[Black Cadillacs] - Death in the PM

[Darcy Burgess]

Hi,

A couple of weekends ago, I got to run two one-shots of Black Cadillacs at the CanGames IGE.

The timing couldn't have been better, as I'm in the middle of hammering out my draft for the Ashcan Front.

There was a new rule on the table, which came out of this thread.  The rule is the "Death Die" rule, which allows players to grab a special virtually-no-strings-attached die for their pool.  The two caveats are: you've got to describe how your character dodges death, and you increase the likelihood of bad shit happening to someone during the evening's endgame.

It was wonderful.

Players were always eyeing the Death Die, and there were numerous times when there was gnashing of teeth over whether to roll it or not.

A wonderful emergent property was that the 'dodging death narration' actually helped folks keep their creative juices flowing, and I saw a lot less 'blank canvas syndrome' as I have before.  Huzzah!

So, the final fiddle that I'm toying with for the Ashcan is ramping up the importance of mid-game card gathering.  I'm thinking of doing this by stripping the high cards (which help you in the endgame) during the initial allotment of cards at the beginning of an evening.  The high cards would then be re-shuffled into the deck once scene-to-scene play began.

Other than deck size vs player hand size issues (it's a close ratio... very few cards are left unnacounted for), what other things can y'all see with this?

Thanks!
D

[Ron Edwards]

Fantastic! I'm really glad that our post-thread conversation turned out to yield good mechanics results in play.

As for messing with the composition of the deck - it seems to me as if that's something the Ashcan version should leave open and explicitly call for feedback about. I think it's impossible to run enough playtests with enough different people and get enough feedback to make a really informed decision about that in the time you have remaining.

Best, Ron

[Darcy Burgess]

Hey Ron,

Yeah, the Death Die is spiffy.  Thanks for jamming with me!

I'm glad that I ran you to ground, and took the conversation off-thread.  We were flailing in that thread, (aside: Ron and I were actually trying to say some of the same things!) that phone call definitely made a difference.

I'm also bouncing around the idea of allowing the GM to enforce use of the death die on a roll.  An example of where this might crop up would be if a player makes a declaration like, "I charge headlong at the MG nest!" and doesn't grab the Death Die.

Really, it's the same old rule, but explicitly allowing the Player or the GM to put the death die into the Player's pool.

D

[Aise]

Hey Darcy,

I really like the idea of the forced Death Die. But if you have enough players, 3 or 4 besides the foe, then the deck gets pretty low pretty quick and most of the good cards will probably have been bought by the players by then. However when trying to come up with a solution for this I thought of the perfect thing, add a second deck. I don't know how the math would work out but it deffintly helps out people who have a bunch of people in their gaming group, most of whom like playing Black Cadillacs. I'm dreading this Friday where our full group will be together for the first time since I got your game and I'll have to play Foe for six other people.

Thanks and hope the advice helps,

Aise. (John)

[Darcy Burgess]

Hi John,

I've been thinking about the 'forced death die' a bit.  Timo's comments over here are key to my thought process. I think that ramming it down a player's throat is too heavy-handed.

However, the idea of any Player (the Foe included) interjecting in the middle of a Declaration and mentioning the Death Die seems totally appropriate.

ex:
Ally 1: I charge the machinegun nest head-on.
Ally 2: You what?
Foe: You're taking the Death Die, yeah?
Ally 1: (smiling) Shit, yeah!

or,

ex:
Ally 1: I charge the machinegun nest head-on.
Ally 2: You what?
Foe: You're taking the Death Die, yeah?
Ally 1: (frowning) Hmmm...maybe not.  How 'bout I lob a grenade at the MG nest instead.

What this really boils down to is an implementation of the "free and clear" rules (p.53)  It just uses the Death Die as a focal point for the discussion.

Regarding deck composition, the deck thinning down, and numbers of players, yeah...that weighs on my mind a lot.  I'll be pretty up front: I think that you're going to have a hard time with 6 Allies (the game is designed for 2-4 Allies + Foe)...I'm pretty sure that the math (re: deck composition) won't work.

However, if you have six friends who want to play, who am I to stand in your way?  Here are two things you could try that might improve things a tad:

1) reduce everyone's hand size from 6 cards to 5 (this would make the Foe's ability to bank cards really mean.)
OR,
2) have Allies play Troopers in pairs.  This way there will only be (in the case of 6 players) 3 Allied hands in play.

Cheers,
Darcy

[Aise]

Thanks for the advice Darcy, I think this week I might just use two decks, because this is the first time in a few months we've all been together and what not. Next week, or maybe even later that night I will try the 5 card hand or reducing the number of character by having them played in pairs.

On the forced Death Die, I think that, like anything as the person who is running the game, it could easily get out of hand. I mean I wouldn't do it every time,

Ally 1: I stay behind a rock and cower!
Foe: DEATH DIE TIME!

It would have to be a suggestion kind of system not based off the other players, much like your example, except without the interjection from Ally 2 needing to be there.