[Six Bullets for Vengeance] the mechanics for vengeance

[andrew_kenrick]

I've been working through the basic mechanics for Six Bullets and wanted some input. More about the initial concept and the framework for play can be found in this thread. This game is brought to you by the number 6 - I've stuck with the motif of the 6 bullets from the title, so the game uses d6s, there are 6 villains, 6 scenes (more or less) and so on.

To resolve a conflict all participants throw a number of d6s equal to a relevant attribute. Any that come up as a 4 or more are a success. The character who gets the most successes can narrate the outcome of the conflict.

Each character is defined by 6 dice worth of attributes (so I might have gunslinger 3d6, horseriding 2d6, sweet talking 1d6, and my character is effectively maxed out), which are defined as they emerge in play. At any time, so long as it comes up in play, a character may define himself further by adding in a new attribute or increasing the number of dice for an attribute or whatever. This way, as the game progresses, the characters become more defined, and about more than just their vengeance.

And that, in a nutshell, is it. There's one final feature I want to talk about too, to do with vengeance, killing and the hero, but I'll save that for another post.

Do you think that it's too simplistic a mechanic? What about the idea of defining a character's attributes as they come up in play, rather than up front?

[Ron Edwards]

Hey Andrew!

This is so ready for playtesting it squeaks. Write up what you've got, and make a PDF available! Run off and play with friends, and if I'm not mistaken, a number of us here will do the same. And then, there's a whole forum here dedicated to discussions that come after that.

Seems to me that more fiddling at this stage won't add much insight. The only suggestion I have is that characters' increase in dice and attributes might be organized by when and how much, rather than purely improvisational. On the other hand, I do like and support the improvisation of content, in that we learn about Sam's remarkably intelligent horse Winchester simply because he shows up in a scene and gets his dice established then and there.

The HeroQuest rules include a "nearly blank sheet" mode of character creation, with subsequent definition through play, that in my opinion gets used too rarely. That ought to be added into your list for review.

Best, Ron

[MPOSullivan]

Hell, I'd go one step further with the "Blank Sheet" mode from HQ that Ron spoke of.  I'd say that the hero starts with one ability in the last scene, his Gunfighting skill at whatever dice the player wants.  As the story unfolds he gets at least one additional new ability per scene, thus revealing more about the character as we, as viewers and players, uncover more of his past.  Maybe put in an artificial cap of the number of dice that can be assigned per scene, like say... six.  Then by the end of the game you get a character with a bunch of flesh on the bones and you get to see how it was all taken away from him. 

Any ideas on scene structuring yet?  Who decides when a scene ends?  Is it a player matter, or when that scene's villain is killed or is it a trick of the dice? 

Love to hear more. 

[PhilV]

Hi Andrew

The idea for this game really intrigues me. You get a nice in media res opening followed by a series of flash backs. Awesome. In particular I like the comment posted by MPOSullivan;

Then by the end of the game you get a character with a bunch of flesh on the bones and you get to see how it was all taken away from him.

Wow. This hit me like a thunderbolt. Imagine a game that opens in media res with a gunfight. The "hero" has one attribute called vengeance at 6D6. The gunfight plays out.

Then we go back one scene. The hero now has vengeance at 5D6 and introduces another ability at 1D6 that they must lose during the course of that scene. Then we go back another scene and the hero has vengeance at 4D6, their previous ability at 1D6 and may introduce a new ability at 1D6 or add 1D6 to their previous ability. Step and repeat.

The game ends with the "first" scene where the hero has no dice in vengeance and we see what ability is lost first which sets them on their road to bloody vengeance.

In essence if we played the game in reverse order, we would see the hero lose their abilities one by one and each time they lost something it would fuel their vengeance until they are consumed by it. Whether or not this was your initial concept, I really love this idea. Watching a character lose little pieces of themselves until they are nothing but an engine of vengeance really fires me up. The way the character's options get slowly narrowed down until their only course of conflict resolution is vengeance just seems so tragic and yet "right" to me for the "genre". A good 99% of Western movies i have seen apply this mechanic. It seems to fit.

