Friday, March 10, 2023

Cypher Play: Road War, Part 3

AI Art by @nightcafestudio

So my delivery driver had the day off, so I tried a few new characters in my Cypher road-warrior-style game. A priest and a young lady wake up in a wrecked bus, with a gang of bandits picking through the survivors. This is sort of a Last of Us type story, where they were headed to a church in my crossroads town to take ownership, but their bus got attacked, and now they need to figure out how to survive.

This is a non-combat adept with an NPC companion, so he needs to get her to the town. I am finding giving the characters "jobs" in my sandbox gives me a lot more direction and impetus to act than the boring, stereotypical, no connections adventurer or survivor-type characters. I play with those character types, and my game dies due to disinterest. My new rule is "you must have a job" to start the game, and I don't care if the character quits it for something more interesting; they just have to have that role and place in the world for the story to be interesting for me.

The "adventurer class" of characters that "have a job raiding dungeons" is like cancer in modern gaming. I even feel the  "lone survivor" with "no connections here" is overused and boring. I can't play them; they are a massive turn-off. Every game I try to play solo with them ends after one or two sessions. I would much rather play characters with a job or role in the world because when you don't know what to do next, you can always fall back on a mission or task given to you by your employer.

AI Art by @nightcafestudio

So the priest pulled her to the wreckage of the bus where they hid, and now enter our second character, a desert ranger with an ATV nearby who hunts mutant creatures for the crossroads town, and he spots the carnage and decides to intervene. He sets up on a hill, spots the priest and the girl, and starts sniping the bandits one by one, forcing them to take cover and return fire. And again, this is a character who can at least take missions from the local government, law enforcement, and others who call him in to deal with mutant critters and monsters killing livestock. He is in the right place at the right time to take a stand.

AI Art by @nightcafestudio

So the priest and the girl dash to one of the bandit's pickups, hop in, and race away! And our ranger keeps taking the bandits out, managing to pick off a passenger each from the other two pickups, but not two of the bandits who hop in the bed of the last pickup truck as the two pickups give chase to the fleeing priest and girl. The ranger hops on his ATV and chases them all.

And the chase is on!

I am doing a lot of vehicle combats and chases in this system and trying to break things. The entire fight was easy since the bandits were level 2, the pickups were level 3, and our ranger burned points, taking them out. I am still learning system balance, so this is expected. I decided to lower their levels because there were multiple combatants, but in hindsight, I should have left them level 3 or 4 for this fight. It doesn't matter story-wise, so I just retroactively said these were the new recruits of the bandits going out to raid a bus.

Does it matter the car combats are a step abstracted? Not in the least. They are more fun this way than a detailed Car Wars-style sim, at least for the cinematic play Cypher encourages.

Every car had machine guns mounted forward, and the bandit pickups had bed-mounted machine guns on pintle mounts. The ATV the ranger rode on had one machine gun mounted front. The priest's truck was getting shot up out in front, and the ranger caught up to them from the rear.

AI Art by @nightcafestudio

The ranger on the ATV and the rear truck with the bed-mounted machine gun and bandits in the back went at it first. The ranger's ATV got hit, and since it was a level 2 vehicle, it lost 2 of the 6 health it had, which wasn't good. The ranger then traded fire a few times until he made a called shot targeting the crew in the bed, and firing the mounted machine gun.

He hit and mowed them down, eliminating the bed gunners, but with a 19 - an extra minor effect. So the ranger had one of the bullets fly through the rear window of the pickup truck and hit the driver's arm, forcing a vehicle control roll. Since the pickup driver was level 3, the ranger made the roll for them - an 8 or under is a "bad result" and means the vehicle kept control, and anything 9 and above helped the ranger and meant the vehicle lost control. This "flipping the roll" was one of those "light turn-on moments" for me for Cypher. A success for the player is a failure for the enemy.

The ranger rolled a 20.

The bandit pickup lost control, barreled off the road, flipped end-over-end, and exploded in one of the most incredible vehicle eliminations in a chase scene I had ever experienced in a roleplaying game.

Wow.

Thank you, Cypher System.

The ranger's machine gun rolled a 1 while attacking the last bandit pickup, so it ran out of ammo. That pickup had no way of attacking the ranger outside of the front arc, so it dropped speed and tried to chase the ATV to get a shot off with its forward guns. The ranger took the ATV off-road, forcing the pickup to chase and make a control roll, and a minor effect meant one of the bandit pickup's tires was damaged from a rut and hindered the pickup on control rolls. The pickup kept firing at the ranger while off the road, and the ranger did a maneuver through a ditch, and the bandit pickup got stuck in it, leaving the bandit immobilized and out of the chase.

Elimination is an elimination; I will take it.

Chase scene over, and that was fun. It was easy, but I am still learning to balance multiple party members, which is all good. These were the rookie bandits; the tough ones may show up later to discover what happened. This is a good note; if you have a too-easy fight, Cypher lets you roll with it and make it up later.

Or, trip a GM Intrusion, problem solved.

Part of this was I never expected combat-focused characters to be so good in the system. In this game, you can design enjoyable combat characters who shine by throwing fists and flinging lead. The priest has powers, but nothing that came into play with a vehicle chase other than avoiding getting shot. He did have his "1 point" of divine armor protection on, and I ruled that applied to his stolen truck, too, since "Jesus take the wheel."

I know this is not how that power works, but it was silly, and the truck had no other defenses or offense, so I ruled that was a cool use and it added to the fun.

The ranger waved hello to the priest; thanks were shared, and they ended up in a deserted mining town to take stock of their damaged vehicles and options. This is where I ended the game, but not before a massive tease for the next session. A short rest restored their spent points, but I am not letting them rest yet. That chase was too easy; time to turn up the heat on them.

AI Art by @nightcafestudio

GM Intrusion time!

The local animals started running away as something massive approached the town. A giant mutated coyote-don cross between a coyote and a dinosaur. I figure this monster will be level 6, have 2 points of armor, have a howling attack, and 21 health, but be weak to the priest's "divine magic" powers at level 4. I want a tough fight for this one, and they need to feel the burn.

God, I love AI image generators for creating stupid-looking mutant monsters.

Fear the Coyotedon!

The fight happens next time...

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