GM: Matthew Klein
Players: Karen Twelves, Dale Horstman, and Sean Nittner
System: Dogs in the Vineyard (rethemed to Kitchen Nightmares)
I was pretty torn on what to name this session. Other candidates included:
- Windy Fucking Falls
- With one text, we were Dogs no more
- What the fuck Matthew?
So this was our last game of Dogs (we had each run a “restaurant” and planned to try another game system after this) so there was no reason not to go out with a bang. And a bang we did!
Recap
Some things we had learned last session
- This isn’t about the brunch, it’s about putting Quentin (and to a lesser extent all of us) in our places.
- ‘Tess has a secret admirer on the compound.
- Jess Silverberg, editor and chief of ELEVAT8 might be the only person with enough influence (and potential desire) to affect Windy Falls.
- We’ve been set up. We can either do a good job and help shitty rich people do shitty things, or fail and look incompetent.
- We didn’t know what to do next, but we weren’t going to try and fix that brunch!
Sneaking around
Tess, Mara, and Andé snuck below the kitchen looking for what was going on behind the scenes. Everywhere they went, amiable staff were there to greet them. Another Chris or the occasional Jordan, all delighted to see them and offer them anything they desired. They passed through the kitchen, the staff lounge (where they were offered freshly imported strawberries) and the supply rooms. Everything they had was of incredibly high quality, but it was also sterile. There was nothing that made is special. No soul.
Eventually Tess asked if they had a fax machine, which confused folks, but that was the point. Eager to please, one of the staff members led the Dogs down to the administrative level where they encountered some ultra modern office spaces. There at a massive desk that only had single tablet computer on it, a Chris was happy to greet them. Chris didn’t know about a fax machine (according to Tess, part of our standard evaluation process) but did reveal their favorite breakfast was granola with blueberries. Also, they had formerly been in real estate but didn’t feel like they had a home there (ironic). This was home. Not the scandal we were hoping for. All of the staff just seemed so delighted to be here!
After a moment Alice Henney appeared from one of the offices and greeted the Dogs. “I’m so glad that you’re here to help Quentin. He just needs a nudge from like-minded people who love food. How has your experience been so far?”
Alice found the fax machine request amusing and was about to politely wait for the Dogs to leave when she got a message that Joel was looking for her at her cottage. She smiled and departed, with Chris at her heels.
Now alone the Dogs continued searching and found a large conference room for thirty or so people. At first the space appeared as spartan as the rest of the compound, but they eventually realized there were touch screens on the conference tables that, once activated had a “clippy” AI helper that was just as happy to help as the rest of the staff.
Tess asked for blueprints of the compound and when the AI assistant revealed there was an entire SECOND underground building, they knew they had found something. Tess was about to talk a picture of the floorplans when they heard a voice behind them “That won’t be necessary. I can just take you there. It’s not unusual for people to be curious about the facility.” Mitzy Henney was standing at the conference room entrance in an asymmetric business suit that fell just over the left shoulder. The Dogs looked a little like the cat who just ate the canary, but then felt simultaneously relieved and a bit disappointed that Mitzy was just going to take them there.
The second building, only accessible via underground tunnels turns out to be a large auditorium that could have held 500 people in it. “This is where we do our onboarding? Care to watch?”
Tess and Mara cautiously accented and Mitzy made use of some controls they couldn’t fathom, which caused the lights to dim and the giant screen to light up “Welcome to Windy Falls…” The video continued with a history of the facility starting with its humble root and concluded by reassuring the viewer they belonged here. As the lights came back up Mitzy asked “so, how do you feel being here? We’ve discussed this internally and want you to know that you’re welcome any time.” Never had a sweeter offer felt as sinister.
Picking fights
Alice found Joel outside her cottage. A building built within the rock side as though it occurred their naturally, completely with the artificial waterfall that ran down across it and over the patio. The shared some compliments. Joel told her this place was beautiful but that she wasn’t going to like hearing what he had to say. She told him that he was a “truthteller” and she was glad to have him.
“You need to fire Quentin. You need to let him go.” Alice acted the part of a mother who cared for her son and only wanted what was best for him. Joel told her that was to make it on his own. She agreed to do it, but he knew she was not truly going to set him free. It would be like all the times before. So he pressed. And she pressed back. And then things got heated. Joel dropped a glass of lemonade and let it shatter “I have a whole television network watching. I will bring this whole place down.”
“You greatly misunderstand your position here.”
First she played the concerned mother, the the disappointed patron who was saddened that Joel stooped so low as to make accusations about her, then the scared lady intimidated by a tall Black man, finally the person she was, a person in power who was not going to let it go.
Finally, under the pressure of bad press, she relented, Quentin would be discarded, even Windy Falls could be ruined, it would not stop her, it would not stop their global influence. [Joel won the conflict. Alice took one long term fallout raising “snake in her soul” from 2d4 to 3d4. This conflict went from talking to fighting, but miraculously, despite the 19d8 fallout that Joel took, he was merely “injured” which in our game meant trouble down the line with HR, but he hadn’t lost his job yet. This was also the first time one of use busted out Demonic Influence, which in our game is System Privilege.]
