[Torg] Are Orrorsh game mechanics "scary"?

[Steve Crow]

> Steve Crow wrote:
> 
> > 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.
> 
> I suspect what you're seeing is an attempt at game balance that's not
> working exactly as intended. In my games the PCs have usually never
> come close to maximizing their Perseverance by the time they reach the
> end of an Orrorshan adventure so it's still quite likely that they'll
> get hosed by the PoFear. But there were one or two times where they
> managed to do well and they weren't so the big final battle was much
> more of a cakewalk than it probably should have been. It's a more
> difficult balancing act than it appears.
> 
> [...]
> 

I tend to assume that as long as the players are on-track and go through the adventure and hit all the high points, they should get all the Perseverance. If not, they've screwed up, but that's the case in any kind of investigative-type mission.

Besides the "structured" Perseverance rewards, there are other ways to get them, via Research and Spirit Medium (and... True Sight?).

> > 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.
> 
> I suppose it depends on how good the players are at guesstimating their
> Perseverance and the Perseverance DN of the adventure. If they have no
> idea what the values are then they're not going to have any idea what
> kind of a die roll they need so luck may not appear to be that big of a
> factor to them, even if it actually does boil down to luck.
> 

I tell them how many points they have, but not what the Perseverance value of the main monster is. However, from the midpoint on if not sooner, it's pretty easy to figure: 1 bad. 20 good. So luck seems to tend to defuse the horror element.

> > 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?)
> 
> Marked for Death would get most of my players worried when it happened
> but I don't think I would go so far as to say it was "scary".
> 
> -- 

Well, it's supposed to emulate fear and paranoia, what I'd call "scary." :) But then again, my players feel fear and paranoia whenever I throw something tough at them. Marked for Death doesn't really make them any more scared than, say, Rood Awakening or Unbeliever's Doom. :)

---

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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