below.
2. Something outside of a PC's expertise basically means "outside of the playbook-specific xp triggers above." So if a Cleaner sweet-talks someone, or a Wheeler beats someone up, or so on, they're acting outside of that expertise. So the first trigger is, "Did you succeed at what you're supposed to be good at?", and the second trigger is, "Did you try to do other stuff?" And this one is "made an honest effort", unlike the first one, so it can reward someone for taking a swing and missing.
3. The addition of "honest effort", by the way, also means that CC PCs have one additional xp trigger over Blades PCs, so it should all even out for you.
4. There's another slight difference with the xp triggers, which is that 2 xp is if the PC was "really impressive", more than "happened multiple times"—so your group can judge success on those terms as well. In my games we tend to use that to award crits, the clutch roll that saved everything, a cool idea, a surprising turn of events, something that seemed like it wouldn't work and then did, etc.

Bank

Nah, I have never felt the need to penalize PCs for that, and honestly, I've also never seen it come up!

Drive

It's more freeform. You can still involve your Drive; like I'm currently playing a Stringer with a Family drive, and my R&R scenes so far have all involved his daughter. And the PC's xp trigger still involves your Drive, so it's good to keep that in the forefront during downtime anyway.

But you can branch out from that if you want. I'm open to tinkering with that language further, but the intention was to prevent an activity I saw often in Blades games: a player would pick some specific expression of their Vice, and then whenever they would indulge Vice, it would be like, "Time to do that one specific thing again." I want to encourage PCs to branch out and act as is fictionally appropriate to relieve their stress.

That's correct! The Outlaw is a blank playbook.

Just fixed them. Thanks for the heads up!

(Also: they are the same file. The reason they're separate is so one can be a demo, and one can be bundled with the paid files, for Itch purposes.)

I've heard their quality is good but I haven't used them. I got a book through Lightning Source recently and was impressed at the quality.

(Last thought: I am glad that your players are using it, at least. One issue with my testing is that my players have been completely uninterested in the activity.)

I believe that activity draft also previously had a (one per downtime) limiter but I cut it for some reason. Clearly a fuckup!

Yeah, that’s an issue with the activity in the draft sheets I posted. I liked the idea of changing it to a roll, but it gets to be too much.

I’ve already reverted it to the old activity (do activity for +1 Profit) on my end. I would do that for now.

I’m also going to update those sheets again soon!

haha I love the facial hair table. I had a good time putting together the very dumb clothing list, and a facial hair list is a good companion.  I think you have a good grasp of item weights, and I wonder if maybe it would make more sense to make some of the tool kits 2 dots instead of 1...

Esoteric Enterprises looks cool. I'm going to tell my pal Calum about it because he loves Unknown Armies.

Thank you! This board is the extent of the Copperhead County fandom.

I'd be very interested to see tables! My dark secret is that I don't ever use tables or think in terms of tables and that's why the game doesn't have any tables in it.

If the PCs can make a faction lose the requisite level of Turf, then their Tier should decrease.

Example... say the PCs go to war with Baron Carter, who is Tier 2 based on his stronghold of Adamstown and contested control over the rest of East Patterson. If they seize enough Turf, or cause him to lose enough Turf, that you think he'd be knocked down a level, then knock him down. Like, I think that if he suffered a string of defeats and was forced back to his core territory in Adamstown, he would fall to Tier 1/Local Turf, because that isn't significant enough to maintain his power at Tier 2/Region Turf.

Hey Kash,

1. Post whatever you want!

2. Nope. Tier is tied to Turf alone. Hold is probably worth calling out in that section!

You don't have to seize a claim from another faction! You have the claim when you meet the fictional requirements for the claim. You can absolutely set up a claim in other ways.

"Getting [the requirements for a claim] might be achievable through a single job (the crew storms a rival's Makeshift Lab and steals all of their equipment and supplies). In other cases, holding the claim might involve multiple jobs, a combination of jobs and downtime projects, or relationships with other factions, key NPCs, and/or other fictional requirements. ... You might also gain access to a Claim through an alliance with another faction."

