First off, to forestall any debate on the subject, the back of my DVD box spells it "Keyser Soze", not Kaiser, or Souze, or any other variation, and with no umlaut, so there. As some of you may notice, I actually did Search and research this topic before I posted it, and I found nothing that addressed my interests satisfactorily. (Therefore, Hocus-Focus-Ab-bra-Kazaam, this thread is born. )

Design
Now, lets define the 'Soze' type enemy, shall we? This is my perspective, YMMV. Note: For the purposes of this exercise, 'Mr. Soze' is not a Great Dragon, an Immortal Elf, a free possession spirit, nor any other absurdly powerful individual. He's just a guy (mage, hacker, etc.), with serious connections and an anonymity fetish.

Due to the extensive and pervasive nature of 'Mr. Soze's' influence I intend to create him as an organization, rather than an individual, consisting of 'Mr. Soze', 'Mr. Kobayashi', and an undetermined (but relatively small) number of trusted prime runners/minions, henceforth known as KSO (The Keyser Soze Organization). All others will be referred to as 'puppets'. Puppets will not be rated here as they must be dealt with on an individual basis.

Group Connection
Adjust as needed for your purposes.

Membership: +1 (2-19 members worldwide)
You'll rarely, if ever, meet members of this group. Most of the PCs dealings should be with unknowing puppets.

Area of Influence: +6 (Global)
Cuz, ya know, it is.

Magical Resources: +2
Though this is not really a valid number by RAW, KSO is likely smart enough to recruit at least one high-level initiate, and probably several very talented adepts, and the Raw +1 for 'a few members who have knacks, minor talents, or very low ratings' (RC p.124 Magical Resources) doesn't really cover it, so, +2, for at least one high level initiate.

Matrix Resources: +2 (Broad reaching resources)
See Magical Resources and substitute 'highly-skilled hacker' for 'high-level initiate'.

Total Group Connection Rating: 11
(Note: Adding in the Puppets would likely increase all these numbers to 6+, so, if you must, consider the effective total organization Rating: 25, which gives you 25BP, the RAW maximum for the Enemy Negative Quality.)

Incidence Rating
This you will have to adjust for your own game. Are you just an annoying fly they occasionally try to swat? Or, are they hunting you down like dogs? Are they an inconvenience to you, or, are you the one driving them nuts?

I'd suggest setting the Incidence Rating as normal, depending on what your game needs. At Ratings 1-4 your PCs should only deal with, or confront, puppets. Only once they've reached Rating 5 (Foe) should they encounter KSO members, and then, only peripherally. At Rating 6 (Nemesis), feel free to send KSO prime runners after the PCs directly. 'Mr. Soze' should be kept away from the PCs unless he's 'undercover' or he's the only one left.

Implementation
As there are likely innumerable ways to use this particular enemy, I'm just going to mention a few here. Please expand on this in your own posts. Note: The KSO work through fixers, 'Mr. Kobayashi' not being one of them, until you've really fucked up that is. 'Mr. Soze' is the puppet master and no one outside KSO should meet him, at least, not that they're aware of. Intermediaries should be the norm.

Former KSO Members:
The PCs were once members of KSO, but, due to a failure to perform, personal disagreement, discovering a "deep dark secret", or just outliving their usefulness, they are now hunted (add Hunted Negative Quality as well) by the KSO, or, at least inconvenienced by them at every turn.

No one retires from the KSO, a.k.a. 'Kill Keyser': (A variation on Former KSO Members... a la 'Kill Bill')
After cutting all ties with the KSO and disappearing into the shadows, they come for you. Murdering your family, destroying all you love and mistakenly leaving you for dead, they've created they're own worst nightmare, a shadowrunner with nothing to live for, except... to kill Keyser. But, first you gotta find him, good luck with that. (Add Vendetta Negative Quality, possibly Lost Loved One as well, if they took your kid.)

"You Have Stolen From Mr. Soze":
Having unknowingly run against KSO assets on one or several occasions, the PCs have been given an opportunity to 'redeem' themselves. The questions in your mind are, will you survive the suicide mission, and if you do, will they let you live afterward?

Loose Ends:
Having been used as puppets by the KSO one too many times, the PCs have put together the truth about 'Mr. Kobayashi's' employer. The KSO cannot let them continue to breathe, after all, they may talk in their sleep...

Competition: (Pre-KSO Keyser Soze)
Dealing with a drug-dealing punk should be easy, right? But when that 'punk' shows you the true meaning of Willpower, will you survive? Your contacts are dropping like flies, your family and friends are all dead, can you outsmart him before your time runs out?

