Re: Re: [WorldofGlorantha] How do you compare published abilities without numbers?

From: Nick Eden <nick_at_...>
Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2009 19:48:37 +0000


On Mon, 23 Feb 2009 14:08:26 -0500, LC wrote:

Well it's not going to be the end of the story. I am perhaps not making myself clear.

When I'm running a game I expect to wind up a setting and let it go. The players get to react to it and depending on what they do we get a particular story. This is probably no different to what anyone else does...

But for the players to react properly they need to have an idea of what's happening, who's a threat, who's a comic relief. The thing of the Lancelot / Gareth + Geheris isn't about who's going to win, it's about 'Oh my God, they're going to fight LANCELOT giving him an advantage'. You set that up and the players know what's going to happen. And in Mallory of course it does. But that knowledge of what's going to happen comes from the fact that they know Lancelot's an unstoppable force on the battle field.

I don't understand how a P/FC and all character descriptions lacking any kind of relative strengths can lend itself to that. Lancelot just becomes 'Knight. Known for particularly shiny armour.'

Does that make any more sense? It's not the resolution of the fights in either question that matters, its the characters' understanding of what's out there and what needs to be avoided, and so giving them a framework in which to act.

>I'm not sure why that would be impossible in HQ2. First off, no PCs
>seem to be involved, so you just narrate it. I wouldn't roll that
>fight in any system if the PCs weren't involved. If they do get
>involved, how hard it is to stop Lance depends on how the scene needs
>to play dramatically, no? And that gets modified by how you try and
>stop him. Fighting is probably harder than talking him down, but maybe
>not.
>
>On 2/23/09, L C <lightcastle_at_...> wrote:
>> Nick Eden wrote:
>>>
>>> The main thing I would think is that it helps me tell stories. Often
>>> stories that aren't in the published sources, which I need to do
>>> because the published sources are thin on the ground, and besides
>>> which, they're full of ideas about someone else's game not mine.
>>>
>>
>> Yeah, that's an issue for me as well.
>>
>>>
>>> When the PCs find out that Broyan of the Volsaxi is going to be
>>> attacked by Beat Pot Alwin, is that a credible threat? Do they need to
>>> save him, or should they be heroquesting for deck chairs and pop corn?
>>>
>>
>> Well, if they are both legendary warriors, maybe they get deck chairs.
>> Or maybe they decide to support him to defeat the lunar scum. Or maybe
>> they "know" that no Lunar cook can defeat the mighty Broyan, so they
>> don't get involved? I'm not sure knowing the numbers improves the
>> decision making process more than knowing "Broyan is the mightiest
>> warrior in Sartar" and Beat Pot is "Legendary Champion of the Moon". I
>> see those two things and I think I do everything I can to help Broyan
>> unless honour demands I stay out of it.
>>>
>>>
>>> One thing that occurs to me about the 'everything's relative'
>>> approach: Doesn't that mean that the end of level boss will always be
>>> approximately the same, regardless of whether they're a food trollkin
>>> or the Crimson Bat?
>>>
>> Obviously, I don't have the rules, but I don't think that's how it
>> works. It might be that the challenge you face from the end level boss
>> is the same, but would be framed differently in different cases. Or it
>> might just be that if you decide to kill the Crimson Bat, the Narrator
>> looks at your stats and says... "Um.... No." I think you can set
>> anything to any resistance you want. (I certainly would unless someone
>> convinced me that made no sense.) Now, "Drive the Crimson Bat off" might
>> end up being the same resistance as "Talk that crazy trollkin away from
>> the ledge where he's holding the Windsword". I don't know.
>>>
>>>
>>> I agree, fwiw, that within a given narrative, we need to have
>>> challenges that match the characters and the setting, but I think this
>>> can be over done: It will probably work very nicely with the kind of
>>> rail roading scenarios RQ/HW/HQ1 has suffered from in the past (I
>>> don't need to list them do I?) but I don't think I'm alone in hating
>>> such things._.___
>>>
>> I'm not a fan of the railroad either, but it seems trivially easy to me
>> to look at a situation and go "This is hard. This should be a tense
>> scene," and then put the resistance appropriately. I might be imagining
>> HQ2 completely backwards, but it seems the system is designed to let me
>> do that.
>>
>> LC
>>>
>>>
>>
>>

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