The premise of the game is that your crew commits crimes and makes money and deals with other factions, not necessarily that every claim is seized by strength of arms. That said, setting up a new Front Company in the crowded county criminal economy might well make others feel like their territory is being encroached upon, depending on what exactly the crew is doing. Even within white-collar crime they might attract the ire of Albright, the Mountain Mafia, non-criminal factions they step on, whatever.

I could see setting up a law practice as a combination of a downtime project and maybe other asset rolls. You need a physical space, staff, computers, office supplies, etc — and you probably have to join the bar or whatever.  All stuff that is completely doable during downtime.

It's absolutely the intent of the game to allow PCs to develop their Business during downtime, because obviously, in cases such as this, you're not going to charge into someone else's Front and take it over (which would basically ruin it as a Front, anyway).

That makes sense, but I think is still too complex relative to the rest of the game. I've also found, with outlier mechanics like that, it's easy to forget about them when the time comes. It could be very much worth drilling down like that for a campaign that focuses on insider trading, though!

I thought about it some more, and I think rather than deal with a "secondary payout" mechanic, I would rather standardize +Cash claims around the idea of increased payout—mirroring the "increased effect/whatever" language but without mandating a specific Cash increase, because the nature of the Payout should be based on the game fiction, not on fiddly modifiers.

Of course, what still separates insider trading from those Theft claims is that, when you steal a car, you're selling a physical object. When you play the game of stonks, you're interacting with a vast shadow world. So would it make sense to be like...

Insider Trading. You maintain an ever-evolving portfolio of stocks connected to local industries. When your actions would allow you to profit from the stock market, you get an increased payout (particularly risky trades may create increased Heat as well).

This is very nefarious!

This is a very good idea and something I have not really thought about before, but clearly should be involved in the system somewhere.  I think it would need to be handled cleanly and abstractly so the game doesn't get bogged down in tracking how many stocks you own, or the mechanics of offloading them, or etc.

I would create an Insider Trading claim under the Front claims (which could be fairly easy to set up; do a downtime project where the crew meets a pliable stockbroker, who becomes a new crew Associate, then create various sockpuppet PayPals and accounts at Stonks-Online.net and whatever). The idea being that this Insider Trading system is now running in the background, with your stockbroking underling ready to profit off of the moves you pull in the bigger game.

Then the benefit could be like a Pawn Shop: When you can profit from insider trading, you get +X Cash. Some considerations here are, I wouldn't necessarily tie the fictional trigger to completing a job (what if you do a bunch of stock manipulation as a downtime project?), and I also wouldn't necessarily want to strictly define the amount of bonus Cash. +2 Cash is a fine flat bonus, but something like this could also be dependent on the tier of target factions,  how much stock is fictionally owned, etc. It's not like you're just unloading a stolen car or flatscreen TV. The world of stonks can potentially be very large.

Another idea: When you short stocks using insider knowledge, you get a bonus Payout depending on the scale (and risk) of the short. Then you can just reflect the fiction of whatever's going on with the insider trading (maybe, knowing a big Kuruma job is coming up, a PC does a downtime project to amass as much Kuruma stock as possible—and then you reflect that after the job with a bigger Insider Trading payout.)

This bears some further thought and testing, but I think it could work.

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As for two payouts, I think that's a clear yes—the crew can fictionally do whatever deals they want to do, so the game shouldn't prevent them from making money from double-dealing. 

The balancing comes in the potential cost to their relationships and the additional Heat they may accrue from playing two sides. Are the Lockelands going to be happy that these New York assholes are showing up in their business? Are the Mountain Mafia going to be happy that their New Yorker associates are inviting some Lockeland hillbillies into their business?

I've ended up working the election plot into two campaigns. In my current super-long-running campaign it's the main storyline. The crew started out running a deputy crony as an independent and then made a dark alliance with the County Democrats. (Behind the scenes info??? I'm thinking about changing the election from County Trustee, an obscure Tennessee position nobody cares about, to County Mayor... another local position nobody cares about, but it sounds fancier. idk.)

