Support Scenes in Last Exile
OK, back to rpgs.
In my Last Exile game, I want "taking damage" - getting hurt in a conflict, whether physical, social or intellectual - to have the consequence of needing someone else's help.
The way this works is that when you create a character, the other players decide which NPCs care about you - that's your Crew. When you've been damaged, you can call a Support Scene. You nominate another player, who chooses one of your Crew. That NPC comes to the PC and makes overtures (romantic, friendly, whatever). How the PC responds to those overtures always changes the relationship between the PC and NPC, and determines how the PC deals with the damage.
If they accept the overtures, they get dice which are used to counteract the damage - you make a roll, and because of the NPC's support, you recover from your wounds/get over your emotional issue/fix your airship. After you've accepted a certain number of dice from an NPC over the course of the game, they become a Commitment - they're recognised as one of the people the PC cares about (if they were already on that list, they get bumped up the rankings). At that point, you can't get any more support dice from them.
If you refuse the overtures, you get to keep the damage - lucky you! However, you get Angst dice, which you can use to give yourself a big boost in other scenes. Essentially you're keeping your character in an injured state for a one-time bonus later on. Once you've gotten a certain number of angst dice from an NPC, they drop off your crew list (you can get new crew as the game progresses).
What I'm trying to achieve here is bring those obligatory scenes where the broody/shot/furious hero has a secondary character come to help them, make an actual game mechanic of it, and keep the relationships between PCs and NPCs in motion. I hope it's not too convoluted a way to do it!
In my Last Exile game, I want "taking damage" - getting hurt in a conflict, whether physical, social or intellectual - to have the consequence of needing someone else's help.
The way this works is that when you create a character, the other players decide which NPCs care about you - that's your Crew. When you've been damaged, you can call a Support Scene. You nominate another player, who chooses one of your Crew. That NPC comes to the PC and makes overtures (romantic, friendly, whatever). How the PC responds to those overtures always changes the relationship between the PC and NPC, and determines how the PC deals with the damage.
If they accept the overtures, they get dice which are used to counteract the damage - you make a roll, and because of the NPC's support, you recover from your wounds/get over your emotional issue/fix your airship. After you've accepted a certain number of dice from an NPC over the course of the game, they become a Commitment - they're recognised as one of the people the PC cares about (if they were already on that list, they get bumped up the rankings). At that point, you can't get any more support dice from them.
If you refuse the overtures, you get to keep the damage - lucky you! However, you get Angst dice, which you can use to give yourself a big boost in other scenes. Essentially you're keeping your character in an injured state for a one-time bonus later on. Once you've gotten a certain number of angst dice from an NPC, they drop off your crew list (you can get new crew as the game progresses).
What I'm trying to achieve here is bring those obligatory scenes where the broody/shot/furious hero has a secondary character come to help them, make an actual game mechanic of it, and keep the relationships between PCs and NPCs in motion. I hope it's not too convoluted a way to do it!