What if position is treated as a state characters are in individually, tracked per PC, rather than negotiated for the specifics of each action? Costs for 1-3 or 4-5s can worsen your position, while crits can improve your own or teammate’s positions. Good engagement rolls mean we zoom into the crux of the mission with most or all the PCs in controlled positions, while bad engagement rolls mean we cut to seeing most or all PCs in a desperate state for one deliciously terrible reason or another based on the nature of the score.
For context, a lot of you folks doing such awesome analysis and innovative lateral design from the Blades in the Dark chassis have stirred me to thinking a lot about Shot in the Dark (working title for alien invasion/XCOM hack).
I’m currently noodling over whether tracing position like per person rather than per action can create a sort of tactical teamwork experience highlighting pushing your luck to achieve mission objectives while balancing the rapidly depleting resource of each team member’s vulnerability. Stakes are wildly higher in this hack, initially meaning almost any harm from xenos means irreversible casualty for human troopers.
I want the nail-biting anticipation of knowing one-shot kill enemies are out there even though we see no sign of them yet. I want the chaos of a battle where teammates and enemies can get separated, pinned, trapped, suppressed, out of ammo, disoriented, surrounded, panicked, etc. all of which can be abstracted by each trooper’s current position state.
For instance, based on the way this mission has gone down, now anything I do is risky, or anything I do is desperate, so what is it going to be? Do I hunker and wait for someone to improve my position, or bully on and swallow the huge stakes? I want the fun drama of everyone else being ambushed into a desperate spot except for the Delta (medic/scientist/xenologist) or Charlie (engineer/demolitions/vehicles) who alone has a chance to change the flow of horrible to worse for the team from a Controlled position. I want players wrestling with what they do with that one precious opportunity?
Seems reasonable to me. Negotiating position for each action is a way of rewarding players for putting themselves in fictionally advantageous positions, which is a big part of the heists feel of Blades, but I think fixed position would make the style of game you’re describing really interesting.
Adam Bloom Good point about jockeying for advantage being particularly apt for a caper feel but maybe less for tactical feel.
Not knowing how the initial roll will go could also create meaningful mechanical decisions about keeping characters as reserves.
Assaulting a factory:
– all troops charge in. Rolls well, so they fight from a good position (caught the guards by surprise, jammed the comms, etc.)
– scouts go in. Roll badly, and are in a bad position. The rest of the troops then engage (with a penalty because they don’t yet have the scouting intel) but roll well. Everyone but the scouts are in a good position.
– Scouts go in, roll well, and are successful. They see that this factory processes people into footsoldiers. They radio this in, and the team decides to assault the factory and save the prisoners rather than just blowing it up. Because the scouts were successful, they get a bonus to this engagement. The heavy decided to stay back. During the attack the troops get pinned down (despite their advantage) so the heavy rolls engagement so the enemy will be trapped between them. The heavy also gets a bonus from the scouts, but rolls badly. Maybe the enemy have flanked the heavy outside the factory. Now they’re split up, and pinned down or flanked. I expect some upcoming desperate rolls!
Devil’s advocate here (or maybe I’m just misunderstanding what you are doing): if the stakes of my roll don’t depend on what I’m actually doing, doesn’t this have some strange consequences re:following the fiction?
If the action “I stay in cover and lay down covering fire for my teammate” has the same risk as “I charge at the xenos Rambo-style with a knife between my teeth and a machine gun in each hand, trying to deflect their plasma rifle fire with my bare chest.”, this feels weird to me.
Great counterpoint Jakob Oesinghaus. Here are some thoughts. I’m not sure how convincing they are.
—If you’re in a position to make such a Rambo attack from a controlled position, like a surprise or ambush, then yeah, initially the stakes for doing so can be low without fictional oddness. If you succeed, it’ll be awesome, and if not, you’ve definitely put yourself in a bad spot for reprisal, surrounded, guns on empty, full attention, etc.
—Even on success, your effect may still be limited to none depending on the comparison of factors between your guns/knives vs the xenos in terms of gear quality/potency/scale. In an XCOM game, the xenos will have severe tier advantages in many factors like that. The Rambo rush could be great as a set up or distraction.
—If it’s fictionally odd that you’d even be able to reach them with your knife or machete or whatever, based on the xenos cababilities or environmental factors, then doing such a charge may require resisting a consequence or complication in the first place (those plasma blasts on bare chest), let alone resisting any hesitation or fear the xenos may inspire (like ghosts in default Blades).
—On the topic of ghosts’ terror in default Blades, if position is a state of individuals, then triggers or special abilities could mess with states too. Like maybe Chryssalid-like xenos have an ability that always worsens the position of any human who dares get up close and personal with them. Then Rambo can charge from Controlled position, but still face high stakes.
—Meanwhile, just hunkering and covering can either be represented as happening fictionally or as an Assist without rolls related to it (and thus relatively ‘safely’), or if it’s an action to set someone up, improve someone else’s position, or achieve an objective, then I’m ok with those kinds of on-screen moments being as high stakes as the Rambo move, even if we don’t know it until we roll, since I’d love the game to instill the fear that you never know when or how they’re going to get to you even when you feel ‘safe’.
What do you think? Could these make sense or am I grasping at straws? I don’t think I’d mind if this game featured swingy Rambo-like success or sniped-from-safety mission upsets (on both sides).
Also, if position is a changing character trait, it can be traded.
As Adam Minnie implies, a failed rambo charge might change a controlled position into something worse.
But by “owning” this state, we’ve also given the GM something to offer or threaten.
It could be player choices to “risk” their position, or to spend their action (or successes within an action) to improve their position. It could also be GM choices to narrate that their position will change due to fictional events.
(“You’re in a controlled position defending the factory. But you’ll lose that if any Xenos get inside.”)
So maybe the GM says “You’re in controlled position. You’re behind cover. You can attack the Xenos.”
Player 1 – “We can shoot at them? And have a controlled position. Sounds good!”
Player 2 – “Hey, I want to charge them rambo-style.”
GM – “Sure, but if you do a rambo charge, you’ll lose your controlled position”
Player 2 – “That sucks! If there’s no benefit, I’ll just stand here and shoot. That’s not an interesting combat, or an interesting tactical choice.”
GM – “Good point. OK, if you rambo charge, you’ll lose your controlled position. You can spend one success from your roll to keep the controlled position. And because you’re sacrificing position for increased effect, any other attacking successes will have double their normal effect.”
Possibility:
Player 2 – “Awesome! Hey, three successes! OK, so that’s two successes, and since they count double I fill in four clock slices. And then the last success puts me back in controlled position – after charging them and laying about with my machete, the greys start shooting at me, and I roll behind the wooden crates, so I’m back in cover and controlled like the other PCs!”
Possibility:
Player 2 – “Awesome, three successes! So, that’s two successes which I double, so I fill in four clock slices. Is that enough to kill them all? No? OK, I spend all three successes, please fill in six slices. But now I’m caught in a melee with any remaining Xenos. And the greys start shooting at me – I’m no longer in a controlled position, but it was worth it!”
Possibility:
Player 2 – “Darn, I got a success. But only one. I’m not willing to lose my position. So I’ll spend it to stay in a controlled position. As I charge them, they start blasting at me. A plasma blast catches me in the shoulder, spinning me around and knocking me to the ground. It’s not a significant injury, but it’s broken my charge and I’m exposed. I manage to crawl on the ground and take cover behind a nearby Hum-Vee. I’m still in a controlled position, but I didn’t manage to do anything to them. I should have just stayed in cover and shot them, then I’d have filled in one clock.”