After playing Two Page Action Movie RPG (2PAM from here on out) three times in two weeks, I thought I'd take the time to do a post about it.

I've played it with two groups, the first is 'my' Tuesday night group, the other is the Weds nite group I started playing with last week. We're playing a game of their design normally, but last night there were only three of us, and they wanted to play something light hearted, with zombies. Well, as many of you know here, I'm the guy for that! :smile:

My group: Last week two people couldn't make it, so Larry set about creating his character and learning the simple dice system. Tim was there, but just watched, as he had a character and had playtested it with me previously a bit. Larry came up with a character named Yi Wu Ping, a combination of an old master w/ magical chi powers and a drunken master. We played out a scene against one of the baddies they would face the following week. No plot involved, just a 'bad guy attacking you in your temple' scene. We found that the system is fast and very narrative if the player gets into it… But the Leads were having a hard time doing damage to each other consistantly. I bumped the target number for Lead damage down one, to 5 instead of 6. Since that minor change, it's been smooth sailing, tho I think I'm going to have to come up with a fast way to have Leads resolve conflicts that are non-combat oriented. I'll probably just 'borrow' the dice mechanic from Sorcerer; roll your applicable pool, and then see who wins by comparing highest numbers. There goes the Two Page title. :smile:

Tuesday night this week was one of the most enjoyable times I've ever had playing an RPG! Present were Jason, playing Clarence Rufus, a blaxpoitation badass, Tim, playing an 80's guntoter, Major Damage, described as "Clint Eastwood meets Ernest Borgnine", and Larry playing Yi Wu Ping.

My plot was generated using my "10 Step Action Movie Plotter" that I posted on GO months ago. It consisted of an introduction (ninjas breaking into Temple to steal a magical staff and related scroll), and first big fight scene (ninjas and mooks stealing trucks of water and metal), and the climactic end battle (evil sorcerer and mega-henchmen in a battle royale in the neighboring desert). The only other thing I did for set up was come up with mook and baddies stats, and jotted down a couple possible plot twists.

Jason was great as the pimpin' blaxploitation star, earning the most Superstar dice I ever thought I'd give away. His one liners and plot twists kept us laughing the whole night. Larry liked his grand master power-wise, but when we were done he said he wished he had a more modern character… He still did a good job of playing the 'fish out of water' (american beer or bad wine in place of rice wine, taking 'pajama' comments in stride). Tim surprised me the most at a couple points, bringing in some great streotypical soldier stuff, and action movie plot twists (getting into the 'I don't work for the gov't anymore' rap with an old superior, dragging Jason into the scenario simply because he had a car that worked, blowing up one of the Named foes with a single exploding arrow (parts is parts)).

I should probably mention that Larry & Jason have played D&D quite a bit, Jason used to play Deadlands with me as well, and Tim has only really played Grave Robbers From Outer Space, i.e. an RPG newbie. None of them had played a RPG with any kind of Director or Author control.

The best thing about the evening was the little things that got added via improvisation in between the scenes. They picked up really quickly on the fact that you didn't have to wait for me to describe things, tho I think they'll get even better at it over time. When they were looking for leads to the renegade kung fu clan, Jason asked me "Has anyone been kicked out of the Temple recently?", I just nodded yes. When he asked for more detail, I said "Why was she kicked out Wu Ping?". Larry came up with the 'underground fight scene' twist that pretty much made the middle of the game.

It kicked off an entire sequence of scenes where the players aquired liquor, thwarting a robbery, of course, then Jason used Clarence's "Luck" (knows the streets) to find someone to lead them to the fights. Then at the fights, everyone had their own short scene, (Clarence gambling and hooking up with the ladies, Wu Ping wandering around in drunken confusion at the spectacle of UG Fighting, the Major casing the place and working out the basic layout of the abandoned hangar) ending with the Major pulling Wu Ping to the side just as he was about to start "wu-ping" some ass on clueless bouncers. Another Luck roll for Clarence gained him $1500 on a bet, and yet another found that he was best bro's with one of the pitfighters.

When he finally failed on a Luck roll to find a certain car thief, I simply had the Major's phone ring to find out "Just what was going on with this c-f of a mission?!?!", and then the radio intoned a story about the mass truck hijacking.

Needless to say, they followed a stolen truck out to the desert, and then split up to face down their foes. Wu Ping was damaged terribly be a lucky strike from his arch nemesis, The Red Dragon (watch out for "Firey Claw Strikes With Terrible Fury!), and two of the bad guys escaped in the end.

We played this entire scenario, with character creation, in less than three hours…

Weds Nite: There were only three of us, and they suggested playing one of my games. I tried talking them into Dead Meat, but I had given them copies of 2PAM the previous week, and they wanted something light-hearted and non-taxing, so 2PAM it was. And what a session…

The characters were an Iron Chef, and a Dancer that were both on the same TV show. The adventures was filled with zinging ginsu's and graceful dance and agility moves. Both of the players from this group, Akira and Nat, are experienced role players, and designers even, and have experience with everything from D&D to their own Everway variants.