Episode 2 is up:

https://itch.io/t/708249/ap-episode-2-we-want-the-airwaves

GM Commentary

Originally, we were planning to do a larger heist at the ski resort, inspired by Janette’s downtime adventures there. But when Teddy’s player wasn’t able to make the game, I wanted to do a smaller job, and decided to use this opportunity to introduce Swerve Records.

I’ve been replaying GTA IV, one of my favorite games of all time and definitely my favorite GTA. When I was imagining the setup of this job, I saw it as a classic GTA cutscene where you go to meet an NPC you know, they introduce you to a new NPC, and offer you a job benefitting the new NPC, who then becomes a mission-giver themselves.

The idea of sneaking the music video onto the airwaves was inspired by one of my favorite movies, Airheads, a 1994 comedy starring Brendan Fraser, Steve Buscemi, and Adam Sandler as a metal band who hold up a radio station to force them to play their demo tape.

Lil Swat is our new favorite NPC and I’m excited to use her in future jobs, as the crew helps engineer her rise to fame. She doesn’t have any direct inspirations, but as I described her video I was thinking of videos like recent viral sensation RMR, where a bunch of dudes stand around a neighborhood holding guns. Her song might sound something like the Ludacris classic “My Chick Bad”, but about trucks. Of course, “Old Town Road” was mentioned a lot as a similar country-trap viral hit (although this game is set in 2017, before “Old Town Road” took over the airwaves).

Jardine Media is a goof on Sinclair Broadcasting, the evil media company which buys up local news stations and forces them to air right-wing propaganda. Fuck Sinclair.

I really want to bring Meaghan Monaghan back as a crew patron (perhaps blackmailing the crew into working for her after figuring out Janette’s identity). I like the idea of the crew working for various local media figures, doing crimes to help them all become more famous.

This session had a lot of goofed rolls and really showed off how nice the Forged engine is at rolling with bad rolls and processing player input. The crew is all very stressed out now, so we should have another low-key downtime session next with lots of vice and roleplaying.

Hello outlaws,

The saga of Platinum Ventures continues. Read episode 1 here!

Platinum Ventures is an Outfit starring:

Noémie "ph0sph0r" Azaïs the Hazard, a young French immigrant and master hacker (played by Michael)

Ken Khotpanya the Stringer, a young Marylander musician in search of music-biz success (played by Adam)

Janette “Ballot” Flores the Wheeler, a Floridian fixer exiled after an election fraud scandal (played by Charles)

Bojidar "Teddy" Bojilov the Mover, a happy-go-lucky, tracksuit-clad Bulgarian driver (played by Nathan, who is not a public RPG figure)

After our first job, we had a low-key downtime session with a lot of vice indulgence. Ken worked on music and successfully performed at a cafe open mic. Teddy and Kosta, the crew's PI, had an uncomfortable dinner at a fancy French restaurant. Noémie smoked weed at home.

The most dramatic part of downtime was when Janette was invited to a ski retreat (in the nearby resort town of Wodiga) by Sage Shapiro, the executive producer of in-development streaming show Unf$#k My Truck. After arriving at the resort with Sage and her Angeleno friends, Janette was shocked by a surprise guest... her rival, the County GOP operative Lynch! It appeared that, after Lynch finagled his way onto Unf$#k My Truck from helping the crew take down Friendly Jim, romance blossomed between him and Sage. (This was the result of Janette's Personal Trouble clock filling, as a result of her overindulging her vice roll.)

As Janette watched Sage and Lynch canoodle all weekend, she began to plot of a way to Iago them apart, enlisting Noémie in a scheme to make Lynch's phone continually buzz with spam text messages.

