Welcome to Special Ops Command
The goal of the Special Ops demo team is to teach others
about our games by running demos, in an
enthusiastic, friendly, outgoing manner. Remember that the impression
you make on others is what they'll think of Atlas Games.
Make sure that everyone's having fun, and you'll do fine.
Here's how the Special Ops demo team works …
Special Ops Discussion
Group
The
Special
Ops Discussion Group is the place to get tips on how
to run demos, compare experiences with other Special Ops
demo team members, and become part of the Special Ops community.
You can ask questions of Atlas Games staff, see what conventions
and stores have requested demos, post pictures of your demos, and keep
track of your Hazard Pay on the group's web page. The discussion
group is a great place to get started!
Demos
The next step is to arrange a demo at your friendly local
games store or convention. (Note that demos for gaming clubs
don't count for hazard pay.) For store demos, download and
print a Demo Poster from the selection in the right bar of this page, then contact the store owner and arrange a time
to run your event. Next, fill out the Demo Poster (and optional
Demo Sign-Up Sheet, if appropriate) and place it somewhere
conspicuous in the store at least a week in advance, after
getting the owner's permission. For conventions, just contact
the organizer and submit their standard form for GMing an
event; be sure to turn it in on time so that you're listed
in the convention's program.
In both cases, arrive at your event at least 10 minutes
ahead of time, and be sure to look professional and come
prepared: bring paper, pencils, extra dice, RPG game books
or a copy of the card or board game, your demo adventure
with pregenerated PCs to hand out, extra rules or cheat
sheets to hand out, and a
Mission Report printout, for example.
Placing a Demo Poster on the table you're assigned helps
people find you, and you can also print out a
Special
Ops Mook Badge from the left bar of this page, if you
like, for added visibility; the badge can be inserted into
the plastic cover of a standard convention badge, which
we're pretty sure you might even have already. We also suggest
that you read through the adventure or game rules the day
before your event so they're fresh in your mind.
Right after the event finishes, fill out the Mission Report
and have the store owner or convention organizer sign it
on the "Event Sponsor Signature" line, then send
it in to us along with your verification material (some
item that confirms that the demo took place ... see the
Mission Report form for more on this). Be sure to get it
to us within one month of the event.
You're welcome to run demos of any of the games listed
on the
Special
Ops Application form, but we ask that you run them true
to themselves rather than using house rules systems or alternate
settings. Remember, it's all about recruiting customers
and increasing sales, and that means giving players a true
sense of what our games are all about!
Hazard Pay
Whenever you run a demo or tournament and send in a complete
Mission Report, you earn Hazard Pay that you can exchange
for Atlas Games products. If two or more Special Ops members
team up to run a single event, list everyone's name on the
same Mission Report and the Hazard Pay will be split among
you. As you gain Hazard Pay, your rank will also go up and
you'll be emailed a new Special Ops Badge at each level:
| Hazard Pay |
Rank |
Hazard Pay |
Rank |
| 0 points |
Mook |
500 points |
Magus |
| 50 points |
Grog |
1000 points |
Godwalker |
| 100 points |
Companion |
2000 points |
Pharaoh |
| 200 points |
Avatar |
1,000,000 points |
Invisible Clergy |
Special Ops members earn 5 Hazard Pay points for each hour
of scheduled demo time during which an event is run; "no-show"
events earn 5 points, but you must stay for at least 1/2
hour to be sure no one comes late. We periodically run promotions
giving extra points, also; for example, oftentimes we'll
offer "double points" (10 HP per hour) for demos
of a new release or to Special Ops members who work at the Atlas Games
booth at a convention. You can also earn
5 Hazard Pay points for signing up another member when that
member reaches 50 Hazard Pay points; just make sure you're
listed on the "Referred By" line of the new demo team member's
original application, and we'll do the rest. To see your
total Hazard Pay points and how many points you have left
to spend, see the
Current
Hazard Pay Totals database on the Special Ops discussion
group web page. Atlas Games may make random calls to store
owners and convention organizers to see how events went,
and reserves the right to deny Hazard Pay to anyone who
gives misinformation on a Mission Report.
