>From: "L.Castellucci" <lightcastle_at_...>
>I like the idea of the Fortress (ruin. Tomb. Whatever) having a few major
>listed abilities that make sense so you have something to work from, but no
>"series of events".
Yep, that works well. In my case I'd probably have an idea of how tough the door was to open, how dangerous the demon rats were, etc.
> > It's the tomb of an Esrolian family, and I imagine it on a
> > tiny rocky island off the coast of Esrolia (you may proceed to inform me
> > why this cannot be so in Glorantha).
>
>Nope. Esrolia's on the coast, no problem here. :)
I was thinking culturally. Like somebody might bring up something like: "It says in Legends of the Manirian Coast p. 23 [this is a BS reference] that Esrolians have to be buried deep in the earth, that being Imarja herself." But I should give the benefit of the doubt that most people here would say that it's just YGWV.
> > So we have an extended contest, the
> > goal of the scholar to get in, get some loot, and get out alive with his
> > hide as intact as possible, and nobldy being the wiser for his theft.
>The
> > goal of the tomb's trap run is to stop as much of hat as possible.
>
>OK. This is good to know.
Goal statements are key to how HQ resolution works, in my opinion. People skip it at times, the goals being implicit. But that's at the risk of possibly missing out on the player's intention with the conflict at hand. For example, if my character is attacking somebody becuse he wants to get something they have, and the narrator narrates on a marginal victory, "You wound your foe, but he gets away." Then I haven't really gotten my goal, have I? Do I have to get a complete victory to get the thing from him? If I tell the narrator that my character's goal is to get the thing, on a marginal victory, he can narrate, "The foe drops the whatsis and runs, having time to do so as your character stoops to pick it up."
>So you had the Tomb go first? Any particular reason?
Good question. Basically because it's a case of the tomb forcing the first action. He has to get through the door. Now, a creative player might, say, have the character sit down and read the book to gain insight as to what was to come in the temple. Or he could have looked for another entrance. In which case I'd have allowed the player to go first. But for this example, imagine that when presented with the door, the player chose to address it directly. Since the player is playing into the tomb's arena of conflict, the tomb goes first.
This is important stuff. Basically a lot of how an extended contest goes depends on who declares what right off the bat. If you state, "I lung at him with my sword," then there's not a lot of potential responses to that that would "steal initiative." But there could be some. If, for instance, they had been declared to have some space between them, and the opponent declared that they were casting a defensive spell, I might allow that (maybe as an unrelated action).
The rules talk about using most dramatic action or AP bid, etc. In the example, however, we're assuming that the player said, more or less, "I open the door." The problem is that this is going to be resolved in one roll. Given the bid in question, he's going to open the door, it's just a question of time. So there'll be no subsequent roll to represent his declaration to open the door.
This happens a lot in extended contests. Two declarations of actions, but the resolution of the "most dramatic" one first means that the second declaration becomes meaningless. In that case, what do you do? Well, you simply allow the player to declare a new action, and go with that.
So, technically what's occuring here is that the tomb declares that it's blocking, and the player declares that he's going up against that, which is not a different action. It's just resisting the block. Which you could call a zero point declaration if you like. So the door goes "first." Rather the player is agreeing to the first contest, so he gets to declare the second one.
> > Round 1B
>
>Clear enough, although it seems we have had 2 criticals in 2 rolls.
The first one is taken for granted - some contests start out with a crit, right? The second one is a 19% (only one side got a crit, two rolls happened). Even if you start out with wondering what the chances of getting two crits in a row are, on two contests, it's 3.61%. You'll see this in play.
Crits are far more common in HQ than people think. This is a feature, not a bug.
> > The narrator says that just as he gets to
> > the bottom, he manages to put his pack in front of him, which absorbs
>the
> > blow (but leaves the contents of the pack in disarray - penalty if he
>tries
> > to use the book again).
>
>Query. Why does he get a penalty on a victory?
First every resolution narration has situational effects. If I narrate that you've killed your opponent on a Complete Victory, but gotten covered with blood in the process (seems likely), and then you to climb a rope, I might assess a situational modifier penalty to your chances to climb. Second, a marginal victory is just asking for some secondary narration to describe it's marginal nature (as I said in the previous reply).
In point of fact, situational penalties will tend to be a lot larger than the -1 from a marginal defeat. But they're only applied to contests that are different than the one just attempte (usually have quite limited scope).
> > Round 2B - The narrator puts this
> > at a 15 bid again, with the same reasoning as above, if the trap is
> > undetected
>
>Shouldn't the player be making the bid here? It's the scholar's turn. (Mind
>you, the narrator limiting/controlling bids does avoid the problem of the
>Scholar making a desperation bid at the door.)
Probably just a mistake here on my part in describing the example. But, in the end the narrator approves all bids, so he has a lot of say. In my experience it's a collaborative thing between the players and narrator, with narrator just being able to put an end to any debates.
Not sure what you're saying about the desperation bid thing - a player hero can always make a desperation bid. Should be required to do so, in fact, if the action seems to merit it. Put another way, if that's not the case, then a player can never lose a contest by more than a marginal defeat on his turn, no matter how risky the action he declares.
Heck, I allow everyone to make "desperation" bids if the circumstances allow (which the rules do allow with a tangential comment about some narrator characters being allowed to do it). Think of it this way: the "limit" to AP is more about granting the player heroes some benefit of the doubt in contests. But don't follow it if it breaks the dramatic suspense - only if it helps maintain it.
>I was wondering if you would sneak an unrelated action in. Going back to an
>earlier discussion, this becomes an action to change a mechanical situation
>(i.e. - the poison and bites can't be used to bid against him again)
Exactly. Again situation is king here. The results of the contests have mechanical weight and effect other than simply the AP bids.
Now, AP is supposed to represent position and such, too. So the question of when to allow situation to have an effect, and when to just allow the AP to represent it is an open one. But in practice its not hard to answer that question. If the player is sacrificing a round to alter the situation, then give him the benefit of the doubt.
> > Round 6B - The narrator allows the player to bid a 15 AP - there might
> > still be more even if he makes it.
>
>So you are putting limits on what the player can bid.
]
Of course. If he wants a higher bid, then he needs to declare something that
is more decisive. Situation may actually prevent that. Though players are
creative sorts, and may come up with something. Again, in the example, the
player is satisfied with the declaration. If he wasn't he could change his
declaration to affect the mechanics.
That said, I don't find that players have huge incentive to hunt down different declarations just to modify their bids. In part because drama makes failure pretty interesting too.
>It certainly is a different approach and style.
Just the use of an EC to do this sort of contest? Or some of the mechanical choices?
Mike
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