TEXT: The Modern Dispatch
  AEGIS
  Page 1
  Content Manager: 
  Charles Rice, Chris Davis
  Layout: 
  Chris Davis
  Requires the use of the d20 Modern Roleplaying 
  Game, published by Wizards of the Coast, Inc.
  d20 Modern and Wizards of the Coast are 
  trademarks of Wizards of the Coast, Inc. in the 
  United States and other countries and are used 
  with permission. ‘d20 System’ and the ‘d20 
  System’ logo are trademarks of Wizards of the 
  Coast, Inc. and are used according to the terms 
  of the d20 System License version 6.0.  A copy 
  of this License can be found at www.wizards.
  com/d20.
  #54
  Suddenly...
  By Shannon Kalvar
  About the Line
  Adamant Entertainment is 
  releasing several additional 
  Suddenly...Encounters as part 
  of our Thrilling Tales line 
  of pulp-genre D20 products.  
  The ﬁrst, Suddenly...The 
  Door Bursts In! is already 
  available.
  Introduction
  This issue of Modern Dispatch is an introduction 
  to Suddenly...Encounters, a line of supplements 
  produced by Adamant Entertainment.  Each 
  supplement contains a brief encounter, a 
  discussion of how characters might interact with 
  it, and an array of elements you can introduce 
  to further complicate the situation.  You can use 
  the supplement to jump-start a stalled situation 
  or as a jumping off point for an entirely new 
  adventure.
  This supplement introduces a staple of pulp 
  adventures – an informant suddenly falls to the 
  ground, dead by unseen means.  At that moment 
  why takes a back seat to what as characters 
  scramble for their cover.  They might get 
  back to why after the action, or they may ﬁnd 
  themselves being measures for a long pine box.
  Suddenly He Falls…
  The Set Up:  The characters .go back to 
  a well-tapped information source with yet 
  another round of questions.  They might or 
  might not bother with simple pleasantries 
  and courtesies; most likely they get down to 
  business immediately.  Rather than holding a 
  conversation they launch into a set of questions 
  that would make a hostile mob lawyer proud.
  These superﬁcial interactions, especially with 
  long standing characters not under player 
  control, break any illusion of immersion.  Pure 
  exposition, especially forced exposition like 
  that delivered by a ﬂat character, also ruins the 
  storyʼs ﬂow.  In this case, though, make the best 
  of the situation.  Play up the target characterʼs 
  nervousness, the ﬂatness of his responses, 
  and his inability to interact normally.  Then 
  suddenly…
  The Event:  the informant slumps to the ground.  
  A few seconds later the characters hear a soft 
  crack.  Then another person slumps forward, a 
  blossom of red on the back of his head.  If the 
  characters fail to react one of them gets a bullet 
  to the head next.
  
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  D20 Event:  The Character Information section 
  below contains stat block for the assailant.  
  Select a block capable of challenging the 
  characters without overwhelming them.  The 
  encounter starts with a surprise round.  The 
  target NPC fails his massive damage save and 
  immediately dies.
  In this case do not be afraid to use “timed” 
  rounds.  Give each player 30 seconds or less to 
  decide his characterʼs action.  If player takes 
  longer the character loses his action for the 
  round.
  Working out the sniperʼs location requires the 
  characters to make (cumulatively) three Listen 
  skill checks (DC 25).  As soon as a character 
  moves towards the sniperʼs position he will run.  
  Chasing him down depends entirely on what you 
  need from the session – do you want to use the 
  chase rules from Hot Pursuit or do you want the 
  characters to catch him quickly for some bloody 
  revenge.
  Story Structure: We want to shake the characters 
  up.  At this point things have become routine.  
  They do what they do, follow their routines, 
  and get the job done.  The sudden change, from 
  routine to terrorist target, completely shifts 
  the story around.  The dull pace changes from 
  plodding to frantic, with a corresponding change 
  in writing style.  
  Things That Happen: During the combat you 
  can use the following images:
  1. One of the other characters in the scene 
  folds over, clutching his 
  stomach
  2. A character close by 
  screams in panic as an 
  ornamental object (lamp, 
  vase, etc.) explodes due to 
  a missed shot
  3. A man is hit in the head by 
  an object ﬂung by another 
  character.  He takes off 
  his hat to examine it for 
  damage.  As he feels the 
  brim the sniper shoots him.  
  The hat falls to the ground, 
  unharmed.
  Encounter Goals and Variations:  
  Though the sniperʼs attack initially 
  seems random, he acts with both 
  purpose and precision.  His choices 
  and the eventual outcome revolve 
  around this purpose.
  Misdirection: In this case the 
  sniper works for or is someone the 
  characters will cross.  The attack, 
  brutal and effective as it is, really 
  serves as a way to distract the 
  characters from their immediate 
  goals.  It leads them away from 
  whatever the sniper protects, 
  possibly into a trap or into further red herrings.
  Misdirection works best when the characters 
  have forward momentum.  They will happily 
  crash forward, probably not even noticing the 
  sudden change in plans.  However, be careful 
  not to accidentally derail their activities entirely.
  Retribution: In this case the sniper wishes 
  
