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.

A Herald of Sinister Insights Has Arrived

 

I use a lot of visual artwork on this blog, the absolute most of which I have no shreds of rights to. Naturally, this being a purely fan-made RPG blog, I hope that no one minds. But that's not what I wanna talk about today. 

Here I commissioned a piece of visual artwork. There are certain visions crawling out of the depths of my nightmares that must be cast into lines and colors, and while I can do a half-decent drawing every now and then, my painting skills (either digital or analogue) are just too sucky to truly do the worst of them justice. 

So it happened that this abomination was born to the light of your screens:

 

I'm sure most of you recognize at first glance which entity this beautiful mister is based on. A friend who is also one of my favorite artists (but chooses to remain anonymous) was pointed out to me by my Mistress Malkuth as the ideal candidate for casting it into a new take, a Kultified appearance. 

I asked her if she wanted to try this, she agreed, and I think she made a really fine job of it!

Now that he exists, and proudly adorns my desktop background, I wanted to write a little something about him.

Baoth Hammad

Better known under his pop-cultural moniker Baphomet, this entity and its involvement in Elysium is truly ancient. Records of its dealings with human truthseekers and doomed souls go back to at least the Bronze Age. Some occultists even claim that he had a hand in the fabled and mysterious collapse of that era's most powerful kingdoms. 

His name, contrary to the lictors' twisted teachings, originally means The Blood-Stained Teacher. He appears to be affiliated with none of the known Higher Powers, though he engages in precarious flirtations and temporary alliances with either of them.

He can be seen dancing on the forlorn toxic waste fields of Inferno, mocking the suffering sinners in their purgatories. He resplends at the outskirts of dreams, looking in to sate his voyeuristic pleasures. He whispers riddles to the mad, and curses the sane with bouts of insanity so their erratic behaviours become clues that help solve them. He will fuck virtually anything that moves, but truly loves only those that cannot love themselves. His home is nowhere, and he is never there. 

 

Is he an ascended human magician, millennia old and powerful beyond measure?

An alien godhead, the last survivor of a people we once enslaved and almost completely eradicated? Or was he even a willing collaborator in our unrelenting conquest of the cosmos?

Is he perhaps a champion of Malkuth, embodying a certain subset of her wider Principle of Rebellion and Awakening? An arch-nepharite, with legions of purgatides wailing his praises and razides trembling at his passing?

An envoy of Da'ath, gleefully tugging at the strings of Archons and Death Angels alike? The last surviving Incarnation of the Demiurge?

Or could he be something else entirely, something we don't even have a name for, yet?

What the god offers:

[tba]

What the god wants:

[tba]

Community challenge: 

Suggest me horrifying services that this being could demand from hapless humans who cross its mystic paths, and darkly tantalizing rewards it would offer to those who worship it or serve its mysterious causes.

Use the comment section here, or find me over on Discord or FB if you prefer. 

I will compile the best offerings and demands, in good time, and complete the above writeup based on them. 

The Herald of Blood-Drenched Insights is prophesied to arrive. All must fear him and rejoice! 

GM Hyperfocus: Roleplaying in Limbo

The Sleep of Reason Breeds... Awesome Roleplaying Opportunities!

In Kraetyz' recent blog post about the basics of Kult's cosmology, he talks - amongst many other things - about Limbo. This part especially has sparked some lively and inspiring conversations between Krae, Gabe, and me - some of which I want to sum up and share here. 

We'll be looking at the strong similarities between dreams and roleplaying.

And I describe two techniques to help GMs make their RPing in Limbo both easier and more impactful. 

Here's an excerpt from Kraetyz's article about it:

Limbo may appear as an undefined, immaterial realm with little concrete information to take away. That is on purpose. Limbo, being a realm upon which dreams are imprinted and made real (in a sense), is undefined save what we make of it. Waking life might imprint on dreams which in turn imprint on waking life. Quarrelling with your partner in your dreams will leave you waking up angry at them for real, your emotions inexplicable to them but no less real for that. Going to sleep in the wrong place could stir up an ancient dream lingering there. Memories could be treated as interactive movies, complete with fast-forward and rewind buttons and perhaps a settings menu. 

