The Player's Side of the Screen

We interrupt this normal broadcast of The Player's Side of the Screen to bring you a review of awesomeness...and perhaps an observation to help your gaming. I just saw The Avengers last night, one of the most-anticipated movies of the summer. And it was smashingly fantastic. I'm gonna embark on a spoiler-free review, along with some thoughts on action in gaming.

Well, folks, sorry about that delay! I, er, got sidetracked a bit, including a lengthy Civilization IV session, crushing my enemies. (I guess it's time to bump up the difficulty...) Anyhow, this is the final update on Mecha, at least for a little while, since the group is on hiatus. We'll be starting back up again once people get settled. I need to start hatching plans for what's happening next in the story...

Like I said last time, things started gearing up for another fight. The mech pilot (the cold, efficient gal) who'd helped the players before was now...on the other side, it seemed, coming back with the Protector whom Katsuo had bluffed away. Paige was on call, ready to jump in for backup, but Eric and Ty were otherwise engaged by some fighting in their area. (I RP'd that as a separate session.) And things were about to get a lot more involved.

Well, I finally crossed that line, more or less. I only barely avoided a Total Party Kill in this latest session of Mecha. It was rough, seriously. I'm one of the GMs who doesn't fudge or re-do dice, and I had an unfortunately lucky run of the dice, to the point where I was seriously holding back. I think it turned out well in the end, though. I learned a lot about how combat runs in this system, and that'll help a lot.

Well, I finally kicked off that game of Mecha that I've been wanting to start. Successful enough that my idea of trying a one-shot morphed into running a mini-campaign with my players. So, that'll mean updates on how that goes. (Still unsure how I'll wrap up Spark of Fae, but I'll figure that out...we ran into the great barrier of "the semester is over", and I don't know exactly how to get in touch with all my players.)

This also marks my first time running an organized game over online chat. It definitely lends a different quality to play, and it is incredibly nice to have an OOC and an IC channel. Keeps table chatter segmented off, away from roleplay. If only I could do that in real life...

(as a side note, I'll be using the "dgr" tag to keep track of my "Dystopia and Giant Robots" posts)

The Line-Up
We have a fun mix of players, including one who played in Spark of Fae. (As before, I'm using pseudonyms for privacy's sake)

• That would be Turniphead (previously known as Kenshi...there's a story behind this one...and yes, it involves Hayao Miyazaki), the calm and collected one. Not so much of a newcomer to RPGs any longer, she's eagerly delving into the creative aspects of the story. Plus, this system is a little simpler to manage than 4th Edition.
  
• Kureaa is probably the newest to RPGs. She's played in a game of Swords and Wizardry, and is active in freeform roleplaying. Kureaa is very socially outgoing, with a strongly engaging personality.
  
• Panda (yes, there's a long, long story behind that one) has been acting as DM for the previously mentioned Swords and Wizardry campaign, and both she and Kenshi have been active in a 3.5 D&D campaign. She's easily the dry wit of the group, and owns a Jayne hat.
  

I worked with each player, introducing them to the setting ("Revolution Deity Godblind", found in the Mecha sourcebook) and then working with them to make characters that engaged the world. Revolution Deity Godblind is a dystopia of sorts: the gods who live Up Above smite down people who rebel against their rigid framework of rules, which serves to keep everyone in line. It's not a bad life per se, and is marketed as a good existence for the common citizens. Not the players, of course. I told each player to give me a "Drive" for their character, something which they hold in secret from everyone, something which would break the bonds of the Living City's society. (The Living City is the quasi-sentient utopian city where everyone lives.)

The Characters!

• Janice, played by Turniphead, is the unhinged artist, who has just barely managed to keep off of the gods' radar. She has an affinity for painting with the color red, and goes off on demented rants to herself. She is a rather reclusive character, keeping tabs on her art very carefully, scrounging together extra canvasses in secret.
  
• Paige, played by Kureaa, is the petite, cute redhead mechanic-in-schooling who dreams of falling in love, as opposed to the arranged marriages of the City. To this end, we developed an NPC, Nathan, the skilled cellist with whom she shares feelings. The closeness of their relationship has been impacted severely by the threat of the gods' intervention.
  
• Katsuo is the nerdy mech technician (he works on the suits of the Protectors, the City's police force, who own the only legal mechs), who is utterly fascinated by mech technology. He hoards all of the data he can, even though the extent of his research is in highly forbidden territory.

