I’ve got some general questions about “the score,” that I’m having trouble conceptualizing.
(1) how big is an engagement? Obviously the PCs need to put themselves at risk to earn the rewards, but how do I decide whether the thing they want to do counts as an engagement? How many action rolls will an average engagement consist of for a given PC? I’m worried that my desire to move plot forward for my players is causing me to make challenges too short and not dangerous enough.
(2) if my PCs are collecting information needed to begin their engagement, how do I add stakes to that process? Do they have to use downtime actions to gather info for a score? Should I be giving them bad intel if they roll poorly? Should I roll for them so they don’t know? If they get bad intel, shouldn’t they be able to pull out of the job once they find out they were misinformed?
(3) time clocks. How many should I be using in an average score? How do I decide in a score whether the player’s roll gets them past the obstacle or just starts a clock? I’m worried that clocks used in this way can just artificially delay success.
(4) for this game, what’s the balance of players knowledge vs character knowledge? We already tell the players what bad stuff is going to happen to the character from a roll, so they can choose to negate things with resistance. Does that mean I always tell them all consequences? Do I tell the players all the progress clocks ticking against them? What do I do if the player’s bad roll ticks the clock for a villain’s secret plan or hidden defense system. Or what if I don’t want the party to know whether the mark believes their lies and I’m using a clock “I’m onto you”? Does this game require players to be omniscient and strive to play their characters accurately?
I know this is a lot. Thanks in advance.
1. Engagement is 1 roll long. You roll the groups tier and modify it depending on the type of mission and the detail for the mission and how potent they are on the target. Once rolled it determines the starting position for the crew (desperate, risky, or controlled). Don’t describe how they get there, start with them doing the detail of their plan.
2. A gather information roll can be done at any time, and is done by the player. If done during downtime they get extra benefits (+1 effect, +1 die if a friend is involved, and can pay coin to increase the dice result). Low rolls yield less info, but never misinform unless you as the GM want them to be. 1-3 is no questions answered, 4-5 is asking the GM one question and getting a truthful answer, 6 is 2 questions to the GM with a truthful answer. You decide in the fiction how these answers come to light but you must answer the question truthfully.
3. If an obstical is supposed to be a challenge, start a clock for it. If it’s something subpar like lock picking, no need for a clock. I also like to use clocks as an “alarm” system if player roll badly for stealth.
4. Players know everything, but you are allowed to hide certain clocks from them for a surprise. Consequences of rolls should be discussed openly.
Hope this helps
Also if in 1 by engagement you meant score (engagement is a roll at the start of a score) then there’s an indefinite number of rolls which can be made per score
Yes, I meant score, sorry.
Clocks represent time. If a goal might take a while to accomplish, or you want to pay attention to it for a while, start a clock for it. Or, if there’s a ‘ticking clock’ situation where you want to track the passage of time. A clock can also mean complexity: if a goal requires a lot of work to complete, it can be tracked with a clock. Or a clock can mean status: if an enemy or object or something has ‘health’ you want to mark off.
The amount of clocks I use per session varies a lot based on the score. I think they’re easy to overuse, and I try to only use them when they’re useful, and otherwise let the action be fast. If a PC wants to knock out one dude, I just let the action roll handle it. If they’re in a shootout or a big melee I’ll use a clock for the enemy group. Recently we had a big chase scene, and I used one clock for the status of their vehicle, one clock for the status of the vehicle chasing them, and one clock for the distance between them.
1) As a rule of thumb, I’d make a score (plus downtime) be what I’d expect to see in a 45-60 minute tv episode. If it’s smaller or less interesting than that, call it either a downtime action or a long term project. Don’t worry about forcing the pace: the players will do that for you.
2) Don’t worry too much about consequences for information gathering, but offer devil’s bargains. They either gain useful information out they don’t. I always got players to roll for this. If the roll is bad, they just don’t learn much.
3) I don’t think there are hard and fast rules for how many clocks.
4) Players know, and can resist, the immediate consequences of actions. Knowing about progress clocks can be fun for the players. I like keeping things open to the players, and the players portray their characters as ignorant as need be. But it can also be fun to present the plays with a ticking clock and not tell them what bad things will happen when it completes.
Lemme have a go at these questions! Yeah, I know they’ve already been answered, but I’m bored 🙂
(1) how big is an engagement?
No set size. If they’re putting themselves at risk with the chance of gaining something, it can be a score.
We had an score for “sell a brothel” that was one engagement roll to start off – went well, so we started the RP in the office with them making the pitch to the buyer. Then one sway roll to see how he responded, which went well. So they sold the brothel. Ended the score, and we gave them coin, changed faction statuses, and did the end-of-score paperwork. It was short, but sweet.
