The dramatic standoff, How to do it Options

[sunnyside]

This is from the firefly thread but I figured it could use some discussion on it's own.

In most fiction variations of the armed standoff are commonplace.

Bad guy points a gun at protagonist. Protagonist then has to follow their orders for a while, until they get a chance to turn the tables, or help comes. (or the same deal with a group and a handful of bad guys).

There is also the very popular grabbing someone from behind and holding a gun to them.

and finally there is the standoff so popular it gets its own name. The Mexican standoff.


There are two issues with having these kinds of situations in game.

First is player psychology, in part fueled by edge and the fact they're probably used to winning. Instead of drama and clever plans you're likely to get rolling for initiative.

Second is game mechanics. How would one even handle somebody trying to grab a PC and hold a gun to them? How would one do a mexican type standoff?

Actually wait would:

If
multiple characters delay their actions until the same Action
Phase, they act at the same time.

Mean that if two people were pointing guns at each others faces if one chose to fire the other would get to take their delayed action at the same time and hence they would, actually, shoot each other.

The trouble with that is does it mean that if someone gets the drop on a player they don't have an advantage? I.e. if both delay actions and act simultaniously if they player can make their quickdraw roll they're going to be able to fire simultaniously with the attacker. Hence the attacker has no advantage in the situation.

[kzt]

Just because a concept works in a book or movie doesn't mean it will work in an RPG. Locking characters up is a classic example.

When the characters don't get given a script to follow they tend to not do what you expect. Besides, most of those situations are due to stupid planning or failure to act when required. The Matt Helm rules for what to do when someone tells you not to move still tend to be the best response, but are hard on the NPCs.

[Eryk the Red]

There is a solid reason to want to try to make standoffs possible in-game, even if the result is eventually rolling for initiative: they allow some character interaction and exposition that is rarely possible during a firefight. It's a time for villains to grandstand and shadowrunners to cuss and hurl insults. A standoff is largely a time for talking before gunfire starts.

Ultimately, standoffs probably just have to be a little artificial. I can't see a way to make the rules so that standoffs "just happen" sometimes. As a GM, you'd just have to declare it. Use it as a free opportunity for everyone to draw their weapons, and a chance to make social tests before the fight breaks out (in addition to straight role-playing). Once someone gets aggressive and breaks the standoff, roll initiative. That's how I'd try to run it.

[DireRadiant]

For the Standoff, just use mutual held actions.

For the "got the drop on you" or "got you covered", resolve attack as normal, but do not apply damage. ...scene plays out here... The target, in order to get out of soaking the damage must win an opposed test of some sort with large penalties. I would allow social test, "Oooh, look over there!" or a Surprise test, as the basic actions, but I am sure others can be dreamed up. For the base bonus I'm tempted to look at the same +6 ambushers get for setting up an ambush to be given to the person with the "drop" in the opposed test.

This kind of mechanism has been done in other games, Champions has it for example.

[Chrysalis]

Years of playing has told me that when a PC is a hostage situation with a bad guy it usually ends up where the hostage dies so they can get at the enemy. That reminds me how much protection does a human give against an assault rifle?

[Aaron]

A dramatic standoff (as opposed to a stalemate) happens when action by either side will precipitate an event that is unacceptable to the acting side. If you can build that situation, you should have a dramatic standoff.

[Pendaric]

I concur with Aaron.

[Oenone]

Having the villian carrying a bomb/grenade which'll kill the party is generally a good way to stop them just opening op with the machine guns.

Although that tends to work best for both sides backing down and retreating....

[kzt]

Having the villian carrying a bomb/grenade which'll kill the party is generally a good way to stop them just opening op with the machine guns.

It works best if you shoot the other guy between the eyes about the time he finishes the first word.

"Bwahhaa, I'll have" BANG
thump

[Chrysalis]

Having the villian carrying a bomb/grenade which'll kill the party is generally a good way to stop them just opening op with the machine guns.

Although that tends to work best for both sides backing down and retreating....

Naw, I can take it. BANG!

KA-BOOM.

What?! I thought we could take the damage easy.

Let's face it any situation involving an NPC taking another NPC hostage usually ends up with both very dead,

-Chrysalis

[Skip]

If you, as the GM, put the characters in a situation where you want to handle some exposition via a standoff, then you have to train them to recognize the device, especially if your players tend to kill everything that moves.

There are two easy ways to teach this; the beneficent GM, and the evil GM. The nice way is to strongly suggest to the players that force is not the way out of this situation. If they are are particularly dense, simply ignore any attempt by that player (you know the one, every group has one) to get everyone killed. The evil way is to let them try, kill them all, and start from scratch.

The key for the GM is to make the standoff identifiable from the normal heavy encounter. Start by making it clear to anyone in the player group that shooting first means dieing. This doesn't always mean having more people or bigger guns. To have this be believable you would want to have the engagement take place somewhere or at a time where simply making the group disappear in a loud, messy smear is not in the other group's best interest. That in itself is not too hard, but you do have to make it flexible, because PCs have a habit of doing the unexpected.

