Perilous Montage Tests

[cyan hinge]

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1eygg1qcne5mPnbCeejpekTkmQnr_SMLwyzgapjxARz0/edit?usp=sharing

My perilous montage test is an attempt to add more tension to montage tests at both the micro and macro level. At the micro level, players now get to choose the difficulty of individual tests but the easier tests the higher the price. At the macro level, perilous montage test will drain recoveries, meaning montage test can play with the tension between victories and recoveries more effectively.

If you're interested in alternate montage design, you have absolutely have to check this out https://discord.com/channels/332362513368875008/1401450137825448057
I think Peril and Montage Challenges could play really well together but it's not something I've looked into much yet.

[cloud aurora]

this is super cool!

if you were to convert peril to damage (so players could choose between spending a recovery to heal or risking it), what would ur conversion be?

[cyan hinge]

Thanks! That's actually a really interesting question. If the players have time to use recoveries after the montage, then a recovery has the exact same value as a recovery value's worth of stamina, so I would do one recovery value's worth of stamina per recovery. However, if the players immediately go into combat after the montage, a recovery is worth notably less than a recovery value's worth of stamina due to the fact that spending a recovery costs a maneuver and you start combat much closer to being dying. I might go as low as half a recovery value's worth of stamina in that case. I know it depends isn't exactly a super satisfying answer but off the top of my head I don't know how to consistently reconcile the difference in value of a recovery when in and out of combat.

[cloud aurora]

i do wonder if theres some sorta way for 1 peril to equal less than exactly a third of ur max stamina though. which i know is highly variable, but i wonder if theres an implementation for this.

[cyan hinge]

I mean if you don't mind the math you could do something like 1/4 of max stamina in damage. Or maybe recovery value - 1d6.

[cloud aurora]

i worry somewhat about the optics is all

cuz as is it seems like a nonchoice

"either lose a recovery or take damage equal to your recovery value" is like....idk

[cyan hinge]

Haha yeah it is admittedly a little silly

Especially because I think there's basically always a right choice, not in combat it doesn't matter and in combat you almost always want to lose the recovery (unless you're a censor maybe)

[cloud aurora]

like imagine if it was like...idk, 10 x level or smth, idk

[cyan hinge]

This is kind of why I went with losing recoveries for peril. I really like docking recoveries for success with consequence too. The value of a recovery doesn't change much in different contexts and the math is really easy.

[cyan hinge]

Yeah something like this would totally work!

[cloud aurora]

i would have to work out the math, 10 x level scales a bit too hard i feel

[cyan hinge]

Yeah probably but I think the concept is solid

[cloud aurora]

ill ruminate on this, i really like what u got tho

[cyan hinge]

Thanks very much!

[cloud aurora]

i wanna try this in my next campaign

[cyan hinge]

I think you were one of the leading voices in the montage discussion I was watching in here, so thanks for sharing your thoughts. That discussion is why I ended up writing this down and sharing it!

[fading birch]

Very very cool concept I’ll try it

[cyan hinge]

Awesome! I hope your players like it.

[cloud aurora]

have been crunching some numbers

ill try and update once i have a workable formula

formula is ([level] x 4) + 3

this hews...pretty close?

you get major deviation at 9th level but at that point its fine, i feel?

what i did for this was calculate base stamina then stamina after kit stamina bonuses and factoring in levelled armor bonuses

then took the average

it goes
1st, 2nd, 3rd
4th, 5th, 6th
7th, 8th, 9th

on the chart

hope thats easy to read

@cyan hinge

[cyan hinge]

Very nice! I'll probably start using this as my default stamina penalty as I feel like that 1d6 plus your level suggested in the book is quite low. I'll also probably change that "+ 3" into "+ 1d6" but they're basically probabilistically equivalent so it's just a matter of taste.

[cloud aurora]

yeah i heavily dislike the 1d6+level shit

but adding level*4 + d6 is a good idea

call [level*4] your [peril value] or something

[cyan hinge]

And I agree it is much nicer to be able to say "you take your level * 4" instead of "you take a recovery value of damage" from a player psychology perspective

[cloud aurora]

then u can take "damage equal to your peril value"

and add a d6 to it cuz ur a sicko nasty

[tiny barn]

this is a neat degree of added complexity! i've been running ashley's montages as medium r1 and hard r2 and this is a super interesting way to add another layer of push-your-luck

[cyan hinge]

Nice! I'm planning on running an ashley style montage with peril in their near future so I'll report back when I do.

