Octopus With a Gun

I had some time on my hands today.

Strip-Mining Your Own Trash Cinema Ignorance for RPG Fun and Profit, Part 2

I've never seen MEGAFOOT (and from a cursory Google, it looks like I may never see it), but I know a good Action Movie World Sci-Fi movie primer when I see one.

Action Movie World, Session Five: "Satan's Game 2: Brides of Chaos"

Motorheads, sportos, geeks, sluts, bloods, they all think Damien Chaos is a righteous dude

After a long hiatus, I finally got to run Action Movie World again! Last night, we played a sequel to the Cop movie "Satan's Game." The first installment revolved around a plot by a manic cult to addict a city to destructive drugs. During play, I decided one of the supporting henchman, Damien Chaos (Michael Ironside) was a Manson-style bigamist and serial killer. But he didn't really get to do much, as he was vaporized in a magnificent barfight explosion. I thought it might be fun to have his wives try to avenge his death (and also include all the campy Eighties elements I didn't get to bring to bear in the previous game).

The cast was as follows:

• Anna Citizen as Kelly Bishop, City Accountant turned. P.I. (Gina / Thespian / Lead)
• Javier Simpson as Faustino Ramirez, Ex-Cop turned P.I. (Jerry / Smartass)
• Chase Brody as Damien Grace, Smooth Operator Cop (Greg /Smooth Operator). Greg wanted to try out a new Playbook, so he gave the Smooth Operator a shot. 
• Berkeley Blower as Captain Angus Bellows (Bill / Yeller)
• Benjamin Baird as Sgt. John Cobb, SWAT (Frank / Gunslinger). Cobb was straight-up killed in the last game and the player asked if he could come back for the sequel with absolutely no explanation as to why or how. Of course I said yes. 

This game was intended as a riff on the Satanic roleplaying scares of the Eighties, popularized by Mazes & Monsters and Pat Pulling. The plot is literally about a Satanic cult using a roleplaying game to turn kids into homicidal psychopaths. The story opens with a bunch of kids playing an RPG called Mazelord in a footbridge tunnel. After rolling a critical failure, one of them (I described him as Troy from Final Sacrifice) goes berserk and starts killing all the other kids. Combine with a montage of a mysterious female biker gang driving into the city to the tune of blaring (and dangerous) rock music. Roll opening credits!

The scene opens a year after the events of the first movie. Kelly Bishop has been training with Damien Grace in the style of Terminator 2. Where she was "all girly" (Gina's words, not mine) in the previous movie, now she's buff and ready for combat. Bishop and Faust have opened a private investigation firm and are trying to get their business off the ground. Bishop has a conversation with Lana Williams (Pamela Hensley), the Channel 5 news reporter from the previous movie, about these "Mazelord Murders" that are rocking the city. High school and college kids have gone berserk with the rock music and pretending to be elves!

Lana Williams (Pamela Hensley)

Meanwhile, Captain Blower sends Grace and Cobb to investigate the murders. Grace is a Don Johnson-type character with a Ferrari who buys his lifestyle at drug auctions and has a devil-may-care attitude about everything. They do the Eighties thing and hit the mall, looking for a Toys-R-Us or Waldenbooks, the terrifying hubs of roleplaying game occult activity in 1987. Grace runs into a mysterious, attractive biker thumbing through a Mazelord book. This is Lilith Chaos (Jane Badler), one of the Brides of Chaos. Being a Smooth Operator, he immediately moves to seduce her and they get busy at the Sleep City next door.

Blower, who is tailing Grace to keep tabs on his bad behavior, runs into Patsy Meddles, my own take on Pat Pulling. She's played by Edie McClurg and runs MAM (Mothers Against Mazelord). She reveals her son Dwight (Eddie Deezen) runs a game shop and she fears for his life because of "this awful game." Blower promises to investigate on her behalf.

Yes, Lilith Chaos wore sunglasses. Yes, we made jokes about her being a lizard person.

