[Pinnacle Empty Quiver] Raid on the Spanish Fort

[John Harper]

I asked for and received a playtest kit. Can't wait to try it! Thanks, Bryan.

I like Jason's idea of pre-made degraded abilities. That's cool. Hell, some things could even *improve* when you're about to die. That might be neat.

[Jason Morningstar]

I'm imagining a sort of minigame during character creation (or pre-gen modification) where you have to decide what happens when you get hurt, and then what happens when you are close to death - sort of a reverse point buy, but with the option of working it so that in that third stage, as John suggests, you could have your guy rally (maybe at the cost of certain death) and be awesome for a brief moment. 

[andrew_kenrick]

I'm imagining a sort of minigame during character creation (or pre-gen modification) where you have to decide what happens when you get hurt, and then what happens when you are close to death - sort of a reverse point buy, but with the option of working it so that in that third stage, as John suggests, you could have your guy rally (maybe at the cost of certain death) and be awesome for a brief moment. 

That reminds me a great deal of Heroclix, for some reason. In that your guys' stats change as they get injured, and whilst most just get lamer and lamer, some suddenly get awesomely powerful just before death.

[Bryan Hansel]

That's an interesting idea, Jason. And it removes the fiddly bit during play. I'm doing to play around with the idea and figure out how to make it work. Plus, with John's idea of adding a little improvement, it's movie starish.

Graham's list made me think of something. So, if you take a chance and fail a skill role and lose your Steel Die, like Jason says it's war so tough, but because you used your Steel Die, it helps make the failed skill role successful in a small way. The player gets to narrate the failure instead of the GM narrating it.

Over the next week, I'm going to write up the changes to the draft, and I'll post it online.

Meanwhile, I post a copy of the current rules to everyone that wants it.

[Jason Morningstar]

The downside to pre-determining states of injury is that it puts that fiddly bit squarely before play, when you had problems with time in the first test.  You could do it on the fly - cross a certain theshold, re-write your guy - or the three states could be part of the pre-gen, or they could be fixed and identical for everybody, which would make it easy but less interesting.

[John Harper]

I think making the hurt states part of the pregens could work just fine. It might make pregen selection more interesing.

"This guy is cool, but this other guy gets really good at Handguns when he's hurt. But this guy becomes an awesome leader right before he dies.... hmmmm...."

[Bryan Hansel]

Doing it on the pregens will make it much easier for the players. And for groups that don't want to use the pregens will have a chance to do it on the fly. On the fly could be very easy: Reduce x# of skills by a total of y points. Increase x# of skills by a total of y points. This could be based on the character Specialty. It would be interesting to have it based on a basic training mini-game, but that takes away from the intended time frame for the game.

[jdizon]

I think it would be a shame to see it get too streamlined. Maybe there's a faster way to get going in play, though, like having pregen characters. For this one-shot, 2-hour game, full-on chargen may not be necessary. pinnacle security