High Programmer > Alan De Smet > Games > Role-Playing Games > Leverage > The Indy 500 Job

The Indy 500 Job

by Alan De Smet

Version 0.5.
Copyright 2010 Alan De Smet

You can discuss this job here.

Introduction

This is a job for the Leverage RPG, published by Margaret Weis Productions. It requires Leverage: The Quickstart Job or Leverage: The Roleplaying Game. (At the time of writing, the full RPG is due in October, 2010.) It’s intended for the Guide (or GM) for the game; potential players should not read this.

This job was written prior to the release of the full role-playing game. It’s based on the rules found in Leverage: The Quickstart Job. The story and play style are heavily based on my observations playing “The Indy 500 Job,” a job run by one of the Leverage RPG writers at Gen Con Indy 2010. There are almost certainly discrepancies between the full RPG and what I have here. To the extent that it’s awesome, credit belongs to the Leverage RPG team. To the extent that it falls flat, I’ll take the blame.

Fans of Formula One racing will certainly find mistakes in the presentation of the sport here. My apologies.

Based on playing this scenario once and running it three times, with aggressive pacing you can complete this job in about 3 hours.

Background

Jonathan Hill, son of a wealthy Texas state senator, is in trouble. After a string of business failures, his father has cut him off. Jonathan has been left with a heavily mortgaged house, a luxury car, and a Formula One racing team. This would have been survivable, but Jonathan also foolishly engaged in high stakes, illegal betting. He now owes mob bookies several hundred thousand dollars that he doesn’t have.

Jonathan has hit upon a plan: he has had his bodyguard place several large bets against one of his own drivers, Cynthia Morales. This is, of course, wildly against racing league rules. Cynthia’s father, Daniel Morales, is the lead mechanic for her car. Jonathan has fabricated a video that makes it look like Daniel is sabotaging a competitor’s car. Jonathan is using this video to blackmail Cynthia: she must throw the race or her father’s career will be ruined.

As a backup plan, Jonathan has acquired a very small explosive. He’s paying off a mechanic on the team to slip it into a key joint in the car. If Cynthia refuses, Jonathan will detonate the explosive remotely, certainly causing an accident that knocks Cynthia out of the race. Jonathan believes this plan will work, as it did several years ago. That accident killed Jonathan’s first driver and temporarily solved Jonathan’s financial troubles.

Knowing that Cynthia will be doing poorly, Jonathan has cut the budget for Cynthia’s car, ostensibly because of financial problems. While Jonathan is having financial problems, he’s actually putting the money into the car of his other driver, Klaus Neumann. Cynthia’s car is still safe and legal (if you ignore the bomb), but it will limit how well she does in the race.

Complicating things further, one of the bookies Jonathan owes has sent some heavies to the race. They plan on badly injuring Daniel as a reminder to Jonathan to pay up promptly.

Cynthia wants her father’s reputation protected, to break her contract with a man she can no longer trust, and ideally to race her best at the Indianapolis 500. The law can’t help her, so she turns to Leverage Consulting & Associates.

Requirements

To run this job, you’ll need the following:

The Rules

As Guide, you’ll need to be familiar with the rules. You can use Leverage: The Quickstart Job or Leverage: The Roleplaying Game. If you’re using The Quickstart Job, I recommend being familiar with the following:

Note that if you’re using the PDF version of The Quickstart Job the page numbers might be 2 off, so The Rules might appear on page 5.

Characters

You can find characters for the Leverage team on pages 12-16 in The Quickstart Job (pages 14-18 in the PDF version). The full rules also contain the characters, and you should be able to use custom characters created using the full rules.

Players

This is written assuming a full team of 5 characters with solid coverage of all 5 Roles (Grifter, Hacker, Hitter, Mastermind, Thief). It will likely scale to 4 easily, and to 3 with some modifications to simplify or eliminate some aspects. For example, eliminating the mobsters makes the job easier for a team lacking a dedicated Hitter.

Handouts

There are several handouts at the end. Print them out.

Starting up

Introduction for people who haven't seen Leverage

One of my runs of this job was at a convention where I couldn’t rely on everyone being familiar with Leverage. Here is the summary I prepared to brief those players:

You are among the best criminals in the world. Hardison: the master hacker. Parker: the master cat burgler. Sophie: the master con artist. Eliot: the master retrieval specialist. They are lead by Nate: the mastermind and who, as an insurance investigator, once hunted the others.

You were once loners. But you got together for a single job to help someone and to make a lot of money. That job made you all wealthy.

You should have walked away. But on the job, you discovered that together you are more than the sum of you parts. It was a rush. The others asked Nate to continue leading them. But Nate wasn't a thief. Nate would lead, but the terms were that you had to help people. So now you help people against the rich and powerful, people the law can't help.

When innocent people are suffering under a great weight, you provide leverage.

Also let them know about Hardison’s earbuds:

Hardison has provided the team with nearly invisible earbuds. The entire team can hear each other over very long distances.

Introduction for players new to the Leverage RPG

The Leverage RPG is different from other heist RPGs and may surprise some players. I used the following to help get my players in the right mindset.

