Hostage Negotiator is a Solo Tabletop Game by Van Ryder Games, who later made Final Girl based on this game's system. In it, you play the role of the titular negotiator, faced with a Hostage Situation. Your goal is to get at least half the hostages out alive and apprehend or eliminate the Abductor.
Each turn is broken into three phases: Conversation, Spend, and Terror. In the Conversation phase, you play cards from your hand, trying to build up Conversation points and free hostages. The Spend phase sees you spending the points you built up to acquire more cards, which give you access to stronger abilities. Finally, the Terror phase is the Abductor's reaction, which may involve killing hostages, making further demands, or escalating hostilities.
There are three main sets and ten Abductor Packs (each of which use unique mechanics) currently available:
- Hostage Negotiator - The basic game, containing the necessary parts to run it and three Abductors: terrorist Arkayne, deranged college professor Donna, and desperate father Edward.
- Hostage Negotiator: Crime Wave - A stand-alone expansion that can be played by itself but which is fully compatible with the original. Contains the necessary parts and three new Abductors: Barret, Lijah, and Renesha.
- Hostage Negotiator: Career - A Grand Finale of sorts for the game, this requires both previous expansions and several Abductor Packs, but contains the rules and parts needed to run a multi-game campaign across the breadth of the negotiator's career.
Abductor Packs
- Abductor Pack 1: Connor E. Ogden - After being used as the scapegoat for his company failing, Connor took the board of directors hostage. However, one of the hostages has found a way to communicate with the police undetected...
- Abductor Pack 2: The Pedersen Twins - Rolph and Dolph Pedersen, twin brothers and smugglers, have seized control of a Port Authority building. Both must be dealt with, and their frequent feuding means you'll sometimes have to risk angering one to get concessions from the other.
- Abductor Pack 3: Lieutenant Jackson - Accused of murdering the chief of police, Lieutenant Jackson insists he's innocent and has taken hostages to force a more thorough investigation. Some of the hostages are on his side, meaning you need to talk them down before you can get them out.
- Abductor Pack 4: Gonzalo Herrera - Gonzalo, a fugitive on the run, has taken over a bus and is holding the other passengers hostage as he makes his way to the border. Not only do you have to save the passengers, but you need to stop the bus before he makes it into Mexico.
- Abductor Pack 5: Circle of Automa - A local cult has come under siege from the FBI. Your job is to talk the cultists down before this turns into another Waco. In this pack, the Abductors and the hostages are the same people, and they're not leaving without a fight.
- Abductor Pack 6: The Seavers Family - With his marriage in ruins and his life falling apart, Clive Seavers has kidnapped his children and put them into the custody of his sister. At the first sign of trouble, Tina will disappear, putting you on a tightrope as you try to handle Clive.
- Abductor Pack 7: Valerie Stone - Valerie was the second-best negotiator in the department. You were the first. She's finally had enough and rigged up a hostage situation to prove her superiority. She knows all your tricks, so you'll have to think outside the box for this one.
- Abductor Pack 8: Samuel Xavier - Driven mad by his withdrawal-induced migraines, Samuel has taken his rehab center hostage. You must not only talk Samuel down, but mitigate the worst of his symptoms - when he's in pain, he can't think rationally.
- Abductor Pack 9: Misha Koskinin - Misha is a major influencer on social media - and a lightning rod for controversy. As protestors surround her latest venue, she's holding her fans hostage. Misha is extremely paranoid, which you can exploit by giving into her petty demands... but her protestors will riot if they think you're favoring her too much.
- Abductor Pack 10: Inco0gn1t0 - Cyber-criminal Inc0gn1t0 has planted a bomb somewhere in the city. Not only do you need to identify and find the criminal before you can apprehend them, but you also need to shut down their bomb before several city blocks go up in smoke.
Other Expansions
- Negotiator Packs: All of the negotiator cards included has a single use ability that you may add to the game.
- Abductor Unknown: A special abductor that gets revealed when you concede a demand.
- Alternative Finale packs change up the finale for the Career Expansion.
- Career Year 0: An expansion for the Career Expansion that adds another year to the campaign.
- Demand packs 1 and 2: Adds new demand and terror cards for the abductors in the base game and Crime Wave alongside abductor packs 1 to 8, pivotal events and terror cards that can be used with any abductor.
- Frustration Die: A special once per game die that you may roll and has 5 successes and one X symbol. If you roll the X symbol, you'll lose.
