> In message
> <440538.85527.qm_at_...> Jane
> Williams writes:
>
> >> Certainly stories which are about the actions of
> >> specific
> >> heros are rarely suitable for conversion.
> >
> >Would you believe I've had more than one person
> asking
> >about using "Captured" as a scenario? Of all the
> >impossible stories to use... you get just one
> diceroll
> >going a different way from how I wrote it, almost
> >anywhere in it, and you either get no crisis to
> solve,
> >or Kallyr dead five minutes into the plot.
>
> Most of your Kallyr stories are like that. There's
> usually
> at least one point which relies on one side fumbling
> while the opposition criticals.
If that's true it's a serious writing weakness and I'll have to watch it - but I don't think it is. This one's the extreme case. Yes, Kallyr is remarkably good at rolling twenties, but I think most other times I have her seriously screwing things up, it's her making the wrong decisions without needing a diceroll.
But this one, it's not just the initial 20v1 roll, it's all the way through! What's stopping the Lunars from simply executing her? Very careful balancing of character motivations, that's what. You'd need to fiddle every dice roll, and control every bit of what should be player decision, to get that result. And that balance, and watching the Lunar dithering, and learning, and shifting viewpoint, are the entire point of the story.
> I can sort of see how to do it. First off you drop
> Kallyr and her party.
Well, there goes the story.
> They are replaced by the PCs one of who
> should be wanted by the Lunars. They have the
> problem
> of rescuing a prisoner from the Lunars.
Yes, this is roughly what I was thinking. Wrong decision number 1: Kallyr should never have been doing the job herself in the first place.
In fact, simply rescuing the prisoner and the plot token might well be enough to keep a low-level group occupied. I know I played up the incompetence of the opposition, but the average PC group probably isn't as good at this sort of thing as Kallyr and mob, and they probably don't have a Trickster using teleportals to sort out the get-away.
> >Whe I adapt scenarios for my group, one of the
> first
> >things I do is look at what abilities are required
> to
> >solve it - or rather, to be able to progress - and
> >then make sure I have an NPC to hand with those
> >abilities. ...
> True but if the abilities required are a really bad
> fit
> for the group it becomes the NPCs story. Or the
> scenario
> becomes how to get the people who've got the
> required abilities to do the job for us.
Which is a perfectly valid scenario, but yes. There has to be at least some fit, or what motivation do the PCs have to be there at all?
[writing Big Plot Arc scenario]
> I can see how it could be done, with a lot of work.
> But
> I'm not convinced the end result would be worth it.
> You
> still end up with a one off plot reliant on a group
> of
> characters with specific skills. Any other group are
> either going to ignore the plot or trash it
> completely.
> So an entire book becomes a single useful paragraph
> setting out the problem the PCs have to solve.
Well... a series of problems, perhaps. In order to achieve Big Goal, you need Minor Goals A-G. Pick one from that list that's suited to the PCs' talents, or let them find another way of reaching some of those goals.
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