RE: New Campaign starting

["Eric Benson" <ebenson@xxxxxxxx>]

Comments:
Few players - Two players isn't the end of the world, but it will effect the
type of assignments that you can run.  Four to six characters seems to be
about ideal for ME, much more than that and it can become a headache/media
circus.

The two characters you mentioned, a former FBI and former SBS, are pretty
good choices if you're in a small group.  Both are pretty competent
characters and should restrict you too much.  A suggestion would be to ask
the FBI operative to go perhaps a little heavier on combat skills than
normal ("served a one year temporary duty on a high risk multiagency
assignment") and to have the SBS pick up some non-combat skills as well
("couldn't find a position immediately after the service and went to work
for a dive shop").  With only two characters, I would try to encourage them
to have well rounded characters.

On the two specific scenarios:
Bodyguard duty -
"First Mission" revolves around a BE person who is ordered to do some
bodyguard work (essentially drive a car) for a businessman coming
from Europe to Miami.
* A business man is too simple, too pat.  Make the subject a former criminal
that she arrested and took to trial.  The subject was able to get free on a
technicality.  Now she's out of the FBI and having to serve - and protect -
the person she arrested.  Changing the subject to a criminal raises several
ethical and balance of power issues for her to deal with.
* Run it as a high tension, but low actual action scenario.  Things keep
happening that make it seem like something is up, but it never really
happens.  Some things that could happen include a tail, being boxed in by
several rough looking types, a car jacking on the *next* car over, etc.  Car
jacking the car next to them, makes her question the assignment versus her
former position.

Recovery Dive -
"Diver" corners around diver who has been asked to dive and retrieve
a CD disk from a sunken yacht.
* Make the yacht or CD related to the subject from the Bodyguard assignment.
Neither character will know that the assignments are actually connected, but
it leaves room to later build a larger assignment involving bits and pieces
from both sides.
* I don't know how much diving experience you have, but check some of the
technical diving internet sites for information on gear, typical problems,
profiles, deco issues, etc.
* The wreck probably didn't settle straight down... a lot of wrecks,
especially ones that were not placed intentionally, aren't at a nice,
perfect angle.  The difference is that suddenly all of your frames of
reference aren't the same - the floor is now the ceiling and vice versa.
* Rather than have the dive be a simple one shot trip to the bottom, make it
so that he has to do multiple trips to clear open damage, find the item and
then recover it.
* For extra drama or tension, have the character find a few corpses with
evidence of foul play ("I thought you said the ship sank in a storm") or bad
weather starting to come in.
* In the initial description, it was suggested that the client be on the
shady side.  The client could be completely above board, but during the last
dive (conveniently), a group of thugs board the dive vessel to demand the
recovered item.

As far as future operations go, the FBI background really gives you a lot to
play with:
* Investigations - Watch some bad American TV shows (anything on the USA
network for starters, old Miami Vice episodes, etc) for ideas about what an
investigator and their strong arm buddy could do.

* Plant evidence - BE/BE is hired to break into a crime scene and plant
evidence to support one person's innocence at the expense of another.  The
operation would require someone with knowledge of forensics, police
procedure and covert entry.

* Knabbing "Mr Big" - BE/BE is hired to bring in a big time criminal leader
that the federal agencies can't touch.  Mr. Big could be politically
connected, which makes the operation more difficult.  The Mr. Big idea could
be easily related back to the "Bodyguard" or "Diver" scenarios.

* Outsourced 'No knock' Warrant - In the days of declining budgets, BE/BE is
hired to serve a warrant (or, heck, just be a process server).
Unfortunately, they gave the wrong address which means that when the show
up, it's not the scene they expect (could be much worse, aka guys with guns,
or simply bad, a daycare).

In general, most of the published scenarios are probably not going to work
very well with two operatives.

Just my two cents worth -
Eric