Anatomy of a Technothriller

Thriller

· Stories are tightly plotted and have a definite turning point.

· The scale is almost always global. Events are timely, often based in fact.

· Bad things can happen in the second act, but the conclusion is always positive.

· Technothrillers may try to solve the world’s ills. Or, they may increase the world’s ills to show the resilience of humanity.

· Technothrillers may not solve the world’s ills through technology, or illustrate the impact of some possible invention. To do so is science fiction, not a technothriller.

· Speculating on the impact of a real invention is an editorial, and will hurt the story (especially in retrospect) unless you get lucky and make the right call. Right or wrong, it overshadows the story itself.

Plausibility

· Characters are allowed one (and only one) “coincidence” that ties them into the story.

· Protagonists are not exceptional; in fact, few characters are exceptional in any obvious way.

· No one has “script immunity”. Many characters may be important to the plot, but only because the plot itself is so complex.

Technology

· Specific technical interactions are vital to the plot. The plot is empty without them.

· The technology is intensely researched and all of it is real. Some of the interactions may be hypothetical – authors don’t normally have large research budgets – but they must be plausible.

· Social interactions may also be part of the plot, but usually in the sense of a ‘crowd reaction’ rather than specific characters.

Violence

· Many stories are written by military or ex-military men, and involve scenes of combat.

· Again, no one has script immunity. The dangers must be credible for every character.

· Planning is crucial. If a plan comes apart, the result is usually swift death for large numbers of the team, while the others scramble to get away.

· No one has any interest in a fair fight; plans are made to go in and achieve the objective. Critical plot moments should begin somewhere else, with their denouement during the combat or infiltration. They can happen in a fight, but there should never be a deliberate buildup to a ‘climactic fight scene’.

· No one uses untested hardware or unusual gadgets. Everything is MIL-SPEC.

An RPG in the Technothriller Genre

Characters

· Character creation should be quick; players may go through one or two in an evening’s play.

· Creating and playing soldiers should be separate from civilians. Consider a ‘soldier game’ and a ‘civilian game’.

· Players may want to have two or three (or more) active characters at a time.

· As with most tabletop RPGs, the Physical is simulated. The Social may be (many technothrillers have wooden characters), but the Mental usually isn’t. Characters tend to be as smart as their players.

· Fitness and ‘coolness under fire’ may be important attributes, if non-soldiers are thrown into fights.

· Character advancement should be minimal or nonexistent, as it leads to character attachment.

Twist Points

Hero Points aren’t appropriate for a technothriller game. Instead, players receive Twist Points to govern the effect they can have on the story. A Twist point may be spent to:

· Describe how one of your characters is tied into the story (once per character).

· Possess a needed skill or piece of knowledge at a crucial moment, as long as continuity allows it. High levels in a skill may cost more points. Twist points could even be used to create a character on the fly!

· Describe an unexpected technical interaction. Many players consider themselves ‘experts’ in a field, and this is a way to channel that energy while setting some limits.

· For each player who thinks that the event is implausible, another point must be spent. The GM may charge more points or veto the event altogether.

· They should never be allowed when a character’s life is directly at stake (that’s a ‘MacGyverism’).

Rules

· Decide what will be abstracted (left to die rolls) and what will be handled by player decisions. Keep the dividing line sharp and consistent.

· Limit the ‘realistic’ element to what the GM can handle, preferably to what he is an expert in.

Combat

· Combat is part of the ‘Techno’ in a technothriller. It should be realistic and deadly. However, it should also be fast, representing the intensity of the scene. A computer might help here.

· There should be many player choices, but most of them should be before combat (again, planning is crucial).

· Many of the gadgets in ALIENS and Rainbow Six– motion sensors and heart monitors – as well as battlefield surveillance and rapid communication, actually make combat rules simpler: the commander’s player can see where people are, what they can see and whether they’re injured. When using miniatures, you only need special rules to govern what happens when a team doesn’t have these tools.