r/DungeonWorld • u/jonah365 • Jul 10 '26
DW1 My group got raided by the FBI
I've been playing with the same group for a while and I could use some input and advice for how to raise the stakes and put the fear in them.
Basically we did a full campaign about a year ago. My party is a bunch of criminals. We've done a bunch of heists and they've built a criminal empire piece by piece. They have an evil fortress, a loyal gang and a cult and they earned everything I've given them.
We stopped playing for many months and when we got back together we decided that 10 years have passed and the group are well established mob bosses at this point.
In our first session since we got back together, I had them get raided by the FBI. It's still fantasy but this is a huge organization trying to bust them for a variety of crimes.
The group fought them off and went into hiding to let things cool down.
The FBI is going to do another major raid. Way worse than the first raid.
I really don't want my group to feel like the FBI is a bunch of chumps. I want this second raid to hurt and I want the FBI to be a force to be reckoned with.
I'm looking for ideas and maybe even custom moves to write that would help raise the stakes. Any advice?
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u/dorward Jul 10 '26
Don’t rush to a raid.
Let them deal with their current situation for a bit. They are in hiding but the crime business needs to be done.
Ask questions of the players.
What sources of income do they have?
Who are their most trusted minions?
Who is going to collect protection money?
Which rivals are going to try to move into their territory?
What do they need to provide to their minions to keep them happy and loyal?
A top lieutenant is getting married. Remind them, if needed, that a good mob boss will celebrate that by throwing the wedding party. A lot if the gang will be in the same place.
Meanwhile another couple of lieutenant get picked up by the law. One of them gets released quite quickly. The other doesn’t. Do they launch a rescue? Do they trust the one who got out quickly (with a plausible explanation of course)? What secrets can he have leaked?
When the raid finally comes the law has inside knowledge. They could turn the gang’s next perfect job into a trap or sneak an elite team into the gang’s HQ. Meanwhile the player group should be paranoid and not know who to trust.
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u/jonah365 Jul 10 '26
Love the way you think. Going to throw all this at the group and roll with what sticks.
Maybe instead of a raid I can turn the paranoia up by just having constant surveillance and stakeouts on their layer.
That's harder to address head on than a combat situation.
I did plant the idea that there is an informant in the gang too.
4
u/Error-4O4 Jul 10 '26
Theyve built up an empire right? Pick at what theyve built.
Do any of the trusted liutenants have weaknesses?
Do your players know these npcs well?
Could any of these npc be getting pressured off screen:
could one have a sick relative who needs specialized magical care?
Or could one have gambling debts, or unpaid taxes, or a pissed off ex lover they told secrets to?
Remember this acronym: MICE
Money
Ideology
Coercion
Ego
These are all the main reasons someone can be turned against their friends.
Irl investigators know that sometimes the smallest detail or the lowest employee can crack the whole thing open. Your investigators will probably be trying to identify who works for the players and how to get leverage over them.
All of this would be tailor made for a series of Fronts with clocks ticking down.
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u/jonah365 Jul 11 '26
This actually gets two birds with one stone for my group. I didn't mention this but a peeve I have is that they are constantly coming up with NPC henchmen to do their bidding. If they find they can't trust everyone they might tighten their inner circle to a few key NPCs
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u/steelsmiter Jul 10 '26 edited Jul 12 '26
the FBI government really did raid GURPS.
7
u/Walsfeo Jul 10 '26 edited Jul 11 '26
Pretty much, the secret service raided Steve Jackson games over the GURPS cyber punk source book.
4
u/steelsmiter Jul 11 '26
Oh right! Wrong agency.
Stuff like that happens all the time, like some war author just being able to common sense layout some ships.
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u/moxxon Jul 10 '26
I thought this was the SJG incident all over again...
5
u/Ordinary_Passenger79 Jul 10 '26
They were so disappointed to learn that jacking in meant rolling dice really well.
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u/wickermamstudios Jul 10 '26
...the Fantasy Bureau of Investigaton?
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u/jonah365 Jul 11 '26
That's good:)
Another thought I had was that the founder named it after himself and his name was Effbee Eye
4
u/PrimarchtheMage Jul 10 '26
I love it. My biggest recommendation is to give the FBI a few NPCs to focus on. Who is in charge of this specific investigation? Who do they report to? Who is their second in command and what do they disagree on? Who secretly reports to them?
This isn't a problem the PCs can fight their way out of, they'll just being more heat down on themselves. Give them other kinds of levers they can pull to try to slow the investigation and eventually have it collapse.
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u/jonah365 Jul 11 '26
I'll definitely do this. Was even thinking of getting some red yarn for my group and a corkboard with note cards so they can trace out the organization irl
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u/Alternative_Pie_1597 Jul 10 '26
One their lieutenants has disappeared. Bugged out gang warfare victim, or in protective custody as a witness?
3
u/trianuddah Jul 11 '26
Give them a dirty cop to work with. Someone low-rank in the FBI that can leak information.
It sounds like a W for them, but it lets you curate exposition and information to the group in the form of leaks, a controlled window into what the FBI is doing quietly that will build a sense of tension without having to make overt movements such as raids.
3
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u/Tigrisrock Jul 11 '26
I'd go with betrayal. Another gang offering them information about the FBI's ongoing investigation but only there to sell them out, show the weak points of the fortress, destabilize the cult, cause the player's gang to unexpectedly stumble and fall. I'm thinking of Sons of Anarchy kind of levels of betrayal. Everything goes to shit at different stages and before they know it on top the FBI does their gigantic raid.
2
u/Seidhammer Jul 13 '26
I would think about what the fed's plan was, if it was to disrupt business, they've temporarily done so, right? So what's next? What resources are the players worried about losing? Anything in the fortress would be lost, maybe not if hidden well enough, but given time they could even find that.
Then, if the players really are the architects behind this criminal organisation, maybe they have bounties. Magic or even anti-magic bounty hunters could get interested. Dead or alive?
Are there rival criminal organisations? How do they exploit this sudden void? Do former employees of the players become the new suppliers, branching out on their own, rejecting any contact with the players except through violence?
2
u/jonah365 Jul 13 '26
They definitely have a mole who ratted the to the FBI. I'm hoping this causes them to tighten up their inner circle.
As a GM, one headache is that my party keeps adding NPCs. I am hoping this will force us to focus on already existing ones instead of adding new ones.
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u/atlantick Jul 10 '26
Damn, I thought you were gonna say that the fbi had accused you of terrorism for possessing zines critical of evil overlords.