Mister E Missive #3

Greetings and salutations, agents.   I thought today I’d discuss Zero Sum Reports and how to incorporate them into your game.

A Zero Sum Report is an action alert for players that details an important development or event that the Agency is asking for help with.  Some may be simply an increase in chatter involving a terroristic action, or the sudden movement of men and material by a nation or other agency.  It could also be political, social, economic, or even personal within Oblivion.

Reality Blurs will be releasing various Zero Sum Reports throughout the next year and it is important that Directors and Players all understand exactly what they are reading and how to respond to it.

Zero Sum Reports usually list locations involved, Economic Threat Levels, Political Threat Levels, Military Threat Levels, Paranormal Threat Levels, and Agency Threat Levels.  These may be further divided into various reports detailing the problem, issue,  or mission.

So how do we read these Threat Levels?  These reports often contain threat levels of concern ranging from zero to four:

A zero means there is little or no concern.

A one means there is some concern and the situation must be monitored.

A two means there is enough concern that operations may be undertaken to protect the interests of Oblivion, and that a change or major event could be coming.

A three means there is grave danger or concern regarding the threat level.  Operations are to be undertaken immediately.

A four means that the situation is dire and an attack or major life-changing event is imminent.  All cells in the region are to be activated, and other cells may be called into duty.

Following the Threat Levels, there are usually Action Alerts, that direct the missions to be undertaken as well as Procurement Notes that may effect Agency Resources and Deaddrops during the mission.

The Zero Sum Report then lists any other relevant information regarding the Action Alerts, such as other leads, background data, persons of interest, etc.

Some Zero Sum Reports are simply mission ideas for the Director’s use, but others may be mini campaign strings that provide structure for the Director’s home game.  Of course all Director’s should feel free to take and use what they want from any reports released by Reality Blurs and make it fit their home game.

Look for one to be released soon!  We’d also like to see some Director Generated Zero Sum Reports as well as any cool after-action reports.  Share them with us on the forums or email them to MisterE@oblivioncentral.com.  Prizes and No-Prizes may be awarded and we’d sure like to make for an interactive, world-spanning game.  There are wonderful Savages and Blurry Fans in all parts of the world, help us out and make it RAWK!

White Knight had this to say to us: “My outlook on gaming has always been from the heroic side.  My “never leave anyone” behind mentality is the basis for my other nom-de-plume “White Knight.”

White Knight went on to say, “I’m also considering starting a play by post through the Forums, again to encourage interest, but also to see where it goes.  I used to do a fair bit of this a few years back, though it was very free-form, more storytelling than rules.  It’ll be interesting to try and weld the two styles into a single cohesive game.
Sounds great to me!  Count me in.  Just jump on the Reality Blurs Forums and let’s get it started!

Looking forward to hearing from all the Directors and Agents out there.  Share your After-Action reports, cool villains, plots, agency politics, character builds, character writeups, and Zero Sum Reports .  Help us make AoO as lively and interactively cool as it can possibly be.  Until next time…

 

Ed “Mister E” Wetterman