Nights black operators

Covert Military Action in the World of Nights Black Agents

By Powell Crider

Killer elite
There is a di erence between spies and soldiers, though when it comes to the elite Tier 1 operators, that line is very thin. The core setting of NBA assumes that the characters are cut o from their governments, and on the run from the conspiracy (whatever that conspiracy may be). But, as alluded to in the NBA rule book, there are di erent alternate campaign models (see Pg. 196, NBA ) available to change the game play experience. Nights Black Operators is an alternate campaign model and agent build for regular Nights Black Agent games. Nights Black Operators pulls you into the secret world of clandestine military operators. Unlike the Intelligence Agents normally portrayed in Nights Black Agents, who have to be generalists-with skills and investigative abilities covering a large spectrum of ability, these Operators are specialists. Specialist bad asses. Characters using these Operator rules can be integrated with a regular NBA group, or each player can take on the role of an Operator forming an active team still under the control of their parent nation, or coalition. If the players choose to play a team of Operators, NBA characters can be integrated as advisors, or assets.
Note to Directors: Characters created using the Nights Black Operators rules are absolute bad asses. I cannot stress this enough. These characters are designed to be super competent at their jobs and are a force multiplier to say the least. Be sure to increase the number (or quality) of the opposition to make it a challenge for these elite soldiers.

Every nation on earth maintains Black Projects. These range from space based weapons development, to uno cial cover intelligence operatives. Within this shadowy parlance, there are also black military units. Units so covert, so secret, that almost no one outside their unit knows they exist. These men and women operate in the deepest black, never receiving accolades or acknowledgement outside the walls of their own units team room. They are the dagger in the dark that precedes the spear tip of their nations military. Black Operators from the United States are drawn from Tier one special Operations units: Delta, Seal Six, and Marine Force Recon. In the United Kingdom, they are drawn from the SAS, and SBS. In Russia, they are drawn from Spetsnaz teams, Specialists are brought into these black operations units from conventional military units and intelligence agencies to increase the breadth of knowledge of the teams.

Making an Operator
A Black Operator is made using the character creation rules in Nights Black Agents. Operators are not as skilled at investigative abilities as normal Nights Black Agents characters, but they more than make up for it in their skills. Operator Characters receive half the investigative build points of other characters, but the lost points are converted into general ability points to reect their intense training in these areas. Operator Build Point Chart:
# Of Players 2 3 4 5 Investigative Build Points 16 12 11 10 General Build Point Bonus +48 +36 +33 +30

nights black operators

Backgrounds
The standard backgrounds provided in Nights Black Agents are usable by Operator characters and can be chosen if you wish. Following is a list of specic, Operator backgrounds that can be chosen by any operator character. These backgrounds are merely templates, and do not have to be chosen if you have a better idea. Each of these backgrounds costs 8 Investigative Points, and 60 General Points. If an NBO characters player wants to choose a background more than once, they will not have enough investigative points for the second pick. In this case, assign the remaining Investigative points wherever the character wants, then apply the general skills points as listed. Assaulter Assaulters are the rst in, shoot and scoot specialists. The bulk of Operators will be assaulters, able to move in and rapidly secure objectives and neutralize threats. Whether the mission calls for a stealthy inl and exl, or going loud, these are the men for the job. Investigative abilities: Military Science 2, Outdoor Survival 2, Urban Survival 2, Notice 2 General Abilities: Athletics 10, Inltration 5, hand to hand 10, Shooting 15, Sense Trouble 5, Medic 3, Drive 2, mechanics, 1, explosive devices 1, preparedness 1, Surveillance 1, Special weapon Training (Primary Weapon-6 points), Breacher The breacher, sometimes called an engineer, is the teams explosives expert. He can blow his way into just about anything, given the right amount of explosives, can improvise explosive devices and disarm just about any bomb. Investigative Abilities: Architecture 2, military science 2, outdoor survival 1, urban survival 1, Notice 2 General Abilities: Athletics 8, Inltration 5, Hand to Hand 5, Shooting 10, Explosive Devices 15, Sense Trouble 5, Medic 1, Drive 2, Mechanics 1, Preparedness 8 Medic The team medic is one of the most important members of the team. He keeps the other operators healthy during stateside rotations, and keeps them alive in the eld. Investigative Abilities: Bullshit Detector 1, Chemistry 1, Diagnosis 2*, Forensic Pathology 1, Military Science 1, Pharmacy 1, urban survival 1, outdoor survival 1

General Abilities: Athletics 8, Inltration 5, Hand to Hand 5, Shooting 10, Medic 15, sense Trouble 5, Explosive devices 1, Drive, 1, Shrink 2, Preparedness 8. *Includes free point of diagnose from Medic 8+

nights black operators

Driver/Pilot While every member of the team can drive just about any vehicle in their nations arsenal, and more than a few from allies and adversaries alike, it is a special individual who specializes in combat driving. Like the Wheel Artist, this is the specialist who can get top performance out of any vehicle.

