Well it is nearly here.
The Company is available for pre-order. For more info take a squint at the Indiegogo Company Pre-Order for more information.
Remember if we hit the target you also get a Copy of Operation Camphor as well…
Just a quick comment to update how Furnace went…. Which was exceptionally well. Made more so by having available the proof print of the book.
The comments from everyone who saw it were all positive; which is nice. Even nicer was the comments on what people would like to see; which included:
As to the Scenarios, well Op Camphor was suitably high-octane for most people’s taste; a real pulse pounder that taxed those who played it to the limit – which was nice.
So in short it was all positive, and soon The Company will be in pre-order so you will all be able to get your hands on it and see for yourself.
This year there will be two Company scenarios presented at Furnace in Sheffield – October 8th & 9th 2011.
Operation CAMPHOR
02:13 ZULU – Briefing Room Alpha, Hurricane Base.
In the last five minutes you’ve gone from being fast asleep to being painfully awake; such is the life of a team working the SHOTGUN emergency response shift. As the adrenalin kicks in, the briefing room flies open and in strides the Duty Commander. The briefing is short and sweet: “Less than a hour ago an armed band of four intruders entered the flat of Hank Thornville, a key member of the Sea Transport Section, and abducted him. We currently do not know who these intruders are, or why they would wish to attack Hank; what we do wish to do is recover Hank with all speed. Right now you are to grab you gear and get airborne. You are wheels up at 02:20 ZULU.”
Operation Redemption
Dateline: Venice, Italy. It should have been just another routine assignment for the guys from Specialist Services – guard an auction house in Venice. Just how hard could it be? Even Intel Command placed it as a low risk operation. That was until it all went Pete Tong. With the alpha team murdered and the Principle demanding results it is time to get serious.
For those of you who don’t know, Furnace is an annual RPG Convention in Sheffield. Held every year in October, it is held within a converted gaol – which lends it a certain interesting ambiance.
Looking forward to seeing you there.
Following on from my conversation with Alan, there was only one thing to do and that was to do some research. Alan was right, it is a wonderful bit of kit.
But just what is this wonder item? Is it perhaps a new gun, or some new IED detection kit? No it’s underwear. or to be more precise armoured boxer shorts.
You see the current crop of IED’s that are being deployed in the war-zones around the world are normally placed at such a height that they are causing a large number of ‘life-changing’ injuries to the lower bodies to those who job it is to patrol those areas.
Such injuries include shrapnel and blast injuries to the groin which can result in some highly damaging injuries – both physical and psychological.
Which is why some bright spark has finally come up with a piece of underwear that can prevent such grave injuries to both the groin and the femoral artery where a puncture to that vital artery can cause rapid bleed outs leading to death.
Now as The Company takes the health of it’s staff seriously, it seems obvious that they would include the Blast Boxers, and so here are the stats for this particular bit of kit:
Blast Boxers
AP:3
ENC:1
Cost: 75
In case anyone think’s I am blowing smoke over these things – here is a review of them by a serving member of HM forces
The phone calls, and it is Alan, calling from somewhere really noisy.
Alan I should explain is an ex-work mate of mine, and he does get to go some very interesting places. This time he is at a military expo somewhere; and he is standing next to a booth with something really interesting and inventive…
Now this is interesting because within the military world the pace of change is variable to say the least. On one level it works in hyper-realtime – as it has to be flexible enough to cope with any real world situation; but on another level it works at geological time – and that level is of course equipment procurement.
There are some good reasons for this – mostly because each piece of kit needs to be built to some very rigorous standards to ensure it can cope with the rough and tumble of a combat environments and the soldiers who will use it. Which explains why most of what are called Urgent Operational Requirements (UORs) can take months if not years to come into service.
Therefore it was something of a surprise to be told of a product that had been designed, developed and self-deployed in less than 6 months. Now what is really annoying is if they’d only thought of this product a year ago I would have included it within The Company…
So what exactly is this product? Ah well that would be telling… for now… but all will be revealed shortly.
The world The Company exists inside is pretty much like our own, there has been a global financial crisis, deficits, and governments are continuing to outsource everything from health care to warfare. There the operating environment that The Company exists within has of course it’s competitors; it would be foolish to assume that they have the vertical to themselves.
