Operation
Pale Ledger
Capture a foreign intelligence officer before he leaves the country tonight.
- Target
- KESTREL
- Where
- A private residence in an allied capital, in the rain
- Objective
- Capture
You play one operator in a secret counter-terrorism unit. You play the mission with dice. You write what really happened. Then you black out what can never be known.
1. SITUATION. KESTREL, a foreign intelligence officer, is building or storing a device at a private residence in an allied capital.
Command believes eight armed men protect him, militia.
KESTREL leaves the country tonight. His pattern of life is known. Deep night. Rain.
Every mission starts as a clean, confident briefing. What comes back is the truth, and only part of it survives.
Roll the target, the site and the complications, or open a ready-made mission and pick your team.
Roll through four phases against a running clock.
Rewrite the briefing as what really happened, in the official voice, with yours slipping through.
Every point of Exposure costs a line. You choose what the record loses.
The mission follows your operator home, and into the next one.
Every roll in Kinetic is one green die against one red die. The gap between them is the story: win by five and it goes better than planned; lose by five and it's FUBAR.
A specialist on the team means a d12 instead of a d10. Advantage rolls a second green die and keeps the higher; Disadvantage does the same with red. One ordinary set of dice is all it takes.
| Decisive | Green higher by 5 or more. Better than planned |
| Success | Green higher. It works |
| Tie | Same number. It works, at a cost |
| Fail | Red higher. It doesn't work |
| Disaster | Red higher by 5 or more. It's FUBAR |
Your die is always a d10, or a d12 with your specialist on the team. The threat die is set by the phase or the enemy. Whatever happens, neither die changes size. Help and trouble add a second die instead.
Something is on your side: an edge, a useful piece of kit, a Push, or a Decisive on your last roll. Night vision on a dark Infil is Advantage.
Something is working against you: a complication, a wound, carrying too much, or a Disaster on your last roll. A jammed radio on Exfil is Disadvantage.
After the mission, every report loses at least one phrase, plus one for every point of Exposure you drew. A die picks the paragraph. You pick the line.
Choose what hurts the story most to lose, not what is easiest to spare. That choice is where the game happens.
The HERON cell, eight armed men, militia, holds one hostage at a diplomatic property in an island port. They have made no demands. A source reports the building is booby-trapped. The source is one source, never confirmed. Deep night. Clear.
Exposure 2 means three redactions. In play you redact your own after action report; the briefing stays clean.
Each comes fully briefed. Pick your team, pack your kit and go. Build your own with the briefing and mission generators.
Capture a foreign intelligence officer before he leaves the country tonight.
A hostage rescue from the sea, on the word of one unconfirmed source, into a building that may be wired.
A hijacked airliner, sixty passengers, and a quiet climb up the rear airstair just before dawn.
Real weapons and gear, each with a Load cost and an effect at the table. How you get in sets how much you carry, and what you leave behind is as much a choice as what you take.
| Example kit | Load |
|---|---|
| HK416 A5 carbine, SureFire suppressor | 2 |
| SIG Sauer M18 with a red-dot sight | 1 |
| Crye JPC plate carrier | 2 |
| M84 stun grenades (two) | 1 |
| North American Rescue trauma kit | 1 |
| Black Hornet 4 nano drone | 1 |
| Infil by vehicle: Load limit | 8 of 8 |
After Action Report is in playtesting. The book will hold the full rules, the briefing and mission generators, three ready-to-play missions and the operator sheets.
Launch details will be posted here.