GURPS The Prisoner by David Ladyman is a role playing game supplement published by Steve Jackson Games for use with GURPS Third Edition. The supplement is based on the classic 60s television series The Prisoner which ran for a single season, about an unnamed individual who is abducted and taken to a place known only as The Village where he is questioned as to why he resigned.
The supplement is now only available in physical form second hand from sites such as Amazon and has 96 pages, with one being the front matter, one the Contents and one the Index.
The Introduction talks about the television series, how a British secret agent, known only as Number 6, was captured and taken to a mysterious place known only as The Village where Number 2 and the warders try to discover why he resigned and he tries to escape. It discusses how running a Prisoner campaign is different, because it emphasises roleplaying the mental and psychological features of a character, and some players and GMs will find this difficult. Players may also not want to spend the campaign in the Village, so they can be allowed to escape. Probably. For with the Village, it’s hard to ever truly escape. This section also explains that the book doesn’t fully describe the world of The Prisoner, and that the television show itself wasn’t exactly consistent. Which, given the Village’s nature, is a feature, not a bug.
1. Characters explains that residents of the Village have little in common, and the only thing they do have is that the masters have a use for them. There are no new GURPS advantages or disadvantages in this book, but some are considered more useful to the masters than others and will be more common. There are a couple of recommendations as to choosing them in a Prisoner campaign. Some typical examples of prisoners are described; this includes dependants taken because they mean something to someone who is useful. It also looks at allowing Player Characters to be warders, either openly or secretly, which creates different possibilities. There are also some ways by which the PCs could end up in the Village.
2. The Village starts with Basics for the GM, including where to site the Village, which could be in space, what its purpose is, what the Village wants from the prisoners and who the masters of the village are, which include such as spy agencies, corporations, conspiracies and even aliens. Or perhaps the masters are never revealed. Who might Number 1 be? And, finally, players should never know all the answers. The Village’s map, which comes later, is briefly mentioned, before moving onto the Village’s society. Anyone can be a resident of the Village. Some of the Village’s slogans are also covered.
The Village has a currency, the Work Unit, and some prices are given. Most Villagers have a job of some kind; the payment for such should be completely arbitrary. There is some education in the Village, for there are children present. Almost every resident, including Number 2, has a number and wears a button showing it, though Number 6 almost never does. There are estimates of the Village’s population, details on clothing, for the Village provides its own distinctive clothes.
There are a number of special occurrences, which in keeping with the show often seem to be totally random. The Village is governed and ruled, but how any of these work can change in a completely arbitrary manner. Number 2 is the visible head of the Village and answers to the unseen Number 1, and that’s about the only constant, even though there is a Town Council and other committees. The rules do not seem to be written down anywhere, but Villagers can still be punished for violating them. There is a curfew, when Villagers are not allowed to be out, and the extensive monitoring – including in their own homes – means breaking curfew is difficult. The Village has files on all the residents, often bizarrely extensive. Peer pressure is a way of forcing recalcitrant Villagers to comply.
Various people are then covered, many of them with stats in the sidebars, for individuals, or general stats, for types of NPC. These are the warders, Number 2, with a template to create new ones, the Butler, who is an exception to almost every rule, the Supervisor who is in charge of the Control Room and monitoring the Village, the technicians, scientists and doctors the Village uses, the observers, who are warders assigned with specific residents to keep an eye on, electronically or in person, and guards. Other people are the Village Voice, the unseen woman who makes announcements over the tannoy, the Villagers themselves, who varied in their behaviour from episode to episode but in general are broken to the will of the masters, Number 6, the prisoner who would not be broken, with his stats, and the jammers, who only appear in one episode, who are prisoners that provide concealing chaff to baffle the observers
Places covers the various points of interest in the Village, from important buildings to the homes of the Villagers and the masters, to the booths where various things can be bought as well as free information points, and the underground complex, with various areas in that. There are descriptions and stats for the various vehicles available in the Village and a map of the Village itself.
3. Alternative Realities explains that, as demonstrated in one episode, the Village itself isn’t necessary for a Prisoner campaign. It looks at where the Village is appropriate, and where it isn’t; in some contexts, the Village as seen in the series does not fit, and needs to be modified. It looks at the general principles behind the Village. There needs to be a general reason for its existence, for it to be a closed environment and the impossibility of determining “us” and “them” in an “us versus them” environment.
Different genres are looked at, with fantasy, horror, including the Cabal from GURPS Horror, and a Village where all the prisoners are supernatural creatures, and the masters of the Village in other times. It looks at the GURPS Space Village, which could be a satellite or even a whole planet, the Western Village and translating the setting to medieval. Sidebars look at dream worlds, campaigns outside the Village that visit it at some point and the psi Village of imprisoned psi-users. This supplement would seem like an ideal fit for GURPS Illuminati; that isn’t mentioned, because GURPS The Prisoner was released prior to Illuminati; the supplement is still a useful adjunct to an Illuminati campaign.
4. Campaigns starts by explaining that the PCs, unlike most settings, are underdogs and will remain that way, and the masters of the Village have incredible powers. Which isn’t suitable for some players, who can’t handle the lack of control. There are no automatic victories over their opponents, and in fact victories can be rare or bear poisoned fruit. The GM must also be capable, because by the nature of the setting, they can easily crush the players.
