While I don't (often) play like that, I do have characters in Gloranthan stories like that. And yes, sad git that I am, I try to make sure that what happens in stories is consistent and possible according to published rules and stats, even if that means requiring a 1v20 roll from time to time.
Talin, the very young Lunar "soldier" in "Captured", had keywords at around 13, and a few high skills at the 1W level. (I think "wants to be a hero" was the highest, and he kept augmenting with it). His "ride" really was so low that he tended to lose against a default 14 for "stay mounted on mildly startled horse". But as we point out in the story, it was still better than the 6 that the rest of his comrades in arms boasted.
> Whatever happened to the 'what no self respecting
> > hero would fail at.'
>
> I suspect that people may have very different
> interpretations of what
> 'self-respecting hero' actually means. Do we assume,
> for example, that a
> character of starting-RQ ability is a
> 'self-respecting hero'? We might
> well, if we take the word 'hero' to simply mean
> 'protagonist', rather
> than 'somebody who shapes the world' or some similar
> definition. This is
> something that I think people can reasonably differ
> on, even with the exact same rule set.
I take the "no self-respecting hero would fail" option when we're just not interested in the contest, and success seems likely. There may be times when we are interested in the contest even if success would normally be automatic: I remember a time when my PC had taken a LOT of injuries, and I started to wonder what her chances were of standing up and walking ten yards. Fighting, yes, adrenaline kicks in and you can use the normal rules (about -20 to all actions at the time), but after the battle?
Having her stagger to her feet and collapse part-way would have been dramatic and "heroic" in the "protagonist" sense - it's something that the book would show, because it says something about her.
> The simplest way, I guess, is to look at what sort
> of augments your PCs
> typically get, and just apply that. You said, I
> think, that your PCs
> could typically raise their stats by 50% using
> augments. Use that as
> your benchmark - every NPC of significance actually
> rolls against a TN
> 50% higher than his raw stat in the ability. Kallyr
> has 10w2? OK, she
> has a TN of 15w3. Harrek is 10w5? He has a TN of
> 5w8. And so on.
Though of course you can also look at where those NPCs would typically get augments from, and raise or lower this according to circumstances. A bit harder work, but adds more colour and rewards player ingenuity.
The Vampire the Swords PCs are currently up against, for instance: they realised he was very good at resisting theistic magic. So they pulled in followers who used sorcery and spirit magic. Switched off his main augments just like that.
Put Kallyr in a situation where some of her followers are missing, and a contest that isn't relevant to any of her relationships, and most of her augments vanish, too. If you can figure out how to make those relationships work against her, she starts getting heavy *negative* augments. And that's fun.
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