Has anyone experimented with custom moves for monsters who can incapacitate heroes with weapons like tasers or knockout gas? I have a situation coming up where the monsters would prefer to capture the heroes instead of immediately killing them.
Has anyone experimented with custom moves for monsters who can incapacitate heroes with weapons like tasers or…
Has anyone experimented with custom moves for monsters who can incapacitate heroes with weapons like tasers or…
Depending on how tough the monster is, you could make one of it’s monster moves something like “Knock them out”. “Incapacitate them”, or “Capture them”. That’s really hard though, because it doesn’t give the characters a chance to resist. Something softer could be a move that requires the characters to Act Under Pressure, with a 10+ letting them avoid the monster’s nasty effects. Or write a move similar to AUP that has characters using Tough instead of Cool, since being tough would help prevent being tazed or knocked out.
I would look at it from this way. What is it you want the monster/move to do. Now if someone used it against you, what you think to as the GM to roll to resist? If the attack is biological then it’s a Tough roll, perhaps with penalties depending what your throwing. Likewise you could say “the tunnel is filling with gas, if you don’t make it out you will pass out regardless of your tough stat” give me a sharp to see if you think your way out of the problem.
Save the “knockout” move as a hard move, and lead up to it by displaying signs of the threat. “It opens a canister of gas and rolls it at you; what do you do?”
I’d avoid it. My gm did this in our last game and it really sucked. In the badass invincible chosen one but guys with tasers tried to keep tasing multiple times and the second I inevitability failed I was told the only way to stay conscious was yo spend a point of luck.
I got tased like 5 times…
Left a really sour taste in my mouth.
Thanks for the suggestions, everyone. This all gives me a good starting point for planning.
Incapacitation is a basic harm move on the keeper sheet (take 1 harm, pass out), but yeah it can be a bit brutal. Still this is a brutal game. I feel it’s best used to get more people involved and change the objectives. Like if one person is taking a lot of the spot light, their incapacitation can get everyone else involved. I would be hesitant to have a monster abduct a character unless they were missing that session. It either takes them out of play, or lets them take down the monster later. I’d use a beloved NPC instead. That’s what they are there for.