Convert from Group Connection to Individual. Stat out 'Soze' with maxed Mental Attributes, Exceptional Attribute: Willpower, and maxed Edge (try really hard to keep Soze alive), probably a Sam or Adept, though a Mage might be good, also. Give 'Soze' the Vendetta Negative Quality.


Resolution
The end game. Win or lose, you're about to decide your destiny.

Losing:
There's only one way to lose this game, die. The question is, will you take them with you?

Winning:
Wiping out the KSO, or convincingly faking your death seem the most likely routes to me, though the Players will probably find another way.

In the unlikely event that the PCs have beaten KSO (i.e. either they're really good, or you fucked up, hopefully the former), you now find yourself with a group of surviving PCs that are probably really full of themselves. So, what are they going to so with their victory?

Hostile Takeover:
Well, they might become the KSO, that's a mighty big power vacuum to fill. This could be done several ways. They could announce the 'change in management', or, they could just start running the show with 'Soze' becoming a 'position' like CEO, The Dread Pirate Roberts, or Merlin, sans the friendly transition, of course.

The Full Bank Account:
They may loot the organization and retire. After all, if you're the guys that took out the KSO, it's possible no one will want to mess with you, or pay your exorbitant prices.

Exit Stage Left:
They might even just walk away ( , yeah, right). Quietly going back to the shadows may be exactly what they have in mind. After all, they are shadowrunners.


Whichever way they jump, try not to act surprised. Players get arrogant and insufferable when they know they've got you on the ropes. And remember, if they do win, you can always smile and say, "Wow, a run that turned out just like I planned it."


So, thoughts? Criticisms? Improvements? Embellishments? Screams of, "You're a fucking hack Tachi"? Come on, lets hear it.

In case any of you noticed, my writing kind of went downhill a little bit as I went along. Well, I had 6 shots of 151 during the hour I wrote and rewrote it, so, eat me.

I'll give your writeup more time to stew around in my brain and post some things from that. First, CP2020 article The Perfect Villain is a pretty good reference. Also, David Xanatos is a good example of the Puppet Master, though he wasn't exactly invisible, but TVTrope's Xanatos Planned This entries give some pretty good examples of how to make a puppet master and how to have everything work out for them.

Another example, though perhaps not so 'Puppet Master' like would be the Global Frequency. They are a pretty good team, and they have shown that they have the skills to operate, keep out of the public eye for a lot of it, and be able to perform hit and run style jobs. No one really knows where they come from, and being decentralized, they can't be tracked down or hacked directly, operating sort of in little 'cells'.

I do like the idea of a sort of invisible hand out there manipulating things. Though, you can end up with a 'too many cooks' situation, because when there is only one group out there, it's obvious that you can either play ball or be the ball, but when there is a second group you could go to, it becomes a question of 'Who exactly are you going to trust'. And, if you're really evil and want a major headache, you start having alliances made, broken, changed, events manipulated. The person you thought you could trust was a bad guy, but wait... he's just pretending to be a bad guy, he's actually saving you from yourself so that you can later fight to take down this guy who you think is the Big Bad Evil Guy but really, he's just a figurehead of someone even more secretive who you don't get to see just yet. Sort of a soap opera storyline, but it can make things interesting. Look at, for example, Deus Ex, The Skulls series of movies, the movie Basic... The list goes on. Each having complex plots that show how what you know changes until you're not sure what you know about any of the characters involved anymore. Makes for great storytelling and drama, but can end up getting to the point the players will just not care who they're working for because pretty soon you'll do something that'll change things.

Even without getting into such politicing, that organization depends on your group to work. Background color is great, but if the players don't get involved in the whole metaplot, it's just showmanship for the sake of showmanship.

I will admit, this is something I've been tinkering with for a while myself, though never written down like you did. Also, part of me now wants to do a plot like the movie 'Wag the Dog' after writing this post up.

Yes, but if a PC wants to play a mastermind type character as well, it could well end up as a 30 Xanatos Pileup. In fact, a Pornomancer is great for such a character.

I have an ex-Seraphim agent/trainer - a Canadian dwarf bound in a wheelchair called St. Bernard.

St. Bernard basically escaped the Seraphim purge during the Crash and established himself as an intelligence broker, leveraging his own pool of contacts. St. Bernard has contacts all over the world, mostly in intelligence and law enforcement circles, with some strong connections to teams of shadowrunners (which include the PCs).

