Training montage/Intense training

[Jareth Valar]

Ok, we see this in allot of movies and shows, the protagonist gearing up for a fight or encounter (Rocky, Best of the Best, etc).

What game effect would you say that would have?

My initial thoughts would be an advantage, skill increase or stat increase with an equal disadvantage, at least until the intense training and associated fight/encounter is over.

Any help would be appreciated.

[Balor Patch]

One could take a variation of Higher Purpose, call it "I Studied On Killin’ You", and put it in Dungeon Fantasy Companion 2.

[aesir23]

I would simply award the players experience points when there's going to be downtime, then ask the players to describe a montage scene explaining how they spent them.

[awesomenessofme1]

There are rules for training montages in Social Engineering: Back to School, but they're designed around training unskilled people basic skills. If the character is actually being trained by a teacher, it wouldn't be too unreasonable to extrapolate them into one-on-one training to improve a skill you already have.

[Jareth Valar]

This is also a thought for the restricted diet and intense training for other non-combat competitions like World's Strongest Man, Marathon, Etc.

For awarding CP, that would easily be a good explanation of enough were awarded or the character had in reserve.

I will let the GM to know about the montage in Social Engineering.

I'll have to take a look at Higher Purpose, I'm not familiar with that one.

[Anthony]

In general I'd say a training montage lets you spend experience points, it's really "here's the reason I gained these new abilities".

[Stormcrow]

Time Use Form = training montage

[Jareth Valar]

Fair enough on the training montage. Just standard CP expenditure.

What about the hyper focused training before an event/competition? Would that receive any significant bonuses? If not, why even bother doing it (in RL and thereby modeled in the game)?

[Refplace]

Originally Posted by Jareth Valar

Fair enough on the training montage. Just standard CP expenditure.

What about the hyper focused training before an event/competition? Would that receive any significant bonuses? If not, why even bother doing it (in RL and thereby muddled in the game)?

Social Engineering: Back to School has that covered too. Basically its temporary points in skill.

I generally use skill bumps of +1 at a time, unless its a long pause or break between sessions but Intensive Training such as in Back to School which requires rolls to succeed let you add more, +1 on success, +2 on crit similar to complementary skills, margin of success for highly cinematic games.

[aesir23]

Originally Posted by Jareth Valar

If not, why even bother doing it (in RL and thereby modeled in the game)?

Real life is more granular and has a lot of harsh realism optional rules in play (including losing skills without regular practice).

If I were running a game that focused on professional fighters, I'd give a temporary skill bonus as explained in "back to school" but I'd also include and opponent specific bonus for the foe you've been training to fight.

This would be something like: You automatically recognize any Reputation your foe has (see MA 54) and Choose 1 of these benefits:
+1 to Defenses only to offset penalties for Feints and Deceptive Attacks
OR
+1 on rolls to hit with Counterattack or Riposte


I might also work up some harsh realism rules that stipulate that you can only be at peak Fitness or Strength for a brief window in your training and trying to extend that window risks injury. But I'm not sure anyone wants that level of realism.