I also like the idea that this game would have a definite scene structure. We know that the hero begins each scene with either a new, or a stonger ability than the scene before, and we know that during the course of the scene, the hero must lose this ability. That's a pretty good start for scene direction right there.

To resolve a conflict all participants throw a number of d6s equal to a relevant attribute. Any that come up as a 4 or more are a success. The character who gets the most successes can narrate the outcome of the conflict.

I see this type of mechanic keep cropping up in narrative orientated games and I think it suffers from the slight problem of what to do when no one rolls any successes. Who gets to narrate then, and are they narrating success or failure? I would suggest that the highest number rolled gets to narrate their success with the added rule that additional 6s above the first add 1 to the first 6. For example, I roll 4D6 for a 3 5 6 6. My final score is 7 as the first 6 is my highest number but the second 6 adds 1 to it for a total of 7. Depending on the tone of the game you may have the hero win or lose ties. I would probably suggest lose for this game.

Some great ideas here. I would love to see a rough draft to have a play with.

[andrew_kenrick]

Wow. This hit me like a thunderbolt. Imagine a game that opens in media res with a gunfight. The "hero" has one attribute called vengeance at 6D6. The gunfight plays out. Then we go back one scene. The hero now has vengeance at 5D6 and introduces another ability at 1D6 that they must lose during the course of that scene. Then we go back another scene and the hero has vengeance at 4D6, their previous ability at 1D6 and may introduce a new ability at 1D6 or add 1D6 to their previous ability. Step and repeat.

The game ends with the "first" scene where the hero has no dice in vengeance and we see what ability is lost first which sets them on their road to bloody vengeance.

Actually that's a splendid idea Phil! It's vaguely close in spirit to my idea for Vengeance Dice, but so much more elegant.

My original idea was to force the hero to have 1 dice in Vengeance, and to use a special red Vengeance dice. The dice could only be rolled in direct, angry pursuit of his revenge, and would signal the end of the scene and the death of the villain, whether successful or not (the success merely indicates who gets to narrate the end).

But I prefer your suggestion - especially the concept of decreasing the vengeance dice as the game progresses. But should I limit their use, and make the rolling of them the final act of the scene, as I described above? Or just treat them like any other stat?

As for the rough rules - I'm working on them! Hopefully have something good to go at the weekend, although I've got a mini 2 player playtest tomorrow.

[PhilV]

But I prefer your suggestion - especially the concept of decreasing the vengeance dice as the game progresses. But should I limit their use, and make the rolling of them the final act of the scene, as I described above? Or just treat them like any other stat?

My thoughts on the Vengeance dice would be to use them in any action that pursues that vengeance. For example, in scene 3 (3D6 Vengeance, 3D6 of other traits) the hero is chasing the villain across a cliff top on horse back. Up ahead is a break in the cliff top that must be jumped. Now the hero could roll a horse riding trait (or the horse itself could be a trait) if he had one, or his Vengeance trait as the action is in direct pursuit of that act of vengeance. With the way the game might work, this cliff jump would probably have been created to show how the hero lost one of his traits - in this case his horse. If the loss of 1D6 of his horse would result in the hero losing all his horse trait - the horse might make the jump but slip on loose rock, throwing the hero to safety before slipping down into the depths below. Or the horse might land but break its leg, meaning that the hero must leave it behind. It is these kind of poignant moments that really sell the game to me.

Of course you might decide that vengeance dice can only be used in acts of bloody violence towards that vengeance, but I have a feeling that might leave the hero quite weak in Scenes 5-3 where he has very little in the way of other traits.

As for the rough rules - I'm working on them! Hopefully have something good to go at the weekend, although I've got a mini 2 player playtest tomorrow.

Awesome stuff. I sense an Actual Play thread. Can't wait!

Phil

[andrew_kenrick]

I've finished a playtest draft for Six Bullets for Vengeance now - there's a thread looking for playtesters here, and the playtest document can be downloaded here.