Homebrew Move: A More Cinematic Helping & Hindering Variant

 

Freshly ripped from the Vortex, and viciously channeled through the nightmare realms of Togarini and Malkuth, I bring to you:

Helping

When you support or assist another player character’s Move, explain how you do it and roll +Attribute, where the Attribute may or may not be the same that the helped player is using.

15+    Your assistance allows the other PC to increase the result of their roll by one tier (fail → partial → success). If they already rolled a full success, the GM may at her discretion allow them to pick one more question, edge, or option than normal. 

10-14    You face a hard choice of how deeply to invest yourself in helping your fellow PC. Choose 1:

- Increase their result by one tier, but suffer a cost or complication for it.

- Your help remains inefficient and adds nothing to their result.

-9    This went wrong badly. Choose 1:

- Reduce the other character’s result by one tier.

- Hurt yourself or get in trouble in the course of your supporting actions. The GM makes a Move against you.

Hindering

When you try to hamper or prevent another player character’s Move, explain how you do it and roll +Attribute, where the Attribute may or may not be the same that the hindered player is using.

 

15+    Your interference forces the other PC to reduce the result of their roll by one tier (success → partial → fail). If they already rolled a fail result, the GM may at her discretion make a harder Move on the character than she normally would have. 

10-14    You face a hard choice of how deeply to invest yourself in sabotaging your fellow PC. Choose 1:

- Reduce their result by one tier, but suffer a cost or complication for it.

- Your hindering remains inefficient and removes nothing from their result.

-9    This went wrong badly. Choose 1:

- Accidentally improve the other character’s result by one tier.

- Hurt yourself or get in trouble in the course of your interference. The GM makes a Move against you.

Commentary:

Possible Costs and Complications

You can use any of the standard repertoire that seems to fit the particular situation and characters involved. You hurt yourself or someone else, draw unwelcome attention, lose something important, get yourself (or someone else) in a bad spot, destroy something valuable, use up resources, leave traces, etc. 

Reasons for Using This

If you're unhappy with the Corebook move only offering some simple numeric modifiers, and would like more interesting things to happen when the spotlight shines on characters trying to assist (or sabotage) one another - use this. 

It has a greater chance of affecting the outcome of the helped/hindered PC's roll than the Corebook version, so you get a bit more bang for your willingness to use up your spotlight "merely" in support of a fellow PC.

Reasons Not To Use This

If you want to keep things fast-flowing, and not detract attention from elsewhere in a tension-ladden scene - probably don't use this. 

There is a clear caveat to this variant move: It can tend to derail things a bit, as the helping/hindering character is prompted to make choices, weigh consequences against each other, and so on. Additionally, as soon as costs and complications are to be chosen, the GM must take care to maintain a tight reign on the scene's direction and pacing - keep in mind that the most important thing to focus on should still be the acting (not the helping/hindering) PC's move, and that should resolve dominantly in the narration. 

Whatever cost, hurt, unwelcome attention, bad spots, or loss of resources the other person has to deal with as a result of their interference, should probably be handled later - or alternatively very briefly - in order not to muddy the waters of your fiction too much. 

This variant houserule is being playtested in a game I'm in right now, so there may be additional insights to share about it some time down the line. In the meanwhile, comments and opinions are welcome, especially (but not exclusively) if you should feel inclined to playtest it yourselves, definitely let me know your thoughts!

This Paradise Prison: Keep the Wrong Ones Out

this page is unfortunately 

under construction 

blame the lictors!

  

Historical Weapons and Combat Rules for K:DL

Inspired by a new game I'm playing in - GMed by Mr. Kultist, using the rules for K:DL but taking place in a fantasy setting - and sort of as a continuation of this post of mine, I have developed a few guidelines for adapting the tools of violence to different (i.e. earlier) time periods.

In many historical settings, the ratio of melee combat vs. ranged combat is likely to be inversely proportional to how it is in modern times. That is to say, the vast majority of violent conflict will probably be sorted out at close range. Melee aggression (and defense) therefore warrants a little bit of extra attention

To this end I've come up with a few new rules:


A New Range Increment

The reach of weapons is measured by their Distance attribute in K:DL, providing a rule of thumb for how close or far a given weapon or attack could feasibly hit its target. These are not overly granular, and they don't have to be. But for historical combat, one thing seemed to miss for me. 

We're adding a new range increment, called Grapple. It joins the existing ones at the top of the list, i.e. above Arm, Room, etc, and is defined as: 

    ◊ Grapple: When you are close enough to hug, strangle, or bite someone.

The Broken has had it with The Careerist's constant bullshit

Unarmed attacks are by default at Grapple range, while Edged Weapons may variously be judged as attacking at Grapple (e.g. knives, daggers, garrote, claws, teeth, stake) or Arm range (e.g. rapier, florett, javelin)

Closing or Increasing the Distance

In melee combat, the distance between opponents combined with the reach of their weapons may produce an delicate dance of death. Longer weapons are usually at an advantage against shorter ones - unless the enemy manages to maneuver themselves inside of your longer weapon's ideal range, whereupon the advantage goes to them instead.

When you wield a weapon with longer reach than your opponent, the GM may give you +1 on your attacks until the opponent manages to close the distance.

When your opponent wields a weapon with considerably longer reach than your own, the GM may require you to close the distance before you can attack.

If your opponent manages to decrease the distance lower than your weapons ideal reach, the GM may demand that you need to increase the distance before you are able to Engage in Combat again (otherwise you are limited to Avoid Harm).

The Avenger has returned from the other side to reckon with The Veteran for his crimes

To close or increase the distance is an Act under Pressure, with the opponent's weapon as the pressure. Advantages that let you spend Edges or choose Options to evade blows, block attacks, or move past enemies (e.g, Body Awareness, Daredevil, Death Drive, Genius, Ice Cold, Lightning Fast, Martial Arts Expert, Parkour or Streetfighter) can be used to close in or increase the distance in combat instead of having to Act under Pressure.

Using the Existing Weapon Types

The basic weapon types offered in K:DL are solid, and should be used as much as you possibly can.

Edged Weapons include knives, daggers, stilettos, rondel, zai (all Distance: Grapple) as well as rapiers, floretts, spatha, gladius, scimitars, javelins etc. (all Distance: Arm)

Chopping Weapons include meat cleavers, hatchets, axes, falchions, scimitars, kukri, wakizashi/katana, etc. (usually all Distance: Arm)

Crushing Weapons include clubs, maces, hammers, staffs etc. (usually Distance: Arm, though staff or longhammer could be judged Room perhaps?)

Notably, swords are one of the most successful weapon designs across many eras of history, since they are very versatile in their use. From a shortsword to a bastard sword, scimitar to katana, perhaps the most elegant way to represent this is to allow these arms to be used as either edged or chopping weapons.
The sword's wielder can freely decide to use the attack moves provided by either category. 

This would seem to make sense for weapons such as the gladius, spatha, saber, scimitar, falchion, katana, etc.

in case negotiations should turn aggressive...

Adding a Few New Weapon Types

There are certain kinds of armaments that cannot adequately be represented by the existing categories.
Let's add:

Great Weapons

Examples: battle axe, greatsword, warhammer.

Distance: Arm

Attacks:

    ◊ Mighty Swing [3] [Reduce Armor (-1)]

    ◊ Lunging Strike [3] [Distance: Room]

Drawback: Slow [when going against someone with a smaller, more agile weapon, you are at risk of losing the initiative. Upon first engaging such an opponent, you must Act Under Pressure before you can Engage in Combat. On a (-9), you may only Avoid Harm.]

Polearms

Examples: spear, halberd, poleaxe, trident, scythe.

Distance: room

Attacks:

    ◊ Stab / Slash [2]

    ◊ Keep at Bay [-] [Keep an opponent at Distance: Room, if they come closer than that you take +1 to your next move against that target.]

Drawback: Long and Unwieldy [Close confines (narrow corridors, low ceilings, dense vegetation) or opponents inside the weapon’s effective range may require you to Act under Pressure before you can use it efficiently.]



