Position After Engagement Roll
I feel like I’m not handling the engagement roll correctly. I know that the engagement roll is supposed to set the position for the players’ first action. However, the players themselves get to decide exactly what action they’re taking, don’t they?
For instance, my players were going to assassinate someone at the dog races in Nightmarket. The approach plan was for the Hound to climb up onto the roof over the bleachers in order to get a good clear shot on the high-price viewing booths on the other side of the tracks.
The engagement roll came up as “desperate position.” I decided that there were four thugs from the Skovlander Underground lurking near the access ladder. They were planning to use it as part of a terror plot. The player tried to talk them away, and the Skovlanders pulled weapons and attacked. The player tried to defend himself, which was a desperate position, as I intended.
But couldn’t he have attempted a different action? What if he’d tried to run, or tried to deceive them somehow? Do I have to force the player’s position to be desperate, no matter what action he chooses to take in response to the obstacle?
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I think yes, they essentially have to be, otherwise you might as well skip the engagement roll all together. If they get “desperate position”, they got themselves in to a situation that couldn’t have been remedied so easily. If you wanted to be more flexible though, you could ask your players for their input. Maybe they’re being ambushed. Maybe they spotted the ambush and tried to run, but ran straight in to a different problem. Maybe they’re running away across the rooftops or hopping across moving boats or goats. Maybe the gang is just about to catch up to them. Lots of different options.
I’m afraid I don’t have the experience to say more than that. Have only done one score so far and that wasn’t desperate.
Did the Skovlanders attack due to a 1-3 roll on the talk action? If so, then bad dice rolls happen and sometimes due to the dice, crews have to abandon the score.
But yes, the Hound could have ran, could have tried to Sway them, it was his choice what action to use to get around the unexpected obstacle
Not “choose a different action”: they didnt really choose one persay, though we kinda know based on the detail whether theyve changed plans or not though (so we can reassess). Like.. they can do whatever they want, but the initial thing is about to go bad if it has to do with their plan’s detail. So if they are doing a stealth plan, to wit – sneak into sniper position – they should have a desperate stealth problem after they get there (extra patrols, target about to leave, exposed location, etc).
Also, I might skip forward a bit if that is more interesting, but usually the desperate part will be the first obstacle we care about [in this case: the lurking guards] rather than the thing after the response to that [in this case, the talking]. it seems you sort of did this anyways (it had only bad effect) so i wouldnt worry, but i might have had that actually be the desperate roll
I play it much more loosely.
I ask what they’re doing, we make the roll, and then I narrate how it goes, returning control to the players when we need input from them.
So if it goes well I might narrate the lurk getting in, opening a side gate and leading all the PCs into the main house, then we start from there.
If it goes less well I might narrate the lurk getting in and spotting the patrols, then it’s up to the players to get their PCs in.
If it goes terribly I might narrate the lurk getting grabbed, or leading them into an ambush, or discovering the grounds are protected by wild roaming ghosts.
Bad rolls mean I put at least one PC into a bad situation, where they need to act quickly.
But I don’t worry about whether their next action will be risky or not. The pcs that walked into an ambush might make a controlled social roll to surrender, for example, rather than a desperate roll to fight their way out.
/sub
I handle it similarly to Tony Demetriou. I usually try to get a sense of what obstacles the PCs expect.
On a 6 they are right in front of the main one of those (so already inside, setup on the roof, at the ball as the dances begin).
4-5 I think of a complication that is unexpected and present it along with it.
1-3 I have that problem breathing right down their neck.
Then they get to decide what to do, what action to use and I judge position & effect of that.
I think Mark Cleveland Massengale has pinpointed my problem. The desperate position should have related to the gang’s plan and point of entry. Since this was a Stealth plan, I should have confronted them with a Stealth obstacle. Sneaking onto the rooftop for a sniper position was a key element of the plan, and I should have made that action desperate. Instead, I inserted a combat obstacle in front of the stealth obstacle, which was probably the wrong way to go.
Thanks for all the advice, everyone!