In 1583, court spymaster Sir Francis Walsingham sent an adept gnostic team to Prague on a mission he didn’t commit to public record. These men journeyed through rough and heretic-infested lands engaged in a task of maximum-security in the defence of the realm from increasing Catholic-fuelled aggression.

In the beginning, The Dee Sanction was a slightly different game from one that exists today. At that moment in time, I had as much interest in creating a system to support a Brave New World-a-like called Complex 214 as I did to release tales of esoteric espionage into the world. Indeed, if you read 214 — the first post on this blog, which span off from another blog (I have so many) called Omega Complex — you can see that my key objective seems to have been to spout a riff on The A-Team introduction with Elizabethan trappings.

However, though I might have cast suspicion and paranoia aside, much of what The Dee Sanction was back in 2014 remains.

Never Inaccessible

I always wanted to leverage the notion of Elizabethan times that people had from school, casual reading, TV serials and movies over high-end academic insight. The classic paperback roleplaying game Maelstrom definitely inspired. That little paperback made me want to play AND study more about history while not teaching a tedious lesson of the 16th century itself. I wanted to step forward—away from the simple adventure of an assassin contained in the books, choose your own adventure—and enter the wider world that Alexander Scott’s game spread before me.

On top of that, I wanted simple. I had one mechanic (more or less) from the outset. I wanted that level of simplicity that has allowed a tsunami of amateur game designers to bring their creativity to a welcoming public.

I wanted something I could bring to a convention and not spend 30 minutes explaining everything before the adventure kicked off. I could run The Cthulhu Hack almost instantly, spending 5 minutes creating characters from scratch and 5 minutes explaining the mechanics. The Dee Sanction needed to be that, too.

I wanted something I could sell to gaming newcomers and veterans alike based on that accessibility as a concept and a gathering of mechanics. Roll a die to face a challenge; a result of 1 or 2 means making progress with a complication, while any other result means simple success. Three hits, and you’re down. Sometimes, you can work simple miracles. Now, go. Play.

Something like that.

Competence with Threat

I wanted a game where a character could be broadly competent in a small number of areas to ease the team into the concept of working together despite the paranoia and suspicion. In The Dee Sanction, there’s a death sentence egging you on to help your companions and get the job done. In Complex 214, the punishment for failure wasn’t much different or less terminal (although advanced genetic tech meant that the latter wasn’t a permanent thing).

At heart, the current iteration offers a 50/50 chance of success doing something that you have some skill in. An Ability makes it possible to face a Challenge, and a D4 in a Resource means a coin flip to succeed. In the original, with a skill, you had a 44% chance of success, wanting a 6, 7 or 8 on a roll of 2d6.

The threat isn’t about being incompetent or outclassed (well, OK… maybe); it’s about vulnerability—you’re fragile, death-marked, in enemy territory, and reliant on other people, no less vulnerable. And you’re facing inhuman forces, both natural and supernatural.

All in One

The Cthulhu Hack often sells because you can play the game with only that book. You have all you need, and once you have done playing that first investigation, you have the tools to go on. Along with a simple core mechanic and an easily carried form factor for the book, it could set the game apart from the competition.

The Dee Sanction needed to be just like that.

There were tokens, cards, and odd dice in the early days, but they fell early in the playtesting. People enjoyed the game but didn’t feel that the accessories would make it an easy sell. What if you didn’t have the cards for character creation? What if you didn’t have the dice to support the narrative twists? What if a gust of wind carries away all the tokens?

The version of The Dee Sanction available right now can be played from the book with a normal pack of playing cards. Without the playing cards, you can take a pencil and stub the back onto the character creation pages to determine occupation, associations and so forth. It’s tempting to create some tables—like the one for Combat in the back of the old Lone Wolf books—to make it possible to recreate dice throws without dice or another handy randomizer (trust in the Internet or apps to save the day when you forget your dice… unless the batteries dead).

I have run sessions of The Dee Sanction, The Cthulhu Hack, Symbaroum and others where I aimed for grim and gritty but came away with something less. Oftentimes, that works out, because the moment of light counterbalances the greater darkness. Other times, that humour steals the darkness from the session.

