Great White Games/Pinnacle Entertainment Group

[Bhikku]

It seems like Chase rules are one of the few things that get regularly altered from edition to edition. I was reasonably happy with the SWEX version, but I'm always open to improvements.

Have you used both versions in your games? If so, what differences did you notice in gameplay?

Is one version going to be more suited to certain campaigns or playstyles than another - e.g. is one grittier and the other more dramatic, or anything like that?

And the big one: If I don't bother to learn the new rules, am I missing out on some good opportunities? Is the difference in the play experience really significant enough to be worth the effort? (I'd assume so, since the Pinnacle guys are clearly not inclined to make changes just for the sake of changing things, but I'd like to hear noticeable it is from the perspective of the GM and players moreso than the designers.)
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You can't save the world without kicking a few old ladies down the stairs.

[ValhallaGH]

The big difference I've noticed is drama. How dramatic is the chase in play? Under the old (SWEX) rules, by round two the chase was pretty much decided - one side was so far in the lead that there was no hope of the other side catching up, and rarely any hope of their attacks hitting. The new (SWD) chase rules maintain the drama because you never know when the other guy is going to gain the Advantage.

Oh, and the old chase rules had a quirk where the loser in a dog-fight chase was actually in the best position to shoot. That's not the case anymore.


The general consensus is that the new rules are better for dog fights, and other flitting engagements, where advantage and position can change at the drop of a card. The old rules are generally considered better for a race scenario, since they focus on relative distance.


Will you miss out? Probably. Does it take much effort? Nope; I find the SWD rules to be easier to grok than the SWEX version ever was.
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[Virgobrown72]

Well, technically, the old ruls worked fine for dogfights if you go by strictly as written- A success on this roll allows the character to alter his distance from the opposition by 1 Range Increment (closer or farther as they wish). If they get a raise on the roll, they can alter their distance by 2 Range Increments.

In a dogfight situation, it would determine how close enemies were, and you could always change direction (from away to towards an enemy) in order to get a better shot. My groups preferthe old chase rules, and they've been quite groovy for our games...

YMMV...
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"Anything smaller is just fiddly, and fiddly is not one of SvgW's three Fs..."

[Virgobrown72]

Vehicle battles on the playmat are cool too...
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"Anything smaller is just fiddly, and fiddly is not one of SvgW's three Fs..."

[ValhallaGH]

[fanchergw]

I haven't used the new Chase rules as my group is still using SWEX. However, I will say that the older Chase rules seemed to work reasonably well for ship chases and combats in our 50 Fathoms game.

Gordon

[Sean-Khan]

[Jordan Peacock]

I don't really think that ANY version of Chase rules would satisfactorily cover both dogfights and street chases at the same time -- but I see them as pretty much patch-gap measures to provide a GM with a super-abstract, generic base solution to vehicle action that can be tweaked or replaced for more specific scenarios. It's similar to how the SWEX/SWD core rules need some "generic" Arcane Backgrounds and Powers to start with, even though any published setting is almost certainly going to tweak those considerably to fit its own needs.

When I started up my newer Pirates RPG campaign, we got to the carriage chase scene in "The Lady's Favor" (included adventure in the POTSM book), and I went with the new Chase rules because ... well, those were the new rules that had just come out.

If you have miniatures to represent the vehicles, the SWD Chase rules won't help any, since everything is rather abstract. The whole business about maneuvering for "advantage" seems heavily slated toward a "dogfight" scenario where you've got guns mounted on the front of your vehicle, and that is all.

So, we ran the SWD Chase rules for 2 or 3 rounds. We had 4 horsemen chasing one carriage, and all the PCs were piled into one carriage. Even though the coach driver rolled reasonably well and drew multiple cards at times, due to the luck of the draw, the pursuing horsemen usually had the Advantage. I was struggling to come up with narrative explanations for why exactly it was that the horsemen were able to fire at the coach, but several PCs in the coach were totally incapable of firing back.

By the end of round 3, not only were the players frustrated with the SWD Chase rules, but I was, too. I just don't think they were meant for this situation. Since most of the PCs were unable to do anything useful (such as returning fire), they were scrambling to try to find outside-the-box ways to interact. (I.e., "We could throw these two unconscious people out the back and maybe they'd stop for them! Does that count as an attack?")

I pretty much tossed the Chase rules out at that point: All that really mattered was that for the remaining X rounds, we had horsemen galloping after a coach, and they could exchange shots with each other, and if only the heroes could survive for enough rounds, they'd get away. As it turned out, they were able to pretty handily take out the pursuing horsemen, making the "chase" aspect kind of moot -- so I can see the desire to limit the PCs' abilities to return fire, so the Extras last a little longer, but it really wasn't worth it for the frustration the SWD Chase rules presented in this situation.