But the rest of the scheme will have to wait, because soon enough, Sage invited the crew (minus Teddy, who was unable to make it due to mysterious other commitments) to a new location to meet a new faction. Sage called them over to a house on the outskirts of town, which turned out to be the headquarters of new faction (so new they're not in the game yet) Swerve Records.

Inside the house was a makeshift recording studio, plumes of tobacco and marijuana smoke, and two important NPCs: Clay Meek, the bleary-eyed producer / label owner, and a diminutive, charismatic young rapper named Lil Swat (along with her entourage of generic dudes). Noticing that Lil Swat was obviously the focus of the recording session, Ken and Janette tried very hard to act cool and impress her, with moderate success. (Also, Ken picked up a guitar and made a lot of embarrassing noise, forcing Janette to step in and help him save face. Meanwhile, Noémie did what Noémie does and searched for the house router so she could backdoor their network.)

Sage revealed why she invited Platinum Ventures over: on her Macbook, she played a music video starring Lil Swat performing the Unf$#k My Truck theme song (including lyrics on the virtues of her truck and the relative shortcomings of your truck). Sage wanted them to engineer a viral moment by somehow airing the music video on the 6 o'clock news on WCAT, the local news affiliate owned by national right-wing news corporation Jardine Media Group. Then Sage would help boost the resulting video as a "news fail", like—how did the news accidentally play a rap video, LOL?

The crew agreed, but before they started the job, Ken had a scheme of his own. They took the memory stick with the video back to the office, where Noémie filmed Ken playing a sweet guitar solo, then edited the footage into the music video. The song was now Unf$#k My Truck by Lil Swat, featuring Ken Khotpanya.

Meanwhile, Janette investigated ways to enter the WCAT studios, but couldn't find a better way except by just going there and bluffing their way in. The engagement roll was a total flop, resulting in a security guard stopping them as they entered. In a flashback action, Noémie made Janette a fake Jardine Media ID card that looked so good, it completely fooled the guard, who waved them through.

Now that they had the run of the studio, Ken headed to a balcony on the second floor where he could watch the others and use his powers of Direct to setup their actions. Meanwhile, Noémie looked for a way into the studio's server room to load the video onto the evening's broadcast, and Janette headed to the control room to prevent the producers from cutting away from it once it started playing.

Ken guided Noémie over to the desk of an IT nerd who left his keycard out in the open during a coffee break. Noémie went to swipe it, but ended up attracting the interference of another geek, who fell over himself offering her unnecessary help. He took her to the server room, then got in her way trying to impress her while she hacked the broadcast. To escape, Noémie tried to let him down easy, but when he began to wail, she agreed to go on a pity date with him. Nerds, don't do this!

Meanwhile, Ken placed a call to the control room, advising them to expect a corporate big wig. Janette appeared on cue, trying to intimidate everyone into clearing out—but after the head producer correctly pointed out they were currently broadcasting, and couldn't very well abandon the broadcast, she was forced to change up her approach and distract him while the video played on-air. News viewers across the county were now treated to the world premiere of the Unf$#k My Truck music video.

The flub attracted the ire of the news anchor Meaghan Monaghan, who charged into the control room to yell at everyone before the crew could escape. Janette was over it, and merely shoved her clipboard at Meaghan as the crew exited the studio. But Meaghan got a good look at her first...

Back at Swerve, Lil Swat, happy with the viral clip (and not minding Ken's sweet guitar solo), handed them a sack full of 8 Cash and becoming a possible future patron. Studio owner Clay, appreciating Ken's sweet solo, invited him to hang out at the studio again. A successful job!

It's incredible what can happen when you learn anything about Photoshop!

now this is the kind of comment I wanna see!

Special thank you! I hoped someone would get a kick out of it.

Game Master’s Commentary

I'm very glad to run a more low-key campaign than my last few, which have tended to be more traditional Breaking Bad-ian drug crews with lots of explosions, but also a fair amount of political intrigue (especially my current campaign, which is revolving around a county election). This is my second campaign set primarily in the city of Patterson and I'm happy to show it off in this AP. I think, when a lot of people think about a "Southern" game, they only think of the rural South. But half of Copperhead County is an urban setting and showing that side of it is very important to me, as a proud urban Southerner.