This game contains examples of:
- All There in the Manual: Each abductor and negotiator has their backstory printed on the backs of their respective cards.
- Death or Glory Attack: Conceding an Escape Demand can give you a significant boost, but you have literally just handed the Abductor an escape route. If you don't win by the end of the turn, it's over - you lose.
- Driven to Suicide: Very likely to happen with Clive, who has crossed the Despair Event Horizon. If you're not careful, he'll kill himself, which will cause you to lose the game if you haven't rescued his children yet.
- Going Postal: Donna flipped out when she was denied tenure yet again. The next day, when her class started, instead of a lesson plan she drew two Glocks.
- Healthcare Motivation: Edward is holding the hospital hostage because he can't afford treatment for his son. If you can provide said treatment, he'll immediately give up.
- Hostage Situation: The game. Every Abductor puts their own twists on it, but at the end of the day, you need to save the innocent from the people holding them at gunpoint.
- Instant-Win Condition: Fulfilling Edward's "Healthcare" Demand will immediately win the game, as he releases the hostages and surrenders once his son receives treatment.
- It Only Works Once: Valerie Stone's gimmick is that, being a hostage negotiator herself, she knows what you're doing and will call you out if she thinks you're trying to use techniques on her. This is represented by her Rival cards, which can remove categories of Conversation cards from the game; once she realizes you're using specific tactics, you have to abandon them.
- Last-Second Chance: The Pivotal Event is the bottom card in the Terror Deck, and usually puts a lot of pressure on you - but while it's up, you can spend Conversation Points as you acquire them, letting you draw out your last chance to save the hostages. There's also a player-activated version of this, Escape Demands (crossing over with Death or Glory Attack) - conceding them gives you powerful bonuses, but if you haven't won the game by the end of the turn, the Abductor escapes and you lose.
- Luck Manipulation Mechanic:
- The "What I Meant to Say" cards allow you to reroll a single die in any threat roll.
- One of the 2 cost cards makes all 4s rolled count as successes.
- One 4 cost card adds more dice to the threat roll either for that conversation phase, or the next threat roll, depending on what you rolled to activate it.
- Some demands when conceded allow you roll more dice, but for a cost.
- Never Going Back to Prison: Gonzalo's main motivation. If he's at the Cliffs and the Terror Level reaches its maximum, he commits suicide and takes all the hostages with him rather than give up.
- Nonstandard Game Over: The usual failure state is losing too many hostages or allowing the Abductor to escape, but there are other ways for things to go south:
- If the threat level gets to K when negotiating with Edward, the pressure on Edward is too much, and all hostages are killed.
- If a hostage dies while negotiating with Lieutenant Jackson, he's become a murderer and your efforts to save him as well as the hostages are for naught. Alternatively, if there are five hostages on the Stockholm Syndrome tracker, the situation is beyond saving.
- If Gonzalo's bus reaches the Cliffs and the Terror Level reaches K, he snaps and drives the bus off of the cliffs, killing everyone onboard.
- If you eliminate Clive Seavers before retrieving his children (or, as is more likely to happen, he kills himself before you find them), Tina grabs them and disappears.
- If Samuel's Migraine reaches "Exploding Pain", the sheer agony causes him to lose control and slaughter the hostages.
- Power at a Price: A non-supernatural version. Every Abductor has Demands, which you can concede by paying the cost on the card. Doing so gives you immediate benefits... but this concession means you've weakened your position in the negotiations, inflicting a penalty on you for the rest of the game. Some Demands, however, can be conceded with no penalty; Connor's "Retract Firing" Demand removes the "four cards per turn" limit he imposes on you when you concede, while Edward's "Healthcare" will instantly win the game if conceded.
- Run for the Border: Gonzalo's gimmick as an Abductor is that he's stolen a bus, which he's driving towards Mexico, and his hostages are the other passengers. He has a special Escape Demand, "Open The Borders", that represents exactly that.
- Starter Villain: Arkayne has no special rules and is suggested as your first Abductor by the manual.
- Stockholm Syndrome: A game mechanic when playing against Lieutenant Jackson. Some of the hostages can become sympathetic to his cause and refuse to be rescued, represented by the Stockholm Syndrome tracker. If there are ever five hostages on the track, the situation is out of your control and you lose. Specific cards can rescue hostages directly from the tracker or move them back to the general pool.
- Timed Mission: Inco0gn1t0 has placed a bomb somewhere, and you must disarm the bomb before all three "Tick Tock" terror cards get revealed, otherwise you lose.
