[Torg] Awards

[Dominick Riesland]

On Wed, Feb 25, 2009 at 7:59 AM, Benjamin Grant <benn at 4efix.com> wrote:
> 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.

These are balanced in the game already by several factors: Only the
players get Possibilities in the form of Hero, Drama, and Glory cards.
Only players get group powers. Only players can tap Eternity Shards
for Possibilities. With proper management on the players' part, these
can compensate quite well against villains packing "4 Possibilities
per Storm Knight."

> 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?

Sure they do. They get just enough to replenish. If the villain won
the adventure, he most certainly should get some award. Others get to
drink from the Darkness Device, improving that way. Even without that,
it's certainly not out of line to assume that a villain who was
defeated but escaped earned a few Act or Adventure awards on side
projects while the heroes were away. They definitely should not regain
during the adventure without a good reason, but why would I expect Wu
Han to be "down 5 Possibilities" just because he spent five against us
three adventures ago?

> 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?

Give them what the story demands. In most of my cases, the story
demands that the players be the main focus of the story, and as such
traveling NPCs exist only to perform a necessary function not already
provided by the players, and the players get the credit for
"inserting" the NPC into the one place in the cosmverse where he can
do his job. Such an NPC has enough Possibilities to stay alive if the
players work to protect him, but no more.

Other groups have characters that are effectively a Storm Knight run
by the GM. That character should be treated like a Storm Knight in all
respects, including getting the same awards and penalties the other
Storm Knights do.

> 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.

If that's the formula that fits your campaign style, have fun. I know
that my players would devour such opposition without breaking a sweat.

> 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.

One factor that was hinted at but only implemented in a few adventures
was the concept that the villain side had Possibilities but only used
them for certain purposes out of habit. So while a villain might have
50 Possibilities, only 5 of them might be available for negation, and
those only to prevent Glory. My guess is that this didn't go over
well, as I recall my personal reactions to such descriptions. This may
work well for your game though.

I generally run villains as being willing to spend early in the
Dramatic encounter to try to press their conflict line advantage, then
conserving them for specific purposes once it's clear to them that
they can't blow through the heroes. This has led to the best mix for
me; do what fits yopur situation.

Dominick Riesland, aka Rabbitball
Creator of the Cosmversal Grimoire
"There are always possibilities, my sergeant told me. But he never had
his possibilities torn away like wings from a fly."