During session 0, I was on the lookout for a couple of things. 

One, I was a little concerned that crew creation might be too busy. You have to select a Business Focus, you have to do all the faction relationship stuff, you have to choose a starting Associate (the new name for Contacts), and now you have to create a Captain NPC. I was worried it would all be too much, but we all enjoyed it, and I think it’s just part of the Forged session 0 experience that you decide a bunch of crew stuff.

I was also keen to test out the Captain rules more. Introducing them to my long-running campaign had gone well, but what about a new game? It turns out that it still rules. I’m extremely happy with them so far, both during crew creation and during play. When we created Kosta, the players decided that, although he was a PI, his top action was Growl. That’s a strong, cool choice, and one that gives the NPC a lot more texture than just calling him a PI.

The character of Friendly Jim occurred to me after deciding to start Session 1 by introducing a villain, and then watching the crew figure out how to deal with him. Unf%@k My Truck was an obvious place to start since it was such a big part of our Session 0. Car dealers are, as a group, generally very rich and conservative, so this villain would also offer an easy avenue to factions like the County GOP or the Chamber of Commerce (a new faction to be introduced in the next update).

“Friendly Jim” comes from a few inspirations. My hometown of Nashville used to have a prominent car dealer named Jim Reed who employed a cowboy-themed, “Ol’ Jim” persona. There’s also Jim Croce’s classic “You Don’t Mess Around with Jim”, about a guy who seems threatening but turns out to be full of hot air. Lynyrd Skynyrd also mention a “Big Jim” in “Saturday Night Special.”

Erstwhile is a parody of every cocktail and small plates restaurant in every town, especially the southern ones with Mason jars and old-timey names. I’m actually surprised there is no existing restaurant named “Erstwhile.”

The Commodore Hotel is mentioned by Little Feat in their classic “Dixie Chicken”, although located in Memphis. The Commodores are also the team of Nashville’s Vanderbilt University.

A frequent reference point while I run this game is Hitman, especially when the PCs do things like sabotage water coolers or steal employee uniforms. I strongly recommend New Hitman 1+2 for your Forged in the Dark GM inspiration!

Hello outlaws,

As I mentioned on the devlog a while ago, I'm running a new campaign which I will be writing up in this very forum. Our first proper session was cut short by conflicting scheduling, so after our second session last night, we were able to wrap up the first job and give me enough material for the AP. So here it goes!

During session 0, we decided we wanted to play a more subdued campaign that leaned away from the usual drug game stuff and towards interacting with the non-criminal factions. Thus we created an Outfit focusing on Front claims named Platinum Ventures. Platinum Ventures’ HQ is in an office above a gastropub in the hip, happening, gentrifying East Patterson neighborhood of Glad Avenue.

Our heroes are: 

Noémie "ph0sph0r" Azaïs the Hazard, a young French immigrant and master hacker (played by Michael)

Ken Khotpanya the Stringer, a young Marylander musician in search of music-biz success (played by Adam)

Janette “Ballot” Flores the Wheeler, a Floridian fixer exiled after an election fraud scandal (played by Charles)

Bojidar "Teddy" Bojilov the Mover, a happy-go-lucky, tracksuit-clad Bulgarian driver (played by Nathan, who is not a public RPG figure)

Platinum Ventures’ closest ally is Below the Line Productions, a Hollywood reality television company in town trying to launch a new Netflix series, Unf%@k My Truck. But their machinations have also put them on bad terms with Bagwell & Bagwell, the biggest law firm in the county.

Our first job opened with Janette meeting Sage Shapiro, the head of Below the Line, at Erstwhile, a classy cocktails-and-tapas joint on Glad Ave. As Sage sipped an overpriced drink served in a Mason jar, she bemoaned her sorry situation: Below the Line had received a threatening letter from Bagwell & Bagwell on behalf of “Friendly Jim” Thompson, a car dealership owner who had provided Unf%@k My Truck with production vehicles. But now Friendly Jim was trying to big-dog Below the Line, threatening to withhold the vehicles and sue over a co-creator credit he thought he deserved. Sage needed her friends to unf%@k the situation.

