Re: Re: Fortress' Defenses in game rules

From: L.Castellucci <lightcastle_at_...>
Date: Tue, 12 Dec 2006 02:15:43 -0500


On December 11, 2006 09:36 am, Mike Holmes wrote:

> >I like the idea of the Fortress (ruin. Tomb. Whatever) having a few major
> >listed abilities that make sense so you have something to work from, but
> > no "series of events".
>
> Yep, that works well. In my case I'd probably have an idea of how tough the
> door was to open, how dangerous the demon rats were, etc.

Exactly what I was thinking of. I just don't think you could run an Extended Contest dungeon crawl with a fixed map and encounters. The vagueries of bidding would rule against that I would think.

> >The goal of the tomb's trap run is to stop as much of hat as possible.
> >
> >OK. This is good to know.
>
> Goal statements are key to how HQ resolution works, in my opinion.

Oh,I agree, that's why I pointed it out.

> People
> skip it at times, the goals being implicit. But that's at the risk of
> possibly missing out on the player's intention with the conflict at hand.
> For example, if my character is attacking somebody becuse he wants to get
> something they have, and the narrator narrates on a marginal victory, "You
> wound your foe, but he gets away." Then I haven't really gotten my goal,
> have I? Do I have to get a complete victory to get the thing from him? If I
> tell the narrator that my character's goal is to get the thing, on a
> marginal victory, he can narrate, "The foe drops the whatsis and runs,
> having time to do so as your character stoops to pick it up."

The example I often use is the "fight in a bar to impress everyone in town that you are too tough to be messed with". Not the same goal as "beat these guys up".

> >So you had the Tomb go first? Any particular reason?
>
> Good question. Basically because it's a case of the tomb forcing the first
> action. He has to get through the door. Now, a creative player might, say,
> have the character sit down and read the book to gain insight as to what
> was to come in the temple. Or he could have looked for another entrance. In
> which case I'd have allowed the player to go first. But for this example,
> imagine that when presented with the door, the player chose to address it
> directly. Since the player is playing into the tomb's arena of conflict,
> the tomb goes first.

*nod* OK, I get that reasoning.

> This is important stuff. Basically a lot of how an extended contest goes
> depends on who declares what right off the bat. If you state, "I lung at
> him with my sword," then there's not a lot of potential responses to that
> that would "steal initiative." But there could be some. If, for instance,
> they had been declared to have some space between them, and the opponent
> declared that they were casting a defensive spell, I might allow that
> (maybe as an unrelated action).

I'm not sure I can think of anything that would steal initiative in any way other than an unrelated action for that. (certainly not at 2am)

> The rules talk about using most dramatic action or AP bid, etc. In the
> example, however, we're assuming that the player said, more or less, "I
> open the door." The problem is that this is going to be resolved in one
> roll. Given the bid in question, he's going to open the door, it's just a
> question of time. So there'll be no subsequent roll to represent his
> declaration to open the door.

Right. It is just an bartering of how much trouble the door gives him.

> This happens a lot in extended contests. Two declarations of actions, but
> the resolution of the "most dramatic" one first means that the second
> declaration becomes meaningless. In that case, what do you do? Well, you
> simply allow the player to declare a new action, and go with that.

I'd agree with that. I've certainly worked things that way in the past.

> So, technically what's occuring here is that the tomb declares that it's
> blocking, and the player declares that he's going up against that, which is
> not a different action. It's just resisting the block. Which you could call
> a zero point declaration if you like. So the door goes "first." Rather the
> player is agreeing to the first contest, so he gets to declare the second
> one.

*nod*

> > > Round 1B
> >
> >Clear enough, although it seems we have had 2 criticals in 2 rolls.
>
> The first one is taken for granted - some contests start out with a crit,
> right? The second one is a 19% (only one side got a crit, two rolls
> happened). Even if you start out with wondering what the chances of getting
> two crits in a row are, on two contests, it's 3.61%. You'll see this in
> play.

I won't argue the math. :)

> Crits are far more common in HQ than people think. This is a feature, not a
> bug.

I've found them common enough to notice, but not overwhleming. I happen to like transfers, so I almost want to see them happen more often.