As you can see, we have quite an eclectic group. So far, they've all somehow managed to slip beneath the gods' radar. Well, they find out just how that happens in the session to come...

Next time around: robots, romance, and rebellion.

Thanks to the wonderful linkage of Risus Monkey, I found what is probably the most exciting RPG project in recent memory. It's a little thing called Old School Hack. It's simple, snappy, and beautiful, as far as I can tell. The rules are marvelously elegant in many ways, and they are geared for fun. I suppose that maybe first you'd like to hear about it, though...

What is Old School Hack?
In the creator's own words:

"The idea is that you have a quick and friendly read, highly accessible, with enough flavor elements to get you jazzed about it while keeping it open enough for customization."

(If you haven't been clicking all over the page from the link above, definitely do so! It's well worth the read)

Old School Hack is designed for some good ol' "have fun slaying monsters and finding treasure", though it can also be adapted to other purposes. It's supposed to be simple to play, and from the looks of the rules, it is. It's a mishmash of original D&D, 4th Edition D&D, and a whole bunch of other influences that Kirin put together for a single purpose: fun and engaging RPG experiences.

Why I Like It
OSH has an interesting dichotomy when it comes to rules. It's rules-lite on some aspects (arenas come particularly to mind), and rules-governed in others (such as the explicitly defined classes). In short, the game has rules where it needs rules, and doesn't when it doesn't. (A word of warning to the realistically-inclined, there is nothing simulationist about the system. Combat is highly cinematic, even down to weapon choice. Specific categories of weapons give you a bonus in a particular environment, and that's about it.)

Furthermore, the rules of OSH aren't artificial, generally speaking. The combat and exploration are very intuitive. One of my particular favorites is the "initiative wheel". In short: each round of combat is divided into 7 phases (technically 6, as the 7th phase is merely the "activation phase" of an earlier phase), each of which is focused around one particular action (protect, shoot, focus, move, attack, and so on). Each player, at the start of a round, picks one. Then the phases resolve in order. Initiative is only rolled when more than one character picks the same phase. This is possibly the most brilliant innovation of the system (reminds me of the Lord of the Rings trading card game, actually), and fixes a lot of problems regarding initiative and combat actions.

But that's not the best part...

XP! XP!
This game has the best character advancement system that I've seen yet. It's called Awesome Points. You heard that right. Let me explain. Awesome Points are a limited resource placed in "The Bowl" by the GM. The only way you earn Awesome Points is when another player gives them to you, for doing something that develops character, moves the plot along in a cool way, or gives a great line, etc. Whenever the pressure builds up, the GM can add more Awesome Points to The Bowl, to compensate. (Because when you run out of Awesome Points in The Bowl, you can't get any more unless the GM puts more in)

Awesome Points are used to do awesome things. What this means is up to the tone of the game, and where the GM wants to take it. Suffice it to say, it's all stuff that falls under Being Awesome. That's not the best part, though. Awesome Points are linked to leveling-up. The party automatically levels up when every member spends 10 Awesome Points. In other words, the more frequently you develop character and story, the quicker you get Awesome Points. The more frequently you spend those Awesome Points to do Awesome Stuff, the quicker you level up. The more frequently the party gets in trouble, the more Awesome Points you get to give to people. Savvy?

Read It.
That's all I'm really going to say in closure. Old School Hack is at worst a fantastic exercise in melding old, solid rules with new innovation. And Awesome Points. It's also beautifully designed, visually (which is a topic I'll be discussing in the future), so it's great to read through as well. In other words: you have no excuse. Resistance is futile.

Read Old School Hack.

So, before the session recap. Highs and lows of the weekend.

High: Gaelic Storm played at an Irish fest, and because we got there just for Gaelic Storm (last act of the night), tickets in were only $5. It rocked. Seriously. I live for Irish music.

Low: Gaelic Storm's concert stole my voice along with my heart. It's interesting, to say the least...

High: Was part of Kenshi's surprise birthday party.

Low: This morning, I find out that somebody hacked my e-mail account and has been sending spam with it. BLAH.

So, then, on to the recap!

The Beginning of Things
All the players knew that we were doing a combat to kick things off, and mix the pot, and I think it worked decently well. The session began focusing on three characters: Kenshi's sellsword Jayth, Scribbler's witch-hunter Silas, and Adderfang's storm knight Augris.

