Rodrigo Istalindir
Explorer
Ran a playtest / chargen session for some folks last night in preparation for running Leverage games at the various gamedays and what-not this year. All things considered, I think it went pretty well. With only four players, the Mastermind was played by everyone. The players seemed to enjoy themselves, and I had a lot of fun running it.. We hit the highlights of the system, and played 'mostly right' which I think is about the best you can do when no on is familiar with the rules. A pox upon the house of whoever decided not to include an index, though. The layout of the book is a little fragmentary, and there was a fair bit of flipping back and forth.
Character generation in Leverage is interactive. Players pick one of the five roles (Mastermind, Grifter, Hacker, Thief, Hitter) as their primary (d10), and another as a secondary (d8). During the course of the first session, they'll assign a d4 to one of the remaining roles, and the d6s to the other two. They also assign stats from one of two arrays (Expert or Well-rounded). Finally, they choose a 'Distinction' (kind of like an Aspect in FATE terms) that describes their character that can be both a positive and negative during play. A Distinction used in a postive way can add a die to his die pool; when it gets used in a negative way, he adds a d4 and gains a Plot Point. Anytime a '1' comes up on a die, it generates a Complication which can be used against the player, gaining them another Plot Point, so it encourages the player to screw themselves over in non-critical situations to earn the Plot Points to use later on.
Once those elements are determined, the players start 'The Recruitment Job'. This is a play session in which each player gets a chance to do a 'Spotlight Scene' that lets the player choose Talents (essentially role-specific feats) and Specialties (skills that provide bonuses to applicable rolls). They can also include a secondary character for support; the secondary character then has a chance to assign dice to their remaining roles. Players can also craft Flashback scenes of events in the character’s past that allow them to define additional Distinctions and Specialties.
By the time the Recruitment job is done, the character will have up to two Talents, three Distinctions, two Specialties. Optionally, then can leave some of those undefined to be chosen during the course of future jobs.
In practice, we found the strict delineation of ‘Spotlight Scenes’ a little confining, occasionally letting the job play more naturally and being less concerned with exactly what happened when. The intent of the Recruitment Job is to allow characters to be generated interactively and to create team members that complement each other. So long as everyone gets a chance to participate, experiment with their character, and has fun, I see the structure of the ‘Recruitment Job’ more as a framework than a requirement.
The Pigskin Job
The group was approached by a reporter for the local newspaper. The reporter had previously published an unflattering article about the owner of the local football franchise. When a lawsuit backfired and embarrassed the owner further, he resorted to underhanded means to ruin the reporter’s career and life.
Knowing that the owner was an egocentric ‘Little Napoleon’, the crew decided that while appealing to his greed might work, appealing to his vanity would be a better approach. The plan was to convince the owner that the selection process for the Super Bowl host city could be rigged with the right bribes. Hosting a Super Bowl at his stadium would elevate him (in his eyes) to elite status among the NFL owners. The action takes place in Dallas during Super Bowl Week 2011.
Scene 1: The Approach
This was a spotlight scene for the Grifter, with the Thief providing backup. The Thief’s secondary role was Hitter, so he decided to choose a d4 for Grifter since it would be funnier that way. The Grifter (the classic hooker with a heart of gold) used a Flashback to establish that she’d used to work in a strip club frequented by the mark. That allowed her to know what his ‘type’ was and dress/act accordingly when making her move. She succeeded in planting the hook, and the two agreed to meet the next day at a quiet corner of a posh restaurant to hash out the details.
While this was going on, the Thief was pretending to be a Russian ballet dancer, using his high agility to sweep the mark’s wife off her feet. This, because of his poor ‘Grifter’ die, ended messily, with spilled drinks and unwanted attention. However, when the Hacker was asked to acquire a hotel room for a future assignation, she did exceptionally well and scored the Presidential Suite. That helped the Thief sell his celebrity to the mark’s wife, and resulted in her reconsidering her rebuff and coming to the room later. Since there were Complications rolled, I decided the timing of that return would be less than convenient.
Scene 2: The Setup
The Thief and the Hitter decided they needed to score uniforms and simultaneously guarantee a staff opening at the restaurant the next day. They succeeded in kidnapping a waiter and headed back to the hotel to stash the victim in the Presidential Suite until after the job was completed.
Scene 3: The Complication
The Thief and Hitter return to the hotel. Unfortunately, the mark had noticed the Thief flirting with his wife, and had sent some ex-football player thugs to bang some heads. The Hitter took them out the bulk of them quite handily, while the Thief spent a Plot Point to obtain a handy fire extinguisher and use it to bash the remaining mook unconscious.
