LTL, Jungle Blade review

In the final episode of the Jungle Blade Mystery I didn't do a designers note (sorry Joe) but I want to do a review on how using Large then Life the Directors cut the story came together & how I intend to use it to drive stories using other game systems.

Now before I go on I want to explain that their are in fact two LTL books, the first is Large then Life & is soon to be released by THW. The second one, which is the one I have, is The Director's Cut. Now I know nothing of the first one, The Director's Cut is very much an RPG but imho not a great table top game.

That said what the Director's Cut offer's is a very smart way to build a story due to its tables, the first two episode of the Jungle Blade Mystery show me what I think is the major fault of the game & at the same time what makes the game work.

Episode 1) After working out was was to be achieved over all & in the hope for solving my first clue by finding a person of interest, I set up the table to play out what is called the Advance the story scene, for the time of day & local there was 1 PEF on the table & as unlike in other THW games the PEF, don't move, so you could if you wanted to just avoid it in most cases if you wished.

After crossing the table, inter acting with the PEF I arrived at the target building, so if an action game is your thing so far this is a none event.

Entering the target building, I'd no defining moment & the person of interest wasn't there, all that effort for no result right ? well yes & no, while there was no action don't forget I'm building a story so time to put the little gray cells to work.

To add a bit of mystery & intrigue I decided that the Theatre was close & that while they'd been told that Miss Benavides had gone there for a meeting this wasn't the case.

Episode 2) Opened with what is called a travel scene, when moving about be it from one part of a city to another or to the back of beyond you do a travel scene.

Now the travel scene is an idea I really love & is a peach when it comes to story building so I'll explain how they work. If in say a jungle & your just moving from one part to another, you just roll to see if you've a confrontation along the way, but if your traveling far, say Newyork to Cairo then you roll to find what kind of transport you taking, think the aeroplane scene from the Temple of Doom & you'll get the idea of what can happen.

While episode two had a bit of action that took place in the alleyway thanks to the travel scene the main part the advance the story scene ended the same as in episode one, no defining moment & no person of interest, now maybe its just me, for as a gaming pal of mine once told me "It's not that you roll low Mr Frank, its just that you can never roll what you want" LOL

Time to get the gray cells going again, now in an advance the story scene you'll either be looking for a person or an object, so I decided to hedge my bets & have the person of interest having been taken by the bad guys who were after a book he had, so the story works no matter which result I got on the roll.

Episode 3) Again we were looking for a person of interest, by now I was playing this as a pure RPG.

The PEF's turned out to be of no interest which given that Karl is very good at what is called Talk the Talk was no surprise, Talk the Talk is how you inter-act with NCP's.

This time however  there was a defining moment, a defining moment is basically a PEF inside a building & as luck would have the first NCP I rolled up was a political type, which happens to be what Miss Benavides is, the rest of the NCP's were to be the others in robes in the final scene, a fact that I didn't cover when got to it.

Not only did we get a defining moment this time we also manage to have the person of interest show up, now when you find a person of interest you do what is called a questioning test, with the result of the test determining how many clues you get, a very good result will get you two clues, a good result will get you one, while a very bad result will become an ambush, which means you have a confrontation.

At the end of an advance the story it is also possible that instead of gaining a clue you'll have lost one, "What" I hear you say "How can you lose a clue ?" well a clue could be anything not just information.

Again we'll turn to Dr Jones to help us out or maybe be it should be Dr's Jones, you remember that little notebook that Sr sent Jr that was then taken from him by the Nazis ? well that would have been losing a clue.

Episodes 4 & 5) By now you've all got a good idea of the basics of how things work, but there are still somethings I want to cover, E4, was more of a filler episode & plus I wanted to add another member to the team, so I rolled for an NCP which is how you do it & got a Hollywood type, what the hell good would he be for an investigation ? that was my first reaction, but while Director's cut will give you the parts of the story you still have to mould it, that's what makes it great.

Giving what was to come, braking into a secure lockup how could I fit the NCP to the job ? then I had an idea, make him an escape artist & given who Karl was I couldn't really go for a safe cracker as I could of if said Karl was a P. I. like I said the game gives you the parts it up to you to put them together.

E5 was another advance the story & this time the NCP's gave me something I could use, I already knew form the open seen that the big bad was a Business Magnet & as the first NCP was a business magnet it was time to interduce Harris the villain of the story, when the two NCP's turned out to be a cop & a P.I. the pieces started to fall nicely into place, it would just depend on how the lockup played out.

To get into the lockup I'd Paul our escape artist take a mental challenge to open the locked door, & the defining moment  turned out to be bad guys working for the big bad, now normally you'd play this out before searching for an object or looking for the person of interest, but I want to do it differently & add a bit of tension (one of the joys of solo gaming) so Karl & Paul went into a little office & I rolled a d3 + 3 to see how many turns Paul would have to try open the safe before the bad guy reached the office.

