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Continuing with Robin Laws’ DramaSystem game, we now get to our first group Procedural Scene. This is a different type of scene where the PCs confront and overcome external obstacles. The mechanics use a chip system mixed with a deck of playing cards. Each player, GM included, receives three chips to represent a strong, medium, or weak result. When it comes to a challenge, everyone selects a chip to represent how things go for them and this affects the overall outcome. The cool thing is, these chips do not refresh until you’ve spent all three, so while you may use your best token now, that means you’ll have to use your medium and weak tokens sooner or later.

Session 01 – Scene 07 (Procedural)
The plan has been to pull a heist on a gambling boat while it is out at sea. The henchmen expect it to have a good haul of cash and be remote enough that they won’t have to worry about cops. A.K.A. and Polly Anna are in the heart of the vessel, ready to activate her device to short out the electronics and cause chaos throughout the ship. Mr. Killjoy and Lefty retrieve their weapons and head toward the money cage where cash and chips are kept.

The first thing to go wrong is the EMP device. Maybe her heart isn’t into it, or maybe Polly Anna underestimated the security measures on the ship, but her device doesn’t kill the lights and security the way she intended. She quickly goes to her backup plan – explosives – and causes a good bit of smoke and damage in the engine area of the ship.

Chaos ensues within the ship. Killjoy and Lefty raid the money cage and start to collect their payday. A daring guard retrieves Killjoy’s shotgun and pins the two down, forcing them to retreat without nearly as much money as planned.

Realizing things have gone south, the remaining henchmen come aboard to help out. Nubs sees this as his chance to shine, firing his weapons and announcing that “The Iron Mask is back, bitches!” Subtlety is not his strong point.

A retreating action is fought to a getaway speedboat. The emboldened security crew follows, but they manage to escape with their diminished rewards.

* We replaced yellow medium chips with white, since our set of poker chips doesn’t have a yellow.

Scene 08 – Polly Anna and Mr. Killjoy

While patching Mr. Killjoy up from a few wounds sustained during the heist, Polly Anna talks to him about the Marquis and his ultimatum. She feels that the crew should take their gains to him and join up under the Sadists. The Marquis is a name, and she doesn’t believe that they’ll survive long without such a sponsor. Mr. Killjoy, living up to his namesake, will not support this plan. He doesn’t believe they need the Marquis.

[Polly Anna is the petitioner, and she is denied. +1 token from the table]

There were a few more scenes that night, but admittedly they weren’t great dramatic examples and my notes are woefully lacking. Lefty meets with Mr. Killjoy and discusses a plan to rat out the Marquis to the authorities so they won’t have to deal with him. A.K.A. has a hilarious scene with Nubs where he mimics Treads and tests his loyalty (as expected, Nubs’ ambition greatly outweighs his competence). Finally, there is a quick scene where Killjoy is approached by a man identifying himself as one of the Ironworks, the Iron Mask’s elite crew. He reveals that the Ironworks were hit hard by Bastion, and surviving members are scattered to the four winds. He wants to join up with Killjoy’s crew, if there’s anything left to join.

Theme for Next Session

A new order is determined, and the player of A.K.A is up to choose the Theme for the next game. I provided the list of themes from Henchmen (although the general themes from Hillfolk are also applicable. He chooses: The Case of Legal vs. Moral: The police and crime fighters are not always good guys… When we start Session 02, he’s the first one to call a scene.

Thoughts

The procedural challenge was interesting to run. I wonder if someone out there (other than Robin) has done the statistical math for success rates with the procedurals. I’m sure a lot of it is RNG, but my group has failed a good chunk of the challenges. We’re four sessions in at this point, with around nine procedurals, and I’d say that my players have failed 2/3rds of them. I believe the only successes may be when I spend a Red chip and all they have to match is color. It’s been that bad.

This isn’t horrible, by any means, but it makes it difficult to show the group accomplishing anything important. I’ve advised that we could move towards the goal of leaving out Procedurals completely and just describing the ups and downs in our drama, but I’m not sold. We still like elements of chance in our game, and throwing in the chips is fun.

After listening to the Nyerd podcast with the procedural, I’ve realized that I’m still narrating things a bit much in the procedurals. I love crazy descriptive action scenes and have tried to describe the pitfalls experienced during. I need to let the players take more of a hand in it, describing how they contribute and/or fail based on their card results. I know as a player, I’d love to describe my own failure (and would likely be much harsher than some GMs).

Next Henchman post, I’ll give some overall thoughts about the system and how it’s been a fun transition from our more traditional RPGs.

