Lately I've been toying with a conflict resolution system for my retro-sci-fi game Danger Patrol, and I figure it's time to give the Forge a crack at it.

Specific questions:
- Does the system meet my goals as outlined here?
- Are there any IIEE issues that need to be addressed? I don't think so, but I'm not sure if I'm explaining it well enough to cover what's in my head.
- Abilities are mostly color with this system. Is that a bad thing?
- Are there any concepts that don't make sense to you?

What's missing: I don't tell you how to figure out the size of your hand of cards. That comes from character traits, and is modified by damage. The mechanic should make sense without this detail. Any suggestions about how large/small a hand should be would be appreciated, though.
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The Basic Idea:


• Everyone has a hand of cards (7-10?)
• You play a card when you narrate an action. The face value of the card represents how much effort you’re putting into the action.
• The GM plays an opposing card to represent the action of an opposing character or the general difficulty of the conflict.
• High card wins.


There are of course fiddly bits about playing more than one card, when you re-draw your hand of cards, when you shuffle, drawing "free" cards, etc. But that’s the basic idea.

Goals:


• It’s spontaneous. You think of an action for your character to take, narrate it, and play a card. If you want to use a special ability, you narrate it and draw extra cards for the action. Nothing has to be worked out ahead of time.
• It’s player-controlled. The player chooses which cards to play and which to hold in reserve rather than hoping for certain dice rolls to come up.
• Resolution is tied to reward system. The color of cards played effects what rewards the player receives. Black cards are Action cards and they award plot/story power. Red cards are Danger cards which award increased effectiveness at higher risk.
• Conflict-based, not task based. Each card match-up represents a win/lose conflict not a succeed/fail task. Players are free to narrate any kind of task for their heroes (successful or otherwise) and the cards decide whether or not that task results in a win or loss.


The system resolves conflicts at a small scale. A conflict might be "I attack the minions!" and the player could narrate "Rex fires his electro-blaster at the lead minion!" and then play a card for it. The card doesn’t determine whether or not the blast hits, it determines how much of an effect the blast has on winning the conflict. Danger Patrol officers are larger-than-life heroes and they rarely screw up –- though they don’t always win.

What it looks like:


• All the players are sitting around a table. You need the table.
• Each player has a deck of standard playing cards in front of them. Each player should have a unique design on the back of their deck, to avoid mixing the decks during play.
• In the middle of the table, there are some 3x5 cards with stuff written on them. Some of these cards represent locations in Rocket City, created by the players during the set-up phase.
• The GM has three decks of cards in front of her. She needs more because she has to make more draws and it saves time on shuffling. These three decks could be mixed into one big deck like a blackjack dealer in Vegas.
• Each player also has some poker chips. These represent bennies earned during play.
• Each player has three 3x5 cards next to the character sheet. The first is labeled "Position", the second is "Aid" and the third is "Defense." These are called markers. You can play cards onto a marker for use later on. Other kinds of markers can be introduced during play, so you need some blank 3x5 cards, too.


What You Do:


• During a scene, everyone has a bunch of cards in their hands.
• When it’s your turn, you say what your character is doing and play one or more cards, face down. These cards represent the action that you’re narrating. "Rex Dare fires his electro blaster at the Stygian Adept!"
• The GM usually responds with her own cards (face down), narrating a response to your action. "The Adept rolls across the floor to avoid the barrage of electro-blasts."
• Once both sides have played cards for this exchange, all cards are turned over.
• At this point, other players may interrupt to add cards to one side of the exchange. "Iron Mask helps Rex by tangling the Adept with his grapple line!"
• The side with the highest cards wins the exchange.
• The GM narrates the outcome. "The Adept is tangled in the grapple line and topples into Rex’s line of fire. The electro-blaster hits home and smashes the Adept through the window of the control tower."
• The next player takes his turn. There will be several exchanges back and forth until everyone is out of cards or passes. Then the round is over.
• When the round is over, everyone takes the cards they played during the round and sorts them into two piles: red cards and black cards.
• For a player, each red card counts as a point of Danger which is recorded on the Danger Meter on your character sheet. Each black card counts as a point of Action on the Action Meter on the GM’s sheet. High Danger means more risk for a character, but also more rewards. High Action means the heroes are closer to confronting the Big Bad and saving Rocket City.
• Each black card played by the GM counts as a point of Mayhem on the Mayhem Meter on the GM sheet. The Mayhem Meter tracks how much trouble the bad guys are causing Rocket City.
• If the scene isn’t over, a new round starts. New cards are drawn and the action continues. You only shuffle your deck after you play a Joker.


