The very structured scene mechanics of SCRPG sometimes trip me up as an old-school traditional GM. I have an important scene tonight and I'm not sure how to frame it.
It's pretty simple to describe: heroes come upon villain attack already in progress. Villains are trying to find and grab something and get away.
- Do I run this like a traditonal RPG, decide how long it takes the villains to find their McGuffin and then they leave (perhaps turning into a chase challenge), regardless of what the Scene Tracker says?
- Do I have the villains make Overcomes to find what they need as a Challenge and if they succeed, they win?
- Does the Scene Tracker tell me when the villains win? I.e., if the scene tracker runs out, they found it and got away?
I feel like this shouldn't be as difficult as I think I'm making it, but this scene is for tonight, so any help you can throw my way would be appreciated! :)
If this is something you want your Hereros to be able to stop, make it a Villain Challenge. But show the players an empty Challenge titled "Bad Guy's Plan", with all the boxes the villains need to complete blanks. Start of scene, Mark a box off. Put out another challenge for them to thwart the plans (discover what they are after, find the thing first, etc.).
If this is something that the heroes cannot stop, use the scene tracker, or just let it happen.
Follow up (I just woke up, sorry): Tie it to the scene tracker. Give the bad guys the ability to advance the scene tracker. Scene tracker ends, they win and escape.
I like this, because it also speeds the scene along. Should the villains just be able to do it (like the rules suggest, but only once), or should it be an Overcome for them that they can do more than once?
I used something like an "open challenge" for a car chase.
Catching the fugitive was a 3-step challenge (called "3 Blocks ahead"). No biggie!
But the other driver, while technically only being a Minion (albeit immune as long as protected by his ride), had the ability to add more steps to the challenge through successful (and somewhat boosted) overcomes himself. Call them "past the red light", "over the drawbridge" etc - you get the picture.
Rules are easy: Catch them before time runs out! Additionally, if the fugitive is ever more than 4 steps away, they escaped (the Heroes will have to find them through other means).
Now the Heroes have a few slightly different options - speed up, or hinder the other driver, and of course deal with the multiple challenges of the "rush hour" environment you throw at them.
All the while the Minion group on the escaping van tries to make things as difficult as they can!
...captures the feeling of a chase quite nicely: while the distance changes only gradually, there's still a lot of action going on. And the double-timer makes sure everybody keeps their eyes on the prize.
Oops, sorry! Turns out I totally misread the opening post! Let's go again :)
I'll second the idea to tie it to the scene tracker. On top of simply going "yeah, they'll have found it 2 steps into Yellow"), you could even make that the narrative reason for zone changes:
First, the bad guys are busy sneaking around and searching, trying to generally keep a low profile ("no gunshots you idiot, it'll alert the cops!"). That's definitely green!
Once they have found their objective, they can focus on fighting you, or getting away - whatever it be, the heroes have their full attention now, and that's yellow!
As the bad guys get more desperate to escape, they will likely do something reckless (like explode the house, as a diversion) making things really dire. Red!
The only concern I have with having villains advance the scene tracker, you also need a way for the heroes to slow the villain down. I think that you can run it as a regular scene where every time the environment goes, you have the villain move to a different area and probably throw something in the heroes way. Then, the major twists could be to open the wall and the villain can see their target (advances the scene).
Course, I do like the idea, if you want the villain to get the person no matter what, just run it as a regular scene except maybe the viallin leaves a hint if you "beat" him before the scene. Probably in the form of a bonus when you face him next or a hint as to where he ran off to. The twist for the clock running out could just be they have to take the long way to find him.
Short tracker 222
Players can overcome to back the status up (thus holding it) once per round.
Green, the villains fight and/or overcome to get items other than the MacGuffin.
At yellow, one has grabbed it, and it's now a chase.
At red add some allies to the villains (I'd use 1 d6 minion per PC).
End of track, they get away.
Here's what I ended up doing. I allowed the villains who were not in combat to make Overrcomes to advance the Scene Tracker. It actually worked really well, especially since the narrative was intended for the villains to likely win.
As the scene tracker ran out (first time it *ever* happened), they defeated one villain. I explained the meta-game of the scene tracker ending and then gave the heroes a choice: capture the defeated villain, but let the others escape with the McGuffin, or keep the McGuffin and let the villains escape. They chose the latter. It was a good session.