8 thoughts on “Hi All”

  1. Depends on what you’re doing, doesn’t it?

    That said, Planning/Engagement is meant to move very quickly in BitD. You’re not supposed to waste tons of real-world time figuring out what to do. You pick an operation, fill in the detail needed to pull that op, and then you get to it. If no one knows that detail, well, you can do some pre-op work to find out that detail, sure. But once you’ve got it, you don’t spend any time deciding who is going to carry the grapnel, who is going to impersonate the guard, who is going to walk out into the street and get hit by a carriage, or whatever… you just go.

    So, if you mean lacking in detail as in “it’s very short and quick,” then, yes spot on. If you mean something else, care to give some more detail?

  2. Thanks for that.

    Alfred – I think part of it was players not asking questions in the planning stage, and just choosing a plan and making an engagement roll, which made it all feel a bit… Mechanical?

    Pavel – I like that idea. It seems to be a combination of planning and gather information and encourages questions to be asked by the players.

  3. Garry Moss It’s not really on the players to ask questions at this point. It’s on the GM. Also, players don’t make the engagement roll – Engagement Rolls are Fortune Rolls, and Fortune Rolls are made by the GM.

    So the process is:

    Players: “We want to break into the Museum of Antiquities!”

    GM: “What’s your plan?”

    Players: “Standard burglary stuff, so I guess stealth?”

    GM: “Okay, the detail for a Stealth Plan is the Point of Infiltration – how are you getting in?”

    Players: “…”

    GM: “Sounds like you’re going to need to gather some information so you know how to get in?”

    Players: “Right. Okay. Jonas is going to head down to the Hall of Records – the Museum is a City building, so there’ve gotta be some blueprints on file somewhere.”

    Once the info has been gotten…

    Players: “Okay. We’re going to approach from the delivery entrance at the back. That seems least guarded…”

    GM: “Sounds like a plan! Let’s do an engagement roll!”

    And then the GM discusses the engagement roll with the players (Technically, he could do all this in his head, but I feel it’s more appropriate to discuss):

    GM: “Okay, you start with one die. Is this plan especially bold or daring?”

    Players: “Well, we ARE trying to steal the Despair Diamond…”

    GM: “True, okay, sure, 1 die for that. But it also sounds like you’re hitting them where they’re strong – they are totally on the lookout for people trying to steal it, and this is a pretty conventional break in. -1d. Does anyone have a friend who can help?”

    etc.

  4. While I’ve got access to people thinking about Planning and Engagement…

    The general flow of the game seems to be Job -> Downtime -> Planning the next Job, yes?

    But players get another action if they’re prepping a job in their hunting grounds. But often I can see a group being “past” the Downtime phase when they decide their next Job. Do you go “back” and let them take their next action? Or must they have decided their next Job during downtime?

    Probably overthinking it.

  6. Pavel Berlin I’m pretty sure I read somewhere explicitly stating that you can spend coin for a flashback downtime action if you want.

    I’ve also been known to let the PCs “hold” a downtime action for later flashbacking.

  7. Besides downtime and scores there is also “free play”, which is basically everything outside a score that is not listed on page 153.

    In other words, gathering information doesn’t cost a downtime action.

    By the way, you also earn exp in downtime sessions the same way as in scores.

    I think this was different in the early quickplay versions, or at least I had interpreted it differently back then.

  8. Well, it was different and it wasn’t.

    In previous versions, you could “Gather Info” a downtime action, and get various bonuses, but it was never the ONLY way you could do this (because it doesn’t make any sense.)

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