A few questions after I re-read the Quick Start yesterday:
1. Reducing Heat – mirroring Chris Boyd’s question from yesterday I wonder if a few examples of the types of action for Reducing Heat would be helpful. (fits under the ‘you’re responsible for choosing the tone of your game’ heading I suppose)
2. Unusual Weapons – is the choice a signature one for the character or just picked up from the group’s stash?
3. Wanted – is this the equivalent of trauma for a gang (i.e. 4 is an endpoint) or is this slightly different?
4. Coin – are a scoundrel’s and the gang’s coin equivalent amounts or are they on different scales?
5. Matchlock pistol – not a big point at all, but you probably should consider changing this to a Wheelock or Flintlock or something; I can’t imagine a scoundrel keeping a matchlock pistol lit or wanting to have to light it on demand during a job 😉
/sub
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1. Yep, it falls under that heading. But the full game has examples. The most common are probably Consort (talk to your contacts and smooth things over through social connections), Supply (you bribe people to deal with witnesses or case files), and Sway.
2. Each carried item is particular to that character. You decide what each thing is.
3. Wanted is like Trauma, yes. There are several options in the full game for what happens when Wanted and Trauma fill up. By default, it’s the end, but you might choose a different option.
4. They’re equivalent.
5. Yeah, that was a silly mistake. It should be flintlock.
John Harper Great stuff – all makes sense. Thanks!
I was thinking about the matchlock too.
As it stands, it guns coming out means something serious is about to go down, and the people involved have considered the possibility and decided that the best solution is to throw subtlety to the wind and launch a half-inch ball of lead at high speed into someone.
I can see that as being very appropriate to some feels of games.
On the other hand, with electric lights and trains and other advances, Duskwall seems like it’s on a technological level to have things like percussion-cap weapons, including black-powder revolvers.
Yeah, percussion cap is probably already in development in some tinker’s lab.
Although the intricate mechanics of the wheellock might be more Industrial-Fantasy-ish. I mean, I guess in the end it’s a stylistic choice, though.
You could go with a Snaphance (technologically similar to a wheelock) and which IIRC became synonymous with rogues and scoundrels in the 17th century (favoured by highwaymen and such)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snaphance
Donogh McCarthy, you appear to be correct. And I like the flavor of it. It even says that such highwaymen may have employed the use of “fireteams”–and isn’t that kind of what the game’s all about? 🙂
Mike Leavitt Seems my repository of useless military history knowledge is finally paying dividends! 😉