Memento (Part 2)

New ep: http://www.filmreroll.com/?p=386

Not gonna talk about the reverse-order thing yet. Think it'll be more productive to talk about later. Let's talk about the Focus Check system.  Overall I think the system turned out to be a great success. Here are the Focus Check rules as I sent them to all the actors. The rules are in italics, my analysis of how the rule turned out is after.

Every time you roll, there will be an accompanying Will roll to keep Focus (Leonard's Will is 12.) Three strikes you're out. On the third failed Focus check, your turn will be over and the next player will jump in.

So the first decision I had to make was what was the trigger for rolling for focus. Tying it to dice roles made the most intuitive sense, as making a concentrated effort on something seems like it would be when Leonard's focus on the circumstances of the moment would be most likely to waver. From a game perspective, I think this system turned out to be fun and exciting. And added a layer of strategy as players would naturally try to limit their roles to prolong their turn. Having three-strikes-you're-out isn't that realistic to the movie, but I liked it better than having a single-strike system, as that would cause turn lengths to be too volatile. I like the differing turn lengths that emerge from this system, but I didn't want anyone to be done in two minutes, and I didn't want any turns that went on for hours.

If you are on your last Focus strike, all of Leonard's IQ based rolls (including Focus checks) are at a minus two.

Turn length was one of my main concerns as I was designing this system. So setting the target number for the Focus Checks was the biggest question I was facing. It felt right for me to tie it to Will, and Leonard in the movie is clearly a very willful person, so I wanted to set his Will fairly high. But I also didn't want over-long turns. The number that felt right for me in terms of turn length was 11, but the number that felt right for Leonard's Will was 13, so I compromised on 12. I added this rule of minus-two on the final Focus check as a way of lowering the total amount of roles, without lowering Leonard's overall Will. I liked the idea of a final Focus check being at a penalty as a way of increasing the likelihood that focus check failures could cascade, and make it harder for players to lay things out nicely for the next Leonard.

In combat, you need only roll Focus once per turn (not separately for attack and defense and damage rolls.) Similarly, any single action that requires multiple rolls to administer, still requires a single Focus check.

One of the drawbacks I saw in my system was that it would make combat fairly punishing to Focus. I didn't want fights to be an automatic end-of-turn, so I added the above clarifications to try to mitigate that. Also, the definition of "single action" got some rules-lawyering, but I tried my best to be consistent.

Passive rolls (roles I tell you to make (usually perception or IQ)) will only require Focus checks on a failure. 

So to clarify, if someone rolls perception because they wanted to look for something, they always roll Focus. The above rule only applies on passive rolls. I tend to give a lot of passive perception roles: Someone walks into a room, and I have them roll perception to see how much to tell them. It didn't seem fair to make those all Focus checks, but I also didn't want players to have complete power over their Focus checks, and be able to be so conservative with rolls that their turn can last forever. Also, I quickly realized that turns in high-action situations would likely be shorter than turns that were dropped into low-danger or social situations. This was a way of having some occasional Focus checks even in situations where the players don't need to role too much.

Extra effort rolls will give you a minus one to Focus checks. Failed extra effort roles will get a minus two to Focus checks.

It just felt right to me that extra-effort should penalize Focus.

Any time you're required to wait (as in, having extended down-time, not a Wait action in combat), you will have to roll Focus at a minus three.

To be realistic to the movie I probably should have been more aggressive with Waits. In fact, I probably should have ended any turns at a time when Leonard has to Wait, as movie Leonard didn't seem to have any ability to stay focused for that long. But I didn't want to be that mean to my players. The tricky thing was in defining what exactly was a Wait. I probably could have been more aggressive with that as well.

Losing consciousness or going to sleep will result in the end of your turn automatically, unless it is right at the beginning of your turn.

Dealing with unconsciousness was probably the trickiest part. The movie is very clear on this, but I didn't want to create perverse incentives around going to sleep. Incentives are generally aligned when it comes to Focus, however Leonard is certainly happy to go to sleep when he's tired, and I didn't want to create a scenario where players were avoiding rest at the expense of Leonard's needs. I added the loophole where players could get sleep as long as they did it right at the beginning of their turn. Of course, I failed to clearly define the "beginning" of a turn. Andy made use of that in this episode, which felt like a bit too much had happened to call it the beginning of a turn, but it was clearly the kind of scenario that I made this rule for.

At any time, you can burn a Focus check to get a plus four on a roll.

I though that one would be fun, but no one really made use of it.

Overall, I love how the Focus check system turned out. Rules overall turned out to be a bit longer than I had intended them to, but that was probably for the best, as overly-short turns would make the story a bit too choppy and confusing for the listener.