You are professionals, some of the best in the world at what you do. If you have a plan, it will have a real chance of success. If you say something is true, it must be likely, otherwise your character wouldn’t have suggested it. If something is completely infeasible, I’ll let you know in advance. My goal is not to play gotcha for overlooking some clever thing I thought up. There will even be some limited opportunities to flashback to previous scenes to add necessary details after the fact. My goal is to work with you to create an exciting and fun heist. Given this, you don’t need a perfect plan. You just need a rough plan.

Failure won’t ruin you. You are some of the best in the world. Failure might mean that something works, but not as well as you might like. Failure might be that things get more complicated. But you will be able to recover. These brief setbacks are part of why the show is fun!

You are encouraged to come up with plans and ideas together, even if the character might not. Some games discourage this sort of metagaming, but this one does not. In the show Nate has the advantage of having a team of writers working out potential plans. You have each other.

Minor details are easy to arrange. Do you want jobs on the catering staff at the last moment? That’s trivial for Nate or Sophie to arrange! Do you need uniforms or badges capable of passing a quick visible inspection? Hardison has a trunk full of them! Unless you want something extremely odd, you won’t even need to roll dice, it just works.

Be awesome. When the dice tell us that you succeed, tell us what sort of awesome stuff your character is doing.

Starting up

Give Nate’s player a copy of the “Introduction for Nate” handout. Give Hardison’s player a copy of the “Introduction for Hardison” handout. Tell Nate’s player to introduce the job. When Nate is done, he should prompt Hardison to introduce the target, but if necessary prompt Hardison’s player.

When Hardison is done, read or paraphrase the following to the players:

You have all arrived in Indianapolis. It’s Thursday morning. The Indianapolis 500 begins on Sunday at 1:00 PM. You have about three and a half days to help Cynthia Morales. What do you do?

If the players are new to the Leverage RPG, they may need some more prompting. You can give them a copy of the “Suggestions” handouts or prompt them a bit yourself.  You can also give them, or at least Sophie’s player, a copy of the “False identities” handout.

After that, it’s time to run the job.

Guidelines

This entire job is just guidelines; modify them to make it yours. I've run this job three times with a far smaller set of notes. This write up is longer because I've tried to capture the various ideas that were swirling in my head, but never ended up in my earlier notes.

Be flexible with the details, especially based on player’s expectations. Are Formula One cars kept in the infield area in the open, or in garages? Whichever one works. Will be the bomb be planted on Saturday night, Sunday morning, or during a pit stop during the race? Whichever works best.

If something seems simple, see if it can be complicated. For example, if Parker is breaking into Hill’s hotel room, what if Hill sends Keefe to retrieve his laptop? If a grift of Hill is going on, what if the mafia thugs show up to threaten Hill?

Move objects and people around to ensure the team have opportunities to get the information they need.  The team might learn about the mobsters by following Hill’s money transfers, finding a threat in his email, finding some written notes on paper, intercepting a written threat, or intercepting a phone call of voice mail.

Information is frequently present in multiple places. If the players discover a piece of information, consider omitting it from other locations.  If the players collect something full of information consider removing some information from it. For example, Hill’s laptop can potentially contain just about anything Hill knows. If the laptop is acquired very early, you might decide that he doesn’t put any of his financial information on his laptop, for further crimes will be necessary.

There are several complications the team don’t know about at the start. Make sure they learn about the involvement of the mob and the bomb relatively early.

The timeline

What has already happened:

Assuming the Leverage crew doesn’t interfere, the following will happen:

The Leverage crew is free to do anything they want, but possible conclusions include:

People

The Mark: Jonathan Hill, owner

CEO: d10

Dabbled in everything: d8

Desperate: d4

The Client: Cynthia Morales, driver

Natural driver: d10

Focused: d8

Family ties: d4

Pronounced mo-RAH-les

Wants to race honestly. Has the number 7 starting position. (inner position, row 3)

The Client's Father: Daniel Morales, mechanic

Mechanic: d8

Father: d4

Detail oriented: d8

Been a racing mechanic for several decades.

The Mark's Heavy: William "Bill" Keefe, heavy

Strong As Hell: d8

Tough as Hell: d8

Dumb As Hell: d4

A heavy in an ill-fitting suit. Has worked for Hill for a year or so. Works as a bodyguard and errand boy. Was a professional boxer of no particular note for a few years.

The Dirty Mechanic: Adam Langley, mechanic

Mechanic: d8

Time in prison: d8

Coward: d4

Did time in prison for armed robbery of an armored truck. Released several years ago. Joined Hill Racing when it was founded. Has prison tattoos concealed under clothing.

The German Driver: Klaus Neumann, driver

Poorly integrated: d4

Up and coming driver: d8

Precise: d8

Reasonably nice, but a bit over infatuated with himself. Otherwise honest and well intentioned.

The Mob Thugs

Worked together: d8

Fight dirty: d8

Selfish: d4

Three bruisers. They’ve been ordered to collect Jonathan’s payments, or to rough up one of his team members as a warning if Jonathan can’t or won’t pay.