The Film opened in a bar, where they exchanged complaints about work, etc. Feeling the call of nature, they went to the can, and after the flushin' stopped, they heard a man yelling in the bar. After opening the door a bit and seeing the guy zapping the crowd with a zombification ray-gun, they decided it was time to pop into action. They stole the gun from the madman, busted him up a little, only to have him escape just before the zombies closed in. Using the madmans' Luck created escape door, they exited into an alley with a surviving female and a male bartender. After coming up with all sorts of fun way to off zombies (cinderblocks dropped from building next door, ramming with a dumpster, shotgun from under the bar),
the Dancer made his way to the parking garage and rusted '78 Cutlass, while Mr. Ginsu saved the extras and loaded up on cleavers.

Using the car and a fire extinguisher, they smashed about 30 zombies to parts, and re-entered the bar, smashing through a door (when all the windows had been smashed out by escaping zombies). They attempted to Luck into a dropped wallet, and then into another way to find the evil Dr., only to find out that the raygun had an identifying logo of a thought-to-be closed electronics manufacturer on it. The madman had THEE worst luck after that, it was a simple matter of leaping grace and ginsu groaners to capture him and get his 'reverso-ray'…

It was wacked out, but very very fun!

ooh, ooh, where can I get a hold of this? It sounds like one solid, ass kickin'good time, baby.

My site is currently here:
http://www.geocities.com/unodiablobrew/

There's links to 2PAM, and a character sheet as well.

I'll turn the 10 step planner into an .html and add that right soon too.

And sorry about all the freakin' typos above!!! :smile:

[ This Message was edited by: unodiablo on 2001-11-15 17:03 ]

found the character sheet, but geocities yanks me around on the game. Damn geocities, Damn you Salazar!

I can send you the .html file if you'd like! send an e-mail to unodiablo@4beer.com.

I just popped out there, it came right up for me... Is anyone else having problems with it?

I don't have any problem pulling up the game rules.

Paul

Hey Sean,

Do you think it's an [action-movie] game or a [PARODY of action-movie] game? For instance, I think Extreme Vengeance can go either way.

Best,
Ron

Hi Ron,
I think it can go either way, like EV. If you recall, I wrote 2PAM to be 'EV Lite', and to spread the Action dice among different categories of action... Something I could teach to beginning gamers without having to worry about the complications of Popularity, dice pip counting, Reps, stunt difficulty, etc.

The first group stayed in the serious part of the action movie genre pretty well. There were humourous parts, but Action Movies contain a fair amount of comedy and one-liners, and the situations were humourous (The Old Master unfamiliar with western 'culture', the blaxploitation hero pretending the OM was 'his cousin from the east'). The tone of the game would have been similiar to Peacock King meets Shaft?; modern era guns & martial arts with supernatural elements. When the guns and fu and chi were blazing, the tone was serious and violent. Larry started getting upset that his OM was getting knocked out of the fight (not killed tho), so they weren't taking the conflict lightly. In fact, he tried a desperation move at the end; to have his OM use his Chi Mojo to take the magical staff away from Void Dragon before he escaped, using his only two remaining Superstar bonus dice.

The second group went for parody characters and events. I let them run down zombies by the half dozen, there was a subplot where the dancer was trying to get a date with a local bar chick, and the other player provided a narration that the girl decided to have sex with the bartender after they saved both of them. The dancer's final move was a flipping foot-headlock on the mad scientist, and a botched roll caused his utter defeat and submission.

Like EV, it depends on what your character is loaded with, and how the players and GM want to push the game. If you have a lot of Fight, Shoot, and Skill pools, you will be narrating violence and talent activity. If you have mostly Luck or Stunt, you can get pretty wacky, or you can make it a Rumble In The Bronx-Jackie Chan type of character.

Sean

turns out Netscape was the one yanking me around. Explorer got me right to it. Looks like fun.

Hi Mahoux,
I'll trying opening w/ Netscape at home... Dunno why my incredibly basic .html would cause problems. Let me know if you end up playing it! It works pretty well for a fast handling and free form action movie game, I'd be interested in hearing how it works for a group when I'm not running it...

And FYI, I plan on updating it, turning it into '4PAM' or so after I'm done with the bulk of Dead Meat... Some GMing and plotting info, and a Feature-to-Feature non-fight conflict mechanic are two things I've worked on so far.
Sean

I just ran a one shot of 2PAM this weekend, it was great. I can definitely see this as having great crossover potential for anime, kung fu movies, or superhero stuff. The players really enjoyed the focus list and the custom special moves that go with it. Only one of the players really used luck the way it was meant to.
Is there any plans to include rules for the "sequel" movies? Or perhaps just some stuff on action movie standards?

