Some musings based on my most recent play experience.
I think the resist roll would be better served as 3, 2, or 1 stress to resist based on 1-3, 4-5, 6+. Five seems like too much, and 0 seems like too little.
For time clocks, I had one with 4 segments that terminated in too much attention, and another 2 segments that would add +1 heat to the heist each. So, once the clock was full, there were two more segments with an additional cost. I can think of other applications of this that could be interesting. Like a fight where consequences are nonlethal for the first four segments, and lethal for the last two, so you want to jump over those two and get them all at once to get a KO before the fight gets nasty.
For fights and dangerous activities, I’ve got a practice that’s increasingly comfortable for me where I say “every round this clock is not filled you will need to resist a consequence.” That is in addition to any rolled complications. So, while you’re in the fight you’re getting hit (or at least put in harm’s way) until the fight is over, even if you roll a 6 or a critical success. I really like how that feels. Complications are in addition to that.
That could apply to walking along a slippery ledge, brazenly infiltrating a bluecoat station, and other situations where danger is RIGHT THERE every round until a clock is finished.
There is an imbalance between teamwork and individuals acting independently to fill a clock. With teamwork you can’t add much, just extra dice; you’re limited to what one roll can do. With individual rolls, you can add up segments much faster. Each individual action fills a minimum of 1 segment, after all, and is less likely to add stress than a team action.
So, team actions in my game tend to focus on when the group has to move together. For everything else, different approaches with individual actions because that fills out the clock much faster.
I really like my gang rules for one-offs, or even campaigns where you don’t care to build an empire but instead want to play heists.
I am unmoving in my conviction that stress clears differently at my table. You clear 4 stress per downtime action, -1 per Trauma taken. Clean, neat, easy, and gets them right back into the game. If they only got 2 back per downtime action, some of the characters would have had to overindulge to play the second heist in my latest session. It just feels wrong to me. But that’s cool, everybody else, carry on. I’ve argued this out in two threads, and this isn’t intended to start that up again. =)
More world building, about the nature of hollows and whispers and so forth. I’ll probably get into that later. Things like a whisper hydra, the kite theory, uses for electroplasm, and rituals on the fly.
My thanks to Nigel Clarke, Charlie Vick, Adam Goldberg, and Brad Elliott for a great game!
Hey thank you, Andrew, it was a lot of fun!
Do you think the 0-5 stress gels well with characters getting worse at clearing stress as they advance Trauma? I mean, it doesn’t seem that way, but to me your stress/trauma relationship seems like it would work well with occasionally rolling a 6 and having no stress to shirk consequences. Of course, vets are going to be much better or are much more likely to shirk for zero stress, but then with your setup when they do take stress it’s harder to lose it. (I do agree that 5 is very high – to me it just means it’s very likely one will take the consequence.)
I am going to steal your ‘every round deal with consequences/roll to resist or lose armor’ rule for fights. It seems very apt to me.
I had a lot of fun in the game and the narration moved it along with barely any reference to mechanics except where I needed clarification of how something worked (not in the QS) and where Andrew needed to cover how a clock was setup or filled.
I’m not sure whether I favour letting the players know the size or fullness of the clock as opposed to using narration to indicate ramped up tension. I did notice a lesser inclination by players in this game (compared to another game with a new to BitD GM) to push themselves to get an extra die. But then Andrew seemed to go for lesser consequences so less pressure.on getting that 6.
Charlie Vick I like the idea that when a consequence hits the horizon, it has to be dealt with. It doesn’t come up and then go with no cost required.
In fact, I could see assigning stress to a consequence, and having the resist roll mitigate that stress.
Like, this is a 5 stress danger (getting shived by an expert.) Roll to see if you can knock 1, 2, or 3 off the cost. And for lesser threats, maybe getting to 0 stress, but that’s for lesser threats.
Just some more thinking.
Nigel Clarke Yeah, I’m a big softie. =) Others have noted this in the past in the community.
There is a player-facing openness built in to the mechanics of the game. I think the underlying concept is democratic, where the GM has suggestions and the players have plenty of input into how a situation should be mechanized. That only works when most or all of the stakes are on the table for all to see.