He's a mystery man right now but if I ever wanted to have him be a villain, he has access to an insane level of resources:
- stolen operating black ops funds from Cross just after the Crash which have been invested many times over making him a multi-millionaire,
- spy equipment including a hijacked CATCo satellite (which has "disappeared")?
- a team of hackers he uses for discrete tasks, often through multiple channels preventing them every knowing who they truly work for.

His motivation is greed and power and he's addicted to both.

- J.

Does he wear a collar with a tiny little cask of whiskey on it?
Sorry, couldn't help myself. Nice touch with continuing the 'names with biblical references' thing.

Crap, I knew I forgot to expand on something, money. I even thought about it while writing, then forgot.

I do like that spy sat idea though. The access it grants reminds me of Soze's relationship with the Pakistani nuclear program, both could grant a special level/aspect to the puppetmaster's power.


The flexibility of a group over an individual is one of the reasons I decided to create this concept as a group instead of an individual. While a single mastermind is capable of 'pulling the strings', a group united is far more dangerous.

I also like the occasional 'invisible hand', but yes, overusing it is a real danger, it has to start small, then slowly build into a major threat. This can help get the PCs involved, I've found that if you can start to get them annoyed with this nuisance while it is still a small threat, they'll tend to stay curious as the threat grows, and, while the characters become more and more worried (if played realistically, as fear of the unknown is a strong motivator), the players will become more and more determined to get to the bottom of it and deal with it. Of course, YMMV.

I think the CP2020 article is probably the BEST way to create an Invisible Puppet Master. I mean St. Bernard has the potential to be a Xanatos in my campaign but the reality is that any mastermind villain in any RPG is begging to be killed (eventually, usually) by the PCs. The articles 'solution' is to effectively let them - which I like.

Between BTLs, possession, mind control magic, biodrone technology, illusions, genetic engineering, there's no shortage of the number of ways an individual can come back to haunt a team of players over and over and over again.

I was toying with one idea for a mad scientist/runner type who ran around with a fully customised helmet (chocked with electronic sensors and commlinks, ECM/ECCM, etc) and make heavy use of drones who would be a foil or enemy runner the PCs would encounter. The idea being that even if the PCs killed him, someone else could turn up wearing exactly the same gear and helmet, appearing to be immortal for all intents and purposes. Kinda like Doctor Doom.

- J.

Hmm, BTLs... as soon as Mr. Soze dies, a BTL somewhere activates, brainwashing some mook into the new Soze in a few weeks...

I do like that article. I wish I'd read it before I wrote the original post, it would have turned out better.


The Dollhouse meets Boba Fet and the clone army?

Keep 'em coming people. Links like those and sneaky ideas are the whole point of this thread. Not bad so far, I just wish more people would speak up. I'm interested, and, I'd like to get enough in this thread to turn it into a decent new GM resource because this is one of the areas I had difficulty with when I started RPing back in the early 90s.

The concept I was working was this. This 'Doom' character I called Jester - was a former military combat engineer, who got drafted to special projects as a lead tech (I originally conceived nanowarfare – something along those lines). The character is infected with his own creation or a mutant variation – some form of cancer. Blaming his former masters, he goes rogue, stealing a bunch of tech and proceeds to start conducting his own runs trying to a) find a cure and b) cause maximum damage against his former masters. Jester left calling cards at the scene of each crime he committed, as he wanted people to know who did it.

This guy basically ran around in a lined coat, FFBA and this helmet – all of which fully customised (its on my home PC, may post later if I get enough interest) and was basically held together by this suit of armor and a LOT of cyber/bioware. I thought that if he died, he could use all manner of methods in “surviving”. The prevailing theory I was working off was using simsense programming rules in Unwired and a combination of psychotropic IC + personafix-style module with skillsofts embedded into his helmet. If anyone other than him used it (or if he made multiple copies and sent it to someone) then the helmet would effectively re-program that individual with his skills and agenda. This would make it almost impossible for him to die without destroying all helmets.

- J.

A combat engineer? That's just... evil. Sappers Lead! (Combat Engineer was one of the MOSs the Army was offering me before I half-crippled myself.)

Wild-card programmable nanotech? Or something specific? Working in concert with his cyber/bio to keep him alive, while slowly killing him? Or just a straight up nano-weapon? Contagious? FoxDIE? (Metal Gear Solid reference.) Hmmm, lots of possibilities to fit that concept into different games. Nice.