FN SCAR-H

The pilot can y anything. They are some of the best of the best, able to eek performance out of aircraft that other pilots dont even dream of. Pilot can also refer to driving anything from the smallest Zodiac, to the largest marine vessel. Be sure to specify what sort of pilot you are when you create the character.

Driver Investigative Abilities: Military Science 2, Urban Survival 2, Outdoor Survival 2, Notice 2 General Abilities: Athletics 8, Inltration 5, Hand to Hand 5, Shooting 10, Drive 15, sense Trouble 5, Preparedness 3, Mechanics 8, Medic 1. Pilot Investigative Abilities: Military Science 2, Urban Survival 2, Outdoor Survival 2, Notice 2 General Abilities: Athletics 8, Inltration 5, Hand to Hand 5, Shooting 10, Pilot 15, sense Trouble 5, Preparedness 3, Mechanics 8, Medic 1. Team chief (team Sergeant/Warrant O cer)

The Team chief (team Sergeant/Warrant O cer) holds an important position in the team. He handles all the logistical duties of the team, dealing with the o cers over them, and cutting through red tape. This relieves the burden on the other team members, allowing them to concentrate on their job. He is also, more than likely, the most experienced of the team and o ers tactical advice to the o cer in charge, and leadership to the team under his command. Investigative abilities: Military Science 2, Outdoor Survival 2, Urban Survival 2, Notice 2 General Abilities: Athletics 10, Inltration 5, hand to hand 8, Shooting 12, Sense Trouble 5, Medic 3, Drive 2, mechanics, 1, explosive devices 1, preparedness 1, Bureaucracy (Red Tape) 12 Team O cer In Charge

The Team o cer is, as the name implies, in charge of his team. The OIC (O cer In Charge) is responsible for mission planning, logistics planning, and mission execution, as well as ensuring that his men have all their training and personal matters in order. To top it o , he has to keep his own training and readiness squared away. The OIC is a very busy man. A good team sergeant and Warrant will relieve most of the burden, but the overall responsibility falls clearly on his shoulders. Investigative abilities: Military Science 2, Outdoor Survival 2, Urban Survival 1, Notice 1, Human Terrain 1, ANY ACADEMIC 1* General Abilities: Athletics 8, Inltration 5, hand to hand 8, Shooting 12, Sense Trouble 5, Medic 3, Drive 2, mechanics, 1, explosive devices 1, preparedness 1, Surveillance 1, Special weapon Training (Primary Weapon-6 points), Bureaucracy (red Tape) 6 (* The OIC will have at least a 4 year degree in some subject to be commissioned. This can be in any Academic discipline.)

nights black operators

Sniper/Spotter The sniper is usually the teams best marksman (though sometimes they are just the most patient). Snipers use precision ries combined with extensive training to consistently put steel on target at astounding ranges. Current sniper doctrine has created a more active sniper than in years past, who is able to displace after their rst shot and stay in the ght. Snipers are force multipliers, sowing terror among the ranks of the enemy. The spotter is also a sniper, but is working to back up the primary shooter. A sniper/Spotter build allows a character to take on either role, either behind the spotting scope or behind the gun.