> >Query. Why does he get a penalty on a victory?
>
> First every resolution narration has situational effects. If I narrate that
> you've killed your opponent on a Complete Victory, but gotten covered with
> blood in the process (seems likely), and then you to climb a rope, I might
> assess a situational modifier penalty to your chances to climb. Second, a
> marginal victory is just asking for some secondary narration to describe
> it's marginal nature (as I said in the previous reply).

I happen to like this idea a lot, but I still can't find it in the rule book. I personally will adopt it, it allows for all kinds of dramatic back and forth and especially with marginal successes so common it seems like a wonderful idea.

> In point of fact, situational penalties will tend to be a lot larger than
> the -1 from a marginal defeat. But they're only applied to contests that
> are different than the one just attempte (usually have quite limited
> scope).

True. I really don't think the situational modifier earned from a marginal victory should outweigh the victory.

A side note - this seems to lean away from a discussion we had on the Forge about Unrelated actions being used to change abilities or situational modifiers. Here you are folding a situational modifier into a normal AP bid roll. (Or am I misremembering where you fell on that discussion?)

> Probably just a mistake here on my part in describing the example. But, in
> the end the narrator approves all bids, so he has a lot of say. In my
> experience it's a collaborative thing between the players and narrator,
> with narrator just being able to put an end to any debates.

*nod*

> Not sure what you're saying about the desperation bid thing - a player hero
> can always make a desperation bid.

I'm saying that on the first round the player can try to bid everything they have to beat the dungeon. "I charge into the depths, guessing right at every corridor and grab the treasure and escape".

Essentially, as you've said in the past, it is a declaration to turn it into a simple contest.

I see no real mechanical rule to stop this, just social contract and narrator fiat.

> Heck, I allow everyone to make "desperation" bids if the circumstances
> allow (which the rules do allow with a tangential comment about some
> narrator characters being allowed to do it).

So do I. I even allow them to be higher than the "original starting AP cost" if dramatically appropriate. (For awhile I limited them to the value of the stat used in the desperation bid, but decided I preferred the drama choice in the end.)

> Think of it this way: the
> "limit" to AP is more about granting the player heroes some benefit of the
> doubt in contests. But don't follow it if it breaks the dramatic suspense -
> only if it helps maintain it.

Exactly.

> >I was wondering if you would sneak an unrelated action in. Going back to
> > an earlier discussion, this becomes an action to change a mechanical
> > situation (i.e. - the poison and bites can't be used to bid against him
> > again)
>
> Exactly. Again situation is king here. The results of the contests have
> mechanical weight and effect other than simply the AP bids.
>
> Now, AP is supposed to represent position and such, too. So the question of
> when to allow situation to have an effect, and when to just allow the AP to
> represent it is an open one. But in practice its not hard to answer that
> question. If the player is sacrificing a round to alter the situation, then
> give him the benefit of the doubt.

*nod* That's where I thought you fell on the question. Note the rule book thing above. So it seems you are going for a little bit of a mixed approach here.

> Of course. If he wants a higher bid, then he needs to declare something
> that is more decisive. Situation may actually prevent that. Though players
> are creative sorts, and may come up with something. Again, in the example,
> the player is satisfied with the declaration. If he wasn't he could change
> his declaration to affect the mechanics.
>
> That said, I don't find that players have huge incentive to hunt down
> different declarations just to modify their bids. In part because drama
> makes failure pretty interesting too.

I've only ever encountered it with a certain type of player and almost exclusively in combat. Mind you, combat is probably the only place where it is very easy to change the declaration, because "suicidal desperate attack" is almost always an option. :-)

(This does remind me that I meant to ask one day about the case where an act that puts one person at very little risk but should have huge consequences. i.e. - Flame demons attack and you want to knock over/open the water silo. The handle is on the wall, and you are a crack shot. You aren't really putting yourself at risk taking a shot at the handle.

When this happened, I did it as an edge. (small bid/large AP shift) In retrospect, I think I could do it as an Unrelated action (no AP bid, massive mechenical effect on the demons if successful).)

> Just the use of an EC to do this sort of contest? Or some of the mechanical
> choices?

More to EC this sort of contest. It's not something that I ever got comfortable with in my games. (ECs tended to be more people-to-people events)

LC

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