[cloud aurora]

im gonna run a montage test this weekend and ill report back

[rapid trench]

This is very cool! I also had the same issue with the montage tests being a way to gain victories without any big consequence, and the R1 medium tests and R2 hard tests felt a bit weird to me because there should be some variability of the difficulty of tests.

This seems to be solving those issues! Looking forward to trying it out in the next montage I run!

[cyan hinge]

Thanks! I hope it works well for you.

[cloud aurora]

ran this tonight! players said it was their favoriate alternate form of montage tests theyve done

i will be reccomending this to everyone in the future

[cyan hinge]

Wow, that’s amazing to hear! Thanks for giving it a try!

[hearty lantern]

Did you run it stock?

Or do some form of damage instead of straight recoveries

[cloud aurora]

straight recoveries

[cyan hinge]

So I ran using https://discord.com/channels/332362513368875008/1401450137825448057 + peril today and my players say it was their favorite iteration of a montage yet. I can now officially suggest combing the two.

[fading summit]

I'm having a hard time envisioning how you'd mix them properly and easily, since it becomes a ton of moving pieces. Normally on that version of a montage, all tests have the same difficulty, and you change it by increasing the amount of threats instead and the severity of their outcomes. Did you purposedly lessen the outcome of the threats/reduced the amount of them to compensate for the potential loss of recoveries? DId you specifically avoid adding any recovery-related threat or opportunity so that peril would be disctinct in its effect? Did you specifically create outcomes for all tiers of easy, medium and hard threats and opportunities? Because normally the only real outcomes are fail, success, or success with a cost

[cyan hinge]

I did have a threat that did some damage but nothing else directly affected stamina/recoveries and with hindsight I probably would’ve tried to think of a different threat as it is a little redundant. Other than that I did a really naive combination of the two. Each player would choose which threat/opportunity they wanted to tackle and at what difficulty they wanted to set the test at. I then updated the peril level accordingly. I did forget that threats and opportunities has its own success tiers but I just used the easy, medium, and hard tests from the book with no issue. I can’t remember if I put it in the doc but I also have consequences/rewards increase/decrease peril. It’s definitely a pretty involved variation of a montage but that’s what I was going for. I want the players to feel like they’re balancing several problems that are all in contention.

And then I got some really desirable interactions out of the combination. Primarily, if there are certain threats or opportunities that the players really want to deal with they know have a way to express that tactically. They can make it an easy test but they’re paying in recoveries and then maybe they try to make that up by taking a hard test somewhere else.

I realize I didn’t provide like any context for the combination originally so I’ll try to post the actual montage I ran in the next day or two.

[hearty lantern]

Gonna use this tonight. Question in a montage test heros can obtain a success without a test if they have a relevant ability that they use how would you fold that in with peril wrt easy medium or hard tests worth of peril accumulation

[cyan hinge]

Seeing as this doesn’t happen too much in my game I would probably let them have it with no peril. I want them to feel good about having that ability in that moment. But depending on my table I could see myself using some variable peril value in this situation as a measure of how much I think they’re stretching that ability to fit the situation.

[cloud aurora]

tried out the variant with the damage application instead of just pure recoveries

my players didnt like it, i think mainly cuz there was an extra step

for taking damage THEN spending the recovery

i feel like it might be more of a choice at higher levels?

when damage and recoveries become more uncoupled?

idk

[cloud aurora]

been putting some more time into running perilous montage tests

interesting convos with my players, mainly that spreading out the recovery attrition can feel like optimizing the narrative out of montage tests too much

there can be an incentive to take as little losses as possible and i wonder instead of doing this split recoveries loss model perhaps a flat, party wide recovery loss would be more useful?

my players mentioned that recovery loss as a consequence is generally fine, but as a COST for engaging with the montage test system feels less so

[runic abyss]

I ran a Perilous Montage Test as a single player side story since they were missing a couple sessions. They had 4 tests, success on 2, total success on 4, 2 failures before 2 success was total failure. I had to curate it to their total recoveries available, but they said it felt good as it added stakes but gave them choices, and still left more of the narrative in their control. I think normally I'd do 3 tests for a single player, first test has to be medium. 3 success is total success, 2 successes before 2 failures is success. Caps out at 5 Recoveries, but likely less unless they really want that total success.

I will say, because the stakes are shown up front, without giving an idea of what the rewards are at the different tiers up front as well players may not be as willing to burn the recoveries to get that total success.