[The City] Rough Cut Game Idea

[Keith Senkowski]

Hey,

So I was sitting in traffic and thinking about Sin City and realized I wanted to make a game that captures that, Chow Yun-Fat movies & Film Noir and started jotting down ideas.  Here is what I came up with:

Mechanic

[*]Dice Pools of D6s
[*]Successes on rolls of 5 & 6
[*]Declare action and roll (unload gun at guy behind bar)
[*]Each success allows the player to state a fact about the action (thank you Donjon)
[*] On opposed actions the aggressor states his facts first then the opponent states his
[/list:u]
Traits

[*]3 Attributes with 10 points divided into them (Graft, Grit & Guts)
[*]Graft covers mental type of actions
[*]Grit covers physical type of actions
[*]Guts is used when the shit hits the fan in conjunction with the other two
[*]Each One has a Descriptor which when actions fall under it the character gets an additional die to roll
[*]Each character has a Job (prostitute, private dick, mafia soldier) which give an additional die to all actions that fall under that
[*]Each Player has got to have a Kicker
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Virtues & Vices

[*]Each character has at least one Virtue (protects women at all costs) and two Vices (the monster comes out when he drinks and he hits first and asks questions later)
[*]1:2 Virtue to Vice Ratio
[*]Characters gain dice when they enact their virtues or vices
[*]Each time they are used they are tallied by the GM.  At the end of a story a character rolls his Virtue against his Vice.  The number of dice are equal to his number of Virtues plus the number of times he used them.  The number of successes he needs are equal to his Vices plus the number of times he used them.
[*]Success at this check gives the Player his Narration Pool (track with tokens) equal to his number of Vices.  These can then be spent to gain automatic successes on actions.[/list:u]
So that is my rough idea for a game.  Basically I'm looking for feedback on the mechanics (likes, dislikes, broken shit).  Also, I'm a little concerned about combat.  Since it is a big part of this genre I'm trying to capture I'm worried that the fact statement is going to break it.  However, I'm looking for a singular mechanic too.

Keith

EDIT: I can't spell!!!!

[Keith Senkowski]

Hey,

Another idea for the resolution mechanic:

Conflict Resolution

[*]Most Successes Wins (narrates events)
[*]Tie (GM narrates and neither side makes headway)
[*]In combat, the difference in successes is the penalty to the character rolls for the rest of the scene.
[*]Characters can only die when the Player decides he wants him to die.
[*]NPCs only die when their penalty is equal to their total number of traits.
[/list:u]
Any feedback?  Anybody?

Keith

[TonyLB]

General worry #1:  Dice Pools.  They're slow.  They're almost entirely non-random.  They don't allow much in the way of gradation of facts.

You're going to be talking about pretty large dice pools (eight to ten, at least, every single action of a combat).  It looks unwieldy to me.  I tried something like it in Capes, and it was unwieldy there.  But maybe you've got a better way... hard to say.

General worry #2:  Movies like "The Killer" and "Hard Boiled" don't really have opposed actions, as far as I can see.  They have unstoppable people wreaking stylish havoc, largely on bands of mooks who don't stand a chance in hell of stopping them.

If you design primarily for opposed actions I worry that you're designing for the once-in-a-story final climax, and not giving folks the game mechanics that they'll need to do everything leading up to it.

General worry #3:  Are you trying to simulate the genre (i.e. "I can't be out of bullets, I still have guns left") or are you trying to address a premise common to it (e.g. "One cannot fight monsters without becoming a monster") or something else?  What you've got right now is a conflict mechanic, but it is entirely possible that your game won't need a conflict mechanic.  Many don't.

Mechanical Quibble #1:  Isn't 1-Graft, 1-Grit, 8-Guts a powerfully minimaxed set of attributes?  Yeah, yeah, I know, they're going to horribly embarass themselves every time they try something easy... but if they've got a huge pile of power when it really counts, isn't that worth it?

