Requisitions (mage V20)
Requisitions*
There are reasons for Technocratic dominance. One of them involves the epic resources available to Technocratic operatives. With this Background – a Trait available ONLY to Technocrats in good standing with the Order – you can request goodies from your superiors and often expect to get them.
Before a mission, you and your team will be issued whatever gear your superiors expect you to need. If you want more than that (as most agents do), you need to requisition it. In story terms, you tap your contacts and file an official request for the desired goodies – see Requisitioning, Outsourcing, and Borrowing Backgrounds, (pp. 302-303). In game terms, you roll your Requisitions rating as a dice pool. Each success on that roll gives you five Background points with which to buy Devices for that mission. (See The Toybox in Appendix II for Devices and their costs.) More than three successes scores you as much mundane Sleepertech as you can use. If your relationship with the Powers That Be is good, this’ll be an easy roll... and if not, then good luck getting anything other than an earful of abuse. See The Six Degrees in Chapter Five, (pp. 181-182), for examples of good standing and its alternatives.
Assuming that your reputation remains spotless (or you’ve at least balanced out your cock-ups with blazing victories), you could simply consider this Background to be worth five Background points per dot when requisitioning Devices. Your Storyteller may reserve the roll for times when you’re on thin ice, asking for special favors, or trying to pound a mosquito with a pile driver.
At mission’s end, you must return the borrowed gear. If Q Division has to come for it themselves, you’ll be losing your Requisitions rating for a while... and if you’re lucky, that’s all they’ll take! Lost or damaged gear reflects poorly on your performance, too – especially if you let some Reality Deviant get her blood-caked hands on Union hypertech. If things went well, your Requisitions rating might go up a dot or two; if not, it might lose one or two dots... even more if you make a catastrophic mess. Your amalgam can pool this Background in order to requisition even more gear, but then the entire group is responsible for both equipment and success. The Technocracy understands that eggs get broken when omelets get prepared, but such understanding goes only so far...
Requisitions Chart
- Relationship ---- Difficulty
- Doubtful Loyalty ---- 9
- Questionable Loyalty ---- 8
- Assumed Loyalty ---- 7
- Assured Loyalty ---- 6
- Total Loyalty ---- 5
- X -- No dice: “Get out of my office.”
- • -- One die: They don’t take you seriously.
- •• -- Two dice: “There might be something left over here for you...”
- ••• -- Three dice: You’ve earned their trust.
- •••• -- Four dice: Q Division likes you.
- ••••• -- Five dice: You’re a trusted and valuable operative.
- ••••• • -- Six dice: A squad of proven agents.
- ••••• •• -- Seven dice: A trusted team of loyal ops.
- ••••• ••• -- Eight dice: A team of specialists.
- ••••• •••• -- Nine dice: An elite strike force with the utmost confidence from above.
- ••••• ••••• -- Ten dice: Maximum clearance, trust, and favor from above.
