GMing help, clever uses of psi

[L.J.Steele]

Setting is 1990s, super spies vs. the occult (Project: Pegasus playtest). My spies have learned that a group of Psis (in this case TK/body augmentation powers (really fast, strong, dexterous, etc) are trying to get psi enhancers from Soviet defectors from their super spy agency (equipped with cool Q gadgets). The PCs are trying to steal the gadget/substitute a fake without either side realizing the other isn't the one betraying them.

What sort of cool things might one do with TK/body augment psi to make an exchange in a very public place in Istanbul. I'm thinking the target object is a briefcase (padded) with some very breakable vials in it. (Looking for clever/novel uses of psi to be the obstacle for the PCs)

[xerxes]

Can't think of a way to make TK useful for a switcheroo out in an open, public place.

But, thinking of psi made me think of squirting water in the keyhole of a door and using cryokinesis to freeze water and immobilize the mechanism.

[RogerBW]

Really fast shell game, swapping briefcases back and forth so that any watcher can't tell which is the real one and they have to split their forces to go after all three.

Throwing a case accurately out of a high window to a confederate on the ground.

Filling one of the decoy cases with something heavy, using augmented strength to disguise this - and then burst it open at a crucial moment. Marbles? Currency to make an instant crowd?

[khorboth]

What if the case weighs 75 lbs?

Or if the "ID code" is making an improbable but not-to-bad shot into a trashcan?

Or... do they have super-senses? is the code for the case written somewhere where you'd have to do something odd to read it without telescopic vision?

Is the "case" a waterbottle and done at a big skatepark?

[Anaraxes]

Originally Posted by xerxes

But, thinking of psi...

I thought of putting the combination lock for the case on the inside, so you need clairvoyance to see it and TK to manipulate it. Naturally, opening the case with brute force would damage those delicate glass vials.

But the OP doesn't really suggest Team Bad Guys are expected to have clairvoyants. "Anything psi" gets to be a pretty broad field, so probably better not to open that door.

TK can lend a bonus to many skills. Combine that with super-DX and you're looking at tricks that need cinematically high skills to pull off -- pickpocketing and planting vials, even on innocent fellow travellers. With TK, you don't actually have to get within touch range of someone to transfer a vial. The actual psis making the transfer also never have to get near each other. The psi agents might even be at different tube stations, especially if they know or can constrain where the subjects get off, say the last few stations at the end of a line.

Put in a flash mob performance as a distraction. They have nothing to do with the transfer (though they might be an intentional distraction). But the PCs can notice various people that have similarities in dress and are acting oddly purposefully, so they can waste time following them around before their act begins.

[ericthered]

TK can be used to put and retrieve objects from unlikely locations, like up high on something, or down a tube too narrow to crawl down.

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

I thought of putting the combination lock for the case on the inside, so you need clairvoyance to see it and TK to manipulate it. Naturally, opening the case with brute force would damage those delicate glass vials.

If the idea is to destroy the items if the package is opened wrong, then sticking a glass cover or electric grid over the combination hooked up to destroying the vials could achieve a similar effect.

[ckosacranoid]

You do not need psi for this silly idea, 15 different groups want the case, everyone has made a copy of it and on the day the pcs switch the case everyone else does also. The case gets changed so many times no one is sure which is the real case and to top it off some random people pick up and case by chance during a switch and some one then swaps it again and again and all the cases come into play.

[thrash]

Super-parkour: leap to the top of Republic Monument, dodge in and out of traffic, swing through the trees in Taksim Gezl Park, run along overhead power lines, climb the Marmara Taksim Hotel...

Get rid of an annoying tail by flipping open the cell phone in their pocket and pressing "dial." My vague recollection is that most phones of that era would re-dial the last number called. This could be interesting for the PC's...

Kung-fu grip: allow the TK to exert extreme hand strength to hold on to the briefcase.

Railgun: flick coins (or other small, dense objects) surreptitiously but with great power and accuracy. Some to distract (break a street light), some to damage.

[Þorkell]

Originally Posted by thrash

Get rid of an annoying tail by flipping open the cell phone in their pocket and pressing "dial." My vague recollection is that most phones of that era would re-dial the last number called. This could be interesting for the PC's...

FWIW flip phones were more popular in the US than in Europe. So it's more likely that the annoying tail would have a non-flip phone with a keyboard lock.

[Anaraxes]

Originally Posted by ckosacranoid

You do not need psi for this silly idea

Certainly. But psi is in the game, so it behooves the no doubt egotistical psi-wielding Homo superior members of Team Bad Guys to come up with schemes that show off or depend upon their gifts which no mortal has :) If all the scenes and puzzles are mundane, then it might as well be a mundane super-spy game.