Subtlety and nuance don’t come easily to role-playing games. Conveyed largely through words on the GM’s side and imagination on the players’ side, we’ll never have the visual consistency of a film, or the conceptual depth of a book. Our players each experience our creation in their own way, which makes a GM’s storytelling job even more difficult. How do you design when you have little understanding of the final product? In that way, designing for RPGs rewards tropiness. By leaning into tropes that players will recognize, we let the shared experience of well-known stories, movies, and books do some of our heavy lifting. You may not remember the plot of the most recent James Bond movie, but you probably recall that the first ten minutes featured a gripping chase scene with ever-escalating stakes and tension.

Which brings us to our subject today: how can we take the chase rules of well-known role-playing games and imbue them with gripping action, avoiding a rote slog which threatens to go on forever, the hallmark of most chase rules in games? First of all, by considering the elements and structure of a great chase scene. Let’s run through the chase from The Bourne Ultimatum, as Jason Bourne tries to save a nervous Nicky Parsons from the various dangerous Desh, as all three move through the shifting roofscape of Tangiers.

Make sure there’s a clear goal

Firstly, it’s a three-handed chase: Desh is pursuing Nicky, while Bourne tries to track down Desh first. Each party has a clearly defined goal that means something. Often in chase scenes in games the motivation boils down to “just stop the quarry because they ran away from us so they must be important.” The GM must make the players care about the scene before engaging in it as a chase. Otherwise they’ll simply look for the quickest way around the scene.

Make it collaborative

The joy of a well-executed chase scene in a movie is that we partake in the chase through the experience of the protagonist. We are along for the ride, accompanying the hero through the various obstacles that appear in front of him or her. When Bourne wraps his hands in laundry to vault over a wall covered in broken glass, we congratulate ourselves along with him: “I’m sure I’d come up with that solution, too” we imagine. The same should be true of your chase scenes—turn the action into a group solution rather than several chases going on at once. The key to achieving this goal is to remove classic initiative. In the 5e rules as written for chases, each player acts on their own turn, just as in combat. The result is that anyone who isn’t going tends to check out of the action, since chases offer fewer tactical options than combat. Instead of letting that happen, find ways to allow the characters to act as a group to catch the quarry. The Forged in the Dark systems (Blades in the Dark, Band of Blades, and Scum and Villainy) do an excellent job of this, doing away with initiative and presenting scenes as obstacles that the party deals with together. One or two players propose a course of action, and other players can amplify that action through Setup Rolls or by taking stress to assist. 5e has a mechanic for this already, in the Group Ability Check rule. The GM describes a scene, and the players come up with a course of action for the group. The GM rules which ability check applies, and the party rolls the same ability check. Usually if half or more of the players succeed, the group succeeds. Spellcasters may be able to shine here (in what is usually the kind of scene dominated by the jocks of the party) by dropping back from the chase but crucially buffing the group in some way.

Abstract the distances

If we’re getting away from initiative, then we can also do away with walking speeds and the grid to illustrate the chase. Too often chases result in the quarry dashing for 60 ft. and then the party rotely dashing for 60 ft. behind them. If the party has a rogue at second level or above, that player uses Cunning Action to dash again and quickly catches the quarry—chases either become too easy or impossible, and your players know it. Instead of using hard distances, abstract the distances, so you can reward inventive play and good rolls. In the system outlined below, we divide distance into range bands: engaged, short, medium, long, and extreme.

Design for obstacles and a clear time limit

If we’re not using initiative, and we’re not going to be using walking speeds to determine how close or distant the quarry and pursuer are from each other, how do we work this? First of all, think back to Bourne in Tangiers. The obstacles he has to deal with are:

• Running out of time before Desh finds and kills Nicky
• Not having a vehicle to pursue Desh
• The gendarmes trying to catch Bourne
• Security systems on the roofs (broken glass, fences)
• Environmental obstacles such as laundry lines and uneven roofs
• Jumps between buildings
• Tight squeezes/dead ends
• Local populace surprised/scared

That’s a lot of obstacles! In a movie, the filmmakers spend months crafting environments that are interesting. As GMs, we usually only have a few seconds to set the scene before our players stop listening (human nature—it’s not their fault). Describe the environment fully but quickly: summarize the obstacles and resources where the chase takes place. Here’s a short list I drummed up on the spot:

• Decrepit/failing roofs that can break under a player
• Flocks of Tressym that can get in the way/blind/confuse
• A rooftop drinking party
• A rooftop water tank stands another 30 feet above the roof
• Fire escapes running along the sides of the building

If you give the players several hooks to imagine, their creativity will start working, and they’ll come up with clever situations in order to overcome the obstacles. One obstacle in particular is a clear time limit. By telling the party “If the quarry gets to this fire escape, they’ll be able to escape into the crowd and the chase will be over” you set clear success and fail states for the chase. You can use the Progress Clock system from Forged in the Dark, where each side has a tickable clock. If the PCs are pursuing, one clock might be “Quarry Captured” while the other is “Quarry Escapes.” As the characters succeed or fail on their ability checks (coming up next) you can add ticks to either clock. If one fills up before the other, that outcome occurs. Using clocks is a great way to abstract the chase, which can help cut down on rules lawyering or premise rejection.