The investigation eventually leads Bishop, Cobb and Faust to an occult bookstore, which I named the Albigensian Heresy. ("I have no idea what the fuck that is," said one player.) They interrogate the proprietor about Mazelord, who assures them snootily that "imagination is not a crime" and that Mazelord could not turn kids into murderers. Shortly thereafter. Lilith Chaos and a group of bikers show up outside and assault Bishop and Faust.

Faust fails a One-Liner roll and then fails his ensuing Stunt. I judge Lilith wraps a chain around his neck and starts dragging him behind her motorcycle. Faust's player asks if he can "just die" and I say sure. Faust is horribly beheaded, Jerry collects 2 XP and becomes the Stunt Coordinator. Bishop, traumatized, lays into the bikers with her sword (!) Vengeance move against Lilith is now in play. (But is Lilith the villain? Not really! More on that soon.)

Cobb (who, by the way, has been dressing like a ninja and sharpening his knives at every opportunity this entire time) throws a knife to support Bishop. I decide the proprietor is in on the attack, and he brains the cop with a heavy copy of Frazer's Golden Bough. Lilith manages to get away, but the rest of the bikers are cut down. In the shop, Cobb discovers some mysterious green ink, which he deduces is being used in the printing of the Mazelord books. The green ink is "Lids," the psychoactive drug from the first movie. Mazelord really is turning kids into crazed killers!

After Faust's funeral, the group decides to end this once and for all. Gina rolls a Soliloquy move for her Thespian and declares the biker gang is holed up in the Church of Holy Waters, the location where the last movie ended. Cool, this will really keep the budget down! The PCs make a frontal assault in Action Movie World style. Bishop drives her truck into the church and starts a fight with Lilith. Outside, Grace and Blower begin mowing down bikers, but a "succeed at cost" roll from Grace means a biker rocket-bombs his Ferrari and blows it to smithereens. "Can I have a Vengeance move for my Ferrari?" the player asks.

Tragically not appearing in this episode: Eddie Deezen

The highlight of the battle comes when Cobb's character picks up an assault rifle, takes five harm, and is gunned down in exactly the same fashion as the first movie. He's even standing in the exact same place. 2 XP for Frank.

There's even the same soundtrack and the same flock of doves flying into the sky. Bishop finishes off Lilith with her sword. The remaining bikers are killed or driven off, and we pull back from the wreckage of the burning Church of Holy Waters. The threat is over... or is it?

Cut to a final scene. Bishop is packing up Faust's personal belongings at the P.I. office. Lana Williams, the reporter who has been Bishop's only friend, stops by to see how Bishop is holding up. She drops off a file with information on the Brides of Chaos. "Turns out there was one last Bride," Williams explains, "the mastermind behind the whole thing."

Bishop opens the file. Inside is information on Clytemnestra Chaos, the right hand of Damien Chaos. The picture is of Lana Williams. Bishop hears the click of a revolver hammer being drawn back. Stealth villain! This was the unveiling of the "villain reveals she has been in disguise the entire time" move.

"Do you really want it to go down this way?" Bishop asks, looking at her gun lying in the desk drawer.

"You take what you can get," says Clytemnestra.

The players decide the session ends there, with a hard cut to black and the sound of a gunshot.

Mechanical Notes

• This was my second session running with a Smooth Operator in the group, and I have to say that playbook isn't my favorite. I find the harm-nullifying move kind of disruptive and drab. But it's not a game-breaker by any means, and as long as the players are having fun, I'm fine with it.
• I put together some custom moves for this game (here's the actor script if you want it), which ended up with mixed results in execution. I need more practice making them fit the "feel" of the game. 
• Camaraderie went almost totally ignored this game, except to bump it to 3 and leave it there for the bonus XP. That's becoming by far the most common use of Camaraderie in our group. 

The players are already anxious for Satan's Game 3!

The Closest Thing Action Movie World Has to a Problem

I don’t have any Sunday games for at least the next two weeks, so now I’m just going to bloviate about random Action Movie World stuff. I had a conversation with my Pugilist player the week after our Razorfist AD 1995 game, wherein his supporting Pugilist wiped the floor with any and all adversaries. It occurred to me that the Pugilist + the Fighting Tournament playbook can create something of a no-lose scenario with experienced characters. And a no-lose scenario is not necessarily bad, but it is potentially a bit dull. 

