C.O.R.E.

Quick Start Narrative

The easiest way to learn a new game is to see it played. The Quick Start Narrative is intended to give you a feel for the way that the game is played. Along the way, you will learn new concepts that should get you ready to dive right into the rules.

Premise

The characters are part of Blacksmith and Weiss, a security firm. Their assignment is to track down the kidnapped daughter of a prominent businessman, Hugh Veasley. His daughter Katie had disappeared from a night-club called Infernum in downtown. Following up on a lead, the characters are trailing a suspect in cars when another vehicle pulls alongside and bullets start flying!

Scene 1 – Interstate Firefight

The heroes are split between two vehicles: a car and a motorcycle. Because of his history of dirt-bike racing, Mark’s character is driving the motorcycle. Rachel’s character is stuck behind the wheel of the van. The suspect is Joey Bandra, a small-time hood in a small time compact. The trouble is being caused by an unmarked white van containing four goons. One of the goons is armed with a pistol, one is driving, and the other two have baseball bats.

Chase! Duration 3, Severity 1, Difficulty 12 (Traffic Maneuvers 16)

Now comes the players’ turn, describing how their characters are going to either stop the goons from shooting their ride up, or how they will stop Joey from escaping. Let them discuss things if they like, then they can either take individual actions or else work together on one conflict. The order isn’t important, so if a player wants to go first that’s fine, or else determine an order (say left from the Director).

The Director checks the encounter difficulty and decides this is in the ‘Traffic Maneuvers’ difficulty, so assigns a base Difficulty of 16. He then thinks over how difficult this is likely to be and decides it is a regular activity, so leaves the Difficulty as it is. He picks an Attribute and Skill—in this case Mark is trying to intimidate Joey—so he picks Physical and Everyman. The last thing he does is put this into conflict terms for the player to agree to.

John’s character is in the car and he wants to try something more daring. He decides to jump from the car into the van, taking the fight to the goons. This is not really a traffic roll, so it begins at a base Difficulty of 12. The Director agrees this would be cool, but it’s also a tough thing to do. He increases the Difficulty by 3, but also lowers it by 1 for being cool and cinematic, ending with a total Difficulty of 14. The Attribute and Skill of this conflict is Physical + Fitness. The Director specifies it as follows.

Some sample conflicts that you might encounter during the chase:

• Swerving toward the goons to put them off their shots: Mental + Technology.
• Shooting at the goons: Physical + Combat.
• Jumping between vehicles: Physical + Fitness.
• Planning a great route between vehicles to trap another vehicle: Mental + Negotiation.
• Convincing Joey to spill his guts: Social + Negotiation.

Scene 2 – The Old Hideout

Following up on Joey’s info, the team end up at a decrepit factory out on the old industrial park.

Breaking and Entering: Duration 2, Severity 0/1, Difficulty 11 (Canines 13)

There are a fair number of regular security guards around, patrolling with guard dogs. The group will need to bypass them, maybe sneaking past, fast-talking them, or just fighting their way through. Note the severity here is listed as 0/1. This indicates that, should the characters manage to slip past the guards without being spotted, but do not end up in a fight, no damage is done to anyone. Instead, story-based difficulties will follow. If the characters do end up in a fight, the base damage done is 1 point.

Since they are attempting a fairly routine breaking and entering, the Director decides that the standard difficulty of 11 applies.

Everyone agrees, and the roll is a success.

Notice that the Duration for this encounter was set to at 2, but the players managed to get through in one try. In cases like this, you should provide another conflict based upon the story. Perhaps they enter the building and Mark’s character’s phone starts ringing. This conflict would not have an immediate impact, but that’s okay. The guards would be notified of their presence and would be busting in through the back doors.

A Blast of Fresh Fire: Duration 1, Severity 3, Difficulty 21

The last encounter of this scene shows the team busting into a now-empty warehouse. There are clues around, but they’re hard to spot. There is a discarded match book from club Infernum, some hair from a blonde (Katie Veasley), a bunch of fingerprints, and some spent shell casings. One crate hangs on ropes tied to a pulley system in the rafters. An aluminum suitcase sits in the corner.

The characters start noting clues and bagging evidence. John’s character swings the suitcase up on a crate and decides to open it, revealing a bomb that comes to light and starts counting down with only seconds to go. Just then, the front door is bashed open by three guards.

John’s character yells to his teammates to run for the back door, but knows that he doesn’t have enough time to get there before the bomb goes off. A quick scan of the room reveals windows in the upper portion of the warehouse walls—too high for him to reach. The soldiers are closing quick, but he has a plan, and it all relies on his cat-like reflexes.

John rolls well, adds his 4 points of Physical to the roll, and gets exactly what he needed—an 18. He flies into the air, narrowly escaping the grasping hands of the guards, and is thrown through the window by the force of the blast. He crashes into a large pile of garbage and jumps out, bruised but not broken.