WWYCD: Nestleader: The Game

[Wormhole]

(assumes you use VIPER or something like it in your games)

 

A new computer game, titled The Serpent's Nest, has hit the market. The gameplay is similar to Evil Genius, if somewhat more sophisticated, and the object of the game is to sucessfully build and run a criminal operation that bears a suspicious resemblance to a VIPER nest! The game has thus far won acclaim from a major computer gaming magizine and indeed, is quite popular in the gaming community. WWYCD?

 

 

A program hidden in the game is keeping track of how players progress through the game's various missions and is periodically sending that data to an undisclosed location. Players who demostrate tactical sense, ruthlessness, and/or other traits in the game that would make them an ideal nest leader are secretly being evaluated for recruitment.

 

[Peregrine]

Re: WWYCD: Nestleader: The Game

 

Even better:

 

 

The better players get to move up to an "invitation only" online server. Unbeknownst to them, their instructions are relayed to real Nests - they are de facto "virtual" Nest Leaders. (The agent leader "on the ground" in each Nest so commanded is a VIPER Captain who has been instructed to take remote orders from an unknown/remote Nest Leader.)

 

[OctoberRaven]

Re: WWYCD: Nestleader: The Game

 

Mister Nonsense: As self-appointed "Director of Marketing" of the heroes, would try to convince the game company and PRIMUS to make a standalone/expansion. Of course, being able to sense future disaster, he'd probably figure out what the true source of the game is.

 

Shift: "Huh. Hey, isn't that... wait a second..." *loads his gun* "I'm going to play a game of my own. It's called Snake Hunter."

 

Emerald Dragon, knowing a bit about VIPER (as does the rest of the group), would probably notice the similarities and put two and two together. He'd help the publishers save face, though. He "knows" (read: is) famous kung-fu movie star Johnny Kawada, and they've yet to make an Immortal Flame video game...

 

October Raven doesn't play video games, nor does he have any knowledge of VIPER or the like.

 

 

Either way, this is actually a scenario that my group would actually have a chance of beating. As we have someone who would play the game, several people who have CuK: VIPER, and someone who can easily figure out the secret coding and upload a 'patch' that erases all the info.

[Fireleaper]

Re: WWYCD: Nestleader: The Game

 

Avatar: Would probably play the game for a bit of fun but totally miss any connection to VIPER and would probably be recorded as having a particularly low score for leadership qualities. (That might change when he gets older)

 

Orca: Would probably never play the game as he is not one for computers and computer games can't give him as much sensory stimulation as they give us normal people.

[Blue]

Re: WWYCD: Nestleader: The Game

 

Most of my characters wouldn't have any reason to think there was something wrong. In fact most would get a kick out of the idea that someone was making money off of Viper's intellectual property because they can't really sue.

 

Audra Blue might be the only one to look into it. Once she cracked the code she'd likely connect to the manufacturing site and reporgram the master copies so that an UNTIL-like agency always wins.

[cutsleeve]

Re: WWYCD: Nestleader: The Game

 

OMG an evil version of The Last Starfighter.

[Kevin Schultz]

Re: WWYCD: Nestleader: The Game

 

Jake the Troll - would play the game, think it to be kinda fun, but would get turned off by having to play a bad guy. He'd cancel his 30-day account, completely miss any sort of connection with the real world, and go back to making fun of WoW as 'unrealistic" as compared to the real-life simulation of CoH.

 

Icon - doesn't have time for video games. Would be mildly disgusted that people would WANT to play criminals. Wouldn't catch the link.

 

Shinji Miromoto - Would probably notice the kharmic corruption involved in the process.

 

Widower - is more likely to come at it from the other end, whereby he notices a marked increase in the efficiency of the Viper nests in his home town. Backtracking along that, he'd find the video game servers.

[Dead guy on tab]

Re: WWYCD: Nestleader: The Game

 

 

 

King Cobra or Menton could include subliminal messages to brainwash players into being ideal VIPER agents (ala virtual boot camp)

 

 

[cutsleeve]

Re: WWYCD: Nestleader: The Game

 

I think a subliminal message that just says "Viper is the good guy" would be better. More willing recruits who believe in what your doing.

[BoloOfEarth]

Re: WWYCD: Nestleader: The Game

 

Along the same lines as City of Villains / City of Heroes:

 

I kinda like the idea of a Hero version of the Serpent's Nest game, too.

