Just updated to V3f.
Fifth session and things are finally starting to jive. I’m not doing a full-on AP, just sharing some notes on the update and questions/problems we’re experiencing.
• What did Stitch get absorbed into?
• We like that Desperate rolls are recorded in the playbook advancement. But we miss that they can be used to augment Attribute advancement.
• We’re finally getting used to jamming right into an operation without planning first. Tonight, the crew had to get into a house and kill a guy. The Lurk did one preliminary scope-out of the house, and they decided they needed to hire a Whisper type to get past some wards. We quickly decided to retroactively lump those things into 0stress flashbacks and pretend like we were doing the job without planning. Like I said in an earlier post, what’s the point of spending time doing information gathering before an operation if Flashbacks are supposed to be a cool thing to use? It’s definitely a learned behavior to do it this way but tonight we had fun and actually popped a couple of flashbacks mid-mission. Hovever:
• What happens if you fail a flashback roll?
• Resistance rolls vs. Consequences. As written: “You may attempt to avoid or reduce a consequence with a resistance roll.” Still trying to wrap my head around this when the consequence is a complication, like “there are more dudes in the room than you expected” or “the guy you’re about to shank is actually a really potent ghost”. Those are supposed to be able to be resisted with a roll and expense of stress, but I’m still having a hard time with that fictionally. Tonight, our Hound rushed into a room to take out a lackey, and it ended up being this weird ghost as a complication. He rolled to resist, and couldn’t afford the stress, so he let it be. We thought about it for a bit, and I realized that “it’s really a ghost” isn’t enough of a complication. “it’s really a ghost and it’s going to attack you and you’re unprepared” is a better one, and if he resists it, it’s still really a ghost but he has a second to get his electroplasm-loaded pistols out first. How does that sound?
• Clocks. Getting the hang of these too. Starting to use more simple actions, and clocks for alerts and notice instead of ones for gauging completion. Just easier that way.
• Leveling up. We’ve played 5 sessions and we’re not even close to moving up. We like all of the maneuvering, lobbying and striking that has to be done to make a level-up happen, but we’re getting enough experience to really get our actions above 3 but can’t because we don’t have the upgrade. Maybe I’m missing something?
• We feel like, overall, there is a lot of dot-connecting that needs to be done. We see how it’s supposed to work, but we’re still left head-scratching sometimes. Great rules in one spot, vague rules in others, no rules where there should be. But we’re still having LOTS of fun.
Stitch is now covered by a playbook ability, in the Leech’s playbook. The Leech can use Tinker to work on people.
As far as Resistance not following fictionally, are you sure the consequences follow the fiction? If a player rolls badly on a Prowl roll to sneak up on someone, to backstab said someone, that someone is suddenly a ghost? If that’s a consequence, it doesn’t really follow from the fiction of ‘you succeeded but with consequences’ or ‘you did a bad job.’ If you’re saying a flashback to a bad Prowl roll means there are more guards in the place, and the Resistance roll lets the player say ‘no’ to this, well, that means the rogue got seriously stressed during that Prowl, actually did it just fine, and there aren’t extra guards.
Fair’s fair. If you as the GM will say the character did a bad job attacking/sneaking/hunting to get close to this person, and failed to notice the person was a ghost the whole time… Resistance lets the player veto that consequence.
I can see now how that might not make sense. It was a failed Skirmish roll, they were rushing right in. As part of the place’s “wandering monsters” were rogue ghosts. The Hound and the Slide didn’t peek into the room before pouncing and thought they were hearing just normal people, it was a Desperate roll. I combined the threat of major harm with upping the overall danger level.
I may have not done things “correctly” but I don’t think I broke any rules?
Oh, I’m not trying to roll up on you and say you’re doing things wrong! It’s more that, whatever consequences you throw at players, they can reverse. So if the consequences are really grounded – like a bad skirmish roll just means someone gets seriously injured – then fictionally it makes more sense, I guess. If going the other way bothers you, don’t do it. Personally I’m going to try ‘they were a ghost the whole time’ at some point, as that is neat.
Resistance gives the players some measure of narrative control; your consequences determine how much control they can possibly get. So if the consequences are always couched in terms of what the character does, resistance is going to be couched in those terms as well. If the consequences introduce a narrative twist, resistance gives the players more narrative control. I’ve definitely had consequences introduce narrative twists – had a competing team of scoundrels show up – but my players didn’t think to resist that consequence.
(No hard feelings, Charlie!)
That all makes perfect sense. But I guess what I’m confused about, or have trouble implementing, is the canceling out of the consequence. In your example- the rival crew shows up as a consequence. Say your guys decided to resist, and succeeded. How would that reversal play out? Just like, ok, nope, that doesn’t happen? Or something else?
(Was just making sure. Don’t want to be the Wrong Fun Police.)
Yeah, so with the rival group showing up, that gets into how Resistance can either entirely get rid of the Consequences, or just reduce them. So if they had rolled to resist ‘rival gang shows up now,’ I could either say that they’re moving so fast (and taking stress) that the rival gang doesn’t show up… Or, I could start a ‘rival gang shows up’ clock. So rather than then showing up right then, the players are seeing this clock counting down. The characters probably heard about the rivals when they were planning, just some rumors and such. That’s probably a little more ‘realistic,’ especially if later in the heist, the players decide they’re going to take a long time to do something.
The consequence doesn’t even begin to play out until after the resistance roll. This is a thing that a lot of people get hung up on in a lot of systems where re-rolls and the like are allowed. The process is not:
Player rolls badly
Character performs badly
Consequence starts to happen
Player rolls resistance
Character takes stress
Character somehow stops the consequence
Consequence is somehow averted
The process is:
Player rolls badly
Consequence is announced
Player rolls resistance
Character takes stress
Character performs well!
Consequence does not happen
Hopefully that helps.
Also, I believe you are incorrect in your reading of how XP works. You can absolutely use desperate XP for attributes. My understand is that desperate XP is now exactly the same as all other XP – when you get it, you make a mark in one of your XP categories: Insight, Prowess, Resolve, or Playbook. It doesn’t matter where the XP came from, you can put it wherever you want.
That’s a great point, Mike. I wasn’t trying to imply that, in the fiction, these things happen and then magically unhappen.
The hurdle is thus: players are used to the idea that what the GM says has really happened. GMs are used to this as well. 😀
Charlie Vick
Totally; Sorry. I wasn’t trying to say you’d implied that, it just sounded like Eric was still confused, and this is a form of confusion I’ve seen before. 😉
RE: XP and Resistance — Mike is right.
Also, if your character can’t resist in the fiction, then don’t roll to resist. There’s no rule that says “you may always roll resistance no matter what.” The rule is, when your character tries to resist a consequence then you roll to resist. If you can’t resist something, you can’t roll.
I agree that “turns out, he’s a ghost!” is a weird consequence. Consequences are… well, consequences. They’re the result of something that happens in the moment. If a character is secretly a ghost, that’s fine, but that’s a fact, not a consequence of a roll. Consequences and resistance are things happening in the fiction, not “story moves” that shape what’s true or not.
RE: Failed flashback rolls — they’re just like any other roll. If you fail, you fail. Maybe I’m not understanding the question.
RE: Leveling up — Are you talking about moving up a Tier? Or getting a crew advance? Or what? You should definitely have a crew advance by session 5. We usually get a crew advance every 2 sessions, roughly.
Thanks for the feedback, Eric!