Ranged Weapons

Bow

Distance: room/field

Attacks:

    ◊ Combat shooting [2] [-1 Ammo]

    ◊ Volley of shots [1/3] [hit either a handful of targets standing in a close group for 1 Harm each, or hit one target for 3 Harm] [-3 Ammo]

Ammo: O O O O

Crossbow

Distance: room/field

Attacks:

    ◊ Combat shooting [3]

Ammo: special (see below)

Drawback: Reload [You need to wind up the weapon anew for every new shot. Doing this under time pressure or adverse circumstances (nasty weather, slippery ground underfoot, a fight going on around you) is an Act under Pressure. However, there’s no need to track Ammo for this weapon - as long as you have a fistful of bolts with you, you’re extremely unlikely to run out during any given combat scene.]



Rare and Exotic Weapons

Some Weapons are so rarely found that mastering them requires the user to buy this ability as a separate Advantage. These involve artful and fancy techniques, and are often less useful in actual combat and more utility tools that can do certain things, such as tormenting or capturing an opponent, or knocking them out at a distance.

Examples of such weapons include the whip, lasso, net, bola, boomerang, and discus. In order to be truly proficient with any of these, the Exotic Weapon Skill Advantage needs to be acquired.

Exotic Weapon Skill

You are trained in using one or more rare, exotic, and/or weird weapons. This proficiency allows you special maneuvers or attacks in combat when wielding that particular type of weapon(s).

When acquiring this Advantage, choose two of the moves below, and declare which weapon you can do them with. You can buy this Advantage more than once, every time adding two new moves (and possibly a new weapon) to your repertoire.

◊ Searing pain [2*] [Distance: Room, victim is struck in a very painful spot and is momentarily crippled by agonizing pain. PC victims must Keep it Together or double their wound penalty from this injury.]

◊ Entangle [-] [Distance: Room/Field, victim is immobilized until given some time to free themselves. PC victims may Act under Pressure to get free.]

◊ Disarm [-] [Distance: Room/Field, the victim loses a handheld object. PC victims must Avoid Harm to keep it in hand.]

◊ Knock down [1] [Distance: Room, Field. Victim is knocked to the ground, PC victims must Endure Injury and on anything less than (15+) are struck prone in addition to any other result.]

◊ Knock out [1] [Distance: Room, Field. Victim is knocked unconscious, PC victims must Endure Injury and on a (-9) are struck unconscious.]

◊ Returning projectile [-] [When it doesn’t hit its target, the weapon flies in a wide circle and returns (close to) where it was thrown from.]

◊ … []

◊ … []

(Note: In some cases, it can make sense to make the player choose one of the given Distance values. For example, someone using a whip might Disarm or Entangle an opponent at Distance: Room only, while someone with a bola could conceivably do the same things at Distance: Field.)


DEFENSIVE GEAR

PCs who wear armor receive a positive modifier to their Endure Injury roll. NPCs who wear armor subtract their armor rating from the amount of Harm they take each time it applies.

Armor    Rating      Examples

Light           +1       padded vest, gambeson, leather, hide, a choice few metal bits 
                               (e.g. pauldrons / knee caps / bracers / helmet…)

Medium      +2       chainmail, chestplate + bracers, reinforced leather + metal bits, 
                               boiled leather cuirass, scale mail…

Heavy         +3       plate armor, heavy chain + metal bits

pictured: medium armor, light armor, large shields, helmets

Shields 

Hybrid objects that act partly like defensive weapons and partly like passive armor, shields are a mainstay of warfare throughout virtually all epochs and cultures. 
All of them convey a certain bonus to attempts to Avoid Harm, and allow at least one (in some cases several) maneuvers to be executed with them.

Buckler             +1 Avoid Harm                      shield bash [1]

Small shield     +2 Avoid Harm                      shield bash [2], tackle [1], block open & strike [*]

Large shield     +2 Avoid Harm, +1 Armor     shield bash [2], tackle [1], block open & strike [*]

Tower shield     +3 Avoid Harm, +2 Armor     tackle [2]


Shield maneuvers

Shield bash [x] 

You can use your shield as a Crushing Weapon of the given [Harm] value, albeit at a -1 to Engage in Combat due to its comparatively bad ergonomics for that purpose.

Tackle [x] [Distance: Arm, victim is pushed up to Distance: Room and/or knocked over] 

is an attack that combines properties of the Shift and Knock Down attacks.

When successfully (10+) using your shield to shove and push an opponent in this way [Engage in Combat], you may choose to either move them up to Distance: Room, or to then knock them down. 

On a full success (15+) you may choose both of these options. 
PC victims can Avoid Harm to prevent being shoved and suffering the attack's Harm in the first place, or failing that, may Endure Injury against getting knocked down.

Block open & strike [*]
When you Avoid Harm with a (15+), you can use your shield to not only catch the blow but also sweep or push the opponent's weapon off to the side in the same movement, opening their defense for your next strike. Take +1 to your next attempt to Engage in Combat.

Note on Armor and Shields: With these rules mods, it is possible for well-protected NPCs to accrue up to 3, 4, or even 5 Armor. At the same time however, The greatest damage you can inflict with weapons is still around 3 Harm, mostly (not counting certain Advantages).

For example, even a greatsword or warhammer (with its -1 to armor) may be mathematically unable to hurt an especially heavily armored knight with a large shield. And regular melee weapons may seem ineffective even against someone in leather & shield, or an opponent simply wearing chainmail.

Keep in mind these rules are merely very rough abstractions, however. They work well enough where they give PCs the bonus to their Endure Injury rolls. Against NPCs on the other hand, feel free to use the same Armor values, but:

• Allow PCs to creatively use maneuvers, tactics, and stunts to circumvent (or reduce) the effectiveness of an opponent’s armor. The AuP, OaS, IO, and RaP Basic Moves can all conceivably be used to detect and create openings for injuring someone more efficiently than what the sheer numbers would have to say about it.

• Various Advantages, both of the kind that focus on acrobatics / mobility, and those dealing with manipulating / tricking someone, may also be allowed to reduce the efficiency of armor by a point or two.

• Allow PCs to always inflict at least 1 Harm on a (15+), regardless of the victim’s Armor rating. Or alternatively, modify the (15+) result of EiC to say:

“You inflict your weapon’s Harm +1 on your opponent, and avoid counterattacks”.

The above are three quick and easy to implement mods. 

Here are two more things you could hack in. They are a little more involved, but you and your players might appreciate the additional options they offer:

• Add new close combat Advantages, or modify existing ones, to offer Edges which grant +1 Harm, -1 Armor, ignore armor, ignore shield, or similar boons. The +/-armor game is not an aspect of the rules that K:DL focuses a whole lot upon, but attention to such options may be increased in a more historically-minded hack of its ruleset.

• Give each armor type a certain weakness, for smart and resourceful PCs to exploit. For example, soft armor (i.e. fabric-, hide-, or leather-based) is weak against cuts… chainmail and scale mail are weak against stabbing attacks… solid armor (i.e. plates, whether of metal, boiled leather, bone etc.) is weak against crushing weapons…

          Against attacks that exploit the armor’s weakness, its value is reduced to [1], except if it

          was already that, then it goes to [0].

GM Hyperfocus: The Investigate Basic Move

The Investigate Basic Move is a bit of a tricky beast. It's something of an odd one out amongst the other Basic Moves, and while it may not be immediately apparent from reading it on paper at first, I've seen several GMs stumble over its practical implementation in-game. Why is that?

The biggest reason I have determined is that it uses a slightly altered process for handling how the information that this move yields is given out, compared to other, more widely familiar, PbtA-based "information gain" moves.

I too was thrown off by it at first. In fact I even resolved to hack it to something different for my own personal games... much like I did with Observe a Situation, over here... but I have since figured out how (I believe) it is actually intended to be used. 

And as it turns out, I find it is quite good when played RAW like that. Trust me, it will all make sense once you follow me all the way down this rabbit hole! 

But let's start at the beginning. 

In the following I'll render some quotes from people I've seen wondering about this move that I came across on discord, reddit, facebook, or other places. These 'quotes' are not 100% faithful, in fact I'm gleefully twisting and butchering them to make them fit my purpose here. But they're all based on stuff I've really seen or heard asked.

