>This all makes sense, but I think that sometimes you don't know what
>is "the most interesting outcome" in advance - sometimes the events
>can guide the story...
Absolutely.
> This works if the players don't care who wins so long as they can
>back the winner ("If we support who ever is likely to end up as
>Chief then we can be sure he will reward us for our support...") -
>But they may want to attempt to predict who will win so that they
>can take different actions - (Orlev is rash, but he holds a grudge.
>If we argue against him now, and he wins he will hold it against us.
>If we keep quite now, then when he makes mistakes and the mood turns
>against him we can remind people we did not support him now. However
>if Orlev is not likely to win we should argue for Arnulf, who will
>reward us for our early support). It is not enough to know if the
>players can pick the right side, we need to know which side they
>pick. Either way can lead to interesting fall out...
I agree, there are lots of times you don't pick just the winner. I think the counter-argument is that you can deduce these things without the numbers. Of course, this goes back to "I want the numbers to make this call." I mean, presumably they would have an idea of the numbers due to their interactions with these people, but not know the numbers exactly. So everything in your paragraph works since those are the decisions they are making anyway.
>Yes. But the fact that they shouldn't roll against him doen't make
>them zeros because they can't hope to beat him.
I'm not sure I understand this. Are we assuming if a fight is a sure loss, it means you are a zero? (And also, there are all kinds of other ways to interact with Harrek than fighting him, I would hope.)
>To me, this seems slightly backwards. If the players can't win a
>debate with the ring then that tells us something, and should
>suggest that if the players want to get the clan to do something
>then they either need to do something other than debate with the
>ring (In true Orlanthi fasion they should go out and do it first
>then aoplogise later),
ha! Damn Orlanthi. I've dated people like this. :)
> or find some way to improve the odds in their
>favour (Gain support from influential individuals, find a way to
>lessen the influence of their opponents on the ring, try bribery or
>blackmail). These attempts then drive the action, and may have
>ongoing consequences whether they ultimately succeed or fail. If
>the relative resistasnce is +2W, then it's not clear (to me at
>least) why they would bother to do any of this. At the end of the
>day they will still be +2W behind the ring, because you have decided
>it will be a tough contest.
I don't think HQ2 says the difficulty should always be fixed like this as a sliding scale. It struck me the idea is that the slide is to get a base idea, and them player activity would pull them closer or not. I could be wrong.
>I had previously understood the Pass/Fail cycle and relative
>resistances to be an optional tool that enabled you to ensure that
>players were very unlikely to either walk through a scenario without
>breaking into a sweat or be unable to progress beyond the first
>scene, not as the only we of ever generating a resistance
Sure, I would think so. From what I can see, I would never use the Pass/Fail as the rigorous application of difficulty. (Especially because I suspect the players would start just learning the table and starting contests they expect to lose to line up the big contest to be an easy one.)
From what I can tell, it seems more to be a tool of narrative logic - when things are going well, then something goes bad to make it interesting. When things are going bad, they get a break. I remember many of my players in an old Justice Inc campaign taking both Luck and Unluck as extra traits, with the understanding that when something goes well, they might suffer an unluck roll, and vice versa.
LC
Tim Ellis wrote:
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