[Torg] Possibilities: Better Results Now VS Character Advancement

[winstoninabox]

> Benn writes:
>
> [Winston's award method of only recovering spent PPs per Act up to
> a maximum of 2]
>
>> What did the rest of you think about this award strategy, btw?

KJ writes:
> Since Act Awards are supposed to be in the 2-3 PP range anyway, on
> the surface it doesn't sound too bad. But the idea that if you get
> through an Act without spending any P-Points means you don't get an
> Act Award at all makes me uneasy. It's called an award for a reason,
> if you successfully get through an encounter you're supposed to get
> something for it. But with this approach if you go through an Act
> without spending any P-Points then you get nothing, it could feel like
> a punishment for using your cards wisely or for having lucky die rolls.
> (Of course it's not a punishment, you still have the same number of
> P-Points you began the act with as does every other PC who didn't
> spend more than two. But the perception of a punishment could be
> there, Bob and Joe both got handed 2 PPs at the end of the Act but Fred
> got nothing so Fred might feel like he did something wrong.)

winston writes:
KJs point about it feeling like a punishment is valid, but wasn't a concern for our group.
I wanted a particular style of play where players didn't think too much about spending the PP or not because of reducing later advancement.

We had a tight group of players who'd played together for a few years. There were different styles of play in the group.
One player liked to often play combat orientated characters. At the other extreme I had a player who liked scientist types and often avoided combat or tried to think of some non-direct way to influence the combat. I liked the range of styles and felt that everyone played their parts well, so everyone was equally rewarded in the Adventure payout. But I did notice that over time the scientist player would always end up with more PPs after the adventure simply because of the gradual buildup of the Act awards.

And I also felt that the characters PPs were there to make my job easier. I liked the characters "taking over the story" by influencing with spending PPs.

Also I always had in mind a final payout for the adventure. For example "At the end of this adventure I hope that each player has received 8-11 points". By the Act awards not changing the players pools so much during the play, I was able to strongly influence the final amount of PP the players had, and it didn't feel like anybody lost out to anybody else.

As I say, it worked very well for me. YMMV.

> But if the group has always played Torg that way then they probably
> wouldn't see it that way. 

We had used the regular system for quite some time before using this, and it didn't affect the play or the players reactions to the game so much.
But then again we were all friends to begin with, so there were very few egos involved.

As an opinion on design, I think that it's not such a good system to begin with to have players spending for in game effects the points that they will use for advancement. Not a game breaker, but rather something to be avoided. But that is my own opinion.

winston
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