Bringing Down the Pain is the "complex resolution" system in The Shadow of Yesterday. It's there for when things get hairy.

As written, Bringing Down the Pain is not an initiative-based, attack and defend system. Instead, everyone attacks, but only the loser takes damage.

This can result in some difficult situations. An example:

In this case, how does Bringing Down the Pain work? That is, if Pete's using Charles' Infantry ability and Will is using Jules' Sway ability, what happens when Pete wins a roll? What about when Will does? Thinking about this from a traditional angle won't work, and even I've had plenty of confusion with it. (See [1] to see me in flailing retarded explanation mode. I'll come back to this in a minute.)

The answer to the above: if Pete wins a roll, Charles hits. Or maybe he doesn't: maybe he does something with Scrapping to damage Jules' ability to Sway him, like pop Jules in the mouth. If Will wins a roll, Charles still swings, as the competition isn't over yet, but his words have effect over Charles. Whether it is narrated that Charles hit or not is cool, but irrelevant. If he did, it didn't reduce Jules' story power, which is what gets damaged. (Fictional characters don't get hurt. I mean, they get fictionally hurt, but that's all. Their story power gets actually hurt.)

Brain damage and the author

I said we'd talk about my crazyness in the link above. Here we are. If you haven't read it, I said:

This is the author freaking out and being insecure about his own design. I should clarify: I think the system as written is a great improvement over previous designs and the way to play the game. With that said, we have two problems:

• Certain things in the game rely on the earlier initiative-based system.
• BDTP can be kind of slow.

To help with this, I include two optional rules changes here.

Speeding up Bringing Down the Pain

Every time you have to make a Stay Up check, add a penalty die to your next Stay Up check. These dice are cumulative. Note that you do not have to make a Stay Up check if your damage is less than your Stay Up + 3.

You can get rid of a penalty die by spending a point from the relevant pool for Stay Up. This operates differently from normal, too: that die is gone for the rest of the BDTP.

Example

You get rid of all your penalty dice to Stay Up in the following situations:

• You change damage status (you are broken or bloodied.)
• You change your intention in BDTP.

Initiative-based Bringing Down the Pain

(Note: Really, this is a backwards step from the coolness that is the game. Use at own risk. Also, you should use "Speeding Up Bringing Down the Pain" with this.)

When someone decides to Bring Down the Pain, things move into an initiative-based step-by-step resolution system instead of the normal "ok you make it through the asteroid field" conflict resolution. Whoever decided to Bring Down the Pain gets to go first. If more people are getting in on this, the Story Guide decides when they get to go. Usually, the initial defender goes first, then the initial attacker, then those other guys. Use index cards and put them in order of who goes when. The top index card shows whose turn it is. When his turn is over, his card goes to the bottom of the stack.

Each roll is something active versus an innate ability (Athletics, React, or Resist.) I swing, you dodge. You sway, I resist. I dropkick your mom, she tumbles. Simple, huh?

If the defender (the guy dodging) wins, no damage is done. If the attacker wins, damage is done. Still simple.

If you want to change intention, spend an action doing so. Don't announce your new intention until your next action. Ok, not bad.

Oh, yeah! If like twelve dudes are rushing you, you'll be able to defend against all of them. If they have 2 Scrapping, and you have 7 React, they do nothing. That sucks. So, they can all get together and use the lowest of all their Scrapping scores, and they get a bonus die for each of them past the first. That simplifies the "I help him, and he helps him, and he helps him" thing that would have to go on otherwise. More speed.

Lastly, and this is super-optional, but I like it, you can spend a point from whatever pool you're using for an action to go to the top of the index card stack. Anyone else can spend, of course, to go ahead of you. You all might spend your points at once just to see who gets to go first.

-- Clinton R Nixon