A bit of prep from my 2017 campaign. Some random consequences to liven up brute fights on the docks. Roll once for each player at the beginning of a new round.
Dockside Battle Consequences
d10 Consequence
1 Slip on a slick spot (oil, fish guts, etc)
2 Stumble on a loose plank.*
3 Backed up against a stack of barrels/crates (opp: higher ground)*
4 Step in a bucket of fresh/hot pitch (1 Wound, reduced movement)*
5 Fall off the dock into the drink.
6 Bump into an antagonistic brute squad (Str 5) who join the fight against you.*
7 Heavy tact thrown from an adjacent ship (2 wounds).
8 Bump into a wealthy merchant/captain and his entourage.
9 A rotten plank breaks beneath you, pinning your foot. (1 wound)*
0 OPPORTUNITY!
*For an additional raise, you may turn this consequence against your opponents.
TAJ-07: Technopriest And Justicar Of 7thSea2e
That's my plan. Just some quick generic locations to liven up brute battles mostly – because otherwise those are either too quick or dull.
Right now, I have a barroom brawl and dockside. I'm going to add ships and below decks. A crowded marketplace would be good as well. Where else can you imagine a common brute squad battle?
Open road-- Horseback and/or Carriage encounter; Highwaymen/ Bandits
The first adventure in Rapier's Edge, The Tower of Faith, has a table on pg. 40 for Coach encounters that can be easily converted.
Stables/ warehouse
City gate or building entrance - Guards/ City watch
Sewers/ tunnels/ caves
TAJ-07: Technopriest And Justicar Of 7thSea2e
Some more:
Tavern Brawl Consequences
d10 Consequence
1 Drenched in foul smelling ale (-1 die to social actions in the following scene).*
2 One of the brawlers is thrown on top of you, pinning you to the floor (1 wound, pinned).
3 Slip on bloody sawdust (1 wound, fall prone).*
4 Take a blow to the face (-1 die to social actions in the following scene).*
5 Step on the barkeep’s pet (earn the barkeep’s dislike).
6 Thrown through a window (+1 wound, earn the barkeep’s dislike).*
7 Arms pinned by brutes (may not spend raises to avoid wounds this round).
8 You and several brawlers spill out into the street, inciting ANOTHER brute squad (Str 5) to join the melee.
9 You (or someone else) accidentally set the place on FIRE!
0 OPPORTUNITY!
Upper Deck Brawl Consequences
d10 Consequence
1 A weak spot in the hatch gives way beneath you, spilling you below deck (1 wound+stunned for one action).
2 A loosed barrel rolls and knocks you off your feet (1 wound, fall prone).
3 A brawler hooks you by the neck and drags you backwards (1 wound, lose footing).
4 An errant blade cuts loose a section of rigging above you, spilling rope and men atop you (2 wounds, pinned).
5 Slip on soapy water from a upended bucket (1 wound, fall prone).
6 A brawler swings from the rigging, kicking overboard (1 wound, cast overboard)!
7 An errant blade cuts loose a dingy, swinging and slamming into you (2 wounds, pinned).
8 A brawler leaps on top of you, pinning you to the deck (1 wound, pinned).
9 A brawler pulls the wrong belaying pin, spilling rigging on top of both of you (1 wound, pinned BUT -1 brute too!).
0 OPPORTUNITY!
Below Decks Brawl
d10 Consequence
1 An unhooked cannon slams into you (2 wounds, pinned).
2 Your weapon is tangled in a hammock or lodged in the ceiling or post.
3 Slip on a slick spot (oil, fish guts, etc)*
4 A brawler turns a lighted cannon towards you! (3 wounds, deafened, and a hole in the hull!)
5 Brawlers throw netting over you (pinned).*
6 Arms pinned by brutes (may not spend raises to avoid wounds this round).
7 Brawlers pin you to the wall with a heavy chest, crate, or barrel (may not spend raises to avoid wounds this round).
8 Tight space (-2 dice on the following round)
9 You take a face full of hot tar (1 wound, -1 die for the rest of the scene).*
0 OPPORTUNITY!
*For an additional raise, you may turn this consequence against your opponents.
I really like your works BluSponge.
A la fin de l'envoi, je touche.
Thanks, Savinien. Try them out in your game and let me know how they work out.
These look very promising! And a nice way to make fights against Brutes more challenging for Duelists ("Do I take down this Brute Squad, or spend a Raise to avoid this falling debris?"). I think I would like to try these out in a future game.
Thanks, Neo. That's the goal exactly. Otherwise, brute fights seem pretty dull. Granted, I think this plan still needs to cook a bit. Looking back, I think I should drop one from each and have an option for Double Trouble: roll twice and ignore this result. Plus, I'd love to boil these down to much more general, but evocative, complications so that you only need 1 or 2 tables tops (instead of one for every environmnet), or maybe have a list of 20 that you can pick and choose from to build your own tables ahead of time. This is just a start.
Ok, so after last night's game, I'm revisiting this project. Because Damn brute fights are dull. Maybe my narrative skills are just lame or the whole process of working through raises to take out a single brute just isn't very interesting. All my players want to do is spend all their raises at once to deal wounds, and why shouldn't they? In a battle with brutes, what's the point otherwise? The only heroes that have to think about their actions are duelists, because they can't perform the same maneuver twice.
A bit of thought: when you really boil it down, what I have here is Pressure with more description. Spend an extra raise to do what you want to do or suffer the consequences. So I'm thinking maybe there needs to be a Danger Point cost.
Here's my first attempt at breaking this down to a more generalized, flexible table that can be used in all environments. It lacks the flair of some of the previous attempts, but the idea of coming up with a custom table for every environment seems...unwieldy. So here goes:
Lastly, each consquence should have 1-2 components from this list, depending on how severe you want it to be:
So basically, spend a Danger Point and roll 1d10 for each hero in the scene. Describe the consequence and assign one or two cost components.
Thoughts?
I think this last t solution is the best so far. Less cumbersome and much more agile, and requiring a Danger Point makes it fairer. I'll give it a try in my next session and let you know how did it work.
Thanks Roger. I think it still needs some tweaking. Right now, it's a good all-purpose table, but it's almost devoid of flavor. I want to put some seasoning back in.
Also, since a lot of the original tables had ways you could turn consequences into opportunities, I want to figure out a way to bake that into the table.