Chases and Pursuits

We had a chase in my game last Monday and I realized that what rules I had for pursuits were not sufficient. I've hopefully now rectified the problem.

In a pursuit there are two major events that must occur for the escapee to successfully elude their pursuers: they must break line of sight and then avoid the ensuing search. In order to break line of sight, the leads (those fleeing) must gain enough distance from their follows (those chasing) in order to break line of sight and then maintain it. If one ducks behind a corner and, mere milliseconds later, the follow ducks behind that same corner, it is unlikely the maneuver gained the lead anything. Given several seconds, however, the leads' chances increase dramatically.

As I usually do before making new rules, I scoured the internet to see what other folks had suggested. Unfortunately, almost every set of chase or pursuit rules I found were modelled after action cinema chases, which are less a pursuit and more a fight sequence that takes place while traversing difficult terrain, and I consequently needed to reframe much of what I found. The following rule still requires a fair amount of complication (having rules for multiple groups herding or hounding a lead, longer-duration chases, etc.) but should cover my bases for now.

There are 6 positions in a chase. Rather than tracking exact yards covered, I care about approximate ranges, using the number 6 for convenience.

1: Follows catch up to leads
2: Hot on Their Heels
3: In Pursuit
4: In Pursuit
5: In Pursuit
6: Follows have lost the leads

We determine the initial distance between leads and follows via card draw. A diamond is position 2, heart is position 3, club is position 4, and spade is position 5.

We track the chase on a minute-by-minute basis, which incorporates my rules on how long characters may sprint: their Strength modifier minus 3 equals the number of minutes they may run. Every minute spent running thereafter requires a Constitution test of increasing difficulty starting at Apprentice. Unusually for a pursuit, characters who fail this test may take damage equal to the difference between their result and the difficulty to continue running.

At the beginning of each minute, we determine how the characters are grouped. Characters of equal AP in the same position form a single cluster. Each cluster draws 1 card per AP and may draw more if all cluster members take 1 damage per additional card.

Follow clusters compare their cards to the nearest lead cluster. If they are able to cancel out the lead cluster's cards, they advance by 1 position. If not, the follow falls behind by 1 position. To make this somewhat easier, we allow clusters to manipulate their cards.

Diamonds are a trump suit, meaning that a diamond beats any other non-diamond, regardless of numerical card value, and that only a higher diamond beats a diamond card. The Ace of Diamonds cannot be bested.

Clubs can become diamonds via a successful Constitution test.
Spades can become diamonds via a successful Gymnast test.
Hearts can become diamonds via a successful Understanding test.
The difficulty for these tests depends upon the numerical value of the card. 2-6 is Apprentice, 7-10 and J are Professional, Q and K are Expert, and Aces require a Master-difficulty test.

However, follow clusters who are 'Hot on Their Heels' may not adjust their cards - they must be lucky to finally overtake the leads.