TEXT: Morenoir
  A
  SUPPLEMENT
  
  2
  MORENOIR
  Morenoir is a guide for expanding the core rules found in Technoir, a high-tech 
  hard-boiled roleplaying game by Jeremy Keller.
  Visit TechnoirRPG.com for more information and downloads.
  CREDITS
  Writing
  Justin Alexander, Jeremy Keller
  ICONS
  Cathelineau, Delapouite, Lorc (Game-Icons.net)
  LAYOUT
  Justin Alexander, Jeremy Keller
  EDITING
  Colleen Riley
  Playtesting
  Preeti Gupton, Jacqueline Wegscheid Leach, Seth Gupton, Mark Redacted, Sarah 
  Holmberg, Colleen Riley, Katlin Walsh, Erik Malm, David DiPasquale, Allen 
  Voigt, Steven Frankenfield, Cara Kluver, Cynthia Hornbeck, Sabreena Candreva, 
  Ashir Coillberg, Caitlin Coillberg, Heather Burmeister, Joe Allen, Skot Reiffer, 
  Chris Malone, Karina Grimaldi, Neal Beckman, Paul Steffens, Darwin Hull
  CONTENTS
  Introduction .............................................. 2
  Run-Time Operations ............................... 3
  Advanced Options ................................... 11
  Transmission Creation Guide ................. 15
  Restocking Your Transmission ................ 25
  Writing Player’s Guides ........................... 27
  INTRODUCTION
  Welcome to Morenoir! This is your go-to guide for running, hacking, adapting, and 
  generally exploiting the hell out of Technoir. If you’re ready to take your game to the 
  next level, experiment with radical ideas, dive deeper into the chrome-coated sea, 
  or just try something a little new and a little different, then you’ll find the tools to 
  do it here.
  
  3
  GUIDE TO WRITING PLAYER’S GUIDES
  RUN-TIME OPERATIONS
  We’ve been running Technoir campaigns for almost half a decade now. Run-time 
  operations are the tips, tricks, and other tidbits we’ve picked up along the way. Hope-
  fully these insights will help up your game without needing to learn them the hard 
  way, so that you can focus on finding all new ways to make your campaign rock.
  KNOW YOUR CITY
  The great thing about Technoir’s slim transmissions is how easy they make it to 
  run the game. Not only are they compact enough that you can read through them 
  quickly, but their structure means that you don’t need to read them before play 
  begins.
  GET A MAP
  If you’re not already familiar with the city you’re running, take a moment to hit the 
  ‘net and grab a neighborhood map of the city as it currently exists. Although places 
  will have changed dramatically in Technoir’s dark future, having a map on hand can 
  give you just enough of the local geography to provide a firm foundation for you to 
  build your improvisation on.
  BRIEF THE PLAYERS
  You’re not the only one who will benefit from having a clear vision of the city. Before 
  creating characters, take the time to read the Technology, Environment, and Society 
  sections from your transmission of choice out loud to the table. This can be used as 
  a prompt for a brief, open discussion between you and the players about what the 
  city is like as you cement a common vision.
  CONNECTION CHEAT SHEET
  It can also be useful to prep a cheat sheet for the city’s connections, listing their 
  name, short description, and the favors they can do. (If you’re okay with your play-
  ers knowing their full stats, you can just print out the relevant pages from the trans-
  mission itself.) Make a copy for each player.
   
  These cheat sheets are not only a valuable touchstone for the players to get a 
  feel for the city, you’ll also discover that they significantly speed up character cre-
  ation.
   
  
  4
  MORENOIR
  WHAT’S YOUR LEAD?
  When the protagonists hit up a connection to gain a lead, Technoir assumes that the 
  GM—taking into account the subject indicated, that subject’s position on the plot 
  map, the connection’s relationship to the plot map, and the specific question that 
  was asked of the connection—will provide an act of creative closure and figure out 
  what the contact says.
   
  But this doesn’t have to be as simple as, “I know that X is involved with Y.” 
  And, in fact, repeatedly relying on that simple construction can lead to a very 
  predictable (and boring) pace for your game. Plus, it’s a staple of the noir genre that 
  information—while it may point you in a direction that can be roughly described as 
  “forward”—will also mislead, misdirect, or otherwise baffle the protagonist.
   
  So rather than simply knowing the answer to their question and pointing them 
  in the right direction, here are a few ways to complicate the leads your connections 
  give out:
   ) They give them inaccurate information about the target.
   ) They point them at a target connected to the conspiracy, but for reasons that 
  have nothing to do with the conspiracy.
   ) They don’t know anything, but they can introduce the protagonists to someone 
  who might.
   ) They claim they don’t know anything, but they seem afraid.
   ) They don’t know anything, but there was somebody else who was just asking 
  them about the same thing.
   ) They want money for the information.
   ) They don’t know anything, but they want to know, too. And they’ll pay if the 
  protagonists can tell them anything.
   ) They don’t know anything right now, but if the protagonists come back tomor-
  row they’ll see what they can dig up. (That doesn’t actually mean that they’ll 
  have anything—or even that they’ll be alive—when the protagonists come 
  around.)
   ) They warn the protagonists that they don’t want to mess around with the 
  people involved (whether that’s a faction, a connection, or a threat).
   ) They heard a rumor at a bar. There was a guy who mentioned A and B in the 
  same sentence.
   ) They set the protagonists up with a fake job while secretly calling a threat to 
  ambush them.
   ) They’re holding an object for the subject of the protagonists’ interest.
  If you’re still looking for inspiration, look at the connection’s favors. Think about 
  how the favors they do (for both the protagonists and other people) can translate 
  into information or opportunities: If they’ve got the chop favor, maybe they sold a 
  car to the guy the protagonists are asking about (and secretly low-jacked it so that 
  they can trace it). If it’s a date, maybe they took somebody to where the object is (or 
  they can take the protagonists there themselves).
   
  (If the lead actually involves the connection doing a favor for the protagonist, 
  don’t forget to activate the plot map accordingly.)
  
  5
  GUIDE TO WRITING PLAYER’S GUIDES
  WHEN A LEAD ISN’T A LEAD
  Not every lead provided by a connection needs to take the form of a Q&A. It’s even 
  possible that the protagonists aren’t specifically looking for information. Maybe 
  they’re actually coming to kill the connection, only to arrive and find their apart-
  ment spattered with blood. The clues at the crime scene are the lead. (Which means 
  you should activate the plot map, just as you would with any other lead.)
  THE HOOK
  As you begin your first session, you should have a rough understanding of what 
  your mission seed is all about and a few dangling nodes drifting in the wind from 
  the favors the protagonists called in during character creation. Once you get into the 
  thick of play, the plot map mechanics will tend to continue driving the scenario for-
  ward. But before that can happen, you’ll face the biggest hurdle: The initial scenario 
  hook that will draw the protagonists into the conspiracy’s clutches.
   
  Maybe the hook is seeded with some delicious bait, luring the protagonists 
  forward. Or maybe the hook reaches out, grabs them, and yanks them off their feet. 
  Whatever the case may be, there are a couple broad methods that generally prove 
  effective.
  THE HEIST CREW
  An easy default assumption is for the protagonists to all belong to a pre-established 
  crew: They’ve worked together in the past. They usually get gigs together. (And 
  they’re easy to motivate, because all you have to do is offer them a credible—or at 
  least tempting—paycheck.)
   
  There are generally two ways to hook a basic heist crew: First, one of the pro-
  tagonists can choose to hit up a connection and ask for a job. (This is great because 
  you can just use the standard plot map mechanics to figure out what the job will be.)
   
  Alternatively, you can kickstart the scenario by either arbitrarily choosing a 
  connection or randomly rolling one on the transmission’s master table. (One option 
  is to look at the favors used during character creation and choose one of them to 
  contextualize with a job offer: “You’re picking up that stolen pistol from Bluetooth 
  Koi when he mentions he might have a job for you.”) This can be particularly useful 
  when running the game for first-time Technoir players, who may not have internal-
  ized the game’s default action of asking for a lead whenever they’re in doubt about 
  what to do.
   
