Stealing from the best
Stealing from the best is “best practices”. Stealing from the best to run your games smoother is smart. For my action-heavy games (so… all of them), I love stealing from Dan Bayn. His Wushu, published in the pre-2000s, is sadly still a widely underrated gem. But it’s a gem. A jewel. It’s good, so good.
One of the best parts is this: Principle of Narrative Truth (PoNT). That’s a pretty high-brow way of saying, “what you describe that your character is doing and what is happening, is REALLY happening" in the game world.”
No more “I try to shoot the guy on the balcony! I roll a 16!” - in Wushu, the applied PoNT turns this into something like this: “I fire a bullet right into the chest of that guy on the balcony. He clutches his heart, then he goes over the railing, and drops right onto two of the other mooks. All three of them are out.” Truth, in Wushu, is what you are narrating.
You still roll dice. But not to establish what happens in the world - your narration already does that -, but to determine if you keep your right to narrate, if you keep your right to spin a wild yarn. In Wushu, you measure this with Chi points. You usually have 3, and if you botch your rolls, you can spend Chi to stay in the game. The Chi pool refreshes, too.
You and your fellow players can narrate as long as you have Chi. The moment it’s gone, your fate lies in the hand of the GM and his minions, the npcs.
That’s the PoNT in a nutshell.
There’s one more little detail to it: the more details (ha!) you narrate, the more dice you roll. You build a pool by narrating cool stuff. This also means that if you tell little (like, “I kick him in the gut”, or, classic of classics, “I attack”), you roll only few dice. This is a direct penalty for not co-creating. I know, I know. What about people who don’t like to say many words, yadda yadda yadda. The answer is obvious: Play another game.
How do I use this awesome rule in my games? In Ten Thousand Buddha Palms, I simplify this somewhat: First, the GM assigns a die for each side of the combat. The bigger the die, the better you are, or the more advantages you have. Then, opposed rolls. Higher side wins the right of narration and can narrate what happens (even things that look bad for the own hero). This includes npcs and their reactions. Because characters or challenges are only defeated if they donʻt have any Chi Points left, the players are free to narrate their charactersʻ failed actions – mechanically, they still have won the round.
That way, itʻs possible to play lucky bastards or bumbling fighters a la Jackie Chan characters that get hit, battered and bruised all the time, only to win the fight by some lucky coincidence in the end (= their opponent lost their last Chi Point). And when a player narrates lots of cool details, he is allowed to roll a die that’s one step bigger.
And now, get this: The moment a character is down to zero Chi, the opponent gets to deliver the so-called “Coup de Grace”: He gets to narrate what happens to the defeated. No way out, no interception. The mechanical part now is over, all Chi reduced to zero, and now we get to see what happens as a result.
An example.
Reyes is a “grizzled, hulking ex-dockworker who fights dirty and improvises with whatever’s nearby,” sporting a shaved head and a scar through one eyebrow. His partner Delgado, a “burnt-out detective who never misses with his .44,” always looks like he hasn’t slept in a week and never takes off his aviators. Reyes and Delgado run into a pack of gun-toting thugs in matching tracksuits.
As the GM, I’ve decided to make this fight easy for Reyes and Delgado: I give my thugs 3 Chi Points total, and they roll two die sizes lower than the better fighter of the pair. I ask Reyes’s and Delgado’s players to pick dice. Reyes’s player goes with a d10, Delgado’s player picks a d12. So my thugs roll a d8 (two sizes below d12). Neither side has an edge going in.
Let’s start the fight!
Location: It’s just past midnight outside a rundown warehouse on the docks. Reyes and Delgado are catching their breath by the loading bay when two vans screech to a stop nearby. Doors slide open, and a pack of thugs spills out onto the pavement.
Gunfire erupts. Chaos follows -- crates toppling, dock workers scattering.
Me (GM): Let’s roll! Reyes, my thugs score a 6 against you.
Reyes: Ten! Beat that!
(I discard one poker chip. Two remain.)
Delgado: I rolled a ten too! Against you!
Me (rolling again): I only got a 5.
(I discard another chip. My thugs are down to 1 Chi Point. Reyes and Delgado now have the right to narrate what happens.)
Delgado: I duck behind a stack of pallets and pull my .44.
Reyes: I throw my whole body against a rusted shipping container. Shove, shove, shove - and it finally gives. I send it rolling straight into a knot of thugs.
They go flying. BAM!
Delgado: My turn! I want to make it count. Two thugs are charging me, spraying bullets. I roll behind a crate to dodge, then put a shot through each of their knees.
Me: Nice. What next?
Reyes: With the container out of the way, I grab a couple of loose barrels and heave them into the rest of the gang. Direct hits. Then I make a break for one of their vans.
I rip the door open and clock the driver. He’s out cold. I toss him aside, hop in, and gun the engine.
Delgado: Meanwhile, I pull off a spinning back kick that drops two more thugs, then grab their guns off the ground. Slow-mo moment - both guns blazing, then a wide shot of the last few thugs getting thrown backward like ragdolls.
Me: Great visual. Next round - let’s roll. Reyes, I’ve got a 4 against you.
Reyes: And I roll a 6!
Me: Delgado, against you... an 8!
Delgado: Damn, I only rolled a 7.
(Reyes gets to narrate what happens to my thugs. They’re at zero Chi Points now -- they’re beaten, and Reyes has the right to describe it.)
But before that plays out, I get to narrate what my thugs do to Delgado first, and Delgado has to discard one poker chip (a Chi Point).
Reyes: Pedal to the floor, I floor the van straight into the remaining thugs.
Me: Wait, what?
Delgado: Oh no.
Me: So what happens?
Reyes: I plow through about five of them - crunch, gone. Then I kick the door open, jump out, and elbow the thug standing next to me. Bam!
Me: Three thugs are still up, running straight at you, guns blazing - BAM BAM BAM. Delgado, you spin around after firing both guns, and WHAM - two thugs land simultaneous kicks to your chest, one from each side. It knocks the wind clean out of you.
Delgado: Ugh. I think I go down on one knee.
Reyes: No! Delgado! You bastards -- I’m coming!
Me: Where to?
Reyes: Straight at them. Double clothesline - they do a full somersault, I swear. The last thug’s still standing, right?
Me: Sure, it’s your narration, and they’ve got no Chi Points left, so run with it.
Reyes: So I can narrate whatever I want?
Me: Basically, yes.
Reyes: Perfect. Slow motion - the two thugs are still airborne, their guns tumbling loose. I snatch one out of the air, high-kick the last guy in the head so he flies backward, and while his buddies are still hitting the ground and he’s still airborne, I unload the whole clip into him. Ratatatatatataaaat!
_____
Post Scriptum
(always the Post Scriptum)
I ask you to visit Dan’s DTG store and buy at least some of his awesome games. They’re worth it. This guy revolutionized ttrpg - and most players are blissfully ignorant of that fact. Change this. Change it. https://www.drivethrurpg.com/de/publisher/504/daniel-bayn
Sounds like an interesting way to play. Certainly sounds great for high action cinematic content. The ability to narrate a scene with little dice rolls actually sounds entertaining.