[Torg] Reality Storms

[Michael Jason Teegarden]

For reality storms ...

I've often used the collateral damage to make them less desireable by PCs.  The deaths of hundreds or thousands of Ords tend to cause guilty feelings.  They can cancel Connection cards, they can cancel or make more difficult Glory cards, and they can cause P-rated antagonists to arise and attempt to stop the PCs simply for no other reasons than to prevent further mayhem.  "Antagonist" simply means someone attempting to stop the "protagonists," with no implied villainy or evilness involved.

Additionally, going with KJ, I've seen half the storms result in losses to the invoking PCs, and half result in gains.  Only a few I have seen have resulted in maelstroms with lots of possibilities.  

And don't forget the ultimate P-rated antagonists: the High Lords (scary) and their Darkness Devices (scarier).  A DD can sense reality storms in its cosm or realm; it can dimthread an agent into the mix quite quickly.  DDs tend to frown on those who have been taking "their" possibilities from the realm/cosm.  High Lords aren't too pleased with that, either.

Should you find a PC in your game who walked away from a maelstrom with a total of 30-40+ possibilities, I'd suggest bringing that character to the attention of the higher powers of the area, those who will be less than pleased with the PCs.

Michael



----- Original Message ----
From: Kansas Jim <ksjim at sdc.org>
To: torg at justintimeadventures.com
Sent: Thursday, March 12, 2009 6:29:33 PM
Subject: Re: [Torg] Reality Storms

Steve Crow wrote:

> Is it just us, or do invoked reality storms (IRS) tend to throw the whole metapower/advancement into the toilet?

Only if the PCs are successful at it. ;)

> By invoking (or having one invoked upon oneself) a reality storm, it is almost inevitable that you will gain possibilities. Maelstrom/transforms aren't that hard to obtain.

My experiences were quite different. PCs who invoked storms lost as
often as they won, and even when they won it was rare for them to
come out more than a handful of P-Points ahead of where they were
when they went into it. I can recall maybe one case where they got
a maelstrom result and milked it for points, every other time it's
either been a rush to finish off the bad guy or a struggle not to
lose.

[...]

> Yes, there are circumstances which a GM can manipulate to make IRSs unappealing. Lots of civilians, relatively delicate surroundings, and so on.

The other PCs....

> But given that reality-rated opponents constitute the vast majority of opposition, a GM can't make invoked reality storms undesireable all the time. And even if a GM could... wouldn't it be simpler either to modify the IRS rules, or not allow them?

Vast majority? The boss villain should be P-Rated, maybe his major
sidekick, but the majority of the bad guys that the heroes encounter
should be Ords.

(Not that WEG stuck with that rule themselves, he says thinking of all
the modules which had PCs facing hordes of P-rated but otherwise
faceless ninjas....)

-- Kansas Jim, Torg guru (ksjim (at) sdc (dot) org)
Torg website: http://www.sdc.org/~ksjim/index.html
_______________________________________________
Torg mailing list
Torg at justintimeadventures.com
http://www.justintimeadventures.com/mailman/listinfo/torg