The move does seem really narrow in scope - should a Basic Move even be dealing with something as specific as criminal investigations, or is that just bad design by the K:DL developers?

The name might be a tad misleading, but this move is not only for crime scene investigation and other police procedures. In fact there is a whole separate that Advantage focuses on this particular application of it:

unsurprisingly, it's called Crime Scene Investigator (check it out on p.110) 

However, Investigate can be used equally well for academic research, ear-to-the-streets information gathering, solving logical or mathematical riddles, figuring out how to open cursed puzzle cubes, jury-rigging ancient alien machines into functionality, finding the hidden visual code in an antique painting, or otherwise examining puzzles and mysteries of all sorts. Like all good Basic Moves in PbtA, it is broadly applicable and highly flexible in its uses.

The images I have added to the rest of this article are intended to show just some of the ways this move could come into play. You can scroll down to browse them real quick, to get an idea of its considerable spectrum.

My text however will discuss the move only in the most general terms, the naked mechanics as it were. I have indulged in lengthy example-giving in other posts of mine on here, but for this one I decided that would certainly exceed the frame of this piece. I trust you to fill in the detailed applications in various concrete situations, as needed. 

Let's move on to our next puzzlement:

The Clues

Okay, but so... what's the point in rolling for this move, in the first place? It says the player gets all the clues anyways. Doesn't this kinda beat the idea of "playing to find out"?

Understandable first impression - but read more closely: It doesn't actually say that! 

What it does in fact say: "On a success, the player gets all direct leads". Slight difference, you might think, but a meaningful one nonetheless.

"On a success" here means on 10+. So either a partial success or a full success will yield all relevant direct leads, and by "relevant leads" it means 'the sort of stuff needed to avoid plot-bottlenecks.'

(And by "plot-bottlenecks", I mean the kind of situation where the whole scenario stalls because if you fail to [pick this one lock / solve this one riddle / interrogate this one person], the PCs are stuck and have no way left to advance. It goes without saying you should almost never use these in your scenario designs - but that's perhaps more the stuff of another article altogether.)

So taking this into account, you can - and should - still play to find out!

A fail result (-9), on the other hand, may or may not yield the required leads to continue investigating (GM's discretion), and will additionally not allow you to ask any of the questions listed in the move. (We'll get to those in a moment.)

So here the GM is free to either let a plot bottleneck arise, i.e. let you hit a dead end to your research, inquiries, or puzzling...

...or the GM could gracefully let you find a single clue (or however many s/he deems appropriate / necessary / whatever). But if you do, it'll most likely happen at a cost or complication, as the move's fail result specifies.

The Questions

These seemed extremely weird to me at first glance. They're strongly unlike the list of questions you get for ostensibly similar moves like Read a Person or Read a Situation, and to be honest felt eminently useless to me in most cases I could actually imagine.

I mean, moves that follow the "Question Move" pattern are very well established throughout most - if not all - games that are based on PbtA rulesets - so it would seem only reasonable to assume that Investigate would follow a similar structure, right?  

Wrong.

It does its whole own thing with the questions instead. 

And it does tend to confuse people familiar with PbtA games especially, since it's such an unexpected deviation. See, the questions here aren't the main thing that the move is concerned with. They're not really what it consists of in the same ways as RaP and Oas do. That main thing is in fact the move's clue/lead management, as discussed above.

The questions, then, are just a bonus - very much in the sense of like a hidden bonus level in a video game, you could say. They unlock extra content, in this case in the form of additional info about the investigated mystery at hand. 

Importance-wise, they take the place of that +1 when acting upon the answers in the OaS move. A nice carry-on for the player to cherish, but not the main purpose of the move in question.

Absolutio in Veritas: The Divine Path to the Truth

So here's my take on what the GM should be doing when this move is invoked:

Unfortunately the corebook text is a bit, uhm... bad at communicating this. I understand that they went for brevity over detailed explication in their writing of the moves themselves. Yet without some explanatory text to elaborate on the underlying design ideas, I have to admit it took me a while to puzzle it out. 

I'll try to unravel (my take on) it for you. Here's a step-by-step of things happening chronologically in a game:

0.    [Fiction happens, fiction happens, fiction happens...]

1.    [a character does something that triggers the Investigate move]

2.    Have the player roll +Reason, and check the result.

3.    Do not ask the player what questions they want to ask!

       Instead,

on (10+) give them at least one direct lead (or maybe more than one) that is useful for their continued research / the plot to progress.

on (-9) perhaps do the above, but add a complication or cost. Or let them fail, and find nothing.
Additionally, in both cases, you can make a GM Move.

4.    After revealing any and all clues you're gonna reveal,
       now ask the player about which question(s) they want to ask.

The three questions neatly cater to three basic impulses a player might have at this time:

- Shit, I'm gonna need more intel than that!

- Uuh... what does my intuition say about all this?

- Uuh... what does my logic say about all this?

5.    If they ask it, tell them. Honestly and without too much obfuscation.

6.    ...then ask them "What Do You Do?"

7.    [resume fiction happening, leading to more fiction happening, moves being triggered, the conversation moving forward...]

You see, the questions only make sense when building on the revealed leads, so you have to move asking them to after the clues are already revealed. Otherwise, you'll find yourself tempted to answer the questions in ways that don't really fit their scope, and when you then try to hand out "additional" direct leads afterwards, they runs a high risk of feeling weird and oddly uncalled for.

Therefore, doing it the way I described above makes, in my experience, for a much smoother flow of narrating the move's results and leading the conversation back into the general fiction afterwards.

As a general guideline, I try to make the information flow conform roughly to this:

"Here's what you find. Here's what you think about it. Now what do you do with that?"

Here's a final thought: 

If you write your own scenarios, you can design investigative scenes (or, y'know, potentially investigative scenes) from the ground up with these processes and questions in mind!

Some guidelines, perhaps:

> What essential, necessary, important, direct leads are here to be found?

> What additional sources of knowledge or insight could help make a more complete picture than what is here alone? Where else could you look, who else could you ask, what other approach could you try?

> What emotional or intuitive vibe does it give off? What about it feels weird, disturbing, scary, or enticing?

> What problems or hiccups would a viewpoint of rational analysis run into when examining this? What about it doesn't add up, seems self-contradicting, irrational, or plain impossible?

If you do this, you will never be caught unprepared when your players start asking you for clues and leads and answers to those additional questions. 

You'll already have thought them up beforehand and can now simply dole them out as needed, without the system becoming awkwardly at odds with the organically unfolding fiction.

I think that's it. This is my wisdom on the Investigate move.

Now you've seen the Truth. Now you know what we must do! 

I told you it would all make sense once you followed me all the way down here! 

GM Reference Sheet

Greetings, fellow GMs.

In the tradition of the Disadvantages cheat sheet I made, today I bring you another handy gaming aid to reference during your sessions.

When in doubt, or even at a complete loss for what to say or do next - a quick glance on this summary of your GM Agenda, Principles, and Moves may be just the thing to snap you back into your groove, or give you that crucial bit of inspiration you're fishing for.

 

Credit for the idea and initial compilation of this info in this neatly concise way goes to my long-time friend and fellow Kultist Jrmariano, who came up with the concept of this GM Reference Sheet in the first place.
All I really had to do from there was to pretty it up a bit for that Kultish look, and some minor edits for brevity and format. 

I made a printer friendly version as well:

As with the Disadvantage sheet, you can grab them from this finely crafted google folder. 

Feel free to let me know if you find them useful, leave me a comment or buy me a coffee over at my patreon. Hail Malkuth, for through tormentuous tribulations she leads us to Divine Enlightenment!

 

Metropolis: The City's True Purpose

Metropolis is one of the most mysterious of the dimensions beyond the Illusion's Veil in Kult. In spite of being included in every edition of the game (unlike some other realms, such as Gaia or the Underworld for example), the place is still a riddle to many of the game's fans. 

In some cases perhaps it is a matter of only knowing the newest edition of the corebook, and not having access to older versions of the lore. In other cases, perhaps what's there in the books is perfectly understandable to them, but feels like it's just too little, or the wrong kind of information presented. 

