The playtest of the ESPionage, the role-playing game of psychics and spies, has begun. Based on my second novel, The Faith Machine, I’ve run one-shots at conventions with pre-generated characters before, but this is a full campaign… that opens with a one-shot with pregens.

Good adventures showcase the feel of a setting, and the potential within, without rigid definitions of form or style. A one-shot has more utility but limited scope. As a novelist, I have a greater appreciation for the longer arc of a campaign. So, I would have both, tying them together, a one-shot to give a little taste of ESPionage before it segues into the campaign. The PCs first mission will be to steal the object the pregens just stole, and the pregens transform into recurring antagonists trying to steal it back.

The Set-Up: Rainbow Intelligence Services has a problem named Mrs. Brown; one of their psychic agents has proven too powerful and impulsive to keep in play. So, the higher-ups have ordered Rainbow to bring Brown to the Bullpen, a holding facility for dangerous psychics, until they decide what to do with her.

Rainbow’s resources are already stretched thin. Losing an agent is going to hurt. Turning her in will damage morale among Rainbow’s other psychics. But there are a couple of silver linings: A Texan attorney with a lot of money and an Indian agent with some money and access to the Bullpen’s security systems. They both want a notebook of cowboy poetry rumored to be left in the Bullpen’s prisoners’ effects.

The players will turn Mrs. Brown over to the Bullpen. While inside, use the Indian agent’s biometric to access the prisoner effects. Retrieve the notebook, placing it in the hands of the Texan, one way or another.