XP and desperate actions

11 thoughts on “XP and desperate actions”

1. Every time they attempt a desperate action they gain 1xp in the attribute pertaining to the action they attempted it in; if you take a desperate Skirmish action, you gain 1xp in Prowess. It’s not just 1xp to put anywhere you want.

   Otherwise, yes. Desperate actions provide an experience point every time you attempt them. As a player, I basically live in the desperate action zone as often as I can. HOWEVER – the consequences of desperate actions going wrong should be substantial. Big, serious downsides that discourage players from just never taking any other kind of action. Nothing about taking multiple, constant desperate actions should be “easy.” Even a partial success on a desperate roll can be miserable.

   Of course, some nutters like me won’t care because the downs are even better than the highs, but yeah.

2. Yes.

   But desperate actions should usually not be easy, the players face serious complications when rolling below 6 which often leads to harm and / or stress.

3. In some situations a Desperate Action might net you a couple Stress (resisting) and still a couple of Harm on a 4/5 result. Good luck with that long term.

   Take a second look at some of the Desperate result examples even for non-combat actions e.g. Study or Tinker.

   If a crew isn’t angling for a Controlled position fairly often, you might want to take a look at the nature of the fictional consequences being doled out for Risky or Desperate situations.

   I’ve found there’s some fun mini-planning play in there as players try to think of clever ways to mitigate risk.

   That said, a little extra XP doesn’t break a thing if the players like to jump from one frying pan to another and trust the devil dice don’t catch them.

4. .

5. Thanks. I thought it might be an xp mining exercise but serious consequences mitigate that.

6. Even if it were an XP mine, keep in mind that it is incentivizing players to take riskier actions, creating better play at the table.

7. Like others have said, it incentives players to not always take the slow and safe route. If a player doesn’t mind making everyone at the table lose their characters to vice / 4 trauma / death, then sure, roll desperate action every turn. It can be a fun and silly one shot!

8. I played a character who pretty much only rolled desperate actions. It was great! The trick is to succeed on all your rolls.

9. Desperate actions are fun, so the game incentivizes them. But you don’t roll as much as in some traditional games, and desperate actions definitely have a cost.

10. Just take a Devil’s Bargain with every Desperate action!

11. It’s absolutely an xp mine, but the tradeoff is that a lot of the time you won’t roll a 6, and then you’ll get hammered by the consequence. Desperate actions should have big,

    nasty consequences that you really don’t want to happen, and resistance rolls will only get you so far in mitigating them.

    (Bonus points if you take the Reckless trauma, so you can get even more xp for charging in over your head like a lemming.)

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