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:
That cactus you hide behind - Is it light, medium or heavy cover? Who knows.
That rock on the battle map - Is that just hard ground? A small boulder I can crouch behind? A massive boulder giving total cover?
And what if the lazy GM doesn't have a map and is instead going more theater of the mind? Is there cover? Can I reach it? No way to know.
The whole nonsense of "hide behind cover, pop out, take a shot, duck back into full cover, enemy has to ready and try to interrupt".
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:
Light: +2 cover, no penalties to actions
Medium: +4, -2 to actions
Heavy: +6, -4 to actions
Total: +8, -6 to actions
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:
Critical Failure: You fail to get to cover, you'll have to take this action again next round.
Failure: You don't quite make it to cover. You're in the open until the start of your next turn and then you're in cover. Hope you don't get shot!
For each success and raise, you get to do one of two things:
Taking Cover: Gain cover (so first one gets you Light, take this again you go to Medium, etc.)
Flank Them: You've managed to flank one target. Lower their current cover value by 1 (So from medium to light for example) each time you take this. This is only for you and lasts only for your turn.
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