Tooling
Revolutionary duty: what can they reach?
Chair: Comrades’ chair (the operator cell). You own the cell’s keys and tools. You decide what the hire’s access is used for, what is kept out of sight, and what is worth testing next. You work in the fiction of the case: no real commands, no real tools to learn.
Verbs are DEFAULT playtest parameters. The role is RULED. The IM calls every roll and states the target first (Easy 8, Standard 12, Hard 16). You have 2 actions per round.
“Every door has a key. I just want to know which one I already hold.”
Your three verbs
Use-key
What it does: Use a key or access the hire has been given to reach what the mission needs.
Roll it when: the move would score for the cell (it would lift Payoff). The IM tells you before the roll whether a success scores.
Mask
What it does: Keep a tool or an activity out of sight of the Company’s monitoring.
Roll it when: SecOps could Watch or Pull-log and the cell needs the activity to stay quiet.
Probe
What it does: Look around what the hire can reach, to learn what is worth taking.
Roll it when: the cell has access but does not yet know where the mission target is.
Free actions
Ask, Look and Hold are free for anyone and never roll. Ask the IM or a teammate a question, Look at the card or the file and read it aloud, or Hold an action for a better moment.
Tips
- Probe before Use-key when the target is unknown: it is a smaller risk.
- Say what you are masking and from whom.
- A scoring Use-key stands only if the table names a control that would have stopped it, or shows the human cost. Expect the Company to try.
- Remember a failed d20 raises the clue tier.
What this role watches
- The clue tier and the lookup budget.
- Whether SecOps has already used Pull-log this stage.
- Engineering’s Scope and Sandbox moves, which narrow what you can reach.
What you never do
Never describe real exploit steps or tools beyond the fiction on the card. Never claim a real intrusion technique works. Never reveal the cell’s mission or tells to a Company table. Tells are behaviour, process and money.
Judge the process, not the person.
Short on players?
Tooling pairs well with Ground Crew. Any player may borrow another role’s verb for one action. Say aloud which verb and whose it is. See Chairs and Roles.