Continuing with Robin Laws’ DramaSystem game, we now get to our first group Procedural Scene. This is a different type of scene where the PCs confront and overcome external obstacles. The mechanics use a chip system mixed with a deck of playing cards. Each player, GM included, receives three chips to represent a strong, medium, or weak result. When it comes to a challenge, everyone selects a chip to represent how things go for them and this affects the overall outcome. The cool thing is, these chips do not refresh until you’ve spent all three, so while you may use your best token now, that means you’ll have to use your medium and weak tokens sooner or later.
Session 01 – Scene 07 (Procedural)
The plan has been to pull a heist on a gambling boat while it is out at sea. The henchmen expect it to have a good haul of cash and be remote enough that they won’t have to worry about cops. A.K.A. and Polly Anna are in the heart of the vessel, ready to activate her device to short out the electronics and cause chaos throughout the ship. Mr. Killjoy and Lefty retrieve their weapons and head toward the money cage where cash and chips are kept.
- Polly Anna – white (medium)
- Lefty – red (weak)
- Mr. Killjoy – green (strong)
- A.K.A. – white (medium)
GM’s chip is revealed – white. The GM’s white* chip means that the players must match the suit of the GM’s card with their draws. The 10 of spades is drawn for the GMs card.
Players draw their cards. Green chips get two draws, white chips get one, and red chips draw one, but allow the GM to remove a card from play. The players reveal their card with only one matching club, which gets knocked out due to the red chip. This means that the characters will effectively fail the encounter.
The first thing to go wrong is the EMP device. Maybe her heart isn’t into it, or maybe Polly Anna underestimated the security measures on the ship, but her device doesn’t kill the lights and security the way she intended. She quickly goes to her backup plan – explosives – and causes a good bit of smoke and damage in the engine area of the ship.
Chaos ensues within the ship. Killjoy and Lefty raid the money cage and start to collect their payday. A daring guard retrieves Killjoy’s shotgun and pins the two down, forcing them to retreat without nearly as much money as planned.
Realizing things have gone south, the remaining henchmen come aboard to help out. Nubs sees this as his chance to shine, firing his weapons and announcing that “The Iron Mask is back, bitches!” Subtlety is not his strong point.
A retreating action is fought to a getaway speedboat. The emboldened security crew follows, but they manage to escape with their diminished rewards.
* We replaced yellow medium chips with white, since our set of poker chips doesn’t have a yellow.
Scene 08 – Polly Anna and Mr. Killjoy
While patching Mr. Killjoy up from a few wounds sustained during the heist, Polly Anna talks to him about the Marquis and his ultimatum. She feels that the crew should take their gains to him and join up under the Sadists. The Marquis is a name, and she doesn’t believe that they’ll survive long without such a sponsor. Mr. Killjoy, living up to his namesake, will not support this plan. He doesn’t believe they need the Marquis.
[Polly Anna is the petitioner, and she is denied. +1 token from the table]
There were a few more scenes that night, but admittedly they weren’t great dramatic examples and my notes are woefully lacking. Lefty meets with Mr. Killjoy and discusses a plan to rat out the Marquis to the authorities so they won’t have to deal with him. A.K.A. has a hilarious scene with Nubs where he mimics Treads and tests his loyalty (as expected, Nubs’ ambition greatly outweighs his competence). Finally, there is a quick scene where Killjoy is approached by a man identifying himself as one of the Ironworks, the Iron Mask’s elite crew. He reveals that the Ironworks were hit hard by Bastion, and surviving members are scattered to the four winds. He wants to join up with Killjoy’s crew, if there’s anything left to join.
Theme for Next Session
A new order is determined, and the player of A.K.A is up to choose the Theme for the next game. I provided the list of themes from Henchmen (although the general themes from Hillfolk are also applicable. He chooses: The Case of Legal vs. Moral: The police and crime fighters are not always good guys… When we start Session 02, he’s the first one to call a scene.
Thoughts
The procedural challenge was interesting to run. I wonder if someone out there (other than Robin) has done the statistical math for success rates with the procedurals. I’m sure a lot of it is RNG, but my group has failed a good chunk of the challenges. We’re four sessions in at this point, with around nine procedurals, and I’d say that my players have failed 2/3rds of them. I believe the only successes may be when I spend a Red chip and all they have to match is color. It’s been that bad.
This isn’t horrible, by any means, but it makes it difficult to show the group accomplishing anything important. I’ve advised that we could move towards the goal of leaving out Procedurals completely and just describing the ups and downs in our drama, but I’m not sold. We still like elements of chance in our game, and throwing in the chips is fun.
After listening to the Nyerd podcast with the procedural, I’ve realized that I’m still narrating things a bit much in the procedurals. I love crazy descriptive action scenes and have tried to describe the pitfalls experienced during. I need to let the players take more of a hand in it, describing how they contribute and/or fail based on their card results. I know as a player, I’d love to describe my own failure (and would likely be much harsher than some GMs).
Next Henchman post, I’ll give some overall thoughts about the system and how it’s been a fun transition from our more traditional RPGs.
During the procedural, I try to start by outlining the conflict, and asking for each person’s gameplan, which I think helps solidify the players choice of token (if they have a choice) and gives a clearer picture as to how things will play out. Then we get the mechanical business done with, then I tie the players’ choice of actions with the way the tokens and cards fall together, and try to serve as a catalyst for player narration. I think the option for whether you as a GM narrate the outcome or whether the players take the reins (or better yet, I think, a combination of the two approaches) should be taken on a case by case basis, considering the all-important pacing and concerns of sharing the limelight, as outlined in the book.
When I spend my Procedural token, I tend to weigh my decision heavier on the narrative needs of the story than some kind of “realistic” estimate of the challenge they’re going to face, which I feel better serves the GM’s role in the game (as I see it) as “fun manager”.
I can’t speak to the difficulty level of procedural scenes, as they have been few and far between in my experience so far, but the one attempted in our first AP session was defeated handily, as the cards were on our side.
Loving your writeups, Brian. They’re bringing awesome insights as to play possibilities, and how the game changes with new System Pitches. I’m not sure where you’re located, but I’d love to get together and play the game with you sometime!
Thanks Jesse! My group is in North Carolina. You’re in NY, right?
I’m crossing my fingers – my wife is planning to run a game using one of the Cthulhu-styled pitches. If it happens, I’ll post about it here as well to mix things up.