People ask questions like:

Why is there a whole dimension of city-stuff, just for it to be desolate and empty? What's the point?

The book says it used to be our home, and that we can feel it calling to us - but then why is there nothing interesting to do there?

The book lists a few inspirations for possible scenes, but they almost invariably remain... oddly inconclusive. Why are things described so vaguely?

If we used to live there when we were gods, why is the place filled with nothing but ruins and monsters? What's so divine about that?

Okay, so there are Archons and acrotides and angels... azghouls and tekrons and gynachids... Lost Gods and distorted humans... But all of them are described as threatening, alien, and generally rather unapproachable. What's the gameplay value in these beings, except for murdering characters in various brutal fashions? 

Ah, and about that murdering of characters: Granted, it's great fun - but you can get that from any other critter in any other dimension. What makes Metropolis truly special? Why would I want to use that realm in my games, over any of the others the setting offers?

I think I have a take on Metropolis that can address at least some of these questions. Maybe most of them. Here it is:

 

 

The Lie

There is no such thing as "Metropolis". The very idea of an eternal city that is every city, from every time, and which all our cities are merely fragmented mirror images or pale imitations of, is of course utterly insane. Whatever patterns of clues to its actual existence "beyond the scope of our limited senses" you may believe to discern from the unhinged ramblings of paranoid schizophrenics, psychotic occultists, and drug-addled mystics, are just that: Random outbursts of sick and twisted minds, poor confused souls who should seek treatment, not write books and blog posts and chatroom tirades.

It is merely the confirmation bias of your own obsessed fixations that lets you see any patterns at all in such deranged "evidence" in the first place. You must realize that if you'd look hard enough at that sort of drivel, you might eventually find any pattern you want. Which in turn makes whatever you do think you discover in there, utterly worthless of course.

Cities are just bunches of brick, metal, plastic, and concrete. We build them because it makes sense for us as a species. Humans are social animals, and in our increasingly complex societal interactions, it is simply convenient to habitate close to each other in large numbers. 

There's really nothing more to it. 

Now take your medicaton and go back to work. Watch some TV later, that'll ease your mind.

The Madness

Normally, the above is true - for all (or most) practical purposes anyways. But in the darkest corners of the city, in the most derelict areas, the most dilapidated basements, and the most rundown backyards... Something more may at times shine through. 

Here we find the first purpose of Metropolis: 

To provide an all-comprehensive, setting-intrinsic underpinning for Urban Horror.

See, the game is wholly focussed on providing a horror experience, and its primary setting is by default urban. 

So the existence of Metropolis "in the background" of the Illusion we live in, firmly anchors these two aspects. It ties them together and provides a consistent backdrop for all kinds of horrifying things that might happen in the city. Think all sorts of creepypasta and urban myths - from Sewer Crocodiles to Slenderman... they all can be tied to, and explained via The Eternal City lying beyond the scope of our limited senses. 

Its borderlands are where the monsters come from, and where the missing children disappear to. It's where occultists build their temples, criminals hide their ill-gained spoils, and outcasts, madmen, and mutants make their lairs. 

It's where the laws of physics start to come undone, and where madness seeps into your perceptions with every breath you take, every step you walk further into the past-industrial, post-postmodern, post-civilisatory darkness of its forlorn and deserted, yet still relentlessly menacing streets.

At this level of exposure to The City, you can use Metropolis to create horror in the veins of anything and everything from Split Second to Predator II, from Candyman to Dark City.

Note that this type of using it doesn't in fact explain anything about the underlying cosmic truths of The City, but as a GM you can evoke a brooding sense of truths yet to be discovered about it. The whispered promise of a consistent explanation - if only you could venture far enough, and learn enough of its secrets to make sense of a more complete picture behind it all.

This level of gameplay involving Metropolis is where the Aware Archetypes work the best. 

Most often, games of this kind will revolve around excursions into the eerieness and terror of the unknown beyond, and a return to normality after (if) the PCs have successfully confronted their horrors on the other side.

Much like the classical hero's journey, characters can descend into the other, magical world (only in our context, "magical" means "horrifying" of course), become transformed by it, and then (perhaps) go back to their mundane lives - if they're lucky.

So, to return to our initial questions: This already provides possible answers for some of them.

(Note that I'm taking care not to speak in absolutes here. As you will see, Metropolis can be many things, and presented in many different ways. Which one is the right take for your group, at your table, playing your scenario or campaign - only you can decide. And I trust that you'll know the right approach when it comes time to settle on it.)

The place can be described as desolate and empty, because in our bustling, shiny, modern cities, that is scary to us. Endless mazes of deserted streets, no reception on your phones, all the buildings abandoned and/or in ruins... and stalked by unseen predators... It is the antithesis of what our cities are built for. We can no longer feel safe when other people, familiar routes to well-known places, and hell, even basic supplies such as food and drink are no longer easily within reach. 

 

 

With the trappings of civilisation stripped away, the city turns into a nightmare version of itself. A liminal space where the familiar is twisted into the uncanny. Metropolis is the enchanted forest of our postmodernist age. The forbidden reaches of the world we inhabit, in which we are violently pushed out of our comfort zone - and into the realms where both the horror and the magic happens.

Oh, and the monsters? Ideally they should remain half-revealed, and almost invariably threatening. You should not feel a need to explain them, nor make them any more communicative than they strictly need to be in order to scare the living bejesus out of your characters. 

You should however, take care to thematically or symbolically tie them to what's been going on in the game beforehand. 

• If the scenario revolves around a downtown church that keeps burning down every [Easter / Christmas / 6th of the month / time a baby is babtized there / ...] but always reappears completely unharmed the next day, consider making your Metropolis monster an insane angel perhaps. 
• If a lab accident at some high-tech, off-the-books government research facility is what set things in motion, having a tekron involved beyond the Illusion might be fitting. 
• A serial killer who inexplicably keeps evading capture by mundane means could turn out to be traceable only in Metropolis, and might be revealed as an azghoul who hunts people that have mistreated it in their past (and present?) lives.
• A series of apparent suicides at the city's most ancient graveyard or crypt might have a Lost God that is trapped in The City of the Dead behind it, and the twisted and deformed borderliners who serve it by feeding its depraved appetites in exchange for eternal unlife.
  

Doing this sort of thing allows your players to make some sense of what is happening, and get some semblance of a grip on how to handle your (incomplete, always remaining semi-obscure) terrifying reveals.

In this sense, the setting material and creatures and example scenes in the books make up a toolkit for you to freely use as you see fit. Pick and choose what is most useful to you, and never mind about the rest. Maybe you'll never bring a ferocco into your games, and if so, who cares? Or maybe your very next campaign might offer the perfect opportunity for using one. 

 

The Truth

Ultimately, there are even deeper Truths to be unveiled in Metropolis however. The above is still somewhat superficial windowdressing.

I have described the setting chapters that deal with it as a toolkit - yet you could say that it's a toolkit which oddly never explicitly states its purpose. Some feel that the descriptions thus remain vague, hard to grasp, and on the whole feel a bit... aimless?

My personal take on it is this: 

The City as described in the books (Note: I adore the depiction of Metropolis in 1st and 4th ed Kult, and abhor the so-called "Metropolis" sourcebook. Yes, the quotes are justified here. Come fight me on this.) is described the way it is, in order to enable you - at your table, for your games - to address the eternal elephant-in-the-room question of Kult:

"What's up with that whole Divinity thing, anyways?" 

I postulate that this is why it can feel like vague, undefined, oddly not-really-going-anywhere-fast in the book texts. It is by necessity our job as GMs to flesh out the details according to what answer to the above question we give for ourselves. 

 Is "The City" simply a powerful symbolism of humanity, somehow intrinsic to us as a species and thus metaphorical of our collective divinity? So does a Ruined City signify our fall from power? Did we rule it as physical, bodily gods, and have our "Palaces of Man" there? Like an urban version of Olympus or something? 

Or was it built more like a miniature terrain table, a craftsman's hobby project to show of our skills? Merely a meticulously decorated shelf to keep our (aggressively acquired and abusively loved) toys in? Did we "rule it" more by hovering over it as disembodied entities of raw power and glory? Was it a worldcrafting project, much like we build fantasy worlds for RPGs, then populate them with NPCs for our players (other gods who come to visit?) to enjoy (or abhor) interacting with? 