The up-side to the SWD Chase rules, in my comparative experience, is that right up front you've got a cap on how long this Chase is going to drag out. It's going to last for X rounds, and if it hasn't been resolved (by one party or the other being taken out, or "boarding actions" commencing), then the fleeing party escapes, and that's that. That definitely takes care of some of the "see-saw" issues I've seen in SWEX Chases with Extras making their driving/piloting/etc. rolls and hopping forward and moving back seemingly randomly each round. Having some sort of a "round cap" for a SWEX chase could be beneficial ... but I think that's something for the GM to decide on a case-by-case basis.

In either case, I think there are situations where neither the SWEX nor the SWD Chase rules are appropriate to resolve a situation. If it's a "chase" through an open stretch of space (e.g., Star Destroyer vs. Blockade Runner) or on an open stretch of highway (e.g., Road Warrior 2 with dune buggies and motorcycles catching up on a tractor-trailer), the regular vehicle rules can still be used with a slight degree of abstraction.

That would be: The miniature representing the focus of the action stands still on the table, and the rest of the vehicles gain on it or fall behind depending on their relative speeds. If the fleeing vehicle is faster, then the pursuers have X rounds to shoot out its tires or cripple its engines. If the fleeing vehicle is slower, then it's only a matter of time before the pursuers board it, unless they're eliminated first. Complications might come in the form of obstacles each round that individual drivers have to swerve to avoid (random junk on the highway, a motorcyclist who just got wiped out and the bikes right behind him have to avoid). Otherwise there's no "Advantage" to worry about, or random jockeying for position.
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[Bhikku]

Thank you for the thorough and well-considered feedback. I think you're right to say that any chase rules are just a tool to be used or discarded as suits the GM or playgroup. It sounds as though the SWD rules will be handy for dogfight-style scenarios, while the SWEX would adequately handle something more in the vein of that carriage chase - essentially position vs proximity situations. I also like your proposed abstraction for wide open situations like a desert highway.

It sounds like it will be well worth the effort to familiarize myself with the new rules, but the EX rules will be worth keeping handy for the right occasion.
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You can't save the world without kicking a few old ladies down the stairs.

[Virgobrown72]

One thing I did do to improve upon the SWEX style chase rules was to incorporate obstacles on the clubs cards like in "Daring Tales of Adventure". It pumped up the narrative factor of my chases immensely, and gave a high action feel to the chases.
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"Anything smaller is just fiddly, and fiddly is not one of SvgW's three Fs..."

[ProfMarks]

[Bhikku]

[Locke]

I'll go ahead and toss my two cents in, even though I don't have any experience with the SWEX chase rules. One thing that really helped my understanding of the SWD rules (something I wish I would have grasped before two stupid chases in my fantasy game) was that rounds during a chase don't necessarily equal combat rounds.

The first chase I ever ran had a group of bandits trying to escape the PCs' campsite, with both groups on foot. Rather than extending the chase rounds to minute increments, I was running it like a regular combat encounter. It completely destroyed any fun my players might have found in it, and I was--as was mentioned in the carriage chase example--running out of ways to describe exactly how the PCs managed to gain the advantage over their prey.

Anyway, there's my thought on the matter. Take it for what it's worth.
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[The Dread Polack]

I've run two foot-races in my fantasy campaign. The first went badly, mostly because it was new to all of us (as were the SW rules entirely). The second went slightly better.

I have two issues with the rules. The first is the way range is handled for attacks. It seems strange to me that becuase of a random card draw, you can go from being unable to attack at short range to being able to attack at long range. This isn't a major problem, since I can easily narrate this.

The second problem, related to the first, is that it doesn't feel like you're really making "progress" in the chase. It simply ends after 5 rounds, regardless of range. In the second chase, one character made it to the 5th round, the whole time being at short range, taking melee attacks, and simply escaped. That was a big harder to explain.

One possible solution, I thought, was to require that the "mouse" gain 3 successes more than the "cat" in order to end the chase. This has the obvious problem of allowing the chase to possibly go on indefinitely. I'm not sure how often this is going to come up, so I haven't given it much more thought than that.

[ValhallaGH]

[Ron Blessing]

[The Dread Polack]

[archus]

[Sean-Khan]

no, I just can't start liking swd chase rules, even if I try. I think minis just fit so well in chases and I'd like to have some kind of picture of who's leading. I started tinkering chase rules of my own to satisfy my needs, based on ee chase structure but much more streamlined, and giving issues to too fast runaways.
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Shaper & Maker - modelling, gaming & a lot of other stuff

[archus]