RE: Re: Argument Overridden

From: stephenmcg_at_...
Date: Thu, 30 Oct 2003 17:26:17 -0000


> Ok, fair enough. This would be easier to understand though if you

> could give more specific examples. Take the 'entangled legs'

> situation. If I state "The chaos creature wriggles a tentacle to bind

> up your legs... success, you transfer 10 APs", how would you handle

> that if you were GMing?

That is fine as a narrative description. I probably wouldn’t accept that the character could simply then launch a kick. Roderick suggested something like ‘I wriggle free of the tentacle and stamp on it’ or if the character is more of the strong type than the wriggly type ‘I break free of its grasp and send a kick towards its black eyes’.  

> Personally I'd not be entirely happy if the character could then

> launch a kick attack with no penalty.

> Now clearly the character has not been defeated, but not applying any kind

> of game effects as a result of this kind of event is IMHO very unsatisfactory.
 

And probably where the game, IMO, diverges from the hit/parry/damage of Runequest. It is about facilitating the story rather than directing it. As I’ve said I’d be happy to consider rules where instead of transferring 10AP the beast transferred 3AP and inflicted a restriction on the character – ‘feet bound, -5 penalty to actions using feet or lower legs’.  

> It's really this kind of situation I was trying to model better, or at least more

> explicitly, with Crunchy Contests, which I really should update one of these days.
 

Yup, my view is definitely not crunchy. :-)

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