So he very first sentence here - while being entirely accurate and on point - highlights what might be perceived as difficult to run a meaningful game in. If it can be anything, the onus is on the GM to put in the work to make it a meaningful experience. On the other hand, there is great potential there to make your roleplaying in the dreams larger than life; more colourful, more ominous, more intense, and in general dreamier.

This is what is so magical about both dreams and the roleplaying experience.

Limbo, in contrast to Gaia, Inferno, and Metropolis, does not present an objectively existing outside reality, for characters to experience and explore - or be victimized by. Instead, it presents an objectively existing inside reality to immerse in. The magical part comes in when we consider that - while still being objectively real, i.e. in KULT not only emotions, but also physical injuries, acquired wisdom, found objects etc. may carry over from Limbo to the waking world - this Reality can (and will) be different for everyone who observes it. 

We all bring along our own filters and lenses through which we look at this internal reality. It is a Shared Imagined Space - just like the one we create in RPGs - for all of humankind, but we each interpreat and compute based on our own individual persepectives, baggage, aspirations, fears, hopes... 

• Two people might be sharing a nightmare in which they are fleeing a ravening killer. One of the dreamers believes the murderer to be a friend gone mad (perhaps the figure bears the face of a friend, either by the dreamer's subconscious projection, or by deceitful chimerstry on the part of the hunting dream creature?) while the other dreamer sees a horrible subhuman monster (again perhaps a projection of suppressed archaic fears, or due to the creature playing tricks on their mind?)

Which one of them is seeing "the Truth"? If the scene plays out the exact same way for both of them, regardless of the hunter's physical (or well, limbotical) appearance... does it matter? They are both right, in that something horrible, deeply wrong, and dangerous is pursuing them with ill intentions. 

And we can happily leave it at that. Not all "universal Truths" do ultimately have to be nailed down, much less revealed to the players. 

Consider if you will, the philosophical inquiry of "Do people see colours the same way?".
We cannot ultimately, objectively know it - but it also doesn't matter for our everyday lives to work out just fine, regardless. 

As a GM, if one doesn't shy away from this but rather embraces it, running wild with the raw imagination and visualisation that is embodied in Limbo, then knowing that everyone will see the same scene a little differently in their mind's eye can enrich the scene more than it detracts!

In fact, this plays to the strengths of our medium of cooperative storytelling in RPGs. 

Because you can see the exact same thing happening in the Shared Imagined Space (SIS) that is created at an RPG table: Every player (and the GM!) has their own rendition of the in-game fiction in their head. 

Now, one should not romanticize this notion. The effect in Limbo is undeoubtedly stronger. At a coffe table littered with sheets, dice, pencils and softdrinks, there is often barely enough common overlap between everyone's "head movies" to make the game work and no one "glitch out" due to jarring contradictions or other disconnecting factors. In fact, sometimes it happens over the most basic things!

"Wait, what? I thought the stairs were opposite  from the door??"

"Nah, they're right here next to it man. So I walk up them without getting cllose to..."

"Okay, so actually you guys, the stairs are to the side of the room, and opposite from the door you entered, there is another door..." 

"There is another door??" 

"Haven't any of you been listening to a single thing I said?!"

I'm sure we've all been there, seen that, had our parts in it happening. 

However, we need not worry about irrevocably ruining anything. We can always rewind, clarify, redo. 

And the strong points are that you can tailor your descriptions in the awareness of this malleability of the SIS. Keep it to broad strokes, use strong archetypal concepts and remain scarce on the details - unless and until someone asks about them. Focus on what the scene is about, what it's supposed to convey or make happen. Fill in the fiddly bits later, when needed, or never at all.

