Session Report and chases

[murazor]

I ran my first TRoS session a few days ago, and it went fairly well. It's rather ironic though that most of the time was spent trying to kill the one character (out of three) with no weapon skills and no interest in fighting.
The game is set to France, 1564; right in the middle of the French wars of religion. This Gerard is a renowned baker, who is attacked by his nemesis Christian d'Oursel (a petty noble who hates him for his good looks and way with women (Passion: hate). They are also divided by religion. Gerard is a hugenot protestant (Faith)) while accompanying the count's young daughter to Orleans (Passion: love, protective). Christian tries to kidnap the girl and eventually succeeds, but not before Gerard has overcome both of his two mounted henchmen.
He probably shouldn't have succeeded as easily, but I wasn't really trying to kill him, and I don't know the combat rules very well yet.

Which brings me to the meat of my message.
The first problem I ran across is a common mechanics problem: Chases. Does anyone have a good way to handle this? The first instance was the simpler one, in which Gerard grabs the girl and runs for the woods. I had Gerard do an Agility test based on Christian's ride test. The mechanics itself was a bit ad hoc and awkward, but the principle seems sound - breaking it into descreet parcels, each resolved by some form of contested maneuver.
The second was the chase to catch up with Christian and the girl. As it happened a straight chase didn't occur, but I would still be very interested in guidelines on how to handle them in the future. Hmm.. maybe the chase rules from Unknown Armies could be used..?
Anyway, back to the matter at hand. I tipped Gerard's player about Luck, and he chose to burn a point to tip the scales in his favour, causing Christian's horse break his leg. And so they (by this time a second character had arrived on the scene) caught up with Christian, threatened him with pain and humiliation and forced him to give up the girl (fueling his Hate passion).
This was incidentally an interesting twist, since what I had imagined was whole series of complications based on Christian getting away with the girl. Of course, the complications resulting from this course of events are just as interesting; namely Baron Pasquire, Christian's patron, charging into the village in force, demanding that the count hand over Gerard to be tried for assaulting a noble.

Now I'm just faced with the problem of how to run a campaign with two characters of differing social class, motivations and even nationality. I'm running the third chapter today - I'll just have to see how it goes.

General campaign question: How much scripting do GMs here use to run their games? I see a number of articles adivising us to abandon all preconceived notions of how to run an adventure. Let Character Motivation  carry the day! the call goes. An intriguing concept, but how (well) does it work in practice?

[Draigh]

Murazor asked:

General campaign question: How much scripting do GMs here use to run their games? I see a number of articles adivising us to abandon all preconceived notions of how to run an adventure. Let Character Motivation carry the day! the call goes. An intriguing concept, but how (well) does it work in practice?

As far as your scripting question is concerned, just try to have a general idea of where you want the story to go, and let it flow... this thread might help.  http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=7215

I just wrapped up my best TRoS campaign ever... it was completely character motivated, and went off beautifully.

[Lance D. Allen]

Chases: pretty much you'll just compare the movement of the two characters (or their mounts, if on horseback) I might allow something akin to terrain rolls to use terrain to your advantage in either losing or gaining on your opponent. When/if you get within range of your opponent, attempt to make attacks to unhorse them, or slow them down.

If the chase runs long, start applying fatigue. Whichever one loses their stamina first loses the chase.

[Spartan]

I might be tempted to use Movement to test the Terrain roll TNs.  A margin means you found more stable terrain (the grass is less slippery over here after the rain because of better drainage, etc.) and are able to gain on your opponent.  Each success in your margin lowers your next TN by one... you've got some momentum going.  With a mounted opponent just test riding and use the same margin mechanic.

Anyone think that would work?  How much of a lead does a one die margin represent?  Any ideas?

-Mark