General Introduction

[Eric Harris]

Hello all,

My name is Eric Harris and I'm currently working on a crime-themed RPG entitled Grift. First off, 'grift' is an old slang term referring to money earned dishonestly through illegal means or a swindle. The basic story begins in 1999 with the arrest and conviction of mob boss Sancho Perez. Perez's group, K357, started as a a street gang in the early '80s and evolved into a formidable criminal enterprise. Perez's incarceration, and the subsequent dismantling of his empire, created a vacuum in Central City with several factions vying to fill the void.

That's where the player comes in.

While the various factions have their own 'soldiers' at their disposal, certain tasks require the skills of a specialist. A specialist, referred to in game as 'contractors,' takes on any job, no questions asked, as long as the client can pay the bill.

Character creation is point based on scale of one to ten in nine basic areas ranging from basic intelligence to firearm proficiency. Players can augment their characters with various martial arts (that act as modifiers based upon the situation and opposing character stats) and selectable special skills such as Explosives, and  Breaking and Entering.

The game utilizes 3d6 for basic conflict resolution. Anything over the character's skill rating is a failure. Anything less is a success. Some tasks require multiple skills and multiple rolls to complete. It's basically the GURPS system.

Hand to hand combat is fought in a best of  three rounds. The initiator, as dictated by the story, gets the first roll in the first roll. If it's unclear who should get the first roll, players can roll an awareness roll. The winner of the first round gets first roll in the second roll and so on. The winner must get two success roles to win.

At first, I was unsure how to factor damage. I knew I wanted each weapon to have a damage value or damage points (DP) but wasn't sure where to go from there. After some thinking I came up with separate equations to factor damage that takes into account the weapon's damage value (whether it be a fist, a knife, a gun, a grenade, even a car) and other factors such as distance and speed. For instance, a grenade could have a DP of 30. The equation for explosions is DP divided by character's distance from explosion in feet. So if a character is standing five feet from a grenade that would equal six points subtracted from HP.

That's gist of the game so far. I still have a ton of work to do as far as weapons, back story and sample scenarios. I'm hoping to run a few play tests in the next couple of weeks. I welcome any comments or questions.

[Callan S.]

Hi Eric, welcome to the forge!

What does the game ask the players to achieve? I don't mean specifically, the specifics will change from session to session. But in a general sense - is it to complete the mission?

If so, how do your mechanics tie into that - do the players make rolls, but then the GM decides whether the roll helps or wouldn't have helped with anything?

[Eric Harris]

Game play is mission based, but one session could be comprised of two or three smaller missions that all tie into a bigger goal.

Dice rolls decide whether a character successfully complete a difficult task. One example is a sniping mission. The PC has a marksman stat of 7,slightly above average. That means the player must roll anything less than 7 to his target. If he fails, the GM decides the consequences based on how high the roll is. Rolling an 8 would mean a miss but rolling an 18, the highest possible roll, would mean not only a miss but the player was spotted as well. I hope that clears it up.

[Callan S.]

Well it's not so much about clearing it up for me, but the question might help you out. Is there any mechanical link, rules wise, between making skill rolls and finishing the mission? Your answer describes hitting a target in the imagined game world, but whether hitting that target will help finish the mission is currently up to the GM.

It's kind of like putting your foot on the accelertor of a car, but it's connected to nothing - instead someone else controls the accelerator and watches your foot. Either that person always pushes the accelerator when you put you foot down, which effectively means the fake accelerator pedal should be connected up directly as this is just an awkward, inefficient system. Or the person doesn't press each time you put your foot down, in which case the fake accelerator is a waste of effort to use.

It's a tough question. But that's why it might help