At 03:55 PM 9/27/2002 -0700, Andrew Solovay wrote:
>Andrew Dawson <asmpd_at_...> wrote:
> > I'll say "As you bring up your sword for the killing stroke, he cries
> > out 'Ransom!'" and let the player figure it out without the coercion
> > of rolls unless the PC has some mitigating flaw such as Greedy that
> > causes such coercion.
>
>Proposal: When someone ("CdGee") is about to be CdG'd, give him the
>opportunity (if appropriate, e.g. he's a PC or a *major* NPC) to launch
>some appropriate, completely separate, contest against the "CdGer" to
>stop it. The contest would be any appropriate skill (the CdGee's player
>has to defend appropriateness) against some corresponding CdGer skill.
That's fine, but it's a new rule. It's also interrupting a contest with a contest, which may or may not be a hassle. I like your examples, but they indicate a desire to force all interaction through die rolls. Also, Benedict Adamson has an even better reason not to allow the CdG recipient to dictate the terms of the CdG:
At 06:10 PM 9/28/2002 +0100, Benedict Adamson wrote:
>The CdG is an ACTION by the CdGer; at that point, they have the
>narrative focus and the CdGer's player decides what will happen. The
>CdGer should be calling the shots, not the other way around. By giving
>the CdGee the chance to launch another action, I think the action is
>stolen from the CdGer.
Here's my angle: In your Glorantha, is ransoming a commonly accepted practice? If it is, do you need to make it something that requires a contest to resolve. IOW, do your NPCs or PCs need convincing before they accept a ransom over an immediate killing? Also, does everything need to be decided by dice?
My preference is to enforce ransoming, which may or may not be part of official Glorantha, through the character backgrounds by telling the players that it's normal and that killing has repercussions like deadlier feuds and taint o' death. If the player or NPC has an ability that would make it more or less likely to accept a ransom, then they can use it to justify their actions (and, if necessary, use it in a diced contest). Maybe a Greedy person should always offer the Ransom option to defeated foes. If the players want to kill early and often, then there will be repercussions.
Part of my motive here is to not add more die rolls. I find that die rolls interrupt my game, especially in Hero Wars, where I think that extended contests can be awkward enough without being interrupted with other contests.
As I was about to send this, I had an idea about how to use the Wealth rating to offer a ransom in an extended contest: If an NPC or a PC is feeling like they are about to be defeated (because the opponent has just bid enough drive them to negative AP), they can spend AP to act out of turn, interrupting the party about to drive them to negative AP with an offer of ransom and a bid. The other party is forced to use an appropriate ability to refuse the ransom (I, as narrator, would never accept CC here) and, if the contest ends with the ransom-offerer as the victor, the ransom-offerer has successfully changed the contest outcome to the ransom-offerer having lost the combat and being forced to pay ransom. I know this causes problems in the current rules (like spending AP to interrupt in a non-group extended contest, and doing this after the opponent bids), but it allows the use of Wealth to provide ransom without requiring another contest or a CdG alteration, and it does not suffer from the high-CC-can-ignore-not-equally-high-Wealth problem.
However, what do the game rules say about the party accepting the ransom without requiring a contest? I'd like to see the rules say that a contest can end whenever all parties involved mutually agree to end it and with whatever outcome they agree to, subject to the approval of the narrator (this last clause thrown in for novice narrators to avoid some sort of odd powergaming outcome in contests between PCs). This is different from withdrawing from the contest as written on HW p. 138, but similar.
From now on in my game, I'll emphasize the option of ending many combats, especially Heortling-Heortling combats, with a ransom offer. I already have a lot of foes try to withdraw from contests when it looks like they will lose. (This works best for mobile foes like Grazers who have a movement advantage.)
Thanks,
Andy
Powered by hypermail