tl;dr - What goes into being a sleeper agent? I've been

>>54746234
I've been trying to put together a game about super soldiers.
Its built more about gathering information and such rather than fighting. the players often start in places where they dont know who they are or who anyone else is, so there isnt a "party" off the bat.
Mostly the players are escaping out of underground military bases and trying to find out the greater plot by finding the other pc's
>fighting clones is a good way to get pvp combat in without killing off characters

idk exactly what kind of game you're intending but mine is an espionage game foremost.

>>54746234
It's just an extra layer of characterisation. Whatever would make that character a person of X profession is still there. A Sleeper Agent wouldn't go undercover as an Accountant at a firm if they weren't good at Accounting etc. You can have them be bad guys or good guys, but it's typical for a 'Sleeper Agent' to be a bad guy, and if a good guy does it they're 'undercover' or 'in deep cover'. Not sure why, guess Sleeper Agent sounds worse. They're typically involved for purposes of Espionage or Sabotage, spying and shit. You might have a good guy go undercover and join a Terrorist movement, and report their movements back to his superiors once a month. Or you might have Terrorists infiltrate a city and wage guerrilla warfare to bring down the city from the inside. The latter has broader scope and might be more fun to play.

I tried to run a game with Sleeper Agents in Dark Heresy, but two sessions in the players all threw their cards on the table because "we can't work together if we're keeping secrets. One of us is the traitor and it's not me". Torture doesn't give you the right answers, just the answers you want to hear

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How do sleeper agents not suck at doing fighty stuff and spy stuff if they've been out of practice for many years?

>>54746943
They do the spy stuff everyday. Staying inconspicuous, spying on people etc. The fighting stuff comes from the element of SURPRISE

>>54746527
I'm interested in the thought process that goes into being an agent. You have someone from any conceivable background, living a normal life, when they're suddenly called into duty and must meave what they know behind in order to do their job. The Division makes mention of this as well, with one character remarking that they try to teach you not to get too attached to people or things to prevent the hurt when activation comes - emphasis on try, since the agent in question still fosters a love for her city and family, including her sister. The highly-trained agents in The Division act with relative autonomy, assisting the JTF (local peacekeepers, techs and medical staff from multiple agencies under one umbrella) in any and all respects. There are instances of agents who go rogue or AWOL, though, and those are the most dangerous. They generally do a little of everything: combat, investigation, intel analysis, so on, and they've got exclusive technology to help back them up.

>>54746858
>>54746943
You would expect in the psych analysis what sort of individual they are that would render them fit enough to be able to serve at the drop of a hat, before they're sent off to go dark. One guy may be a freelance photographer who has covered wars and conflicts and is willing to take risks that put only himself in danger; another guy regularly runs marathons, putting any doubts about physical fitness to rest.

>>54746994
I absolutely agree with you. I was intending for elements of that to occur throughout the game, with NPCs that the PCs would hopefully grow attached to becoming implicated in the plot. Did they facilitate that shipment of weapons getting through security, did they knowingly help this guy etc. And when the players had to act, would it be as a friend, or would they be Inquisitorial Agents? Of course, no plan survives the players and soon enough they had a giant flag on the roof of the building saying "INQUISITION" and complaining that the bad guys weren't running at it with masks on and grenades. Live and learn I guess

>>54746943
As said before, the spy stuff they do every day. As for combat, they just say they like to go lone hiking a few times a year and spend that week on a high-intensity training camp in some secret government installation.

>>54746858
>Torture doesn't give you the right answers, just the answers you want to hear
Technically [PEDANTRY INTERRUPT]it gives the answers they think you want to hear.

>>54746234

It's just a second profession template, like a salesman or something. Usuallly a profession that gives you an excuse to move around and interact with a wide variety of people.

The problem with a sleeper agent in a game is this. While they're inactive, there is no game. Once they're activated, the sleeper legend they operate under is usually compromised or doesn't appear on camera.

The other problem is when you have sleepers working for foreign powers-- it's just an excuse for a PC to betray the group. That used to be cool and edgy-- now it's a cliche and often a symptom of That Guy-dom.

Re-read Cardinal of the Kremlin and Executive Orders. CotK features several intelligence officers and active agents. One (tanya bisyarina) gets seconded to a wetwork operation when the KGB basically gets desperate.

Executive Orders has a secret service agent who is a sleeper working for Iran. Prior to being activated, he's a normal star agent who is devoted and never does anything questionable. That's the point of being a sleeper. Then he's activated and suddenly he's an assassin targeting the President. See how that's less suited to a long term player character role?

