Chases in Lucky 7

I listen to a podcast called The Grognard Files. They reviewed Savage Worlds in their most recent and very windy episode. One of the things that they mentioned was that they liked the way that Savage Worlds handled chases.

That gave me pause and made me ask myself, “How would I handle chases in Lucky 7?”

“I wouldn’t,” I answered. “I better make some rules for that.”

Chases in Other Games

Chase scenes are a stable of action and adventure entertainment. Despite this, few games that I can think of provide guidance on how to run a chase.

Every James Bond movie features a car chase, so it’s probably no surprise that 1983’s James Bond 007 role-playing_game was recognized for having great chase rules. Maybe they just don’t age well, but I don’t really like them that much. Pretty much it’s just a bidding war between the player and the GM over the higher penalty to the roll. Both sides use the “winning” penalty, but whoever bids the highest penalty gets to decide which side goes first. Maybe you’ll bid high, hoping they’ll flub their roll. But if you’re wrong, they get an attack on you before your turn.

The Savage Worlds system relies on cards, which makes me hate it from the start. Beyond that it assumes that the chase is only over when you kill the chasers. You can never simply outrun, evade, or hide from your pursuers. You must kill them. That’s not what I’m looking for.

My Solution

My solution is combat.

I hear your complaint. “But didn’t you just say…?” Bear with me. It’s not that kind of combat.

The combat isn’t between the pursuer and the escapee. It’s between the abstract embodiment of both the pursuit itself and the escape.

This is going to be hard to explain. But let me try.

The easiest way is with an example.

Jalice has broken into the Temple of K'hala, and stolen K'Hala’s Eye a giant ruby in the scorpion demon’s statue. Unfortunately for Jalice, the High Priest of K'Hala spots her as she leaves the temple, and calls on the Temple Guard to apprehend her. Jalice runs off into the city, and the guards chase after her.

Because Jalice is the one trying to get away, she is the escapee. The action she is trying to accomplish is the escape.

The guards are the ones trying to catch her, so they’re the pursuers. They’re engaged in the pursuit.

The first thing the GM has to do is decide how difficult it will be for Jalice to escape. he does this by assigning a a number of lives (or hit points) to both the escape and the pursuit. The more lives that the escape has, the easier it will be for Jalice to escape. The more lives the pursuit has, the easier it will be for the guards to catch her. The more lives they have combined, the longer the escape will take to play out–probably to the point of tedium. I suggest 2 lives for the less probable event (escaping or getting caught), and base the stronger side on the desired ratio.

In this case, the GM wants to give Jalice a fairly good chance of getting away, so he gives the pursuit 2 lives, and the escape he gives 4.

The player said she was running before the GM said the guards were chasing, so she gets the first action. The player says that Jalice is running down a busy side street and discarding her temple robes to try to fool the guards. The GM rules that would be a Streetwise skill vs the guards' observation skill. If the Jalice makes the roll, the pursuit loses one life; if she fails it doesn’t. It’s that simple. Let’s say she makes it. The pursuit now has one life left; the escape still has four.

The GM narrates that half of the guards run the wrong way, but a few are still following her. One of them picks up a metal bowl from a vendor’s stand and throws it at her to slow her down. Remember, in Lucky 7 the NPCs never roll—only the player does. So the GM has the player roll Jalice’s Fighting Defense skill vs the NPC’s Aiming skill. If the Jalice makes the roll, nothing changes; if she fails the roll, the the escape loses 1 life. In essence, she’s making a savings throw (on behalf of the escape) to avoid the escape losing a life. Let’s say she fails the roll. The pursuit still has one life left, but the escape only has three lives left.

That’s the basic idea. Maybe next turn Jalice would try climbing to the roofs (Athletics skill), hiding in a dark doorway (Stealth skill), or convincing a merchant to hide her (Persuasion skill). No matter what she tries, if it succeeds it will bring the Pursuit down to 0 lives, and she will have escaped. If she fails, the chase goes at least another turn.

If the dice turn against her, and somehow the Escape goes down to 0 lives before the Pursuit does, then she will be caught. Even though the Escape is down to 0 lives, Jalice is still at full health.

Epilogue

That’s it.

Sorry for no post last week, it was very very busy between the two jobs.

I feel I need to rewrite this whole chase thing in a clearer way, but I’m late getting this post out.