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| A good chase scene | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Dec 29 2016, 09:33 PM (800 Views) | |
| l33tmaan | Dec 29 2016, 09:33 PM Post #1 |
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Pokémon Trainer
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I couldn't help but notice that one of the things that I see a lot in movies and television shows yet rarely show up in tabletop games is the ever ubiquitous chase scene right before fighting some bad guy. After all, the players have to reach the enemy, and not everybody's going to be sitting around at the end of a dungeon waiting for the party to show up. So how do you go about making one that's satisfying? The bad guy can't be way faster than the party or they'll just leave them in the dust with no chance of reprisal, but if they're too slow then it takes nearly no time at all and it'll probably be forgettable. There has to be some kind of medium. For my campaign, specifically, I've got a bad guy holding someone hostage in the Strange House from B/W2 - yes, my setting is mostly straight from the games with expansions and elaborations as I see fit. Rather than it being the mostly empty house in the middle of nowhere it is in the games, I've tried to turn it into a Resident Evil-style mansion: all the ways in were covered in old police tape, there were legal notices everywhere, and the mansion itself is sealed shut with concrete. All the doors and windows. Fortunately, there was a hidden passage into the house in the middle of a hedge maze (which the players burned through), but I've run into a problem. I need the bad guy to get to the part of the basement where the players came in or else I can't get into the big story parts where somebody gets used as a blood sacrifice. But he's trapped inside this mansion which, while I've made bigger and included way more stuff in it, is mostly the same shape as the mansion from the games which is... rather open. One way or another, this is going to turn into a Scooby Doo chase, and the only thing I've been able to think of was making my bad guy part Warper and having him and the sacrifice teleport to inconvenient spots when the party is getting closer, but that seems like it'd get old fast. If it helps, he's got a Drifblim, a Houndoom, and a Spoiler: click to toggle Any ideas? I'd also love to hear about how you guys have handled similar scenarios. |
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| Goliathus | Dec 30 2016, 06:00 AM Post #2 |
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Pokémon Trainer
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I recently read about this in other sites. The things I agree on this topic is that a chase scene should have meaningful choices for the players to make as to engage them. Personally, I would make the bad guy faster than the players but provide players with multiple opportunities in choices along the way that can slow the bad guy down. It can be as menial as choosing which route to take and perhaps skill check to flip over a book case and so on. ...And then I re-read your scenario and the PCs are supposed to be the chasers. In this case, I would make the party having the potential to be faster than the villain and the villain will flip over bookcase and so on(it's his mansion, he should know all the stuffs he can do with it) to block the party, prompting a lot of skill checks and such. There should also be route decision. If the villain chooses to go A on three routes, the party should be able to choose A, B, or C in hope to meet up with the villain in a spot later and each route would have different challenge and such. You can also throw in some battles in between as the villains is using his Pokemon to slow the party down. The challenge in these battles is that for every turn, the villain gets away further. So it is essentially a time attack, where they have to focus on taking their opponents down ASAP, and hopefully that is something new to the party as compared to the normal kind of battle where they can employ any strategy they want. Edited by Goliathus, Dec 30 2016, 06:01 AM.
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| l33tmaan | Dec 30 2016, 11:32 AM Post #3 |
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Pokémon Trainer
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I was hoping to have him fight the party in the basement, but since he's a Warper/Trickster... having them fight him on the go might work as well. They can't take out the Farfetch'd, though - it's gotta blast apart a concrete wall so I can send the party to the Distortion World once they get inside. But this thing is going to do buckets of damage to them since I'm keeping shadow moves relatively similar to the game, and since it can teleport, I could probably have it harry them while they give chase. Something about this idea doesn't feel quite as climactic, though. I want the chase to be exciting, but not more exciting than the boss fight that follows it, so if they trash most of his pokemon before the fight starts, then that could be bad. I guess I could just give him a couple Full Revives, just in case? |
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| Goliathus | Dec 30 2016, 12:37 PM Post #4 |
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Pokémon Trainer
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I would just make the Pokemon blockers on the chase as some sort of mansion guardians that the villain use to safeguard the various part of the mansion from intruders. Those Pokemon would be different from the vllain's actual party Pokemon as it would be boring to fight the same thing twice in a row. Also, those fights are mainly for delaying purpose and is part of the various challenges that the trainers have to overcome in the chase, I would put more creative juice on other obstacles, maybe traps and so since they are likely more exciting to do than the same ol' fighting. After they get to the basement, then you put the villain team against them, Distortion World and so on.