Augris had washed up at the mouth of a river, after his encounter with the magic storm. He's been following the river ever since, drawn onward by a strange compulsion.

Silas has been told by his church to investigate the Fae Unsettlings, starting with Woodshire.

Jayth is after a bounty on Daelu the Deathwailer, who is purported to deal in necromancy.

The other two, Pock (the skald) and Falcon (the shifty knife-fighter) are at a tavern. Regrettably, they didn't get a lot of screen time. I still feel kinda bad about that, and I'll make sure they get to see some action next session. (Not combat, but...more of a centerpiece action thing) While the rest of the session was going on, the skald was entertaining the crowd, and the knife-fighter was pickpocketing.

Throwdown with the Fae
The other three characters all wound up moving towards Fae ruins on the north of Woodshire. Woodshire is a town divided in half (north and south) by a river, and the central tourist markets are on a large bridge that houses a variety of merchants. There's a monastery to the north of the river, and a strange mansion farther north, where Daelu is supposed to make her abode. That's the tip that Jayth followed, towards the mansion. Silas, going towards the woods, spotted Augris, who was being magically drawn towards the Fae ruins.

Jayth, waiting at the mansion, spotted the other two, and followed them. More importantly, she also spotted a glow in what they would discover were the Fae remnants. All three of them stumble upon a circle of essentially Celtic Knotwork, which is glowing. There's a woman standing in the center. Silas hides in the woods. Augris continues to stumble towards the circle, and he can tell that the pull is very strong.

Well, the fight begins when the woman brings up four Fae-looking undead from the ground. In game terms, I basically just made zombies. There were also a number of light wisps that flew around. Game-wise, they didn't deal any damage, but made attacks against Will to pull players around. ("Don't look at the lights!") The woman herself, I based off of the idea of a banshee. A scream (Close blast 3) that dealt a little damage and also slowed characters. The synergy worked pretty darn well.

Balance...oops
I neglected a couple things in my formula. First, we had a striker, a defender, and a quasi-defender. Second, we had three characters. Third, the paladin had (for RP reasons and slight synergy with race) switched his radiant damage to lightning or thunder. Killing at least one PC was very possible. This became readily apparent when a couple of the zombies ganged up on Augris, and Adderfang (Augris' player) came very near to depleting his pile of hitpoints. (We're using poker chips to track HP, and it works really well so far.) Needless to say, I sent the other two zombies after Jayth instead. Adderfang would have his hands full.

Scribbler mostly had Silas lie in wait, watching the magic-users duke it out. Kenshi was new to this combat thing, but that's okay. She's studying Jayth's character sheet now, to be better prepared. It worked out okay, though. She definitely made introvert jokes ("AAAAUGH! Physical contact!") when the zombies came for her character. Jayth handled them pretty well, though. He's a cool dude.

The banshee woman commanded the wisps to pull Augris and Jayth around, so that she could keep hitting them both with her scream, and then when she came within range, Scribbler brought Silas in, with a fierce smashing charge. He almost dropped her down in a single hit.

When Daelu did go down, I had all of the zombies get frozen up (save ends), just to let the players thin their numbers with ease. That was also part of compensating for too much monster at the start of the encounter that I threw in, improvising. I also had the wisps wink out when she went down, as well as when a player dropped a zombie with a crit (two nearby wisps winked out). From that point on, it was a quick mopping-up by the players.

The Aftermath
Scribbler had Silas take the woman's head as a trophy, for when he reports back to his superiors in the Church. Jayth took her hand, which had a strange design on it, to claim the bounty. Augris managed to find a weird magical stone that had been tied around her upper arm...

Loot will be coming to the players, I just need to figure that out. For the meantime, they have some plot hooks, and also things that will be redeemable for benefits later. (Help from the Church for an ongoing investigation, payment for the bounty, an enhancement of magic...though at what cost?)

I'm also resolved to remedy the "Sage and Haley didn't see much playing time" problem. That should be resolved better next time, as combat won't be coming again very often.

Plans
Next up, we're going to bring the party together, and have some investigation into the events of Woodshire...

Spark of Fae: My 4E Campaign!

