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Rolls; Some serious thoughts considering the setting
Topic Started: Jul 26 2011, 01:29 AM (133 Views)
Anderson

Seeing as this isn't SOTF, I'd like to suggest a serious discussion on how to handle rolls...and, frankly, rounds. Unlike the main game, where almost everybody gets killed, most noir movies didn't tend to include quite that sort of body count. Granted, this was partly a function of the Hays Code, and there were some exceptions, but I'd suggest that instead of forcing a character to be purely "retired" we look at handling major and minor arcs and ending them rather than express character involvement.

What this would mean is that you could reintroduce a character with a new arc (let's face it, there were more than a few detectives who showed up in several novels...and I'm not thinking even Sherlock Holmes types), whether with or without a delay.

I'd also suggest that instead of pure "rounds" a la SOTF, we seriously look at having the game be semi-continuous (that is, even if we have a "round" of, say, six months that some plots can carry between rounds and so forth). Basically, rolls would be there to ensure that we don't get nasty plot tumors...you'll find your Maltese Falcon or not, the mob boss will pull off his big heist or be foiled...but the game won't come to a complete and utter standstill for several months at a go for half of the playerbase.

Moreover, some of the "continuing" matters will involve more than just a shadowy "big bad" who almost never directly interacts with the playerbase like Danya, or who rarely does, like the rest of the terrorist team. SOTF has a metaplot...but let's face it, that metaplot is a MacGuffin for the most part. In this setting, I don't think that's quite the best way to handle things.

So, to explain...say you have Mr. H. Bogart, PI. Mr. Bogart has a case...he gets rolled, that case has to resolve. Once that's over, he can slide into the background for a bit...but he can come back with another case, or be brought back around in a supporting role of sorts. Basically, you'd re-apply the character with new development added if you wanted to keep working with him or her.
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Anderson

I'll make an additional point: I know we've got Blackcoat running around and a slight SOTF tinge to the setting from that...but it does seem that, even with that (and the expressly modified roll use), there's room for a bit more (i.e. a PC to slide into being an NPC) than just the "core" plot here. That's a lot of what I'm stabbing at here...in short, unlike the various islands, this isn't a monolithic setting. To the extent that this is a living, breathing city...things do need to move in the background to have a vibrant setting.
Edited by Anderson, Jul 26 2011, 01:53 AM.
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Outfoxd
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I like the idea of a retired character becoming an NPC. Maybe we run into them doing something in a later round, or even off-arc in the round they started in. Might just be easy to let people resubmit characters as NPCs for later rounds, just so we know who's in.

Hell, might be nice to let people write short stories with their characters and consider them actual scenes in the world, so we can have them for reference later.
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Doghouse Reilly
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Somebody's always giving me guns.
I like resubmitting characters as NPCs for the most part, but it feels like there would have to be some way to make sure they do not steal the spotlight/continue as if not rolled. I think maybe there could be threads that are specifically not related to the main plot, and they could go on there, but be forbidden from entering the main story?

Also, some noir could get pretty bloody. Protagonists dying is practically a genre staple.
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