IMO an intelligence officer working as an illegal is a better choice, or an agent thereof. Try reading Inside Soviet Military Intelligence so see the different kinds of intelligence officers and agents there are. I think one of those concepts is a better fit. You can have a cover and be a long term covert mole without being a sleeper.

>>54746234
How do sleeper agents train and hone their skills?

Or is it just a case of throwing as many agents around as possible in the hopes that at least one of them will manage to accomplish the objective.

>>54748314
As mentioned earlier, it's assumed agents maintain a regimen of their own somehow or are predisposed to certain habits that lend well to an agent's ability or mannerism. You don't put someone to sleep if you think they can't wake up at the drop of a hat.

>>54747964

Torture does work if done correctly, though not every time. Sorry, during the war on terror several al Qaeda captives gave valuable information after being tortured. The argument that it doesn't work would be nice if true, but it's really just a cop-out by people trying to avoid the moral dilemma of the "ticking time bomb scenario". If you're against torture, it shouldn't matter whether it works or not.

Yes people sometimes lie to make it stop-- especially if they've been falsely accused. Experienced torturers know how to cross-check a story and avoid leading questions.

In game terms, on a critical failure (or simple failure if you're untrained), the subject lies. Either they resisted and fed you a false story on purpose, or they were broken and fed you back whatever you believed going in just to make it stop.

I'd go one further and allow a check for a torturer to INTENTIONALLY force a false confession, then a subterfuge or intrigue or whatever check to see: does the subject accept the story, if there's an observer does he notice that you're prompting the victim, and then to see if the subject sticks to the false story once the torture ends.

And actually that's a much bigger problem than the "torture never works" canard. Security services employing torture eventually start prompting false confessions to advance their own political agendas and deceive their political leaders.

(continued with an example)

>>54748314
>>54748358

Or get jobs that give them a plausible excuse to stay in shape.

Keep in mind that sleepers rarely do wet work. Why bother? If you can slip an officer in to become a sleeper, then you can also slip him in at the last minute just for that mission and then exfiltrate him. Or you use an agent for the task, a foreign national that can't be definitively traced back to you even if he confesses and is ultimately more expendable than one of your own officers.

Where sleepers come in is handling bigger emergencies like covering or rescuing agents/officers who are being pursued by counterintelligence, or handling emergencies when the normal agent network has been compromised or isn't secure enough. Or to check on an officer who you suspect.

Again, try Inside Soviet Military Intelligence. It's a short fun read by a real former Spetsnaz and GRU officer talking about how the organization works and how they do things. It reads like an RPG supplement in that it's fact-dense, fun, and very clear.

>>54748407

And that even happens in the USA. Look up the Norfolk Four. Four guys each implicated one another and themselves in a rape/murder. There was DNA evidence but it didn't match any of them. All four were interrogated over a period of 8-18 hours, the police claimed that the video cameras in that room were broken but that none of them asked for lawyers. They all claimed that they'd been intimidated and HAD asked for lawyers and been ignored. They were all convicted and jailed, some for life.

So then they caught the guy whose DNA did match, a serial rapist and criminal with no connection to the other guys. He said he acted alone, even when they tried to talk him into implicating the other four. He got a much lighter sentence.

The prosecutors and police continued to insist that the five acted together, and that the first four guys must have raped her with condoms on. They fought the exoneration for close to 20 years. One was released from prison but as a registered sex offender. A few months ago, they were finally all pardoned and released.

The cop who secured the confessions, really the only evidence against them, was later jailed for corruption charges on an unrelated case. It turned out that he was getting paid by criminals to force confessions from innocent people so that the ones who bribed them would get off. He got 12 years in prison, less than some of the guys he falsely put there.

And THAT, not accidentally elicited false confessions, is the real danger of systems that use torture.

>>54746234
How far are you into the game Anon?
Because, some of the things you say... Well, you do realise people call you the second wave for a reason, right?

>>54748745
First wave did nothing wrong.

>>54751133
fuck the first wave, if they'd been good at their jobs i wouldn't be trudging around in the snow shooting PMCs.

A sleeper agent is literally just an agent who isn't doing spy stuff. If they're not doing spy stuff, they can't be caught for doing spy stuff. There isn't anything especially exciting about it.

Asking for a game about a sleeper agent is basically just asking to play a game about a janitor. Sure, you can do it, but why?