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Mechanics and homebrew rules for action-focused heist games

Blades' "skip to the action"+retrospective+stress mechanics worked really well for my table.

I'm looking for other systems and homebrews that would allow us to "plan" the heists later, during the actual action.

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  • Sounds like you'd enjoy Leverage. It's based on Cortex and lets the players spend points to introduce flashback scenes. They do this to explain why it looks like X happened, but actually it was Y because they set something up earlier.

    I was going to link you to the Margaret Weis Productions page on drivethrurpg, but it seems to be a bit buggy at the moment.

    • Yes, these are ideas I'm looking for. Thanks

      What happens when the situation needs a retrospection but the player ran out of stunt points?

      Where should the pdf be available? I couldn't find it on dtrpg nor the publisher's site

      • Leverage is long out of print. I was going to try to PM you with some suggestions but uh either Lemmy or Jerboa just doesn't have that feature or I'm missing it? Either way, if you search "leverage RPG PDF" you can find copies. I normally would not condone piracy for RPGs because it's a small community and writers need our support but the game has been out of print for a while now and sometimes you gotta be pragmatic. If this violates posting rules, I'll remove.

        • No worries, I've found a way to get it. I was just curious where is the correct place to look. It seems even the publisher has gone through some stuff

          Somehow the legal routes are not great for preserving stuff. I understand that printing or hosting a book that will be searched for just a few times in a year is not financially sound. But then things shouldn't just disappear because are not profitable anymore

          Getting back to mechanic: I'd like to rely on the retrospection quite much. I'm afraid that sometimes I'd have to manage a situation when players have ran out of the meta-currency. Any pointers?

      • I've actually never played it, so I don't know how the stunt point economy is run. I'm sure there's a mechanic for earning more, so probably the player needs to work the system to make sure they have enough.

        I didn't know it was out of print. You'd think a PDF copy could stay available forever, wouldn't you? I'd probably check ebay or something similar.

        • Nope, I've found a link to dtrpg but it seems it got pulled. And a used book costs 300$.

          1. MWS sold Cortex Prime to Cam Banks
            And since the motive was to retire from RPG development I guess Leverage went with it too. If not, I can't find any mention of it on her page nor dtrpg anyway
          2. then Fandom bought it along with Cam
          3. only to change their mind a few years later and sell it to DWD
          4. who seem to be only selling the Cortex Prime core book

          I'm afraid it's another one lost in legal limbo. And it's a shame, from what I understood this is the first game that introduced retrospective mechanic.
          I've found a summary of the rules, but if one is looking for just a pdf and not a collectible, I'm afraid it's time to hoist the colors.

          Thank you for the suggestion, though. I think this might be easier to translate to meta-currencies than the stress track

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