[DL] Movement Solutions? What do you think?

[J Tolle <jwtolle@altavista.com>]

OK, I have put my mind to the movement problems, and I have come up with a solution.  This is a work in progress, so any critisims are welcome (well any well reasoned critisims, that is - "You are a punk" is not very helpful info - no matter how true.)

Given the nature of the cards, each round is divided into 13 different actions.  On any given action, a cowpoke can move according to their Quickness (ie how fast can they accelerate) as shown in the table below:

d4         1 yrd
d6         2 yrds
d8         3 yrds
d10        4 yrds
d12        4 yrds
>d12       5 yrds

A cowpoke can begin or change his movement on any action where he has a card.  The movemnt is declared, and will continue ON EACH ACTION EVEN IF THE COWPOKE DOES NOT HAVE A CARD at the above pace until either
1) the destination is reached OR
2) the cowpoke reaches his maximum pace (based on nimbleness OR
3) The cowpoke has another card, and wishes to change his movement.

The cowpoke can go over his normal pace in a given round with a running roll per the regular rules.

The cowpoke can double his speed per action by making a HARD (9) Quickness roll for every action they sprint.  (ie can they continue to sprint.)

If the cowpoke chooses a movement that they later in the round decide is foolhardy ("The Rattler moved right in front of me, mouth open?  Ooops") then they can use the vamoose rules (see the Player's guide) to change their heading.  If they fail thier vamoose roll, then they can change thier movement on the next action.

Anyone wanting to react to the movement may do so if they have a card.  Alternatively, they may use the Vamoose rules from the Players Guide.  If they do not make thier vamoose roll, then they may act on the next action.

If the cowpoke should so desire, they can begin a movement with a dodge roll.  This indicates that he is not running pell mell.  Instead he is duckin' and weavin'.  The artful dodger halves his pace / action (see table above - round up in this case.)  The unhalved pace / action will still count against thier maximum pace per round.  In other words, a cowpoke with a Quickness of d12 is still moving at 4 yards / action, but only about half of it was towards thier target.  The rest was spent tryin' not to get hit.

Then they roll a dodge.  Count this dodge roll as the new TN (or 5 whichever is higher see dodge rules for more info) for as long as the cowpoke is moving.  Note, in some instances there is no room to weave about.  This is the Marshal's call.

I intially thought that this would make the marshall call out every single card, but not really.  Most times your cowpoke can just go ahead and move to thier new destination.  On the other hand, if my gunslinger is advancing on the bandito trying to reload his shotgun, the situation is a little more desparate.

In this situation, it certainly heightend the drama to have the bad guy fumbling with his shells, while each action the hero, sabre drawn, gets just a little bit closer.  Will he get there in time, or will he wear his guts for garters?

SO - what a bout this system works, and what is weak.

I may give it a trial run my next game.



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