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!

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. You might also want to find out which retailers will be exhibiting at the con, and contact them in advance to ask them to stock the games you're demoing.

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 Private 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!

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	Private	500 points	Captain
50 points	Corporal	1000 points	Major
100 points	Sergeant	2000 points	Colonel
200 points	Lieutenant	5000 points	General

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 a product-by-product 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. Allow 4 to 6 weeks for shipping. In addition to the products on the price list, also available to Special Ops members are a number of PDFs of out-of-print books, 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. Please specify t-shirt size when ordering. Again, use the Hazard Pay Order Form to order these items; DO NOT try to order through Warehouse23 or e23 directly.

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.

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.

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 .rtf file. Please understand that we're not able to provide fonts, since our licenses for them usually allow in-house use only. (See What The Font to indentify and find comparable fonts.) We also can't provide layout files or images, and translations will be posted as-is (we won't edit them or lay them out).

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.

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