Second Half Characters – The RCM

Don’t get too hotheaded, Wace, and never start flailing your gun around unless you are looking for a quick way to make your day shorter. You’re not the hero you read about in Vespertine B-grade cop books, you are a greenhorn in a tense city, with a single-shot issued pistol and no armour, because our precinct can barely even afford to fix the ceiling in our office. I know that, and the people on the streets know that. So be a good lad and make sure that YOU don’t forget it either.

Not all the characters living in La Cage will last through the whole game. Some of them will leave midway through the game, one way or another, either voluntarily or forcibly. They will be members of the radical core of The Local Union Branch (aka The Gang) or a group of mercenaries seeking hideout after a failed ambush. The clash between these factions is as inevitable as the player’s departure from the game.

But after a psychedelic evening intermezzo and enough time to unwind, the players of characters who left the tenement will return once more, this time taking on the roles of RCM (Revachol Citizens Militia) officers – an infamously donation-dependent, notoriously unorganized, and woefully understaffed police force of the city. The arrival of new characters on the crime scene will not only shake things up in La Cage but also bring a resemblance of authority. However, due to some mismanagement, it seems two rival precincts managed to send out a squad to investigate. Will they get along or will they drown in the grey zone of the law?

Description

The first of the squads arriving on Saturday morning will be the RCM Searchlight Unit from Precinct 23. A group specialized in missing person cases, a very “by the book” band of policemen, committed to following all the necessary regulations, although sometimes with a peculiar sense for justice and different shades of it for different people. After all, they tend to lean politically towards the more traditional side of things. 

The second patrol dispatched to the La Cage is one from Precinct 44. They do not have a specialization, but they do have a kind of reputation. Some call them the Hyena Battalion, and they always have stellar performance reviews, as well as a habit of taking over some current (or even cold) cases deemed “unsolvable” by other precincts (hence the nickname) and somehow always getting somebody to confess to being a culprit, maybe even a bit too fast.

But do not be mistaken, the RCM members, whatever precinct they may come from, are not your traditional “cops”. Whenever they roam the streets or Revachol, they are usually outnumbered and (more often than not) even outgunned. Their goal is often to find some compromise between the law and the interests of local citizens, as being too strict can draw unwanted attention. The pressure is even stronger from the above – sometimes things have to be done a certain way, or promising cases have to be dropped. The officers do arrive at La Cage with some power, but they will need to rely primarily on their social skills and be prepared to get a lesson in humility.

Designer notes

The main aim of the second half characters is not only to stir the power balance in La Cage, but also to provide the players of these characters with a story, themes, and gameplay contrasting to the first half of their game. After a day full of hostility (and quite a bit of isolation, in the case of the Mercenaries), the players can expect their second day to include an active investigation, treading lightly with their questionable authority and plots that will lead them to interact with a large number of characters in a new way.

The indirect rivalry between different precincts will be played out mostly through the support of other characters or political intrigues, not as an open conflict – after all, the funding of RCM stands and falls on their PR, and both squads know that they simply can not afford that.

How to play an RCM character

During the casting process (after you have been admitted to the larp), you will have an option to signal whether you are willing (or maybe even prefer) to play two half-game characters. Also, be on the lookout for upcoming info about other groups, to familiarize yourselves with the characters available for the first half of 97 Poets of Revachol.