Use ability checks

Ability checks are the heart of this chase system, outlined below. Once you’ve described the scene, set the abstract distance, and illustrated the success and fail states of the scene, allow players to make ability checks as a group or as individuals to try and succeed at the chase.

These chase rules use opposed ability checks, with successes either closing the distance between participants (if your goal is to capture the quarry), or opening the distance between adversaries (if your goal is to escape capture). Rather than tracking distance between groups, these rules focus on choices and abilities of the characters, so keep those at the forefront of the action.

These rules assume that all parties are dashing, doing their best to escape capture or close the distance. In some special cases (such as casting a spell, explained below), a pursuer or quarry may decide not to dash. If a character cannot move due to a condition or other effect (if they have been subjected to hold person, for example), they automatically fail their ability check on their turn.

Rather than tracking distance in numbers, the space between adversaries is abstracted: engaged, close, medium, long, and extreme.

Once a narrative chase has begun and you have described the chase’s environment, ask the players how they each would like to achieve their goal of the chase. The goal typically will be to capture a fleeing NPC or escape a group of pursuing NPCs. Once you’ve asked the players how they want to succeed, they make ability checks opposed by the NPCs Chase DC, which is simply the passive ability score you as the DM deem pertinent. For example, during a straightforward chase where the characters pursue a fleeing NPC through a crowded market, you might use the NPC’s passive Strength (athletics) or Dexterity (acrobatics) scores. Those scores may be adjusted further by the modifiers outlined below. You calculate a creature’s passive ability check score by adding the ability score modifier and—if the character is proficient in an appropriate skill—their proficiency bonus. A fleeing assassin with a Dexterity of 16 and proficiency in acrobatics, for example, would have a passive Dexterity (acrobatics) score of 16, due to their proficiency score of +3. As the DM, you would use 16 as the opposing DC for character checks to close the gap.

 Allow the PCs to come up with original ideas to close or open the gap, and adjust the opposing ability check as necessary. If the characters want to sneak away instead of running at high speed, perhaps the opposed check is an NPC’s passive perception. Maybe the escaping NPC tries to confuse the pursuing PCs by picking one of several paths through a crowded bazaar—this situation may cause for an Intelligence (investigation) ability check opposed by the NPC’s passive Intelligence (history) score.

The NPC(s) also get a turn each, trying to open or close the gap by succeeding on an opposed group ability check. The NPC uses the passive score for their chosen skill as the DC, and the characters must succeed on a group ability check using the normal group ability check rules: half of the party must succeed. If the party fails, the NPC either opens or closes the gap one range band on each character. If the party succeeds, the distance between everyone stays the same

If a creature has 40 or more feet as its walking speed, they get +4 to their ability check, active or passive. If a creature has an ability such as the rogue’s cunning action that allows an additional use of their walking speed as a bonus action, they have advantage on an active ability check, or expertise on a passive score. If the PC who is rolling wins the opposed check, they either close (if pursuing) or open (if fleeing) the gap by one range band. If they roll a critical success (a natural 20), you may adjudicate that they close or open two range bands.

Spellcasting and Ranged Attacks

Either party may want to cast spells or make a ranged attack during a chase, such as hold person or shooting an arrow at the quarry/pursuer. If a creature casts a spell or makes a ranged attack, they automatically fail their chase ability check for the turn, with the gap opening or closing one range band at the end of their turn. This automatic failure reflects the fact that they have forgone the ability to Dash for the moment. For the purposes of spellcasting and ranged attacks ONLY (that is, NOT for purposes of identifying the actual distance between combatants), use the following table for ranged spells and attacks:

Range Band	Effective Spell Distance
Engaged	Touch
Close	Within 30 ft.
Medium	Within 60 ft.
Long	Within 120 ft.
Extreme	Within 300 ft.

Obstacle Mechanics

This is why we’re here, right? Obstacles provide flavor, humor, and suspense to chases. Used too often, however, and chases begin to bog down. A complication occurs when a player rolls below 10 on their ability check. When a complication occurs, first come up with a description that makes sense for the environment, and then impose some mechanical disadvantage to that player’s next turn (they’ve already failed for this turn, most likely, so don’t double-penalize them). Some ideas for mechanical disadvantages are below:

• Increase the target for the player’s next ability check by 2, in the same way that armor class increases through taking partial cover.
• Did the player roll a 1? Consider a major disadvantage and increase the target for the next ability check by 5.
• Impose disadvantage on the player’s next ability check
• Automatically increase or decrease the range between the pursuant/quarry
• A condition such as blinded or stunned due to an interaction with the environment
• Something creative and fun that allows the pursuer or quarry to fail forward

Conclusion

Chases can be difficult, so much so that many GMs shy away from them altogether. Chases as written tend to remove player agency, and railroad the characters into certain strategies. Ideally, running chases as group skill challenges will return that sense of creativity to players, remove the “combat with no combat in it” feeling of chases, and immerse your players in the situation at hand.

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