 

 

During game play, the company's game server compares the player's actions as a hero to those a real superhero performed during the actual VIPER plan upon which that particular "game mission" is based. By looking at the player's general area, the game server could even pick missions to match those performed by that locale's nearest VIPER Nests.

 

For example: the Heroic Brigade stopped a VIPER armored car heist, during which Brickhouse used a light pole as a bat to take down some AirCav agents. A month later, Brickhouse (in secret ID) is playing The Serpent's Nest and gets a mission where he's stopping The Serpent from kidnapping a foreign dignitary from an armored limousine. Brickhouse decides to try the light pole thing... and it works! He thinks it's pretty cool that the programmers incorporated his tactics into the game. Little does he know that the game server sent his user / account information to the nearest VIPER Nest to do a little checking...

 

[BoloOfEarth]

Re: WWYCD: Nestleader: The Game

 

Now, as to what I would do...

 

Bolo, having electrical powers generating unpredictable EM fields, probably wouldn't play the game, since he doesn't own a computer himself and he's not allowed near the team AI. If VIPER didn't make any moves against the game company (hey, a game named The Serpent's Nest is just screaming "VIPER!!!"), he'd probably suspect a direct connection and investigate once he heard about the game.

 

Now, as a GM, I'd either change the game name to muddy the waters, or leave it obvious and have it be an apparent poke in the eye to VIPER (the game company laughingly claims that their players have "stolen" more, in game, during the past six months than VIPER did all year, then a VIPER Nest hijacks and destroys a shipment of games, etc.)

[psychonaut_raz]

Re: WWYCD: Nestleader: The Game

 

Icestar wouldn't even consider that it's anything other than a video game....she would probably have friends who are addicted to it, but she would find the whole thing a bit boring herself...

[Zeropoint]

Re: WWYCD: Nestleader: The Game

 

Special Agent Trent has a personal grudge against VIPER--they're the ones who cursed him with his powers and their side effects. He'll start investigating this the "old-school" way, and look forward to the chance to bust some heads once he gets to the bottom of it.

[Tigereye]

Re: WWYCD: Nestleader: The Game

 

Deuce would target the WWWWHW questions:

 

Who created it? Who financed its creation? Who distributes it? Who is making a profit? Do any of these individuals have any contact with VIPER, current or past? Are they a member, an ally, a rival group, an enemy of the organization?

 

What is its real goals? Does it have a real underlying theme, subliminal or otherwise? Is there a correlation to some activity (criminal actions, violence, terrorism) and locations where the game is popular?

 

When was it made? This is more important than it sounds. If it was made a few years ago, yet is state-of-the-art, or was made recently but beyond the current state, we can assume it may have a nefarious purpose.

 

Where was it produced? (His scientific team members can do the whole CSI routine about what it was made of and where those materials were made)

 

How was it produced? An Evil Genius Laboratory? a Chinese factory? By Elf slave labor in a hollow tree?

 

Of course, above all, WHY? Is it a recruiting tool, a training guide, a sub rosa method of contacting and ordering VIPER agents, or a method of addictive brainwashing? Could it be a means of finding out more of how VIPER operates, so heroes could find out? Is it a false lead, meant to throw the heroes off as to the way a real VIPER cell operates?

 

Through my character's Import-Export cover (his background is in gambling, but he can still use it as there is a very close link between computer gaming and computer gambling), he can try to infiltrate the organization producing the game, under the guise of having a sequel produced. If it is indeed VIPER, he will get as close as possible to the top of the organization, isolating, turning or destroying each cell in the chain. He will NOT use the game as a guide.

 

I hope we're going to have some gratuitous sex and violence...

 

You, bring me the diving suit with the bum cut out; and you, fetch me the bucket of soapy frogs!

[Alverant]

Re: WWYCD: Nestleader: The Game

 

Cold Void is a struggling college student so he'll have to wait until the game is in the discount bin to buy it. By then any scandal behind the game would have been uncovered.

 

Smokin Ace plays REAL games for REAL money and wouldn't waste his time with a computer game when he could be playing poker.

 

Divine Wind would check the web for cheat codes thus probably taking him out of the running for Virtual Viper Nest Leader. On the off chance he didn't use the cheat code (or didn't have them) he would be the "Ruthless B@st@rd" type of Nest leader (they are computer sprites, not real people so who cares about them). I think he'd blow his Secret ID to Viper when they approach him to offer him a job because he thinks they're here because they already cracked his Secret ID and are coming to kill him.