I’m running a 15 person, multi-leg, PBP on discord.
We started with about a month of prep for racers to build teams, buy/craft vehicles, and role-play in a racer’s banquet where several suspicious attendees were caught trying to sabotage various PC ships.
Here’s some of our house rules:
Challenge format:
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Piloting checks (and co-piloting if applicable)
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Resolve positions
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Actions and Maneuvers
Piloting checks: Pick your speed and compare it with your silhouette. Take whichever one is the highest and that one determines the amount of the difficulty dice. Then the lower one is used to determine the number of upgrades to the difficulty. Add one setback for the falling snow and rocks.
Co-piloting checks are made befire piloting checks (for teams with a Co-pilot).
- Co-piloting checks are reserved for the piloting challenges or the Action phase after positions are determined. They will not be used in position checks.
- Co-piloting check is PP. If successful it will reduce pilots difficulty by 1.
These piloting checks determine if you are going the speed you intended (success) or are not (failed). If you rolled a Triumph on a successful check, then you automatically moved ahead by 1 position. Despairs had other results, ie. ship crits, and did not automatically lose a position (this time). Fails lost 1 position. There will be 2 more piloting checks (for a total of 3) per leg of the race.
- Triumph will always move you 1 position ahead.
- Despair will always alternate between:
–Roll a ship crit on your first Despair
– Lose a position on the next Despair that follows a ship crit Despair. - Threat will always be applied to System Strain
Resolve Positions
- If your ship is traveling at a speed faster than the ship in front of you, you must roll a simple competitive piloting check to overcome/pass that vehicle. The “Passer” must roll more successes than the “Defender” to pass them. Defenders get 1 boost to hold their position and Passers get 1 setback with their competitive rolls. (Essentially these are the Chase rules, with terrain removed since we already did the piloting check involving terrain. We have also removed the Chase rule about added range bands gained after overtaking. Shortcut or other Chase talents apply.)
- Boosts from the Piloting check can be applied here or saved or the next Piloting check. No handling, customized controls, or other assists.
- Racers may only overtake 1 position per round.
- No droid brain assists.
- Advantages gained in position checks will NOT carry over to the next piloting check
Actions and Maneuvers
1 maneuver per team, 1 action per team
- Use the last determined position as the order in which PCs (racers and crews) can make a maneuver. Maneuvers can be found in [cheat sheet doc].
- Fly/Drive has already been established and will not be used as a maneuver unless you are trying to get next to someone to bump them. Accelerate will be needed to narratively explain how a racer stays in the running after a failed piloting check. Accelerate to speed 1 or Punch It for more.
- Punch It can be used by players who have failed their speed checks to regain speed. They still suffer strain as written in the rules.
- Yes, bumping is racing and will follow Collision rules. That vehicle must be in the position ahead of you or behind you to bump. Both ships suffer Crits, however the ship with the bigger Sil gets -10 on crit. Pilot choosing to bump must roll a hard piloting check
- Evasive Action allow you to upgrade a bump roll against you. All other vehicle to vehicle combat may result in your disqualification.
- Take an Action. Actions an be found in [cheat sheet doc].
Co-Piloting: If you co-piloted as part of the Piloting check, then you already used your action. Thus, a second action like Damage Control (Manual Repairs) cannot be made if the co-piloting action was already taken.
Challenges
Piloting checks were as follows for the 3 piloting checks made during the leg:
- Hard PPPKK piloting check with setbacks for snow and falling rocks
2)Dead Man’s Curve:
Speed 2: No upgrade (Unless vehicle is Sil 1)
Speed 3: Upgrade
Speed 4: Upgrade 2x
Speed 5-6: Upgrade 3x
- Setbacks Galore!
- Forrest trees!
- River canyon!
- Freezing rain!
- Shots fired from rebel terrorists! (There will be actual shooting as well)
DIFFICULTY +KKKK
Normal speed upgrades apply.
Race leg took 2 weeks. Hardest part was keeping track of all the rolls and creating immersion. Next round will have a few small tweaks, still TBD.