I have been thinking recently about the relationship between narration of the situation/contest and the actual value of the resistance. I have come to the conclusion that it is of paramount importance.
The narration is:
We decide what to narrate based on the resistance that our story obstacle is to present to the heroes.
But what if that goes wrong? What if I narrate the resistance to sound different to its numerical value?
This relationship is so important that...
If players are unconvinced that a resistance value should be so high - based on *the only information they have been given* - then we should adjust that value downwards to make it consistent with our narration *in their eyes* (this follows for resistances narrated too high as well - adjust the number upward).
This is in contradiction to adjusting the narration instead.
It is really important that our players come to trust that what we narrate is what their heroes are up against and not fear some hidden numerical mystery 'stick'. Also vital is that our story retains its coherence - changes in narration can risk damage to that.
So we wanted a higher resistance but our narration didn't cut the mustard? We should change the resistance, admitting that this was the mistake and chalk it up to experience. We can learn better narration with practise and we can learn our group's way of understanding through experience. When we do that the numbers will look after themselves.
I see discussion around the directly related topic of "narrating the resistance chosen". So my story needs a very high resistance here - how do I narrate that?
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