[Torg] Possibility Spending

[Phil Dack]

--- On Sun, 9/11/08, Benjamin Grant <benn at 4efix.com> wrote:
> From: Benjamin Grant <benn at 4efix.com>
> Subject: RE: [Torg] Possibility Spending
> To: torg at justintimeadventures.com
> Date: Sunday, 9 November, 2008, 4:59 PM
>
> :: After a roll, you can choose to spend a possibility for
> a reroll.  Any opponent can choose to spend a possibility 
> to cancel the possibility you just spent.  You then may 
> spend one further possibility for a reroll which cannot 
> be cancelled. ::

At the end of the day it's your game, go with what's best for you. It strikes me as something important that hasn't been considered is Cards. Do you play with cards? The reason this is important is that cards duplicate ppoints - the player with a Hero/Drama card in his pool already has a way of spending a possibility after his initial possiblity has been countered.

Also, PCs will almost always have many more ppoints than NPCs. As such, this tactic is entirely a PC-centred one. It is going to be a rare NPC who has enough Ppoints to buy off damage from 4 or 5 opponents AND spend 2 ppoints each time he wants to get off a bigger attack. As such, I'd only implement this approach if - in your game - you think your PCs need a bit more of an edge. And even then, i'd be inclined to give them that edge through the cards rather than ppoints (increase Hand size to 5 and/or let them all play 1 or 2 cards into their pool as soon as combat begins)

> :: In any scene with a major conflict, the villains' side 
> should have a fixed number of possibilities that that side 
> has access to, depending on the dramatic quality of the scene. 
> All scenes involving possibility rated villains are dramatic,

I'm not sure why this should be the case? I certainly don't implement this. It might be a good rule of thumb, but it's not a given. Take the  scene in the Possibility Chalice Trilogy where the PCs fight a cyberknight (deVries, I think he's called). He's p-rated, but I'm pretty sure from memory that it's a Standard scene. And quite right too. 

> but some are epic, movie-ending kind of scenes.

Now THEY'RE the Dramatic scenes! If a scene isn't dramatic, it isn't Dramatic!!

> Of course, I suppose the GM could simply house rule
> that out, so that just because we are fighting a super 
> we aren't necessarily having what Torg calls a dramatic 
> scene.  

Opposite I'm afraid. You've house-ruled this yourself! I checked the wording of v1.5 and there's no guidance there that suggests this. Maybe the boxed-set Adventure book has something more solid though, i don't have that to hand. 


> So I guess I would like to know if anyone thinks if using
> the above rules and ideas will cause our group any problems? 
> If so, what and why, and what might be the solutions?

I don't like being an old curmudgeon, but your changes seem unnecessary and complicated, that will lead to slowing combat down. I'd stick with card play, enhanced if necessary, and go back to using mostly Standard scenes.

Phil