Other Stuff:


• Special abilities and devices can be used to draw extra cards for an action. You simply narrate their use, and check off a box next to the ability for each extra card you draw. The bonus cards come from your deck, not the cards in your hand (i.e. they are "free"). "Iron Mask tries to avoid the missile, but he’s too slow! Fortunately, his Atomic Force-Field kicks in and saves him!"
• The GM says when a conflict happens, but players can request them.
• In addition to extended conflicts over many rounds, you can also have an "instant conflict" that is resolved in one draw vs. a GM assigned difficulty.


Card Totals
To determine the value of the cards you play, take the highest card and add +1 to its face value for each extra card you play. In the case of a tie, red cards are higher than black cards and Hearts beat Diamonds. So the Ace of Hearts is the highest standard card (except for Jokers, see below). You can make a total higher than Ace by adding cards. For example, if you play KH 7D 5C 2H then you would have a King+3, which becomes Ace+2.

Jokers
Jokers are the highest cards. Nothing beats a Joker (including an Ace+). If both sides in a conflict play Jokers, the conflict escalates.

Who Goes First?
When a conflict begins, each player plays a single card face down in front of them (including the GM, though the GM may play multiple cards for multiple opponents). These are the initiative cards. Once everyone has played a card, the cards are turned over. The player with the highest initiative card acts first and may use that card as part of the total for the first action. Everyone else discards their initiative cards.

Defense
When you are attacked, you can play a defense card as a Reaction. You can add extra cards as usual to increase the value (+1 per card). If your defense is successful, you keep your defense card(s) in front of you as your Defense value. Put the Defense card(s) on your Defense marker. You get to keep these cards as your Defense until a) you discard them and play new Defense cards, b) you fail to defend or c) the round ends.

Doing Damage
Most failed exchanges result in damage. Damage represents any and all hindrances to a hero’s performance, including loss of self-confidence. Losing an Intimidation exchange can damage you just as easily as failing to dodge a heat ray.
When you fail an exchange, you mark off a box of damage on your character sheet, starting with the damage level indicated by your current Danger Meter level (as the Danger Meter rises, the minimum damage level rises too).

Extra Damage
An opponent can do extra damage by using an appropriate device or ability. Each use marked against the device or ability adds one to the damage dealt.

Resisting Damage
You can resist damage by using an appropriate device or ability. Each use marked against the device or ability negates one box of damage. Damage can be reduced to zero.

Danger Meter
The Danger Meter sets the level of damage you take if you lose an exchange. Every five points of Danger on the meter raises the minimum damage level (OK—Stunned—Bruised—Bloodied—Slammed—Fade to Black). Each damage level has 3 damage boxes to be marked off. If all the boxes in a damage level are marked, new damage goes directly to the next highest level.
Every five points of Danger earned also refreshes all the uses of an ability or device (player’s choice). Higher levels of Danger (20+) have other rewards.

Action Meter
The GM tracks Action Points on the Action Meter on her sheet. Every 100 APs earned completes a chapter in the current episode. The Big Bad can’t be defeated until the final chapter (Chapter 5). Each game session should complete one chapter, on average.
There will probably be some metagame creation by the play group during set-up that helps define the chapters (during the creation of Rocket City locations, perhaps).

The Opposition
GM-controlled bad guys and perilous situations are defined by a few characteristics: Power, Resistance, and Abilities. Power determines how many cards the GM draws for the opposition. Resistance measures how much damage the opponent can take. Abilities are special resource pools that the GM can draw from to play extra cards for an action (just like PC abilities).

