Making NFA challenges cost Threat
So, our 3:16 game had this problem. Which is that the GM loved to call for NFA rolls. Sometimes, he puts consequences on NFA rolls that impacted the combat game, such as taking away a soldier’s gun.
This got to be a serious problem when it resulted in our squad being totally hosed because of our need to balance NFA and FA in case we actually got into a fight.
Now, the solution in our game was to ask the GM to quit doing that. Fair enough.
But I think it highlights something that could be tweaked in the general gameplay. Why not have non-encounter challenges cost Threat? If the GM makes a PC roll outside an encounter, he spends one Threat to do it.
If you think about it, this is the mirror of a Spotlight scene from 316 AD, where a successful check sometimes removes a Threat token.
Failures act first
Characters who fail a roll in combat get to do their color narration before those who succeed. Essentially, those who fail get to frame the next round of action for those who succeed.
I’ve tried out the second optional rule: failures act first. But I didn’t notice any real difference. Can you gives examples how players who have failed did color narration?
I think the GM is *supposed* to do things like that with NFA rolls, though I can see it would be easy to hose players. It would be nice to have it tied to the budget in some way, but I think a threat is too high a price to way without more concrete guidelines over for the effect. I call for NFA rolls a lot, but most of them don’t have lasting effects.
I can’t commend to on the spotlight scenes rule, since I haven’t seen it *wail*.
Re: Failures Act First – I like the idea of this. In my groups, the failure narration tends to be bland, an afterthought, but putting it first gives a chance for other people to spin off it with their successes – it sounds worth trying.