 

artwork by Iosef Chezan, used with neither permission nor intent of infringement

Personally, I rejoice every time my characters stumble into Limbo in some way or form, since to me as a GM it feels much like 'coming home'. 

There is relief and freedom in the moment you can shed all the hard work of conjuring up a pretend 'logical, rational reality', and just go back to what the medium does best. (There's a reason the rise of RPGs originated in the Fantasy genre, and I suspect this has something to do with it.)

Can we leave timespans and distances ill-defined, mostly vague or entirely unknown, until and unless we need to nail them down? Yup, like in a dream.
Can people be nothing more than vague sprites or stand-ins, except if they're needed to be more detailed than that? You betcha, we do it with NPCs all the time. We'll describe faceless groups of people who are undefinded beyond 'coworkers' or 'extended family' perhaps... without names or personalities or histories... until you zoom in one and suddenly learn that you know a whole lot about them!  Exactly like in a dream.
Can we suddenly let a detail appear in the scene that wasn't noticed before, or shift everyone's attention to something simply by describing it in more detail than whatever else surrounds it? Sure thing - reality is malleable, subjective, and yours to play around with!

Above and beyond that, suddenly time skips or jumps from one location to another are a thing here, too. Even the "wait, let's rewind and revisit that one scene again... how was that...?" thing happens in both media. Jungian symbolism and archetypal tropes are writ large. 

Often enough, we aim our descriptions at directly revealing what things are about, rather than elaborate on a lot of details that at best embellish, at worst obscure, their intrinsic meaning. 

• An example of this last bit here: It is sometimes more important to convey "A terrible menace appears, that you must run away from or suffer its savage depredations", than it is to make sure everyone is on the same page about the exact number of tentacles (when in doubt, make it 17) and the colour of the creature's scaly hide (it's probably a pale purblish-green... but do we need to care?). 
  So why not say that, sometimes?
  "It's a terrible menace, the stuff of your nightmares, looking to savagely victimize any in its path. All must run from it or suffer. What do you do?"
  

May seem reductionist, overly simplistic, counterintuitively unembellished... but you should try it some time! Hold off from asking the players what particular horrors their character sees in the described menace, at least for a while. See how far you can carry the scene before having to nail down some Shared Imagined Truths. I can promise you it's gonna be an interesting experiment, likely to make for an impressive and memorable scene.

Now You're in the Magic Space, How Do You Wield its Power?

At this point, the enterprising Dream-GM may be left to wonder about how, in all this freedom and vagueness and stripped-naked meaning, to give the dreams your characters wander (or are adrift in) some strength. Some punch. Some impact. 

And indeed, something in that vein is often needed. Things cannot be 'whatever, whenever' all of the time. Dreams should be powerful and memorable, idiosyncratic and symbolic.

I use two techniques to achieve that:

Psychology and Dream Logic. You could also call them Genre and Fancy. They play well off of each other, as one provides a general undercurrent of theme and motifs to any given dream you're running your PCs through, and the other provides odd details and specific whimsies to use within the Limbonian environment that is shaped by that general undercurrent.

Psychology / Genre

Dreams are a mirror of the mind. Our emotions and experiences in the waking inform our nightly sojourns to no small degree. This is fierce enough when you're in your own dreams, but it can be much acerbated yet once you start venturing into other dreamers' nightscapes. 

Adding 'dream types' to your repertoire provides you with psychological undercurrents to the dreams you describe, which effectively clads the dreams a genre: A set of expectations and conventions within which the events and scenery unfolds.

You can have dreams of -

• anxiety and dread
• shame and embarassment
• guilt and persecution
  
• arousal and eroticism
• unbridled, pornolicious sex 
• bizarre, nonsensical, or disgusting sex
  
• anger and violence
• fear of violence
• fear of social victimisation
• fear of unspoken menace
• revisiting past situations or settings  (often connected to problem solving)
• pursuing hopes and aspirations
• utopian joy and fulfilment
  
• nostalgia, past prides and joys
• nostalgia, grief and regrets
  
• elation and euphoria  (usually connected to physical activity, movement)
• empowerment and supremacy
  
• alternate reality / timeline / time / city  (examination of differences; emphasis of similarities)
  
• chaotic combinations of obscurely symbolic imagery
• ...
  

