Just some ongoing reflections about actions.

Just some ongoing reflections about actions.

Just some ongoing reflections about actions.

So now we have three actions for combat, and one for movement. Stealth, swimming, climbing, running–all of it is Prowl. If you are good at stealth, you are good at sports. If you are good at climbing, you are good at swimming. Movement is movement.

An individual can no longer cultivate skill in managing contacts and buying things. Jean Reno’s character Vincent from Ronin is no longer something you can mechanically represent in the game. You don’t have a fixer, and if you want to buy things or fence them or whatever you must fall back on your gang’s tier as the only method to do so.

To clarify, that means the only way you can get better at fencing things and purchasing esoteric materials is by getting in a bigger criminal enterprise. You can’t do it freelance. Even if you were once really good at it, you change affiliations and you suck again.

I believe Secure has been broken down into Discern and Finesse. Lock picking and sleight of hand are conflated into a single action, as is safe cracking, escaping bonds, and disarming traps. I’m not delighted by this, but I can live with it I guess.

What if tinker, a VERY specific concept, was broadened to mechanics? What if it was then used for locks, traps, and devices? 

I do not think this needs a mechanical change, but I hope in the full version of the game there is a treatment of how to do art. If doing a painting, you may mix discern and finesse to fill a clock, and to get a masterpiece there must be at least one critical success. Playing music could be finesse, or sway. Sight reading music may be cipher.

I do think there is room to make a whole set of special abilities for applying actions to art to gain certain effects; forgery, shifting the mood of the audience, distraction, applications for dance for seduction or movement, composing or virtuoso playing for fame and fortune, and that sort of thing.

I would not make a playbook of it, but I would make it available so any playbook could take the special abilities to make art and performance part of their characters in a way that could be useful to downtime or heists.

7 thoughts on “Just some ongoing reflections about actions.”

  1. I understand your concerns Andrew,  and you’ve made me ponder the changes a little… but I’m sure the full rules will have some elaboration on the potential of each action. (More than just a sentence)? You have far more actual game play experience than me 🙂

    That said, I’m trying to look at actions from the player’s point of view in your examples and find that I would except Tinker for mechanics, the skill description says ‘to create modify or repair (mechanics)’. Seems legit no?

    I like that Discern and Finesse are separate. I think scoundrels are renown for either being good pickpockets or good grifters. Combine the two and you have a very potent criminal.

    I like the way that Fencing (as an activity) is either just done at the crew level with a simple roll, or if you want to go at it alone, becomes a project of sorts. Breaking down the action into establishing connections (Consort) and the actual transactions (Discern / Sway / Deceive) is kinda appropriate in my book. That way you may have a personal affiliation with a contact (say a fine Contact), and the crew is not so down with them, and your personal agenda is marked by your allegiance to the gang… Maybe you do it on the sly? That then is great grist for the story 🙂

    Id love to play a Vincent style character in your game Andrew, sounds wonderful!

  2. I agree Discern and Finesse should not be the same thing. I think they break out what used to be governed by Security, that’s all. It’s a matter of how to slice the mischief pie in that case.

    Really, all the reflection on actions is about how to manage overlapping venn diagrams. Where should the focus be? What are the best centers, from which the corner cases can be worked out? 

    Just mulling it over.

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