Noémie began by pulling information on Friendly Jim from the information superhighway. Friendly Jim was a big man in town—a major Republican donor, MAGA idiot, and power player within the county Chamber of Commerce. They quickly found his address, his son (a meathead linebacker for the Patterson State Generals), and two possible incriminations—one, a picture of him at a fundraiser with a woman who was not Mrs. Thompson, and a newspaper article mentioning how the Patterson PD had let him go after a possible drunken hit-and-run.

The crew decided to focus on Friendly Jim’s extramarital transgressions, and dispatched Kosta Krumov, their threatening Bulgarian private investigator, to research the lady. He quickly learned that Jim had not strayed very far, and she was the receptionist at his truck dealership.

Engagement Roll: The crew undertook a Cold approach to visit the dealership. Their goal: to make contact with Jim’s mistress and find something incriminating on him.

They started in a risky position, entering the dealership on a busy afternoon. Jim’s paramour was right at front, and her reception desk placard identified her as Amelia. Janette approached and engaged her in friendly chat about their respective days, using Connect to learn that Amelia was all gussied-up for a fancy date at Patterson’s fanciest restaurant, Coquelicot, later that night. But while they chatted, Friendly Jim himself emerged from his office, introducing himself to Janette and glad-handing her a business card.

Luckily, this gave the others a chance to infiltrate his office. Ken created a Hitman-style distraction by sabotaging the lobby water cooler, setting up Teddy to sneak into Jim’s office. There, Teddy inserted a USB stick into Jim’s PC, which contained a Trojan cooked up by Noémie in a flashback action. Hack complete!

This was where we had to pause due to a schedule conflict. When we resumed in Session Two, Noémie accessed Jim’s emails to learn that he had a reservation that night at Patterson’s fancy riverfront Commodore Hotel—and, what’s more, it was for the top-flight Admiral Suite.

The course was clear: the crew, knowing that Jim would be on his hot date for a while, sent Kosta to follow him while they infiltrated the hotel to trap Jim in a sting. Janette called up her rival, Lynch, a party hack, a fixer within the County GOP who was known to use the Commodore as a base for meetings and other unsavory activity. Telling Lynch that Friendly Jim was fixing to be in a tough situation, she obtained an invite to his hotel conference room.

A new engagement roll allowed Janette, Ken, and Noémie to bypass the hotel front desk, but left Teddy to find an alternate route up. While the other three enjoyed an elevator ride, Teddy snuck into an employee locker room and found a staff uniform. But just as he re-buckled his belt, a hotel supervisor rapped on his shoulder with relief across her face. There was a dire situation in the lobby bathroom, and (reading his new nametag) “Kyle” was just the man for the job! Teddy considered his options (fleeing, talking his way out of it, just going along and cleaning the bathroom), before deciding to follow her along and then sneak off down a hallway. With the supervisor satisfied that everyone was doing their job, Teddy made his way to the Admiral Suite.

Meanwhile, Noémie took the elevator up to the Admiral Suite and hacked the door keypad for entrance. While she and Teddy set up Noémie’s surveillance gear around the suite, Jeanette and Ken met Lynch in his conference room and impressed upon him that he needed to convince Friendly Jim to buckle under their pressure. He agreed, with one condition: he wanted to be cut in on Unf%@k My Truck too!

Now there was nothing left to do but wait. Cut to: later that night, the crew and Lynch ate Chinese take-out in the conference room, watching the Admiral Suite on a big-screen TV. Eventually, Jim and Amelia stumbled into the suite and got hot and heavy while the crew’s cameras captured it all. Once the crew was satisfied with the footage, they sent Kosta into the suite to intimidate Jim. Unfortunately, after Kosta barged into the room and rolled a 2 on his Growl action, Jim laid him out with a powerful right hook, forcing Jeanette to call Jim’s cell phone and, along with Lynch, convince him that they had him by the short hairs.

