OK, here is the AP of Mob Justice from GaelCon 2007.
I got 4 players who had signed up and they were all interested in playing and having a good time. We had two guys and two gals, and we were placed around a large table. (The table had been perhaps too big for some of the other, more intimate games, but was perfect for Mob Justice and much later in the weekend Umlaut.)
I briefly explained Mob Justice: modern-day Mobsters in an America where prohibition never ended. '20s cool in the 2000s. They really liked the hook and had a good idea of how they'd play their characters.
I had grabbed the 4 pre-gens from Iain's old GenCon 2005 (!) demo and there are two points out of that: (i) can we have a demo for MJ online?, (ii) even these bare characters were more than enough to show off the game.
The players all grabbed a random character and they got to add: (1) a loyalty to another PC, (2) another code of their choosing, (3) a skill at 3. I also told them that they could flip their characters from male to female if they so wished, but they didn't choose to do this.
I then drew a card from the deck to find out the level of their loyalties and codes one by one.
Everyone was now pretty happy with their characters and we started play.
I framed the scenario: their Boss has killed someone and a witness was an old guy called Milo Blue. Milo didn't want to rat on the Boss, but the Boss had ordered him to be killed, so Milo split and got protection from the Police.
The PCs were called and told to meet a mobster in the park, where they'd get further info. Two elected to turn up on time, and two were late (one finishing a good hand of poker, the other a drink or two at a speakeasy). Some nice playing "in character" and interaction as they get briefed on what they've to do.
A cop has ratted on Milo and told the Boss where they're keeping Milo tonight. A beach house up the coast, and there are 5-10 cops there. The Boss wants Milo dead and the message is that they are not come back until he is.
The gangsters get in the car, get tooled up, then drive up the coast. They're looking to pass the house and park further up the coast then head back on foot for the kill.
Conflict: I think the police are watching the roads to see anything suspicious, while the PCs try to avoid being seen. I throw in a chip and draw a hand, 7 cards discarding down to 5. One of the players throws in a chip and draws cards, discarding down to 5 too. Back to me and I raise. I drop two cards and draw two more. (You can discard as much of your hand as you like can't you? Or up to your "skill"?) The player folds to howls of abuse from the others! I show 4 Kings and the folding player gets to act smug for folding! The result is a win for the cops, and it's quite a lot of success. I say that the cops know: who they are, what they're packing, where they're going, and so on.
A player spends a story chip to add that the ratting cop knows too, and word will get back to the boss (kind of explaining why everything was blown if it goes wrong).
Very nice. The PCs drive on oblivious to this and then park their car a few miles up coast where I have them attacked by a couple of cops with a headlight and guns.
Conflict: The cops ambush the PCs and want to shoot them up, the PCs don't want shot, and at least one of them wants to shoot out the light. One of the PCs wins and gets a pile of chips, they also narrate the shots missing, everyone getting out the car and the light getting shot out.
In a follow-up conflict the PCs get rid of the two cops...
The PCs reach the beach house and I throw a chip away to state that one of the cops they can see is one of their brothers in law! Sarah responds by throwing away a story chip and says he's the ratting cop. Great!
The final climax scene is pretty cool. I add 3 story chips to my pile for it, and I have another 2 to add when they get to see Milo. The PCs battle the cops in a few interesting ways, one runs straight in guns blazing, another rams a car through the porch, Sarah's mobster sneaks in a side window, a molotov is thrown and bullets are flying on both sides. The play was very intuitive with people throwing in chips, seeing, raising and folding. The damage worked well too, we could have done with a few cheat sheets of poker ranks though!
The chips ebbed and flowed and in the end chips flowed my way as the cops got some good hands (just went that way) and the players bet on me having a hand of crap each time (maybe they should have folded and played for better hands?). Anyway, it ended up with two PCs chipped out and in the next conflict they put everything on one last attempt to kill Milo, which failed. (Everyone was aiding Two Punch Correlli who went all in, guns blazing. He walked into a lucky straight for me as I spent most of my accumulated story chips to get extra cards.)
The last PC had one chip left but didn't want to conflict with the cops getting Milo away safely, so we ended there. It was very enjoyable and it was pretty fair, sometimes that's just the way it goes. Everyone had the way to play figured out pretty quickly and it was fun not knowing what we had in our hands and knowing that the outcome depended on it.
Great stuff, and as I said elsewhere one of the players was wanting to order the game online the next day.
For info: the map I used was from my Lola Martin scenario
Oh, and a question
Submitted by Gregor Hutton on Wed, 31/10/2007 - 18:27.
In one of the conflicts we got three players and me all with chips in the pot. I had raised to 2 chips, been seen by one of the players, the next folded and the third raised to 3 chips, where I then folded. This left two players in, one of whom had to see, raise, call or fold. This was very cool. One of the PCs was going to win the pot and get to determine the success level.
I'm guessing that it's cool for the PCs to discuss between them, if they want, what their hands are to maximise the success level?