The trickier situation is to have a standoff that degenerates into an actual encounter. This is much more difficult, because you have to give the players a reason not to start in on the other group, and then push them to the point where they need to start shooting. In that case deside on your objective from the encounter and realize that you may have to accept a bit of artificial structure.

By that I mean that if the groups are evenly matched and the idea is for combat after the exposition, make it plainly clear they need to listen first. Have the Johnson, the fixer, a contact, or anyone believable, make it a requirement for their run. If the idea is to force them to retreat from an area, realize that you may have to make the NPCs shoot like the A-Team bad guys. Every encounter should have a primary and a few secondary goals. Any rolls that get in the way of that should be ignored, in the players favor. I'm not saying don't kill them, just don't kill them for no good reason. Stupidity is a very good reason.

[sunnyside]

Years of playing has told me that when a PC is a hostage situation with a bad guy it usually ends up where the hostage dies so they can get at the enemy. That reminds me how much protection does a human give against an assault rifle?

Hmmm. I think this might be acceptable to me. Presuming the hostage is of some import as opposed to the closest metahuman the team will at least get paid less for their lack of imagination.

A dramatic standoff (as opposed to a stalemate) happens when action by either side will precipitate an event that is unacceptable to the acting side. If you can build that situation, you should have a dramatic standoff.

Well OK, yes, I guess this threads is about doing that well. Preferably so it fits some of the classic models.

Dead mans switch on bombs all over the building could work as would the classic arbitrarily large number of opponents. But that's a bit heavy handed, and contrived.


Alright I guess what is needed realy is some kinda coup de gras type stuff.

So lets try focusing on the mechanical side for a moment.

Now, using (stretching perhaps) RAW how would you model.

Someone with a gun pressed up against a PCs back.
Gun pressed up against a PCs temple
An NPC trying to grab a PC and get to the "gun up against temple" state
Someone being "covered"

[kzt]

Cleverly RAW is set up so there is no way to prevent the street sam who has an initiative of absurd from acting first the next phase. You can't delay actions into the next turn. See "that combat turn" on page 132 declare actions.

Obviously the developers didn't want this situation to occur, and who am I to question their infinite wisdom? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

[Skip]

First make sure your players know that you intend to offer them senarios where shots are not the first option. Springing this kind of thing on a power gaming group will cause confusion even if you lay the groundwork.

The secret is how you set the scene. So taking your questions as an example:

Someone with a gun pressed up against a PCs back.

"Player X, you feel the barrel of a gun in the small of your back and a firm grip on your throat. 'Make one move I don't like and you'll be in two pieces.' You know he means it and offer no resistance."

Yeah, you take the option out of the player's hand, but if they are clueless sometimes it helps to do it that way.

Gun pressed up against a PCs temple

Basically the same, maybe with a bead of sweat running around the barrel.

Someone being "covered"

Have the NPC reveal his presence and describe the gun as well as you can, the sight, the SOTA 'ware the guy has, and the fact that he has an instant kill shot.

If, after all that, they still insist on attacking kill the player held and make sure the others don't get off free. Then explain what they did wrong.

[sunnyside]

Cleverly RAW is set up so there is no way to prevent the street sam who has an initiative of absurd from acting first the next phase. You can't delay actions into the next turn. See "that combat turn" on page 132 declare actions.

Obviously the developers didn't want this situation to occur, and who am I to question their infinite wisdom? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

I'm not seeing it, especially in the more detailed rules on 134. You just keep delaying from pass to pass. And when the next pass is in a different turn it just rolls over normally.

That's obviously how they intended it. And to me that's also how they wrote it.

Also I notice under "take aim"

The gamemaster may also allow other specific effects for
called shots if he chooses.

So it would seem that could give some leeway to make a gun to the back or head a dangerous thing without it really being a house rule.

Suggestions?

[Aaron]

Here's a strange idea that may or may not work.

Put together a run in which there is no combat. None at all. Nobody so much as draws a weapon. Then, at the run's completion, as you're going through Karma awards, throw in a "... and one [or two or whatever] for not entering combat, and ..." and watch the ears perk up.

If you're really mean, give that award individually.

[DocTaotsu]

Dead man switches, usually makes players think twice about capping people straight off.

[K M Faust]

I realize I'm but a novice posting here, but many who play in my SR4/gamenight look forward to the winner takes all, shoot 'til you see blood and brains smeared on the walls. If you wish to play the adventure without any 'gunplay' how would you view the use of magic? Would it have the same 'effect' if only to persuade or detract gunplay. Meaning, would the mages be the only gamerz to win karma points for said adventure? I've played D&D (old school, first ed.) before and there are so many aspects I really love about SR4 which combine whitty reparte, detect and discover tactics, magic, and gunplay. I think it should be a combination of all these aspects and not soley rely on gunplay for 'squirt and giggle' effect (if you know what I mean.)

