7.7 Goal Examples

The following are some examples of goals, of a varying degree of complexity. While even the most simple goals can spice up a conflict, there’s a lot of potential in chaining them together or otherwise getting more involved, once you’ve become comfortable with how the system works. And if you feel like a conflict needs some change—whether your conflict appears to be too easy, too hard, too bland, or otherwise out of sync with what you want—these example goals give some inspiration on how to fix those issues on the spot.

The Lone Survivor

This is an example out of a playtest session. Our gang of heroes is fighting a gigantic hydra that appeared out of a crack in the ground. Four of the PCs are taking good care of it, while one is fighting off some hedgehog mutants in the nearby abandoned village (he ran away from the hydra, and the GM introduced new adversity to keep him busy). Three of the characters are getting close to disposing of the hydra, so the GM introduces a story goal to allow the other two players to have something to do as well:

Save The Last Villager [4]

The GM describes that the PCs spot a figure on a shaky old water tower, with one of the hedgehog mutants clawing its way up the ladder to get to it. Who’s the figure? Will our heroes save the villager before the mutants kill him or her?

This story goal not only makes the fight a bit more interesting as the last few strikes against the hydra play out, it also opens up follow-up opportunities for character scenes involving the NPC after the conflict.

Fighting Ice with Fire

The PCs are in the middle of a fight with a tough group of ice demons in the middle of a dark metropolis. The PCs are having a hard time hurting them, and while the ice demons are vulnerable to fire, the PCs don’t have anyone with fire-based powers or weapon effects among them. What to do now? The answer: improvise.

The player of the first PC, Shoju, talks to the GM about thrusting his sword into the tank of a car, thereby covering it with gasoline, and then setting it on fire. The GM smiles and creates the following goal:

Set Sword Afire [2]: Character’s next strike counts as fire-based

The GM makes the goal easy because it’s a neat idea but the payoff only applies once; she doesn’t think the fuel will stick after a serious strike. If the player comes up with a plan that could keep the sword fire-based, she will create a goal that applies the fire-based effect for the rest of the conflict.

The player of the second PC wants to lure an ice demon into a gas station, then blow it up. The GM creates the following goal:

Lure Demon Into Explosive Trap [4]: Trigger 10-dice fire-based strike on 1 enemy

Goals such as these allow the PCs to trigger strikes with dice other than the ones in their pools. They still have to expend strike dice to achieve the goal, but the payoff is bigger (especially since the strike is fire-based, adding 3 bonus dice against those vulnerable to fire). On the other hand, the PC won’t be able to add strike powers to the strike trigger.

But what if the PCs just focus on strike trigger goals from now on to get more out of their dice than they would with a regular strike, almost every time? In that case, rejoice: your players are finding new and creative ways to hurt the opposition all the time, and the resulting fights should never get boring.

A Brutal Race

In the post-apocalyptic world from the example in the earlier chapters, the characters enter a race in which being fast doesn’t help you if the other side blows you off the course. The GM creates linked goals to represent the race track and, to simplify things, just adds circles after the parallel chained (P/C) goals to represent the same goal several times. Once those circles are full, that side can attempt the unique goal of winning the race. During the conflict, the PCs can figure out how many of them focus on achieving the goals along the way, and how many attack the other side instead. The difficulties are high to promote combined maneuvers by each side.

Make It Through The Course [5] (P/C) OOOOO
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-------> Win the Race [7]
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Make It Through The Course [5] (P/C) OOOOO

Notice that the two tracks are parallel goals: neither side can achieve the other side’s goals to prevent them from winning. The GM could also create 3 or more tracks instead of just 2, to complicate matters a bit and make it more of a crowded race.

The Tournament Assassin

In this example, the GM is getting very creative with the rules about goals and conflicts. She sets up a combat tournament in which the PC participates only to get close enough to the emperor to assassinate him. However, getting close to the emperor is incredibly hard, so the PC has to win the emperor’s trust and be invited to his close presence in order to carry out her mission. (This example was inspired by a particular movie; I won’t name it to avoid spoiling it for you.)

The PC will get to fight 5 consecutively harder enemies. These are laid out ahead of time. The player will get to play only 2 character scenes in between each fight: her PC talks to the emperor, and then there’s a flashback scene showing some of the PC’s motivation.

During each fight, the following goal exists:

Gain The Emperor’s Trust [4]: +2 Strike Dice for Assassination Attempt

The player can achieve this goal up to twice in each fight. At the end of the tournament—either when the PC loses a fight or after she defeats all 5 enemies—the player first has another character scene with the emperor and then gets to make a strike roll against him, but only with the dice she earned through these goals. The emperor has a defense of 3 and 3 wound circles, so the player needs to roll 12 successes to kill him. Once that roll is made, the chance is over, and the player and GM play out the attempt accordingly.

You could also set this up for two or more PCs: they each fight on the opposite end of the ladder, and then they get to fight each other in the end to figure out who gets to strike at the emperor.

Finally, when the moment comes to strike against the emperor and the player has enough dice to succeed, the GM can throw in the following goal:

Teach The Emperor The Meaning Of Honor [15]

Now the player can decide whether to try and strike or to achieve the goal instead (bringing in a trait for a reroll, possibly, or even invoking the Sacrifice rule).