13 thoughts on “Anyone interested in alternate armor rules? I have some on my mind for Runners in the Shadows”

  4. All I’ve got so far is this idea that it could grant +d to resist harm when it would help (which I kind of like since it can be persistent and yet uncertain), or grants damage reduction a number of times (maybe equal to load). I’m just kind of Eh on both of those right now though

  6. To my mind, granting a bonus to resistance is something I’d want as a player – but not something that’d make the game more fun for me. It means I’d more regularly avoid consequences, and that’s only really interesting if I’m pushing my PC into further danger because I expect to get out of it.

    What excites me the most is when a mechanic either gives me something extra that I want to do in the game, or creates new situations that I otherwise wouldn’t get involved in.

    So I’d think along lines of:

    – When would you get caught without your armor? Why? Is that fun?

    – Would you ever decide not to take your armor with you on a run?

    – Is it fun to repair damaged armor?

    – If my PC gets injured, is it fun to RP the armor, or is it better to skip past or to the injury RP itself?

    – Is armor something I’m excited about developing, upgrading, or changing? (Like how Leeches can make new alchemicals – like, could I play a PC along the lines of Iron Man? And if so, is that really “armor” or just a narrative description of a whole lot of other abilities?)

    – Does armor need to be mechanical, or can it be narrative? Which is more fun?

    – Do we run into problems with the “mark it on your sheet when you need it” load rules? Using it to “soak” consequences can happen at any time, but using it mid-score means I missed out on the resistance benefit on my earlier rolls. This probably doesn’t matter.

    – Where do I go to get it repaired? Is there a cost?

  7. Mark Cleveland Massengale Sure! But, for me, that’s a non-issue.

    When I think of 5th Element, Bruce Willis wears a singlet and fights against guys in body armor – I’d just assume that those guy in body armor have a higher tier because they’ve got the right gear.

    And Bruce might grab a riot shield – but that’s taken into account with narrative effect. Charging a gunman from behind a clear riot shield might be a controlled roll, but charging the gunman without a shield or armor might be desperate.

    That allows the armored mercenary to fight alongside the non-armored scout. And – to me – that’s pretty satisfying from a narrative standpoint.

    But it falls down from a tactical firefight standpoint (but I think a lot of BitD falls down from a tactical firefight standpoint. That’s not what it’s built to handle.) – I get around that by turning the firefight into a narrative event rather than a tactical event.

    I’d absolutely want different armor rules if I was planning on roleplaying through pitched battles with corp security. But if I’m just sneaking in, or throwing a grenade to clear the doorway, or other “here is an action so I can bypass this obstacle” gameplay events, I think it works?

  8. Tony Demetriou Okay, well I read each question and answered each in my head and I feel affirmed here. So.. please accept my awkward thanks

    I also recommend you just keep using the armor rules as is for Blades. Because I will, unless my players want armor to work differently – which they don’t (it works fine for Blades as I’ve previously admitted). This is definitely in Hacks and Add Ons for a reason.

  9. My touchstone for how armor works in Blades is Lethal Weapon. Riggs gets shotgunned through a window but marks armor and basically walks it off. We didn’t see him put a vest on previously; it’s just there when he needs it. It doesn’t factor in later in the film either.

    If you’re using some of those variant harm rules, like uncertain resistance, I can see some space there for armor letting you use the default resistance rules once it’s been established that you’re wearing some.

    My rule of thumb I use now is that marking armor will usually let you block the harm entirely, while rolling resistance reduces harm (unless the situation dictates differently). Armor’s expendable and I like to give it a little more oomph because of that.

    Armor could also factor into what you write down in your harm boxes. Even if armor didn’t reduce the level of harm, it’d still be useful if it changed how you worded the injury because you apply the harm penalty only if that injury would apply. Perhaps armor could work like Tough as Nails, reducing or mitigating penalties once harm’s been suffered?

  10. For my space-magic hack, the armored fighter class has a special ability:

    Carapace Augment [Cyber]

    You may mark your Heavy Armor item twice between downtimes. Your Heavy Armor counts as an Exosuit with twelve hours’ worth of air, and allows you to ignore the physical effects of Level 1 Harm.

    This allows players who want to make armor a thing for their character do so, without bogging the game down for the people who just want to be badasses.

  11. I have treated armor as an important part of fiction first. Yes, you can cross off the armor to negate a harm, and that trashes it, but it’s not useless outside that function. As previously noted here, it can make a desperate roll risky, and so on.

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