The PCs, like Number 6, are important; otherwise, Number 2 would have simply drained Number 6, and so it will be with the PCs. When Number 2 makes threats, the GM can use them on NPCs to show that they can be made good on. The GM must also be sure to make things fun for the players; for one thing, in the Village, the rules are always changing. What was true in one episode isn’t in another and vice versa. A sidebar looks at how the campaign might begin.
There is next a section on planning adventures, with a sidebar explaining that in a Prisoner campaign, they is often no need for an adversary, and physical combat is less common than the average. There is a diagram looking at potential adventure flow and a sidebar on the fact that the Village is a surreal place.
This is followed by how to produce a television series campaign, looking at the televisions series itself and breaking down adventures into three types; initiated by Number 2, initiated by prisoners and a combination of both. Each adventure would be a single episode of the series, and the series “bible” is the worldbook.
Another suggestion is to have multiple GMs running a Prisoner campaign, taking it in turns to be player or GM. Two main advantages for this type of campaign are given. The first is that the GM in a Prisoner campaign is working in a campaign which is basically set up to allow the GM to do whatever they want. By swapping GMs, different people get toe experience, and understand, what running such a campaign is like. The second is that almost every episode of The Prisoner has a new Number 2.
Distrust and paranoid are covered, because such is a fundamental part of a Prisoner campaign. Characters don’t know who they can trust, and that includes other characters. The setting likely has a higher level of deliberate paranoia than any game but Paranoia. There are details on how to use ringers amongst the PCs, and a sidebar on how to handle such, and on introducing new PCs. “Hammer Into Anvil” demonstrated just how paranoid could be used. Another sidebar covers atmosphere and props, and the Village typeface – and spelling.
Escape looks at the possibility of escape. Escape does seem like it might be possible. Or not; Number 6’s escapes usually ended up with him back in the Village. Characters who escape might not even remember the Village, and a sidebar looks at how difficult it might be for an escapee to convince anyone where they were. Death is also a possibility in the setting, though most dangers are not of a physical nature. It also looks at characters can have successes, as Number 6 did, but they will also have failures. Sidebars look at the cover up, playing one-on-one and the penny farthing symbol.
Ending the campaign is considered. There are different ways this can be done, and the characters may come to discover who the masters of the Village are. Which could be practically anyone – or anything – depending on the setting. Characters may escape victoriously, or be permanently pursued. The Village has a good side too; everyone is housed, fed, watered, treated, entertained and believes they have a voice in what’s happening. Just normally at the expense of personal choice. Lastly, the chapter looks at awarding character points.
5. Weird Science looks at the technology of the Village, which tends towards the science fantasy not the science fiction of the near now. A sidebar looks at how some of the technology portrayed was clearly obsolete when this supplement was written; it’s now even more so. Either the Village can remain in the 60s, or the technology can be updated.
There are some general examples of handling technology; the series did show a wide range of things. Specific examples include dreams and manipulating them, shock treatment, hypnotic effects, rapid learning, mind-switching-, mind-wiping, strange drugs, combinations of different technologies, telepathy and other psionic powers, implants, force fields, technology that works when it should have been broken, predicting behaviour, psychological manipulation, surgery, resurrection and cloning. To a large degree, if a GM decides they want a technology, or want technology to do something, it’s available.
6. Arrival is a starting adventure that gets characters to the Village. It has some similarities to the episode of the same name, but is more general. The characters are looking for an NPC who has gone missing, and following the trail results in them being taken to the Village, where they will get an introduction as to just what that will mean for them.
Plot Synopses gives brief summaries of the episodes in the series.
Bibliography has a list of organisations, publications, music and background material that is of use, though physical addresses may now be dated, given how old the supplement is.
GURPS The Prisoner in Review
The Contents covers the major sections, subsections and important sidebars. The Index is thorough. Navigation is decent. The text follows a single column with sidebar format and appeared to be free of errors. The sidebars are used for a variety of things, such as stats, quotes from the series, which are the most common and are usually picked due to their relevance to whatever is in the associated text, and the occasional illustration. There are also a variety of thematic black and white illustrations. Presentation is decent.
Naturally, this cannot be used by itself; it’s a GURPS worldbook, after all, not a game. However, it doesn’t necessarily need GURPS to play it. Much of the information can be used with other systems. The setting itself is an unusual one, as befits one of the most unusual television series ever shown. The setting is a flexible one and a place where fact and fiction are not necessarily different, or even the same from week to week. The supplement could be used as an adjunct to another campaign, as mentioned, or it could be the entire campaign.
It is, however, rather different to run and play. The GM gets to use their omniscience and omnipotence to a level that isn’t usually the case, so it’s harder to run without making players largely irrelevant. As it is, they have less agency than usual, and the addition of, justified, paranoia, may make it harder for players to deal with in real life. Such matters need to be considered beforehand. The setting is flexible enough that it would work with a variety of campaigns, but perhaps those based around odder matters would fit best. GURPS The Prisoner is a decent attempt at rendering one of the stranger television series around into a setting.
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