I have a horrible confession to make . . .

[drunkonduty]

Brian, I was actually thinking there'd be 6 pre-game scenes. I've ripped it straight off from the Fate system (I think it was Fate. Might be wrong.)

 

The idea being that each player creates a connection to one other player until all them form links in a chain, so to speak. 

 

But hey, your way sounds good too! It is always good to bring in bits of the system in bite size chunks.

[Brian Stanfield]

5 hours ago, drunkonduty said:

Brian, I was actually thinking there'd be 6 pre-game scenes. I've ripped it straight off from the Fate system (I think it was Fate. Might be wrong.)

 

The idea being that each player creates a connection to one other player until all them form links in a chain, so to speak. 

 

But hey, your way sounds good too! It is always good to bring in bits of the system in bite size chunks.

I’ve never played Fate, so I’m not familiar with this method. So you’re suggesting each player gets a scene which involves one of the other players? So everyone is the star of one scene, and the guest-star of a second scene?

[RDU Neil]

36 minutes ago, Brian Stanfield said:

I’ve never played Fate, so I’m not familiar with this method. So you’re suggesting each player gets a scene which involves one of the other players? So everyone is the star of one scene, and the guest-star of a second scene?

 

Been a while since I played Fate, but this is part of characterization, less actual play scenes. Character A writes a short paragraph describing how they worked with Character B on a mission... Character B writes one about Character C... Character C writes one about D, who write one about A... all as part of their character backgrounds. That way all the characters essentially "know each other" and have a motivating connection with at least one other before the game even starts.

 

I've done something like this with a lot of my games, generally to make sure the actual play skips the terrible, unnecessary "you meet in a bar" and no one wants to hang out party setup crap that almost always derails games before they start.

[Doc Democracy]

My way of doing things is have each player work out "Why you want to work with..." for at least two other players' characters and disallow a closed loop of three players...

[RDU Neil]

On 4/4/2019 at 12:04 PM, RDU Neil said:

 

Love this stuff. It is a head scratcher about whether to do it in Game 1, because it is more dice rolling and rules, but at the same time, it is a very visceral and cinematic aspect of the game... it is a rule that enforces colorful description and dynamic imagination... rather than just "I hit... X stun, Y body." 

 

I'm torn on this, because hands down, my favorite part of the game is combat with hit locations... so i'm biased.

 

Quoting myself, simply because last night's game had a classic example of hit location making things fun. PCs were essentially set up to walk (knowingly) into a hard core, criminal, white supremacist biker bar... none of the PCs, for probably the first time ever, are white... things go south pretty quickly... bar fight ensues. The PCs are Jason Bourne level pros, who are on their best behavior and trying NOT to just kill these guys... so initially it is all fisticuffs. We are using modified multiple attack rules, so characters are encouraged to throw not just one attack, but a combo of shots that feels much more like fighting than the "one big swing" typical of HERO champs.

 

Our Haida merc, Jackson Massett, rabbit punches the first guy in the chest as he grabs an outstretched hand and twists him to the ground, sidestepping his second attacker. As the first guy falls back and staggers to his feet, he turns to the second biker and drives a shot into his stomach so hard the guy doubles over, Massett's second punch missing contact over his head, the first guy lunges from a squat swinging wide, going right over Jackson's roll. As the second attacker swings again, Jackson slams his hand up into the man's throat, windpipe collapses and the biker drops like a wet sack. First biker thinks he has position and goes for a bear hug, trying to use his size to overwhelm Jackson, who slips to the side jamming the man's arms  inside, then he turns and brings a hard left right at the guy's nose (High Shot).

This is where it got really fun, because despiste the high shot roll, it hit the biker in the 7/forearm. The biker threw his arm up just in time... but Jackson's player rolled... and dice were crazy... 26 Stun on 5d6. The player cackled, "Oh man, I punched his arm right into his own face!" which was a perfect example of how an arm shot could end up doing enough damage (to an already woozy dude). And just created a perfect visual image the guy basically punching himself on to his back. 

 

That kind of visceral fight just doesn't exist in any other system I've played, with the simple, intuitive nature of the Hit Location chart.

Best part of the game, IMO.

 

 

 

 

[Brian Stanfield]

1 hour ago, RDU Neil said:

The player cackled, "Oh man, I punched his arm right into his own face!" which was a perfect example of how an arm shot could end up doing enough damage (to an already woozy dude). And just created a perfect visual image the guy basically punching himself on to his back. 

 

I had an aikido instructor who used to say, "There's nothing more embarrassing than getting your nose broken by your own arm."

[RDU Neil]

7 minutes ago, Brian Stanfield said:

 

I had an aikido instructor who used to say, "There's nothing more embarrassing than getting your nose broken by your own arm."

 hah... exactly... the dice were enough that the biker took 1 body and that's exactly what we ruled, that he broke his nose with his own arm! It was sweet.

 

[drunkonduty]

Neil has put it better than me.

 

The idea is that , as part of character gen, the players make sure they're  characters have connections to the other characters.

 

There are of course many ways of doing this. ?

[Doc Democracy]

16 hours ago, RDU Neil said:

things go south pretty quickly

 

Had to highlight the use of this colloquialism when talking about people of colour walking into a racist establishment....

 

...did you do it knowingly Neil???

?

 

Doc

[RDU Neil]

23 minutes ago, Doc Democracy said:

 

Had to highlight the use of this colloquialism when talking about people of colour walking into a racist establishment....

 

...did you do it knowingly Neil???

?

 

Doc

 

You saw what I did there... heh. Yeah, there were no few jokes... "A First People Haida, an Indian, a Japanese and an Israeli walk into a biker bar in southern Arizona..."

 

Butts were kicked.