RE: Digest Number 345

From: Andrew Dawson <asmpd_at_...>
Date: Thu, 09 Nov 2000 17:17:53 -0500

At 03:20 PM 11/09/2000 -0500, A. K. Berner wrote:
>This mechanic seems very central to the entire game and yet is so little
>discussed while obtuse points about heroquests and such seem to be such hot
>topics... I'm not sure if most narrators just ignore the description and
>say, "you get a penalty of -2 during this contest" and forget describing
>what is happening e.g. "because I (or the rules) say so" or if they are
>using something similiar to the above best explaination in the case of using
>appropriate skills and ending up with large penalties via a bad roll.

Actually, the topic of augmentation has been hashed out several times. I personally don't use augmentation as written. I allow the players to roll as normal or I allow them to take a +1 to TN/+2 edge per 10 levels of augmenting ability automatically. I haven't seen anyone decide to take the rolling option yet. I do this to lower the number of die rolls in the game and because I think that the odds of augmentation failing are too high. Because of this, I'm much more interested in how Rurik ended up with 90 AP in the example heroquest. (I'm not trying to restart that thread; I'm just bringing up an example.)

I like your ideas about how to describe augmentation, but I prefer to say things like "the ground is rocky, you'll take -2 to your CC" and "you slept poorly last night, take -2 to all abilities" up front, rather than coming up with them on the spot to try to explain all-too-common failed augmentation.

Thanks,
Andy