So finally I had a chance to run Omac for my friends. We have played over Skype and it went quite well. In fact I am very pleased. We were not overly familiar with the rules so frequently when in doubt I arbitrarily assigned Ob3 for tests. Unfortunately, we had only 2.5 h to play so each player did a color, an interstitial and a building scene and we decided to postpone the conflicts for next week. Well, such is a life.
There were couple of issues that popped out - firstly the players were unhappy that there is only two of them and they will have only one builder scene if they want to have a conflict - whereas there are three GMFoN’s. I ruled out then that each can have a builder scene and still they can decide for a one conflict scene. I hope that does not trample over the spirit of the game too much?
My players want to attack the prison and warden Danica was too busy scheming some villainous plans to take care of the prison security (i.e. his builder scene was played before player builders). If they attack the prison how am I supposed to come up with the defender forces? Should I roll before combat for circles/resources?
Also how many NPC GM can use - only GMFoN’s or also other characters? Such as Marius Arnot - do I get three scenes for him, even if he if not a GMFoN? Should I decide to limit number of my NPC’s to “balance” the fact that I have only two players?
I need to have a better feel for the structure of the maneuver - I started doing colors and interstitials for GMFoNs and later players did all their scenes. I think it might have been tad bit better if we interspersed them more evenly.
To sum things up - the game went much better than I thought it would - although we will see how the firefight mechanic will work out. I had quite easy time coming with the ideas for the scenes and my players really get into cooperating in the making of a story. They seem keen on playing BE and bounce some ideas for our own campaign.
Cheers
I doubt it - we spent a fair amount of time looking for rules - as I said we do not now them to well. That being said in few games we should be proficient enough to finish a maneuver in 3-3,5 h session.
Hey, Yarri. I’m not a BE expert, but I’ll try to answer some of your questions. I’m going to add some numbers in bold to make it easier to respond to each of them.
Life’s rough with two players! Then again, that might be a good way to help balance things out a bit, since you’ve got the PCs outnumbered. You should remember, though, that the GM’s scenes are all optional, except (I believe) for one conflict scene per manuever. You aren’t required to use them all!
Your question is based around the players attacking the “base” or resources of a GM FoN, but he’s spent all his builders? I presume he didn’t buy a Gang or Crew with his Circles points? I’d either assume there’re some guards there (but in the interest of fairness I wouldn’t give them more than exponent 3, maybe 4) and have Danica lead them, or have him quickly drop a Circles test with the “opening to a conflict scene” penalty attached and try to Circle up a lieutenant with some decent troops who can help hold the line.
The GM can use as many NPCs as he needs – it’s scenes he’s limited to. If you have 3 GM FoNs, you should have 3 color or interstitial, 1 conflict (maybe two) and 3 builder scenes. Any NPCs can use them (although you are probably going to want to focus these scenes on your GM FoNs, both because they’re usually the high-lifepath heavy hitters and to set them up for the manuever roll). As near as I know, the only rules are that you can’t spend more scenes than you have, and you can’t double up. So if you’re spending a scene for Marius to interact with the PCs somehow, that’s one scene from your overall budget you check off that no other NPCs, including your FoNs, can use. The tendency/guideline, however, is to attribute scenes taken by non-FoN NPCs to a given GMFoN, so rarely would you get 1 conflict and all 3 builders; whichever GMFoN you attribute the conflict scene to can’t take a builder or have one attributed to him.
Unless you picked an offensive maneuver. If you Take Action, for instance, you must have a conflict scene. But if you need more builders for some reason, don’t pick a fighty maneuver.