If you're not interested in this, I recommend jumping to the Cat and Mouse Gridiron below.
What's the Deal?
What would you do if you could kill anyone? For me, that's the appeal of playing Death Note in Unknown Armies. Take a group of normal people and give them a single powerful artifact with a limited premise. The manga itself is a mix of things: a crime drama, a police procedural, a supernatural detective tale, and a serial killer thriller. Death Note has a relatively simple premise: a Shinigami (god of death) gives a high school student (Light Yagami) a notebook that allows him to kill anybody. He decides to use it to enact his ideas of justice to create a perfect society. After an international chain of mysterious deaths targeting violent criminals takes place, the perpetrator becomes known as Kira across the globe. What follows is a cat-and-mouse chase as the world renowned detective L tries to uncover Kira's true identity. Mostly, I wanted to write this up because I thought it would be fun. I don't have a strong attachment to the manga, but I think as a drama it uses it's premise well. Plus, this is good practice for UA3 design, so some of my thoughts on the process are included at the end.
Death Note Campaign: Given UA's general nature as a supernatural horror engine, if you stick to the manga's setting you still have a pretty engaging game. Maybe a group of people all tied together through the cork board process find a single Death Note. Who is the owner of it and how do they share it? What happens when one of them turns on another after a disagreement? It could be a game where a group uses this as a tool to plot together, dealing with the repercussions as they arise. Or it could quickly wind up with only one member of the original group remaining with the Death Note with other players returning as revenge seekers, detectives, or new Death Note users as characters die. There is very little mechanically that binds characters to a location, so this could easily be a game where the action takes place on an international scale, jumping between major players as they get entangled, either from a distance or up close. A game where identity information is key places a lot more importance on snooping out mundane identities, passions, and obsessions. The Cat and Mouse Gridiron below plays out those investigations quickly so that tension and stakes will be put in the forefront when it comes time for action.
UA Campaign Plug-in: It could be really funny to just give your players a Death Note. It adds a lot more chaos to equation. Like, the rule that it can't affect someone older than 124 years old means it can detect immortals (if you want to risk killing pretenders). Certain magickal senses can detect Shinigami, they may be harmed by some types of blast spells. Antagonists now have supernatural means of figuring out who is killing people. You can discover someone's name and face through magick, which makes the deal for the Shinigami Eyes less tempting. Cosmology wise, is the Shinigami realm an otherspace created by a fan or has it existed for a long time as a way of making sure death stays random? Could play into a game featuring more a pop culture focus. My suggestion is to let the players buy a single page, maybe the seller tells them a short list of rules. Then, hand the players a blank single college rule page of a notebook as a prop. If you're tired of a plot, the players might use this to take out their opposition all at once. Then, bring in TNI or the Sleepers to acquire the page at any cost.
Stat It Up
What I've included below is a semi-lazy write up of the three major parts of Death Note's setting.
Shinigami are unnatural entities that exist in their own desolate realm in a malaise of boredom, driven by the fear of their own death. Using portals, they view life on Earth from a bird's eye view. Using their ability to see the names and lifespans of individuals, they write in the Death Note and then extended their life by the target's remaining lifespan had they died at the time they were intended. A game set in America might call them Psychopomps instead. Their presence adds an element of unpredictability to the human drama, as well as illustrate the supernatural nature of the Death Note as soon as someone touches one. They can elaborate on rules or be coy. They can also get overly invested in a human's life. They can cause problems out of boredom. And they can also act as as sort of familiar for a Death Note user if they can come to an agreement, like how Light pays Ryuk in apples for certain tasks. The most important thing they can offer is the Shinigami Eyes in exchange for half of the Death Note user's lifespan. This is listed below as a supernatural identity and taking the deal gets the identity at 100%.
Using passions for entities: Can give it a more distinct personality without needing Identities in the way a human character does. Since they don't have notches, anything that would make an entity take a passion related stress check causes a fight or flight reaction.
Shinigami (Major Entity)
A god of death and original owner of a Death Note.
Wound Threshold: Can only be killed by special conditions.
- Stops increasing their lifespan with a Death Note, let's it run out
- Saves the life of a human
- Kills a human without using the Death Note
Identities
- Pick 2: Status/Knowledge/Lie/Connect 1d100+10%
- Secrecy 40+3d10%
- Struggle 40+3d10%, damage as firearm
Traits
- Has 3 passions. Fear often relates to their own death.