The first two posts about DramaSystem can be found here:

• https://www.ruined.net/henchmen-a-dramasystem-game/
• https://www.ruined.net/henchmen-what-pcs-want/

How to write up the scenes has been tricky proposition. I could try to cover lots of detail from each interaction, but that’s not my goal here. Add to the fact that the games seem very dense with the number of scenes. The first session had eleven scenes in addition to character creation, while the remainder are averaging sixteen scenes a piece. As much as I want to share all of the juicy details of these games, the wise move is to keep it brief.

Session 01 – Scene 01
The theme of the first session is Panic, and the first scene is a conference scene (involving all PCs) called by the GM (myself). The crew of henchmen are relaxing at a bar / part-time strip club called Mamacita’s. A large Cuban woman known as Mamacita tends the bar while the group chats about upcoming plans. Our four PCs are in attendance: Mr. Killjoy, the muscle of the operation; Polly Anna, the mad inventor; A.K.A., the master of disguise; and Lefty, the prototypical henchman.

The group awaits the arrival of their boss, a super-villain known as the Iron Mask. Her gang consists of three crews: the Ironworks, which are her personal elite unit; the Sadists, run by her cruel second-in-command, the Marquis; and the PCs crew. As a new group, they’re relatively low on the pecking order.

Their attention turns to a television showing a damning news story:

Reports say that the Iron Mask’s SUV was taken out in a pitched battle downtown between her, the police, and a named hero called Bastion. Queue an interview with Bastion, a guy in his twenties with curly blonde hair and a soul patch. He casually talks of how he flung a sports car into the Iron Mask’s vehicle, causing it to explode. He then finishes by promising to hunt down and end the threat posed by the Iron Mask’s gang.

The group discusses how best to save their hides and how to recover from this. In addition to the four established PCs, we have three other henchmen in attendance: Cuffs, Nubs, and Treads (names quickly dreamt up by players). They talk some of the initial plan – the reason why Iron Mask was coming to meet them. They plan to rob a gambling boat that cruises out miles from the coast to skirt local laws. There are fears that the plan could be compromised, but with Iron Mask likely out of the picture, the crew needs all the cash they can steal.

The Marquis is another concern. While not as potent as the Iron Mask, he’s what’s considered a “Name”, definitely more powerful than any of the PCs. There’s discussion of if they should flock to his banners, as surviving as henchman without a Name is a risky proposition. Lefty says there’s no way he intends to wear ass-less chaps like some of the Sadists. That wisdom is enough to convince the crew for now. They split up to reconnoiter their mission and keep a low profile.

[This was an establishing scene. No petitioner, no award of drama tokens.]

Scene 02 – A.K.A. and Mr. Killjoy
A.K.A. talks with Killjoy about their situation and the need to identify themselves. He talks about naming the crew and how they need to proceed. Killjoy rebuffs him, saying that they don’t need to do that, especially with no firm evidence of the Iron Mask being dead.

[Dramatic scenes work on the concept that one character is the petitioner, where he wants some form of emotional reward from another character. If they succeed in getting what they want, that is their reward. The granting player, meanwhile, is rewarded with a drama token. If the petitioner is denied, then the petitioner is awarded a drama token. In this scene, A.K.A. was the petitioner, and was denied. He gets +1 Drama Token from the table (as Mr. Killjoy has none). ]

Scene 03 – Polly Anna and Lefty
While checking out security for the targeted boat, Polly Anna discusses using bombs instead of the agreed-upon EMP detonation to shut down security. She doesn’t want to kill passengers per se, but bombs would leave a lot less to chance. Lefty talks her down, getting her to promise not to blow up the boat.

[Polly Anna was the petitioner and denied. +1 Drama Token from the table.]

Scene 04 – Lefty and A.K.A.
Lefty meets with A.K.A. to discuss the upcoming job. He brings up concerns about Polly Anna, asking A.K.A. to intervene in hopes that she’ll listen to him. A.K.A. thinks it unnecessary, but concedes the point and plans to accompany her during the job.

[Lefty was the petitioner, and is granted. He has no tokens, so A.K.A. receives +1 from the table.]

Scene 05 – A.K.A. and Polly Anna
A.K.A. uses his talents at subterfuge to grant him and Polly Anna access to the ship with her equipment. They go over the plans, with A.K.A. stressing that this should be simple and non-lethal. Polly Anna doesn’t understand his reluctance to violence, her sociopathic traits coming to the fore. To placate him, she agrees that her EMP device will just shut down engines, computers and the like, nothing more.

[A.K.A. was the petitioner, and gets his way. Polly Anna receives +1 token from A.K.A.]

