Green Swamp
Blue Skies
Introduction
Green Swamp is an Apocalypse Engine playset set in Florida in the 1960s. The focus of this playset is one one player and one GM, playing out the adventures of a lone semi-pro investigator. The game is intended to be in the style of the Travis McGee books, or the Rockford Files and Magnum PI TV shows. Most especially it plays like those stories where the protagonist has a special vehicle or living arrangements. Rockford had the trailer on the beach, McGee had his houseboat and Magnum had all that fancy stuff at a steep cost.
Alternate title, Green Swamp, Green Money. Nahhh.
We are in Florida in the spring of 1960 for a reason. There was more going on right there, right then than anywhere else in the country at just about any point in history that didn't cover an armed uprising of some sort. The Cubans are in play,, organized crime is rampant, the 1960 primaries are just the opening card on Kennedy v Nixon, the Civil Rights movement is young and bold, Communist agents are agitating, Soviet military intelligence wants to know everything about what is based between Norfolk and the Keys, the counterculture movement is shaping up, American money is shaping SE Asia, and the Cuban Missile Crisis is looming like a mushroom cloud. Mixed in with the events that will shape history are the day to day problems of the rich and poor alike. Trailer parks, diners, cheap motels, and the finest restaurants south of New York are the setting. All the most sordid motivations found in human nature drive the events that cost you sleep and net you the occasional finder's fee.
The year defines part of the background of our protagonist. We want a self reliant, tough, smart, character who has seen enough really, really bad things that they can handle themselves anywhere. We want the white hat in the story, so the character doesn't start fights unless the absolutely must, but they rarely lose a fight they had a chance to set up. We want a veteran, and in 1960 people who saw foreign service in WW2 are in their mid 30; Korea and few other little incidents provide the requisite background at a younger age.
(Note that Hurricane Donna is coming, 364 dead and $900 million in damage, and that in 1960s dollars)
The next defining characteristics are what they drive and where they live. They can sometimes even be the same; McGee lives in his houseboat. A pilot could own and live at a small airport. A character with a truck or an RV could move around a lot. Bikers or drivers could own a garage. You could also have a character with a good vehicle and an interesting place to live. Where a character lives can have important effects in their narrative repertoire and available resources.
Beyond the physical trappings, these sorts of characters are defined by their wits, charm, coolness under pressure, and ability in a fight. To cover A-Team groups, there should be a making and fixing stat too. We'll need a stat to cover Wizard at the Wheel too.
Every game needs a plot. The player has their nose into some sort of trouble, for some good reason. Somehow the player becomes involved in something that needs to be set right, a Scheme.
Every scheme can be broken up into:
History.
Setup.
Implementation.
Exploitation.
Aftermath.
Each scheme has an instigator, a victim, and bystanders. Other NPCs may figure in the game, but these are the key elements. An instigator may have Lieutenants, a Victim may have a Patron.
The player can be brought into the scheme at any point, not always in the scheme they think they’re in. Their contact with the scheme can come from an outsider, a participant, or by happenstance.
GM Agenda
Play to find out what happens.
Make 1960 real.
Be cynical about progress.
Be a fan of the characters.
Change history if you have to. Or can.
Make it come out right.
It's an indifferent world, only fiction has to make sense.
Player Agenda
During character creation the player will choose a playbook and make decisions about their ride and their home. They pick 5 tags from the Place and Ride lists.
Your Place
The basic residence tags are:
Location
Town
Beach
Swamp
Woods
Farmland
Island
Industrial
Middle of nowhere
Tags
Large
Location
Security
Workshop
Clear title
Crew
Fancy
Hidden
Business
With the GM's permission, Patron. The GM will tell you who really owns the place, what hoops the player has to jump through to use anything, and whose ass they have to kiss to keep on using it. An Owner and a Responsible Agent is the usual arrangement. If a fabulous mansion in a fantastic location is of such little value tha you'll let someone use it in exchange for occasional vaguely defined and potentially dubious services, then you probably have some one on staff to handle that sort of thing. The player should be prepared to answer questions like "what's the one thing you can NOT break" and "how'd the Owner hear about you anyway ?"
Your Ride
Type
Car
Truck
Van
Motorcycle
Plane
Seaplane
Boat
Tags
Large
Fast
Powerful
Tough
Fancy
Capacious
Responsive
Characters may also have a Best Contact. A BC is either tied to a resource of used as a point of entry for intrigue or investigation.
Stats - preliminary
Developing the moves will tell us what stats we need.
Athletics
Charm
Smarts
Cool
or
fight
figure
front
fast
Mechanics
Respect. Somehow, respect needs to become a mechanic. Both who respects the PC and who the PC respects. If bitter or world-weary cynicism can also be a mechanic I will die a happy man, a well-respected and happy man.
Four, maybe five stats.
Candidate stats:
Physique, Fighting, Persuade, Figure, Focus, Angle
Driving/piloting/boating doesn't have a specific stat. It's all about stakes and interacting with the opposition. Your ride will have specific bonuses for specific kinds of activity: losing pursuit, running down a fleeing quarry, outrunning bad guys, knocking fools off the road, etc.
No hit points for NPCs. Combat is going to be just that narrative. Unless shit gets real. Which shouldn't happen every session, but sometimes you have to count bullets, wear a vest, and work the terrain. The GM is advised to balance the details of fights and hardware against the player's interest in such details.
There need to be mechanics for making bosses tougher than mooks. A set of tags and moves for NPCs is in order.
Sex is an explicit part of the genre. Explicit sex makes for uncomfortable roleplaying. Except when it doesn't. On the assumption that it does, the rules formally assume that a fade to black will happen once certain things become inevitable. Sex isn't the only thing that can benefit from the fade to black effect, anything that will trigger a player should be skipped over to avoid unnecessary trauma. Necessary trauma may be acceptable for therapeutic purposes.
When you have a positive sexual encounter, mark XP.
When you avoid sex for the right reasons, mark XP.
When you exploit sex to advance your interests, mark XP.
When you do the right thing, mark XP.
When you satisfy your clients interests, mark XP.
When you definitively set things right, mark XP.