Blood Drive

Date: 5/9/24 - 

Players: Matt, Dan, Bob

Characters: Big Jim Taylor (Brawny Cowboy, Matt), Doc Caravan and his dog Caleb (Doctor, Bob), Chad (Cowboy, Dan) 

The players join a cattle drive for the Lazy S ranch going from Sutter's Flat, TX to Roswell, New Mexico. The local rail company, Bayou Vermillion, is charging monopoly prices so the usual method of selling the cattle to the railroad just don't pay enough. 

NPCs

Bill Sutter: Owner of the Lazy S. Stubborn, tough but fair.

Luke Canton: The cowhand foreman. A big, no nonsense cowboy. Little patience for greenhorns. 

Abigail Morton: Bill's niece that has come to live with him for unknown reasons (we know her mother has died). 

Episodes

5/9/24: The players join the ranch for one reason or another and set about doing ranch chores. Doc Caravan stumbles into a nest of tarantulas - two cowhands end up dying and Doc barely escapes with his life. Big Jim tries valiantly to break the nefarious Devil Eyes but isn't able to succeed before the drive heads out. The PCs meet Batholomew Phelps, the railroad agent who makes ominous threats about not selling. 


House Rules

Persuasion

Let's think of Persuasion more like an Empathy skill. Use this to influence people whether through persuasion or bluffing, read other people, know when you're being lied to (rather than Notice), know who's a harrowed/charmed/spirit. 

Cover

The Cover mechanic is just a mess of the game bogging down while the GM and Players make random decisions. To whit:

So I propose the following: 

Generic Cover: There's cover available and we assume all targets have cover. Exceptions abound of course (you get ambushed walking down the street, you're surrounded, the Marshal is a dick, ghost bullets, other common sense things, etc.)

Cover Bonuses: When you're in cover, at the start of your turn you get to decide how good that cover is as a free action. Do you stick your fool head out there? Are you ducking down real good? Are you a yellow-bellied pansy who's made himself as small as possible? Great, your call! While you get a bonus to being hit, you also take a penalty trying to do things that involves the cover (it gets in your way, you don't have a good view, you miss an opportunity hiding behind that barrel ya coward). (And when we say modifiers to actions, we mean only when the cover hampers you (shooting , notice check, powers)). The modifiers are:

Movement: You can move up to your Pace-3 and maintain cover. If you move more than that, you have to take the Taking Cover / Flank Them! action. 

Taking Cover / Flank Them: Either you have no cover or you've decided to leave your perfectly cover for no good darn reason. Make a free action Athletics roll (or as an Action for a +2 to the roll) with MAP penalties:

Example: You and the BBEG have been trading shots across the street from each other, but your window and his door means neither of you has managed to hit the other. Being the Big Good Damn Hero you are, you dash across the street for a better shot. You roll athletics and get a 12! Success and 2 raises. You use the one of those to lower the BBEG's currently light cover to none and the other two to raise your cover to Medium. You run across the street, dive through the window, plug the surprised BBEG, and then continue your roll to be crouching behind the desk. 

Cover but still get Damaged: Just a reminder that a shot that misses due to cover but that would hit otherwise, still gets to roll damage. You just get to add the toughness of your cover to your toughness when applying damage. 

BONUS OBSTACLE

+2 Heavy glass, thick leather, drywall, wooden shield, aluminum car door

+4 Sheet metal, steel car door

+6 Oak door, cinder block wall

+8 Brick wall

+10 Stone wall, bulletproof glass, tree

Other People, Horses, etc: They take the full damage instead of you