[GregS]

As a fellow fan of the genre, I both see a really strong point to this system and a potential negative.  The positive is that firm target numbers make the dice rolling, and finding successes, easy.  The potential negative is that, with the sheer volume of combat, I'm a little concerned tossing out tons of dice, stopping to find the result, and then moving on may break up your guns akimbo feel.  Mainly because there are sooo many actions per fight that sorting out the dozens of gunshots and effects may be a little slow.

I've got three ways to address this so far, if you're even worried about it.  The first is to do "groups of attacks"; i.e. when Li makes his attack roll, it's not "a kick" it's "a flurry of kicks all thrown at incredible speeds".  I like this in abstract, but I think gamers, historically, have kind of shunned the concept when other games have done it.

The second option is to significantly limit the number of dice in the pool, but this can make it hard for distinguishing the heavy skill disparity between the heroes and the thuggies.

Finally, is to break the mold and have a genre specific dynamic to accomplish the goal.  It may seem a bit radical, but since those fights are always "seat of the pants" anyways, I have cool visions of a little chart that tells you "6 successes means you have landed 3 fists, 2 feet, and an elbow" so it's presented in a story, rather than literal, sense.  The other thing that comes to mind on this line is to, in example, compare the "Fu" value of each character when the action begins, with the attacker rolling a number of dice equal to the difference between their Fu and the defender's Fu (minimum of 1).  That way, you're rolling a low number of dice, and it's directly effected by the skill levels of the combatants.  For gun fights this would be the difference between the attackers "Shoot 'em Up" and the defenders "Dive and Dash".

[Keith Senkowski]

Hey,

Thanks for the feedback.
General worry #1...
How are they slow and non-random?

General worry #2...
I was thinking of abstracting the action.  Instead of rolling against each goon individually, rather rolling against a given situation with maybe a chart of the Difficulty of various situations.  Win and you narrate how you handle it.  Lose and the GM narrates (or maybe get rid of the GM and use some sort of collective storytelling thing, dunno?).

General worry #3...
Interesting point.  I'm not entirely sure.  I think the most important part of the genre is the personal conflict of the characters (Virtue vs Vice).  To draw from Sin City, Dwights issues with releasing the "monster" or his problems with women (which are related).

Mechanical Quibble
I was thinking of having a cap of 4 for any one trait or something.  Maybe even lower the total number to divide into the Traits to say 7 with a cap of 3.
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with the sheer volume of combat...
I think that is why it needs to be abstracted to situations opposed to round by round challenges...  I think that is the only way to keep with the raw energy of the genre.

little chart that tells you
Do you mean some sort of guide?  Or is this kind of like how Curb Your Enthusiasm is put together?  If you are unaware, since it is mostly all improve they only write scenes or sometimes write up a few lines they want an actor to say, but the when and how is up to them.

compare the "Fu" value
This is an interesting idea.  It essentially eliminates any sort of opposed roll.

Keith

[TonyLB]

On dice-pools and randomness, I recommend this thread.

[Nathan P.]

Thought that popped into my head while skimming this thread, and maybe not one that will work for you at all, but -

Yer rolling a handful of dice for each attack. What if, not only do you read the dice to determine the overall outcome (I win with 3 successes), but the individual result of each dice codes to different individual hits/strikes/whatever (I rolled two 3's, two 4's, two 5's and a 6, so I punch him twice (two 3s) then pistol-whip him (a 5)).

I guess this is kind of a specification of the "each success means a fact" thing, but it may be genre-appropriate and fun. Each weapon or style gets a different spiffy little chart, or something.

Again, just a thought.

[Ron Edwards]

Whoa, gotta say:

Keith, you must, must read and internalize the content of Extreme Vengeance. This is one of the finest RPGs available, belied by its over-humorous presentation.

Really, not kidding. Get, read, process, and come right back to this thread topic after.

Best,
Ron