Again Paul had a mental challenge but I made it harder, as it turned out he'd 4 turns, one was used to get to the safe & as it turned out he open it in his first try.

I decided to have it make a loud noise when it opened & have the bad guys take a test to see if they heard it, which they didn't, so a turn to find the book in the safe & it was time for Karl & Paul to get out of dodge, another test for the bad guys this time to notice them on the way out, which they did & the fun started.

As away of bring things to ahead I'd Esther kidnapped.

Episode 6 The final scene, by now I was playing things more off the cuff then by the book, but wanted the grand finally without playing out the getting to the target building were in doing so any NCP's would be bad guys, but like I said above in most cases its possible to just avoid them.

Had things gone differently in E5 & the lads been captured the story would have been different, but as they hadn't Esther's kidnapping set the tone, I had Karl take a test to see if he'd spot been tailed back to his apartment, which he did & while it had no bearing on things, Kirkwood' test to sot the tail outside watching did.

There wasn't a lot different test wise to the other scenes above & given what this story was about I didn't think the my final revenge scene fitted into things, what's a my final revenge scene you ask ?

Well poor Diana Rigg getting riddled with bullets just after becoming Mrs Bond &, you get the idea.

Final thoughts & going forward, over all I was really happy with how this worked & feel I learned a lot from it & got good ideas.

1) While I enjoyed it I don't think doing radio shows is for me, so it will be back to movie's :)

2) I feel that for me any story should be done in a max of 5-6 parts, that's not to say I mind reading someone else's that's longer, its just when doing my own I find my interest starts to drop after that, plus I don't want to be bogged down in something for to long.

3) Releasing the episodes over a short period means its easier for the reader to follow.

4) Adding things like time limits or spot checks are great for solo gaming & gaming over all, as they add a certain amount of unknow & tension.

5) When things start going in a certain way run with it, I'll explain what I mean, when I'd played out the opening scene, I'd a vision of this tail ending somewhere in Peru, but that wasn't to happen & I don't believe it took from the story.

Using Director's cut with other systems, for a long time I've had trouble trying to find a style of solo gaming that I'm happy with, Pulp Alley, 45 Adventures & others all had things I like but also things I don't like.

A blessing with solo gaming is that you don't have to stick to any given ruleset, Director's cut adds something I think is missing in a lot of games & that's a chance to fail. When I played out the Perilous Island campaign I was always going to get to the end even if I lost every game, if I was to play it out integrating Directors cut I might not even make it to the island.

Tables, tables, tables, Director's cut like all THW games is full of tables & is what is at the heart of what makes their games works, now to make them work in a different game.

I'll use 45 Adventure stats & make a stat line for Karl, & then try out a few things.

Karl  Brains 5 Willpower 4 Brawn 4  Guts 7 Heater 4 Shiv 5 Dodge 4 Speed 4, abilities can enhance these stats but I'm not getting into that.

Finding an object, in Director's cut you roll 2d6 with the lower score been the difficulted factor, then you'd roll 3d6 against the Rep of the star, any score equal or lower then their Rep would be a pass, next you roll 3d6 against the difficulted factor score, with any equal or lower been a pass, a 6 will always fail in both above cases, then go to the tables to find what the result is.

Here's how I do it in 45 Adventure, to find the difficulted I do as above, I've rolled a 4&5 so it 4.

Next I'd roll 3d10 for Karl using his Brains stat of 5, this means that any dice score of 5+ will be a pass, I rolled a 7,1 & 10, giving Karl two passes, now I roll another 3d10 using the difficulty score of 4, this means any 6+ will be a pass, I rolled a 2,2 &4 passing none, so Karl won the test by 2 so found the object & solved 2 clues, if on the other hand the above rolls had been the other way round, Karl would not have found the object & triggered a trap.

I could do the same thing to try solve a plot point in Pulp Alley.

As this post is already long I'll do one more test before I finish up, this time a reaction test to been shot at, for this I'll use Karl's Guts stat which is 7, now your think 7 is high so he'll most likely pass, yep but in 45 Adventure as you take damage your stats go down, plus if I was playing Director's cut as Karl is a star I could just choose to pass 2, 1 or 0.

I'll roll 2d10 & score a 1&6 which means he only pass 1 as it turned out, meaning if he can he'll return fire & if he can't he'll duck back.

Now its all well & fine me sitting here & doing a couple of tests but will it work over all ? well as they say the prove of the pudding is in the eating, so stay tuned :)

That's it for this post, as always my thanks for dropping in & if you'd care to leave a comment it would be welcomed :)