[Torg] Are Orrorsh game mechanics "scary"?

[Steve Crow]

I'm not talking about the ambience of the realm, which is more reliant on the GM and his ability to set a scene, than a game mechanic.

I mean the game mechanics themselves.

The Perseverance thing is indeed kind of powerful... when it kicks in. However, there seem to be some odd elements that keep it from kicking in and being powerful at the same time.

1) The time when you are most likely to be "scared" (fail a Perseverance check) is early in the adventure when your Perseverance is low. Fair enough, as you know the least about what is going on. But... that's also the point when you're least likely to face anything capable of taking advantage of that fear (Fear Rating, spending Fear Points).

In theory, you're not supposed to be fighting off hordes of monsters. So the early scenes often tend to be scene setters, rather than the first of several battles with Severed Hands or Others or whatever. There's limited ability or opportunity to use the combat-affecting stuff, and it often seems like you're reduced to stealing cards. And early in the game, the players haven't built their "perfect hands" yet.

2) Later in the adventure, you are much less likely to be "scared." Which means when you face the big guns... you typically make the Perseverance rolls and don't have to worry about Fear Points. That leaves the inability to invoke reality storms or play for the moment, which while they can be painful, aren't really that incapacitating.

Some of this is dependent on distribution of scenes and acts. Needing 24 perseverance points to beat that Perverance 20 monster sounds tough, sure. And if I write a 6-act adventure that only hands out an average of 4 PPs per act, the early acts are going to be painful.

But you figure your average adventure is... what? 3-4 acts. By halfway through you're going to have 20 PPs. So your odds of making the roll are better than 50-50. At that point it just boils down to luck. Luck doesn't seem to be contributive to a looming sensation of fear.

3) Marked for Death and Armor Piercing Attack are cool ways to kill PCs. But... if I want to kill PCs, or target a particular PC for death, I can do it in any cosm. If the cosm's miracles/spells/tools/whatever don't let me have it, I'll create one. (Lanala's "Armor-Penetrating Hrockt Spear" miracle, anyone?)

Anyhoo, what it seems to add up to is that the "weak" monsters your PCs encounter early get a boost up to average... and the monsters at the end get no boost (or a very limited one) from Perseverance.

Maybe I'm not trying hard enough, maybe it's bad die-rolling. But I'm just not finding Orrorsh as... terrifying lethal as some much of the material makes it out to be. It seems more happenstance, particularly when the Storm Knight's Perseverance total equals/exceeds the main monsters.

Thoughts?

---

Steve Crow

"Logic merely enables one to be wrong with authority."

Check out my website at:  http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Stargate/4991/



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