Flashbacks

If your table is the sort that will get bogged down in planning something to death– perhaps you have an engineer or two playing –then the flashback mechanic is your get out of planning hell free card.

Flashbacks are simply a special form of Maneuver that allows the Hero to take advantage of the planning they did quietly off-screen, only when it becomes relevant, rather than spending time doing planning that may not apply.

Flashbacks tend to be more narrative while Maneuvers are more mechanical. Maneuvers tend to be taking an action, that gives a mechanical advantage, while Flashbacks tend to be more likely to change the narrative situation. This may lead to lead to exploitable circumstances that can be exploited, but the link is less direct.

Approach

If the group chooses to forego the planning session, they instead choose a general approach: hit them fast and hard, sneak in over the roofs, or con their way in.

Each Hero makes an Attribute Roll, putting together an appropriate strategy for their Hero. Any planning or intel related Boons can be freely shared.

The Pain Pool should be appropriate for how well defended target is, but it should be on the low side, the expectation is that the Hero will get at least a success against a target of equal threat.

Successes give one free flashback, critical successes grant two. Even with no successes the Hero can still pay a Favor and do a flashback, as can a Hero that has already used their free flashbacks.

Use

Flashbacks aren’t usually used in the middle of a challenge, but something that is done before the dice come out. After using one of their free flashbacks or spending a Favor the player narrates what their Hero did to prepare for this situation.

A flashback is not time travel, if something has been described in the present, it can’t be undone by a flashback. If a guard has been described as watching the door, a flashback won’t let your Hero have killed him the night before, but they could have gotten them drunk into the wee hours of the morning, so the guard is hung over, though it might have been wiser to hire someone to do that.

A flashback may, and probably does, entail a simple challenge. Anything less than that, probably doesn’t require a flashback, and anything more, probably can’t be done in a flashback.

Major plot points are beyond the scope of a flashback. The Hero can’t kill the major villain or steal the McGuffin, but they can make those things easier in the present.

The guiding principle remains to make stories together, so a flashback that doesn’t make the story better, probably shouldn’t be allowed.