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  to destroy one or more of the non-player 
  characters.  Alternately, he may wish to 
  harm one of the characters by systematically 
  destroying everything he (the character) holds 
  dear.
  Retribution works best when one or more of 
  the characters wronged someone in the past.  
  The sniper becomes the personiﬁcation of their 
  past misdeeds, and the death of the informant a 
  tangible symbol of the damage they have done.
  Terror: In this case the sniper wants to 
  induce terror in someone (not necessarily the 
  characters).  Shortly after terrorizing he will 
  issue demands then claim failure to meet those 
  demands will “force” him to further acts of 
  violence.
  Terror works best when the characters routinely 
  use similar tactics themselves.  When they 
  routinely bully, commit assault, and otherwise 
  abuse others, having the tables turned causes 
  a kind of queasy recognition most people ﬁnd 
  uncomfortable.
  Note: This is not a reference to current events, 
  at least not unless you count the anarchist 
  bombings of the 1910s-1920s as recent.
  What Happens Next
  Eventually the characters resolve the sniper 
  attack.  What happens next depends on the 
  sniperʼs goal and where the story needs to 
  go.  We took the liberty of suggesting a few 
  possibilities below.
  Misdirection: Once the sniper stops ﬁring the 
  characters should ask “what was going on?”  
  If they search they will ﬁnd additional clues 
  designed to drag them in an entirely new and 
  useless direction.  The ideas below suggest some 
  traditional possibilities.
  M1)  The target of the charactersʼ current 
  investigation ordered the hit to stop the 
  informant from talking.  The sniper leaves 
  evidence (perhaps a dropped note at his 
  ﬁring position) indicating a third party was 
  responsible.  The characters can follow up on 
  this clue or drop it, though they will still have 
  to ﬁnd a new information source.
  M2) The mayor 
  ordered the 
  sniper to silence 
  the informant 
  because 
  he gained 
  information 
  about a vote 
  rigging scandal.  
  The sniper, who 
  works for a local 
  bootlegging 
  operation, does 
  not actually 
  know who 
  ordered the hit.  
  He just follows 
  his orders and 
  leaves a receipt at the crime scene that leads 
  back to one of the mayorʼs political enemies.
  M3) The target of the charactersʼ current 
  investigation has secret and powerful 
  protection from a corrupt prison ofﬁcial.  This 
  ofﬁcial allowed the sniper to get out of jail 
  early with the understanding he would “take 
  care of a problem”.  The investigation leads 
  the characters back to the jail, where they 
  have to ﬁgure out how the sniper escaped in 
  the ﬁrst place.
  M4) The sniperʼs attack is psudeo-random.  
  He believes the characters are members of 
  a global anarchist conspiracy out to destroy 
  the civilized world.  The sniper will stop 
  at nothing to prevent them from tearing 
  