 

 

It is also said that we kept our treasures there, and many are still buried in the debris, if one knows (remembers!) where to look.

What were those treasures? 

That is defined by what you think was valuable to us, back then. Time machines? Teleporters? Arcane-powered warp drives? Clairvoyance orbs? The perpetuum mobile? Perfect cybernetics? The secret to preventing cancer and living forever? Poetry that reaches so deep into the human soul that it enables true telepathy between any who have read it? Music that lets you dance atop the Vortex' crashing waves of raw, creative chaos, and stimulate it into spitting out whatever you wish into existence? The secret to build quantum (or trinary) computers? Perfect invisibility spells? Telecommunication devices so advanced they're basically just neuro-linguistic imprints, embedded directly in your brain's synapses? Wands of Fireball? 

See, the books just tell you that this used to be your house, before an evil landlord got a hold of the whole block and had you kicked out of it, years ago. That it has fallen into disrepair ever since. There were several home invasions, and a bunch of creepy people have made ill-begotten use of the place. Some of your shit might still be hidden there, and you have to ask yourself: Do you want it urgently enough to go back and poke around for it? 

...because that's all it can tell you with any confidence, right? 

The rest must by necessity remain conjecture and suggestions. Possibilities for potential current affairs there. 

You see, there might be no one in there at all... or the neighbourhood kids might sneak in on weekends to have sex on your couch and piss on your carpet. Some junkies might be shooting up in the bedroom. Your cool mantelpiece may be wrecked by vandalism and have swastikas spraypainted on it. A ruthless genius may have set up a fucking meth lab in your cellar. Which one of these it will be in any given game... depends wholly on what your GM wants to tell you about the nature of your divinity.
(And those who usurped it, them and their ways of going about it are a big reflector on that same divinity as well!)

Hell, was it even a living-in-it  kind of "home"? 

Or was it your office? Your church? Your theatre stage?

 

Come pay it a visit to find out!

So that was a lot of theory on the subject. Next time, let's see if we can find some good practical implementations for all this.

...
tbc
...

GM Hyperfocus: Car Chases

There are few things you can do in an RPG that have more action, speed, violence, chaos, destruction, and pure human determination all wrapped up into one explosive, high-octane scene, than a good old chase scene. Gruff, violent, and/or desperate men and women in battered (or brand-new... for now) vehicles, speeding it out at high velocity across adverse environments to settle whatever stakes they each have in the conflict. 

The only other thing that comes close to it is - you know it - the good old firefight. But rules and procedures for that are very well documented across a wide range of roleplaying games texts (including K:DL), to the point that most GMs find them intuitive and easy to run at this point.

Chases, however, remain more of a mysterious beast, to many of us out there.

So how do we run them? Should we go the purely narration route, or throw in some dice rolls to spice things up? How do we establish stakes, and when do we know the scene is resolved? Which rolls can we let players make, and how do they influence back onto the fiction?

Here's my breakdown of all things chasey. 

Special shout-outs go to Kraetyz, Gabe, Master Edom, and The Stranger over on the Kult: Elysium Discord server. Their conversations about the topic started the idea for this post. 

What's at Stake?

Rarely is the high-velocity driving of cars and motorcycles in close vicinty to both very dangerous and very frail scenery (such as other vehicles, buildings, cliffs, pedestrians, pets, baby strollers, garden fences...) a an end in itself. Usually, some ulterior purpose is pursued by all participants, although it can be a different motivation for different drivers in the same scene.

• Pursuing someone to prevent their escape
• Fleeing to escape a pursuer
  
• Racing to beat a rival in getting to a destination faster 

are probably the most common examples here.

There may also be violent exchanges between the chasing / racing parties involved, most commonly of the gun violence type, but we'll get to these later. They're just a part of the whole chase process, and don't really make it a wholly different thing to justify its own category. 

Looking at these types of stakes, it becomes easy to know when the scene will be resolved: When the fleeing party has either definitely escaped (commonly by shaking or waylaying all of its pursuers), or is caught (or killed) by the one(s) in pursuit, or when someone is the first to cross that finishing line / arrive at the hideout / cross the border to safety / etc.

When this is achieved by one of the participants in the chase, the scene's narration doesn't have to come to a full stop. Remaining activities by other drivers may still deserve wrapping up, some final dice rolls may even be in order to sort of whatever fallout from the scene remains... but by and large, by achieving their stakes, the bulk of the tension in the scene is relieved, and it's pretty much epilogue time for this bit of the fiction.

 

Getting There Is  Half  All The Fun

So we can see that it behooves us to build up tension towards that very resolving of the stakes. This is what the majority of a chase scene should be doing: Build-up, and pay-off, all while steadly increasing the tension about the eventual outcome. 

To this end, we can use both narrative and mechanical techniques. Or in words, we talk (excitedly) about what happens in the fiction, and let that lead to dicerolls that determine the outcome of certain, dangerous or otherwise dramatic action, and that leads us back to talking (excitedly!) about what happens in the fiction.

Same as usual for PbtA, really, you see?

The best mechanics to use for this are - perhaps unsurprisingly - the game's Basic Moves . There are also some Advantages, such as Driver to name the obvious one, and also some others that could come in useful, but we'll talk about them later. Your bread and butter techniques are the Basic Moves, though, and that's why let's talk about them first.

Here are some Basic Moves that work really well in car chases: 

Act Under Pressure 

Perhaps the most used move in this type of situation, it can cover all kinds of things that one does with a car at high speeds and while under intense duress. Take care to not overuse it. When in doubt, sometimes let players just succeed with a maneuvre they announce to try, and look for ways to involve other moves than this one instead. Or simply present them a hard choice, without a roll attached, just as if you were quietly pretending they has rolled a (10-14) result. If you do use it - and you will - here's a few examples of its applicability.

Triggers: Cutting a corner to increase headway; sharp U-turn to change direction and shake pursuers; maneuvering to overtake slow, dense, same-direction traffic; maneuvering to avoid oncoming traffic while still maintaining chasing speed; jumping the vehicle over a chasm or obstacle; swerving to avoid pedestrians or other obstacles; speeding through a maze of narrow alleyways; steering straight in spite of slippery ground or adverse weather conditions; be forced to divide your attention between driving and doing something else (making a phone call, firing a gun, heated discussion with your passengers...)

Danger: You take the wrong turn and end up on a much shittier road; Your reckless driving alerts the cops; You swerve off the road and are slowed or stopped; You hit a person; You destroy something valuable (a shopping window, street vendor's stand, statue, or other piece of expensive property...); You get shaken and rattled (and possibly hurt) while mowing down a slender tree, garden fence, sturdy gate, construction site props, or other small scenery; You hit a wall, large tree or other solid object, and are stopped (and very possibly hurt); Something in your vehicle breaks (a tire flattens and slows you, the fuel tank is leaking and puts you on a tight timer, rearview mirrors break and leave you with reduced oversight of your surroundings, the brakes give out, the steering gets wonky, a window shatters, etc...)

Move Snowballs: Some of these choices can lead to slowing the vehicle down (losing your headway or giving a pursued party more of it [see below for a simple and convenient way to track this]) or stop it entirely, and/or can force the driver - and/or any passengers they might have aboard - to Endure Injury. You could also become disoriented and have to Observe the Situation to regain your bearings. Hitting a person will deal Harm to them in the way detailed on p.158 (and p.106) in the Corebook, and it should virtually always cause the driver to Keep it Together as well! Destroying valuables and causing other collateral may or may not be so hard on your conscience, right away, but it may have legal consequences later. If they ever catch you, they're gonna want to make you pay for it, or throw you in jail if you can't.

 

Avoid Harm

Sometimes, the things another driver does - or the fallout from your own mistakes - may force you to use this move. Note that, while it's details and outcomes may often feel suspiciously similar to those of Act Under Pressure, this move should be used strictly reactively only. For actions announced by the driver themselves, the above move is golden. For reactions to something caused by enemies, rivals, the environment, or one's own misdeeds - Avoid Harm may be just right for that!

