Black Sheep Ops

This game was developed late at night, in Ropecon halway. It was a result of us trying to come up with some ridiculous game ideas. It was played in multiple conventions after that, and it was always a blast.

— V · 02-02-2024

A deviation of space-time appeared somewhere between the realms of non-conia and deep-conia in the late to mid-90s. Sadly, it was a twisted and faulty creation, and we failed to stop it from emerging into our world. The Black Sheep Ops

Premise

The Black Sheep Ops (BSO) is a roleplaying game of urban survival and limitless power. And limitless power. It is also the name of the organization trying to stop you.

You are a sheep. Actually, you are a sheep in a man’s body. Specifically, you are a chimera created from modified sheep brain cells and an empty human husk. And you are on the run. Sometime earlier today, a militant animal rights organization made a strike against BSO headquarters to free the sheep BSO was using in their unethical experiments. Due to some differences between research-lingo and environmentalist hothead attitudes, they needed to understand what they were unleashing. In the end, they managed to infiltrate the facility, if only to find a group of ordinary-looking humans eating grass in a small enclosed yard. As they left the facility without closing the hole in the fence, it was escape time for you.

Your goal is to keep yourself from getting caught by the BSO. If it weren’t for the bloody herd mentality, you’d have a better chance of surviving alone. As it is, you must stick with the rest of the escaped sheep.

Sheep creation and basic rules

The modified sheep brain cells were used in the experiment as the scientist had learned their seemingly unlimited potential for learning new stuff. Uncanny stuff, Like superhero powers. And the military wanted to harness this ability for next-generation super-soldiers (Alas, instead of super-soldiers, the military got you. Manuring humanoids with serious authority issues)

All sheep start with d1000 ability points. Players may freely distribute the ability points to any conceivable abilities like flying (with the power of the mind or with helicopters), walking, speechcraft, sneaking, or bulldozer-laser-ray-gaze.

All abilities start at 1% and top at 99% except breathing, primary metabolism, and other abilities required for living inside the fence, which start at 99% (do note, any abilities related to moving, etc., are not included, as the unmoving sheep could have been fed by BSO staff).

Whenever a sheep tries to do something, the player rolls d100 to see if the sheep succeeds. On failure, the character fails to execute the action, and the player gets a single character point freely distributable to any existing or new ability.

Playing the game and some advanced rules

The game should be played with some sleep deprivation. Or with people who are notorious for their lousy jokes. And preferably with lots of sleep deprivation and the aforementioned notorious people. It should take at most an hour to play.

The game takes place in everyday modern reality. Or, if you want to, it can occur in Narnia, Westeros, or on the bridge of Battlestar Galactica.

The game master is responsible for the world, the challenges the sheep face (like trying to get the one who forgot to take any moving abilities to follow them), and the BSO.

Because of the herd mentality, the sheep must stay together. No sheep ability can counter the herd mentality.

BSO operatives are immune to all sheep’s abilities and their effects. For some unknown and probably classified reason, they survive sheep-ability-created tsunamis without getting wet, etc.

As long as the sheep can blend into modern society (or the Clash of Kings, if you were playing in a bizarre version of Martin’s Westeros), the BSO can not interfere. The BSO does not have jurisdiction over regular people; they should have remembered to take pictures of the sheep earlier.

Oh yeah. And the sheep have a healthy head start.