...and many more besides.

The important thing here is to choose a dominant theme (or maybe two) that informs the dream the PCs are in right now. Then, whenever reaching for ideas while you improvise and describe the happenings in the scenes that are played out, you can tap into that theme to draw fitting elements from it.

In dreams driven by fear of violence, people you meet may seem large and menacing, half-emptied bottles of alcohol may be standing on coffee tables in otherwise empty rooms, a stranger may approach you in a hunched manner and push a small spraycan of teargas into your hand, mumbling about "I saw you are planning to head down that way..."

In dreams of arousal and eroticism, all the people may look sexy and attractive, all dialogue may feel ladden with flirty subtext and double entendre, the mayor may be clad only in lingerie, alluring scents may linger in the air and tempt you to follow them into darkened pathways...

In a dream featuring an alternate setting, you may find you have never taken the job at the company you work for, but instead applied and gotten hired by a competitor firm. You are still sitting in the exact same kind of business meeting (except the company is in Tokyo and so everyone is wearing kimonos and sitting on the floor) but in this version, the intern is the boss, and the boss is instead seen in the role of the janitor...

It will not always be readily discernible what type of dream you have stumbled into, at least not right from the start. But the longer you stay, the more unmistakable the signs will become. Perhaps at some point, the friction between the dream and the incompatible visiting dreamers becomes too great, and the PCs are expelled from the realm - or worse, attacked by its inhabitants and scenery. Perhaps the dream's genre sweeps you up and takes you away on its own drift, distracting you from your original purpose.

Or perhaps it remains just an undercurrent, a collection of curious and memorable elements that lend a dreamlike quality to events, but ultimately remain largely harmless to the trespassing dream wanderer.

 

artwork by Stefan Koidl, used with neither permission nor intent of infringement

Dream Logic / Fancy

Where the above described Psychology / Genre gives you a constant, but possibly subtle, subtext and context to the dream, this technique gives you very specific, tangible, and definitely unsubtle elements to engage with. 

In general, Dream Logic works just like normal logic - only it doesn't have to make any actual sense in the way our waking minds would understand it. Dream Logic does follow an "if - then" pattern however, and as such can give your players something to meaningfully interact with. It will usually be reliable in producing rather predictable results... once you have puzzled out all the right connections or some other fiddly bits perhaps. 

Just like

• "at zero degrees Celsius, water freezes and turns into ice"
  

dream logic can be applied to include weird "natural laws" in your dreams. These can be to do with (or cause) odd environmental phenomena, certain behaviors by certain creatures/people, surreal attributes of locations, etc.

• In this dreamworld, there are cracks in every sidewalk. Depending on the weather and season, you either must not step on any of them, or you have to step only on them. Failing to do it right will result in the cracks widening, extending, ultimately causing the world to start breaking apart.
• There are black snakes hiding in the shadows here, and when someone turns off the lights they will come forth to bite. Their bite is poison, which makes your arms and legs fall off. Before long, you'll be crawling in the shadows yourself.
  
• In this otherwise idyllic suburban neighborhood, a noticeable number of homes are deserted and abandoned in the wake of violent, even murderous, home invasions. The windows of these houses remember who lived here and grieve for their death or departure. When the wind howls through their broken panes it acquires their sharpness; everyone inside is cut by the draft as if from jagged shards of glass. People in the inhabited houses normally ignore all this to the best of their ability, but when they see these cut wounds on you, they'll throw you out of the dream.
  
• In this small, dusty frontier town, the saloon and the church are the only two buildings in which any music is ever played. While the organ or the piano play, no one in that space can lie. There are often drunken brawls in the saloon, and the priest knows all the confessions he hears to be the pure and unadulterated truth. No other houses contain any musical instruments, nor would the air in there carry a tune or support a melody. 