Triggers: Can you avoid the scattered crates and barrels the fleeing vehicle knocked over, without losing your pursuit velocity? Stay the course in spite of the grenades they throw? Dodge the oncoming traffic? Maneuvre the oil spills on the road without swerving out of control? Without your brakes and having swerved off the road into that little park area there, can you avoid hitting any of the trees and coming to a full - and painful - stop immediately?

Move Snowballs: A mild-tempered GM, or one who is feeling especially gracious that day, may allow a roll to Avoid Harm after a failure (or even partial?) result for Act Under Pressure, as a way to allow the PC one more chance to dodge whatever badness (i.e. Danger) they have coming for them. In general however, if such a roll fails, it can easily lead to someone needing to Endure Injury next. It could slow you down enough to force you to Observe the Situation in order to locate your quarry again, and resume pursuit. Or it could even simply end the scene, as you crash to a halt and are unable to continue the chase at all.

Endure Injury

This is the main dread to any and all chase scenes worthy of the name: That someone could end up getting mortally wounded from all the craziness we've been getting ourselves into. Sometimes, you may wanna inflict a sort of Reduced Harm, which can be announced as "Roll to Endure Injury, but the worst that can happen is you get two of the (10-14) results"... optionally adding something like "...one of which I'm gonna make a Serious Wound, just so you know", if you're feeling it.

Other times, you want to pack the full punch of the move as written - and roll with whatever comes up, weaving it back into the fiction. Passengers bleeding out on the back seat, drivers suddenly falling unconscious, or the hostage slumping over dead beside you are all staples of this kind of scene.

Fitting Injuries: You break your nose on the steering wheel; You knock your forehead and blood trickles into one eye; The impact makes you lose your glasses / gun / street map / phone, it is now clattering around somewhere by your feet, no way to retrieve it easily or swiftly, on your own; You dislocate a shoulder because the seat belt had slipped; You break a collarbone as the seat belt was where it should be; Heralded by a shrill noise in your ears, your sense of balance is severely impeded; You break a knee as you desperately still tried to hit the brakes when the car already impacted violently; The brutal whiplash cranks your neck and limits your mobility and vision; Shards from the broken windshield dig into your arms, hands, and face...

Move Snowballs: Getting wounded during an adrenaline-fueled chase scene may confuse and disorient you: Observe the Situation to stay (or get back) on track, or you might have to Act Under Pressure to take care of whatever ways your injury impedes your ability to continue the chase (e.g. wipe the blood out of your eyes to regain your depth perception, pick the glass shards out of your palm so you can firmly grip the steering wheel once more).
Suffering severe injuries under intense duress can also lead to Keep it Together rolls (suppress the pain, try not to get distracted, overcome the shock of almost dying just now...) and/or may cause a driver (or passenger) to See Through the Illusion.

 

Observe a Situation

When there is an opening for the PCs to learn more about the scene, or when they are actively trying to get an increased overview of their situation (e.g. find the best possible escape route, figure out where the hell you are when've gone off-road...), this move may be employed to represent their efforts at establishing clarity of their whereabouts.

It's also a great way to involve other PCs in the vehicle, who are not themselves driving it, in the action. When in doubt, let them ask their questions first, then decide whether to have them roll for the move (or just tell tell, or inform them there's no way they could determine that). For some of the questions it may make sense to grant them a +1 or +2 to the roll if the passenger has a street map, is using google maps on their phone, holds binoculars, knows the area well, knows the opponents well, or has other relevant advantages to bring to the table that seem to fit.

 

There is no need for you to use (let alone hand out to the players) exact street maps or explicitly pinpoint routes and positions. Just use the questions that OaS allows, and tell them what they need to know right now. Keep it immediate, and fast-moving.

Examples:

Best way through this: Lose them in the maze of narrow alleyways; Take a shortcut through the inner city pedestrian zone; Get on the boulevard where you can make your superior speed count; Go off-road where your jeep will have a far easier time than their bikes... 

(Name a route for them to take, and immediately start thinking of possible obstacles and challenges (i.e. next rolls to make) to throw their way if they take it. Also however make sure to give them their +1 from this roll to dealing with any new challenges on that chosen route.)

Biggest threat: You can see them readying guns and rolling down their windows; One of the bikers is holding an actual fucking grenade in hand, and looks ready to throw it as soon as he gets close enough; That one car has a fortified front grill and seems intent on ramming you first chance you give it; Loud noises, fast speeds, and reckless collateral will alert the police - and you just know they'd go after you harder than after them... 

(Name an active threat that's coming their way, and then don't let up on it unless and until it has been solidly take care of.)

Possible advantage: Find that sharp turn onto a hidden trail that they might just miss and speed by; Spot a ramp to jump over; Notice the train is about to pass somewhere; Their cautious, almost conservative driving style gives you the idea that intimidating them with reckless driving, ramming attempts, and the like, could work to scare them off; Ramming those [crates / barrels / stack of large pipes / other] and getting them scattered across the road would put an obstacle in their way; there's a bridge coming up ahead, which [could be demolished to stop pursuers dead in their tracks / someone could be made to swerve off of, stopping (and possible drowning) them / could be used for makig a stand without the risk of them surrounding you]... 

(This is textbook Offer them an opportunity, with or without a price. Seizing it will often be an Act under Pressure, but might also be something else, or no roll at all.)

Look out for: These potholes might flatten your tires and even break your axes, if not carefully avoided; The forest is increasingly treacherous the darker it gets, so if you were to lose your lights you'd be seriously fucked in here; This icy road is especially dangerous when taking curves at high velocity; Pedestrians are crossing left and right here; You spot road signs indicating [a traffic jam / treacherous curves / a dead end / construction site activity / animals crossing / low passes / other] coming up ahead;   

(Name a passive danger that is particular to the current environment. It will have to be navigated, or you risk to suffer its effects. Once that specific area is cleared, it may or may not be a factor anymore. Best practice is to vary it up and throw new dangers at them with any new area they're traversing!)

Hidden: They're not actually trying to [escape / catch you], they're trying to [lure you to follow them / herd you to run] deeper into the slums; There's another party involved in the chase, who you hadn't noticed before; More of them are lying in wait ahead; The fields beside the road look like solid earth but are really moist and swampy; You notice that these speed bumps are the kind that sharp spikes emerge from if you cross them in the wrong direction; The deep snow conceils a smaller road splitting off of this one; In the darkness ahead you catch shimmering reflections of the stars on what must be a sizeable body of water - if it's a river then there will likely be a bridge...

(Introduce a new and surprising element into the scene. Ideally it should not change everything about what's going on, but rather put a fresh twist on it and/or (threaten to) drive a thrown into the PCs' side...)

Strange: This doesn't look like a normal forest anymore...; You know this district inside out but these weird buidings you have never seen, which should be impossible...; All the bikers cheer for a moment and make an odd sign with one raised hand, every time one of them goes down that cliff next to the curvy mountain road... are they enthusiastic about their suicidally reckless brethren's deaths?; They're more scared than you are, though you have no idea why they'd be...; That driver must be inhumanely [strong / fast / perceptive / resilient / other], there should be no way he should have been able to pull that off! ...

(You can let the Illusion's grasp weaken and introduce crazy cultist behaviour, and wild crap from beyond the Veil creeping in. Pro-tip: If the players ask this one, they're usually literally asking for it. Do them the favor and creepify things up a bit. Golden opportunity!)

Engage in Combat

Chasing and racing mean tension and high stakes, and that means... a high chance of violence ensuing bteween the contestants. Now it can be very hard to effectively make hand-to-hand attacks while riding in a vehicle (although for motorcycle riders that is a distinct - if risky - possibility), but it is often possible to engage in ranged combat. 

There are likely a few drawbacks to consider, in comparison to pedestrian firefights. In enclosed vehicles, you are, well, rather enclosed. So you'll have to lean out of a window, or open the roof and stand up to shoot at opponents. This may at the GM's discretion require an Act under Pressure in order to perform without getting your aim shaken or yourself exposed to enemy fire. On a partial result for such a roll, the GM might give you -1 or -2 to your subsequent Violence rolls, while on a fail you might immediately get targeted by hostile shooting, or environmental adversity (e.g. low-hanging branches, tumbling barrels or crates, the flock of crazed ravens controlled by the death cult...)
Needless to say, if you're the car's driver, and also want to shoot at opponents, this should be an Act under Pressure as well, with the danger being that you might lose control of the car, on top of the other risks listed above.