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  down the pillars of society, though he fears 
  to directly attack them.  Instead he rains 
  bullets into the characters friends, family, and 
  support network until ﬁnally captured.
  Retribution:  After someone carts the bodies 
  away the characters will have to face the 
  inevitable question of “Why did this happen 
  around us?”  Once bodies start piling up around 
  them as the sniper strikes again, and again, 
  and again this question should become even 
  more important.  Some traditional pulp answers 
  include:
  R1) Select a female in the past the characters 
  abused, insulted, or simply ignored.  This 
  insulted ladyʼs husband, a none-too-stable 
  Civil War veteran, decided to hunt down 
  the characters and “make them pay for their 
  deeds.”  The good news is he doesnʼt really 
  have very good eye-sight; the bad news is he 
  likes to use his bolt-action riﬂe and he doesnʼt 
  much care who gets hurt.
  R2) A member of the police force, his 
  career blighted by the characters constant 
  intervention into criminal affairs, decides to 
  remove them from the scene after his wife 
  leaves him for another man.  However, he 
  realizes that just removing the characters 
  will not solve his problem.  He must root 
  out the characters entire “organization”, 
  making the world safe for “decent working 
  men everywhere”.  The sniper stalks the 
  characters, slaughtering their friends 
  wholesale until they can ﬁnally bring him to 
  justice.
  R3) A spurned woman/man from the 
  characters lives develops a homicidal 
  “ﬁxation” on one of the character.  Perhaps 
  he resembles the spurned loverʼs abusers, or 
  some other complex context the character 
  was unaware of.  For whatever reason 
  he decided the best way to deal with the 
  character was to “cause him the pain he 
  caused me” by removing important people 
  from the characters life.
  R4) The wife of someone the characters 
  killed during one of their mass killing sprees 
  in the name of justice hired the sniper.  She 
  worked unspeakable jobs, willingly delving 
  into the worst parts of society, in order to 
  raise the money.  The sniper will happily give 
  her up, but will the characters have the heart 
  to destroy a woman sunk so low?
  Terror: Once the sniper makes his point he ﬂees 
  into the shadows.  A short time later the news 
  papers print, or the characters intercept, his 
  demands.  The question then becomes “what will 
  the characters do about it?”
  T1) The sniper represents a splinter anarchist 
  cell.  If their demand for immediate 
  revolution is not met they will begin a 
  bombing campaign, eventually destroying 
  the local National Guard Arsenal.  They will 
  also target individuals responsible for the 
  maintenance of social order, including the 
  
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  characters.
  T2) The sniper represents a fringe movement 
  within the labor organization.  He killed 
  the characters contact because he ratted out 
  an organizational meeting to the cops, who 
  attacked the meeting with their boozy wrath.  
  In his note he demands freedom for workers 
  and decent hours for the working class.
  T3) The sniper is an independent professional 
  paid for by one of the local landlords.  The 
  landlord ordered him to perform a random 
  strike, and then pin the blame on “capitalist 
  oppression of the working class”.  The 
  sniper issues a list of nonsense demands then 
  vanishes into the woodwork.
  T4) The sniper is one part of an elaborate 
  plan to destabilize the city immediately 
  before the next election.  He blames his 
  actions on the mayorʼs corrupt government 
  and demands their immediate removal.  
  Every day he targets those who support the 
  status quo, gunning them down with ruthless 
  determination.  At the same time a wide 
  array of new newspapers appear with splashy 
  headlines about government corruption.  
  The characters can either participate in the 
  madness, help shut the sniper down, or help 
  him to clean the city up.  However, they may 
  never know who started the plot or what 
  exactly he intends.
  The description below provides some clues 
  as to the sniperʼs identity.  The accompanying 
  stat block gives  information in the Modern 
  SRD format, about his potential 
  abilities.  The sniper relies on 
  cover, surprise, and massive 
  damage to deal with his foes; as 
  such he does not present much of a 
  threat in direct combat..
  The Sniper 
  (Human Male)
  Description: The small manʼs grey 
  fedora falls from his head as he vaults 
  the low retaining wall encircling the 
  roof.  From below you hear a crash, 
  the creak of wood, and a shout from 
  someone disturbed by his fall…
  Stat Block
  Fast 6; CR 6; Medium human 
  criminal; HD 6d8+6; hp: 33; Mas 
  12; Init +2; Spd 30 ft.; Defense 18, 
  touch 18, ﬂat-footed 18; BAB: +4; 
  Grap +4; Atk +4 melee knife (1d4) 
  or +6 (+8 aimed) ranged sniper 
  riﬂe (2d10); Full Atk +4 melee knife (1d4) or +6 
  (+8 aimed) ranged sniper riﬂe (2d10); FS 5 ft. by 
  5 ft.; Reach 5 ft.; SV Fort +3, Ref +5, Will +3; 
  AP 4; Rep 2; Str 10, Dex 14, Con 12, Int 11, Wis 
  13, Cha 10
  Skills:  Balance +9, Climb +4, Hide +13, Jump 
  +11, Move Silently +13, Tumble +13
  Feats: Acrobatic, Dead Aim, Far Shot, Focused, 
  Personal Firearm Proﬁciency, Point Blank Shot, 
  Precise Shot, Stealthy
  Talents (Fast): Defensive Roll, Evasion, 
  Uncanny Dodge 1
  Possessions: Suit, Masterwork bolt action sniper 
  riﬂe (2d10, 240 ft., RoF 1)
  
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  Modern Dispatch #54, 2005, Adamant Entertainment; Author Shannon 
  Kalvar
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