About Financial and Masochistic directives. I think (but I may be wrong), they should be a little more complicated to complete. Something like :
– Financial : when you hinder the mission for a chance at extra profit aside the stakes when getting a job, mark experience.
– Masochistic : when you suffer one or more harm that you could avoid by being less ballsy, mark experience.
What do you think ?
How is the first one different from the by-the-book version? You’ve added some extra words, but I don’t see any difference in the triggering condition…
Because staking 3 Creds when getting a job will trigger the directive.
I feel like that is the MCs call to determine whether a directive is complete or not… but aside from that, staking 3 cred automatically advances the mission clock, which is pretty severe. And the harm move is nasty, and trying to “farm” it for experience will leave you battered, vulnerable and all your gear smashed.
I don’t know… it feels strange PC will mark xp each time the MC inflicts harm whatever he does. It’s not like the PC choose to get in the situation that will trigger his directive.
Keep in mind MC moves should be determined by fictional positioning, which the players have great control over! If you want to hit this directive, you need to get your character into dangerous, violent situations. If the MC is never inflicting harm when appropriate to the story to prevent you from marking experience, that’s a pretty big breakdown in the game dynamic!
Yann Herpe I see what you’re getting at now, but it would never have occurred to me to apply the directive in that situation. It has to be an actual in-play character action, surely?
Of course! A miss or soft hit to mix it up, act under pressure, or play hardball can all result in the MC inflicting harm, as appropriate to the fiction. Take a really simple situation as an example. Two guards with assault rifles are standing watch outside a secure facility. There are a lot of ways to get by these guys, of course, but if it falls to our friend the masochist, he’s probably going to say something along the lines of, “I open fire with my shotgun as I barrel through the door.” That’s definitely Mix it Up. Then lets say he rolls an 8 for a soft hit, and chooses “You Take Harm as Established” and something else. Now, as long as his armor doesn’t negate the damage of the assault rifles completely, he takes some harm, and marks XP. There you go. All the MC really set up here was the presence of guards! Everything else was in the PLAYERS control.
Jordan Merwin sometimes, the MC is a player too and he’s not just following PCs actions. Sometimes, threats will take actions against PCs, sometimes it will be corporations. Sometimes getting paid will end in an ambush or a setup. Sometimes I just want to strike hard because I feel like the story needs it. In each directives, PCs mark XP because they choose to get in trouble, to hinder the mission. Not here, not like the violence directive for example.
Simon Geard yes of course it is. But it could be used like this. Jordan is right, staking 3 Creds is risky. But, it’s difficult to explain… I think it doesn’t feel like other directives. It’s feels like using mechanics to farm Creds and XP in the same time, and not taking hard fictional choices to make a good story. It feels like minimaxing, and it’s very strange in this kind of game. Yeah, it’s risky, ok. And every game will be, because the PC will want to use his directive. But if he can’t, he will have to inovate, to imagine how his greed could be satisfied. He will dig where he shouldn’t, he will sell intel and make enemies, he will try to screew his employers. He won’t “just” raise the stakes.
Jordan Merwin with my proposition, your example stil works. Not if the character is just crossing the road when he gets shot by a sniper because he pissed of someone very powerfull and dangerous. It could be fair to mark XP, because I’m not kind to him, because he can’t do nothing against it, but why not his mate who doesn’t have this directive ? In fact, he marks XP without doing anything.
Jordan Merwin or maybe, I have to take it like the invitation the directives are : “hey MC, I want to get hurt, please use your move inflict harm more easily and take me as your mark”. Hum… This directive is confusing me alot…