To run some numbers:

Say you pick the Pugilist playbook. You give him an ability set that grants him Agility +2, and take the “Sting Like a Bee” move, which lets you roll +Agility instead of +Muscles in melee. You also take “Go for the Gut,” adding an extra +1 to Agility. If the Pugilist then takes the "Hands of Stone" move from the Fighting Tournament movie script, that’s an additional +1 to close combat and stunt rolls, making for a total of +5 to melee and close combat rolls. If they add a "Training Montage" move beforehand, the total goes even higher.

The upshot of this: the Pugilist, under these circumstances, will never fail, and only succeed with a cost if he rolls a 2, 3 or 4 on 2d12. His average roll will be more like a 12.

How big a problem is that? It depends. Having a Lead who always mows down the bad guys without breaking a sweat is perfectly within genre, if a little Steven Seagal-ish in dimension. But it does tend to flatten the action a bit. Since the Director never rolls the dice in Action Movie World, the only chance to execute a Director move is when a hero either fails or succeeds with a cost. If that failure state never occurs for a character, then the chances anything interesting will happen to that character drop dramatically. The “sweet spot” for Action Movie World lies in that 7-9 roll where you get the push-and-pull of success and failure together.

To be fair to my player, it’s not like he set out to break the game. He’s just a natural and highly skilled min-maxer. (You should see his Shadowrun characters -- better than the entire rest of the party combined.) He likes to succeed at everything, and taking joy in failure does not generally come naturally to him. So if he sees a chance for a bonus that helps him succeed, he’ll take it. But unfortunately, succeeding all the time in AMW is even more boring than it is in other games. If you never roll below a 9, the bad guys literally can’t touch you -- unless someone else makes a move that says you get hurt.

So What’s the Solution?

To be honest, I’m not sure this represents a serious problem. In our session, the Pugilist was just one of a whole troupe of characters, and there was plenty of interesting, juicy failure to go around. Also, the supreme bonus-stacking only applies to combat rolls -- which, while likely to be copious in any AMW game, are hardly the only roll in the game. Such a focused Pugilist isn’t going to be very good at one-liners, drama, or anything except killing and beating people. A whole squad of min-maxing Pugilists could present a problem, in that all your combats would be extremely boring because the PCs would ace every single roll and never take a hit. They’d be like late-career Bruce Willis: their contract says they can no longer take a savage beating, and they might become a bit of a snore to watch. 

The Pugilist player is talking about retiring this particular actor, as it looks like he’s painted himself into a corner game-wise. Even if he doesn’t, having that one guy who shows up to effortlessly beat the living daylights out of everyone isn’t a bad thing. My only real gripe as a Director is that this allows the character to rack up massive Star Power without providing a lot of nail-biting excitement at the table. But with movies changing Leads every game, that only amounts to a bonus XP.

So again, not a huge problem, but it does present an interesting dilemma in the long term: the more capable the characters become in AMW, the less exciting the action might become. The real juice lies in their failure. 

Action Movie World, Session Four: "Razorfist: A.D. 1995"

"The story opens on a terrifying hellscape of ruined Detroit."
"So, basically just Detroit."

It’s time for the recap of our latest AMW session, Razorfist: A.D. 1995! This was a birthday game for a friend, who requested the Fighting Tournament playbook. He theorized we would never use the Fighting Tournament playbook unless someone requested it. He’s probably right. Here’s the narrated “trailer” I put together:

In the last days of the 20th century, the melting of the polar ice caps has left the world in ruins.[a shitty computer graphic of the East and West coast of the U.S. disappearing]Torn by war, racked by starvation, what's left of humanity hides behind walls.[Some establishing shots of watery, rainy Detroit, grubby humanity packed in like sardines]The only way out – off the planet![Two young people watch from a rooftop as a starship achieves escape velocity in the distance]And some will do anything for a chance at salvation.[Splash screen of movie title in stain-less steel “futuristic” font]RAZORFIST! A deadly battle of fighting prowess in which the winner takes all... and the loser loses everything.[montage of fighters battling in a neon-lined arena, cigarette smoke thick in the air, disaffected Asian men in suits giving hooded gazes over cigars as they watch the brutality]Now, one man must do what it takes to survive – or die trying![a silhouetted figure finds themselves cornered in a dark, blue-lit alley as the only exit is blocked off by a vehicle. Voice-over: “Don't you get it? The game's rigged! None of us are getting out alive!”][Cut to disaffected Asian man in white suit with cigar: “Now… finish it.”]RAZORFIST! Rated R!

This was not going to be a complicated game. The characters would get into the illegal fighting tournament, beat the crap out of some NPCs, then each other, and then the villain (the evil businessman who created the tournament). We got down to character generation. We had a full crew of the usual suspects, plus one new player (Naomi). The cast was as follows: 

Berkeley Blower as Gipper Frost, an American football star banished from the United States for “fighting his way into the White House” and attacking the President for socialism. (So right away, we set a certain tone.) Berkeley was the Lead, and his player described him as “Brian Blessed, constantly sweating and out of breath.” He was a rival of...

Scott McCheddar as Arnaud “Toronto Terror” Gaultier, a French-Canadian fighting champion who always had a drink and a cigarette in his hand and disdained everything that wasn’t Canadian.

Javier Simpson as Ernie “Calcutta” van Evenhoeven, an ill-educated Ultimate Fighting participant who paid opponents to throw matches and then bet on himself. He was caught and had every bone in his body broken by Arnaud. Video of the beating became famous worldwide. He was childhood friends with...

Anna Citizen as Brandy Daniels, a holovid producer out to expose the corruption in Razorfist and get a great story in order to promote her career.

Benjamin Baird as Ken Wu, a three-time Chinese gold medalist turned journalist, hired to go undercover in Razorfist. To my delight, Wu’s player told me to completely ignore the journalism subplot once it was introduced and put it on the cutting room floor. He was the unlikely brother of Gipper Frost.

And introducing Sami Fin as Luci Adieux, a fighter whose brother was killed by the reigning Razorfist champion, Crusher Liu (Bolo Yeung), and is now out for revenge. She chose the Smooth Operator playbook and modeled herself after Geena Davis.

Act One

I tried to get the characters together as quickly as possible. “Cal” and Brandy, being old childhood friends, met on the plane into Detroit. Cal recognized Gipper from his famous attack on the White House and fannishly bulldozed his way into Gipper’s life. They drove to the hotel in preparation for getting into Razorfist, and Cal’s player drove up the Camaraderie with some one-liners about the tournament and its participants (“more crooked than a Cambodian highway.”) 

"Imagine Brian Blessed in the red diaper from Zardoz."

Meanwhile, Ken Wu and Luci Adieux got the attention of Razorfist officials by charging into a pit fight in a downtown venue. Luci, being a Smooth Operator, didn’t have huge fighting skills, so she mostly set up stunts for Ken. Together, they defeated both opponents and got the attention of Crusher Liu. They also “met” Arnaud when Ken was thrown out of the ring and smashed Arnaud's table during a fight, upsetting his drink. They agreed they would meet up at the tournament later.

The play group suggested one more fight on the way to Razorfist, on the “hydro-train” to the arena. Some punks showed up on the train, started causing trouble, and were promptly given a savage beating. (I mentioned that the thugs had just wandered over from the Satan’s Game set and were dressed exactly like them, which seemed to be a big hit.) I liked that one of the players said “no, we need an inconsequential action scene in between the two acts” and then we just made that happen.

Act Two

Finally, we got down to the real business of the session: making the PCs fight each other! I got out a printable bracket and had the players sign their names on it. At the end, I gave the Lead discretion on which opponent he got to fight first. He chose Cal (the Smartass). Before the fight, there was some dramatic scenery-chewing between the PCs and the Villain, Mister Tokunaga. (For whatever reason, keeping his name straight became a huge problem throughout the game, and it became a running joke of supposed continuity errors.) 