These are all things that the dreamer - any dreamer who enters the realm - can know about. It can also be a "hidden" law of the dream if you prefer, but it usually leads to more interesting play if dreamers are aware of it. It doesn't have to be in advance, but at the latest when the stimulus / trigger is encountered or imminent, the implications could be clear to anybody present. 

You can handle this use of dream logic in just the same way as you handle the telegraphing and explicit announcing of possible consequences for prospected player actions in general - but leave out the verisimilitude of assuming a rational worldview informing the environment.

Compare:

• If you draw a gun, here at the airport, in plain view of bunches of people, someone will inevitably notice. People will panic, there will be running and yelling, security personnel, an alarm raised. Sooner than later, the police will show up. You sure that's what you wanna do?
• As you close in on the house and cautiously nudge the leaning door open, you notice that the air inside is perfectly still. You know you can go in safely, for now - but it a breeze should arise while you're still in there, you know the wind will wheeze and whistle and howl through the smashed windows, and it will cut you like invisible razors. At the moment however, not a leaf moves on the trees, and not a paper rustles on the floor. Do you still wish to go in?

No matter how irrational a "natural law" in the dreams may be, dreamers in there may just be aware that "that's how it works, here".

Finally

There's a certain highly overused trope related to dreams and nightmares, and it's the notion that All Dreams Are Meaningful. Resist the temptation, at least sometimes, to make everything in the dreams feel symbolic and deeply relevant to the dreamer's personal issues, and/or to the plot of the scenario or campaign. 

Sometimes, dreams are just random bullshit. Sleepy neurons firing on autopilot. Shreds of unauthored ideas whirling outwards from Vortex. Reason and rhyme are optional, in all cases.

Particularly in Kult, consider also that it's far from rare to travail through someone else's dream. These may well be symbolic and meaningful for whoever is dreaming / has dreamt them originally - but all that may be completely lost on a stranger who visits them.

 

 

Where Madness and Logic become one and the same, the Dream forces us to face the limitations of our restricted understanding of Reason and Truth - and beckons us to dare and transcend them. 

 

When in Combat, Don't Just Hurt Them...

 

... Make Them Suffer!

 

Alright, so... combat, right? It's when you and your opponent give each other injuries, and then one or both of you could die and all that... right?

Yes.

But that's actually the more boring part of it. Let's look at it in a bit more detail:  

 

 

 

K:DL is a system written to support horror gameplay - and true to that calling, it provides you with all the tools to make combat every bit as terrifying and ruinous as any of the other horrors - mental, emotional, supernatural... - that you might spring on your players. 

Trading wounds is part of that, but by no means all there is to it. However, it's often the first thing that comes to a GM's mind when first trying to grasp the ruleset - so let's start with that aspect.

"How durable are PCs in this game? How many hits can they take before they die?"

 

As might perhaps be expected for a game like Kult, there's several layers of Truth to be uncovered in the attempt to answer that fully. Let's explore them one by one. 

Because ultimately, the answer is:

 

"One, or several, or a nearly infinite amount. It simply depends..."

So first let's look at how Harm works in the game. Being a modifier to your Endure Injury rolls, the amount of Harm an enemy's attack inflicts dictates not so much how garish and painful the wounds it causes will be, but rather influences your likelihood of sustaining the various levels of wounds at all. 

In other words, higher Harm values on certain weapons do NOT indicate that, say, a 12-gauge pumpgun will kill you in two shots, whereas a 9mm pistol will take four hits to do it.  

INSTEAD, the more brutal assault just has a lower chance to leave you completely unharmed after any given hit taken, and a higher chance of receiving either Serious or Critical debilitations.

"So PCs can roll [14 or less] a maximum of 6 times, before their Serious Wounds will kill them, and an attack's Harm value modifies how fast they accrue that number of these results?"

Yes, but also no. 

