Re: Re: Broad abilities

From: Andrew Dawson <asmpd_at_...>
Date: Tue, 22 Jun 2004 01:45:50 -0500


Benedict,

I read your suggested rules changes, and have some comments based on your stated (the bottom of your web page, and subsequent discussion on this list) motivations as I understand them. Though I enjoyed reading your broad abilities suggestions, I probably won't use them, partly because my players (one in particular) aren't keen on the amount of math already present in the game. She/they don't like figuring out quick augmentation during play, and she doesn't like doing the math to spend HP to raise abilities either. Because of this, I don't even consider complicating the rules any more than they already are.

I haven't had a problem in my home campaign with a wide disparity in ability ratings such as you describe. I'm not sure of the differences between our groups, but here are some ideas: 1. My group's PCs advanced from starting to the lower two-masteries levels in several abilities in about 3 1/2 years of monthly gaming sessions. Your advancement rates may differ from mine.
2. I've allowed players to raise keywords for 5 HP for a +1. I started this during the HW days, and haven't seen a convincing reason not to continue. I settled on 5 HP, but maybe 10 HP would work better. 24 HP seems too extreme to raise a keyword.
3. The players and I voted on free raises in the most impressive/memorable ability use by each PC each session. This ability was often an oddball ability. 4. I started encouraging creative action descriptions by handing out free HP or bonuses in increments of +5 (usually only +5 or +10). (I did this unevenly, and occasionally forgot entirely.) Free directed experience also works for such awards.
5. We were able to discuss potentially unbalancing decisions, and I've been allowed to retract bad narrator decisions or change bad trends. We also cooperatively created characters that could work together. 6. I provided encounters that were best handled by varied abilities. There was a fair amount of political intrigue and negotiation in my games, but there was also plenty of combat. Different PCs (and players) got center stage at different times.
7. I modified the opposition and nature of obstacles on the fly, and didn't worry too much about the numbers. (I often have the urge to not roll the dice at all, and instead rely on comparing ability with opposition, but I don't want to cheat the players of the chance to have criticals/fumbles.)

Here are some specific ideas in lieu of extensive rules changes, based on your statement of disappointment with large penalties: 1. Use bonuses for specific appropriate ability use (improv bonuses), instead of--or as well as--improv penalties. For example: Arm Wrestling ability gets +10 in an arm wrestling contest compared to using Strong. Bonuses don't need to be capped at 20, though I can't think of a reason to give out a bonus higher than +20. Use penalties to tell the player that they are trying something inappropriate with a given ability. Bonuses make people feel happier than penalties (as I think you are saying below). 2. Disallow really inappropriate improvisations and let the players fail sometimes with that default 6 ability.
3. If you want to emphasize the advantages of higher ability level even for small differences, change the rules so that a marginal success is given to the higher roll (not the lower). This is simple to implement in play and it makes the marginal success vs marginal failure rates favor the higher ability rating in a contest. The result is more successes for higher ability ratings, and some players will notice. 4. Give out bonuses for all sorts of things, but balance this by having your NPCs act extravagantly in order to get the same sort of bonuses (or just in order to justify them being sufficient opposition). 5. Demonstrate cool, oddball abilities with cool, oddball NPCs (to inspire the players to do those sorts of things). 6. Don't give out exact AP totals on request during an extended contest. This just drags the game into the realm of game mechanics and numbers. Give out general descriptions. ("He's on the ropes. Maybe one more good hit will finish him.")
7. If you have a player who insists on solving all problems with Sword Combat, either figure out how to have fun doing what he wants, or talk to him about the issue. (This is just a guess based on your quotes below.) 8. Fudge things to make the story enjoyable and interesting, to whatever extent you and the players find enjoyable. (The thing that most annoys me when playing HQ is the huge failure rate arising from frequent contests of beginning character abilities versus the standard opposition of 14. Rolling less and/or narrating interesting results instead of "you don't succeed" is more enjoyable for me.)

I hope this addresses the spirit of your HQ rules problems, but I am willing to discuss more specific points. Please excuse the rambling and the awful verb tense agreement; it comes from me trying to separate what I did in my home campaign and what I do in convention games, and it's late in the early morning.

Thanks,
Andy

At 12:45 AM 6/21/2004 +0100, Benedict Adamson wrote:
>I don't think its a function of power level so much as length of
>campaign (of course, the two are correlated). In long campaigns, the gap
>between best abilities and typical abilities widens; that is the
>fundamental problem.
>
>http://www.badamson.nildram.co.uk/Glorantha/HQ/broad_abilities.html#authors_notes
>
>Have you ever imposed a -20 improv. penalty on a player? Or had one
>imposed on you? Was everyone happy in the situation? Now imagine the
>players angling for uses of abilities that deserve a penalty of -20 or
>worse several times in one game session. Fun? Not at all. And as a
>campaign develops, it gets worse.
>
>Or been in a situation where the narrator has been lenient in imposing
>improv penalties on another player, rendering your character worthless
>because they have suddenly, in effect, acquired a super character who
>can do everything your character can do, better than yours, plus can do
>some more? Might as well discard your character. This is not a gamist
>competitive thing; your character becomes irrelevant to the narrative
>too, merely a follower of the other character.
>
> > Does it spoil your enjoyment of the game, or the players or both?
>
>It has spoiled my enjoyment both as a player and a narrator.

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