Nearly any product on the Atlas Games web site can be
bought with Hazard Pay on a 1 point equals $1 US basis,
and we'll take care of the shipping cost to US addresses
for one order per member per month; if you order more than
once in a 30-day period, or if you live outside of the US,
we ask that you pay the shipping cost (more on this can
be found on the Hazard Pay Order Form). Always round retail
prices to the nearest dollar when converting into Hazard
Pay. We're not able to take "pre-orders" on products
that haven't yet been released, and Atlas reserves the right
to disallow using Hazard Pay to buy items on an individual
basis; for example, the print-on-demand novel
The Rough
and the Smooth, some items that are running low, and
out-of-print products are not available for Hazard Pay.
You can check on what products are available by downloading the current
Atlas
Games Items Price List just before you order, then fill
out the
Hazard Pay Order Form and send it to us (NOTE: DO NOT try to order through Warehouse23 or e23 directly). Allow 4 to 6 weeks for shipping.
In addition to the products on the Items Price List, also available to Special Ops members are a number of
PDFs of out-of-print books, and
Special Ops
demo team t-shirts, Atlas Games
product
t-shirts, and other limited-availability items; a complete list these additional items
can be found on the
Supplementary
Price List (choose SOsupplement.rtf in the Files directory). Please specify t-shirt size when ordering.
Again, use the Hazard Pay Order Form to order these items.
Quarterly Drawings
Each quarter
at the end of March, June, September,
and December, every Special Ops member who has run
a demo during that three-month time period is entered into
the Quarterly Drawing. The Current Hazard Pay Totals database is used to keep track of who has qualified for the current
quarter's drawing, and each Special Ops member can qualify
a maximum of once per drawing regardless of how many demos
he or she runs that quarter. The Special Ops member whose
name is picked in the drawing can choose one of the unique
or limited-quantity Atlas Games items on the Quarterly
Drawing Prize List for participating in the Special
Ops demo team. Winners will be announced via the Special
Ops discussion group.
Submitting Demo Adventures
Atlas Games welcomes your efforts to improve the Special
Ops demo team's performance. If you develop and send in
a demo adventure for one of our RPGs that we think is a
good addition to our arsenal, we'll post it on the Special Ops Yahoogroup for other Special Ops members to run and credit you with 20 HP. Such a demo adventure will be posted as-is (we won't edit it or lay it out), but it remains the property of the author.
Demo adventures should be able to
be run in about 3 hours (5,000 words or less us usally plenty),
and must include 6 pregenerated characters; they should
be introductory adventures that can be played by someone
with no previous experience with the game mechanics and
setting. Ideally, we want an adventure that can be completed
in just a few discrete encounters; encounters that can be
removed from the adventure without throwing off the climax
are good to include, though, in case the players need extra
time to understand rules, discuss the basic setting, etc.
Demo adventures can be emailed to the Special Ops Coordinator as an .rtf or .pdf file.
Submitting Translations
If you translate the all-purpose demo poster or of any
of the game rules, cheat sheets, or demo adventures posted
on this page, email it to the Special
Ops Coordinator. If we think it's a good addition to the
demo program, we'll post it here and credit you with 5 HP for shorter downloads like posters, and 20 HP for longer pieces like demo adventures and game rules.
Work compensated for in this way becomes the property of Atlas Games; please keep the original credits from the game in your rules translation and add your own name as "Translator" to it, since the credits includes our legal text. Note that we will not accept a Special Ops translation of a game if we've already licensed the translation of it to another publishing company. Translations can be sent
either as a .pdf if you have the ability to work within
the download file, or as a Word document or .rtf file. Please understand that we're not able to provide fonts, since our licenses for them usually allow in-house use only.
Confidentiality
In general, we're happy to have fans put up links to the
Atlas Games web site (and to any downloads on our web site)
from their own web pages. We'd rather have you make a link,
though, instead of mounting the download file on your own
site, so that we can keep an accurate count of how many
downloads we're getting. The Special Ops secret web page
(the page you're reading right now) is a little different,
though, since some of the material on it is confidential
(like the Current Hazard Pay Totals database) and other
things are exclusive to Special Ops and not available to
the public (like the "Haunted Kraal" Nyambe demo adventure).
In general, if you can find a link to something on the Special
Ops page elsewhere on the Atlas Games site, feel free to
link to the public-access download as long as you attribute
it to Atlas. But please try not to redistribute exclusive
Special Ops material.
Contacting Special Ops Command
If you have any questions or problems, please contact our
Special Ops Coordinator. Good luck!
Atlas Games
ATTN: Special Ops
885 Pierce Butler Route
St. Paul, MN 55104 USA
Phone: (651) 638-0077
Fax: (651) 638-0084
Email: specialops@atlas-games.com
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