[Cutthroat] v. 3.0

[Troy_Costisick]

Heya,

You can check out my latest playtest report here: Playtest 2 & 3.  In that post I raised several issues:

First, this game is a heckuva a lot of fun to play.  Way more than I expected.

Second, fulfilling a GF's desire can get redundant.  People have to be really creative and engaged to keep it fresh the whole game.

Third, having all NPCs capable of inflicting a wound on a Biker makes the game a bitt too lethal for my tastes.

Fourth, the GF's Secret is rarely invoked.

Fifth, people need more incentives to Gang Up and do a Job.

Sixth, there needs to be a limit on the amount of Cash you can steal per Raid.  I put it at $4,000 before the 2nd playtest and it seemed to be a good number.

Seventh, upgrading your Bike is a big deal.

-So here's what I've done to address those things.

1) Taking Ron's advice, I've changed the rules regarding a Girlfriend's Desire.  Each time you fulfill it, you now have to pick a different one.  So if you pick jewelry first, you'll need to pick leather purse second, high speed thrill ride third, and so on.  This makes play a lot less redundant.  Keeping things fresh in Cutthroat is key to having fun with it.

2) From now on, only Police can inflict a wound on a PC.  With any average Joe able to harm a Biker, it became way too dangerous to Raid.  This makes it so the person playing the Police has to be giving up something also to play one- his participation in the raid.

3) The GF secret is out.  It never mattered anyway, so it's toast.

4) To encourage people to help eachother by ganging up or on jobs, I've added Markers to the game.  A Marker is essentially an IOU that can be cashed in sometime down the road.  When a player cashes in a Marker, the Biker who gave it to him must join that PC on a Job, Challenge, or whatever else.

5) As I said before, I instituted a $4k limit on the amount of money you can rob per Raid.  It's worked really nicely and no one seemed to care about the constraint.  So far, so good.

What I really need now is some feedback from people who don't play the game with me.  So take that as an open invitation to read and/or playtest it! :)  The new version is available here: http://www.divine-games.org/cutthroat30.pdf  And a big thanks to JBR, Eero, and Wolfen for helping me get that file uploaded.  Appreciate all the help, guys :)

Peace,

-Troy

[Ramidel]

Here's me poking for bugs and coming up with rules questions:

Custom Bikes:
1: The default $12,000 for a Custom Bike is redundant. If you're Wanted, you can get it cheaper...if you're -not- Wanted you can get it cheaper. The "default price" can be deleted.
2: If you use a special vendor for your Custom Bike, do you need a New Bike to trade in/customize? What about Durin County Choppers in particular (free customization)?
3: Can you upgrade a Hard Times Custom Bike to an Escape-worthy one?

Rat:
1. Is the Rat allowed to take Markers (or cash bribes) for Best Bragger?
2. Is the Rat allowed to surrender Approaches and give up secrets? (For Markers or just to get revenge...)
3. Can you Approach the Rat for his own Secret?
4. Does the Rat still get his +1-a-Brag bonus if he's sitting in Jail? (If so, Jail is probably where he wants to be, oddly enough, since it keeps the other Bikers out of his hair while he builds up some beef behind bars...)

Jail and Wanted:
1. If a bust-out is botched, does the ex-inmate get Wanted too?

[Troy_Costisick]

Heya,

I'll go thru and answer these questions one at a time.

1: The default $12,000 for a Custom Bike is redundant. If you're Wanted, you can get it cheaper...if you're -not- Wanted you can get it cheaper. The "default price" can be deleted.

-Good point.  I'll have to fix that.

2: If you use a special vendor for your Custom Bike, do you need a New Bike to trade in/customize?

-Yes, you do.  I'll need to make that clear in the text.

What about Durin County Choppers in particular (free customization)?

-Customizing a New Bike is an interesting idea, but I don't think I'll be including it in this game.

1. Is the Rat allowed to take Markers (or cash bribes) for Best Bragger?

-Not in the rules at the moment.  But they will say that soon! :)

2. Is the Rat allowed to surrender Approaches and give up secrets? (For Markers or just to get revenge...)

-No.  The rules for Challenges and Approaches need to be followed.

3. Can you Approach the Rat for his own Secret?

-Absolutely!  He's just like any other Biker in that respect.

4. Does the Rat still get his +1-a-Brag bonus if he's sitting in Jail? (If so, Jail is probably where he wants to be, oddly enough, since it keeps the other Bikers out of his hair while he builds up some beef behind bars...)

-An even better question is what happens if the Rat is dead.  I'll need to include rules that it's really the player or the Rat that judges, not the character of the Rat.  Glad you caught that.

1. If a bust-out is botched, does the ex-inmate get Wanted too?

-Yes.