So, a group of minions might look like this:

Space Pirates
Power: 3
Resistance: 6
Abilities:
- Turbo Pistols (x3)
- Zero-Gee Training (x3)

Whenever the Space Pirates take action (or defend themselves) the GM draws 3 cards from her deck and plays them for that action. The GM can mark off a use of an Ability (like Turbo Pistols) to draw an extra card. Once the Space Pirates take 6 points of damage, they are defeated. A larger group of Space Pirates could have a higher Resistance. Better-trained Pirates might have higher Power.

Other kinds of peril can be represented with this system:

Asteroid Field
Power: 6
Resistance: 10
Abilities:
- Dense Iron Deposits (x6)
- Erratic Trajectories (x3)

A pilot could have a conflict with the asteroid field to navigate it safely. "Damage" to the asteroid field could represent plotting a safe course or blasting asteroids out of the way. When the field is defeated, the pilot makes it out the other side.

Just to clarify: Is there any benefit to having sound tactics and strategy under this system?

Is there any benefit to having a stylish description under this system?

I'm guessing "No" to both (which, personally, is how I like to play anyway), but it would be nice to be certain.

I like the fact that in order to achieve something easy (but important), the character should probably complicate matters so that it is no longer easy, but rather requires a large amount of effort. So yeah, he could just shoot the guy, but it's so much more effective to pull a three-wall-ricochet trick shot, blow out the cord of the chandelier and have it drop on his target, pinning his arms. I think that mixes very well with what I grasp of your genre choice.

Gee, John, you couldn’t tell me this last week when I tried to weasel it from you over at ShootingIron, huh?

Well, I jump in here before the usual suspects come into play. Obviously I like the concept—conflict-resolution, few attributes, open-ended options. Good stuff. But you already know that.

Why only small scale conflicts? Given the suggestion that you made about how to add more Space Pirates (a phrase not used often enough anymore), I’d think that you could do larger conflicts working along similar lines. Of course, maybe larger conflicts don’t fit the setting. Hmn, but then you have those gigantic space armadas pounding each other in Galactic Patrol so why not?

That said, I’d like to see how you see working flying cars, Maulers, Skylarks, gyro-craft and what-all into the system. I’d assume that vehicle rules need to mesh as seamlessly as possible. Extra cards, maybe, since the pilot’s skill is usually the most important thing in these stories.

Maybe I’m being dense, but I’m missing the actual effects of damage in this. Again, I love the idea of damage as not just physical punishment but as making it harder to win the conflict, but you know that too. But how do you model it here (maybe I’m just blind).

You’ve presented the stats for some opponents, but what about for the heroes? You seem to suggest that they would be more involved, yes? Let’s see.

Pilot vs. Asteroids—keen. Now what happens if the pilot loses? Is the narration of the conflict resolution determined by somebody’s perception of narrative need? Heh, that’s was pompous. What I mean is, in the 1980’s, if the pilot lost he would be dead and sucking vacuum. Now, in a pulp story, if the hero loses a conflict, he won’t die, but have something unpleasant happen, something that sets back his cause. So how do you decide if the losing pilot gets squashed or gets thrown off-course? Does the asteroid have a presumed goal, which goes into effect if it wins (“squash humans” or “knock spacecraft off-course” or something) or would the GM or the player just make it up to fit the story’s needs?

That’s all I’ve got right now. Got some questions about cards too, but need to run and, besides, the big boys should be coming round soon to ask questions.

Thanks for the comments.

I forgot to mention:
This system should support spontaneous, fast-paced, adventure/pulp action. Emphasis on the *action*.

Tactics and strategy? No. Not worth a damn. You *can* do maneuvers (using the Position marker) that give you a bonus to related actions, but these are abstract stunts, not specific system-based tactics. I'll go into that later.

Colorful descriptions? No, no bonus for that. You do have to narrate an action for each and every card you play, though. So, if you play five cards, you need to describe five "moves" that your character does. And yes, snappy dialogue counts as a move. :)

Tony, you're right on the money about making important stuff more complicated. That's a useful consequence of this system, I think.

Sorry I couldn't spill the beans sooner, Doc. I needed a few coffee chats with Matt before I could nail this sucker down. This system doesn't have to exclusively be used for small-scale conflicts. I may change that bit of text. Good point about the huge armada battles.

