[Retro Runner] First draft. - General feedback requested

[leapin lizard]

Some more random thoughts about the betrayal issue:

1.  What is the reward for betraying?  What is the punishment?  That is, what kind of harm will it do to your reputation should you betray your commrades?

2.  An idea to build it over time might be something like points for a job.  Asimple job would be worth so many points, depending on what your taking, but a complicated job would be worth lots of points because you are risking more by being caught.  Or, you could also have "reputation" points that would reflect your group (or individual) skill.  The more reputation pooints you have, the more money someone would be paying you to complete the mission.  If you betray, your reputation points go down because people don't trust you, but you get to keep the money from that job for yourself.

3.  What if you can rig up a betrayal where your group does not suspect you of betraying them?  What kind of reward/punishment would happen then?

[Georgios Panagiotidis]

Alright. I've been thinking about the comments and feedback, and have drawn up a new addition to the rules.


The Offer (revised)
Each player chooses one of his aspects as his "niche" for this mission. Players can choose to pick the same Aspect as their niche; it just means that this mission has strong emphasis on that type of conflict.

Then the GM deals one card from the GM deck to each player. This card is "The Money". Players will be able to use this card during The Job, The Drop-Off or The Betrayal. 

during The Job - players may swap "The Money" with a card they had to discard during a scene.
during The Drop-Off - the player gains "Reputation" for each card that is the same suit as his Niche or as The Money. If they are the same, each Reputation point gained here is doubled.
during The Betrayal - If the Traitor successfully beats the rest of his team, "The Money" is multiplied with the Renown score and added to the Player's reputation.

The length of The Job is no longer calculated during The Offer. Still working on coming up with a good way to set the length. For now I'll go with a fixed number of 11.

Renown - This is the team's reputation. For every mission that they finish successfully, this is increased by one. Renown is decreased, if the team fails a mission. Renown is added to every player's Reputation score at the end of The Drop-Off.

Successful Missions - A Job is considered successful, if the Job Deck has been cleared, and the team has won more than half of the scenes.

Failed Missions - A Job is considered failed, if the Job Deck has not been cleared. It is also considered failed, if the team has lost more than half of the scenes. Renown is then reduced by the number of scenes that the team missed to finish the mission sucessfully. If they had to win 6 scenes, but only won 3; renown would be reduced by three points. Renown cannot go under 0.



Still working on: Job length (I want the players to be able to influence this); adding the option of backing out of a conflict (to allow players to get even with an earlier traitor, without having to betray the rest of the team); making Reputation matter.

That last one is especially important. Right now, it's just an empty score. I'm hesitant to give Reputation some kind of mechanical effect, as I don't want a successful betrayal to lead to "run-away leader syndrome" or some kind of "death spiral". I'll probably have to do away with the "a successful betrayal ends your character's story", too.