-Very good questions!  That helps out SO much, Ramidel.  I very much appreciate your feedback.  I'll need to go back to my text and make those changes.  You've just helped my game get better.  Thanks! :)

Peace,

-Troy

[Ron Edwards]

Hiya,

Here are my comments for the latest version. Some of these might conflict a little with the above dialogue, but most is compatible with it, I think.

--

Make the paragraph consisting of the sentence "Cutthroat will give you everything you want in an RPG, but you gotta take it by the ballz and squeeze" the FIRST paragraph of the opening section, and hence the first paragraph in the game. Say "balls," not "ballz." These are redneck bikers, not hip-hop taggers.

Don't abbreviate Status as "Stat." Use "Status" throughout the text. Get rid of the capitalized term "Rank" throughout and replace with Status.

The example of the Secret in action for the character Randy Crankshaft is too grim for the atmosphere of the rest of the rules. Pick something gritty but not emotionally wrenching.

Girlfriends should only have one Desire at a time. When a Desire is fulfilled, it's crossed off and an entirely new one has to be invented at the END of the following Rally. This means that her Desire is fulfilled for a period of one Rally only.

The example new Desire of "high speed police chase" relies too much on oppositional-player choices. Desires need to be something that the biker can go for without relying on other players' approval. Also, it should be something the girlfriend either gets or participates in. Conceivably, a "high speed chase of any kind" might be OK ... but notice that it cannot happen on a Raid, because girlfriends can't go on Raids. I think that works; it means the biker will have to go out of his way to engineer a chase, not just happen to get in one during a Raid.

I love what happens to the Girlfriend of a killed biker. Fantastic!!

Distinguish carefully between rolls made for Jobs, Raids, and Challenges, which pit a ROLL against a ROLL. However, Approaches of any kind (Biker to Rat, Girlfriend to Biker) pit a ROLL against a VALUE. Again, don't use opposed/unopposed terminology to distinguish these, because that makes no sense. Eliminate all mention of Opposed when describing rolls.

The custom bike rules need to be revised, specifically, the details of each gang which provides it. Right now they are way too gamer-ish, too Magic-like, or bluntly, totally broken. None of them should reduce price unless the bike is reduced in effectiveness. All of them which provide a full-on customized bike should require full price; their only difference should be the job they require. In other words, to get a customized bike, you have a choice - (a) a cheaper but not-as-good bike; (b) a full-on customized bike that costs full price AND requires a difficult job.

To summarize: (1) Get rid of Crazy Eddy's. (2) Keep the Hard Times Garage the same, but specify that the bike cannot be upgraded to add the Escape ability (you must start over to get a "real" customized bike). (3) Add another gang for which the bike costs $5000 but only adds +1 to Status (and still has the Escape ability); as with Hard Times, this bike cannot be upgraded later. (4) Durin County Choppers, Blacksteel Choppers, Mad Dog's Hogs, and Freebird Wheels all keep their requirements, but the bike costs $12,000 from any of them.

The single significant rule that I'm not really sure about is having the Rat player choose who's the best Bragger. I really don't trust this rule. If the Rat could never become Top Dog, then I'd support this rule, but a lot of the other rules are constructed to give the Rat a fair shot too, so I'm not sure that I buy that solution. I'm sure there's a fix, but I think we might have to find it through playtesting. Or maybe playtesting will show me that it works fine after all.

With these changes, and with whatever analysis & further testing the Brag rules turn up with, this game is good to go! I can't wait to see what you've come up with for its format.

--

Best, Ron

[Troy_Costisick]

Heya,

Thanks for the awesome feedback, Ron!  Your suggestion for custom bikes works perfectly.  It makes things make a lot more sense now.  I appreciate that one.  Other playtesters have mentioned the custom bike issue also, as well as the kinds of rolls needed for Raid, Jobs and Challenges.  Looking back over the game, I can see how that is very unclear.  So that will be no problem to fix. 

The single significant rule that I'm not really sure about is having the Rat player choose who's the best Bragger. I really don't trust this rule. If the Rat could never become Top Dog, then I'd support this rule, but a lot of the other rules are constructed to give the Rat a fair shot too, so I'm not sure that I buy that solution. I'm sure there's a fix, but I think we might have to find it through playtesting. Or maybe playtesting will show me that it works fine after all.

-Well, your right.  It takes a really strong Social Contract for people to play by the rules.  It's better with more than 4 people because then he has to pick two.  I really like the idea of the Rat being a full, but disadvantage participant plus having this extra responsibility.  Like you say, making it so the Rat can't win isn't a solution I could buy either.  I might be able to make the +1 Status bonus the Rat gets contingent on something.  Like he doesn't get it if he picks the lowest status biker or if he picks the same biker twice.  But even those kind of undermine the spirit of the game.  It's a toughie.  Maybe one of the other playtest groups will come up with a solution.  I'm open to any suggestions at this point :)

Peace,

-Troy