  Either way, remember that this initial job doesn’t have to be (and usually 
  shouldn’t be), “There’s a conspiracy, go figure it out.” Instead, it’ll be something 
  innocuous. Or maybe it just targets someone (or something) that is caught up in the 
  conspiracy.
  
  6
  MORENOIR
  BRINGING THEM TOGETHER
  Another option is to start by having the protagonists split up. (It’s even possible that 
  they don’t even know each other.) This can be more difficult to handle, but can also 
  be very rewarding: The ability to cut back and forth between different scenes allows 
  you to keep the tension high and the pace fast, getting the session off to a bang. To 
  keep things interesting, don’t linger on any one protagonist (or group of protago-
  nists) for too long and:
   ) Cut on a surprise to create a cliffhanger. (“The door is suddenly blown open 
  with plastic explosives!”)
   ) Cut on the choice. (This gives one group time to dwell on the choice and cre-
  ates tension over the curiosity of what the answer will be.)
   ) Cut on the roll of the dice. (Leaving the outcome in suspense, but also eliminat-
  ing the mechanical pause as pools are built and rolled.)
   ) Cut at any point where a player needs to look up a rule. (It may not create 
  a cliffhanger or a moment of suspense, but it does eliminate dead air at the 
  gaming table.)
  The other key to making this work is using a crossover to tie the scenes together. 
  The simplest method is the direct crossover, in which an element or outcome from 
  one scene immediately appears in the other. (For example, if one group blows up an 
  arms depot, the other group might hear the explosion from across town.)
   
  Indirect crossovers are both subtler and more varied. These are common or 
  related elements in each scene which are not identical: For example, you might have 
  John discover Derya Liddy’s business card on a corpse in one scene and then cut to 
  another scene where Luci is getting an interface call from her.
   
  Indirect crossovers might not have any specific connection in the game world 
  at all: For example, Maria might ask Natasha out for a date at the Redstar Tea House; 
  simultaneously Carla gets hired by Billie Ng to plant a hidden camera there at the 
  same time in order to monitor a meeting between two Bank of China executives. 
  Maria and Natasha have no connection to the Bank of China executives, but it’s still 
  a crossover.
   
  This also demonstrates how crossovers can be used to weave disconnected nar-
  ratives together: Maria, Natasha, and Carla are all going to end up at the Redstar at 
  the same time. Luci and John are both getting tangled up in Derya Liddy’s business. 
  It’s still not entirely clear how their paths are going to cross, but they’ve definitely 
  been set on a collision course.
  
  7
  GUIDE TO WRITING PLAYER’S GUIDES
  AIM THE PROTAGONISTS AT EACH OTHER
  You can strengthen this technique even more by setting the protagonists into imme-
  diate opposition with each other.
   
  Here are some genericized examples of how you can do that in play:
   ) A protagonist has been framed for murder. The other protagonists are sent to 
  track her down and find out what she knows.
   ) Two members of the group are hired to deliver a package. Two other members 
  of the group are hired to prevent the delivery of the package. (Leaving us madly 
  curious to see which half of the group will be the first to call the fifth PC for 
  help.)
   ) The members of the group are all simultaneously hired to steal the same thing 
  by different employers. (Create even more chaos by having the thing in ques-
  tion belong to yet another protagonist.)
  This can be particularly useful if you’re still waiting for the mission seed to firm up a 
  bit in your mind: As the protagonists start fighting with each other, they’ll generate 
  strongly motivated drama without you ever needing to life a finger. Simultaneously, 
  they’ll start spending Push dice on each other, allowing you to build up a stockpile 
  to hurt them with when the bad guys make their move.
   
  A couple things to watch for with this technique:
   ) First: The Push dice economy of Technoir requires that the GM spend their 
  Push dice to get them back into the hands of the players. If the protagonists 
  are just fighting each other, this can be difficult to accomplish and the game 
  can flounder as the Push dice become concentrated in your hands. You have to 
  look for your opportunities (the bar patron who gets angry that his drink was 
  spilled; the cops who don’t like having their time wasted; etc.) and try to find 
  the moment when you get them turned back to the main plot and introduce 
  some threats to antagonize them.
   ) Second: When the protagonists go to their connections asking for leads on 
  each other, it can be tempting to think of that as being a “special case” that 
  somehow doesn’t apply to your plot map. Don’t do that. Stick with the rules for 
  generating the plot map: A lead can point them in the direction of the protago-
  nist they’re interested in and be connected to the conspiracy.
  
  8
  MORENOIR
  MAKE IT PERSONAL
  Instead of doing all the work yourself to generate a scenario hook, point at a player 
  and say, “What is the most important goal in your character’s life?”
   
  Maybe they’ll simply say, “Money.” If that’s the case, you can just refer back to 
  the general advice for hooking heist crews. But you might also get interesting stuff 
  like, “To find my lost sister.” Or, “To get revenge on the Ring Cartel.” Or, “To kill 
  Inspector Abang.”
   
  What they need now is a lead they can pursue. Ultimately, this still defaults 
  back to either having a connection contact them or waiting for them to choose a 
  connection to contact, but now you’ve got extra context that will help you shape 
  their involvement with the conspiracy. (And maybe their personal stakes really are 
  tied up in the warp and woof of the conspiracy. But it might also prove to be a 
  false lead or only tangentially related. Either way, it won’t matter once they’ve gotten 
  thoroughly tangled up in things.)
  RUNNING AWESOME SCENES
  Most of the scenes you’ll create in Technoir are ultimately about conflict: Two or 
  more characters want mutually exclusive things and the scene is about determining 
  which character gets what they want.
   
  One of the great things about Technoir is that you can use the same mechanics 
  regardless of what type of conflict it is: Hacking, seduction, combat, interrogation, 
  tracking, chases, etc. They are all handled using the same contention structure.
   
  Despite this mechanical unification, however, some GMs find that their non-
  combat scenes often fall flat: The protagonists have an objective. They briefly inter-
  act with the environment or an NPC, readily achieve their objective, and then the 
  scene is over and done.
   
  To avoid these brief, lifeless scenes, there are a couple key insights:
   ) First: For an objective to be interesting, there needs to be an obstacle prevent-
  ing you from accomplishing it.
  For example, let’s say that you have an objective of going to the corner store and 
  buying a Coke. In general, that’s not going to result in an interesting scene because 
  there’s no meaningful obstacle. But if there’s a team of ninjas hunting you through 
  the neighborhood, it gets interesting. If you can’t leave your sister alone because 
  you’re afraid she might commit suicide while you’re gone, it gets interesting.
   ) Second: For an obstacle to be interesting, it cannot be trivially overcome.
  For your combat scenes, there is an inherent objective (defeat them), the obstacles 
  are baked in (the antagonists you’re fighting), and the mechanics prevent those 
  obstacles from being trivial (because you generally can’t apply a single adjective 
  to knock someone out of the fight). But we could consider a combat scene which 
  was fairly boring: Imagine a single attack roll that resulted in all of the protago-
  nists’ opponents getting wiped out. (Which is not to say that you should never have 
  combat scenes like that, of course, any more than you should always have ninjas 
  guarding the corner store.)
   
  For your non-combat scenes, you’ll need to figure out what the obstacle is. And 
  
  9
  GUIDE TO WRITING PLAYER’S GUIDES
  you’ll get even better scenes if there are multiple obstacles, multiple objectives, or 
  both. (In many cases you can simply set up the objectives of the scene so that they 
  conflict with each other and, presto, you’ve got both.)
   
  In general, you’ll also want to embrace the idea that characters can’t jump 
  directly to making an “I solve the problem” die roll even outside of combat. In prac-
  tice, this means looking at the vector being proposed for a given action, figuring out 
  what the obstacle is which stands in the way of the vector, and then requiring the 
  creation of one or more preliminary vectors that can be exploited to route around 
  that initial obstacle.
   
