For people that may not know, I’m currently working (mostly just for fun) on a Police Procedural Drama hack for PbtA called The Unit that was inspired by a previous discussion started here by Alain Stephens. I figured I would mine the minds of my fellow APWorlders for help.
[Copied from a post in my G+ collection about the hack process]
What are some of the regular actions you see in Police Procedural Drama that would benefit from being translated as a Basic Move?
So far I have:
For Basic Moves:
Investigating a crime scene
Interrogating a suspect
Ordering someone to comply
Staying cool in a tense situation
Having a heart to heart moment with a colleague or NPC
For Paperwork Moves:
Deposit a requisition
Filling in a report to close a case
And a Harm Moves.
What’s missing here?
Interview a witness
After another conversation elsewhere, I might add:
Drawing you gun with the intention of shooting it
and I’m tempted by:
Kicking down doors to do a bust but I feel maybe a bit too narrow to be a Basic move. I might put it in a Playbook for a Hot-Headed/Rash archetype.
Christopher Wargo It might not be clear, but it’s rolled in with Interrogate a suspect. The trigger for the move is:
When you Interrogate a possible suspect or interview a witness
Work your beat
Use excessive force
Go under cover
Act above the law
Phillip Wessels Go Undercover might be a good Workshop/Ritual/Mission type move that you can interrupt and go to fiction when it’s a miss.
For Use excessive force, I already have a move for the Loose Canon that says when you use violence to interrogate a suspect
Yeah but that’s a bit different than just using excessive force, right? You go excessive to assert your power. Using violence to interrogate a suspect is just to gain information, albeit with crude methods. Now if your violence turned to sadistic assault or torture, that would be excessive. You didn’t need to go that far to get that information. I want to say it would be better if being a bad cop scratched an itch or unlocked a power trip or something.
It’s a whole other mechanic that will change your game into something more serious, but offered for your consideration, this is my “Burnout Mechanic” for people with stressful jobs:
http://apocalypse-world.com/forums/index.php?topic=6860.0
Phillip Wessels would it be too cynical and on the nose to use that excessive violence as stress relief but with a cost.
Like this:
When you use excessive violence to get what you want erase one stress, but be ready to face the consequences, the GM will tell you what.
It’s essential just a prompt for the GM to do as hard of a move as he wants.
What do you think?
It’s a drama right? 😜
As If Wow! That’s a detail system. I like it but so far I’m going with a simple stress as the first level of harm. Essentially, you take stress through the result of GM or player moves. You have 4 stress box that when filled in give you a Condition which is both narrative and gives a -1 on rolls.
Some kind of move to make request to an unofficial contact? Whether a criminal, from another office or other. I could see some quite dramatic gm moves connected to these if asking a lot and not rolling 10+…
Something relating to the actual law. I’m reading Mutant City Blues at the moment and one thing that mentions is that there is a difference between figuring out who the bad guy is and actually proving it in a court of law or even working out what law they are even guilt of.
Someone knew the girl wasn’t dead but didn’t pass that information on because they knew the father would seek revenge and kill their rival? Is that a crime? Is it murder? Manslaughter? Depraved indifference?
Often in cop shows there is a scene where the bad guys gloat that the cops will never prove they did it and one of them (usually the grizzled cynical one with the heart of gold) will say “Maybe, but failing to secure your gun is a category B misdemeanour, which lead to a murder making it a felon. You’re going down for a long time! Take him away boys.”
This move would allow the cops to determine if something they see is a crime or not and allow them to arrest or just threaten someone on that basis. If they get it wrong then that is wrongful arrest and might lead to suspension or accusations of harassment.
The first name that came to me:- Lay down the law.
When I was thinking of that the name “And justice for all” came to me too. You should definitely use that for another move. 🙂
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Is there a community trust mechanic? I feel there should be that is in jeopardy when you go too far.
It can be brought back by community service, being “drama” free, etc….
I’m surprised there’s no move for a chase scene. Or would that be covered by staying cool? From the name, I’d guess that’s your general-purpose “act under pressure” move, which could work for chasing, but my gut says chase scenes are a big enough staple of cop shows to deserve their own move.
It also seems like stakeouts happen frequently enough in cop shows to warrant a mechanic, even if it’s not one of the “core moves.” If the PCs are plainclothes detectives, the same goes for hastily-improvised cover stories.
Full disclosure: My main experience with cop shows is Brooklyn 99, so I might not know the genre as well as I think I do.
AW 2nd ed includes moves for shouldering cars, boarding moving vehicles, T-boning, chasing/escaping another vehicle and maintaining control in harsh terrain.
Sebastian Baker I think a stakeout move is an excellent idea. In a traditional game this activity kind of sucks because you just sit there and IF something interesting is going to happen you maybe roll perception. A lot of the time nothing interesting happens. Some of the time the interesting stuff happens you you miss it!
When this type of thing is Powered by the Apocalypse then your stakeout move DRIVES the fiction. You get a 10+ then something interesting DOES happen. 7-9 then you get something but maybe not what you wanted. 6- and either you get in to trouble or while you were sitting on your ass eating donuts something bad happened across town.
Have you looked at James Mullen’s The Hood, for harm. There are only 3 states. Fine, Down and Out. That would work well here. I feel there Heat mechanic would work well for a Trust mechanic.
Eric Nolan Wouldn’t “Staying cool in a tense situation” work for a Stakeout? I feel it would.
Tommy Rayburn Personally I think they are different things. A stakeout move would be about making something happen. So you would have choices like “See something going down”, “Find out a new connection” – things like that. Most stakeouts tend to be quite un-tense.
Eric Nolan Tommy Rayburn Actually the Investigating a crime scene move which is like the defy danger move from Dungeon world has this option to cover stake out:
when you do it through hard work and you put the hours, roll+GRIT
On a hit, evidence is gather, the player describe what it is. On a 7-9 there’s an extra cost.
But I will keep in mind the possible need for a dedicated move.
Note: Once I get a bit more done, I will share the docs I have in order for people to more easily comment/help.
As If That is a great system! Have you tried it in actual play?
Acronico Meia Noite It is unplaytested. Feel free to try it out and let me know how it goes!