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Seeking Advice for Designing a Score

A topic by ZiggyZapf created Jan 25, 2022 Views: 149 Replies: 3
Viewing posts 1 to 3
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I've never run a BitD game before, so I'm trying to get a good idea of how many obstacles (and how difficult) to throw at a newly formed crew. The score in mind right now is sneaking in and stealing a unique security key from the Amber Knights, a Tier 2 gang, while they're distracted by fighting/hunting down the ReCyclers, a Tier 1 monocycle gang the crew has allied with. Argon Entertainment, a Tier 4 organization, has turned the local gang warfare into a spectator sport with the Amber Knights as the local favorite. The major players of both gangs will be in the arena, having their battle televised.

Obstacles that come to mind:

Getting to the Knights' HQ, which probably involves avoiding monocycle patrols and traversing the dense neighborhood without attracting attention from sympathetic locals.

Getting past the HQ's security: Locks, sensors, patrolling Process.

Danger clock - ReCyclers' stand: The ReCyclers can put up a good fight, but they can only drag out the competition so long.  Whichever side wins the arena match, the Knights are probably going to be on guard after the game ends.

Developer (3 edits) (+1)

The question of how much time to devote to a score is one of the great mysteries of GMing a Forged game! My personal take is that a Score lasts as long as it feels like it should, and you should feel guided by the fiction at the table. If it feels like things are going too well, consider introducing a mid-Score twist (those are always fun! There are tables to roll on for ideas for these in the Player Handouts by the way). If it is going badly and the players want to cut their losses, maybe give them an obstacle or two to consider and then let them get out.


You already have planned out some potential challenges and considerations that the crew of players would have to face for your score... that's excellent! That sketch of the score you have is about the upper limit of my own planning for an average score. I would usually usher the players into making the Engagement Roll, then based on that introduce one of the challenges I had planned: their initial glimpse at the situation on the ground. Then carry on based on what happens, tease the prize when it feels like they've earned it, keep things moving and don't bog down too hard in a single challenge (unless the players are really into it! Sometimes the score becomes about the duel between your Breaker and the enemy's top enforcer, and that's ok too).

If the score feels like it's running too long, don't be afraid to cut some content and keep it short. Every few sessions I sometimes ask my players how they feel about the length of recent scores (as well as other thoughts they have about the game). Sometimes scores can be very short, and sometimes they want to be longer and more involved. One of the things I try to ask in the middle of sessions is "How important does this feel like it should be to your user? Is this a big scene or just a simple challenge?" If a scene or a score or an adversary is very important to the story they players want to tell, we can take more time with it and zoom in the action a bit.

There have been some Forged games that attempt to formalize the procedure. The example that comes to mind for me is Sig: City of Blades (link to a DriveThru RPG store page) where every score always begins with 3 essential clocks named "Politics, Profit, and Peril" which basically guide the length of the score. The Politics clock represents the actual objective of the score (in Sig, every score is always about securing a claim through some means), and I believe that it's length is determined by the GM based on how difficult the task initially appears to be. The Profit clock is basically a wager on the part of the crew as to how much money they want to make while attempting to achieve the political objective. And the Peril clock is some kind of impending threat that, once the clock completes, forces the crew to disengage (and potentially forego either their Political or Profit goal clocks if they were not yet filled).

Off the top of my head I don't remember exactly how player actions map onto these clocks... it might not be the normal routine where a "Standard" effect is 2 ticks and a "Great" is 3, for example. I think it was more like the GM would add 1 tick when a major task has been accomplished. To be clear I haven't tried this method myself, though my gut feel is that it would be a little too rigid and reductive for my tastes. Still, the concept can be useful if you want to have more structure!

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Thanks for the response. I'll try doing some more playtests to get a better feel for it. I'm a chronic over-preparer thanks in part to a lot of "crunchy" RPGs, so I have to work on my improvisation skills and my confidence in them. I think the 3 P's system you mention might be worth looking into. (I'd probably replace "Politics" with "Purpose" in my case.) In my hypothetical score's case, getting the key is the purpose, but finding other profit while they're digging through the vault would be a consideration to balance with getting out before the alarm is raised.

I think one of the difficult things with improvisation is having appropriate consequences to give out, especially on 4-5, but if my FFG Star Wars games are an indication, a lot of players are eager to offer ideas.

I've done some solo playtesting / storycrafting using the system, possibly for a future webcomic. I think I've got a better grip on what a crew can handle after running a few scores. Club Print is ready to perform their first Authority score to format an airship that will dock at their HQ. They have 12 Reputation with 1 Leverage. They stole the key to the airship, made an alliance with the ReCyclers in the junkyard, and planted an Informant in the hostile (-2) Blue Bloods faction in the region.

So, let me see if I have this right:

Authority Score

  1. The crew makes their way into the junkyard to find the derelict airship, possibly dealing with the actions of Blue Bloods (-2) and Debuggers (0) along the way. Possible encounters with Glitch in all the junk.
  2.  Upon securing the airship, they invoke the Format command to repair its vital systems and modify it to be the flying cafe they want.

Authority Questions

  • Area 2 (Building) It's large enough to house several customers, complete with outdoor dining on the top deck.
  • Quality 4 (Superior) It's a nice place.
  • Force 5 (Overwhelming) "A server-bound airship" is listed as an example of power level 5. It also houses some old Revisionist Claims that can be restored as the crew buys them.

11 total, so the crew takes on a total of 11 stress, divided among the six members, when they begin the formatting.

Reputation returns to 1, rather than 0, thanks to the Leverage discount of 1.

Payoff

  • Coin and Reputation would probably be related to the number/wealth of customers they attract with their new airship.
  • Heat would be whatever trouble they ran across/produced, +2 for invoking Authority.
  • Faction allegiances would shift according to how the balance of power was changed. -In this case, the Amber Knights wanted the ship for its original military purpose and to raise their tier. They'd be able to put 2 and 2 together to figure out their would-be warship is the hot new flying cafe, becoming more hostile toward Club Print.
  • Club Print, having leveled up their facilities through obtaining the airship is now ready to increase to Tier 1, and will do so once they get their reputation up again.

Does all this sound about right?