  For example: You want to shoot Victor inside his club. But you can’t just drive 
  up outside the club and shoot him. First you’ll have to find some way to get inside 
  (sneaking or fast-talking your way past the bouncers), then track him down, and 
  then take your shot.
   
  For example: You want to convince Michael to sell you the datachip. But first 
  you’re going to have to get him to admit he has it. Then you’ve got to persuade him 
  that there’s another way to save his sister. And then you’ve got to convince him that 
  you’re offering him something worth the risk.
   
  The cool thing is that you don’t need to figure out how the protagonists are 
  going to work their way around these obstacles: That’s the protagonists’ job! Instead, 
  just set the obstacles: Michael doesn’t want to admit he has the datachip. Michael 
  needs it to save his sister. Michael needs to be convinced to take the deal.
  THE SOCIAL VECTOR LADDER
  When there’s a physical environment, it’s often not difficult to imagine the obsta-
  cles involved. (You have to open the door before you walk through it.) The abstract 
  realm of a social interaction can be a little harder to create, particularly if you’re 
  doing it on the fly (which will, of course, almost always be the case in Technoir).
   
  One way of doing that is to set clear, multi-layered stakes, like in our example 
  with Michael: Each thing at stake requires a separate vector to deal with it.
   
  Another useful tool is the social vector ladder: The progression of adjective 
  severity is a simple multi-vector guideline. You need a fleeting adjective to provide 
  the vector for a sticky adjective, which provides the vector you need for the locked 
  adjective which will solve your problem.
   
  This obviously isn’t the be-all or end-all of possible social interactions, but it 
  can be useful for situations where you’re not certain how to structure a longer, more 
  important social interaction: The multiple steps require a deeper engagement with 
  the interaction and the progression of adjective severity creates a rising tension.
  
  10
  MORENOIR
  OUT ON THE FRINGE
  The usual structure of a Technoir scenario is fairly straightforward: You’ll generate 
  a mission seed. You’ll figure out what’s going on. You’ll hook the protagonists using 
  one of the outlying nodes on the plot map. And then the protagonists will drill their 
  way down to the core of the plot map, eventually revealing the mission seed and 
  discovering the truth of what’s happening.
   
  But that’s not necessarily the way it needs to happen. It’s possible for the pro-
  tagonists to never get anywhere near the core of the plot map (the heart of the con-
  spiracy defined by the original mission seed). Instead, they can become completely 
  wrapped up in a complex periphery of events that are being influenced or instigated 
  by the conspiracy without being a direct part of it.
   
  Let me give you an example of what it’s like playing out on the fringe:
   
  I generate a conspiracy focusing around a complex alliance of interests work-
  ing to rig the presidential election in Ohio. The first impulse is that the protagonists 
  will work their contacts, shake a few trees, and eventually find a way to unmask (or 
  at least de-fang) the conspiracy (presumably preventing the election from being 
  rigged). But when the campaign takes place out on the fringe, that’s not what hap-
  pens: Instead, the protagonists get tangled up in the street warfare of a small gang 
  that murdered a campaign worker. Or they end up investigating the illegal medical 
  testing of one of the companies involved in the election rigging. Or they wrangle a 
  contract to protect one of the down-ticket candidates.
   
  The point is that you end up with this “cloud of activity” surrounding the con-
  spiracy at the center of your plot map, and it’s fully possible for the protagonists to 
  get completely (and compellingly) enmeshed in this cloud without ever worming 
  their way into the heart of the matter.
   
  This isn’t necessarily something that you can force to happen. (And you prob-
  ably wouldn’t want to.) But it’s something that I make a point of leaving myself open 
  to.
   
  By contrast, I think I inadvertently mucked up the first Technoir scenario I ran 
  by pushing too hard for the revelation of the central conspiracy. I think I would have 
  been better off simply letting the protagonists resolve the local squabble that they’d 
  become invested in while letting the deeper conspiracy either pass them by or come 
  back for a second pass in a different form further down the road.
  
  11
  GUIDE TO WRITING PLAYER’S GUIDES
  ADVANCED OPTIONS
  Optimizing your Technoir experience can be about more than just experimenting 
  with new techniques and implementing best practices. These advanced options can 
  be used to get under the hood of the game and tweak its performance. Options 
  rewrite a mechanic found in the core rulebook, offering you an alternative or 
  enhanced feature. Augmentations supplement or expand the core rules, giving you 
  new ways of exploring Technoir.
  ACTIVE REACTIONS (OPTION)
  When determining a target’s reaction use the appropriate verb, Hurt dice, and Push 
  dice to assemble a dice pool. The reaction rating of the target is equal to the total 
  rolled on the Reaction dice pool.
   
  This optional rule increases the dynamic quality of action resolution. It pro-
  vides a slight defensive boost to verbs rated at only 1 or 2 points, but also results 
  in Hurt dice having a more dramatic impact on the scene (as they now affect both 
  attacks and reactions).
  ALTERNATIVE RELATIONSHIP 
  ADJECTIVES (OPTION)
  The default list of adjectives in the core book used during Step 5 of character cre-
  ation (Assign Relationship Adjectives) are designed to force the protagonists into 
  strong, noir-like relationships with the transmission’s connections. By varying these 
  adjectives, however, you can create distinctly different patterns of relationships and, 
  as a result, subtly re-flavor your Technoir campaign.
   
  The sample lists below offer examples of how this can be done. The first two 
  can be used to create, respectively, an environment of heightened fear and distrust 
  or a tangled web of sexual attraction and personal drama. The third, on the other 
  hand, has the potential to radically shift the focus of the game by pitting the pro-
  tagaonists against their mutual connections (with the possible result of eventually 
  turning against each other as loyalties become frayed and divided).
  PARANOIAC
   
  antagonistic 
  fanatical 
  trusting
   
  duteous 
  shackled 
  wary
   
  envious 
  suspicious 
  vigilant
  ROMANTIC
   
  adoring 
  enamoured 
  nourishing
   
  codependent 
  jealous 
  platonic
   
  devoted 
  lascivious 
  resentful
  VIOLENT
   
  brutal 
  murderous 
  sinful
   
  cruel 
  resentful 
  tyrannical
   
  hateful 
  revengeful 
  virulent
  
  12
  MORENOIR
  RELATIONSHIP ADJECTIVES      
  (AUGMENTATION)
  A relationship adjective refers to any adjective which describes the way two charac-
  ters regard each other. (In the core game, this refers only to the permanent, locked 
  relationship adjectives which describe how a protagonist feels about their connec-
  tions.)
   
  In general, a relationship adjective acts as a negative adjective when you act 
  against the character you have a relationship with and as positive adjective when 
  you’re helping or defending that character. (Some exceptions may exist.)
  APPLYING RELATIONSHIP ADJECTIVES
  When you apply a relationship adjective to a character, you specify which character 
  they have that relationship with. The adjective describes the target character’s rela-
  tionship with that character; it does not necessarily describe the character’s relation-
  ship with them.
   
  (You can already apply an adjective like trusting. A relationship adjective, 
  on the other hand, specifies exactly who the character trusts. For example, trust-
  ing (Paul) or affectionate (Cyndi). This would mean that they’re trusting of Paul or 
  affectionate towards Cyndi; it doesn’t necessarily mean that Paul trusts them or that 
  Cyndi likes them.)
   
  Of course, as with any other adjective, you still need to establish the proper 
  vector for applying the relationship adjective.
  RELATIONSHIPS AND GROUPS
  If you want a relationship adjective to describe the target’s relationship with multiple 
  people—for example, if you want them to be trusting of both you and your friends 
  —then you need to use the rules for multiple targets: You need to have an adjective 
  tag that justifies the application and you need to discharge a Push die (that is not 
  rolled as part of the dice pool) to pay for the attempt.
   