I based one of the NPC fighters, "Slade," on Ray Jackson from Bloodsport, because of course I did.

Tokunaga, who had forced Gipper Frost into the fight in the first place, secretly instructed Arnaud to kill Frost during the fight in order to drive the ratings up. Tokunaga also revealed that he planed to make huge profits by simulcasting the illegal tournament worldwide and “going public” with Razorfist. The villain gave a speech about Darwinism and declining civilizations, like you do when you’re a heavy in a vaguely post-apocalyptic game. Frost’s player brought the house down with a one-liner that went something like: “Tonight, it’s not going to be morning in America... it’s going to be mourning all over the world.” The player was wearing a hat that said RONALD REAGAN when he did this. He then rolled a 12 on the one-liner and raised Camaraderie to 3. 

Razorfist begins! I cued up the Spotify playlist of Eighties montage songs I'd put together and kept it going for the rest of the game. “The weenies at the front of the tournament bracket should fall like wheat before a scythe,” says the AMW rulebook, and that’s exactly what happened. The first three matches were against NPCs with goofy names (Kalimama, Slade, Johnny Cuidado), and they were quickly dispatched. Luci Adieux crushed Kalimama's throat with her boot to prove she was serious business.

Then Frost “The Cold Warrior” went up against Calcutta. Cal’s player did a spit-take when he found out he was battling Frost, which I think might have counted as a one-liner. The Frost / Calcutta battle was brutal and brief. Cal used his Smartass to taunt Frost into doing something stupid, but then botched his follow-up stunt. Liberal use of the “Not Tommy! NO!” script move was made here, earning both players some XP. Frost did a wrestling-style drop onto Cal, who took five harm and chose to "accidentally" die. Calcutta, shattered by the blow, expired in the arena, opening up the Vengeance move for Frost. Cal’s player became Fight Choreographer.

Meanwhile, Brandy Daniels stealthily made her way backstage to get dirt on Razorfist. She used her Thespian Soliloquy move to determine that Tokunaga was running a huge, fraudulent electronic gambling operation, and that he stood to rake in huge profits from Razorfist’s public debut. She succeeded at a cost, so her character was once again captured. I felt a little bad about that, since that’s what happened in “Satans’ Game” too, but it was the only move that made sense.

Then came the next battle in the bracket, Arnaud vs. Luci Adieux. This was probably the most challenging battle, mechanically speaking. I gave people the option to pick a new Pugilist playbook before we started, but no one did. A Pugilist fighting a Smooth Operator in a PvP battle was a bit of a mess. The Pugilist rarely mounted anything less than an 11 on his die rolls, meaning he dealt enormous harm with every move he made, but the Smooth Operator could use her move to just soak it for huge counteracting bonuses.

At first, it looked like this was just going to create table tension instead of an exciting fight. Then the players decided that Arnaud would take the fall in the match, and then they would team up to take down Crusher, kill Tokunaga, and destroy Razorfist. Okay then!

Act Three

The third act promptly descended into awesome mayhem. I thought we were going to go all the way with PCs fighting each other and the Lead fighting Crusher. That just goes to show, never assume anything where player characters are concerned. Brandy Daniels pulled off a one-time stunt to push Crusher Liu out the window of the VIP box onto the arena floor, and Ken Wu (the Gunslinger) got out his pistols and just shot him down. So much for a tense match with the Razorfist champion!

"Very good, but brick not hit back--" [hail of gunfire]

But things were grim -- Wu succeeded at a cost and was already suffering major harm from his battles in the arena, so he chose to die, gunned down by Tokunaga’s bodyguards. Adios, Ken Wu. His player became Pyrotechnics Expert. (Minutes later, all of downtown Detroit was on fire for no reason because of rioting.) Arnaud and Luci Adieux engaged in a massive brawl with the bodyguards while Tokunaga dragged Brandy up to the roof toward his waiting helicopter. There were a lot of success-at-cost rolls being made, so I was triggering the Villain moves of getting help from bodyguards, whipping out military hardware, etc. 

