...And Action!

Faster Action Sequences in Mind’s Eye Theater by Jim Lai (us2002021214, GL ARST Forsaken, synicism@gmail.com)

For some context, one of the concerns that we have been seeing in Forsaken is that violence, which is an important part of the game, takes forever to adjudicate.

Mooks (the Stormtrooper Rule)

Let's face it, in any story involving combat, there are antagonists and mooks. Antagonists are important characters with motivations and history. They are important parts of the setting who have recurring roles. In the Matrix, the Agents are Antagonists. The soldiers and guards in the lobby shoot out scene are Mooks.

Mooks aren't as tough as antagonists. Maybe they have a lower pain threshold, or they're just not as motivated. But generally, one good shot and they go down. They may not be dead, but they're effectively out of the fight.

Using Mooks is a great way to speed up combat and make it come across as faster and more furious. They all go at the same time, they come in, do their thing, and usually go down like a good faceless horde.

This is how I use Mooks in my games.

As a VST, I have every right to do this because it's simply a form of guided mediation that I offer to my players. We make occasional tests to help determine what the result of a mediated encounter. It's just something that you and your players need to agree on ahead of time. This is the first time I have written this stuff down. Until now it's pretty much existed solely in my head. When I use this I just ask my players "do you mind if we mediate the action?" and this is how I do it. Maybe I'll put this into my VSS as "this is a form of combat mediation that I use to speed up fight sequences and to encourage descriptive RP."

• Mooks have two status levels: up and down. They don't suffer from wound penalties (drama is wasted on them). If a player succeeds in taking a Mook down, then they should explain what they did. "I claw him" is boring and it takes away from the ability to visualize the scene. "I grab his arm as he stabs at me and rip out his ribcage" lets everyone know exactly what's happening when werewolves fight. If the player doesn't do it, then I feel free to make up what happens for story purposes.

• Mooks don't have complete character sheets. They have three test pools: a primary test pool that takes care of their primary role (for example, a human thug might have a primary test pool Combat: 9), a secondary test pool that covers things that help them accomplish their primary role (for example, the same thug might have a secondary test pool for stuff like Climb/Jump/Run/Drive: 7), and a tertiary test pool that covers everything else (for example, Everything Else: 5). They have a single Resistance value that covers everything from Defense to Resolve + Composure to anything else (face it, it doesn't matter if you knock a Mook out or scare him away, he's out of the picture either way).

• Mooks don't make tests. If a Mook is supposed to resist a pull (i.e. both people test and compare successes), just subtract his Resistance value from the player's pool. If the player makes a success, then the Mook loses. If not, the player inflicted a flesh wound or the Mook managed to break eye contact before the mind control could take effect or whatever. When Mooks attack, they just add six (an average pull) to their relevant test pool. If they succeed, apply successes as normal. If not, then they just suck that round. If a Mook fails to affect a player, the player should explain why.

• Players can take out Mooks in groups. If a player wants to devote a series of actions to dealing with a group of Mooks, then he can declare that series and make a single pull. If he succeeds, then his series takes a number of rounds to accomplish equal to the number of Mooks he's dealing with. For example, if a character is going to square off with five Mooks and decides to hit Mook One with a flying kick that knocks him into Mook Two, then uses Mook Two as a human shield to take a bullet from Mook Three, then vault over Mook Two's falling body to tackle Mook Three, using the fall to duck shots from Mooks Four and Five, who then shoot each other, then that player has determined his course of action for five "rounds." The Storyteller narrates each part of the sequence as he goes through each round of player actions. The player still does one thing per round, but he's taken care of all of it with a pull. Fighting more Mooks at once imposes a penalty to the player's pull, but coming up with cool narration that helps move the story along adds a bonus.

“Single Camera” Roleplaying (The Cinematics Rule)

For some context, one of the concerns that we have been seeing in Forsaken is that violence, which is an important part of the game, takes forever to adjudicate.

In a previous post, I described how I use Mooks in my game to help characters wade through faceless hordes much faster using mediation guided by limited use of tests. Now I'm going to address something that I've heard described to me as "Single Camera" roleplaying. Again, the Camarilla does make allowance for ideas like this through its mediation rule. As long as the players and I agree that this is something we are going to use, then the Camarilla allows us to do so as a form of structured mediation.

The premise is that a roleplaying game is governed by rules of timing and story flow similar to those that govern a movie. We all know when the pacing of a movie is good or bad. Likewise, we all know when the pacing of a roleplaying game is good or bad. The underlying assumption I'm making here is that a storyteller has one "camera" to use when putting together what his scene is going to look like. Therefore, he has to prioritize events and use his narrative skills to control the pacing of the story. Players want to breeze through the unimportant parts of a scene to get to the dramatic ones.

Let's take a fairly typical narrative sequence from a movie and break it down into component parts. In Matrix: Reloaded, Trinity breaks into a power plant with the help of a motorcycle and her mad kung fu skills, fights her way to the control room, and then proceeds to hack the system, thus enabling Neo and Morpheus to get to their goal. The sequence has three basic parts: (1) the entrance; (2) making her way to the computers; and (3) the hack. Of these, the hack is the most important to the story because it has the greatest impact on the outcome. The entrance is of secondary importance because it's how Trinity gets to where she needs to be and because it has some effect on character development in the future. The fight to get to the computers is of tertiary importance because it's just window dressing.

If we played the scene out with standard rules, it would take forever. Every guard would be a full-blown sequence and we would be pulling cards all night. We don't want that. So as a storyteller, you use your mediation power to get players to agree to change from a task-resolution paradigm to a goal-resolution one. Here's the difference:

Task Resolution:

OK, I want to jump the bike, flip off it midair, and land it on the guard shack. That's a Dex plus drive to make the jump, a Dex plus athletics to make the flip, another Dex plus athletics to stick the landing the next round, and a Dex plus drive to make the bike land on the shack. Then I spend a round standing up, a round pulling the helmet, and then I fight the two guards.

Goal Resolution:

OK, my goal is to jump the bike, flip off it midair, and land it on the guard shack. Landing it on the shack is gravy and it's part of my attack plan, so clearly the most important part is making the jump and landing safely. So the pull is going to be Dex plus athletics. This is a hard maneuver so let's impose a -1 penalty for the flip, a -1 for making the landing, and a -1 for hitting the shack. Then I want to take out the guards. They're two mooks, so I'm going to use my helmet as a club and do some cool spin moves to confuse them. Let's call that a single Strength plus weaponry pull with a -1 for fighting a mob.

Under the task resolution paradigm, you make a ton of tests, especially when you get to the fight sequence. Under a goal resolution paradigm, the focus is on the outcome of the scene, not the individual steps it takes to get there. So you accomplish the whole thing in two pulls.

The goal resolution paradigm relies on the storyteller's ability to change the amount of time that a particular test represents. When something is important, you can compress time so each test represents a much smaller action where the individual parts of it are dramatically important. When something is less important, you expand time so that the player achieves a subsidiary goal faster and moves on to the meaty stuff.

For example, when you are dealing with mooks, the important thing isn't each individual blow, but the end result of the fight. Going back to the Matrix, look how little time Neo and Trinity spend with each soldier in the lobby shootout. On the other hand, when you are dealing with important characters, each individual punch and kick becomes extremely important because you are dealing with a much more powerful opponent. Look how much time the camera spends on Neo's subway fight with Agent Smith.

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