So where exactly does The Company fit into the grand scheme of things… Why here of course:
Seems obvious doesn’t it?
It may be an odd thing to say, but I don’t actually like guns in a modern day RPG. Strange because The Company is all about guns. The problem is not on moral grounds, but rather I object to them on the grounds that it is simply a terrible complicated subject.
On the face of it, it doesn’t seem to be that complex, because a gun is nothing more than a tube with one end that has been sealed up. It holds a bullet that is fired up this tube by the propellant held within the cartridge. The tube has grooves cut into it to make the bullet spin and keep it going in hopefully the right direction. And that is that…!
If only it were that simple as there are a fair few variables you need to get your head around.
The biggest one being the bullet fired by the gun, and there are rather a lot of bullets out there. For example there are over 200 different sizes of pistol bullets supplied around the world, ranging from the world’s smallest 2.7x9mm Kollbri to the biggest .600 Nitro Express. This is even before we get into the dizzying world of the Parabellums, ACPs, Full Metal Jackets and the like.
Image: wikipedia - Paularized
But that shouldn’t prove to be too difficult, should it? After all it is a one to one relationship isn’t it? A Colt Commander is only chambered for one type of round isn’t it? Well no. Many hand-gun manufacturers will provide multiple barrels of different calibres. For instance, the Colt Commander comes in three flavours – 9x19mm Parabellum, .38 Super and .45 ACP.
And whilst we are on the subject of barrels; barrel length is also important as well. The longer the barrel, the faster the bullet spins and the more accurate the gun becomes. Again, gun manufacturers produce many different barrel lengths. Take the Smith & Wesson Model 65 which comes in 5 different barrel lengths – from a very snub-nosed 3” right up to a respectable 6.5”, and the Model 65 is not the worst offender….
So what is a games designer to do? Well if they are lucky enough to be writing a game about the far future, then it is simple – because the designer controls both the horizontal and vertical,they can decide exactly what type of guns are around and leave it at that.
Modern day RPGs designers tend to fall into two camps when it comes time to take about fire-arms. There are those which go for a simplified table based upon common fire-arm calibres and then there are those which list every gun known to humanity…
As I’ve outlined above the simplified list, although shorter, is too simple and sadly doesn’t reflect reality which explains why The Company has got rather a lot of different fire-arms in it.
Oh and Parabellum – just what does that mean? Well unlike Full Metal Jacket it doesn’t describe the physical characteristic of the bullet but is rather more prosaic in origin. It was created by German arms company Deutsche Waffen und Munitionsfabriken, and is a contraction of the old latin saying “si vis pacem, para bellum” – if you wish for peace, prepare for war. So now you know.
Ever wondered what it is like to jump out of an aircraft 50,000 feet above a stricken oil tanker? Or how you’d handle defusing an IED? Or what it is like standing between a visiting VIP and that sniper’s bullet? Well now you can because The Company will put you right at the centre of the action.
In The Company you play an employee of The Company – an elite independent Private Military Service Provider, a global security concern capable of dealing with any situation from a high octane firefight to the tracking down of serial killers. If you can think of it, The Company can handle it.
Which basically sums up what The Company is about… but how did it come about?
It all goes back to a forum discussion on the D101 website. The subject was, of course, OpenQuest in a modern setting. The discussion went down the usual track of the types of modern day roleplaying games.
Most modern day RPGs have roughly the same back story, all involving some grand global Conspiracy or other. In these games, the character is a member of quasi-secret shadow organisation whose role it is to protect the Earth from various outré threats. Be they secret societies, strange creatures from some non-Euclidean reality, or hideous aliens bent on a game of hunt the pellet. Whilst at the same time ensuring that the general populace don’t realise what is going on.
It is all very interesting and fun to be a part of, but we’ve all been there and done that, and that is not what OpenQuest is about.
So instead, why not make the characters part of an organisation which whilst is global in reach operates in an open manner. An organisation big enough and flexible enough to provide the players with a wide and diverse range of missions, from high-octane rescue missions to delicate covert intelligence operations.
As an idea it seemed both workable and fresh. Especially since it can still provide lots of scope for small ‘c’ conspiracies such as compromised missions, enemies from within and maybe a Principle who is using The Company in some private game of their own…
And so The Company was born, and I was lucky enough to be chosen to write it.