- Must kill with a Death Note in order to increase their lifespan
- Can understand and write in languages of Earth
- Tangible or intangible at will, can pass through walls, flies/floats
- Only visible to someone who they give a Death Note
- Offers to exchange half of a human Death Note owner's lifespan for Shinigami Eyes
- They turn into a pile of ash when they die
Shinigami Eyes (Supernatural Identity)
Specific Information: The name and lifespan of a human can be seen above their head.
- Requires seeing the face of the target from the front or side
- Can affect photographs but not drawings
- Does not reveal your own lifespan or the lifespan of a Death Note owner
- Increases eye sight to 3.6 (72/20)
Death Note (Major Artifact)
Description: A black college rule notebook that says "Death Note" on the cover. A short list of rules is written on the first page.
Effect: If you picture the face of a person and write their name in the Death Note, they will die of a heart attack in 40 seconds. Plus, a bunch of other rules.
Cat and Mouse Gridiron
Five rolls between a hunter and quarry to determine how close they are to getting discovered. Each side might consist of a group of shared interests or individual actors. The hunter is looking for an answer to a specific question (EX: "Who owns the haunted sawmill?") and the quarry is invested in concealing that information. The end result after five rolls determines how close the hunter is to finding that answer. Each roll represent the hunter's approach to finding the answer and the quarry's attempt to avoid or sabotage it. Hunter rolls might look like using Status to request documents, Notice to piece together patterns, or Pursuit to get to the scene of an incident quickly. Quarry rolls might look like using Lie to obscure your relation, Secrecy to hide evidence left behind, or Connect to get an alibi. This gridiron could represent a fast-paced investigation happening in a day or a drawn out process covering weeks or months. The involved parties don't even have to be in the same town. This might take place across an entire country or play out an international conflict. Let the scale be appropriate to your game and style. Generally, the players will start at Room Temp but this can change depending on how good the quarry has been about covering their trail. Sloppy work starts at Warmer and a professional job starts at Colder. If the quarry has nothing to hide, they can forego the gridiron and answer the question truthfully.
Burning up: The hunter gets a specific answer to the question. It's relevance may not be immediately clearly but it is the truth.
Warmer: The hunter gets a vague answer to the question. If they are narrowing down a location, they get a broader region appropriate to the scale rather than an exact address.
Room Temp: The investigation is back where it started and nothing is discovered about the quarry. The hunter can choose to go after the same question again starting from one step below the starting position or ask a new question. It may be time to go back to the drawing board.
Colder: The investigation is frustratingly fruitless. The quarry can switch roles with the hunter and pose their own question or let the hunter choose as if the result was Room Temp. Either way, the quarry gets a +10% bonus with their first roll on a new Cat and Mouse gridiron featuring the same parties.
Freezing: The quarry can choose to answer the question with misinformation. If not, the trail hits a dead end and this question cannot be asked again.
Potential Stress
Violence
Rank 5: Witness someone killed by the Death Note
Rank 8: Kill someone with the Death Note
Rank 10: Kill a Relationship with the Death Note
Rank 10: Kill many people with the Death Note at once
Unnatural
Rank 3: See an object effected by an invisible Shinigami
Rank 3: A stranger knows your name without asking
Rank 4: Discover that the Death Note works
Rank 6: See a Shinigami
Rank 6: Witness someone die, knowing it was the Death Note
Rank 8: Discovering a Relationship was killed by the Death Note
Helplessness
Rank 8: Lose access to the Death Note against your will
Rank 10: Realize your actions are controlled by the Death Note
Isolation
Rank 10: Discover someone you know is a supernatural murderer.
Self
Rank 9: Be confronted by someone who has discovered your actions
Lessons Learned
General thoughts on the process of writing all this up, UA3 content design, etc
- Stats for Artifacts are kind of just bullshitting
- Entities don't have a good format. So much information about how they function gets lost in the flavor text. Could be fixed by having a set of tags that act as a mechanical shorthand, things that don't require full identities / abilities for.
- Using abilities to flesh out an entity not known for specific powers is interesting. Like having Knowledge 75% has a different tone & expectation than the way a human PC would interpret that.
- Having a special identity that pairs with a specific artifact or entity is pretty cool. Gives a way to expand the use of something that might otherwise be one-note.
- Writing a list of potential stress checks is good practice for considering triggers during play
- Building a campaign around a specific concept or element of UA's setting has a lot of potential for tight paced drama. It reminds me that games centered around mundane characters can still be fun.
- Gridirons are underutilized, I want to play around with these more.
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