Heroes often find themselves in tense and dangerous situations such as defusing a bomb, hacking a computer, or rescuing people from a burning building or sinking ship with a definite, and sometimes deadly, time limit.
The system below simulates these events and helps the Game Master insert some drama into what would otherwise be simple skill rolls.
When to Use These Rules: Dramatic Tasks are great for tense actions that must be performed in a hurry or have disastrous effects if failed.
The Basics: The heroes make skill rolls to accumulate “Task Tokens” and resolve the event before time runs out.
The Game Master starts by figuring out what the task is, how long the party has to complete it, and how many tokens they need for success.
Use these guidelines when only a single character can attempt the task each turn:
CHALLENGING: Collect four Task Tokens in three rounds. Examples: Defuse an explosive with no booby traps, hack a keypad on a low-end security door, untangle a parachute before it hits the ground, disengage a train car.
DIFFICULT: Collect six Task Tokens in four rounds. Examples: Defuse a bomb with a booby trap, land a starship with no Piloting skill and instructions.
COMPLEX: Collect eight Task Tokens in five rounds. Examples: Defuse a bomb with multiple booby traps inside a protective case, hack into a highly protected computer system, repair a complicated machine with multiple moving or electronic parts.
If more than one person can attempt the task at once, such as crewing different stations in a falling starship, the GM must set the number of rounds and tokens required for victory herself. Here are some guidelines.
Assume each player will average one success per turn. Use that as a guideline if you want the task to be “fair,” and set the number of rounds from three to five as you feel appropriate. A party of five given three rounds to save a starship, for example, needs to accumulate 15 Task Tokens in three rounds. Increase or decrease the number of tokens to make it more or less challenging.
If the number of tokens achieved is a measure of success rather than a straight win/fail condition, such as rescuing victims from a fire or taking bags of gold from a bank before the automated vault closes, simply set the possible number of tokens that may be gathered in the time allowed. Each token gathered represents a person saved, a bag recovered, etc. It’s up to you whether it’s possible to save them all (using the guide above) or not.
Don’t be afraid to let the party choose how many will attempt the task either, especially if there’s something else going on at the same time. Deciding how many heroes will hack a large computer system while they’re being attacked by security drones allows them to choose their tactics.
Characters are dealt Action Cards as usual during a Dramatic Task. Those attempting the task make relevant skill checks and get a Task Token for each success and raise. Failure means no progress and a Critical Failure reduces progress by one (if there are any).
The skills that can be used to accumulate tokens depends on the situation. They might be defined, such as Repair to defuse a bomb, or they might be open, a security guard might use Athletics to carry people from a burning building while a Jedi uses move object (Force Use).
The GM can break tasks down into steps if she likes, each of which might require different skills. In defusing a bomb, for example, the heroes might first have to get two tokens to crack open the casing using Repair, then three more tokens using Electronics to rewire the timer.
Requiring multiple skills throughout the task makes it more difficult since raises from one type of skill check don’t carry over to the other. In the bomb example above, for example, cracking open the case requires two Repair successes. Additional successes don’t carry over to the Electronics rolls needed afterward.
If a character’s Action Card is a Club, something has gone wrong. Attempts to resolve the task (or Support it!) are made at an additional -2.
Worse, if a roll is failed during a Complication, the Dramatic Task fails, the bomb explodes, the computer locks the hacker out, a victim cannot be saved, and so on. The character may choose not to attempt a roll on a turn he has a Complication, it just costs him precious time.
Support: Characters assisting with the Support option suffer the Complication penalty, and an additional -2 if their Action Card is a Club! Critical Failure on their part just subtracts from the lead’s roll as usual, however, it doesn’t cause the entire task to fail.