  Pushing relationship tags that describe relationships with multiple people onto 
  multiple targets costs two Push dice (one for multiple relationships; one for multiple 
  targets).
   
  (For example, if you want to make an entire Cyn Set gang loyal to Saito Inter-
  national, you’d need to spend one Push die to affect all the members in the gang and 
  a second Push die because Saito International represents a large group of people. 
  However, if you just want the leader of the gang to feel loyal to the corporation, that 
  would only cost one Push die. Similarly, if you want the whole gang to feel loyal to a 
  particular representative of Saito International, that would also only cost one Push 
  die.)
  
  13
  GUIDE TO WRITING PLAYER’S GUIDES
  RELATIONSHIP SEVERITY
  In terms of severity, relationship adjectives work just like any other adjective. If 
  someone is fleetingly trusting of a character, they’ve been momentarily persuaded 
  to believe their story. If that same adjective is made sticky, on the other hand, then 
  they’ll keep swallowing the character’s bullshit for a long time.
   
  If a relationship adjective is locked onto a protagonist, however, the character 
  it describes automatically becomes a connection. (Somebody at the table is saying 
  “this guy is of major importance to the protagonist” and that needs to be respected.) 
  This means that they can be hit up like any other connection, added to the plot 
  map, and so forth. (The GM can prep customized connection tables that can be 
  used whenever the nouveau connection is hit up for a lead. Alternatively, the GM 
  could use them to replace a connection who has been killed or otherwise removed 
  from play; or even make them the seed for a new or overlapping transmission. See 
  Restocking Your Transmission, page 25.)
  RUNNING TWO CONSPIRACIES      
  (AUGMENTATION)
  If you want to amp up the complexity, paranoia, and outright bafflement of your 
  campaign, you can use this augmentation to run two conspiracies simultaneously: 
  Until the protagonists realize that there are multiple enigmas in play, they won’t be 
  able to even start unraveling what’s happening to them. (From your perspective 
  as the GM, on the other hand, the second conspiracy—which will be kept almost 
  entirely distinct from the first conspiracy—is easy to distinguish and no more dif-
  ficult to manage, so you get a large bang for their buck.)
  DUAL MISSION SEEDS
  When preparing for the game, generate two separate mission seeds (each consist-
  ing of three nodes rolled on the transmission’s master table). You can use different 
  colored pencils or ink to keep the two conspiracies distinct from each other. (We’ll 
  refer to these as the red conspiracy and the blue conspiracy here, but the actual 
  colors don’t really matter.)
   
  If the same node appears in both mission seeds, the conspiracies are already 
  linked to each other (but should still be treated as distinct, separate conspiracies).
  DUAL FAVORS
  As the protagonists call in favors from their connections, the colors of those favors 
  will alternate: The first favor will be red, the second blue, the third red again, and so 
  forth. The color of a connection (and, thus, the conspiracy they’re associated with) is 
  determined by the color of the favor which adds them to the plot map. (Write their 
  name in that color.)
   
  Note that a connection being associated with a conspiracy doesn’t necessarily 
  mean they’re involved with the conspiracy. (That only happens if they’re actually 
  connected to the conspiracy on the plot map.) The association just means that they’re 
  more likely to know the people, objects, locations, and other nodes tangled up in 
  that conspiracy.
  
  14
  MORENOIR
  DUAL LEADS
  By default, when the protagonists hit up a connection for a lead, follow the normal 
  procedure: Roll a d6 on the connection’s connection table. If the generated node is 
  already on the plot map, link the connection to it (they’re involved). If the generated 
  node isn’t on the plot map yet, add it and connect it. The new node gains the color 
  of whatever it’s connected to.
   
  If the connection offering the lead is on the plot map (and, therefore, associ-
  ated with one of the conspiracies), any nodes added to the plot map as a result of 
  their leads belong to their conspiracy by default. This is true even if a specific node 
  in the other conspiracy is inquired about: In that case, connect the resulting node to 
  both the node asked about AND the connection’s conspiracy (things are starting to 
  get tangled up).
  
  THE BIG GUIDE
  to CREATING
  TECHNOIR
  TRANSMISSIONS
  
  16
  MORENOIR
  TRANSMISSIONS
  Transmissions are the cybernetic heart of Technoir: Combined with the plot map 
  mechanics, each transmission becomes a potent procedural content generator with 
  creative elements that can be almost endlessly recombined to create new scenarios 
  on the fly.
   
  Creating a new transmission for your game is also a fairly simple and straight-
  forward project. (And, because it can be so effectively reused time and time again, a 
  surprisingly rewarding one.) This creation guide will help walk you through the pro-
  cess, along with a handful of crucial design guidelines and some useful resources.
   
  First: Pick a city. Technoir takes place in the near future, so it can be fairly safe 
  to assume that any city in the modern world will continue to exist. Selecting a city 
  you’re familiar with (such as your hometown) can be a good choice for your first 
  transmission.
   
  Second: Figure out what the story of the city is. This decision should influence 
  most (but not all) of the elements you choose to include in your transmission. This 
  isn’t the totality of the city as it exists, but it is the lens through which the protago-
  nists will experience it.
   
  The default for Technoir is the seedy, criminal underbelly of the city. But even 
  within that broad parameter your choices will influence (but not necessarily con-
  trol) the stories that emerge from the transmission: If you focus your transmission 
  on corporate espionage and corrupt politicians, you’ll end up with different stories 
  than a transmission that focuses on gang members and the drug trade.
  MASTER TABLE
  The transmission’s master table is made up of thirty-six individual nodes. As you 
  create these nodes, make a point of brainstorming more ideas than you need. 
  Having a plethora of options means that you’ll be able to keep the best of them. You 
  can save the ideas you don’t include to use in other transmissions (or for restocking 
  this transmission, see page 25). It can also be very effective to take two different 
  ideas and combine them into one idea that will be richer and more interesting than 
  either would independently.
   
  Designing transmission nodes requires a distinct method of nonspecific and 
  unlinked details. You want each node to be evocative and packed full of potential, 
  but it should also be possible to freely associate it with the other nodes. For example, 
  consider this event from the Kepler Station transmission:
  Cimmerian Orbits
  Kepler Station’s power systems are compromised by hackers, triggering rolling brown-
  outs.
  Could the description of this event include the identity of the hackers responsible or 
  the people they’re working for? Of course. But if it did, that would prevent the node 
  from being associated with the other factions, threats, or connections.
  
  17
  GUIDE TO WRITING PLAYER’S GUIDES
   
  Similarly you generally want to avoid predetermining how various nodes are 
  linked to each other. For example, imagine a transmission in which one of the loca-
  tions was defined as:
  Club Neo
  A plain block of concrete glitzed in overlapping layers of multi-sensory AR.
  And in the same transmission we include:
  Madame Ling
  The owner of Club Neo and the drug mistress of the Lowtown party scene.
  This predetermined link locks down how the GM can use both Club Neo and 
  Madame Ling, which blunts the effectiveness of the free association created by Tech-
  noir’s plot map mechanics. Most of the time, it would be more effective to rewrite 
  Madame Ling:
  Madame Ling
  A lady of refined manners and the drug mistress of the Lowtown party scene.
  Maybe she ends up being the owner of Club Neo. Maybe she ends up being the 
  bitter rival of whoever does get identified as the owner of Club Neo. The group can 
  discover that through play.
   
  Conversely, including rich, evocative links to elements of the setting which are 
  not transmission nodes can be an effective technique because they allow the node 
  to carry in additional depth and complexity as they arrive on the plot map. (For 
  example, Madame Ling legitimately brings in the entirety of the “Lowtown party 
  scene” whenever she gets rolled into events.) But you’ll also want to make sure that 
  the preexisting links don’t end up outweighing those created during play.
  