Yes because that is in fact how it can work. The player would have to roll (10-14) every time - because on a (-9), things accelerate and your cruel demise approaches much more fiercely - and the GM would have to decide to give you a Serious Wound as a result on each of those rolls. 

If it goes that way, the first four times this happens you mark a Serious Wound on your sheet. The fifth time it happens, you cannot get another SW, so it turns into a Critical Wound instead. You're now running out of life, fast. Assume you keep fighting (either by choice, or because you don't have any), the sixth time this happens, your SW would turn into a CW again, but you can't have two of those - so you die.

No because this is, in my experience and from all accounts I've heard and read about, an exceedingly rare progression of events.

For one thing, players are more than likely to roll a (-9) at some point during the above described process. Since your chance to hit (15+) on an unmodified roll - say, if your attacker's Harm and your own Fortitude+Armor balance each other out exactly - is barely over 20%, this means that after like four rolls or so, you'll strongly tend to have that dreaded (-9) show up. And then you're up shit creek, and have to decide which flavor of its streams you're gonna be paddling down.

For another thing, this assumption rests on the idea that the GM always only chooses a Serious Wound when entitled to select from the (10-14) options of the Endure Injury move. Which frankly, no GM worth their salt should be doing.

To reiterate the central point of this whole article:

Don't just make them bleed... make them suffer!

 

On a (10-14), you get two other options to choose from, besides the good old Serious Wound.

Lose something, and get thrown off balance.

Admittedly, the inherent complexity and richness of this whole move is easily overlooked, since it is written so streamlined and concise - but let's dive into what these really entail:

First off, each of those options is really several options. either of them can be scaled and graded, for greater or lower viciousness and impact. And they can stack.

A lot of this is about fictional positioning, i.e. things that happen in the communally created narrative, but there is nothing that keeps you from lending it mechanical weight as well. 

When you lose something, here's a few examples of what you it could be:

• the initiative  ( = your chance to act before your oponent's next move)
• sight of your friends
• track of where the bad guy(s) just went
• your sense of where [up / down / out of here / the hostage / the gun / ...] is
• your momentum  (e.g. when running or parcouring across the battle site)
• some of your armor  (reducing or nullifying its protective value)
  
• your breath
• a lot of blood
• some teeth
  
• control of your bowels
  
• the respect of your peers watching the fight
• use of your right arm
• your sight  (such as, from blood trickling in your eyes)
• all hope to defeat this opponent  (at least in the way you have tried so far)
• ...
  

 

...and yes, obviously you can lose items, such as your gun or other weapon, your backpack, laptop, left shoe, flashlight, phone, car keys, USB stick, map, wallet, you name it...

But these are very basic, and probably the first thing that came too any GM's mind upon reading the Endure Injury move anyways, so I didn't find them worthy of inclusion in the above list. 

 

Note that there are also a few things the GM is very specifically NOT allowed to take away from you:
Your consciousness, your life, and your chance to survive through the next couple hours or so without swift and intensive medical assistance. 

All these can explicitly only be taken away on a (-9) result, and only the player may choose which one happens, when it comes to that. 

The second option, get thrown off balance can actually be read as a specific sub-case of losing something - namely, your equilibrium and grace. This may sound like a rather narrow choice, but I venture that if you interpret it a little more loosely, there is a lot of potential for using it to make the characters' lives difficult and interesting in awesome ways!

See, what is losing your balance about, essentially? Its central idea is that you are getting pushed into a disadvantageous position in some way. You might also get pulled into such, of course, or thrown... and it doesn't have to be a position, it can also be that you are otherwise put into an unfortunate state or condition. 

If you read it like that, whole new vistas of applicability open up to the combat-loving GM: It doesn't always have to be a real hard knock to the chest that puts you off balance - it can be that you are...

