I read some comments on combat and passive npcs in the Discussion section
– I thought I’d share how I ran my group’s last combat, somewhat shortened, but to illustrate how I use moves to play the npcs.
They had landed on planet Glitterheim, high gravity home of the diminutive Pictsies. An unfortunately brutal attempt at negotiation placed themselves in debt to a high ranking teacher of nanobot programming and they were sentenced to serve in a forest outpost to clear their debt.
Consequentially they found themselves climbing along a stream uphill in search of symbiotic trolls. (Living walker vehicles, 12 meter tall warmachines) Upon hearing the heavy footsteps of a large creature through an arch made of two huge trees leaning on each other, one character named Gorgon, riding a big red mech, fires a seeking missile through the arch and they hear a blast and a roar along the flash of its plasma charge. The character hesitate and listen for signs, but the roar subsides quickly before the arch is smashed. A 12 meter tall humanoid creature with a flat face and segmented, armoured skin leaps through the flying debris at the largest target, the red mech. (hard move, threatening to harm the mech ) On its way it would trample Hark (hard move again on Hark, a sluglike mercenary character). Carbonara, the uplifted octopus propels himself to intercept in his hardsuit and punches the troll’s thigh. This halts the troll’s assault, but he fails to see its flailing arm and Hark is slapped so hard he rolls down the hill (due to failed roll, deals damage). Hark is still in danger as the troll is now stumbling into his position. The mech is out of danger and fires its rocket launcher again, blasting the troll backwards. While it falls, Hark fires enough bullets at the troll to realise they at best embed themselves in its skin and do no real harm. Another character, Dugg the Pictsie, leaps onto the troll and hacks at its head with its energy edged axe, but it only leaves skorch marks and doesn’t quite reach its small, deep-sitting eyes. (The axe does no harm to vehicles.) The troll grunts and tries to brush off the glowing plasma residue that still hurts its upper chest. It’s giant hand swipes Dugg off, who (fails to Defy Danger with Mettle) is flung against a cliff. Hark retreats to the top of that cliff to start making some ammunition out of the poisonous plants they’d collected on their patrol. (I told him that would take so long he’d not be able to finish it before either they were dead, the others had run away, or the troll was done, but he wouldn’t listen 😀 ) The troll, however, grabs onto the cliff to get back on its feet. Dugg the pictsie hacks at its fingers, earning him the troll’s attention. Hark looks up from his camp stove to see a giant hand descending on their position (hard move on Hark and Dugg) and succeds at throwing himself down the hill, rolling down to the stream. Dugg is too occupied with his axe to notice the growing shadow and is flattened. Dugg’s arm is broken. A muffled explosion tells them the camp stove is also broken (Hark lost his kit as a consequence to his partial success). Here Carbonara assails the troll’s other leg while Gorgon’s mech fires a third missile at the troll, who flails from their assault and falls scrambling into the forest, disappearing from view. It howls and roars in pain and they hear a similar roar from not too far off.
The severely damaged troll returns with another after the players have taken account of their state. They manage to defeat them, but only after the mech is almost totalled, Hark’s arm is squished and several of Gorgon’s fanatic followers are flattened. One move I wanted to note here was that the trolls might grab a vehicle and lift them up to throw them. This is a hard move, but some vehicles deal with that better than others. One with boosters could avoid being smashed into the ground. I don’t remember everything that happened, this was three days ago. More did happen in the first encounter, but I think this serves as an example of how I run npcs in combat. armed, intelligent creatures tend to use cover and throw grenades to get the players out of cover. Some even use smoke and superior sensors/senses to shoot players. The aquatic civilization has microwave weapons in their arsenal, carried by specialists. They are penetrating energy weapons and deal with hardsuits and armour. Nice for a change, but as they’re class 2, they’re uncommon and armour is still good.
Hope this makes sense and is of use!