Investigative abilities: Military Science 2, Outdoor Survival 2, Urban Survival 2, Notice 2 General Abilities: Athletics 10, Inltration 12, hand to hand 8, Shooting 15, Sense Trouble 4, Medic 1, preparedness 1, Surveillance 3, Special weapon Training (Primary Weapon-6 points) New Inltration Cherry: Snipers Hide If your Inltration is 12 or more, and you have received sniper training (either military or by a paramilitary agency), you gain the Snipers Hide ability. The intense training you have received in camouage, combined with the ability to remain stationary for long periods, and to endure privation, come together to allow the sniper to become nearly invisible. Given the right materials, and time, a sniper can create a sniper hide that cannot be discovered short of accidentally stepping in it. This hide is good until the situation goes loud, then the sniper will need to displace or be discovered. Setting up a snipers hide requires fore planning (which can be done with preparedness if the characters rating is high enough)

Finishing out the character Once you have selected a background, it is time to esh out your character by spending your remaining investigative and general skill points. Remember to add points to your characters health score, most operators are extremely robust individuals who can take some punishment in the eld. Other than these changes to character creation, nish the characters just as you would any other NBA character. Remember your free points in Cover, Network, Streetwise and Tradecraft.

nights black operators

Military Thriller Combat Options

FN SCAR- L Time to lock and load. Combat in Nights Black Agents is fast, evocative, and fun. But, differences in conventions between spy thrillers and military thrillers call for a few optional rules. These rules add a little more Crunch to the NBA Thriller Combat system. Ammunition Capacity and Reloading In a normal NBA game, ammunition is not tracked unless it is dramatically necessary. While it is not fun to micromanage ammunition, a major factor in combat is scarcity of supply. The system for tracking Ammunition in NBO is a dramatic system, not a strict simulation. One reason where many systems fall down is in the way they treat each shooting roll in combat. Even the most skilled operator will rarely re only one shot at a time in combat, instead they will re two or three carefully aimed rounds at a time. They will rarely re assault ries automatically, unless they are laying down suppressing re.

Ammunition Capacity
Ammunition is heavy. Anyone who has humped several hundred rounds, along with all their other gear can attest to this. This puts a practical limit on the amount of ammunition that can be carried into combat. Most operators carry twenty magazines for their primary weapon, and ten for their secondary weapon (Pistol). Machine gunners carry ammunition in two hundred round bags, and carry around one thousand rounds into battle for smaller caliber machine guns, six hundred for larger caliber weapons. Rather than trying to break down ammo capacity by individual weapons, which would create a rather long list, magazine loads are broken down by weapon categories. These assumptions are based on operators ring three or four rounds each time they make a shooting roll on semiautomatic. Weapon Type Small Caliber Pistol Large Caliber Pistol SMG Assault Rie Battle Rie Shotgun LMG (Light Machine Gun) 10 3 10 10 6 4 40 #shots Average Actual Ammo Capacity 15-18 8-10 30 30 20 8 200

nights black operators

Notice that sniper ries are not included on the list, since they are always red in single shots. Sniper will always have enough rounds for standard, or light sniper ries. Anti Material ries (.50 Caliber) Fire from 10 round magazines. Automatic Fire Modern Automatic weapons can burn through ammunition at an extraordinary rate. Each time your re a shot on automatic, it uses 2 shots. (This does not include the light machine gun, since it is already computed for automatic re). NSRs and Precise fire Sometimes you have to put more steel on target rapidly, and precisely. This is often referred to as an NSR, or Non Standard Response. NSRs are rapid, aimed re not spraying and praying. An NSR uses two shots, but grants a +1 to the shooting roll to represent the greater number of rounds going downrange. If you NSR with a magazine, you cannot later claim precision re until you have made a magazine change. Other times, you want to conserve ammunition and re with more precision. If you are running low on ammunition, you can declare you are making precise shots. When you run out of ammo in a magazine, you make a shooting roll. Each point of success gets an extra shot out of that magazine. Shooting points can be spent on this roll as normal if saving ammo really counts. Reloading Operational Note: If under re in close proximity to the enemy, will normally transition to their secondary weapon to keep up a volume of re. When there is a break in the re, the Operator will have his buddy cover him while he reloads.

It is easy to reload on the range, or back in the team room. Reloading in combat, under pressure takes effort. Luckily, operators spend a great deal of time training and practicing mag changes until it becomes muscle memory. Reloading does not require a skill roll, per say. But there is always a chance for failure. When changing a magazine during combat, you make a roll. On a roll of 1, the character fumbles the reload. Players can M24 Sniper Rie spend points from their shooting pool to ensure success. If a character uses an entire action to reload, no roll is required. nights black operators

New Gear
Holographic Sight Holographic sights allow for rapid acquisition of targets in close quarters combat. They reduce the time required to line up iron sights, and allow the rer to easily keep one eye open for situational awareness. The Holographic sight woks best at out to Near Range, providing a -1 modier to the targets hit threshold when aiming for a called shot. (Pg. 72 NBA) Infrared Laser It is hard to aim a weapon using night observation devices (NODs). Without depth perception, and unable to focus on weapon sights, marksmanship becomes difcult to say the least. The solution was simple, mount a laser that can only be observed with NODs. The IR Laser can be used by characters with NODs without penalty. It functions exactly as a normal laser sight, but can only be seen by characters equipped with Night Observation devices, so it does not give the operators position away.

