"Fugitive-hunting type multi-player game" Topic

Recently a terrorist suspect escaped from custody and despite the efforts of the Internal Security, police, army, coast guard and customs have not been apprehended after two months. For a largely urbanised island nation 700km2 in size, it seems quite a feat to me.

Anyway, we are having a local convention and I wonder if this situation can be used in a multi-player participation game, with the players taking the roles of the heads of the Internal Security, police, army etc., each with their own strengths and weaknesses, as well as their own agendas.

I seem to recall reading about games of such formats, usually sey in Victorian London and involving Jack the Ripper or Sherlock Holmes, but I'm not too sure where to start looking.

Do point me in the right direction if you can.

Thank you.

I think that the South London Warlords did a Jack the Ripper game. There may be something at their site.

For a party game, I wonder if there is any mileage in trying to combine conventional wargame features with the ever-familiar mechanics of Cluedo?

Or crossing a wargame with Scotland Yard's hunt mechanism.

So based on Singapore hmmm…well you probably have to decide on possible escape routes – include the land routes to Malaysia, boat routes to the islands and Indonesia – air routes seem extremely unlikely. Then you need to have a hide/search system bolted on for when the security forces and fugitive may collide. The idea of using Scotland Yard works but is very abstract. You could look at the search mechanisms in the old SPI War of the Ring boardgame, or possibly the ICE Fellowship of the Ring. The Character game in War of the ring is essentially a movement based hide and search game on a fixed map with end conditions.

You might consider an event card option for a series of slightly more random effects

Thanks for the input so far. Can't find the Jack the Ripper article on the Warlord's page, but I'll keep hunting.

Scotland Yard has interesting mechanics, but I am really looking to do a miniatures game with maybe Clix models.

The recent "Innsmouth Escape" by Twilight Creations has gotten some attention, but I'm betting the theme draws in the fans more than brilliant game play.

boardgamegeek.com/game/32969

The Innsmouth Escape game looks really the part, and I can already think of some local events to use for the event cards and such. It may not be ideal for conversion to miniatures, but it certainly is a concept I should look into.

Thanks.

What about Steve Jackson's "Undead"? Any potential in that one?

Fury of Dracula may have some mechanics you can use.

delete
How much are you wanting from miniatures here. Fundamentally you have one person, who is not a combat equipped soldier trying to escape so this is not likely to be a tactical wargame type scenario.

At that point the miniatures become more tacical or positional markers.

Divide a map of Singapore into assorted geograhical region Redhill, Tampines, Orchard, AngMoKio etc etc.
Assign each a security rating for each of the security forces that would normally be there – so very high for Auxiliary police and military at Changi, normal police in a high class residential area, customs at the causeway to Malaysia. Each security player gets a few markers to place to represent additional effort through overtime, mobilising part timers, citizen support etc. Each player gets a number of action points to deploy and activate units around the map on a turn by turn basis (day by day Id suggest).

The fugitive player gets a random start from several options, and gets number of actions be it 'holeing up' to hide, moving from one location to another, finding food or assistance from sympathisers (if thats an option).

Add in event cards like an extra search unit, or additional escape options, or safe movement and you have a combination of a lot of games but if you use minis for all the status markers its gonig to look like a miniature game.

Actually, the more I read and think about it the more I am convinced that it will have to be a boardgame-style set-up, with miniatures as tokens.

It will probably not become the convention project since our aim is more to showcase historical miniatures gaming, but I am still keen to explore the idea.

"Fury of Dracula" seems like the game to borrow from, since the 'trail' allows the hunters to actually have a clue about where the fugitive has been and how long ago he was there. What I do want to add is an inter-agency rivalry component where they may not be willing to share information, making it harder to catch the fugitive.

To give the game a veneer of tactical conflict, I may want to play up the fact that the fugitive is supposedly a highly-trained terrorist, making catching him not a 100% event even if they found him. :)

Fury of Dracula and Scotland Yard from memory use the same basic mechanism with tweaks. I think I saw a copy of Scotland Yard in Paradigm Infinitum when I was in there in March, so if you need to see a copy 'in the flesh' they might carry it.

For interagency cooperation then you need variable search results, and multiple search results per player in a turn, then they select one person they share all with, one there share limited with and one they share nothing with – they can change this setup at fixed points during the game perhaps. Or have the game victory point driven so if you give out too much info you lose the chance of grabbing the target.

As to a final conflict then you could do that as a minis game, there are various out there that could be used to masquerade as the rules for a single fugitive vs security. Make the security types very poor morale, training and arms in the ruleset and the fugitive well armed and possibly with some associates. DVGs special forces could be modded to fit, probably ambush alley from what I know of it, two hour wargames almost certainly have a system that would work (if you could mod up FNG direct), Gangs of Megacity 1 or Necromunda would possibly be useable if you rename everything (and the Necromunda rulebook is available free for download) and more…