  18
  MORENOIR
  EXPOSITION
  The three paragraphs of Exposition are where you establish your core concept of 
  what the city is: You should use it to crystallize your creative vision. And you’ll also 
  want to lay the groundwork for how your players will be introduced to the setting.
  TECHNOLOGY
  For the Technology paragraph, make a point of focusing on what makes the city’s use 
  and experience of technology unique. Every city uses the interface. You don’t need 
  to remind anyone of that. But does the Technocratic Party enforce a state-controlled 
  augmented reality channel which it is illegal to unsubscribe from? Does everyone 
  in the social elite wear a full-body AR avatar-sleeve and it’s considered impolite 
  to comment on someone’s true appearance? Is the local interface infrastructure 
  swarming with viruses due to poor digital maintenance? These are the details you’ll 
  want to call out and highlight.
   
  Apply the same sort of creative logic and exceptionalism to the other cyber-
  punk technologies that define Technoir’s future.
  ENVIRONMENT
  If your players are familiar with your city of choice in the modern day, then you can 
  focus on establishing how the city has been transformed by technology and future 
  history.
   
  If they aren’t (or if you’re writing for a wider audience), you’ll also want to 
  include enough information to orient them.
   
  Either way, you don’t have a lot of space, so focus on big, strong imagery. Allow 
  a handful of well-chosen examples to capture the city in a sort of textual holography. 
  Looking at those examples from different angles should allow one to envision the 
  totality of the city’s many faces.
  SOCIETY
  What’s it like to live there? For any given city, there’s usually several different answers 
  to that question. And those answers are typically divided by class, geography, eth-
  nicity, or all of the above.
   
  Also give some thought to what the inherent lines of stress and conflict are in 
  society. When the temperature gets turned up, where are things going to boil over? 
  When a mission seed creates friction, who’s going to get burned? And who are they 
  going to retaliate against?
  
  19
  GUIDE TO WRITING PLAYER’S GUIDES
  CONNECTIONS
  Connections should be characters that you can simultaneously imagine as both the 
  best of friends and the most bitter of enemies. The essence of a great noir supporting 
  cast is their ability to walk that line, and in practice connections will often start as 
  one and quickly become the next.
  FAVORS
  You should have a total of thirteen to fourteen favors split up among the transmis-
  sion’s six connections.
   ) Every connection should have at least two favors, and some may have three or 
  even four favors. (Having multiple favors allows protagonists to have different 
  relationships with the same connection; it also gives the connection multiple 
  ways of obviously getting tangled up in the plot map.)
   ) The fence and fix favors can (and often arguably should) be limited to a specific 
  category of equipment.
   ) You don’t necessarily need to include every favor in every transmission. 
  Making one favor unavailable will shape the types of stories told in that trans-
  mission, and can also serve as a motivation for the protagonists to visit other 
  cities later in the campaign. (It is generally recommended that shark and splice 
  always be available, however.)
  Favors can be assigned according to character concept, but if you’re seeking inspira-
  tion for creating your connections, looking at which favors you still need to assign 
  in a transmission and figuring out what sort of person could be capable of granting 
  them can be a fantastic spur for your creativity.
  CONNECTION STATS
  Connections can be created by selecting either three or four training programs. 
  Alternatively you can simply assign stat points:
   ) 21 verb points with 4 positive adjectives
   ) 18 verb points with 3 positive adjectives
  The existing transmissions all have five connections built with 18 verb points and 
  one connection built with 21 verb points, but this is merely a guideline and not a 
  stringent requirement.
  CONNECTION OBJECTS
  In the published transmission format, there’s not a lot of room for describing indi-
  vidual objects. The assumption is that the GM can pop open the equipment section 
  and pick whichever upgrades seem appropriate at the time. If you’d prefer to prep 
  that material, upgrade tags can be listed in parentheses for easy reference.
  
  20
  MORENOIR
  CONNECTION LEAD TABLES
  When stocking a connection’s lead table, think about who and what they have a 
  predilection towards. Who do they know? What things do they want? What activi-
  ties are they most likely to get involved with or be responsible for? This doesn’t lock 
  anything in, but just as you shape the narrative inclination of the city by selecting 
  its elements, so you create the narrative bias of your connections by selecting their 
  lead tables.
   
  It’s generally easiest to wait until the transmission’s master table has been com-
  pletely filled before you begin filling out the lead tables.
   ) Each row on the connection lead table is a particular category (in the same 
  order that they appear on the master table: Connections, Events, Factions, 
  Locations, Objects, Threats).
   ) Each node on the master table should appear twice in the connection lead 
  tables. (Generally this means that each node appears once in the Connected 
  column and once in the Unconnected column, but that’s not absolutely neces-
  sary.)
   ) A node should generally not appear twice on the same connection’s lead table. 
  (In other words, a connection should be linked to two different objects, not 
  the same object twice. But this is, once again, merely a guideline and not a 
  requirement.)
  
  21
  GUIDE TO WRITING PLAYER’S GUIDES
  EVENTS
  When designing events, try to keep them open so that they can be things that have 
  occurred, are occurring, or which are threatening to occur. Although some events 
  can be exclusive affairs (which can create the delightful necessity for the protago-
  nists to somehow gain access to them), they should not be so exclusive that it will 
  be difficult for connections, factions, and threats to be involved or responsible for 
  them.
   
  If you’re looking for inspiration, use the generic event types listed below, but 
  make sure to contextualize them into something specific. Things that could only 
  happen in this specific city will strengthen the flavor and identity of your transmis-
  sion.
  GENERIC EVENT TYPES
   ) Terrorist Attack (Bombing, Shooting, Interface Virus)
   ) Crime or Crime Spree (Bank Robberies, Serial Killer, Heists, Gang Wars, 
  Hostage Situation, Jail Break)
   ) Political Event (Rally, Scandal, Referendum, New Law, Election)
   ) Public Event (Parade, Concert, Festival, Tournament, Premiere, Flash Mob)
   ) Private Event (Funeral, Movie Shoot, Party)
   ) Competition (Sports, Gambling)
   ) Public Protest (Riot, Demonstration)
   ) Death (Murder, Suicide, Accident, Overdose, Disease, Execution)
   ) Weather (Extreme, Seasonal)
   ) Catastrophic Failure (Vehicle, Building, Infrastructure, Interface)
   ) Newcomers (Immigrants, Gang, Celebrity)
   ) Gossip (Celebrity, Underworld, Tabloid, Political, Interface, Panic)
   ) Cult of the New (Interface Program, Drug, Product, Food)
   ) Corporate Machinations (Takeover, Industrial Espionage, Bankruptcy, 
  Announcement)
   ) Fire
   ) Disease
   ) Natural Disaster
   ) Chase
   ) Whistleblower
  
  22
  MORENOIR
  FACTIONS
  Factions, perhaps more than any other node type, allow you to define exactly what 
  your city is all about: These are the movers and shakers, and by their very nature 
  everyone and everything else will fall into their orbit sooner or later.
   
  In addition to an identity, try to give every faction at least one distinct agenda. 
  (But it should be an agenda that’s flexible enough that it can manifest in a lot of dif-
  ferent plots.)
  GENERIC FACTION TYPES
   ) Corporations
   ) Government
   ) Activists
   ) Religious Groups
   ) Gangs
   ) Organized Crime
   ) Secret Societies
   ) Unions
   ) Ethnic Groups
   ) Social Classes
   ) Cultural Movements
  
  23
  GUIDE TO WRITING PLAYER’S GUIDES
  LOCATIONS
  Most of your locations should be cool and unique. It’s okay to occasionally include 
  something like, “A warehouse on the east side,” but these kinds of generic concepts 
  can easily be created on the fly during play. Instead, the locations in your transmis-
  sion serve a dual function: First, they’re the touchstones which define the architec-
  tural style and attitude of your city. Second, they’re the big set pieces where awesome 
  scenes can play out.
   