Meeting at the Meditation Center
When Tess arrived at the meditation center she found it was Jen Maddison waiting for her. After a bit of testing the waters Tess realized that Jen was her superfan all along. When finally asked what she wanted Jen revealed that she was trapped here, being groomed to the next Alice Henney for their Bangkok location. The organization is global! She wanted to get out, but she was too compromised to be a whistleblower herself.
Tess wanted to help but didn’t know how. Jen clearly saw the billionaire cult for what it was, but said that Bret was the only one with real evidence, and he’s one step away from the devil himself.
After Tess agreed to help, it was only then that Jen let herself relax and began to completely fangirl out on all of Tess/TK’s former work!
An Offer
Back in the kitchen Mara was chopping onions to clear her mind. There was a giant bowl of thirty or more onions and she still wasn’t sure what to do next, when Mitzy and Bret arrived. Bret gave a particular kind of nod and all the other staff (Chris, Cris, and Kris) suddenly had other obligations to attend to. Mitzy started talking about Mara’s mentor Chef Mario, and wondered if Mara thought he would like it here. After some back and forth about about the possibility of him working here, Mitzy eventually revealed she wasn’t looking to hire him…he was already a member.
She held out an application and set it down next to Mara “You know the application is normally a six month process, but for people like you, we could expedite it.”
With the flat of her blade, Mara pushed the application back “I’m sorry, I just don’t really see myself here. This place is pristine and orderly. I thrive on chaos and uncertainty. I like people arguing, children running around and screaming….messy.”
Mitzy turned to Bret and asked what he thought. Without batting an eye he said “We could could do screaming children.” [Shudder at the menace he revealed]
Mara persisted that this wasn’t her path, but Mitzy wanted her to know the door was open. Though when asked if the place could be “chaotic and subversive” Mitzy turned again to Bret “No, we don’t do that here.”
Jen 2.0
Back at the Rose complex we caught each other up and decided the only way forward was to get more from Jen than “things are bad here, please get me out.”
We headed to the pool to find Jen and bumped into Quentin on the way. He was celebrating getting fired. Yay! Joel told him that he had connections and would make sure he landed on his feet. Tonight was a night to celebrate. Joel didn’t know at the time just how many employee terminations were going to happen that night!
Jen was slightly startled to see all of us sit down next to her at the poolside but we quickly moved past pleasantries and, outside the earshot of the staff, asked her how we could get something actionably to use against Windy Falls. Quickly the fragments of a plan were made to contact Jess Silverberg at ELEVAT8 (via Pavarti Gupta) to see if he was interested in dirt on Windy Falls. Through a couple of frantic back and forth emails, we eventually got a direct text to Jess.
Escape from Windy Falls
Bret showed up to “congratulate” Quentin and we decided now was the time to act. Tess and Mara would go to Bret’s office and Joel would stay here to keep him from leaving. A foolproof plan.
The got in the office easily enough, despite Cris looking at them a bit surprised as they passed by the desk. Bret’s office was minimalist like everything at Windy Falls, but he did have a painting of Narcissus (the real thing?) and high end Disney art along side it. He truly is a monster.
Tess reached out to her “hacker” friend (i.e. her cousin) to get started. The cream display on his six monitors was replaced with a linux shell full of endpoint penetration scripts. Bret’s watch began to buzz.
Poolside, despite the distraction, Bret was nonchalant in his bullying of Quentin and seemed unperturbed when Joel sat down to rebuff him. With a few taps on his watch the staff began to move towards his office, but Mara and Keith held them at bay with “staff assessment interviews”.
Tess got ahold of the files (password “CaravaggioRulez!) , Bret’s watch buzzed again, Joel bluffed with a text to Jess Hasting that he never sent. Bret pre-empted the bluff by sending a text to Jess of his own [Escalating the fight from Physical to Gun-Fighting, which for our game meant appealing to higher powers like press, bosses, etc].
The gloves were off. Tess started sending the file to Jess. Bret’s watch flashed red and he spoke into it a direction for the staff to engage the “Final Solution.” The staff, heedless of their own safety charged at the Dogs. Mara, Keith, and Andé barred the door. Joel pulled out his 8″ Mizen chef knife to fend them off. Finally he put it to Bret’s throat.
Delivery Van
A lone delivery van unceremoniously dropped Mara, Tess, Keith, and Joel at the airport with bags tossed on the curb. Quentin, Andé, and Jen met them at the gates and told them, at least for this flight, they had our back. We’d all need to figure out what we were going to do next with our lives.
[Because we escalated to gunfighting, we were all taking upwards of 12d10 Fallout. The only person we rolled for was Bret, because wanted to see that he was fired. Huzzah. He was. For the rest of us, we just mused on what our life outside of being a Dog would be. Tess might go back to blogging. Joel and Mara could find a kitchen to work in.]
Fin
Fuuuuuck that game was intense. Were they a rich white people eugenics cult? I mean, probably. But the beauty of Matthew’s GMing is that we never saw anything overt. Many of the people who were there just liked that they felt comfortable around other rich white people without feeling guilty for their largess. Even the staff were so indoctrinated that unless someone had realized how fucked up the place was on their own (e.g. Jen) we really weren’t going to get them out.
The use of Demonic Influence (which we translated to Systemic Privilege) was really powerful, both in the mechanics and in the narrative. Matthew really didn’t know how bad thing were until we pressed…and that when we saw Alice Henney holding onto her power with white knuckles and Bret, who we confirmed at the end was in fact “some CIA bullshit”.