Scene 4: The First Rendezvous
While the Thief and Hitter were away, the mark’s wife had come to the suite looking for him. The Mastermind entertained and distracted her for a while. When the Thief returned, he succeeded in seducing her while the Hacker hid in the closet and took incriminating pictures.
Scene 5: The Second Rendezvous
The Grifter and the Mastermind meet the mark at the restaurant, while the Thief bugs the table to record the bribe taking place, while the Hacker diverts the transfer of funds. Some small complications – the Thief isn’t much of a waiter, and spills water on the listening device, forcing the bribe attempt to be completed before the bug shorted out (a timed challenge).
Scene 6: The Reveal
Bolstered by forged emails and other items, the mark is convinced that Washington, D.C. will be the host for the 2013 Super Bowl. He horns in on a press conference to make the announcement, only to be embarrassed by the football commissioner. In addition, compromising videos of his wife appear on YouTube…
Thoughts
The structure implied by the rules is a lot of fun to play with. The crew is encouraged fairly early on to devise a master plan for their con. This frees the GM from having to plan a lot of stuff before-hand, but since he knows what the party’s plan is, he’s got enough cushion to come up with the complications and twists without having to make it all up right on the spot. In other words, by having to come up with the plan, the players kind of rail-road themselves. They’re free to improvise within the overall framework they’ve established for themselves, and will have to to deal with the complications, but they can’t arbitrarily decide halfway through the session to just go off on a completely different tangent.
I’ve been a pretty big detractor of the Cortex system since running Serenity. I’ll say that while still not perfect, the streamlining done for Leverage makes Neo-Cortex workable. It still suffers a little from one of the biggest problems I had with Serenity, in that what dice go into a skill check are somewhat fluid and defined by the particular circumstances. This is kind of a pain for new players (and GMs). At least in Leverage the potential combinations are greatly reduced, making it more of a learning curve than a perpetual headache.
I can see Leverage being a top-notch game for one-shots. Because the GM only sets the overall goal (who needs to be conned), each group of players is free to come up with their own approach. Lots of replayability for the same base scenario.
One downside is that it doesn't scale well in terms of the number of players. It's inevitable that a sixth character is going to step one someone's toes, and playing without a full complement is going to leave some niche a little weak.
Character generation in Leverage is interactive. Players pick one of the five roles (Mastermind, Grifter, Hacker, Thief, Hitter) as their primary (d10), and another as a secondary (d8). During the course of the first session, they'll assign a d4 to one of the remaining roles, and the d6s to the other two. They also assign stats from one of two arrays (Expert or Well-rounded). Finally, they choose a 'Distinction' (kind of like an Aspect in FATE terms) that describes their character that can be both a positive and negative during play. A Distinction used in a postive way can add a die to his die pool; when it gets used in a negative way, he adds a d4 and gains a Plot Point. Anytime a '1' comes up on a die, it generates a Complication which can be used against the player, gaining them another Plot Point, so it encourages the player to screw themselves over in non-critical situations to earn the Plot Points to use later on.
Once those elements are determined, the players start 'The Recruitment Job'. This is a play session in which each player gets a chance to do a 'Spotlight Scene' that lets the player choose Talents (essentially role-specific feats) and Specialties (skills that provide bonuses to applicable rolls). They can also include a secondary character for support; the secondary character then has a chance to assign dice to their remaining roles. Players can also craft Flashback scenes of events in the character’s past that allow them to define additional Distinctions and Specialties.
By the time the Recruitment job is done, the character will have up to two Talents, three Distinctions, two Specialties. Optionally, then can leave some of those undefined to be chosen during the course of future jobs.
In practice, we found the strict delineation of ‘Spotlight Scenes’ a little confining, occasionally letting the job play more naturally and being less concerned with exactly what happened when. The intent of the Recruitment Job is to allow characters to be generated interactively and to create team members that complement each other. So long as everyone gets a chance to participate, experiment with their character, and has fun, I see the structure of the ‘Recruitment Job’ more as a framework than a requirement.
The Pigskin Job
The group was approached by a reporter for the local newspaper. The reporter had previously published an unflattering article about the owner of the local football franchise. When a lawsuit backfired and embarrassed the owner further, he resorted to underhanded means to ruin the reporter’s career and life.