  Think about what the current icons of your city’s landscape are: What defines 
  the skyline? What are the tourist traps? What are the local favorites? Consider how 
  these locations have been transformed in the cyberpunk future. Also: What are the 
  big infrastructure projects that are currently in the planning or construction phases 
  that could be finished by the time of Technoir? And what has their impact been on 
  the city?
   
  Cities are big, and there are probably more than six places you’ll want to dis-
  cuss. Don’t be afraid to “hide” other locations in your nodes by mentioning, in their 
  descriptions, where the connections hang out, where a faction meets, or where an 
  event takes place.
  
  24
  MORENOIR
  OBJECTS
  Objects are your McGuffins! The things in your story that everyone wants to get 
  their hands on. Transmissions can also be a cool way to add new technology to the 
  setting.
  OBJECT STATS
  When creating the tags for a custom object, you can use the existing objects catalog 
  as a guide. Scan through the master tag list (Technoir, page 48) to see if there are any 
  tags that your object should have. And then scatter in some catchy story tags like 
  stolen or fingerprints or tracking device.
  THREATS
  Each threat should be made up of two Heavies and zero to four Henchmen.
   ) Heavies: 4 training programs (21 verb points + 4 positive adjectives)
   ) Henchmen: 3 training programs (18 verb points + 3 positive adjectives)
  OBJECT POOL
  Create a single object pool which lists all the stats for the objects used by the mem-
  bers of the threat. (That way you don’t chew up space by repeating the same stats 
  while keeping everything on one page and easy to reference.) The pool can also 
  include custom objects that aren’t available anywhere else (but try not to go to that 
  well too often).
  CREDITS
  Technoir’s transmission format has been released under a non-commercial Creative 
  Commons license, so you should feel more than free to share your creation far and 
  wide under the same license. Before you do, make sure you’ve given yourself credit 
  as the author (and also credit any other transmissions you’ve borrowed material 
  from under the license). You should also be sure to credit anyone who has helped 
  you playtest the transmission!
  
  25
  GUIDE TO WRITING PLAYER’S GUIDES
  RESTOCKING YOUR 
  TRANSMISSION
  If you’re running a longer Technoir campaign that spans multiple stories in the same 
  city, the laws of probability dictate that some nodes will be repeated. In many cases 
  this is fine. (For example, there’s nothing wrong with the same connections get-
  ting involved in the lives of the protagonists time and time again.) In other cases, 
  you’ll be able to recontextualize the nodes. (This is an Immatrix Shoot for a different 
  movie in L.A. Or a different set of Corrupt Cops.) Or it may just be a condition that’s 
  persisting. (El Niño’s rains are still pouring down. The gang wars continue.)
   
  Even when it’s not possible to reuse or recontextualize a node, it may be pos-
  sible that the link indicated on the plot map is invoking the legacy of something 
  or someone which has been lost. (The rebuilding of something destroyed during 
  the event. The will of a dead woman. Or maybe even the holographic AI construct 
  based on the woman’s original personality.)
   
  But sometimes nodes are simply used up: Connections die. Events fade into 
  the past. Factions lose their grip on power. Threats are eliminated. Objects are 
  destroyed. Or maybe you’re just tired of a particular location and want to vary the 
  scenery.
   
  When that happens, you need to restock your transmission: Rip out the dead 
  node and replace it with a new one.
   
  At first glance, this is a fairly simple process. But there are a couple of complica-
  tions, both revolving around connections.
  CONNECTION FAVORS
  When replacing a connection, some consideration must be given to the favors 
  offered by the new connection. The easiest solution would be for the new connec-
  tion to have the same favors as the old connection, but this can lead to a carbon copy 
  syndrome that may remind some of the Darrins on Bewitched.
   
  If the transmission was originally missing one of the possible favors, this may 
  be a good time to include it (while perhaps dropping another). It’s also possible 
  that the favors offered by the existing connections might be shuffled around to mix 
  things up: Has someone who used to have the date favor been discredited? Has 
  anyone taken up a new line of business?
  
  26
  MORENOIR
  CONNECTION LEAD TABLES
  Regardless of the node being restocked, it needs to be included in the connections’ 
  lead tables. Once again, the easiest method is to simply swap each node into the 
  place occupied by the node it’s replacing, but this isn’t necessarily the best option 
  and it can create associations that don’t make a lot of sense.
   
  It can be easier to rebalance the connection lead tables if you’re replacing sev-
  eral nodes at once (giving you more empty slots to play around with). Similarly, it 
  can be useful to look at the totality of all the connections’ lead tables and see what 
  can or should be shuffled around. Have people’s interests changed? Did one of the 
  threats end up pissing off one of the factions? Have you discovered through play that 
  a particular connection is obsessed with an object? 
   
  The restocking process, in general, allows you to constantly revitalize and reju-
  venate a transmission. A little judicious pruning paired with creative refreshment 
  can keep a transmission viable for dozens of sessions with very little effort.
  
  JEREMY’S GUIDE TO 
  WRITING
  PLAYER’S GUIDES  
  FOR TECHNOIR
  
  28
  MORENOIR
  PLAYER’S GUIDES
  So many folks have expressed interest in providing additional content for Technoir 
  or hacking it to make it work with other subgenres, settings, or eras. Because the 
  player’s guide encapulates all of the setting content that the players’ protagonists 
  interface with, all in booklet format, it’s the best avenue for creating and sharing 
  your new visions.
   
  This guide will go through each of the sections of a typical player’s guide with 
  advice and parameters for making your version. It uses plenty of examples from 
  the original Player’s Guide as well as hacks I’ve worked on: Mechnoir and Hexnoir. 
  We’ll even make a new hack in the process. Since these guides are all covered under 
  Creative Commons, feel free to use whatever is useful from the existing material. 
   
  Have fun! I can’t wait to see how you expand the rules to play gritty noir dramas 
  in your favorite settings.
  Jeremy Keller
  
  29
  GUIDE TO WRITING PLAYER’S GUIDES
  GENERATION
  This section details the process for making protagonists. Generally this doesn’t 
  change much no matter what setting you’re going for, so you can copy and paste 
  the steps from the Technoir Player’s Guide. You may need to add some details in or 
  take things out depending on how you plan to change the system. Hexnoir has some 
  examples of this:
   ) I added a new verb, Evoke, but I didn’t want every character to be able to cast 
  spells. So, on Step 2, I indicated that Evoke didn’t start with one box filled in 
  like the other verbs.
   ) On Step 3, I added a note about using an adjective to denote if the protagonist 
  belongs to a non-human species like dwarf or elf.
   ) Since Hexnoir wasn’t going to deal with cybernetics, I removed the references 
  to paying for implants from Step 6 as well as references to the splice and chop 
  favors—they don’t appear in that player’s guide.
   
  One of the biggest tools you have to take the rules set into new settings and 
  genres is with the training programs. The programs describe what culture and edu-
  cation characters have available to them.
   ) Come up with nine programs. Generally they describe occupations in the set-
  ting, but my Hexnoir also used programs to describe heritages like Halfling or 
  Orc so that can stretch a bit.
   ) Figure out the three verbs that each program teaches. A particular program 
  never teaches a verb more than once. I like to make sure that each verb is rep-
  resented three times in the list, but that’s not a hard rule.
   ) Select three adjectives that fit with each program. This is a great way to make 
  sure that players are inspired with an appropriate adjective and they help to 
  communicate a bit more about the program.
   
