[Torg] Awards

[Stephen John Smoogen]

On Wed, Feb 25, 2009 at 8:13 PM, Sam Frazier II <sdf_ii at yahoo.com> wrote:
>>>>>
> That I actually find unfair - if Wu Han goes from 10 to 3 P-Points in
> Act One after an encounter with the PCs, having him back at 10 PP
> when they meet him again in Act Two means all the effort the PCs put
> into reducing his PP total in the preceeding Act was for nothing. And
> from the PC point of view, if they only earned 1-3 P-Points at the end
> of the previous Act, why does Wu Han rate earning 7 PP at the end of
> the previous Act?
> <<<<
>
>
> Whilst I agree with you that it is unfair, I find I do give the villians more and more PP than the characters if they make it away in one act only to return another later act.
>
> No where does it say it has to be fair.

The fairness is basically answering a question: Where do the
possibilities come from? And why can't players get the same cheat?

If you have an answer that villians can get possibilities between acts
from the DD or some arcane device they have.. cool. If not, then the
game becomes to me not a challenge but a chore.  However thats a
preference item. I don't like playing games where the villian is
always getting defeated but somehow comes back 2x more powerful and
you have to do the same thing all over again.

> Though I rate a villian to be a challenge to the players, so in one aspect it may very well be fair. If (using your example) Wu Han only has 3, or say 5 PP in Act Two, and the PCs are able to roll over on him because of it. Thus little or no challenge, then I would consider that to be unfair to the players. They have little challenge in the second act.

In that case, the GM is not playing Wu-Han or whatever villian
correctly. He might not have a lot but he will then plan accordingly.
More meat-shields. A change in how he is going to take over Los
Angelos, etc. A backup P-rated villian who is really just a bigger
meat-shield. Or if the villian comes back more powerful, there has to
be a story price involved: Wu-Han straps a possibility generator to
his carcass knowing that he will most likely blow up the city too just
so he can finally take out the players. [Now of course Wu-Han would
really strap that to his meat-shield while he had a teleport system to
get away.]



-- 
Stephen J Smoogen. -- BSD/GNU/Linux
How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed
in a naughty world. = Shakespeare. "The Merchant of Venice"