Re: Durations of Edges/Bonus, Unrelated Actions, Combat

From: Henrix <henrix_at_...>
Date: Tue, 20 Jun 2000 18:46:53 +0200


On Tue, 20 Jun 2000, Alex Ferguson wrote:

> This is a concern I definitely share. It's hard to get players
> to bid high just by 'motivational techniques': the game gives
> them a 'perverse incentive' to bid low, in particular if they have
> at least a marginal advantage, and aren't planning on blowing lots
> of HPs. It would be better if the game encouraged them to bid
> higher, or was at least more neutral in that respect. This is
> tweakable, but it requires work...

Over the Edge does this rather nicely. The player has to describe what he intends to do. If it is boring, and therefore predictable, the GM dishes out a penalty die, if really good/funny you get a bonus. This has worked very well in my experience, my players soon realized that just saying "I hit him on the head" gave a penalty, and soon combat was exciting.

I have, even before this thread started, been trying to figure out how to do something similar in HW. I think that letting the players describe what they are trying to do and letting the narrator decide the AP bid, possibly with an edge or handicap, would do the trick. Of course it hands over more work to the narrator, but I think it would be worth it. Or just rely more on the players description of what they are doing, than what they consider that the AP bid should be.

-- 
Henrix

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