  Here’s an example of a set of training programs for an old west setting. West-
  noir?
  TRAINING PROGRAMS
  Program
  Verbs (increase each by 1)
  Adjectives (pick one)
  Barkeep
  Coax, Fight, and Treat
  attentive, stubborn, or tough
  Cowhand
  Detect, Operate, and Shoot
  agile, fast, or healthy
  Doc
  Detect, Hack, and Treat
  alert, smart, or steady
  Entertainer
  Coax, Move, and Prowl
  attractive, charming, or sly
  Outlaw
  Fight, Prowl, and Shoot
  brutish, rude, or twitchy
  Preacher
  Coax, Hack, and Treat
  charismatic, devoted, or loud
  Rail Engineer
  Hack, Move, and Operate
  analytical, precise, or timely
  Sheriff
  Fight, Operate, and Shoot
  fearless, quick, or stern
  Tracker
  Detect, Move, and Prowl
  brave, observant, or patient
  
  30
  MORENOIR
  VERBS
  In this section I want to make sure players have an overview and reference for the 
  verbs they will be using. Each verb is listed with a brief description and examples of 
  the fleeting, sticky, and locked adjectives they can create. It looks like this:
   Coax
   Used to influence people through words and body language.
  Eager
  Confused
  Supported
  Embarrassed
  Confident
  Shamed
   
  Generally these don’t change much from setting to setting, though you may 
  need to rework Hack and Operate to fit the technology level of the era. Here’s how 
  I would reword them for Westnoir:
   HaCk
   Used to repair and modify newfangled devices like telegraphs and cameras.
  Communicating
  Hacked
  Photographed
  Cut off
   operate
   Used to ride horses and control or repair steam equipment and trains.
  Directed
  Shaken
  Dented
  Wrecked
   
  Sometimes characters are going to be able to perform actions in your settings 
  that the standard assortment of nine verbs doesn’t cover. In this case, you’ll need to 
  create a new verb. In Hexnoir, I created Evoke to handle the casting of spells.
   evoke
   Used to cast spells and curse or enchant people.
  Levitating
  Entangled
  Flaming
  Scorched
  Warded
  Cursed
  
  31
  GUIDE TO WRITING PLAYER’S GUIDES
  ADJECTIVES
  I feel like I created a fairly exhaustive list of adjectives when I created Technoir, so 
  I don’t generally add anything from player’s guide to player’s guide. In working on 
  Hexnoir, I removed several adjectives so I could save the space from adding the Evoke 
  verb. (I like to fit the verbs and adjectives on the same two-page spread).
   
  As you can see from the list below, they’re not particularly genre- or setting spe-
  cific. But if you want to add, modify, or delete any, have at it.
  ace 
  aggressive
  agile
  alert 
  analytical
  angry
  artistic
  attentive
  authoritative
  bossy
  brainy
  brave
  brutal
  calm
  careful
  charming
  clever 
  clinical
  creative
  cute
  deadly
  detailed
  determined
  discrete
  empathic
  energetic
  fast 
  fearless
  friendly
  funny
  handsome
  healthy 
  heavy
  impulsive
  intuitive
  knowledgeable
  large
  light
  limber 
  logical
  loud 
  meticulous
  musical
  obedient
  observant  
  passionate
  patient
  persistent
  practiced
  precise
  prepared
  quick 
  ruthless
  savvy 
  seductive
  sexy 
  short
  small
  smart
  sneaky
  spatial
  steady
  strong
  stubborn
  stylish
  tall
  technical
  threatening
  tough
  twitchy
  unpredictable
  violent 
  Relationship Adjectives
  The list of relationship adjectives are a little more hard-coded into the game. The 
  idea is to have a set amount of emotional bonds between protagonists and connec-
  tions in any series. You might wonder why all of these are relatively positive feelings 
  to have towards someone. Where are the suspicious, scornful, and rivalous adjec-
  tives? It’s completely on purpose. Because of the design of the plot map, eventually 
  some character you have a relationship with is likely to betray you. And that’s going 
  to hurt a lot more if you have a positive bond with them. The best negative emotions 
  will come from those situations, and not from the game mechanics.
   
  Modify this list only if you absolutely think it’s necessary, but please be careful 
  and intentional about it. I say leave it alone.
   
  affectionate
  dependent
  loyal
  lustful
  obsessive
  protective
  respectful
  sympathetic
  trusting
  
  32
  MORENOIR
  CONNECTIONS
  The connections themselves don’t appear here; they should be listed in the trans-
  missions you create to supplement your setting. What is here is a detailed list of 
  the favors they provide. Favors are cool because they’re the first things that tie the 
  protagonists into the crime world of your setting. They’re the mostly illegal deals 
  that characters can make to get an advantage.
   
  Start with the list in Technoir. Delete any favors that don’t fit your setting. Don’t 
  have implants? Drop splice. Vehicles aren’t a big deal in your world? Drop chop.
   
  Now add a favor or two that fit your setting. Here’s what I added for Mechnoir:
  Stable
  Front you the money for any rig or transport, including any upgrades. You owe service 
  to the connection until you can pay the debt back. Mark this in the Debt column.
   
  And Hexnoir:
  Enchant
  Add the magic tag to an otherwise mundane object. Additional tags that describe the 
  object’s new magical capabilities may be purchased at this time for 1 Kred each.
  Teach
  Instruct you in the casting of a new spell. You still must pay the cost of the spell.
   
  Here’s an idea for one for Westnoir:
  Mark
  Will get the word out that a designated enemy of yours has a price on their head. If 
  someone kills this scoundrel, you’ll owe said murderer 10 Kreds. 
   
  I’m not entirely sure I like this one. Favors are behind-the-scenes stuff. They 
  should do something to inspire drama, but be careful not to play out exciting bits 
  offstage. Mark, above, is great if it leads another protagonist to hunt the enemy or if 
  it puts the enemy in a situation where they’re coming to a protagonist for protection. 
  It’s boring if some bloke comes up to you a few days later and says that guy’s dead, 
  where’s my 10 Kreds? I’d have to playtest it before locking it in.
   
  Favors don’t have to be balanced precisely. It’s an art to figure out what each 
  favor gives to a protagonist and what it asks back. Is a shark loan of 10 Kreds that 
  you have to pay back the same as 6 Kreds of fix discounts that you don’t have to 
  repay? I don’t know. Probably not. But it’s not a big enough difference that it’s caused 
  a problem in playtesting. The limits of what connections provide what favors and 
  the number of times they’ll provide favors before things get sticky with the plot map 
  keeps it from getting out of hand.
  
  33
  GUIDE TO WRITING PLAYER’S GUIDES
  OBJECTS
  Your catalog of objects is a big part of establishing your setting. It describes the tech-
  nology level as well as what is important to protagonists. Coming up with objects 
  is easy. All they need is a name, a super-brief description, a list of tags, and a base 
  cost. If they’re upgradable, they’ll need some additional tags that can be added to 
  the base model.
   
  Here’s an example from Technoir:
  Specs
  Augmented reality interface glasses, earbuds, and motion trackers.
  Tags: display, gesture input, linked, sound
  Base Cost: 4
  Upgrades: cam, derma-linked, encryption, firewall, mic
   
  The tags don’t have to describe everything the object does, but they should 
  point out what’s unique about it when compared to other items in that category. 
   
  The base cost is almost always equal to how many tags the objects has. In some 
  cases—such as I did with vehicles and implants in Technoir—you may create arbi-
  trary additions to the costs or required favors to make sure players don’t go over-
  board on items that should be sparse.
   
  Here’s a few of objects for Westnoir:
  Old Timey Camera
  1st generation photography equipment.
  Tags: film, slow
  Base Cost: 2
  Upgrades: flash
  Six-Shooter
  A reliable revolver.
  Tags: loud, powerful
  Base Cost: 2
  Sawed-Off
  A shotgun.
  Tags: loud, scattershot
  Base Cost: 2
  Upgrades: stock
  Trusty Steed
  A horse.
  Tags: fast, large, strong
  Base Cost: 3
  
  34
  MORENOIR
   
  Sometimes you might expand the definition of “object” in order to use the 
  object rules to emulate some part of your setting, like magic or super powers. In 
  Hexnoir, I created spells as objects. Other than not being physical things, the game 
  mechanics work pretty much the same.
  Force Field
  Create a protective bubble around you or another.
  Tags: magic, protective
  Base Cost: 2
  Upgrades: flaming, frozen
   
  I’ll note that I added the tag magic to all spells and enchanted items in Hexnoir 
  for two reasons: First, to make them all 1 Kred more expensive (hopefully adding 
  slightly to their rarity) and, second, to have a handy designation for anything beyond 
  the ordinary.
   