Click here for the blog post

Well, I've still been a bit busy, but in my reading, I've stumbled across a simply brilliant idea. Read the post, it outlines things better than anything. The idea: use poker chip stacks for hitpoints in combat. It's one of those "I should've thought of that!" things, for many reasons which are mentioned in the article.

http://stuffershack.com/eliminate-combat-drag-with-realism/

I'm gonna keep things real short, this has been a busy weekend, but I figured a late post is better than none at all. Suffice it to say, I've seen this stuff typed out before, but it's worth a repeat. The more realistically you handle your combats, the more realistically your players will handle them.

Hopefully. ;)

There's a few different models for combat in RPGs floating around, but one of the problems with them is the pacing issue. Many of the leading systems have combat rules that lend themselves best to a detail-oriented climactic fight. But what if you want to hold a quick conflict to advance the story? Getting prepped and rolling initiative can get in the way of a quick-moving story, or an establishing scene. Still, action can drive the story along. What to do?

To the Indie Games, Robin!
There's a system that I'll be borrowing from to demonstrate a way to solve this problem. Wushu Open is a system which begins with the notion of a high-action system that doesn't pull punches. The core concept of this system is "The Principle of Narrative Truth", which I prefer to call "The Principle of Beating Up Bad Guys". It goes like this...

Whatever a player describes (unless it's outrageously beyond the allowable scope, like declaring a lethal blow against a major enemy) happens.

This means that in a turn, a player will literally describe how they "wheel away from the goblin's strike, springing forward and slicing through a weak spot in their armor." What do they roll the dice for? To see how much farther their actions advance the story. If they fail, maybe the goblin manages to survive the attack. Maybe killing the goblin dropped the hero into a disadvantageous position. This is something that Mouse Guard players might recognize, and it's a bit something I've laid over the Wushu framework. Failure doesn't mean you didn't succeed in something you were trying to do. It means that what you were trying to do brought about results in a way you didn't necessarily want.

Applying it to the Game!
When would you use a fight like this in a more traditional RPG? Well, depending on how you're pacing the session, you might want to have a rough-and-tumble scene where you're not trying to beat the players up. You're just trying to have some action. Of course, there's another context, a bit more system-specific, where this can come into play. That, of course, is 4th Edition D&D's "skill challenges".

Skill challenges can take any number of forms, as long as you have the idea of getting successes before failures. This is a bit more freeform than previous images you may have had of skill challenges; really, the skill challenge structure in such a combat exists for one reason--to keep score. It tells you who's winning the fight. From there, just go crazy with the action and descriptions. It counts as an encounter, but it flows a lot faster, because each player is only taking one action, and that's a simple action. Furthermore, there are no bad guys to take actions.

Whether you're trying to liven up combat, shake up the pacing in the game, or simply provide a new spin on things, don't forget to let the fists fly. Well, and swords and spears and fireballs, too. Most importantly, remember the sage advice of Morpheus...

"Stop trying to hit me, and hit me!"

Worldbreaker Boss: Bilfaaz the White Dragon (2.0)
The Original Worldbreaker Article

I must say, this is one of the coolest things I've seen in a long time. Gamefiend of the blog At-Will has concocted something up for those 4th Edition solos who aren't much of a match for an entire party working together. He calls this development "Worldbreaker powers", and they represent some sort of significant change that a solo is able to wreak on the environment. It's almost like an alternate mode of gameplay, the one where the monster goes around and tries to lay some major hurt down on the players while protecting itself. Think of it like those moments in a video game where the boss flies around, impossible to hit. It's kinda like that. But not totally.

First, go read the articles. If you haven't read the original Worldbreaker article, do that first. Then, come back here for my commentary.

As you may note, he responded very well to feedback, most notably the problem that Bilfaaz would spend much of his time unhittable, with PCs scrambling around hoping he didn't hit them. What I found ingenious was the addition of skill checks into the mix. First, that there's a sort of "micro skill challenge" involved whenever the Worldbreaker power activates. It makes the skills of the PCs quite relevant even in combat. Second, that skill checks are incorporated into the "fly-by attack", continuing to keep them relevant.

Also important? With this Worldbreaker power, the players can fight back. That's a big deal that doesn't escape notice from the players' end. The flyby attack of Bifaaz relies on an opposed skill check. Fail, and he makes the attack. Succeed, and you get to attack back. Now that's fun. Furthermore, the fighting back also happens to a lesser degree when the power kicks off, since you can use your own skills or powers to work against the effects of the Worldbreaker.

