[The Rustbelt] GM flails, but at least the system rocks

[Marshall Burns]

Okay, HERE it is, the quick 'n dirty first draft.  Now, some of the formatting got weird during the translation into html, but I think you'll be able to make sense of it.

One thing that is lacking from this particular draft is specific setting information.  This is because I'm not yet sure how much actually needs to be part of the game, as distinguished from the cities and counties I play it in myself.  The first county was made up on the spot so many years ago (oddly enough, that map of County Remington, as it was called, is the only thing that has not changed).  Currently I'm thinking that the rest of the game information tells you enough about what the Rustbelt is like for you to be able to make up sketchy cities and counties by yourself (like I've been doing) with relative ease, but of course I would need feedback to corroborate that.

David,
To tell the truth, I was this close to making all damage "Hard" damage from the get-go, but then I started thinking that, sometimes, it makes a difference in fiction whether someone gets hit full-on or just grazed, which makes randomization seem like the way to go.  Then I thought, "but what about when people describe their attacks in a way that's clearly gonna hurt, and then they roll a 2?  That's just lame."  So I went for a compromise between the two.  We'll see how well it works.

Knarfy,
Yes, you've definitely got it.
I don't want to give the impression that all things that could be termed stunts are not okay, however.  Saying, "I leap from the balcony and kick him in the chest and do a backflip and land on my feet!" is emphatically not okay, but "I leap from the balcony and tackle him, taking us both to the hardwood floor" is perfectly fine.

There's other more plausible things that aren't really okay either.  I mean, I can pick up poles and buckets and such with my feet like Jackie Chan does, and I'm not even trained in any sort of anything, but am I going to do that in a serious knock-down drag-out Rustbelt-style fight?  Not likely.  It's just not the sort of thing you have the time or chance to do in that kind of fight.

-Marshall

[Knarfy]

delicious ~

One thing that leaps out at me though. How do I determine how many dice they get from psych?

[Marshall Burns]

Yikes, did I leave that out?  This computer's being screwy and won't let me look at the page.
Anway, it's 5 dice, always.

[Knarfy]

wow, thats alot.

Hmm, to follow up then, I think more specific guidelines on when those apply might be advisable. (I didnt really get a clear picture from my  readthrough)

[Marshall Burns]

Yeah, I was thinking about that too.  It will definitely have to be explicated in the rules.  Until then, here's the way they work:

Hunger is applicable if success means satisfying or getting one step closer to satisfying it AND failure means Frustrating it.

Vice is applicable if success means you get to indulge AND failure means you abstain.

Faith is applicable if it would motivate you or otherwise give you inner strength AND failure means that experience just ran counter to what you believe.

Woe is applicable if success means preventing it (i.e., the original source of the Woe) or something similar from happening again ("I can't let anyone else die in a blizzard like my brother did!" is perfectly fine) AND failure means suffering through it all over again.

Limits are applicable if success means acting in accordance with it AND failure means breaking it.

So, yeah, it's basically common sense (in the "why didn't I think of that" way), but putting it in black-and-white is a good thing, especially because of my ulterior motive for having Psyche grant dice anyway.  See what I'm getting at there?  It's an incentive for players to get their characters in situations that might trigger Character Dynamics; the ol' Carrot in Front and a Fire Underneath trick.

[Knarfy]

That sounds pretty workable. (good even

Really, it seems that the important thing is that any time you are 'channeling' your psych into a task, you suffer the loss/frustration/whatever for that psych if you fail.

So if you channel your hunger and fail at the task, your hunger becomes frustrated, or your faith becomes lost, or whatever.

So long as there is risk inherent in channeling it at all, I think leaving when its applicable mostly up to the players is fine.

[Marshall Burns]

Yeah, to be honest, all the GM stuff that falls under "Pacing," "Moderation," and "Adjudication" is stuff that I typically handle informally, but I don't know how to tell people how to do it that way themselves.  The GM chapter is definitely one of the big Not-Finished bits of the design.