Using the Story Template system to create chases

Hi,

I doubt this is possible but wonder if I'm missing something. I've made a table of Random Hazards and Barriers as per the Chase, Part 5: Optional Rules. This is all well and good and on creating a random chase, I just roll and add the entry to the new chase. Only thing is, I'm lazy. Currently I have a couple of Story Templates with the following:

• Short Chase = [4x1d10][Random Hazards and Barriers]
• Medium Chase - [6+1d10][Random Hazards and Barriers]
• Long Chase - [10+1d10][Random Hazards and Barriers]

In an ideal universe I'd love the output to create a Chases rather that Story entry. Any ideas all if this is possible?

Thanks

I'm not completely following your Story Temple examples, because to the best of my knowledge [4x1d10][Random Hazards and Barriers] syntax won't work in a template, neither would your other 2 examples. Is it possible you instead have [4d10x] [Random Hazards and Barriers], [6+1d10x] and [10+1d10x] in your templates?

From my understanding of it, the 4 table output types (chat, story, encounter, parcel) are defined by the Core RPG ruleset that the CoC7 ruleset is built upon. So in order to do what you're suggesting, an extension that adds a new Core RPG output type for Chases would need to be created. That would be tricky though, because Chases are a feature created by the CoC7 ruleset. My knowledge of extensions is too limited to be sure if it's even possible, but if it is I can't imagine it be easy to create and anything short of very complicated. I'm going to say it wouldn't be possible, but there's some very savvy extension creators in the FGU community who continually impress me with the workarounds they code, so you never know.

Story Templates are very complex beasts.
I cant see this one happening Im afraid...

Hi Kronovan,

Sorry for not being clear and not using a real-world example in the first post. At the time I was a running a 1960s San Fran based campaign, where at least once a session there'd be a car/foot chase as my players loved them and it fitted thematically with the Pulp type game.

Then the random hazard table was useful at first for generating ad-hoc events. Later, I then created location based tables with appropriate entries for the area. I would then use the Party Trackers Order grid as way of keeping track of position of all parties. When I realised that chases were expected every session I thought it would be a good idea to get ahead of the curve and generate some actual Chases to use. As previously stated.... I'm lazy, hence wanting to automate the process. I used the Story Template to run my custom location hazards tables but the output is rather ugly. Here's a working example so you can see what I mean, use this in a Story Template and output to Stories:

Basic Chase
[4d8x][Random Hazards and Barriers]

The example in my first post was a 'would like' to have rather than real world. Ensuring there would be a minimal acceptable length plus a random length component. Here is a mock up showing how I use the random generated output along with the Party Tracker:

Attachment 50187

Simple enough in layout, you'll see the randomly generated Chase story entry; I can then quickly throw down some letters to mark it out in the Order tab. The (D) row is difficulty, blank if it's standard, (H)ard or (E)xtreme. The (P) line is the position marked with a (S)tart and (E)nd with (H)azards and (B)arriers marked. This works well enough for chases on the fly but is somewhat cluttered, especially on my 1920x1080 screen which is why where possible I prefer to use the Chase system built into the Combat Tracker.

I guess you're right though, I want to start looking at writing some extensions. I need to modify the vehicle sheet in Core for a SWD6 campaign I want to run, so that will be my introduction to the task. This chase request I guess is a lot more involved, so I'll look at something like that a bit later when I've got my head around Lua and FGUs data structure. I also want to change the skills on the Party sheet for CoC and add a button to add the party to the Combat Tracker.