TEXT: McGUFFIN 
  By Jeff Chaffee 
  You and your team have been tasked with stealing…something.  It don’t pay to ask many questions…it pays to get the job done.  
   
  ITEMS NEEED: at least 1d8 for each player, standard deck of cards with two Jokers.  Mark one Joker “red” and the other “black.” 
   
  GOLDEN RULE #1: Don’t Sweat the Suits. 
  Whenever a rule references cards, only pay attention to red/black.  The suits are as below and used just for shorthand: 
   
  Standard Suits 
  HEARTS ♥ 
  DIAMONDS ♦ 
  SPADES ♠ 
  CLUBS♣ 
  PLAYER SKILLS 
  Contacts 
  Brains 
  Weapons 
  Tools  
  MASTERMIND DECKS 
  The Staff 
  The Schematic 
  The Guards 
  The Locks 
   
  GOLDEN RULE #2: CARDS ARE WORTH WHAT THEY’RE PRINTED (USUALLY). 
  Aces are always 1.  Jacks are 11, Queens 12, Kings 13.  The Red Joker is 0 and always a success for the player, while the Black Joker is 14 and always a failure 
  to the player. 
   
  MAKING A CHARACTER: 
  Give your character a name, then decide what their specialty is.  Write this on 
  your character card.  Don’t worry too much about assigning this specialty to a 
  skill score as yet.  Sample specialties are things like “John Woo Guns,” 
  “getaway driving,” “parkour,” “conman” or “hacking.”  Anything can be a 
  specialty (well, aside from “instantly win the game” or something), so use this 
  as a chance to get very creative. 
   
  Next, the GM (the MASTERMIND) deals out four face-down cards.  Announce 
  which skill you’re rolling for from the table above then roll 1d8 while the 
  Mastermind flips the card.   
   When your announced skill matches the color of flipped card, add your roll 
  and card modifier to a max score of 10.   
   If the card’s color does not match the skill’s (say you rolled for Tools (black) 
  and flipped diamonds (red) for example), subtract the card modifier to a 
  minimum score of 0.  You can’t have more than one skill at 0. 
   
  CARD MODIFIERS:  
  When the card flipped is ABOVE your roll (say an 8♥ when you rolled 4), the 
  modifier is +/-2.  When the flip equals your roll, No change.  When the flip is 
  UNDER your roll (say 4♥ on a roll of 5), the modifier is +/-1.   
   
  Overall, these results are called your Base Skills.  Your highest Base Skill is 
  also your character’s Health, used when actively doing something that could 
  harm you. 
  THE HIDEOUT:  
  After all players have their Skills scores, the Mastermind collects the cards 
  dealt out, then shuffles and deals out four piles to form the Hideout Area, four 
  decks as follows:  
  1. The Locks (♣)—the actual mechanisms for guarding whatever it is you’re 
  stealing: locks, laser grids, death traps, safes…if it’s designed to keep you 
  out, it’s a check vs. the Locks deck, which players will use their Tools 
  versus. 
  2. The Staff (♥)—insiders at the place you’re robbing.  They can be 
  accessories to your acts (like the disgruntled teller giving you safe 
  combinations), bystanders, hostages, or just rubes you plan on exploiting.  
  Whenever your success or failure depends on having a man on the inside, 
  use the Staff deck; players use their Contacts skill versus the Staff. 
  3. The Law (♠)—police, feds, agents, and private eyes.  If it’s a person 
  whose job it is to stop you at all costs, make your check against the Law 
  deck.  When making a check vs. the Law, use your Weapons skill. 
  4. The Schematic (♦)—casing the joint, knowing alarm systems, hacking a 
  computer network…if you need to know about the target’s physical 
  location or attributes, make a check against the Schematics using your 
  Brains skill.  
   
  WHO’S IN CHARGE HERE? The Mastermind takes on a dual role.  
  First, she guides the story of the game by laying out what your crew is to steal.  
  Secondly, she’s in change of setting up the various challenges your crew will 
  take.  Also, remember that the Mastermind is in fact a mastermind, so they 
  also adjudicate the game, coming up with fair and logical answers when 
  questions come up. Lastly, the Mastermind can reward imagination/good 
  roleplay with bonuses or punish laziness with penalties at her discretion. 
   