We also had a score where they decided to pickpocket some random strangers in the street. Engagement roll didn’t go so well, and there were bluecoats around, so two PCs did a distraction. They succeeded with complications and ended up thrown in the drunk tank for the rest of the day, while the lurk successfully grabbed a few wallets then got out of there. Pretty short and sweet, even though it didn’t go 100% well and cost a bit of stress.
Other scores have taken the entire evening to play out, and resulted in big changes in relationships, physical injuries, stress tracks, and situations.
Obviously the PCs need to put themselves at risk to earn the rewards, but how do I decide whether the thing they want to do counts as an engagement?
Is there the POSSIBILITY that things might go badly?
So selling the brothel, or pickpocketing – in both cases, things could have escalated. The bluecoats could have chased the pickpocket. The target might have been a deadly mercenary who takes offence at being stolen from. A stolen item could have been cursed.
Or the brothel buyer could have dragged the crew into the war in Crows Foot. The reason they were selling is because the brothel was going to be attacked – so they might have had to defend from that attack before the buyer wants it. Or the buyer might think they’re being set up and pre-emptively attack the PCs.
Basically – are you willing to escalate the situation if the players roll badly? And is there something the players are trying to gain? If both are true, it’s a score!
The two don’t have to be balanced. Maybe there’s a lot to gain, and very little risk. (In the case of the brothel sale, there was lots to gain and little risk. But they did lose their “tavern” turf claim, since they’d just sold it.)
I’m worried that my desire to move plot forward for my players is causing me to make challenges too short and not dangerous enough.
Balance the risk of the rolls, not the number of rolls.
So they’re breaking into the skylight of the museum, going to drop down and grab the priceless artefact, and then escape? That might, literally, be a single dice roll.
But what if it fails? The rope snaps and the PC is stuck in the locked museum, with the now-alerted guards? It’s become a game of cat and mouse!
They drop the artefact, and it breaks – freeing a living nightmare. End of the (failed) score? Or just another opportunity as things get crazy? The engagement roll goes badly, and while lowering their crew member through the skylight, the crew realizes they’re surrounded by bluecoats who have them penned in on the rooftop – do they still try to grab the artifact? Do they fight their way off the roof? Do they all drop down and try to hide in the museum?
Also, bear in mind that the main “resource” in the game is stress – spending stress counts for a lot. So players might be able to “short circuit” a plot with a clever flashback or use of an ability. Let’s assume the rope breaks. So the guards are alerted and it’s a game of cat and mouse? But that PC grabs the artifact, and then spends stress to do a flashback scene about scouting the museum and leaving the basement door unlocked. They flee through the open door and they’re out! Or… they use their ability to pass through walls to ignore the guards and just run straight out into the streets. The score is over, but the player “paid for it” with stress, so the GM rolls with that. It lets the players feel awesome (which is important since BitD dice rolls tend to escalate situations. Letting the player pull off something awesome like that allows them to drastically de-escalate.)
(2) if my PCs are collecting information needed to begin their engagement, how do I add stakes to that process? Do they have to use downtime actions to gather info for a score?
If they use downtime actions, you don’t need to add stakes.
Roll it, then describe what they find to whatever level of detail is appropriate. You can give actual information, or you can be vague like “you scout out the museum and spot a few weaknesses” then allow them to have a bonus on future rolls or flashbacks. (Later: “Yeah, remember how I scouted? So I’m doing a flashback scene about how I left the basement door open.” – “OK, well you can have a +1d bonus to this roll due to that successful scouting”)
If they need more than their two downtime actions, they are “paying” by spending coin or rep.
Or they could do a flashback once the score has started and effectively get a downtime – but that might cost stress depending on how plausible the action is. This would be after the engagement (but it’s OK to start the engagement with some unknowns and fill in the blanks as you go along.)
Should I be giving them bad intel if they roll poorly?
No. Not unless your players want you to so they can roleplay the conversations. I’d be more inclined to describe failures as something that is situational based on other people. “You successfully scout out the museum, and although you spot a few possible entry points, nothing strikes you as particularly vulnerable.”
Should I roll for them so they don’t know?
Nope!
If they get bad intel, shouldn’t they be able to pull out of the job once they find out they were misinformed?
If it’s a downtime action, and they discovered they were misinformed – then sure. They haven’t yet started the score.
Of course, that means that they’ve got less downtime actions remaining to spend before whatever other score they decide to do instead of this job.
