Action Scenes

[Krayt]

Hey!

I just thought of this while writing up an adventure... Space combat and other "exciting" scenes don't seem to, well, exciting when you roll dice in the middle of it (unless you roll dice, talk, and think at the same time). Is there anything you guys use to "spice up" those exciting scenes?
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"Your lack of faith disturbs me." - Vader

[Gry Sarth]

I don't know, for my group the dice rolling in itself is a pretty big part of the excitement of an action scene, it's an integral part of it. It's like:

GM - "Now, as you're running from the troopers, you find yourself on the edge of the rooftop, your only choice is to jump to the next rooftop, which is 3 meters away. The difficulty is 22 and if you fail, there's a 13 meters fall waiting for you."

P1 - "Agh! I only have 4D climbing/jumping, and I'm WOUNDED! Ill never make it."

P2 - "That's for sure. Don't worry, I'll collect your blaster later on"

P1 - "Ha-ha. Very funny. Well, I have no choice, I'll try it. COME ON LUCKY DICE!! All sixes! All sixes!"

P3 - "You can do it!"

P2 - "No, you can't."

GM - The troopers are on your heels.

P1 - "SHUT UP! (rolls) 5-4-5 = 14 DAMN IT!"

P2 - "Hahahahaha"

P1 - "No way! I'm spending a Character Point!"

P2 - "It's not gonna help you, you're still 8 short."

P1 - "Never tell me the odds! (rolls) 6. A SIX!!! HAHAHA IN YOUR FACE!" (rolls again). 2. That's what? Uh 22? Spot on 22?! I MADE IT!"

GM - "Yes, you just barely make the jump, your heart skipping a beat."

P2 - "Lucky b@st@rd*....."



So, you see, there's plenty of excitement to be had simply from the dice rolling. It doesn't have to be mechanical.
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"He's Gry Sarth, of course he has the stats for them."

[Krayt]

Yeah, I guess you're right.

The excitment of dice rolling is apparent. I guess it just appears like a drag, but it isn't. Thanks!

(I hope player 2 from you example rolls a 1 on the wild dice )
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"Your lack of faith disturbs me." - Vader

[Gry Sarth]

If your dice rolling appears to drag, you might want to consider cutting out some of it, mostly on the GM's part. All those hidden rolls a GM has to make to decide the outcome can be easily and quickly fudged. You can fake some amazing calculating skills by simply rolling a bunch of dice, staring at them for 2 seconds and then deciding whether they succeded or not. Don't do that too often, though, as the players will catch on to you. Just do it when you feel the action must be kept at a brisk pace and you can't waste time thinking about all those rolls.

(and don't worry, Player 2 dies a gruesome death midway through the adventure)
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"He's Gry Sarth, of course he has the stats for them."

[hisham]

I usually draw on other media like books, comics and movies for action scenes during GMing.

Books help in putting the right words to the right scene.

Movies have a lot of ideas for action scenes itself.

Comics, as sequential art, is the medium in between the preceding two.

If you analyze action sequences in movies, you wont get something that drags on for even 10 minutes. But in retrospect these scenes last longer in your mind. For instance the car chase in The Rock felt like it was 10 minutes to me, but it actually lasted only about 5 minutes.

What they did was to pile a lot of things happening to the characters where they have to react fast, then move on to the next obstacle. You can see how this translates in gaming terms: you might have to rig so a single type of combat (for instance, a blaster fight) do not last more than 5-6 combat rounds, or you'll have just people rolling dice and counting damage.

Add other things. Make them lose their weapons, and they have to reach for new ones. Make the place they fight in move, like a bridge that's about to fall. A window crashed open and ice and snow swamp the combatants so they have to withdraw or face subzero damage.

I'm sure there are a million ideas you can pull from this suggestion.
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The Enteague Sector | Cracken's Collection of Crackpots
In D6, of course.

[Jedi Skyler]

Hisham's right. In one of my current games, the party got captured by Imperials including a dark Jedi (two of our party are Jedi in a game set 1 year after ROTS). Anything that might be useful to us (including my character's lightsabers, hydrospanners, and datapad) were confiscated, and we had to resort to other means to get out of our predicament. My character's a Jedi padawan with some decent slicing skills, so him being without the datapad was almost as harmful as being without his lightsabers.

Fortunately, we've been able to retrieve our gear. Now if we can just get to the ship and blast outta dodge, we can avoid our Jedi characters being cut down by Darth Vader, who's breathing down our necks even as we are making our escape.

Yeah, this is a play by post game, so lags will happen due to people not posting, but even while we're waiting for the next post, the tension level remains high because there's a great deal of action happening, or a great deal riding on the next couple posts, then the anticipation helps keep the scene from seeming like it's dragging.

[garhkal]

[Jedi Skyler]

Me too. I laughed my butt off!

[Aardon24689]

[Darth_Kjeran]

Chello!

One can also translate the numbers into words. Which sounds better? This: