Interns in the Dark (11/16/2025)

GM: Lisa Beasley
Players: Sean Nittner, Chad Rey, Demian Vonder Kuhlen, Benjamin Plytas, John Jones
System: Interns in the Dark

Sunday morning we were all a little frazzled (though the con was far from over!) and we played a short game of Interns working for Ghougle. Here was the pitch:

Interns in the Dark is a modern-day, satirical, forged-in-the-dark game that takes place in the beautiful, yet terrible area of the Bay. Each session is rolled randomly and is unique.

Our interns were:

• Liam Woodman, aka Hal the Ghoul, our company mascot, played by John Jones
• John Jones, aka Zero Cool, the nerd who didn’t want be here, played by Chad Rey
• Dante, the tea guy (he had lots of tea), played by Demian
• Charlie, the emancipated youth and anime fan, played by Ben
• Dale, aka The Cardinal, here on a football scholarship, but really just loves birds and making things out of popsicle sticks, played by me.

Kyler, our boss, who hated Liam for getting the job he wanted his nephew to get, send us on our first assignment. We were to steal (back?) a piece of AI technology from the Jungle (another large corp) that was as big as a sedan.

The AI was supposed to make better workers, which was certinly some heinous action that I wasn’t sure I wanted to be part of, but didn’t want to spend time debating it (in a two hour session).

We fucked with corporate resources (winning!) found out the small startup that was hosting the reveal party, got ourselves invited (printing out fake badges and adding ourselves to the system), did some switch-eros to steal the box and drive off with it.

Some highlights:

• Zero Cool arriving to work the night before and getting himself an office, then hiding as a maintenance worker. Later sabotaging the Ghougle conference room environmental settings.
• Hal the Ghoul, getting into his mascot costume to divert the crowd of protesters.
• Building a replica device out of popsicle sticks and beaming with pride when the curtain was pulled back to reveal it.
• Dante sliding right into the role of middle manager and oversight, it came so natural to him with his oversized messenger bag strap.
• Charlie finding his old roomate, who works for the Jungle, and convincing him to join the revolution (er, help us steal a van).
• The line “The EZ-Bake has been installed!”
• My own personal head cannon that after we stole the AI box from hell, we’d then crash it into a ravine and blow it to high hell (Didn’t happen in the game, but I can dream).

Thoughts on the game

Two hours is a really tight time slots, so I’m not surprised I felt rushed.

I think the threshold (you need X resources to even attempt a roll) is interesting, but effect points (raising a die result) felt like it meant we rarely got anything but complete successes. Especially since stress wasn’t sent to resist, you had plenty to use for pushing and assists, which meant we were often rolling 3-4 dice and could then increase a die value by 1. On 3 dice, you’ve got a 70% chance of getting at least a 5, which can then be bumped to a 6. On 4 dice, that goes up to 80%.

We didn’t end up using the Grit, Wit, and Confidence Tokens at all, but I sort of wish the last one was called Commit or Permit tokens, just to keep the rhyming scheme.