I save my ramblings on an idea Ogre posted on Story Games, because having these in more than one place will probably make it harder to disappear.

Also, this blog’s purpose was exactly this when I started it. I’m neglecting it, I know… whatever, you can find me on twitter and tumblr if you want to read short-form stuff.

Movin’ along… Pondering out loud: the 3:16 route seems interesting but… I’d try and fiddle and complicate it a bit.

Instead of a single pile of threat tokens you have two piles (numbers to be determined).

One is the “Victims” pile. Your Rescue Team must do stuff (maneuvers, rolls, whatever) to reduce this pile. Each token is a person with a name, a life, a job, friends, maybe a cat. These details should be part of the process somehow.

Maybe you discover them from turn to turn, fleshing out the victims, and/or you know them when they die and/or get terribly wounded.

When the Rescuers reduce the pile, those victims are in the ambulances and running to the ER. We’ll discover at the end of the game if they live.

This pile can be brought to zero. No victims, mission ALMOST ended.

The Team still has to come out alive from the burning building/sinking ship/crashed train cars/etc.

The other is the “Danger” pile. The Rescue Team can choose to do stuff (maneuvers, rolls, etc.) to fight and reduce this pile instead. This lowers the threat level of the situation.

Bringing this pile to zero should be very hard: no threat, end of mission, remaining Victim tokens go to ER.

Each turn the Danger makes “attacks”/“maneuvers” to either:

Endanger the Rescue Team (a floor collapses, fire flashes from an opened door, a gas tank explodes) making attacks to the characters directly.

Endanger the Victims: a roll (probably harder than the one against the team) to attack the Victim token pile. People get injured, then badly injured and/or die.

And finally, the Danger can roll (do stuff) to Increase the Danger. Yep, more danger tokens. Shit just got worse. Other fun stuff:

• Roles for the members of the Rescue Team, obviously, giving them edges and rules-bending tools (the Field EMT / Combat Medic can stabilize injured people, maybe roll to try and keep them alive, and so on)
• Rooms/zones. Either on a single map, or as different stages in the mission.
• …dunno, other stuff