Cutting through red tape

The Director may want to have the characters still working for their native government. If using Hawthorne (see Below), the characters will have to wade through red tape to get things done. The following rules are taken from the Nights Black Agents rulebook, Page 195 and work perfectly for the job.

Bureaucracy (General)
Finally, Bureaucracy now becomes a General ability. It can be used investigatively as normal, but it also creates your pool for tests to get your own agency (or a theoretically allied agency) to do something for you: retask a satellite, block and opponents dangerous mission or funding probe, authorize the rescue of a captured asset, lower your Heat by 1, release a classied le to you (or bury one away from someone else), send in SEAL Team Six, or anything else. In other tests, you may try to thwart or prevent your agency from doing something it has decided on: trade a prisoner, investigate your network, bug an embassy. nights black operators

A standard task that you have clearance for is Difculty 3; something you have to pull strings to get is Difculty 5; something you have no business asking for is Difculty 7. Raise Difculties by 1 for other agencies of your own government, and by 2 for agencies of other governments. It will often be more convenient to build Network contacts in other governments than to actually go through channels. The Director may build NPC bureaucrats who oppose you often enough to get their own pools, and set the parameters for your operations based on the results of full contests of Bureaucracy. Bureaucracy is an ideal ability for continuing challenges (see p. 50); you make one test per operation, with a bonus or penalty depending on your performance (and lack of Heat) on the mission. Bureaucracy only refreshes at the end of an operation; it cannot be refreshed in a haven (see p. 92). If the agents have attracted Heat during an operation, they cannot spend build points earned as experience from that operation on Bureaucracy. In burn mode, success by a margin of 1 or less in a Bureaucracy contest means the Director will task your team to do something unpleasant in return. In dust mode, all Bureaucracy Difculties increase by 1. In mirror mode, the agency starts with 2 Trust points from each agent. To reverse the results of a failed Bureaucracy test, an agent can give the agency 1 more Trust point during an op. When, er, if the agency betrays the player characters, its (NPC) operatives spend the agencys Trust pool to harm the PCs (see p. 41).

Friends Upstairs
If your Bureaucracy rating is 8 or more, you are protected from on high by powerful patrons. Or perhaps youve been around long enough to know where some particularly savory bodies are buried. In any case, the Difculty rating for any attack on you (or your funding, authority, etc.) in a contest of Bureaucracy is 1 point higher than normal. This is the bureaucratic equivalent of Hard to Hit (see p. 27). Note that NPC bureaucrats with Bureaucracy ratings of 8+ will also have this cherry.

HAWTHORNE
Hidden deep within the United States Budget, between Project to investigate the behavior of northern sea otters, and Sea Turtle Mating Studies, is a line item called Hawthorne. The entry contains no explanation. It has no department head listed, nor any contact information. Its existence has never come to light within the hallowed halls of congress. It is an agency that doesnt exist. Hawthorne is the name of a project that began immediately following the American Civil War. It has been run under countless cover names, which changes every couple of years, but the budgetary name has been constant. The current operational name is, ASH, but members of this secret organization refer to themselves as simply, The Ofce. Each newly elected President of the United States is visited during his rst month in ofce by a representative of The Ofce. He is shown the directives that created the organization and given the key to a chest which contains the records of the Ofce (this key and chest are now symbolic, as the records are now stored off site in a secret, secure location). No President has been ready for this brieng, and many dont take the news well. Hawthorne is devoted to the destruction of vampires, and has been for nearly 150 years. The United States Militaries best and brightest are recruited into this ultra secret, high speed unit. They are the best of the best, recruited from the nation, and allied nations, tier 1 special operators. And they must not fail. nights black operators

Nights Black Operators is a fan created work for Nights Black Agents by Kenneth Hite, published by Pelgrane Press. Weapon designs courtesy of www.Pimpmygun.com and photoshop. All other images by Powell Crider with photo references using U.S. DOD photos.