(3) time clocks. How many should I be using in an average score? How do I decide in a score whether the player’s roll gets them past the obstacle or just starts a clock? I’m worried that clocks used in this way can just artificially delay success.
My recommendation? If you’re asking this, then don’t use clocks.
The basic resolution system works great for scores. You’ll probably have fairly discrete obstacles that they’ll be attempting to avoid, and those don’t need clocks. As you say, clocks just delay success.
At some point – especially when you’re comfortable with how the game runs, and (more importantly) when your players are comfortable – you’ll naturally run into situations where you’ll feel the need for a clock.
“OK, so I hide from the museum guards in this sarcophagus. Is that a prowl roll?” “Yep”
– Easy, once-off roll.
Oh, but then…
“So, how do you get out of the museum?”
“Uh, I wait for the museum to open the next day once the guards have given up their search. And I walk out with the public visitors.”, “OK, in that case, I guess you’ll need to roll prowl a few more times to stay hidden as the guards keep searching. So… three prowl rolls? Or maybe we’ll do a clock, and you need to fill four segments. Yeah, let’s do a clock.”
There’s honestly no need to ever use a clock. It’s just an extra option available to you, if you think it’ll help to build up the drama and tension.
(4) for this game, what’s the balance of players knowledge vs character knowledge? We already tell the players what bad stuff is going to happen to the character from a roll, so they can choose to negate things with resistance. Does that mean I always tell them all consequences?
Yes. Player knowledge is that we know what could go wrong. That way they get the sense of success when it doesn’t go wrong (and also so they can decide to resist or not.)
The players are like the TV audience, who watches the murderer with the kitchen knife hiding in the bathroom. The PC is the character who comes home and walks into the bathroom, and doesn’t spot the murderer. The character doesn’t know about the risk, but the player does. Then we roll the dice, and discover that the murderer doesn’t attack, as the character obliviously walks out the bathroom.
There’s no need to do the: “So you come home? OK, you go to the bathroom and brush your teeth, I guess, and… rolls dice… nothing exciting happens. Then you leave the house again.”
Do I tell the players all the progress clocks ticking against them?
I don’t. Not immediately.
I’ll tell them about the progress clocks that are directly related to the risks they’re currently taking.
So if they’re trying to break into the museum safe, and I start a clock for “guards discover you” then I’ll tell them that. The players and characters know that there’s a risk that the patrolling guards will find them, so there’s “no harm” in letting them know. It helps build the suspense that this known risk is building. It might also help them make decisions to minimize the risk, like “I brought my fine lockpicks” or “flashback to drugging the guards”
But if it’s something the characters (and players?) have no idea about, I probably wouldn’t reveal it until they have reason to discover it. Especially if it’s a “natural consequence” of something they did. So when they burst into the Red Sash’s brothel, shot everyone, and claimed it as their own, I started a clock for “Red Sash comes to take back their brothel” – but didn’t tell the players. After each score I ticked that. However, the first time they were roleplaying a conversation with an NPC that knew about this, I revealed it. So the hound was talking to their assassin contract, who said “Oh, and if you want work, the Red Sashes are hiring. Apparently they’re going to make an example of some guys running a brothel in Crows Foot. Yeah, easy work.” – allowing the players to discover this sort of information via RP encourages them to engage with the fiction and other characters more than just with the mechanics.
What do I do if the player’s bad roll ticks the clock for a villain’s secret plan or hidden defense system. Or what if I don’t want the party to know whether the mark believes their lies and I’m using a clock “I’m onto you”? Does this game require players to be omniscient and strive to play their characters accurately?
For the secret plan? Just tick it.
For the mark not believing their lies? Tell them.
Why? Because for the secret plan, it’s a secret. You’ll broadcast the upcoming danger once the villain starts implementing their plan. And you should broadcast it before it hits. When will you broadcast? Depends on what the PCs find out, and what the plan is. If their plan is to attack the brothel, they could have discovered early (if they gathered information about the Sashes), or when they did (a day before the attack) or during the attack (they hear the window break as the first attackers come through the window) or they hear the creak of floorboards as the attackers are about to kick down their bedroom door (if they rolled badly on the engagement roll – I’d have run that attack as a score. Just not one the players instigated.)
For the mark not believing their lies? Just tell them. They know that “They might not believe me” is a possibility whenever you’re trying to convince someone of something. Why hide it?
So basically, if it’s an “obvious” problem that’s building (patrolling guards, mark not believing them) make it open. Let them enjoy the tension.
If it’s a “hidden” problem that’s building (villain plotting against them, setting a plan in motion) have them discover it in-character (at whatever stage the clock is at, or after the clock completes). Let them enjoy the surprise when they find out.