The next day, Sage received word from Bagwell & Bagwell that their client was dropping his action, and Unf%@k My Truck could proceed without interference. In return, Sage delivered a sack of money to Platinum Ventures, and they ended the session satisfied with a hard day’s work. But will Friendly Jim let them rest so easily...?

Hey thanks!

1. There aren't any campaign APs available, although I'm about to start a new campaign and I might write it up (perhaps on this very forum). I often wish I had been doing that for my current long-running campaign, because it would be pretty helpful in cases like this. I don't have the time or energy to produce a recorded campaign, though.

2. A crew of two is perfectly acceptable! The Walt-Jesse crew is a duo for most of Breaking Bad, until it becomes a Walt-Jesse-Mike and, briefly, a Walt-Jesse-Mike-Todd crew in later seasons, but even early on they're still a crew who have to do jobs and manage their business and relationships with other factions. Better Call Saul is also great inspiration here, although it's also kind of just a PC duo between Mike and Gus (Lydia is an Expert). Ozark is less of a gameplay influence than Breaking Bad, but I would say they have three PCs (Marty, Wendy, and Ruth).

In in the larger sense, I would say that one should think less about a Copperhead County campaign as emulating episodes or seasons of television, and think of it like any other RPG campaign. The game isn't meant to emulate the arc of any particular inspiration; it's meant to apply those inspirations to the structure of an RPG campaign. In broad strokes, a Copperhead County campaign is going to be similar to a Blades in the Dark campaign or a Scum & Villainy campaign or etc, where the PCs go on jobs and accumulate money, influence, and power. 

There is a bit about campaign structure in the current text. The long-term, Tier-gaining campaign is meant to build up to the PC crew becoming high-Tier and dealing with powerful increasingly powerful factions (including the Outside Factions, about whom you'll read more about in the future), and gaining powerful claims like Political Suction or a Pipeline, thus cementing themselves as a local power on par with the established factions. 

But unlike S&V, for example, there's no explicit endgame state, and I don't want to prescribe one. If you want to play the Empire Game and increase your Tier and build a powerful business, you can, and you can keep playing forever if you want. But I've also tried to make the campaign perfectly functional if you never want to increase Tier at all. The PCs' core goal is to make money, and if you'd rather stay small, get rich, and retire to the shadows, you can do that. (There's also a rule in the Bank section where you don't ever have to retire at all, and can keep accumulating money forever, to no particular purpose.)

I hope that helps! If not, please ask away!

Hey, thanks a lot!

I’ve done a bit of brainstorming on cops. I’d be interested in a The Wire-esque major crimes detail that could take down power players, but that would kind of be the inverse of the criminal game and would require a different setup (although it would still involve conflict with basically every faction in the setting, including the cops and political factions). But I think it would be cool to explore that kind of cleaning-up-the-county angle.

For a criminals-with-a-badge crew, I think you could make that work with the current setup and some elbow grease. In a past campaign I ran, one crew member was a city detective (although the others weren’t cops). We had downtime scenes where he’d try to hinder investigations, and he stole evidence from the station, etc. He was a fun character.

That would be different than playing as a Sheriff, who would necessarily be an extremely powerful figure, as a public official who is the top cop of the county. It could be interesting to start a campaign as a high Tier faction, and I’ve had like half a conversation about it (inspired by The Righteous Gemstones) but figuring that out isn’t really a priority.

I’ve never slipped in a supernatural element and personally never would, but I think other people could easily do it. I haven’t read Confederate Dead (or seen the French movie based on it??), but there’s been supernatural stuff in the Fargo TV show, and Breaking Bad could get kind of cosmic sometimes, so it wouldn’t be a huge leap in genre. It’s just not my field!

Hell yeah. Highway exit sign is the official meme format of Copperhead County.