Vehicles work like any other device. You can mark off a use to draw an extra card for a vehicle-related action. Some vehicles may have several abilities to draw from like Atomic Jets, Fusion Beams, Gyro-Stabilizer, Heat Shields, etc.

You're not being dense about damage. I forgot to say what it does. Each level of damage past "OK" gives the character a cumulative one card penalty to all draws. So if you're "Stunned" you draw one fewer card at the start of the round. If you're "Bruised" you draw two fewer cards, and so on. When you hit Fade to Black, it's curtains for you. Your character either dies heroically (you get to narrate how) or falls senseless for the rest of the scene.

I'll explain stats for PCs in another post.

Pilot vs. Asteroid:
If the pilot loses an exchange, the ship takes a point of damage. Vehicles have Resistance... did I mention that? The GM could use an asteroid ability like "Dense Iron Deposits" to bump up the damage if she wants. And the pilot cound use the ship's "Force Fields" ability to soak damage.

So... if enough asteroids hit the ship, it comes apart, but before that (mechanically) it continues to function as is?

Mull, mull.

I can see that... they did ride those darn Atomic Turbojets right to the brink of collapse. At the same time, you have an alternative, in that you could have a point of damage check off one of those boxes that people check off to let them do things with the weapon. Then you get good stuff like "The asteroid hit the communications array! We can't radio for help!" And it would also simplify what it means to have Force Fields soak the damage... it's the same mechanic, you just choose to take the damage in the force fields.

Okay, now I'm babbling. Back to your original questions:

The system seems (to my eyes) to meet your goals elegantly.

IIEE is clear.

Abilities... real heroes don't need abilities.

The one concept I'm confused on is why the GM should be choosing cards to play against the player... when I ran Castle Falkenstein (similar card-based fortune) I always found that an onerous chore, very much akin to simply deciding failure and success subjectively.

Perhaps I'm biased, so I shouldn't answer.

However, I'm fairly confident that in years to come I will be able to boast, "yeah, man, summer of 2004, I was there, man, in Zeitgeist Coffee, when it all went down, man, when John laid down the ideas that would become Danger Patrol."

And all the young doe-eyed gamer girls will ask, "what's he really like?"

I really like it. But I'd go ahead and expand the colors to use the full range of suits.

For instance Red Cards are danger...that's cool. But why not have Hearts be physical danger and diamonds be "other bad stuff" like lost or broken equipment, running out of ammo, getting in trouble with the boss, the alarms go off, etc. Play a heart and you risk your character being beat up. Play a diamond and the GM can use it to "damage" you in non physical ways.

For vehicles the Hearts get you closer to "vehicle explodes is cosmic fireball", the diamonds cause system failure "communications are out", "Aft defense screens have failed", etc. Ship stats can include "Reliability" which is how many diamonds the GM must horde before he can narrate a failed system.

The Black Cards are Action...also very cool. But why not have Clubs be fists-a-flyin' physical action, and Spades be Clever-and-cool action. Same basic effect only it qualifies the respective narrative a bit, and it allows you to customize the chapters. Getting to the end of the "what the hecks going on" chapter might take 75 Spades and 25 Clubs (instead of 100 black). Getting to the end of "The Gun Fight at the O.K. Star Port" might take 50 Clubs and 50 of either.

Let me start by saying looks very interesting...

One issue that may need addressing - since a combat/round is defined by everyone using all their cards - one never has the choice to use/not use black or red cards. True, they do give you an advantage - but at a price (always a nice mechanism in a game).

Being dealt a set of high red cards could be a blessing and it could be a curse (more danger but more successes). Forcing a player to play all her cards may remove some of the angst associated with this mechanic...

Looking forward to hearing more on this

TonyLB wrote: The one concept I'm confused on is why the GM should be choosing cards to play against the player...

Everything here is looking very nice thus far .. however, I am curious what happened to the poker chips, taking them out entirely?

While I can see that they are not neccessarily needed, what about characters taking over the Naration? This seemed to be a central element in your original idea .. that players could add new plot elements to the game by playing an action or danger chip.

Personally I liked this idea and would hate to see it abandoned.

