Out of Frame: An RPG of Cinema Escape

It’s the 1950s. Or is it? You have the eerie feeling that you are being watched, that you are really a character in a B-movie.

And you don’t like the way the Directors look.

It’s time to find the Producer and get some answers.

It’s the ‘50s. Oddly, you can’t quite remember the year. You’re a pretty ordinary person, maybe just a tad better than the average joe, with a pretty exciting life. You’re a jungle explorer, a gangbuster, a private detective, a heroic scientist.

There’s just one problem: you swear you’ve seen this all in a movie.

You can’t quite put your finger on it, but reality just doesn’t seem to add up anymore. Maybe it’s the gaps in your memory; you don’t feel like you have a real past. Maybe it’s the way you suddenly “remember” someone you feel you’ve just
met. Maybe it’s the occasional moments of lost time. Or maybe it’s the way you can sometimes predict what’s about to happen, because it seems to be part of the “plot formula”.

There’s also more eerie evidence. The feeling you’re being watched. The way everything seems to be connected. The way the universe seems to conspire against you any time you try to “break the plot”. And those strangers in the shadows…

Whatever it is, you’re going to get to the bottom of it. And you know Keeton hasthe answers…


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2 Responses to “Out of Frame: An RPG of Cinema Escape”

  1. James Says:

    I’m curious why you chose to have initiative going from lowest to highest and all others going from highest to lowest? The way I see it, this means you can have three types of rolls:

    low-low: Act quickly but poorly
    low-high: Act quickly and skilfully
    high-high: Act slowly and skilfully

    If initiative were trying for a high roll you would get:
    low-low: Slowly and poorly
    high-high: quickly and skilfully

    But low-high would offer you a choice: which is more important? Speed (what does skill matter, all I need to do is pull the lever) or skill (I have one shot, can’t rush it!)?

  2. John Laviolette Says:

    Hi, James. I made initiative run low to high to make it intuitive. Rolling a 1 means you go first. That makes sense on a gut level. Counting up is also open-ended, which is especially important with the timing of extended actions (risks.) If speed counted down instead of up, you’d have the same situation as the old D&D AC numbers; once you decide that an AC better than 0 is possible, you have to use negative numbers in a descending AC system. Likewise, if a player rolls double 1s in my game, takes an action, then takes a risk, then follow up with another risk, the second risk would have a speed of -1 under a count-down system.