An Actual Play Example
Sunday, April 27th, 2008This is an “actual play” example from my ongoing online game on Dreamlyrics – the actual thread is here. It’s a conflict between Hollis, the psychokinetic human rebel assassin played by Nicki Jett, and an as-yet-unnamed NPC, actually guild security from the Guild of Victuallers. Hollis is searching for clues in the cellar of a tavern – the stakes for the meta-conflict were that Hollis would find a Significant Clue in return for a ‘complication’.
It’s a typical cellar of a tavern; full of beer barrels, some redundant furniture stacked in one corner. Hollis’ eyes are initially drawn to a bloodstain on the floor; enough blood for a nasty wound, not enough for someone to have bled to death.
A little searching reveals two items; a five-glerin coin bearing the head of Sarkan Vorsath of Karmork, and square black object resembling the communicators issued to members of the Karazthan.
“Aha,” Hollis whispered. “A clue. Two of ‘em, in fact.”
She collected the items and after a close perusal, pocketed them, then continued to search. aside for looking for clues, she was also trying to figure out the route the bad guys had employed, as opposed to the one Gath used to escape. She assumed that was they way she’d come in.
“Put you hands where I can see them” comes a male voice from somewhere behind Hollis. “And no funny business from you either, Gath”.
Hollis kept her hands wide and turned toward the voice, taking note of any useful objects in the vicinity as she did so. “No problem,” she said cheerfully.
The voice belongs to a thick-set human with arms and legs resembling tree trunks. Hollis doesn’t recognise the face, but she does notice he’s pointing a seriously large crossbow at her.
“Now, you two are going to explain to me precisely what you are doing grubbing around in this cellar. And that explanation had better be a good one”.
“Just trying to find my cousin Wozzeck,” Hiollis said cheerfully. “He’s not right in the head. Someone told us they’d seen him wandering around down here, so I persuaded this gentleman …” she turned to Gath apologetically, “I didn’t even get his name. Gath, you say? I persuaded Mister Gath to help me look.”
She gave Gath an imperceptible nod, then turned back. “Perhaps you’ve seen him. Stringy brown hair, about forty, with a scar right here … ”
… and with the faintest, harmless-looking flick of her fingertips along side her face, as if demonstrating the scar location, she *snatched* the quarrel right off the top of his crossbow.
Assuming that went as planned, she would flip the quarrel end for end and then drive it right into the big man’s eye.
This is a fight scene. Hollis has Fast-Talk at Fair, and Psychokinetics at Superb. The NPC’s relevant abilities for the encounter are Insight, Perception and Dodge, all at Fair, and Crossbow at Good. This guy is a professional, but nothing like the power level of a typical PC.
I decided to resolve this in two stages – first is Fast-Talk vs. Insight to see if Hollis managed to distract him. If Hollis wins, she can do the PK trick with the quarrel. If she loses, he attempts to shoot her (which would probably be Crossbow vs. PK to actually hit her, so he’d probably miss)
If Hollis wins the first contest, it’s then PK vs both Perception and Dodge – Perception to realise what’s going on, and Dodge to get out of the way.
Fast-Talk vs. Insight goes to Hollis, but only by a narrow margin. For the second contest, Hollis rolls -1 (Great) against the NPCs +3 (Superb) for Perception and 0 (Fair) for Dodge.
“Never heard of him”, he says. His reactions are far quicker than Hollis would have imagined; by the time the crossbow quarrel pierces where his eye would have been, his head is no longer there, leaving the quarrel embedded in the wood.
In the current playtest draft rules, there are two different ways you can combine two skills. In some circumstances you can use either skill, in which case you roll against both and take the best result. In others, you need both skills, so you roll against both skills, and take the worst roll.
I ruled Perception + Dodge as an “either” and used the better of the two rolls. Since his Superb beat Hollis’ Great, that means Hollis missed.
Now, in the context of this fight, I’m wondering if that approach really makes sense. Any opinions?
