In a modern/future black ops hack largely focused on battle, stealth, and sometimes spywork, I’m considering having Resistance rolls always use an inverse of Load instead of Prowess/Insight/Resolve. The idea is that load determines your exposure/profile and speed/encumbrance as well as your preparation and therefore inversely proportionate to your flexibility, subtlety, reaction time, and improvisational/adaptability potential.
Heavy load = 1 reaction/resistance die (should it be 0?)
Normal = 2 dice
Light = 3 dice
One of the benefits of this is that resistance will never have more than 3 dice (though some playbook special abilities will grant +1d in certain contexts), meaning harm/effects are more stressful to avoid/reduce. I should mention that lethality and PC turnover are meant to be high (and rewarded somewhat) in this hack.
What pros/cons and holes or drawbacks do you see in this design decision?
It’s okay. Not broke.
However I think it would be a shame to reduce characters resists to being based solely on their current loads. Suggestion: split up the dependency for resist dice rather than change it completely. For example: resist dice is based on first row of dots but only half as much as usual (max: 2 from that), and Medium load grants +1d while Light load grants +2d to resist (or -1 for heavy and +1 for light)
Yeah, maybe a combo of the attribute and load might be good. If you are very strong, a heavy load is less difficult to move around than if you’re not. Like Mark suggested, maybe make heavy -1d, medium standard and light +1d (or if you’re going for more difficulty, -2, -1, 0).
I like the idea of keeping resistance as is, then reducing it by your load (heavy -2, medium -1, light 0… or whatever).
One sticking point is Armor. It counts as load but it does help you resist. So under this model it’s paradoxical, in a mental-model sense.
It also seems like load would mostly affect prowess. Not sure about exactly how it might impact the other two.
I should have mentioned that so far this hack uses only two stats with the standard actions as Lady Blackbird-like tags adding only 1 more die if applicable. The plus or minus a die for heavy/light would definitely work well for the 12 action setup, while still keeping things simple.
I also see armor use as slightly different from resistance. Armor is a single-use harm negation (like a “Get out of _ free” card), while resistance can apply unlimitedly, but determines how much it costs you to get through something. Having heavier load means plenty of access to armor (instead of relying on good resistance rolls) that you will more likely need, while lighter load is more of a gamble, gaining covert/social advantage in hopes that you’ll avoid harm, but then if you do, you don’t have much by way of contingencies or fallback options when nasty blowback hits. Additionally, with heavy load, you may wish to not ‘waste’ potential by taking/using armor, if the job instead could benefit from a bunch of other items.
Jason Lee in this game I see it as a broad overt – covert spectrum, which covers resistance for some insight/resolve effects.
Armor (especially heavy one) can be seen as player saying ‘I expect shootout to happen and I want to have an advantage in it’. To your load question: does it then work like ‘I take heavy armor right now, knowing that I’ll immediately get into a firefight, have advantage in it, and afterwards leave it, effectively still having resistance almost as high as before, because of decreased load’?
It could be a fun idea (and character pays for it by not taking other stuff instead of armor), and may also require you make guns so lethal that when bullets start flying (not a rentakop level, but security team level) and you are hit, only actual armor may save you.
Ганс Андроид Right. I am planning to make it such that weapons fire will be almost entirely lethal, and a big part of the game is producing armor sufficient to lessen its sting. So ‘reaction’-type resistance rolls will really be about home well you can get out of the way of physical effects, or response time and fluidity/adaptability for non-physical effects.
I hadn’t been planning to allow PCs to “use up” armor early on, then drop it to lessen their load level. Rather, whatever you choose for load out at mission start is mostly what you remain throughout. Now, you may narratively swap midway, if you determine a mission ended and a new one began within a matter of a breather/regroup scene.