Chapter IX: Dramatic Interactions
From D20advanced
A dark-hearted villain, twisted and corrupted by the hatred and vice that have saturated every fiber of his being, fills the head of a noble young hero with promises of power and glory if he forsakes his friends and his family and joins the enemies of freedom. The hero steels his heart against the painful accusations that his friends have betrayed him, that it is only right that he hate them. Each lash of the villain’s tongue is like the blow of a sword against the hero’s very soul, but he must endure lest he fall his own demons.
Somewhere in the heart of a medieval city, a nimble young gypsy is running for his life from the guards. He ducks into an alleyway in an attempt to lose his pursuers, but before he can scurry over a low wall, they catch up to him, only to watch him slip onto the roof of one of the buildings along the waterfront. Soon the chase is resumed, this time with guards following the gypsy thief from rooftop to rooftop, daring death with each leap. The gypsy tries his best to lose his tormentors by overturning boxes and crates in their way, but they are still closing. How could filching one loaf of bread cause so many problems?
Within the dimly-lit halls of the finest night club in the city, the rich and influential drink and dance in time to the thunderous bass of DJ Doc, save a small knot of pretty young women more interested in two handsome young men. With laughs and jovial tones, they exchange witticisms and wise-cracks back and forth. To the untrained eye, it would seem that they are good friends, able to laugh so at their own expense, but a wiser audience would see that their back-and-forth jabs of wit are actually a delicate struggle for supremacy. The winner will enjoy the company of some beautiful ladies, while the loser will go home alone with a bruised ego.
All of these encounters are dramatic interactions. Non-combat but high-tension situations are filled with action and excitement, if not swords clashing and laser blasts sizzling through the air. The dramatic interaction system is designed as a sort of “virtual” combat system to abstract the entire concept of a somewhat extended contest between two or more individuals. Dramatic interaction uses dice pools as a measure of who has the edge, or advantage in a given encounter. Whoever has the edge has more options, and is closer to coming out victorious in the interaction.
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Beginning a Dramatic Interaction
Depending on the dramatic interaction in question, different checks are appropriate to determine the order of action in the subsequent rounds of dramatic interaction. Below is a short list of appropriate checks for various types of dramatic interaction:
- Chases and similar physical dramatic interactions are best started with an opposed initiative check, exactly like combat.
- Social encounters of wit or battles of knowledge are best initiated with opposed sense motive checks.
- Temptations and interrogations should almost always give the tempter/interrogator the first action, since the tempted/suspect almost by definition is entirely reactive in this type of dramatic interaction.
The party with the highest check acts first in all subsequent rounds, and parties with lower results act in descending order from the highest result.
Favorable or Unfavorable Starting Conditions
At the start of a particular dramatic interaction, the GM may decide that circumstances significantly favor one party or the other, and award that party bonus edge dice. Favorable circumstances might include having a higher land speed in a dramatic chase interaction, engaging in a dramatic social interaction in a setting more friendly to one party than the other, and so on. Someone acting under favorable circumstances might gain additional Edge dice, or a circumstance bonus to checks during a dramatic interaction (usually +2 or +4).
Rounds
Dramatic interaction is something like combat in that it is divided into rounds. The rounds are not particularly well defined in terms of length. The separation into rounds is a purely mechanical division to bring order to dramatic interaction. Each character may act once in each round. Unlike the well-defined actions in combat, an action during a dramatic interaction might take only a few seconds, or it might take several minutes. Thus a “round” in a dramatic interaction is nothing more than how long it takes all interested parties to finish reacting to one set of actions from one another.
Edge
The advantage which one party may have over another in dramatic interaction of any sort is represented by dice pool of edge dice. The more edge dice a character has, the more options he has open to him. Characters may gain or lose edge dice as they and their opponent act during a dramatic interaction. Generally speaking, at the start of a dramatic interaction, each party involved gains five edge dice apiece, and the interaction ends when one party has all ten dice and the other party has none, though this could change depending on circumstances.
Each dramatic interaction has different sorts of actions a character can take, depending on exactly what sort of dramatic interaction the characters are engaged in. In general, characters gain and lose the edge by “wagering” dice based on how big a risk they’re taking with their declared action.
Wagering Edge Dice
Each round, the parties involved in the dramatic encounter announce actions in the order of initiative. The party with the highest initiative declares her action and which party she wishes to target (if there are multiple parties involved in the dramatic interaction, see below). Depending on the nature of the action, the GM decides which skill is most appropriate, and the player chooses how many dice to wager (more dice signifies a riskier, but potentially more rewarding, action). The opposing party makes his or her own wager, and then the player then makes an opposed check with the other party. A character may wager and roll any number of edge dice on a single action. The winner of this check takes both parties’ wagers. In the event of a tie, neither party gains or loses any edge dice: wagers are void.
A party can always choose not to wager and take no proactive action on a given round, if they don’t see a way to take an advantage, or don’t want to risk losing more edge dice. However, if the other party makes a wager, then that wager must be opposed (even if only with one edge die).
