BobertoEnFuego
Villager
Hey everyone,
I just wanted to share a fun detail one of my players noticed about Malia Baccarin in Adventure 4: Always on time. My players were briefed that their mission was to find potential suspects in the Ob on the train, thus they have been very suspicious of every passenger. My players are having a lot of fun donning their disguises and really roleplaying their interactions with their fellow passengers. However, my players really surprised me with their attention to detail when I was describing Malia. Specifically the line:
"[Malia] makes sure to pick up the local newspapers at every stop along the train, and often has a bundle tucked under her arm as she does her duty through the train."
Immediately one of my players leaped from the table shouting "she is a spy!"
Surprised by this, I questioned his logic. He goes on to explain "That is textbook spycraft! Trying to find cyphers in newspapers/passing along messages! I want to follow her and if she ever throws her newspaper in the trash, I want to read it/see if she is writing any notes!"
At the time, I was not prepared for this. But, I did not want to discourage clever thinking from my players. So next session I made sure Malia picked up a newspaper from Cherage which contained a crossword "Malia was very intent and focused on." (Attached)
View attachment CrosswordFinal.pdf
To be honest, I was a bit busy that week and Always on Time takes a lot of prep work (but with GREAT reward) so I was only able to show the final product (did not make the players solve the crossword themselves). The crossword is not perfect as it has a few flaws (e.g. red borders on some of the blocks which I tried and failed to cover up) but my group had a lot of fun with it.
My group played around with the puzzle for a while, trying to piece the words together, and after a while they asked for an intelligence check for a hint (a bit of a house rule). With a high enough Int check roll (someone rolled a total of 20), I asked them "If you were a spy, how would you know to look at a specific article or crossword game out of all the articles and puzzles of all the newspapers in the various towns? And how would you do this without alerting other people? Remember, there is nothing 'special' about Malia's newspaper. All the newspapers come from the same printing press and has the same exact information on it."
That's when they started focusing on the "flaws" of the crossword. Something that could be brushed off as a "printing error" but means something deeper to the trained eye. They noticed that there was a grey "smudge" in the bottom right corner (which they confirmed previous daily crossword puzzles did not have with a Diplomacy (gather information) check. And they noticed the red borders (which was an oversight on my end). And finally they noticed that a few of the numbers are missing their '.' (dots) after them. Specifically the words:
Train
Need
Arrival
Signal
There were a few ways of arranging these four words:
Need Train Arrival Signal
Train Arrival, Need Signal
etc
But regardless, this put Malia in suspicious light. (From a GM perspective, this was Malia's associates asking her for the Train arrival details after leaving Orithea so her associates can lay their ambush. This later prompts Malia to visit her witch friend and relay a message to them.)
I just wanted to share this info in case someone else wants to integrate this puzzle into their game or accuses Malia of being a spy. I am sure it can be vastly improved/cleaned up. I read a lot of other people's campaign of Always on Time in preparation for my own group and did not see any other groups come across this idea (which is why I was not originally prepared for it).
Just wanted to share this in case other GM's come across the same issue.
The programs I used to make the crossword were CrossFire (to make the original puzzle) and PowerPoint to edit the base puzzle generated from CrossFire (hence the sloppiness).
I just wanted to share a fun detail one of my players noticed about Malia Baccarin in Adventure 4: Always on time. My players were briefed that their mission was to find potential suspects in the Ob on the train, thus they have been very suspicious of every passenger. My players are having a lot of fun donning their disguises and really roleplaying their interactions with their fellow passengers. However, my players really surprised me with their attention to detail when I was describing Malia. Specifically the line:
"[Malia] makes sure to pick up the local newspapers at every stop along the train, and often has a bundle tucked under her arm as she does her duty through the train."
Immediately one of my players leaped from the table shouting "she is a spy!"
Surprised by this, I questioned his logic. He goes on to explain "That is textbook spycraft! Trying to find cyphers in newspapers/passing along messages! I want to follow her and if she ever throws her newspaper in the trash, I want to read it/see if she is writing any notes!"
At the time, I was not prepared for this. But, I did not want to discourage clever thinking from my players. So next session I made sure Malia picked up a newspaper from Cherage which contained a crossword "Malia was very intent and focused on." (Attached)
View attachment CrosswordFinal.pdf
To be honest, I was a bit busy that week and Always on Time takes a lot of prep work (but with GREAT reward) so I was only able to show the final product (did not make the players solve the crossword themselves). The crossword is not perfect as it has a few flaws (e.g. red borders on some of the blocks which I tried and failed to cover up) but my group had a lot of fun with it.
My group played around with the puzzle for a while, trying to piece the words together, and after a while they asked for an intelligence check for a hint (a bit of a house rule). With a high enough Int check roll (someone rolled a total of 20), I asked them "If you were a spy, how would you know to look at a specific article or crossword game out of all the articles and puzzles of all the newspapers in the various towns? And how would you do this without alerting other people? Remember, there is nothing 'special' about Malia's newspaper. All the newspapers come from the same printing press and has the same exact information on it."
That's when they started focusing on the "flaws" of the crossword. Something that could be brushed off as a "printing error" but means something deeper to the trained eye. They noticed that there was a grey "smudge" in the bottom right corner (which they confirmed previous daily crossword puzzles did not have with a Diplomacy (gather information) check. And they noticed the red borders (which was an oversight on my end). And finally they noticed that a few of the numbers are missing their '.' (dots) after them. Specifically the words:
Train
Need
Arrival
Signal
There were a few ways of arranging these four words:
Need Train Arrival Signal
Train Arrival, Need Signal
etc
But regardless, this put Malia in suspicious light. (From a GM perspective, this was Malia's associates asking her for the Train arrival details after leaving Orithea so her associates can lay their ambush. This later prompts Malia to visit her witch friend and relay a message to them.)
I just wanted to share this info in case someone else wants to integrate this puzzle into their game or accuses Malia of being a spy. I am sure it can be vastly improved/cleaned up. I read a lot of other people's campaign of Always on Time in preparation for my own group and did not see any other groups come across this idea (which is why I was not originally prepared for it).
Just wanted to share this in case other GM's come across the same issue.
The programs I used to make the crossword were CrossFire (to make the original puzzle) and PowerPoint to edit the base puzzle generated from CrossFire (hence the sloppiness).
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