Possible clues: email warning and deadline, sms warning and deadline, intercepted phone call.

Deceased driver: Patrick Allman, driver

Jonathan’s first driver. Died in an accident caused by an explosive Langley planted on his car on Hill’s orders.

Jonathan’s father: Clay Hill, Senator and entrepreneur

Jonathan’s father. Texas state senator and wealth entrepreneur, estimated to be worth about $42 million. Owns a number of mid-sized businesses in southeastern Texas. Disowned Jonathan in 2008.

Extras

I find a list of random names useful for characters I didn’t expect to need. Perhaps the crew wants to involve a specific race official or law enforcement officer. Perhaps Sophie or Nate need a suggestion for a cover. Here you go:

  • Norman D. Powers
  • James C. Devlin
  • John K. Boeding
  • Rochelle J. Horn
  • Donald S. Gomez
  • Christopher E. Martinek
  • Carolyn S. Noah
  • Michelle A. Gibson
  • Bridget Bozeman
  • Nathan Messer
  • Willie Paquette
  • Eva Grimsley
  • Benjamin Brodeur
  • Rita Sotelo
  • Shelia Kraus
  • Larry Eggleston
  • Gary Larry
  • Eugene Pina
  • Nina Reyes
  • Vincent Devries
  • Karla Carrion
  • Phillip Volz
  • Anita Kwiatkowski
  • William Joiner
  • Carl Aubrey
  • William Hackman
  • Matthew Marler
  • Charles Bunch
  • Aaron Abraham
  • William Hammers
  • Jenny Douglass
  • Misty Redd
  • Manuel Mccourt
  • Roxanne Benn
  • Denise Bagley
  • Jack Cramer
  • Jacob Council
  • Loretta Gunderson

Places

These are just some of the places that might come up.

Things

Jonathan Hill’s laptop

Hill keeps his laptop either in his hotel room or in the RV the team uses as a mobile office. Hill might carry his laptop with him as well. With the laptop itself, remote access, or a copy, any team member can easily find:

With an easy Hacking check (d6+d6), a crew member can determine:

With an easy Hacking or Mastermind check (d6+d6), a crew member can determine:

Jonathan Hill’s cellphone

Hill carries his phone with him everyone.

The explosives and detonator

Hill keeps the explosives and detonator together, but not assembled. They might be found in his room, in the Hill Racing RV, on Bill Keefe, among Langley’s tools, or on Langley himself. If Keefe, Hill, or Langley are carrying it, they are likely to check it frequently, something that can be observed with a notice roll.

The trigger

Hill might be carrying the trigger, it might be in his room, in the Hill Racing RV, or on Bill Keefe. If Hill or Keefe are carrying it, they are likely to check it frequently, something that can be observed with a notice roll.

The Hill Racing files

The racing files might be kept in Hill’s hotel room or in the Hill Racing RV. With an easy Mastermind check (d6+d6), a crew member can determine:

Hill’s mail

Hill’s mail contains mostly bad news.

Hill’s betting records

This is a small notebook full of personal notes and some betting stubs. The larger bets have less detail, simply giving initials for the bookies. These are likely to illegal bookmakers.

Random details and notes

Handouts

Introduction for Nate

As usual, Nate will be introducing the client to the team. Here is what you know. Feel free to put these into your own words and to summarize you see fit. When you’re done, tell Hardison to share his research; Nate usually says, “Hardison, roll it,” to signal this.

Introduction for Hardison

Nate asked you to research Jonathan Hill. When he is done telling the team about the client and the job, it’s time for you to share your research with the team. Feel free to put these into your own words and to summarize you see fit.

Suggestions

The first step of a job is typically information gathering. Check out locations, especially locations you might want to break into later. Sophie or Nate might meet the target and see who the target interacts with. Sophie or Parker might pick the pockets of the target or other interesting people to fish for interesting information. Parker might break into a poorly secured location to search computers or paperwork. Armed with the results from Sophie, Nate, and Parker, Hardison might do further research.

Whatever you do, consider having at least one other crew member nearby, available to act as backup. A backup might need to appear to support a fake identity (“Wow, I didn’t expect to see a world famous celebrity here!”), run interference (“Sorry to have knocked your papers all over, let let help you pick them up”), defend someone (Typically Eliot knocking someone out), or to quickly study something stolen (While Sophie continues to chat up someone, another Crew member might send a copy of their cell phone to Hardison or scan their wallet’s contents with a discrete card reader.

Your initial information gathering will help establish the boundaries of the problem. Who is involved? What do they want? What foolish behaviors do they have that you can exploit? It’s time to craft a proper plan.  Remember that your plan doesn’t need to be perfect, broad strokes are plenty.

False identities

Here are some possible false identities you might assume. You're free to make up new ones. Depending on your plans, a fake ID and outfit might be enough. Hardison can typically provide any fake ID or uniform. More complex cons might need require an entire online identity, someone to answer the phone at the “central office,” or even showing off property you "own" or your "employees." To acquire fake property or employees, you might temporarily slip into another business’s space, or you might engage in a fraud to take longer term control.

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