Re: Re: improv mods and augments

From: Light Castle <light_castle_at_...>
Date: Thu, 13 May 2004 16:37:29 -0400


Hi Chris.

On 13 May 2004 at 17:07, bankuei wrote:

> Hi LC,
>
> The key to understanding how you want to approach any contest is based on the
> "Goal" as stated by the player. In the combat example, if the player wants to
> beat the
> opponent, then I'd say the primary trait is going to be the closest melee
> fighting skill
> to stickfighting the hero has, augmented by everything else appropriate. If the
> goal
> was to escape, get by, or distract the opponent long enough for help to arrive,
> I'd use
> Agility or some other appropriate skill augmented by everything else.

I agree with that. And I think in Simple Contests, I'd enforce it a bit more strictly. I think in an Extended Contests, where there is more back and forth and you have minor goals in your movement towards your main goal, they can obviously shift abilities as they wish. (As per the rules as they stand.)

> With all augments, I require the player narrate some action that SHOWS how the
> augment helps out. With simple contests, this becomes a back and forth
> betweeen
> me and the players, narrating actions in turn, and applying modifiers or
> augments. It
> becomes an informal "round" system. At some point, things are climatically
> built up
> for resolution(or both sides run out of augments/narration), and things are
> totalled
> and rolled.

I saw you mention this on the Forge forum and it immediately resonated as the way to do it. I haven't had a chance to try it in play yet, but it seems it would naturally parse out the main vs augments in a logical way.  

> I use modifiers quite a bit to encourage creative play. A player who comes up
> with a
> cool and smart action may impose -10 on the opposition(or +10 to himself, house
> rule), or whatever number is appropriate. This gives folks who are less skilled
> a
> chance to make up the difference with smart tactics.

Absolutely a primary idea, and a certain player of mine of old (now on the West Coast, unfortunately) would have REVELED in this system using that. (Clever little minx with this kind of thing, she was.)

LC

Powered by hypermail