  PULLING THE JOB:  
  McGuffin doesn’t use a traditional initiative like other games; players may add 
  an action at any time.  However, the Mastermind can direct traffic by asking 
  particular team members what their plan is.  A general rule of thumb for 
  players is to attempt at most two actions then let someone else do the same.  
  When a player takes their turn, they suggest a course of action, like “I try to 
  dodge all the moving lasers.”  The Mastermind then sets up a Check by asking 
  the following questions: 
  1. 
  Which part of the Hideout does this action fit into? 
  2. 
  Which skill score does the action key off of? 
  3. 
  Does this work with the player’s specialty?   
   
  Using the “dodging lasers” example, here’s how the Mastermind process 
  works. 
  1) 
  Lithely maneuvering a laser grid requires knowledge of the alarm 
  system, so use the Schematics. 
  2) 
  Schematics checks use Brains as their key skill. 
  3) 
  The player took “Flirts with a Teller” as a specialty (which is more 
  than likely a Contacts skill).  So no, not a match. No additional 
  bonuses happen here. 
   
   
  MAKING A CHECK:  
  Successes and failures are gauged by the color-match rule, similar to building 
  skills scores.  When flips match colors on skills, you succeed by having a skill 
  check ABOVE the flipped card.  When the skill/flip do not match, you succeed 
  when your check is under the card.  The card is flipped first.  Then: 
  Check your base skill.  
  Does your move already 
  succeed? 
  YES 
  Hell yeah!  The move succeeds. 
  NO 
  No sweat.  Roll d8 
  You’ve rolled 1d8; add your 
  Skill score.  Do you pass 
  the check? 
  YES 
  Cool.  Move onto either another 
  action or pass to another player. 
  NO 
  Oh well.  Better luck next time. 
  Players may not have consecutive automatic successes, either using two 
  actions per turn OR on back-to-back turns. 
   
  BONUSES AND MISCELLANEOUS STUFF:  
   
  Any tie that results during a check favors the player.   
   
  Look back over there a second.  See how it says something about 
  Specialties giving bonuses?  When the Mastermind agrees that 
  your specialty applies to the check, she can give up to a +3 to the 
  check at her direction.   
   
  Whenever a Hideout Deck runs out, the Mastermind collects all 
  four decks, shuffles and re-deals each Hideout. 
   
   
  
  McGUFFIN 
  By Jeff Chaffee 
  FIGHTING:  
  If it were easy to steal stuff, seems like more people would be stealing stuff, 
  right?  It’s likely that at some point one or more of your players are going to 
  get into a fight of some type with cops, security, or each other (no honor 
  among thieves, right?). 
   
  All fights begin as Opposed checks vs. Guards♠.  This means that both sides 
  of the fight will roll (that’s the opposed part) and that the player will add his 
  Weapons♠ value. 
   
  IN PLAYER VS. PLAYER FIGHTS: Both will roll, add their weapons, and 
  check vs. the flipped card.  Whoever succeeds by a wider margin is the winner 
  of the fight and deals damage to the other player’s health equal to the 
  difference between their success and the flipped card.  If both players fail, they 
  each take 1 Damage.   
  For instance, Travis is Fighting against Christine.  The Guards♠ flip is 7♥.  
  Since this is a check using Weapons♠, the colors don’t match so a success 
  would be 7 or less.  The person damaging is in bold italics below: 
  TRAVIS 
  GUARDS 
  CHRISTINE 
  Roll: 2 
  Weapons♠ Skill Score: 4 
  TOTAL: 6 (success!) 
  Damage: 1 (7-6=1) 7 
  ♥ 
  Roll: 6 
  Weapons♠ Skill Score: 3 
  TOTAL: 9 (Fail) 
  Roll: 2 
  Weapons♠ Skill Score: 4 
  TOTAL: 6 (success by 1) 
   
  Roll: 1 
  Weapons♠ Skill Score: 3 
  TOTAL: 4 (Success, by 3) 
  Damage 3 (7-4) 
  Roll: 8 
  Weapons♠ Skill Score: 3 
  TOTAL: 11 (Fail) 
  Take a damage 
  Roll: 7 
  Weapons♠ Skill Score: 3 
  TOTAL: 10 (Fail) 
  Take a Damage 
   
  IN FIGHT VS. NON-PLAYER CHARACTERS, such as the team shooting 
  back at police, the only change is that the NPCs won’t have a Weapons value.  
  To compensate, apply another color match.  When the flip is Black (Guards 
  runs off ♠, remember), double the die roll.  When it doesn’t halve the roll 
  (round down) and add it to the roll.  When players succeed, the person they’re 
  fighting is taken out of the fight; when NPCs win, the player takes damage 
  equal to the difference of the result. 
   
