I read Shotgun Diaries and like the fear mechanism in it. Now 3:16 is no horror game, but I think that it would be nice to include a fear factor or moral.
My idea to implement it is the following. There are NFA fear checks (at the start of a combat or when they take a hit), if a trooper fails it his fear rating increases.
The fear rating comes from 1-11 and starts at 11. Whenever you fail a roll (FA or NFA) and you roll higher then your fear rating, then you act in fear and it is played as a waekness flashback in combat (just without the flashback part and only the rules). You are ruled by fear ad leave your friends alone, well it might save your life.
The rating is lowered, when the character fails a Fear check. So the risk of dangerous failures increases over the time and frightned characters become more unreliable.
I would start at 11, meaning that there is no fear in the beginning. But of course you can start with it at ten and having a chace of 10% go get a fear result.
Example:
You have a fear rating of 8 and an FA of 6. You are in a combat situation and roll to attack with your FA. Dang you rolled a 9, a failure. However your die shows a number higher then your fear rating. That means you act in fear and are now out of combat.
Lets say you have a Fear rating of 11 in the beginning of the game. A rating of 11 makes it implossible to panic. Now you take a hit in an encounter. That means you have to make a Fear check. A Fear check is a NFA check. If you fail that your Fear rating decreases. In the example it would drop to 10. Giving you a chance of 10% to panic, while performing an action (FA or NFA).
Another failed Fear check, will increase the chance to 20%, meaning that your Fear rating is now at 9. If you roll now a 9 or 10 on any check (FA or NFA), you panic.
The GM could also call for a Fear check if the trooper is confronted with a frighting situation.
I am not sure what happens if you fail your fear check. Probabily your action is lost.
What do you think? Would it be to harsh?
From Gregor Hutton:
“They shall know no fear.”
Oops, that’s a quote from a different IP…
I like the idea of something like Coolness Under Fire. Roll NFA for your Dominance roll. If you fail you’re at -1 till you get your shit together in Combat. You get your shit together by (a) getting wounded, (b) passing an NFA test in an Encounter or (c) using a Strength.
“Hey, Jones, you’re looking twitch.”
“Shut up, Fagor, I’ll be fine, just watch me. Bring ‘em on.” (looks nervy)
Interesting mechanic.
You can adjust the rules by how harsh you want the fear to be.
In a macho Space Marine game I would make the Fear penalty weaker. I would give the pc who failed their Fear check a -1 penalty to both stats for as long as he faces that particular enemy. Maybe only make it a Weakness when a “10″ is rolled.