I like that concept, and I especially like the emphasis on the helmet. Reminds me of several science fiction book series by Rick Shelley; weapons tech had advanced so far that you couldn't build armor good enough to protect and still be any kind of mobile. Even powered armor was easily defeated, so, all the militaries reverted to no armor with an emphasis on helmet systems (comms and sensors) and superior tactics.

I'd definitely like to see that build, if you have the time.

Would probably work well with quick grown clones also, just write the program to cover 20 years of life then update it every time you go on a run so if you get whacked the next Jester will be up to date. Then, when he's fully awake, have him watch the helmet feeds from when you died so he knows the situation. Kinda like an extra life in a video game...

You know, you could grow the clones as biodrones... Rating 3 Stirrup Interface, you wouldn't even have to go on the run... Not really the feel you seem to be going for, but hey, it's just a thought.

I was thinking about Biodrones at some point but this idea worked well.

After awhile I was thinking that the players might get jacked enough to try and figure out where the helmets were coming from and I was toying with an even more evil idea.... such as Jester figuring out a way to either imprint his consciousness into an AI before passing (a true e-ghost) or failing that, creating an expert system running a full on assembly line tied to a nexus and the helmets basically are slaved or VPN back to the nexus. Maybe the AI controls the helmets, or maybe its just a manufacturing plant?

The idea is still very nebulous. I hadn't done anything with it really because my PCs are now fully hooked into Ghost Cartels - but I'm convinced it would make for a great reoccuring villain because in theory, anyone could be Jester...

- J.

The sketch I did basically had it so he had long hair and the armor was subtle (long coat + FFBA is pretty pedestrian). Unless someone looked at his face they would never see the mask. The mask was lightweight and molded, so one could assume he was a burn victim or something (someone with a horrendous face). In reality, his face was horribly scarred/mutated, with the hair basically little more than a wig for the helmet so he could pass a bit more seamlessly. Also the character was intended to appear androgynous and speak through a voice modulator, making it impossible to tell whether it was a male or female. I just had it in my head he was a male.



What if he was cloning bodies back in 2050? They'd be ready by now?

The reason I like the simsense reprogramming idea is that Unwired finally opened the covers on memory reprogramming without the use of magic. Given we know that psychotropic IC can leave lasting impressions and what we know of personafix BTLs, it just seemed to me that the ability to artificially create or imprint entire personalities onto any body actually isn't that hard. With unlimited storage you can upload all manner of skillsofts into a helmet (pirated copies, with an agent to autoupdate, etc). The question would then be whether or not said mook would have the necessary cyberware to make use of it. And that limitation could be managed in numerous ways.

But taking skillwires out of the picture for a second, imprinting a personality onto another individual seems almost trivial now if you combine the above tech and methods.

cheers,

- J.

PS: I forgot to add - he HATES magic. With a passion. Hadn't worked out his motivations for why only that he had all manner of technical solutions for either detecting or defeating mages. Including homegrown FAB-III grenades.

You've been watching V for Vendetta haven't you? Now you just need a monologue where almost every word starts with the letter 'J'.

Well I do love that film (and the comic), but no, the inspiration was actually my own. In playing around with my concept sketches the character looked positively more anime-like than anything else. I tried several designs before I settled on that one, but conceptually the character always wore a mask and was decidedly androgynous from the onset.

cheers,

- J.

I was just thinking about this and how it could work when I saw the CNN bit on Secret Societies today. Today's episode was the Skull and Bones, and you just have to think how communities like that would work in SR. I mean, there is the 'Take care of your fellow members' clause they were mentioning, but how would that work if say, you two were members of opposite companies.

They mentioned the Bush/Kerry presidential race as being the first all Bones presidential race. It could create some interesting skullduggery (pardon the pun) for such things.

Sure, it doesn't directly fit with the puppetmaster idea, but maybe he's not the only one in this group. Maybe it's a collective and he's just the figurehead, so everyone else can just stay in the shadows. Everyone's looking for this mysterious character and doesn't even think about what's right in front of them.

I mean, it could be an AI, like in so many different movies and books. Eagle Eye, Echelon Conspiracy, Neuromancer, the list goes on. Or, if you've ever seen S1m0ne, it could just be a completely made up character. Occasionally, you use holographic projectors or other movie special effects tricks to make people think he exists, but he is rarely seen outside these big events, leaving everyone else in the clear because they never have any interactions with this 'Kingpin'.

I don't know how much you people have played Jade Empire, but I saw this the other day and it fit this category. However, be aware it is serious spoilers.

I saw this when I was reading the website entry about Fable 2, and how there were so many poorly done plot points in there, and in this one, it is much richer plot.