As it was Sarah folded rather than seeing, raising or calling and let the other player get the win and narration.
If they had both showed their cards and one had a better hand than the other by 1 step, what would the outcome be on the NPCs (who folded)? Just that one success or all the success levels down to 0 since the NPCs in the end didn't follow through with their opposition?
Great scene and tension really helped on by the system!
(Oh, and the winner got my 2 chips, Sarah's 2, the other player's 1, plus their own 3 back.)
This sounds like a fantastic
Submitted by Iain McAllister on Wed, 31/10/2007 - 21:55.
This sounds like a fantastic little scenario Gregor, thanks for running it. We should get my demo pack up online, I will talk to paul about jazzing it up.
The rules say that when someone folds if there is any damage to be taken they receive the minimum amount possible from the conflct. This will be the damage of the gun plus 1 level. For most NPCs this will take them out straight away. Bit players and leads will take their damage in their own way.
Cheers
Iain
Mob Justice now available!
'The Giant Brain':Small games, big ideas.
Answer
Submitted by Gregor Hutton on Wed, 31/10/2007 - 22:04.
Ah ha, now I have access to the book again I see the answer(s)!
Actually I should point out my mistakes here, and places where I simplified things (either for the sake of brevity, simplicity or just being plain forgetful).
So, the pot where the two players were left in should have had the pot split between them, starting with the higher hand (p. 122). Brilliant!
I gave the players 3 chips to start the game rather than 5, just to save on some economy and make the game shorter. I explained that they'd need these to "conflict" with each other and the NPCs. No chips = No conflict.
I also said that they were like "drama dice" or whatever, and could be used to add elements. For simplicity I just let them bring something in with 1 chip, rather than the 1 chip = rumour, 2 = fact, 3 = affects someone else.
Damage! Slightly wrong, sorry. I did Wounds on a "red" card discarded from the deck, when it should have been on a Heart. Bah, when I reread it later I realised I had forgotten that one! I was sure it was Black Cards or Spades for Social Damage (i.e see it's Spades!).
I forgot to tell them they could Mulligan a hand in the initial draw with a Story Chip.
I added Scene Chips to my pile as you suggested in your e-mail and that worked OK. I probably should have discarded 2 chips when I brought in the ambush (as per p. 111) and allowed them to use Story Chips to add scene elements.
I simplified the narration of chips in a skirmish, since I am wary of this "stakes pre-narration of outcomes" thing that everyone goes on about. Basically, we set out an intent when we threw our first chip in and then just played through the rounds of check, see, raise, fold or call. It was quite intuitive and we had the winner(s) telling us what happened.
Oh, I handed out a couple of story chips for good role-playing, but I'm not sure that's in the book. Apols, if that's wrong. Perhaps the only way for the players to get more chips was to win them in Skirmishes. How do you get back up from 0 chips? Do you get them at the start of a scene?
So, educational and pretty close to being right.
I found the smaller pots helped for a quicker game where in a campaign you'd get more play out of larger stacks, etc.
Folding, yes!
Submitted by Gregor Hutton on Wed, 31/10/2007 - 22:13.
The one time a player folded he was bailed out by another player taking narration after I'd also folded. Jammy sod! So there wasn't any damage to come out of that conflict.
The conflict where the PCs and NPCs took damage was when we both stayed in to the bitter end! So... yeah... messy!
I wonder if the players would have folded instead if they'd known they'd have taken 6 damage for doing so, rather than 5 + the difference in hand rank? Likely not, as they were confident of themselves. :)
None of the PCs got killed, a couple got shot up (and they'd have only been half shot-up if I'd remembered the Hearts thing...). It was the lack of story chips that done them in at the end, and they lost those fair and square!
Oh, I realised I let them spend a chip to get an extra card but I think that might have been wrong. Dang.
Ouch, red cards for damage
Submitted by Iain McAllister on Thu, 01/11/2007 - 09:29.
Ouch, red cards for damage would even more brutal than the damage is at the moment. It is just hearts but no biggy. Spending chips for extra cards isn't right.
Getting chips when you are at 0 is tricky, but basically you have to rely on the good will of the other players and help them out in a skirmish without actually throwing in chips yourself. I will take some of your simplifications on board and fold it into the next time I run the game at a con.
To be honest I think I have given out chips for good roleplaying but can't remember if it is an actual rule. Will read up and get back to you on that one.
Thanks for all the info. gregor.
Cheers
Iain
Mob Justice now available!
'The Giant Brain':Small games, big ideas.
Luckily
Submitted by Gregor Hutton on Thu, 01/11/2007 - 10:57.
Luckily in this short game the damage didn't affect anyone's hand draw, it was just damage after they'd been chipped out.
The players would have been chipped back in if they'd won the final conflict as they were assisting another player with chips. But the good guys won (i.e. the NPCs).
Oh, handouts!
Submitted by Gregor Hutton on Fri, 02/11/2007 - 18:14.
Yes, a handout summarising what we can spend story chips on, etc. would be great.