[Rasumichin]

The secret is how you set the scene. So taking your questions as an example: "Player X, you feel the barrel of a gun in the small of your back and a firm grip on your throat. 'Make one move I don't like and you'll be in two pieces.' You know he means it and offer no resistance."

Yeah, you take the option out of the player's hand, but if they are clueless sometimes it helps to do it that way.

This only works out if the group is willing to engage in drama-focussed play (which is the prerequisite to pull off a standof situation succefully, anyway).

If this is the case, taking the player's action out of his hands is unneccessary, as he will be familiar with such situations.
Same goes for the BBEG walking up to the players with a drawn gun and revealing his masterplan.

We are all familiar with such situations from movies and the like and from my experience with badly scripted, railroady off-the-shelf adventures, i can tell that gamers will intuitively recognize them and act appropriately to drive the story forward.

This can easily be enhanced by offering rewards for "enduring" such occurences.
In SR4, my advice would be to partially refresh Edge every time something dramatically appropriate happens (which the players should know before start of the game, to avoid misconceptions about the situation).
Group is forced into a standoff, car ignition doesn't work in the most inappropriate moment, BBEG manages to escape miraculously? That's one point of Edge each.
Yes, i have shamelessly stolen that idea from the BtVS RPG.

If players prove unwilling or unable to play along, coercing them to do so can easily prove disastrous, but will in every case be tiresome for the GM and the players alike and therefore should be left out of the game alltogether.

In such cases, it will always be more appropriate to model the plot under the premise of designing a challenge to be resolved, instead of telling a story by traditional means.

Games are inherently different from stories told by a single narrator and if one attempts to bring the two closer together, game mechanics themselves, as well as a working consensus on "story focus" within the group, should be employed to further this end, if one wants to avoid unsatisfactory gameplay.

[DocTaotsu]

Yeah, definitely depends on the group. Even in D&D the guys I game with often cut off the GM with: "Is the bad guy monologueing? If he is than..." followed by our best efforts to smoke the bad guy before he finishes his speech.

The frustrated GM has half joked that he wants to introduce "Summon Fiendish Monologue" a spell that paralyzes players until the speech is complete.

[kzt]

There just isn't any reason to let them rant, and every reason to cap them Right Now.
"Behold the power"
"I shoot him, alpha short burst using edge. Hmm, 10 successes. DV 18, -5 to armor. Let me roll for the next burst..."

[DocTaotsu]

This is a problem that is only compounded by the fact that I use RPG's to vent and that I always used to yell at the TV saying "Good god! Just shoot him already!"

[Sir_Psycho]

I'd put holding a gun to the head of a character under either Unarmed Combat (Subdual Combat) to grab the character. You could also add an Intimidation test to it.

"I grab him by the throat and put my knife to his throat"
"Ok, roll Unarmed Combat... net hits... Yep, you've got him."
"I say 'Move and I'll rip out your larynx and eat it', letting the blade scrape against his bulging adam's apple"
"Okey-dokey. Hmm... Intimidation dice-pool modifiers? Effect is... disastrous to NPC."

But really, don't forget the use of Intimidate. If you want the bad guy to step out of the shadows with a grenade in hand and say "Dead man's trigger. Shoot me and you're all chunky salsa." then that should be an intimidate roll. Just because the players want to shoot him in the head, their characters might be too scared to do so.

In fact, I see the intimidate skill working well in a lot of potential combat situations. If you beat them on the initiative roll, and your pen is mightier than your sword, go for the pen. And then you've got a stand-off, you've got your gun to their head, and theirs is still in their holster.

If your team outnumbers an enemy, don't forget the use of stealth, surprise and subdual. The team might enter a room to kill that one last mook who escaped the bloodbath, only to find that the mook jumps from the shadows, frantic and animalistic, with sweat pouring down his face and grabs the nearest player-character. If he wins on the subdual combat he's got a player character's life in his hands. Roll intimidate against the group. Can their characters deal with this? If they manage to beat this guy in intimidation, do they want to take the chance that they can kill this guy without him blowing their running partner away?

[sunnyside]

Ok. It's a whole seperate issue with using social skills on PCs. Because they will want to shoot the pornomancer catgirl who they figure will betray them as well.

But as for the standoff what I'm looking for now as much as anything are good mechanical reasons to explain why a shotgun being fired point blank into the skull does more than 8 boxes of damage. That, I think, is the crux of the matter. The dual actions thing allows the attack to hit at least simultaniously. But the players probably figure they (or even a threatened NPC) can take a hit.

also on the talking thing.
http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=1280
if you've never read that before I suggest going to the beginning. Funny stuff.

[Blade]

That's why my bad guys tend to monologue only when they (or their henchmen) kick the PC in the ribs, or when they (or their henchmen) pull out his head from the toilets.