hi my group got together last night to play test some rules and make some characters. we didnt play a full game just ran through a few examples of play so we could become familier with the system in leu of our 'real' game on sunday.

first off is skills. I understand that the dice have a level of interpretation and each player / gm will view the dice differently but this is what happened and I just wanted to see if I was running things as they should be (whatever that meens)

first off we had 2 characters jumping accross roof tops giving chase to an enemy. I gave a difficulty of 1d as the roof tops were fairly close, but because it was night and raining imposed 2 misfortune dice. Is this correct , as in am i playing this correctly?

the first player rolled, after cancelling things down etc. he was left with 1 success and 2 banes. I gave the interpretation that the player just manages to make the jump but due to the banes suffers the universal 1 fatigue but also looses his footing on the slippy roof tiles and grinds to a tempory halt in the chase. Would you say this was a fair interpretation? or should i have just imposed the fatigue?

the second character made the same jump. this time the end resault was more favourable: 2 successes 1 boon and 1 comet. I interperated this as a jump well made not only making the jump but landing in stride and being able to close the gap between him and the quarry. the player argued thet the comet should be more possative almost making the enemy stumble, but i thought that the dice should really only effect the roller rather than other characters. once again was this fair ?

the final jump was purley made by the second character giving chase. this time the player ended up with no successes 1 bane but again 1 comet. this seemed a little tough for me to read, but, I decided that he failed the jump grabbing the oposite roof with finger tips before giving in an falling. due to the comet i decided that by chance a hay card was beneath the player giving him a safe and unexpected landing, and suffer no damage. would this be an ok interpretation? if you were playing would you be happy with this?

this seemed to work ok but as my group came from playing games with a more deffinate win/ loss succeed / fail, the interpretation felt vague to them, and i didnt know how to overcome this.

on the oposite side combat went really well as the dice are more deffinate in outcome so eveyone was happy.

any advice please?

Mouseguard said:

I think that sounds absolutely fine.

Mouseguard said:

You don't say whether you set up some kind of progress track to help with the chase, but that would have probably been a good idea if you had not. Once you have that you can then set up some standard rules for the chase, for example, start the miscreant several steps ahead of the pcs on the tracker, and move them ahead 1 space each round. Move the pcs along the tracker for each success they roll, but each 2 banes that they roll causes fatigue (as normal) AND allows the miscreant to advance an extra space (as the pcs tire). 2 Boons coould remove fatigue as the pcs get extra wind, possibly allowing an extra move along the track too? Something like that

By having those kinds of rules it just allows you to apply them consistently to each roll. I don't think you were wrong though to say the banes caused fatigue AND makes the PC lose ground on the chase, i think that is a perfectly reasonably interpretation.

Mouseguard said:

This is where the tracker would have come into its own you see, the comet could be converted to a success and therefore the player would have seen (provided the tracker was in clear view, and no reaons it shouldn't be) that extra gain on the quarry, in addtion to his regular two successes. Landing in stride and closing the gap, or having the quarry slip both narratively end up with the same thing, a reduction in distance; if the rules are set on how the tracker works beforehand, everyone knows what to expect, so disagreement over the narative shouldn't then be an issue.

Mouseguard said:

Ok, this I might have handled slightly differently. The comet could have been converted to a success, so certainly a stumble, slip, finger tip roof grab is all fine, but the player should have probably stayed in the chase somehow (and moved one space forward on the tracker). Perhaps they slipped but fell into a shop awning instead, and then allowed them to continue jumping along subsequent shop awnings continuing the chase at a lower level, until perhaps a boon on a subsequent roll allows them to clamber up a drain pipe to continue the chase on the roof, or some such?

Mouseguard said:

I think though, if you set up the chase without much forethought, as you seem to suggest (which probably wouldn't be the case in a real game) then your interpretations were fine. I've just made the rules up about the tracker as I wrote this response so you can see how quick it is to design one of those, and the rule book has plenty of examples of this kind of thing too. I think the tracker is a great idea and really helps pace chases and the like. Perhaps your group should give the roof top chase idea another go with a tracker and see if it plays out any better?

I think you pretty much nailed it.

Apart from the Comet thing discussed above you did it pretty much exactly how I would have done it. Just let your players know they can choose to turn a Comet into a Boon or a Bane. So, eg, if he had failed the jump by two, there would have been no use converting the Comet, and it would be great to use it to have a convenient hay cart break his fall. But if he had failed by one, then it would probably be more use to use it as the vital Success.

Also, the tracker idea above would be a good way to make the chase more formal, too.

Not sure how you convince your players that it's all good, though. Try 'Trust me, please!'

think i will try the tracker cheers. perhaps with the visual aid and almost seeing a success and a visual step would help my group make the transition im talking about.

thanks again guys.

first off we had 2 characters jumping accross roof tops giving chase to an enemy. I gave a difficulty of 1d as the roof tops were fairly close, but because it was night and raining imposed 2 misfortune dice. Is this correct , as in am i playing this correctly?

To begin I would definitely have thought about using the tracker as other people have suggested, those challenge/misfortune dice seem spot on.

the first player rolled, after cancelling things down etc. he was left with 1 success and 2 banes. I gave the interpretation that the player just manages to make the jump but due to the banes suffers the universal 1 fatigue but also looses his footing on the slippy roof tiles and grinds to a tempory halt in the chase. Would you say this was a fair interpretation? or should i have just imposed the fatigue?

I would have done the fatigue OR the slip - but not both. The book clearly defines that 2 banes can be used for a fatigue so if I used that to spend the banes on I would not have issued a further penalty - however if I didn't think the fatigue loss was pertinent I might well have imposed the slip instead.

the second character made the same jump. this time the end resault was more favourable: 2 successes 1 boon and 1 comet. I interperated this as a jump well made not only making the jump but landing in stride and being able to close the gap between him and the quarry. the player argued thet the comet should be more possative almost making the enemy stumble, but i thought that the dice should really only effect the roller rather than other characters. once again was this fair ?

I would have considered giving him a fortune dice on his next jump - as well as maybe giving him an extra spot on the progress tracker if i were using it.

the final jump was purley made by the second character giving chase. this time the player ended up with no successes 1 bane but again 1 comet. this seemed a little tough for me to read, but, I decided that he failed the jump grabbing the oposite roof with finger tips before giving in an falling. due to the comet i decided that by chance a hay card was beneath the player giving him a safe and unexpected landing, and suffer no damage. would this be an ok interpretation? if you were playing would you be happy with this?

as mentioned above comet can be used as a success so he makes that jump.