Edited by Goliathus, Dec 30 2016, 12:40 PM.
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| l33tmaan | Dec 30 2016, 10:55 PM Post #5 |
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Pokémon Trainer
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Well, there ARE statues of Golurks in the main hall... but that seems almost too obvious to make them be real pokemon. What would be a good pokemon to hide inside them? Other ghosts? Tangela? 30 Voltorbs? |
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| Xyless | Dec 31 2016, 05:51 AM Post #6 |
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PTA/PTU Researcher and Virtual Tool Maker
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Could use Kecleon, it can basically go invisible. |
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| Goliathus | Dec 31 2016, 06:47 AM Post #7 |
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Pokémon Trainer
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I have seen enough "statues go alive" scene on TV so I don't think that is implausible. As for what Pokemon to hide inside them, that is totally up to you. Any Pokemon is plausible as long as you can bring them out. I don't remember too much about the Strange House and I am picturing the mansion from Resident Evil the whole time and that particular mansion has a lot of traps like rolling doors and such. So you can have whatever you want bounce up from under the floor or coming from the side wall or something if they are more logical than coming out of a statue.
Edited by Goliathus, Dec 31 2016, 06:47 AM.
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| l33tmaan | Dec 31 2016, 10:36 AM Post #8 |
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Pokémon Trainer
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I actually had one of them in the hedge maze that the players had to go through to get inside the mansion. It had Color Change and Protean, so it was quite fun playing it. It was fainted and woke up while the party were fighting some Bronzors, and it ran off too quickly for them to catch. They were quite mad. While I don't want to use it in the session right afterwards, I suppose the same Kecleon could have followed them inside the house? They're solitary creatures, so it probably doesn't have a family that could come back for revenge, right? That's because there's not much to remember. Go look it up on Bulbapedia, it was a pretty forgettable place. Resident Evil is pretty cheesy, to be honest, I prefer traps that are more... down to earth. Run-down stairs, weak flooring, stuff like that. But a little bit of cheese might be needed to spice things up. Edited by l33tmaan, Dec 31 2016, 10:39 AM.
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| Goliathus | Dec 31 2016, 03:02 PM Post #9 |
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Pokémon Trainer
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Oh wow, that house is actually a part I really liked in BW2, should have b-slapped myself for not remembering that house. Since it is a haunted house, I would say go hard on the ghost theme. Ghost Pokemon can be pretty unpredictable, maybe they just want to join the fun(they see the chase as a game) so they participate by blocking the party off, no logical reason needed. Taking a page straight out of the game Emily Wants to Play, you can use those ghosts as puzzles instead of straight fights. Like the party will have to solve some riddles or the house would just loop them over and over again. If anyone in the party has a Ghost type on his/her wishlist, then you can have a friendly ghost that help them along the way, like giving hints on the puzzle if they are too slow and so on. That Ghost Mon will let himself be captured after the event, maybe it can can serve as a guide in Distortion World too. If the party is too slow, you can just inference that the ghosts in the house are playing tricks with the villain too and he can't warp out of the puzzles anyway with the ghosts in control of every door and room. So the party still caught up with him eventually at the basement in the end. Edited by Goliathus, Dec 31 2016, 03:05 PM.
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| l33tmaan | Dec 31 2016, 03:50 PM Post #10 |
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Pokémon Trainer
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That's absolutely brilliant, my Hex Maniac has a thing for Ghosts and Psychics, anyway, so I'm sure he'd appreciate the chance to pick up something to join his Litwick and Sableye. I hadn't thought of just having the rooms teleport them around in confusion, that's so obvious, a lot of my favorite dungeon crawler games have done that. I've already hinted that some really bad occult stuff has gone down here, including a bunch of Unown glyphs on a wall done in a much more formal manner than the ones my party had encountered so far. Oh, wait a minute, what if one was made out of floating bones and was Ground/Ghost while the other is a floating nervous system that's Electric/Ghost? I've always wanted to do those in a game. EDIT: I know this would probably fit in the Q&A thread, but since it's relevant: Does Bone Lord turn a STAB Bone Rush into a DB 25 move? I mean, it seems obvious that 5 times 5 is 25, but I just want to make sure before I go chunking my players, because that might actually kill someone. Edited by l33tmaan, Dec 31 2016, 04:52 PM.
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