Scene 06 – Mr. Killjoy and Lefty
Posing as passengers, Killjoy and Lefty board the ship without issue. As they’re queued in line, they both receive an audio message on their phone.

“Now that our Lady is gone, order must be re-established. You have three days to present yourself to me. Those who fail to do so shall be considered rogue.”

The image for the message is the black and red cat o’ nine tails symbol that they’ve seen used by the Sadists. Neither is happy to hear the Marquis’ message. They agree that this will have to come before the group before they decide which way to go.

[This scene was called by myself, the GM. I didn’t have a petitioner in mind, so there was no exchange of drama tokens.]

Thoughts

We were feeling our way through this new system, so there were scenes that weren’t especially dramatic. I think everyone did great, and this group has naturally proactive players, but we are accustomed to the GM controlling the setting and plot flow. Without that guidance, things felt odd at first. Most importantly, everyone was having fun.

Early on, we established that A.K.A. is a true shape-shifter instead of just a crafty guy with outfits. The series pitch generally expects the minions to be non-powered, so we discussed it briefly. The player is not an abusive type with story or the rules, so there was no worry of him breaking the game. His plan was to potentially use the ability to mimic distinct PCs or NPCs to create more drama. In Scene Two, his guise is that of a clichéd sorority girl. Killjoy can always see through his forms though, so he just thinks him weird.

Next up, we’ll get to our first procedural scene, the Boat Heist.

The next step in character creation for our DramaSystem Henchmen game was to determine what each character wants from the others. As the book says, this is where we bring dramatic poles into focus, defining them against other PCs.  This is where we find the best sources of dramatic conflict between characters.

Mr. Killjoy is our resident thug, and we find that he’s not-so-normal when compared to the likes of Lefty and other henchmen. He’s been ‘enhanced’ by Polly Anna, and is at times a heartless killing machine. This has left him cold and emotionally-impaired, setting up his dramatic poles (Humanity vs. Callousness). From Polly Anna, his desire is to have her “fix him”. She sees no need, as Killjoy is one of her greatest accomplishments. He’s already fixed.

The thug’s relationship with A.K.A. is a strained one. They’ve butted heads in the past (literally, it sounds like), and Mr. Killjoy feels that he has been wronged too many times. He wants some form of apology or resolution from the master of disguise. A.K.A. barely tolerates speaking to Killjoy, feeling that he’s a musclebound fool, someone there to trick or dominate.  The fun twist to this relationship is we determined that out of everyone, Mr. Killjoy seems immune to the various disguises used by A.K.A. . No matter how he tries, Killjoy can sense who he really is (even when A.K.A. has trouble with the distinction).

Polly Anna is the young female mad scientist, torn between her dramatic poles to create and destroy. This comes to the forefront with A.K.A. who she sees as an authority more than anyone else. In the past, the identity-challenged A.K.A. adopted the role of Polly Anna’s brother (whose true fate has yet to be determined). He’s responsible for bringing her into the super villain fold. Polly Anna wants someone like him to stop her from her violent acts, but when he fails to act, she acts out in worse ways. A.K.A. doesn’t see this as his responsibility; he’s already done her enough damage as is.

Lefty is one of the more mundane henchmen in the crew, but that’s the last thing he wants to be. He knows he’s destined for greatness. He just has to find a way to seize that opportunity. He knows that many in the crew see A.K.A. as a leader type, being the crew member with the longest tenure. They’re friends back from when Lefty was recruited. To that end, he wants to see A.K.A. recognize him as leadership material. If he can get some form of subservience from A.K.A., the rest should fall in line.

Lefty also seeks respect from Polly Anna, who seems damned if she’ll give it to him. He wants to engineer events in a way where she’ll idolize him. Sadly, Polly Anna sees him as just another one of the faceless minions in the crew.

A.K.A. is the consummate master of disguise who has begun to lose himself in a multitude of personalities. He keeps watch over Polly Anna, possibly bearing some guilt for pulling her into this lifestyle. What he really wants is for her to impress him. Perhaps once she proves herself capable of independence, he’ll truly let her go.

There are a few other needs and wants between characters, but these are the ones that have come to the forefront so far. As we’ve played, the players have done a good job of keeping these desires and conflicts in perspective and used them to create memorable scenes. We have yet to redefine any of the wants as the book suggested, but it could happen down the road as the relationships come more into focus.

I try not to overuse the term, but this really has been a paradigm shift for us. While we’ve had antagonistic moments in past games (I’m looking at A.K.A and Killjoy), we always have that common purpose pulling us together. Focusing on the interpersonal conflicts has been interesting. And fun.

Next up, I’ll go over a number of scenes from our first night of play.