All in all, this looks like not only a memorable solo, but also a competent solo, and one that would make for a very fun bit of play...and the fun's the important part, after all, right?

It was the other day that I was on RPGNow.com, browsing their free materials. Well, I stumbled across a little shiny thing. Something that's been at the back of my RPG mind is a system that properly emulates action anime. All that I've seen so far doesn't really deviate from the standard RPG model of "You have your core stats, they govern how good your character is, and you have skills and abilities." In other words, the only thing anime about the system is the setting. You could port the system over to any other setting, and it might even fit better.

Then I found MECHA: the RPG.

It's only in quickstart form, since the full game is coming out sometime in the future. But so far, it's a lovely piece of work. The system melds together the conventions of mecha anime, a brand of Japanese animation about giant robots that get piloted by people. It's fun. And crazy awesome. This system does a really good job of emulating it, too.

Core Mechanic
The simple mechanic of task resolution is elegantly simple: your core attribute determines a dice pool (of d6s) that you roll. There's also a related skill. Any dice you roll beneath or equal to the level of the skill are successes. So, you have both the base attribute and the related skill interacting in a clean, simple way. I like it, like it a lot. The fact that the core mechanic is so snappy and clean, with very little math involved, is something which lends well to the anime feel.

There's also Overdrive, which can be earned on any roll where you score at least 5 successes. Overdrive is the "crank it up" resource to give characters more oomph. On top of Overdrive is the possibility of a Cut Scene: when you roll at least 8 successes, a rare happening, you get what I can only define as a "Crowning Moment of Awesome". You get an extra action, and it's your character's moment of Cool.

Gameplay Structure
What also intrigues me is the structure itself of a gameplay session. As they explain, you play games as collections of "episodes". Each episode is supposed to take half an hour. That's right. Half an hour. Just like an animated show on TV. This also means that you can pile lots of episodes into one night of gaming, or keep it short and play a couple.

The other cool thing is that each episode is divided into Personal Scenes and Conflict. In the first half of an episode, characters get Personal Scenes, aka character interaction and development scenes, which give benefits that come in handy for the second half. That's when you bust out the mecha, and sock it out. It's a nice back-and-forth of character and action that I think works quite well...and it's very true to the genre.

Combat
This is the real meat and potatoes of the genre, it's all about mecha blasting each other and beating each other up. In a nutshell: giant robots + explosions = win. Think Transformers, but with smaller robots, and with way better human interaction. Combat is streamlined and fluid, using the same attribute + skill mechanics as the rest of the game. Damage is another nice point: you take one point of damage for a successful attack, and you have to make a "Stability Roll" against the damage you've taken, or else become incapacitated. Tacked on to damage is knockback, which is very important in the course of combat.

Combat here is a bit of a maneuvering game. Using a "Bullseye" map, the system abstracts location and movement, making combat into a tactical game rather than a simulation. Given the somewhat abstract nature of location in anime combat, along with the high mobility of mecha, this works really well. The aim of both sides is to capture an "objective", located in one sector of the bullseye. So, this is going to be a big game of "hit and knock around the enemy". Bash and smash, with tactical maneuvering. I like the sound of this.

What I Haven't Seen
There's one little bit of the game that I have yet to see, and that's social conflict, character conflict. There's nothing about it in the quickstart, and it's unclear if it'll be included in the full rules. I'm going to assume you could work something together using Personal Scenes (more specifically, social scenes), though. RPGs like Mouse Guard could offer some very valuable insight into how to stat together conflicts like this.

In conclusion, though, this system looks to be very good. Check out the free quickstart rules at RPGNow.com (*points up to link*)...since it's free, it can't hurt. ;)

Well, long story short, I've had a few things tossed around in my brain. So I'm gonna share a few RPG ideas that I found to be particularly cool. Thursday comes round, I'm talking about how Firefly's pilot episode gave root to me thinking about initial RPG sessions. Today, though, I'm going to talk about a little something called Mouse Guard. I've not completely finished the rulebook yet, but at the moment I'm enthralled by the system. So I'll pass along an interesting idea from the RPG that you can apply to your own games...

What's Your Goal?
A major aspect of conflict in Mouse Guard is the idea of goals. In a game like D&D, you have one goal in combat: to beat the enemy. Sure, you may be fighting so as to bring about certain events, but it's typically "beat the enemy". In Mouse Guard, things aren't quite so direct. The rules state that you give a goal for the conflict, which can be many things. You could start an argument for the goal of "Keep the guard's mind distracted so my friend can bluff his way past." Then, if you win the conflict, you get your goal. If you lose, but deal damage to your opponent, they have to compromise: give you some of what you were trying to accomplish.

The one major change, then, you could do is to end fights when all members of one side are bloodied. The other side is then declared the victor. You look at goals. The victor's goals are accomplished. The loser's goals are accomplished according to how damaged the other side is; a good rule of thumb is to first count bloodied characters. You might also want to count how many healing surges have been used, or whatever mechanism. I haven't gotten a hard and fast rule yet. Then, the other side gets some of their goal, too, according to that.

Nothing's Perfect
Of course, D&D wasn't quite envisioned with combats where the stakes are anything less than life or death. And those will probably be frequent goals still. Nothing is impossible in the system, though, because it just takes a little practice and creative thought. This also allows you to introduce encounters that would be problematic to have, if they were encounters to the death. You can have the PCs fight characters who aren't outright wanting to kill them.

Really, too, this is already allowed for in the current rules. The fact that enemies are merely unconscious at 0 HP notes the presence of combat that isn't to the death. Combat that isn't about utterly beating up an opponent isn't far off. So, maybe try and suggest this idea to your GM in the next game, unless you are GM, perhaps. Set your Goals, and see how far they let you go.

Okay, well, there's been a bit of blog delay, but here I am, back and blogging again, with another Crunch post (a day late, yes, but...still here). What's up this time? It's a little rules variant that you can use to spice up your d20 games...and can easily adapt to other systems. It's a rules variant called "Stunts", which I rather explicitly stole from a similar idea in the Dragon Age pen and paper RPG. It's adapted, though, so as to make for something a little easier to access and modify.

The way it works is thus: in the game, you roll 3d6. Whenver you roll 2 sixes on your dice, you immediately get to perform a "stunt", which is a regular attack or move, but with some additional cool effect. (This is not the same as 4th Edition's "Improvised Actions" rule, which lets you improvise a stunt on the fly, balanced with normal attacks) As far as implementing this in D&D, you've got some very interesting options. The one I posit? It's a little thing I call "D&D Roulette".

Setting the Board
When you start the game, you pick one of your six abilities (in D&D, that is. In other games, they may differ, but here, those abilities are Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma). This is your Stunt Ability. You then take the modifier from that ability (usually a number from +1 to +4). That number is how many "Stunt Spots" you have on your 20-sided die.

You then assign these "Stunt Spots" to specific numbers. 20 is a bonus Stunt Number that you get, and 1 can never be a Stunt Number. So, for example, you might assign Stunt Numbers to 3, 11, and 14 if your Stunt Ability has a +3 modifier. You would also have a Stunt Number on 20, as that bonus. So, what are these numbers good for?

Rack Up the Points!
Whenever you roll your d20 for any reason during a fight, and the die itself rolls one of your Stunt Numbers, you may either gain two Stunt Points or perform a Stunt. The more points you have, the more you can do with that Stunt. If the Stunt results in a successful attack, you gain one Stunt Point afterwards, for future use. All Stunt Points reset at the end of the encounter.

When you spend Stunt Points, you get to add bonus effects to your attack, depending on how many Stunt Points you spent. I've made the following table for 4th Edition D&D, but once you get the idea, you can adapt it to whatever system you want.

1 Point- Gain 3 temporary hitpoints.
1 Point- Roll a saving throw against a condition affecting you.
2 Points- Push target one square (five feet)
2 Points- Your damage die gains brutal 1 for the attack.
3 Points- Deal half damage if the attack misses.
3 Points- Spend a healing surge as a minor action after the attack.
4 Points- Shift half your speed as a move action after the attack.
5 Points- After the attack finishes, you may make it again against different targets.

That's not where it ends, though. Once you have these effects (however many) applied to the attack, they need some explanation. This is where the fun kicks in. You push the target one square; why? Was it your massive strength? A knowledge of pressure points that caused them to stumble back? An intimidating presence? This is where the big fun of stunts kicks in.

So, if you're looking to add some spice to your game, try this variant out as a houserule. Let me know how it goes, too!