Bankuei

I just ran a one shot of 2PAM this weekend, it was great. I can definitely see this as having great crossover potential for anime, kung fu movies, or superhero stuff. The players really enjoyed the focus list and the custom special moves that go with it. Only one of the players really used luck the way it was meant to.
Is there any plans to include rules for the "sequel" movies? Or perhaps just some stuff on action movie standards?

Bankuei

Wow, come back after not getting online this weekend, and look what happens! :smile: Glad you had a good time with it!

What would you look for in the way of 'sequel rules'.

I do have a few lists of action movie standards - more plot twists and devices, really, divided up per genre. I was working on them for an updated version of another game, but that's also something I'll re-do to include in an expanded version.

What was the plot of your one shot?

Sean

Our one shot was basically mixing Invasion of the body snatchers, Terminator, and Hard Boiled... :razz: Robot assassin John Woo fun. I was primarily interested in the guidelines for things you would see in sequels(returning characters, how to make the last money shot look like nothing compared to this one, how to use the exact same plot with different characters effectively :razz:) I'm not sure, but it'd be interesting to see what happens when you play with the idea that there is going to be sequels(ala slasher films, Aliens, or Terminator).

Bankuei

That sounds like fun...

I'm sure the returning villian character is something I'll have to deal with - maybe next week even. Void Dragon escaped w/ one other baddie, I think the 'serpent fu chick', w/o my notes in front of me. Next weeks' session will feature a new plotline, but there will be a hint that Void Dragon and his cohorts are involved in a new ploy to raise a Juggernaut of blood, iron, water and earth... The next one will likely be something less earth-shattering, and Larry might make a new character, so I can use Wu Ping as an elder NPC.

This is something worth considering... When I ran the first adventure, I didn't think about having to one-up a giant crackling magic cirle of half destroyed semi trucks taking up a big chunk of desert real estate, three named baddies w/ their own seperate goon squads, and the threat of a summoned apocalypse. Hmmmmm. Oh well, better to start with a bang than a wimper! :smile:

And the upcoming edition of Dead Meat will handle those ALIENS adventures better... Heheheheh...
Sean

You should probably also include good set design, including: Cover, random improvised weapons, things to fall off of, things(sharp, hot, or acidic) to fall in, dangerous machinery, things to throw, things to drop on people, things that go boom, etc... Things to fight on(trains, plains, automobiles), style, etc.


Bankuei

I realized something about this after work yesterday... I wrote 2PAM to basically be a plug-in for other Action Movie RPG's that I felt were either poorly designed, had crappy game systems, or were a little beyond my players (HKAT! 1st ed., Feng Shui, and Extreme Vengeance, in that order...), or just flowed too slow... If you own any of those, they all have good to great aspects to them, and they contain some of this info you're seeking or would like.

Have you played any of the other Action Movie style RPG's, commercial or freebies? One that I tracked down recently that I found to be a good commercial game is Point Blank, by an Irish or Scottish game company. But that's a mini-game too, it doesn't have nearly as much source material as the above 'big three'.

And some of the lists you're speaking of are endless... I have a full page of settings for Dead Meat already, and that's a much more narrow genre.

I've tried HKAT and Feng Shui and found the first to be way to slow in terms of mechanics resolution to really fly right, while Feng Shui is still one of my favorite wild games to run. While Feng Shui really does the attitude right, it doesn't give a great deal on the makeup of the action movie. Of course, it could end up as 200PAM if you put enough into it :razz:
I really dig the simple mechanics in 2PAM and the fact that it can be as wild as you want. I wonder what it would be like to do an anime type game with it.

Bankuei

If you see a copy of EV, you should definitely check that out too... The dice mechanic in 2PAM is very much like EV, considering I 'borrowed' it wholesale, and modified it only after a few playtest sessions. The Reps in it might be something you'd like, they can make the games even more wild, as they hand director power in scenes over to the players.

I have the same problem with FS, instead of trying to model action movies, it heaps layer upon layer of backround into the game that ends up more about gun battles than cool characters. Any one of the factions it presents would be enough for a long series of adventures.

Have you checked out the new HKAT!, the Tri-Stat system version? Anyone else? I've never run BESM, but it seems like it would work quickly... I'm sure 2PAM would work decently for any 'cinematic' action game; kung fu, bulletfest, western, pulp, anime, superheroes, etc. (tho superheroes wouldn't be huge powerhouses, more like Batman, IronFist, or Wolverine). The closest I've come to anime is doing a sci-fi /Aliens rip where some of the characters had Mojo dice - telekinetic powers for one, and the other could breathe underwater...