I think, for example, that the humour in Lost in Translation works. It’s fleeting but intentional. I would compare it to the sort of humour that appears in many of Shakespeare’s serious works (though, I have no intent to compare myself in any other way, shape or form to the peerless art of the Bard).

On the other hand, when I ran a one-shot session of Symbaroum at a convention, the humour stole away from the claim of grimdark fantasy. When you’re showcasing a game for a certain quality, you may have to wrestle the atmosphere in the right direction — in this instance, the prevailing temperament of the players weighed too heavily against me to make it possible. In the end, rather than fighting it, I gave up.

It’s tricky. One-shots suffer when you’re not seeking it, but equally, you can have an incredible session when humour’s intended and the group at the table gel. In a campaign with a regular group, humour will become an aspect managed and maintained by the whole table. When the session requires it, it’ll be there naturally more often than not. When it isn’t required or desired, you’ll have a better handle on how to keep it low key or non-existent to enhance the immersion.

Whatever you do, I’d suggest you create the atmosphere rather than flagging it at the start of the session. If you propagate the darkness in the description and colour, then the players will become engaged and humour will only arise when natural and then only as a gasp for air in the sea of despair (pardon the accidental poetry!).

Every day during August, I’ll be writing something new on The Dee Sanction and aim to connect the word prompt of the day with the development of the game. Check out the concept, the list and the graphics over at AUTOCRATIK.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I need to provide a tight and informative intro to The Dee Sanction for my convention games. This is the current draft. It would also work perfectly well for a game system intro (or maybe the back page blurb).

You’re a member of a secret organisation. You have a remit for national security under Sir Francis Walsingham. Walsingham commands a network of intelligence agents and contacts. Few would guess Walsingham would recruit Doctor John Dee, Queen Elizabeth I’s infamous court magician.

Dee leads a team of operatives who investigate and apprehend cultists and dabblers in the dark arts. You’re a member of that team, but not out of choice.

Somewhere between conscription and penance, you work for Walsingham and Dee under duress. You have faint hope that you can use your talents to earn your absolution and release.

Those around you know something of your background, but know nothing of the darkness. You’re not a good person. You are not blameless. You have done bad things, read awful truths, and owe allegiance to beliefs that do you no favours.

You can see light at the end of the tunnel. If only you can outrun the shadows of your past…

Part of that needs to be the background to events. What’s happening, why, and how did your character get involved. This seems to cover the bases for the moment.

Given I’m running another playtest in a little over a week, I need to get this down, along with the focussed crunch overview. Pardon me if I think out loud.

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• Embrace the Dark Side

While I’ll be attending Furnace in Sheffield, next week end, I will not be running any games – although, I might take something 214 along just in case I have the chance come evening time.

The following month I’ll be at IndieCon for three days (of the four day event). IndieCon, sited at Hobourne in Dorset, on the south coast, runs between 6th – 9th November. I’m there partly to assist with All Rolled Up, but also to run games and catch up with folk.

I will be running sessions of Complex 214, The Dee Sanction and Night’s Black Laundry – though not necessarily in that order. The first two will be playtest sessions for 214, while the NBL session will use my The Laundry/Gaean Reach mashup of the Gumshoe system. As they all use card-based character generation, that will be my focus over the next few weeks. I already have the set prepared for NBL, but only a few for C214 and none for TDS.

All being well, I might even squeeze in a game of Advanced Fighting Fantasy (AFF) – but, we’ll see how the weekend pans out.

Come December, we then have the new and enlarged Dragonmeet to attend. That’s Saturday 6th December at the ILEC Convention Centre.

I will be running a session of Complex 214 – though a different one to the IndieCon adventure. There’s a possibility I might have players attending who have played the previous session, so I had best be prepared. Also, it doesn’t make sense to playtest with the same adventure every time, as that isn’t really giving the system a proper run. I want to stretch my legs and try different approaches.

I will also be running a game of AFF that afternoon – as the game I run intentionally aims at just a 90 minute session. I will, however, look to vary this a little also – as I quite like the idea of having quick, drop-in style games suited to filling a partial slot of even doubling up in a big one.

All very busy – so, I need to get this computer/web stuff sorted and get on with it.

Not Necessarily Related articles…

• Complex 214 – Unethical Ends
• Back This: Chill 3rd Edition from Growling Door Games