Keith Labrygon_at_a... :
> I had my own 'only one augment' house rules which cut
> down on the need for auto augments but made a rolled
> augment the thing to do. ...
>
> This combined with the roll-contest first and augment
> afterwards worked for me. I like it because you know
> which specific ability really made a difference.
> Did I win that contest because I "hate lunars" or because I "love
> dragonewts"?
Very interesting. It has irked me for some time that:
1. The players spend ages trawling their sheets for augments and doing
mental maths to apply them. This detracts from their concentration on
the game and slows it down at exactly the wrong moments.
2. The listing of a number of augments before the contest minimises
the narrative impact of any of them because we dont know which one(s)
were key in the outcome.
3. Applying many augments up front wastes time since its likely that
they will not make any difference anyway.
I toyed with the idea of a contest initially being between the main unaugmented skills, after which each side rolled for any 'augmenting' skills until the outcome reached a state that indicated the contest was over. However I couldn't come up with an approach I felt was satisfying because I couldn't see a tidy way to stop players scrabbling for every possible augment on the sheet in the hope of getting a better result (which would be tedious to sit through).
Please describe your process in more detail. I can't tell if you apply 'only one augment' before the roll and then apply other augments after or if you roll before any augments and then apply 'only one augment' after. I also wonder if you augmented up front for the opposition to give a fixed target for the characters to reach or if you did post-augmentaation for them too. I would very much appreciate knowing exactly how you did it and how well it worked out for you.
I allow a specific number of augments per player. The number being based on the circumstances, eg: one if things are happening fairly suddenly; three if there is decent warning to allow preperation; none if taken completely by suprise. I think this is pretty much as per the book. These are auto or rolled as the player chooses.
Plus I allow any number of auto-augments for free for relevant relationships and personality traits, but dont generally give free augments for kit or 'always on' skills or magic. This deliberately discards 'simulation of reality' in favour of (a) rewarding characters with strong personality traits and relationships since there are practical reasons for needing characters to have these and (b) speed.
(It would be fair to say that the players are not yet bought into this playing down of concerns over 'realistic' simulation).
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