Re: [DL] Using ideas from other game systems

[ivan gaming <ivan_gaming@yahoo.com>]

--- Munch Wolf <munchwolf@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Stunts:  Both Feng Shui and Exalted use a system
> where
> players get rewarded for doing stunts.  Normally if

The trick is all about what kind of game you want to
run. Feng Shui and Exalted (which are both great
games!) are set up to mimic the fast-moving,
extraordinary stunts found in action movies or anime,
so they have mechanics to allow those things.
Deadlands is based heavily on Westerns, so the combat
mechanics are much, much deadlier than in such
'superheroic' systems.

That said, if you want to run a 'swashbuckling'
Deadlands game, you don't need to change many
mechanics outside the Fate Chip system:

1) Be freer with chips, and don't limit the number
that players can hold onto. That will encourage them
to use the Chips to meet the high TNs being set.

2) Give them chips every time they try a stunt,
whether it succeeds or not (White for a Failure, Red
for a Success). That rewards them for being creative,
and if they succeed, gives them a chip that gives you
more chips for the bad guys to use.

3) Have your bad guys do lots of stunts, too. Players
seem to need a push now and again, and if you show
them "Hey look, Mao Ling is kicking a package of
dynamite across the gorge, and he didn't get hurt!"
then they'll be more likely to try the same kind of
thing.

I can see a swashbuckling game working very well in
the Great Maze - pirates, martial artists, etc. I
don't know that it would work so well in Wyoming, for
instance.

Personally, I like the grittier feel to Deadlands, but
I tend to get my swashbuckling in with 7th Sea, so
YMMV. Think of it as the difference between Shanghai
Noon and Hang 'Em High.

> create relics (much like Deadlands).  As a result,
> several sorcery types tend to comb through areas of
> significance collecting every minor thing they can
> in
> hopes it has magical powers.  I could see something

Oh, I *like* this idea. I can see an HQ in Shan Fan
decked out like a magpie's nest. "Those are the false
teeth of Gabby Hayes. Those are the red shoes a little
girl in Kansas was wearing during a bad dream. Those
are the scalps of the Donner party. That is my lunch,
please put it down..."

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