Frost’s player pulled off a Stunt and asked if he could break into a display case that contained a glove studded with razors -- aka the actual Razorfist -- and use it in battle. I said hell yes. Frost and Tokunaga confronted each other on the roof (villain move: villain reveals his secret fighting skills) while Brandy tried to commandeer the helicopter.

Long story short, Frost pulled off his Vengeance move, impaled Tokunaga on the Razorfist glove and threw him off the roof. Then the helicopter dropped onto him and exploded. “So there’s not gonna be a sequel,” said the Smartass. We ended on a freeze-frame of Frost throwing up his hands and yelling “YEAH!” and I cued up “Love is the Way” from Kickboxer. End credits!

Mechanical Notes

The AMW rulebook says “this is the sort of movie in which The Pugilist can really shine,” and that’s no joke. I’d say the Pugilist ends up eclipsing any other playbook type. When we tallied up Star Power at the end of the game, most players had two to four Star Power. The Lead had five. The Pugilist player had eleven. Between the Hands of Stone bonus, his existing moves, and the Training Montage, he missed one roll the entire game, only because he rolled snake eyes. I think if I were ever to use this Playbook again, I’d make “all Pugilists” a requirement. I knew things would shake out this way going in and was fine with it, so I don't consider it a flaw in the design.

Having players fight each other is fun, but something I’ll probably want to do in moderation in the future -- and again, the playbooks involved makes a huge difference. The Pugilist fighting the Smooth Operator in this game was like the irresistible force meeting the immovable object. This could be awesome or meh, depending on the context.

One thing I may house rule, or at least clarify, is the “you inflict harm, but are driven back” result from the Violence move. I’ve noticed it tends to get used (even by me, during the first session we played) as a cost that isn’t really a cost. “Driven back” is an abstract term that doesn’t necessarily create much in the way of a disadvantage unless it’s enforced. In the future, I think I’ll mandate that “driven back” means either being separated from the group in some way, or some other tangible drawback.

The Fighting Tournament script is also damned hard on Camaraderie. It kept resetting to zero when characters died. Our group doesn’t like to draw on Camaraderie; they prefer to hoard it to get that extra XP at the end of the game. So it would reset and suddenly people are scrambling to lay down zingers so they can get it back up to 3. That became a tough road once the Smartass died in the middle act.

Setting this game in the Dark Future was probably gilding the lily, but I don’t care. We already came up with a great name for the sequel starring Gipper Frost. RAZORFIST 2: COLD DAY IN HELL. 

Tonight's Movie: RAZORFIST: AD 1995

I'm running Action Movie World again! Tonight's movie: RAZORFIST: AD 1995. (The actual "movie" is made in 1984.) In the dark future, desperate souls live in squalor as megacorporations hoard the last of the world's resources! And other dystopian boilerplate! The only chance for a new life lies in RAZORFIST, the illegal underground fighting tournament beneath the city of New Detroit. A young fighter vows revenge against the champion who destroyed his life -- but when the criminal underworld gets involved, the odds are stacked against them all! Who will rise to the top of RAZORFIST?

(I'm telling you, this game is the next best thing to going back in time and working for Golan and Globus.)

What’s So Great About Action Movie World?

Now that I’ve posted a few play reports from Action Movie World, I thought it might be time to discuss the game in more detail. (I like doing things backward.) If you’ve read through the previous posts and wondered what some of the game terms and conventions are about, this post will explain a few of them. If you’re not already a fan of AMW, this post will make you a fan. Or cause you to grimace in distaste. Or walk away unmoved. Look, I’m not the boss of your emotions.

Anyway, here’s what I think makes Action Movie World special.  I will say up front: this is not a review, nor a balanced critique. It’s pretty much a fan letter and a list of things I like. A list of things I dislike might be forthcoming -- if I ever come up with any.

The PCs play actors playing characters. 

