Resources: Cementing vs. Bolstering

From: ferguswindbag <abf_at_...>
Date: Wed, 10 Feb 2010 01:52:58 -0000

Intuitively, it seems as if it ought to be easier to cement a "Background Events" bonus than it is to "Bolster" a resource with no bonus (or independently of such a bonus). But HQ2 seems to imply the reverse: cementing is "a major goal [...] an evening's worth of play"; bolstering (at least on the face of it) is just a single contest. Doesn't this seem to imply that the background bonuses are effectively redundant, and if one wishes to increase any of them, "bolstering" is the way to go?

I've been playing the resource rules for a while, but this is the first time this has come up, due in part to this being the first time a player wished to "bolster" a resource with no ambient bonus, and from a brainfart on my part in not clearly distinguishing between the two cases in my own mind.

I'm working from two different pre-release versions (Continuum spiral-bound and Tentacles Omega Edition), which seem to be word-for-word identical in this section. Of course, just my luck if the ever-more-final version is crucially different. In which cases, apologies, or likewise if this is an old topic.

But if not: how are people handling this? Any brainwaves?