>>Atomic Jets, Fusion Beams, Gyro-Stabilizer, Heat Shields, etc.<<

Not a comment, but rather a request. For whatever reason I have the most difficult time coming up with properly cinematic names for devices. Perhaps you could offer a list of potential tags for common items. (ex: atomic jets instead of simply, "jets"; Fusion Beams instead of "laser beams" etc)

I love the potential here and am quite fond of the genre in question, but developing complex and intresting titles has never been my strength. (in much the same way, I have the most difficult time coming up with honorifics for important npcs)

I am going to post this question on the Shooting Iron boards as well, in hopes of gettin some input from the crowd there.

One of my players once asked me for help to play a Son of Ether (in Mage). He needed to be able to come up with decent sounding invention names on the spur to the moment. I gave him a chart with... hrm, was it four columns? Anyway, it looked roughly like this (though with more entries per column, 20 each, if I recall correctly):

[code]Column A: Column B: Column C: Column D:

Hyper- Nucleic Proton Scrambler
Ultra- Atomic Probability Stabilizer
Meta- Dimensional Wave Dampener
Anti- Temporal Gravity Catalyst[/code]
Pick one from each column and you end up with devices like the "Hyper-nucleic proton scrambler" or the "Meta-temporal probability dampener". I'll be the first to tell you that I don't have a clue what either of those would actually do. But I find a chinese menu structure of appropriate word fragments works really well to jumpstart this sort of lingo creation. YMMV.

Very nice Tony ... I would be eternally greatful if you could locate the rest of that list ... or expand upon what you have here. I know, I know .. I should do this myself ... but, like I said, I'm hopeless in this area.



(edited to compensate for appalling spelling errors brought upon by lack of sleep)

The idea of giving players input into the narration (and setting) is still a very important aspect of the game.

As your Danger Meter rises, you earn both effectiveness bennies (like refreshing a Trait, or earning a new Trait) *and* narration bennies (like a blank Element card that lets you create a new threat, location, or ally).

Basically the group will create the game components cooperatively as they play. See Ron's comments* about Over The Edge for why this is a good thing.

Ron Edwards in the Story Now essay wrote: *... If playing this particular game [during development] worked so wonderfully to free the participants into wildly successful brainstorming ... and since the players were a core source during this event, as evident in the game's Dedication and in various examples of play ... then why present the results of the play-experience as the material for another person's experience?

Glad to hear this very important element has not been left out of the game, John. The shared narrative seemed to me one of the big selling points of the system.


A bit of a suggestion, by the way: Someone previously asked about a list of example powers and it occurs to me that they might easily be offered in a framework similar to Tony's suggestion. The player could be given a series of Power types (such as Nuclear, Sonic, Psychic, etc) then a number of effects (flight, blast, tunneling) with the option of adding one or more enhancements. (piercing, enforced, doubling .. ) Thus a player might chose Psychic Blast as an attack form, with the Piercing enhancement, (which would allow it to ignore a force field) or a Sonic Shield with the Enforced enhancement (which would allow it to ignore piercing) Give each person a set number of powers they can chose and a base number of times each is usable before needing to be replenished. (as you've mentioned previously) The addition of enhancements would reduce the number of times one could use the power by a single box per addition. (multiple enhancements might or might not be possible)

Just a thought, but a mechanic of this nature could be invaluable for players inexperienced in the genre. (or just those not feeling particularly creative)

By the way, John .. I know nobody likes a nag .. but any chance we'll see a playtest package up on the Shooting Iron board in the near future? Sky Captain is only a month and a half from hitting the theatres and I know people will be eager to experience the genre themselves afterwards.

Each Style and Role will have a list of sample Traits to get you started. The idea is for players to invent their own, but creating stuff in a vacuum can be tough.

The idea of enhancements is an interesting one. I think this can be handled in the current system by simply adding another Trait. So, you might have "Atomic Heat Ray" as a Trait and also "Overcharge". You could draw bonus cards from your heat ray and then even more from the overcharge to represent "armor-piercing" or whatever.

Stacking traits like this lets a player really specialize a character if they want to. The player of a Commando could take "Aim", "Expert Marksman", and "Trigger Happy" if they wanted, giving them a huge resource pool to draw from when using a gun.