>One thing to note in this discussion. Some questioned how useful
adjectives were in describing resistances.
>That's not how it works. When we talk about a resistance being Hard,
Very Hard, Nearly Impossible we are talking about an absolute modifier
(+3, +6...) to the base resistance.
*nod* That was the impression I had. I'm still not sure about how the base resistance is set in relation to the stats of the players, but I figure that is explained in the book proper.
>So if a scenario writer describes a task as Nearly Impossible he or
she is telling you something quite concrete about what the resistance
would be in your game.
Clear enough.
>The key is to understand what purpose this encounter has in your
narrative. If the fight with the guards is supposed to be tough then you
make the resistance Hard for example.
Are those the only three, by the way? Is it a whole series of +3 steps?
>That makes it easy for scenario writers to tell you something about
the relative difficulty they expect from confronting an npc or
overcoming an obstacle.
>
>The pass/fail cycle allows you to set that resistance (hard, very hard
etc) in the absence of other information i.e. your notes, feeling about
what seems right, etc.
*nod* Which was the impression I had about it. It seems it would be particularly useful when you're wandering off from the "fixed poles" of important, named encounters.
>So the lack of stats is about a move to relative resistances not
absolute ones, so as to indicate story intent.
> In other words if I say 'fighting with Harrek has a Nearly Impossible
resistance', I'm likely indicating that such a strategy ought to fail.
>Out of interest, we tend to use the pass/fail cycle as our driver for
most resistances.
>We don't tend to have a 'story' prepped for a session, so we tend to
be guided more heavily by the flow of events.
>The pass/fail cycle helps us track the rise and fall of fortune. It
has been an enormously helpful tool in our games.
I can see that. (Given my play style, it is likely how I would be using it.) LC
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