Difference between revisions of "Chase"

Revision as of 03:53, 15 January 2016

A chase is a high speed encounter. The usual objective is to escape from (or catch) your opponents. A chase is most commonly a complication, but it can be played on a map as well. As a complication a chase will usually be across one or more exchanges, and each exchange is called a stage. Rather than accumulating success margin towards a target, you are accumulating distance in the chase, and the highest total, called the pole, has special advantages. After each exchange the totals are compared to see if the chase has been resolved.

Chase Turn

Reflex is dealt normally, and when you take your turn in a chase you roll a single effect die, called your action die, to determine the nature of your turn. If the result is green, you check and move your speed normally. If the result is blue, your check suffers a penalty (or an effect of the stage) and your speed is halved. If the result is red you check and move normally, plus you gain a regular action. You can give up your automatic movement (green or blue) to take an action, but you gain no speed at all and count as having a failure margin of 10 if you do so. Some important uses for an action in a chase:

• You can screen (or pay for a screen), and you have defenses until you can choose an action again (usually your next red result).
• You can cooperate with anyone who has the same or a lower total.
• You can grant an extra action die to anyone. They roll both and choose which result counts.
• You can attack an opponent who has the same or lower total, or a higher total with a range penalty.

Chase Totals

If you are chasing without a vehicle you check against your agility score, and in a vehicle you check machinery. On a success you add your speed to your total, plus any success margin. On a failure you add only half your speed, and you suffer a consequence equal to your failure margin based on the stage properties. Interference counts as if you got a blue result on your action die. At the end of an exchange, compare the totals for everyone still in the chase. The person with the highest total (reflex breaks ties) is the pole. If there is a choice between which stage the chase proceeds to, the pole chooses. If stages are not defined, the pole chooses any two properties to add or remove for the next stage. Anyone with a total less than half the pole is dropped from the chase and left behind. Participants may also choose to drop out. If you are fleeing and get dropped, you are captured. The pole may voluntarily reduce the total until someone else becomes the pole.

Stage Properties

Most chases will start with a simple stage, where failure consequences are grit and a blue result just confers a penalty on your check for the turn. However some chases may start in more dangerous circumstances, and as they continue they will certainly become deadlier or more complex. Some example properties for stages include:

• Attacking: A blue result or interference hits you with an attack with that success margin and locks you. You need an action to escape. (Falling objects, a giant monster, artillery strikes, whatever.)
• Chasm: A blue result or interference makes you teeter, you gain no speed. If already teetering you out of the chase and you suffer a 15dE fall.
• Dangerous: The consequence for failure margin becomes hits.
• Difficult: There is an extra penalty on all checks for the round.
• Flaming: The consequence for failure margin is burn.
• Fluid: Use your swim speed. On a blue result you begin to drown.
• Obscured: You may dodge attacks using your sneak score. You may drop out at the end of the exchange and are not caught if you win a contest between sneak and your pursuer's sense.
• Occupied: A blue result adds another pursuer in the pole, and failure margin subtracts from the highest total among the fleeing characters.
• Steep: Use your climb speed, and it is automatically dangerous and treacherous.
• Treacherous: The consequence for failure margin subtracts from your total.

Vehicles

A vehicle with multiple crew chooses a single reflex card from the available ones, and then all crew members roll their action dice and resolve in any order desired. Only the vehicle's helm rolls for movement. Others may perform actions for their position on a green result. Red results grant an extra action as above. Any blue results penalize anyone on the vehicle making a check, but only affect speed if the helm has a blue result.

Special Chases

Some chases may have additional rules:

• Countdown. You aren't being chased by just individuals, but an inexorable disaster. There will be a stage or area that you must reach before a set number of exchanges or you suffer some automatic horrible consequence. In an encounter this may also be represented by removing a line of areas from the zone after each round.

See Also

• Encounter
• Battle
• Dispute
• Infiltration

Version 2.5.1
©2014 Frameworks Games

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