  In some cases you’ll need to expand the object rules. In Mechnoir, I wanted 
  objects to be able to take damage directly, rather than just as an extension of the 
  character. When damaging a rig, the attacker can choose to disable a tag rather 
  than applying a negative adjective. And armor—sometimes multiple tags of it—can 
  absorb some of that damage. So I created a special rig sheet to include in the Mech-
  noir Player’s Guide that players could use right out of the booklet to keep track of 
  their rigs’ status.
  Recke 20
  TAGS
  UPGRADE TAGS
  NEGATIVE ADJECTIVES
  A sturdy rig designed for defen-
  sive deployment.
  Base Cost: 19
  Upgrades: burst cannon, flame thrower, infrared, 
  machine gun, missile battery, pulse laser, shovel, 
  sonar imaging, thermal imaging
  armor
  armor
  articulate arms
  cam
  heavy
  linked
  mic
  shields
  stabilizers
  
  35
  GUIDE TO WRITING PLAYER’S GUIDES
   
  Keep in mind that your player’s guide doesn’t have to stand completely on its 
  own. If there’s content in another player’s guide that does a lot of the heavy lifting, 
  just reference it rather than repeat it. Mechnoir takes place in a similar future as 
  Technoir, so I didn’t feel the need to print all the guns and implants again. I just 
  wanted to include what couldn’t be in previous player’s guides or the core book.
  TAGS
  After your objects catalog, you’ll want to list all the tags that appear in your player’s 
  guide and define them so that the players and GM all have a clear idea of what that 
  tag does.
   
  Here is the tags list for the Westnoir objects:
  fast: limb articulation for rapid movement over ground
  film: records a still visual image of what it sees
  flash: creates a momentary bright light, possibly blinding
  large: bigger than other objects in its category
  loud: makes a high-volume, imposing noise
  powerful: fires high-caliber rounds (requires gun category or tag)
  scattershot: sprays projectiles in a widening pattern (requires gun category or tag)
  slow: takes longer than other objects in its category to perform its function
  strong: limb articulation that can apply great force
  stock: a gun attachment to help hold it steady against the shoulder (requires gun 
  category or tag)
   
  Be sure to note any time a tag requires another tag (or category), trumps 
  another tag, or is incompatible with another tag. Here are examples of those:
  adhesive legs: articulate limbs that allow drones to climb up walls (requires small)
  huge: significantly larger than other objects in its category (trumps large)
  silencer: gun attachment that dampens noise (incompatible with burst fire, loud, scattershot; 
  requires gun category or tag)
  
  36
  MORENOIR
  CONTENTION, 
  RESTORATION, &
  ADDITIONAL RULES
  The previous sections of the player’s guide have all been in service of character gen-
  eration: Each expands on the steps listed in the Generation section. These last sec-
  tions in the booklet now assume you have a complete character who is going to take 
  actions in the world. They present a rundown of the systems where players roll dice 
  to discover the outcomes of what they said their characters did.
   
  Essentially these sections are brief overviews of the rules found in the Conten-
  tion and Restoration chapters of Technoir. They are also an opportunity for detailing 
  any new rules that may be required by your setting.
  MECHNOIR CONTENTION
  Mechnoir needed rules for fighting with big, stompy robots. Since the protagonists 
  are inside of these huge metal beasts, it didn’t make sense for the characters to 
  shoulder all of the damage. So I added some rules for how rigs take damage directly. 
  Here’s the option I added to Step 7 of Contention:
   ) With an effective action, a protagonist can damage a one of a targeted vehicle’s 
  tags.
   ) She can spend 1 Push die from her roll to disable a target vehicle tag. Mark the 
  circle next to the tag with one slash to mark it disabled: 
  boosters
   ) She can spend 2 Push dice from her roll to destroy a target vehicle tag. Mark the 
  circle next to the tag with two slashes to mark it destroyed: 
  boosters
   
  I also added a special section for armor since I wanted rigs to have higher levels 
  of damage absorption than other vehicles. And finally I added some guidelines for 
  scale. I knew I could use the vector rules to establish when an individual person 
  could affect one of these giant machines and when they couldn’t.
  HEXNOIR CONTENTION
  For Hexnoir I really didn’t change the contention rules much, but I knew there 
  would be some questions around casting spells and what effects they have. So I 
  added a section on just that. Here’s the crux of it:
  Rolling the Dice
  Casting a spell works just like any other action in a contention, only:
   ) You always use the Evoke verb.
   ) You must spend at least 1 Push die on the spell you are casting. Without this, 
  you don’t have the concentration or magical energy to cast the spell.
   ) The narrative effect of the spell breaks the rules of reality (as we know it or as 
  is presented in Technoir), but is constrained by the description and tags of the 
  spell you are casting.
  
  37
  GUIDE TO WRITING PLAYER’S GUIDES
  MECHNOIR RESTORATION
  Since there were already rules in Technoir for repairing objects, all I had to do was 
  include damage dealt directly to tags in the equation. Essentially repairing a dis-
  abled tag happens just like repairing a sticky adjective and a destroyed tag must be 
  replaced in the same way a locked adjective is.
  HEXNOIR RESTORATION
  Creating Hexnoir took a little more work in this section because the Heal spell pro-
  vides a couple of new wrinkles. Knowing the spell itself allows characters to use 
  Evoke in place of Treat. If the spell has the instant tag, the process can ignore the 
  recovery time rules. If the spell is restorative, it can grow new limbs and body parts 
  and therefore skips the replacement surgery requirement for locked adjectives.
  WESTNOIR RESTORATION
  An old west setting doesn’t really require much special in the Contention or Resto-
  ration rules: We’re not dealing with big robots or supernatural stuff. The one dif-
  ference I would note is that the technology level doesn’t allow for fully functional 
  replacement prosthetics. So I would modify the locked adjectives restoration rules 
  as follows:
  Locked Adjectives require replacement
   ) For a locked adjective that describes damage to an object, pay half the object’s 
  full cost for replacement parts. This downgrades the adjective to sticky, which 
  can be mended as above. (Or you can always obtain a whole new object.)
   ) For a locked adjective that describes physical, emotional, or social loss to your 
  protagonist, nothing can be done. It’s a loss. You’ll have that adjective forever.
   
  Sad, I know, but it will sure raise the tension when your opponent adds two or 
  more Hurt dice to their roll.
  MASHUPS
  One of the cool things about player’s guides is that they are modular. A few can 
  stand completely on their own (along with the Technoir rulebook of course), but 
  most fit really well combined with other player’s guides. Imagine adding giant robot 
  rigs to your old west game! Or magic! Consider adding a short section with some 
  guidelines for combining it with other player’s guides to create hybrid genres and 
  settings.
  
  38
  MORENOIR
  EXPOSITION
  On the back page of your player’s guide, you’ll want some flavor text. This is meant 
  as an easy way for players to read what your guide’s setting is all about. Most of a 
  player’s guide is pretty technical and maybe a little dry, so here’s your opportunity 
  to really get creative.
  TECHNOLOGY
  This lets you hone in on what’s special about your setting. What cool things will the 
  protagonists have to play with?
  ENVIRONMENT
  This lets you describe what the world looks like. Is it wild or urban? Is it idyllic or 
  dystopian?
  SOCIETY
  And finally, this expresses what the political landscape of your world looks like. 
  How do the protagonists fit into that?
  Have fun creating!
  
SOURCE: textdata/thevault/Collections/Anime & Cartoon RPGs/3) Common Tropes & Themes/Mecha & Kaiju/Technoir/Morenoir - Expanding The Core Rules.pdf