  TRAVIS 
  GUARDS 
  GUARD RESULT 
  Roll: 2 
  Weapons♠ Skill Score: 4 
  TOTAL: 6 (FAIL) 
  7♣ 
  Roll: 5 The flip is a Black 
  suit, so this becomes 10, a 
  success.  Travis takes 4 
  Damage 
  Roll: 6 
  Weapons♠ Skill Score: 4 
  TOTAL: 10 (success) 
   
  Q♥ 
  Roll: 2. Halve this (1) since 
  it’s a Red suit; a total of 3.  
  This NPC is toast. 
   
  HEALING DAMAGE: Field surgery or painkillers (or both) are handy.  A player 
  can choose to fail any single check to heal 1d8 damage once per phase of the 
  game (Casing/Heist/Getaway). 
   
  CHARACTER DEATHS: If a PC is ever reduced by Damage to 0 Health, they 
  are dead and can no longer take part in the robbery.  In addition, whenever a 
  player dies, the rest of the team takes -1d8 to their check total on their next 
  check (roll and flip first; then the Mastermind rolls the -1d8 penalty). 
  A THREE-PART PLAN…   
  Your heist is a multi-layered endeavor.  As the game opens, your team is in 
  the CASING stage, where they meet at their headquarters and receive their 
  marching orders, share intel, etc.   
   
  Next is the actual dirty work, the HEIST stage.  Here your crew is executing 
  their plan hatched during the Casing stage.  The HEIST has a special 
  condition—called the Combination—that needs to be completed in order to 
  advance the storyline. 
   
  Lastly, there is the GETAWAY stage, where either you’re beating a 
  professional retreat with the goods back to the headquarters, the police are 
  stopping you, or a little of both. 
   
  CASING the joint: Most of your checks during this stage would be 
  the training montage of a heist picture: tough guys hitting heavy bags, 
  sharpshooters at the range, making false IDs and poring over technical 
  blueprints.  You’ll advance past Casing when the Mastermind has heard good 
  table-talk about how to get around those items that can be planned for and 
  once all players have succeeded on 4 checks. 
   
  Pulling the HEIST: Your checks and roleplay here all should be 
  about how you are going to do the things needed to successfully rob this 
  place.  In order to move on, your team needs a total of 4 successes per 
  player, then must face the Combination.  Here, each person is dealt one 
  facedown card from each of the Hideout decks and must succeed on 2/4 
  checks; additionally, at least half (rounded down) of your team must meet this 
  2/4 successes rule to actually obtain the target of the Heist.  Regardless of the 
  Combination outcome, once it is either passed or failed, move on. 
   
  Making your GETAWAY: Your ease of escaping is highly 
  dependent on how your Combination section goes. 
   
  On a Team Success (e.g. over half of the team passed their Hideout checks), 
  Things start easily enough, but in order to make a clean escape, you must 
  pass a check before even declaring an action.  Success here allows you to 
  take a normal action with its resulting checks. 
   
  On a Team Failure, you start off in deep trouble.  Begin the round with an 
  immediate check using each player’s weakest skill score vs. the deck of their 
  choosing.  Those that pass may attempt to leave the building they have 
  robbed.  All checks for those leaving are at -2 to their rolls, so now is a great 
  time for ensuring you’re using those specialties to earn bonuses.  Before 
  taking an action, all players leaving must also succeed a Fight check first. 
   
  It is 100% possible that your team could fail utterly, be gunned down in the 
  vault, and lose everything…so best be sure your Casing plans AND Heist 
  rounds go well! 
     
  “Looking at the Fountain”—or—“One last Word:” Remember that regardless of the outcome or the tension at the table, McGufffin is 
  meant to be a fun way to play cops and robbers.  And remember that those at the table, roleplay or no roleplay, are your friends.  Bickering over rules or 
  purposely trying to cheat?  Don’t be that guy.  Additionally, the author, publisher, play-testers, etc. do not condone using McGuffin as an actual planning exercise 
  for any kind of illicit activities.  Seriously, don’t be that guy either.  Tom Hanks will never agree to play you in the movie. 
  
SOURCE: textdata/thevault/Other (Unique) Systems/Top Secret Games Two Page Tabletops/McGuffin A Heist Picture RPG.pdf