As a dice pool, there is a certain numerical advantage to rolling more dice than fewer. However, unlike other dice pools, a character risks losing all of his or her dice if the other parties roll well, so it’s riskier too. But having the edge in this way, with more dice than an enemy, enables a character to be more liberal with his or her actions, taking more chances and making riskier moves.
Just as with any other skill checks, circumstances might modify skill checks in dramatic interactions. Favorable or unfavorable circumstances to individual types of checks might grant characters attempting to use those skills a bonus or penalty for that specific check, as circumstance dictates. For example, if during a chase, the thief being chased by the guards announces he wants to attempt to run across a sloped tile roof after a rain storm, both he and his pursuers suffer normal penalties to their Acrobatics checks for trying to cross such a precarious surface.
Outside Factors
At points during the interaction, the GM might interject requests for different checks from the parties involved, representing factors outside of the control of the parties’ control. In a foot chase, for example, a GM might request an Endurance check from the parties after a certain number of rounds to see if either party is slowing down because of simple fatigue, while in a social interaction, the parties might have to contend with an audience member blurting something embarrassing out. These outside factors usually do not require the parties to wager Edge Dice, but might impose penalties on future checks. These outside factors need not affect both parties: it might only require a check from one of the involved parties.
Large Parties
If one particular group in a particular dramatic interaction is made up of multiple parties (such as a mob of local citizen with flashlights and hunting rifles chasing an escaped criminal, or a noble and his sycophants hurling insults in the king’s court), have one member of that group be the leader (usually the one with the most ranks in appropriate skills). This character makes all the checks, while the rest of the party attempts to use that skill check to “aid another”, granting the leader a cumulative +2 bonus on his check for each other member of the group who succeeds on a DC 10 check in the appropriate skill. In these situations, track edge dice for the group as a whole.
As a shortcut, GMs may wish to have characters who are classified as minions simply make one roll, with a +1 bonus to the roll for each member of the group of minions (assuming about half of the minions will succeed on the DC 10 check to aid the leader).
Multiple Parties
Particularly in dramatic social interactions, there might be multiple sides to any given dramatic interaction. All parties involved track their edge dice individually, but must choose individual targets for each of their actions. Only that target must make a counter-wager and opposed check each round.
Alternatively, the GM may allow one party to target multiple parties at once. In this case, all involved parties wager and make their opposed roll. If the party who initiated the action against one or more targets is victorious, that party collects all the wagered edge dice. If the other parties are instead successful, they split the loser’s wagered edge dice between one another (in the case of an uneven split, the party with the highest result gets the extra edge die). If one targeted party loses, but another succeeds in the opposed check, wagers are still exchanged. The parties that lost surrender their edge dice to the party who defeated them.
For instance, in a social interaction, a young socialite may attempt to flirt with two other characters’ girlfriends. In the opposed check, he wagers three edge dice, and his opponents each wager one on opposed Persuasion checks. The flirt manages to best one of the boyfriends, but fails to defeat the other. In this situation, the boyfriend who lost the opposed check surrenders one edge die to the flirt, while the flirt loses three edge dice to the boyfriend who succeeded.
Passive Parties
In the case of passive "opponents" in a dramatic interaction (such as searching out bombs hidden around a building), that party doesn't take any actions or make any active wagers. These types of opponents will only react to the characters' checks, making their counter-wager (usually just one die) with a smaller set of opposed checks (usually even just one skill).
Winning a Dramatic Interaction
The dramatic interaction lasts until one character runs out of edge dice, in which case she “loses” the dramatic interaction. If it is a chase, her pursuers might corner her and force combat. In a social battle, she might be laughed out of the room. If it is a test against temptation, she might give in to her vice and succumb to her tempter’s will.
On the other hand, if the character manages to force her opponent to run out of tokens, she prevails in the encounter. In the example of the chase dramatic interaction, for example, the character escapes from her pursuers. In a social battle, it is her opponent who leaves, flustered and disgraced. If it is a matter of temptation, the villain’s attempt to assert her will over the character is utterly thwarted.
Note that there is always the option for one party to simply hand over his or her edge tokens and surrender
Walking Away
There is also a chance in some interactions, especially in social interactions, for one party to simply walk away before any one party has all the edge dice. In a social interaction, this is the equivalent of leaving gracefully before anyone’s dignity is in tatters. It is up to the GM to decide if this is an acceptable end to the interaction.
In this situation, the party with the most edge dice is declared to be the winner, but it’s not a total victory, and the results of the interaction are less certain.
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| Chapter VII: Combat | Combat Sequence | Combat Statistics | Actions | Action Descriptions | Damage | Tactical Movement and Options | Maneuvers | |
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| Chapter VIII: Environments | Zones | Terrain Effects | Climate Effects | Conditions | |
| Chapter IX: Dramatic Interactions | Dramatic Interaction | Interaction Types | Reputation | Mental Strain | Taint | Examples of Taint | |
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