Combat / Initiative Mistake

[Snuffy]

About a year ago now, I made a major mistake while gm'ing a Rifts game concerning a surprise attack. I should have posted this long ago, but am doing so now. Glistam was part of the group and will remember the situation well.

In the Rifts game, the players had their own characters for the main part of the game and then I had a set of characters on the bad guys side that we're really NPC's, but I would hand out the characters to the players to have them role-play out a couple scenes to fill in the gaps of the game. Kinda like an insight for the players on what was going on for the other side. Kept those sessions short. The group really seemed to enjoy those short runs and then continue the rest of the night with their own characters.

Things had taken a wrong turn for the bad guys. The head honcho was blaming his cronies for everything going wrong. The group was in an underground bunker type that was on fire above with a huge laser beam coming out of orbit (think killer satellites) and the whole bunker was beginning to collapse. This was the first time I had introduced the head bad guy to the players, and one of the players was playing him. I wanted to convey how bad-ass and cruel this maniac was to anyone that didn't improve his plan. With his plan crumbling around, it was time to shift the blame onto everyone else and to start over. His name was Grochelm (which if I remember correctly, Glistam was playing), he turned to his second in command and quietly told her (Celine) to off the rest of the group. Grochelm left the room to wait outside and then would kill Celine when she exited.

Celine called the group over almost into a huddle, she wisped something and came up with her guns to start offing the group to prove her worth to Grochelm. This is where I made my mistake. Celine should have the other 3-4 characters on quite the surprise. The group followed her, and one was even her lover. She was quite evil herself obviously.

Celine ended up getting killed and two characters survived somehow. That isn't a problem, just the result.

How would have you handled being in a group in almost a huddle and suddenly your one comrade comes up with a gun?

[Dog_O_War]

roll ..... for ..... INITIATIVE!

[Snuffy]

I'm more looking how you would handle the mechanics of the initiative, maybe even some form of Horror Factor? What would you give the person that surprised everyone for initiative.

I had everyone roll for initiative, but Celine who surprised everyone when she came up with the MD pistol should be have the jump. Mechanically, how would've you handled it?

Celine was a Head Hunter with half her body replaced. The rest of the group were humans. A Rogue Scholar, Cyber-doc, and a couple other I can't remember.

[Snuffy]

roll ..... for ..... INITIATIVE!

That's what I did. I don't believe it was the correct method though. I think there should have been negative modifier to remaining group or positive modifier to Celine. And/Or a horror factor roll. But this is all perspective 20/20 in the past. I just want to prepare my tool kit for the future.

[Snuffy]

Thanks Gadrin! And thank you for looking up the page too!

[Spinachcat]

roll ..... for ..... INITIATIVE!

That's what I did. I don't believe it was the correct method though. I think there should have been negative modifier to remaining group or positive modifier to Celine. And/Or a horror factor roll. But this is all perspective 20/20 in the past. I just want to prepare my tool kit for the future.

Did the players have fun?
If Yes, you did it right.
If No, then no rulebook is going to solve the problem.

At the end of the day, nobody cares if you did it right by the rules. Instead, everyone cares if they enjoyed the time they spent playing the game.

Personally, I would have given Celine a single surprise action that happened before Initiative and then I would call for Init rolls for everyone and Horror Rolls for those with deep connections to Celine each time they attempted any action that would harm her.

[Glistam]

It's a hard call to make, honestly. In order to be fair to all the other players playing the people being executed, they should have been given a fair chance to fight back. If I remember right the intention was that Celene would not try to go up against the other characters in that fashion, but would execute them in a more one-sided fashion that increased her chance of survival. I think there was power armor available that neither I or the person playing Celene didn't consider.

Ultimately I'm pretty sure everyone did have a fun time, but our rules lawyer was a little upset over not being able to win that game session.

I think as stated earlier, she should've gotten one action for surprise unless a character with Danger sense or another appropriate skill/ability could've anticipated her attack somehow. With point blank shooting, dodging should've been difficult. After that action, depending on the results, Horror Factor could've been appropriate. The Cyber Doc was a good enough alignment and in love with her, he was probably the most likely candidate for having to roll it. For the others it would've depended on their backgrounds. Then a standard roll for initiative, but having to draw or ready a weapon I think counts as an action (unless you want to shoot wild), meaning that Celene would've still had the upper hand against the others for the first melee round, and possibly two for those who failed their initiative.

And yeah, everyone knew the place was falling apart and they were looking for direction, which is what they thought Celene was giving them. It would've been based on the characters as to whether or not they were wary. They were the "bad guys" but they weren't all evil alignments, some were good being coerced into being bad.