On a motorcycle, however, it is much easier to find the freedom of movement to fire at least one-handed weapons with comparative accuracy. The GM might still veto in an AuP or just flat out a -1 or -2 penalty on your Engage in Combat roll, e.g. for moving over rugged terrain while shooting, or similar adverse circumstances. More dangerously, however: On a partial result for your EiC, you might (as per the normal rules) lose something important - e.g. your balance, meaning you (must Avoid Harm or) crash the bike - or you might get in trouble later on, for example by damaging your bike (fuel tank, tires, steering...)

Apart from these special additions, resolve combat pretty much as you normally would.

Triggers: Leaning out the window with your uzi ready to unleash leaden death; Stand up through the roof window, bazooka in hand; Steer the bike with one hand while shooting your clock at the fugitive's tires; Lob grenades at the pursuers whenever they get into ideal reach; Blast their windshield with your shotgun...

Move Snowballs: Several have been mentioned above, but apart from Avoid Harm and Act under Pressure of course Endure Injury is always on the table as a follow-up for this move, as well as possibly the need to Observe a Situation, Keep it Together, and See Through the Illusion. Anything is possible once the bullets start flying and blood start spraying the asphalt...

Keep it Together

A chase or race is always a test of resolve, of mental composure, iron determination, and sheer nerves. Many situations in which another roll could be used, this one could conceivably be substituted for it instead. You can use this to avoid endless repetitions of Aup and AH rolls, just by deciding, "no this one is more about your Willpower, your sheer grit to pull through."

Apart from that, it goes very well with each and any of the following triggers below.

Triggers: Missing that crucial exit; Getting surrounded on all sides; Getting badly hurt; Killing someone; Shocking explosions or large-scale demolition; Seeing a friend or ally die; Surprising oncoming traffic; A truck right in front of you starting to swerve and topple over; A train rushing near from the side; Sudden reveal of many more enemies than you thought there were... Literally anything that tests your nerves, and challenges you to keep your cool or else...

Move Snowballs: This move might lead to the character showing their nerves of steel, and staying their steady course - or it might to nervousness, fear, shocked hesitation, emotional turmoil (anger makes you impulsive, fear makes you freeze up, guilt and sorrow will haunt you later - and all of those will incur Stability loss) and other complications. On a spectacular fail, it might even lead to the chase scene immediately coming to an end as the character is too scared to continue and feels themselves forced to throw the towel and give up.

See Through the Illusion

In the extremes of adrenaline, pain, blurred landscapes speeding by, glass, pastic, and metal bending and breaking, explosions, gunshots, and crashing vehicles... the Veil over our senses may become frail and torn. Human aggression and death is like almost nothing else in the world suited to tear the Illusion apart - and reveal the True Horrors beyond!

Triggers: Failing to Keep it Together against any of the triggers listed for that, above; Intense pain and gruesome injury (e.g. gutted, mutilated, impaled, face destroyed...); Magical rituals or severe intoxication during the scene; Grossly and obviously supernatural occurrences...

Move Snowballs: What moves follow after this one is always heavily determined by the content of what has been seen (if anything... or anything that can be made meaningful sense of anyways) through the Veil. If meaningful info is glanced (e.g. They're all razides; They're normal people but there's a tentancled, many-mawed Child of the Night with them; Monstrous undead children are crawling from that swamp over there; One of the cars has an aura of magical protection surrounding it; the streets of Metropolis offer maneuvering options that aren't visible within the Illusion...), the PCs will often adjust their course of action to react to these new reveals. Handle those new actions as you would all others, i.e. let the fiction dictate what mechanics get used to provide new impetus for leading the conversation onwards into further fiction.

Final thought on Stakes: When throwing out challenges, complications, and consequences during the chase, keep in mind your established stakes. Take care not to inflict any repercussions that would lead to an outcome you're not prepared to see happen. It's one thing to play to find out (which you should!), but it's also important to sometimes limit the range of possible outcomes of what you're playing with.

Example: If you're not prepared to let the cultists actually catch the PCs, for instance - say, because your real stakes are "escape them before nightfall or be trapped in the forest when the Illusion tears towards Gaia" - then take care not to do things that will irreversibly stop the PCs' flight. You might still flatten a tire or something, to give them interesting problems to deal with, but you probably shouldn't flatten all their tires, or break their axes, or let them run out of fuel completely... 

Example #2: If you're introducing the police into a chase between PCs and cultists, but you're not actually planning to let them get caught by the cops, and imprisoned etc. (though maybe they might get caught by the cultists, but then they'll have other problems of course...), then maybe you're really adding the police just for a greater variety of opponents and challenges along the way. "Now there's not only a bunch of crazed redneck bikers with hunting rifles and hatchets after them, but also some cop cars with shotguns and grenade launchers!", you might be thinking - and you'd be thinking in a good direction. Just use those cops for what they're worth and then take care to narrate them getting waylaid comfortably in time to not risk them winning the chase in the end!

 

Putting This All Together

That was a lot of information right now, and may well feel overwhelming. How to put all that into practice? A few tips and best practices:

Keep it as narrative as you can, but don't hesitate for rolls if you have to / feel like it.

Don't let a single roll - no matter how spectacularly good or bad - decide the entire outcome of the chase. That will feel anitclimactic to the players, like it's all over way too soon, and was merely a matter of dumb luck to begin with. The more (hard) choices they have to make during a chase, the more it'll feel like they really earned their outcome in the end. 

Instead, use brief descriptions of situations, then (let the players) trigger rolls, then describe the outcomes and describe a new situation.

Change scenery and surroundings often and quickly. This will give the impression of a high-speed chase through rapidly changing terrain.

The classic PbtA advice "look at everything through crosshairs" is as true, or more so, for chases and races as for any other in-game situation. No one is save in a wild car chase! Even named NPCs can drop down cliffs, get caught in fiery explosions, or be thrown through their windshield in a heads-on collison. Remember that no one is certified dead unless we saw them die onscreen - and usually a chase is gonna be moving on too fast to really make sure of such anyways. But sometimes, let the players' rolls succeed in destroying plot-relevant objects and people. If you have put some of your inventions on the line by making them part of the scene's stakes, there should be a very real possibility for it to go either way. Chase to find out, as it were.

 

Here is an example of a well-narrated chase scene. The seed for it was originally written by Kraetyz on the Kult: Elysium Discord server, and I have slightly edited and expanded it to encompass a few more of the things I have written about above. 

You're trying to escape them through the labyrinth of inner city alleyways. Sharp turns, narrow lanes, confusing layout. Roll to Observe the Situation to discern an ideal route out of here. Your car a little worse for wear, you make it onto the boulevard. You manage to increase your headway simply by reckless speeding, and your passengers' shooting waylays a few of them. Slow traffic gives you a hard time though - Whoa! That yellow light is gonna be a tight squeeze, and you were distracted for a moment there. Roll to Avoid Harm to make it across the intersection in spite of sideways traffic already starting to flow in. As you get onto the highway, the chase continues. You have shaken or demolished around half of them, but some are still in pursuit! Cars are zooming by in both directions, and with the way you're weaving to keep your pursuers guessing, things are getting a bit chaotic. Roll to Act under Pressure. Oh no! That partial makes you cause an accident, a sideswipe bump that makes another car swerve out of control, and slows your own down a bit. Fortunately it also stops all but one of your pursuers as a pile-up collission starts happening behind you. But one of them manages to avoid it, and even overtake you - and you see in their car as it passes you by: They got Tanya in there with them!

