[01101111 01101111 01100011]

Actions and Manoeuvres

When it’s your turn to act, you are allowed to perform one action and one maneuver, or two maneuvers. An action can be to:
- Roll for a program.
- Activate a module.
A maneuver is something you do during a conflict that does not require a dice roll. A maneuver is always successful. A maneuver can be to:
- Move one range step
- Seek cover (page 90)
- Get up from the ground
- Get an item from your gear
- Pick up an item from the ground
- Draw a weapon (not needed for mounted weapons)
- Aim a ranged weapon (page 85)
- Use an item

I realise the confusion might be from my mention of the Move programme in the ooc of our game thread. That's one of the programme options, and uses up an action. And that's used to escape from something.

This is to be differentiated from moving one range step, which is a manoeuvre. (Arm's Length - Near - Short - Long - Distant).

I believe these two options are different so that this game never gets into a situation where a chase scene ends up being a grid square counting exercise.

For Ox, Ox and the guard robot are at arm's length of each other: the bot was ready for Ox's breakout, and likewise Ox is close enough to shove the door at the bot if they want.

PS - Don't forget I've re-linked the players' section of the rulebook in the resource thread.

Alright, I have a question now that I completely failed my rolls! XD
Since I can't try to break the restraints again, can I instead attempt to unlock them with my pincers? Because otherwise I don't really have an idea of how to get myself out. (Unless Pluto decides to help, haha.)

Perhaps Sid and Sir don't really need protecting at all, because from the Collective's perhaps, they aren't demonstrating behaviours that warrants physical action to be taken against them, ie maybe like four of the other robots, they don't need any help busting out.

I've reframed what's going on in this latest post, in order to be clearer why physical force has be used on some bots but not others (some who have gotten away scot free!). And why these bots are considered defective to be sent to Terrorwatt.

Btw, the drama is great (if a little foodhardy)! Keep it coming! If this game derails into a prison break so be it, but we're not there yet nor need we necessarily end up there!

I understand the confusion, which is why I deliberately labeled this one-off situation as special. As a GM what I'm signaling here is that this isn't an ordinary combat, for which I'd adhere exactly to the rules.

For typical physical conflict like the one between Ox and the guard robot, I'd do an Assault roll for example, and take the results from there.

Here we have a special situation where Halcyon is immobilised. I was weighing whether I should even bother to roll, or automatically allow Edina to succeed in whatever actions they do. So here's some rule bending I figure would make sense.
Interrogator only works on living creatures, so rules-wise it technically wouldn't apply here. But the NPC description also says they are able to extract information from robots with their skills.
They have technical tools (listed as one of the artifacts) amongst other tools, which give a +2 dice bonus to repair. But again this NPC is described not just to be able to repair, but also to interrogate.
Finally, what Edina is doing is pretty much equivalent to using an Assault roll to resolve the action, but that suffers from the same problem as what I mentioned earlier, whether to bother to roll even.

So I did what any GM would do, I rolled some dice to see what they say! :D But like I said, don't take this encounter to be typical of combat.

Oh yes, on the matter of breaking the lock, the system recommends one attempt per situation. Failing it means you're unable to. We'd have to try something else (in game terms, is there another relevant enough program, skill, etc we can use to roll for it, using the pincers for example is the same kind of roll - your initial Force roll covers all that, using the engines, using pincers, etc).

Finally finally, in case anyone finds this scene terribly confusing in terms of what's can happen here, I'm happy to give everyone a peek behind the GM's screen just this once, it's a spoiler, but truly only affects this start of the entire adventure (in case you don't want to read it):But like I said, I'm a sucker for if my players want to derail the plot or take it in a different direction! That said, if you're feeling this is a frustrating scene, let me know.

Oh dear, I feel you. I don't think it's the system's fault at all, honestly combat and conflict is pretty straightforward. If this were a typical combat, you would've been able to use all your options at your disposal.

I'm apologising because I feel I may have misled you through the narrative to think that you were supposed to fight to escape and also to free the others, even though I had hoped to signal the impossibility of escaping. I'm not sure what other clues I could have inserted in order to be even clearer about this (the main clues being the release of every robot who says they're okay, the damage done to Egox because they refused and questioned the Collective and the same being threatened against Halcyon, the guard bot only going after Ox because they tried to escape but without actually hurting them, Pluto changing the way they intend to escape by lying low, and also htech and koldiksteelskin dropping direct hints, including htech literally saying ooc that Sir will tell Edina what Edina wants to hear).

What I propose to do is this, to help us move forward and be less ambiguous about the plot. I'll offer two options:

1. I'll exercise my GM fiat to overrule this conflict, both for you and Ox (exactly as the published adventure sets it up). Ignore the dice rolled, there's no chance to escape from this, for any of the PCs, ie Ox doesn't get to escape from his capsule, Halcyon remains firmly strapped in. (This is the only railroad I will insert in this game). I will restart the scene with order restored, and Edina will address all of you present.

2. We are no longer playing the adventure as published. The PCs are here and can escape the sanatorium and subsequently fight the authorities if they want to, or if they don't manage to do so and are shipped to prison we can play a prison break from there. In which case we will replay the Halcyon - Edina conflict, restarting from when Halcyon is restrained and cannot break free. This conflict will be straightforward, no hidden plot agenda.

The famous RPG saying goes that no GM's plan ever survives contact with their players (and this surely includes published adventures as well). I'm happy to accommodate, since all five of us agreed to play together, we all get to chime in at regular intervals to say whether we're enjoying ourselves or whether there are some things we'd like to change along the way.

Let me know!