Knowing that the owner was an egocentric ‘Little Napoleon’, the crew decided that while appealing to his greed might work, appealing to his vanity would be a better approach. The plan was to convince the owner that the selection process for the Super Bowl host city could be rigged with the right bribes. Hosting a Super Bowl at his stadium would elevate him (in his eyes) to elite status among the NFL owners. The action takes place in Dallas during Super Bowl Week 2011.
Scene 1: The Approach
This was a spotlight scene for the Grifter, with the Thief providing backup. The Thief’s secondary role was Hitter, so he decided to choose a d4 for Grifter since it would be funnier that way. The Grifter (the classic hooker with a heart of gold) used a Flashback to establish that she’d used to work in a strip club frequented by the mark. That allowed her to know what his ‘type’ was and dress/act accordingly when making her move. She succeeded in planting the hook, and the two agreed to meet the next day at a quiet corner of a posh restaurant to hash out the details.
While this was going on, the Thief was pretending to be a Russian ballet dancer, using his high agility to sweep the mark’s wife off her feet. This, because of his poor ‘Grifter’ die, ended messily, with spilled drinks and unwanted attention. However, when the Hacker was asked to acquire a hotel room for a future assignation, she did exceptionally well and scored the Presidential Suite. That helped the Thief sell his celebrity to the mark’s wife, and resulted in her reconsidering her rebuff and coming to the room later. Since there were Complications rolled, I decided the timing of that return would be less than convenient.
Scene 2: The Setup
The Thief and the Hitter decided they needed to score uniforms and simultaneously guarantee a staff opening at the restaurant the next day. They succeeded in kidnapping a waiter and headed back to the hotel to stash the victim in the Presidential Suite until after the job was completed.
Scene 3: The Complication
The Thief and Hitter return to the hotel. Unfortunately, the mark had noticed the Thief flirting with his wife, and had sent some ex-football player thugs to bang some heads. The Hitter took them out the bulk of them quite handily, while the Thief spent a Plot Point to obtain a handy fire extinguisher and use it to bash the remaining mook unconscious.
Scene 4: The First Rendezvous
While the Thief and Hitter were away, the mark’s wife had come to the suite looking for him. The Mastermind entertained and distracted her for a while. When the Thief returned, he succeeded in seducing her while the Hacker hid in the closet and took incriminating pictures.
Scene 5: The Second Rendezvous
The Grifter and the Mastermind meet the mark at the restaurant, while the Thief bugs the table to record the bribe taking place, while the Hacker diverts the transfer of funds. Some small complications – the Thief isn’t much of a waiter, and spills water on the listening device, forcing the bribe attempt to be completed before the bug shorted out (a timed challenge).
Scene 6: The Reveal
Bolstered by forged emails and other items, the mark is convinced that Washington, D.C. will be the host for the 2013 Super Bowl. He horns in on a press conference to make the announcement, only to be embarrassed by the football commissioner. In addition, compromising videos of his wife appear on YouTube…
Thoughts
The structure implied by the rules is a lot of fun to play with. The crew is encouraged fairly early on to devise a master plan for their con. This frees the GM from having to plan a lot of stuff before-hand, but since he knows what the party’s plan is, he’s got enough cushion to come up with the complications and twists without having to make it all up right on the spot. In other words, by having to come up with the plan, the players kind of rail-road themselves. They’re free to improvise within the overall framework they’ve established for themselves, and will have to to deal with the complications, but they can’t arbitrarily decide halfway through the session to just go off on a completely different tangent.
I’ve been a pretty big detractor of the Cortex system since running Serenity. I’ll say that while still not perfect, the streamlining done for Leverage makes Neo-Cortex workable. It still suffers a little from one of the biggest problems I had with Serenity, in that what dice go into a skill check are somewhat fluid and defined by the particular circumstances. This is kind of a pain for new players (and GMs). At least in Leverage the potential combinations are greatly reduced, making it more of a learning curve than a perpetual headache.
I can see Leverage being a top-notch game for one-shots. Because the GM only sets the overall goal (who needs to be conned), each group of players is free to come up with their own approach. Lots of replayability for the same base scenario.
One downside is that it doesn't scale well in terms of the number of players. It's inevitable that a sixth character is going to step one someone's toes, and playing without a full complement is going to leave some niche a little weak.
) and a couple strangers from the other side of the world who happened to be in the right/wrong place at the right/wrong time. The scenario ended up being more of a heist than a con, but it still worked pretty well. I ran into one of the players later in the weekend, and he'd bought a copy of the book, so I guess someone liked it! And I've got a couple weeks to tweak things before running it again at the ENWorld NC Gameday, so it should go even better.