Fuck, now this changes everything. You gotta get to them, to free her! When they realize the new situation, they exit the highway for smaller overland streets. Soon you find yourself being led onto forest roads, the ground rugged and the trees blocking a lot of your view. Keep it Together to maintain your calm nerves and keep up the chase. Shit, you must have taken a wrong turn back there. Where are you even? And where did they go? Observe the Situation to orient yourself in these fucking woods. Oh, obviously - they will have tried to double back, and get back to their allies / home base. Time to find a shortcut to intercept that! There they are, trying to make it back onto the highway. The earthen road is flanked by swampy meadows on both sides. Act under Pressure to navigate the muddy curves and catch up to your quarry. This is it, the moment you've been waiting for. You can stoop this chase right now if you ram those bastards off the road! Roll to Engage in Combat. Good luck!

 

Advantages

The above are, as mentioned in the beginning, your basic tools. They can be entirely sufficient to run highly satisfying chase scenes all by themselves. Sometimes you want to add some extra spice to it however, and that's where Advantages can come in handy.

The most obvious one here is of course Driver (Corebook p.106), and it's very useful indeed! The way I use it (and other Advantages too, incidentally) is that spending an Edge lets the player get an automatic success for something that would otherwise (i.e. without an Edge) have been a roll.

So while shaking off a pursuing vehicle might well be an Act Under Pressure for most people, for a Driver it just requires spending one Edge. I ask the player how their character goes about it, and just let it succeed. Similarly, using your vehicle as a weapon may normally call for an Engage in Combat roll - but if you're willing (and able) to spend an Edge for it, you may just directly inflict your given Harm rating on your intended victim. 

Side Note: I would probably disallow the last of the given Edges to motorcycle riders. A bike simply doesn't have the mass, nor the armoured hull to pull this off with any certainty of success, much less without hurting the rider. Instead, I allow bikers an alternate Edge instead: 

• Keep steering your bike with one hand while using the other one to perform a complex action (e.g. firing a gun, taking a fotograph, writing a short text message...)
  

 

Other Advantages

Players are often very creative people, and when put under high duress, with important things at stake for them, they tend to get even more creative. You might also call it desperate. Expect them to come up with all kinds of wild ideas for how they could use their existing Advantages to their... well, advantage. Heh. 

Whether it's Escape Artist, Ice Cold, Improviser, Animal Speaker, Body Awareness, Hunter, Instinct, Shadow, Quick Thinker, Genius, Inner Power, Stubborn, Voice of Pain, Wayfinder, Death Drive, Field Agent, Lightning Fast, Ruthless, Survival Instinct, Eye for an Eye, Rage, or any of the countless others that exist - consider allowing players to at least try and narrate a rationale for how their Advantages could come into use in the present situation, and when in doubt try to err on the side of leniency. That means, say to say 'yes' more often than not to these kinds of requests. Life is harsh and brutal enough for Kult characters anyways, so letting them use their cool stuff every once in a while is the kind thing to do. When it stands to reason that someone who is Lightning Fast or a Quick Thinker or whatever could make a difference here, and they've got an Edge that sounds even just halfways like what they're trying to do - let them. 

You can always tie conditional other rolls to the use of the Edge or Option they want to bring into play. If their ideas seem exaggerated, unbelievable, or overpowered, start saying 'yes, but...'
For example, "Yes, you could use this to [do X], but first you (or your driver) will have to Act Under Pressure to get into the right position to pull it off."

Treating  Objects  Vehicles Like People

I suggest to give your car Wounds like a PC has, so it can suffer Serious Damage or Critical Damage from attacks against it. 

Motorcycles can take 2 Serious Damages and 2 Critical Damage. Any damage it takes may require the rider to make a roll in order not to get knocked over - though you might rule that a hit that gives it Critical Damage will always knock over the bike. 

Cars, SUVs, or vans of an average type can take 4 Serious and 2 Critical Damages. The second Crit Dmg it receives will slay it. Any Crit Dmg should probably force some kind of roll from the driver to retain control of the vehicle.

Jeeps, pick-ups, and trucks are progressively more sturdy and massive, and may be able to take up to 5 Serious Damages and perhaps even 3 Critical ones.

Wound Penalties are replaced by Damage Penalties but work the same way. Accumulating -1 or -2 ongoing penalties to your driving rolls are as sure of a way to lose a chase as getting caught, immobilized, or killed is.

(Note: If you prefer to handle vehicles' Wounds the NPC way instead, Consider giving a motorcycle 3-4 Wounds, and larger vehicles 6-12 Wounds. In place of Harm Moves, you can use Damage Moves, perhaps using the list of suggested Malfunctions below for inspiration.)

 

Vehicles also have an equivalent to Fortitude/Armor: 

A normal, run-of-the-mill car, SUV, pick-up, or van might have Armor 2, 

fortified versions of the above, trailers, and trucks may have Armor 3, 

a really solid beast (armoured troop carrier, massive truck...) may have 4.

Motorcycles have Armor 1.

This value gets detracted from the attacking weapon's Harm value in the normal way. 

Person-to-person violence: 

Except for motorcycles, vehicles usually tend to convey their Armor value to their passangers as well. It might be reduced when shooting at people who are leaning out of windows, or standing up through the roof hatch etc. Also refer to the section about Engage in Combat, above, for some more possible twists and options. 

Other than that, resolve violence against opponent passengers pretty much according to the normal rules for combat aggression.  

 

Person-to-vehicle damage: 

It makes a lot of sense in a chase scene that has escalated to violence, to target enemy vehicles instead of their passengers. For one thing, the passengers are often well protected inside their vehicles, and if you can attack fiercely enough to wound or slay them, you might as well stand a chance to damage or destroy their entire car. Which can naturally stop a whole bunch of enemies with just one stroke. Or at least slow them down, that'll stop them being a factor in the chase, too.

Possible Malfunctions: When receiving Serious or Critical Damage, a vehicle might suffer any of the following malfunctions, and more.

Shattered window, headlights, or rearview mirror; Bumper torn off; Door comes loose; Exhaust pipe ripped off; Punctured tire; Suspension collapses, ride becomes rough and steering is impeded; Sparks fly from the dashboard, some electronics damaged; Smoke emerging from the engine; fuel tank leaking, fuel gauge drops rapidly; Brakes malfunction; Gear shift damaged, clutch gets stuck; Steering becomes wandering, swervy, or unresponsive; Tire is lost; Axis broken; Engine blown; Fuel tank catches fire and explodes...

 

Vehicle-to-vehicle damage: 

Ramming another vehicle with your own is usually a roll to Engage in Combat. Depending on size, mass, and sturdiness of the vehicles involved, you may give various bonuses and penalties to ramming attempts. 

A car ramming a motorcycle may get +1 to Engage in Combat, while motorcycles may get a -1 even to ramming each other, and can not meaningfully ram anything larger at all. 

Normally a ramming vehicle inflicts its Armor value as Harm onto the target vehicle (if successfully ramming), and possibly more if it is moving significantly faster than the rammed opponent.

SUVs, jeeps, pick-ups, vans, trailers, trucks etc. are progressively larger and heavier, and every (meaningful) size category might mean a further +1, both to the ramming attempt itself and to the Harm that is dealt upon a successful collision.

 

Getting Away, or Catching These Bastards

Finally, for chases where catching/escaping is at stake, I use a simple "headway" system, where distance gain/loss is measured in up to 3 steps. 

The way I handle it is that a full success (15+) on a roll that is meant to increase headway to a pursuer / catch up to a fugitive (usually these will be AUP or OaS rolls, though in rare cases it could be Violence-based or contingent on a successful save, i.e. Passive-Attribute-based roll) allow you to increase / shrink the distance to your opponent by 1 step. 

So a full success on AuP for example might let you weave through traffic with elegance and verve, putting you 1 distance increment ahead of the cops. Your next fail on OaS however might mean they outmaneuver you in the maze of alleyways and your headway shrinks back to 0. 

If you ever achieve 3 steps headway, you have escaped. 

When you are at 0 distance, one single roll is liable to determine the final outcome of the chase, i.e. leave you captured if you fail your next relevant action.

As an added bonus, the steps can also easily substitue / be equivalent with the distances given for weapons in K:DL - "Room", "Field", and "Horizon" all feel like apropriate terms to describe how near or far an opponent vehicle currently is. This comes in handy for adjudicating your uzi-wielding passengers' favorite pastime as well.