In the introduction, Action Movie World admits to taking copious inspiration from Hong Kong Action Theater, an RPG from 1996. I loved HKAT at the time, though I had some gripes with the combat mechanics. I especially loved the mechanic of PCs playing actors who in turn would take on a variety of roles, which HKAT pioneered (as far as I know) and Action Movie World perfects.

Playing the same “actor” across a variety of movies frees up a player to put a new concept into play each time. They can play a renegade maverick on the edge, the quiet loner, or the by-the-book disciplinarian. If they want to typecast themselves and play the same character every time, that’s an option too. This level of player freedom adds a breeziness and flexibility to Action Movie World that has made my play group eager for the next session.

One PC plays the Lead. Everyone else plays a supporting character. 

Many games and play styles tend toward an ensemble mode of storytelling, where everyone is equally valuable and no one character stays at the forefront. Action Movie World gleefully defies this formula as part of the genre emulation element of the game. Movies have Leads, so the game has Leads. One PC stays in the spotlight, and the other players surround the Lead to act as motivation, foils, or hapless buddies only two days from retirement.

Of course, there are many reasons why (especially in a long-term campaign) an ensemble approach might be best for a play group. But for the pace and intensity of something like Action Movie World, having a single lead character around whom the majority of the action revolves really works -- and the game understands this.

The Lead cannot die. Supporting characters get XP for dying. 

In some games -- well, let me rephrase that, in some groups, character death can be a problem. A lot players (for good reason) don’t enjoy putting a lot of time and care into a PC, only to have them die (either gloriously or ignominiously). Action Movie World solves this problem. If your character dies, your actor lives on. They’ll play another role in another movie. Better yet, they get tasty XP for dying, possibly more XP than they might have gotten for surviving the movie. I cannot overstate the sheer genius of this. This is the mechanic that led to one of my most damage-phobic players yelling “I’m trying to die here!” in the middle of a session and enthusiastically throwing himself on a literal sword.

Dying also opens up the possibility of the Vengeance move, a single PC move (usually against the Villain) that garners automatic success when used to avenge a dead supporting character. So killing off a supporting PC isn’t just motivational from a storytelling standpoint, it has real mechanical benefit. Again, this helps guide the games into the shape of your typical action movie.

Better still, supporting players can basically decide to die at any time. The Director can decree that your character dies when you take five harm or take damage from a weapon with the -deadly attribute on it, but a player can also just decide to throw themselves into the fire and have a heroic death in order to trigger that sweet Vengeance move. This might seem counterintuitive at first, but not when you realize that trying to survive as a supporting character in Action Movie World is not only missing the point a bit, but mechanically uncoupled from your character advancement.

When PCs die, their players become “assistant directors.”

When PCs lose their supporting characters, they don’t have to just sit around bored for the rest of the game. They take on the role of assistant directors: fight choreographers, pyrotechnics coordinators, acting coaches, etc. Their job is to “punch up” the flow of the game, suggesting bigger, badder, more exciting elements for the fight scenes and action sequences.

I’ll be honest, I wasn’t sold on this at first. Players with dead characters sitting on the sidelines making commentary and changing the action as we go? I had my doubts about it working -- but it did. A player at the table whose entire job is to make your fight sequences amazing is a great way to ensure your fight sequences will be amazing. This is a wonderful little innovation.

Action Movie World understands action movies.

I wanted to play Action Movie World from the moment I finished reading the book, but it was an entertaining read on its own. The introduction by Dr. Will Dodson is like a miniature lecture in the ecology of the action film. Throughout the book, the authors demonstrate that they understand how action movies work: from the beginning, you understand the story, and you know how it’s going to end -- the hero kills the bad guy. The whole point is generating excitement (and body count) on the way there.

Action Movie World doesn’t debase its source material, but it doesn’t try to make it out to be more than it is, either -- it encourages “loud, dumb fun” and straight-up tells you not to think too hard about certain elements of the game. After all, many action movies fall apart under close logical scrutiny. Your AMW games will too, if you’re playing them “right.”

So that’s what’s what makes Action Movie World special in my book.