• driven into a corner
• maneuvered onto a dangerous ledge
• pulled onto slippery ground
• forced out of cover
• kicked or tripped to the ground
• poisoned to become dizzy and slow
• confused or shaken, forced to reorient
• distracted or surprised by a new enemy / unforeseen turn of events 
  
• entangled or hooked or grabbed, impended in your movement
  
• ...

 

...you know - basically just anything that fucks up your flow in combat. Anything that throws you off your A-game and prevents you from acting like the perfectly calm and deadly ninja that you'd usually be in a situation like this.
(Yeah, as if... for most characters, anyways.)

 

 

With such a wealth of possible interpretations of these two humble-looking options, I started to get into a little habit of twisting the knife (heh^^) for my players when that result comes up on this move. I offer them a choice between two of them that seem fitting to me in that moment. 

Because what's better than making your players suffer? To make them become the co-architects of their own suffering! 

So, like maybe

"Things are confusing and you're moving very fast right now. Reeling from the hit, you are forced to choose: Either lose your momentum, or sight of your friends."

or perhaps

"They are too many, and if you're trying to avoid getting hopelessly surrounded by them you'll have to either let them push you back against those rocks (cornered), or evade onto that frozen lake (slippery ground)."

That's always great fun - you should try it some time!

Oh, and remember earlier, when I mentioned how they're all gradable and stackable?

They are. The gradable thing is about when you as the GM decide to pull your punches... or not. Examples include such things as the difference between making them lose their entire backpack (with all the stuff in it), or just make it get a hole and have their map fall out of it. Between losing one of your last three spare clips of ammo, or loosing the gun. Between getting entangled by animated corpse-vines that twist around your ankles, or tripped prone on the ground by said vines.

If I've written them right, you can see some of the gradability right there in the examples. Losing your breath is intuitively much less bad than losing a lot of blood. Getting surprised or distracted can be a weaker form of getting confused or dizzy. 

Should you choose to attach any mechanical repercussions to these conditions, you can likewise scale and grade them. From simply a momentary -1 to your next roll, or calling a roll where ordinary there wouldn't have been one (Act under Pressure not to slip and fall when fighting on the icy lake; Observe the Situation to regain your focus and composure when surprised or distracted), to more lasting consequences such as -2 ongoing until the poison wears off, or even making them automatically fail at certain actions.

In this way you can tailor the amount of torment and horror you want to inflict on your players, moment by moment, during your fight scenes. (Or occasionally other scenes that involve an Endure Injury move.)

Stacking, then, is when the same result is chosen repeatedly (either by you or, as per the above twist, by the player themselves), and the consequences get gradually worse.

Perhaps this is just what a given opponent does:

Using that strange martial arts style of hers, she is trying to knock you off balance. The first time she pushes you, you are merely destabilized and must take -2 on certain moves until rebalanced.
The second time, she knocks you face down on the floor. You must now Act under Pressure to get back up, and yes - unless you catch a moment to breathe and consolidate your shit, that -2 is still in effect.
The third time you choose that same result, your inner ear senses are totally messed up from kicks to the head and such... no more standing up straight, no more coordinated motor skills...

It might be a consequence of the PCs' own neglect to address earlier issues:

You never really patched up that hole in your backpack, did you? Well I guess something else might fall out now.
Lemme see your sheet real quick, what might you have in there that I might be interested in...?.

Or it may be the result of a steadily worsening situation just piling on the complications:

After you got entangled and slowed by the corpse-vines, the feral cannibals were able to catch up and are now grasping at you.
Now they grabbed you and are holding you immobile, as they stab you with their short, crooked knives.
Unable to wriggle free, you begin to understand what that weird smelly sludge dripping from their blades must be, as the paralyzing poison starts to take hold on your metabolism...

So, in conclusion, there are many ways you can turn a combat situation from bad to worse to utterly horrific for your players. 

At the outset of this article, we asked: How many hits can a character take in this game? 

The answer is: 

As many as your GM has dots in [creativity + sadism]. Or should that be [creativity x sadism]? 

Not entirely sure, tbh - but it's a lot. That much is for sure.