[Torg] Awards

[Benjamin Grant]

> >> before the end of the Arc, it's time for legal intervention.
> Remember
> >> that villains can counter Possibilities spent on roll-agains. So
> that
> >> "automatic" Glory is no longer guaranteed. By limiting the number of
> >
> > Yes, I've had major villains on more than one occasion kill a Glory
> > attempt by countering their P-Point and/or Hero/Drama cards.

As a GM I think it very important not to be "abusive" the way some D&D GMs
can be, always trying to one-up the players and grant their adversaries
unreasonable bonuses and perks.

In Torg, possibilities are obviously key.  An opponent with 30 of them will
be more of an issue than an opponent with 2.  However, let's say that since
each PC starts out with 10, a GM decides that each p-rated villain should
start out with 10.  Or even worse, a GM could say to himself that since the
villain is a mature character, maybe he has 15, or 20.

Where this gets especially unfair to the players is twofold.  First, it
entirely possible for the players to be fighting different p-rated villains
every other session.  For example, a League of Villains, or possibly a
campaign that wanders.  Each each villain they fight has a new fresh large
pool of possibilities while the PC's possibilities take a hit each session,
so that as the adventures moves on, they PC's possibilities dwindle as they
keep finding new p-rated baddies with large fresh pools of possies, that's
not good or fair.

The second way that this is a problem is the expectation that as players
increase their skills and stuff, the level of baddies they fight increases,
so that while the players start of fighting weenie baddies, they end up
later in their career fighting epic stuff.  However, the journey of the PCs
from weenie themselves to powerful costs them *tons* of possies.  Meaning
that they probably have far fewer to spend for things like rerolls and
damage mitigation and such.  However, since the players probably face a new
villain every arc with a fresh store of possies, the villains do not seem to
be held to the same limitation.  

Another consideration is in being scrupulously fair, a GM must keep vital
track of his baddies possies - if the baddie spends possies this session,
those possies should not be available next session.  And for that matter,
how does the average baddie replenish, they certainly do not get session or
arc awards?

Finally, an auxiliary issue for those of us who permit not just antagonist
NPCs to have possies, but protagonist NPCs as well, how do we determine how
many possies an NPC ninja that travels with the group has?  Give them
session awards?  

We are employing a simple system that solves ALL of the above.  Here it is:

In a standard scene, the non-PC side should have a total of X possibilities
available to them, where X equals the number of possibility rated characters
on the hero's (PCs and protagonists') side.  In a full dramatic scene (which
should happen less than once per session at the start of an Arc, once per
session in the middle, and maybe a couple of times per session near the
Arc's end), the antagonists' side should get three times that number.

Now whether or not you divide up the antagonists' possibilities evenly, or
unevenly, or perhaps even decide to keep them in a common pool that any of
the antagonists can draw from, is up to one's choice and the needs of the
scene.  Of course, only possibility rated antagonists can spend them.

Furthermore, with these limits, you do not have to track the possibilities a
villain has from scene to scene - no matter how many they had last scene,
each scene is different and starts off with a fresh batch for the villains.
(Antagonists)

Finally, I recommend that any possibility rated NPC protagonists follow a
similar scheme - they should start with 1 possibility each standard scene,
and 3 possibilities each dramatic scene.  Possibilities do not carryover
from scene to scene for NPCs.

This works quite well.  For those who want a little more randomness, you
could also add a plus or minus based on a roll, but that's not necessary.

One other thing I should mention - how we handle possibility negation.  We
wanted to have that in our game, but have it also be limited, so it can be
used as a tactic, but cannot be abused.  If a character (PC or NPC) spends a
possibility for a reroll, any other p-rated character can spend a
possibility to cancel it out, after which the original character can choose
to spend one more possibility which cannot be cancelled.  So ultimately, the
first character tries to excel, the second character says "how badly do you
want to?" and the first character can spend another possibility. This means
that the original character spends 2 possies to the negator's 1.  This seems
sufficient as a downside and tactic.

-Benn Grant
eFix Computer Consulting
benn at 4eFix.com
603.283.6601